#it also really sucks that everyone receives the attacks. that doesn't seem fair.

[vanillabat99]

Now that I've beat the main storyline of Pokémon Scarlet and unlocked 5 star raid battles, I have some opinions on the raid battle mechanics. Short Version: I think they suck.

Long Version:

First off, the difficulty jumps between 4 Star and 5 Star is outrageous. I am able to do a 4 Star den with the AI team, and it might take me another try. So far it has been genuinely impossible to do a 5 Star den with the AI team, as well as taking at least 5 tries with an online lobby. The only time I've been able to do a 5 Star den in one try is when my lobby makes me wonder if they're cheating. I shouldn't have to hope for a lobby full of exploiters if I want to have a reasonably fair fight.

I've also encountered many moments (regardless of difficulty level) where the health bar of the opposing pokémon will jump up to a seemingly random point, without the use of a healing move or effect. It's also really hard to tell how accurate the timer bar is when my team's health status doesnt seem to be displaying properly throughout the battle. I've had the display say they had half health, only to see they didn't have a pokémon out whatsoever.

The lack of structure has caused a lot of issues. I have sat through 10 seconds of "opposing pokémon removes negative effects" and other such text, and watched as the timer ticked away, only to have to wait for another 5 to 10 seconds with no battle displays for (again) seemingly no reason!! It's never clear if I'm simply taking too long, have unfortunate timing, or if there's been a bug.

What little structure is there has such poor prioritising that it almost doesn't matter it was there to begin with. The "running out of time" warnings are often so late they're just delaying the "you've been kicked out" text. There's so many moments where there's genuinely nothing happening whatsoever, and so many moments where there's so much status text I'm not even playing the game anymore.

I am of the opinion that every game should be playable without having to purchase extra features. I shouldn't need an online subscription to have even the tiniest chance of beating a 5 Star Raid Battle.

In conclusion, it appears that removing the turn-based function of battles causes things to fall apart. And it sucks.