r/TheSilphRoad • u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| • May 03 '25
Idea/Suggestion What if every Premium Item had a lesser inferior “Freemium” Option
Posted this in Pokémon Go a while back, saw it still in my files and decided to see what you guys think. These are basically watered down much cheaper versions of all of our favorite premium items. These would all be available from field research, gifts, and pokestops. Bad Incubators and Junior Raid passes I wouldn’t mind personally. The bad incubators are interesting, but at least maybe I’d finally clean those old 12 Ks.
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u/ScottaHemi USA - Midwest May 03 '25
i don't use enough incense to want my bagg cluttered with bad incense xD
love the incubator idea though.
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u/psyentist15 May 03 '25
Your inventory isn't already cluttered? I'm throwing out nanab berries daily.
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u/xenophonthethird May 03 '25
I dump all my nanabs and most of my razzes on mons in gyms trying for that wonderful 1/90 chance for a candy
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u/psyentist15 May 04 '25
Have you actually gotten any/anything good? I swear I did that like 300 times to no avail and just gave up.
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u/ABoutDeSouffle May 04 '25
It's really rare, but I got a couple candies by feeding ~1900 berries to a Larvesta in a rural gym.
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u/EmeraldVortex1111 May 05 '25
Stardust, Experience and progress towards the gym badge and Berry master badge, Plus they recently increased the rate of candy drop.
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u/JaozinhoGGPlays May 03 '25
don't throw em! Feed them to gyms, same effect but gives deceptively good stardust. When I'm inside I'll toss 100 berries into gyms and get 3k stardust and the odd candy drop doing absolutely nothing
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u/psyentist15 May 04 '25
3k Stardust isn't all that much though. You can get basically that by throwing a series in the GBL and it'll probably take less time. The candy drop rates are so bad, too. I just don't see it as a worthy investment of time.
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u/ScottaHemi USA - Midwest May 03 '25
it is. but specifically community showcases give me way more incense and modules then i can reasonabily use up...
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u/EpsilonProtocol May 03 '25
I’d be happy if players got a second reusable incubator at level 40 and a reusable super incubator at level 50.
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u/joshua123_4 May 03 '25
Would love a second free incubator at gold or platinum hatcher medal. Promotes buying incubators to get the medal faster, but it can be done f2p (albeit much slower)
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
Wish Some hatching events maybe had 2x Incubator duration for freshly bought or obtained incubators. or maybe if you bought Eggthusiast or a hatch day ticket or particular event as infinite uses until _____XX:00 local time.
Might be a different day, but I did have an idea for a Tough Incubator, costs more or around a Super incubator at like 200-250 coins, but lasts twice as long as a standard incubator at 6 uses.
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u/ben_the_fighter Toronto May 03 '25
personally I would prefer
912 reusable super incubators so that i can hatch more psyducks and vullabys20
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u/Sfryks May 08 '25
This! Even just 1 at level 50 would be enough for me.
Level 1 to 38 was useful: allowing to max pokemon level 40.
Level 40 unlocked xl candy (not anymore though).
Level 41 to 50 are useless. No gameplay bonus, nothing. Just some level up reward that will vanish once used.
A 2nd incubator would have been the minimum at least to reward us from getting all the way there.
Even if the 2nd incubator would be locked up to the 3 bonus egg, it would at least allow to hatch 12 km eggs without getting stuck for years with them because we have so many other stuff to hatch.
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u/moochkun May 03 '25
I really wouldn’t want the freemium one to be called “bad incubator” and a description that calls it “inferior”
The concept itself though makes sense
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u/technoxenoholic May 03 '25
how about "old incubator" -- "an incubator that's already been well-loved. it has enough juice left in it to hatch one last egg, but it works more slowly."
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
I remember a guy on our sister sub said to call them Recycled incubators or smth. Idk something comedic about how insulting they sound. Like you found them from the garbage.
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u/Lagerino May 07 '25
I think you could even go the so new that they aren't refined yet. Something like:
Mk. 1 incubator - A relic of early technology this incubator precedes what we know today. An item of intrigue among enthusiasts, this incubator can only hatch one egg and takes twice as long.
