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Pokémon GO
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QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
I've become very fond of the phrase "fuck around and find out" lately and this seems a perfect time for it
Mine is "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes".
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Meh, too PG-13 for me.
I think this would win the award for the most obvious consequence of the last decade.
I cannot believe noone at the higher ranks didn't see that coming.
And it'll only get worse as time passes
I wish I could relocate a meme that was Pokemon "Fuck Around" and Pokemon "Find Out" versions.
As for the Go news itself, I understand Niantic already wasn't particularly popular amongst the Go playerbase BEFORE this change, due to content feeling stagnant, exploitative, or too thin depending on who you asked.
I also just don't know what they were expecting to accomplish with the Remote Raid changes. Besides the curtailing "sit at home and buy passes to raid there" crowd (which included individuals with very busy schedules or disabilities), there was also the "I go out but don't run into enough local raiders" crowd that would invite people in and vice versa. I fell into the latter because there are maybe half-a-dozen people I know who play actively enough to raid with, and I don't see them in person any more consistently than "some community/raid day events". Meanwhile I have a lot of friends in online communities who I would invite to Legendary raids we could do with small numbers while we were out by ourselves for lunch or something.
It also feels like there's a ripple effect they didn't think about before making this decision. If people don't raid as often, then it's going to reduce engagement on several fronts: not buying passes if secure wins aren't likely; less raiding means they're going to overall lose out on resource income (Rare Candies, the Raid bosses themselves, healing items for any battling mechanic); Less resources to raise things entails less ability to participate in raids in a self-perpetuating spiral; less raiding also means one less drive to go out to play the game (at least for the purpose of playing it), so less location data; people going out less will be hunting Pokemon for PvP less, so that engagement's gonna drop in some degree (not to mention, again, less resources to build PvP teams with).
Niantic didn't consider the fact that in a F2P game of this nature, other players are content in their own right for people to engage with, so cutting any form through which they engage will hurt the entire experience directly or indirectly. The question for me at this point is if they care, as there's a tinfoil hat theory I'm increasingly considering that they don't understand the role the Pokemon IP played in the game's nature/success compared to their many other AR games, or they actively want to be able to shutter this game in favor of an IP that they get a bigger cut of.
Champion Leon
Banned deucer.
The reason to play, in my eyes, are limited to daily catch bonuses, spin bonuses, and collecting coins to save for a raid remote pass, and events like Community Day.
I don't even bother with using in-person raid passes, unless its a good 3-star raid, or a rare 1-star raid for something like Dratini.
I also think that people are blowing it out of proportion - remember, there was a whole year before raiding even existed.
They made $250 M on Sponsors alone in the 1st year: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...77baadeb1c93&usg=AOvVaw18J96IBYmYacuqM2N4CPkW
I don't even bother with using in-person raid passes, unless its a good 3-star raid, or a rare 1-star raid for something like Dratini.
I also think that people are blowing it out of proportion - remember, there was a whole year before raiding even existed.
They made $250 M on Sponsors alone in the 1st year: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...77baadeb1c93&usg=AOvVaw18J96IBYmYacuqM2N4CPkW
One version where you have an open world you get to do whatever in, and the story takes a back seat; and one version where you're spoon-fed the story and there's little to do except sit there and mash the A button? Sounds like Scarlet/Violet and Sword/Shield, respectively.
I think it's a bit of all, to be honest.
Pokémon Go has reached a sort of "end-game state" for many players: they have high-IV Pokémon of most species, all the 'mons they feasibly need to defeat Gyms and play PVE, and those who bother with PVP have the most relevant battlers all powered up and ready. Long-time players have mostly complete collections for all practical purposes. What's left to find is an occasional 100% 'mon or Shiny here or there, or optimal PVP IVs/moves on some key battlers, but those are bonuses to be stumbled across and not goals to be played toward. Whenever anything new drops, the gameplay becomes a scramble to get a good-IV Pokémon of that species, then the steady end-game state is resumed until the next content drop. That is a bit stagnant. There's a steady stream of new content, but the gameplay around it remains the same.
