Anniversary Holiday Cave 2023: Feedback and General Thoughts

Game Discussion
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Hello all,

As the HC has now released for a bit and players have had some time to settle in with Mirage Mountain, we wanted to create this thread as a general place for feedback on the three dungeons constituting our Anniversary Event this year.

Before we get into all of that, we wanted to talk about an item that’s probably been on many players’ minds since the HC opening - the Legacy Token. Many were probably surprised to see this item return, and particularly at such a high price point. To give some context on this decision, we previously discontinued the Legacy Token due to the extra manual load it puts on staff - each individual token does not add too much additional effort, but as a collective it puts a lot of strain on active staff to handle all of the requests, particularly when players get several at once. We know players really wanted to have a chance at this item again and so we made a compromise - the item will return, but at a high price point to ensure not too many are sold. We know this will be disappointing to many but we felt it was the best way to reconcile the demand for the item’s return with the logistics of its use.

Additionally, we have made a couple balance changes to boost currency rates as we felt they were slightly below where we wanted them to be. We have additionally made other difficulty changes to hopefully make runs feel less unfair.

All that said, we would love to hear any additional feedback you all have for HC! Feel free to drop any thoughts you have here in this thread - what you liked, didn’t like, thought was interesting, etc. Things we’d love to see feedback on include story, thematics, difficulty, shop prices, general rates, etc. We can’t wait to see what you all have to say!

Thank you all for continuing to play PMU,
PMU Staff Team

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I honestly don’t know if someone talked about that, but i’ll say about some stuff i talked to around 10 players some hours ago, and they all complained about having the same issue:
This dungeon’s RNG is kinda screwed. At least for the middle path (MM).
It’s really weird how often the broken RNG can get you. On my 3rd run, i had a page full of apples, a page for ethers, a page for Oran Berries, and i guess 5 revs. No problem.
… Then, for 4 or 5 runs back to back, NOTHING. No food, or no ethers, or no healing items… NOTHING. At the point where i had either:

  • a page of Orans and Ethers, but no apples or bars (wich sucks, since you attacking or moving depletes belly, and even worse, getting to floor 20+ with getting literally a SINGLE APPLE and dying of hunger) {and ALL my runners getting hungry btw, so it’s not a case of “just switch mons”, if everyone is dead}
  • a page for healings and all, but no ethers, and then relying on struggle and Berries to heal yourself.
    Ok, the Festive Coins are having great increased drops. In a full succeeded run i got 110 of then +/-… But what’s the point of having increased drops of Coins if you don’t survive to get them?
    Not to mention useless items you see there. You can get a whole run seeing only Aspear (Frozen) and Pecha (Poison) scarves, with no enemy Pokémon in sight to use these moves against you. In 8 runs, i didn’t saw ANY enemy using Ice Moves (note that all my Pokémon are Dragon or Dragon/FLYING). Neither Poison is a problem, since you can get Lum Berries on the ground for occasional Poison Stings you rarelly see enemies using.
    You could even sell those useless items for Kecleons, or buy supplies with them… but there are NONE. No shopkeepers. Then what’s the point of dropping money in these dungeons? Fill bag spaces? Because getting 100PoKé in a 50Floors run is not really worth, especially if you can’t use it.
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for one I feel it’s a bit of a stretch to say it’s 3 dungeons, it’s 2 dungeons with one having 2 sides you switch between constantly.

secondly the loot feels underwhelming for an hc, especially the 15th anniversary. increase underpasses coin count, consistently getting less than a coin a floor is just sad

thirdly underpass feels like a normal dungeon rather than a hc, yeah it has the level reset and a few coins (emphasis on few) but most of the pokemon there are just random mons, no starters and the only real interesting mon is dreepy

fourth while the difficulty is mostly fine there are a few annoying parts, sturdy is everywhere, a couple mons with contact status effects, I got killed by magnitude once, magnitude should not be in a hc

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The past few years ago the HCs were great but this was by far the worst one in my 3-4 years of been apart of the pmu community i have ever witnessed. Like you seriously cannot expect a new player to come up 600 coins for a single gift! Sorry but 3 years ago it was 200 for a gift during summer hc, you might of increased the drop rate for currency but something is still off about it. Like you are lucky to even get 100 a run. Also, i dont understand how you can see a new player with a first evolution starter beating a obsurdly difficult dungeon full of wall running dragopaults, sniping psybeam galarian rapidashes, ice beaming swannas towards the new comers.

