Why is this game so bad?

I preface this by saying that this is an open letter to the developers, the powers that be, the people with any control or input in the creation and maintenance of this game. I have played it continuously since its launch 3 years ago. I am a diehard fan of the franchise because I grew up with it. For better or for worse, this franchise has been part of my life since childhood.

Over the years of this game’s existence, I’ve made it to Master rank every season, and I’ve done it by solo queuing 99% of the time (the last 1% is when I was duo or trio queuing during the first two or three seasons). When I played intently, as opposed to casually, I was ranked in the top 5000, if not 500, accomplished via solo queue. I have played almost 10,000 games. I hope this demonstrates that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to the metagame.

Issue 1: Poor balancing. When a new playable species is released, it’s always overpowered. See: any EX Pokemon, Ceruledge, etc. When a “balance” patch is implemented, it’s more often than not that dominant Pokemon are overly nerfed (Blastoise) whereas others are overly buffed (Gengar, Buzzwole). This makes the gameplay extremely frustrating and, worse, boring. If your team has a Gengar, you get to steamroll the opponents, or vice versa. This makes for a staid, predictable experience. It frustrates your teammates, who all too easily give up and surrender at the 5 minute mark, thereby tanking your win ratio and ranked match points. Why do I care so much about the ranked match points? I wouldn’t, if there weren’t any prize incentives, but there are, and you developers are actively penalizing those of us who play the game properly by allowing us to lose points so easily when our teammates surrender or maliciously and intentionally throw the match, which brings us to issue 2.

Issue 2: Poor matchmaking experience. I have played almost 10,000 games—why am I being matched with/against players with less than 2,000? There is a clear skill imbalance, a lack of strategic thinking, that can be easily ameliorated by preventing this sort of matching that would benefit both parties. Is this really so difficult to implement? This has been suggested by the community for years now—why has nothing still been done to address this?

Issue 3: Poor player education and moderation. The players aren’t taught by the game how to play—they’re just taught to pick whoever they want, regardless of team composition or other strategic inputs, and press A. This can be easily resolved by redoing matchmaking formulas. Players with low average KOs, high average deaths, low average damage per game, etc., all could be matched with each other and not with those of us who actually accomplish the game’s goals. Moreover, this game’s detection and moderation of poor player behavior is below subpar. If one of my teammates has exited the game (as evidenced by only 4 or less, not 5, surrender lights appearing on the surrender module), why do I not automatically preserve my ranked match points at a minimum? Auto surrender at 1 minute resultant of detection of player idling was a good implementation but it does not go far enough. Often, when I report idle players for idling, I never receive any confirmation later that they were deducted the customary 10 fair play points. Finally, there must be stricter detection and enforcement of malicious noncompliance during ranked match games (not standard). Too many times I have teammates who do not engage with the enemy team or objectives (Regis, Rayquaza) at all, to the detriment of the rest of the team. These players idle at base or spend the entire game circling around our team’s jungle or just flat out do not do anything, yet reporting them never yields any results. This gives the impression that the game developers still do not care about the player experience, and it has been a chief complaint since the beginning: so why has there still been no action taken to address this? Moreover, why should my ranked match points be deducted just because we were at an unfair team disadvantage the entire game where only four or less of us actually tried to engage the enemy team? This has created such a disgustingly frustrating player experience that festers all the more because you, the moderators, continue to take no action.

Why don’t I stop playing if I’m unhappy? Well, I do. I take breaks and don’t return to the game for days or weeks or months. I go about my normal life. Sometimes, I’ll get the urge to return, only to find the same issues abound: poor balancing, terrible matchmaking, and abysmal teammates. After 3 years, I’m so fed up that I looked up if there were official forums so that I could post this.

If this is so unbearable, why don’t I just team up with some reliable friends to queue in ranked matches? Because the matchmaking is still unbalanced—when I queue with one or two others, I’m too often paired against teams who are in lockstep coordination all the way, as if they were on voice or video chat together, whereas I am not doing that with my teammates, nor do I feel it should be a requirement to play this game competitively—but that is why I am a solo queue player, and solo queue players should not be matched with or against team players for proper balancing.

Why do I care? Why don’t I just drop the game and move on? I like this game. It’s cute, it’s a unique take on the franchise’s intellectual property, and the gameplay itself is fun. All of this is marred by poor matchmaking and other existing issues, and the game would be so much better if the developers devoted significant attention to improving. So many of my friends in real life who have played this game casually have dropped it due to the same frustrations I’m laying bare here. So, I write and post this to vent my frustrations and to beg for changes that I believe will not come, because the past three years of this game have shown me that the developers do not care to improve their game. They only care about monetization, and that is a somber truth that has shattered my appreciation of this franchise. But—hey—who cares? I’m just a nobody.