[NPCs also have shiny pokemon]

This is normal, some Trainer Tower trainers always have shinies.

[Changing/Removing 4 item limit does not mean ruining economy or lowering difficulty]

5 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

there is potential for lots of interesting problem solving involving and synergy interactions between items, teams, and situations that's lost.  With only 4 there isn't enough pieces to do interesting item combinations.

I'd say that this is actually more effective with the restriction in place as you can still lose if your strategy isn't very good. The limit forces you to use your problem solving skills to pick the right amounts of the right items at the right times to maximize your advantage, relying on your team synergy for what your bag can't do. It requires some amount of skill rather than brute force, which is the goal.

 

5 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

one of the suggestions from my first post would be to only limit revives. which would get rid of all three of these options which "bypass good team building".

Potions are equally problematic if left unrestricted, especially in combination with stat boosts. Only limiting Revives doesn't resolve the issue.

 

5 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

Another suggestion i made in my original post was to have trainers refill PP when they reach 0 pp, I mentioned all of them for struggle or whatever, but You can do something like, the NPCs refill their PP after 2 run out. Or you only get a 1 turn break from the move rather than for the rest of the battle.  Playing around the other trainer's PP rather than just your own should be a viable thing the theorycraft and experiment around.

PP stalling is a legitimate strategy that isn't necessarily reliant on bag items and is often done without them, it's extremely undesirable to kill it off.

 

5 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

Instead of thinking Teambuilding vs items.  Think of items as part of the teambuilding.  It's a slightly different view and philosophy.  You might not like it, and if that's the case just say that it's not a philosophy you want to encourage. 

Bag items are generic options that every team benefits from, we're going to have to disagree.

 

5 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

Or how about this, why specifically 4 as a number? and not 5, 6, or 7?

It's double what any NPC trainer has, so was chosen as a middle ground of sorts between the previous mechanics and enforcing a fair fight with the same amount of items. You retain a significant advantage at 4 without it being excessive.

[Changing/Removing 4 item limit does not mean ruining economy or lowering difficulty]

17 minutes ago, Kirbycide said:

Interesting. What do you think about progressively limiting items until you get to 4 by the end?

It's needlessly complicated and feels worse when the crutch is taken away later on when it's wanted the most.

 

17 minutes ago, Kirbycide said:

and change some of the more useless trainer tips signs / dialogue from unimportant NPCs to reflect this?

The number of remaining items you have available is displayed on the bag button at all times during trainer battles. It may not be seen immediately, but NPCs and signs are much easier to ignore.

 

17 minutes ago, Kirbycide said:

And regarding type advantage / stronger team.  It's not like I ignore that completely. I choose to run through most jrpgs with a lower level team because i hate grinding for the sake of grinding. and have pots as part of that.

There's very little "grinding for the sake of grinding" during the storyline unless you're rushing through and skipping all of the optional trainers. A well balanced team should be able to proceed through the majority of the game without battling any wild mons or rematches. Severely underleveled teams can progress if you play them well, but will have a harder time.

 

17 minutes ago, Kirbycide said:

but even in 1v1, having unlimited consumables/revives doesn't necessarily mean you can go on forever.  For a simplified example, Say you have 2 pokemon. one is fainted. You use one turn to revive the other, (opponent faints the one on the battle field) The other comes in, but the opponents speed is faster and on hit ko's the other one.

There's almost always an item-based solution that makes good teambuilding and smart play optional. In this example, you have a few options:

 

1: Revive something that actually can take the hit and use its turns to Revive multiple other party members. Revive that mon again when it faints then repeat.

2: X Defend or X Sp.Def can allow less bulky mons to survive and make progress. X item > Potion > attack or Revive something else > Potion > attack > Potion.

3: Use Potions or Revives until the opponent either misses or runs out of PP on their most dangerous move.

 

The restriction ensures that you instead need to think about which items to use and when to use them.

 

-

Overall, the game has been rebalanced for its older audience and is intended to be reasonably challenging compared to the originals. Bag items are powerful enough that leaving them unlimited (or making the limit so high that it doesn't actually matter) trivializes the difficulty by giving you an easy solution that works for every problem.  A difficulty curve that forces inexperienced players to get better at the game to proceed is important to prevent the postgame from being too jarring of a difficulty spike. Many of the skills picked up along the way can also be applied when learning PvP.

