Summary
July 6, 2016. The game was released. Many people downloaded and played the new Pokemon game.
Summer, 2016. The game was almost worldwide and all the media was talking about Pokemon Go. The phenomenon.
February, 2017. 2nd Generation was released (first major update in the game).
June, 2017. Gym rework (second major update).
Summer, 2017. Legendaries.
November, 2017. No major update (December?).
Ok. That is a summary of the content release. What do we have in the game?
1GEN - 142/151 Pokemon (1 of them still missing, 4 regionals, 3 legendary event, 1 of them in the EX system (9))
2GEN - 90/100 (4 not released, 2 regionals, 4 legendary event (10))
3GEN - 5/135 (5 released on the Halloween Event
40 LVs - The last unlock is in the 35 and the last power up is achieved at the 38. (20M XP in total, 8/20 without any kind of unlock, so 12 for maximum)
Extras: a few shiny variants.
Is this enough?
Clearly not. At the end of 2016 everyone was hoping for a 2GEN update. It came 2 months late (or even more). I am not counting the babies as I am not counting 5 3GEN pokemon as great update.
With the 2GEN came 90 New Pokemon, 50 less pokemon than the previous generation, a lot of them were pre or new evolutions, so the new content is even less as it was easier to get them (babies came before and harder evolutions were only a matter of luck).
Then 4 months later we got the Gym update, an update that made the community more interested in Gyms and more dynamic with also the Raid system (that changed 5 months later for the worse).
Then the legendaries… Summer was full of them, with pros and cons. And now we have 3 more running around the world.
The “history” of Pokemon Go is that. More than a year with the feeling that this game lacks of many things.
In about 2 months or less with every major update (2 in total) every player starts to get tired. +1 Year and only 2 major updates are not enough.
Players are always asking for a new generation but what we see is that 2GEN update change very little, the game was as it was before in terms of playing and almost nothing change for the long term. However, Gym rework was an update that changed the mechanics… Almost 1 year later, and it wasn’t a huge change.
I think the community should start asking for other things, asking for a new generation won’t change the game core problems. So I ask… What 4 features would revamp the game for 1 year? In other words, what features should be the next quarter updates of 2018?
- 4 Generation (3rd should come this year or at least be almost complete by the end of Winter)
- Abilities (along with a less complex battle rework)
- Battle Rework (status / more than 2 attacks / special split… whatever)
- PVP (without battle rework, standalone)
- Trading
- Breeding (and proper mechanics to make it enjoyable [no jokes pls XD])
- Some kind of happyness mechanic (feeding, training, etc.)
- History mode (single player, coop, whatever)
- City Leaderboards along with more competitive mechanics
- A mechanic (could be one of the above) as complex and important as catch and battle gyms (this means a core mechanic not an addition as it could be a full histoy mode and not a simple one as I listed before).
0 voters
I know other people made similar polls but with this one I try not to focus on the key one but the ones that together could bring the game to another level.
To finish I want you to focus on the idea of the topic. Pokemon Go is not a good game, is a very good idea, but not a good game. Good games release content to keep players interested, this game takes advantage of 2 things: players memories and feelings about the saga and the time they invested in this game (maybe money). New generation trick and new shiny trick are becoming less effective each time they are used.
With every major update people get interested again. That happened 2 or 3 (with legendaries on summer) in more than a year, they should hire people or invest more time on Pokemon Go. I think Niantic is going to be suprised when they see that 3 Gen won’t reach its expectations. That is a prediction, I would prefer to see the update becoming a success but my opinion is that we are not going to see abilities full implemented along the 3GEN in the game soon enough.
My December expectations are 3GEN and a few new items, and I think I am optimistic, it could be worse.