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[toythatkills]

I'll quit the game before I resort to grinding coins on normal Meowth.

You don't have to grind much to get a decent return. You can easily make 20,000 coins a week if you just beat it five times a day. And you're booting the game daily to check in anyway, there's no reason not to play it a few times when it takes about five minutes total.

 

[Chris1]

A few pages back people were complaining that they had nothing to spend money on, and now people are complaining that they had to spend coins to catch Pinsir.

It's not so much that we have to spend coins, but more that even if we do, there's still a good chance of not even capturing it because of how limited it is and on top of that it also has a very low catch rate.

I caught mine today after a great ball and attack boost, so it doesn't bother me that much, it's what lies ahead that worries me more if it's getting this bad already. It's quite clear that the game is becoming far more pay to win than it was at the start with the introduction of Safari and now Pinsir, while it's not quite there yet it's getting very close and considering we've only gotten a small fraction of pokemon available that's worrying for people who have already invested a massive amount of time into it.

How long before these stages only appear once and you can only play it once with a 9% base catch rate again?

 

[toythatkills]

How long before these stages only appear once and you can only play it once with a 9% base catch rate again?

I doubt that'll happen, and I doubt this'll be the last chance to catch Pinsir. The Rotoms have already come back so I'm sure Pinsir will as well if people fail to catch it now.

Nintendo understand that the point of Pokémon is to "catch 'em all," and they're not going to make it impossible for someone starting the game next Tuesday to do that.

It's exactly how all free-to-play games work. You can play it and just accept the pace you unlock stuff at, or you can WIN EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW by using your in-game currency. Both of them, ultimately, are going to lead you to the same goal.

 

[Chris1]

I doubt that'll happen, and I doubt this'll be the last chance to catch Pinsir. The Rotoms have already come back so I'm sure Pinsir will as well if people fail to catch it now.

Nintendo understand that the point of Pokémon is to "catch 'em all," and they're not going to make it impossible for someone starting the game next Tuesday to do that.

It's exactly how all free-to-play games work. You can play it and just accept the pace you unlock stuff at, or you can WIN EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW by using your in-game currency. Both of them, ultimately, are going to lead you to the same goal.

I'm sure of someone posted "Give it a few weeks, you'll only have 4 chances to catch a pokemon with a very low catch % then you can't battle him again whether you catch him or not" you probably would have said "I doubt that'll happen" back then too. We also don't know how they are doing returning pokemon or which pokemon are even returning, this week is really the first time a pokemon has returned (outside of repeated weeklys which I think don't count) and the game has been out for several months now. How long until people see Pinsir again? 2016? 2017? Never? Not really something I expect most people to commit to in the hopes of getting a repeat Pinsir stage.

When things like this start happening, it's only the beginning. It gets much worse and gradually forces you into accepting paying for every pokemon stage, because by that point it's no longer "meh i'm quitting, it's pay to win" but rather to "meh, I had to spend every 2nd pokemon anyway, may aswell pay for this one aswell". Just look at how the game used to be even just a month ago to how it is these past few weeks, definitely a huge change.

Meh, if I get get to the point where I say to myself "To get this pokemon I need to spend real life money, should I or should I not?" I'll quit right there and then. Right now it's not so bad as I've said so I'll continue playing, but at this rate I'm not sure how much longer I'll be playing for.

 

[toythatkills]

I'm sure of someone posted "Give it a few weeks, you'll only have 4 chances to catch a pokemon with a very low catch % then you can't battle him again whether you catch him or not" you probably would have said "I doubt that'll happen" back then too.

That's a fair point, but I think Nintendo are going to be trying to find the right balance. I doubt they're going to ignore feedback from the Pinsir event if people don't like it and so they're not going to introduce something worse.

Like I say, they appreciate that the point of this game is to catch them all, and so they're not going to make it nearly impossible to catch them all because they will know that as soon as someone misses a single Pokémon, the magic of the game wears off and they lose a customer.

They're just trying to find the right balance between "hard to catch" and "too hard to catch," and I imagine Pinsir will be as hard as it gets.

But I could of course be wrong and your one-try level might happen. Only Nintendo knows for sure!

 

[Kito]

I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around this.

Pokemon Shuffle is the only 3DS game I have. If I stop playing Shuffle (very likely after this Pinsir bs), I have no reason to keep my 3DS and I will trade it at CeX for £97.

