SwSh Max Raid Battle Discussion

[Sakuraa]

Wait, really? Huuuuuuuuh. Wow. I mean, feels kind of weird, but given how HARD some offline max raid battles can be, I think this is... actually kind of balanced. If you can deal with having a magikarp and a solrock on your team and still take down a 5 star gigantamax, you DESERVE that catch.

Yeah, that's a good point now that I think about it.

 

[Phosphene]

Time to (hopefully) revive this thread. I have a few thoughts and comments on raids after spending the past two or so months constantly grinding them. This is all in the context of offline, NPC-only raids as I don't have NSO, just as a forewarning. Stuff might not apply if you play mostly with other humans.

I feel like there's a difficulty gap between when you get access to 5-star raids, and when the Pokemon you primarily use for raids reaches the mid-to-high 90s in level. What I mean by this is that I feel fighting 5-star raids at lower levels can be extremely difficult and frustrating to beat because, while you're Pokemon may be able to breeze through these battles all fine and dandy, your allies are too low level to survive more than one to two blows. It's rather easy for the raid boss to target all your allies, especially if they have a move that hits multiple Pokemon, and then boot you out of the den. On the other hand, once you get to the mid-to-high 90s, these battles become much easier as your allies scale to around levels 65-70, which is roughly five or more levels above the raid boss's level. This means, in turn, your allies have an easier time tanking hits. Outside of a small handful of specific Pokemon, the vast majority of 5-star max raids are super easy at level 97 or above. I think this difficulty gap was what led to a large amount of my frustrations towards the max raid battles.

On a more opinionated note, I've come to the conclusion that Max Raids are either one of the more unpolished mechanics in the series, or that GameFreak didn't want players to breeze through raids so they opted to try to make them frustratingly cheap at times instead. Basically, what I've noticed is that raids sometimes have some questionable stuff going on, to put it broadly. For example, moves that fail if used in succession, such as Protect, can essentially be spammed every turn because, technically, the raid boss isn't using them in succession. While this is how those moves are supposed to work, in practice it can lead to some real frustrating situations where the raid boss is essentially untouchable, or unbeatable in the case of Endure. Another example is how broken moves that strike multiple targets can be. Even though their base power is reduced and/or not that high to begin with, they can wipe out teams easily if you're unfortunate enough to have allies weak to those moves. And of course, there are the NPC allies. While I can understand why they are so terrible, I do think that it's inexcusable that Wishwashi only knows Water moves (meaning it is useless against Pokemon that have a Water immunity) or that Wobbufett is even a possible ally or that fallen NPCs can't cheer, for example. These are all things that I feel GameFreak would have either changed or adjusted had they added more polish to raids, or they purposefully knew said things would be problematic but left them in because it at least means that players won't breeze through every single raid easily. While I got that these are mostly minor things that only become annoyingly relevant in a few situations, it still strikes me as sloppy, especially considering max raids seem to be one of, if not the main attraction of SwSh. /rant

Lastly, more positively, I do like how raids seem to open up team building possibilities early on and make it easier on early-game players to acquire money and good items, more specifically TRs. I also feel more encouraged to catch Pokemon due to the fact that I don't have to whittle down their health carefully and then possibly waste a Pokeball (in offline raids at least).

 

[colours]

honestly if game freak had it so previous gym leaders or even hop would help the player out in raids, that would, imo, solve most of the problem with raids as it stands aside from maybe the raid difficulty itself.

not going to touch on the topic of difficulty. i'll only comment on that i really hope game freak keeps the legendary/mythical raids challenging, at the very least.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

The poor NPC allies and difficulty might be to give the single players a nudge towards paying for Nintendo Online...

 

[Shib]

Raids are definitely a lot more fun with other human players, the NPCs are just irritating. I feel like if they at least gave you the option to pick which NPCs you had on your team the single player raids would be better. I recently started a new file with a guest profile on the Switch that doesn’t have access to NSO so completely offline and found on the new file I haven’t really bothered with raids at all.

worth noting that the Isle of Armor does give you a few more possible NPC allies who seem to be generally better than most of the original ones.

I can’t help thinking that the questionable NPC Pokémon choices was deliberate to encourage this as a multiplayer mode - not specifically to push towards NSO subs but also for local multiplayer. When they first showed the raids at E3 they were playing local multiplayer and very much talking about it as a co op multiplayer mode. When I was younger and had quite a lot of friends who also played Pokémon I can imagine we’d have spent a lot of time doing the raids offline too.

Overall I really like the raids as a multiplayer gameplay mechanic but playing them solo I found too much of a chore to bother with.

 

[colours]

^ agreed that i think the general gist of raids is that they're meant to be played with other people rather than going solo. while it is entirely possible to solo raids depending on how strong your pokemon are (and how lucky you generally get with the npcs), the general unreliability of some of the npcs in particular seem to indicate pretty strongly to pushing the player to do raids the "proper" (with real people) way.

this is perhaps better illustrated with the two legendary (i guess mythical in the case of zeraora) raids we've experienced so far.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

I’m guessing this backfires a lot for some people, and conveniently gives Nintendo a lot of money too.

