Legendary recruitment

Suggestions and Contributions
1

Ok, so i know PMU doesn’t want recruitable legendaries, but hear me out:

No one wants to use heart slates because they want to be able to customize their legendaries. What if:

There was a difficult dungeon like loch lenile where you could find a secret room to summon a battle with the legend of that heart slate, and if you win, it joins your team/gives you an egg with that legendary in it.

If you’re worried about money, you could need a “charged” mystery part (which would cost money) to be able to like. Power up the secret room to summon a legend. They become uncharged after use, and must be charged again.

EDIT: I meant like sharing a mechanic with loch lenile. the legendary dungeon would be a lot more difficult like other end game dungeons. (SF, DD, DS)

2

that a good thinking i think will be nice too get legedary pokemons not heart slate we dont need them

3

Loch Lenile is a difficult dungeon?

Anyway, there’s still one concern I have. Secret rooms are nice, sure, but the suggestion you made puts the legendary Pokémon to the same rarity as fossil Pokémon. You could make the dungeon hard, but it wouldn’t matter because the secret room still functions the same; find a secret room, summon a Pokémon to recruit. You could make the secret room’s rarity less than the Red Moon Spring, but it still feels like a copy-paste, even with the “charged” Mystery Part. I feel there should be a more unique way to get legendaries.

Anyway, it still feels weird to have legendaries for players since they are “legendaries”. They shouldn’t be easy to obtain, if obtainable at all. However, there’s the fact that it would be an ultimate goal to have a personal legendary without any need of items to summon them. However, I feel the secret room in a difficult dungeon wouldn’t be the way to go about it.

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4

Legendaries shouldn’t be the level of difficulty of fossils like shadowlucario said. If I were to choose the difficulty of them it would a combination of dratini/gible difficulty plus phione difficulty.

Here’s what I would do for say a pokemon like Arecus:

All Plates + Mystery Part & Slate + 100K Gems from a Hard Dungeon(PMD Zero Isle Level) and make somehow involve a party to do it.

5

So, there’s been a lot of discussion about this on discord and ingame already. Let’s go over a few points that commonly get brought up:
-Players want to be able to train legendaries
-Players want to be able to customize their legendaries
-Players want legendaries to remain “special” and not be simple to obtain.
-The slates are meant to serve as a money sink
-Staff would prefer players not appear as legendary pokemon in town? (I’m not actually sure of the official stance on this, correct me if I am wrong)

Now, I think the current method of obtaining slates is fine, and rather than see it scrapped I’d prefer to see legendaries customizable within that system. However, rather than the fusion cost scaling and punishing players who go out of their way to fuse a number of slates over those who only fuse one or two, I’d prefer to see the base cost increased but fixed at that mark. Say 300k or something.

Simply granting the slate-summoned legendaries persistent moves and level (starting at 1 upon the slate being fused) was proposed previously and I think that’s a good fix for the first two problems. To make this work, an area could be placed in the overworld somewhere full of tutors like Electivire and Bronzong, and within that area the Mystery Part is usable to summon legendaries and tutor them as necessary. A Croagunk who charges significantly more poke for his services could also be placed inside to make obtaining legendary family items possible as another money sink. (Or the mystery part could just be enabled in the Tanren Bazaar)

A simple (except from a technical standpoint, certainly) solution that should give most people at least some of what they want, I think.

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6

I personally like the idea of persisting moves for summoned legendaries.

Not entirely familiar with how the slate system works as it’s something that was implemented while I was gone and I haven’t had the chance to review the code yet. What exactly makes the idea of tutors a key element in making this work?

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7

Legendaries cannot be summoned outside of dungeons, so to be tutored they’d need some way to be summoned into an area with tutors.

