Yooo thanks Syni! :D
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that could be a solution. but not the right one. note that all the players talking about RNG issue didn’t had problem with healing, the problem was RNG don’t giving you ways to survive anything. I can always go to only Noivern, Moonlight my hunger til the end… but and when i can’t? or even, people who don’t have those Pokémon?
When you play a MMO, you don’t just switch character classes/jobs just because “a dungeon is only played that way”. They always make sure you have gear, or balance the dungeon to make even new players enjoy it. If they can’t make that happen, then all events are just made for old players? That doesn’t seem fair at all, tbh.
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my thoughts on the hc:
i think overall the hc is pretty great,
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the move relearner is great, it let’s pokemon’s be more consistant without having to have a max of 4 starting move while still being limited enough where a pokemon with 10 can’t just walk in and always get the perfect set, still giving the player the need to strategize around pokemons starting movesets
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big fan of the addition of alcremie and the lati twins and there isn’t a obvious which dungeon you wanna run as they both offer thier own rewards you may really want, (although i am a bit bumped at the fact i can’t both grind for alcremie, the heartslates and the coins all at the same time)
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the response time from staff to adressed concerns has been impecable! it’s fantastic to see!
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also i will mention the fact i really like the vanishing items since everyone is doing so, they are great keep them up.
but there’s a few things holding this hc down those being
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lack of a mid dungeon shop,
one of my favorite additions that where present in halloween hc, it allowed to reduce rng while also allowing the player to psudo costumise thier runs to have which items they want, it was great! and since abbandoned arcade was still a very challenging dungeon despite of it proves that it wouldn’t make hc a cake walking by it’s mere presence, so… why isn’t a stable of hcs yet? it would fix so many problems people have with rng and also allow staff to add some new and unique gimmick item that won’t spawn on the floor -
lack of held item items (adressed a little since with the new anti-seal band)
something that nobody seems to have, mentioned wierdly but i noticed running things in my head is the removal of the varios held items, which i honestly think it’s highly felt even tho nobody mentioned it,
the noctowls wouldn’t be nowhere near as annoying and run ending if the player had access to chesto scarf and the snipe moves also wouldn’t just take away half of your health in a single resisted shot if the player had access to zinc bands,
instead you only have access to espear scarf and stamina band (and antiseal band now nice, but still,) espear scarf is extremely niche, only helping against a singular move on a single uncommon pokemon, ice beam from swanna. not something worth bothering a held item slot for.
meaning the only item worth running is stamina band (and antiseal scarf now, nice) forcing the player in very little variety while inside the dungeon itself. which is highly unfortunate! i would have seen myself getting great usage out of zinc band, def scarf, and chesto scarf, yet im forced to use stamina band even tho i have 10 big apples in my inventory (or anti-seal band even tho i’m personally not getting too bothered by cursed body) . it’s very saddening to look at it.
having the player being able to choose between what the wanna pro tect themselfs most is really fun sistem to interact with and gives the run a lot of enjoyable variable and customization, and it’s highly unfortunate that’s not present here -
the bane of all pokemon games everywhere, evasion buffs.
honestly staff? just. don’t bother with evasion. the mainline competitive scene tryed for decades, evasion just isn’t possible to balance. you want a priority target in a dungeon, give it bulk up or dragon dance or magnetic flux or helping hand. anything that can buff evasion just dosen’t work in a fun way no matter how you try. -
egg recruits in mirage mountain are pretty lame overall, a bounch of early game fodder and then the hoenn starters, why? it’s not great to hatch them. it’s pretty time consuming or poke consuming if spend the poke just to hatch just zizagoons whith a rare chance very old starter set.
i don’t get it, wouldn’t have been better to just have the eggs being super rare but only have good stuff? why make them super common with mostly trash mons? i really don’t see why they where taken this direction. they seem a waste of time even for a new player, opening 20 eggs for zizagoons and a rare jackpot for a starter, uh. yeah not very time limited event sounding.
