I do not agree, i have been in many dungeons with my friends, to train, that even i haven’t beaten. I think the whole thing should have been left alone… :sad:
Edited my original post, added some points.
Incidentally, the edit covers this.
Well, congratulations, we officially don’t have dragging anymore- great work, you’ve literally fixed 100% of PMU’s issues with this thread, I’m so proud.
But really.
The removal of dragging is a big mistake in my opinion- not only was it removed suddenly with no warning or prior knowledge, it was also done without any sort of official vote where the players of PMU, new and old, could come to a general consensus on the issue. It just seems really unfair and I’m certain it’s going to cause an uproar when more people find out about it.
The new players asking to be dragged is hardly an issue.This is nothing new and has been going on before dragging was even a concept- new players asking more experienced players for help is a tradition that’s been around since the very first MMO, and removing dragging as a whole is NOT going to change this, and never will.
Of course people want help- these dungeons are actually pretty difficult if you’re low on supplies or pokemon with a good type advantage, not to mention how awful and jarring Digglet’s Arena Trap ability is in tandem with hordes of Zubat’s Supersonic, they have every right to ask for help.
That being said, asking for help =/= asking to be dragged. Sometimes asking for help means getting someone of a similar level to come in the dungeon with you so you two can beat it together- if someone DOES drag the person requesting help, its entirely their choice and you should respect that. There’s no such thing as a non-consensual dragging session because everyone, dragger and draggee is in on it.
Don’t even get me started on how this is going to affect the higher leveled players and dungeons like TC and HT because that is literally an entire thread in itself.
All in all, the basis of this thread is petty and it absolutely should not have resulted in the removal of the dragging system.
I agree with Pivot, removing the dragging system was highly unnecessary. Especially with no warning like that. Whether or not new players are getting help shouldn’t really be that big of a concern either, yes I understand they are missing out on doing things themselves but if people want to help them and the players want help why not let them ? As Pivot stated, the dragger knows that they are dragging and it really is a choice to drag.
I dont understand why it was taken out completely. You can choose to or be dragged. Dragging doesnt harm anyone it is just something people do to help each other out.
It has never been the point. Your sarcasm is unappreciated.
It’s not mentioned on this thread, but I raised that point when dragging method was removed.
Of course people want help- these dungeons are actually pretty difficult if you’re low on supplies or pokemon with a good type advantage, not to mention how awful and jarring Digglet’s Arena Trap ability is in tandem with hordes of Zubat’s Supersonic, they have every right to ask for help. [/quote]
Oh please. It IS supposed to be hard for new players, and that’s why they should train rather than ask for help with their level 16s. That said, there’s this thing called “planning”. Of course rushing through the dungeon blindly would get you killed. Roguelike games are all about planning and managing.
However, there’s this side called “developers”. Something tells me they don’t want people skipping difficulty, especially with what’s happened.
HT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE PEOPLE BEING DRAGGED IN IT. The very dungeon itself is supposed to symbolize teamwork. People have been doing it without any dragging done for a long time, and with time, HT became more and more easy with all the new moves, Pokemon and mechanics in general. Complaining about not being able to get dragged in a dungeon like this is just a child’s whim.
Petty? Go play farming games if you don’t want any challenge in a game whatsoever. Just because people don’t want everybody to have access to disc one nukes, or rather, in this case, disc one antimatter, doesn’t make the basis petty. The thread wasn’t the reason, it’s been considered for a long time now. It is the catalysis at most, if even that, so does it even matter?
Yeah let’s plan for a dungeon that’s totally random every time and has glitch spasms and the like, let’s lay down a spreadsheet because we obviously know where every trap, enemy and set of stairs are placed.
Outside of preparing properly , there’s not much one can do to “plan” a dungeon, you think every TC or HT run goes as planned or something?
While I do agree that people who try to take on cliffside the second their level hits the double digits is silly, it doesn’t change the fact that these new players are still new and would like and appreciate guidance. Your defense of “I did it by myself so therefor everyone should do the same” is flimsy.
