January 2024 Overhaul Summary

 This section contains every change that occurred as a result of the January 2024 overhaul! Think of them as a sort of "patch notes" for the group as we head into this new era of Beyond the Sea!

With all the changes, it's possible that we may have missed a few things in these below notes as well as on updating the site's pages. Still, this serves as a hopefully mostly complete list of what you can expect going forwards!

The team appreciates everyone's patience with us as we start to try new things to make sure the future of the group is more sustainable. As this is a lot of differences, understand that we are heading into what you might call a "soft-Beta period" where systems will be subject to change as members try them out and potentially provide feedback on what we currently have.

The goal going forwards is to make the group less honed-in on the "gacha"-like elements, which were previously taking up people's time over developing their characters due to the intensely random nature of the way dungeons were handled. Instead, we hope that by providing these changes, running the group will be less of an overall strain on the mod team and that we can do more story-focused plots and events!

A preview of all the changes are provided in the Table of Contents just below!

❗ Important Updates

• There have been some changes in moderation! Scribble-Nebula, embea, JKDreamer, as well as Xenophilim and Minish-Mae are now your Branch Leaders! Yorick and dragon-heist have joined as new Helpers.

• DeviantART is no longer mandatory. We are attempting to move away from DA as a platform for group activities. The Discord will remain mandatory for members to join.

  • You are still free to host your art in the group's DA galleries! Just let us know when joining whether you want access to the group or not.

• The Grading Server is now an alternate gallery / archive. You are free to submit group works to the Grading Server if you would like to host your art there! As of the new grading updates however, you will not receive new threads for your rewards as before. (We are in the middle of updating that server in light of the overhaul!)

• Inquiries and new characters are now handled through tickets. Submitting characters will require you to send us a ticket via the #submit-a-ticket channel! Other topics are included as part of submitting tickets, but are not mandatory. If you want to express a private concern, go through a ticket! Otherwise, inquiries are still handled in #questions and #inventory!

• Luminous Springs and evolution checks are now handled through the official Discord. Check the #luminous-springs channel for more details.

📅 Group Schedule

• Holiday Hills months are unchanged. They will still happen in January, April, July, and October. The January 2024 Holiday Hills will be slightly delayed and run into February to compensate for the overhaul being in-progress!

  • Winter 2024 Holiday Hills will run from January 5th, the day of the re-opening, to February 6th with the extension period going until February 13th!

• Every other month (that is not Holiday Hills or Missions) will be a rest month. Unless there is an on-going event, those months will have no on-going activities and be for everyone to take a break!

• Monthly rollover times are now at 9am EST on the 1st of the month rather than at midnight. To accommodate the schedules of the mods, monthly updates will be pushed out at this new time. Times for extensions and the cut-off for submissions will stay at 12am EST on the 1st of the month however! 

💸 Earnings & Inventories

• The Poké gained from all art submissions have been adjusted. This includes animations and comics. Writing earnings are unchanged. To see every change, check the Earnings & Inventories section of the site.

• The Candy gained from all art and writing submissions have been adjusted. To see every change, check the current Holiday Hills Winter 2024.

  • Dungeon submission for Holiday Hills will now grant 50 Candy if it includes a shaded background, and 0 Candy if it is an unshaded background. For characters, you receive 50 Candy per character, up to a maximum of 7 characters shown per piece. Dungeons are still restricted to 4 player characters maximum however!

  • Writing submissions for Holiday Hills will now grant 150 Candy per 500 words written. There is no longer an upper cap on your Candy earnings for a single submission.

Inventory Tracking

• The group will still maintain the Master Inventories Sheet. All information will remain there and as up-to-date as possible! This includes things like updating team names, recruits, and items. This does mean that requests such as recruiting Pokemon from dungeons, changing your team name, or applying items/potions, etc. must still be done through the #inventory channel on the Discord.

  • Members are highly encouraged to keep their own records in case there are issues with the new systems we have in place that need correcting.

🎨 Grading & Submissions

• All submissions will now be self-graded and/or self-reported. Members of the mod team will no longer comment on pieces to grant Poke/Candy and roll recruits for you. Instead, this is now handled through the Dungeon Grader, the Daily Life & Tasks Grader, or by hand.

  • All results must be posted to the #grading-logs channel on the server – not the work itself if you don’t want to, but your earnings and a link to your work.

  • If you use the Graders, you do not need to post anything! Manually posting to the channel is only required if you decide to self-grade your work!

• Submissions for the group can be hosted wherever you choose. Be it DA, the Grading Server, toyhou.se, or any other site, you are free to host your work where you want. The only requirement now is that you grade your own work and report your results.

Why are we doing this?

