Gaming Pokémon Go (Android, iOS)

decorativeed

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Two shundos yesterday, my first ever shundo. Happy it was Gible.
I've been playing PoGo since day one. I usually get at least 4-5 Hundos on community day, and I've never, ever caught a shundo. I've never hatched one either, having managed just 2 hatched shinies ever. Grrr.
 

Cait Sith

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I'm so glad they've done this. Not cheap trying to level up six Garchomp
Niantic are such an awful company. They do this kind of stuff all the time.

Imagine advertising a discount on something but then raising the price beforehand on which the discount applies. Just WTF?!

I was genuinely considering to quit the game for this scam, simply out of principle. GBL is the main aspect of the game that interests me. Hunting good PVP IV Pokémon, building teams and then battling with them to reap rewards (I hit Legend last 2 seasons).

Cutting regular dust in half while introducing XL Pokémon that take up to 500k dust to power up was such a bullshit move.
 

decorativeed

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I'm interested in the rewards you get in pvp, but personally I find that whole side of the game a dull, grinding chore. Game after game seems the same.
 

Cait Sith

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I'm interested in the rewards you get in pvp, but personally I find that whole side of the game a dull, grinding chore. Game after game seems the same.
I mean, how is the rest of the game any more interesting? You literally catch the same Pokémon over and over again. During raids with 10 other people you can blindly tap on the phone for 1 minute with 6 Pidgeys on your team. Once in a while you catch a random useless shitty IV shiny Pokémon and get excited over it.

PVP is at least something were you actively "play" the game somewhat competitively and make use of your great Pokémon, need to know all the typings, what's effective, what's resisted, all the matchups, how many fast moves until energy for charge attack is ready etc. It's a "real" game. Rest of the game is a mere "virtual collection book" for me.

Though, everyone has their own taste of course.
 

Counterfactual

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I mean, how is the rest of the game any more interesting? You literally catch the same Pokémon over and over again. During raids with 10 other people you can blindly tap on the phone for 1 minute with 6 Pidgeys on your team. Once in a while you catch a random useless shitty IV shiny Pokémon and get excited over it.

PVP is at least something were you actively "play" the game somewhat competitively and make use of your great Pokémon, need to know all the typings, what's effective, what's resisted, all the matchups, how many fast moves until energy for charge attack is ready etc. It's a "real" game. Rest of the game is a mere "virtual collection book" for me.

Though, everyone has their own taste of course.
The great online PvP vs PvE debate, still going strong after decades. :D
 

decorativeed

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I mean, how is the rest of the game any more interesting? You literally catch the same Pokémon over and over again. During raids with 10 other people you can blindly tap on the phone for 1 minute with 6 Pidgeys on your team. Once in a while you catch a random useless shitty IV shiny Pokémon and get excited over it.

PVP is at least something were you actively "play" the game somewhat competitively and make use of your great Pokémon, need to know all the typings, what's effective, what's resisted, all the matchups, how many fast moves until energy for charge attack is ready etc. It's a "real" game. Rest of the game is a mere "virtual collection book" for me.

Though, everyone has their own taste of course.
Because I can do it for a few minutes a day, and choose what to catch if anything. PvP compels you to play a certain number of matches, achieve results and then, it might reward you with the one thing you actually want from a pool of a dozen things, most of which you don't want. I played hundreds of matches when Rufflet was exclusively available as a pvp reward and never got one, for example.

Also, you inevitably face sides made up of the same few pokemon, and thus counter with your own teams made up of the same few pokemon. I got incredibly bored of Giratina vs Togekiss battles!

Edit: As well as that, I get really pissed off with the lags and delays. The number of times I charge a move, but tapping the move button does absolutely nothing, so you tap again - nothing! Tap again and again, it never fires off and you've been defeated already. The whole thing has never worked reliably.
 
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Damien

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My competitive record isn't great (never made it past rank 20 in four seasons) but I'm happy enough with the stardust rewards (2,836,109 from 3,380 battles) and the chance to get a legendary from winning three encounters once you do make it far enough (41 so far) as I don't raid much outside of the free remote passes.