 

[RiggyRob]

Blew out my 15,000 coins on Complexity -1, Mega Start, Moves +5 and a free Exp x1.5, cleared the stage in one move. Unfortunately, the capture rate maxes out at 33%, so I had to use a Great Ball to catch it at 66%, and I think that's a bit outrageous. A 1 turn clear should result in a minimum catch rate of 50% so that using a Great Ball guarantees the capture.

Pokemon Shuffle is the only 3DS game I have. If I stop playing Shuffle (very likely after this Pinsir bs), I have no reason to keep my 3DS and I will trade it at CeX for £97.

You bought a 3DS for Pokemon Shuffle?

 

[Kito]

You bought a 3DS for Pokemon Shuffle?

I bought it for MM3D and Xenoblade, especially the latter which I didn't get to play on Wii. Both were a disappointment.

 

[Inquisitive_Ghost]

Blew out my 15,000 coins on Complexity -1, Mega Start, Moves +5 and a free Exp x1.5, cleared the stage in one move. Unfortunately, the capture rate maxes out at 33%, so I had to use a Great Ball to catch it at 66%, and I think that's a bit outrageous. A 1 turn clear should result in a minimum catch rate of 50% so that using a Great Ball guarantees the capture.

I just did this, but it escaped, so I threw four Great Balls at it. And then it escaped again.

This event is a jackass.

 

[toythatkills]

I just did this, but it escaped, so I threw four Great Balls at it. And then it escaped again.

This event is a jackass.

You'll catch it at 3% tomorrow

 

[LOLDSFAN]

Pokemon Shuffle is the only 3DS game I have. If I stop playing Shuffle (very likely after this Pinsir bs), I have no reason to keep my 3DS and I will trade it at CeX for £97.

Well out of all the great games the system has to offer, if you're only interested in 2 and a F2P one, then that might be your best bet to trade it in.

 

[Lone_Prodigy]

Threw 2 Great Balls at it yesterday and failed to catch it, so I powered off since I wasn't using more than 5000 coins on it.

Only needed 1 Great Ball this morning at 42%. Phew.

 

[OmegaX]

I caught Pinsir at 15% with a normal pokeball. I guess it evens out for all the times Yvetal wouldn't be captured.

 

[-Horizon-]

Had to buy 2 mega starts but I finally caught Xerneas.

 

[JoeM86]

Finally caught Pinsir. Huzzah

 

[Hegarol]

Finally caught Pinsir. Huzzah

Congratulations

Small errors on the event page btw: http://www.serebii.net/shuffle/events.shtml
The Banettite event is missing on this page. The pinsir event has "Celebi" as headline.

 

[toythatkills]

5,600 coins today for Meowth, that's my record so far!

Well, 4,800 technically, but still. I hope there's some new stages next week, I'm dangerously close to 90,000 coins.

 

[Hellraider]

Caught pinsir in my second attempt with 13% chance. That went well.

 

[CassSept]

Used 6k coins but got Pinsir. +5 moves and two Great Balls. Terrible event, terrible. Even with 12 moves left I still had barely 17% base catch rate.

 

[toythatkills]

Used 6k coins but got Pinsir. +5 moves and two Great Balls. Terrible event, terrible. Even with 12 moves left I still had barely 17% base catch rate.

You had 7 moves left, moves+5 doesn't affect the catch rate.

 

[CassSept]

You had 7 moves left, moves+5 doesn't affect the catch rate.

Oh really, that works that way only if you use a jewel at the end?

 

[toythatkills]

Oh really, that works that way only if you use a jewel at the end?

Using a jewel at the end doesn't affect your catch rate either.

Jewels and Moves+5 are solely to help you complete the stage, or S-rank it. Nowt else.

 

[Chris1]

what pokemon do people take to weekend meowth I usuaally just took Meg Gengar and hope for the best but i'm thinking something like Mega banette, Chandeleur, Haunter annd Yamask would be better? or mewtwo and similar psychic pokemon

 

[toythatkills]

what pokemon do people take to weekend meowth I usuaally just took Meg Gengar and hope for the best but i'm thinking something like Mega banette, Chandeleur, Haunter annd Yamask would be better? or mewtwo and similar psychic pokemon

I think Gengar is surely better than Banette. Your aim is to make chains of three or more in every move. Removing all the Gengars makes that easier because it means you only have three Pokémon on the board instead of four. Banette will remove ten Pokémon at random but will still leave you with four different kinds so there'll be less chains available.