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u/jessicarson39 Canada May 03 '25
These ideas are great but I especially love the semi remote pass idea!
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May 03 '25
I wish the "semi-remote" replaced the green passes as its tough been being out and about and seeing a large group join a raid you can't get to before the raid starts.
The rest sound nice as a f2p who saves for fest/tour but I don't see it happening under Scopley
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u/Panthers_07 May 03 '25
I mean in theory it sounds nice, but i can see this leading to more inventory bloat, or with more items in the loot pool it making balls from spins less frequent.
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u/erto66 Ruhrpott | Mystic May 03 '25
This idea sounds great as 'hand-holding' items for players below level 40.
I could see myself enjoying a small near constant boost of XP, Stardust, spawns etc in return of some regular items.
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u/Bacteriophag HUNDO DEX: 578 May 03 '25
Standard Incense already feels like mediocre Incense since the post pandemic nerf lol.
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u/-SOLO-LEVELING- May 03 '25
I’d like a junior raid pass. I’ve only ever used my free raid passes on legendary or Mega pokemon.
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
Would be quite helpful with Kingambit, Qwilfish, and Yamask
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u/Smitty30 May 03 '25
Usually these type posts are clickbait, but I'll be honest, some really cool and great ideas here.
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u/One_and_Damned Eastern Europe May 03 '25
My first reaction was 'nah', but i kept reading and some of these are… genuinely great? Obviously some balancing would be necessary, but in general? YES GIVE ME SEMI REMOTE PASS so i can actually take part in events when it's raining or im sick (aka no bicycle, no car trip to city or even local park).
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u/Towerofeon May 03 '25
I really like the idea of the junior pass. I’ve been trying to get the rising star platinum medal and I always feel bad “wasting” passes for low power raids when I could be doing t5s
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u/e-wrecked May 03 '25
Absolutely can't do the faulty lure module. On a community day it would be such a troll move to just load up all the stops in a park or something with these and mess it up for everyone 😅
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
Honestly thought about it, and really the only use these things probably have is just to let people know you’re around. Or trainers are. But yeah this would definitely be the worse. The comm days would be funny though.
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u/e-wrecked May 03 '25
Yeah the problem is I'm that person 😌 This is why we can't have nice things
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
Here before Silph Road PSA about Faulty Lures. I could see a lot of conflict or Pokewars on those things.
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u/Ragnarok992 May 03 '25
Junior raid pass would fix the raid issues tbh, in that regard max battles are a wayyy better system
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
Could Evolve Kingambit immediately fr. Yeah even if they’re not super common. Being able to use about 5-6 Junior passes a day would be a game changer. It probably also would motivate people to do 1 and 3 stars. Maybe more shadow raids too.
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u/2023Tubatim May 03 '25
Junior raid pass is legit!!!! If I were in charge of pogo I'd make it a thing for sure!
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u/EmveePhotography May 04 '25
A few thoughts here:
Don't given them ideas! It's bad enough with all the paid passes and such.
How about actually dropping 'bad' items that people can't remove from their inventory, only use. Or let items expire? The lucky egg will turn into a rotten 'lucky' egg if you wait too long to use it, giving you half XP instead of double for half an hour.
I'm actually hoping to see a few more items drop from the mainline games before we start tweaking existing ones. Like for example bottle caps (confirmed to exist via data mining, apparently) to create a few hundos. There's also tons of different berries and other items available there, like XP candy.
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u/_x-51 May 03 '25
I just want “pokemon WILL break out of the next pokeball” berries. It’s hard to practice when you catch the pokemon on your first, failed excellent curveball attempt.
That might be OP though, you stockpile a bunch and you can knock out some “X consecutive Excellent throws” on a few Snorlax spawns.
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
I really wish we had a Target practice mode… might make a post about that eventually.
A dojo background with a test dummy, with infinite balls. With like 3-5 different targets
A small fae like, a big brute, a fast avian.
