Remove (or create an additional alternative to) Phenomena

[IaraLuv]

Phenomena is an unpopular feature and one that I personally find not that well designed. Limited to only one region of the game, it fails to replicate what phenomena tried to do in the original games, and just becomes a time-gated chore. Not only are you on the mercy of the game, but they are also locked to certain maps that might not even have people in the moment, and as such several phenomena go unnoticed. Swarms and Alpha Swarms are two features that people usually try to compare to phenomena, but I argue that they are not similar: These two features help the users to attain certain goals more easy, instead of gating them. You do not need a particular swarm, but they make finding certain Pokémon much more easy and you simply go to the field to catch, instead of having to evolve, breed or grind for certain Pokémon. Likewise, Alpha Swarms give you the opportunity of catching Pokémon with higher IVs for several purposes (which normally would require you to hunt several Pokémon in the wild, and then breed them), as well as giving you access to Hidden Abilities, a new feature with significant value. Alpha Pokémon have quickly become a mainstay for the playerbase, and everybody is excited to see what alpha comes in any particular day.
 

Phenomena, on the contrary, lock certain Pokémon to random, uncontrollable time-gates. The process to search for phenomenas is so alien to everything else, and so much more different to what we expect from the usual Pokémon formula (finding encounters over and over, for one). There is little room for improvement for phenomena besides waiting, and that's it's biggest down-fall.

 

In my opinion, phenomea are a poorly-implemented feature, but I understand why it was made. However, I think phenomena pokémon would fit right in with the newest addition to the game: Lures. If we think about it, lures are basically a way to 'create special encounters' on areas we already know. With lures, we could make phenomena Pokémon appear at a low rate, but the option is there for users to farm at their own leisure. No longer will users be on the mercy of RNG and time, but instead they can use lures and search for the Pokémon themselves. The rates will be super low and rare, but you will know you aren't wasting your time. Alongside this, I would also appreciate if Mysterious Gem Clusters could be found in other ways. We already can find some in the story mode of some regions, but perhaps adding it on the 'drop table' of lure Pokémon would incentivize the usage of this feature.

 

So, my suggestion is to add phenomena pokémon to the tables of lure-capturable Pokémon. Phenomena could stay as a feature, or be removed. Either way, having the option of finding these Pokémon at our own pace would be a much appreciated QoL feature.

 

I would appreciate comments about for or against this suggestion. I am aware phenomena have been around the game for quite a while, and some might find this suggestion unnecessary, but after seeing lures, I think they are in the spirit of what phenomena tried to attain.