“What’s the incentive? They look cool? It’s not worth it.” This is the player sentiment I’ve been seeing after people have spent some time with Pokemon Go’s Gigantimax raids and realized just how poorly planned and executed the new feature has been.
Like most players, the folks I chat with did not evolve anything or put much effort into raising their new Dynamax pokemon prior to Gmax raids because the Dynamax battles before were easy, rewarded pokemon that don’t (yet) have access to their best moves (without an Elite TM), or are just plain junk (that’s you, Falinks).
And yet, Pokemon Go’s Niantic thought it would be a good idea to go from solo/duo content to something that requires at least 20 players, a full “normal raid” lobby, and above-average heavily coordinated players.
Some context: POGO isn’t like your typical MMO where you solo to cap to do 40-player raid. For many players outside of major real-world cities, this is more like logging into a dying server for a dying game and getting a 40-player raid introduced as the new “it” content going forward. In some ways, it feels like Wildstar all over again, with devs essentially telling players to “man up” and do it their way instead of catering to the tastes of the established population that gathered largely based on the original game design, which in the case of POGO is exercising and exploring, two activities that are definitely not served by this content, where you’re just hanging around the virtual remains of a long-gone point of interest to raid with a bunch of strangers.
Positive points
I don’t want to be wholly negative here because in all honesty, some of the things Max Battles – which we’ll be calling Dmax or Gmax raids to parse out the major tiers – do would be great within a specific context. I’ve already mentioned how some parts of the system are good: Power Spots don’t have time stamps so they can’t be used for stalking, Particles as a scalable raid pass is good, the raids (at the time of the original article’s writing) last for days instead of hours (outside of a few events), the Power Spots are plentiful to ensure good access (if not quality or safety, and the main “attack” focus is on Fast Attacks, giving ‘mon more flexibility than we see in traditional raids. This last part is even better now that we know Gigantamax ‘mon’s special attacks are species-based, so pokemon who don’t have access to STAB Fast moves due to main series conversions (such as Melton’s line being a Steel-type with no access to Steel Fast Attacks) can still benefit from the system.
While it’s not Niantic’s doing, a lot of people like the Giganta-designs. I often hear people ask why Blastoise doesn’t face the player (it’s because cool guys don’t look at explosions), but no one says it looks bad. Dynamax alone wasn’t doing it for people, so maybe that’s part of the reason Gigantamax is coming out so soon, but in some ways, that’s a good call. It may sound shallow, but good visual design does do a lot to motivate players, so kudos to The Pokemon Company on that part. Niantic could have dragged things out on Gmax, but I’m glad it didn’t, even if the timing could have been better.
Normal players aren’t praising it, but Dmax and Gmax ‘mon as economy sinks are also good from a developer POV. A lot of us were hoarding not only stardust, (XL) candy, and Elite TMs, but also our best normal pokemon and then our best Dynamax ‘mon, knowing how the system usually works. Especially with the Gmax raids, Niantic created pressure to cave and raid more using coins (and/or cash) as with those highly sought after Elite TMs. A friend with a perfect IV Squirtle used one, which I’m sure Niantic thinks will lead her to buying a pack with a replacement Elite TM down the line (she won’t).
I do think there are better ways to do this, such as community donation events in the vein of the World of Warcraft Ahn’Qiraj War effort event, adding extra power levels to allow basic or weak ‘mon (like Pikachu) get Mewtwo-like stats so people can use their favorite ‘mon (which I’ve suggested before), or even gambling mechanics like trading items for chances to win encounters with rare pokemon. But Niantic just doesn’t think that way, so we get a painful economy sink instead.
And finally, yes, Gmax Battles do get larger groups of people together. During the first Gmax event, I met someone I had randomly friended before but didn’t know in meatspace, and some of our infrequent players thanked me for “organizing” a meet. But the actual “meets” were short unless you ponied up extra dough to keep going, and no one I raid with these days is someone I hang out with or even talk to much outside of POGO. It’s very much an alone-together situation.
Practical perspective
Now, while some of the above stuff could be good in theory, we need to be practical and look at what’s actually happening to communities in practice, at least in some of the POGO circles I interact with in California.