Getting help is a vital part of PMU, I don’t go to Mt. Barr alone, I ask my guild friends to come with me and we all leave the dungeon better for it. If you rob new players of that experience, they’re likely not going to come back and the PMU community just becomes a gaggle of players who’ve been around for years and boss the newbies around.
“Skipping difficulty” is giving it too much credit.
You’re acting as if the one being dragged also gets 100% of the items dropped, gets to recruit high leveled pokemon, and all the Exp as the one doing the dragging.
(Hint- they don’t) Eventually, they’re going to need to do some grinding, that’s common sense. Helping that one new Charmander user to evolve into a Charmelon isn’t like handing them 50,000 Poke and 10 Reviver seeds, if anything, its giving them more incentive to hit the next level, to keep training so they can reach their goal of Charizard. When the dragging session is over, there’s still work to be done, if you can’t see that I’m not sure what to tell you.
How can you call my viewpoint a child’s whim and proceed to say everyone should play PMU the way you want?
One of the things I enjoy about this MMO is the freedom of it. As soon as I got my Azumarill I dropped my ugly Luxray and crafted a new team around my favorite pokemon because I had the choice. The same applies to dragging, everyone has a choice in the whole thing, removing that choice because you say so is plain laughable. (You also ignored TC, which really IS an entirely different topic)
Where are you even getting this from
Name me one person who’s flown up the ranks because someone took them to TC so they could get a fossil pokemon
To make a long post short, this whole thread can be compared to an old man yelling at teenagers “Back in MY day, we had to do a dungeon solo, with no grace period after a unit fainted!!”
Just
stop.
The dragging system is down for now and we all have to deal with it.
But either way, I do suggest this, if they get rid of it completely.
In-Order to be dragged, you have to do the certain dungeon that you want to be dragged through first in-order to be dragged.
Not for HT, of course.
So you’re basically saying that you should be able to beat things on the first try? That’s absurd. For the dungeon, the least preparation you can do is bring something to counter things like poison and confusion (which are themselves prevented by Pecha and Persim Scarves). Or atleast healing items like Oran Berries, Heal Seeds (they are actually sold by Kecleon.) You can easily check if there’s a trap by pressing F in front of the tile. I’m not saying that you should do that all the time, but it’s a good thing to keep in mind. After all of this, you lose? Then you should’ve learned something, so that you can prepare even better for dungeons. As for “not much one can do to plan a dungeon”… Roguelike games were out there since 1980. Try telling all the players that it’s impossible to plan forward. This sounds especially ridiculous if you consider item management.
What defense? That was an answer to Mico, no more. Now you’re just ripping things out of context.
Nobody bosses newbies around… And I never said they shouldn’t be helped. I’m only saying that they should do something on their own, and that’s as small as beating a few dungeons. There are still a lot of ways to help a newbie in need, but, like I said, some things should be done on your own. Actually, they’re robbing themselves of the experience of getting important things using their own strength.
Perhaps, but there are milestones for things. If you want to evolve, you’ve got to earn it. And to do so, you have to train yourself to levels expected by design or employ a tactic to bypass that. In other words, you have to work to earn goods.
There’s freedom for general things that don’t have a specific goal. Then there are things that were specifically designed to follow an idea. HT is one of the latter ones. And I never said dragging is a bad thing and should be removed. You just threw that in this topic.
“TC is an entirely different topic, and that’s precisely why you shouldn’t have ignored it.” Right.
Again, I never said anything about dragging being bad in general. Where are you getting this from?
You’re free to ignore this thread. Dragging was never supposed to make things like this, apparent by its removal. I myself am against this but some complaints are just absurd. If you don’t like it, you’re free to ignore the thread. You’re the one complaining about everything here, I only raised a point of bad design.
A.K.A. what I’ve suggested first. Please pay attention to what people say to avoid repeating stuff.
[quote=“Pivi”]
Yeah let’s plan for a dungeon that’s totally random every time and has glitch spasms and the like, let’s lay down a spreadsheet because we obviously know where every trap, enemy and set of stairs are placed.
Outside of preparing properly , there’s not much one can do to “plan” a dungeon, you think every TC or HT run goes as planned or something?
