Pokémon Go Gains New 'Appraisal' Feature for Highlighting Attack and Defense Capabilities

[MacRumors]

Popular augmented reality game Pokémon Go was today updated to version 1.5.0, adding new features to make gym battling more straightforward. New to the game is a "Pokémon Appraisal" feature, which will see in-game Team Leaders offering tips on each Pokémon's attack and defense abilities to help trainers determine which Pokémon to use in gym battles.

While longtime Pokémon players are often already aware of which Pokémon are ideal to use against other Pokémon in a battle, the appraisal tool offers valuable information on abilities and weaknesses for those who are newer to the Pokémon universe.

According a blog post on the update, it also includes unspecified "minor bot fixes" and a promise that Niantic is working hard on "new and exciting features" that will be added to Pokémon Go in the future.

- Implemented Pokémon Appraisal: Trainers will now be able to learn about a Pokémon's attack and defense capabilities from their Team Leader (Candela, Blanche, or Spark) to determine which of their Pokémon have the most potential for battle.
- Fixed a bug that kept defeated Pokémon at 1HP; these Pokémon will now return as fainted Pokémon. We're working on rebalancing the training battle, stay tuned.fixes

Earlier today, a report suggested interest in Pokémon Go is steadily declining, so Niantic will need to implement new features to keep players interested. Daily active users, downloads, and the amount of time users are spending on Pokémon Go each day are said to be "well off their peaks and on a downward trend."

Pokémon Go can be downloaded from the iOS App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Pokémon Go Gains New 'Appraisal' Feature for Highlighting Attack and Defense Capabilities

 

[sniffies]

I don't play it anymore. I just use it as an icebreaker in awkward situations.

 

[cdmoore74]

Can't wait until this game dies off into the sunset. Game has created more morons than I care to count.

 

[CarlJ]

Can't wait until this game dies off into the sunset. Game has created more morons than I care to count.

You think the game is responsible for that? Not the person's parents and teachers and the person themselves?

 

[anzio]

You think the game is responsible for that? Not the person's parents and teachers and the person themselves?

+1. I don't play the game; however, I think the game can only be credited for exposing some peoples behaviour, not creating it.

 

[balconycollapse]

Overnight successes rarely last -- this game is an example of that. Gimmicky and lacking any lasting reason to keep playing. My kids were interested for about two weeks.

 

[Kaibelf]

+1. I don't play the game; however, I think the game can only be credited for exposing some peoples behaviour, not creating it.

Kind of how the internet exposes people who seem to have a need to assert their superiority over others with different interests, when in the offline world people generally grow out of that around age 18.

 

[littyboy]

They should scrap the tap-to-attack system. It's completely stupid. Not sure why they didn't implement the skill-choosing and turn-by-turn system like in the original games. At least that offers more of a strategic playing experience.

 

[anzio]

Kind of how the internet exposes people who seem to have a need to assert their superiority over others with different interests, when in the offline world people generally grow out of that around age 18.

I never categorized all players of the game. I was merely categorizing the people with the "interest" of getting injured, wandering into countries illegally, driving while playing, etc. that the game exposes. I didn't say anything about the game, and I only said the game exposes people who would otherwise get hurt via some other way and doesn't actually create those people.

Nice try at a jab though and completely misunderstanding the post.

 

[Speedy Dingo]

Overnight successes rarely last -- this game is an example of that. Gimmicky and lacking any lasting reason to keep playing. My kids were interested for about two weeks.

Again, so because your kids stopped playing, it somehow makes the game "gimmicky and lacking". Right. So the other millions of kids still playing it must mean what? Believe it or not other people are still enjoying it, and the game can only get better as new ideas from the franchise get implemented into it.

 

[Mlrollin91]

Overnight successes rarely last -- this game is an example of that. Gimmicky and lacking any lasting reason to keep playing. My kids were interested for about two weeks.

No, the issue is Niantic completely ruined it. After 10 days when they killed off 3-footstep, it started to slowly die. Its not lackluster, its not a gimmick, its just not the same.

 

[CarlJ]

No, the issue is Niantic completely ruined it. After 10 days when they killed off 3-footstep, it started to slowly die. Its not lackluster, its not a gimmick, its just not the same.

They didn't ruin it so much as they got knocked over by their own success - I think they planned their servers for "maybe even a few million" players, and got overrun by the many tens of millions who showed up. They couldn't keep the footsteps working (some combination of bugs and inability to scale) so they pulled it. I expect it'll be back once they have an implementation that works at scale.

