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Sinnoh stones

Not really a question, but more of a humorous observation.

I somewhat find it funny how back at release, people were livid about how hard they were to get, despite most of the pokemon being dex filler. (Almost everyone but Weavile, Rhyperior and possibly Electivire roserade togekiss depending on player needs, all three being very niche types offensively)

With heatran being a raid boss, the need for them while they were limited was definitely something to have been a problem, though even before heatran was a raid boss, we had the stones from PvP.

Now, it seems most people dont care about them anymore. My phone normally cant handle matches agaisnt other people so ive only been able to get one possible stone via training, and even being unlucky, have gotten more then I need (about 7 since launch) I imagine people doing the 3 battles with others would have gotten many more. Most of the gen 4 pokemon gotten from stones are largely dex filler at release, but the development of the PvP meta did make a niche for most of the sinnoh evolutions, but at the same time, the stones have been made much easier to get, looking back at how a lot of players seemingly were going to go and riot to niantic about making these stones so hard to get looks almost laughable in hindsight given how quickly we went from wanting more to having almost too many.

Personally I was a little glad how long it took to get sinnoh stones originally, made evolving pokemon a lot more meaningful in my oppinion, but that's just me.

Asked by MetagrossMaxis6 years 2 months ago

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Were there really that many people upset about how "hard" it was to get Sinnoh Stones? Only one person on this forum stands out to me... 🤣

That said, I will say that the period after they removed the guarantee of getting them from research breakthroughs and before PvP was pretty rough. Having one 20% chance to get one per week was pretty uniformly disappointing.

The current distribution of stones, however, is just fine imo. Getting 4 shots at a stone per day is plenty fine. I was able to finish all of the Gen IV evolutions that require stones, so now I'm stockpiling them as I assume Mons like Mamoswine, Magnezone, and friends will also require them when they get released.

My entire discord, minus about 5 of so people (my discord being 600+ people) got a bit mad/outraged over it (to varying degrees). I didnt get is as the sinnoh evolutions most of us really wanted, magnazone, mamoswine, weren't out, while rhyperior and electirivre are fantastic, they weren't really needed, Hreatran wasnt out, and theres not much demand for electric types. Weavile was welcomed as it was good agaisnt cresselia.

Most of the people wanted to have all the sinnoh evolutions first, probably for bragging rights or to show off, something I dont really get. theres no reward for having every pokemon and not many really care about a pokemon unless its either a favorite of them or meta relevant.

I wouldn't put it past niantic to make the others have different requirements, which i'd actually like, as they all dont evolve with the same methods.

Yeah - people were annoyed about the Sinnoh stones being unavailable. Particularly after they were taken out of the 7 Day Research as the apparently automatic rewards they were for about 10 days (meaning some people got it twice in a row, some only got it once). I think even I made a post on here complaining about it.

As soon as they were available from PVP reliably, people stopped bitching.

It was undeniable bullshit at the beginning though. Once-a-week from the breathrough box put an unneeded time gate on completing the Pokedex. Removing them from the guaranteed items before making them available elsewhere inflamed the community even more, rightfully so. Once we saw them become available through PvP the outrage died down a lot, only the truly unlucky who went four or five days of fights without seeing one were still mad.

It makes practical sense for them to be more abundant given that 11 different Pokemon require them to evolve, potentially more when the rest of the cross-gen evolutions are added.

I didnt really think anything was too bad about removing them from guaranteed breakthroughs because we would get them eventually, ive heard evolution items were super rare when added in gen 2, now we dont want them anymore, the same thing likely would happen with stones and has. Yes the time gate is a bit excessive, but its wasnt as though they were pokemon in super high demand, the big one in demand was Weavile but even then, we had other pokemon that could do the same job as it (tyranitar, gengar, mewtwo with shadow ball).

From what I recall, the gap between guaranteed removal and addition to PvP also wasnt that big, one stone per week means most would only get one, maybe two possibilities for a sinnoh stone. Its not like the gap was something like several months.

It's easy to say that now with the hindsight of being able to potentially scoop up four stones in a day. When they were removed from the guaranteed items we didn't know when they would be made available elsewhere or at what rate. People just wanting to complete the Pokedex (myself included) were dreading an arbitrary 11 week barrier, knowing it could take three or four times as long was just dirty.

