Niantic should be decommisioned by Nintendo for crimes against the pokemon brand. Yet, it will not happen due to greed and incompetence.
The fact that Shendinja has 10 hp and has no wonder guard, nor does it get split from ninjask as an evolutionary line proves that Niantic is capable of anything other than making a coherent game. I'm also sure that there are no abilities in this game, but probably they could just secretly code unique pokemon? But no it's not happening, they are just making all pokemon one and the same regardless of consequences.
Nintendo if they were not clouded by greed, should seriously decommision the charlatans called Niantic.
Answers
First off, kudos to Mr-ex777 for making a critical post of Niantic without using the words murder, rape, death, or various obscenities.
That said, yes, there aren't abilities in the game. That would require a change in the code. Niantic is clearly focusing their attentions on the upcoming CP shift (or rather, the released and retracted CP shift), the release of Gen4 Pokemon, raising the level cap and whatever else they do with that, the Let's Go crossovers, and the possibility of PvP.
Making Shedinja work exactly the same way as it does in the main series games is clearly a lower priority than the things above. It may or may not happen. PoGO is what it is, just like the main series is what it is, and the Let's Go series is what it is. If it really bugs you, learn to code and apply for a job at Niantic to fix these problems.
Pretty strong opinions about something that would be relegated as dex filler even with its Wonder Guard gimmick.
Having said that you do make a valid point about the oversimplification on how Pokemon are handled. Any Pokemon reliant on abilities or status gets completely shafted. Pokemon with a gimmicky evolution or multiple forms probably won't get any love based on what we've seen - there's no way to evolve into Alola forms in the case of Pikachu, Exeggcute, and Cubone. It doesn't appear that we'll be able to change Deoxys's or Giratina's formes on the fly. Shedinja being just handed out essentially cuts its relationship with the rest of the line. Shaymin forms will probably receive similar treatment. Not to mention how they plan to handle Arceus and the potential to be literally any type.
Why they didn't have an "evolve a Nincada" research with Shedinja as the reward encounter is beyond me. I've seen this idea posted before and after reading it it makes too much sense for them to not have gone this route. Nincada would likely need to be a wild spawn for this to happen.
Shedinja's not relevant at all, so why does it matter? In all honesty a wonderguard shedinja in this game in the way it is in main series would be overpowered. Yes they could have done something like it only takes maybe a certain number off attacks from any non-super effective move before going down but even with that it wouldn't make shedinja any use. Its evolution method for why they didnt make it possible to evolve from nincada makes sense, as in the main series a shedinja and ninjask are treated as both being the same pokemon upon evolution (same iv's, nature and even both becomes shiny If the nincada is shiny) nd it also consumes a pokeball to evolve. in this games where a big complaint is needing more storage, getting 2 pokemon for evolving one would fill storage a lot faster and make the problem bigger. Research encounter for evolving a nincada would make sense but you'd need to find that research as well, which is another problem
Abilities arent in the game (Medicham and Azumaril say hi), not to mention something similar happens in the pokemon mystery dungeon games which are made by Nintendo, where shedinja's wonderguard even though its present it can still be affected by not super effective moves. They had to modify it somehow, but its also likely due to the special coding for shedinja in the main series, even with a base HP of 1, at level one a main series shedinja should have 10 HP due to how stats work out.
When will people realize this isn't a full-fledged pokemon game. This is a mobile game inspired by Pokemon, if this causes so much grief, go buy or replay one of the handheld games. Or a different mobile game. Or read a book. Find something you actually enjoy instead of complaining about the same game over and over
These are entirely different games... Just the same background.
Pokemon Go was created as a game to get people outside moving, all while COLLECTING your favorite Pokemon. Gyms were a small part of the game to make something to compete.
We, the players, are responsible for causing the game to move towards raids and fighting overall. These are features we asked for, and Niantic gave us.
I would never expect this game to turn to the same battle quality of regular Pokemon games - it's just as unreasonable as asking this game to match the competitiveness of a MOBA....
And Mr-ex777 should probably get banned from at least a handful of online forums for his ridiculous posts, yet here we are.
Now, to your content: calling Niantic Charlatans is just silly. They NEVER promised us or even hinted at Shedinja getting Wonder Guard. That was something we all hoped for, and we didn't get what we wanted. But Niantic didn't lie to us about it.
Also, Niantic has been pretty clear that they want this game to remain fairly simplistic and have a low barrier to entry. What that means is that Go will likely never have the complexities of the main series games. If you want the levels of complexity and competitiveness, the main series games are for you.
On one final side note, yes, they have coded unique Pokemon. One word: Ditto.
You do realize that Go is very different from the main games, right? Heck, in that case, Nintendo would have to punish themselfes, as in the Mystery Dungeon games (a spin-off to the main games in case you don‘t know), Shedinja has more than 1 HP too (Abilities exist though). If you wanna experience Pokemon like in the main games, you gotta play the main games and quit Go.
Generally, I disagree with Mr-ex777 posts. However, a valid point (imo) is being made here. In my youth, Shedinja has always been a very unique Pokemon. Might however not be that strong, but it was special.
They plain ass simply introducing it in such a easy way really shows a lack of inovative programming work. They could and should have done really better than this.
I think too many commenters above are hung up on the complaints about its lack of Wonder Guard while glossing over valid criticisms regarding its introduction. Not to say Niantic should be free from criticism about that either, but that's another discussion. It also doesn't help that they're coming from a particular user with a penchant for being edgy and overblown in his statements...
As of now its only relation to Nincada is the fact that it uses the same candy. To not attempt to do something to tie it into the line, they might as well have given it its own set of candy seeing as its basically its own entity right now. Anyone familiar with Shedinja surely would have appreciated even the smallest nod to its uniqueness, either its means of obtainment or its weird ability.