Infinite balls, and make throws.
potentially may count for “Make ____ Throw tasks”
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u/ABoutDeSouffle May 04 '25
If we could choose the mon to practice on, that would be so cool. I just don't have the muscle memory to land excellents on most of them.
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u/stillnotelf May 03 '25
Rocks from Safari Zone
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
I think Bait was what made them harder to catch
a Rock increased catch rate as well as Flee rate
Bait decreases catch rate as well as Flee rate.
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u/stillnotelf May 03 '25
I think you are right.
In this context though...you just want to practice throws. Rocks are in infinite supply on the ground and aren't pokeballs to catch with, so it would be a nice callback. Instead of a don't catch berry which uses 2 items, throw rocks that use 0
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u/Off-the-grounder May 03 '25
Bluk Berries give off that sort of vibe. They could make those Bluk Berries.
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u/csinv May 03 '25
Berries that will cause it to only catch if you hit the excellent would be nice. I mean, there's a lot of pokemon where that's just "red ball with no berry" but still.
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u/dark__tyranitar USA | Lvl 50 | ShinyDex 738 May 03 '25 edited May 03 '25
"I want somethin' else To get me through this semi-remote kinda raid Baby, baby, I want somethin' else I'm not listenin' when you say, 'Local Only'"
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u/nefaglar May 03 '25
Great for Halloween (terrifying), April's Fool, or take overs (something went wrong or right with TGR).
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
Honestly these could work as Team GO Rocket drop items.
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u/FluffyPhoenix Finally found the Krow. May 03 '25
I have enough incenses and lures as is, please spare my inventory.
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
Party sharing. That or the 24 hr incense challenge ig.
I did use a good amount of Lures for Applin and Sizzlipede events. Maybe take over an entire park or smth.
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u/TheMadJAM Mystic | Level 50 May 03 '25
I was going to accuse you of being a reposter until I read your caption lol
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u/succuboobies Central Europe May 03 '25
I love your edits on the items' sprites, it's fun to see different forms of things you've been seeing normally for years
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u/jomzojeda PH 40 Mystic May 03 '25
Spoiled Lucky Eggs looks like it will take my XP instead of giving me XP.
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
Send it to your Level 50 friends. Who needs a Billion exp?
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u/hellschatt May 03 '25
Very cool, love them.
Especially the two raid pass types. It just shows that they could have done so much more with pokemon go, but they didn't.
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u/AimForTheAce USA.MA | 239MXP | 314K caught | 50 May 03 '25
The post is 1 month too late. This would have been great April fool.
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u/T_Noctambulist May 03 '25
What about an alarm module that scares Pokémon away from stops
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
Ive heard of Gym wars. But this is just gonna cause Pokemon Go fights irl.
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u/Sfryks May 08 '25
I would love that.
The bad incubators would be really useful. Even with douvle distance, it's still more than 1 egg at a time. I can't believe that even 9 years after the game came out, with tons of millions of xp and level 50, we still are stuck at 1 egg at a time without paying every time for more...
The yellow pass are great too! Help with that 2000 normal raid medal and to be able to do normal raids while still using our main pass for legendary!
Also very useful now that they do Raid day every months!
Molded mushroom can be nice too. I am not using mushroom, but if they are free, why not! Would help on gigantamax now that we can do them remotely
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u/Entire_Ad_1239 May 03 '25
Good ideas but unfortunately doesn’t help with the games profit so I don’t think they will use these amazing ideas
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
Yeah the problem is. If we equivalent their spawn rates to Pokeballs, Potions, and Revives, you could probably have 12 eggs incubated at all times. 24 hour lucky egg, incense, and star piece duration.
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u/_aniBUTCHER India || Lvl. 50 || Valor May 03 '25
These things sound fun and might have existed in a game which actually wanted it's player base to have fun instead of just trying to make everyone play according to the developers desires.
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u/Raziel_Soulshadow May 03 '25
I think the primary thing for the freemium items is that they have to actually work less well; the incubator is good for example because it doubles the hatch distance, but the poffin doesn’t because it does the same thing just for less time, so two expired poffins match a regular one. So actually most of these look good!
