Cant have it both ways
Why are people getting super agro about not getting shadow claw gengar on a raid day when they were doing the exact same thing BECAUSE Zapdos got TS on its raid day.
They cant have it both ways, getting mad about a new moveset outclassing a previous version of a pokemon, but then those same people getting mad when that exact same thing DOESNT happen.
Answers
People always find something what to complain about. It turns out, it doesn't matter what Niantic does, it will always have a polarized response from the players community.
The only point I'll give to complainers in this case is that unlike Zapdos, Gengar did have SC already for a short period of time. The problem here is that Niantic set the precedent with Body Slam Snorlax, but in a very different and very limited way - you knew upfront you won't be able to get more than 4-5 due to how the research breakthrough is designed.
I've read you stating arguments like this in multiple posts. Your arguments are very subjective and I note some rancor even.
It was in line to think Gengar would return with Shadow Claw after what they've done with Snorlax. Also, I think players got used to this phenomenon that Pokemon will get outclassed by a better version in the future. Zapdos was one of the first ones. Therefore it created the picture you tried to describe. I didnt notice any of this hazzle after last community days event on the contrary.
Rancor?
But that was people expecting it to come back, after they went from Lax to the beasts, people should have expected snorlax was a one time case for legacy moves after they didnt do another legacy run. Even after how many community days, people are still skeptical theres any patern for how they do them to predict what pokemon are coming next, but after so many less months people thought that for sure raid days and research would give legacy moves back without a clear pattern.
It seems like it was just because of SC gengar hype, and after so long of expecting it, people felt entitled to shadow claw gengar. Heck theres people in my current raid chat who are completely in denial about them actually giving it psychic.
This is PoGo, what do you expect? Complaining is pretty much 2nd nature to 95% of the playerbase.
On a more serious note the two points worth making were already made above, namely that it already existed and bringing back legacy moves has already been seen in the form of BS Snorlax. There's also the fact that one's a legendary and the other isn't; To put it more to the point, one requires expensive rare candy and the other requires candy that's been exceptionally common to many before.
I'm aware ones a legendary and the other isnt, and do agree, but its not like rare candy is this super hard thing to come by, I dropped wel over a hundred on my rayquaza a week or so ago, and all of thats been made back by research and raids, and it snot like I spent 4 passes a day, I only use the free one and maybe a premeim ever 3 or 4 days. (as well as we had double catch candy on zapdos day, and with distance trades that further reduces candy cost by giving back more zapdos candy)
It's not hard to come by but it does take a lot of time to build up supplies of it.
You gotta remember a lot of the niceties we have now for candy obtaining didn't exist when people were powering up their first Zapdos. We didn't have double candy catch the first time he was around, we didn't have research to find a random one here and there, we didn't have friendship bonuses to give more balls and rewards for completed raids, and we didn't have trading to do legendary swaps for additional candy. Raids also weren't as refined as they are now so people caught fewer of them, meaning fewer candies at their disposal. For most people's firsts powering up was exclusively a rare candy from raids sink.
I'm aware I know how hard getting rarecandy was and how bad raids were back then, it was part of the reason I didnt pick the game up. but now its so easy to get rarecandy back, and with all the raids those zapdos likely did, they more than earned back the rarecandy spent.
I know it was harder to get candy back then, and thats why people today are so strict about how they use rarecandy even when its much more available today. Most people wouldn't drop rarecandy on a Zapdos needlessly, they'd only power it up when it was needed and its not like they went without use before TS zapdos came, heck I dont even think TS zapdos has seen all that much use since.
My point in mentioning the history lesson is that people felt burned because they had spent what was arguably harder to obtain rare candy for naught. It's one thing to look down the road and say "X, Y, and Z Pokemon will outclass it but that's not for years off" and get use out of Pokemon W. It's another thing when suddenly Pokemon W 2.0 comes out less than a year later and takes a dump on any perceived hard-earned power-ups.
Yes and no about why people don't mindlessly sink RC into stuff. That's partially because of the time needed to amass piles of it and partially because - thanks to Zapdos - why bother if the better version will come out in another year?
Gengar day with SC wouldn't have this issue because it's common candy. You'd get people who feel miffed about the dust sink sure, but that's easier to earn back than 200+ rare candies.
But when raids were added, gen 2 was already out, Raikou was already a possibility to come soon after even when zapdos first came out (Raikou still being better than both zapdos sets). Its not like looking at raikou when it came out and planning for gen 5 zekrom, its like looking at whats out right now, and what can come out in a few months.
