learned RNG

Suggestions and Contributions
1

As it is now, PMU is far too extreme with luck factors, and far too unforgiving. Someone can do a single run and find a 1% spawn while someone else can do hundreds of runs and not find that pokemon once. To make things worse, no matter how many runs the second person in this example does, chances do not improve, and if his or her luck is bad enough, he or she may never find it. Motivation and effort would be made meaningless, while the first person would not have put in the effort to actually deserve it. What I am suggesting by a learned RNG is to make motivation and effort matter. For example, the RNG could ever so slightly increase chances of finding said rare spawn until one is spawned, and at that point, it would reset. This would make motivation and effort actually mean something, and reduce spite between the lucky and the unlucky.

Edit: Forgot to mention one thing. Make the chance asymptotically approach a number that is still low, but better than before. This way, it is not broken.

2

Personally, I think issues of randomness should be approached on a case-by-case basis. Randomness is, and will remain, part of the game, as it has been in the Pokemon series since the beginning. However, if a particular challenge is proving impossible to complete for some very determined people, I would like to hear more about it. A game isn’t fun if you can’t have the rewards as well as the challenges, after all.

I do agree that, in some cases, rare NPC spawns can be misused as a barrier to preventing players from gaining a certain Pokemon for their team. This is mostly in cases where an enemy is not only rare but also hard to recruit. When finding one of an enemy is a challenge, and you have a terrible likelihood of recruiting it, having to find 20 and failing every time is demoralizing. Still, this should be approached on a case-by-case basis. For some spawns, the better solution might be to increase its recruit rate rather than making it less rare; give the lucky few who find it a great chance of getting it rather than finding only disappointment. For others, it might be better to make it less rare, especially if there are compounding factors that make it difficult to recruit, aside from just low odds. (Dugtrio, I’m looking at you.)

tl;dr just say what specific NPC spawns are too rare and we’ll take a look at it

3

kangaskhan, trapinch, and rotom are far too rare in my opinion. I do not agree with 1% spawns and think they are a terrible idea.

4

yeah i know, working for things is such a task. remove that please.

5

well it’s not the ‘working for things’ that’s a problem, its the fact that some people can get these pokemon on the first try when others have to go into these dungeons 20-50 times to just FIND the pokemon, let alone try to Recruit it! It’s insane when people can FIND and RECRUIT a Kangaskhan on their first run through the dungeon, while others have to go 10-20 times just to find the Mon, then do it almost 30 more times just to recruit it. It’s really upsetting and can lead to players to just give up on getting the pokemon they want, as well as leading to rage quits when their friends get the pokemon they wanted, or just a all out desire to stop playing PMU due to the insane RNGs for pokemon.
We understand they’re rare, but it shouldn’t take people 30+ runs of the same dungeon with high level pokemon and recruit boosting items for a simple pokemon such as Rotom, which isn’t that well of a battler (from what I’ve seen in Pearl. I had a lv 70 Rotom and it wasn’t that great at all, the only way I can see some use in PMU is its going through walls), or Tranpich, a basic pokemon. Kangaskhan is a bit more understandable as it’s a good pokemon for battle, and is stated multiple times in various games to be an endangered species in the Pokemon world.

6

How about Sandile? I’ve only seen one person in the whole game with one.

My friend tried recruiting it, after 150+ honeys and only 4 spawns he gave up.

I myself haven’t even bothered trying for it, too rare.

7

I support increasing the recruit rate of extremely rare Pokemon slightly so that it is easier to find but rare enough that it requires effort in order to find it.

Though, increasing the rate slowly has to be carefully done. For example, how many runs of Mount Barricade have to be done to find a 1% Larvitar spawn that appears on only two floors? 10 runs for it to be easy to find? 20? 30? I support increasing RR slowly but to me it seems complicating somewhat to have it increase at a fair level.

8

200 honeys. Only ever got 4 trapinch, two died from dugtrio and the others weren’t recruited. Only finally got one by it just randomly spawning in the middle of a TM run, a little while after I totally gave up.

There’s a fine line between earning your little Larvitar or Trapinch, and tedium. Something like this might lessen that gap.

Why not?

9

I have killed 6 kangaskhan so far with a 41% rr each time and none joined. I am very close to taking a break and am also out of honey.