As the group has grown, grading using the previously more complex systems could take up hours of a single grader’s time and the management of the inventory became tedious. It also ran the risk of burning out graders and mods due to how long it could take. Because of this, the mod team will no longer handle grading for submissions and instead members will have to calculate their own earnings.

However, the mod team will still be keeping a record of the members’ inventories and handling purchases, and so all grading must still be reported or made available to the mods in one way or another.

To deal with this, we have implemented features on the group site that will handle the grading for you and post your earnings and/or dungeon results for you with minimal hassle. If you prefer to do your grading by hand, that is totally fine too!

Grading Help & Self-Grading

There are two new features on the website to help with self-grading your work: the Dungeon Grader and the Daily Life & Tasks Grader.

Both of these web apps function as calculators as well as submission forms to make the grading process as painless as possible. For information on how to use them, see the linked pages on the site.

You do not need to use the Dungeon or Daily Life & Tasks Graders to submit your work, but you will need to post your earnings and/or dungeon results to the #grading-logs channel under the correct thread using a template.

Instructions on grading your own work are provided here for Dungeons and here for Daily Life & Tasks.

All graded submissions must be posted by one way or another into the #grading-logs channel under the correct thread(s). This channel is not a replacement for a gallery! Please do not post any images if you decide to post in here yourself! Some examples of what posts from the Graders look like are already provided under the threads. If you use the Graders, you do not need to worry about posting here yourself!

🌄 Dungeons

• Islands are no longer on a monthly rotation. Instead, they will be available at all times! All of them!

• Succeeding in dungeons is now 100%. You no longer have a chance to fail in a dungeon. This means that items that otherwise affected your chance to succeed are now deprecated.

• The chance of encountering a recruit is now 100%. You will automatically encounter a recruit upon completing a dungeon. The recruit that you encounter will still be randomized however, and items like Poke Radars may still be used.

• For completing a dungeon, participating characters will now earn between 1-5 levels. The number is randomly determined, and bonuses can be provided upon using the new Wonder Chest or Tera Orb items.

• All dungeon difficulties have been deprecated except for Heroic (80+) and Legendary (90+). Only characters of those minimum levels may venture into those dungeons! All other dungeons are now fair game for characters of any level!

• You will no longer find items when venturing through dungeons. Many of the items previously obtainable through dungeons have been deprecated. See Shops & Items for more.

• When recruiting a Pokemon from a dungeon, go through the #inventory channel and link to the submission post. These posts are effectively replacing a mod commenting on your work with your Poke rewards, recruit, levels gained, etc. However, the recruiting process remains the same. Link to the Discord post in the #inventory channel with your request to recruit a Pokemon to your team and the mods will confirm it for you!

• Potions and Juices have been shuffled around slightly! With the update to dungeons and potions, there are now at least 3 dungeons per Potion / Juice for you to explore!

New Dungeons

• The Profane Forum has been added to Skull Island. With the moving of Potions and Juices, this dungeon was added to provide a thematic place for you to find Fiendish Potions and other similar items! This is a Legendary (90+) dungeon.

• The Gourmet Buffet has been added to Sweetful Isle. With the moving of Potions and Juices, this dungeon was added to provide a thematic place for you to find Delight Potions and other similar items! This is a Legendary (90+) dungeon.

• The Everlasting Gardens have been added to Islands of the Colossus. With the moving of Potions and Juices, this dungeon was added to provide a thematic place for you to find Animal Potions and other similar items! This is a Legendary (90+) dungeon.

New Pokemon

• Paldean Wooper can now be found in the Devil's Bayou dungeon.

• Poltchageist can now be found in the Clouded Sanctuary and Knightfall dungeons. 

🛒 Shops & Items

Retired, Replaced, and Re-homed Items

• All evolutions items have been replaced by the new Evolution Crystal.

• Keys have been moved to the Moves & Abilities shop. They are no longer restricted to Agni & Edan’s Traveling Shop.

• The Seeds, Berries, Apples, & Orbs shop has been retired. The items offered at this shop no longer serve a purpose due to the changes to dungeons. This shop might return at a later date for events! All teams have been reimbursed for any items from this shop that were in their inventory at the time of the update.

• HMs have been retired as an individual item and are now included in the TM / TR / HM item. Additionally, HMs are no longer required to enter certain dungeons.

• Nature Mints have been retired. You are free to change your character’s nature to your heart’s content. However, be aware that if you plan to make larger changes to a character’s current personality, you will have to inform the mods beforehand so they can be looked over again! All teams have been reimbursed for any items from this shop that were in their inventory at the time of the update.