One thing that really stood out immediately when just the basic Dmax ‘mon were released is that despite what Niantic said, this system is not a compelling reason for people to start in or come back to POGO. For starters, the resources required are astronomical: I used roughly 2 million stardust to prep for the Gmax Kanto starters event; that’s about 20% of what my casual friend from 2019 had as her total stardust supply. Don’t get me started on the candy either, as this is the same friend with the perfect Dmax Blastoise she can’t max out due to XL Candy limitations. And especially don’t get me started on Particle investments, as most players were ill-prepared to jump from 3-star to 6-star raids.
In fact, the notion that people should have been ready for that jump is both boneheaded and potentially predatory. None of my counters had shields or heals unlocked, and one friend had them unlocked only because she got that perfect Squirtle early on. The community I did most GMax raids with has some big spenders who unlocked abilities to help us all out, but again, designing to make people panic-buy stuff from your store from a limited-time event that requires 20+ players is super gross.
Particle limits also made it so that unless you planned things out, you could like do only one raid without needing to leave the group for a while or purchase more particles, and they cost about 1.5x as much as a raid pass. With two days to raid three different pokemon, it’s hard not to spend, and admittedly, I was one of those people just because I didn’t know whether my community would be able to do the Kanto Gmax event two days in a row. Even wilder, I found out doing the easier Gmax Gengar raids was difficult because Niantic caused such a panic the first round that people scattered to find the biggest groups they could instead of coordinating with our already pretty large one.
It gets worse: While getting 1XL candy and 30 base candy of the raided Gmax ‘mon is nice, you get 10 balls max to catch something with a 5% base catch rate, or you pay 200 coins to double that. The thing is, aside from the balls, the rewards are trash when compared to the already junky and lower difficulty Dmax raids. This is all assuming you actually have a community to tackle Gmax raids.
Now, admittedly, I live a few cities away from a community with tons of wealthy/high-spending players, maybe half of whom also PvP, so they were ready for the event. At least one of them had gone to an even larger community hours away to ensure they’d get it done, as we couldn’t fill a single raid for the first three ‘mon (and I wouldn’t be surprised if that number dropped).
About two-thirds of the people there were ready, so I didn’t experience the horror stories of 40-player defeats, but I did end up contacting several sub-groups and other wholly separate POGO groups to get the numbers we got. Among those people, zero were my usual POGO buddies, as nearly all have quit the game at this point. They may pop in for a remote raid sometimes, but the “local only” limit on people who live in suburbs and work in the city is a real downer. Heck, one guy in a group I contacted really seemed to not want to leave town to do the raids, but as that group couldn’t even manage to get a group of four players, there’s no way it would work.
This is important because, honestly, 40 people felt like the original raid release again – in a bad way. The loudest voice becomes the leader, even if that voice gives poor advice. For example, after our group defeated Venusaur, a few of us suggested doing Blastoise, as it would now be easier with a stronger counter. The louder voices called on us to do Charizard, Venu’s weakness. Worse, though, is that there were two Charizards next to each other.
Then there’s fallout. While we’ve had two Gmax events now, Niantic doesn’t offer additional particles for these. Much as in the weekly Wednesday night raids, you lose a bulk of your group after the first and second raids. After that, almost everyone else is a paying player. However, as I mentioned above, Niantic doesn’t front-load your daily particles, so for many of us who don’t want to pay, we have to leave the group, walk to out-of-the-way power spots to earn particles, and then try to meet-up with the main group. Again, these events really feel like mob-rules, so communication is basically dead, and lone players who want to rejoin the group are at a major disadvantage. This felt especially true during the Gmax Gengar event, as people seemed either burnt out on the feature or panic-joined any large group they could find in the area, robbing traditional groups of their members.
If it’s not obvious, let me be blunt now: Despite claims that communication was key, I saw none of that in the majority of my Gmax raids. As with much of the game’s raid content, zerging reigns supreme, especially when you use the proper counters and raise them a few levels. Again, neither I nor my friend maxed out any pokemon for this, and I doubt anyone in our groups did either. More importantly, even in short-man content with some of our more organization-focused players, most coordination happened during the pre-battle phase, and even with some ‘mon that were highly invested in for the “easier” Gmax Gengar, they failed.