Niantic seems to address this by trying to delay players from reaching the end-game state, rather than extending the end-game in a meaningful way. New Pokémon families are released one at a time, with their evolution often locked behind a thick layer of tedium. Certain old Pokémon are made unreasonably rare or taken out of the spawn pool for extended periods of time (For instance: Wooloo was last available more than two years ago). Despite hundreds of Pokémon being available in the game, spawn diversity remains largely limited to a small pool of crapmons, to make the rest rarer by comparison. And quality-of-life features are dialled down so players make meaningful progression at an ever slower rate. All to delay the day they find there's nothing left to strive for in the game, rather than introducing something new for the players to do when they reach that point. There's the thin-ness you're talking about.
And exploitative? That stems from the need to use premium features to make progression. New collectables or PVP 'mons being limited to Eggs or Raids that are only available for a short time, for instance. Gotta grind like crazy to find what you're looking for while it's available, and that requires paid items. Niantic also seems to really want players to get out and play, presumably because that creates more valuable location data to sell, hence the Remote Pass nerf.
But all of these features add up to make the game seem less fun. The new hurdles drive players away, with fewer players it's less attractive to be a "whale" (or invested community member, I guess), and there's less left to build a community around ... which makes the game even less fun again. I think the game needs an overhaul Niantic is not willing to make, a touch of novelty that gives even long-term players something to do. I think the game still has plenty of potential to be fun, but then they must find something to engage with instead of just throwing hurdles in the players' way to prevent them from reaching a boring state too quickly.
Briefly bringing this thread back from the dead to say the Shadow event seems pretty demanding (3*'s are very tight Solos without a lot of Purified Gems) considering this is probably going to be an infrequent/once-a-season type of occurrence. Given these things outright forbid Remotes and are also supposed to be how you get the Purified Shards to self-sustain Gems, I don't get how this is going to reinvigorate raiding when the mechanic isn't very approachable except for practiced players. Silph Road Reddit indicates that Shadow Raids seem to have slightly higher stats/HP than normal Raids of their equivalent difficulty, so besides harder Solos, odds are the Trio-able normal Mewtwo is going to take a 4th or 5th for Shadow unless everyone has a stack of Gems and major Psychic Counters.
People working standard Day Jobs aren't exactly gonna be able to run to a location for crowds, so this effectively means most Rural or even Suburban players are going to be limited to soloing 1*'s (which admittedly include some useful things like potential Shadow Shiny Beldum and Machop) and then hoping their local hot spot, if any, turns out people for the Mewtwo Weekend (and that there is either an overwhelming enough group or that enough of the players came prepared with Purified Gems for smaller groups).
People working standard Day Jobs aren't exactly gonna be able to run to a location for crowds, so this effectively means most Rural or even Suburban players are going to be limited to soloing 1*'s (which admittedly include some useful things like potential Shadow Shiny Beldum and Machop) and then hoping their local hot spot, if any, turns out people for the Mewtwo Weekend (and that there is either an overwhelming enough group or that enough of the players came prepared with Purified Gems for smaller groups).
(2 weeks without a post is dead...? :P)
You also get shadow shards from fighting grunts and leaders. I got 3 from Cliff's balloon this morning and 1 from a regular grunt balloon, which is enough for one purified gem. So people should at least be able to farm up a few gems ahead of the Mewtwo weekend. Not sure how many gems will be enough, though... hopefully Mewtwo also gives a bunch of shards when beaten so that the first raid or two don't just deplete everyone's gem stock. We'll see how this weekend goes, I guess.
You also get shadow shards from fighting grunts and leaders. I got 3 from Cliff's balloon this morning and 1 from a regular grunt balloon, which is enough for one purified gem. So people should at least be able to farm up a few gems ahead of the Mewtwo weekend. Not sure how many gems will be enough, though... hopefully Mewtwo also gives a bunch of shards when beaten so that the first raid or two don't just deplete everyone's gem stock. We'll see how this weekend goes, I guess.
