So How's That PVP Holding Up Niantic?

An NPC deploys a MagiKarp in PvP? Really?

So there you have it, Niantic finally released the highly anticipated PvP mode of Pokemon Go, and to be honest, it was a marginally successful endeavor.  Once it started up, the hard-core loyalists took up the mantle of creating battle leagues for the three divisions of PvP. But for the regular Joe player, what a disappointment. A great example of that disappointment is one of the NPC trainer battles, where they deploy a Magikarp of all things!!!

When we looked at the preview images of this much vaunted PvP, we saw images that led one to believe that dodging was part of the process, but it's not. It looked like it could have been exciting

What we did get was the ability to stand still and have mini-raid boss battles, while Pokemon fling attacks at each other, and sometimes. You gave the players NPC's to practice against, but they pull up the same Pokemon every time and do not deploy their shields like regular players do. You can beat them with your eyes closed.

One of Niantic's popular YouTube shills held a Twitter vote about PvP and after 23k+ votes asking if players care about PvP, 52% said no. He then followed it up with another question, for those bored, what were their results? 46% of 10k votes said 'mostly winning,' and  48% said 'Some of Both,' meaning winning and losing.

Let's look at some of the features and options players have for PvP:

Players can unlock a third attack for PvP but it's costly for the casual player while Niantic seems to have found a way to push players to dig for more coinage. The question remains though as why would a casual player drop up to a million in stardust to only get their asses kicked by hard-core players? They could better use that kind of cost to power up for raids and gyms.

Players get rewards for playing PvP, with the tease of a rare evolution stone. But most are saying they are getting only dust while others say they're only playing to get that stone. With the kind of bait the Sinnoh Stone offers, some players are willing to 'drink the punch.'

Players are only playing but bored and calling it just another form of screen tapping. I love that someone thinks that this PvP is just beta testing for Niantic's upcoming Harry Potter game. LOL.

To be honest, PvP looks like it was just something thrown together, like many of their updates that they push on players.

The YouTube 'shill' says that Niantic wants the game to be a means to get out and interact, from creating and pushing trades, pushing the premise of making friends and what not. But many players are also saying they have raid friends but nothing beyond that, meaning they don't really want to interact with these people outside of the game. (And trust me, I totally get keeping your distance from some of these folks!)

All this, is pushed on the players by Niantic while Niantic seems to blow off players requests for actual game mechanics and what not.  Hell, I'd love to hit up a 3-star Raid Boss, jump in the lobby, and have a button that skips that stupid count down, to save battery and time. But would that ever happen? Probably not.

Here's my issue with the game...

In year one, we had to battle and grind hard to catch that rare Snorlax, MewTwo or what not. Two years later, they're handed out like candy as weakened, mid-level 'research rewards,' albeit, crappy versions of them.  Which has me wondering about any new Pokemon that get released, that in a year or two, they too will end up being research rewards or become some community day bait/challenge.

And yea, about that community day crap... three hours, forcing players to interact with the game during specific time-frames, while your casual players may not be able to partake in these days, causing them to lose out on what everyone else is getting and making the game even less desirable for the casual player.

So at this point in time, yea Niantic, your PvP mode seems to be a fail with over half the vocal players, those vocal players are ones that are motivated enough to vote, discounting just how many non-invested players haven't chimed in.

Meanwhile, those who drink the Niantic punch, think it's all fine and dandy. It's those players that Niantic loves, the ones that accept every bobble and over-priced addition to the game that think it's all fine.

As long as they're around and keep supporting, Niantic will never change how they treat the PoGo player base. Besides, they'll have a new game to make money off of soon, and I'm going to guess that PoGo may very well take a backseat, or more so than it does now, to this new release coming soon. But that's just my opinion.

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