Pokemon Go News – Will Legendary Pokemon Only Be For The Best Players?
Last week we got news of Pokemon Go’s major Gym fix which will not include a new mechanic called Raids. Now even though it wasn’t said at the time, everyone figured Raids would be the new mechanic by which Niantic would introduce Legendary Pokemon. Well thanks to some recent interviews and data mining from Pokemon Go Hub, we have a pretty good look at how Legendary Pokemon will be implemented into the Raid system. But is it a good system? Let’s look at what we learned.
Legendary Raids & Raid Passes:
In a recent Game Reactor Interview, Niantic’s Director of Software Engineering Ed Wu revealed that for “players who train really hard, who go to gym and raid battles almost every day and go quite regularly, we’ll have special invitation-only events where some of the most rare and most powerful Pokémon, including legendaries, might appear.” These details were later supported when PokemonGoHub started data-mining the new update and discovered items called Legendary Raid Passes.
The good news is that these Legendary Raid Passes won’t count towards your ‘1 Raid Pass at a Time’ rule; but the bad news is that it seems these Raid Passes can only be gathered after taking part in hundreds of Raids. Now I don’t know if this means successful Raids or what, but this is certainly a mechanic that once again favors the city players over the rural players. Add in the fact that Legendary Pokemon usually have extremely low capture rates, and it seems like you’ll have to repeat this process a few times. Beyond this the system remains largely the same as after you manage to claim a Legendary Pass, you’ll be alerted to any nearby Legendary Raids. The only substantial difference after this will most likely be the battle multipliers.
Legendary Raid Badges:
PokemonGoHub also discovered the presence of Legendary Raid Badges that will show how many Legendary Raids you’ve participated in. The fact that this counts participated Legendary Raids as opposed to Legendary Captures again supports that low catch rate and overall rarity of these events.
On one hand, this does make a lot of sense as Legendary Pokemon are just that – Legendary! Though at the same time, this seems a little rough for rural players or those who don’t have the time to invest in Gym Raids. I guess this is the point where Pokemon Go starts becoming more like the show where becoming a Pokemon Master is a chore as opposed to the gameboy/ DS games where it’s something you can achieve in time with casual play.
*All images courtesy of PokemonGoHub
Joe primarily covers video games news (i.e.: Pokemon, Spyro & Destiny) as well as the occasional ‘Theory Thursday’ pieces. Before writing for FanFest, Joe was the Creator & Editor of TheInsightfulPanda.com. He is also an illustrator and is currently working on Season 3 of his not-for-profit, fan-art crossover series PokéRangers on Instagram.
