"Impact of the latest features on multi-accounting"

#PokemonGO: TLDR: The latest features (weather, "free" XP, friendship and trading) make multi-accounting more and more tempting and relevant. Unless Niantic makes substantial changes, it will likely become even more common as time goes by.This post reflects my personal opinion on the latest features in Pokémon Go and their impact on multi-accounting.Friendship attack bonusWhen the release of the friendship feature was announced, I got pretty excited about the attack bonus and hoped that it would help decrease the mininum number of players required to do legendary raids. Let's see what is written in the Developer Insights:When designing this feature, we wanted friends to be able to help each other directly in Gyms and Raid Battles by activating bonuses. Great Friends will receive not only an Attack bonus to help them take down a Raid Boss at a much faster rate, but also extra Premier Balls to catch the Pokémon when the battle is complete. This adds more rewards and incentives for actions they’re already taking and can be especially beneficial for smaller groups of Trainers that battle together. When tight-knit friends take on a Raid Boss, even a small group can be mighty.Then, Chrales tweeted the values for the attack bonus: * x1.03 for good friends * x1.05 for great friends * x1.07 for ultra friends * x1.1 for best friendsWhen I saw these figures, I instantly realized that they were really low and hoped that you could cumulate them. In fact, the maximum value is taken, which leads to a +10% damage bonus at the very best (you still need a best friend in your lobby), when weather can give you +20% for free if you have the good weather.10% is really low. To illustrate, let's make an assumption that is not realistic but will be illustrative: each account has the same strength (regarding to defeating a given raid boss). Imagine you need, given the strength of your and your friends' accounts, 4.7 players to beat a raid. If you only have 4 accounts, being best friends will give you the strength of 4.4 players (let's ignore breakpoints and assume that a linear approximation works well) and you won't be able to defeat it with 4 players. On the other hand, with 5 players, you can beat it regardless of your friendship levels. Overall, the current attack bonus can decrease the minimum number of players required by 1 at the best in scenarii where you are struggling to defeat the raid boss.The maximum function is very sensitive to outliers. Consider the two following examples: 4 best friends who often raid together and two people with one alt-account each who bump into eachother at a raid. You have 4 accounts that will all have the highest bonus damage, even though people don't even know each other in the second scenario.The current attack bonus is a big disappointment to me. Having another account has a much higher impact that being friends. The latest features have made it even worse.Weather, friendship and trading: the new paradise for multi-accountersWith the introduction of weather, level 30 and above players are now able to catch wild level 35 Pokémon. This is a great boon for players who are short on stardust and want to have a good team of Pokémon against several raid bosses. As long as you have enough candies, you just need to evolve (usually you catch the first evolution of the species) that Pokémon to make it a great Pokémon to raid with.With friendship and trading, you can now trade those juicy high-level Pokémon to another account for a very low cost (assume you are at least ultra friend in case of a special trade). Moreover, the minimum IVs are not that bad for the last levels of friendship. You can now catch a level 35 Pokémon, evolve it and trade it to another account. The amount of stardust required can be overlooked as it is really small.To do this, the other account still needs to be realitively high level. Good news, XP is easier and easier to get. Adventure Week gave a ton of XP for low-level accounts. Legendary raids give you at least 10k XP. Reaching new friendship levels also give a ton of XP. You almost don't need to play to get a ton of XP. It makes reaching a high level being able to get great Pokémon from trading very easy.Gathering it all: multi-accounting is the playstyle that benefits the most from itThe strategy to make a very powerful alt account is straightforward: * Get a ton of XP without playing much; * Keep your high level Pokémon on your main; * Trade them for pretty much free on your alt account.The burden of having to farm on a alt-account is all gone. No need to get stardust or candies. Just get XP and your main account that has probably too many candies for some species will do the rest.You could also trade those high-level Pokémon to a friend's account. In some scenarii, I think it's really worth it. However a lot of players are high-level collectors who could have these high-level Pokémon but they don't want to because they are much more interested in IVs. I don't want to force people to change their playstyle. It's also very likely that I don't raid with them that often (if you raid near home, near your workplace, etc.).Some words on multi-accountingBy any means the objective of this post is to support multi-accounting. But let's not be naive: multi-accounting is the easiest solution to the difficulty of having enough strength to defeat some raid bosses. It's not surprising to see more and more people have several accounts.I used to play League of Legends. Some people who play League of Legends have several accounts for different reasons. Some players are one-trick ponies who want to learn other roles without losing elo on their main accounts. High elo players use them when queue times are too long. Pro players use them to hide the champions they are currently playing. These reasons are overall considered to be "good" reasons. However, playing on another account just to obliterate less skilled players is considered a bad reason and is against TOS. I don't know very well the TOS for LoL, but overall having several accounts is tolerated as long as you don't do "bad" things. It may not be the best example but I think the overall idea is the same, especially on the fact that it's almost impossible to ban players for having several accounts.I feel like that we reached this point for multi-accounting for Pokémon Go. People don't have several accounts because it's entertaining, but because it's currently the easiest solution to a substantial problem: the EXclusive character of legendary raids. People just want to partake in the features that they enjoy the most.As a game developer, you can't ignore how your playerbase plays the game. If they play a way you don't want them to, create new incentives to make them play differently. You can't just say "TOS" and stop there. Especially if you don't communicate at all. If someone tells you that something is bad with no argument, would you listen to them? Probably not. If Niantic tells you that multi-accounting is bad, you may just think of the EX raid system and conclude that Niantic's opinion is worth nothing. The lack of communication just leads to a lack of respect towards Niantic's point of view.I'm not saying that addressing this issue is easy. Having a good balance between hardcore and casual players is challenging. However, when you reach a certain point in Pokémon Go, your main account doesn't get better while your alt account can grow up really fast.ConclusionIn my opinion, the latest features in Pokémon Go make multi-accounting easier and easier. Moreover, multi-accounting is the easiest solution to a problem that Niantic has not been trying to address directly: the exclusive character of legendary raids. This playstyle will get more and more common if substantial changes aren't made. Multi-accounting will always provide an edge, it just feels bad that it provides to highest edge.Thank you for reading it all.Edit: I wanted to focus the post on one specific issue: not having enough players to do legendary raids, and multi-accounting being the easiest solution, even more easier with the latest features in the game. In that scenario, you don't care much about IVs, stardust, candies, etc. It's all about having good Pokémon, and it's relatively easy nowadays. You don't have to farm on an alt account: daily raid + opening gifts = ton of XP. This post was not aimed to discuss all the pros and cons of having an alt account or the legitimacy, more an observation of what's going on right now. Friendship attack bonus was a big let down and I hope that more comments will come with suggestions on how it could be better. via /r/TheSilphRoad https://ift.tt/2zvufKk