 

[Nevaborn]

The problem with Pokémon Go is they dumbed down the game to much to make it quick and simple.

If you had to travel and battle Pokemon to catch them and level your squad then it would be more satisfying, more in line with the source material and also give purpose to the game.

They should have implemented random trainers and peer to peer battling which rewards you with money. Use this at Pokestops to buy pokeballs and get free healing of Pokemon.

Maybe even run in to classic characters in real world and get quests off them.

 

[Mlrollin91]

They didn't ruin it so much as they got knocked over by their own success - I think they planned their servers for "maybe even a few million" players, and got overrun by the many tens of millions who showed up. They couldn't keep the footsteps working (some combination of bugs and inability to scale) so they pulled it. I expect it'll be back once they have an implementation that works at scale.

Apparently the foot-steps have absolutely nothing to do with server issues. That was just an excuse that they used to pull it. The pokemon were already spawning from the servers, showing your location to said pokemon was more of a local/GPS thing, nothing to do with servers.

 

[larrylaffer]

I went to downtown Long Beach last week. There are a ton of Pokestops there. At 10:30pm, the entire waterfront was swarmed with thousands of people hunting.

What was my first thought? Not "arg you damn kids", nor was it "I hate Pokemon". No, my thought was "My God look at all the calories being burned here!"

That's a positive, whether you like it or not.

 

[Night Spring]

I still play it. Good way to motivate myself to go out for walks. However, the locations of gyms in my neighborhood sucks. They are in far flung, out of way corners, and there's no good place to sit near any of them. One gym is across the street from a coffee shop, and another close to a restaurant, but neither place is close enough to actually engage. They need to move the gyms, or make the range bigger!

 

[alexgowers]

**** pokemon it's already dead.

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

You missed a golden opportunity to write a Pokémon Go article within this Pokémon Go article.

 

[rctlr]

Just get the transfer to another trainer done, so I can delete it please.

 

[Reason077]

The biggest problem they need to solve with Pokemon Go is its slow loading time.

It's the sort of game you want to pick up casually and play for a couple of minutes at a time - but I get so bored of waiting for it to load and authenticate that I often give up on it.

 

[0098386]

Again, so because your kids stopped playing, it somehow makes the game "gimmicky and lacking". Right. So the other millions of kids still playing it must mean what? Believe it or not other people are still enjoying it, and the game can only get better as new ideas from the franchise get implemented into it.

I don't know about their kids, but I'm seeing more people around the Pokemon Go hotspots in my city. Just a month ago you could get a seat on a bench and farm Pokestops but now there are just too many people there (it's all good though!).
[doublepost=1472034124][/doublepost]

I went to downtown Long Beach last week. There are a ton of Pokestops there. At 10:30pm, the entire waterfront was swarmed with thousands of people hunting.

What was my first thought? Not "arg you damn kids", nor was it "I hate Pokemon". No, my thought was "My God look at all the calories being burned here!"

That's a positive, whether you like it or not.

That's what I'm seeing too. There *seems* to be an increase in users around here. As a fan of the series I love seeing how popular it is, and how healthy it's getting people!

 

[vmachiel]

Can't wait until this game dies off into the sunset. Game has created more morons than I care to count.

People are just into pokemon, why do you care?

 

[bdavis89]

I just want to be able to train against wild Pokemon I come across. Is that so hard to implement? I'm so tired of catching pidgeys and rattatas.

 

[balamw]

I went to downtown Long Beach last week.

Same was true at Santa Monica Pier last week probably 25% of the people there were playing Pokemon Go. From 8 year old's to 30 somethings. Mostly boys but some small number of women.

The amusement park there even posted a "how to play PG safely here" poster. And one of the stores had a sign up "not in here please."

From there though we went up the coast a bit into Ventura county where a friend of my kids said he had stopped playing since the two pokestops in his neighborhood were over 2 miles apart.

B

 

[Sasparilla]

I do it with my walks as it makes them more fun, but if it weren't for that tie-in I would not be playing it much. Would definitely like it if they brought the footsteps back.

Unfortunately Niantic has designed in some aspects of the game that encourage people to go do something else...as you level up little pokemon that would never breakout out of a capture start breaking out (your abilities decrease with experience). While this was probably done with an eye to in game purchases of things, but it tends to just make people go do something else after a while. At work most people I know just stopped being interested after about level 10 or so.