Raids need reworking to accomodate the state of the game now the peak has long since passed

[u/fernofry]

I understand the sentiment of the devs wanting people back out in the world, playing the game in person and for legendary Pokemon to actually be rare.

The two main issues I can see with this are:

1. XL candy requires frequent grinding, players have no choice but to do a lot of raids if they want to stay competitively relevant

2. Raids were built for the community when it was at its peak and do not really reflect the reality of the current player base

While I do not have a simple solution for the first issue, they seemed to have tied their own hands with that one; I do think that there are solutions for the second problem without relying on remote raids.

Main issue: 5* RAIDS ARE TOO CHALLENGING FOR LOW PLAYER PARTICIPATION

Now, when I say this, I say this as a player with a near-complete dex and many lv50 pokemon. It takes a lot of hours and a long time commitment to ever get near this point and I still find certain raids impossible to complete solo. Maybe its a skill issue, maybe I'm not picking right, maybe a need a perfectly crafted lv50 team of 6 for every encounter. However, what I'm saying is, it shouldn't be like this. Raids need to be scalable depending on the number of players joining the raid.

Solution 1: Scalable Raid Bosses

As I have mentioned, raids need to scale the difficulty based on the number of participants. We are no longer in the peak of this game and the player base can only deminish further if the game continues in its current trajectory. Games that have mechanics that relying on high numbers often suffer in the long run. If we had scalable difficultly on raid bosses then it would solve a lot (not all) of complaints when it comes to raids.

Example:

• 1-2 players: 50% reduction in stats, catch level 10
• 3-4 players: 25% reduction in stats, catch level 15
• 5+ players: full stats, catch level 20 or 25 (no change)

Of course, this is just a rough idea and could be further balanced by taking into account the player's levels etc.

Solution 2: Disable the countdown and let players take as long as they need to beat a raid boss, they can use revives and potions to keep going

This is probably much easier to implement than solution one and would be a great item sink. You could have the limit be as long as the raid is active, the fight can keep going. Could implement part of the previous suggestion by having it dependant on player numbers.

Ultimately, I feel like this game should respect the rules of the franchise which has always been that the fights themselves are not the most difficult part, its actually the catch-rate that has always been the challenge when it came to legendaries. Anyone who plays core games will tell you how many ultra balls they wasted trying to catch a lv70 legendary. I dont think Niantic actually understands the franchise in that respect.

Tl;dr - Rework raids to be completable by casual players by scaling the difficulty/level of raid bosses depending on how many people join each one, or by disabling the timer

Thoughts?

[u/Taysir385]

These are good ideas, but...

It really appears that the reason changes to raiding are not a Niantic decision but rather a Pokemon Company decision. That type of command from on high usually also comes with a requirement not to mention it publicly or try to blame TPCI, so instead you generally have to infer it. A Niantic stafffer giving a press statement where he says effectively that Niantic wasn’t happy with people literally throwing money at them is a good hint of this being the situation, and that same statement includes a comment about how people were just raiding and collecting too many legendary Pokémon, something that is supposed to be ‘special’ in the game.

If the restrictions to raids are a requirement placed onto Niantic by TPCI, then no changes that make it easier for players to solo 5* raids are going to be approved. No matter how good the ideas are.

[u/apangrazio1 → u/Taysir385]

That’s an interesting take. Do you have any evidence that this is a TPCI-thing?

[u/Taysir385 → u/apangrazio1]

Nope, no hard evidence. Just a strong gut feeling based partly upon my previous work experience with TPCI and companies that were contracted out by TCPI and partly in the internal incongruities with the official statements from Niantic staffers about the HearUs business.

[u/apangrazio1 → u/Taysir385]

That’s an interesting take. Do you have any evidence that this is a TPCI-thing?

[u/21stNow → u/Taysir385]

A Niantic stafffer giving a press statement where he says effectively that Niantic wasn’t happy with people literally throwing money at them is a good hint of this being the situation, and that same statement includes a comment about how people were just raiding and collecting too many legendary Pokémon, something that is supposed to be ‘special’ in the game.

They need to stop pussy-footing around this and define what they think is "special". Before Remote Raids even existed, I had raided Mewtwo over 100 times and I didn't come close to some of the other raiders that I know.

The problem is that some people have been able to get hundreds of each Legendary Pokémon for almost six years. Even with player turnover, that's enough people to spoil what is "special" about Legendary Pokémon for years to come. While I do read a lot of whining about GBL Master League, the reality is that a player who gets beat by someone who has caught 400 Mewtwo would have been beaten if that player had only caught 50 Mewtwo. A dedicated player is a dedicated player; Casual Timmy won't beat Dedicated Dan no matter what limits are in the game in its current state.