Brainstorm to GO

It's been quite a while since Pokémon GO launched (more than one year officially, and almost a year in my country), it's a curious game. Maybe it's the franchise that's catchy, since GO is rather simple. I played like mad in the first weeks, then went into a hiatus in a couple of months, only to return when raids kicked in. But this ain't about me, even though I had my fair share of experiences with the game.
This is about the game. I really want it to succeed, I mean, it already is a success and it made a whooping amount of money, but I want it to fare better and better.
So this is mostly going to be an inventory of ideas. Who knows, maybe it becomes helpful in the future.


I've read a few articles in which the author stated that raids have a bitter outcome in the long run. They are awesome, but overshadowed many other aspects of the game. Also, they made some monsters easier (like months easier), and that has to be taken into account. If we are to keep the momentum gained by raids and exponentially increased by legendaries, there has to be an enhancement of aspects that lost the spotlights.
One of the ideas to make raids not so overwhelming was to allow the big, rare ones to be caught, but with a limit. As in, want a good Tyranitar? Then raiding is the quickest way. Want the best Tyranitar? Then you'll grind. Limiting IVs could have been a good thing to keep hunting somewhat important, at least to those who want perfection. But that wasn't added at the start and it would be quite unfair to limit those who didn't make it at the very beginning of raiding.
Instead of nerfing raids, they have to make buddies (who wants to marathon a Larvitar when you can get a few players and have your chance at its evolved behemoth form, and Rare Candies?) shine again. Maybe a buff, something like making your buddy stronger in fights (think Ash and Pikachu), 5 or 10% higher CP. There could be a limit to the amount of buddy changes a player could make, or perhaps the buff would come by walking. Every candy would also come with a 1% raise in CP (while it is your buddy), until the previously mentioned cap is reached. And if you changed your walking companion, the whole buff would be reset, after all he was your buddy through all those walks and you just threw him back into the poké ball.
Maybe keeping the buff, even after changing, would also keep a motivation to walk around, so that could also be a thing. No harsh feelings.
Talking about motivation, Saturday the 22th of July was a great day (to those outside the disastrous GO Fest). We had a nice group walking around at the best spot in town to hoard pokéstops and catch some 'mons. The idea of a global scale event of capturing until we hit a threshold was very nice, though I still have the feeling the numbers were made out of their will. If there is a way to keep track of what trainers are capturing globally, then mini-events could be placed periodically. As in, trainers, we need you to capture a million Mareeps in 24 hours. If you manage to do it, there will be a bonus (like the bonuses we have seen at the GO Fest, double stuff, decreased distances and so on) for a few days. And there has to be an easy and reliable way to check trainers' progress. There has to be a way, in-game or a website, to check whether we are making it or not. It's simple and effective, people want bonuses, and they want to play.
Back into buffing, anyone who got into a gym battle noticed there's a count of how many battles your pokémon participated, that could also be used as a way to strenghten it. Say, every 100 battles increased 0.1% CP, until a limit of 5% CP. That way people would get some more reason to fight at gyms. Not every pokémon has to be equal due to IV alone. We need more ways to enhance our monsters.
And perhaps enhance ourselves, I've heard lots of people complaining about how achieving higher levels feels unrewarding. One simple way is making a small (indeed small, but that could be perceivable) bonus in catches, or a 1/10 of your level as the chance to get double items at a pokéstop. Not everyone lives surrounded by those, so it's a small reward already.
Still on the topic, I haven't reached a golden badge yet, but I believe it could add something more to your monsters. Especially now that CP of gym defenders is taking a plunge. Perhaps making CP decrease slower if the trainer as a golden badge, or simply adding a percentage of CP. So you know that person has something on that gym.
Now, onto movesets, I'm sure everyone has their own ideas on how to improve the current fights. They indeed do need improvements, but that's gonna be a heavier fare to balance. One nice start would be increasing the possible moves pokémons could have. That comes with the upside of allowing more strategies to counter during battle, but also the downside of possibly having to waste more TMs to get the move you desire. To me, that's a good tradeoff, some monsters need more versatility, some need any versatility they can have (like Vaporeon with one possibility of fast attack).
Something I still have to think better is the possibility of having more attacks to be used (say... 4?), as buttons in the screen. Small buttons that don't take much of the action away, like the buttons we already got today for running away or changing 'mons. They could have simple icons, and it would be up to the player to memorize which icon meant which attack. So trainers could set their attacks before the battle, that would take more time preparing the right pokémon, but would also increase the attachment a players has to its monster.
These 4 attacks would be separated into Generators and Spenders, instead of Fast and Charged, so some smaller attacks would allow for huge attacks. The energy charging bar could still be there, but it would be more to have an idea of how close you are to see that nice Fire Blast button being highlighted to be used. Every pokémon would need to have at least one Generator attack (for obvious reasons), but the balance of 0 to 3 Spenders could be really up to the trainer. I'll still think better about that idea though.
Back into motivating walks, maybe special eggs? They should be really hard to find (I'm sure they know how to make it that way), and would come as items. Think about it this way, you spin a gym and, lucky, you got a Dratini egg. It has a distance of 25 km, that's insane, right? But at least you have the certainty of getting a dratini once you finish the ordeal. Don't want a Dratini? No problem! The egg should come as an item in the bag. You can throw it away just fine. Like a Rare Candy, it is used elsewhere, but until you decide to use, it stays in the bag. Decided to use? Fine, unless you have 9 eggs, then you'll have to hatch one to free space. Once you're done, you use the special egg and it will appear at the eggs' screen (and now you'll have to hatch it if you want to be free of seeing it). 
Something that would motivate me into walking (dunno about the others, though), would be the ability of avoiding losing my daily 50 coins. They could make it so that visiting your 'mon at the gym allowed you to cash out its coins, thus making it reset the coin count. That way trainers wouldn't need to pray for someone to appear and thrash their pokémons. The day is ending, you can just go to that gym and cash out. If it is defeated soon after, you won't get many coins due to the count reset, but at least that alleaviates losing an entire day in coins.
In the original game, you also have the ability to equip your pokémon, that would be a nice addition to the game, though I feel it may be coming in future updates, since we've seen evolution items already. But equipping items that changed your pokémon's power could be a great way to escape from having everyone equal. Maybe berries to beef up your pokémon before fighting could also show up.
And, last but not least, there's the question that has to be addressed regarding players in areas far from the big urban centers. I'm strongly against the idea of making raids scaling in difficulty due to the amount of players present, that takes the whole group aspect of raiding, and makes newcomers hated, since they will add difficulty and won't bring much power into the fight.
Maybe a "friending system" that allowed you to be invited by a friend periodically to a raid far away from you. You'd fight as if you were there, and that could bring people to groups of raiders, even if only once a day. Or through an invitation, as data miners have already stated the existence of special invitation passes. We know that being teleported to a gym is already a reality due to remote berry feeding, so allowing periodical invites could be happening.


Well, if you have read it this far, thanks for the patience.