Pokémon Go Gains New 'Appraisal' Feature for Highlighting Attack and Defense Capabilities

Tuesday August 23, 2016 6:53 PM PDT by Juli Clover
Popular augmented reality game Pokémon Go was today updated to version 1.5.0, adding new features to make gym battling more straightforward. New to the game is a "Pokémon Appraisal" feature, which will see in-game Team Leaders offering tips on each Pokémon's attack and defense abilities to help trainers determine which Pokémon to use in gym battles.

While longtime Pokémon players are often already aware of which Pokémon are ideal to use against other Pokémon in a battle, the appraisal tool offers valuable information on abilities and weaknesses for those who are newer to the Pokémon universe.

pokemonappraisal
According a blog post on the update, it also includes unspecified "minor bot fixes" and a promise that Niantic is working hard on "new and exciting features" that will be added to Pokémon Go in the future.
- Implemented Pokémon Appraisal: Trainers will now be able to learn about a Pokémon's attack and defense capabilities from their Team Leader (Candela, Blanche, or Spark) to determine which of their Pokémon have the most potential for battle.
- Fixed a bug that kept defeated Pokémon at 1HP; these Pokémon will now return as fainted Pokémon. We're working on rebalancing the training battle, stay tuned.fixes
Earlier today, a report suggested interest in Pokémon Go is steadily declining, so Niantic will need to implement new features to keep players interested. Daily active users, downloads, and the amount of time users are spending on Pokémon Go each day are said to be "well off their peaks and on a downward trend."

Pokémon Go can be downloaded from the iOS App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Tag: Pokémon GO
30 comments


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larrylaffer
24 months ago
I went to downtown Long Beach last week. There are a ton of Pokestops there. At 10:30pm, the entire waterfront was swarmed with thousands of people hunting.

What was my first thought? Not "arg you damn kids", nor was it "I hate Pokemon". No, my thought was "My God look at all the calories being burned here!"

That's a positive, whether you like it or not.
Rating: 15 Votes
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Kaibelf
24 months ago

+1. I don't play the game; however, I think the game can only be credited for exposing some peoples behaviour, not creating it.


Kind of how the internet exposes people who seem to have a need to assert their superiority over others with different interests, when in the offline world people generally grow out of that around age 18.
Rating: 11 Votes
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CarlJ
24 months ago

Can't wait until this game dies off into the sunset. Game has created more morons than I care to count.

You think the game is responsible for that? Not the person's parents and teachers and the person themselves?
Rating: 9 Votes
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Speedy Dingo
24 months ago

Overnight successes rarely last -- this game is an example of that. Gimmicky and lacking any lasting reason to keep playing. My kids were interested for about two weeks.

Again, so because your kids stopped playing, it somehow makes the game "gimmicky and lacking". Right. So the other millions of kids still playing it must mean what? Believe it or not other people are still enjoying it, and the game can only get better as new ideas from the franchise get implemented into it.
Rating: 6 Votes
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anzio
24 months ago

You think the game is responsible for that? Not the person's parents and teachers and the person themselves?


+1. I don't play the game; however, I think the game can only be credited for exposing some peoples behaviour, not creating it.
Rating: 4 Votes
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bdavis89
24 months ago

They're being careful about testing new features thoroughly, since any misstep will earn them tens of millions of angry players and tons of news articles, and feature pieces on half the local TV news broadcasts across the country, so, yeah, new features are hard to implement.

But... why complain about Pidgeys? They're the Soylent Green of the Pokémon world - catch just 4 and you'll have enough candies (after transferring a few) to evolve one - and evolving is the fastest way to get XP, to level up.


Agreed in regards to testing new features. I'm not really complaining about the Pidgey's per-say, but rather thelack of ability to train and level up my starter Pokemon. For example, there's no way to level up my Charmander without catching other Charmanders. Chances are that I'll catch a better one, so won't even need my starter Pokemon anymore. Rather than straining to catch the occasional Charmander, I want to be able to level it up via training against wild Pokemon (Pidgey's, etc.). Just like the games.
Rating: 3 Votes
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littyboy
24 months ago
They should scrap the tap-to-attack system. It's completely stupid. Not sure why they didn't implement the skill-choosing and turn-by-turn system like in the original games. At least that offers more of a strategic playing experience.
Rating: 3 Votes
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anzio
24 months ago

Kind of how the internet exposes people who seem to have a need to assert their superiority over others with different interests, when in the offline world people generally grow out of that around age 18.


I never categorized all players of the game. I was merely categorizing the people with the "interest" of getting injured, wandering into countries illegally, driving while playing, etc. that the game exposes. I didn't say anything about the game, and I only said the game exposes people who would otherwise get hurt via some other way and doesn't actually create those people.

Nice try at a jab though and completely misunderstanding the post.
Rating: 2 Votes
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Mlrollin91
24 months ago

Overnight successes rarely last -- this game is an example of that. Gimmicky and lacking any lasting reason to keep playing. My kids were interested for about two weeks.


No, the issue is Niantic completely ruined it. After 10 days when they killed off 3-footstep, it started to slowly die. Its not lackluster, its not a gimmick, its just not the same.
Rating: 2 Votes
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CarlJ
24 months ago

No, the issue is Niantic completely ruined it. After 10 days when they killed off 3-footstep, it started to slowly die. Its not lackluster, its not a gimmick, its just not the same.

They didn't ruin it so much as they got knocked over by their own success - I think they planned their servers for "maybe even a few million" players, and got overrun by the many tens of millions who showed up. They couldn't keep the footsteps working (some combination of bugs and inability to scale) so they pulled it. I expect it'll be back once they have an implementation that works at scale.
Rating: 2 Votes
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