Do you guys think Niantic making Eevees so common was poor game design? Jolteon is probably going to be the best electric non-legendary pokemon until maybe Electivire. I don't see any Pokemon topping Vaporeon as the top overall water Pokemon. And Flareon just got screwed over with Ember as its primary moveset instead of Fire Fang. I don't understand why you would make some of the strongest Pokemon in the game so easy to obtain.
No they offer relatively easy to get fire/water/electric types that are great in gyms. None are best at what they do, well except Jolteon, but they give new players a good start.
As for water types, Omastar, Gyarados, Lapras, Poliwrath, etc all can be better than Vaporeon depending on the foe.
Flareon is basically a wimpy Arcanine, and Jolteon just doesn't have viable competition.
It doesn't because dodging already makes up most of your damage reduction. Reducing low numbers by a percentage will rarely make a difference due to rounding.
When you're already taking like 1-2 damage per quick move because of dodging, that resistance might not even do anything compared to only water typing, whereas having like 100 more HP does, and more importantly, does it reliably.
The extra resistance would have to mean the difference between reducing quick move damage from 2 to 1 where pure water typing wouldn't, effectively doubling your HP / stamina, and that's only 280 stamina compared to vaporeon's base 260.
So even in the rare case when the double fire resistance does come into play, it's still not that much better than a Vaporeon.
Increased resistance is sort of like gaining more stamina but without the CP increase, which is only relevant when training.
I agree with you. I don't think Eevee should be this common and if it is Vaporeon shouldn't be the most powerful water type pokemon in the game. It's true, Omastar or Blastoise are other options, but they're just weaker versions of Vaporeon. However, I believe the major problem in Pokemon Go is the lack of variety in attacks. This will be much clearer with the release of the second generation. It's terribly boring to use different water type pokemon, for instance, and be compleled to use Water Gun / Hydro Pump which is the one and only "perfect" water type moveset.
I couldn't agree more, Vaporeon, Flareon and Jolteon are in fact VERY strong in poGO AND on the original games, but in the original games you only have access to one eevee in the whole game and have to find a evolution stone that are very rare too.
Eevolutions should require 100 candies (or 50 candies and eevees be a little mote rare)to evolve since they are as strong or stronger than most of 100 candies evolutions, such as Blastoise, Charizard, Poliwrath i.e.
this really sucks, but it was not on purpose, they changed the stats balancing to be more like the original games, when specialized pokemon can be strong, like Alakazan, Gengar, heracross, etc. Vaporeon is in fact much stronger than Blastoise there too, but since it's so rare and you hav to choose between him and Flareon and Jolteon, most people didnt choose and didnt remember either.
Eevee being as common as it is is not necessarily bad game design.
If your goal is to make the game as open and inviting as possible to new players then making Eevee super common is a really good move. As you stated, all the Eeveelutions are pretty strong, if not the strongest mon in their type and no fully evolved pokemon in the game resists all 3 of them. That gives new players a way to complete with people who have been playing since launch and have 3 Dragonites, 5 Snorlaxes, and 2 Lapras.
If you look at the Gym updates to Pokemon Go, it is very obvious that Niantic is trying to make it so new players can at least sort of compete with Veterans.
That being said, it would probably be better for the game if the Eeveelutions were more along the lines of Flareon. That being... Flareon is a bit worse than Arcanine and Charizard, but not so bad that players without those are out of luck when they need a Fire type.
Also I'd like to point out that people complained when the most common mons were the relatively worthless Pidgey and Rattata.
Edit: Also having Eevee be common makes up for certain places being completely devoid of different types. I've played since launch and I have only gotten 4 Growlithe and 2 Charmander. I've heard of places where Ground and Fire are very common and Water pokemon are super rare.
It gives new players strong pokemon early which helps them be competitive early on.
Niantic, like all companies, need to stay relevant by not only keeping their existing player base but building it. If you started from scratch and saw level 34 players and 2700CP pokemon you'd know you stood no chance.
This is the only reason I can think of for it tbh.
I actually think that it is a good way to get people hooked on the game and its intricacies. Evolved Evee movesets are pretty simple (just 1 quick move) and all 3 evolutions are serviceable and gets anybody playing the game a viable entry into gym battles.
Gets people thinking evaluating IVs, deciding between movesets, etc. Plus Evee is cute :-)
I'd be surprised if Niantic actually did this deliberately to get people hooked...
If all top pokemons were hard to get, only hardcore players cheaters would stick with the game.
I agree with it being poor game design by Niantic, but Jolteon will not be the best electric type until Electivire.
Ampharos is released in gen 2: https://pokemongo.gamepress.gg/pokemon/181. It will be superior to Jolteon because of its HP stat giving higher effective health. This will make it the first viable electric type defender, and as long as it gets decent moves it will outperform Jolteon on offense as well.
Its extremely poor game design.
Imagine any kind of rpg game, how would you feel when you finally get rare sword and only to see that guy next to you is also powerfull with his common sword.
Vaporeon is way too powerfull common pokemon.
It will get more eeveelutions, so hopefully Vaporeon is harder to get in future.