Mewtwo removes disruptions and coins count as disruptions so do not bring it to this stage.

 

[Chris1]

I think Gengar is surely better than Banette. Your aim is to make chains of three or more in every move. Removing all the Gengars makes that easier because it means you only have three Pokémon on the board instead of four. Banette will remove ten Pokémon at random but will still leave you with four different kinds so there'll be less chains available.

Mewtwo removes disruptions and coins count as disruptions so do not bring it to this stage.

Good point. Was thinking that with banette you could activate whenever, but after testing on main stage banette takes too long to mega evolve even with chandeleur

 

[Zonic]

Damn it, tried my psychic team again...........only made 900 coins compared to last week. Sure hope tomorrow goes better.

 

[Cute Dragon Here]

Damn it, tried my psychic team again...........only made 900 coins compared to last week. Sure hope tomorrow goes better.

A bunch of tricks!

Use Moves +5. The extra matches will pay itself off, and then some.

Don't bring in any Pokémon that can remove disruptions or clear other icons.

Keep 3-matches to a minimum. Aim for at least 4 - the "damage" scales up in a different way compared to normal damage, so 4- and 5-matches print A LOT of money compared to 3.

Don't be afraid to make other matches. Try to attempt to create at least a triple combo so that it prints coins for you.

 

[Zonic]

Yup, Moves +5 seriously helped if you get a good combo going. Last week, I made about 4,100 thanks to it & having Mega Mewtwo.

& if I recall, try to NOT match coins so they can build up.

 

[Chris1]

Yup, Moves +5 seriously helped if you get a good combo going. Last week, I made about 4,100 thanks to it & having Mega Mewtwo.

& if I recall, try to NOT match coins so they can build up.

Remove Mewtwo and any other disruption delays/removers, as toythatkills stated, coins count as disruptions so you're only harming yourself by having those in your team. Remember there's no HP so it doesn't matter how powerful your pokemon is, so it's probably best just to take MGengar and any pokemon with like Quirky or a similar ability to help with combos.

 

[Zonic]

I previously used Gengar & it seemed to work out fine. What I did last week was use two Pokemon with Mega Boost to help evolve Mewtwo faster and it gave me even more coins. Then that way, it helps removes one of said psychic Pokemon whenever I match Mega Mewtwo.

 

[toythatkills]

& if I recall, try to NOT match coins so they can build up.

If coins are your only chance to get a three-chain though, take it. Better to take the 100 and have Meowth spawn more coins than waste a turn with a two-chain or no chain at all.

 

[Aveyn Knight]

Whew, caught Pinsir with a 21% rate or something.

Also, I thought I'd try to be smart with Meowth and use a Mega Banette team. Scored 4100 coins with Moves +5, which doesn't seem bad at al.

 

[younglink7]

Woot! Spent 800 and made 6800 for a net of 6000 on Meowth today! Makes up for the two great balls I used on Pinsir a few days ago.

 

[SaintZ]

I still haven't been able to catch Pinsir even after spending coins in some Great Balls ugh. I hate this event.

 

[Gameboy415]

Caught Pinsir without having to use a Great Ball today, woo!

I was so ready to quit this game if I missed him too, haha.

 

[VRMN]

Caught pinsir in my second attempt with 13% chance. That went well.

I'm feeling even more exceptionally lucky that I caught Pinsir on my first go. I forget what the catch chance was, but it wasn't that high. I remember thinking, "have I ever actually caught something with that low a percentage?"

 

[daydream]

Finally getting the hang of Meowth. Totally should have been using +5 Moves from the very beginning.

 

[OmegaX]

I finally caved in and used items to defeat Mega Mewtwo Y =/
I wonder if it's even possible to defeat it without items. I never managed to get below 50% health left.

 

[Lone_Prodigy]

Have beaten and caught every Expert level Pokemon without items except Blaziken, Xerneas, Yveltal, and whatever comes after them (haven't unlocked them yet). Heatran was annoying (2 minutes and left it with a sliver multiple times) but I lucked out catching it at 13%.

How do you clear clouds? I see some abilities can do it. Does clearing Megas too? I rotated between Megas for Heatran and had the most success with Slowbro.

 

[toythatkills]

Megas are good at clearing clouds. I find Lucario to be most effective if you've got it. Its skill wipes out half the Pokémon on the stage (at least) and takes all the clouds away with it. Kangaskhan will do the same thing, but is much weaker.

