Massively on the Go: Pokemon Go’s Max Battles desperately need at least a particle system revamp

It’s been nearly a year since Pokemon Go’s devs first announced the Max Battle System last fall. We’ve had multiple events, but none more than the recent Darkest Day Go Fest Finale really pushed how deeply flawed the system is, with its walking requirements to participate in group content as it happens, one currency for both raiding and raising pokemon, having to game the system to get currency to increase event participation, and so on.

That’s without mentioning that if you just give up and pay real cash for the currency, the company won’t refund it, even if something goes wrong. All of this is about the Max system, but particularly about its particle system. It’s in dire need of a revamp, so for this Massively on the Go, I want to talk about how it could be changed to maybe do what Scopely would want it to do if the system weren’t just made overly convoluted to push people into just buying particles.

Particles of pain

I want to start out from a worst case scenario: Everything about the Max system is designed to hurt so players simply buy particle packs. The company won’t refund paid or free particles if something goes wrong, and it usually does. The game crashes while players are trying to capture their prize at a soon-to-expire power spot, thus losing their prize; false flagging systems register raid completion without even allowing players a capture attempt; and non-expired Power Spots simply despawn for a single player who cannot re-enter the spot without a second player inviting them to it.

But there’s more, and I think the easiest way to show this is the confirmation button on the Particle Packs, a premium item intended to grant more particles over the usual limit. Unlike raid passes, Particle Packs are used immediately, even if you back out of the lobby. Worse, though, is that the confirmation button I mentioned is right on top of the “Battle” button, so misclicks or rapid taps will use the item. Other items have a “Yes/No” option or full screen for you to confirm their use/action (such as transferring pokemon), or Niantic will refund the item if it uses a similarly scummy “confirmation” button, such as with Lucky Eggs or Star Pieces. This isn’t just hearsay; I’ve experienced multiple refund failures with the Particle Packs and multiple refunds for Lucky Eggs and Raid Passes lost to poor design or bugs. Max Particles are, for whatever reason, not refundable.

Now, you can skip buying them. Lord knows I haven’t paid for a single pack since the Lapras raids, and that was the only one I bought. Instead, you have to game the system. There was a whole discussion on this when the particle cap was permanently lifted, but nearly every Max event since the first Wild Area has had some weird gimmick to going over the usual cap. Often it involves walking between midnight and 5 a.m., which probably isn’t the safest time for most of us adults to play, let alone the kids who are the main target of the bulk of pokemon content (to note, The Pokemon Company has specifically aimed for adult fans as early as 2016 and continues to at least make official merchandise in adult sizes).

Now, I’m not out there walking around at midnight to get another raid in. Heck, I often can’t even be bothered to set up for those gimmicks, and I’m sure 90%+ of the playerbase also doesn’t want to keep a schedule for that. So instead, we do what feels reasonable to get as many particles as we can… until the system messes up.

Remember, particles are collected just through touching a Power Spot. So even if you’re trying to hit a certain amount of particles before gaining a bonus from a Power Spot, accidentally clicking a Power Spot that was too close to a Frigibax will ruin your particle count. Getting kicked from a raid you won but didn’t catch the pokemon may ruin your particle count. Heck, being overexcited and trying to join a raid could ruin your particle count. There are so many things that could go wrong in just collecting the particles that I’ve seen people literally throw up their hands and leave an event early instead of giving the devs cash.

And that’s incredibly important. Yes, we can have 100 players in a Gmax raid now. I suspect that’s so more people can rush in and zerg something down instead of capping out and forcing smaller groups of often unprepared players to simply lose. Losing is a big demotivator for POGO players from what I’ve seen, as unlike traditional online games, you can sit at home for longer periods of time. Your house doesn’t close, get dark, have people staring as more people come (I hope), or any of the other issues inherent in gaming in public spaces that aren’t an arcade or cyber cafe.

