Pokemon Go Part 5

While this last week's lack of an update was unsettling to say the least, Niantic has suggested these upcoming months will gradually contain a great deal of new content and features. While the most recently announced update is the addition of the "buddy system," which is coming "around the corner," certain overarching re-balancing issues still need addressing let alone fixing.

The trouble is there's no word as to when exactly the update(s) are coming and most players are more than frustrated at this point. Particularly considering some of the games pitfalls in regards to staying true to the former games themselves, i.e. Only randomly generated movesets and the near pointless integration of the Speed stat. Youtube user TrainerTips recently posted the following video with a very impressive suggestion to combat the current system and it's bias towards certain heavy-weights instead of conventional Speed/offensive based choices:

One of my personal favorite Generation 1 Pokemon has always been Alakazam, although due to the evolution from Kadabra requiring the Pokemon to be traded I was more often stuck with a Kadabra throughout the games. As the above video states Alakazam is for all intents and purposes a glass cannon, dealing high damage in a short amount of time without being able to receive much damage before being taken down. Although the latter statement is still true in Pokemon Go, being that Speed and Special Attack play a much smaller role in the current Meta Alakazam and similarly structured Pokemon truly can't stack up against the game's current top tier Pokemon.

While the buddy system will prospectively offer a new incentive to be out and about while playing the game, most players are more concerned with updates concerning re-balancing gym battles, the introduction of friendly-battles and of course the addition of Legendary encounters. Having finally really reached a point where I'm able to compete with most if not all top-tier gyms and opponents, words cannot express how tired both myself and most other players are of facing off against the same line-ups over and over again. Vaporeon is one of the single most versatile choices in the game right now and it shows, top tier fire pokemon like Arcanine, Charizard, and Rapidash are all largely incabable of defending gyms on their own because everyone and their mother (literally) has a Vaporeon(or ten) capable of squirting them to ashes.

One of the trademarks of the Pokemon games has always been the player's ability to customize their Pokemon's movesets to better mirror their play style; via TM's and HM's. Yet in Pokemon Go even if you have a %100 IV Pokemon that you've evolved multiple times, you can still end up with a moveset that makes you want to write Niantic a very strongly worded letter or ten. Let's take Gyrados for example, even at level 28 I'm still only at 340/400 candies towards evolving my first one, and if and when I ever hit the 400 mark I could pick and choose from the many various Magikarp I've hoarded and evolve a perfect IV gyrados that could still just as easily join the legion of Pokemon named "Sirsh*t4moves." i.e. My 92% Rapidash that has Low Kick-fighting and Drill Run-ground, neither of which benefit from the games hidden STAB multiplier (Same type of attack bonus) rendering an otherwise top tier Pokemon nearly useless, just as my Poliwrath has Mudshot and Ice Punch. Meanwhile Vaporeon only comes equipped with water-type moves and more health than Jolteon and Flareon combined. Seriously why is Vaporeon still so incredulously overpowered?

As a returning college student I was more than excited to try playing the game on campus with the hopes that spawns might be increased. But so far CCSU has little to no Pokemon to offer despite being a hub for Pokestops, and having a good number of gyms nearby. There's a vulpix nest nearby, and even an Abra nest a good hike away, but the campus itself has little to no spawns whatsoever. Meanwhile a quick walk around the University of Virginia during their move-in weekend garnered 40+ bulbasaur candies, a 1735 Exeggutor with Solar Beam, and enough miscellaneous Pokemon to make the trip more than worthwhile. Having said that, nests are to Pokemon Go as insider trading is to the Stock Market; certain people are almost randomly being given incredible advantages over others to the nth degree. Some players can and have searched for weeks upon months just to catch enough Charmanders for a Charmeleon let alone the now seemingly legendary status Charizard, yet if you're lucky enough to live nearby to a Charmander nest you very well may have more Charmander candies than the rest of us have Pidgey candies. I can appreciate region distinct Pokemon and even biome-distinct spawns but having nests that are densely populated by certain otherwise rare Pokemon just takes away from the experience in my opinion. The fact that a handful of trips to the nearby Abra nest has garnered me in a few days upwards of twenty times as many Abra candies as I've received in the last two months combined, is more than just a little broken.

Finally we come to the nature of Gym-battling, leveling a gym from rank 4-5 can be slightly time consuming but training it up from 7 onwards is about as much fun as watching paint dry while being allergic to paint. Let's say you (Trainer A) and a friend (Trainer B) from the same team have decided to train up a level 8 gym all the way to ten so that the two of you can drop in your Pokemon of choice upon completion. Depending on your available choices and the line-up you'll be training-up against, this process can take anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours with the potential to take even longer; particularly concerning you can only use one Pokemon at a time instead of six. Each victory or, at the very least, each Pokemon defeated usually grants anywhere from +100 to +500 to be added to the gym's hit points. After sweating, swearing, and using more revives and potions than either one of you can afford, you've now managed to plop in your Pokemon and may finally continue on your journey. Five minutes later along comes trainer C from an opposing team, trainer C can then select 6 different Pokemon to face off against the 10-AI controlled Pokemon within the gym, and each successfully completed victory on his/her part garners roughly anywhere from -3000 to -4500 points from the Gym's hit points. It may not necessarily be easy and it may be mildly time consuming but a single player can very effectively take down a level ten gym in considerably less time than it took to be built up. But what's most frustrating isn't just the unbalanced nature of defending a gym versus attacking one, it's the simple fact that even once Player C has now defeated the Gym there is an interum during which Player D whose been hiding in the bushes this whole time, can effectively snipe the gym for his own respective team. All Player D has to do is place his own Pokemon into the gym during the copious time it takes to defeat, then close out of a gym and then garrison a Pokemon on Player C's part. On a more light-hearted note I was out playing Pokemon back home in Winsted, CT battling a nearby gym when a mother and son approached the area clearly also playing Pokemon. I apologetically asked if it was their gym that I was rudely attacking and it turned out they were actually on different teams from one another. A few minutes later the mother took advantage of the fact that her son was distracted by a nearby Pokemon and playfully stepped away to turn and stealthily help me in taking down the gym. Her son who was presumably 8-9 years old, was delightedly able to snipe the gym from us -upon beating it- not once, not twice, but three times before we finally beat him to placing a Pokemon within it! This is the sort of mechanic that ought to have been fixed within weeks of release if not prior to release, but now all these months later players can still pull the same type of endeavors time and time again; and instead of even addressing issues like these we have the promise of the "Buddy System."