[Changing/Removing 4 item limit does not mean ruining economy or lowering difficulty]

The 4 item limit was implemented to make trainer battles more fair, forcing players to come back with a better strategy or stronger team if they can't win without excessively chugging potions. It's okay to lose if you're under-prepared or play a fight poorly, the overall goal of the change is to make you better at the game after you've beaten the storyline than you were when you started to ease the transition into harder postgame content and/or PvP.

 

Most important storyline trainers have 1-2 healing items and never have Revives or X items, so you still have a significant advantage over them with the current limit. The restriction makes self-healing moves more valuable as well where previously you might disregard them for being worse than bag items.

 

Item cheese is okay to an extent, but it becomes too big of a crutch if it's not restricted enough. We believe that 4 is a suitable limit.

 

10 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

First of all, others --correctly mentioned that you can also pay for an OP pokemon and mash A. That's allowed, what's the point in that?

Buying something with a type advantage or something generically good means that you've identified an effective solution to your problem instead of trying to brute force it with bag items. The willingness to change your team to overcome a fight that you're struggling with isn't a bad thing and can be helpful if you stick around after the storyline. A lot of the harder postgame challenges call for thoughtful teambuilding tailored to those fights instead of using the same 6 for everything.

 

10 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

-create challenges that encourage use of consumables

The Halloween boss is entirely built around consumables (with no limit), but this is only effective because it's a triple battle where multiple mons can faint in a single turn and the boss can heal off any damage it takes if you're not playing aggressively. You actually can be put into a situation where infinite items don't ensure a victory in this context.

 

Healing items in this series are extremely powerful in single battles however as you typically don't lose any ground by using them while your opponent is still expending resources every turn. If you can attack between items, you're progressing the fight directly as well. If you're not able to, X items can change that.

 

10 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

one thing I noticed going into B/W is that "trainer" actions aren't always first in the queue any more. the NPC can attack before a switch.

Pursuit gains priority and doubles in power if the target is switching out.

 

10 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

And again, what else are going to be money sinks if not consumables?

Healing items have never been a particularly big sink, even when they were unrestricted. Catching, breeding, and listing fees remove a large amount of money from the economy.

[PLEASE Update Knock Off]

5 hours ago, LunarEdge said:

Even when there are obviously broken things running rampant in the game like sand rush, swift swim, arena trap etc... That conditions the way you team build or you get ran over by these things? How often does balancing gets done when there are pokemon with 56%+ winrate and most of them are used in stall teams with toxic spamming, you just have to take a look at the top 10 OU ladder players to see what's the issue right now.

PvP decisions like this are largely left to the tier council, who are not currently aiming for a ban on any of these. A strategy being powerful doesn't necessarily mean that it's broken, but you're welcome to try to convince them otherwise here.

 

5 hours ago, LunarEdge said:

I have hope that heavy-duty boots will get added so you can at least shift pokemon against stall and not get punished for existing.

When this was previously brought up with them, they believed that it would overall have a negative impact on the metagame. We trust their judgement so won't be implementing it unless they change their minds.

 

3 hours ago, caioxlive13 said:

And just a question: If a combination on a mon is deemed broken in a meta, but the two or more moves and/or abilities part of the combination are not broken in the same mon individually, then what is the approach that will be done? Like Wish + Tp on Chansey. Both moves splitted are fine. Having both at same time it's not and people already explained why so i'm not bringing this subject here to avoid extreme derailing. If the TC decides to do actions of those, the combination of those moves will be banned or one of them will be banned?

If the tier council has voted to banish a species to ubers, a decision is reached between the tier council and myself (if mechanical changes are involved or new HAs etc are requested) regarding how to resolve the issue to re-enable the species for OU. The goal in these cases is to retain as much viability as possible.

 

Hypothetically if Wish + Teleport + Chansey were a broken combination, I'd assume that the outcome would be either Wish or Teleport complex banned on it as it's a much simpler ruling for players to understand than a combination of two moves being disallowed. Chansey hasn't been a serious topic of discussion in quite some time though, as far as I'm aware it's not a concern right now.

[PLEASE Update Knock Off]

15 minutes ago, LunarEdge said:

Uhhh, draco meteor hydreigon? swords dance garchomp? even abilities are banned or nerfed like moody and shadow tag, so yeah, they remove moves and have the capacity to do it. only a few pokemon apart from poison types learn toxic on the main games and if they take the original games moveset into consideration tom modify their game why is toxic on every single pokemon still?

