The Pokemon Go’s fall 2024 seasonal update, Max Out, has brought players a new feature: Max Battles. Max Raid Battles were the Pokemon series’ first mainline co-op content using Sword and Shield’s Dynamax gimmick, with the battles themselves being partially inspired by Pokemon GO itself. So one would think Niantic would have a strong grip on the execution of this feature.
At least, you’d think that if you weren’t a regular player or reader of this column. As I said when legendary raids were first released, history repeats itself, but at least raids had enthusiasm. Max Battles largely do not. Still, today’s Massively on the Go isn’t so much about whether or not the feature is any good, as it’s very much a work in progress. Instead, we’ll discuss how the rollout demonstrates Niantic’s unwillingness – or inability – to keep up with the times.
Casual complaints
I want to start things out with real-world community feedback, outside of what you may see online. I know some Niantic heads are in their ivory towers thinking they know best and that the online community is an echo chamber of anonymous complaints from hardcores, and that can be true at times. However, what I’m seeing on the ground isn’t any more flattering to the studio.
Starting on Ponyta Community Day (which was fairly dead in the area I often stick to) and until the September 18th Groudon Raid Hour (which was after Max Battle Beldom came out), I spoke to and played with some more casual players. People who don’t always remember to Mega a pokemon, or forget to do Routes, or even duos who don’t make use of Party item sharing, let alone parties themselves. While my in-the-know community is overall mildly annoyed but not totally surprised by the recent changes to the game, the casuals I talked to had grievances with multiple systems and changes (especially raids), so the Max Battles were just a lot to take in.
First, the ongoing storage issues. Most the players I spoke to don’t PvP but still have storage issues, having to stop multiple times during CD to make room for more pokemon, and they don’t even play the whole events. Adding Dynamax pokemon, which are the only pokemon who can attack and defend (guard? assist?) at Power Spots, means regular players are going to have more bloat. Add to that XXLs, XXSs, genders, shinies… it’s the XXL/XXS update all over again for collectors. For this reason, a few folks already seemed burnt out on Max Battles at release.
Next was drop-off confusion, especially as there’s no “this Spot is full!” notification. When you beat a Max Battle, you can leave one of your team members at the spot, supposedly to assist other players. Whether the ‘mon does anything based on its strength or is just a raw number multiplying a bonus to active players (once they’re fixed) is unknown and also confusing, not just for me but for the casuals who actually dropped – if they could.
The other part is that there are more limitations. Unlike in gyms, you can’t just drop off whenever you want, so some people complained about not wanting to lose a team member, skipping the drop off chance, and trying to re-enter it after catching the pokemon, only to learn that you can only drop off after beating the boss and receiving the drop-off screen. Skip that and you’re SOL, but weirdly, you’re also down a team member. That’s not a big deal now as even with Beldum, the battles can be won with a single pokemon, but in the future it could mean losing a valuable member of your team.
Rewards were another complaint area. First, there’s no indication that your pokemon can collect only five normal candies of its type from “helping” other trainers. While XL candy is listed as a reward, it seems to be either broken or so rare that no one’s been able to document receiving even one. Then there’s the spawned pokemon, which seem to spawn very infrequently with little fanfare, like a normal one-spawn-per-five-minutes incense. And then there’s the actual victory from battles themselves, which award 10 balls max unless you pay double a normal raid pass, which doubles your other rewards (so if you got 2 XL Rare Candies, you’d get 4).
The problem with Max Battles’ defense, particularly at release and maybe later, is its restrictions. Originally, the gym defense limit (20) was also affected by the number of pokemon you left at Power Spots, often forcing players to recall their Power Spot pokemon in order to place a defender if over the 20 ‘mon cap. For people who live in areas with slow-turning gyms that they have to stuff in hopes that someone will come and knock them out (unless they just multi-account against the rules) instead of getting a measly five candy from common pokemon, the choice is non-existent. I did notice the cap wasn’t being affected on September 19th, but between Niantic’s penchant for bugs and lack of communication, I have no idea whether this change is intentional or how long it’ll last.
And of course, among even casuals, the final issue is the system’s very existence: Why do this? What’s the benefit? Where’s it going? It’s sad that many of us would have been fine with the Dynamax mechanic simply being the same as Megas, getting a whole new system which theoretically is better, but ultimately we’re wishing we’d gotten the easier content. When raiding came out, there were questions and frustrations about various aspects of it, but the POGO landscape was far simpler, so new features had little to no competition.