8

First of all, technically speaking we do have on legendary recruit in the way of phione, it is one the more lackluster legendaries for certain, but it applies all the same. (more specifically i suppose it would be considered a mythical, but that’s generally lumped in with the other pool so more or less the same)

That said if we were to introduce more legendaries into the game as recruits, which is something I am adamantly for, loch lenile standards of difficulty/rarity wouldn’t precisely be the goal post I’d ideally want us to aim for in regards to rarity. I do however like the sentiment of keeping the slate system involved, gives it a more cemented value even for those who want more than just a summon, and helps with making something of a progression line for the whole ordeal which is similarly something I believe legendaries should have to recruit. Another progressor I’d like to see involved is our mission ranking also, both to give the mission system further value and incentive to use, alongside helping with the long standing concern many players have with means of keeping their obtainment difficult/rare.

But honestly all technical discussions aside, before we even really need to have a debate about how an obtainment system for further legendaries should be done in the game, we first have to air out the discussion about if we should have these recruits to begin with. If we can’t get past that question, the little details of how are meaningless. So bigger question right now is should we have them recruitable in the first place, or well, more of them? I’ve already made clear my stance which is a resounding yes, I have been and will always fully be for more recruitables in this game, pokemon is at the heart of it about collecting things, and that’s not something I feel we should skimp on. I also am by no means a fan of the slate system, which is just the poor mans rental system, and feels vastly less satisfying than actually recruiting something.

But in that same vein, there are people who have reservations on the topic, and that needs fair exploration as well. Leostel listed some points regularly brought up in the conversation of why we should or shouldn’t have legendaries which is a great starting point and to which I’ll comment on first.

-Players want to be able to train legendaries: I think this sentiment goes beyond just wanting to train a legendary, from conversations I’ve had with people on this particular aspect it isn’t tied to just getting exp for them, but wanting to feel that pokemon is theirs, and having the full ownership experience with said pokemon. People want to train their legendaries because they want to feel more like the legendary is their own and not this borrowed someone else’s thing.

-Players want to be able to customize their legendaries: This is more cut and dry, nobody is a fan of randomized movesets as they are unreliable and can ruin the value of a pokemon. It also lessens creative choice for the user. This one is neither for or against legendaries as a broader recruit, and rather a conflict directly in relation to the slate system.

-Players want legendaries to remain “special” and not be simple to obtain: There is a range to this comment, from people who wants legendaries to be exclusive to npcs, to just high requirement recruits as a sign of mastery. Some people want them to be rare because they think it is thematically important, others simply want more objects that exemplify mastery/excellence of a player. Both are fair points, both promote a more nuanced discussion about what this game is meant to be about, both in regards to story/lore and gameplay/progression. I do feel people should note both can work in tandem however, and there is no iron clad rule that legends have to be one of a kind or otherwise break story.

-The slates are meant to serve as a money sink: Honestly this isn’t a feedback I’ve seen in regards to this the discussion of recruitable legends, it is broadly known the slate system is meant to act as a money sink, but that that’s a more nuanced economic conversation, and the sink could remain regardless of the direction we go. Otherwise we can just find other means for gold sinks as well.

Staff would prefer players not appear as legendary pokemon in town: This is a more vague sentiment, as staff never offer clarity on why, and seem to even vary on opinions about it. It also really just fits into whether legendaries should be rare or not in the above listing.

(If people have further sentiments on those topics that i’ve missed do please chime in so we can have the best range of understanding on why people feel x or y ways on the topic)

Now again back to my stance on the matter, I do fully agree with recruitable legendaries being a thing and I get no satisfaction out of the current slate system. I am one of the people who prefers ownership to renting, and I would rather be able to fully acquire something as my own (even if it takes a more sizable effort to do so) than just to on and off having something as a rental. I also am not of the mind that treating legendaries as this singular one of a kind per species notion is a clever or fun writing tool, frankly I think it’s lazy and harms the feeling of the world, so in that regards I also support the notion just to lead to more potentially interesting world design/lore if that was ever to be further expanded upon.

But yeah that’s my sentiments, if people disagree or have more to offer do speak up, this is a pretty large topic and we really need to sort out the biggest questions before moving onto the pin point design choices.

Edit: I would especially love to hear from staff on this matter in particular, as they tend to have the people with the strongest opposition to the idea of more obtainable legendaries.