This is most easily seen through POGO raids not becoming more level-dependent as the cap increases. Aside from Rocket Battles, your pokemon’s increased CP won’t make the battle any more difficult, which is why it’s often recommended that players simply level their ‘mon to level 30-35, as that’s the best return on investment for power. Max Battles, though, heavily restrict our options (such as not having a Rock-type attacker with Rock moves until fairly recently). Those often have people recommending level 35-40, if not more in some cases.

Because many players were used to the old raid system of level 30-35 being optimal for their ‘mon, and because the devs basically asked players to catch old pokemon for the millionth time and invest in those instead of their current ‘mon, many people got lazy. While it’s true that losing a Max Raid won’t cost you any particles, I’ve seen plenty of people simply walk away from failure. Others leave over bugs. Still others (including me) will leave once they’ve done all they think they can, either based on the particle system or the group’s performance.

Traditional raids can be duoed for the most part, though I still notice many people prefer to have a group of at least five. Short-manning and especially duo-ing a Gmax Raid is a major feat, though, often requiring multiple premium items/abilities. Combined with what appears to be a large portion of the player population basically just in it to collect pokemon (which seems natural), most players seem far more comfortable with the zerg approach, which obviously requires a lot of people.

If, however, you have an eight-hour event, and people can finish the event within the first, say, 15 minutes, you lose a huge percentage of the player base, and I say that from experience. I felt this in my own raid community prior to joining my Gmax community: even though I had paid to do more raids, my community couldn’t support it for Gmax Lapras, and the Gmax group I was referred to was too zergy to be trusted at the time. Combined with the previously noted bugs, my wallet closed early that day and basically hasn’t opened again, at least for particle packs, if not most Gmax raid events.

And as I noted in my Go Finale write-up, player attrition, both in terms of population and interest, was a huge factor that prevented higher participation in my area. I went home early both days, and I was one of the very few people who was free-to-play and willing to game the particle system for an extra raid. I know the devs want more money, but making group content that is painful, unrewarding, and requires cash to participate really forces your game to lean on the whaling community. While the devs could dispute it by putting out their own graphs, the known yearly revenue trends show that the game isn’t holding those whales’ interest. Something needs to be changed, and it’s why the particle system in particular should be targeted.

Pointless repetition

The particle system is the main offender, but we also need to briefly go over a problem that, admittedly, is hard for the devs to control: redundancy. Most of the Max ‘mon aren’t new, so collectors don’t care and vets see them as basically having to get the same pokemon again. That’s not exciting.

So let’s start with the function of the Dmax content: small scale raiding for 1-4 players. It may be good for 1-4 players, but few players want to tackle or sometimes even duo 5-star raids, which are the good/legendary ‘mon. The problem is that the devs don’t seem to realize that normal raids are in the same spot in terms of player-participation group size. Few places are really doing full 20-player lobbies, especially lately when raids aren’t new pokemon.

Usually, a casual friend and I can tackle just about any 5-star raid, especially if we can find a third person who at least uses the correct types. That makes Dmax raids feel redundant at best, but again, they require a higher level investment, more candy/particles, and are mostly a visually identical but content-restricted version of pokemon we’ve caught before, sometimes at the game’s launch.

Instead, Dmax raids should probably be balanced more for single player with three level 36 pokemon and level 2 Max moves, to account for bad IVs and potential new players. While allowing up to three other players is fine, making the content easier to solo with reasonably powered-up ‘mon should help teach players the game better while also making sure there’s solo content for people who have little to no local community. That way, when/if they join a Gmax raid, they’re less a liability. Yes, mooching is still possible, but solo/small scale is much more rewarding of your time. Veteran players don’t want to keep searching for groups to essentially do old content and new players will be in a better position to add to the group, rather than potentially drag it down.