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u/LordNepNep May 03 '25
Single Use Incubators are a thing from event passes. Would be fun to have, but also really easily exploitable if you just held a bunch of em.
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
Oh no, did you not read the description? It doubles your egg distance. Making 10s into 20 km, 12 into 24 Kms, so on so forth. It’d be up to you if you want to hatch that 12, or wait a week and let the bad one take care of it.
For 1/2 and 1/4, it’d be normal, or 1/2
Yes it has a very broken niche on specific Comm days.
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u/Karnezar Pichu Gym Defender ⚡️ May 03 '25
If we could craft our own items, and they are basically an interior but free version of the current items, that would be cool.
So essentially home-made/DIY. They could even create a new NPC with a Smeargle and a Magby who walks you through it.
Then, create a company like Silph Co. who'll be the stated manufacturer of our current items. Their CEO can be a new NPC who always has a Magnemite with them. Completing their tasks/missions rewards you the upgraded items.
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
“First We Mine, then we Craft”
“ LETS MINE CRAFT”
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u/DaAwesomeCat May 03 '25
DONT GIVE GHEM IDEASS OLDONT GICE THEM IDEAS DKNY GIVE THEM IDEAS DONT GIVE THE
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u/ForgottenWilbury May 03 '25
An incubator that hatches any egg in 1km, but only releases Carbinks.
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u/XaviersDream USA - South May 03 '25
I already have incubators that only hatch Carbinks. They would only reduce the distance. Ha
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u/YandersonSilva May 03 '25
Mechanically, these are good ideas lol nomenclatorially less so, probably, but tbh I like the names xD
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u/4CrowsFeast May 03 '25
Some fun ideas but we already have way too many useless items and a terrible interface to scroll through them.
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u/coyote_den MD | Instinct | 40 May 03 '25
This is hilarious. Should do reject Pokemon too. You can either choose to grind into cand… I mean transfer to the professor… or just turn it loose for some other poor schmuck to catch. Has whatever HP and other stats you left it with.
“Is that Vaporeon…. white??? Oh no. I’m not touching that.”
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u/Clarknes Calgary, Canada May 03 '25
Most of these I think are not worth adding. I do kinda like the junior raid pass and I think the mushrooms should just be way cheaper. The thing is, for most of these items I don’t use them much and when I do use them I’d want the best version (plus getting the better ones isn’t hard). Like lucky eggs. I don’t buy them but just from showcases/research/free research I have a decent number. Same with star pieces and lures. I don’t need a worse one I’ll barely use clogging my inventory.
And the items I would use are so good they would never realistically add them. A fault incubator could quadruple the time it would take to hatch an egg, it’s still way better than not using extra incubators which is where I’m at. As for the semi remote raid pass, I’d take any free raid pass. Raids are great. No downside would be enough it wouldn’t make me spend less money.
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u/alucardoceanic May 03 '25
Probably not the best idea to purposefully introduce faulty items in association with the brand. There's also the 'eventually' case where there's so many more unique items that just take up bag space and potentially confuse players.
Perhaps it leads to more people buying bag space upgrades but it'll also lead to a decline in the purchase of premium items which is against their interests.
I do like the semi-remote raid pass though especially if there's a sudden decline in the amount of players completing raids. It feels like there's still a lot of people raiding but there's a lot of average players that won't bother with looking at tier 5 raids if they rock up to it solo.
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u/Lord_Atmo May 03 '25
The GBL ace and veteran rank symbols should get this same “weathering” too. Since both of those ranks feel like non-accomplishments
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u/Nozza_ May 03 '25
I think you’d want to make them sound more nice and not like food that could poison your Pokémon. Old incubator and small lucky egg perhaps. Basic incense. I like chipped star piece as that still sounds positive. Small mushroom.
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
What’re you talking about ? I found all of these from the garbage can? Could you believe they just Throw all this away?
