Pokémon GO: What went wrong and can it be salvaged?

>>32368149
>was GO just a shitty game?
Yes.

And more so, Niantic did a horrific job managing it. It was a buggy mess for the entire month or so that I played, and it took them, what, 8 months to push out the first content update?

They had a goldmine and just watched it slip away.

>>32368166
I just saw the game as a gateway drug to interest a new generation of children to the main series games. And it kinda worked. I mean SM sold 15 million copies in record time. Even if Niantic dropped the ball hard with GO, it served its purpose as one big advertizement for the series. And to my knowledge it still makes money in its own right despite the massive dropoff since last summer.

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>>32368166
>>32368193
It's not entirely GO's fault. Sure, it's a shitty game, but people just don't have the attention spans for these type of games anymore. Anyone who's still playing is in it for the long haul, and to the surprise of no one they're in the minority; most of them are hardcore Pokemon autists already.

The sad thing is Pokemon Go is the closest thing we'll ever get to an official Pokemon MMORPG.

>>32368166
>They had a goldmine and just watched it slip away.
They definitely still get tons of money desu

>>32368206
>The sad thing is Pokemon Go is the closest thing we'll ever get to an official Pokemon MMORPG.

That's not such a bad thing. A Pokemon MMORPG would be cancer without fundamentally overhauling the main series gameplay.

>>32368149
Simple. The former was targeted to kids and thus could snowball out of control. The latter was more for adults and thus was easily forgotten. Kids got into it, too, you say? They still weren't the primary target of the advertising. It was running on nostalgia and that never results in anything good.

>>32368245
What will happen when Niantic finally drops 3rd gen? Hoenn never had the appeal to normies gens 1-2 did.

>>32368149
>Why did the original Pokémania persist for more than 2 years back in the 90s whereas the second Pokémania barely lasted 2 months?
in the former the options for video games were slim

>>32368258
What happened when they dropped gen 2? Absolutely nothing. Admittedly, though, that was because they waited too long to do it. What would've happened if they did do it sooner? I can't tell. Perhaps people would become more aware of later gens, but their reaction to all of it, imagine the same thing that happened to the fandom at the time but more widespread and happening all at once? Most people would ragequit by 4 if 3 didn't make them do it first. 5 would see more ragequits simply because the number would be getting too high if they even made it that far. 6 and 7 would see what we have now regardless.

>>32368301
>What happened when they dropped gen 2?
More people played, if only for a while.

>>32368230
>A Pokemon MMORPG would be cancer without fundamentally overhauling the main series gameplay.

What exactly would need to be changed? It just needs a world constructed around it (i.e. not following the goddamn 8 gym system), otherwise you get garbage like PokeMMO.
As for the turn-based combat, just slap a 30 second time limit on deciding what you do on your turn. If you fail to meet it 2-3 times, you forfeit the battle.
There'd also need to be emphasis on establishing yourself and not following some shitty fanfic-tier plot like the recent main series games. Not to sound like a genwunner, but I'm talking a much looser plot similar to the earlier entries. Because at least in the main series, while it's not exactly good writing, it's understandable why they'd put the player on a pedestal. That wouldn't fly in an MMO.

>>32368346
Again, I will say that most people only go around with Mega Fug and friends and nothing else. An MMO demands diversity, and you wouldn't get it. You would need to make every pokemon useful in some capacity, and even then, I'm not sure why you would need a full team of 6.

Other than that, yes, a whole new plot structure and bosses designed for multiple people to fight, otherwise, there is no point to the MM.

>>32368318
This. The problem is Gen 2 released in dead of winter (for the Northern hemisphere, the only one that matters). There was a brief bump in interest around that time, but it couldn't capitalize on the gains due to the cold winter weather.

They should have appeased players with the gen 1 legends during winter (maybe each player gets access to one random legendary, and the others become obtainable at very, very low rates), then released Gen 2 with maximum fanfare in late spring or summer. That way you maximize the draw for normies during the most optimal seasons. Most of them can name or recognize at least a couple of gen 2 Pokémon, like Ho-Oh, Togepi, or any of the ones that were in the first movie. I even know a lot of normies who were still playing the games during gen 2.

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>>32368149
>tfw the local Pokemon Go crowds were the last time I made new friends
I'd love for it to come back, but it's not going to happen since the fad is long gone

>>32368396
The protagonist in the main series is literally "the chosen one", which is how they manage to grab every single legendary there is. In an MMO, there cannot be any "chosen one", so legendaries will be few and far between.

The way I'd handle it, if I had it my way, would be through tournaments. The winner(s) of said tournaments would potentially get access to an item that starts a specific quest that gives them a CHANCE at catching a legendary at the end (similar to Episode Zero from ORAS, only less autistic). If you KO it or it runs away for whatever reason, tough shit. Try again after another tournament. And even if you do catch it, you cannot breed it (unless it's Manaphy, but...), and there's no guarantee it'll have good IVs, good nature, or in some cases even a good ability. And even then, they'd most likely be banned in most tournaments anyway.

