What's the point of the kid in front of the ice cream machine in Obsidia?

[dondon151]

E15 slightly altered the overworld weather mechanics and it's become more tedious to manipulate sunny weather so that I can buy ice creams from the vendor outside the Great Hall. So I remembered that the candy store had an ice cream vendor, except there's a kid standing in front of it complaining that he doesn't have enough money for the machine, and supposedly the only way to get rid of him is... to manipulate sunny weather and buy an ice cream. You can't just give him money for some reason.

Also, does the machine sell the item one at a time or in bulk? Because if it's the former, while it makes more sense, there's not much functional point to it.

(In any case I need a reliable way to buy Berry Ice Creams or Lemonades or Moomoo Milk in bulk before Ultra Potions start showing up in marts and I'm not sure what's faster and easier than manipulating the ice cream vendor to show up.)

Edited July 1, 2015 by dondon151

[Autumneverlast]

Yes, there's a point. To provide an event so that getting a Vanillite isn't just an easy one-touch win event. Perhaps the kid's mother told him not to accept money from strangers, though ice cream is okay. But meh. It isn't a fantastically well though out event anyway.

The vending machine is one-at-a-time, by the way.

[AuthorReborn]

The only reasons to use the vending machines are a- to get Vanillite and b- to be able to buy more ice cream on days that aren't sunny. A can be useful, but B is far more so as these healing items will be far stronger than 90% of the other healing items present until Spinel Town.

[Lord Drakyle]

What if they made it the boy HAS the Vanilite and will trade an Ice Cream for it?

[dondon151]

The point is that I think it's rather dumb to have an event that requires you to buy an ice cream on a sunny day so that you can buy ice cream on non-sunny days. There are a whole bunch of different ways to do the Vanillite event (just one for example is that Vanillite will only appear from the machine on sunny days because it's hiding from the hot weather or something) and free up the ice cream machine on normal days.

While the concept of the ice cream vendor appearing only on sunny days is flavorful, the problem is that she sells such a strong item for a certain part in the game where there are no good alternatives - the long period in the game where Super Potions don't heal enough HP and Ultra Potions aren't buyable. So everyone should want to manipulate the ice cream vendor to appear if Berry Ice Creams aren't obtainable via any other method. I also have qualms with not being able to buy in bulk from vending machines because the only reason to implement that restriction is to waste the player's time.

Edited July 2, 2015 by dondon151

[Amethyst]

Aside from that for a moment, E15 didn't change weather at all aside from the graphic for wind; what makes you think it did? In any case, nothing is designed with the expectation that people will manipulate weather, and restricting major access to the ice cream is one of the ways few I have to make the early game feel different through different playthroughs aside from just pokemon availability.

Vending machines don't sell bulk in-game because vending machines don't sell bulk IRL. Or in Pokemon games for that, matter.

[dondon151]

Aside from that for a moment, E15 didn't change weather at all aside from the graphic for wind; what makes you think it did?

Kurotsune made a post about how the weather system was changed in the Dev Blog subforum. It's harder to manipulate weather if it doesn't appear in the weather forecast.

Edited July 3, 2015 by dondon151

[Fumble]

Kurotsune made a post about how the weather system was changed in the Dev Blog subforum. It's harder to manipulate weather if it doesn't appear in the weather forecast.

Actually, that is something planned for E16 or another future update, not E15.