Go Battle League depends more on luck than skill because of the blind best of one system

We all grew up dreaming of being like Ash Ketchum defeating our rival to become the Pokemon Champion. We want to be the very best, like no one ever was!

Pokemon Go pvp captures the spirit of the anime (in some ways) better than the turn-based MSGs. The fast-paced decision-making matches Ash's innovative battling style. Niantic should be congratulated for creating a new form of Pokemon battling that is distinct from and competitive against the MSG format.

Silph Arena tournaments require real skill in team selection before the match and fast thinking during the match. There is an element of luck, particularly in picking leads. But if you get caught with a bad lead, there are tricks for skilled players to overcome the disadvantage like safe switches. If you lose the first match because of the lead disadvantage, you can strategically choose your lead next time - it's a mind game.

Go Battle League does not capture that battling spirit. It is a glorified rock paper scissors game. Unlike Silph Arena tournaments, where you can can see each other's team of six and play best of three matches, Go Battle League has a blind best of one match format That is, you can't see your opponent's team and you only play one match. Skilled players have much less room to maneouver or to recover. It's harder to bring a safe switch because you don't know what pokemon your opponent is bringing, and its preferable to bring a pokemon with wide coverage. The consensus on Go Stadium has been that the GBL format is lead dependent and less skill-based (though some skill remains).

If games are mostly luck dependent, that will turn new people off PVP. You'd be better off releasing a better developed GBL than losing these people now.

You will see the same Pokemon over and over in Go Battle League

I've been extensively simming Ultra League and Master League in preparation for GBL. I started out with the mindset that Master League would have a boring meta, but the more I simmed the more convinced that it would be almost as diverse as Great League freestyle in a Silph format. While Dialga and Giratina O form a dominant core in Master League (they cover the meta between them), there are other powerful duos that also cover the meta so you would have had a diverse meta. In a best of one format, people will almost always bring Dialga and Giratina.

The problem is particularly acute in Ultra League. Giratina A and Registeel are overwhelmingly dominant. Nothing decisively counters both, though a few like Kangaskhan and Swampert can muddle their way through.

A dull meta will shorten the lifespan of Go Battle League. The Silph Cups have enduring value because they keep evolving. Even freestyle remains fresh. There are around 10-20 meta pokemon, but that list changes as new Pokemon/moves are introduced and knock out the e.g. 12th ranked pokemon. With the more restricted GBL metas, there are fewer Pokemon you can knock out of the meta with new moves.

Niantic can make more money - far more money - by reducing stardust costs

Niantic adopts the philosophy of minimum viable products and 'move fast and break things'. Releasing Go Battle League with blind best of ones will turn off non-pvpers from pvp, making them think its mindless tapping and skilless. That will reduce your profits.

Basic economics tells us there are ways to increase your profits (I work in economics in my day job). If barriers to entry are too high, fewer people will play. Masters League is dominated by legendaries. The stardust and rare candy costs for a full team will be astronomical, particularly with second move costs.

Maxing each legendary from lvl 20 will cost 322k stardust and 246 rare candy. It would take over 6 and a half days of playing non-stop to catch enough Pokemon (assuming you only catch 100 stardust pokemon and each Pokemon takes 20 secs to catch). It would take 82 raids to collect enough rare candy. That's almost 3 hours of just sitting in the lobby waiting. Paying for incubators or star pieces is a fairly inefficient way of getting stardust. You need to hatch 134 10km eggs to get that much stardust. Everyone here is a hardcore player, but you can see why casuals don't pvp.

This imposes a time cost on players, but Niantic does not directly capture the benefits. I understand there is a very strong linear correlation between time spent in game and money spent, but Niantic would make more money directly monetising things and reducing time costs for the reasons set out below.

I'm a hardcore pvper, last season I reached Challenger rank. I did so largely as F2P because star pieces and incubators raise relatively little stardust. I bought a Gotcha (whose profits don't go to Niantic) because its more effective at collecting stardust. But I will eventually quit because of the grind. It's terribly dull. I've spoken to other highly competitive pvpers feel the same way, though we're a minority for now.

