Shinies; a new money making scheme.
Giratina. Screwed over by Nianitc. It's useless. We all know that.
However Niantic have now released a host of potential shinies in 1 star raids. And the vibe i'm getting is that people are doing them, desperate for a shiny. Particularly Shinx, which people are very keen on. So Niantic can make money from these, even when the legendary on offer is useless. Gengar day also proved Niantics ability to make money even without legendaries.
Unlike non shiny pokemon, you cannot find shinies on a map. No matter how rare a pokemon is, when one does spawn someone will see it and everyone can run to get it. Not so with shinies, so they give Niantic a great tool with which to make money and keep people interested in the long run.
I suspect we'll see a few more potential shinies only available of raids in future.
Answers
"Giratina useless we all know that" - this totally depends on your play style or goal. If you want to do raids with as few people as possible, in as little time as possible, for bragging rights- then yeah, it's "useless" - but for the average player who takes place in raids that have more than the bare minimum, it's a solid tank option.
If youre only happy with top-dps ultra meta pokemon then you'll probably be upset a lot.
Tldr: stop whining noob
Useless Pokémon are useless no matter how many people are in the raid....Besides what kinda noob use tank Pokémon in raids with more than the bare minimum of players?!?! Besides no matter how cool it looks Giratina its pretty much useless, sorry if it’s one favorite Pokémon, but math doesn’t lie and the math says Giratina sucks.
Again, this is entirely from the perspective of "kill as fast as possible with as few as possible" - PvP might change everything and make tanks more relevant.
I don't use tanks in raids personally, but if some casual showed up using a giratina as a proper counter I would not have a stroke, like I suspect some of you might
To be fair Giratina sucks. No matter the playstyle, the current battle system doesn't favor bulky low dps Pokemon. I don't know in what sort of raids Giratina can be used as a bulky counter, but if you try the GoBattleSim against an imaginary Palkia raid with dragon tail/fireblast to compare lets say 6 Giratinas and 6 Machamps, the Machamps will lag behind 10%. Simulation is assuming max revive and rejoining, to let Giratina take advantage of its bulk. So you have a legendary against its counter outperforming a good non-legendary attacker by 10%.
If we actually compare Giratina to a good attacker that counters Palkia, like Dragonite DT/O, the Giratina party lags behind by 25%. Even though Dragonites die as fast as Machamps.
Surely Giratina is not a Raticate or a Pidgeot, but the only reason to power it up is "it's one of my favorites". Gathering candies for legendaries is just too difficult. As it is now, Giratina can only be useful if the battle system changes to reward bulky Pokemon
I agree that a lot of people seem to be doing the T1 raids for a shiny chance. I don't get it, but I am a totally free player, and I can't see spending my daily pass on something that will give T1 rewards. Giratina sucks, but at least I generally get some rare candies, and have a reasonable chance to get TM's. Shinies are nice, and I have quite a few, but they are not a "must" for me. If I never get a shiny Shinx, I won't miss it.
With that said, I don't see any problem with Niantic trying to make a lot of money. They are a for-profit company, and without the profit incentive, I wouldn't have this game to play for free. If people are willing to spend money to collect shiny pokemon, I certainly don't blame Niantic for taking the money.
I love when players say they are free to play. Yet they use their car, which requires gas, which cost money, to drive to a raid, or to catch a certain spawn. I’m not saying you do that, but you are not a free to play player if you drive a car that requires gas, to do a raid, or catch a Pokémon, or use a go plus, or spent a dollar buying a sticker emblem/phone case for better grip playing Pokémon, or anything else related. Just because you don’t spend money on the actual company that brings you the fun, spending any kind of money to play a game is not free to play. A premium raid pass cost an average of about 60 cents, yet typically people will drive 5 miles to do a raid (and 5 miles back) which typically costs more than 60 cents to do. And they pride themselves in being free to play. I don’t get it. You will spend money to play the game you love to play, yet it’s a bad thing to give the actual company who created the game in the first place?
This is the argument people use when they are trying to rationalize the fact that they spend real money on pokecoins, and feel the need to prove they are "just as good" as free players. It's not about the money; it's about the challenge of progressing in the game without paying to win. The F2P approach requires careful, strategic management of in-game resources in a way that is not required for players who are willing to spend money on raid passes, incubators, etc. If you want to play the game on "easy mode," that's fine, and there's no reason to have an inferiority complex about it, but it's ridiculous to compare gas money for driving to raids with spending real money to directly purchase in-game resources.
Nice perspective on "free to play". To take it a bit further what about the "opportunity cost" expensed by Pokemon zealots (myself included) who spend way too much time playing the game? If most of us applied this time to our jobs or fitness / wellness or families / relationships, we would be much better off financially / healthier / happier.
People should really know that only Mawile and Absol have increased shiny chances (and now apparently Shinx) while the rest of raid bosses with a shiny form avaible in the wild just have the same chances to be shiny than the wild spawn. Of course Niantic wouldn't reveal that and only research from the community has shown the approximate shiny rate.
I remeber raiding T1 Dratinis for a shiny but stopped doing it after doing some reading. Shinies are a huge magnet for the casuals and pretty much anyone but i just would feel better if they clarified the odds (and also mention reward changes like when they recently decreased golden razz amount) instead of being shady and secretive about it. An update log would be cool
This isn't really new. Absol and Mawile have been raid/research exclusive and are available to be shiny. T1 as a whole has become the "raid me for a shiny chance" tier. I'd argue people have their eyes on Shinx in particular since it's ONLY available from raids/10ks and needs 125 candies to complete its line in the Pokedex. The shiny factor is just a cool bonus and not the main draw unless someone already has Luxray.
I'll half agree on Gengar. A majority of my raid group pretty much stopped after getting their shiny or using all their available resources attempting to get one, myself included. I don't know of anyone who spent additional money on Gengar.
