Nothing matters any more!
With the new rework I'm getting the sad feeling that nothing in this game matters anymore.
Coins don't matter anymore. Collecting 50 per day is easy as anything; if you're not collecting 50 you're doing something wrong. Even if you've earned coins, what do you spend them on? Nothing in the shop seems attractive to buy, maybe only raid passes but that will soon lose its novelty once we've taken down all of the Tier 4s 20x times or more. Once that gets old and boring... what next? Eggs/incubators don't matter any more. Once a source of candy/rare mons, egg hatching has been replaced by raids. Why walk 10 klicks to hatch a level 20 pre-evolution form when you can just catch one outright in 5 minutes? That brings me next to..... Raids make mon rarity a thing of the past.... rarity doesn't matter any more. Yesterday I caught 2 T-rex raid bosses and a Lapras, maybe today I will do some others. It would be funny to see people with a pokedex showing 1k Tyranitars caught by the end of July. But actually, it may be fun now.... but what's the use of these high CP mons? CP doesn't matter any more, in fact it is probably better to have a medium-low CP mon defend a gym so that you get your coins back. In attack, high CP mons don't matter either, unless you're a level 36+ trying to solo a Tier-3 raid boss (which actually might just be the only challenge left in the game) In fact, leveling up doesn't matter any more. Game is for casuals only at this point. Why buy Lucky Eggs to level up when you get exactly the same rewards as other guys? Same coins everyday, same raid bosses taken down, same everything. Types and counters don't matter anymore. The only thing worth doing is raiding high value mons for TMs... but any group of 8+ players however poorly constituted seem to be able to deal huge amounts of damage to any Tier 4 raid boss. I've seen Golems/Charizards attacking a Vaporeon, Eggs attacking a Tyranitar, Machamps attacking into Alakazam. As long as the lobby is filled with 7+ players it is a sure win. Bring Caterpie/Weedle, for all I care. In fact in these situations I prefer to use my 3k Blissey to save potions at the end. It's fun to keep dodging to see all the mons that players line up in raids and I can tell you, it's eye-opening. But it doesn't matter because as long as you have enough numbers you can win! Potions and revives don't matter anymore because I can generally use 1 or 2 dragonites to take down any gym. It's even worse when motivation is at 25% or less, it becomes a total joke at that point. And raid bosses give you 15-20 revives, are you kidding me? I hardly need to use any nowadays, let alone 15. Pokeballs, Ultra balls, etc all don't matter anymore. Because if you succeed in a raid you get Free Premium Balls, just like that! And Golden Raspberries too! Stood next to a level 27 player who caught his first Lapras with his first throw.... he was surprised it was so easy. So why painstakingly collect hundreds of Ultras, when they give you Premiums for free? Catching doesn't matter anymore. Nowadays you wait for events to play the catching game. Why catch caterpies, weedles, rattatas etc and get normal experience, when in 2-3 weeks time you get to catch exotic species with better XP/dust/whatever gain? However, generally whatever you catch is gonna suck because.... IV doesn't matter anymore. Before the rework all of us who were lucky enough to get perfect/close to perfect mons had high gym placement to show for it.... now it works against us in Defence! And the raid system has made high IV powerful mons commonplace. Maybe the only remaining challenge in the game is to collect high IV/CP attackers to solo Tier 3. But to what end? It's not like you get a badge for doing so.For me the game has completely collapsed and feels really empty at this point. Surely there has to be something better for higher level players to enjoy without dumbing down the game to nursery level??
Wonder if anyone feels the same way.
Answers
That's called casual mode...or a participation trophy...
Lapras, T-rex, Snorlax for everyone...Get enough in a raid, every raid boss is easy...
The problem is after the novelty wears off, they leave...my kids leave after getting any new mon and if nothing new to catch, stop playing...
These raids will eventually bore people I think...They can add other mons, but after you have an army, it'd be less worthwhile...
I already stopped doing any raid 3 or lower raids unless I want to burn/waste my free raid pass...
Wow, are you me?
The raids are fun if you barely win in a group and have to regigger mons, etc...and win later, but agreed that this new gym meta is a mess...
I'd like to solo level 3s, but with my phone/service, I seem to lose 20-30 seconds off the bat on any raid...
Everything you needed before is out the window and really, it's on total casual mode...(not surprising for this game as I've mentioned it may times in the past).
I don't think I will actually get my 50 coins today since no one will attack my gyms...
I don't attack the rival's gym because they will get their coins too and I am on the minority team at home...I rather they miss a whole day and get zip...of course, another idiot goes and takes it out so all the mons will get to collect now and he, at most 5 coins (50 minutes) while the dominant team comes back and gets their 50 for the next day.
Just planning to do raids for TMs and maybe power up things to solo tier 3 raids if phone doesn't lag...
This is why I have now switched to my 3000+ CP Rhydons as gym defenders...
Less desire to feed those (in my area, Rhyhorn is common) and make them have 0 motivation after 8 hours so begging to be knocked out...(or at least it'd be knocked out in 1 round).
Never putting my Lapras or Blissey again. :)
It's cool for now doing raids but a lot of what you wrote is true. After 2 weeks of getting numerous Tyranitars, Lapras, Snorlax etc then what? I got another 90+ ZH/HS Snorlax (best non-legacy defender) but I don't really need it. I do have two ZH/BS Snorlax that I put in gyms but how many gyms do I really need anymore?
