So my opinion on these "lucky" pokemon is that they're a sham. They were introduced to artificially lengthen the game and somehow demand more use of the trading system.
This is yet another delay of the PvP combat system. Now all the people who are complaining about 1500 pokemon slots being to small are about to be in for a surprise when *2500!* will be too small!
How is Niantic so far off track from PvP. It's the only thing I'm genuinely waiting for. None of this month-long Regi raid, nor these hatted Pikachus, nor "lucky" trades, nor new pokemon that really won't impact the Meta that much.
The only delay of PvP, would be a gym re-haul. This Blissey+GB crap needs to go. I'd rather battle all gym pokemon twice as powerful, just ONCE. This would also make it much more challenging and interesting, maybe forcing me to use more than *gasp* 2-3 of my pokemon in my party. And god forbid, strategize my team a bit!
Yeah, Niantic is so worried about making this an "active" game and forcing as much social interaction as possible that they've limited themselves terribly. Though on PVP, I don't see much to be excited about. With our current system, it may as well be Cookie Clicker PVP. There is no competitive or strategic play involved, just tap like mad and switch to type-advantageous mons every 5 seconds as your opponent does the same.
As for gyms: I just wanna see legendaries postable.
I'm with you all the way. I feel like the Lucky mechanic is kind of a missed opportunity to give Pokemon that were lucky something more interesting. For a moment it seemed like old Pokemon could reliably trigger 'luckiness', which was a nice nod to veteran players (although a little weird in benefitting hoarders most), but now it's hard to say how much that helps you.
My biggest problem with the game is related to the concerns you raised - i.e. lazy events and sluggish game development - which is the over-reliance on RNG as a game mechanic. Some RNG is necessary in any game to add some variability and excitement, but Niantic's dev team seems to feel that all virtually all gameplay mechanics need to be underpinned by randomness and luck. Wild Pokemon encounters? Luck. Shiny? Luck. IVs? Luck. EX raids? Luck. Raid egg yielding what you want? Luck. Quest locations? Luck. Lucky? Luck (obviously that last one is inevitable, lol). The main series games had their fair share of relatively boring grinding as well and had RNG elements, but with the battle system being so excessively stale as you pointed out, there's literally nothing else to do in the game that's interesting aside from pray to RNGesus to give you a high IV rare encounter. There's also no end game for high-level players, which, while somewhat freeing for some, leaves others questioning what to do once they've gotten enough experience to hit 40 multiple times over.
I mainly play now because I live in a great area for it, have a small community of people who also play, and it's a habit. I've mostly given up hope that Niantic will meaningfully change the game the way we would like, because up until this point their design ethos has been to cut corners, sluggishly roll out buggy new features, and dangle shiny objects in front of the player-base in the hopes it distracts from what is a pretty boring game. I don't expect to stop playing unless I move out of this area, but if I do, I don't expect I'll miss it much.
I think not enough people were jumping on the trade train because they were waiting to reach higher friend statuses. Somehow Niantic didn't put this together and introduced lucky trades to get more people trading sooner. That's my theory anyway, why else wouldn't the lucky system have been added at the same time as trading? The way it was announced and introduced makes it feel like it was just tacked on.
I don't get the complaints for the Regi raids being a thing. I get the burnout and that most people likely stopped doing them after getting a few (same boat), but I see people complain about them even existing in the first place. Every legendary has had an initial month in the raid mix except Ho-Oh who had about 2 and 1/2 weeks, why would the Regi be any different?
With the friend system in place I can't imagine PvP would be terribly far off. They likely need to find a way to make sure it isn't just one huge stallfest.
I also don't get why they haven't allowed legendaries to be placed in gyms, even if they only cap it at one or some other limit. Defensive mons in general need more love, the current gym system does them no favors.
The lucky thing was fun, but in reality would getting a lucky 91% Mewtwo be any different than having a regular 91% Mewtwo? I would still max both out regardless of stardust cost. So getting a lucky one makes no sense. Even on a normal Pokémon such as a machop/machamp - getting a lucky all that worth it? If you were leveling it up from level 20 it would save you 100K stardust, but would you level it anyways? I have close to 2000 magnemite candies, but I wouldn’t spend 100K dust just to power one because it’s lucky. Now if the cost was 0 stardust like originally thought, I would be maxing some out. The only lucky I have that I will get close to maxing is a snorlax, however candies restrain it.
I think PVP will be a fad when it hits, because what’s gonna be the difference in going out and battling a gym? Maybe get rewards? They need to implement more you can do at home at night instead of driving around beating gyms. You can only sort your Pokémon, power them up, build a team, and send/open gifts. How about random Team Rocket encounters? They give you gifts like tasks. Or another way to get coins? I’m fine with the 50 coin max, however sometimes you only get so many during the day, and want a way do get those last few.
I would like it if you could spawn your own raids, or such so you can save them for when you are at home or something. I think they have so much more potential, but are holding back.
Lucky pokemon are actually pretty significant from resource investment standpoint if candy isn't your limiting factor. Someone on TSR did the math and it's overwhelmingly more efficient to power up lucky mons, provided your unlucky alternative doesn't have much better IVs and isn't already above level 30. 0 dust cost would have been downright broken.