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9

loch lenile difficulty dungeon

i think i worded this REALLY wrong

i meant a dungeon that has the same mechanic, but would be WAY Harder. my apologies. (think dynamo sands or DD hard)

10

Agreed with a few posts here, before we talk about how legendaries should be released, we need to ask why people are against it in the first place.

On one hand people for the most part want their favorite legendaries in order to show them off in town. On the other hand staff for the most part do not want people to have legendaries in town and this clearly shows when they removed the ability to use trickster glass in town. Staff are open to people using legendary hats in house areas and also having the ability to use it dungeons via slates, however its limited because legendary pokemon only having 4 moves that you cannot change. Leo suggests a compromise with customizing movesets to solve the limited moves issue.

However people play this game to train the pokemon they like and show them off in town and I cannot stress the “showing off in town” enough! That’s what the PMU spirit is mostly all about. Flexing your favorite pokemon that others dont have. Now imagine people flexing their favorite legendary pokemon. That would bring myself and I alot of players with joy. So much so that if it takes 100 playtime hours to get a legendary, you can bet players would still do it.

From a staff members perspective, I can see why they do not want players flexing their pokemon in town. Also, many people dont consider Phione a traditional legendary pokemon either because you’re able to get multiple of them in pokemon games. In PokeMMO you are able to get legendaries and flex them around because pokemon follow you there, like in HGSS. If a game with a bigger playerbase are willing to do this, then why can’t we?

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11

It’s no secret that permanent, customizable legendaries are a high discussed topic in PMU. There is absolutely no shortage of legendary implementation ideas which not only address issues and give many players what they want, these systems do two massive things for PMU’s health: provide a massive currency sink, and provide late/endgame incentive.

Certain pokemon are meant to be difficult to obtain - pseudo legendaries in PMU, especially Gible and Dratini. The difficulty of these two specific pokemon lies in the time commitment required to obtain them. This is the “grind” element of rarity.
Next, we have other rare pokemon which really just boil down to getting lucky with the RNG to obtain them, such as pokemon like Larvitar. This is the “RNG” element of rarity.

For legendaries, it would be very plausible to combine both these elements - collect thousands upon thousands of items (the grind) similar to royal gems, as well as obtaining an unspecified number of that legendary’s heart slates (the RNG) would lead to “permanently” obtaining legendaries. Requiring multiple heart slates while simultaneously making slates more desirable would definitely stir up the PMU economy.

There are many, many feasible ideas behind implementing legendaries better, while also dealing with nearly all of the relevant issues behind legendaries in PMU. What I haven’t heard are the legitimate problems the staff have with perma legends - meanwhile, the playerbase (us) are coming up with multiple solutions to problems that haven’t even been properly addressed.

We’re reading so far into this because we want it, and try to pre-emptively provide thorough solutions to any issues that might possibly arise. But will we be heard?

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12

bump? would still be nice to get some opinions from dissenting parties on this notion, namely staff. (I know andy isn’t familiar with the current system for legendaries so his opinion is reserved, but I know others have opinions to share)

13

I was going to post, but my Idea Isn’t towards recruiting Legendaries exactly.

One of the reasons people don’t use the slates Is because the moveset Is random. Though not making them recruitable, I’m on board with giving them the moves you want at least. I recently fused a Shaymin slate and using It was fun but If I want to use It decently I have to pray to RNGesus that I don’t get a ridiculous moveset. I particularly don’t want to raise Legendaries, I just like to use them. But the fact they’re the level of your highest can be an Issue, It could be useful for Exp. Alling sure, but for general running you might as well just use the Pokemon It copied the level from. In other senses, It could be useful If you’re trying to help someone train something , and the only Pokemon you have at their level wouldn’t be Ideal to use, or If you actually only have one high leveled Pokemon.

Leo’s Initial post Is kind of where I am coming from anyway. But with the point of them “remaining rare”, they really won’t since over time people have amassed slates that they never used or want to/will use.

On the topic of economy, this Is a mechanic people mention most; using multiple of a rare Item for X thing. I am on board with using multiple Heart Slates In what ever Idea staff have for dealing with Legendaries. Heart Slates would actually be sold and bought, hunted… Especially ones like Suicune or Regice that people don’t really have, or HC only ones.

