"Combat needs a serious numbers overhaul."

#PokemonGO: Forget the tap-spamming. Forget the fact that immunities were removed and type interactions were reduced to 1.25x for Super Effective and 0.8x for Not Very Effective. Forget all the poorly balanced pokemon themselves, like Vaporeon being so overtuned it can beat Jolteon.Forget all that. Done? Okay.Even if all that was fixed, the way pokemon attacks are designed and distributed is utterly, completely screwy. So bonkers is this system that even children and casual players, who this game is ostensibly designed for, can easily spot the problems once they're made clear... which of course they're not, because the game hides virtually every scrap of information, such as:Attack Power vs DPSLet's look at Vaporeon and Flareon. Both have only one fast attack: Water Gun and Ember. Both have the same Attack Power: 10. Someone looking their pokemon over and trying to decide on which to use might be forgiven for thinking that they both do the same damage, not taking types into account. But of course, Attack Speed is a hidden number, which means that most people don't know that Water Gun does over twice as much damage as Ember.But hey, at least they're two different pokemon, right? Ostensibly if you tweak enough variables (like the pokemon's HP, or hidden attack or defense value), it might be okay that one straight up does double the damage of the other with its basic attack, even ignoring that we know Vaporeon is ridiculously overstatted.So, let's look at Pinsir. Two available attacks, Fury Cutter and Rock Smash. Fury Cutter has 3 Power, Rock Smash has 5. And yet, once again because of the hidden attack speed, Fury Cutter does over double the DPS of Rock Smash, making any Pinsir with Rock Smash immediately inferior. On top of that, Fury Cutter actually generates more Energy for Special Attacks, though that doesn't matter for reasons that will be explained later.As if that's not bad enough, players who think Type Advantage works the same way as the other games, or even is just told about them for the first time, can be even further fooled. Let's say you have two pinsir of the same level and are going up against a Snorlax. Do you use the one with Fury Cutter, or Rock Smash?If you thought that Super Effective moves do double damage like in every other pokemon game ever, you might think it's not so bad using the far weaker Rock Smash. But it's even worse than that, because instead of doing 2x the damage, it only does 1.25x the damage. Again, something the game doesn't explain anywhere.And to top off the terribleness of this system, even if both moves had the same DPS, because of the Same Type Attack Bonus of 1.25x, Fury Cutter would still be just as good as Rock Smash. Rendering the entire point of Super Effective moves and making such strategic decisions absolutely pointless.Charge MovesSo in this game if you tap the screen during combat you get the "fast" attack that charges up your bars, and if you hold the screen when you filled at least one bar up you use your Charge Move. Pretty standard concepts for video games.The problem is, once again, that hidden information means the limited information the game gives you does more to mislead than inform. Most people have realized that moves with 4 charge bars are too weak to be worth using over just spamming Fast attacks, but some still think that 2 charge bars or 1 charge bar is worth using.But are they?Are they really?If you look at Vaporeon again, you'll see that its basic move does more DPS than either its 4 Charge attack or even its 1 Charge attack, Hydro Pump. In this case, Aqua Tail just barely ekes past Water Gun by 1.3 DPS.But at least it's there. Look at Golem. None of its Charge Attacks do more DPS than its Mud Slap. The only one worth a damn is Stone Edge, just for those rare occasions where you're fighting a Flying type, so that the extra 1.25x bonus on Stone Edge combined with the 0.8x penalty on Mud Slap make Stone Edge win by a grand total of ~5 DPS... for the brief duration of the attack.That's the difference between a Super Effective and a Not Very Effective move in this game. And that's the difference between a NVE Quick Move and a SE Charge Move. 5 DPS.Move DistributionSome pokemon are getting no moves that are the same type as them, missing out on STAB. Others are getting two moves that have no strategic or tactical significance. What makes this all the worse is that because STAB and Super Effective bonus are the same, there's no reason to not have a STAB move, all else being equal. The whole point of having a variety of moves a Pokemon can learn is so they can shore up weaknesses and make tactical decisions. But why bother deciding to use an off-type move that's Super Effective when as long as your pokemon has STAB it's getting the same bonus anyway? At worst you'll get the STAB on a pokemon the move is weak against, which balances out anyway.The example of the Pinsir above at least might make sense in a sane world where choosing a Super Effective move is worthwhile in some circumstances. Look at Venusaur though: Razor Leaf and Vine Whip are his two Fast attacks, and once again, the lower Power move has higher DPS. But this time they're both the same Type. Why does Venusaur get two Grass moves, one of which is completely inferior to the other? Why are half the Venusaur in the game immediately losers, rather than letting them at least get a Poison move instead for variety?Lack of Status EffectsThe final point is that the game is just too simple. What would make almost all of this less of an issue would be if there was another lever for Niantic to manipulate to balance things out a bit. If Ember had a chance to Burn enemies, it might make up for the lower DPS compared to Water Gun. If Razor Leaf had a higher Critical chance, it might at least justify its existence in the game.As it is, the game is mind-numbingly simplistic, and yet still manages to obfuscate and mislead its players into poor choices. I don't know how this game was developed, how it was play tested, how it was quality controlled. I just know that the end result is a hot, stinking mess.And I don't even mind the broad strokes of the design decisions themselves. I'm okay with it being real-time rather than turn-based. I'm okay with only having two moves, Fast and Charge... but for the love of Arceus, it needs to be better implemented than this. In terms of combat, it's without a doubt one of the most poorly designed games I've ever seen, and if it wasn't Pokemon, and therefor didn't have a straight shot to my heart of hearts, I wouldn't even give it a second look.For the love of the franchise and the potential this game can have, I hope these issues get addressed soon. Not as soon as the server and tracking issues, but soon nonetheless. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/29QqluG