Less than a week after the developers of Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket added to the game the much-anticipated ability to trade cards, a wave of negative player feedback has forced them to admit that the feature needs to be reworked.
“We understand that some of the restrictions put in place are preventing players from being able to casually enjoy the feature as intended,” developers Creatures Inc. and DeNA said in a statement posted to the game’s X account on Friday. “We are actively investigating ways to improve the feature to address these concerns.”
Pokémon TCG Pocket’s trading has come in for stinging criticism since its debut on Jan. 29. Although trading is right there in the game’s name — and an expected element of this virtual version of the Pokémon collectible card game — the feature is subject to restrictions that players feel are prohibitively strict. In order to trade cards, players need to spend both Trade Stamina, which refills over time, and Trade Tokens, obtained by trashing duplicate cards in their collection. In particular, players report that the conversion rate for Trade Tokens is so low that they are required to trash large numbers of cards just to make a single trade. There are also restrictions on the kinds of cards that can be traded, and there’s no way to set a target card you would like to trade for.
“The item requirements and restrictions implemented for the trading feature were designed to prevent abuse from bots and other prohibited actions using multiple accounts,” the developers explained. “Our goal was to balance the game while maintaining a fair environment for all players and preserving the fun of collecting cards that is core to the Pokémon TCG Pocket experience.”
Creatures Inc. and DeNA didn’t specify how they plan to rebalance trading, although they did say that they would add additional sources of Trade Tokens, “including through event distributions.”
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