Another related but off the main subject suggestion was allowing us to use parts anywhere, but not actually summon. Only because I had 4 parts and It took me forever to find the one I already had something fused In so I ending up selling the rest xd

On a final note, I think one of the problems Is changing and transitioning things while the mechanic already exists, what will happen to parts If It’s changed? Especially ones that have already had Heart Slates fused Into them? I’m assuming things like that are a big roadblock for making Legendaries more accessible for players.

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14

Not sure I’ve encountered that as a reason people don’t use slates honestly, it’s a less appealing quality sure but it ultimately doesn’t hinder slate summons for what their only real use is, which is being a fifth party member. They aren’t particularly strong so that’s a non-use, they’re fine for exp.alling sure but then it’s also more wasteful than just using your own pokemon who have lasting progression, and similarly with the ability to level down your pokemon it’s all the less of a boon especially when the later is cheaper and likely more effective. The only real value they supply is a spare in case things go wrong and you need a cautionary backup to help finish whatever you are presently doing. I’m still all for set movesets, but it is unlikely to give them a great deal more value, they’re largely vanity items.

Agreed

Honestly this is a separate issue of people being able to obtain multiple parts in the first place, which frankly I don’t believe should be a thing as it just gives people a way to get around the money sink aspects of the system, which was a core aim for it’s implementation. Players should be limited to one part per account that once obtained cannot be lost under any method.

I mean my personal take was that we kept the slate system as an inbetween system, allowing it to act as a stepping stone for players who want to work towards full ownership of a legendary through one method or another. Note the aim here is not making legendaries more accessible, it’s just to make them genuinely obtainable, which are separate things. And most people here seem to agree maintaining their rarity if not upping them would be an appropriate step in enabling that. The slate system could similarly remain as a more casual method of legendary use without absolute ownership for people who don’t have the time or interest in going the full mile for their own non-rental legend. I’m honestly not worried about the slate system losing more value as a result of obtainable legends, it’s not that hard to find ways to avoid it.

15

for future reference, here is a post explaining how the current legendary summon system works.

being able to recruit legendary pokemon has been a long standing controversial topic in the history of pmu. it is no surprise that players want to be recruit legendary pokemon and train them just as much as the staff have had their own reservations on the matter.

in the original pmd series legendary pokemon hold their pedestal status because there exists only one of each of them. they are typically either guardians (boss) of dungeons or have created homes deep inside them. it makes sense to be able to recruit them in the original games where the entire story line is centered around you - the only player in the universe. however in pmu’s unique mmorpg setting teeming with hundreds of players it does not logistically make sense for an individual to permanently be able to recruit a legendary pokemon. if you recruit rayquaza and he is sitting in your assembly, who is guarding the top of sky fortress and dropping loot now? what happens when more players such as yourself enter its lair and how is he still there? why are there five other rayquaza’s sitting in town? what happens when you (a rayquaza) complete sky fortress again only to find yourself in a battle against… yourself? unlike the trainer games, the pmd series is very particular in its treatment of mythical pokemon. they are colossal titans wielding unparalleled power, have unique personalities of their own and even so much as encountering one is a novel experience on its own. in fact, similar to gym leaders in trainer games, the story line in mystery dungeon is focused around completing dungeons and defeating legendary beasts which gives the pmd series its characteristic charm and appeal.

understand just how easy it would have been for staff to make legendaries available like any other recruit. they would not have had to think of a creative process of obtaining them, spend hours coding a complicated mechanism, seek a middle ground between community and staff members in favor or against making legendary pokemon available and of course it would have been an easy cop out from actually churning out new and unique content/game mechanics. the slate system offers a workable system that doesn’t break the universe the game exists in but also allows players to enjoy being a legendary by summoning one for help.

