Earthquake and Petal Blizzard were changed to not strike allies a long time ago, but surf currently still hits friendly targets.
As-is, water types aren’t exactly all that powerful. Could Surf be changed to work like the above now do?
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there’s other moves like muddy water and 1-2 more iirc that do the same thing with slightly less power
Would be a good change. Discharge and Earthquake don’t hurt teammates either, I don’t quite understand why Surf is the only AOE move that still harms allies. I get that it’s relativity available since it’s an HM but it’s just not that powerful of a move, it misses often enough for it to be balanced.
@Chrollo, yes Muddy Water doesn’t hurt allies but it’s distribution is pretty limited. Also it has the same base power of Surf, it has even less accuracy.
EDIT: To add on another more personal reason, training alone is boring. Nearly everyone feels that way, when I want to train my Politoed with other players I have to get rid of it’s Surf which greatly hinders how much of a help I am to my team. I just feel like a dead weight leech because by the time I get to enemies to hit them with a Scald they’re already KO’d by my teammate’s AOE move.
While if I want to carry Surf I just can’t ally with teammates all because it’ll kill them in a few hits.
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I fully agree, I cannot use surf in parties and it is really useful. I think it was the right decision to remove friendly from other moves. This is an MMORPG so gameplay should encourage players to team up. Water is the second most common type and almost all of them can learn surf, the most reliable water aoe.
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The issue is, moves like that have team mate benifits too, ie water absorb.
Now the problem is, some of these moves should hit allies again, provided we had an item that can protect you from ally attacks.
But then there is another issue, say we did that, and even if there’s an item, with the guild system it could still kill others.
The downside again if NPCs spam these ally hitting aoes, they kill nearby Pokémon as well, including potencial rare recruit spawns…
In general it has to be decided, weather we want to go full force with any move that should hit ‘anyone’
Or just remove them all together.
Moves if certain ones hit allies, have uses with certain abilities like Flash Fire, Volt Absorb, Lightning Rod, Water Absorb, etc etc, and Globes/Family Items.
So if we ever removed all ally hitting damage moves, How would you propose these abilties be utilized in a team work effort?
Would you want an Item to make ally moves hurt you if held?
In general I would like some more thoughts on this.
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While I think that is nice you can help allies out with certain abilities, or even yourself if the Pokemon using Surf has Storm Drain I think that’s fairly niche. More often that not you’re going to have scenarios where you damage teammates rather than find someone who is immune to the damage. You could make that argument for Discharge, with how some allies could potentially benefit from Volt Absorb or Pokemon with Lightning Rod could boost themselves. Yet that’s not the case since it doesn’t damage allies.
The proposition of an item negating friendly fire is interesting but the issue of enemies potentially KOing recruits is concerning (Infact, IIRC back when EQ did hit allies I remember complaints about Larvitar dying to EQ in Mt.Barr)
As far as all the abilities you mentioned, I’m not quite sure. I always keep my Raichu with me and I’ve generally felt like Lightning Rod was under whelming when I’m by myself, though it is useful when I’m with some other players and lightning rod protects them from any damage.
I think abilities like Lightning Rod & Storm Drain (ones that “redirect” attacks to the Pokemon and get a boost) are perfectly usable when dungeoning with other players. Unless maybe they were changed to always be active, and simply having the Pokemon with you grants your team an immunity to those attacks (But that seems pretty broken in my own opinion, but that could just be me).
Though given how Surf is the most common move that hits allies (and Sparkling Aria for that matter) and both are water type moves. I think the two abilities that are affected the most are Storm Drain, Dry Skin, Water Absorb, and ect. While stuff like Flash Fire doesn’t get affected that much, I can’t think of any fire type moves that hurt allies.
Also in my own experience enemies generally still use attacks that my own Pokemon are immune to, using Politoed in water dungeons I’ll still be targeted by Water moves frequently and get healed often enough.
Personally in my opinion, I think the abilities are fine as they are right now. Though I’m not entirely against changing them for the better. Here are just some ideas for the abilities though.
- Abilities that “redirect” attacks work even when the Pokemon isn’t active (this seems a bit OP in my opinion)
- All the ones that require the Pokemon to be hit by the move without redirecting it work when inactive. (So e.g I have Raichu out, it’s hit by a water type move, such as a teammate’s Surf. While Politoed is inactive at 50%, it gets healed but Raichu still takes damage)
Again, I don’t really think the abilities need to be changed, though I guess I’m just bad at thinking of alternative ideas. Though, I do like the idea of an item that allows allies moves to hurt you. It makes both parties of players happy (those who want to avoid the damage, and those who want to synergize moves and abilities). If that’s the case would it be a team held item or a bag item?
Kirk, that’s a very interesting point, I had forgotten about the benefits of being hit by teammates. You are right, we should also encourage players to utilise this.
I suggest all moves do NOT hit allies by default, and adding an item that allows you to be hit by teammates. This will protect novice players. I believe that the majority of players do not want friendly fire, only a minority will. But it’s good if both options are there. This way everyone will be happy?
