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Absolutely disappointed

Yet another complaining thread


I cannot believe the amount of dishonest and underhanded practices that Pokemon as a whole has stooped to. I was willing to overlook the Scarlet/Violet graphics, because I've been a Pokemon fan since the originals with Red and Blue. I remember finding out about Gold and Silver and that you could go to both regions in one game. I remember trying to find any way to play Ruby and Sapphire before release just to scratch the itch.

I was willing to overlook the bugs in TCG Live, because I loved the TCG and thought it was cool being able to buy booster packs IRL and scan codes to get cards in Live also.

I was even willing to overlook the Tencent influence in Pokemon Unite, with it's labyrinthian menus and poorly optimized Switch port that, by the way, doesn't make use of the touchscreen in any way despite this game very obviously being designed around touch screens because I wanted to move from League of Legends to a more friendly MOBA surrounding Pokemon and the like, because I love Pokemon.

But the final straw was finding out that the people I went up against, EVEN IN RANKED MATCHES, were bots. Really? I thought something felt weird when I was steamrolling everyone but thought I would rank up into my skill level. I even started pulling my punches because I didn't want to camp the enemy team. When I finally had my win streak broken by a competent enemy team, I researched into it a little bit and found out that yes, almost every single match I've played recently, and maybe even ever, were nothing but bot matches disguised as PVP.

As a Game Developer, Pokemon fan, and general human person, I stand in awe at how far one of gaming's behemoths have fallen. Zelda got it right with their evolution of the series and it's been fun to watch them build up the series. Even the Dynasty Warriors-esque game they came out with was remarkably well put together, even though I didn't give it the benefit of the doubt at first.

I highly, highly doubt anyone of real significance is going to see this, and doubt even more that they'll care, but it was cathartic screaming into the void.

I would like to end this by thanking the Pokemon company. Not for the experiences I've had, because I assume everyone that's worked on those has left this horrid shell of a gaming icon. I would like to thank them for showing what happens when you just stop caring about fans and care more about how much money you can pump from the masses.

What a disappointment.

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Comments

  • D-ManBlue
    D-ManBlue Member Posts: 383 ✭✭✭
    100 Agrees 5 LOLs 5 Answers 100 Comments

    Pokemon's main problem compared to Zelda is that it's expanded so far beyond gaming that it doesn't even NEED good games to make money anymore- it can rely on mediocre games and all the products surrounding them.

  • MajorBrendan
    MajorBrendan Member Posts: 1,478 ✭✭✭✭
    100 Answers 100 Likes First Anniversary 1000 Comments

    Best that the company need more time to make higher quality games.

  • EyraEclipse
    EyraEclipse Member Posts: 2
    First Comment

    I didn't know any of this. They're just bots then? Not actual players?

  • PinkYoshiFan
    PinkYoshiFan Member Posts: 59 ✭✭
    First Answer Photogenic 5 Likes 5 Agrees

    Some of them are bots, I typically only got bots when I was on a 2 or 3 losing streak (I haven't played since Espeon was added though, it could have changed since then)

  • NavyWooperz
    NavyWooperz Member Posts: 22
    First Answer 5 Agrees 5 Likes 10 Comments

    Whenever you either are on a losing streak or matchmaking takes a long time there’s usually bound to be a bot match.

  • Elberta
    Elberta Member Posts: 91 ✭✭
    25 Agrees First Answer Name Dropper 10 Comments

    I feel that if your opponents are bots for rank matches in Unite, that might be because the Pokemon company doesn't want players be on the matchmaking screen for like 5 minutes when nobody else was matchmaking for a specific league. For the Pokemon company complaints, that might just be due to the fact that they felt pressured by the fans (which almost no matter care about) to release a game ever single year and that everybody thinks that a new main series game have to come out every 4 years. The only fans that cared are the ones that doesn't care about the quality of the games are are probably part of the national dex controversy, which was completely unneccesary, I mean adding 800 plus Pokemon in one game? That's insane!

  • Noshaddow22
    Noshaddow22 Member Posts: 5
    First Comment

    If you really were a game developer, you'd know that matchmaking is a bit tricky to get right. I've found it pretty good in UNITE.

    You should be far more offended at their practice of releasing stupidly broken pokemon (Zacian, Leafeon, Mewtwolololol) that ruin the game by making all others obsolete.

  • D-ManBlue
    D-ManBlue Member Posts: 383 ✭✭✭
    100 Agrees 5 LOLs 5 Answers 100 Comments

    @Noshaddow22 It'd be one thing if the characters ended up being more powerful than they initially perceived, but no- according to another discussion on these forums (which mentioned an interview with a developer), it was FULLY INTENTIONAL that Zacian is stronger than other mons.

  • NavyWooperz
    NavyWooperz Member Posts: 22
    First Answer 5 Agrees 5 Likes 10 Comments

    Really?! I thought the devs were just very careless but wow. Do you know the reason for that?

  • Diagnosti
    Diagnosti Member Posts: 3
    First Comment Name Dropper Photogenic 5 Agrees

    My complaint about bots isn't even that they exist, it's that there's no real way to tell they're even bots without third-party tools. I can deal with things like poor design and bugs, but it feels intentionally misleading the way they use bots in ranked without any indication they're bots. I'm pretty sure they were even surrendering, despite being bots, unless they have a few live players on the team (but if they're throwing live players in a team with bots in ranked then that's a whole other more irritating problem)