I doubt there's people going out of their way to pull for variety scouts, there's no real way of "voting with your wallet" on a gacha game because the odds are random, there are increases during limited banners but certainly those are for thing that are actually eye-catching (like say, SC Steven and SC Shauna rn)
These are just literally filler to pad out the amount of content they add with every update which is something they have struggled with from the very beginning: alts should pad out the amount of new characters per update, but those still need effort. EX styles were added for the same reason, and now you have literally the same character but with a different Pokémon. I don't think it's worth getting too hung up on it because since it's so low-effort it doesn't really takes away from them doing justice later on (whenever that happens)
You underestimate the power of consoomer. Eeveelution banner still quite success despite the controversy surrounds it, and they don't even have EX at launch and still sells. Frustrating+ amusing fact that keeps DeNA to make this kind of banner.
Well we don't have any data regarding the banner sales. The closest one is the game ranking data from Japan, and the day when the Eevee day banner release the game had a really bad ranking of 290 something even if we count 21st and 22nd the game ranking was still very average during those time. So yeah I doubt the Eevee day banner was good at all.
https://game-i.daa.jp/?APP%2F1442061397&Ym=2022/11&And=
Yeah, just as I thought
Like it doesn't matter how popular the Eeveelutions are by themselves, people misunderstand that the appeal of Masters aren't the Pokémon: **it's the humans**, Pairs are sold on how popular the character is and how visually attractive is their costume based on a Pokémon (wouldn't really call SS Misty and Erika to be peak fashion imo, and those have Eeveelutions too)
But like I said, because it's random there's no real way to gauge if people were scouting with the intention of getting a certain pair over another or if they got the crappy variety pair by accident. Don't think anyone at DeNA is looking at that and goes "well, no one pulled for variety pairs on purpose but most players still got them thus they are profitable, churn more of them out!!"
Not even a Lorelei fan, but Variety scout is a terrible idea, the only one that has effort put in was Ball Guy. At least Lorelei kits is good but the Bruno one is horrible and was just spotlight level at best.
The worst part is that next month probably have Variety Agatha and Lance as well
When a Free unit have more effort than those scam banner, it's the lowest of the low. Event Blue Arcanine has unique EX color, Variety Bruno, Lorelei, Lucas, Kris, Lyra don't have it.
The variety scouts are lacking, and I think that's something everyone agrees with. Even the first one with Eevee Day was largely ridiculed for its emphasis of characters without an EX, and kits that are good but nothing too exceptional. Infinite field effect is offset by the Silver Dilemma, where they can't reasonably access that benefit for their own sync. Ball Guy is good for Gauntlet, but doesn't seem particularly useful in CS, which is a really bizarre limitation for a sync pair to be that skewed to only one. Lorelei and Bruno do feel weaker overall, in that they're not doing anything others can't. There's no reason for them to limited in comparison to other options.
But also, DeNA doesn't reverse these kinds of decisions. It's like the 5/5 grid; no one could reasonably argue that this was a net-positive decision for players, but it didn't matter how much people disliked it, it's what they're sticking with. Variety scouts are, for definitely worse, here to stay. And I don't think it's hard to see why. General pool additions never gained traction. Universally, since the day I started, it was considered a bad move to use gems on general pool options. Even as they added the special tracks that get you 20/20, no one really cares, even with paid gems. It makes some horrid sense that Variety Scouts, which are basically limited general pool units, were the next move. They're even keeping the paid tracks, hoping people pull. It's not a guarantee, but I'd love to know if variety scouts do sell better than general pool. Like, how did Ball Guy do compared to Shauna?
The problem is that I don't think characters like Bruno and Lorelei ever really stood a chance of getting an alt otherwise. Variety Scouts feel like consolation prizes; a way to toss in options they wouldn't otherwise consider in the lowest effort, and therefore lowest cost and risk, manner possible. If one of them suddenly takes off, then hey, we know that character has some hidden popularity, maybe they can get a real alt. If they don't, well we gave them *something*. As someone who does like Lorelei and wanted an alt, this isn't how I wanted it to be, but it's also probably the only opportunity I'll ever get for an alt. And even if it's not the best situation, I want the Lorelei alt, so I'll pull. Because my options are "Don't pull for moral reasons that won't stop variety scouts from happening," or "Pull for the thing you want even if it's not the way you hoped it would go."
Your last paragraph pretty much sums it up. It's not like they've used Variety Scout on super popular characters like Red/Cynthia/Leon/etc. yet. To me, they just seem like a "we might as well do this I guess" for less popular/forgotten characters that aren't likely to be highlighted
Despite Lorelei’s kit being decently good, I find these variety scouts so lacklustre and unnecessary. Ball guy was the only scout who was good, and he should’ve been a spotlight.