I don't remember exactly how long it was before the Johto items were added to the 7 day streak bonus but we had the entire Johto dex to work on while we waited for those items - there was no slow rollout of Gen 2, we first got the babies for a few months and then we got everything else all at once. Gen 4 has been a piss poor excuse of a rollout and when the evolutions were the only thing to reliably work on it's easy to see why people would be mad about the time barrier.

People were looking forward to a lot more than just Weavile: Rhyperior was in demand for having the highest readily accessible rock- and ground-type DPS, with SD Tyranitar being exclusive and Groudon being nowhere in sight. Electivire has the highest electric-type DPS. Roserade is an all-star grass and poison-type attacker, even if not the outright best. Despite lacking (arguably even needing) a fairy-type fast move, Togekiss was a favorite of many and saw a lot of first stones. Not to knock Weavile too hard since it's fantastic in both its dark- and ice-type roles.

Again, hindsight makes a lot of complaints seem silly now despite them all being perfectly valid at the time. Completing the Pokedex is one of the milestones of Pokemon regardless of their utility or lack thereof, and arbitrary barriers like the previous method of Sinnoh Stone distribution spit in the face of that.

I agree we didnt know exactly when, but it was an eventuality. Niantic wouldn't withhold them for an unreasonable amount of time, their goal is to make money and pissing off fans isnt exactly a good way to do that. Wanting to complete the dex and that being a fairly large time barrier I agree would be a problem, but a lot of the players who are in the know about the game knew most of the sinnoh evolutions would have amounted to just dex filler before PvP. Though gen 2's evolution item requirements were significantly smaller, they may not have anticipated the reaction of the community

Im not knocking weavile, mine was fantatic, though as an ice attacker, we all know whats coming, it likely wont get a chance to shine before mamoswine comes. As a dark attacker I agree there, it was very helpful agaisnt giratina and Cresselia, though you must agree it was far from the only great option against both.

Roserade as a poison attacker is good, but theres not much of a place for poison, Metagross covers fairy and numerous fire and flying types cover grass (it doesnt help that a number of grass types are also not weak to poison) and with grass types, it only slightly outperforms PF venasaur, solar beam's one bar nature and long animation time can hurt it while FP venasaur, and in the next two months, we're likely to get Sceptile with FP have a two bar, so less energy is wasted.

Togekiss, I wish got a fairy fast move(and am still holding out for raid/CD), but even back then, I said it wouldn't do anything to help it (and the same happens with gardevoir) unless the move was a hydrocannon of fast moves, not exactly top tier attacking stats, togekiss has extremely steep competition against dragons and dark types counters and to a smaller extent fighting types, it would have needed an extremely powerful fairy fast move to even make it noticed in the meta.

In hindsight a lot of things are silly, but this more than most, did anyone reasonably believe theres no possible
way niantic would make sinnoh stones and RNG chance from a once a week thing forever? No, early on they even said there would be other methods of acquiring them, and they weren't even out that long before PvP came along. I know it was out around giratina, and PvP came part way through cresselia. It might just be my perspective being different, as I dont see any reason to rush for every pokemon the second they drop. Generation 4's release schedule is terrible, most of the people I know arent happy about gible and several other sinnoh evolutions not being out, and I am there with them, though only because I want a gible to start buddying, im not in a rush to get pokemon unless I have a very pressing need for them battlewise or know they will be great sometime in the future, I know others are different however..

**EDIT forgot about sceptile not getting a good grass fast move, a point for roserade, though its preformance isnt much above venasaur still

"...pissing off fans isn't exactly a good way [to make money]."
They seem to be doing a pretty good job of that starting with the Gen 4 rollout.

No one expected it to be forever. The issue was that we had no idea how long it would be for another option to show up. It could have been weeks, it could have been months. The way Niantic has handled the game, most notably starting with Gen 4, it could have easily leaned toward the longer side of the scale. Sometime in the summer TPC's website advertised increased box storage would be coming soon and we didn't see it until well after Gen 4's release. Same story for Ditto research; In June they promised a Ditto encounter research and it wasn't seen until the Let's Go Meltan event and hasn't been around since. Hell, they promised the stat rebalance alongside Gen 4's release and we saw how long it took for it to actually take hold. Niantic has a history of setting up promises and failing to deliver in a timely manner - we didn't expect Sinnoh Stone distribution to be any different, and in hindsight it's a pleasant surprise that it was.