 

[Barrylocke]

I tried using a Mega Start in the weekend Meowth stage, and I got 2500 coins, giving me a +500 coin profit (Well it was actually full profit because it was one of my free megastarts, but I'm thinking about it as if I spent money). I need to get better with it to see if I can use this to overcome my normal clears of 1200-1500.

I only have Larvesta and Bagon to catch in normal mode, and Xerneas and BLAZIKEN!!!!!! to capture in Expert mode, plus I need to uncover and catch Mewtwo and Genesect.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

I tried using a Mega Start in the weekend Meowth stage, and I got 2500 coins, giving me a +500 coin profit (Well it was actually full profit because it was one of my free megastarts, but I'm thinking about it as if I spent money). I need to get better with it to see if I can use this to overcome my normal clears of 1200-1500.

I only have Larvesta and Bagon to catch in normal mode, and Xerneas and BLAZIKEN!!!!!! to capture in Expert mode, plus I need to uncover and catch Mewtwo and Genesect.

Don't use mega start. You should be using something that evolves really quickly anyway.
Firstly, use moves + 5 so you have 5 extra turns.
Use mega gengar if you have it.
Use any pokemon you have with quirky.

Make as many combos that cause 3 different matches as possible, because this forces meowth to spawn 3 more coins as his disruption after the turn ends.

 

[toythatkills]

I tried using a Mega Start in the weekend Meowth stage, and I got 2500 coins, giving me a +500 coin profit (Well it was actually full profit because it was one of my free megastarts, but I'm thinking about it as if I spent money). I need to get better with it to see if I can use this to overcome my normal clears of 1200-1500.

I only have Larvesta and Bagon to catch in normal mode, and Xerneas and BLAZIKEN!!!!!! to capture in Expert mode, plus I need to uncover and catch Mewtwo and Genesect.

Use Mega Gengar, it evolves in 3-4 matches so you won't need a Mega Start to benefit. Mega Start is a crazy waste of money on Weekend Meowth.

All you need to focus on is getting a chain of three matches in as many of the turns as you possibly can. Every time you do it, Meowth spawns more coins. If Meowth spawns coins and makes a chain of three matches, it spawns more coins! Because of that, you want to try and avoid matching coins if you can, but if it's the only option you have to get a chain of three matches, then do it.

Basically, chains of three matches, chains of three matches. And Moves+5. That's where the big scores are, nothing else matters.

 

[Lone_Prodigy]

I got about 3000 with Mega Gengar, Haunter, the Safari one with Quirky+, and something I forgot.

 

[SenorArdilla]

Risk-Taker and Vitality Drain are both pretty bad.

 

[JoeM86]

And I now caught Pinsir on my English game. Cut that close haha

 

[Cute Dragon Here]

And I now caught Pinsir on my English game. Cut that close haha

Sometimes I wonder if all this mess is just the developers not quite grasping what "really" works to keep players playing without getting too frustrated.

 

[Boba2007]

Wow, Mega Banette really is insane on weekend Meowth.

My team was Banette, Lampent (Mega Boost), Chandelure (Mega Boost), and Haunter (Quirky, erases 1 randomly). Also used +5 moves.

Next time I'm going to try Mega Start and switch one of the Mega Boosters for Yamask. I'm pretty sure I could get extra coins even with it costing 2500, cause it still took 3-5 turns to get Banette to mega.

It might also be worth trying Mega Mewtwo Y + the three psychic Mega Boosters

Edit: I had to use Attack power + a great ball, but I also got Pinsir.

 

[Caddywompus]

I wish we had more stages built like Weekend Meowth. Stages focusing on collecting rather than just beating an opponent.

Maybe if the Unown Ruins had like a collection gauge and the Unown functioned like coins. You have so many turns to collect 15-20 Unown and fill the gauge.

Really if we could play the Weekend Meowth and only keep your high score for the day I'd be fine with that too. You just don't get an opportunity to just toy around with different lineups and experiment with only 2 hearts a week.

EDIT: That's exactly what I'm talking about Boba2007. I was going to mess with a Mega Banette lineup with Mega Boosters and Quirky+ but I decided I'd rather just take my 4000-5000 coins instead of having my experiment blow up in my face and only get 2500 coins.

 

[JoeM86]

Sometimes I wonder if all this mess is just the developers not quite grasping what "really" works to keep players playing without getting too frustrated.

Indeed. I don't get their logic behind this.

Ah well. New stages tomorrow