You have to keep in mind that the investment needed for Zapdos is far larger than for Gengar. While the dust to power from 20 to 40 is exactly the same, Zapdos candy is much harder to come by. Especially since thunder shock was legacy on Zapdos before it was released, no one expected it to get that move and boosted their charge beam Zapdos basically wasting quite some dust and candy on a version that is outclassed. Not only that, Gastly is found in the wild up to lvl 35 requiring 124 candy to be usable instantly without any other investment meaning that people's current hex Gengars aren't really wasted resources.
However, I do agree people like to whine about everything and that's stupid.
Many players on this game are narrow minded noobs, who reach level 40 by making lots of best friends, think they're awesome for catching 30 mewtwos, and generally want everything to benefit them and them only.
Therefore, if they powered up a charge beam zapdos they'll whine if a thundershock zapdos appears on com day. Cos that doesn't benefit them.
And if they don't have a shadow claw gengar, then one doesn't appear on com day, they will also complain. Cos that doesn't benefit them.
Essentially they'll complain about anything that doesn't benefit them.
This is my whole thing with the shadow claw Gengar obsession: it’s not even that good. I am lucky to have two 98 SC Gengars. Yeah if I was to look at a DPS chart they are always near the top. And they have the fastest TTW vs Mewtwo etc etc. do I use my SC gengars? Yeah I do, but basically for fun and because I can. Rarely have I ever felt that they helped me in any raid, ever.
In fact I think if people saw how quickly Gengar died against a confusion Mewtwo or really against any boss they would be pushing for the stat rebalance rather than a higher DPS fast move.
A large chunk of what makes Gengar truly stand out is how good you are at dodging, something that's not a factor in group raids due to the dodge bug. GamePress's ratings explanation even says so;
"Gengar can earn its spot on raid teams against specific bosses to help beat the clock, but it requires immaculate dodging to be effective."
This is also why people get hard for Shadow Claw, it has high fast move DPS while being easy to dodge with. I love using my Gengar but I won't lie that its time to shine comes when you can dodge powerful charge moves that would otherwise kill it, or even hard hitting fast moves if it helps fire off an additional Shadow Ball.
Eh... while I don't entirely disagree, people complaining of the lack of Shadow Claw have a valid point. Niantic has created a precedent in which a superior Legacy Move is introduced in a limited manner outside of Community Day (Body Slam Snorlax) for a non-Legendary Pokémon. So it is entirely reasonable to expect that if a non-Legendary Pokémon is being released in a limited manner, there will be a Legacy move associated with it.
Once you open that door, there is an expectation that you will continue to go through it. So when Niantic is NOT going through it (apparently), it's something to criticize as well. Niantic shouldn't be allowed to have it both ways either.
Guilty is charged, I know that I do a double-take when a (in the eyes of the beholder) precedent is set in the game, yet not followed in a future instance.
Example: the Gengar Raid event is being introduced during community day hours, but not being held on a weekend as per the normal CD routine. To me this is a break from the precedent, and of course my thoughts are biased since I will be at work during these hours. C'est la vie!
Edit: LOL I am special. Read that the raids were on Thursday; the announcement was made on Thursday. Please disregard xD
I think most of the complaints about TS Zapdos and other raid day exclusive moves were because many ppl can't play in an exclusive 3h window, so giving the best moves to legendaries this way was unfair to a large portion of the community. This is different from CD where you can plan ahead and just evolve. Since the birds were later released for a whole week after, most of the criticism toned down.
Personally, I always thought SC Gengar coming back was wishful thinking. I even maxed my average SC Gengar 3 weeks ago.
This is honestly different, because SC Gengar has already been available. Imagine if they do a Tyranitar special raid day and give it Earthquake instead of SD for that day? Everyone would be pissed, because nobody wants TTar with EQ, but plenty of people would like a new shot at one with SD.
Zapdos = creating an exclusive move with only 3 hour time window
Gengar = neglecting to make previously exclusive move more available
There's a difference here.
I'm not particularly pissed myself because I have a SC Gengar and don't need more, but I think people aren't totally unjustified with their complaints. And regardless of how one feels about it, I think everyone agrees that Psychic as the exclusive move is a terrible financial decision for Niantic. They had the chance to make the raids exciting beyond the shiny hunt and they destroyed that chance thoroughly.
You're conflating two different issues: 1) new, superior moves being exclusive to a 3-hour window and TM-locked; 2) thwarted expectations about bringing back a superior legacy moveset.
Zapdos complaining was mainly in regards to the former issue, Gengar the latter. No one would have whined if you could TM your Zapdos that you spent 150 RC on to TS from CB during the 3-hour window. The disappointment with Gengar is that they fell on their face trying to give it an exclusive move when there's already a well-loved and not-game-breaking legacy move people have been clamoring for, myself included. While I can understand the decision not to bring back SC, Psychic is laughably bad and feels a bit like Niantic is trolling us when there has been palpable demand for SC.
