When Pokemon Go was released in 2016 it got its hooks in me for nearly a year. Draining batteries and data plans was a regular occurrence for far too long, but ultimately the game lost its muster with repetitive game-play, lack of social features and an overall buggy experience. With that being said, the recent friends feature that includes gift giving and Pokemon trading on top of the previous daily and weekly challenges has reignited the fire I have not felt in over a year. Now that I am all in once again, there are plenty of features I still want in Pokemon Go and with the imminent release of Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu & Eeevee, now is the time to add them.
#7 Organizing By Type
So you go to fight at a gym or a raid and it gives you a recommended team based on the weaknesses and all that jazz. That is great, but wouldn’t it be cool if you can sort your Pokemon by type so making teams can actually be quick and efficient? Making teams is a neat feature but having to manually look at Pokemon for their move-sets is tedious. I mean some people may not know what types certain Pokemon are right off the top of their heads! Tedium is a theme in this whole piece so get used to it.
#6 Mass Gifting
Gift giving has been one of my favorite recent additions to the game. As simple as it is, it can still be improved. It would be great if we can do some kind of “mass gift” that sends gifts to the next people who you can send to, instead of clicking each person to find the ones you need to send to. This simple addition would be a quality of life update that would be simple to do and would truly add to the enjoyment of Pokemon Go.
#5 Two Button Battling
Source: https://www.youtube.com/pokemongo/
Battles in Pokemon Go are bad. It is a tap-fest with very little depth. That is okay, but when a core tactic in “Dodging” is largely ignored, that is a problem. One simple solution is to have an Attack and Dodge button instead of using taps and swipes. Think about it: you tap your attacks and when you see the flash, you hit dodge. Simple and effective. You are keeping the core mechanics but making it easier to execute. Another quality of life feature that would do wonders.
#4 Long Distance Trading
So now we have Pokemon trading, but it is hamstrung with having to be in proximity of your friends in order to actually trade. I think a cool addition would be that maybe once you reach max friendship you should be able to trade no matter where you are. Of the 46 friends I have, about 25 of them live out of state or out of the country. Some are strangers, sure, but as a member of a website and podcast community I have friends all over the planet. Adding this feature would reward friendship instead of punishing those with friends all over.
#3 On Screen Evaluations
The fact that you need to click into 3 menus to get an evaluation of your Pokemon is pretty annoying. Why is this not just on the Pokemon’s main screen? It can easily be there for you to see. You can have symbols to represent Amazing, Strong, Decent, and Not good in battle. Maybe a star meter that fills up. Then a simple ATK, DEF,HP badge if they are good there. Then the color of the star can dictate if its WOW etc. If this confuses you…I am sorry. There are smarter people out there that can come up with something better, but constantly clicking to evaluate is quite simply annoying.
#2 Increase the base backpack size.
Source: FLW Videos https://www.youtube.com/user/vvgolfer
So Pokemon Go has added so many items to the game lately. Stones, Raid Passes, Berries, Fast TMs, Raid Passes etc. They also added ways to GET items like missions & gifting. With all these options you will be managing your inventory way more often than you’d like. Perhaps a modest 50 slot increase would be a good boost for those of us who try not to drop money on slot upgrades. I’d much rather spend the cash on Egg Incubators and Lures.
#1 Improve Late Level Rewards
Levels 31-36 are boring as all hell. From 31-34 all you get are Ultra Balls, Max Potions, Max Revive, and Berries. These are all items you get from Pokestops and gifts way more frequently. Also – at late levels, these items are just not as useful as in earlier levels. You know what would be useful in late levels? Egg Incubators, Lure Modules, and Rare Candies. Do you have any idea how annoying it is trying to level up a Pokemon like Onyx? It is only 50 candies, but Onyx hasn’t been a regular Pokemon since the first few months of the game. With so many Pokemon in the rotation now, some older ones are becoming a true pain in the ass to level. Give us more Rare Candies! Egg incubators are one of the cooler rewards you get as you level, but in late game you get a total of ZERO from 31-39. WHY? It takes 9,500,000 xp to get from 31-39 and all you give is Berries, Balls, and Potions? Get lost!
So that is it. With these 6 minor quality of life changes, Pokemon Go can become much more of a bridge to Pokemon Let’s Go! and not change too much of the core design elements in the process. What sort of changes would you like to see? Let us know!