We include as many canon moves for each species as we can within a gen 5 environment. This is why gen 1-2 event moves and PoGo-only moves are available despite not being obtainable in the most recent mainline games, as well as moves that were stripped from learnsets or entirely removed over the generations. If it was canon at any point and the move exists in gen 5, the default is inclusion.

 

Sometimes canon moves need to be taken away for balancing reasons however, most notably Fissure Machamp due to its No Guard ability. Previously this also included moves that resulted in a species being sent to ubers, although we've recently changed our approach for these ones to complex ban the moves instead to allow them in PvE and doubles.

 

We can add or remove anything we want to, but we believe that this is the best way to handle learnsets at this time.

[can i swap versions around to get the other legendary?]

On 4/7/2024 at 7:51 AM, froofyowo said:

but why cant i keep it, you keep saying i cant but i want to know the reason

The reason that we don't allow permanent ownership of "uber" legendaries like Zekrom is the impact they would have on difficulty balancing. Some legendaries are so powerful that they would warp the game around themselves, and banning them from PvP would not resolve this at all.

 

When it comes to the most difficult postgame content, PokeMMO is a strategy game in disguise. You have hundreds of options to choose from which bring something unique to teams built to handle that difficult content. Choice is emphasized and important as each mon is better at some things and worse at others, giving you a reason to prepare and use different teams in different situations.

 

If content difficulty is balanced under the assumption that players are all using the strongest legendaries, it becomes too difficult for players who don't have them. If it's not balanced around them, it becomes too easy for players who do. Both of these outcomes are extremely negative for the game as it strips away the value of choice. You would always auto-include them to play anything optimally.

[What happens with Old Banned People Nicknames? Are they Blocked?]

12 minutes ago, awaLLz said:

But I'm already logged into the same account that I'm talking about (im playing just right now).. the thing is I can't recover my first nickname, I never get banned or something like that and if you can check you will see it if you keep records about it... Right now my current nickname is "AngelWall". It used to have "AngelHierro" in 2013 as I said... I used a  "Name Change Contract" to recover my first nick AngelHierro but, the system told me is already in used.. after that I select the current one.. but Honestly I always want to recover that first nickname.

Banned characters are the ones whose names never become available again. If a character is simply deleted or changes its name to something else (this seems to be what happened in your case?), its old name becomes available for anyone else to use. You can't get it back if it isn't yours anymore.

[What happens with Old Banned People Nicknames? Are they Blocked?]

1 hour ago, awaLLz said:

I'm so sorry but I don't believe in this.

 

I tried to recover my first nickname in my first account, and I couldn't recover it. ( I created my account in 2013)

I made a ticket about that and I received an answer like (you're old nickname is used for other player and you can't recover it until this player changes the nickname.) WTF???

The character holding the name you wanted wasn't on a banned account. If it was renamed or deleted (either by you or automatically in a wipe at some point due to little or no playtime or assets), the name was freed for someone else to claim.

 

The answer you're responding to was in regards to banned characters, whose names never become available again.

[[RMT] The potentially slippery slope of having to vet your friends here, is frankly impossible.]

You received 50m from a Chinese RMT vendor on 27-03-2024 and another 20m from a completely different Chinese RMT vendor on 01-04-2024, both of whom were funneling money from bots to customers.

 

We deal with a lot of them, we know what they look like. Some of the other customers banned alongside you (from a variety of countries and languages) have also admitted to purchasing in-game currency from them, or have received additional "gifts" from other vendor accounts.

 

We don't ban players for simply receiving gifts, even large ones. The circumstances around those gifts are the important part, and although we may not be able to dive into your bank history, we have no reason to believe these trades were legitimate. Attempting to mislead other players here won't help your cause, you simply got caught.

[Players can’t have duplicate legendaries. 1 of each.]

We chose to allow duplicate legendaries because restricting ownership to only one would be arbitrary and would make the game worse instead of better. Most of these species are competitively important and versatile to an extent that warrants the ability to own multiple of them to fulfill different roles.

