"Catching a legendary is hard, and that's a good thing. The legendary catch rate is a slot machine game mechanic, and that's not a good thing. (reposted here after getting upvoted on /r/TheSilphRoad and then removed by mods)"

#PokemonGO: I originally posted this here where it was upvoted and generated a lot of good discussion before the mods of /r/TheSilphRoad decided to remove it. I've cleaned it up a bit and reflected some of the comments in this version.Catching legendaries should be hard. They should feel special.Getting together 10 people to beat a legendary is hard, but reasonable. I wouldn't be opposed to if they made it even harder, such that everyone needs to be on point and choose the right attackers to be able to win. That would be based on skill and determination. That would be fair.What is not fair, and is not reasonable, is a slot machine game mechanic. Ordinarily, having a chance of a Pokemon running away adds an element of danger and suspense to the game. It walks the borderline of acceptable randomness that doesn't feel terrible as a game mechanic.Change the odds a bit to having Pokemon that you feel will most likely run away and if you get lucky you might hit the jackpot and catch it is a garbage game mechanic. It feels unsatisfying for the player, since whether they catch it or not, they never felt like they were in control. You throw a perfect curved golden raspberry excellent, and the objective odds are that it is overwhelmingly likely to escape. It feels absolutely terrible because you played a perfect game and lost because of RNG. People can argue that if you aggregate a lot of terrible odds together, then after a huge number of throws you're likely to catch one - there's something that resembles, and that's a slot machine.Worse, the carrot dangled just out of reach is designed to hook you in and open your wallet. You've got one week to catch your team legendary, and for the average player, chances are you can't do it with just the raid passes you get for free. The timer is running, and look, there's another snowball's chance to catch the legendary but you already used your daily pass, but you can buy an additional one for a small fee.This type of game design is predatory, and awful. After sticking with this game through thick and thin over the past year, for the first time legendary raids are making me want to quit. I don't like the feeling when gambling, and Pokemon Go is making me feel exactly like that. via /r/pokemongo http://ift.tt/2uZHjn4