More Things I’d Like To See in Pokemon GO

Pokemon GO is an alright game. It is genuinely free to play most of the time (apart from Keldeo) and you can get a lot done assuming you don’t waste money on a pair of Giratina wings like I did. While you do have to wait, you can reasonably fill out most of the Pokedex. However, there are a few things that I’d like to see changed in Pokemon GO. Well, a few more things.

Pity chances

During the Sinnoh tour, hardly anyone in my normal raid group managed to get a shiny, despite doing 12 raids each. The chances of getting a shiny Legendary are apparently 1/20, but it didn’t feel like that. And, a lot of the time, I’ve gone way, way over the supposed 1/20 raids. In fact, I’ve done over 40 Dialga raids and have never caught a shiny one, the one I do have was traded to me. At the same time, my brother has hatched at least a hundred eggs but still doesn’t have a Larvesta, while I have managed just a single one in a similar number of eggs and it was a 2-star (of course it was). Luck is a finicky thing.

The problem isn’t so much that a shiny isn’t guaranteed or that a Pokemon is available, it’s that there is no way of increasing your chances what so ever, outside of just doing more and more raids. Or, in the case of eggs, hatching more and more eggs. It’d be nice to have some way to gradually increase your chances on getting a shiny or a specific Pokemon, the more you fail to catch one. Doesn’t have to be guaranteed, but a way to better our chances would be nice.

Rerolling Pokestop and Party Play Research

For the Sinnoh tour, there was a timed research that required you to do 3 Party Play tasks. There’s also the Party Play research, which requires a HUGE amount of Party Play tasks. However, you are always presented with three randomly chosen tasks, and some of those tasks fucking suck. No, I don’t really want to make 20 excellent throws for 3 ultra balls, nor do I want to catch 15 ice types during an event that has no ice types in it. At the same time, Pokestop tasks are static for an entire day, and I’ve spun 12 different Pokestops looking for something that isn’t garbage. Making 5 Great Throws for 1 pinap is retarded when the daily green task for catching 5 Pokemon gives you 5 pinaps.

Now, you can technically reroll these tasks. Whether you have an AR scanning task affects which research you get from a Pokestop, and you can constantly disband and remake a party to get better tasks to choose from. But it’d be nice if there were more official ways of rerolling a Pokestop or a Party Play task, especially when so, so many tasks have such mediocre rewards.

Less instantly-fleeing wild Legendary Pokemon

Seeing a Legendary Pokemon in the wild is rare. Outside of events, the only times you see wild Legendaries are the insanely-rare-spawning Spirits of the Lake (which are region-locked) and the Galarian Legendary Birds from the Daily Adventure Incense. In events where Legendaries CAN spawn in the wild, they have a stupidly low capture rate, and a 90% chance of instantly fleeing, the same way an Abra does. In events, we’ve had the Lake Spirits, Latios and Latias and the Legendary Doggos all spawning in the wild, and all of them had a chance to instantly break out and flee.

But these guys are so damn rare, so why DO they instantly break out and flee? It honestly sucks. For example, I haven’t seen a Galarian Articuno in about 6 months, and if I did see one, my chances of catching it, with an excellent throw, an ultra ball and a golden berry, are about 3%. Whyyyyyy? Either make them super rare or make them super hard to catch, why not both? And if you say “but medic, they should be rare!” that makes no sense, since you can catch most of these Pokemon in raids, with way, way better catch chances than they have in the wild.

More chances to remove Frustration

During the Sinnoh Tour, there was special research that was weirdly shadow-themed. In fact, most of the encounters from the Sinnoh Tour research were shadow Pokemon, including a heavily desirable shadow Gible and ending with a shadow Regigigas. However, there was no way of removing the move Frustration from these Pokemon, which was doubly annoying because the Sinnoh Tour brought back legacy moves like Earth Power for Garchomp. So it was impossible to evolve the shadow Gible you got from your research and give it the move that makes it good.

The problem is, we won’t be able to remove Frustration for a long time. We get one single Team Rocket Takeover event every three months, but it only lasts a week, and if you don’t get the new shadow Legendary and any new, decent meta shadow Pokemon during that week, you need to wait for three months to get a chance to get rid of the damn move. Yeah, sure, you can pay for a second move, but legacy moves only ever go into the first charge attack slot, but Frustration can’t be replaced except with a TM during a Rocket Takeover.

Arceus

Seriously, where is Arceus? We’ve had a myriad of Sinnoh and Hisui events, but we still don’t have Arceus. Even with the Sinnoh Tour, the event that was supposed to introduce all Pokemon from the Sinnoh region, Arceus is still non-existent. I just want to fight the Pokemon god at some point. It’ll be fun. Doubly so if it appears in all its different types, meaning we have to do more than just punch it to death with an army of shadow Machamps.

But yeah, those are some more things I’d like in Pokemon GO. They’re not big asks, but I think they’d be helpful.