Monthly Pokemon location & feedback about general clarity

[MindBeams]

Hello! I am new to the site, and enjoying it so far.

I was wondering if anyone could clarify to me where, exactly, you find the special monthly Pokémon, like the Thunderstorm Emolga, for example. The announcement forum post does not seem terribly clear about it.

As an extension of this, the biggest thing I can see holding the Adoptables experience back is how obfuscated and unclear so many things are. In no particular order, here are some observations about this:

• As stated, where do you find the monthly Pokémon? If it appears as an egg, how am I supposed to know which egg contains it, since the eggs' descriptions are meant to be vague?

• I found an old amber and used it, but it was very unclear what was supposed to happen next. I had expected an egg, but no egg with a description of Aerodactyl appeared. A while later I discovered that it appeared randomly, and with no visible indication that this was the egg I'd been looking for. If I hadn't known that the old amber was associated with Aerodactyl in the games, or hadn't been familiar with it enough to recognize the egg description, there would have been no way for me to know to grab it. Why does the old amber not just give you the egg?

• Your inventory being hidden in your public profile page, as opposed to being accessible with a menu option, is inconvenient. But what's worse, at least on mobile there doesn't seem to be any indication about what my items are for, or how they can be used. Oftentimes I'll pick up an item and have no idea what it is or what to do with it.

• Some mechanics, like how interacting with Pokémon of certain types has a chance to give you soot, or how you can find a specific Pokemon to interact with from the Pokedex, are not mentioned anywhere, as far as I can see, and you just have to stumble across them or find a user whose status mentions it.

Overall I think the site suffers from not seeing fit to mention all the relevant information, and from making certain things harder to access than they ought to be.

(Also, on an unrelated note, does this site impose rate limiting? I find that the time it takes to load the next Pokémon to interact with varies dramatically; I'll have a few minutes of almost instant loading, but then it'll start taking almost two full seconds between Pokémon, and I'll have to give up and try again later.)

Anyway, I do think this is a very fun site and I'm glad I found it!

[Slix]

Welcome to Poliwager! I hope I can help clarify some of your questions for you.

I was wondering if anyone could clarify to me where, exactly, you find the special monthly Pokémon, like the Thunderstorm Emolga, for example. The announcement forum post does not seem terribly clear about it.

As an extension of this, the biggest thing I can see holding the Adoptables experience back is how obfuscated and unclear so many things are. In no particular order, here are some observations about this:

• As stated, where do you find the monthly Pokémon? If it appears as an egg, how am I supposed to know which egg contains it, since the eggs' descriptions are meant to be vague?

For Pokémon such as Thunderstorm Emolga that appear during a certain time of the year, they are announced in the monthly event topic, and they will appear randomly alongside the other eggs on the Adopt Page (Poliwager Adoptables' main page, where you adopt eggs). They will appear throughout the month (or day, or weekend, depending on the event). Special event Pokémon usually have egg descriptions that are pretty clear which Pokémon they are referring to, but egg descriptions are typically not shared to help keep some mystery and randomness on the site (but you'll learn more of them as you play more!).

• I found an old amber and used it, but it was very unclear what was supposed to happen next. I had expected an egg, but no egg with a description of Aerodactyl appeared. A while later I discovered that it appeared randomly, and with no visible indication that this was the egg I'd been looking for. If I hadn't known that the old amber was associated with Aerodactyl in the games, or hadn't been familiar with it enough to recognize the egg description, there would have been no way for me to know to grab it. Why does the old amber not just give you the egg?

When you use a Summoning Item, the egg appears randomly alongside the other eggs that are available to adopt on the Adopt Page. The reason that items like this do not just give you the egg is because you would need an open egg slot when you used the item, and some people prefer to use them during certain events (like Community Weekend) and adopt them later. As with the previous point, this also encourages you to find the egg yourself and see the egg description as you find it.

• Your inventory being hidden in your public profile page, as opposed to being accessible with a menu option, is inconvenient. But what's worse, at least on mobile there doesn't seem to be any indication about what my items are for, or how they can be used. Oftentimes I'll pick up an item and have no idea what it is or what to do with it.

This is a complaint/suggestion I have gotten from others in the past too. For many items, you can view them by going to the Poké Mart, and see their descriptions there. For items that cannot be sold, such as Zygarde Cubes, they usually have a different use around the site (sometimes you have to discover it yourself). I have not added a separate inventory page up until now because the Poké Mart does that essentially, but perhaps it would be beneficial to add items you cannot sell to that page as well on the "Sell" section, without the ability to actually sell them. I just don't want to have two pages that do the same thing on the site (show your items), and I don't know what option would be better, honestly. I'll keep this in mind.

• Some mechanics, like how interacting with Pokémon of certain types has a chance to give you soot, or how you can find a specific Pokemon to interact with from the Pokedex, are not mentioned anywhere, as far as I can see, and you just have to stumble across them or find a user whose status mentions it.

Like many other things on the site, not everything is spelled out for you, and that's partially by design! Exploration is one of the things I hope that people do on the site, and having specific features like how to obtain more Soot be a surprise is one way I encourage that.

Overall I think the site suffers from not seeing fit to mention all the relevant information, and from making certain things harder to access than they ought to be.

If you haven't yet, perhaps you can check out the Poliwager Wiki. This is a user-created Wiki that has information about the site that isn't always written directly on the site, but that other users have discovered. Peruse at your own risk, if you like to be surprised! If you would rather get all the info right out of the gate, take a look at what other members have found already and added to the Wiki, and feel free to add your own info if you have something that isn't on there.

(Also, on an unrelated note, does this site impose rate limiting? I find that the time it takes to load the next Pokémon to interact with varies dramatically; I'll have a few minutes of almost instant loading, but then it'll start taking almost two full seconds between Pokémon, and I'll have to give up and try again later.)

Anyway, I do think this is a very fun site and I'm glad I found it!

As for rate limiting, no, the site does not impose any rate limits. However, some "clickbacks" are slower to low due to how it grabs the next Pokémon in the list, unfortunately. Notably, as of right now, "Click the next online Pokémon" once you've reached the "Active Pokémon" in the list is slower than some other "clickbacks", such as your Pal Pad. As with any website, occasionally there are some hiccups and the site is just slower to load here and there depending on traffic to the site and your internet speeds.

I'm glad you're enjoying Poliwager so far! Thank you for the detailed questions and thoughts! I always appreciate users that take the time to give their feedback, and I try to put improvements into place based on suggestions. If you have more thoughts or questions, please don't hesitate to ask!