Pokemon Go at Level 11

A user named TorD has challenged my assumptions about Pokemon Go. This post updates this one.

On player level gating available pokemon types for capture: "Well this is not true [...] It does not affect what Pokemon types you can catch." I can't remember where I saw the claim that player level determines which pokemon types can appear for the player, but it remains plausible in light of my own experience with the game. I've also heard of "pokemon nests" where certain types are more common, but this system is so untransparent as to be useless to me. Where do I go to catch a Charmander? No idea, no way to find out.

On counterpicking: "the formula for damage bonuses based on type advantage is so low (1.25x for super effective, 0.75 for not very effective)" Well shit! This is an immense nerf to type bonuses, which previously gave 2x/0.5x. It further degrades Go pokemon into being nothing but blobs of CP, and removes what I assumed would be a salutary attacker advantage at gyms. Pikachu, I choose you — but you might as well be a Squirtle, it doesn't really matter.

On gym balance: "a level 10 will have no chance against a level 20's Pokemon if both players have theirs maxed to their fullest potential. It's impossible. But Go isn't a solo game: 3 level 10's can work together to take down a gym of much higher level [...] gym battles are not for soloing." Hearing this impression almost inspired me to uninstall the game immediately. If true, this is fucking terrible. Multiplayer is a plague on gaming. In some games it's used to excuse bad AI, in others it's "optional" but you're mechanically pushed toward it, and of course there are MP-only games which I don't even consider.

On F2P: "I think PoGO is probably one of the fairest f2p games I've been into" I've seen worse, I guess, but Go isn't anywhere near the league of my personal favorite F2P game, Warframe. Fact is, Go's biggest problems aren't unique to F2P games. Any multiplayer game with a long level progression is likely to have a seniority system (why play if you'll never catch up?), any with a big launch and a shared world is likely to have a baby boom clogging content bottlenecks (e.g., World of Warcraft newb areas at launch; they would have been wiser to spread characters through the game by retaining progression from the open beta), lacking sufficient player choice and sharing too little information with the player are common flaws (datamine those damage formulas!), and over and over there are multiplayer games with a bad solo experience. Fuck.