VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online capabilities?

[Joshawott]

Hello Everynyan! Welcome to the forty-first installment in the Video Games Forum's new weekly series of polls!

Centered around the Pokemon series of video games, these polls will be based on the various different aspects of the popular video game franchise. Every Monday, a Video Games staff member will post a new poll that'll remained stickied up on top of the forum. Suggestions for polls and questions can be sent to Joshawott or Zeb and they could possibly used for new polls (credit will be given, of course).

With that out of the way, here is the poll: Are you content with Pokémon's online capabilities? Are you perfectly fine with the way Pokémon's online mode is handled, or do you think it could be improved? (and please say how!).

Past Polls of the Week

01) Was Black and White a step in the right direction?
02) Did you agree with N's ideals?
03) Favourite Generation?
04) Do you EV train?
05) Favourite Grass-type starter?
06) Was the Battle Tower/Subway too hard?
07) Favourite Spin-Off Series?
08) Favourite Fire/Fighting type starter?
09) Who was the hardest Gym Leader?
10) Primary, Secondary of Tertiary Version?
11) Do you use the Pokémon Global Link?
12) Do you like the Pokémon Dream World?
13) Creepiest Pokémon Resting Place?
14) Favourite Regional Professor?
15) Favourite Legendary Trio?
16) Favourite Early Bird?
17) Favourite Unova Gym Design?
18) Favourite Ice-type Trainer
19) Favourite Dragon-type Version Mascot
20) Initial Reaction to Pokémon + Nobunaga's Ambition?
21) Favourite Male Playable Character?
22) Favourite Villainous team?
23) Favourite Early Rodent?
24) Favourite Fossil Pokémon?
25) Most Anticipated 3DS Feature?
26) Favourite Female Playable Character?
27) Thoughts on the Doctor and Nurse trainer classes?
28) Do you nickname your Pokémon?
29) Do you use sacrifical moves?
30) Which Kyurem form is your favourite?
31) Should Black 2 and White 2 have been on the 3DS?
32) Do you participate in official VGC events?
33) Which type needs more attention?.
34) Would you like to see Pokémon + Nobunaga's Ambition localised?.
35) Will we see any new pokemon in B2W2?
36) Do you like the changes to the EXP system in Black and White?
37) Are you willing to pay the price for Pokédex 3D Pro?
38) Which currently released Mythical Pokémon do you want the most?
39) Would you agree with paid DLC in Pokémon?
40) Do nature and IVs matter to you?

Thank you for voting!

-The Video Games Forum Staff

 

[Windchild]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

When it comes to GTS, no. So many unfair or impossible deals on there, it's a nightmare to accomplish anything.

Global Link... Dream World doesn't float my boat. Only one Pokemon per day, excluding promotions, the amount of Dream Points before any good item or Pokemon shows up is too high...

Other than that, I don't do anything else online.

 

[Ranger Jack Walker]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

Online Battling is awesome.

Online trading is... less awesome.

GTS trades are ridiculous and Global Link and Dream World are far too tedious.

 

[smalllady]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

Wow I hate online battling. It seems like every person I've encountered on Random Matchup had EV-trained, super duper uber Pokemon. >_>

Trading is only slightly better, only because I learned how to navigate through all the troll requests on the GTS. GTS definitely needs a revamp, though.

 

[Windchild]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

Trading is only slightly better, only because I learned how to navigate through all the troll requests on the GTS.

How? I'd love to know.

 

[smalllady]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

Trading is only slightly better, only because I learned how to navigate through all the troll requests on the GTS.

How? I'd love to know.

Patience, young grasshopper. Lots and lots of patience.

Also, refining your search by gender/level helps a little.

 

[Infinity Mk-II]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

I don't understand why people have so much issues with the GTS... I've never had any trouble with it. Impossible and unfair trades can easilly be ignored with some patience.

But battling is a complete mess. No way to differenciate the different "types" of players (casual, competitive, non-competitive, UBERGODHAX...) except in tournauments and rankings... which, to quote @Joshawott, are a load of balls.
The way the games connect is an obvious example of greed at the players' expense: The two games connect and only the result is sent to the server. That's why they can't track who disconnects. A disconnect causes the battle to end and it's aborted, putting both players in a negative note despite one of the players being suffering from their poor design already.