(For supposedly the biggest Mobile game and one receiving regular updates it's longer than I'd assume)
I did forget to mention grunts and Leaders (apparently Giovanni also gives 3 if for some reason you use a Radar on him for Regice). You bring up the potential for Mewtwo to drop a few or a lot, which was more my concern in mentioning Raids since they will probably use gems up faster than you replenish, which will further slow down people with a group trying to do a bunch of Mewtwo raids (likely, since it's the highest value "raid time" we've had short of the Go Tour Primal spam and you'll want to do it while you have a group already for the in-person only).
Reading Silph Road experiences, people report the 3* raids dropping 5-7 Shards (so 1.5-2 Gems on average). Assuming you have Level 30's/40's and Mega/Primal stuff, this should be self-sustaining even if you have to use one Gem per 3* (Sneasel is a doable solo, the Johto Starters are very tight without Gems), the Enrage cutting damage but as much as 50-75% while active if not gemmed it seems.
To be fair a lot of threads here go through periods of inactivity; Masters & Unite are still kicking and doing well for themselves but virtually no one here especially cares to talk about them a lot.
The Go thread is probably far more active a thread than anything that's not the Annoyance, Mysteries or Things you Like threads!
So as someone who doesn't play Go, what's the context on the Gems/Shards and why those are a problem. Sounds like there's some damage multiplier issues?
The Go thread is probably far more active a thread than anything that's not the Annoyance, Mysteries or Things you Like threads!
So as someone who doesn't play Go, what's the context on the Gems/Shards and why those are a problem. Sounds like there's some damage multiplier issues?
The raid bosses go into a "frenzied" state where they have boosted attack and reduced damage taken bonuses, the gems are supposed to be a way to counteract this, but you need 5 shards to make one gem, and Mewtwo is a tight raid to take on even with those from what i understand due to being local only and people generally not having super large communities to take them on
Not sure on exact multipliers (only shadow raid i've been able to do is a Machop which doesnt have the frenzy mechanic) but Mewtwo is normally a difficult 3 man raid to start
Mex mostly covers it, so I'll make some minor clarifications/corrections.
1 Gem = 4 Shards, Trainers can use up to 5 Gems (consumable) on a Raid boss, so depending on how large they WANT Mewtwo Raid groups to be (given Shadow Mewtwo is unequivocally the strongest Single Pokemon you can invest in outside of limited-time/uptime stuff like Megas and Primals) that may bode for needing a lot of Gems to do a Shadow Mewtwo Raid depending on your sheer player count.
Shadow Raids don't allow you to use Remote Raid passes, so you also must be raiding with a group that is present at the site and time of the Shadow Raid Boss (you will see the Egg 1 Hour in advance and then the boss itself is present for 45 minutes after hatching), so a bit specific even when hanging around Gym Hotspots, and either means needing active "strangers" to play with or friends willing to come out to the location for it (possible for Mewtwo, less so for the lower Rarity raids mentioned).
It's essentially compounding the controversy the Remote Raid Pass price-hike brought up (now that they're not an option on these as opposed to just more expensive), that being that Raids, the main endgame, are extremely inaccessible for people in Rural areas without large local communities (which hasn't been much the case since like 2018-19, and certainly not since COVID when such QoL was implemented). It stings for a lot of people as well because Shadow Pokemon in Go are a major power boost (either expensive-but-stronger as Shadows or quick-and-cheaper ways to get high level and higher IV Pokemon when purified), so the inaccessibility to Shadow Raids is going to widen the power gap between top and bottom end, rather than narrow it down any.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
So the London social group announced that they were meeting to do some Mewtwo raids at 10am in the centre of the city. I had an appointment a couple of hours after that and some other errands to run so figured yeah, why not join for a bit before heading off.
