Managed to get this solo queueing 10/12 raids. Did Togekiss and Tangrowth with teammates found in pats discord, first link attempt.
Its certainly manageable to do solo, Yes it requires a lot of resetting before turn 1 and filling in support roles for more complex raids (for example for salamance i ran 3 support mons (Xatu magic bounce tw Gothitelle Heal block and murkrow mental herb tailwind)) as your teammates are far more likely to spam damage. The difficulty was at a really good level personally. 
Access to seeing your random link mates teams and being able to access your box at the pillar would fix basically all the problems that solo queue has along with popping out the link chat and forcing people into their respective language queue.
 

4 minutes ago, Merckis said:

Why are key pokemon gated behind group play & not hard solo play.

No key pokemon is fully gated behind raids. Also its a multiplayer game so collaboration should be expected.

3 hours ago, Raichuforyou said:

these raids feel like they’re just slamming the door on everything unless you’re running the one hyper-specific comp that works.

I think part of this is down to laziness from a significant portion of the playerbase who aren’t actually interested in figuring out a way to win but want to win by the easiest means necessary in order to get the reward. People see something that’s working and choose that option because it’s easy, making the meta feel more defined and pigeonholed than it could be if community collaboration wasn’t a thing.

 

Secondly it’s due to the strength of certain options in certain type matchups. Pure damage will always be pure damage. For example gardevoir post nerf, your turn 1 is gonna be sucker punch and 3 fast hard hitting assurance users or status + 3x hex. Yes other options are possible but like why would you when these exist. At least pre nerf you had to think about move choice and coordination (yes solo w was incredibly hard with it).

 

4 hours ago, Matrixyl said:

kill Halloween and keep Xmas & Lunar New Year.

kill off the best event of the 3? crazy

Bun off xmas and add a anni event in the summer for a better content spread throughout the year

4 hours ago, Nicosia said:

I'm not so great about the idea that if I don't get Alpha Suicune or Jirachi in the next five days, I might have to wait until next Christmas or never get the opportunity to catch it again (see: the Alpha Kanto starters). That's a huge amount to ask, and it puts pressure on new players to prioritise progress over fun.

Id personally disagree with this point as they are still easily accessible (for a significantly lower cost than making raid teams) via the gtl, just without OT, so having access to these pokemon via the gtl. For kanto alpha starters you can even breed OT onto them with ease. That’s why i like the current levels of implementation. those that are too strong are purely cosmetic (for consistent repeatable use) via summons and those that aren’t are purchaseable with the only drawback being OT

13 hours ago, Raichuforyou said:

increasingly being tailored towards a a higher spectrum of players who simply have an insane amount of resources to throw at and solve any problem

Id argue this objectively a good thing. Push the playerbase to expand their capabilities and provide a goal to work towards.

 

13 hours ago, Raichuforyou said:

The meta eventually gets found out

This inherently ignores the countless hours of community collaboration thats necessary to even achieve a reasonably stable meta stratergy for a raid

 

13 hours ago, Raichuforyou said:

One of the biggest issues I see is that success in these events feels more about having a massive stockpile of resources rather than actual skill. Players with the time, money, or existing wealth to quickly breed or purchase specific Pokémon, moves, or items are at a huge advantage.

Significant problem with this is that its not something thats inherently fixable in pokemon as a game franchise. Due to the nature of the game you cannot create natural skill gaps that occur in other games like timing or aim. Your skill comes from your ability to understand what resources are potentially available to you and find the best way to use those resources.

 

13 hours ago, Raichuforyou said:

pre-farmed enough resources to throw at the event

This one is a problem thats inherent with all MMOs and isnt one particularly solveable due to the nature of how MMO's are structured in their gameplay cycles. The underlying concept of an MMO is make X number bigger. In Pokemmo, this will always be Pokeyen. You can argue about different aspects of the game like pvp, shiny hunting, vanity collection but eventually access to these is also gatekept by the fundamental concept of what an MMO is.

13 hours ago, Raichuforyou said:

The community is left to figure things out through trial and error, which usually results in frustration for less-experienced players or those not plugged into community hubs like Discord or forums

Personally, im not particularly concerned about this issue. This style of content is specifically designed for the players that are willing to search out communities in order to further their chances in this aspect. I personally believe solo queue should not be a thing at all for these raids to further push these currently more niche communities into the mainstream. 