With regards to the lore:

• Each legendary canonically exists in many different regions across many different games.
• The Kanto birds can be caught repeatedly in a single save of Let's Go.
• Several others have been confirmed to exist in multiples in the anime, including the Johto beasts.
• Legendaries appear in the various Battle Frontiers + Battle Subway. There are multiple of each per location and with varying (canon) natures, they can't all be the same one.
• The link posted above by @Akshit is also a good reference.

 

This all demonstrates that most minor legendaries aren't actually one of a kind, so we're simply treating them as extremely rare species. We don't intend to change this stance.

[About Zekrom]

5 hours ago, XanarchyNL said:

Would it ever be possible to allow pokemon like this as follower sprite only but not usable in any battles? maintaining the balance of both pvp and pve but still allowing players to show them off or use them for outfit combos.

It doesn't have a full set of walking sprites, so no.

Even if this weren't the case, one of the benefits of the current follower implementation is its ability to motivate other players. Seeing someone with a rare and impressive shiny or obtainable legendary is often a reason that a player might choose to hunt for their own, which they can then show off with pride themselves. Rare and special followers mean something to other players due to the immense amount of effort put into obtaining them. For that reason (among many others), I'm really not a fan of the idea of equipping followers that you don't actually own, especially when it's something as big and flashy as an uber legendary with a lot of lore behind it.

[About Zekrom]

Allowing permanent ownership of something as powerful as Zekrom would be unhealthy for the game. It would immediately be banned from competitive play and would be extremely dominant in PvE settings too. It's quite a bit stronger than the other legendaries and mythicals that have been released thus far.

[Doubt about the introduction of raids and legendaries]

46 minutes ago, lILucyIl said:

I'm not sure if you mentioned that major legendaries are not only possible in "individual pvp".

 

In that case, would they be possible in doubles?

We consider suitability for OU to be a good indicator of whether a species is suitable for the game at all. If a legendary is too overwhelming for the tier containing the best regular mons, that legendary is also extremely likely to outcompete them in PvE. In a game which heavily emphasizes team customization, balance between options is important to allow players to effectively utilize a variety of them. When uber legendaries are almost always the best in their roles or good enough generalists to compensate for a lack of specialization, there is little reason to use anything else once you've got them.

We're willing to make some minor concessions for doubles when a single move is the issue with an otherwise reasonable OU mon (and that move doesn't break it in PvE), but introducing something new that is immediately and forever banished from standard OU play is a balancing failure which indicates that it shouldn't have been implemented. Many uber legendaries would be banworthy in the current doubles format too.

 

 

46 minutes ago, lILucyIl said:

The issue of imbalance raises another question for me, why not only prohibit the use of pve but only in event bosses or slight restrictions to use them in pve such as gymnations for example, having the league finished at a minimum and in raid issues or only allow its use in 5 stars and 1 single major legendary per raid combat or only enable it against another major raid legendary against the boss.

I'm not a fan of arbitrary restrictions on where and how you can use something that otherwise behaves like everything else you own, it isn't good game design. If we ever make uber legendaries available, it will likely be temporary ownership rather than allowing them to be permanently kept.

 

 

46 minutes ago, lILucyIl said:

Although I also have another doubt, although I don't know if this is possible but... Would it be possible to lower the enormous stats of the older legendaries from 680 to 600, leaving their stats at the level of pseudo-legendaries? even prohibiting certain hidden abilities to balance them.

We'd prefer to avoid base stat modification as their battle performance is a large part of their identity. It's also confusing when they don't live up to a player's expectations when using or facing them.

 

 

46 minutes ago, lILucyIl said:

Since I see that Hydreigon is able to oneshot a Zekrom from a draco comet without problems.

Being unable to withstand a powerful super effective attack really doesn't mean anything.

252+ Atk Choice Band Beedrill X-Scissor vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mewtwo: 366-432 (103.6 - 122.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

[Doubt about the introduction of raids and legendaries]

55 minutes ago, ElRichMO said:

Reading the post I would like to know why we couldn't leave Kyogre, for example, with some restrictions on the gift ribbon so that you can't give it to another player / move it to another place And could you leave a message so that it cannot be used in the gyms because I understand that Destroy a legendary "super" in these gyms and this would apply to Red/League NPC/The Pumpkin King For normal NPCs, it can be an option so as not to take away all its use. @Rache

I'm thinking it could be an option since ubers like Tier cannot enable it  

 

On 3/20/2024 at 4:19 PM, Rache said:

Although possible, it isn't good design to permanently give you something that you can't meaningfully use.