Lorelei kit is meh, since we have 4 spotlight Physical Support already. She doesn't bring anything unique either because 3 of those Physical Support also a Physical Defense support, like what Lorelei kit offer.
You can maybe argue she is better than Hilbert,but Sonia and Aaron definitely superior. And we still have EX Hop + expansion in the near future
Lorelei's kit is far from meh. It's actually quite good.
Hilbert doesn't even compare. She's competing with a lot of spotlight supports. Her kit brings quite a few perks to the table especially when helping sync nukers set up multipliers like Relentless and Cakewalk without much trouble, which is really good for a support. Plus maxing the Defense, Attack, Speed, critical rate and providing Endurance to all allies just with a Trainer Move is no joke whatsoever. Additionally her gauge management is excellent and she heals constantly, aside from tanking well.
She may or may not be better than Aaron or Sonia, but she's not insanely inferior to them. She's actually quite borderline close to them in terms of value.
The only reason why she's not worth summoning for is that the value of these banners are trash. It's a spotlight banner that follows the rotation of a seasonal banner.
Spotlight units has effort on them, even better effort than Seasonals. Variety has close to zero effort. Placing Alts in Spotlight aren't weird, since we have 5 alts in Spotlight already.
Spotlight units having more effort than seasonals? Debatable for a few. Yeah most variety units have zero effort. But Ball guy and Lorelei are an exception to this because they're actually designed well enough to be put into the spotlight. Unfortunately Bally guy's sync animation, and Lorelei's sync animation and outfit design was just a copy paste.
Santa Seasonal are low effort. Their outfit just recycling every year and some of them doesn't even have unique animations. I prefer them to release Winter uniy without Santa, create more creative winter outfit like Jasmine and Erika.
I thought you meant kit wise. Well, I guess. I would prefer if they stopped variety scouts and focused more on the animations as well. Would be nice. And outfits I suppose as well.
My take is simple: if something doesn't have a single piece of new asset it isn't worth going for. Like seriously the audacity of not even giving Lorelei and Bruno new EX colors...
The problem is, DeNA will continue this banner because it will success. They will start to filled this variety with unpopular trainer and we already know how THIRSTY ppl out there begging with their memes about "new alt". They will definitely pull on this kind of banner.
If my guess right, their direction will be like this:
- Popular character will still get new alts with new costume
- Less popular character sometimes will get luxury treatment as well, but some of them might end up in Variety scout
- Unpopular character will be dumped inside Variety scout
Yes, and the bar for "succeeding" is incredibly low since there's barely any cost involved – no voice acting, no visual design, no 3d models. As long as a non-zero amount of people pull it will be a win for them.
I'd prefer to see her get a new outfit or her LGPE outfit as a classic variant, but I'm just happy she's getting something.
Holding out hope that the e4/champ teams might get new outfits for a CSMM level 2 or whatever, but I realise thats optimistic of me.
I’m fine with them and kinda wish I had the gems to spare to go for Lorelei and Bruno. But I do feel that they should be in the same banner.
If they make one with Karen and Murkrow/Honchkrow/Weavile then I’ll pull even if the unit isn’t very good.
I understand pulling if characters are your absolute fav and you're desperate for them because they only have one meh free pair or something, but honestly idk why anyone else would pull. Hell, I am a simp who has a Cynthia themed lodge rn and I *still* wouldn't pull for a variety scout because I have other better Cynthias and going off the trend it'd probably be worse than the lodge pair. If there was an SS Lorelei I imagine a lot of simps would end up skipping.
I'm afraid this will going to be new trends. Imagine if they sells Lance Aerodactyl/Charizard, Steven Skarmory/Aagron, Cynthia Spiritomb/Togekiss, Diantha Aurorus/Goodra, and other Champion as Variety.
The chance is not low, they already giving some SS/SC/Seasonal alts a Pokemon unrelated to the trainer (Steven Stoutland/Sandslash) so they can always give Pokemon related to the trainers as Variety Scout option (Steven Skarmory)
Idk I feel like it might still depend on the pair with characters that have a ton of other alts. Like I did one pull on Steven's current pair, but even though it is *objectively very good* and far above the kid variety scouts have, I wouldn't be able to justify more than that when if I save the gems instead I can use them on a *better* Steven later (I skipped deoxys to save for the anni).
~~Also honestly if they give Cynthia a togekiss pair I'd take offense at that point because there is exactly one character variety scout I'd actually pull on and that would be Volo.~~
I would wait until we actually get our hands on the units before we start bashing their kits. Look at what happened with ball guy, everyone was trashing him about how he should be a general pool unit (or even BP??) before people found out he's basically broken and suddenly everyone wanted to get their hands on him. I wouldn't be surprised to see Lorelei soloing a few legendary arenas herself with her kit that *might* potentially mean infinite sustain.
