Now that you’ve made your thread clearer I’d appreciate it if you responded to my posts. 
You’re right there, actually. It’s been stated by staff during the implementation process, repeatedly so even, but not actually documented anywhere I can easily link it to you.
Why do we need a band aid for a system that is already in the works? All the shinies will be available eventually. I don’t see any objections to the fact gens 1-4 were released before 5+. Why is it suddenly so different when it’s specific gen 1-4 pokemon that are pending the full release of their shinies? Regular pokemon have had periods of event exclusivity before too, so why do egg-only shinies suddenly need a boost to their availability prior to their full release?
The reason is that the Sparkle Token wasn’t ever meant to be a ‘‘band-aid solution’’ for egg mons not being obtainable yet. A band aid solution caters to a specific problem, or it cannot really be described as a solution.
Some examples of specific band-aid solutions for the current unavailability of egg shinies would be:
- Item that lets you make an egg only pokemon of choice shiny (maybe through staff like legacy tokens are)
- Individiually purchasable shiny pokémon that are currently unavailable, as I described before.
If this is the argument for maintaining distribution of the sparkle token, either of these choices are both more specific to the solution you’re trying to accomplish, and less damaging to the rest of the shiny system.
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It sounds to me–and correct me if I’m wrong–that the root cause of the concerns regarding egg-only shinies is that some of us are worried they won’t be implemented in a timely manner. (And thus require a band-aid)
Or does anyone find that to be an unfair and/or inaccurate assessment?
I think its part of it, but not the whole thing.
For the timely matter, we all know that the staff team, being volunteer-based, cannot do things as timely as a hiring MMO can. Secondly, theres only 1 programmer. Third, the code is insanely spaghetti and built on an ancient engine. All these factors mean that pokemon that are shiny-locked (eggs, as an example) probably won’t even be out within the year. Gen 5+ will take even longer, as, as far as I know, only Prismatic is ripping the gen 5+ sheets for us spriters to recolor, who, as we all know, cannot currently work on the game consistently right now. And then they’ll take longer to implement. This could easily take 3+ years, which really isnt worth reducing sparkle tokens and waiting for for just an aesthetic recolor.
actually just going to explain the time thing bc im not good with words thats my 2 cents cya
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Well for one, they’re already released in the game as shinies via sparkle token. You take away sparkle tokens you take away any chance of an egg exclusive pokemon to be shiny.
I liked reshimaru’s post before about being against purchasing pokemon and I agreed with the reasoning behind it. Buying pokemon in a PMD MMO is not a good idea.
Removing sparkle tokens and the solution for it is to have egg only sparkle tokens doesn’t sound like a good solution either to this problem imo. I don’t want to dive into the reasons (legacy token already has the issue of needing a staff member) and suggestions like these SHOULD’VE been suggested first instead of 20 comments into the thread.
Like I said before the fact that there isn’t an official statement on adjusting rates of shiny pokemon is also an issue.
Also you guys are cool people and I enjoy discussing topics like this
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To be shiny right here and now.*
Unless we’re assuming egg shinies will never be released…in which case that is the problem to address. There’s no need for a band-aid, we know exactly what the problem is and how to fix it, and I’m sure if it’s made clear the community wants egg shinies that can be prioritized. After all, that is what the voting system on these forums is for, is it not? To cleanly show the staff team what the playerbase considers a priority.
And this is all assuming it’s not already in the works as we speak, which would not surprise me.
This is a byproduct of another problem that is already being addressed here:
But I am entirely in agreement on the fact I would really have preferred a statement somewhere it’s not going to be buried in 5 minutes.
1 Like
I’m going to first preface this post by saying that I and a lot of other players really have a tough time thinking this thread doesn’t at least partially exist due to self-serving reasons Leo, especially after the snipe for a sparkle token at a recent auction. I don’t want to say it’s 100% true that those motives drove this thread, but I do want to comment on it being there because I think a lot of the conversation in this thread is really driven around this perception, whether it’s fair or not.