And as you said, an MMO would definitely require player interaction. You can't just play through the game and ignore everyone (Again, PokeMMO comes to mind...), otherwise there's no point in the online aspect.

>>32368433
Episode Delta*
Holy shit did I mess that up.

>>32368149
>was GO just a shitty game?
Yes. Yes it was.

Let me put it this way. The most annoying thing in the games. Random encounters. This game is literally JUST that, but worse. You walk around in grass and encounter Pokemon. That's all you do. You don't even get to catch them. You just throw a ball and hope they come along with you. And that is the end of gameplay. You don't even train the Pokemon you """"""caught"""""", you just catch more. Stronger. There's nothing more to the gameplay. Those Gyms are a fucking joke, so don't even mention them.

Fucking Alien Invaders had more gameplay than this shit.

>>32368433
That'd be fine for the legends as long as they remain endgame content. If they become easier to get because of expansions, then it becomes pointless. However, this does not change the fact that some pokemon are just more powerful or useful than others and THEY will be Smogonned up the ass.

>>32368346
You are dead on when it comes to plot. Another Marty Stu special snowflake protagonist who saves the world from evil teams all by himself and catches the millenia-old box legend would not fly in a WoW-esque MMO.

The good thing about Pokémon is that trainer classes are already well established, and might translate well to a more traditional MMORPG landscape. Ranger, Burglar, Nurse, Scientist, Veteran, Beauty, Hiker, etc. could all take on either DPS, Healer or Tank elements. And perhaps the trainer classes could be split into different tiers as you level your trainer (and not your party Pokémon), eg. Supernerd could progress to Scientist, Schoolboy could progress to Ace trainer, etc. You would only be pitted against trainers of your equivalent trainer tier.

The battle system would need to change completely. having to keep track of 6 different sets of hot-keyed attacks for 6 different Pokémon just wouldn't work. Battles would also need to happen in real time. A 30 second timer on attacks wouldn't work as people would just abuse it to grief their opponents. One active Pokémon at a time would need to stand right in front of his trainer and make all attacks in realtime.

>>32368433
IVs, EVs, natures, even learnsets and Pokémon levels would have to go for any Pokémon MMO to stand a chance. If people don't at least in theory have access to equivalent tools in a PvP environment the game is inherently broken. Think more along the lines of gen 1 but even more dumbed down.

>>32368503
Funny you mention griefing, since I consider wow to be griefing: the game.

>>32368526
The fuck you on about? Those mechanics work "just fine" in the main series (as in, players can, but don't have to, pay attention to them if they don't want to). Only hardcore players and autists care about those hidden numbers, and the lack of being able to control them via third party software (Pokegen) or in-game mechanics (everything about breeding) would add to the longevity of the game because nobody will have perfect Pokemon. The same logic would apply to Pokemon Go if spoofing wasn't so prevalent.

As far as conforming to using nothing but the "best" Pokemon, they don't always have to be available at a given time. Remember Swarms? That could be a way of making specific powerful Pokemon available. It's not like you're going to walk into some random cave and, whoops, all of a sudden I have thirty Garchomp in my PC! As long as this hypothetical game was SMART about its Pokemon distribution, it'd get the diversity Pokemon deserves.

>>32368206
>but people just don't have the attention spans for these type of games anymore
It seemed deliberately designed for people with low attention spans though. The fact that it wasn't focused around training your Pokemon and just about catching more and more to find stronger ones made it seem very ADD oriented. The problem is there was absolutely no depth.

>>32368563
You're doing the same thing over and over again, which caters more to casual than normies. The only difference in gameplay is if you decide to battle in a gym, and the combat system is so hilariously buggy it's almost unplayable, especially with bots and spoofers chucking 3k CP Blisseys into every gym.

>>32368573
>casual than normies
I meant autists than normies holy shit I need to stop posting.

>>32368462
What this anon said.

Add in that unless you lived in one of the chosen cities, you were out of luck to see anything other than rats and birds, if that. I had been look forward to taking nice walks in my neighborhood and playing along the way. What I got was I had to drive half an hour to a park that reacted to GO players with signs banning play except during the hours of 10am and 7pm. Not unreasonable, but with work, adults had to limit to weekends, which meant that was when our kids could play. We all got frustrated and just found other activities.

The local playground saw a boom in visitors with GO... but with the spotty servers, lack of Pokemon diversity, everyone stopped going there. The real life restrictions combined with the game itself just killed all interest for us.

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>>32368149
1. It's not pokemon, it's TAP THE SCREEN FASTER and BUY OUR DIGITAL STUFF: THE GAME
2. Normies have the attention span of Goldfish.


Won't lie, I played it three days and I stopped due to potato servers. From what I hear, it's only gotten worse.

>>32368462
Worst part is, you can just load up ANY Pokemon game and get that gameplay, but better. The only thing you'll lose is the social aspect, but other than that, it proves EVERYTHING and makes even catching Pokemon 1000x better.