 

[Doubt about the introduction of raids and legendaries]

2 minutes ago, lILucyIl said:

I appreciate your patience and for clarifying my doubts, thank you very much. My last question, which I forgot to add in the original post, is the following.

 

Since Shaymin is a unique that we obtained through the raids in the event, will this be replicated again, for example, Jirachi? I will ask a more general and clear question.

 

Are there plans to add more legendaries such as the Regis from Hoenn, Sinnoh or Unova in the raids or add singular apart from Shaymin, which in this case would be Mew, Jirachi, Celebi, Darkrai, Victini? maybe Latias, Latios and Deoxys to give some extra examples

Raids may be the obtainment method for some legendaries in the future. For which ones, you'll have to wait and see.

[why are leader rerun mons so fast??]

Mach Punch has priority.

[Doubt about the introduction of raids and legendaries]

Just now, VadimEmpoleon said:

Wouldn’t it be possible to ban them from relevant PvE instances? For example in a similar way you can’t use the same species or same items in some PvE instances like Red or Pumpking (you get a message saying you can’t battle it), we could have a space in the dex (it could be ubers or something different) for those mons so even newer players can find this info and therefore avoiding confusion.

Although possible, it isn't good design to permanently give you something that you can't meaningfully use.

 

Just now, VadimEmpoleon said:

There are also mons that would probably be overpowered for PvP but not for PvE, for example the luck based ones, do these ones have any chance of getting introduced?

We might consider Shaymin-Sky for PvE (and maybe doubles) at some point as you can re-enable it for OU by reverting it to its base form. We'd prefer not to implement entire species that will instantly and forever be banned from singles PvP though.

[Doubt about the introduction of raids and legendaries]

7 hours ago, lILucyIl said:

I understand the issue of balance in pvp. I don't think I expressed myself well and I'm sorry, I understand that the older legendaries unbalance the pvp of OU, which for pokemon like Kyogre would make the pvp unfair for the newer ones, my question is the following.

 

Is there the possibility of adding, for example, Kyogre in a raid and that when obtained it can be used for both pve and normal casual pvp but which are banned in the tiers?

 

For example, when you challenge a friend in person, without ranking or tiers or even...enable a specific or unique tier for those older legendaries, either from time to time or permanently and only be playable on that tier, but not in the others

The issue with implementing the strongest legendaries in a permanent form is the impact they'll have on PvE, not PvP. We can ban overpowered species from competitive play, but can't (reasonably) ban them from the rest of the game after making them available for capture.

[Doubt about the introduction of raids and legendaries]

3 minutes ago, Axelator said:

Can we have Latias at least as a Heal Pulse slave in PvE?

It's a package deal with Latios, which is threatening enough that it would be unwise to drop them before the other legendaries and HA mons with positive matchups against them have been introduced to the tier. Both will likely come someday (with close monitoring in PvP) but it's unlikely that it will be soon.

[Doubt about the introduction of raids and legendaries]

The legendaries we'll be allowing players to permanently obtain are the ones that are balanced enough for standard OU PvP. We don't intend to ever make "uber" legendaries obtainable in an unrestricted form as they would entirely warp the game around themselves.

 

If content difficulty is balanced under the assumption that players are all using titans like Kyogre, it becomes too difficult for players who don't have access to them. If it's not balanced around them, it becomes too easy for players who do have them. Both outcomes force their usage on the vast majority of teams in order to play hard fights optimally. The possibility of an ubers tier isn't worth the damage their permanent availability would cause to the rest of the game, although we might consider temporary ownership of them sometime in the future.

 

Speed Boost Blaziken may be on the table at some point with its ability banned in singles PvP due to the exceptions made for Draco Meteor Hydreigon and Swords Dance Garchomp to allow them in PvE and doubles. This isn't a guarantee though, it would only come after after extensive testing has been done to ensure that it doesn't affect PvE balancing in an undesirable way.

[Will we see Raids come back anytime soon?]

9 minutes ago, caioxlive13 said:

That is a good relief, at least i won't see someone carrying a Unfezant on higher raids.

Signup requirements won't prevent people from bringing "bad" teams if they have the minimum amount of raid experience to join matchmaking, nor can we use team quality to filter people out due to how complex of a thing it is to evaluate in a game with so many options and interactions between options.