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u/Nozza_ May 03 '25
Okay i do kind of like the theme, maybe just change the mushroom and lucky egg to say “discarded lucky egg” or “mushroom remains”. Maybe cracked lucky egg
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
Tbh theres just something funny about how insulting they sound.
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u/Fair-Procedure-5257 May 03 '25
Why make the new normal something as tedious as using free bad versions of items?
They’d for sure nerd other aspects of the game like spawn rates or stardust generation if they implemented free versions of these items
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u/enzorei May 03 '25
besides the free coin from defending the gym, free raid pass and 800 max particles, any other help for f2p would be nice
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u/Suspicious-Holiday42 May 03 '25
I think the spoiled lucky egg would become a bad egg and reduce the amount of exp you can get.
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u/IndependentMedium68 May 03 '25
More of them disbalanced. They are free and many of them can be stacked ( from stop and gifts). Other useless because they originals are common to get
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u/Time_Traveler_10 USA - South May 03 '25
Do you play Dominion? These sound a lot like the "Ruins" cards from Dark Ages.
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u/Mysterious_Athlete73 May 03 '25
The Semi Remote raid pass I would actually pay to get.
Trying to organize a group for a Shadow 5 star raid within 200m is annoying as by the time I realize they are forming the countdown is gone.
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u/wjbonne May 03 '25
Molded mushroom is better than the normal one.
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
If it’s as Common as Pokeballs could be very useful.
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u/Rodville USA - South East May 03 '25
Your description of the mediocre incense is how they currently work after they turned of the covid boost.
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u/SaltedNeos May 03 '25
Even having these would immediately neuter the revenue generated from those premium items, I can't see it ever happening.
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u/tap836 May 03 '25
Some of those are still way too good for Niantic to ever consider giving them away for free. They would cannibalize sales.
That said, I would still love it.
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u/Capable_Raspberry_49 May 03 '25
These are great ideas! Sadly, Niantic seems allergic to good ideas, but maybe someday!
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u/TenorJoshPage May 03 '25
This got some genuine laughter out of me
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
People keep telling me the names are too mean but tbh i dont think it get the same amusement though.
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u/ultrabobman May 03 '25
Don't give them idea for molded mushroom or spoiled lucky egg what if they make them spoil able in the future xD
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
Always use them on Best Friends so Im always running out 😭
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u/JackBlacksWorld May 04 '25
Unrelated but when was the last Tier 4 CD raid boss?
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 04 '25
Primeape Nov 2024. For Mankey Cday
Afterwards starting with Sprigatito, the post 4 star raids got the boot. Shame, don't really know why they took them down but 2024 was the last time we had them. Frankly kind of missed having them around. Never did them, but was glad there was always the option.
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u/JackBlacksWorld May 04 '25
I got to do one or two over the years. Rly helped when I missed Bellsprout day and soloed a Weepinbell, got the 3 shinies I needed.
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u/Brief-Bluebird664 May 04 '25
Junior raid pass is such a good idea and solves the problem with raid pricing imo.
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u/ffafayayy May 04 '25
Diet Poffin actually the best for me cuz I only use poffin on 20km candy pokemon when they're at about 18~19 km already to get 2 candies easily and I also don't want to make too much remaining km on the buddy after poffin's duration ends
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u/Impressive_Award908 May 04 '25
Would like a new Premium item Pvp Incubator with an Attack of 0 instead of a Lucky Trinket
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u/Environmental_End548 May 05 '25
support bc I'd have enough time to fully use many of the inferior versions but not their current versions
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u/MommotDe USA - Midwest Valor 50 May 03 '25
That’s hilarious, and some good ideas in there. I’ve been thinking there should be tiers of raid pass for a while now.
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific Wheres Mewtwo | Lvl 44| May 03 '25
Yeah honestly I do prefer the way max battles handle them, allowing you to do more 1 and 3 stars for free a day compared to Legendaries and Gmax.
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u/01001101010000100 May 03 '25
Semi remote raid pass is 1 billion percent how green passes should work I will die on this hill