While I do agree that people who try to take on cliffside the second their level hits the double digits is silly, it doesn’t change the fact that these new players are still new and would like and appreciate guidance. Your defense of “I did it by myself so therefor everyone should do the same” is flimsy.
Getting help is a vital part of PMU, I don’t go to Mt. Barr alone, I ask my guild friends to come with me and we all leave the dungeon better for it. If you rob new players of that experience, they’re likely not going to come back and the PMU community just becomes a gaggle of players who’ve been around for years and boss the newbies around.[/quote]
Ok sure you cannot plan for the layout of the dungeon or the traps, but I think that what ArtMax means is that you can plan by getting the necessary supplies as well as pokemon or levels. If you bring supplies needed then it wont matter if you have to take longer because of traps or the layout of the dungeon. And you can plan by leveling up pokemon that have an advantage there. Level up a water or grass type and you wont have to worry so much about the lag or the glitches.
[quote=“Pivi”]
“Skipping difficulty” is giving it too much credit.
You’re acting as if the one being dragged also gets 100% of the items dropped, gets to recruit high leveled pokemon, and all the Exp as the one doing the dragging.
(Hint- they don’t) Eventually, they’re going to need to do some grinding, that’s common sense. Helping that one new Charmander user to evolve into a Charmelon isn’t like handing them 50,000 Poke and 10 Reviver seeds, if anything, its giving them more incentive to hit the next level, to keep training so they can reach their goal of Charizard. When the dragging session is over, there’s still work to be done, if you can’t see that I’m not sure what to tell you.[/quote]
Sure you don’t give them the levels but you do make the game in itself easier for them. There will still be work that they have to do, but why must they do it later when they can do it before. If they were to do the hard work in their own, maybe they would be strong enough, or prepared enough, to be able to beat the dungeon that they are aiming for.
[quote=“Pivi”]
How can you call my viewpoint a child’s whim and proceed to say everyone should play PMU the way you want?
One of the things I enjoy about this MMO is the freedom of it. As soon as I got my Azumarill I dropped my ugly Luxray and crafted a new team around my favorite pokemon because I had the choice. The same applies to dragging, everyone has a choice in the whole thing, removing that choice because you say so is plain laughable. (You also ignored TC, which really IS an entirely different topic)[/quote]
Yes, everyone has a choice in the matter of dragging, but the result IS making the game easier. If you drag someone to get a item just to make the game easier, then there really is no challenge or fun to the game. The choice also was NOT removed because of only his opinion, many people thought the same thing that he did and it was already considered before this.
[quote=“Pivi”]
Where are you even getting this from
Name me one person who’s flown up the ranks because someone took them to TC so they could get a fossil pokemon
To make a long post short, this whole thread can be compared to an old man yelling at teenagers “Back in MY day, we had to do a dungeon solo, with no grace period after a unit fainted!!”
Just
stop.[/quote]
Maybe they haven’t leveled or flown up in the ranks because of a fossil pokemon, but what about the other items? The items that help your training or even the TM’s which give you moves you usually have to work for. Your post is basically saying “We want this game to be easier with no challenge!”
I didn’t mind when my friends dragged me in Crystal Ruins. We first tried, even though we beat it I didn’t recruit the pokemon I wanted. So we retried. I purposely brought my weakest lv so I could be dragged to the floors when the pokemon I wanted appeared.
I do agree that dragging should not be used to beat a dungeon and/or get an HM. I do however have a different suggestion that probably won’t be used. Allow dragging but disable the rewards for those who are dragged.
If you were dragged from floor 1 to your revival after the boss, you should not be allowed to any missions from that dungeon or any special rewards like fly from skylift. Once you do beat the dungeon, then you get the rewards. If the dungeon is too tough (excluding TC & PBA), then train and get supplies until you do clear it. Some of you might be saying, What if you were dragged halfway through or for a couple of floors? I guess, disable the rewards only if you were dragged halfway or greater. Yes, this would mean the devs and scripters would have more work on there hands and yes this would mean a couple more bugs.