Now onto the sparkle token. I have read through this thread and I was previously debating this on discord a couple days. To make it known here: my position is that the sparkle token should not be discontinued. For now I just want to tackle a point or two that I disagree with before putting my own thoughts forward.
First off I’d like to address this point:
“To be shiny right here and now.*
Unless we’re assuming egg shinies will never be released…in which case that is the problem to address. There’s no need for a band-aid, we know exactly what the problem is and how to fix it, and I’m sure if it’s made clear the community wants egg shinies that can be prioritized. After all, that is what the voting system on these forums is for, is it not? To cleanly show the staff team what the playerbase considers a priority.
And this is all assuming it’s not already in the works as we speak, which would not surprise me.”
At the risk of sounding rude, for me this is the point that really makes me personally doubt your argument is being made in good faith. For me it just wholly misses the mark. Given how often this term has been used in discussing game changes, I feel as if the term “bandaid solution” should be fairly understood. You wouldn’t use a bandaid for a broken leg because it’s incredibly serious and needs to be dealt with using more serious measures. However, if I scraped my knee – it is a problem, and a band-aid is a great idea to risk that problem growing. The issue of egg hatched Pokemon not being shiny isn’t a minor issue, of course, but also not a major one. In other words, you don’t need to solve it outright, but you better have some way of dealing with it in the meantime. This is where the idea of a bandaid solution is incredibly helpful.
Truthfully, if we only ever worked on the problems in this game by priority list and only attacked them with the “perfect” solution, I feel as if the state of things would be dang near unplayable.
Onto Syni’s point right here:
“I heavily dislike the Sparkle Token’s way of bringing every shiny back to a baseline value. If you own a sparkle token, you basically ‘‘possibly’’ own every shiny available in the game. So, with a sparkle token in the game, a shiny Pidgey/Poochyena has the same worth as a shiny Spiritomb/Dratini. To me, making this item regularly available has th effect that it devalues the regular way of hunting shinies because of the amount of time you can avoid by just buying a token instead.”
I think this point is actually a bit valid. Not all Pokemon are created equally in terms of rarity in the game and so giving a sparkle token would seem to defy the differences in rarity. This rarity manifests itself in many different ways - spawn rate, floors appeared, even recruit rate. However, I actually am not quite sure Leo agrees with this point based on the concepts underlined in this threadI think a lot of players did give a solid response that the grind for a sparkle token is either gated to a specific time period where you have to put a monumental effort to grind it out, or to an auction where you have to spend upwards of 6 million poke (which is an insane effort to grind, especially after the nerfs to a lot of money earning methods…). In other words, they don’t devalue the grind because the sparkle token itself is a grind equivalent to basically any naturally obtainable shiny in the game.
My personal response, however, is different. Rather, I am going to say (and this is going to be a terrible soundbite lol) that the idea of fairness isn’t always the most important consideration in deciding what to and not to include in the game. A very similar comparison is to Holiday Cave itself as a concept. Easter HC in particular makes Pokemon such as Beldum and Larvitar – two rare and hard to get pokemon otherwise – a lot easier to get. In the eyes of Easter HC, for the most part it doesn’t matter if you’re using that Bagon or a Rattata – the eggs will still spawn.
This is terrible balance-wise, but when Easter HC is canceled, the community gets furious. Because as a concept, the idea is just so fun that many players play the game just for it. I think sparkle tokens are the same way. They may or may not throw off this balance of shinies, but they encourage a drive to participate in the game that I truthfully haven’t seen in years. It was big enough to actually make me come back to the game after telling myself I wouldn’t. Perhaps there’s an emotional concept to this, but this is a game. I think the emotions are impossible to separate from the gameplay because fun is the whole point. I really think if the sparkle token is discontinued, this aspect is going to be lost, and maybe things will be fairer. But I think they’d also be a whole lot less enjoyable.
I think Reggie says it best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MlNWYyVdh0
I’ll probably be back to this thread later but I’m really tired right now lol.