Addressing the particle problem

Even if the devs don’t want to fix whom the content is for and how it’s organized (because that’s probably too much work and they clearly don’t want to revamp the whole busted system), particles need to be separated into two different currencies. Separating raid currency from powering currency while keeping the current particle costs would help to do away with the whole “trying to game the system” schtick, which works well enough with solo content but the current Max system isn’t solo content for most of us doing 5-star content. Again, even I went home early instead of playing the whole event, and I’ve previously left because my groups didn’t have enough steam to entice me to pay to try to keep going. That’s not just bad game design, that’s bad monetization.

When part of the group experience involves knowing how to cheat the system just to fully participate, it puts cognitive strain on the player even before the actual battle has started, and in a way few will find entertaining. The previously suggested system of using DMax content to help prepare players for Gmax content would be great, but that alone still wouldn’t fix the problem. Group content needs players, and putting up participation gates, especially when you think your game is optimally played together in public spaces, seems like a gross error, to put it politely.

As POGO always does best by being accessible to the masses, the particle system as it is has been a huge misstep, and while this was probably intentionally engineered to drive sales, it has the opposite effect on meatspace communities. As I keep saying, players who don’t want to spend tons of cash will simply get bored and walk away from the content. That’s not a theory; it’s what I saw repeatedly occur throughout the past year of experiencing the Max Battle System, but especially at the Go Finale.

Dividing the currency into two different ones is a fine enough start, but if the devs really want flexibility or something “tricky,” they should allow up to 50% of one currency to be pushed to the other. That way, there’s always something players can use to buff their ‘mons, and there’s still a way to finagle the system to maybe get in an extra raid.

And that’s the other part: Particles earned should be from the previous week, kind of like Adventure Sync but with a meter that churns out particles. Maybe allow for parties to help speed up weekly meters so us heavy walkers can help out our slower friends. That helps us keep the walking aspect in and helps us avoid all the weirdness of clicking or not clicking Power Spots so we don’t mess up our count. This would also help make prep weeks easier, as you could just put in walking tasks instead of dictating who or what should be powered up because that is just not working right now.

Why change it? The problem is that the complexity of the system divides the playerbase into those who just click along and have no idea how to get the most particles, those who try to the game the system, and those who fall in either of those camps but also have deep pockets and will spend spend spend. That may not seem so bad to Niantic because the spenders keep them afloat, but for communities, we can feel on the ground when the F2P players leave. As someone who tries to game the system, I’m someone who sometimes “leaves early” to jump through proverbial hoops to avoid paying, but I come back and replenish at least one lost player.

And I’m super rare. Almost no one I talk to does what I do. We’re a severe minority that can’t help keep raid numbers up well enough. I know because even before a streamer lured multiple communities to one spot and seemingly never returned, I barely had anyone to come back to with my old group after the F2P players were done. Once they dropped out, it didn’t matter how much the whales could pay if they didn’t have the fire power, and I saw that again throughout the event. 

Having particles from the past week wouldn’t just help alleviate day-of participation caps/disorganization, but could help promote pre-event week-long events. The devs are quite fond of these anyway, so it would only further promote the content they’re currently making. Special events, though, could perhaps have extra particles granted the day of the event. Again, we want to increase participation. While it would be nice if all the raids were free and, I dunno, maybe players could pay for extra balls on the catch screen (instead of prior to it when they’re cocky and feel they don’t need it), again, I don’t see the accountants and department heads allowing that level of generosity.

Finally, and probably most obviously, particles should be refundable. It’s insane that they’re treated in such a manner when not just the system, but the whole game is known for its bugs more than its Bug types. Ignoring the golden COVID era of the game (which still feels weird to say), I know I bought a higher percentage of the available paid content and coins during Gen 3 than I do now because I felt secure about my purchases and the direction the game was going. By comparison, I now skip most of the event tickets; don’t even ask me when I last bought coins. Doing right by your community and customers does a lot. As greed has taken over, we’ve seen the company’s profits fall more and more each year.

The Max Battle system isn’t terrible in and of itself; it’s just designed to hurt so much more than it needs to. Simply addressing the basics of the particles to help bring in higher participation and lower cognitive load to get there would really do wonders.