(and no, skarmory addition does not fix this issue, actually it kinda makes it worse. because that’s also a just lv20 dungeon fodder recruit.) -
and finally the honorable mention, lithing rod, electric types really can’t catch a break.
hopefully i didn’t sound too negative, i really like this hc, maybe just cause alcremie is in it ,
but it definitely has some rough edges and i hope those can be ironed out, if not this hc, the next one,
keep up tge great work staff! 
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this original message wasn’t a reply to you, but regardless, you also seem to be one of the only people, if not the only person in this thread atm who has issues with rng and spawn rates. i’ve had several bad runs (no lum berry spawning for 15 floors after getting poisoned on 21F, helping hand + self buffed linoone critting me and doing 75% of my health and killing me, no stamina band or revs until 30F+, to name a few) but these are by in large the exceptions and not the average run. even with great planning there is a decent chance of dying in hc, chalked up to just unlucky situations. i think staff have addressed certain issues too, such as making revs more common.
also in my message i said those two staple pokemon (you can honestly beat hc with most pokemon if you try enough times, so this isn’t even the only feasible option or anything) are insanely easy to obtain, any player who has been playing for around a week should have access to sauna and skylift. maybe if they join in the middle of hc it’s tough luck but as goomy stated, hc is also not exactly for beginners, as having mechanical experience and a wide pool of runners to select from is just going to make things that much easier. nor do i think hc should be made more accessible than it is atm to new players. if they want mid to end game pokemon during their first few weeks of playing, the price is having to overcome a challenge.
re: your MMO comment, beginner content is frequently made that way, but as i see it, hc is not beginner content. hc requires team composition knowledge and research as well as trial and error for you to get smooth runs. the level reset makes it available to new players, yes, but they are flat out going to have a harder time due to their inexperience no matter what, unless the dungeon is made to be fully of level 5s the whole way through. not to mention in many MMOs, mid to late game content becomes much more difficult to complete without a proper build. that same content in MMOs such as raids almost exclusively requires certain party compositions (x amount of DPS, healers, etc.). hc is no different, requiring not one specific mon, but a handful of good setups to streamline your experience, which you can choose from or not, as it is effectively mid game content, which in itself is a compromise that allows some wiggle room in both directions for new and old players.
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I don’t have much to say about this one, but as someone who only really runs HC to get the new mons that are added with it, I can’t say I’m terribly pleased with having to run through 80 floors that have absolutely nothing for me just to unlock the part of the HC with the new mons. Alcremie’s implementation was pretty cool though.
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To quickly comment on this, this requirement was actually unintended behavior which we were forced into after some issues upon release. This interaction is now fixed (Syni op) and you only have to complete underpass once for it to properly register as complete before running the mountain.
Sorry to talk again but PLEASE lower the level of recruitables in some floors. In this hc. My friend had to really go out of his way just to attempt to recruit a shiny vivillon on 11f of Mirage Mountain.
My screen.
Parts of my friend’s screen.
He literally had to grind to level 15 just to attempt to recruit that Vivillon. Please fix this problem. This wasn’t the only time this happened ethier… where they found a shiny they couldn’t recruit due to the shiny being too high leveled.
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Lowered recruit levels across the board in MMt now.
There was an unintended bigger level gap between floors 6-10 and 11-15 before that is fixed now aswell.
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Thanks again Syni! I’ll be sure to point out other things I have issues with in the future as well, but I hope there won’t be.
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Alright, let’s start this.
Let’s go with positives first:
- The Pokémon Variety is not bad. Recruitables are a good choice of mons that are rather valuable to new Players and returning players, and i do like that. The unrecruitables had a bit of too much… Disgusting picks to play around, and overall the type matchups are a bit too broad to run it without very specific strategies, but it’s not impossible. Just a bit impractical.
- Despite what i said, Underpass is very fine for Unrecruitables, as it does have a solid specific type combo.
- On the last topic, i want to add that i find very nice that the best Pokémon for Underpass happen to be Lanturn and Seaking (on a defensive aspect). They’re found relatively early and it allows new players to grab one of these and jump into the dungeon. That’s a good aspect.
