Pokemon Go's Raid system is frustrating for solo players
Several months ago Niantic implemented a “Raid” subsystem in Pokemon Go. Periodically a powerful pokemon will “take over” a gym, basically altering the way the gym combat minigame works. Somewhat like a boss fight from other games, instead of bringing your team of pokemon into battle against the pokemon placed in the gym by players from other teams like normal, you take your team of pokemon up against a single powerful oversized pokemon placed there by the game. If you win the battle then you get a chance to throw special pokeballs at an instance of the pokemon you defeated, which is the only way to capture some pokemon such as the legendary pokemon that don't spawn in the wild but do periodically show up as raid bosses in gyms.
(I'd like to catch a Kyogre, but there's not much chance I'll be able to)
In addition to getting the chance to capture the raid boss pokemon you also get some other rewards from defeating a raid, notably Golden Razz Berries, Rare Candies, and Technical Machines. Technical Machines are one-time-use objects that let you change the moves on one of the pokemon you already have. This is the only way to do this in the game, and you can only get these by winning tier 3 or 4 raids. Because it's the only way to get some of these things the game creates a strong incentive to win tier 3, 4, or legendary raids. However the primary obstacle to winning the fight is the timer. The raid boss pokemon often have so many hit points that it is mathematically impossible for a single player to defeat them in time even if you bring an optimal team of pokemon against them, you need a group of people all attacking simultaneously. Some tier 3 raid bosses are soloable, but I find that doing so is more of an exercise in seeing if you can do enough damage before the time runs out – it feels more like a fight with a software user-interface than engaging in the virtual world of the game.
Having to fight as part of a group might be workable for people who don't play in pre-established groups if raids were more of a “destination” and people gathered from the surrounding area to take part in this rare opportunity, but raids seem to be active in so many places so frequently that there's no reason to think that one nearby raid is more likely to attract other players than another. Furthermore, even though you can see which raids are active from some distance away, you can only see if someone else is fighting a raid if you're close enough to the gym to fight it yourself. Regardless, at the times and places I play the game I rarely if ever encounter other players (which, honestly, is how I prefer it – I don't play Pokemon Go for social interaction, I'm in it for the motivation to walk for exercise).
(I could use a chance at a Golem with good Rock moves, but I don't have a team with me)
Niantic wants to motivate social interaction
Niantic obviously wants to create an incentive to engage in social interaction with other players. Even though that's not what I want out of the game I can understand that being their priority. However, by putting desirable content behind barriers that can only be overcome via group play I think they're making the incentive curve too steep. In contrast to the way they've successfully avoided making this free-to-play game a pay-to-win game, I think they've tried so hard to get people to do social interaction that they've made this aspect of the game social-to-win. That's not a good fit with everybody's circumstances or style of play.
How would I fix it?
The game already has the concept of private raid battles and multiple types of raid passes. One possible way to address the raid issue for solo players would be to make something like a “Challenge Pass”: this would be a raid pass that operates with no time limit (or at least a long time limit) that would put you into a private raid group that no one else could join. This way you at least have a chance at the big raid bosses, even if it would take a long time to win and cause a lot of your pokemon to faint in the process. Currently I regard tier 4 and legendary raids as reasons to avoid gyms, not to seek them out. But if I had the backup plan of the possibility of solo-ing one of these raids then I'd be more likely to treat them like useful destinations for me. This might even cause me to organically run into other players and engage in the standard multiplayer raid gameplay. Having a fallback option of being able to solo raids if a player needs to would make the incentive structure look more like “being part of a group works better” rather than “being part of a group is a requirement”, which I think is a better way to design incentives anyway.
Even though I have issues with this part, I like other recent developments in the game
While this post has been critical of the Raid subsystem, there are other recent developments in the game that I like a lot. I'm still enjoying the weather subsystem, for example. I also think that the way they've decided to stagger the rollout of the Gen 3 pokemon has been good at keeping things feeling fresh (and more are getting released today).
(However, tier 1 Wailmer raids are very solo-able, I do like it when I see them pop up)
As much as I was an enthusiast for Pokémon Go in the early days, I figured that Niantic was going to go this way, having played no small amount of Ingress, which itself started as a fairly decent solo or payer game and increasingly pushed toward larger and larger social groups being necessary to do anything significant. Pokémon always struck me as the perfect property to focus on solo and small group content – but I suppose that would have required too much game design work.
One of the things that has always limited by further involvement is the mechanical activity of the combat itself. For someone with even a minor physical impairment the requirements to be successful in their combat system are really offputting. High-speed, repeated motion based on very subtle visual cues – it's a recipe for frustration for someone like myself.
I keep hoping that Niantic will create a social mobile game with the AR integration of Ingress and Pokémon Go, but with a more turn-based combat interaction – much more reminiscent of the original Pokémon. Even if each move is necessarily time-limited, some sort of card-based or even JRPG-like combat interfaces going to open it up to a wider spectrum of players.
The motivation to go out and be physical places in order to play the game was a great piece of work. The focus on collectibles while you're out there was a brilliant insight. Now it would be nice if we could get that together with a more accessible interrupt-driven dose of gameplay.
(I remember when there was a roving pack of 20 to 30 people from 8 to 40 walking around my town square here in suburban Atlanta pretty much every night from 7 PM until two in the morning. Even as a relative social recluse, that was pretty fun to see, and everyone was at least on nodding acquaintance with one another. Needless to say, that doesn't seem to happen much anymore. I'm sure Raids were intended to be a reason that people would call up their friends and show up together, but in practice – maybe it was too little too late.)
I have played quite a bit of Ingress, too. Knowing of Niantic's problems I didn't even start playing Pokémon Go.
The social interaction is very important. I mean, I liked it! It's sort of like a MMORPG. Except you meet people in real life. And you get to go outside. Cool.
What killed it for me was Niantic obviously not caring about accuracy of Portals and Scammers, Multi-Accounters, etc.
I was playing Enlightened. Where I'm from, you play Resistance or you lose (Recklinghausen, Germany – look it up, it's probably all blue).
Playing Enlightened meant:
Some people supposedly (both factions) used GPS-spoofing, but Niantic didn't care.
Herten Mitte, Resistance "HQ" near Recklinghausen is a horror of misplaced, duplicate or bogus portals. I reported all of them 3 years ago. Some haven't even been processed now. Most that were processed have been declined.
You can appeal a decline in some Google+ group, yeah. But then they added a mandatory poll to every appeal. Guess who votes "Not valid" for every appeal I post … Yes: The local Resistance players.
Meanwhile Resistance players gain more and more L8 stuff, while Enlightened players are left in dark. It was demotivating.
This is pretty much going to be the bane of AR games for the foreseeable future, frankly. While the boon is in the social aspects, so is the pain. After all, to play well – you need to be organized. You need to have social ties to others. All the things that are the selling points are exactly the most powerful means of abusing the platform.
Your experience pretty much mirrors mine exactly, except out here in suburban Atlanta rather than Germany.
I would love an AR game which is directed toward small group/solo play. Instead of assuming that you want to be part of a massive, ridiculous, well organized group of raiders – assume that you have two or three friends that you want to run around with part of the time, play by yourself the rest of the time, and can actually make choices and engage in actions which make a difference to your personal experience.
Video games, for the most part, and even MMO's have realized that catering specifically to large groups keeps more players out and unengaged than it brings in. Allowing for large groups, sure, but making that the focus? Not a great winner.
One day, this knowledge and understanding will trickle down to the designers of social games.
Another problem with raid design: it incentivizes multi-accounting. Dual-wielding phones isn't normally all that advantageous, but raids make it an enticing strategy.