Would you pay for this?
Lets say Niantic made this announcement:
Trainers! Sad that you cannot use that CP 2501 pokemon for Ultra League? Well thanks to your contributions to the world of Pokemon Research, Professor Willow is pleased to announce that he has successfully invented a transmorgification machine!
How it works:
During PVP when selecting your Pokemon you can choose to apply this machine to any one pokemon in your bag.
When applied, you Pokemon's CP will be reduced [actually just simulates de-leveling the pokemon] This change is temporary and will only last for the duration of the battle
You can buy up to 3 unlimited use machines in the store today!
Question is: How much will you pay for this if it became a reality?
For me I'd drop $15-$20 easy
*Note it can only reduce the level of your pokemon, not increase it
Answers
I don't think that's what would happen. The CP cap pretty much guarantees a leveled playing field for all participants so temporarily "de-leveling" you highest 1501+CP and 2501+CP back to the last level in which they would fall under each league's cap would only give you more options in said leagues. A de-leveled 1500 Mewtwo isn't necessarily any stronger than a near 1500CP Alolan Raticate. Typing, bulk and moves would still matter more so being able to sneak in some Heatran or Groudon into the Great League shouldn't make much of a difference in their meta lineups
I'd consider spending some coins on something like that. Probably just one for my Altaria so I don't need to get another 400 swablu candies to get a lower level great league competitor.
Though it'd probably be super expensive, given the licensing fees they'd have to pay Calvin for his transmogrification machine 😉
No. I'm F2P, so that's my answer for anything that costs money.
That said, I could see de-leveling as a thing, but very rarely.
Much better would be if when we went to power up, it showed not only the powered up CP, but the next 3-4 levels after that. That way you would know if that CP 1310 whatever will power up to 1478 or 1499 or 1501. Additionally, give us the power up numbers for evolving too - I'm tired of walking around with a table of which Swinubs will hit the Great or Ultra Leagues, and the uncertainty of the tradeoff between level and IV.
Yah, no. No reason to be pedantic about it. I spend time on the game, time writing here, and I do drive to raids, and use my car to play the game. But I don't give Niantic any money to play the game. I'd love the Ultra Box right now, but I'm saving up my 50 coins per day to get the price, after buying my pokemon storage up to 1900, also with the daily coins.
Not sending money to Niantic to make the game easier is like playing in 'hard mode'. I can't run 9 incubators constantly. I don't do 5 or more raids a day, I primarily use my free passes. Star pieces are used sparingly, not whenever I grind dust.
I don't have a problem with people who want to pay for these things. That's just how I play.
I actually like the current system, make me want to catch pokemon that ussually only good for grinding 100 or 100+25 stardust per catch
Now i keep it first and check it later rather than transfering them all, oddly enough feel like when i preparing my squad for prestiging in the old gym system.
That is why i really hope niantic make some sort of in game evolve CP calculator like the power up CP result they made for this PvP.
What I could see is an item that lets you shift points from one stat to another. Move a point from attack to defense, CP drops a bit. Same for attack to stamina. And the IV cult raid people could move points from defense to attack, getting a slight IV bump and their precious 15 attack stats. Wouldn't be too disbalancing, and would take some of the emphasis for PvP pokemon off finding the right stat combination to get to 1498-1500 or 2497-2500.