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Isn’t this kind of irrelevant since Andy already said he is going to reduce the availability of Sparkle tokens anyway? To the following:
Very rare or few during auctions in the future, a reduced amount at least they were only in high amounts recently to add a few into circulation
Limiting Sparkle tokens in HC to only Anniversary HC. Although also hinting to not distributing them the same way, especially do to complaints from people testing/(taking exams) during the time apparently. We might expect a communal free sparkle token for each player (but untradable), as the yearly anniversary gift. We will have to see what is in store to us.
On a side, note, please note that the current rarity of shines isn’t the permanent rarity of shines, as I would be really surprised if it wasn’t adjusted via an item in the future, as the staff said they wouldn’t be opposed to modification and chaining methods being added later. It seems very silly to me to worry about an item that is purely cosmetic, that effects a feature so early in development, clearly there are going to be kinks, clearly it is going to cost players, it cost me, and it cost a lot of people, it is to be expected in any mmo I’d be surprised if shines were perfect upon release. PMU did a better job than GF did in SwSh arguably with shiny rates.
this whole thread feels to me like trying to make a problem out of a non-issue.
point to me where shiny pokemon are “oversaturated” that isn’t just a subjective perception of seeing a lot in town. like this whole thread feels very bad faith because it feels like its largely rooted in people being uncomfortable that they see lots of shinies or something, which i honestly havent really seen as the case, and if so, does it even really matter?
both methods of obtaining a shiny pokemon are time sinks for something that’s ultimately cosmetic. if people want to spend 7 billion poke (which id argue is worse than shiny hunting which id say is relatively easy, especially since poke obtaining methods have been nerfed over and over again) on something that gives them absolutely no advantage over other players aside from having a slightly different tint, isn’t that their choice?
i hate to be that guy, but this whole thread feels entitled and pointless. why are we even discussing it?
EDIT: id also like to add that a lot of the appeal to shiny tokens lies in shinying pokemon that have sentimental value to a player, not just shinies as many “countermeasures” seem to want to apply…
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I agree with Griefy, all y’all are doing is making them really not want to ever give us legendaries.
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I feel it’s important to remember that at the end of the day we’re talking about pixels on a screen and as such, it’s not something worth being overly restrictive over. Just restrictive enough so as to not devalue the concept of shinies entirely.
We have no intention on removing existing sparkle tokens from the game or fully discontinuing their distribution.
However, they were meant to be introduced as a commemorative item. We’re more likely to progress towards every pokemon in the PMU dex having shiny odds than to make tokens a common event item.
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This rather abruptly exploded, so I’ll get to replying to individual points once I’ve had some time to process everything.
I will say I disagree that this is a non-issue, as some assertions have been made above. I should also note that I was not aware of all of Andy’s comments on Discord regarding the issue, only that tokens were probably going to be rarer in auctions.
In response, I will provide the actual quotes.
Sorry for not providing them sooner, but I tried to summarize them as best as possible, and what they might imply giving context.
1 Like
This was a fun read. I think we should keep them. Only discontinued or highly limited when eggs are given shiny chances along with an item (Shiny Charm) to increase the shininess chance. That’s all.
small note :> While i agree they are pixels on a screen andy you have to keep in mind some people can spend 1000’s of hours trying to get a shiny rhyhorn for example while a player can just click 1 button thus kind of devaluing another persons time
2 Likes
Alright, so the discussion here seems to have forked into two different directions…
Conflict of interest concerns
In what world are “these items are too powerful and easily obtainable” and “I am willing to pay an exceptionally high sum of ingame currency for this powerful item” mutually exclusive?
This opener is rather jarringly focused on attacking me as an individual rather than my actual point. Not a fan, sorry.
While I understand on the surface level it may seem like someone with a stake in a problem like this shouldn’t be involved…that line of logic falls apart pretty quickly under scrutiny. “You would benefit from X” isn’t actually a counter-argument, it’s a loosely-related statement. Additionally, attacking my motivation rather than the actual points I’m making doesn’t suddenly make my argument invalid. “You all just want higher distribution rates because you missed the token and want a chance to get it” is the exact same type of logic being applied against my argument, except in reverse, and it is just as ridiculous. Every single person in this discussion that wants a shiny pokemon which requires a sparkle token right now, as well as every person who already has a sparkle token, is going to have their viewpoint affected by that bias.