 

13 hours ago, Raichuforyou said:

On top of that, the AI mechanics often feel cheap rather than challenging—like they’re designed to invalidate most player strategies unless you build hyper-specific counters.

Countering common stratergies is generally the easiest way to create team building variability. Otherwise you fall into a one team beats all raids hole far too easily. Its also an important aspect of the discovery phase that players go through that keeps events like these entertaining.

13 hours ago, Raichuforyou said:

Like, why even have hundreds of Pokémon to pick from if only a handful of them are actually useful?

This is a problem thats due to how pokemon as a game exists. Its the same reason as to why pvp metagames exist, Because in a limited set of options, certain options are always objectively going to be better than others. No matter how hard you try. This is why the raid design is so important and why this point is relatively contradictory to your other points. Earlier you claim you do not want to players having large toolsets to be a main prerequisit to properly participating in raids however if you want to encourage a variety of stratergy, having a wide toolset at your disposal will be the best way of doing this. 

 

9 hours ago, Nicosia said:

This event was NOT for new players, and that's clear to me.

For years players have complained that end game content for experienced players with significant capital was missing from the game and that the current standard gameplay was far too shifted towards catering to the newer players. It is naturally good game design to have a progression ark for players to work towards with content that is inaccesable to newer players. This way you create a natural game play cycle that rewards long term consistent planning as well as providing clear directional goals for those that struggle with the open nature that MMOs provide. Being a new player without regions completed means you still have significant amount of content to enjoy before even reaching this open nature. Fortunately, these events are reoccuring yearly and therefore provide you with significant time to enjoy this content before the next cycle as well as make the progress you need. A lot of players have a certain level of entitlement to access and enjoy certain content without having to adhere to the standard prerequesits. Its like wanting to skip to world 8 in super mario bros without having beat the 7 before it. Enjoy those 7 worlds and then gain access to the 8th.

 

1 hour ago, Raichuforyou said:

Team preview that allows everyone to be aware of what's being brought in, with the capability of being able to go into your box and swap out anything if desired.

 

A more intuitive chat that maybe even pops up specifically while you are doing the raid. I think 75% of random players don't realize there is a Link channel you can talk in or receive messages from. I'd imagine most have Global up by default.

 

Ability to matchmake when you have 2-3 players already present in a link.

These ideas are ones that im sure theyre looking to impliment in the future but getting the feature raids themselves working properly is something they correctly prioritised rather than making the community wait for another year while complaining that not enough end game content exists. Also to make sure that im getting matched up with players who actually speak my language would be a significant boost. Far too often i have chinese or spanish players whose default game language is set to english and therefore get queued up with me.

Overall found raids really enjoyable so far, 3* raids were relatively easy, even in solo q. Having beat all of them in 2 or less attempts all solo. 4* raids are rightfully a significant difficulty jump and therefore ive been using Patrouski's discord to find links and pre agree on teams/stratergies and have had great results.

18 minutes ago, Poufilou said:

But hey it's just a game after all

Like thats my entire point, no need to complain here that you didnt have time for something

33 minutes ago, vengelol said:

you wouldn't file a report or a claim

Didnt know forums was the correct way to file a support ticket

5 hours ago, vengelol said:

How the hell do you think modern society is created? you think problems as a whole dissapeared from the world because people decided to "get good"?, no they complained, lots of people complained, and those complaints were heard, the actions done as a result of those complains? not important to the current discussion, but if you think complaining shouldn't be done and people just need to "get good" then you need to educate yourself a bit.

Yeah for real social issues that matter, which is entirely different to this.

6 hours ago, Nicosia said:

congratulations on increasing your post count.

add one to the counter

2 hours ago, Rache said:

I'll throw you guys a bone though and get it swapped out for a move that doesn't do that in the next few days.

They don’t deserve it ngl

4 hours ago, Nicosia said:

I will. If you need any tips on how to improve your terrible attitude, let me know.

My attitude is great, i’m not the one complaining here

1 hour ago, Nicosia said:

Fantastic contribution. So proud of you buddy, good work.