In my opinion the stardust cost being literally halved for luckies opens new possibilities for alternative attackers. I likely would have never powered up a Lapras given I have Ice types available already, not to mention Gen 4 evolutions on the way. Now that I have a lucky one with Ice Beam I'm weighing it a little heavier. I'm also a sucker for novelty which doesn't help this particular case.
It saves about 125K stardust to power to level 40 from 20. Yes if the IVs are significantly better sure power it up. However, why would you waste 125K on anything that isn’t top tier with good IVs? To each thier own I guess.
I have a lucky Gyarados but I won’t waste dust powering it up when I have many at level 35, and a ton of Kyogre. It just doesn’t make any sense. 125K is a LOT of dust. If it were zero it would not be broken, in any case of the word. Candy and rare candy would still be a limiting factor, and it would give a reason to max out a lucky Pokémon with not the greatest IVs, or one that is not top tier. Like I said I have close to 2000 Magnemite candies, and the same with other Pokémon. Some even more. However I’m not using ANY stardust powering up any non relevant Pokémon, let alone 100K stardust to do so.
If dust is a limiting factor, it's more efficient to get two counters maxed/to highest breakpoint than it is to power up one with marginally better IVs. For players who aren't swimming in dust and thus don't have full teams of 6 high level counters already, luckies are a very good thing. Luckies should be extremely useful for example to rural players with limited dust.
Regarding your example of already having level 35 Garys, if you get a lucky at level 27, it's cheaper to max than a regular level 35.
You keep talking about lucky pokemon with bad IVs and of irrelevant species as a reason why zero cost wouldn't be broken but lucky mons are not limited to non-meta species and they have much higher likelihood of good IVs than normal trades. The game has a deep balance issue in the dust costs being the same for meta stars and trash species, but you can't solve the issue with 0 cost luckies without breaking the game with 0 cost lucky meta mons.
Machamp is probably the best example since mountains of its candy was easily available in events this year. A player who was active might have thousands of candy but be limited by dust in making a squad of maxed Machamps. Letting them get a maxed squad for free after a few trades would be stupid beyond all measure.
And for very active players, the candy availability becomes less and less of a factor. I have 2,5k Larvitar candy, 1,3k Ralts candy etc. and I know many high level players in my area are in a similar situation. Give me 3 lucky SD Tyranitars with 0 cost and I'll max them without blinking and probably never miss the candy. Lucky 0 cost Machamps would mean I'd go from 4 to 6 maxed champs, then to 12, then to 18, at no visible cost to myself.
TL;DR luckies aren't limited to non-meta species and give better IVs than normal trades, you can't use lucky bad IV trash mons as examples of why 0 dust cost wouldn't be broken.
Lucky Pokemon have 10/10/10 iv minimums, so they're great for rerolling bad iv stuff.
I did 3 Mewtwo raids so far and none were that great (69, 82, 84). I traded for two lucky Mewtwo and got a 91 with 15 attack that I immediately maxed, for half Stardust at that! Second one was also 84, considering taking to 30 even though it has 11 attack, whereas the original 84 that I still have has 14 attack.
My girlfriend got the other two Mewtwo from me and both ended around 84% lucky. Not great, but not bad either. Probably more worth levelling due to Stardust savings as long as she can get the rare candy.
The trading restriction is to keep someone from rerolling among multiple accounts.
Frankly I've already given up on LGPE. I don't like several of the choices they've made indicating the direction of the series, between the dumbing down and hand holding to removal of core features, specifically replacing them with worse/half-assed alternatives. I'm aware the games have been getting progressively more casual since Gen 5 but Gen 7 slaps you in the face with it. From what I've seen of LGPE they kick you in the balls about it. I'll wait for more info about the 2019 game but I may be throwing in the towel on the series as a whole if I don't like what I see.
Gen 5 wasn't quite as bad as the 3DS games but it was the tipping point. You had healers along every route and grinding was trivial since Audino could be found almost anywhere and rewarded massive amounts of exp. Route designs got somewhat lazier, most could be crossed without entering a single patch of grass. It was also the start of interruptions along almost every route/city for plot purposes. Gen 5 introduced limitless TMs, which admittedly was one of the better changes in my opinion. It was also the first generation that had lower team caps on the gym leaders and elite 4 members. Having played through Black again semi-recently the only part that was "legit hard" was the Ghetsis fight at the end because of his hax Hydreigon.
If LGPE sells well I bet we'll see a lot of those changes bleed into the main series over time, if not right away.
Poor imagination.
With PvP in place, they can introduce a whole new battle system.
You could do 3v3, under 2000cp only pokemon, shinys only, etc...
You could switch pokemon during battle (did you forget that), a cooldown timer would mean you couldn't switch for another 8 second, and if you did your opponent could second-guess you and then it becomes more psychological. You could have multiple charge attacks, status elements could be introduced.
The list goes on.
That you only figured the current system is the way to go, it's kinda funny. Now if only Niantic made some effort they could make this a reality.
I was wondering why they put in place the concept that older pokemon have higher lucky odds.
If my guess is correct, it is an attempt to revive dormant accounts from when the game first was introduced. What did those old accounts have of value in the current playing environment - not much, except for a collection of older Gen 1 mons. How to make those have value? This was actually a somewhat clever solution.