This is all ignoring the fact that I find the above assumptions on my motivation to be completely off the mark, but quite frankly I shouldn’t have to be defending my character when it’s completely irrelevant to this thread, and I’m admittedly rather frustrated to have to acknowledge this at all.
Wall of text warning for this next one:
Everything else:
I think you’re getting a bit too into the metaphor here. The lack of shiny pokemon in PMU was not comparable to an injury; shiny pokemon were rolled out as an additional, supplemental feature.
But it is a minor issue, that’s the thing. And I’ve yet to see anyone adequately explain why it’s more than that. The argument of “but egg-locked pokemon can’t be shiny, so we need a way to bypass that until it is fully implemented” seems a lot like putting the cart before the horse to me, and I’ve yet to see a compelling argument as to why this bypass so badly needs to be in play in the first place. To my understanding, Sparkle Tokens were intended to be a compelling present to commemorate the release of shinies; they weren’t even intended as a band-aid to begin with.
I’m not sure what point you were trying to make here. The game wasn’t unplayable without shinies to begin with.
What does my thread on shiny recruitment rates have to do with this? Syni’s above post encapsulates the very core of my argument far more concisely than I have managed to do myself in this thread. I 100% agree with their post you were quoting here, and do not understand how my position on shiny recruitment rates conflicts with it as you seem to be asserting it does.
I believe we may not be seeing eye-to-eye here, because I do not understand this comparison. To paraphrase myself from Discord:
I can understand why easter partner eggs would seem comparable on the surface level, but they’re not. You commit to hunting X pokemon with the partner egg system, whereas with sparkle tokens you can wait to commit as long as you like. It’s like purchasing a specific item from a store vs. buying a voucher that says “take any 1 item for free” with no regard to its value, and it never expires. It’s automatically more valuable than any other single item in the store.
The vague promises made on discord were not very specific, and as I’ll get to below I think you’ve made a lot of assumptions on his plans, or rather, lack thereof that has been disclosed. Forum threads have been made, at the suggestion staff themselves I might add, in situations like this in the past.
The debate on discord around this subject got so bad Andy stepped in to essentially smother it to a stop via slow mode; consequently, I said I would create this thread so that we could continue more in depth without clogging up the discord. So here it is.
Is what you said, but Andy’s actual discord posts you later linked sing a less certain tune:
As such, I don’t think this has been entirely “solved” yet, and there is still plenty of room for discussion and debate on the best way to move forward.
It is purely cosmetic, yes. However, shinies are an opportunity to vastly extemt the lifespan of the game for people who enjoy hunting them, and to create high moments for players who stumble into them by chance. Treating it as a throwaway mechanic is a massive waste of potential.
But you agree that they are imperfect in their current implementation? Then I do not understand why you consider this discussion to be irrelevant if you yourself acknowledge the likelihood of their being flaws in the system to iron out.
I’ve personally put a lot of effort into trying to explain why this isn’t a non-issue, and so has Syni. Are there any specific points you want to take a swing at? Because this is an extremely broad assertion, and you’ve provided us with very little to back it up.
Quantity of shinies has never been the problem. The issue I have isn’t that the shiny token inserts tons of shinies, but that it has no regard for the rarity of the individual pokemon it is used on.
The time sunk in obtaining a specific shiny pokemon varies from species to species, but the sparkle token affects them all equally and forces them all onto the same exact same playing field, from Pidgey to Rotom.
Entitled? Please elaborate. As for it being pointless… See above.
There’s no easy way to accomplish this with any pokemon a player might be sentimental about, without falling into all the traps the sparkle token does. However, I did suggest a similar item that simply shinifies your starter several posts above, as I find that to avoid a number of the pitfalls the sparkle token has.
…What? I don’t exactly see the correlation here.
Love ya Andy, but the “pixels on a screen” argument has some pretty major flaws. Namely that the entire game is just pixels on a screen when you get down to it, but that doesn’t mean it lacks complexity.