@decorativeed I agree on the delays. I tend to do one set or two tops then leave Pokemon Go for a bit and go back to it later and have better luck that way. Still some "bullshit" losses though.
 

decorativeed

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My competitive record isn't great (never made it past rank 20 in four seasons) but I'm happy enough with the stardust rewards (2,836,109 from 3,380 battles) and the chance to get a legendary from winning three encounters once you do make it far enough (41 so far) as I don't raid much outside of the free remote passes.

@decorativeed I agree on the delays. I tend to do one set or two tops then leave Pokemon Go for a bit and go back to it later and have better luck that way. Still some "bullshit" losses though.
I'm also not fussed about getting legendaries as rewards, as I have all the legendaries already, and catching them is a pain in the arse with ultra balls. It seriously depletes my supplies!
 

Cait Sith

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Because I can do it for a few minutes a day, and choose what to catch if anything. PvP compels you to play a certain number of matches, achieve results and then, it might reward you with the one thing you actually want from a pool of a dozen things, most of which you don't want. I played hundreds of matches when Rufflet was exclusively available as a pvp reward and never got one, for example.

Also, you inevitably face sides made up of the same few pokemon, and thus counter with your own teams made up of the same few pokemon. I got incredibly bored of Giratina vs Togekiss battles!

Edit: As well as that, I get really pissed off with the lags and delays. The number of times I charge a move, but tapping the move button does absolutely nothing, so you tap again - nothing! Tap again and again, it never fires off and you've been defeated already. The whole thing has never worked reliably.
Rufflet is only available after a certain rank. When it initially was released, during the old ranking system, it was from rank 9 (2500 ELO) upwards. Right now it's for rank 20 (2000 ELO) if I'm not mistaken. Maybe that's why you didn't get it? Looking at my Pokedex now, I have seen and catched 92 Rufflets and countless legendaries.

Same core of Pokémon (META) that you face, sure. It depends on the league as well though. Master League is relatively restricted (Dialga, Giratina, Mewtwo, Groudon, Togekiss, Melmetal - won't see much else). Ultra Premier Cup however has about 50 viable Pokémon that you can use. From starters like Venusaur and Charizard to expensive XLs like Jellicent and Galarian Stunfisk, almost everything has play.

But as I said, fair enough if someone isn't into that aspect. I totally get it that as a more casual player if you only play a few minutes a day you can't really keep up with the META and memorize all the typing, move sets etc. And the server lag issues are certainly a thing. For me, it's still the best thing about the game. Without PVP I wouldn't be playing PoGo anymore.
 

decorativeed

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Rufflet is only available after a certain rank. When it initially was released, during the old ranking system, it was from rank 9 (2500 ELO) upwards. Right now it's for rank 20 (2000 ELO) if I'm not mistaken. Maybe that's why you didn't get it? Looking at my Pokedex now, I have seen and catched 92 Rufflets and countless legendaries.

Same core of Pokémon (META) that you face, sure. It depends on the league as well though. Master League is relatively restricted (Dialga, Giratina, Mewtwo, Groudon, Togekiss, Melmetal - won't see much else). Ultra Premier Cup however has about 50 viable Pokémon that you can use. From starters like Venusaur and Charizard to expensive XLs like Jellicent and Galarian Stunfisk, almost everything has play.

But as I said, fair enough if someone isn't into that aspect. I totally get it that as a more casual player if you only play a few minutes a day you can't really keep up with the META and memorize all the typing, move sets etc. And the server lag issues are certainly a thing. For me, it's still the best thing about the game. Without PVP I wouldn't be playing PoGo anymore.
No, I fulfilled all the requirements for it, but it was in a pool with a bunch of other stuff, so odds were something like 1/10 of encountering it.

My main goal with the game is to 'catch them all', as they say. At the moment I have 5 or 6 to catch/evolve, but I'd managed to get it down to just needing a few Unown variants recently, till they released some new ones. I've also got about 400 different species of Hundos, and nearly 300 different shinies.
 

