Niantic finally announced a long-awaited feature for Pokemon Go. The mobile game based on the popular Pokemon series where players walk around the real world to catch and train Pokemon was released initially with little player interaction and no real-time PvP. While players could place their Pokemon in Gyms where other players could battle them to take over the Gym, many felt that this was just not a suitable replacement for the PvP battle system present in Nintendo's main Pokemon RPG series.
Niantic's official Pokemon Go Twitter account tweeted out: "Get prepared... Trainer battles are coming to Pokemon GO ! #GOBattle". The tweet sparked a flurry of discussion and speculation on the much-anticipated feature for the game. Following the response to the initial tweet, Niantic released some more information on the system in a series of tweets.
According to those tweets, CP, the power rating of a Pokemon, is not intended to be the deciding factor in a player's victory. In fact, battles are split up into three Leagues, each with their own CP limits. Great League has a limit of 1,500 CP per Pokemon, Ultra League has a limit of 2,500 CP per Pokemon, and Master League has no CP limit.
In tweets, Niantic continues, "When designing Trainer Battles, we wanted to create an experience that everyone can enjoy and ensure that different kinds of Pokémon can show their strengths! With Leagues in Trainer Battles, we hope to create a system that’s accessible to many Trainers."
Niantic made it clear in a tweet that the CP restrictions in the Great and Ultra Leagues are intended to force players to make more strategic choices during battle, rather than just relying on CP to brute force a victory. The company also released some images that appear to show the page where players will set up their teams in-game.
No official release date has been posted as of now, but Niantic says the feature will be coming 'soon' and encourages players to look through their Pokedexes and start building teams for when the feature drops.
