Put some more thought into this.
My suggestion is kind of tedious, but it can be done in spurts and will make player progress much more smooth, compelling, and understandable. Between each major step toward this/a similar goal, staff could release a new dungeon/event for the lategame player’s interests.
Zeebrah’s suggestions on how to not confuse and lose tons of newbies all the time:
*)Have each region cater to a single HM. The first area can"t be left until the user gets Cut. Cut lets them go to another region. They can"t pass the 2nd region until they have rock smash. Repeat with all the HMs. Each region will cater to specific level ranges. Have each dungeon relate to a plot point. For example, you can"t enter the “Boss Dungeon” (The dungeon that gives the HM) until his goons in the other dungeons of that region are taken out.
[You could keep as many existing dungeons as possible, in fact, and just move them to whatever region"s level range fits best. This reduces the workload on staff, meaning only the over-world map(s) require serious redoing. This will lead to slightly smaller but more concise and organized regions, which will be friendlier to players in general without the loss of actual content. For regions that seem to lack dungeons, like the mid-range levels I was complaining about in an earlier post, add more. It"d be needed anyway and in fact could highlight some sneaky problems that weren"t as easy to see before.]
NOTE: Grassroot town could work as a central “hub” between all of these places, potentially like a center of a circle. This would let the community keep a unified place to hang out in, newbies and vets alike.
*)As others said, have a story. A simple example of one would be that the land of PMUtopia(?) is being invaded by another country and you have to “free” each region as you go along. You start in the smallest, least important region and eventually make your way up to PMUtopia"s capital by overcoming all obstacles set before you. You then explode their HQ and win the story, opening a final region. Or something.
The precise details don"t really matter, so long as the regions follow similar “unlocking” game mechanics. Story, even if it"s sort of thin, is compelling and gives players a sense of progress. I have a feeling that the HM system was supposed to do that, but it"s so borked + the regions are organized so sloppily that it falls flat and actually adds to the problem. You can even relate missions to the story somewhat, via the tried and true methods of “SOS” messages letting you visit new dungeons.
Through story and better region organization, players can be given direction for where to go next without a minimap. It can also introduce players to the world gradually in a way that is easier to absorb. Compare that with the situation PMU has right now, which boils down to “I"m lost in the first region wtf this is huge.” [Seriously. Look at how many big, empty areas so many regions have, likely to never be used. That gets people lost, wastes time, and just feels sloppy.] Currently, the only “progress” you feel like you are making in PMU involves personal goals as well, which can lead to people dropping the game like a rock if their goals are more lofty and involve high-rarity Pokemon. (If a person"s only motivation is to get a dragon team, they will start losing steam pretty quickly without other more realistic incentives/hooks/accomplishments existing for that player within the game.)
*)This is more minor, but make the dungeons have more defined weaknesses/advantages. For example, Snowveil Den in Winden has the following types iirc:
Normal (with Electric, Ice, a Recovery Move and normal stab moves)
Fighting/Psychic
Ice
Steel
Rock
Dark
Electric
That kind of design leaves much less room for strategic goodness and mostly only encourages brute forcing everything. It"s better to support multiple types of play (thus supporting multiple types of players) instead of mostly encouraging the style that involves tedious grinding. Later dungeons could have a larger mix of types to ramp up difficulty, but the design should still be thought-out. Is a dungeon filled with “Hits hard, dies easy” pokemon? What about tanks, or spawns with gimmicky moves that really sting when stacked up? (See: Encore + Grudge.) There are a lot of options here that will really help dungeons stand out from one-another better when there are interesting/diverse themes going on with most of them.
*) Kind of ties in with the last point, but distribute recruitable Pokemon in more meaningful ways, as already covered above. This means regardless of the region, people will come back to previous dungeons and look for exclusive super rare recruits. However, this should be balanced with a variety of rarities or “hunting tradeoffs” per dungeon.
[Ex: Let"s pretend Pikachu can be found in Dungeon A more easily than Dungeon B, but Dungeon A has more annoying, garbage spawns while Dungeon B also has a chance for additional other cool recruits. Suddenly the player has a meaningful choice…or at least the ability to change up the scenery if they get absolutely sick of one place.] There are tons of ways to approach the idea of dungeon recruitment be based on choosing between tradeoffs. It also lets you more easily re-use certain spawns if there is more subtlety between areas. There are a massive amount of ways you can approach dungeons if this is taken into consideration and allows you to use your resources more effectively/efficiently.
With the list above, you will fix:
*Confusing world that is easy to get lost in.
*Nonmotivating game progression: Story will get people from point A to point B.
*Demotivating lack of progress within personal goals: Story + more “Middle ground” rarities or even a few cool common pokemon will maintain the feeling that you’re getting somewhere.
*Info dumping. By splitting up regions and dungeons, you can control when players are introduced to certain game mechanics, such as held items, reviving, status moves, recruitment, and traps without the need of a tedious tutorial. Instead of Buneary telling you everything, dungeons can introduce aspects of the game one by one. This includes later dungeons teaching the player about ghosts walking through walls and hidden eggs/tiles.
Thoughts?
EDIT: I just realized this entire topic was necro’d by Whimsy. Ohwell, I still stand by my words. >:0