- The Relearn Cauldron. God this saves a lot of time generally doing RNG rerolls. Technically, it’s still not perfect, especially if you miss out on 2 moves you need. Ideally you’d have a second cauldron halfway through to at least allow people to eventually fix their movepools, as while this does mitigate the random factor of a run being over before you even leave floor 1, it doesn’t erase the problem entirely. But it’s still a good addition.
- Learned that the Inviting Orb does boost RR to 35% for Shinies, and dear god that is needed. However, it’s still not perfect.
- Heart Slates. Yes, they are rare, but it’s two of the most beloved Legendaries. Of course that’s a thing people love.
- The Legacy Token. A wonderful item. A bit too expensive, but i can understand why. Ideally, if possible, you could automate the process with, say, a special move tutor with lists made for these moves, like how Togetic handles Egg Moves, but that’s just a random suggestion of mine. Ideally you’d also have this Token obtainable outside HC period, but it’s also understandable. Ideally, I’d love if you could use Event Tokens (Maybe like 100-200 to incentivize people to play in Weekly Events) to obtain these Legacy Tokens.
However, there’s some Negatives i have to point out… And unfortunately, they’re not few:
- Despite the fact i praised the Pokémon Variety in terms of Recruitables, the Unrecruitables in Mountain are a bit too much. As i said, the sheer amount of type matchups + weather just makes it a bit too unbearable to even find a potential strategy to even have a shot at beat it. I only beat it on my first try out of sheer luck, and the current issues involving Sweet Veil have cost a LOT of runs to people in there.
- The traps. Jesus. I understand to have a dungeon like HC you need traps… But you don’t need to litter traps everywhere. If i had a list of how many times a Warp Trap has lead me to my doom, i’d be rich. I’d say for next HCs, ease on traps a bit (Maybe not Halloween). But absolutely get rid of the Warp Trap, or at least, make it rare. Being screwed by it is not fun.
- The Relearn Cauldron could be better. Like i said, yes, it’s not perfect, but it still leaves a bit to be desired (I’ve had Runs where my Seaking didn’t get Megahorn and Poison Jab in Underpass, and usually, where i would just use both, i was forced to pick one, which ended a run for me).
- The Inviting Orb should have a Shiny RR boost. I know it already has a 10% buff from the usual 25%, but you can still fail a Shiny with it. It only really leaves it at just over 50%, which is still essentially a coin flip. And losing that coin flip is the worst pain ever for Shiny Hunters. I’d suggest an additional 10-25% boost, so at best you’d have a 60-75% chance of recruiting, putting the odds at least a bit better towards the player (Especially since Shinies aren’t something Players won’t see every day).
- Dreepy. Oh my god. It’s the major complain about Underpass. I don’t know what the RNG was doing, but it just refused to spawn a lot of the times. I think the odds are a bit low. Milcery and Galarian Ponyta, on my end, also suffered from this issue, and i don’t know why.
- Honey. Very useful for this dungeon. But also stupidly rare here. I know it’s meant to be rare, but it has reached to points where no one got a single jar of honey from 1 run (relying on Gourgeist’s passive Pickup when switching floors to activate Frisk), and that’s a bit obnoxious. I know Cutiefly and Ribombee can have Honey, but it’s STILL a very low rate, and almost not worth it.
- Supplies. Early on you mostly find supplies that aren’t usable at all, or just junk. It’s not good. Also, items hidden behind Fringe mapping planes is a bad idea. Most people won’t click on the tile to see the item, they will pick it up, realize it’s a bunch of rocks, and immediately get rid of them because no one uses throwing items in this game, or something like that.
- Kecleon. Or lack of thereof. It provides no incentive to pick up the money other than “Well once you’re out, you can bank in.”, which clogs up inventory space, but also provides no alternative for potential supply disaster.
- Weather. While Weather helps spice up the dungeon, having 3 separate ones, all of which kind of contradict eachother and don’t help contributing to any sort of strategy, forcing you to most of the times find a way to overwrite the weather, is a bit too much. In my opinion, mixing Sun and Rain in a dungeon like HC is usually a recipe for disaster. I’d be fine if it were Cloudy and Rain, or Sun and Cloudy.
