Moves still hurting teammates in 2020

Title says it all really, I don’t understand why this move still hurts teammates. Discharge, Earthquake, Earthpower. None of these moves hurt teammates anymore but WHY does Surf (and Sparkling Aria and Brutal Swing) have to be the exception here. I just don’t get it. Is there really any valid reason for this? It just feels like whenever AOE moves got changed Surf got left behind. The only thing this does for players is limit whenever they can train or do dungeon runs with other players.

I don’t think the logic behind “It’s an HM” makes anysense because many Pokemon can learn Earth Power through the move tutor so it’s an extremely common move.

Do you all think Surf should be changed? Like I said I just don’t see any valid reason for it staying the way it is now (along with all the other moves that hurt teammates). I understand that you can have some gimmicky strategies & train with players who have abilities such as Storm Drain but that isn’t as common as just trying to do a normal dungeon or training run & they are working on a Pokemon that doesn’t have Water-type Immunity.

As someone who loves making use of gimmicky strategies I’d be pretty sad to see the unique team damaging effects go. Though having trained a few water types I 100% understand how limiting it feels to move pools having this effect, forcing you to train solo or opt for suboptimal moves.

I’ve always thought the best case scenario would just be having a team/bag item that prevents your moves from hitting allies. Giving choices wherever possible is a healthy game experience.

Less ideally, if coding that may be difficult we could have a team/bag item that grants the player the ability Telepathy (that’s already in game) which prevents taking damage from allies. This is less preferred since it asks more people to make the investment to adjust to one person, as opposed to vice versa. Still better than nothing.

If items like these do become a reality I’d even ask for reverting other team damaging moves (EQ, Discharge, etc.) to open up a bunch of new possibilities without it feeling like a punishment.

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I have to disagree. Forcing people to run this bag item would absolutely be punishment in and of itself. I don’t think preserving gimmick strategies warrants making it more complicated to work with teammates who aren’t heat wave and blizzard users.

I can support everyone having the effects of telepathy and then there being an item that negates that, though. But friendly fire really should never have been the default to begin with; it does not fit very well into PMU’s design.

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I mean having a held item that is a user’s team (not party*) wouldn’t be that much of a crutch, and I am all for that as a solution.

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Uh, with how the item meta is these days, that’s quite the opportunity cost for a gimmick.

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I’m not a fan of the bag item idea. I think it would just be better to standardize all the AOE moves that still hurt teammates. It would put everything on an equal playing field.

I don’t think the few times players can use gimmicky strategies is really fair to players who just want to train together. I’ve trained Water-type Pokemon whose only option for an AOE is Surf and I have had to train them to ~90s all alone for the most part. It’s just dull & boring. It’s not fun to do it all alone. It would be so much more enjoyable to get a group together but I can rarely find a group that would work out.

The bag item idea could work but people already run a lot of items as it is, it would just be adding one more to the list. I don’t think perserving gimmicky strategies for a few is worth hurting the experience for majority of players.

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i mean maybe its due to bias (gastro main and all) but so long as an item isnt held (so that it doesnt waste one of the limited 4 slots) and is reasonable to be obtained (as in. not end boxes in SFR or something) i dont really see an issue with the fix of having a bag item

i mean its basically mandatory to run no stick cap in mid to late game and you could argue that negates challenge by removing an obstacle or that since you can negate sticky traps so easily they shouldnt be in the game at all or that its a hassle to have to run a specific item to counter one specific game mechanic

really at the point where you have 6 bag slots i already have 2 pages of items that are mandatory to bring so one more id have to grab to train a surf/brutal swing mon wouldnt bother me, i have to bring defend globe specifically for ledian despite not needing it for every bug i train so i dont see how this scenario is much different

the BIG issue i see is the fact that retconning more moves to be ff means more pokemon in dungeons with ff aoes= more exp fodder/more SHINIES being killed by AI sooooo idk how i feel on that one

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Didn’t bother reading the other replies, just saw the topic and first reply from Veezo and agree, moves should work as intended, it opens up a lot of cool party combinations with your friends and certain abilities like the stuff we can do with surf + water absorb/dry skin etc, id like to see discharge + volt absorb back…
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Creating 2 new items that are very easy to obtain isn’t asking too much from players, just add them to the grassroot shop, one for telepathy ability to ignore allies AoEs and another to give yourself the shocker status so you can be hit by all moves from allies…

(Sacrificing a single item slot is not a good enough reason to leave the problem as it is, it’s not like you’re forced to have it on you at all times, only when going into a party with a friend using an aoe, it’s a very niche situation for a new player, they generally only pair up to be dragged)
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Either or both can work, if people want AoEs to not hit allies, then an item called “shocker band” or something can solve the problem, just by having the user of the item be the only one to take friendly fire

(bag item without having to equip preferred, there are too many items contesting each other now for equip slots from your 4 members)
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I personally would like to see unique combinations return through abilities…
As a Miltank fan… I want to sap sipper someones petal dances and get buffs for it :smile:

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I don’t agree with that, as already discussed there are a lot of items we have to carry and adding (2 items let alone 1) more onto it is not a good idea. Especially whenever simply adding that item to the grass root shop would trivialize obtaining it and make it bloated, everyone would have one. At that point why bother making it an item in the first place?