It also wasn't that the Sinnoh Stone was no longer guaranteed, it was that they removed the guarantee *before adding another venue to get it from*. That's bad game design no matter what way you look at it and also a huge distinction; had it been a guarantee until the very moment PvP debuted there would have been significantly less outrage over it becoming just another random chance item.

Niantic has had a history of false promises, but from what ive heard, a number of those had come from mistranslations or misunderstandings. That's been a problem from niantic for a while. Lets GO coming out might have also had them set back their plans a bit, most of us expected gen four to roll out around the eevee event because of leafeon and glaceon, and the at the time recent gen 4 teaser. It wasnt until much later gen 4's started, and a reason for that I feel is Nintendo. With Nintendo either intentionally or unintentionally forcing their hand to make compatibility and LG promoting events, that could have brought things away from gen 4. That and people not thinking niantic would do something isnt really the fault of niantic, they said it was coming and people didnt believe them, so both sides could be at fault there. Ditto research also might not have been released because of people just stacking them up like we do with dragon research

But back to the stones. The gap between the stones guarenteed removal and PvP wasnt that large. I agree the removal of the guarantee and a period of time where its possible to not get one was bad design on their part, I agree they should have kept the guaenteed for the whole, but then people would complain about not having a shot at extra rarecandy/etc, but they did tell us other ways would be coming, and people didnt listen. That's not really niantics fault, and people would complain either way. Dex completers wanted the stones, but others could want more rarecandy or pokeballs. That and the gap wasnt exceedingly large, i'd say three weeks at most, two or three extra sinnoh stones depending on stamp progress isnt really that much, and it was still possible to get them.

If anything Nintendo forces their hand to actually get things out the door. I don't know if you saw the E3 footage from 2016 when they were discussing Pokemon Go. When Shigeru Miyamoto (Nintendo) announced the release date of the Pokemon Go Plus the Niantic rep with him was pretty noticeably panicked, because he knew that meant the game needed to be taken out of beta/field test and actually released prior to that. Any fault in delays can pretty much be placed on Niantic's shoulders, not Nintendo.

I don't think you remember how the guaranteed stone worked. When you open a box now you get three item bundles; some exp, some dust, and a random 3rd bundle that's possibly the stone, possibly other stuff. When the stone was guaranteed you got 4 bundles; some exp, some dust, the stone, and a random 4th bundle. Removing the stone as a guaranteed item removed a bundle. AT THE TIME, we didn't know PvP would be approaching and AT THE TIME we didn't know how long it would be until there was another avenue to get the stone. That's why people complained. You can keep using hindsight to call people greedy whiners all you want but it doesn't make those complaints any less valid, again, AT THE TIME they were being made. Three weeks could have been three months for all any of us knew AT THE TIME.

The gen 2 evo items were never super rare. They were always guaranteed from the 7th day spin and always had the random chance of dropping from normal spins. The main problem with them was that there were several different ones, so it was pretty common to get the wrong ones. I got my second Metal Coat 3 months after gen 2 release.

"OMG NEED MORE DRAGON SCALES AND UP-GRADES" ~ #SaidNoOneEver(In2019)

Dragon scales were great for grinding the dragon medal, but thats about it.

Don't think Sinnoh stones are still enough though.

If you're saving up from before you could well have 5 more Rhydons and 6 more sneasal to go through before you run out of things to evolve (I personally could use at least 10 more). That will stop eventually, but then we will also get more targets to use the stone on (hint hint probably mamoswine but also maybe not)

So I disagree, some people still care about Sinnoh stones and talk about them

We don't know for sure if the other evolutions will require them. To say we will get more targets to use them on is a little premature, though it doesn't hurt to stockpile them.

Most of the other pokemon dont use evolution stones, gallade and froslass are the only ones I can think of right now, most of the others evolve via move or location based. Niantic likely could make a new machanic for them

Also if gallade gets some special item for evolving, that will just about kill any possibility for it getting a CD

Well now I've got 4 Roserade and 4 Honchkrow...

