I’ve written about Pokemon GO before, and I know this will most likely fall on deaf ears but as a person who has enjoyed it for a few years writing a commentary on games, I have an idea of how we can fix Pokemon GO. Now we know there are a lot of issues but people want a lot of things and we know also that the game is only about ten percent complete at this stage of its design but I wanted to offer my suggestions about what the game needs to make both Niantic happy, and of course the fan base, that being said! Enjoy my ideas on how we can fix Pokemon GO.
1. If a PokéStop is four-hundred feet away from another PokéStop it should have its cooldown halved and its chance of giving a PokéBall increased.
The reason for this is to help those in rural areas who generally only have one PokéStop and cannot restock items as often as those who can visit cities or towns where PokéStops are more common.
2. When a Gym is conquered only the person who defeated it can openly place a Pokémon if they cannot then anyone can place a Pokémon in it. Once a team has claimed a gym it cannot lose prestige for and claimed for twelve to twenty-four hours.
The reason for this is to stop gym sniping and to give people a chance to get the defender bonus since they re-new every twenty-one hours. This will give players time to deposit their Pokémon in the gym to help defend it.
3. Finding Pokémon is not as easy as we would like it to be and because of that and websites like PokéVision being taken offline, the fanbase is pretty pissed off. We understand you working on tracking Pokémon and this should be priority number one in terms of updates.
No explanation is needed for that one, fix the tracking as soon as you possibly can. People are pissed and don’t want to invest money into a game that is just a waste of time.
4. Having a friends list would be great, either imported from your phone numbers or your Google+ account. This would need Pokémon Trainer accounts to have some degree of integration also with Google+ for maximum friends list capabilities.
Now the reason for a friends list is to be able to make new friends and trade with friends you have made or have from all over the world. Far be it from me to visit my hometown of Florida and get a Tauros from my family when I can just save two thousand dollars on a plane ticket and trade from my phone.
5. Pokémon centers, have been the main staple for the game for a long time. In more recent games they have also doubled as stores to sell PokéBalls as well. So why not make it a place where players can not only heal their Pokémon but also stock up on supplies as well catered to what they need in terms of items?
When I say catered to their needs I mean I need more PokéBalls, I got seventy revives, seventy super potions, seventy potions, and thirty PokéBalls because the stop gives me more of those than anything else.
6. Recovered items would be a major bonus, when I throw a PokéBall and the Pokemon breaks out they have broken the PokéBall and I understand that you don’t need a broken PokéBall so you throw it away. But if I throw a ball and miss, which happens way more often than I would like it to. I should be able to claim them if the Pokémon or myself don’t run away.
This would also work if a person could recover half of the PokéBalls thrown in an attempt to catch a Pokémon. I know you got to make money but if you penalize a player too much for having issues capturing a Pokémon what makes them want to invest more time and money into it?
7. Now here is a more unique idea, In the Pokémon franchise Berry tree’s have started showing up and from those, you can tame Pokémon easier or help them level up. Why not place Berry tree’s out in rural areas more? Giving players a reason to explore out of towns and cities and encourage more sales because they aren’t near more frequent PokéStops. Finding berry trees could give a player Raspberries and other sorts with more unique bonuses to make it easier to catch wild Pokémon and also attract rarer Pokémon.
This would also help with sales if I didn’t mention it already, and not only in external chargers either but with PokéBalls and whatnot.
8. PokéBalls bought in the shop should scale to a player’s level so if they have access to Great Balls or Ultra Balls they should be able to get some of those from the store besides normal PokéBalls. There is no reason to be selfish and continue to give players only the slimmest chance to catch Pokémon because you want to sell more PokéBalls.
Seriously, it would just make sales even better because people would want a chance to get Great Balls and Ultra Balls, You could even make it better and include a special deal to get one Master Ball if you bought enough PokéBalls.
9. Scaling, it’s a real pain in the butt to get more stardust and experience when you level up. Because no matter what combat power in the Pokémon you catch you only get 100 Stardust and 100 Exp unless you are using a lucky egg. You can fix a lot of the scaling issues by rewarding players when they catch stronger Pokémon. If you catch a 600 CP Pokemon you should get 600 Experience and 600 Stardust.
The reason for this is to fix the long times needed for grinding with little to no rewards for players. It also helps give people in rural area’s a chance to actually catch up with those in cities. Not to mention it would help with sales of lucky eggs and PokéBalls because the experience would be a lot more rewarding.
10. More levels and more rewards, at level twelve you get Great Balls, and a few levels higher you get Ultra Balls. That is all well and good but the time needed to get the maximum level is time-consuming of Godlike proportions.
So the simple fix is to have a set experience needed for each level in Overwatch 22,000 experience to level up. If you use my point from number nine you could set an experience bar to about 15,000 points.
This would allow players to push themselves daily to get a few levels. You could also implement a high-level cap this way also but keep the same basic statistics of how the Pokemon CP cap at level thirty same with item rarity.
Rewards could also be more giving if you hit a level you get ten balls, ten berries, and ten of the strongest item they have unlocked up to that point.
There could even be a special reward at every ten-level interval where they can pick a Lure, an Incubator, or incense for achieving ten levels. When the player gets to level one hundred there could even be a four times bonus for an item they pick.
11. Trainer Battles, Now why should players just be forced to focus on taking a gym when what they really want to do is battle against each other.
This one is a given, a player should be allowed to put a flag up saying they want to battle. When this occurs they could show up on the map and be given a prompt when another player accepts their challenge.
12. Walking bonus, Pokémon GO is all about exploration and adventuring and trying to get people more active. So why not have a daily experience bonus for people who hit so many steps?
This one is a thought I had while talking to my wife if you make the game more rewarding for people who go outside and move around give them an experience bonus for achieving so many steps each day five-hundred for two thousand steps, a thousand for four thousand steps with a cap at two thousand for eight thousand steps. Rewarded to a player either at the end of the day or as they achieve it.
I got a lot more it’s just these are the finer points on how Niantic can fix Pokémon GO.
An autistic gamer with opinions on games who also enjoys making dumb videos on the internet!