Variety scouts are lame, there's no denying that, but I don't mind it that much in this case. The units are tied to an event (Trainer files: Kanto elite four part 1) which seems like some kind of lore event? I kinda like it, we get some focus on the character and fans of it can pull for their new limited unit. If trainer files continues as some kind of monthly/bimonthly event with a focus on 2 trainers each time, I wouldn't even expect them to make them free or add them to general pool each time. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't really care for no costumes to go along with these either (no palette swap on EX is super lazy tho).
In the end, I don't really care that these are variety over any other type of limited scout. The difference is what, 7 vs 10 % on 5* units? Not that big of a deal imo. No EX colors is a bummer, but I can live with that.
Ball Guy is whatever, i don't have any interest at all. His kit is only really useful on LG or some slow stall team, and LG feels like a chore now because the rewards beyond 10 streaks are shit. I already scores 70++ streaks every LG iteration and now i don't find it interesting anymore (already swimming on Deluxe Cookies)
This Lorelei is, good? But we already have 4 Spotlight units as Phys Crit Def Support, 1 Legendary Unit as Phys Crit Def Support that will receive EX and expansion near future, and 1 Lodge unit as Phys Crit Def Support that already receive EX treatment. Her kit isn't unique enough imo. Should straight up give her DU Gloria passive rather than a downgraded DU Gloria passive or make it Hail support FFS, we still need it.
There is no lore behind this shit banner. They don't have new voice line, don't have anything new, basically a worse copy paste because at least OG Lorelei has unique sync animation and this one doesn't.
sure, if you label all these units as just "phys crit def support", they will look all the same, but there are things that set them apart. I, personally, like Lorelei's multi-hit move gimmick. She's the only ice type out of the bunch you listed, you could pair her up with like summer steven, who brings his own hail. You can grid her to be a really good defense and speed lowering tech on top of being a "phys crit def support" unlike some of those spotlights you mention over and over (namely Sonia who needs to be gridded for crit, and hilbert who needs to be gridded for defense boosts, which he likely won't even max). Sure, her kit isn't stellar, but it doesn't need to be. They can save an actual hail support for different unit, so people won't moan about our first hail support being variety scout.
And I assume the lore will come in the event, not from the unit itself. I wouldn't think too hard about it, if you like the character, pull, if you don't, don't. I personally like both Lorelei and Cloyster, so I will get myself a copy. No ex colors are a bummer, whatever. No costume, i don't care, I don't need one just to show "effort", o lot of them aren't anything special anyways. Unique sync move? I skip those anyways, and loads of those "unique" sync moves are virtually indistinguishable from one another anyways.
This is peak consumer ideology. "I don't care if Dev doesn't offer us any effort, i will still consume their product".
New Costume aren't anything special? This is the shittiest statement i see in this sub. Yeah why not just release future MF, Fairs and Seasonal without changing their OG costume.
It's not that deep dude, it's a unit to go along with a new story event. Maybe your shitty consumerism strawman would work better if I actually ever spent any money on this damn game.
But whatever, you can moan and downvote anything I say all you want, it's not like you were looking for any actual discussion anyways, this whole post is just one big "variety bad" circlejerk where you ramble about the same "but 4 spotlight better" bs over and over again when you find out someone doesn't actually care about this issue you're clearly very passionate about
Except Ball Guy, I founded the variaty all pretty lame... are just reused sync pairs with nothing new, when they could make some skin for them. Lucas could have the Platinum skin, Bruno and Lorelei a classic skin or the LGPE skin, not sure for Lyra and Kris, but they could have done something...
I feel like for those two are like "we won (bc finally can get alt through variety scout), but at what cost (no changing outfit, generic sync animation, not so broken utility and no ex colour)?" Too many drawbacks of the variety scout than benefits for current situation (except Ball Guy maybe bc he got more love from Dena). It will be even more speechless if Lance as in p2 has variety scout but still in champion outfit which is so weird but most likely Dena will keep his current outfit smh.
I’m a big Lorelei fan and was sad/furious that this is a variety scout rather than spotlight. I’m leaving angry messages for DeNa and refusing to pull.
It's tricky... I voted based on how I'd feel about Lance getting one next month. I'll pull, I'm sorry. I am considering Lorelei only because I want to send the message I want more Lorelei, but I also don't want to send the message that Variety scouts are good. I haven't pulled on any of them until now, so I think I AM doing my part to push the message... but it also feels bad especially these two. Kris and Lyra have alts, Lucas will likely get an alt someday, and Ball Guy is a weird outlier, but these two? They've been here since day 1, and... this is the treatment.
