Do you use the GTS?

[Stratelier]

Yes, there's a lot of "buyer beware" in the GTS. That's why I often don't go looking for anything specific, and I never go for an offer requesting something I can't easily replace.

 

[raychuu]

Accepting any Pokémon not yet registered in your regional/national Pokedex

Actually, you can do do this in X/Y. There's an option in the bottom to write the name of any Pokémon you wish, so as long as it doesn't have any typos it should work. I've already used that option once or twice without a problem.

 

[Stratelier]

The fact still remains that when you deposit a Pokemon you must specify a specific species of Pokemon you want in exchange. GTS needs a "I'm offering this specific Pokemon and don't care what I get in exchange, just show me the trades" mode.

 

[RainbowSylveon]

I noticed something when I was on the GTS today looking for Vivillon. It will work fine until I get to a certain one. The sprite won't come up at all, and then the game will just shut off, telling me to turn my system off and turn it back on to try again. This happens every time I search Vivillon, and it happens with the same Vivillon. I have no idea what the issue is.

 

[Hex Maniac]

I've browsed it many times but I don't think I've ever traded anything with it. There's far too much clutter on there. You're probably better off asking a friend or using the trade station here and going straight to the point.

I hate it when you're looking for a pokemon and all the requested pokemon are all legendaries (especially event ones that can't be traded) or obviously impossible stuff like evolutions at level 1. I've heard that some people do it on purpose, others may be misguided and not know what they're doing, but either way, we should be able to not have to see that kind of result. It's just a waste of time when you go through all the visible results for a certain species and they're all like that.

I know it's possible to then filter your search by choosing to see only offers requesting a certain pokemon but that doesn't work well. If you're flexible on what pokemon you'd offer, it's not practical to have to enter each one of them individually (I've never even bothered doing that, you're better off going through all the results instead). However, they really should implement a feature to block out that sort of request, in my opinion.

That would solve half of the problem for me.

It would also be awesome if they made the search system more flexible when making or browsing requests. I'd really appreciate it if we could search for all offers requesting a certain pokemon, so that if you had a spare you wanted to trade but didn't have a particular pokemon in mind you could find some.

Adding categories like "legendaries", "shinies", "starter pokemon", etc. could really save some time, especially if you could check more than one at once. It would also be great to make it easier to indicate you're flexible in searches and to communicate with trade partners, even have an option to indicate you're open to negotiation. Even if they're concerned about people spamming or abusing that feature, or using it to communicate with kids, they could at least let you pick from predefined messages.

There's so much that doesn't work very well. It's probably awesome if you're making an offer and if you have a very specific idea of what pokemon you want to trade, and if you're lucky or patient enough. Otherwise, there are far too many issues with it that make it hard to trade properly.

I noticed something when I was on the GTS today looking for Vivillon. It will work fine until I get to a certain one. The sprite won't come up at all, and then the game will just shut off, telling me to turn my system off and turn it back on to try again. This happens every time I search Vivillon, and it happens with the same Vivillon. I have no idea what the issue is.

This has never happened to me, but I've gotten a message sometimes when using the GTS saying that my game has disconnected from the Internet. Maybe that's what yours said? Usually, that can just be fixed by entering the GTS again and going through the "do you want to connect to the Internet?" prompt again. I believe it's quite common when you're using features like GTS and Wonder Trade as several people have complained about it and I think one of the patches was meant to fix some of those errors.

I don't know about an error saying you have to switch off your system completely, though, that seems strange.

 

[RainbowSylveon]

This is what happens when I search Vivillon on GTS (I did it again, and this time it happened on the very first result). In case it's hard to read, it says

An error has occurred. Hold down the POWER Button to turn off the power, then turn it on and try again. For help, visit support.nintendo.com.

The only thing I can think of is that people have the Pokeball-patterned Vivillon, try to stick it up on GTS, and the system freaks out because I guess it thinks it's not supposed to be there and shuts off. If that's not it, I don't know what is.

 

[Phoenixon]

^That is truly mysterious... Never heard of something like that before...

 

[CalamityRobin]

Okay, let's take a look in the Vivillon section and see what happens and... there's seriously one on offer requesting a Palkia but named CELEBIE PLZ?

And this one's named NO THANKS? Another one says it has "IVs". Yeah, that's probable. This is depressing. I almost wish it would hurry up and crash already.

This one's named OPTIMUSPRIME? And this one says "U R WELCOME" because they'd trade a purple Vivillon for a Latios? Another one wants a Mew and says "ridiculous i kno"...

I can't do this anymore. No crashes, but at this point that seems like a serious downside. Maybe they can fix that in the next update.

 

[Steel_Justice]

Too many joke trades there. Who in the world has a lv 5 Reshiram without hacking? BS like that is the reason I only trade between my fellow bulbagardeners here at this forum.

 

[RainbowSylveon]

Okay, let's take a look in the Vivillon section and see what happens and... there's seriously one on offer requesting a Palkia but named CELEBIE PLZ?

And this one's named NO THANKS? Another one says it has "IVs". Yeah, that's probable. This is depressing. I almost wish it would hurry up and crash already.

This one's named OPTIMUSPRIME? And this one says "U R WELCOME" because they'd trade a purple Vivillon for a Latios? Another one wants a Mew and says "ridiculous i kno"...