There can also be an imbalance. One player gets dragged 5 floors and revives while someone else gets dragged 5 floors. Now that i think about this suggestion of mine, its getting confusing. If anyone else wants to take a shot at it, your more then welcome to
It would be really nice if this topic didn’t turn into a flame war… Regardless, allow me to clarify why dragging has been disabled for the time being.
First of all, this may or may not be a permanent thing while we discuss the system… This was never an initial feature to PMU7, and it was a test feature at best. We put in this system for a specific reason: So that players in parties could still progress through a dungeon even when a party member was fainted… Also keep in mind, this system was first made “Before” items like Revive (the item that revives all fainted party members on a floor to half of their health, but restores no PP) and Max Revive (similar to Revive, but instead restores full health and PP), among other party items… If anything, this system was to make Harmonic Tower a bit less devastating if you lost a party member who ran out of revival items (and again, this was before there were items that could revive fainted party members… Your only real choices to revive at that point in time were Reviver Seeds), because then your whole attempt would practically be for nothing if you managed to lose one person… But that was part of the challenge.
We didn’t make this system for high level players to carry others through dungeons so that they can reap the item rewards and rare recruits… Or, like this topic is originally implying, skipping required content…
In it’s current state, the dragging system is flawed, and it promotes laziness… Like I also stated, this was “Not” a feature that was released with PMU7. It didn’t show up until well after Harmonic Tower was released, so before then players didn’t have the liberty to be dragged through dungeons… If you went into a dungeon, you had to be prepared with items, and to play carefully. If you died, tough luck… Any dungeon other than harmonic tower “Can” be done solo… Dungeons like Tanren Chambers may be hard on your own, but it is also MEANT to be harder if you go with a party too. The dungeon has limited supplies for a reason: the more people you bring, the more you are going to have to share your supplies that you obtain in the dungeon. This was made to be part of the challenge of the dungeon… The dungeon itself becomes a bit easier, but in turn you are going to run out of supplies quicker. Allowing one person to drag up to three other people through Tanren Chambers voids that mechanic ENTIRELY.
I should also mention the fact that players are easily skipping required content, getting to the harder dungeons at a quicker rate… And then we start getting complaints that there aren’t enough dungeons, when people are skipping things that are made to be a challenge. I’m not implying Dragging is the main source of people skipping things like Sauna and Cliffside, but it is a problem… Especially when specific players are exploiting the dragging system to give out Tablets… Granted, a high level player could still run someone through a dungeon without having to drag them, but at least the low level player still has to try to stay alive at that rate.
Players had to live without this system before… It won’t kill anyone if we take it away for a bit while we rethink the system. Long story short, we are not contempt with how the dragging system is currently being used by the playerbase. We are disabling dragging until we can agree on restrictions to it, or to rework the system entirely… For now, everyone is going to have to play like they had to before this system was made (and if you weren’t around when the dragging system didn’t exist, now you can see what it was like a bit pre-Tanren Chambers).
If you can’t complete a dungeon without being dragged, you probably shouldn’t be attempting that dungeon until you are a little more prepared for it (better typing, decent supplies, a good level, decent moves, etc…)
But what about Harmonic Tower?
What"re you going to do for that then?
I mean, you said dragging was to make it “less devastating”
which fair enough, is true.
But now that it"s been removed, Harmonic Tower will become so hard…
Unless you have/thinking of a back up idea?
Yes, but Harmonic Tower was like this prior to the dragging system being made. Again, the system isn’t gone forever, but it will be disabled until we figure out what to do with it… (Also keeping in mind, Harmonic Tower was “Never” impossible without the dragging system either. Like Art had mentioned, Harmonic Tower has become a lot easier over the last couple years)
Again, players were forced to live without it in the past, you can live without it for the time being.
Yatterman you stated that Dragging promotes laziness, The person who is the dragger can choose if he wants to drag people and the same goes for the person that is getting dragged… Its a choice!! its not laziness… But honestly it doesnt harm anyone it doesnt put anyone down its there for someone to get the item that they want really bad i feel taking this away from the community was a bad mistake
I remember reading this thread the other day, and I would have never thought that it would escalate to so many posts until I saw a post about the dragging system being removed. It seems like threads in the suggestions section that talk about nerfing an advantage players have in a game are the only threads taken into account, while the suggestions that have really good ideas just dwindle on everyone’s head, never to be implemented or at least that’s how I see it.