It's almost like if the only way you can have enjoyable online battles is through friend codes.

 

[Bouffalant Herdier]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

Both battling and trading (particularly the GTS) could do with some major tweaking.

It could be just my connection, but the battles take way too long and are in constant danger of disconnecting at any moment, which happens even when I'm losing, so it can't be the opponent being scared of losing. Mario Kart 7 has very little lag, so why can't a much slower game like Pokemon be the same?

The GTS, meanwhile, is full of utterly ridiculous and unreasonable trades, plus I'm terrified of accidentally getting a hacked Pokemon that will harm my game. If they could ban hacked Pokemon from being used in the GTS, I would be far more willing to use it.

 

[Proxima Centauri B]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

I absolutely hate the GTS. It has allowed people to use it unfairly and ask for impossible trades they know full well they cant actually receive or ask for things that just arent fair to ask for for what they are offering. Game Freak really needs to fix this. It is a great concept when used correctly but rarely is used in the way I think they originally planned for it. Battling could also use some work as people that disconnect intentionally during a battle makes the person that they were battling with lose. They need to make it so they track who disconnects and have the disconnector only be penalized by losing.

 

[Rainami]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

Battling: For the most part it's decent, I only have a few problems with it.

1. You can't use all your Pokemon in singles, doubles, and rotation, although this isn't a huge deal if it's with random people.

2. It can take a very long time to find an opponent in random matchups

3. If someone disconnects on you on purpose, they don't get penalized and you don't get a win. Granted, there has been a few times where my Wi-fi failed me during battles....

Trading:

The GTS is terrible, people offer things and demand near impossible/impossible to get Pokemon, like level 9 and under Reshiram/Zekrom. I've had some success with offering Pokemon for trade, but I don't do that much. There needs to be more restrictions on this stuff, which prevent people from asking for ridiculous Pokemon.

Trading with friends is okay, though.

 

[rubinek]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

Trading:

GTS - a failure from start to finish. Other posters summed it up pretty well, so I see no point in repeating what has already been said.

Trading via FC - mostly okay. It would be nice if there was an in-game chatbox, but I guess the hardware limitations prevented it from happening.

Trading with randomers - even worse than the GTS IMO. The main problem being that you have no control over who will you trade with. How can, say, a competitive player like myself make a meaningful deal with a 9 year old looking for a Zekrom? She can't, of course, which is why 90% of my trades ended up in a frowny face spamfest. An ideal solution here would be a server where you can choose who do you want to trade with + a chatbox (with some heaaaavy censorship to ward off trolls).

Battling:

Random Match-up - one word - terrible. It's not even that the ruleset sucks (I actually enjoy it very much), but as many already said, the disconnections ruin any fun you could possibly get. Same goes for the PGL tournaments too.

Battling with friends - severely lacks autoleveling (outside of Flat). I actually had to drop 6 vs 6 this gen because of this. I hate it when a poor game design forces people to cheat, which is basically what happens here, and I refuse to use battle sims. Other than that - custom rules ala PBR would be a welcome addition, same with some sort of tournament builder tool and 2 vs 2 (as in people) battles like in the wireless play.

Other:

Dream World - the exact opposite of fun. Dull, repetitive, overly simple. Also the only place where you can grow berries. Shame that we will have to put up with this thing till 6 generation.

 

[Ghetsis-Dennis]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

Seems like I'm lucky that I haven't met any rage quitters in Random Matchups, but I do agree that the GTS is disappointing. No one the Game Overthinker keeps telling us why physical multiplayer (playing with your friends at the same room) over online multiplayer.

 

[TheCapsFan]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

I'm okay with battling. But trading...now that needs some fixing. It is possible to get what these idiots are asking for, but only through hacking. (I have my friend Nick for that. ) And you technically do have a chat box while trading with friends; it's called the Voice Chat in B/W.

 

[Juzey]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

They really need to fix the GTS, maybe by making it so you can't ask for a Pokemon that's impossible to get. I've never done a Wi-Fi battle, so I'm not sure whether that's okay or not.