I can't do this anymore. No crashes, but at this point that seems like a serious downside. Maybe they can fix that in the next update.

Huh, that's odd. For me, it only crashes when I look up Vivillon, no other time. I did go to Nintendo's support site and they suggested running a repair from the eShop (since my copy is digital download). I figured I'll try that, and if it still happens, theeeen... I have no clue.

To go back on topic a little more, those trades sound awful. >.> I do like how easy it is to get version exclusives though. At least, for me it is. I threw up a Clauncher today and got a Skrelp 10 minutes later.

 

[CalamityRobin]

Huh, that's odd. For me, it only crashes when I look up Vivillon, no other time. I did go to Nintendo's support site and they suggested running a repair from the eShop (since my copy is digital download). I figured I'll try that, and if it still happens, theeeen... I have no clue.

To go back on topic a little more, those trades sound awful. >.> I do like how easy it is to get version exclusives though. At least, for me it is. I threw up a Clauncher today and got a Skrelp 10 minutes later.

Yeah, version exclusive trades seem to go pretty well. When I was looking for Vivillons, I hatched a bunch of Totodiles and put them on the GTS asking for Scatterbugs. Got some nice ones, so if you're looking for Vivillons maybe give something similar a try?

 

[henrymidfields]

Okay, let's take a look in the Vivillon section and see what happens and... there's seriously one on offer requesting a Palkia but named CELEBIE PLZ?

And this one's named NO THANKS? Another one says it has "IVs". Yeah, that's probable. This is depressing. I almost wish it would hurry up and crash already.

This one's named OPTIMUSPRIME? And this one says "U R WELCOME" because they'd trade a purple Vivillon for a Latios? Another one wants a Mew and says "ridiculous i kno"...

I can't do this anymore. No crashes, but at this point that seems like a serious downside. Maybe they can fix that in the next update.

Seriously, GF should start up a trader rating system so that we Bulbagardeners can smite the heck out of those noob's rating. haha

 

[Stratelier]

Seriously, GF should start up a trader rating system so that we Bulbagardeners can smite the heck out of those noob's rating. haha

It's technically feasible, they just need a way to derive a numeric rating from the player's trade history. Factors that may determine a player's ability to make reasonable trades include:
- # of trades via Depositing a Pokemon on the GTS (trades via GTS Search results do not count towards this number)
- % success rate of the above (e.g. successful trades vs. taking the Pokemon back untraded)
- Average time between depositing a Pokemon and it being traded (by another player using GTS Search; not the time the player checks back in to the GTS and receives the traded Pokemon)

 

[Phoenixon]

Seriously, GF should start up a trader rating system so that we Bulbagardeners can smite the heck out of those noob's rating. haha

It's technically feasible, they just need a way to derive a numeric rating from the player's trade history. Factors that may determine a player's ability to make reasonable trades include:
- # of trades via Depositing a Pokemon on the GTS (trades via GTS Search results do not count towards this number)
- % success rate of the above (e.g. successful trades vs. taking the Pokemon back untraded)
- Average time between depositing a Pokemon and it being traded (by another player using GTS Search; not the time the player checks back in to the GTS and receives the traded Pokemon)

Or they could just have a user rating system... Users rate trades on the GTS. The lower your rating, the later you appear in the search results.
Or they could combine the two types of ratings together in some way.

 

[CalamityRobin]

User ratings are open to abuse, and it doesn't take long, looking at the state of the GTS, to figure out if that would happen or not.

The whole thing just needs better filters. Turning off all people asking for legends would be a good start. I don't think they'd set up a filter to weed out impossible trades (level 1-10 Mewtwo, etc), though, because they might just release Pokemon with those levels another time. I think there are a few Pokemon at normally illegal levels in the Friend Safari, for example.

 

[Stratelier]

I think there are a few Pokemon at normally illegal levels in the Friend Safari, for example.

Barbaracle, Gogogat, Pyroar, Sliggoo ... and that's just counting the Gen 6 natives. The full list includes:

Spoiler

Beartic, Bronzong, Cacturne, Camerupt, Dewgong, Drapion, Dusclops, Excadrill, Forretress, Fraxure, Galvantula, Garbodor, Golurk, Grumpig, Lampent, Muk, Poliswine, Rhydon, Swanna, Toxicroak, Venomoth.

Don't forget that older games had some offenders, too. Lavendar Town's tower occasionally had Haunters below Lv.20, and in HGSS's Viridian Forest you could get Pidgeotto below Lv.10.

 

[RainbowSylveon]

Oh, so I figured out what the problem with the Vivillon section was for me. I went to Nintendo's website to see what to do, and they suggested running a repair scan to see if Pokemon X needed it. Turns out, it did, and lo and behold, it's fixed.

 

[Reudai]

I stopped using the GTS for searching pokemon. I just leave a pokemon with the same base value there as I want and wait. Sometimes an hour or a couple of weeks.

The GTS is broken.

 

[aliveatnight]

I've actually gotten quite a few legends from it, however I only deposit and never look through. It's also useful for getting random pokemon, either for breeding projects or filling up the dex.

 

[Silverwynde]

Been using the Gen V GTS as much as I can lately. As broken as it is, I may as well enjoy it before it's gone. =/