We’ve talked about Pokemon Go’s over reliance on throwing everything but the kitchen sink at features and/or events to make them seem worthwhile, and in some ways, that’s been toned down. Of course, getting less “stuff” is hard to ignore, even if it’s for balance purposes. I feel as though that’s partially the reason the Dynamax and Gigantamax feel so underwhelming, but it may be related to a long standing problem with one of the game’s oldest features: the buddy system.

Two kinds of candy generation, Mega Energy generation, additional levels, species specific evolution quests, and more, shouldn’t all be tied to a single slot, especially one where you’re asked to walk 12.5miles/20km for a single chance to get XL candy. So as you may have guessed by now, in today’s Massively on the Go, we’re going to talk about the devs’ over-reliance on the POGO buddy system, and maybe some ideas on fixing it.

A need to break free

So let’s start off with all of the benefits and systems attached to the buddy system right now: walking a buddy that ‘mon’s XL candy (and regular candy and Mega Energy where applicable), pokeball bounce back (think a second, saving throw) at rank 2, a temporary extra that can bypass the traditional level cap at max buddy level, evolution quest requirements, quest task requirements (often attached to heart generation, candy generation, or other tasks such as feeding or petting), and now golden bottle caps and hyper training. That was already way too much for one system, but adding on hyper training, while certainly logical, is just far too much, and finally other people are complaining about this too.

For those who haven’t used a bottle cap for training yet, let me tell you from experience with all those IV 15 training quests that they’re brutal. The attack one may cost you 39 premium passes to rush through in a day or 40 consecutive days of raiding; defense would be catching 100 pokemon a day for 15 days; and legendary pokemon require 200km (or 100km if you constantly use the poffin premium items), which would be about 34 days or 17 days if you walk your buddy only the max buddy system reward of 6km per day.

That’s just one point though. I know one person who is trying to raise a 1-star ‘mon, and I calculated that they need to win 75 raids total. The problem? It’s not consecutive. Sandwiched between those raid tasks are things like gym battles (not too hard) and Rocket Boss wins (lots of Rocket grunts before getting to the leaders who at one point will be the main target).

In isolation, this isn’t too bad. Heck, it would add value to the game for many players, I think by giving them long-term goals. However, since we only get one buddy slot, I don’t see it that way, and neither does at least the player I know who has to go through this slog. This friend admits there are pokemon missing from the Pokedex because of the effort it would take to buddy up and do the Adventure requirements in order to evolve them.

This is because, aside from basic collecting, there are times you may be pressured to switch out your normal buddy, like to take advantage of an event to evolve a generally difficult to evolve ‘mon, or you also have to worry about not just basic-play quests, which are easy enough to skip, but event quests, time-limited quests, and premium quests. Those aren’t all equal though, as some tasks ask for candy-generation (which become much harder with mythical/legendary buddies), while others may ask for hearts well after you’ve grinded to the excited state, used a premium poffin and/or maxed your buddy’s hearts for the day. All this only serves to really bring home the feeling that we need buddy teams at this point.

Just to illustrate, during Go Fest, I started on my 14/14/14 legendary ‘mon. Also during Go Fest, there was a quest to walk Volcanion for 2 candy (roughly 25 miles/40km or 12.5miles/20km, depending on if you use the excited state). Before I could finish that, we had a new event, the Hisui Celebration. Part of that event involves “steel chair” Hisuian Zorua, a new ‘mon variant that gets wildly different weights if you use an autocatcher paired with certain pokemon species/sizes. In addition to that, the event also included a collection quest that requires you to win a raid with a pokemon to evolve it. It’s just one, but as I’m so focused on walking (which should be a central part of the game), I have forgotten to make the switch before raids all week long.

If you’re free-to-play, you probably don’t have too much an issue here, especially if you’re out of the loop on the hefty Zorua bug. But if you are looped in and paid for premium quests, that’s up to four pokemon asking for you time at once, two of which are part of shorter-timed event. That’s not even including other pokemon you may want to be walking to evolve (such as Galarian Slowpoke or Pancham, which are easier to evolve with the current event spawn pool), for basic/XL candy gains, or to gain Mega Evolution energy for. Oh, or to show off in your profile, as some people enjoy.