by now i feel i have made it abundantly clear that for the sake of preserving the integrity of whatever plot/storyline pmu has left resembling remotely to the original pmd series, legendaries should not become available in the same way as regular recruits. i am however in favor of having cheaper fusion prices and players being able to customize movesets on the legendary pokemon that they have fused which would be slightly tricky and time consuming to implement but still possible. this would allow room for interesting ideas for example having crogunk swap shop in caustic sewers break point or electivire shop in thunderstorm forest so that players have to put in effort to get their choice of permanent moves on their favorite legendary pokemon. additionally more purpose and utility can be added to legendary pokemon by allowing them to be summoned in the arena for competitive battling/legendary tournaments or having parts of a dungeon that can only be accessed by specific legendary pokemon to obtain a coveted pokemon/item to add a layer of complexity to user experience.

(note: while phione is available in pmu, it is at most a demi-legendary pokemon of debatable status given how it exists in extension to manaphy and is not ‘rare’ as it exists freely in the wild.)

cheers

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16

But why does there have to be only one of them in pmu? There is no ironclad rule that legendaries have to be an exclusive species, and even throughout multiple fields of the pokemon franchise by nintendo there have been cases of mulitple legendaries, through varying methods, through them just existing en mass, to duplication by a powerful entity. Saying it’s to preserve story when there are really no story elements that necessitate this isn’t a real argument.

Edit: How even does the slate system fit into your logic then also? If the legend should always be set in its place of domain, even summoning it breaks that consistency in the world, because either you are agreeing it can be in two places at once, or you are agreeing it doesn’t matter if it isn’t in the location it belongs to while the slate is in use. That is also thematic dissonance. And what about fighting said boss with a slate of that very boss? Another break. When multiple people summon the same legend in a dungeon?

(i can’t imagine this kind of hyper realism applies to the story either but i’ve honestly forgotten it at this point so tbd)

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17

Finally, we can actually discuss this from both sides.

I disagree, so let’s get into why.

These are non-arguments. All of these problems also apply if you, using the current system, summon Rayquaza for any length of time, if multiple players summon Rayquaza at once, and if you summon Rayquaza in its own dungeon respectively.

Additionally, the way the assembly is described, is that all your teammates don’t just sit around doing literally nothing once they’ve joined you. In PSMD they are explicitly living their own lives and will periodically become unavailable for use. (Though this is a case where “realism” is prioritized over good game design, and it hurt the game overall I think many of us can agree)

The main series does not treat them any differently than you are claiming how they are treated exclusively in the PMD games, nearly all of them have significant roles in the story and lore. It does, however, make mechanical concessions that don’t explicitly line up with lore to make those pokemon actually function remotely normally on the mechanical side. As do the PMD games. (Darkrai doesn’t inflict endless nightmares, Dialga can’t stop or go back in time, Arceus is statistically outclassed by Mega Rayquaza… The list goes on)

To top it off, a number of legendary pokemon join you throughout the story in several of the PMD games. Latios, Latias, Manaphy, Celebi, Cresselia, Virizion, Keldeo, Jirachi, and Mew to name some of them. In several cases, the fact they are legendary pokemon is never even brought up once. If anything, the PMD games put these pokemon on a pedestal less often, not more.

Who is this in response to? I think we’re all in agreement no matter how legendaries are handled they should not be easy to obtain, and ideally will provide something worthwhile to grind for endgame. I’m not sure what point anyone has made this is supposed to counter.

What point are you trying to make here, exactly?

What is this “integrity” you speak of? The game has essentially a collection of short stories thrown together in a couple of its dungeons. This is by no means a bad thing, as it adds some nice flavor, but I’m not sure what overarching narrative you’re worried about derailing, as I don’t see one.

However even that is moot. As I’ve already touched on, I do not believe any of us are asking for legendaries to be no more than a glorified normal recruit.