 

[ZACH ATTACK]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

Battling is OK, not great. It doesn't really need improvements though. Trading, on the other hand, is seriously messed up. I can't trade you a Lv. 9 and under Zekrom for your Lv. 50 Zapdos. That's just a random example, but still.

 

[Silverwynde]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

I can't give an opinion on battling, since I don't do the competitive thing. But I have heard some horror stories about it and think that improvements are necessary. The Dream World can be fun at times and it has its moments. The GTS.... :banghead:

The GTS needs an overhaul and needs it badly. I am dead sick of seeing a shiny Golurk up for trade, only to be hamstrung by the infamous "level 9 and under Reshiram" slag. It's annoying as all get-out and it could be fixed. As I've often said, I've been able to nail quite a few shinies via GTS (so many that I've opened up a fifth box on Black) but it's like pulling teeth with a pair of needle-nosed pliers. You can find reasonable offers but they are seemingly few and far between. Hey, if you want to put up a shiny level 30 Golett and ask for a Mew or an Arceus then I'll happily trade you. But if you do the "I'm showin' off mah shiny herp der" crap, I'll flip you off* before I go on to the next offer.


*I'm not kidding about that either. I have literally flipped off the trainer sprites on my DS's screen out of sheer irritation. Especially if they were showing off a Golett or Golurk that I could not take in. :complain:

 

[Faye Scarlet]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

I don't battle online anywhere outside of PBR, so I don't know about BW's random battling.

But GTS is a nightmare. o-o; I give away hacks all the time, but they're perfectly harmless. But if I can't give away a level 1 Zekrom, they shouldn't be able to ask for it! That's all the GTS really needs, it needs to STOP this crazyness! Nearly 99% of all goddamn trades are asking for 9-and-under Pokemon! It's not just Zek or Resh, I've also seen Haxorus, Hydreigon, even starters! AUGH! It's so unfair that they patch Maka Wuhu, but do nothing for the GTS. OTL

I also wish we could filter for nicknames too. :< I'm aiming for a living Pokedex in my White version. The living Pokedex will all have nicknames AND different IDs. As you can imagine, this will take me a while to do. But a nickname filter would speed things up a little. I guess a shinyness filter too.

 

[Gligar13]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

Trading:

With friends, it's alright, there is no chatbox but at least you have voice chat....

With GTS, it's glitchy, filled with hackers, and is only good for the DNS redirection exploit.

With randoms, you can't voice chat at all, nor text chat, and you have no control of who you are trading with/what you want. It doesn't help that everyone on GTS happens to be a little kid looking for legendaries.


Battling:

The netcode stinks. Random disconnections, blue screens, the slowness, and the fact it syncs everything, which is horrid for netcode (just look at tunneled MKDD online or Halo 1 tunneled). Just look at the castform glitch/acid rain from Pt/HG/SS, it will affect D/P because of the game syncing everything.

There's also no autolevel like there was in Gen 4, so I haven't played Gen V like I used to.

As for the DW, it looked cool but then when it came out, it was buggy and boring. I wish you could grow berries in game....plus you will lose berries if/when DW is shutdown.


Oh, and please, fix the voice codec. It sounds like it was designed for dial up, and even worse then the voice codec on the Xbox Original. Plus nobody has a DS headset, so every time someone uses mic, all you hear are the game sounds.

 

[Blue Dragon]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

I prefer the battles in Gen 5 online compared to Gen 4, but sometimes I find it takes ages to find an opponent. It could be that there isin't that many people online at that time, or my internet connection, but still I do wish this was a bit faster.

I don't use GTS much at all because of the limitless possibilities of Pokemon people can trade. I also don't like how Pokemon like Froslass are rejected, when sending data for battles just because of sensors, when clearly there is nothing wrong with their names unless they are taken apart.

These are some of things they can improve on for sure.

 

[jokool]

Re: VG Weekly Poll #41 Are you content with Pokémon's online?

The GTS has been ruined by "Level 9 and under" Reshiram and Zekrom requests. They need to get somehow get rid of impossible requests like that.
The addition of the GTS Negotiations was cool, but they need to make it easier for you to tell the other person what you want and easier to figure out what the other person wants.
Battling is okay, but there's something about it that I don't like. I can't think of the reason why, but maybe it has something to do with the fact that I lose all the time when I battle online? :lol: