All good things must come to an end. No, Pokemon Go isn’t going anywhere, but after scoring some wins with the community, Niantic has tripped up again with communication problems relating to its latest patch.
In a recent secret raid overhaul, players discovered that Niantic had changed some core parts of the raid experience, without any warning. In short, bosses generate energy differently but predictably, and that can technically make raids easier, which was why some game researchers went about trying to figure out what changed. However, player move timing was rounded up or down to the nearest half-second, nerfing some long-time power moves like Counter and Lock-On. This has effectively nerfed many pokemon who were at the top of raid lists for years – all with no official warning or explanation.
Additionally, Japanese gaming site Famitsu revealed (with some translation help for English speakers via Serebii.net) some details of the upcoming Max Battles feature, which suggests players might be in for another Mega–disappointment. Like the much-hated Elite raids and Shadow raids, Max Battles will also be in-person only. They require a new currency not only to enter battle, but to power up some moves in battle, which doesn’t seem permanent. Battles also seem to ask for more XL candy for moves (which may not be permanent) and coins for “increased rewards,” like “Golden Razz Bery [sic], Rare, Candy, Hyper Potion and 10 Premier Balls,” which really doesn’t seem worth it for 100 coins (the equivalent of a full-priced raid pass or incubator). We’ll see what happens at release, but so far, our season round-up noting this feature was only maybe worth hyping seems to be holding true.
So far, the system also seems walled off from the rest of the game and is supposedly a good starting point to jump into the game, whether it’s worth recommending remains to be seen. While players may be starting on the same footing, there are just too many unknown factors and a lot of bad signs similar to the Mega Evolution system prior to the first of several overhauls that suggest we should already expect a 2.0 of the new feature in the near future.
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
9/4 Update: For the raid scene, Pokebattler is updated to reflect the changes but there’s still no official word from Niantic. Similarly, Power Spots are out now, but the way to maximize them is quite obtuse (TLDR: hit 4 Power Spots then touch none the rest of the day, and collect 600 from walking, with one batch collected at any time and the other only after hitting the 4 Power Spots) and already the community doesn’t like it.
Trainers, we have launched improvements to Raid Battles to increase stability, reduce latency, and provide the ability to expand them in the future. This may affect the timing of some Pokémon moves. We are monitoring these changes and your feedback and may adjust them over time.
— Niantic Support (@NianticHelp) September 5, 2024
9/6 Update: Niantic has finally come clean that the raid changes are intentional, though the part about monitoring changes and possibly changing them based on feedback ring hollow, these changes only came to light due to players figuring out the changes occurred, not because of any sort of transparency or community discussion.
9/7 Update: And the previous Help post was lip service. Again, without announcement, Niantic has again made a huge change to raiding mechanics, increasing the difficulty.
Trainers, in response to increased difficulty of Raid Battles we have reduced the rate at which Raid Bosses release charged attacks. Note that there may be more changes later in order to balance the difficulty of Raid Battles. #PokémonGO
— Niantic Support (@NianticHelp) September 12, 2024
9/12 Update: Yet again, Niantic has made changes to raids, further solidifying the trend that they ignore their own testers and push changes out live changes on a seeming whim.
9/28 Update: While there were grumblings before that Niantic may have changed raid mechanics, recent experience and a Reddit thread seem to indicate that, again, Niantic has changed the raid mechanics, slowing down the boss’ Charge attacks, attacks being more dodgeable, but also, oddly, 1-star Dynamax raids becoming harder, leading some to believe that the two separate raid types may be derived from similar in-game statistics/systems. If that is the case, it only furthers my note elsewhere that Niantic should have simply baked Dynamaxing into regular raids.
10/14 Update: After a suspiciously vague “update,” dataminers have found that, essentially, Niantic has reverted/corrected many of the raid changes that occurred and Pokebattler, our preferred resource, has been updated.
