A Worry About Remote Raid Passes
For obvious reasons, Niantic have had to make a lot of changes to Pokemon Go to ensure that people keep on playing and keep on spending money. Changes so far have included not needing to walk to enter the GBL, Incenses lasting 1 hour and reduced egg distances. A lot of these changes are beneficial, but some are questionable and some make no sense. After all, doubling gym range is only useful if you live near a gym.
The most worrying thing though is the appearance of Remote Raid Passes.
Now, firstly, this is speculation
We’ve been given some information on Remote Raid Passes, but not the whole picture. Remote Raid Passes aren’t available yet, but we have been told a few key details. For example, Remote Raid Passes will be separate from normal Premium Passes. They’ll cost the same as Premium Passes but a separate item in the shop and your inventory. And apparently we’ll get a few free ones for 1 coin when they eventually come out.
There will also apparently be other benefits, like being able to invite players to raids. This will be great, because not everyone is on Facebook or Discord or whatever to see raids as they appear. More players at raids is always a good thing, especially since most rural areas don’t HAVE 20-50 people immediately filling up raids as soon as they spawn.
Remote Raid Passes (theoretically) are great if you are stuck at home
Well, assuming you can see a gym. No one’s 100% sure whether these raids will be only for gyms that you can see within range, or if you can raid at any gym you’ve visited. The latter raises another question: is there a maximum range for a Remote Raid Pass? Can someone who went on holiday to another country do a raid in said country? I’m going to assume that there will be restrictions, but I have no idea what they are.
Either way, the ability to do raids from home will be great. Raids and Team Rocket battles are the things I’m weirdly missing the most in Pokemon Go. So at least Remote Raid Passes will fill that hole a little bit. That is, assuming I can get the coins. My not going outside means I can’t put a Pokemon in gyms to get coins in the first place.
I’ll be honest, I tend not to spend money on Pokemon Go when I can.
But what about later on?
While Remote Raid Passes mostly sound great now that we’re stuck inside, I don’t think they’ll be as popular in the future. Sure, there are always people who will want to be able to raid from home, but there are going to be downsides.
The biggest downside will be that, in the future, you do less damage when at home compared to when you use a normal Raid Pass. Again, no one’s really sure what the amount of less damage is, but it is an odd choice. Specifically chosen to get people to buy Premium Passes instead. It seems that Niantic don’t want Remote Raid Passes to be the norm. Depending on the amount of damage remote players lose, this could actually ruin a lot of tougher raid bosses done with fewer people. For example, using an army of Mamoswines, you can comfortably beat a Rayquaza with 3 people (or even 2 people!). But that might not be the case in the future if someone is a remote player.
But reducing damage seems like a bad way to do this. I mean, why make the lesser option worse? Not when you can make the preferred option better? It should be that either Premium Passes do MORE damage or give them better rewards.
Oh well. We will just have to wait and see what these remote paid passes are like when they come out.
But I don’t have particularly high hopes for them. At least, not in the future…