Noted. However, I hope I’ve made enough of a case as to why I think any further distribution should be handled with extreme care. After all, it’s far easier to release something than it is to take it away.
This is the exact focus I was trying to convey I would like to see, so that’s reassuring to hear.
It’s not just clicking one button, as plenty of effort definitely does have to go into acquiring the token, but I get and agree with your point.
2 Likes
theres nothing specific to point to because i find the entire labelling of this phenomena as this big game breaking problem to be a misdirected effort over something that only a few people find an “issue”
so people can just “get out of shiny hunting” by tokening something. i dont see how its a problem. thats their choice. plenty of things are sold at auction such as “globe of choice” that you could argue are unfair that someone bought it instead of working for it, or literally any transaction in the game. the fact that this “devalues other shinies” is odd to me because i dont think anyone really cares about it.
say you had a shiny porygon because you tokened it because we havent reached a point where we can get shiny eggs and porygon is hard to obtain anyway. then someone else shiny tokens THEIR porygon as well. are you going to get angry that your pokemon is “less valuable” because now other people have it?
this whole thing feels like such a “self centric” view of shinies. “because i have x shiny thats hard to obtain through hunting, automatically it is more special than other peoples shinies.” i think this has to do with seeing shinies as a competition rather than personal accomplishment. are you implying some shinies are worthless because theyre easy and people shouldnt value them unless its a shiny beldum? frankly, in the traditional pokemon games, a shiny ekans is the same worth as a shiny metagross. why do things need to be tiered in value here??
if people find spending 7million poke on a shiny token at an auction an accomplishment to be proud of i think its great people finally have something so valuable they want to work that hard for it. this stimulates people to work towards auctions the same way mystery eggs do, because lets be honest, not only are these tokens a money sink everyones been wanting, but theyre not so valuable that they devalue other items because its “oh well, i want to see the other things sold , maybe next time because tokens will be sold then too”
and you could say thats taking the easy way out but then uh, the only person who would feel bad is the tokener, and thats risk vs reward. you risk feeling less accomplished than you had if you shiny hunted it but rewarded because you put the effort to accumulate so much poke (which i think keeps being dismissed) or currency that you got a token. this shouldnt ( and honestly DOESNT ) make other players feel bad like, “oh i couldve just tokened this hoppip instead of grinding shinies” because each is a flex in their own way, and thats all shiny is. FLEXING
anyway andy said his piece so i have no reason to “continue this discussion further and come up with a solution” and many more players think this is a bad idea than a good one and that this isnt a problem that needs to be solved, just a subjective assessment about the value of shinies
edit: this was a typo, i meant to say, “starters” not shinies. i personally dont care about my starter and wish i could release it
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Excuse my abrupt interruption of this raging debate, but I feel like there’s something undetermined within all of this discussion chaos that steers the entire direction of this debate.
As of now, I still don’t get the impression that all of the people here are on the same line of what we are exactly arguing for or against, which may be partially because the title of this thread doesn’t indicate a clear direction in this subject with many apparent variables.
From the title of this discussion I could take on a multiple of standpoints:
- I am for the distribution of sparkle tokens, but solely through staff-hosted auctions
- I am for the distribution of sparkle tokens through both auctions and common events
- I am against the distribution of sparkle tokens in both of these scenarios
- I am against the regular distribution of sparkle tokens, but the very rare exception won’t hurt me
- I think all tokens should be removed from the game NOW
- …and so on, you get the point. I’ve pretty much seen all of these discussed here lol, but these are just meant to be example standpoints.
I personally think that unless we establish a clear direction in this discussion, this will continue to be a confusing mess of opinions where people don’t even know what the other person is discussing for or against, leading to a lot of mismatches within arguments.
i think it’s been a very long while that such a mechanic has circulated a good portion of the playerbase around the merits of its existence. that in total retrospect of pmu’s history is both amazing and, uh, quite hilarious.
i also think where the likes currently are in this thread indicate more than words can say.
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