It would seem we are largely in agreement here. However, what are your opinions on the legendaries in question starting at a certain level and saving levels gained as to allow grinding with them to have a purpose? Currently by the time you can reasonably fuse a slate, there are very few, if any dungeons left that trading long-term gain for a short term power boost is worth it. (By sacrificing exp to a legendary that will just delete it after the run)

On fusion prices though, rather than see them dropped I’d actually like to see the base cost boosted but the scaling factor removed. Otherwise players are just encouraged to be stingy and only fuse their absolute favorite slates to avoid rapidly ramping the cost up for when they get that legendary they actually really want to use. Obscenely scaling prices may seem like a way to get more money out of the economy, but if 10 people pay 200k instead of one player paying 800k then far more cash was just sunk overall.

By the time you reasonably have access to the mystery part most dungeons in the game are a joke. This also sounds tedious rather than actually challenging, and having to slog through a dungeon every time you want to make a minor moveset edit just encourages players to pick a “meta” combination of moves and stick to it, rather than experiment.

I have no strong opinions on this. Though, it would be odd for a normal pokemon to be locked behind a legendary one.

While my overall opinion is not in line with yours, I appreciate your willingness to openly provide your thoughts on this subject and hold an open dialogue.

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18

In the ideal scenario a player wouldn’t be able to summon a legendary in a dungeon where it’s a boss. And as far as multiple players summoning the same legendary at once, there’s always the factor of making a summoned legendary act as an escort with an AI similar to how recruits from a different guild “arrive” on a floor via wifi in PSMD. On one hand it can’t be controlled, but the player gets to keep their fourth slot.

As far as this goes, I believe that’s @Festivo’s point – PMU is to one day have a proper storyline of its own. To outright make legendaries recruitable like any other NPC would shatter any immersion that future plot would provide.

The game could force you to use recruits specific to the story throughout the entire duration and treat all current dungeons as post-game content, which isn’t a bad route at all. Perhaps each player would have to complete the main story in order to gain the opportunity to “break a legendary pokemon’s spirit free from the mystery part” and earn them as permanent, post-game recruits in the MMO universe. In the end it all really depends on the big picture.

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19

That sounds like a backstep in value to me, the only useful thing about the slate system (outside aesthetic) is the ability to have a backup pokemon to fill a slot with if you make a mistake. Making it so players can’t summon said legend in the dungeon they reside just seems like invalidating effort.

We’ve had this conversation before so I believe you know my argument, but I don’t think it’s particularly important that we tie legends to the story under the sole value of being an exclusive species. Frankly I wouldn’t care if they were tied much to it at all. Interesting characters don’t exist out of some faux exclusivity, it’s why even the pokemon series (games) doesn’t center any story around a legendary on its own, but rather individuals and factions who want to use them, because a developed character is more compelling than one who is just labeled special for sake of it. Legends being exclusive isn’t important nor necessary for a well developed story within any pokemon world, in fact it can detract from story writing by convincing a writer they don’t have to make compelling characters with relatable thought/development, and instead just use these deus ex machina style unquestionable entities to shoehorn development. Think about the most memorable characters you’ve experienced through gaming and cinema and I’m fairly certain what made them memorable wasn’t just them being being born special physically.

Understand I am all for this game having a more developed story, I love a good story (which is why i’m against leaning on legends to make it), but do you really think that story has to or would be centered around legendaries because they are simply holding that title? What kind of story do you think would even be able to come of that?

Personally I would prefer this game not turn its story into a single player campaign style ordeal, when I do mmo games I like the immersive feel of all players being to some degree canonical if they so like, and this more expansive open feeling world, but I can’t say there is particularly anything wrong with that route as well. I don’t think it’s the only other option however to make them fit as recruits.

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20

I believe you’ve adequately touched on nearly everything I would have Kaen. However…

How is this any better than just carrying a revival herb in that slot?

I’d really rather we not backpedal from the current system rather than improve it. As is, limited control over the legend in question is the sore spot for many people, myself included. Making that worse doesn’t fix the problem.

For me specifically, while I can understand why people want permanent recruits outside of the slate system, I’ll be satisfied if the mystery part is modified to allow the pokemon in it to be trained and customized, as well as having the cost scaling capped, making 'catching ‘em all’ even remotely possible. This is a pokemon game after all, and my biggest gripe with the system as it is, is that it messes with the collection mechanic core to PMU as a pokemon game.

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