How Niantic’s New Systems Are Dividing the Pokémon GO Community

I have enjoyed playing Pokémon GO for a very long time now, and I always looked forward to new content being released. Historically, the game was always something I could do on my own, and that felt better when I was playing in larger groups.

I was encouraged to play with other people, of course, but even if I wasn’t able to, I always felt like I had control over my own Pokémon GO experience. For example, if I wanted a particular legendary, I could spend money and raid remotely. Yes, it’s “pay-to-play”, but at my age (33 years old), I have no problem paying for access.

That is no longer the case, as more and more Pokémon being released are locked behind arbitrary, local-only, progression systems. The focus of this article is on how Niantic’s latest systems have made Pokémon GO into a completely different game.

A game which is no longer a “pick up and go” game, but a game where you need to preplan, farm arbitrary currencies, coordinate elaborate gaming sessions, and be constantly on a lookout not to miss out on something, otherwise you are left behind.

Here is how Pokémon GO, at least for me, feels like the worst days of repetitive World of Warcraft daily quests. Two systems jump out immediately here: Shadow Raids and Max Battles.

Want to Shadow Raids? You better have some Gems

Shadow Raids are a terrific idea in a vacuum – you fight an empowered Shadow Raid Boss, which is a stronger version of that Pokémon that can enrage. When the boss is enraged, you essentially cannot damage it. Of course, you can remove the enrage, but in order to “subdue” the enraged Shadow Boss, you need a special item – Purified Gems!

1× Purified Gem

Actually, you need 8 of them, as for Tier 3 and Tier 5 Shadow Raids, it is required to use 8 Purified Gems to subdue a Raid Boss.

Now, that’s not something you can get at a Shadow Raid. Purified Gems are something you should have brought with you to the Shadow Raid. However, what if your community is small, or busy, or unable to play regularly? What happens if you don’t have Purified Gems?

It turns out, you are in for a lot of trouble, and you can basically forget soloing any of this content. Not only are you unable to solo the vast majority of these Raids, you are also expected to farm Purified Gems in advance.

And how do you get the Gems? Defeating Team GO Rocket grunts and leaders. Don’t care about the Grunts? You’re in big trouble again!

Have a friend who hasn’t played in a while, and who is really excited to see a new type of Raids on their map? Forget about it, they probably don’t have any Purified Gems, and can’t be bothered to farm.

So, we have a feature that requires preplanning, preparation, walking to a location, and a minimum of two players doing this. Is it worth it? I don’t think so, especially if you compare it with the regular raids:

If you compare them directly, the main difference is that for Shadow Raids, you need to farm, you need to walk, and you can’t easily solo Tier 3 Raids. In other words, they take more time, they are more cumbersome, and they have pre-requirements.

They are time consuming for experienced players, and they are gatekeeping Pokémon from returning and new Trainers.

Let’s see if Max Battles are anything better.

No local community? No Gigantamax Pokémon for you

If Shadow Raids are “gate keepers”, then imagine how difficult Max Battles are to get in. Let’s ignore the fact that they feel like a completely different game that was violently attached to the core Pokémon GO experience.

Let’s start with regular Dynamax Raids first:

• Tier 1 Dynamax Raids are easy, everyone can complete them, and it’s a joke
• Tier 3 Dynamax Raids are difficult to solo, unless you have prepared the right Pokémon
• Tier 4+ Dynamax Raids are not soloable by design

And that would be fine, it would be great, but unfortunately you won’t do well in higher tier Max Battles unless you farm the lower ones first. Don’t forget – only Pokémon caught from Max Battles can participate in Max Battles!

What a nightmare, ain’t it? Imagine trying to explain that to a friend that is returning to Pokémon GO after a break:

“Hey Surge, sure you can play, but you first need to go and farm these low level Max Pokémon, which you then need to power up, and then you can join our super cool Dynamax Raiding club. Oh you have kids, and you can’t do that? Sorry, that’s too bad then!”

In reality, by limiting which Pokémon can be used in Max Battles, Niantic has ostracized anyone who is not able to grind Max Battles. Sure, there are lore reasons why this is the way it is, but why is there no “catchup” mechanism in the game? 

Why does everyone have to go through the same hoops to participate? What are returning players supposed to do? And what’s the point of collecting strong Pokémon over the past years if we can’t use them everywhere?

There are so many unanswered questions, but the reality is that this is just bad game design. A huge portion of the player base won’t bother going through the process of acquiring good Max Pokémon, and they will be forever blocked from enjoying this content.

Not only that, but Max Battle mechanics are completely, utterly different from Raids and Shadow Raids, and it requires learning special strategy that revolves around Tanks/Damage Dealers/Heals. That’s another hurdle that Trainers need to overcome to participate in this content. 

With that being said, let’s compare Max Battles with other types of Raids, and see how they fare:

As you can see, in order to participate in Max Battles you need to:

1. farm special Pokémon in advance,
2. power them up,
3. power up their special Max moves,
4. learn the Max Battle mechanics (and which Max move you want to power up),
5. get a group,
6. and walk up to every battle which you want to try.

Compare that to the sheer simplicity, ease, and frictionless experience of normal Raids. Heck, even Shadow Raids seem a breeze compared to Max Battles!

Even worse, if we start talking about Gigantamax Pokémon, not only do you need to fulfil all of the requirements above, you also need to get a really big group going. It becomes very obvious how this feature cannot function outside of large urban areas, and that the design decisions behind it were made as if everyone lived in a large urban area.

Compare that to Pokémon GO’s usual gameplay style, which can be enjoyed literally anywhere, and it becomes even more confusing. How did the game go in this direction? Who is the audience for this? Anyway, you get the picture.

World of Pokémon GO-craft: Vanilla

This type of game design is not a new thing, and it was infamous during the World of Warcraft’s original launch and the successive Burning Crusade expansion. Different raids, dungeons and content patches were gated behind reputation requirements, gear requirements, and keys which needed to be collected elsewhere.

Players hated it, they even created MAPS OF REQUIREMENTS to explain to one another what you need to do to access particular piece of content. Preach Gaming, a long-time WoW Youtuber, has an excellent retrospective video explaining how insane this was:

Luckily, we are not there, but the reality is that Pokémon GO’s content is becoming increasingly difficult to access. When was the last time a new Pokémon was just released?

No gimmicks, no special requirements, no Eggs or Raids, just a regular Wild Encounter that you could chase and enjoy? Mighty Pokémon were such a refreshment during the Wild Area, but they also reminded me of how far astray the game has gone from it’s original “catch Pokémon in the world around you” ethos.

I don’t know, maybe I am in the minority, but I do miss Pokémon GO’s simpler, less demanding days. It genuinely feels like a growing number of players are opting to avoid dealing with the complexity of Max Battles.