 

[Nicolas721]

Good time to revive the thread, as we know the raids are here to stay.

The good
+A good way to keep Dynamax relevant in the postgame and using the Pokémon you like.
+Very easy to activate, you don't have to play an unfair 5 minutes minigame.
+It's a cool way to obtain hidden Pokémon with good stats.
+Almost any Pokemon is available through this method.
+Decent gifts after you beat one.
+Promotes teamwork instead of competence with your friends and people online.
+Great events that cater to both casuals and competitive fans.
+The reasons for losing one are reasonable and go with that teamwork spirit.
+If you lose one you can try it again if it's not one you found by Y-comm.
+You can use Pokemon directly from the PC, giving them something to do besides rotting there and it encourages you to use the Gigantamax forms.
+If your Pokémon dies the raid isn't over, you get a second chance.
+Have relevance in the story.

The bad
-It's impossible to predict how many "free" raids will appear, and seeing less than 3 come up is extremely frustrating.
-Some Pokemon are too hard to make them appear. In addition, you can't control whether the Pokemon that'll appear will be an event one or a Den one.
-Wishing Pieces should be cheaper, if you are an enthusiast looking for a specific Pokemon chances are you'll run out of them eventually.
-The NPC issues we all know.
-The communication issues we all know.
-Abilities, multi-hit moves, stats changes, climates, terrains, etc. make the turns last a lot so sometimes they feel like a passive experience.
-Enemies being able to cancel weather and stat changes eliminates 90% of the strategy and makes "Choose the supereffective move 5 times" the only reliable strategy.
-Capture isn't guaranteed, if you really wanted that Pokemon but your Pokeball failed you wasted your time, there's no second chance there. I'm very afraid of how the Crown legendaries will be handled.
-Some unusable moves appear as usable, if you forgot you can't use them you'll look dumb.
-No experience given. Of course, you get candies but if you used a Pokemon from your PC you have to take it out and then deposit it again, a few thousand exp points wouldn't hurt.

How to improve

• Wishing Pieces and Red Wishing Pieces. The first one costs 1000W and activates the Den's Pokemon, the latter cost 5000W and activate Event Dens. "Free" dens appear in numbers between 5 and 10.
• NPC selection. You can choose who do you want in your team, and there's many options available. Their level cap is 0.9 times your level instead of 0.7. Their Pokemon are inspired of the ones available in the Battle Tower.
• Specific Items. Multiple items are introduced so the battle becomes more strategic, which can among other things change terrains, stats, and heal your allies without wasting slots of your movepool. The enemy can only remove them sometimes.
• Raid Dex. There'a a Pokedex that shows all the Pokemon available in raids, and you get an entry when you defeat that Pokemon in a raid. That way you are encouraged to raid them all. And there isn't any extremely rare Pokémon.
• Real time communication. If a raid is no longer available the sticker is retired.
• Quicker information. Terrain and abilities' information is summarized. And when playing alone, you can skim through your partners' turns by pressing R (Mario & Luigi Paper Jam's cutscenes inspired that).
• Dyna Balls and Shiny Balls. The first one is more effective than an Ultra Ball but only on raids. The second one guarantees a capture if the Pokémon is shiny.

 

[Phosphene]

-Capture isn't guaranteed, if you really wanted that Pokemon but your Pokeball failed you wasted your time, there's no second chance there. I'm very afraid of how the Crown legendaries will be handled.

I would like to note that this only applies to online and event raids (though I still think this is a negative). Offline non-event raids have a guaranteed catch rate, presumably to compensate for the horrible NPCs.

 

[Shib]

The non event den catch rate both online and offline is 100% for the host. For other participants it’s much lower but I’ve found that repeat balls seem to work something like 9 out of 10 times when not hosting - I don’t know what the actual odds are on them but anecdotally I’ve only had a small number not work.

I think this was put in more as a way to encourage people to host raids instead of just trying to constantly join the best looking raids on the y comm.

 

[BlueWaves]

Yeah, I agree that encouraging players to do multiplayer is not an excuse to make the AI so awful, especially with the Switch having locked behind money. Not every player has access to Switch Online, and this is really discouraging especially since its a prominent feature of the game. I remember playing Kirby: Star Allies, and the AI for your allies incredible: They can fight successfully , immediately join a combo when you give a sign, and even revive you. There defining element of that game. Now imagine if allies Sword and Shield's AI. The game would be unplayable with that level of AI.

Spoiler: The Worst Raid Partner is....