I used to enjoy seeing how many gyms I could hold and I had a huge stable of defenders that I maxed out. Spent millions and millions of dust on. Now? Meh. They just sit there. I used to hold 25-30 gyms. Now I don't really care.
Barely played today. Did two raids and that's it.
I have 4 - 10km eggs that I used to be excited about. Now I could care less about hatching them. Might not even incubate them.
Yeah, it was a goal of mine to get 10 gyms consistently...That required leveling a lot faster and getting decent IV mons to power up/max to sit in stagnant gyms...
Having done that mostly before the update, it was nice to finally get rewarded (for putting in the faster leveling, hatches, walking, battling) with the 100coin/5000 dust consistently...
There really is not much to work towards now.
Guys... you're right.
- Buddying and walking don't matter any more. Why walk like shit to squeeze out 1 candy per day from Snorlax/Dratini/Larvitar when you get 2-9 rare candies for 5 minutes per day in a L4 raid? It doesn't make sense to buddy up any 5km mons anymore. It doesn't make sense to incubate any eggs anymore for the odd chance of a good Larvitar/Dratini hatch, when you get rare candy dropping from the freaking sky.
Bro, I am not walking 10kms per day just to get stardust from eggs.
In the past, the combined reward of candy/rare mon/xp/stardust made it valuable to incubate and walk your eggs.
However, levels/rare candy/rare mons are now a thing of the past so there is no need to use that resource stream any longer.
Besides, plenty of people seem to think that feeding berries for 20 stardust is a good deal. Snort.
Nothing matters anymore because nothing in the present meta depends on the quality of your mons or what level you are.
Before, there were tangible rewards/nodes of differentiation between great mons held by high level players vs the rest.... that differentiation is gone now because anyone, and I mean literally anyone, can have great mons as long as he/she participates in a L4 raid group.
And even the drunkest of all drunken low level players can certainly stumble on a L4 group in high gym density areas called "cities". All he has to is go to a shopping mall somewhere, chance on a L4 raid and bingo, a decently filled lobby. All he has to do is click Battle and whoosh, 3-4 mins later, TMs/Golden berries/rare candies shower down, together with an OP mon which can be caught without using up a single item in his inventory.
Levels don't make a damn difference because nothing meaningful in the current meta depends on it. Whether the design choice to go down this route was a wise one, time will tell. However in the short time this system has been implemented, it certainly looks regressive from where I am standing.
There are just far too many raids now. Raids should have a character of an event. 1 or 2 raids a day per 1000 players in an area should be enough. So the top tiers would become less obtainable and raids would become a rare part of the game. Now all in the game is about raids, all other parts in the game are worthless. And if you take part in the interesting part of the game - the raids - you have to pay because they limited the passes and cut the coins. That makes no sense except forcing to pay if you want to play. The worst mistake in raids is to show the raidboss before entering the lobby. So every surprise is gone. Everebody can choose the mon he wants. Its just pick and pay for it.
Believe me, I feel the same. There are parts of the update that I like: The new ability to see all Pokémon in a gym at once, rare loot from raids, and some. But then there are just so many problems happening. Raid Bosses make it stupidly easy to get rare Pokémon, making 'mons like Donphan like the only notable achievement. Honestly, right now I'm working on improving my lineup's stats and moves, and then sticking around to see what happens next.
May the odds ever be in our favor, fellow competitive players.
I feel your pain... They had something really good, brilliant, amazing - and totally messed it up!
I won't quit, the exercise tracking/motivation is just too good, but how could they do this?! I can see ruining it for the cheaters (this should have worked), but why ruin it for your most loyal, highest level legit players as well!
On second thought, there is one - only one - good thing for me: I have lost nearly all motivation to spend $$$ on the game! What for?! Thank you, Niantic, at least for that ;)
Is anyone paying attention?
I can see ruining it for the cheaters (this should have worked), but why ruin it for your most loyal, highest level legit players as well?!
I don't think cheaters were affected at all. In fact spoofers are the real heroes of gym raids now when you have a thin lobby.
Also, the implementation of the anti-spoofer thing was a joke. What, get a strikeout slash on a Dratini that you caught while spoofing, without a ban? That gonna discourage them from playing or cheating? LOL if I had one of them slashed pokemons I'd wear it as a mark of pride and not give a fuck.
This is a good point. While I agree with a lot of the things discussed here, you can still distinguish yourself in the gym scene. Only hardcore players have an Ampharos or two at this point; regionals are still very rare; so are maxed out evolution item mons or things that can only hit ~2200. It's been my goal to place a diverse array of rare/unusual mons in gyms now that there's no incentive to place a good defender.
Mostly I'm just mad that my 666 and 420 mons are no longer fun to place in gyms since their CP decays :(
I do get a kick out of all the people that don't get the boss. I'm 28 for 28. Okay, only 5 of those are level 4 raids, but I'm perfect on those too.
On a side note, I am shocked how many of the regular players are rather clueless when it comes to counters. We assume that everyone knows to use Machamp against Trex, Snorlax, and Lapras...not the case.
On a side note, I am shocked how many of the regular players are rather clueless when it comes to counters. We assume that everyone knows to use Machamp against Trex, Snorlax, and Lapras...not the case.
It doesn't matter. Practically the ONLY thing that matters in a L4 raid is getting sufficient numbers. As long as you participate in a sufficiently large group, you win. Hooray.
(The hooray lasts for a short while but soon, the lack of challenges/growth gets old).
