Pokémon TCG Live will be offline for maintenance from 16:00 ~ 18:00 (UTC) on February 24, 2026.
Please see the Maintenance Notice - 02/24/26 for more information.
This new license journey is bad
Comments
-
I think bad is an understatement. the system firstly destroyed the currency in the game that had least need of reworking, completely ignoring things like trading and fashion tickets that haven't been touched since the game's release.
Not only that, but it's a universally bad system whether you are a pay to win player or otherwise. As a f2p player myself with about 60% of all unite liscences unlocked, the system is completely unusable and impossible to progress in. But unless you buy all pokemon with gems, being a pay to win isn't much better.
When coins were the primary currency, it would take about two weeks of playing about 1 - 2 hours a day to get enough money for a new liscence. once you progress out of the starting tiers of the journey system, and liscences start to require around 2000 points individually, it takes a free to play player 3 months to unlock assuming they complete the battle pass every month. for a pay to win player, it takes one month, still double what it previously took a free to play player.
There is now little to no incentive to sign on to the game and play daily anymore, especially in such and unbalanced meta. It sometimes feels like the game designers for a videogame haven't played their own game before when you see updates as poor as this. And not to mention the fact that the game now crashes on android.6 -
if it crashes for Android umm an they don't do anything they can get in trouble easily with Google play terms of service for ignoring emails/feedback. You can tell Google play within or past the 3 business days of no response dev replying they take things seriously on the platform of mobile devices. Better yet not fixing it even with the email response or will send to our devs because if it reminds unfixed guess what happens Google Inc involvement which is not to be messed with especially for in app purchases with by law of refunds
and forum mods saying will tell devs will not help you here vs us the consumer
deleteing my post here will get me to do actions against you with Google play
incase I took a screenshot try me pokemon forum mods
4 -
Hello Trainers, thanks for sharing your feedback on the new License Journey system. We hear the concerns around progression, license unlocks, and how License Points are earned. We appreciate you taking the time to explain your experiences, and we’ll be sure to pass this feedback along for review.
1 -
TL;DR The Suicune battle pass offers less value in terms of progress to unlocking a new license in the new License Journey system than the Glaceon pass did, and players who buy this battle pass will unlock licenses ~20% slower than they could for free with coins, whereas the Glaceon pass was ~2% faster than coins. The fact that the License Journey makes the Battle Pass, and the rewards therein, directly affect my ability to play the game in new and interesting ways by hindering my ability to unlock new pokemon with new playstyles, makes me less likely to recommend the game to friends, make future purchases, and play the game in the future.
I believe enough has been said about the issues of the license journey itself, and I don't have anything new or nice to say about it - other than, to highlight some of the issues and put what's already been said into other words, a f2p player experiences a ~80% decrease in value, in terms of license unlock progression, in this new system than they used to with coins. This, on top of the process of making unlock progress being much more difficult/convoluted (for example, I played every day for 1-2 hours on average for the duration of the Glaceon battle pass, and did not get to tier 50, because I wasn't always playing to make battle pass progress, but playing to have fun).
If a player bought the Glaceon battle pass, and maxxed out all avenues of unlocking License Points (max daily LP from friends, all daily boxes, and completing the pass), they would get on average 612 license points per week, which translates to 6120 coins, or 32.6% increase over the max coins obtainable per week for free (4615 via the weekly play limit, unite squad, friends, fair play points, daily missions, and weekly login at max tier). Using the max license cost increase from 15000 coins to 1960 license points (30.7% increase when LP is converted to coin value), players who bought the Glaceon pass experienced 2% increase in value, in terms of license unlock progress, than they did with coins.
However, those calculations are for the Glaceon battle pass. The new Suicune battle pass, which has the same 700 LP on the free pass, only has 1100 LP on the paid pass, or 400 less LP than the Glaceon pass had. It has a hair color instead. Now, I don't think a hair color is worth 400 LP (4000 aeos coins), but that's beside the point I'm making. That means players who buy the Suicune battle pass, and also dutifully pursue all other avenues of LP gain every day, will only be getting 512 LP per week (again assuming a 4 week month). This comes out to 5120 coins in value, which is only 10.94% more than the 4615 coins obtainable for free, per week. Again utilizing the increase in max cost of licenses, that means buying this Suicune battle pass, a player will experience a 20% decrease in value, in terms of license unlock progress, than they were obtaining with coins, for free. Because the amount of License Points on the free track of the battle pass remain unchanged (a f2p player can only obtain a theoretical max of ~238 LP per week on average), f2p players are still experiencing the same ~80% decrease in value, in terms of license unlock progress, than they were getting with coins (The 80% figure comes from the ~48% decrease in currency value [2380 coins worth of LP as opposed to 4615 coins] added to the ~30% increase in max cost of licenses, rounded up).
To top it off, the new pass is longer than the Glaceon pass, so you make this already-lowered progress over a longer period of time, exacerbating the issue.The feedback on the License Journey is generally that this new system is worse, in almost all aspects, than aeos coins were, due to how much more difficult it is to unlock new licenses. The paid battle pass for the Glaceon skin provided just enough license points to keep up with license cost inflation caused by the conversion from coins to License Points. Even just this small change of 400 less LP in the new battle pass, makes it a worse deal than coins were. If a f2p player decided to make their first purchase this new Suicune battle pass, they would be getting less value and progress towards unlocking new licenses than they were getting for free with coins, despite the fact that they are now paying real money for the pleasure. It is disheartening to see that such a small change in battle pass rewards, which had always been an optional event, can so greatly affect core gameplay experiences due to how the License Journey is structured.
On a tangential note, I had been considering buying the Suicune pass as a holiday gift to myself, but after seeing that it provides less value than the previous pass by containing less license points AND a lower quality skin (there are no move effects like the Glaceon skin had), I ultimately decided that it did not provide enough value to warrant a purchase from me.6 -
Great post, lots of detail with real numbers. The Suicune holowear and indeed the gyarados one before it are terrible. You can tell just from the Promotional video themselves. All it does is show the unite move over and over, which is the only thing that has a special animation. I've never bought a holowear, mainly because of the idiotic pricing, but if I did, they would need to put in as much effort as they did for the Ceruledge holowear that has all the crazy animation
3 -
Spragels overview of the best and worst from 2025 was a good thing to watch overall what was positive and negative last year. Yes we get it money is needed but they can do a better job with the game with making making the money a better value for us by this year fixing first off LP giving more daily and battle pass to more worth while.
Also we the players can over stack the daily boxes like we do with fashion tickets and the skin tickets to fight right back the current state it is or not pay buy things to force a change.
0 -
Well said!!!!! I agree, as do others.
Moderators and developers, PLEASE listen to us!!! Read the quoted post. Please! I want this game to continue.... but in a reasonable way.
1 -
because they want the big whales paying players leave out free playing players in the dust. Also currently I seen Meowth be over powered they always plan this to get money lame event and another more lp to slow work for up the ladder who cares at this point to buy it early not us free players that suffer
2
