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Why Wouldn't Niantic Apply Stat-buff Moves to PvE?

So I think we have all heard now that a few moves, such as Ancient Power, are getting the stat-buff treatment. From what I've seen, this will only affect PvP. Any ideas on why Niantic wouldn't let us use the buffs in PvE situations? Gym battles are pretty much the same as a PvP battle, it doesn't make sense to me that the stat-buffing effects would go away. Maybe they will eventually expand the stat-buff moves to affect PvE as well, including raids? *Crosses fingers*

Edit: On a side note, thank goodness for GamePress so I can ask questions like this one. Soooo annoying how Niantic always gives limited to no information on new changes like this one, unless you are able to keep up on all their blog posts and Tweets.

Asked by GigaBowserX5 years 2 months ago

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I could foresee a problem with adding them to raids, at least with the raid bosses using the moves.

If a raid boss like giratina were to get a stat buff, it would be come much harder to beat, very spam able charge move, same for Rayquaza (it already hits hard as is, its one limiting factor is its lower defense) adding stats for raid bosses would make them much harder to deal with, and the risk of failing would go up, possibly to the point of being unbeatable if stat boosts happen enough.

I would be interesting if they add it, but it could cause some problems with raids if stats get boosted too much.

One would assume that debuffs will coming as well, which should go some way in alleviating this.

In fact, utilising those sorts of moves in your own arsenal may be as essential as using the correct types is right now and should hopefully expand the list of viable counters.

Debuffs would be great. It would very much expand what is useful and add a lot more changes to the meta which would be fantastic (Fingers crossed for meteor mash boosting metagross' atk)

I agree if they do buffs, debuffs could be coming, but my thinking was for raid bosses last much longer, needing to have someone carry a debuff pokemon specifically to prevent raids from getting too powerful might get to become an annoyance after a while, or worse, at people have complained about before, making them too easy. Theres a large range of what could happen because of stat buff/debuffs.

If they add debuffs, I kinda hope they add critical hits or something, just to add a little RNG to things.

Only the filthiest of casuals would complain about a legendary raid going from an easy 2 man to an easy 3 man

Or y'know, maybe rural players that just barely get by as is who may not if the raid boss gets a stat buff or two.

My bet: Because Damage = Rewards in Raids, Niantic hasn't figured out how much this would unbalance Raiding and so only added this to PvP until they can figure out if it's actually unbalancing for Raiding or not.

And since Raiding and Gym Battles essentially follow the same rules (a raid is essentially a huge gym battle, after all), if it's out for Raiding, it's out for Gym Battles too, even though there's no Rewards system there.

edit: Also the posts above about Raid Bosses getting suddenly harder to beat. Argh. Yes. I hadn't considered that; in neutral weather, my daughter and I took down a Togetic with just 10 seconds to spare. (her counters are good, but not great) Had it been able to be boosted by Ancient Power, we would have failed miserably. So if that were to be applied to Raids, it could make the Rural Raiding scene even more difficult than it already is.

PvE and PvP work a little different behind the scenes with timing and client/server sync, maybe that has something to do with it? Especially in the case of the raid boss using these moves, they may need to figure out how to smoothly apply the buff across up to 20 accounts at once.

Also in the case of the player using it, depending on the frequency of the buffs it could tip the scales in favor of the player too much for their liking. They just buffed raid boss HP to counterbalance the effectiveness change, they may decide to do so again if the buff effects to come to the gym/raid scene.

I hadn't even considered the fact that raid bosses would be able to use the buffs/debuffs, I was only thinking of the player(s) using them when I asked the question. You all bring up good points about the complications that could arise from said buffs in the raiding scene.

Yeah, stat buffs on raid bosses would be nasty, especially with how long they last. For tier 5s you can be lucky to fire off three 2-bar charge moves, so buffs will be almost no help there, but the boss fires off what? 15-30 charge moves, depending on the number of people and the energy gain of the move? That would devastate short man attempts...

There's a limit of 4 stages found in recent .apk teardowns. This keeps raid bosses from snowballing into impossible territory, though a +4 Rayquaza doesn't sound like a picnic even with a fleet of Mamoswine.