10

Well, to be honest. The 1% recruits are done purposely, and I can see why you dislike them. I don’t know Kangaskhan’s recruit rate, but the recruit rates make up for the rare spawns. Sandile has a recruit rate of 10.5% while Trapinch has a 20% recruit rate, if I can remember correctly.

11

Flandria hit every point I was trying to express. 1% spawns would not be a problem if the RNG was less biased and took into account how many runs you have done while failing to find one, and a simple fix would be to implement a learned RNG for the problem spawns.

12

I think you misunderstand how the NPC spawning system actually works in PMU. There are very rare occasions when an NPC is set at a 1% chance of spawn rate, however the NPC spawn list of a dungeon can have multiple uses of a singular pokemon to combat the usage of Honey forcefully spawning things.

This is especially prominent in Tanren Mines on the floors 20 - 42. Anything that is meant to be uncommon or greater has a less chance of spawning due to “Repeat Filler”, which also causes Honey to be less effective. But this also allows for the natural spawn rate percentage to be higher (as it currently is, Trapinch is a 7% chance of natural spawn, in comparison to the most common spawn on the floors that can spawn a Trapinch being 60% ). This calls for less RNG in the system, however it also prioritizes for the system to look at the higher percentages of spawn rates before considering any low percentage. I suppose it could be seen as cruel to make Honey less viable when going for the thing you seek, but it also allows for the rare spawn to have a higher natural rate of spawning. It’s still very much possible to force Trapinch to spawn from the usage of Honey, but the results will vary from person to person. (Do note that it was agreed upon a couple months back that Trapinch’s spawn rate and RR would be altered. Prior to that change, the spawn rate was 4%)

You seem to be pointing out a prime mechanic of the MMO genre… Some people get dumb luck, and others will spend months to no avail for something. And I’ve been victim to both sides MULTIPLE times in my 10 years of MMORPG experience. (I can spend 5 months trying to get a full set of Tier 10.5 from ICC in World of Warcraft, while a guildy gets it in one month… And alternatively, I can spend a three weeks to get one of the rarest pet drops accidentally in Swtor, where as others have grinded for over a year to get it). It’s just how the system works. I can see your argument that you want a system that rewards those that invests time, rather than having a system that can give you something at any given moment (but most likely won’t)… it is fairly difficult to implement that kind of system though.

As Darkmazer already has mentioned, RNG has been a part of the Pokemon series since the beginning (in ALL games). And as I have mentioned, MMO’s as a whole rely on RNG mechanics to run. It’s just how everything works. I agree that some rares are setup waaay too creully, but I still stand by the fact that some are meant to be rare for a reason. I agree that 1% spawn rates are usually too unfair, but something like Trapinch (excluding Dugtrio purposefully killing it often) at it’s current state is fair as a rare spawn, especially since it wasn’t planned to be in Tanren Mines originally, and was going to appear in a later dungeon as a less rare find.

As for dungeons that don’t rely on Repeat Filler mechanics for rare spawns… That is a personal design choice by the dungeon creator -shrug- We all don’t make dungeons the same way, and everyone has their personal preference for what is fair and what isn’t. I personally feel RNG is fine as long as the spawn rate of an NPC isn’t below 3% (although this usually depends on what the highest rate of spawn is on the floor).

I do fully agree with Dark that if something is meant to be seen very rarely, there should be a good chance to recruit it. We’ve also been discussing of more ways to raise your RR boost right now. We’ll be posting up a full list of what can boost your RR, as well as the current maximum in boost.

13

It might be late to ask but what is “RNG”?

14

It stands for Random Number Generator.

15

I’ve also seen both sides of that, luck and misfortune, mostly the latter though.
One time I managed to miss something in a game with a 33% chance like 30-40 times in a row, I didn’t even count anymore, and the chance for that misfortune is something like 0,0004%.
So I do consider my luck with numbers exceptional, and not in the positive way mind you.

Then again, in PMU I do already have a bunch of things I’m happy with, so that I’m not really going after anything in particular, hence I don’t get frustrated either. When I get any time to play that is.

Otherwise I agree though that a function to eventually tip the balance to make something happen when it didn’t for too long is a proper way to deal with it. As with the original Pokémon games I felt they always kept stuff managable, even if it was hard.