Unlike when raids were released, back then we didn’t have event or raid exclusive moves to worry about. Remember, Community Day and non-TMable moves came after raids, so there was no good reason not to evolve a pokemon back then. There wasn’t even really any group content, as you couldn’t trade, battle, or even have a friend’s list back then. Max Battles don’t have this lack-of-features advantage.
There are some players who like all this, including the very few kids who chimed in, though they had their own frustrations (like not being able to play enough and basically not being able to play the game at home at all). That being said, the one veteran player in my local community who seemed the most positive about it said what he both liked and disliked the most was that it was like starting all over again. Everyone’s out to get the “new” stuff, so there aren’t tons of perfect ‘mon or shinies yet. (He also forgot about all the post-raid features I mentioned above!)
A new player is at ground zero, but as a veteran, I have old pokemon and max friendship players I can use to trigger Lucky status. I have Elite TMs to get the best moves if I’m impatient. I have tons of stardust and candy to dump into bad pokemon without it really affecting me much. It’s not starting at zero at all; it’s being hamstrung at or possibly after crossing the finish line for any daily players, and it’s felt the longer you’ve been actively playing. While the casual, in-person players had their own complaints, there is so much more Niantic is missing that veterans caught quite early on.
Here’s all the new information confirmed for Dynamax Battles and their mechanics 🆕💥 #PokemonGO
Read below to see how battles will work when they go live on September 10th! 👇 pic.twitter.com/NDsanLQD4V
— The Poke GO Hunter (@thepokegohunter) September 4, 2024
Vexing veterans
The initial release was not good, to say the least. Niantic’s habit of buggy releases reared its head again, resulting in the feature’s introductory quest resetting multiple times on release day, so online communities immediately questioned its value. It’s not that Mega Evolution dodged this bullet at release – because it didn’t – but there was so much value seen in it that everyone, devs and players alike, knew it had to be rebalanced.
Remember, unlike the current system, the initial Mega system was just about making one one your pokemon super powerful for a few hours. Then Niantic threw in far too many bonuses to ignore the feature. Playing without it now feels like choosing to play a theme-park MMO with only vendor-bought gear – not the token/rare item turn-in best-in-slot stuff but the “Leather Shirt” and “Simple Broadsword” junk most players trash when they need space to hold the good loot. We went from basically choosing a Poké-champion for our team to basically different swiss army knife kits (always make sure there’s a toothpick!).
We didn’t have this with Dynamaxing or Max Battles. Players questioned the point, and nearly everything said either fed back into the system as something separate (“We get more Dynamax ‘mon!”) or fear that it would basically replace normal raids as the way to get new pokemon. While the initial raid releases back in 2017 also had already catchable ‘mon as bosses, they were also rare and/or expensive to evolve – things like Blastoise and Charizard.
Instead, our first bosses for Max Battles were the unevolved forms of common pokemon, like Wooloo, followed by more unevolved forms of 2016’s starters. There really wasn’t much to be hyped about unless you woke up from a coma from before the game’s start and were a big Pokemon fan to begin with, and even then, the Dynamax mechanic may just confuse you as it’s a 2019 main series mechanic.
One thing the casual players didn’t mention was the particles system. Getting daily particles isn’t intuitive and could easily be “screwed up,” until recently when you could find out how many particles you could still get that day. Even then, many players seem to think the daily cap is 800 particles when the true daily cap is 1080 with some tricky play. While keeping the cap low (1000) may seem like it helps the situation, the fact that you basically can’t hoard more than a day’s worth of points also means you’re asked to spend extra (XL) candy on moves every day or waste what you get if you can’t find anything worth raiding or lack the time to do so. While 1-star raids are a breeze and require no powering up, 3-stars are where you have to get more serious.
The particle issue doesn’t stop there, though. You don’t “spin” Power Spots, so accidentally clicking one can ruin your ability to properly gather enough particles each day. This was a frequent issue for me, especially in a party, as the party UI alone blocks a good chunk of the screen. Power Spots are bigger than Stops but not quite as big as Gyms, yet frequently spawn not just near but sometimes almost on top of the other two features.
We’re still not done yet with particles! Not only are they used to access raids, but they’re used to improve pokemon as well, and the community hasn’t missed the conflict that creates. In short, it would be similar to forcing players to use their Daily Battle Pass to unlock moves on their raid pokemon. A Max Battles/Dynamax 2.0 system would have to rectify this, either by increasing the cap (which is unlikely as it would allow players to raid more often), by introducing yet another currency to power up the Dynamax moves, or by simply removing the Particle requirement and probably adding more XL candy requirements because that’s how Niantic seems to roll these days.