Niantic could raise their profits two ways. Firstly, they can reduce time costs (whose benefits they don't capture) and directly monetise. For example, an item to reduce 2nd move or levelling costs. There are currently 26,825 players at rival level or above on the Silph leaderboard. If they each bought a $5 charge move, that would raise $134,125. The other way to raise profits is to reduce the cost of pvping so more people participate. If 1% of active players bought a $1 premium battle pass, that would raise $1.5 million. (I'm assuming 147 million active players as per this report from 2018 - the actual count is likely higher now). That is, Niantic would literally make 10x more money by making it free to unlock second charge moves than making us pay $5 to unlock second charge moves because it would increase the pvp population.

To use economics terms, Niantic is setting the price above their profit-maximising price and ignoring demand elasticity. By lowering the price, the increase in demand would be higher than reduction in revenue from lowering the price. They are also capturing more of the consumer detriment as producer surplus that they are not currently capturing.

About a third of the cost of PVP is second moves. Non-pvpers rarely unlock second moves so reducing their cost should not reduce revenues from raiders. This is the easiest way to increase Niantic's profits while making PVPers life easier. But directly monetising levelling costs would raise money from both pvpers and raiders, doubling your profits!

For similar reasons, fixing the TM system is likely to raise your profit not lower them. The chances of getting a TM from a raid are so low, I would never buy a pass to get more. I would buy passes if their chances were raised or the TM system were fixed.

Gaming has to match the rhythm of our lives

We all understand the point of Pokemon Go is to go. The Vs Seeker concept fits perfectly with that purpose, but it needs to be modified to fit people's lives. A simple purusal of this sub-reddit will show this is the overwhelming feedback about GBL.

My understanding is that you must walk 5km before you get a free battle pass or are able to use a premium battle pass. We appreciate the ability to charge the second battle pass while we use the first. But can't we just stack battle passes? Sometimes I'll go for a 10km bike ride. Should I stop halfway through my bike ride to play five matches then keep going? Some people walk 15km a day at work. Should they battle in their lunch and afternoon breaks? What purpose does it serve to force us to battle every 5km?

As a sidenote, I think this is why the buddy system has been quite underwhelming. The emotion point system is difficult to use during daily life. Its easy for some who walk a lot at work to reach the excited state once during the day. But having to open the app every half an hour to maintain the excited state is difficult if you have meetings or just need to work undistracted for an hour or two.

Is it about love or money?

Developing a game like Pokemon is a sacred trust because of our shared childhoods. Rewarding that trust enriches everyone, betraying it is a curse upon all our hearts.

It's a trap to think of a franchise like Pokemon or Star Wars as a cash cow to milk. You can make more money by tapping into the essence of the game and renewing it for another generation. Pokemon Go is one of the most profitable games of all time because it captured the spirit of adventure and exploration better than the mainstream games through alternate reality and location-based gaming. My entire family, including my aunts and nephews all play Pokemon Go but never played the MSGs. I believe Go is more profitable than individual MSGs (but happy to be corrected).

Conversely, treating a franchise poorly can make temporary profits but hurt you long term. Do you want to be known as the guy who made the Phantom Menace? There's a reason for the decade-long gap between Revenge of the Sith and the Force Awakens films. Everyone knew about Star Wars, but they didn't love it. Think of the money that could have been made in the decade between!

You could also look to the lesson of Pokemon Masters. That game failed, despite the Pokemon franchise, because they tried to adopt a minimum viable product approach. They introduced a co-operative battle style game without the ability to communicate or coordinate strategies, you know the ability to actually co-operate. That just does not work. The costs of purchasing new pokemon/trainers was also far too high. If they had just waited to develop a communication mechanism and lowered the cost, the game would have been much more successful.

Conclusion

Apologies for the lengthy post, I thought I should back my arguments with evidence/calculations. So to summarise:

• Go Battle League's blind best of one format is boring. It would be better for Niantic (and PVP) to delay its launch until a Silph Arena format can be introduced. Choose a team of six that your opponent can see, play A best of three (or five!) A more exciting league will make more enduring profits for Niantic.
• Reducing second move and levelling costs will make more money for Niantic than paid items to reduce these costs. Failing to reduce these costs will eventually kill pvp because the grind will eventually drive away most pvpers.
• Fix the TM system!
• Let us stack battle passes!
• What advice do you have for Niantic in designing Go Battle League? Pvp isn't for everyone, but for non-pvpers, is there anything that would make you want to pvp?

Edit: included TM rework suggestion. Obvious oversight on my part. Thanks u/emperor95