Ho-leee crap. At least 200 people turned up. We walked from gym to gym and it was a big snaking column of people stretching back through the streets - I was able to find a handful of people I knew, which was pleasant, but the general vibe of the event was really friendly so it wouldn't have mattered too much if I hadn't. I have a couple of accounts and had saved passes from the previous day as well as having numerous green passes so ultimately ended up staying longer than I anticipated and did about 10 raids in total - only got one shiny (on my main account) though sadly my baby account still doesn't have a decent Mewtwo. Ah well. The 6/6/6 threshold sucks but when you consider that even a 0/0/0 shadow Mewtwo is better than a regular one it doesn't matter that much - if I'd caught a 6/6/6 shiny I'd have been happy with that.
Every lobby had 20 people pretty much straight away and raids rarely took more than a quarter of the timer. We didn't even really need the purification gems as with 20 people you pretty much brute-force through the buffed defences. A couple of people did get shundos - one person in my small group got a 13/13/13 shiny. I expect he'll end up purifying as the temptation is just too great.
The atmosphere was insane, I don't think any PoGo event I've been to has had that many people and that much excitement.
Niantic, take note. This is how you get people to come out and play IRL. It's called incentive.
Ho-leee crap. At least 200 people turned up. We walked from gym to gym and it was a big snaking column of people stretching back through the streets - I was able to find a handful of people I knew, which was pleasant, but the general vibe of the event was really friendly so it wouldn't have mattered too much if I hadn't. I have a couple of accounts and had saved passes from the previous day as well as having numerous green passes so ultimately ended up staying longer than I anticipated and did about 10 raids in total - only got one shiny (on my main account) though sadly my baby account still doesn't have a decent Mewtwo. Ah well. The 6/6/6 threshold sucks but when you consider that even a 0/0/0 shadow Mewtwo is better than a regular one it doesn't matter that much - if I'd caught a 6/6/6 shiny I'd have been happy with that.
Every lobby had 20 people pretty much straight away and raids rarely took more than a quarter of the timer. We didn't even really need the purification gems as with 20 people you pretty much brute-force through the buffed defences. A couple of people did get shundos - one person in my small group got a 13/13/13 shiny. I expect he'll end up purifying as the temptation is just too great.
The atmosphere was insane, I don't think any PoGo event I've been to has had that many people and that much excitement.
Niantic, take note. This is how you get people to come out and play IRL. It's called incentive.
This is why the remote pass nerf confused me: Things like the Shadow Legends already incentivize in-person raiding, especially at times like this where the normal raids are lower value targets like Regigigas and Altaria. I spent all day in my timezone with a group, did close to 18 and intend to go out tomorrow for more (no Shiny yet, though some 12+/12+/12+ Shadows to serve as battlers), and definitely feel like I had a good time with it. Honestly undecided what I plan to build them all for (one gets Psystrike + Shadow Ball but then unsure about how to build the others as like Elemental Generalists or such)
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Far be it from me to sound like I'm defending what absolutely is a shitty and mean-spirited nerf to this game but it doesn't incentivise in-person raiding if you have the option do it remotely. The rewards from the raids weren't particularly good (I didn't even get a single TM).
Atm nothing would really make me keen to buy remote passes. I dislike using a remote pass on anything that cannot be shiny, so a hypothetical addition of Solgaleo/Lunala or Zacian/Zamazenta to raids wouldn't induce me to spend the coins. Recent raid bosses have been lacklustre enough that I didn't feel the need chase them hard - the only one of the Tapus I remotely raided was Lele, and only then because it's a personal f
avourite.
Genuinely though I would not have gotten even 10% of the enjoyment I did out of today if I'd remoted in. I'd have done probably 3 raids from my bed or my sofa, called it a day and gone about my business.
Granted it would have been useful to be able to invite people but with the full lobbies it'd likely have been difficult to include them. I know people who missed today and I'm sure they'd have liked to have joined remotely, as would the usual rural player contingent. I absolutely think they should have been able to do so, and today showed that people are willing to go outside for it - just let there be both.
