Secret rooms and the Trap Scarf

[Leostel]

@Andy

The team believes it reduces the challenge provided to the player at nearly no cost.

And most other held items “reduce the challenge provided to the player” at nearly no cost by giving the player some manner of advantage with no explicit downside. There is however an opportunity cost to choosing any specific item, as I believe Kaen just outlined nicely. To top it all off, the trap scarf, unlike nearly every other item in the game has a built-in downside already.

@Andy

We’re open to ideas on how to consider balancing the scarf, whether it involves the mechanics of the scarf itself or how it’s obtained and distributed.

Some I’ve personally heard – and bear in mind that doesn’t mean I condone any or all of them:

While I won’t pretend I’m not highly critical of all three of these, I greatly appreciate them being brought up for discussion rather than just quietly implemented out of the blue. I’ll address each individually.

@Andy

Making trip traps override the scarf

Trip traps probably deserve their own thread, but overall I think a case can be made for them being poorly implemented but kept in their current state to try and counteract the decreasing rarity of many held items. I’ve tried to have a have a conversation about this problem as a whole but unfortunately despite all my attempts that topic’s died in the water again.

@Andy

Preventing running while the trap scarf is held

This seems like an attempt to simply make the scarf 100% unviable. I’m not sure what else I can really say other than it seems hideously excessive.

@Andy

Giving the scarf a limited number of uses until it becomes “torn” and turns into a regular scarf (eg. 250 traps blocked, or 30 dungeon runs, etc)

This I believe represents a direction in the design philosophy of PMU (And by extension PMD) that I think we should be trying to move away from due to the game’s MMO status. I’d much rather items like the trap scarf be difficult to obtain but difficult to lose rather than easy to obtain and easy to lose with the same power level. This helps build a feeling of accomplishment and thus investment into the game, and is likely to help keep people playing so long as the core gameplay loop of PMU is intact (Being obtaining and training new pokemon)

Now, with all that out of the way, let’s talk about what I do agree is currently wrong with the trap scarf. As part of a larger problem regarding endgame item rarity, I can 100% agree it’s one of the items far too easy to obtain right now, and would totally back it being removed from the dark market and perhaps one of CC/SVD. (Preferably the latter, to give the former more reasons to be run despite its lack of exp) 200 ekop is maybe 1-2 runs of CS, so it’s definitely a bit bizarre an item on par with stuff like the tight belt and mobile scarf can be obtained so easily. (I touched on this subject in a more general sense in my other thread: The State of PMU's Economy - #4 by Flarey)

Once again though, I greatly appreciate being able to have this discussion at all.