4th Gen Honey Trees

[Sheep]

In DPPt, you could slather Honey Trees with honey. This would eventually entice some Pokémon to visit the tree if you return after some time.

Did you ever make use of this feature? What did you think of the wait times?

 

[FakeNate0]

Yes, but the wait times and munchlax encounter rates were annoying. They should've programmed it so a Pokemon is attracted to the honey slathered tree per hour. Should've also made munchlax rates higher, I mean just catch a Snorlax from another game and breed it with pure incense for the munchlax egg is easier.

 

[Devalue]

Used them a little. Eh. Offered too low of a payout for the wait time. Stands a 53% chance of getting a Wurmple, Silcoon/Cascoon, or nothing from a standard tree. Probably spread out the honey trees enough to the point of being a pain to do more than a couple. (Cannot remember locations offhand.)

 

[giradialkia]

As was the style at the time, it was horribly tedious and poorly explained in-game. I absolutely used it, and was even lucky enough to get a Heracross and Munchlax from time to time. It's a fun concept, it was just made a bit too awkward with the wait times and spawn rates. Furthermore, I shouldn't have been encountering the likes of the Wurmple line. 6 hours for the standard gen 3 bug (which is also freely encountered in Eterna Forest) is unacceptable.

 

[Zeostar]

I smear them in hopes of finding the elusive munchlax.

It's never happened, but I have found heracross.

 

[Explorer of Time]

I've used them in exactly one playthrough, my current one, to catch a Heracross. I got lucky encountering him, but he was very stressful to catch since I know their encounter rates are really low.

 

[Setsuna]

I did actually end up finding and catching my honey tree Munchlax by accident, and I have a note on my computer of what honey tree it was in my save. It was just pure luck and I'm happy I'm able to say that I have that knowledge.

I think the honey trees were a really cool mechanic, but the wait times were pretty rough for Pokemon that were not often worth the wait. I don't think things like Wormadam and Vespiquen are bad, it's just that most of the time you're only going to be getting them because they're so common. Things like Heracross, Munchlax, or maybe even Aipom are what you'd probably want and having to wait several hours just to find another Combee is really discouraging.
It's a great idea that wasn't implemented very well. If Honey allowed you to find a Pokemon on a tree instantly, but were a lot more expensive or hard to find, I think it'd make it a lot more tolerable, and give you reason to at least value catching one Combee for Honey Gather. Having more variety on different trees in different parts of the region or maybe even an increased shiny chance would've made them feel a lot more dynamic than simply "wait several hours for Burmy."