Sied

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I'm interested in the rewards you get in pvp, but personally I find that whole side of the game a dull, grinding chore. Game after game seems the same.
Out of interest, what rewards interest you? I've not played PVP for the past few season, mainly because the rewards don't justify the time and effort as far as I'm concerned.
 

decorativeed

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Out of interest, what rewards interest you? I've not played PVP for the past few season, mainly because the rewards don't justify the time and effort as far as I'm concerned.
Just the exclusive encounters they often have. Pikachu Libre, for example.
 

2mufc0

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Out of interest, what rewards interest you? I've not played PVP for the past few season, mainly because the rewards don't justify the time and effort as far as I'm concerned.
I play it with a relaxed mindset and not too competitive so don't get frustrated with it. Agree it can take up a lot of time if you play all sets in a day.

Imo the rewards are well worth it once you reach lvl 20, you get a decent amount of stardust, free TMs, rare candy, AFAIK it's the only way to get free elite fast/charged TMs and you get a chance to catch the 5 star legends currently in raids without having to raid.

Getting to level 20 can take some time but isn't particularly difficult.
 
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Mystry

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I try to approach gbl with a relaxed mindset, not too bothered about racking up win streaks, but then you have a battle where you think you're on course to win and your opponent busts out a third shield and you remember how much of a mess the whole thing is. Once I get a minefoo, I'm done with this season.
 

kentafuji

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I enjoyed GBL somewhat, then got into alot more early pandemic once they did away with the walking requirments to open new sets. Was generally doing all 5 sets everyday.

But I lost interest after the constant bug issues, such as the lag, the extra shields (though great when it goes in your favour), and just general problematicness of it.

and the meta got a little boring too, but I'm back to playing it this season (mostly as its now Lvl43 requirements), but mostly just gonna aim for different picks each day, make it bit more exciting for myself to try different combos out
 

decorativeed

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Just played a dozen or so GBL matches and it's even worse than it used to be. First it was just the usual lags causing issues. Last few matches I'm starting ages after the other team starts, and on next to no HP left. It's so broken as a concept it's ridiculous. If they didn't put in exclusive pokemon as rewards, I'd never even bother trying to play it.
 

2mufc0

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Just played a dozen or so GBL matches and it's even worse than it used to be. First it was just the usual lags causing issues. Last few matches I'm starting ages after the other team starts, and on next to no HP left. It's so broken as a concept it's ridiculous. If they didn't put in exclusive pokemon as rewards, I'd never even bother trying to play it.
It's been really bad today, it wasn't great before but it was playable. Agree it needs to be fixed. I only play it for the rewards too.
 

RonaldoVII

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I've been playing PoGo since day one. I usually get at least 4-5 Hundos on community day, and I've never, ever caught a shundo. I've never hatched one either, having managed just 2 hatched shinies ever. Grrr.
4/5 hundos per community day? How many do you typically catch? Any how many in total?
 

decorativeed

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4/5 hundos per community day? How many do you typically catch? Any how many in total?
I have help from a Discord channel, that alerts me to any Hundos in the vicinity.

And how many I catch depends on how interested I am in whichever pokemon it is on the community day. Maybe up to 200?
 

Damien

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If you want to get more value out of it I'm 3-10 days away with you, @2mufc0, @Counterfactual and @Damien. Might be a bit annoying to sync it all, though.
I'm 4 days away from Cheesecake (still no idea who that is)
4 days away with @Dargonk
5 days away with @Heardy
6 days away with you

Not that bothered about syncing as Cheesecake isn't that consistent with opening gifts, Darg's timezone makes it really difficult to co-ordinate with multiple people, and I've got 8 lucky eggs left (along with 371 coins saved towards another 8), so not too upset if I can't sync
 

2mufc0

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@2mufc0 - hello mate, the app says we have to interact for 1 more day to become “best friends” <Inbetweeners thumbs up> :lol:

Worth syncing a lucky egg at some point to double up XP?
Sounds good mate just let me know when. Happy to sync up with others too, I think I'm close to BF with @NotThatSoph too.