We need documentation and patch notes. There are spur of the moment changes that the one changing things doesn’t seem to document, and the patch notes for the full updates are sparse to say the least.
Take for example when Kirk added cheri berries to 2019 anniversary hc near the end of it. It was uncertain for a while if he kept the antidotes in the item list or removed them, and other staff had to be notified of the change by players in-game (I think it was either slayer or pencil who noticed and asked, but it’s been a bit so my memory is foggy).
As for the “full” patch notes, the last patch had notes that only used 10 lines on the forum post. those patch notes are frankly embarrassing. the animation update in particular needed expounding upon, a system that changed the visual feel of just about every Pokemon in the game was explained in just 16 words.
That is unacceptable, as the system also added axis lock while the animation was playing, so when attacking, you couldn’t turn to prepare to attack the next target as quickly as you used to. this caused multiple stun locks that could have been prevented had players known why their characters weren’t turning.
I think that to reduce frustration and complaints in the community communication is essential. the fact that we rarely know what is changing in the game and have to go on hearsay shows a systematic issue with communication and documentation in the team itself. I’d love to get full patch notes for everything as I think that would decrease confusion and frustration. but for now I think each change just needs to be documented internally as they are made so that staff know what is happening and can work more cohesively.
I expect change to be slow, but the least the team could do is use a project board/planning application like trello. But as it is now these poor standards of communication are appalling to see in a team that is responsible for a code base, server, and community.
To add to this, credit needs to be documented. There are still so many sprites without credit, so much code without credit, so many resources without credit. It’s been a problem since, when I asked about who made which sprites, there’s moments where spriters themselves don’t even know where it came from. Heck, so many changes were silently made that whenever I hear a new change occurs, I always assume it’s a nerf or something negative. Having a bit more clarity on changes would highly benefit the playerbase since they’re the ones playing the game and would like to know what’s changed or not.
I can’t claim to know how things are behind the scenes, especially right now. However, from the perspective of a player it would definitely be preferable to not have to rely on word of mouth for information on things like balance changes.
While changelogs existing for major updates is definitely a step up from nothing, a lot of changes are never announced in any official capacity other than a staff member dropping it on global for anyone who happens to be there at the time. I am very much behind this changing.
Thank you for this post, you don’t understand how much I agree. Especially as a person editing the wiki as much as I do. I’d like to point out that It took a month for something new to be added to the In-game news. Not even the anniversary Holiday Cave was announced there. That’s something they could definitely be using for small patch notes, Kirk has done so before as well, with announcing the fix for moves making contact and Abilities relying on such, the 3 status healing moves, etc. Still though, more often than not I’ve seen and heard about moves being altered without any Indication at all.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ every time they added shinies to a dungeon Is a big example. Speaking of, shinies weren’t announced either ( so many people have come on being confused about shinies ), and I personally created the list of dungeons that have shinies. It shouldn’t be 70% up to the playerbase to document updates to each other and even the staff–the people who run the game. If It’s Information about a new dungeon/HC, then that’s justified. Andy once said In the Discord “there are always patch notes but half of all people don’t seem to read them”, but that first part simply Isn’t true… I’m definitely not trying to bash staff, but this has very well been a frustrating Issue, and I’d love to see PMU get more proper patch notes.
Oh boy. I’ve been around for so many stealth nerfs/buffs/changes/etc that I can’t even remember them all. As an example of a more recent stealth change that hasn’t already been brought up (@ the stealthy addition of shinies to various dungeons), did you know that Close Combat is now a 1-tile AoE attack instead of a 1-tile arc? I didn’t, until I randomly noticed it while flying to Tanren and looking at my Staraptor’s moves. Proper documentation for these sorts of spur-of-the-moment changes would be amazing, to say nothing of documentation for more major gameplay-affecting changes like the new animation system stopping you from turning until an attack’s animation is finished. (Although to be fair, I’m not sure if some of the staff even knew about this particular side effect of the animation system change until after the update launched, which is also an issue.) Actual patch notes would also help people coming back from a long hiatus be less confused about any changes that might’ve occurred while they were gone. I won’t go on for any longer about this, but as someone who plays this game pretty obsessively, more informative patch notes would be nice, you know?
I’m pretty much agree with most if not what all people have said so far.
The most recent update has to be the biggest offender when it comes undocumented changes like the battle system changing entirely. There’s more hitstun everytime you attack because there’s more frames and let me not even get into the speed boost changes, lol. To just describe this huge update in just one sentence, is actually hilariously questionable.
Also, I’m glad someone else touched on moves ranges getting randomly changed on the fly. I think there’s only one staff member (Kirk?) who changes moves without documenting it at all and I often find myself having to change movesets because of it. When I came back to the game off a hiatus someone changed rock tomb from a 2-Tile AoE to a 2-Tile Spray so I went into a dungeon without having an AoE on said pokemon.
Now the same thing is happening again where I have to change move slots/items because of the recent speed boost nerf and only realizing while i’m in a dungeon. Documentation of changes shouldn’t be a luxury for players, it should be mandatory imo. I had to change the way I dungeon/play the game a number of times because someone decided to make a drastic change …. and these changes weren’t documented? Sounds like PMU.
I think that’s a bit on the harsh side. Perhaps certain aspects of how the underlying sprite rework would impact general play could have been more directly explained, yes. But “hilariously questionable” is a bit overdramatic.
I know I used to change moves a lot in the past, that doesn’t happen really much anymore unless a move really needs to change.
I also used to make patch notes for each change in the past, I guess I could try to revive it (in a new thread), but it wouldn’t be just me to edit it for each Month. But I guess worth a try?
hi! former staff member. no idea what’s going on around the game, just lurking. i would argue it’s a good idea to enact some sort of changelog since this is a complaint that happened a few years ago. i remember communication being an issue in the past and this was kind of an effort in order to help remedy that.
recording changes like this should be pretty trivial outside the obvious tedium of continuously updating it, and documenting everything allows both staff and players know what exactly happened and when it did. best of luck!
I’m only really here to talk about the new anims for the Pokemon honestly, and I’m glad this topic goes over it. Though I did read everything else, and I don’t want to alliterate what everyone else has to say but I agree 100%.
The new anims… are a mess, not to be rude. I appreciate the hard work gone to them, but currently they just don’t do us any favours and as someone said before, gets us killed more frequent. I feel like it was pushed out far too early to try and make a significant change, which is fine, if it had actually worked a lot more fluent than it currently does. I really think things like that need testing more before you slot into an update.
The amount of times I’ve fainted due to not being able to turn, getting hitstun to death thanks to the frames, is ridiculous quite frankly. I wouldn’t go as far to call it “unacceptable”, but I understand where people come from when they say that, as it has made things just more difficult in the worse way possible. You get trapped between 2 Pokemon in a hallway and you can kiss a rev goodbye.
I wouldn’t be as bothered if they actually worked, but because they don’t, and in ugly fashion, it’s made me and a lot of other players frustrated.
Oh that explains why I faint so much since the update! I thought I had gone rusty. Yeah, the walking animations are much smoother now but it’s a bit odd how Pokemon move and jump around (I think they’re in a tile they aren’t because they leaned forward to attack).
Anyway, I fully agree with documentation. There should be a thread on the forum called “changelog” or something, or even a blog on the wiki. Something that is used consistently. We can’t have 25% of changes on the in-game news tab, another 25% on discord, another 25% on global and the rest word of mouth. Should be gathered in one place imo.
A lot of games these days either use their official website or a google docs sheet to catalog patch notes, I would love to see either a forum post with patch notes or a google docs, google docs, would almost be better, because all staff could edit the same post, and simply have it be a only view link for players.