Thats probably exactly why they gave is Psychic, because they wanted to get tha point about shadow claw not coming back across to everyone.
Also even with TS, zapdos is still beaten by raikou significantly, which that on its own relegates its to a nonissue. Yes SZ is better than CB, but neither are superior to Raikou, so many could argue those RC spent on previous CB zapdos were already 'wasted'.
People getting mad about not getting Sc gengar is more an issue about players feeling entitled to pokemon, expecting to get something niantic never made a statement about giving us build up over months of speculating it'd come back.
YEs I do believe that, after all the hate mail and such they got from things like zapdos day, and seeing how absolutely pissed off some of the people on here are, I imagine Niantic would have gotten a lot more crap directly and would want to make a point to shut all that up, why else would they give it a move as absolutely terrible as PSYCHIC on a RAID DAY? they'd have to have known people would hate that.
If the point was to make a gengar that could coutner fighting better, they would have given it dazzling gleam, or added dream eater or something, but psychic is just so hopelessly bad, unless they are planning to actually make psychic useful
Thay have also shown at times to know exactly what they are doing, I agree niantic's messed up A LOT in the past, but thats also ignoring all the things they've actually done RIGHT recently
Best moveset for Rhyperior, Rapardos, Garchomp, mamoswine, Weavil, Nonchkrow, Darkrai. Meteor mash metagross, Sky attack moltres, more catch candy on mewtwo last month, dialga and palkia getting good moves to be useable in raids
I've played multiple competative games in the past at a professional level (just to state I've played games long enough to make observations), I must say that Niantic is the worst game developer I've ever encountered.
Tho I must admit this ain't a competative game and it's for the phone. So maybe this kind of developing is standard for mobile games and I'm simply expecting too much.
We shouldn't set standards like we would for a competitive PC/console game, but even for a mobile game Niantic is handling things very poorly. At least compared to a lot of other mobile developers. I've played a fair amount of mobile games, and I've seen none of this exclusive 3 hour crap in them. In particular, another top grossing mobile game I play makes its time-limited content available in 1-2 week events or puts in into the shop for MONTHS. And even then, there's a P2W option to get some past exclusive things available again. Oh, and reruns of past events as well including the possibility to get the limited content if you started the game after the first run.
Niantic just does not seem like they are very good at game design or mobile game design and haven't acquired enough people who do either. POGO is enough of a gold mine that they're still profiting enormously, but the profits could've been a lot bigger if they knew what they were doing.
Gonna disagree about the standards thing. Just because a game is being developed for a mobile platform doesn't mean they should get extra passes on certain matters. If bad practices continue to print money it'll negatively affect the gaming industry as a whole. We have $60 title games with microtransaction elements in them now because people at Ubisoft or EA saw they were profitable on freemium platforms and decided they needed more money.
It doesn’t make a lick of sense pun intended to release a legacy move for Gengar day. In all other situations like this they have released a new move for the mon. Not one that was legacy. In reality Gengar should never get Shadow Claw again when there is a possibility of giving it a new move for example: lick, night shade or dream eater.
And finally people referncing snorlax are missing the boat. Legacy snorlax was a research breakthrough reward not a raid day. All raid days have introduced new moves for a Pokémon not legacy.
I haven't been able to play a single raid day, but weren't all those Pokemons legendaries? From that point of view it doesnt make sense to introduce Gengar through a raid day. I mean, both from a financial point of view as from a player point of view, nobody benefits from this decision.
They should have introduced shiny ghastly during this event with SC Gengar in a similar way as BS Snorlax to have created the most hype. That's what the game is all about in the end, right?
I mean, I dont care in all honesty. I dont even play the game anymore. Just trying to talk logic now about what would have been best to all parties.
Not necessarily. Articuno didn't have any legacy moves and initially didn't even have a raid exclusive move until the apology round they had for Japan. Thundershock technically was legacy since it was in the game master as being capable of learning it, though it was removed before initial release. Moltres straight up got a new move from the get go.
Of the three raid days one move was *technically* legacy and one of the two that got a new move only got it as an apology, there's a possibility it likely wouldn't have gotten it otherwise.
I'm just saying it was there. There's still the point about Articuno, none of the ones available to me on its raid day had Hurricane.
To the original comment, I still feel Snorlax is a fair comparison. Something with an existing legacy move was featured and re-released with said legacy move. It's not surprising people would expect something similar when another Pokemon with an existing legacy move is featured for something.
