Better availability for early evolution items / letting early recruits evolve easier for new players

Suggestions and Contributions
1

This is also a “game obfuscation” issue where accomplishing almost anything without using another player/the wiki is impossible, but here we go. Too many early game pokemon rely on evolution stones relative to how reasonable it is for new players to try and get those stones.

List:
Leaf stone (oddish, bellsprout, exeggutor)
Soothe bell (Munchlax, Togepi)
Sun ribbon (rockruff, Eevee, budew)
Water stone (eevee, poliwag, staryu, lotad)
Moon Stone (skitty, nidoran m/f)
Fire Stone (evee, vulpix)

Leaf stone and Soothe Bell are in Island Garden but I never knew this. Water Stone is reasonably huntable in Seafoam Cave, but I only knew this because I went back in later for a Psyduck and others probably only knew due to the wiki. Requiring a NEW player to find and dig through the wiki to know this stuff does not make for a good time. Even then, I hear the Island Garden Soothe Bell is an obnoxious secret room to hunt for, especially when you’re new. If the new person even knows this game has secret rooms, lol.

Currently the game is relying on older players to act like “merchant NPCs” that either sell these items to newer players or give them for free out of pity. The stones aren’t even worth that much, I see other players already selling them for 5k each or so. Why not have the stones be sold in town via NPC and cost 7k or something, while also making any obnoxious hunts more reasonable (looking at you, soothe bell).

The alternative is to swap the current stone-requiring early recruits for others that don’t need stones, but that is A) more work and B) doesn’t fix the problem with the item-required starter evolutions (of which there are 4) unless we change them too! I don’t think anyone really wants that.

The last option is pretty wildcard, which is to have the evolution items somehow available in cliffside relic Like if you bring an engraved tablet, you can enter “Cliffside Relic Depths” which is a slightly harder extension of Cliffside. It has routes where, if you complete them, you get the related stone and only that stone. Leaf route for leaf stone, Water route for water stone, etc. This has downsides, but it is fittingly interesting / engaging content that new players WILL encounter due to cliffside relic being a required part of the game.

2

I also have a small suggestion for the evolution stone merchant. At the moment, there’s a lot of empty space around Winden’s southwest side. Maybe have hints around Winden’s front entrance about the evo item merchant and have the merchant locked behind Rock Smash? I feel like evolution items are best suited for more early-mid game after players defeat Sauna, and Rock Smash usually opens up a lot. And besides, it’s not hard to get to the entrance of Winden Pass since you can fly there, have the NPC throw you to the entrance, and then you go west. I just feel like that would be easier for the staff to implement than a new dungeon, and it wouldn’t be too early in Grassroot Town.

Also, I feel like if it was put in Grassroot Town, it might get locked behind Silver Rank or something to access, and that just seems like a bit of a pain. :<

3

If the issue is information, why not have Slowking tell players “You might find [insert evolutionary item here] in certain dungeons!” He could give hints or just say what dungeons they’re in. I for one enjoyed adventuring for most of my evolution items (except my first Soothe Bell that was a huge pain in the neck). If people want to gift items, that’s fine, but adding a non-social bypass to early game item acquisition feels like it would do more harm than good.

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4

There’s a few reasons to make this easier.

Regarding Slowking:
1] People really won’t read that much. I know, I know, that should only be accounted for to a certain degree, but after 2 somewhat wordy tutorials the new players are already info-dumped in this game. They have just read a novel. A lot of people who play video games really just want to get to the action and can adjust better if information is fed to them in bits, not in a huge log. And when the game really would benefit from maintaining players, any potential small preferences about how much a person should enjoy reading is one of the most easy compromises to make. The answer here is that an absolutely staggering amount of potential, quality players just do not want to deal with a huge text dump.

2] That aside, Players shouldn’t have to worry about planning for evolutions until evolution starts being a prospect to them. In other words, after a few dungeons at around level 20. We should probably focus on spreading out information so that they can worry about these things at around that time if possible, not immediately after trying to even learn what Xatu does and what mystery eggs even are.

Not regarding Slowking
When it comes to shaping this game based on personal experiences, beware of survivorship bias. The people who lean on others in the chat or learn to love the wiki early on are typically the ones who remain. Those who want any other sort of experience that involves adventure are often quickly punished for it. Picking the “wrong” recruits and having to rely on the kindness / availability of a small, mostly AFK population is not the way to go. Relying on newbies knowing to look up and read the wiki is also not the way to go. A lot of people are just here to play a game, not to have the answers read to them… but there’s very little (or sometimes no) indication of what the heck to do next to meet your goals. Without clearer or more reliable early availability for these specific stones listed (or without removing the offending spawns and adjusting the game to account for item-evolution starters) a lot of people are going to feel burned. And there’s no reason to purposefully “pull the rug” out from under new players like this. They had no reason to expect they are picking a harder path. No rational person is going to expect the game to be this arcane so early on.

We really can smooth out this process with the tools we already have, though. I’m a fan of putting the solution within cliffside relic, since it solves most of the issues with text-dumping, proper timing, and there’s no risk of it being easily missed. That is, IF a new player even knows to go there, which is its own problem sometimes.

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5

it wouldn’t really be a novel or a info dump if there where like a npc nerby each dungeon which mentioned what stones you can find in X dungeon,
like putting a npc near seafoam cave saying “i found a water stone in soafoam cave, but it was behind a wall, i wish i had way to walk through walls”
that would fit what you just said about feeding infomation one at time

the thing i kinda want to point out also is the fact that evolution just. isn’t that important anyways,
who cares if the player finds out you can get a fire stone for thier vulpix at level 30s? nothing is stoping a vulpix from demolishing the entirity of winden,
as matter of fact ninetales loses it’s entire level up pool upon evolution, so it should be postponed as much as possibile for a new player, and that’s a trait shared with a lot of stone evolutions,

altho i will concide that moonstones and soothbells are kinda ridiculous at the moment and really need to have a place to spawn rarely in the mid game.

also i kinda like the kinda need of player to player interaction to optain items earlier then you should,
this is a mmo at the end of the day but it feels too much like pokemon mystery solo to me.

evolution stones in all pokemon games have always been a bit of a rarer comodity, at least in the older games, so i don’t think anyone should be under the expectance to be able to just get one on a whim after they just unlocked evolution, and if they are, then they are setting bad expectations for themselfs.

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6

imo I think evolution items are fine as it is. I really don’t expect the game to feed you evolution item at such a low level dungeon. SR box in IG (yes rates can be increased a bit) is fine and water stone in seafoam on water only are ok, fire stone in sauna on lava.

however, while the idea of selling evolution item via an npc may seem to be a good idea, I can assure you this will break the economy in some ways, or it is useless. At an early game, most players won’t have much poke, hence will likely try to find the most economical way to find these items. the npc for selling these items will usually be selling at a higher price than players are asking for. This creates a dilemma. Should we make it so the npc sells it at a price that beginners will likely turn to player shops, or should we sell them at a lower price and destroy the player market on evolution item?

(also moon stone needs an early location)

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7

Ah the conundrum of encouraging NPC sellers or player sellers generally leans toward encouraging player interaction. Since most people are here for that. The problem with relying on a small population as part of your game design pops up when populations are low, especially during less-occupied timezone hours. The NPC evolution item seller is a backup, not the primary source.

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