- Sleep Spam. A lot of enemies spam moves to put you to Sleep, and it just puts runs at full stop, bringing them to a complete halt or a run ending state. It’d be ideal if Sleep Spam was dialed down.
- Floor density and generation. I kept getting these weird one room floors full of traps, items and Pokemon, which not only can be overwhelming, but also disastrous, run enders, and overall stun-lock traps. That gets frustrating very fast.
- The overall RNG. One of the biggest complains I hear from most people. IDK what was done, but it’s just not fun RNG. It kept contributing to making the whole experience unfun. I have no idea if you can look into this, but if you can, please so.
Overall, i echo some people when i say this is one of the Worst HCs i’ve experienced in my many (+10?) years of playing this game. Anniversary HCs are controversial. First one was controversial cause it was too easy, second cause it was too hard, and this one cause… It has a lot going wrong here?
Is it the worst HC?
No, that spot will always belong to Resort. (Personal bias on hating it)
But jokes aside, is this HC very much lining up to be one of the weaker/worse ones? It could be. I personally myself didn’t have that much fun doing it, because of these reasons, but it’s unsalvageable. It may be a bit too late to actually make some meaningful changes, as the event ends in a week, but if things change before then, or if a lot of these things are fixed for future HCs, i can tell you many people will find it fun.
So as of right now? Personally 5/10, at best.
A recent change with one of the abilities has made the later floors of this HC a lot more difficult, at least with my play style. And I feel this extra difficulty is a bit unfair.
I’m talking about Sweet Veil and Ribombee/Alcremie.
Slumber Orbs aren’t too uncommon in this HC, and before the Sweet Veil change, I was regularly using them to make the final floors easier. But now, if a Ribombee or Alcremie is nearby, Pokemon will be immune to sleep. And given Ribombee is one of the more common Pokemon on the final 10 floors, nearly all the situations where I would’ve used a slumber orb have vanished.
This is probably more of a nitpick than an actual complaint, but I think it would be beneficial to heavily reduce the spawn rate of Ribombee, or even just remove it from the dungeon.
Alternatively, since I know Rest bypasses sleep abilities, maybe Slumber Orbs can do that too? Potentially only with the mons that are given immunity due to a nearby Pokemon’s Sweet Veil, though I’m not sure if that would be feasible to implement given PMU’s coding limitations.
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I think you’re right, this was unfortunately kinda unforeseen (when balancing the HC initially we had no idea this ability would become functional). We have added Petrify Orbs in addition to Slumbers to still have some counterplay for now. We’ll look into additional ways to tackle this, such as reducing Ribombee’s spawn rate.
Edit: Reduced Ribombee and Alcremie spawns in the latter floors of Mirage Mountain to combat this.
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after a doing a bounch of runs with a couple of people we seem to have noticed a issue with the new items added: chesto berry, chesto scarf and petrify orbs.
they are way too rare, they seem to have average of being found to be around one of the 3 items every 7-8 runs!
they are so rare!
by the current odds i been seeing i have a better chance of finding a shiny then a single chesto berry! 
the spawn chance for those items seem in dire need of being increased by 10times of what they currently are
Just a small nitpick, but i don’t think reducing much the Ribombee spawns is that ideal. I understand that kills Slumber strategies, but Ribombee happens to be rather useful cause they do sometimes drop Honey iirc. Which, as i mentioned, is kinda scarce in HC.
Okay so I’ve seen this comment a few times, granted both times from you, and it got me curious. Why is it so important that we have a lot of honey exactly. I know a few honey does marginally increase your chances at mons, but it’d have to be a pretty common drop to have any significant difference on rates. Given the fact we don’t even have sr stuff this hc, I’m more surprised we have honey in this hc at all.