I really do not think its fair to majority of players to be hindered in training Water-types just because people like gimmicky strategies.

My main mon is Raichu, would it be cool to benefit from teammates Discharge? Yea it’d be neat however it would also be selfish.

I think there should be a “Shocker” team bag or held item that causes players to deal FF damage as they would if they stepped on a shocker trap. Then FF is turned off by default on all moves. That way the minority of players who want to do gimmicky strategies can do so if they please while majority is free to enjoy the game in normal parties.

Players who want FF turned off should not be the ones carrying the item though.

Again I think it all comes down to minority bias hindering majority of players. (As shown with the milktank example.)

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You’re making assumptions yourself, and being selfish yourself, you think having an item that gives the person that wants to be hit by ally moves is a detriment to the person holding it?

An item giving the user shocker status would solve the problem for all, moves can be made friendly to everyone including surf and the ones that want to use more advanced strats burn a single item slot for it, we end up with 6 pages of bag spaces lategame, it’s not remotely hurting the player that wants to strategise to dedicate a single slot out of 60 for this.

(and before you even try and bring up the fact new players don’t have this luxury, well obviously, but they aren’t the ones that would generally care for advanced strats in the first place, so it wouldn’t even matter. it is better to give people the choice rather than force it one way or the other, and to further expand on this, even if a new player with only 20 slots, was playing with a veteran in a dungeon, them dedicating an easy cheap item from the grassroot shop would be a dang sight lot more beneficial to them than stocking on food items for belly and hp healing items if they take something with water absorb and let the player carrying them keep them going with surf spam… think of the bigger picture rather than worrying over an item slot you DONT HAVE TO FILL)

Think about TM rest, in what pokemon game is that TM just readily available for easy access purchase in the first main shop you find? Is that bloating the game? no… it’s a welcome addition giving people easy access to a recovery option in this game due to it’s real time battle system sometimes not giving them a chance to stop and think. I doubt it would be there if it was turn based.

Adding an easy to get item and making it bloated doesn’t matter if the item is worthless in the economy, it should be a common item like a reviver seed or escape orb so people have the easy option to pick and choose their play-style if staff cannot just add a command to allow people to turn on and off friendly fire. That is like saying we shouldn’t have reviver seeds turn into plain seeds because they just bloat the game… lol… you question what is the point in the item in the first place if it’s added to grassroot shop, as if there has to be some sort of unlock requirement to give the item a sense of belonging, not everything needs this, it can simply be there as an options menu alternative.

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I do not think its a detriment, all I think is that friendly fire should be off by default and the person who wants to receive friendly fire damage should be the one carrying the item. Thats what I said.

I have no issue at all with an item being created. I don’t know why you think I am against this. I just think there should be a single item and those who want to use that strategy should be the ones to carry it.

The reason why Rest is in grass root shop is because of how detrimental status conditions are. They are very common and without anyway to cleanse them they destroy dungeon runs. Rest gives an option to new players to deal with this until they can more options such as Aromatherapy or Gems.

Dealing FF damage is not as common as getting afflicted with an aliment. It’s not as big of a problem for players. Everyone has to have some method of dealing with status (which is fine). Thats why Rest is in Grassroot Shop.

Maybe you’re right about the distribution of the item, however I think a item that directly changes the mechanics of the game should not be so common. I think it would be better off in a mid-game dungeon. Something that players have to hunt for but not too difficult. I’m not wanting players to dive into Sky Fortress or anything but I don’t think it should be immediately made available from the get go.

So I think the thing we both agree with is that there should be an item that causes the player holding it to receive damage from teammates, right?

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This is literally what I suggested, the person wanting to be hit takes an item giving them shocker status… lol

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Your first post suggests that FF should be on and the old AOE moves returned to their previous state. You then suggested adding a Telepathy item.

Also its been a long time since I’ve been afflicted with shocker status but I’m pretty sure it causes YOU to damage teammates. Not other way around.

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Yea i just double checked the wiki, shocker status causes the afflicted Pokemon to hurt teammates.

I think we both agree, its just the confusion on what “Shocker” status is caused us to argue. Which I apologize for.

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Well there are two solutions to it, make the moves hit allies as intended and give players the option to carry and item to circumvent it with telepathy (might not be the best option but it works)

or yea, the shocker themed item that makes the user take FF damage and making surf safe, (sorry i also haven’t been hit by a shocker in a while, I forgot it was allowing the user to hit allies rather than allowing allies to hit the user)

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Marking as ‘‘under-consideration’’ - so far we’ve changed two of the moves to not hit allies as you might’ve noticed - those moves are Sparkling Aria and Brutal Swing. We’ll be looking at options for the remaining moves in the meantime, as they still need some consideration.

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You should take consideration on “Telepathy” Ability, because that was the main purpose for those concerns.

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