It very much seems as if Niantic wants Max Battles to be raiding 2.0. It’s like going from leveling to endgame raiding in that despite not really needing to level up Dynamax ‘mon yet, I can feel it on the Horizon. The problem is that regular raids aren’t all that easy. I can’t solo 99% of the the 5-star+ raids, and I don’t imagine any of the Max Battle ‘mon getting stats/abilities to change that, so I’m just hamstrung on what I can bring to the MBs.
Little benefit
Some good points are buried under all of these complaints. For example, being able to drop off a pokemon to help others beat the encounter, in theory, is great. Unlike the gym system, which cluelessly facilitates stalking and harassment, Power Spots have no time stamps to potentially reveal a player’s travel habits. However, how helpful the pokemon actually are in combat is tough to gauge with the current offering being so very, very easy.
Power Spots being both plentiful and rotating is another theoretical bonus. It promotes exploring a bit more than the current system as points of interest shift, though Niantic’s POIs are only partly a result of the busted Wayfarer system, so the quality is sometimes dubious or dated. This isn’t so much “Yay for Niantic improving things!” but “Yay for Niantic using someone’s else’s data,” as Niantic is poor at policing its platform. While it’s still using OpenStreet, some players have argued that Niantic pulled from Foursquare maps. Again, not the best source, but at least it’s one more thing Niantic isn’t controlling by itself.
Max Battles also last for hours rather than minutes. While we don’t need to coordinate just yet, being able to see a raid during your lunch break and suggesting to coworkers that you hit it when everyone’s off is much better than having an hour warning for an upcoming raid you have 45 minutes to complete. Despite previously working near a local community member outside our normal community, that community member and I rarely raided together during the week because it just wasn’t feasible. That was always a good reminder of how bad the raid system is at promoting not only socialization but balancing real life with game activities.
Max Attacks, which are the special moves used in Dynamax forms, are based on your pokemon’s Fast attack, not the Charged ones. In one way, that does make the lack of Community Day moves available from the start sting a little less aside from the very few ‘mon who have Fast attack CD moves, but Charged Attacks do still factor into the battles quite a bit. Still, giving some love to Fast attacks does give Niantic a little credit in my book.
Finally, a sliding scale cost of raids is pretty nice, as I know there are days I just can’t do a 5-star raid, or the options are somehow worse than lower tiers, so I do a simpler raid that essentially costs the same.
Stunted growth
Overall, Max Battles seem like something designed by the higher-ups, maybe even an accountant. Stripping players of their best pokemon, releasing dud mons for (at best) soft testing purposes in a live game, double dipping with a new very limited currency, and then selling said currency for 1.5 times the cost of raid passes while keeping raids local-only really makes the whole rollout seem anti-consumer.
Again, not everything about the system is bad. I can imagine a boardroom full with talking heads looking at player wallets like cows to be milked, with a single designer in the corner chiming in to try to actually help the players. In some ways, certain restrictions, including being limited to four in-person players max, may help to cultivate a kind of “hard mode” for hardcore POGOÂ raiders who want a bigger challenge but are limited by the current raid system.
That being said, a lot of the Max Battle mechanics could have easily been baked into normal raiding. If not, why not allow for Max Battles to use the same raid bosses but an alternative rule set? And if Max Battles are to be a hardmode for players, why is that not simply a button to activate said rule set? Heck, if Niantic simply made raid timers infinite but lowered rewards as the battle went on, it could help rural and small communities much more efficiently than Max Battles have, especially considering the frequent changes we’ve experienced to raids lately.
When raids came out, they helped POGO players form communities, even if there were/are no in-game systems to support them. When COVID hit, we saw more flexible communities via remote communities. And during COVID, Niantic started to decide that it didn’t like flexible communities and has been trying to time travel back to the pre-2020 era ever since. Max Battles do have some nice ideas, but the overall systems, both in terms of hard mechanics and social mechanics, feel clumsy and restrictive.
I understand that higher-ups may see a feature as “good enough” and push it out, thinking they can fix it later. The problem that you get to release only once. As with Megas, Routes, the Party systems before it, Niantic basically has told many casual players that the feature isn’t worth their time, and it will most likely take not just special events but the community to tell these casuals when the features are worth using. The problem is compounded, however, by driving veteran players away with continued ineptitude. When 5-star raids hit, Niantic better bring its A-game, as the way things are going, they may end up like the hated Elite and Shadow raids – but even worse.
Massively OP’s Andrew Ross is an admitted Pokemon geek and expert ARG-watcher. Nobody knows Niantic and Nintendo like he does! His Massively on the Go column covers Pokemon Go as well as other mobile MMOs and augmented reality titles!