 

It's a decent flying attacker with access to some interesting support moves though, sometimes you might be happy to see it in the hands of someone playing it to its strengths.

 

[Will we see Raids come back anytime soon?]

16 minutes ago, kenjimAd said:

Um... I have a Question. If they Invite me on Link in Next Raid even I'm not on Rank PVP as ELO Ranking Stuffs & without Trolling Players & Newbie Players too, will it still be Legal on Next Raid even my ELO Rank is Low on PVP? (I'm Promise that i won't do the Trolling Stuffs & i already know about their Movement & Tutorials/Guides too.)

I'm having a bit of trouble deciphering your question, so I'll answer for the few different ways I'm interpreting it.

If you're asking if PvP will be a requirement for raids, it won't be, nor will raids affect PvP rankings.

If you're asking if raids will have their own ELO system, they won't. It isn't very desirable as it punishes players for the process of learning what a boss does by playing it themselves instead of spectating another group. Losing the first time then coming back with a better strategy is part of the intended gameplay for harder raids.

If you're asking if you can join a raid in a manually formed link without meeting the requirements to enter matchmaking for that raid tier, you will be able to. The intention behind restricting matchmaking for harder raids is to remove the least experienced players from the pool, increasing the chance that random matchmaking groups enough stronger players together for them to have a decent chance of victory. Allowing newer raiders to attempt it with their friends in a manual link doesn't clash with this goal.

 

[Will we see Raids come back anytime soon?]

1 hour ago, Doctor said:

 

I keep comparing this to WoW but that's the MMO I played the most, and I agree with that being a requirement. To be able to join the equivalent of the matchmaking queue for raids you need to have a certain "gear score" (I know that's not the name for it anymore etc etc) and you get said gear from dungeons, so you must've engaged with similar mechanics before trying to join the harder endgame content.

 

I know you guys have already a lot on your plate, but it would also be nice if we had different difficulties for the same raid, kinda like, again, in WoW you get the normal, heroic and mythic raids, each giving different (and better) loot the harder they get; but essentialy being the same raid overall. The bosses and adds just have additional mechanics on top of the ones they have on the mode before, deal more damage, etc

 

So translating this into what we already could see in PokeMMO, maybe the normal mode for the Excadrill raid would be players being able to replace its sandstorm/it not having Sand Rush, the heroic mode would be what we got with it summoning Sandstorm* on turn 1, and maybe the mythic mode could be what we got + unbounceable Stealth Rock besides buffed stats. This would also require players to bring better bred mons for the raid, we would be able to beat the normal difficulty with whatever mon that can hit supereffectively, and progressively require perfectly IV'd and natured mons the harder the mode. Of course you guys can get way more creative than me in this 5 minutes-thought post, but I hope I explained myself good enough 😛

Although difficulty modes are a good concept in a lot of games, I don't think it's the right approach for this one as there isn't a very big statistical difference between the game's best gear (5x31 IVs + optimal nature) and the game's ultra cheap gear (15-20 IVs + decent nature), they're largely going to perform the same. The boss itself being part of the reward also means that its HA (or its species if it's legendary) can't be very valuable if everyone can easily obtain it by playing on a lower difficulty.

My preference is to instead spawn multiple raids per rotation, with at least one catering to newer players and at least one for better players. This gives everyone something to do and incentivizes building a bigger/better toolkit to be able to tackle the strongest ones at all. Individual raids aren't especially time-consuming to produce either (we have over 150 designed already), so there's less of a need to reuse the same battle for different player groups from a developer perspective when we can create more in each difficulty tier instead.

 

We may consider harder rematches for event raids, but probably not for the main feature.

[Will we see Raids come back anytime soon?]

27 minutes ago, caioxlive13 said:

I was discussing something on call with some friends. A problem we've seen a lot was begginers trolling. Using teams having like, Zard and Gyarados on a Zebstrika Raid. Can we have something that blocks people from playing raids unless certain requirments get met?  

Being new and unprepared isn't trolling, but accessing matchmaking for higher tier raids (4✫ and above) will require beating multiple raids of the tier below them. This won't prevent people from entering with bad teams, but should improve the overall quality of teammates you can receive in solo queue for the more difficult raids that demand better teams and teamwork.