To be clear, what I'm advocating is they should have kept remote passes at their previous 100 Coin price, and jut added more loot to in-person raiding. If not "Local only" stuff like Elites or this Shadow Raid event, maybe more healing items and such beyond the 3-XL Candy reward the 5*'s do right now (which varies wildly in value by who the bosses even are)
Today was mostly better than I feared it would be. It was relatively easy, but the raids I went to had pretty full lobbies, so not sure how it was for people in locations where that never happens. The Mewtwo raids were less frequent than I expected, which was a bit annoying. I get that Niantic wouldn't want to make Mewtwo a full fledged raid day, but this was likely even more of a chore for suburban players who didn't go out to a nearby bigger city, and imagine basically just squashed whatever hopes any rural players with at least a few gyms might have had. They are really trying to strong arm players into going far and wide to get them that sweet gps data :P
In any event, I got my shiny shadow mewtwo and it was actually 3*, so that was nice. Now I just need to summon the willpower to grind the others into candy because I am not spending 20k stardust + 20 candies a pop to be able to trade those suckers.
In any event, I got my shiny shadow mewtwo and it was actually 3*, so that was nice. Now I just need to summon the willpower to grind the others into candy because I am not spending 20k stardust + 20 candies a pop to be able to trade those suckers.
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Igniizard
formerly denger
I absolutely agree with you on this . At the bare minimum they could have atleast decreased the hatch timer. I'm a bit surprised we had a full lobby ( maybe cause of how popular Mewtwo is) . But this is not going to be sustainable in the near future when lesser prominent Pokémon come in shadow eggs like articuno say for instance. It will be difficult to get a full lobby. Although articuno i think can be taken down with few raiders the real challenge will be the johto dogs.
Anything with a Double Weakness should be doable with a duo or trio (the Gems are almost a non-issue to fit the usage for, nothing hits nearly as hard as Mewtwo, and of course Double Weakness = Faster Kill = Less Mons chewed through) given Mewtwo could be done with 4 well-prepared members, but at the same time there will be concern of type availability (Dark had Ttar as a "huntable" option from Cliff and eggs, plus Hydreigon's CD within the last year) and, as noted, interest in the different mons (Especially when very often the bulky bosses like Suicune will be the harder wins yet the less notable captures).
They have something maybe going with Shadow Raids, but there needs to be more ironing out done that I don't know if they've thought ahead for in Rural environments (though apparently even urban players didn't always have Smooth experiences for Elite/Mewtwo Raiding times).
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Igniizard
formerly denger
I think reading all your opinion on shadow raids everyone seems to like the feature but there is definitely room for improvement. Ok so here are some of my personal suggestions on how niantic can improve on shadow 5 star raids.
1) On the " Big Raid Day " it should only be spawning shadow raids ( 1 star , 3 star , 5 star) It was very frustrating to see Regigigas spawning alongside mewtwo on Sunday which makes no sense since more people were free on Sunday.
2) Less hatch timer . I'm pretty sure most people will agree with me on this . It was getting super tedious to wait for the next egg which is almost 1 hour away from hatching. We started with almost 20 people and cut down to only 5 at the end of the day because people were getting tired of waiting.
3) More 5 star shadow raid spawns: like seriously I'm honestly ok with 1 day dedicated to shadow legendaries with more frequent spawns than 2 days with 1 spawn every 2 hours. Huge motivation drainer for people who are driving from a rural area to their nearby suburbs if this continues.
4) Improvement for rural Raiders - I think niantic can be a bit generous here and significantly boost the spawn frequency of legendary shadow raids on rural areas or nearby small towns. Like don't need to announce it in public just do it out of a good heart . Less than 5 gyms ? Not a problem . At least the gyms will now have more legendary spawns so you get multiple shots at getting a good legendary iv or a desired shiny.
