Pokemon Unite devs address matchmaking & microtransaction concerns amid Zoroark launch

The Pokemon Unite developers released a blog celebrating the end of 2022, stating their intended changes for the next year while addressing recent concerns.

It’s been an incredibly fast-paced year for Pokemon Unite. The game celebrated its first full anniversary, and a plethora of playable Pokemon released in the title. As a whole, the game has looked to evolve through the implementation of a new map, more picks, and even extra customization mechanics.

But through it all, players have been rather vocal about their dislikes in various aspects of Pokemon Unite. It turns out, the developers have heard the community’s complaints, addressing some key ones in their blog released on December 21.

The infamous Zoroark microtransactions

During Zoroark’s release, the developers made the Pokemon solely available with Aoes Gems. In other words, the only way to actually play the character was to pay real-life money. This infuriated players, causing an uproar within the community.

The developers responded by stating “We appreciate that feedback, and after consideration, we will not be following this release practice in the future.”

Therefore, it’s safe to assume that Pokemon will no longer be exclusively available with only Aoes Gems. But they may still keep them Aoes Gems only for the first week of release, then make them available for coins afterwards. This is something the developers have done in the past, and they don’t seem to be addressing this tactic whatsoever in the blog.

Pokemon Unite matchmaking changes

Every team-based competitive-oriented game has players complaining about matchmaking issues. Some of it is very much placebo, using matchmaking as a convenient excuse for lack of ranked progression, but in Pokemon Unite’s case, the game had a very real issue, displayed by the developer’s data as well.

They implemented multiple changes in the past couple of months, namely using a new formula for Master points to more accurately represent skill, and keeping rank variation within two ranks.

Now, they’re planning on making changes to fair-play points:

“A change has already been implemented to deduct fair-play points if a player stops playing during a match, and a player’s matching priority will be reduced the fewer total fair-play points they have. We’ll also be improving the accuracy of detecting passive play, such as using moves to avoid appearing inactive but not engaging in battle.

“Lastly, we’ll be making some changes to the rank range across which solos, duos, and trios can match. We’ll also be adjusting the range of rank resets at the end of a season, in hopes of mitigating the differences in skill at the start of a new season.”

Only time will tell if this new change will actually help. But stay vocal regarding the complaints as the developers stated they’re looking for more feedback to continue improving the in-place systems.