For communities, Max Mondays really highlight the problem: Niantic is hyping something communities have already blown past. We’re not actually getting new pokemon, so that drives down incentive. Those who are digging into the feature note that we already have the advanced forms of the current lineup, further reminding the community of how quickly these ‘mon are getting dated even within the new feature. And the “bonuses” are basically just more of the same soloable pokemon no one really wants to do. But even if you wanted to group up, you can’t because Power Spots change every few days instead of being static and known (contrary to Wednesday Raid Hours, which encourage grouping and allow for planning).
The recent release of Dmax Drilbur line for Wild Area actually really drove this home. It’s not a bad pokemon, but it’s previously been released. Making it a 1-star raid is great for solo play, but it makes the feature seem as if it’s designed for soloers when it really is not, and the strength of Raid nights tends to be grouping, highlighting how dead the scene really is.
This is the traditional MMO “solo grind to cap then start raiding” end-game switcharoo most of us know, but the fact that it’s a small part in an already crappy machine demonstrates how much Niantic has failed to learn from previous games, and those games had the benefit of not needing physical space to fit players. It’s just one of many logistical issues Niantic clearly didn’t consider.
Logistical nightmares
So let’s talk about those logistics. No, I don’t just mean getting all those people together in the first place. The areas I play in are either full of businesses or apartment buildings. Most players were crowding the street and shop fronts, either with their bodies or their cars, which did remind people POGOÂ is a thing – and reminded them of the worst aspects of it too.
Availability is another issue. It’s not just whether people have free time; it’s whether they have the in-game currency to participate. My previous notes about my local hardcore players failing was a combination of issues:
- Niantic sometimes holds events during real-world holidays (Gmax Gengar day 1 was Halloween, and popular areas don’t always have POGO players, let alone physical space to raid and/or nearby parking). That cuts out potential players, which is a big problem when you’re making large-scale content
- You have to game the system to get the most out of your “passes”; groups break up because those who do game the system for their particles need to physically leave the raid group to earn their next pass, sometimes having to walk 4km before starting their next raid. Raid trains, therefore, are largely short and often restricted to whales.
- Niantic didn’t grant additional Particles during these events. Not frontloading particles these days so people can just raid the train to the finish line is pretty bad, but not giving communities extra ammo means getting people together feels less worth it to those who don’t spend on the game.
Even worse was streaming personalities suddenly appearing to disrupt local communities. While hardcores could drive to a location at the drop of a hat, those of us who need to schedule ahead of time suddenly found out that our usual group no longer had passes to participate. If Niantic wanted to do 40-player raids but have people randomly paired up with others online, that would alleviate many of the problems. Heck, if it were more like time trials, where small, coordinated parties could team up with all small parties or randos to get better rewards for beating the encounter faster, that would be perfect. But Niantic is ramming “local only” content down the playerbase’s throat, not only risking alienating said players but also giving the general public a reason to dislike them.
I feel this really highlights how limited of an appeal this feature is: It’s mainly for people living in huge cities where they can’t fail, for streaming personalities to show off their popularity, or for people who have a tight-knit group of 8-20 players. That’s super specific and super niche. Had Niantic simply left Remote Raid Passes alone and baked that into Max Battles, or better yet, made Max Battles simply a new feature within normal raids, the feature would be not only more popular but more profitable. While we’re being nickel-and-dimed for “passes” and doubling rewards, Niantic could have just built broader appeal so the average player would be interested in this.
The problems continue. Niantic’s in-game Campfire tool – which strips out chat, joining groups, flares to indicate interest in raids, and other tools – sometimes either fails to update the 24-hour maps or is just plain wrong, as the second day of the Gmax Gengar event proved. Unlike with the Kanto starters, Power Spots weren’t rotating hourly, which meant they weren’t refreshing to give new ‘mon to raid, and they weren’t changing things up, so places barren of the featured raid would stay that way. Given that we still need large groups to do these and the content is significantly harder than the usual zerg-able 5-star raids, I saw firsthand how a group that normally could handle the content would fall apart simply because it couldn’t organize a meeting point.
That’s not even the end of the map issues, though. Both Campfire and the actual map can be misleading or even different from player to player. What may be a Squirtle on my screen could be a Bulbasaur to you, and depending on the build, sometimes you can do the raid and sometimes you can’t. And sometimes, it may be intentional, as Drilbur as of this writing shows up for Wild Area ticket holders but not for non-ticket holders.
Final notes
I think one thing that doesn’t get mentioned often is that the system is nearly entirely closed. It’s not just the basic catch/level system that’s been in place since 2016; it’s cutting off pokemon we’ve been traveling with for eight years, some of which would have been relevant again if we could have at least used them in Dynamax battles (and maybe with soup to gain Gigantamax forms).
The lack of stalking for the defense aspect of the system is nice, but it creates even more storage bloat because you have to drop off a team member, meaning the pokemon at least has to be a dynamax and be able to last the battle. The rewards are just regular candy, not even coins, so I often find myself not dropping anything off, even if I can recall at any time because, frankly, the system as a whole feels like it’s sucking my time away.
The problem is also our social constructs. Beyond battling together, battling with team/faction members grants no bonus to our rewards. It may be a Pokemon Company issue, but we’re cut off from bringing our Megas, a system that’s had three iterations and is wholly left out beyond granting some catch perks (which may also say a lot about that system). Our long-distance friends can’t help at all. Our party members, which is a recent feature, grant no bonus, not just in terms of Power Party damage, but again, even friend damage. Heck, in Gigantamax raids, you don’t even get automatically placed with your party.
Not that it seems to matter most of the time. For whatever reason, Niantic often doesn’t offer anything above a 1-star Max Battle option, so there’s nothing to challenge you or do small groups with unless you want to win so fast that you min/max your ‘mon to defeat the boss before having to endure the Dynamax animation. Both a lack of challenge and disdain for battle animation preventing getting through content as fast as possible speak volumes about Niantic’s effort on a new feature that’s supposed to bring in new players.
And remember, this “new” feature heavily favors veteran players willing to essentially re-acquire pokemon that they’ve already long-held, powered up, and ultimately cycled out for more powerful ‘mon for the most part. This isn’t really like an MMO expansion where, yes, you have to do some rebuilding. Max Battles feels wildly different, allowing some carryover (player appearance, level, candy, and stardust) but not the series core: our pokemon. Heck, even our chosen starters this season didn’t get the Dynamax treatment, making it even more obvious that Pokemon GO doesn’t see pokemon as our friends but simply as tools for battle, which is definitely a trait of the series antagonists.
That is, my starter Sobble, with not great stats and no way to improve them, wasn’t great, but then Dynamax made it and anything better than it garbage. I got super lucky and snagged a perfect Sobble from a Dynamax raid, but now that I know Gigantamax forms are wholly separate, the investments I started to plunk down (because again, Community Day moves and low access to free Elite TMs promotes hoarding and demotes investing priorities) feel wasteful. I actually have been investing in junk pokemon instead, just enough not to hold my peers back, because I want to be ready to power up the good stuff later.
I’ve come to realize that the problem isn’t just how bad Niantic is at thinking these changes through; it’s that the studio is conducting testing on a large scale with its live product. Like it did with regular raids, Niantic has been changing how Max Raid battles work in some important ways. On November 20th, for no apparent reason, I realized that Max Raid Battles weren’t lasting days as I noted at the start of the positive points section, but just two hours. No rhyme or reason, no patch notes or dev diaries to explain the changes, just the whims of the higher-ups using players as guinea pigs and free labor.
Again, I know of several people who already avoid Max Raids as a whole and even slowed down their game activity entirely. In fact, I admittedly somewhat belong in this category, though it’s also linked with the long on-going storage issue that inspired me to look into MMO hoarding. This content isn’t inspiring people to come back, and I can tell you I haven’t even attempted to contact lapsed friends let alone players to help me tackle this. From what I’ve seen, it seems like, combined with other long-standing issues with both the game and company, Max Battles are giving people a reason to finally quit Pokemon GO.
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!