This is completely unfair and im sure you mean no harm but maybe re-think things for next time.

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Haven’t gotten to play this HC much yet due to PMU burnout, but it feels weird that the Electivire relearner pot gives you only 1 Mushroom to work with. Wasn’t this thing supposed to help Pokemon with a hundred million Lv. 1 moves?
I get putting more Mushrooms would cause to an overabundance of them, but this is a HC folks. Just have them dissapear after exiting the dungeon, with a rename like Tiny Mushroom or something to go along with.

Also, in the past Easter HC, I remember people complaining about the Rillaboom’s Razor Leafs which later on got replaced with Drum Beating. So then why do the Anniversary Gogoats have Razor Leaf again?

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The new good:
-I think the theming on this hc is probably some of the best we’ve ever had, especially moving into mountain.
-Cauldron on second floor is a much appreciated quality of life change. And while I wouldn’t be opposed to maybe one more mushroom, I think limiting the amount does make some sense for future proofing some of the busted sets newer mons get with gen 8 movesets
-For the most part, I think movesets and mons in terms of gameplay balance are sorted really well. Nothin is hitting exceptionally hard, and there aren’t a ton of hard counters(will touch on a few exceptions to this)
-Prices seem to be fairly well balanced in the shop and there aren’t any annoying outliers that from what i’ve seen. Obviously the legacy token is extremely expensive, but given that’s the point, I think that’s fair for just having the option of getting it

The old good:
-Thank you for continuing with the disappearing items. Namely the inviting orb and revs. I don’t think they had any real chance of going away, but I just wanted to make it clear that having items that are useful in hc be abundant, but not clog up the market outside of hc is a huge benefit
-Reducing the amount of sniping and trapping moves has also been a hug benefit for the actual feel of the dungeon, since neither are too much fun in actual play
-Response time on hc issues have gotten a lot better and they’re continuing to be very good now

The eh:
(These aren’t necessarily things I think have to be changed, just acknowledging some of the suckier parts of gameplay)
-Move drawing abilities like storm drain and Lightning rod. I’ll say that I’m not that pressed about storm drain since it’s at least only in underpass, which comes off as the easier dungeon, and water types run through enough already, it’s not a big deal that they’re a little harder to use. Lightning rod feels kinda bad in mountain though, given it’s on more than one line of pokemon, and at least one of them is common. It feels kind of bad to have as many flying types as there are in the dungeon and then have a rhydon invalidate the electric move you’re going for.
-Cursed body. I know it’s been nerfed before, and I genuinely don’t know how much more it could be nerfed without just not existing. That being said, it does feel bad to use a spread move on a group of enemies and immediately have that move disabled. The fact that it’s a ghost is extra punishing since it can walk through walls to attack you if you just try to not engage with it, and can randomly punish you for engaging with it.
-Accupressure. Probably my biggest gripe on this list. I don’t mind most of the boosts most mons get, but having dodrio off in the distance of the screen boosting other mons’ evasion while you’re nowhere near it is not especially fun to play against, and occasionally sets up entire mobs of pokemon body blocking hallways with +10 evasion stacks. It’s admittedly not super common that it’s an issue, but it can easily be run ending when it is.

I do also wanna add that overall I think the hc is a large success in my eyes. I don’t seem to agree with the majority of the criticism posted here tbh, namely the ones involving rng issues with supplies and issues with price, but that’s completely fine

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top 10 reasons why I think this hc is pretty cool:

1] A window for ID Exclusive mons

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A super cool part about the hc is that you can hunt some ID exclusive pokemon solo, as the counterparts will spawn in west/east paths (Seviper/Zangoose, Minun/Plusle). Gives a great window for people to attempt shiny hunts without constantly bothering their friends.

I hope to see all present and future ID exclusive pokemon to be huntable in Anniversary HC (if Mirage Underpass returns).
The existence of this HC also allows devs to add any future ID exclusive pokemon (where they seem fit) without having too many doubts if they would be gatekeeping people’s hunts. This hc would become something many look forward to!

2] Legacy Token

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Really cool item that opens up couple new sets for your old pokemon. This has returned for the first time in years, so it’s pretty exciting. While I agree the price is steep, it also makes sense given its status and manual work needed for staff.

3] Alt Path vs Main Path Rewards

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This is something I’m really impressed with. The rewards between the Alt: “Underpass” and Main: “Mountain” are balanced really well, such that both the dungeons feel worthwhile to run.
Underpass offers you:

  • Existing ID exclusive pokemon
  • New Heart Slates (Latios/Latias)
  • Huntable grand trophy of shiny Dreepy, a relatively desired mon

Mountain offers you:

  • The brand new Pokemon (Galarian Ponyta, Milcery, Cramorant)
  • Little more currency
  • End boxes

There’s a choice to be made about which dungeon to spam and neither of them feels strictly inferior.

4] Free Switch Between Left/Right Path

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The fact that most floors give you a chance to free switch is also really handy. In a sense, this lets you “chosoe” your own pokemon spawn. You can enter left path for 1-10F to say hunt a shellos (west) and then switch to right path for 11-20F to hunt Zangoose in the same run, without restarting.
This kinda makes the “2” dungeons into many more depending on your chosen combo.
I’m always for more “customizable” gameplay options. (friendly fire on/off item when)

5] Move Re-learner

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This removes a big layer of RNG that made you reset runs. Very solid change which I hope is here to stay.
(ty for the suggestion, @Drayden_Lur :sunkern:)

6] Plush gacha

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GACHAAAAA!!

8] I forgor how to count

Some extra thoughts:

Though I’ve been fine on supplies, this is RNG being RNG. Some runs be like that…Nothing new here but

I agree here, why not add a kecleon shop with basic supplies like we had in easter iirc (?). A scripted mid-point kecleon shop that shows up relatively early would at least guarantee you start out on the right foot.
Even if you don’t get your desired supplies, you can pick anything you find and trade in for more poke (which is useless in hc otherwise). And in turn, buy your much needed supplies. Another layer of RNG addressed.

Overall a good HC in my book, but I know it’s subjective so to each their own.
Thanks for reading and I wish y’all a pleasant remaining hc :meltandabdance:

PS: blas.
image

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i honestly don’t think it’s that bad. you can literally get one of the best and safest runners (marill → azumarill) set up with rain (wingull → pelipper) from sauna cavern and skylift respectively. they have set ups readily available if they really wanted: true, new players might not know the strats or have the technical ability to survive well, but if it was catered towards new players, then older players would be steamrolling this dungeon more than they already are, just like they do every hc. i am also of the opinion that new players really don’t need things like pokemon gifts. they are new, shinies are more or less end game material, and with how bad the game’s difficulty doesn’t exist because of people giving things away for free, some gatekeeping of content is not a big deal, especially if the content does nothing but change visuals in a pokemon. besides, we both know that there are veteran players who run this dungeon like 20 times a day. though there is no market for pokemon gifts, the amount they could accumulate if it were cheap is ridiculous. there’s a reason gifts are only in hc and the token shop, and it’s because they aren’t supposed to be easy to get.

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overall, i think this is a pretty solid hc. return of legacy token at a really high price gives people incentive to grind for something other than pokegifts that isn’t just a novelty item. glad to see the revive powders being kept in, and love the inclusion of the move relearner on 2F, saved a lot of my runs that i previously would’ve just gupped due to milotic not getting refresh. it’s not gamechanging, but it’s definitely a welcoming qol change! responses from staff have also been good, with changes being made quickly and implemented well, so hats off to you guys! mad appreciate the effort put into this, especially on day 1.

i think the balance here is also really nice, at least compared with last winter hc. all the dungeons feel worth running in their own ways due to recruit desirability being even across the board (though tbf i guess if you don’t want dreepy, which is pretty rare but happens, underpass doesn’t really offer a lot), and also having generally tame movesets (looking at winter hc’s mirror coat in the cavern) is great in my books. story is nice, heart slates are cool, and the way alcremie was implemented seems really smooth!

i think my only gripes have been said already in this thread, but i’ll say them too to be specific:

-cursed body is quite annoying because of our limited options. normally outside of hc, cursed body isn’t a huge problem due to the existence of gems or safeguard, but in hc, it’s annoying having to drag a safeguard mon in and use it at the start of every floor, because 1) it takes up a team slot and 2) it’s low level so it can die easily if unlucky. this is less of a problem outside of hc because weather is more consistently set there, usually through rocks, and being able to bring your own revives makes it safer to safeguard, enough for it to feel worth it. the only real solution i can think of to this issue is to maybe provide a consumable/held item that removes move restrictions? honestly would be helpful outside of hc too if it was a consumable, because sometimes players running choice items get their weather ruined by random spawns and end up with only one usable move for the entire floor lol.

-no endboxes in underpass feels a little meh to me. despite it being shorter and intended to be easier, it still feels kinda lame for anyone who’s hunting in underpass. perhaps the intention was to trade endboxes for the chance of a heart slate? this is a more personal opinion but it just feels kinda underwhelming when you finish a dungeon and there’s no endbox. i liked how icicle cavern in winter hc dropped some currency upon defeating the boss, so maybe that could make up for it? as a side note, eggs in underpass might be nice too, to give some variety besides dreepy.

-way too many aspear berries. this is just a minor criticism but there are so many of these haha. i think it’d be cooler to replace them with either lum or pecha berries, especially given that frozen is a state most people just button mash out of or switch mons to get to safety instead of actively using an item.

-storm drain/lightning rod being annoying as usual. i think they have no place in a hc purely because of how limited some mons’ movesets are. also really annoying when you’re in a monster closet and your only aoe options are water (this happened to me on azumarill, the only move i had at that point that wasn’t water was tackle lol) and you literally can’t kill anything.

these are all minor things i have issues with though, overall it’s a wonderful hc and i’m grateful for all of staff’s efforts!

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If you want my honest opinion:

I genuinely think this HC is boring compared to the other ones and could use a a bit more changes with how it was the main reason we didn’t get resort.

RNG is handled a bit poorly on the currency side of things and I genuinely think that the rewards are very underwhelming.

The price of Pokegifts being 600 feels a bit much compared to the other HC’s where it was like 200-300 and the grand prize being a Legacy token is amazing but It feels like if I buy one I wont be able to get any thing else from how RNG dependant the Festival Coins are. I also think there should’ve have been Endboxes on Passageway as there literally is an empty passage way at the end with nothing- and if you didn’t beat Latias or Latios you kinda feel a bit cheated.

This dungeon also very very VERY beginner unfriendly, if a new player were to try this dungeon they’d stand absolutely no chance during the later floors (and this is coming from a guy who ran these dungeons with the best pokemon ie: Hawlucha, Azumarill + Politoed + Milotic, Politoed + Gorebyss). If the intention was to make it for the players who played prior and have lots of experience- well you did succeed in that department lmao.

Some of the new pokemon introduced are a bit underwhelming but fun + some of the returning ones like Dreepy are very cool! One personal change or addon I think would’ve been better was instead of having the Hoenn Starters be in the Eggs have them also be avalible in the dungeons as NPCs.

And speaking of Starters: I think the Galar starters should’ve been in here instead of the Hoenn starters as there still is no actual way of obtaining them yet.

Overall I give this HC a 4/10. It was fun during the first day but then it IMMEDIATELY fell off from how grind dependant it is and became boring fast and some of the choices for the HC just seemed questionable to say the least. It is a good challange though.

PS: blas.
image

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Even assuming the 20 times is an exaggeration, I don’t think shop prices should be based on either players fresh off the tutorial or “veterans”. I am, like many players, somewhere in between these 2 extremes. I am a long time player who doesn’t have a job or a social life irl but I can only do roughly 3-5 runs a day. If I do burn out or feel particularly tired or mentally unwell on a given day further on in the hc timespan, that isn’t a guarantee either. 3 days has only gotten me around 700 festival coins so far, maybe around 800 if I do more runs this evening.

I’d like other items from the shop than just gifts as well. I feel the prices are a tad unfair (barring legacy token, that’s whatever to me) for anyone who doesn’t want to burn out in the first week or suffer from bad wrist pain - both of which I am personally trying to pace myself to avoid.

We also aren’t all constantly mega rich from chewing daily on mt moon or rd or lucky finding 5m-10m shiny bounties, or whatever to buy everything that’s droppable.

Also most other high cost hc shop items have no bearing on gameplay at all. For some people like me it just scratches my brain in a nice way to collect things. Collecting things isn’t as much fun when you’re limited to either highly sacrificial choices or unhealthy levels of hc grinding. But maybe that’s just me.

As a bit of a sidebar; Recruiting shinies in permanent dungeons

I think it would be nice if there was some other way to guarantee shiny recruitment that wasn’t locked to an event related shop if there’s not gonna be any alteration to the situation with pokemon gifts. I don’t have any specific ideas… just… the part of hunting the shiny can be hard enough when rng isn’t taking pity on you. And watches you hunt for months/years and gives the shiny to someone who runs the dungeon their very first time. Risking the fail is just not worth being imprisoned to the same 60 floor dungeon or what have you for an unknown amount of time to me. I do admit though PMU’s rates are lot more tolerable than main games, and if having them possible to fail is what it takes for these rates, it’s tolerable to some extent. But when you add up how many gifts you want per shiny desired plus other items you would like, it becomes very daunting and kind of a downer.

Realistically I don’t expect prices to change, and I’m generally just prepared to live with it. It’s really not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Shinies are just a visual thing and a happy chemical simulator. And is really kind of a #endgameplayerproblem. But if I see people say anything to the effect that grinding out these prices is “lolzeasy because all the end game players are doing 10+ runs a day with no breaks, clearly” I am not gonna stand for it. Do you make an exam for 12 year olds college level because one kid in the class is a genius who could walk into NASA and do their rocket science for them?

Actual Thoughts on HC

Gonna add that the shop stuff is my only gripe really. I don’t have anything galaxy brained to add that people haven’t said already. Other than the trap annoyances that seem to have mostly been fixed I didn’t have much problem running the dungeons. I also don’t like the darkness but this is a mainly personal issue since I have to use that 4th slot for a shiny thiefer instead of a flash user, which is a whole other problem in itself.

I agree with the issues mentioned with some abilities and beginner friendliness, though I would also say as someone who joined PMU close to an hc a few years ago, there is probably only so much you can do to make it beginner friendly without it getting too dumbed down… as a now experienced player a lot of my struggles were mostly down to not really knowing yet how to navigate the games mechanics well.

They still have so much of the game to do and see, I feel like HC experience makes sense geared toward more experienced players. If it’s frustratingly hard for people who are past early game but not yet late game then I would fully agree with easing it up on them a little.

It was nice to get an event for anniversary and to see the Latis debut :)

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This HC has some cool things going for it but a lot holding it back.

Positives:

  • Adding a move relearner near the start of the dungeon is great. It definitely helps with Pokémon that get tons of moves at level 1.

  • Milcery and Alcremie had a very cool implementation into the game.

  • It’s pretty cool to see a legacy token available outside of an auction, even if its expensive.

  • Latios and Latias Heart Slates are finally obtainable.

Negatives:

  • Not having East or West labels for the Underpass could sometimes make them confusing, especially when you’re trying to sell shinies. Winden Dojo did labels, so why not this dungeon?

  • The Underpass dungeons lack end boxes. I think every hc dungeon should have end boxes, so you at least have a chance at getting a cool item at the end.

  • The heavy amount of annoying factors in these dungeons, from the wide variety of Pokémon appearing, status problems, darkness, and weather makes teambuilding for these dungeons quite restrictive. There’s only 4 team slots (3 if you try to recruit something), and there’s no way you could stop everything you want to with the slots you have available to you.

  • Combined with the high difficulty, the amounts of currency you get per run is disappointing. Pokémon gifts are going to take a much longer time to get here than Summer HC. I’m fine with challenge, but we deserve a bigger reward for beating harder dungeons.

  • Mystery Eggs suck. Why is regular Zigzagoon in there and not the Galarian one? Why Doduo when you can recruit it at the beginning of the game in normal play? Why are the Hoenn starters there and not the Galar ones? Mystery Eggs in this hc need a serious rework.

Overall this HC could’ve been a lot better. I hope the staff could work on ironing out these flaws so a future Anniversary HC will be better than this one.

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This HC was pretty good. In my opinion everything was a bit crazy at first but staff has been attentive and corrected them immediately:

Let’s start with the negatives since everyone loves a negative Nancy: (side note most of these were fixed/ modified by staff so props to staff on that)

  • Way too many warp traps. (I can count on two hands the amount of warp traps I stepped on and it warped me to a room full of mons) not a fun experience.
  • Certain Pokémon having moves that can literally one/two shot you (I’m looking at you flapple)
  • Cursed body (self explanatory, Drayden basically explained it perfectly)
  • Currency drops were extremely low and no end box in underpass just had me feeling like “well I just did all that for nothing to be at the end?”

Now for our Positive Paul’s:

  • Amazing dungeons. Love how balanced it is in terms of what you can get beating underpass first was a bit wonky but was quickly patched.

  • HC shop is balanced. Love that you put legacy token at such a high price point. I can definitely see a problem with out completion-ists trying to get all the items from the shop but honestly, you gotta grind for it. That’s what HC is about. It’s been like that for years and it’s a system that works. Can’t be handed everything.

  • Maps. Now you know I love a very nice, well mapped map

  • Difficulty: I like the difficulty it poses. Ofc it shouldn’t be extremely hard but I think this Hc is doing pretty good in terms of difficulty. Maybe with modifying a few mon’s moveset would make it even better.

Now for those who are complaining about new players: HC was never new player friendly. Stop it. You don’t expect someone fresh out of destiny cavern to be able to take on an event such as hc. They’re literally learning the game. Easter HC? Maybe but regular HC? Absolutely not. Having that as a critique is invalid.

Overall a pretty good Anni HC, won’t top the previous one but this damn sure close. Thank you for all you do!!

Side note: I really think we should start enforcing the “no excessive complaining rule” especially during HC. Nobody want to see all that negativity. Save it for your personal journals or therapists!! That’s all goodbye!!!

Also, Blas
IMG_5691

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Thanks for all the feedback so far - I especially appreciate the elaborations and highlighting good and bad sides in some of your posts. I, along with the other staff, am currently looking into the points discussed here and possible changes we can make to lessen some of the pain points during this HC’s run time.

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well realistically imo most players should be getting maybe 2-4 pokemon gifts per hc. any more and it’s because they are insane grinders. i’m not saying it’s easy to grind gifts, it’s more that there are just players that are online way more than others and have less irl obligations. but yeah, having 700 coins by day 3 is already pretty good and above average. i think pokemon gifts should remain a rarer item, because it should really be used on shinies you truly want rather than anything that catches your attention. there should be some risk involved in shiny hunting, and to mitigate that risk you should be planning your gift usage. i think getting 2-4 shinies in between hcs is pretty reasonable. but that’s just my opinion i guess, i don’t really get frustrated if i fail a rare shiny if i didn’t truly want it, so perhaps my perspective is just the minority in this situation.

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with the current prices 4 gifts being the most a normal person would do makes legacy tokens unobtainable

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I understand.
My amount didn’t feel like that much in the big picture, though you may be right. Idk what other people are getting. I just know that I’m one of the people that isn’t wiping a lot (only once so far thanks to a Dodrio spamming Acu in the darkness), and I can pretty consistently search entire floors for coins. I also got lucky unboxing some from the mountain end boxes. When I want at least 1200 and enough beyond that for some gifts, it just feels like small potatoes. I just don’t like feeling as though I’m wasting time by not being an insane grinder, and getting frustrated when I see people earn more than seems healthily possible because they either don’t suffer from fatigue or unhealthily push themselves through it.

I do try to be selective with my gifts but sometimes I get really lucky between HCs, especially if I have bounties as well as spamming dungeons myself. There’s just… a lot of shinies that I’d like still that I would be sad to lose because sometimes dungeons are really mean about even spawning something the first time.

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Isn’t that the point though. Staff outright said they don’t want a lot of legacy tokens out there because the manual nature of them can be overwhelming. If you really want one you gotta work extra hard to get it

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The negative aspects of this HC for me were:

  • The obtainment of the sweets. Having them purchasable for Poké makes them very accessible, but also misses out on a new Item for the market that would have been heavily sought after In my opinion. The economy Is something contributing to the downfall of the game so I personally believe opportunities like this should be taken more often. I have no Idea If they’re In the end boxes because of
  • the Underpass. I’m actually a fan of having to do one dungeon to unlock another. But I don’t see a good reason to need to do It twice, especially when you’re encouraged to grind either for shinies or currency. Story-wise It makes sense obviously, but I can’t be bothered to care about most of PMU’s stories as they are all mostly throwaway and don’t tie Into anything else
  • When new mons are released could their exclusive Abilities and moves work beforehand? Mostly looking at Galar Ponyta, but for many mons their Ability will not work until months after their release, which may deter people from actually using them In some cases
  • Not exclusive to this Holiday Cave but It Is still upsetting that new collectibles are Introduced year by year and I am running out of storage for them at this point. MMOs and games which you need to always have certain resources like revs by nature cause people to want to hoard. It Is part of the fun for some people, which games are generally meant to be. I’m still coping hoping storage stacking Is something that will be considered one day
Some of these Issues or their underlying ones do *have* solutions but would simply require "too much work

For example a very good way to explain mechanics like the stairs and generally all of them Is something every game to ever exist does: tutorial pop ups. You know, like these

Also I could be wrong but I think legacy moves could be manually Implemented with enough time. It would basically require another table In the database for the moves Pokemon cannot get anymore. With PokeAPI, you can easily get the moves of a certain Generation for any Pokemon

From the perspective of someone super de duper burnt out and also generally putting my time Into other things which matter more, HCs and really most dungeons, feel too long. I don’t understand why a lot of dungeons have to be 50-60 floors. If you have the energy to grind that’s great. I don’t though. Not anymore

Like, as I mentioned Underpass you have to beat twice so that’s 80 floors of stuff that at least I didn’t want as I figure most people would rather do the main dungeon If they’re looking for rewards or currency. A good handful of the best HC mons get Agility or the like, which Is great. Even with It runs just…take so long as even then you have to be checking every floor too whether for currency or for experience. Dungeon length Is not an Issue when you’re just bolting for the stairs and Is why for example, Hallowed Well was so fun. It was 99 floors but there also wasn’t a point In leveling, so the strat was to just run for your life and see If you made It. But you can not do this In every other HC dungeon

Yes I know, no one forces anyone to do HC and whatever. That doesn’t mean missing out doesn’t feel bad since that Is simply how the human mind tends to function. I didn’t run this year’s Easter a single time and missed out on two of my favorites who I made the portraits for. No game has to cater to my depression lol but that’s just my point of view.

Moving on

Positive aspects:

  • Very good hub mapping
  • Alcremie. It’s Incredible that for once effort was put In to do something and as a result we got a Pokemon most people probably didn’t think we’d be getting any time soon
  • The mushroom thing Is Interesting. I don’t see a need to give more than one as HC Is more than doable even If you don’t get all the moves you want
  • Using recurring characters/NPCs Is good
  • Underpass wasn’t a bad Idea, just questionable execution I guess

I don’t think this HC Is objectively bad at all, as a lot of effort was put In to make It stand out and try to address feedback

Other stuff:

Something that I think would be helpful to Introduce Is only being able to buy X amount of an Item In a shop rather than Infinite. This Is something else that certain game does. This would mean Legacy Tokens could have a lower price as every player would only be able to buy It a certain amount of times anyway

Basically just having Lum Berries or any similar Item would have worked as they can heal sealed moves

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21

Hello again,

We have went ahead and applied the following list of changes addressing your feedback:

  • Swanna and G-Rapidash’s movesets have been altered in Mirage Mountain. G-Rapidash no longer snipes with Psybeam, Swanna’s snipe is weaker.
  • Introduced a new item called the Anti-Seal band to the dungeons, wearing this will prevent you from being affected by Cursed Body
  • Added Mental Herbs to the dungeons, this clears move seals
  • Overall shop price reduction of ~15-20%
  • Added Skarmory to Mountain eggs
  • Added boxes for a guaranteed amount of event currency for reaching the end to the Underpasses

Earlier changes that were applied to Mirage Mountain:

  • Lowered Dodrio spawns to make Acupressure less oppressive
  • Reduce the amount of Warp and Gust traps

Again, thanks for your elaborate posts and hopefully this will smooth out some of the aspects of this HC!

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