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The reverse-Telepathy Item seems like a good Idea. If It were to become real with friendly fire moves no longer hitting allies, It should be a bag or team Item. Having to ditch any real useful held Items just to utilize your abilities would kinda suck.
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I believe the main purpose of such abilities is more to shield allies from dangerous attacks than allow them to be healed/boosted by friendly fire. This is already quite useful on its own, I don’t think these abilities need any help.
Now, Telepathy is an exception. However, due to PMU playing in realtime, trying to coordinate with teammates to do anything creative with it is likely to end in someone getting nailed just as they switch. And while forcing an ability to need a rework may not be ideal, with the addition of monster houses a few years back the game is being balanced around a player having access to some manner of AoE, clearly, because even with a slumber orb not having a big AoE in a monster house is a run-ender. (Monster houses may actually be flawed mechanically in my opinion though, admittedly. But I digress)
One idea that comes to mind for a Telepathy rework is to let it give nearby allies a medium chance to completely evade an enemy’s attack.
I have to disagree here, unless it was made a bag item which there is zero precedent for outside of the Lens of Truth.
Forcing players to sacrifice 1 of 4 now very hotly contested held item slots to run in most parties sounds like the last thing I’d like to see done, it will only deincentivize players from running in parties and push them to solo dungeons instead. (Which is what moves like surf do now, and the old EQ definitely did)
I touched on this a bit in another thread aimed at discussing the guild dungeon meetup system, but bumping into a guildmate and accidentally killing their party members really shouldn’t be a thing. As I’m about to get to, I’d rather just see the removal of friendly fire entirely.
I agree. This is definitely a problem with Surf and Magnitude right now.
As I’ve been building to above, I’m firmly in the “remove them altogether” camp. While in the main series, you have full control over multiple pokemon, having some moves with the drawback of hitting your allies makes sense. It allows you to do things like coordinate protect use, or ensure a pokemon with immunity to the move in question is going to be staying or switched in that turn. However, in PMU and even PMD, you either control the friendly-fire user or the allied victim, not both. Coordination then becomes a lot harder and it’s usually just considered extremely poor etiquette to bring a move like Surf to any party runs. Not to mention both PMD and PMU handle type-based immunity differently than the maingames, and you’ll still deal chip damage to flying types with EQ etc. (Which makes sense for a dungeon crawler IMO, as it results in less situations where a level 100 Sandlsash or something has trouble in low-level dungeons)
Overall, I’d prefer all hostile moves simply do not damage other players outside of the arena, period. Even if the guild system brings you into contact with people who aren’t in your guild due to their choice of party. While that may require going off the rails a little with Telepathy, one ability isn’t worth maintaining a flawed mechanic.
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So pretty much, you all want an item that is a reverse telepathy instead (bag item)? And have no moves hit allies. Granted we can always ultilize Shocker Traps more.
We could If enemies didn’t have to step on traps first If that’s still a thing 
Yes, I agree. No friendly fire would have a number of benefits, and still give players the option to be hit if they want to.
That sounds like the best route to go down. The increase of Shocker Traps would be a nice little thing to watch out for while exploring so it’s not that easy.
I’m bumping this thread because I think surf getting changed to not hit allies is long over due.
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I think if it comes down to preserving a niche gimmick vs making surf usable for training with team mates, the choice would be straightforward.
Yes, it sucks that we can’t use lava plume + flash fire with team mates, but it beats not being able to use lava plume at all because I am too scared to hit my team mate.
I feel like the same reasoning should apply to surf, yes we would be losing the ability to run 2x water absorb 2x surf dungeon party; but surf would be much more usable if it is changed to not hit allies in general, and I think a lot of people would prefer that.
Alternatively, abilities such as water absorb/flash fire/motor/etc drive could be changed, so that if they are within range of an ally using any move of the type that triggers them (regardless of if it hits allies or not), e.g if a pikachu (with lightning rod) is within 2 tiles of an allied Lapras using thunderbolt, they would get a special attack boost. Of course that idea has many balance flaws attached to it, I imagine running through a dungeon like TC fire, or SF fire where pokemon are spamming heat wave and giving each other boosts would be a nightmare, but I still think it’s worth thinking about.
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The idea about switching off all friendly fire and allowing it only through a special item was very good. I do not understand why it was dropped.
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My thoughts exactly. Unlike Muddy Water, Surf can be learned by plenty more mons. It would help certain mons in terms of AoE moves if it didn’t target allies.
I also agree with this. If people want to be hit by these moves for certain abilities, then an item would be a good solution.
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Bumping this thread. I still would like to see this changed.
I agree with it being changed. I get that it may be a little unbalanced having no moves that are usually friendly fire to being safe, but Surf is literally one out of 2 water type moves that have a decent AoE range. (Of course the other being Muddy Water).
I don’t want to alliterate others however, not many water types can learn Muddy Water compared to those who can learn Surf. So it’s quite a pain if the other water type can’t learn muddy water, lol.