 

[colours]

but why has no one mentioned wobb yet who literally has zero attacks :<

like sure, i get how memeworthy martin's solrock is, but at least it has two attacks, as infrequent as it uses them. wobb is juts a flat out guessing game to see if it gets counter/mirror coat right rip

 

[Puddle]

In The Isle of Armor there's a special Max Raid Battle in which you fight alone, but have access to all six of your Pokemon. I wish that all the single-player Raids could have been handled this way, I enjoyed it so much more without the annoying NPCs holding me back. I love Sword and Shield but the bad handling of the single-player Raids is one of the game's biggest flaws. In the postgame I'm having trouble finding Raids I can do because many of them are 5 star ones, which are almost impossible without Switch Online.

 

[colours]

In The Isle of Armor there's a special Max Raid Battle in which you fight alone, but have access to all six of your Pokemon. I wish that all the single-player Raids could have been handled this way, I enjoyed it so much more without the annoying NPCs holding me back. I love Sword and Shield but the bad handling of the single-player Raids is one of the game's biggest flaws. In the postgame I'm having trouble finding Raids I can do because many of them are 5 star ones, which are almost impossible without Switch Online.

i actually really liked that battle!! having it be just you vs the max raid pokemon would be an interesting way to do single-player max raid battles. o:

 

[Despada]

I'd they're going to have these Special raid events where you get a chance at getting a Square Shiny, the least they could do is make it so it doesn't just last two to three days.
I really wanted to try at getting a Shiny Wailord, but the spawn chances were so low and my free time this weekend so limited that I barely had a chance at even getting a decent attempt at even battling one.

 

[Phosphene]

the least they could do is make it so it doesn't just last two to three days.

I believe if you don’t connect to the internet while in the game, your raid dens won’t get updated. I’ve had the Gmax Meowth event active for a month despite using HOME and updating the game and console.

 

[Despada]

I believe if you don’t connect to the internet while in the game, your raid dens won’t get updated. I’ve had the Gmax Meowth event active for a month despite using HOME and updating the game and console.

I wish I had said something earlier. I went online last night since I had an easier time finding Shiny Wailord raids others were hosting than my own, and the Steel/Rock raids were back. Ah well...

 

[Esserise]

I wish I had said something earlier. I went online last night since I had an easier time finding Shiny Wailord raids others were hosting than my own, and the Steel/Rock raids were back. Ah well...

Yeah, when I saw how little time the event had left, I hurriedly sank 300 Wishing Pieces trying to get the Shiny Wailord to spawn, all for nothing. I didn't even think about just not updating the game.

(Though I ended up finding one late last night anyway when I was just casually clearing out the main Wild Area dens, lol)

 

[Silverwynde]

Figured, why not, I could post a couple of thoughts about this.

The bad
-The NPC issues we all know.
-The communication issues we all know.
-Capture isn't guaranteed, if you really wanted that Pokemon but your Pokeball failed you wasted your time, there's no second chance there. I'm very afraid of how the Crown legendaries will be handled.

The NPCs--or rather, their terrible Pokémon--have been a pain in my skidplate since I started participating in Raids. Some of them are helpful, like the Togepi that heals you and your allies. But there are some that are utterly useless. My husband can't stand seeing Poppy and her Pikachu, as it has never been helpful in any Raids he's attempted. For me, it's that freaking Wobbuffet and that damned Solrock who do absolutely nothing other than get KO'd and increase the chances that I might blow the Raid.

I thought I was the only one having communication issues. If the Switch doesn't decide that it wants to fight me while simply connecting, it'll wait until I've gotten a spot in a battle or during the Raid itself to lose the connection with the server. Now, this hasn't happened while I've been up against a shiny, but I have been tossed out of a Bisharp Raid and have missed out on multiple chances for Golurk. 'Not happy' doesn't even begin to describe me.

The low capture rates can be frustrating; I have missed out on some Event 'Mon because they kicked their way out the Ball. It hasn't happened with a shiny, but I have said "Forget this" and lobbed a Master Ball at a couple of shinies: one was a Stonjourner, which I had never encountered until taking part in that Raid, and the other was a Golurk. Yeah, if you think I'm taking the risk of not catching a shiny Golurk, well....

It's a shiny Golurk. I am not leaving the Den without it. Those big lugs are my children, you know.

Before you ask: I have eleven Master Balls. I got them via Surprise Trades and they've been helpful. But I'm fortunate; I have a subscription to the Nintendo Online Service. Not everyone does.

How to improve

• Real time communication. If a raid is no longer available the sticker is retired.
• Dyna Balls and Shiny Balls. The first one is more effective than an Ultra Ball but only on raids. The second one guarantees a capture if the Pokémon is shiny.

Real time communication would be awesome. I have tried to get into Golurk and Bisharp Raids only to find that the maximum participant number has been reached or it's been closed. I wouldn't have bothered with them if I had known that they weren't available; fixing this would really be nice. And it would cut down on the amount of swearing I do.

Shiny Balls would rock. I could stop worrying about running through my Master Ball supply and use them for other purposes. Make this happen, GameFreak!