Status Report and Mining Update

no one got my monaco pun last time so no jokes in the title

hi nerds. it is i.

a lot of you have been asking questions. questions like "is ame ok?" and "when's e19 coming out?" and "why hasn't there been a post in a while?" and "will gen 8 be in reborn?". 

i can help.

Q: Is Ame okay?
A: yes.

Q: When's e19 coming out?
A: eventually.

Q: Why hasn't there been a post in a while?
A: because the thing i actually want to talk about is battle tower, buuuuuuut it's kinda mind-numbing, so, like, maybe next month.

Q: Will Gen 8 be in Reborn?

A: ...look we gotta release e19 someday. 

...maybe i should go into the first two questions a little bit more.

Q: Is Ame okay?

ame is doing okay! she is made of pain, as one might expect from someone recovering from surgery, but she is definitely getting better. she can almost sit!

Q: When's e19 coming out?

e19 is gonna come out... when it does.

i realize that i have now given the same answer twice, so let me explain.

currently, the limiting factor on postgame is ame and i. we gotta make a whole postgame that is, like, actually fleshed out! and thoughtful! and boy that takes some effort.

now, you might ask, "but cass. the dog quests were basically finished in, like, a day! the rest of postgame can't take that long, can it?" to which i say au countraire, dear reader (in a radiant demonstration of my ability to google what french worlds mean). 

you see, we have only done early postgame. we haven't gotten to real postgame yet. early postgame is a bit less-involved compared to the stuff that is yet to come. and when it comes to late postgame, ame and I are currently made of busy. if ame were not dealing with the whole "surgery ow everything hurts" thing, she would be dealing with Starlight, which i'm gathering she'd really much rather work on. meanwhile, i have grad school. which is, itself, basically surgery. 

once she has a starlight demo out, we will be flying. probably. until then, quest stuff's gonna be a little slow.

in the meantime, though, i have some other mechanics updates! with a small amount of math.

kay, so, y'all know that mining thing? y'know, the infinite source of oval stones and iron balls?

well.

In a previous post, I vaguely hinted at the existence of new items by literally showing you pictures of them existing. well, there are new items! they're the evolution stones from the later gens. now you'll be able to get hot new items right after you beat shade. 

but wait, that's not all! i also took the opportunity to rebalance the item appearance rates.

you see, originally, the chance of finding a certain item was:

(drop chance) / 2924

2924 is a stupid number. anything involving the number 2924 become stupid as well. thus, this original drop chance formula is mega stupid.

so i fixed it. that bottom number is 500 now. 

here's how the item odds look after the tweaks:

Mining Probability Changes e18 > e19:
Type Plates: 0.34% > 0.4% (per plate)

Dome Fossil: 0.27% > 0.8%
Root Fossil: 0.27% > 0.8%
Claw Fossil: 0.27% > 0.8%
Skull Fossil: 0.27% > 0.8%
Armor Fossil: 0.27% > 0.8%
Helix Fossil: 0.55% > 1.2%

Fire Stone: 0.68% > 1.2%
Water Stone: 0.68% > 1.2%
Thunder Stone: 0.68% > 1.2%
Leaf Stone: 0.68% > 1.2%
Moon Stone: 0.68% > 1.2%
Sun Stone: 0.68% > 1.2%
Dusk Stone: 0% > 1.2%
Ice Stone: 0% > 1.2%
Dawn Stone: 0% > 1.2%
Shiny Stone: 0%> 1.2%
Oval Stone: 5.13% > 2%

Star Piece: 3.42% > 3%
Rare Bone: 3.42% > 2%
Light Clay: 3.42% > 2%
Icy Rock: 1.71% > 2%
Damp Rock: 1.71% > 2%
Smooth Rock: 1.71% > 2%
AmpField Rock: 0.34% > 1%
Everstone: 5.13% > 2%
Hard Stone: 6.84% > 2%
Iron Ball: 3.41% > 2%
Odd Keystone: 0.27% > 1%

Revive: 3.42% > 3%
Max Revive: 1.71% > 1%

Blue Shard: 8.55% > 8%
Red Shard: 8.55% > 8%
Green Shard: 8.55% > 8%
Purple Shard: 8.55% > 8%

Heart Scale: 10.6% > 17%

the big thing here is that the shitty stuff is less common, and the good stuff is more common.

this is especially the case for fossils, amplifield rocks, and odd keystones: they're all several times more common than they used to be. heart scales will also appear a lot more frequently since they tend to be easily missable. to compensate for this, some of the other items' percentages have been dropped, including the oval stone and the iron ball. they will be missed. by no one.

these item odds are subject to change during testing, but the point is that there are changes! woo! progress!

i don't know how to end this post. don't forget to click like and subscribe?