There’s just way too much attached to the system, and nothing feels fun about the options. Something like choosing between hitting harder, farther, or double attacks is interesting, but having to choose between completing a quest, gaining unique ‘mon, or evolving an annoying-to-evolve pokemon isn’t. The buddy system choices feel more like what chore you have to focus on, if any, because again, some people just want to show off a cool pokemon on their player profile. I think this is the hint that Scopely’s POGO team could be doing much more with the system.

Possible solutions

I’ve been advocating for Buddy teams for years, at least since the August 2022 article posted at the start of this piece. Having six pokemon fulfill certain duties could be a bit of a throwback to HM Mules in the early games. If we adopt some names for roles from some of those HMs, Poké Ride, and Field Moves, we could have something like this:

Slot 1- Charge. This would be the buddy that follows you around on screen and is used for tasks, like evolution requirements or hearts earned.

Slot 2- Flash. This would be your profile pokemon and the one that does ball return.

Slot 3- Strength. This pokemon would gain additional levels while in this slot.

Slot 4- Search. This pokemon would generate basic candy while walking.

Slot 5- Rock Smash. This pokemon would generate XL candy while walking. This may be throwing some players for a loop on why we’d get XL candy this way, but keep in mind that breakable rocks have revealed items in some games.

Slot 6- Secret Power. This pokemon would generate special items/energy, such as Mega Energy, Gimmighoul coins, or other future items. This one’s less about main game function than it is appropriate naming.

All pokemon would gain hearts for the actions of the others. For example, walking the Charge pokemon still would generate the Search pokemon’s candy, but at the Search ‘mon’s rate, though both would get Hearts at the 2km mark. However, if Charizard were in the Charge slot and Pikachu in the Secret Power slot, Charizard would not generate any Mega Energy.

Alternatively, though, we could have a ribbon system, but have the player earn ribbons and “attach” them to pokemon, then simply have the buddy system as a way to earn the ribbons one time and then just be for quest completions (like battling with a buddy). For example, you could earn the “Candy ‘mon” ribbon by walking 5km, then attach the ribbon to Pikachu for basic candy generation (based on its current buddy system distance). It could be like having a team but even more flexible than a team of six.

This is where we need to get back to that whole “problem” with the Dmax and Gmax systems not feeling as fun as the Mega system. The “Max” ‘mon are kind of in a closed loop. That is, everything in the game feeds back to regular raids, while Max raids only utilize Max ‘mon. The two exceptions, the Crowned forms for Zamazenta and Zacian, can participate in Max battles but cannot be left in power spots. It all feels terribly clumsy.

Before anyone panics, no, I’m not going to suggest ribbons allow for Max form unlocks, though it would be neat if The Pokemon Company allowed it alongside Max Soup. And no, I’m not going to suggest Megas be allowed into Max battles, which would also be neat if TPC allowed it. But perhaps ribbons could be earned so normal pokemon not on your team during the battle could be left behind, even if they’re not a Max ‘mon.

For example, perhaps after leaving pokemon behind for, say, 50 battles, you’d get one ribbon, then another at 150, and another at 500. It’s a ton of work, but it would allow players to, say, place a Shiny Mew in a defender position where it doesn’t actually need to function, passively helps other players, grants a small bonus, and can be shown off. A lot of these things are attached to the buddy system already, but our buddy is singular. A ribbon, unlocked by and for the player, could give many of these benefits in other areas of the game that would disturb it less while also increasing engagement.

And ribbons can expand as needed, both in terms of scope and function, rather than the current system of burdening buddies with everything. Perhaps for the eventual release of terestal pokemon, ribbons could help players form (one of?) the new consumables (because the devs will add more consumables…) for the system. I suggested some ride pokemon options back when the Alola games came out, and while I doubt they’ll come into the game as I suggested them, the devs could use a ribbon system to introduce them in some way. It would be far more flexible than the current, single ‘mon, all-or-none system we currently have.

It’s obviously not my game and I’m not one of the devs. We may have the same dev team, but under Scopely, some things are changing. Whoever is in charge (or, perhaps, freedom from the last folks in charge) has made it clear that the game has to change to stay relevant and maintain its playerbase. While stalking issues persist and I don’t see that changing, at least with Scopely being more of a games company, I do hope that the long overburdened Buddy System will finally get something else added to take some of the load off its back.

Massively OP’s Andrew Ross is an admitted Pokemon geek and expert ARG-watcher. Nobody knows Niantic and Nintendo like he does! His Massively on the Go column covers Pokemon Go as well as other mobile MMOs and augmented reality titles!