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The grind was slow for festive Coins. I wasn’t able to grind fully due to 13 hours out during monday and wednesday. The balance was alright and the NPC pokemon were fair, if you died you died reasonably. The items sure were worth it. The joy items looked fun and the legacy toke was good on paper. Until you realized there aren’t that many pokemon that benefit from it. We only had about 4 new pokemon in the game and returning exclusive HC Pokemon. None of them will impact the meta but they sure are good looking. For future HC hope the HC currency would be more generous
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So personally i think the HC was pretty underwhelming, not bad just kinda 5/10, so let me run down the bullet points of the good goods and bad bads of this HC
Good goods:
- The dungeon overall was pretty solid and challenging, only complaint i have is the hypnosis spam which was annoying
- The hub was pretty, yup
- Alcremie was absolutely incredibly and a amazing piece of work by the spriters
- The concept of the dual dungeon with underpass was really cool (Bugs on the opening aside)
Bad bads:
- The currency (in my humble opinion) was ruined by the legacy token, everything felt way too grindy for no reason which was understandable because of the legacy token being way too much of a hazzle for the staff but uh id rather instead of ruining an HC cause of it just bring it back when it can be made automatic
- The recruits and eggs were mad underwhelming, there was almost nothing that couldnt be got anywhere else, eggs had too many nothing mons too be valuable whatsoever
So thats about my thoughts on hc in short
While the work of the spriters and mappers was absolutely inmaculate, the game side of the game was kinda bad
Hope my negative nancy opinion wont dampen everyones outlook on me :P
But yeah not the best as events go, tho exp boost is nice all is forgiven 10/10 BABYYYYYYYYYY
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This is a Post-HC review so if anything was fixed that I just didn’t notice, that’s my apologies!
I did enjoy the concept of Underpass having two different sides but at first, I was often really confused about which side I was on. It wasn’t until the community helped create the HC guide that there was a clearer indicator of which side was left and which was right. I know this technically would just be fixed by running it enough to learn the color palette of each side, but I do think it would have been less frustrating if there was something as simple as “east” or “west” in the dungeon title.
Mirage Mountain was way less confusing on this aspect, and I admittedly had way less issues navigating this dungeon, although it did have far more pokemon with the capability of sniping you off-screen. I did notice this getting fixed later after its release though, so I can’t fully complain about this detail.
The item inconsistencies were definitely something I noticed often. Compared to previous Holiday Caverns, revives were definitely the ones that felt like the most of a gamble, and if you just happen to get hit by a mini MH with no slumber orbs, that’d just be a run killer. Most of the things that killed me were almost entirely poor RNG, and no good HC team or matter of preparation can really fix that. I think this could have been eased by at least one revive spawning between floors 1-10 as a mandatory spawn that can serve as a backup for those later floors, with any randomly spawned revs after that just being good luck.
Both dungeons felt exceptionally difficult towards the start of the event, but seemed to be balanced later due to community input, which I was glad to see. I was going from failing every other run due to things way outside my control like getting one-shot or sniped by a Pokemon I couldn’t even see off-screen, to only ever failing due to big mistakes I made or bad rev RNG.
The loot was also admittedly a bit underwhelming, as I’ve noticed other people mention. Not even much in the shops was all that enticing, save for the Legacy Token which only super-grinders could really afford. I would’ve loved to see the Latios and Latias disguises, they would have felt very on-theme, and were something I absolutely would have grind for! I’m also glad the prices were dropped, as it did feel like the holiday currency was more scarce these dungeons compared to previous HCs as well, even after the rate was increased. I probably wouldn’t have been able to get much more than 1 good item if not for these changes.
I did admittedly enjoy the crane game. It was a good use of any leftover tokens that weren’t worthwhile to save after the HC closed and I’d bought everything I wanted. I’d love to see something similar make a comeback in future HCs.
I did also like the move cauldron. I’d love to see this make a comeback as well.
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why does pmu still continue to run events for only two weeks? is this just a holdover for tradition’s sake? is it to instill FOMO? is it to be deliberately inaccessible and make players have to exclusively play PMU and nothing else?
most mobile games and mmos arent even this strict about event time limits and theyre actually making money.
make them last a month minimum considering there’s an increased insistence on making things more expensive so people have to “work harder.” especially because of your aging playerbase who have other things to do.
Welcome back to the forums! Since you just made your way back, I’ll just let you know that this thread is one for people who’ve ideally at least entered the hc to provide feedback. Not as much a venting thread for people who self-admittedly have not been and will never play the game again. Honest mistake though, could happen to anyone
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