Only earned two stones from my daily battles with Blanche and two back when they were guaranteed in research breakthroughs. Used one to get Weavile (which was great for Cresselia), two for Rhyperiors (with EQ) and holding on to the remaining one (Electivire is great but can wait).

thats what I mean, the sinnoh evolutions that people want for usage really arent too good for long despite being great counters, by the time a large group of them are gotten, especially when they were breakthrough exclusive, the raid boss was close to leaving (for example, getting 3 stones from breakthroughs to get half a team of weavile for cresselia would leave only about a week left before she left). In the next two weeks, heatrans likely to leave, and unless next is dialga, cya Rhyperior, and even then, fighting's a lot better agaisnt it.

The others, not much demand for raid wise. Electivire, while great, isnt in high demand because of electrics profile, and things like Roserade while great in DPS, we have venusaur which isnt much worse in DPS, but a bit better in TDO. Togekiss, its moveset was a let down but fairy never was a good offensive type. Those were the highest profile ones, the others were dex filler, and Honchkrow was kinda the odd edge case, was ok as a dark attacker, but weavile was better

Raikou is a fantastic generalist gym attacker, tearing through Gyarados, Milotic, Slowbro and other Water-types. Before I got MM Metagross, Raikou was also my answer to Gardevoir and Clefable.

If a level 40 Electivire has more bulk than a level 30 Raikou, it would be an important investment for me.

That's not a generalist, that's an electric specialist.
Generalist are things like metagross, even when not getting super effective damage, its DPS is high enough that it doesnt matter it doesnt get super effective damage.

Raikou has a decent enough neutral DPS to be considered an ok generalist for gym battles. It's only a hair below Machamp in neutral damage. Metagross has 10% higher neutral DPS, which makes it a better generalist, but not overwhelmingly so that Raikou can't be considered one.

This game is full of whiners. It was the same with gen 2 evolution items when those came out. And the worst temper tantrums were over players not getting a Mewtwo within the first couple of months that they were available.

For me the initial rarity of them pretty much killed all the hype about the cross-gen evos. I ended up hoarding my few stones in case I needed any of the evos for a pokedraft until they became so common that now I'm counting when I can evolve all the shinies, luckies etc. (still need like 20 stones for that)

My first evolution, a 100% Togekiss, was hugely satisfying, but after that there was no feeling of meaningfulness. The stones went from priceless to pretty common in the span of a week.

I always preach to play for the moment. Hoarding resources never pays off, as Niantic actively works against it. Get your evolutions and use them while they are fresh and exciting.

Thing is, there wasn't any use for most of the evolutions, so no reason to evolve other than for the novelty, which wore off pretty fast. And since some of the Stone evolutions are very good options in pokedraft I wanted to make sure I had access to any of them for the next round.

Hoarding resources is the name of the game. What have you been playing all this time?! People who prematurely evolved and maxed their perfect Metagross before MM will regret it forever. It is only a safe practice for ultra hardcore players that can cushion big losses like that but rushing the Dex just for the sake of it is one of the worst practices you can have in PoGO every since CDs and RDs ate introduced last year. It took me a while to learn this and out of hundreds if mistakes I have only benefited by rushing evolutions twice: once when I buddied my first and only dratini until I could evolve in into my first Nite even tho it's IVs were subpar (86%) and barely made it in time before DB/DC became legacy, and the second time when I rushed to evolve a perfect torchic during the few hours it could still get the super rare Stone Edge simply cause I wanted a Blaziken, but that one is just a fancy collectible that has been surpassed in rarity by bite Shedinja so what gives.

Stone Edge Blaziken could catch someone off-guard in PvP, you never know. I actually have no idea how good Blaziken is in PvP...

That's one of the biggest faults in the way Niantic is handling the game, actively playing the game ends up biting you in the ass in the long run. I would have been hella pissed had I evolved my perfect Beldum the day I caught it. Instead it was the first catch that made me think "...I better wait." Six months later my patience was rewarded. While I love having a perfect MM Metagross I don't like knowing that an in the moment evolution would have gimped me out of the single best generalist in the game.

This is exactly why people complained about initial Sinnoh Stone rarity. It became yet another case of slow-dripping minimal content over too long of a time period, something that's plagued Gen 4's entire release.

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