Back on topic, I hope that the dragging system gets changed to what blazingninetales stated in his post. I remember the other day someone who’s highest level was 33 was asking me to help him tget a fossil. I don’t want to come off as a mean person, but on the other side of the token, dragging that person shortens the gameplay for him/her. There’s a line between helping someone or just doing everything for the person.
P.s. Sorry if anything I said was said already. Don’t feel like reading over 30 posts.
Edit: I just hope this nerf doesn’t follow the same road as the exp system. Where it took over a year to actually have a compromise for it.
That isn’t quite the point I am trying to make though, Mico… Sure, both parties have a choice not to do it. But like I said, the way dragging currently works and how players have been using it, the system isn’t working as we intended it to work. It is still promoting taking a lazy route on the part of the person(s) being dragged. The important point overall is that the mechanic was not meant to be used this way in the first place… If you want an item from a dungeon (let’s use Fossils in TC for example), you should be able to get it on your own means, not ride off of someone else just to obtain it. It defeats the purpose of putting these items in challenging places if people aren’t going to do the challenge to get them in the first place.
This was actually something in discussion for the last few weeks, prior to this suggestion being posted. The original suggestion didn’t have much mention of dragging in the first place either. We haven’t been happy with how the dragging system was being used in general, and have been thinking of fixing that issue for the past two - three weeks. So it was already something in discussion for a little while now.
Besides, this system isn’t even that old. Dungeons can still be completed without it, and the only real thing that even gets hurt by it is Harmonic Tower (which really isn’t too bad, since party revival items do exist). For the time being, if your party members fainting in a dungeon really concerns you, stalk up on revival methods that can revive your allies. It seems the only argument for it is that people want items, and they would rather get carried through a dungeon instead of obtaining them on their own means.
Yatter, I have an alternate perspective for you.
There are three main notes I have with the overall design of PMU. This all mostly pertains to difficulty and reaching “checkpoints” of progress.
Novel Version:
- The game is not turn based, meaning that many of the mistakes that can happen in seconds (landing in a monster house), lack any chance for the players to recover. This normally end in death or large losses. It would require a major re-haul and organization of monster areas, where people can spawn, how items are used, etc. before a non turn-based PMD can address that. And no, fixing lag wouldn"t change it either.
Now alone, this is all fine, except for the following points:
- Later dungeons require a treasure"s worth of $$$ to progress through AND/OR many many hours of grinding (which can cost money in and of itself).
- The punishment for losing is absolutely devastating, and 99% of the time you will lose anything with ANY value. This is meant for turn-based gameplay, but obviously PMU is not turn-based.
I feel that people are defending dragging in a way because it is/was a layer of safety from that difficulty spike. The people who are not defending dragging probably somewhat like that challenge. Nothing is wrong with either viewpoint.
But here is where the problem arises: For the most part, by removing dragging and making no other changes, you"ve suddenly “hurt” casual players. Staff choices for how PMU is designed are becoming punishingly hard to where, in my opinion, the only way to win is by playing this all day to get somewhere. I know the game"s age group is younger so many can have that time, but for some people it simply isn"t an option OR they don"t enjoy grinding much at all but still want to feel like they are getting somewhere. (I used to have time for all this before the rollback, but that"s not something I"m too bothered about. Though the rollback is another example of features that only reward/compensate those who can always play the game or really focus only on grinding. :P)
The result is that casual/social players fail or grind over and over and over again without actually feeling like they accomplish anything. Well, after a certain point.
Regardless, without a sense of reward, or at least a feeling of progression, people get frustrated and again, suddenly you"ve “hurt” the casual/social group and gave a hand to the “battle/grind” focused players, essentially beginning to divide part of the community. It really doesn"t help when members of the “battle” group call the “Casual/Social” group negative names (eg: lazy) and then push for purely anti-casual game mechanics. When challenged on retaining those mechanics, the Battle group simply tells the Casual/Social group that the solution is to not be Casual/Social in the first place. (AKA the “Just train more/Stop being lazy” argument I"ve seen 5 times already in this topic.) But see, the issue is that this is all being blamed on dragging and not the actual problem.