• The Team Name Change and Team Leader Swap items have been retired. However, you will still need to inform the mods via the #inventory channel or by sending in a ticket when you wish to change your team’s name and/or change your leader(s)! The cooldown for these items remains in effect as well. All teams have been reimbursed for any items from this shop that were in their inventory at the time of the update.

  • You must wait 3 months before you change your team’s name or leader(s) again. To change either, you must have been in the group for at least 1 month.

• The Team Retirement item has been (ironically) retired. And it’s been replaced! All teams have been reimbursed for any items from this shop that were in their inventory at the time of the update.

• Glittery and Shiny Boxes have been retired. The Deluxe Box has had its possible rewards changed and will no longer be available to find in dungeons.

Reduced Prices

• Heart Scales and Move Tutors are now 1,500p.

• Mythical Recruit Slots are now 50,000p.

• NPC to PC Swap is now 10,000p.

• Tera Shards are now 3,000p.

Updated Uses for Items

• Gijinka Form Change no longer has a maximum of 2 uses per character. The item is a one-time use for each purchase, but you are no longer restricted to only being allowed to use it twice ever!

New Items

• Evolution Crystal (5,000p). Rather than specific items needed for evolving characters, any Pokemon that requires an item to evolve can now do so using this item. All teams that had evolution items have had them consolidated into this item as of the update.

• Team Vacation Pass (price varies). This item replaces the former Team Retirement item. You can find more information on it here.

🌠 Monthly Items

• Golden Mask now allows you to choose your recruit upon completing a dungeon. Can only be used once per month and cannot stack with a Wishing Star from the same team!

• Wishing Star now allows you to choose a Potion upon completing a Legendary (90+) difficulty dungeon. Can only be used once per month and cannot stack with a Golden Mask from the same team!

• Lost Loot now allows you to gain an additional 5000 Poké upon completing a dungeon. Can only be used once per month.

• Wonder Chest now allows your team’s characters to gain an additional 5 levels upon completing a dungeon. Can only be used once per month and cannot stack with a Tera Orb from the same team!

• Tera Orb now allows your team’s characters to gain an additional 10 levels upon completing a dungeon. Can only be used once per month and cannot stack with a Wonder Chest from the same team!

• Mega Stones and Z-Crystals no longer provide additional benefits. As we are doing away with the chance to fail at dungeons and because these items used to provide bonuses to your success, they are now purely cosmetic items that can be purchased from the Traveling Shop. All teams with these items have had them moved out of their main inventory and into their Player Shop Inventories.

⭐ Teams

• Ranks have been removed to simplify the process of ranking up. The ranks for teams are now as follows:

  • Rookie: 0-2 RP

  • Bronze: 3-5 RP

  • Silver: 6-8 RP

  • Gold: 9-11 RP

  • Platinum: 12-14 RP

  • Diamond: 15-17 RP

  • Ace: 18-20 RP

  • Master: 21+ RP

• Some ranks will now grant additional benefits.

  • At Gold Rank for your latest team, you will be able to purchase your next team.

  • At Platinum Rank, you can buy Paradox Slots.

  • At Diamond Rank, you can buy Mythical Slots.

Ranking Up

• To rank up your team, you must acquire a total of 3 Rank Points. Now, upon completing the missions for your team’s branch during a mission period, you receive 1 RP. Completing missions that are not from your team’s branch will net you ½ of a stamp.

  • This means that to rank up during a mission period, you must complete all 3 of your branch’s missions.

  • You can gain an additional rank up during a mission period by completing all 9 of the available missions and by doing collabs for the other branches’ missions.

• A new Big-Ticket Item available during Holiday Hills will grant you one full rank-up. It will cost the same as other Big-Ticket Items and the same restrictions apply to it as the other Big-Ticket items.

Acquiring New Teams

The requirements for gaining an additional team have been changed. They are now as follows:

• Your first team’s leader(s) must be level 100.

• Your first team must be at least Gold Rank.

• Buying the appropriate team item; 25,000p for second team and 50,000p for third team.

• The level and rank requirements will be needed for your second team when you want to buy your third, and your third when you want to buy your fourth!

🐣 Characters... with Children!

Characters are now allowed to have or adopt children! There are different requirements between different couples which can be found below.

Pregnancies

Your character or couple can have a child every 3 months in real-time.

This wait time is not indicative of canon. Your character could have been pregnant for 9 months canonically but OOC, as long as you’ve purchased the item and waited the 3 months, you can have kids.

After the couple has a child, you must wait another 3 months before you can have another.

Characters in Relationships

For couples, you must post a minimum of 2 collab pieces of your characters preparing to raise a child together. This can be RPs, collabs, or anything that might show how they’re getting ready for parenthood. These cannot be dungeons.