Youre welcome, if you need any tips on how to get good lmk

Skill issue

The Complete Lost Present Hunt Guide 

 

What are lost presents?

Lost Presents are sparkling pokeball items scattered across the map for you to find and hand back to santa.
Also Lost Big present hold the same overworld form.
You can collect 2 of these every 10 minutes (Occasionally you can get a third one but this is not consistent)

Example: (To Interact with)
 

Santa: (For hand ins)

Locations: Johto: Olivine Kanto: Vermillion Hoenn: Slateport Sinnoh: Hearthome Unova: Castelia (North)

 

How do I best search for these presents?
My first recommendation is to stick to kanto, as you can only get 2 per cycle sticking to the most popular region is your best bet.

Kanto Lost Present Locations

For the best callouts head over to https://discord.gg/patrouski And the #lost-present-callout channel
(Please read the pins)
What do lost presents spawns contain? 

Lost Present (~50%)

Mimic, Either Hidden ability  Foongus or Voltorb(~25%)
Mysterious Poké Ball (~7.5%)

Mysterious Great Ball (~7.5%)
Charcoal (~10%)

What do i get for these lost presents? 
You can hand in 5 lost presents at a time to santa with a reward for every 5.
For the first 100 Lost presents you have a fixed cycle of rewards
At 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 55, 60, 65, 75, 80, 85, 95 & 100 you recieve 3 xmas Presents 

At 20, 40, 60 & 80 you recieve a Hidden ability Delibird (1x31 iv guaranteed)

At 50, 70 & 90 you recieve 3 Santa's Presents 
At 100 you recieve and Alpha Delibird (2x31 iv guaranteed)

And you unlock Lost Big presents  And the starmie Scavanger hunt

After 100 hand ins you recieve 3 xmas Presents  per 5 presents
What are lost big presents ? 
Lost big presemts are a random chance spawn from a Lost present spawn (The spawn is synced for all players). 
For every 5 Lost Big Presents you hand in you recieve 5 Santa's Presents 

What do Lost Big presents spawns contain? 

Mimic, Either Alpha Electrode or Amoongus (~25%)

Lost Big Presents  (~75%)

 

Hiyya @Kyu, got a few questions concerning the Lost present mechanics
Last year after unlocking big lost presents (BLP) our lost presents (LP) drops were upgraded from potentially finding Poke and Great Balls to Great and Ultras. Was wondering why this wasnt the case this year?
Secondly, Im wondering why occasionally certain players can get a bonus 3rd present on a reset. Is this intended? (These Bonus presents can also be BLP and unfairly unobtainable for some players)
Finally, is there a rhyme or pattern to BLP that we can figure out or is it random, if so what is the rate?

 

Usage of hms is far too slow and makes the game feel significantly sluggish. It should not require 3 text boxes and 5 seconds just to cut down a tree. Just have the hm activate at interaction with the hm spot just as it does with having the hm in the hotbar

1 hour ago, Goku said:

This is just stupid. You do realize there are a lot of Prominent players that have been banned. Players that made such an impact that once they log today after months / several years they will be recognized. It'll literally be a shit show where identity confusion and fraud will florish. Besides nobody wants to see a character named Riga... that name strikes fear in the hearts of players. XDD

Just exclude the names of banned accounts and only recycle accounts that havent been logged into for years with 0 story progress. Problem solved 

23 minutes ago, Bearminator said:

Ofc, dont worry about asking. To be honest, its mix of time efficiency as well as the "abuse" of it. We rather restored money due to time of whole boxes, but then- No one tried to avoid getting scammed few times at all when restorations for ditto happened, and we sometimes had to restore few boxes.

 

Feels like making box trading possible should be top priority, beneficial for players to avoid getting scammed and better for staff as they dont have to waste time on the countless scam reports that happen

If only the devs would add box trading and it would save staff so much effort....

33 minutes ago, BielMSq said:

No, players can register here^^

lovely will get a team together ready for when signup opens

will there be a seperate registration thread made? 

much love for this one

3 hours ago, mecles said:

Thank you, it's worked 

just curious, what did you think the text displayed meant?

1 hour ago, Goku said:

If you want to have the best odds of sniping you need a good ping. Network speed is key if you wanna take advantage of the GTL.

anything under 200 and you can make really good profit on gtl