After complaints from gamers about the high cost of the feature, Niantic will be changing how Mega Evolutions work in Pokemon GO to make them more useful.
The word is that the next Pokemon GO update will serve to improve its current controversy with the Mega Evolution mechanics. The improvement will allow gamers to hold more of their Mega Energy at one time and make the Mega Evolutions last much longer.
The change’s announcement comes just in time for the start of Pokemon GO’s official October Community Day. The event will serve to put a spotlight on the fire type Charmander, after placing second in a recent Community Day pool—losing out to Porygon.
Since being added to the game back in August, Pokemon GO’S Mega Evolution mechanic has been controversial at best. Having been a long-awaited addition, the feature was meant to mirror the mechanic previously added to the Pokemon 6th generation games. As such, the mechanic’s expansion was to allow Pokemon to temporarily evolve into a superpowered form.
Although fans and gamers have been on the edge of their seats to see the Mega Evolutions arrive on Pokemon GO, it seems that complaints started filtering in as soon as the company added the feature. The complaints revolved around the cost of Mega Evolving a Pokemon being so high and the inherent difficulty of gathering enough Mega Energy even to begin the transformation.
Niantic issued a statement that said they promised they would fix Mega Evolutions, and to that end, has already made several changes to the current system. Even so, gamers are still upset over the high cost of the features and their limited usefulness.
Niantic has now announced that it will be making another improvement and change to Mega Evolutions in two distinct ways. The first of the upgrades is that instead of Mega Evolutions lasting for four hours, as previously, it will now last eight hours. This change allows players not to have to rush so fast to get the full benefits of Mega Evolutions before Pokemon reverts to their previous normal form.
Another change is that the cap on Mega Energy will be raised from 999 to 2,000. Although this is a much smaller change, it does mean that players can save up their Mega Energy for when it is really needed. Both of these Mega Evolution changes are immediately effective.
With these changes to the Mega Evolutions, Pokemon GO will work towards alleviating current problems with the system, but it will not fix the issues completely. Since the addition of Mega Evolutions to Pokemon GO, the company has been accused of misusing the system in order to direct and funnel players to the microtransactions connected to the game. Even though the eight-hour increase in the Mega Evolution may be useful, the Mega Energy cost to initiate the transformation is still persisting.
The higher cost involved in the Pokemon GO game, in conjunction with the persistent problems inherent in the system, gives gamers plenty of reasons to be unhappy with Niantic.