“Well then. What is that problem,” you ask? Simply said, dragging made reaching checkpoints faster. In other words, the reason staff removed it is the exact reason people wanted it to stay. This is because there is another problem unrelated to dragging that Yatter actually blamed it for: Lack of checkpoints. (For clarity, story or lootworthy dungeons = checkpoints.) You say people are moving through the story/loot dungeons too quickly, but in reality there simply are not enough steps to the story. There are not enough notches in this cog for the gears to turn without stuttering or slipping, and for many of us Dragging was an oil that made the gears turn more smoothly. The side-effect? Fast-forwarding through motions that were painful for some, but staff consider a necessary part of the game. This means half of the people here aren"t finding pieces of what is supposed to be “fun” actually fun. The other half, the Battle/Grind half, do like those parts. Staff also “like” those parts simply because it is content that slows down player"s progress. The result? Instead of waiting until both could be given a boost through more content, staff resorted to removing dragging. Essentially, staff have sided with the Battle/Grind group while offering nothing “fun” in return for the Social/Casual group…which is why people are upset in the first place, even if they aren"t thinking that far ahead and just immediately see it as “Now I can"t do HT. :(”
Stretching out the grinding/attempts/etc between each meaningful dungeon does not make up for a lack of progress checkpoints. Leveling at middle levels (40-50+) tends to go on for a bit too long before we can finally challenge and get over something else, which I"d bet is one of the STRONGER reasons people keep asking for more dungeons. Are staff trying to do that? Yes. Honeydew Meadow is an example of it. But it"s still pretty sparse.
There are many unique, interesting and/or good design choices in PMD, they"re just spread too far apart. I and others do not agree with staff"s choice because Dragging eased the symptom of this central issue. Staff and other players do not like HOW dragging eased it, and for legitimate reason. Issue is, that central concern has not been addressed enough yet. If it had been, or if Dragging"s removal was delayed until it had been, this would not be a major deal to begin with.
Shorter Version:
-Players want or even need to feel like they are making progress or accomplishing something. For ALL MMOs, especially for a casual franchise like pokemon, not all players will be heavily focused on overcoming difficulty or grinding a lot. Some might prefer to socialize or simply don"t have the time. However, all players will want to feel like they are accomplishing something.
-There are too few steps in between dungeons that give progress or noteable loot.
-Because of this, there can be a lot of difficulty between each dungeon as the progress is more jarring than steady for some places.
-Obviously the Casual/Social/Etc players have a hard time feeling like they are accomplishing something due to the difficulty/jarring dungeon setup.
-Dragging helped these less challenge-focused players progress more smoothly/experience accomplishment.
–Because not everyone is casual, the mostly Challenge-focused players didn"t like HOW dragging helped casual players progress, and are fine with PMU not having it. Staff also did not like how dragging worked.
-Dragging is removed and even blamed for the fact that there is not enough content to support anything except focused grinding.
-The Community that used Dragging to experience achievement disagree with its removal, and for also valid reasons but ones that are hard to express because the actual issue is buried so deeply (resulting in the “now I can"t HT :(” arguement).
(Edited for typos, clarity and organization)
What i dont understand is why are people acting as if the entire Party System itself was removed when it was only dragging.
If 2 or more players attempt a dungeon and both are decently leveled then there will be no need to drag one another. If the need to drag a player comes into the situation then there is an easy solution to that; dont do that dungeon, train in a lower level dungeon until you are strong enough to go in again.
I’m just saying, but… The steps aren’t THAT painful. Surely you have to train a bit, but it’s not as bad as it seems. Until level 50, you can gain 2-3 levels per, say, Skylift run if you just kill everything on farther floors. (for example, 16-18F of Skylift is a good starting point) Before Sauna, there are dungeons like HDM for you to train in. Level 30 should be sufficient for Sauna if you play smart, and you can achieve it in a short time, so…