>>32368560
Rarity is meaningless to any pokemon player. They will get them and they will mass produce them.

>>32368560
It works in the main series because Gamefreak knows most people stay away from competitive online. Those who do play online inject their IV bred, correct nature HA competitive mon (unless they are maximum autismos who want to spend 6 months breeding before they can even touch the online features).

In an MMO the "competitive online" aspects of the main series IS THE ENTIRE GAME. If you scare off 100% of the casuals by making their entire team meta-irrelevant in PvP and higher echelons of PvE, then the ENTIRE GAME is dead on arrival. The casuals will not have the patience to play months of bicycle simulator before getting to the actual game, and frankly they would be in the right.

People who still defend IVs, natures, and HA are what is wrong with competitive Pokémon and why the series is so stagnant. They want high barriers to justify their own wasted efforts.

>>32368604
last sentence *barriers to entry

That's what my entire post boils down to. Needlessly high barriers to entry like the current Pokémon competitive scene has would kill an MMO. You can make specific Pokémon rare, MMOs already do that with the strongest gear. But if you introduce an additional layer of bullshit like "this Mewtwo is adamant, and also has shit IVs, and therefore loses to your oppenent's Mewtwo" then no one will have any fun except for the people who already play competitive Pokémon.

>>32368149
because the more you're exposed to it, the more you realize how painfully unfun and frustrating the game is. gyms are basically a no-go for anyone because of rampant hackers which only leaves people like me who just want to collect them all and be done with it. well this game does its absolute best to make that task completely impossible. on top of region locked pokemon, which is the stupidest thing ever, by the way, you're only going to be running into the same few pokemon over and over and over again. i don't know when i stopped bothering with catching anything i didn't absolutely need to complete the pokedex to the best of my abilites, but it happened. the novelty of playing in AUGMENTED REALITY is gone the instant you turn the AR off because it's annoying as shit to catch anything with it. never mind how fucking annoying it is to catch things in the first place, i didn't stop catching rattatas because i found so many of them, because god knows i needed the exp and stardust to even try to keep up, no i stopped because i was running out of pokeballs because their catch rate is stupidly low. this pathetic rat that isn't even good when you evolve it is one of the hardest things to catch in the fucking game. oh sure, if i used my great balls or ultra balls i'd probably catch them, but what? i'm not supposed to save my great balls and ultra balls for really rare pokemon that i need, i'm supposed to save them for slightly stronger versions of pokemon i already have? they made catching pokemon less fun than clicking a button with a pokeball on it. how did they manage that?

>>32368604
Pokemon is about two things.
-Catching 'em all
-Being the best

You can go for one or the other. You don't need to go for both. You can if you want. In this particular instance, those 'high barriers' are set by either time invested, or luck. There is, and never was any, skill to "breeding" a perfect Pokemon, and breeding wouldn't even be a big deal in this game anyway (if it's even included - we all know how easy it is to get perfect Pokemon nowadays).

>>32368868
If being the best is reaching the end of the game, then yes. There are many definitions to what this could mean, though. If you meant competitive, no, competitive was NEVER a requirement of pokemon and you will never force me to do it.

>>32368904
Of course. You are not forced to do it. If you want to dabble in competitive, go right ahead. But just like in the main series (and in the anime, and all the spinoffs, and pretty much every Pokemon-related show/game/movie/whatever), legendaries will only give the time of day to the most worthy trainers. Whether that means filling the Pokedex a certain amount, or competing against the strongest trainers, or undertaking the toughest of challenges (think Mt. Battle from Pokemon Colosseum to unlock Ho-oh), it's up to whoever decides to develop said game.

>>32368868
That's your preference if you like the bicycle simulator, RNG bullshit aspects of Pokémon. And gamefreak is already catering to you with the main series competitive scene.

I am just saying it would severely depress the potential subscriber numbers of an MMO. WoW might have some luck involved, but at least two pieces of gear with the same name are actually equivalent in stats.

>>32368935
I'm fine with legendaries and mythics being extremely rare (possibly even just a limited number of each). Certain legends like the creation trio would not make sense if there were more than one of each, so I don't think they should be obtainable at all.

But if they add IVs, natures, HA, secondary abilities, etc. I am done with any potential Pokémon MMO. Those features are specifically why I think current Pokémon competitive is cancer and don't bother with it. Why would I want it in an MMO?

>>32368947
>>32368984
I'm fine with trashing the RNG aspects if we have some way to keep the people who sit on a team of 6 perfect Garchomps in check.

>>32368149
>Why did the original Pokémania persist for more than 2 years back in the 90s whereas the second Pokémania barely lasted 2 months? Are attention spans getting shorter or was GO just a shitty game?
Is becayse of the pace of the things on these times, for example an average music that becomes viral is forgotten in like 28 days, the same happens to series, animes and even movies nowadays. (Tell me what happened in this month's first episode of your favorite series/anime if you can remember it.)

>>32369148
It's called making a balanced game. Maybe GF doesn't know how to do it, but they can find some other dev that can.