For married characters, you must wait 3 months real-life after being married before you can bring a child into the group.

Unmarried Couples & Adopting

For single parents adopting, you must post a minimum of 4 pieces of your couple/future-parent preparing to raise a child. This can be RPs, collabs, or anything that might show how they’re getting ready for parenthood. These cannot be dungeons.

Once You Meet the Requirements

• After fulfilling the requirements for your couple/parent, let the mods know that your characters would like to adopt or have a child.

• Give a brief description of the child! Adopted children can be anywhere between 0 and 15 years old.

• One member can purchase the item or involved members can share the costs, and then one person will submit an NPC app for the child.

• Once approved, you’re good to go!

🔮 Potions

• Recruits from Holiday Hills may now be reverted to their non-Potion designs and/or have other Potions used on them. Once 3 months have passed since the Holiday Hills event where you acquired them (not from when you recruit them to your team properly), you may change the recruit’s design.

• Astral Potion is unchanged. Changes to the rest of the Potions list are listed below, but this one is the same!

• Monster Juice is (mostly) unchanged. It is now inclusive of designs that involve living constructs. The general rule of avoiding overpowered abilities and god-modding still apply.

• There's new art for the potions! Drawn by new Branch Leader Scribble-Nebula on the new page! Go check them out!!

Deprecated Potions

The following Potions are no longer available and have been replaced or combined into other Potion Variants that suit their respective themes.

• Festive Potion (including Lunar New Year Potion). Included in the new “Seasonal Potion”.

• Springy Potion. Included in the new “Seasonal Potion”.

• Summery Potion. Included in the new “Seasonal Potion”.

• Spooky Potion. Included in the new “Seasonal Potion” as well as the new “Horror Potion”.

• Melodic Potion. Included in the new “Artsy Potion”.

• Ancient Potion. Included in the new “Paradox Potion”.

• Future Potion. Included in the new “Paradox Potion”.

• Destruction Potion. Included in the new “Paradox Potion”.

• Lazy Potion. Included in the new “Playful Potion”.

• Silent Potion. Included in the new “Horror Potion”.

• Solemn Potion. Included in the new “Horror Potion”.

Renamed Potions

The following Potions have had their names changed in light of loosening restrictions on designs and/or now-deprecated Potions being combined into one. The previous themes for these Potions remain the same, but some now have additional interpretations.

• Delight Potion. Previously “Sugary Potion”. It is now inclusive of all foods.

• Ethereal Potion. Previously “Angelic Potion”. It is no longer restricted to only angel-like designs and aesthetics.

• Fiendish Potion. Previously “Demonic Potion”. It is no longer restricted to only demon-like designs and aesthetics.

• Crystalline Juice. Previously “Crystalline Potion”. This can now be applied to characters that have already had a Potion used on them.

• Glowlight Juice. Previously “Glowlight Potion”. This can now be applied to characters that have already had a Potion used on them.

New Potions & Revamps

• Paradox Potion. Previously split between “Future Potion”, “Ancient Potion”, and “Destruction Potion”. This Potion is now inclusive of both the ancient past (including ancient civilizations) and the distant future (including potential apocalyptic/dystopian futures). Designs made with this Potion may also include futuristic cybernetics, steampunk aesthetics, and anything to do with a specific time period in mind.

• Playful Potion. This Potion takes the sleepytime vibes of “Lazy Potion” and combines it with the more playful parts of the “Happy Potion”. Designs with this Potion encompass themes and aesthetics such as patchwork, toys and plushies, cheeriness, pajamas, and sleepiness.

• Happy Potion. This Potion has been changed to relate to themes and aesthetics such as circuses, jesters, Alice in Wonderland, and perpetual cheeriness. It’s a light-hearted kind of vibe!

• Horror Potion. Previously split between “Spooky Potion”, “Silent Potion”, “Solemn Potion”, and the unsettling aspects of the former “Happy Potion”. It includes designs relating to horror and all things scary.

• Artsy Potion. As a replacement for “Melodic Potion”, this Potion involves all things art-related. This may include music, theater, arts, crafts, film, and abstract and unique aesthetics that may rely on shapes, colors, patterns, and more.

• Seasonal Potion. Previously split between “Festive Potion”, “Springy Potion”, “Summery Potion”, and “Spooky Potion”. It is used for designs with seasonal, nature, or otherwise holiday aesthetics. This includes animals with seasonal or holiday associations (for example, reindeer and rabbits).

• Animal Potion. This Potion allows designs that are largely based on real-world animals. Though this is a catch-all for all animals, a Seasonal Potion may also be used in its place if the animal has a particular seasonal/festive association.