5) Global release of campfire ASAP: this we need now more than anything. I think we already have the ability to build community groups inside the app. So community groups should have the ability to open a ticket. One such ticket could have the option " no gyms in area " and then all community members can vote yes. Once niantic identifies there are enough members in the community but they live in a rural area, niantic will give them the option to place a special temporary gym which goes away after 24 hours and a cooldown is placed for the next one for atleast a week. This gym will have a special colour like a pink one and everyone raiding that gym will have a maximum of 18 halls. Niantic will also reward them with 3 extra gems so that they can take the boss down easily This way everyone at least gets a shot on mewtwo. I think this idea is similar to the " buy a temporary pokestop with coins " but i really dig it.
6) The floor ivs should be increased to 8-8-8 on shadow raids. Gives a little motivation for people to do them more .
Really looking forward to seeing what everyone thinks about these suggestions. I know some of them are really hard to implement but it really is a nice quality of life improvement.
1) On the " Big Raid Day " it should only be spawning shadow raids ( 1 star , 3 star , 5 star) It was very frustrating to see Regigigas spawning alongside mewtwo on Sunday which makes no sense since more people were free on Sunday.
2) Less hatch timer . I'm pretty sure most people will agree with me on this . It was getting super tedious to wait for the next egg which is almost 1 hour away from hatching. We started with almost 20 people and cut down to only 5 at the end of the day because people were getting tired of waiting.
3) More 5 star shadow raid spawns: like seriously I'm honestly ok with 1 day dedicated to shadow legendaries with more frequent spawns than 2 days with 1 spawn every 2 hours. Huge motivation drainer for people who are driving from a rural area to their nearby suburbs if this continues.
4) Improvement for rural Raiders - I think niantic can be a bit generous here and significantly boost the spawn frequency of legendary shadow raids on rural areas or nearby small towns. Like don't need to announce it in public just do it out of a good heart . Less than 5 gyms ? Not a problem . At least the gyms will now have more legendary spawns so you get multiple shots at getting a good legendary iv or a desired shiny.
5) Global release of campfire ASAP: this we need now more than anything. I think we already have the ability to build community groups inside the app. So community groups should have the ability to open a ticket. One such ticket could have the option " no gyms in area " and then all community members can vote yes. Once niantic identifies there are enough members in the community but they live in a rural area, niantic will give them the option to place a special temporary gym which goes away after 24 hours and a cooldown is placed for the next one for atleast a week. This gym will have a special colour like a pink one and everyone raiding that gym will have a maximum of 18 halls. Niantic will also reward them with 3 extra gems so that they can take the boss down easily This way everyone at least gets a shot on mewtwo. I think this idea is similar to the " buy a temporary pokestop with coins " but i really dig it.
6) The floor ivs should be increased to 8-8-8 on shadow raids. Gives a little motivation for people to do them more .
Really looking forward to seeing what everyone thinks about these suggestions. I know some of them are really hard to implement but it really is a nice quality of life improvement.
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This point I wouldn't hold out too much for. While the fanbase identifies Shadows as much superior battlers, Niantic still regards the end goal for them as purifying, which is probably a big reason for the IV floor.
Shadows with the 6-6-6 Floor have a 1/1000 chance of being perfect as Shadows, but ~1/27 chance of an IV spread that purifies to 100% after the +2 boosts. By comparison, the 10-10-10 floor has a 1/216 chance of a Perfect, and with Purification this would be 1/8. Even with the knowledge Shadow Mewtwo is better than normal regardless of IVs, I would guess Niantic didn't want to hand out Hundos that easily for people hunting to get the Mega, Shundos, or simply for very strong Shadow Mewtwos anyway (considering it's literally the best single Raid Pokemon in the game in terms of what it can viably contribute to with its move pool)
I was in Puerto Rico when the shadow raids took place and even with campfire I couldn't get sufficient others to join to take down shadow Mewtwo which was unfortunate as I know a community back in Connecticut that was actively raiding them so I missed out on them. For these recent pixie raids, I finally used a remote raid pass to join successful Uxie raids while sending to those that requested for Azelf raids here in the USA. While the pixies are rather worthless for raiding purposes, their shiny forms are still nice to have at least.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that Shadow Articuno's got to be a duoable raid, surely?