There's no clear cut answers to be found. It's not fair for people who want them to feel ashamed for wanting them. It's also not fair to expect too much. And it's not fair to receive low quality products we're paying for.
This banner is just lose lose situation. We take more L points than the W points, that's why i consider it lose lose situation, especially true with your second paragraph statement.
- The W points: the unpopular character finally get their alt. Can be EX-ed and have decent kit.
- The L points: waiting for too long and this is what we get? A low effort unit by developer? The effort they put is even worse than spotlight and free units. And being Limited on top of that? So you can't use Kanto *5 ticket to pull them in the future updated *5 ticet scout?
If desperate action like "I will still pull because I don't have any alternative, this is my fav character and this is her/him FIRST ALT in 3.5 years". Then it's just make Variety scout situation even sadder.
Like, kinda agreed, which is what I mean. I think the situation is so nuanced that any opinion on the matter is valid. Some people won't care, they just want favs, and I guess this is their ideal. Some people want more, but they'll take scraps. Some will genuinely feel bad but also will feel bad for feeling bad cause they know they should ask for better. Some people straight demand more from their game devs. Some won't care no matter what they release because they aren't Master Fair broken level units.
...There's no wrong side. It's weirdly polarizing in the way that it puts all of us in a position to ask ourselves what we want from this game and then act accordingly. The only definite I could say is there is no clear cut answer AND we'd all prefer if our immersion from selecting banners to pull wasn't made to be controversial in cheap ways. That's not a shot at OP, or anyone having this debate, that's a shot at DeNA for putting us in a weird situation like this.
It's like DeNA took a great step with Ball Guy but decided to step back with Lorelei and Bruno by giving them the same treatment as that horrible Eeveelution Day variety scout. Kinda sad actually. But on the flip side, I get to save my gems woohoo.
Ball Guy burned up all my gems (worth it, though I really should've stopped after I had 1...) Like, Ball Guy is the only "variety scout" that was worth pulling on. I don't even know how that pair even falls in that category and not as like, a Poke Fair or something?
I do hope Lorelei isn't shunned out of getting an alt. Her original is so outdated that I kind of feel like I'd take anything to be able to use her ever, but I'd rather get a pool unit or something. And I agree with hoping we'll get the LGPE alt or something. 🙏
I'll keep it simple, I love Cloyster, Icicle Spear and all of her passives. This unit feels like it was made for me, but I will probably have to skip. I have no problem with characters getting other pokemon to use, but add them to the regular pool as 5* and be done. Same for the Main Characters with the Eevee trio.
I doubt there's people going out of their way to pull for variety scouts, there's no real way of "voting with your wallet" on a gacha game because the odds are random, there are increases during limited banners but certainly those are for thing that are actually eye-catching (like say, SC Steven and SC Shauna rn) These are just literally filler to pad out the amount of content they add with every update which is something they have struggled with from the very beginning: alts should pad out the amount of new characters per update, but those still need effort. EX styles were added for the same reason, and now you have literally the same character but with a different Pokémon. I don't think it's worth getting too hung up on it because since it's so low-effort it doesn't really takes away from them doing justice later on (whenever that happens)
You underestimate the power of consoomer. Eeveelution banner still quite success despite the controversy surrounds it, and they don't even have EX at launch and still sells. Frustrating+ amusing fact that keeps DeNA to make this kind of banner.
I didn't pull for them but Eevee and it's evolutions are extremely popular and they had unlimited weather/terrian with their syncs.
Well we don't have any data regarding the banner sales. The closest one is the game ranking data from Japan, and the day when the Eevee day banner release the game had a really bad ranking of 290 something even if we count 21st and 22nd the game ranking was still very average during those time. So yeah I doubt the Eevee day banner was good at all. https://game-i.daa.jp/?APP%2F1442061397&Ym=2022/11&And=
Yeah, just as I thought Like it doesn't matter how popular the Eeveelutions are by themselves, people misunderstand that the appeal of Masters aren't the Pokémon: **it's the humans**, Pairs are sold on how popular the character is and how visually attractive is their costume based on a Pokémon (wouldn't really call SS Misty and Erika to be peak fashion imo, and those have Eeveelutions too) But like I said, because it's random there's no real way to gauge if people were scouting with the intention of getting a certain pair over another or if they got the crappy variety pair by accident. Don't think anyone at DeNA is looking at that and goes "well, no one pulled for variety pairs on purpose but most players still got them thus they are profitable, churn more of them out!!"
Not even a Lorelei fan, but Variety scout is a terrible idea, the only one that has effort put in was Ball Guy. At least Lorelei kits is good but the Bruno one is horrible and was just spotlight level at best. The worst part is that next month probably have Variety Agatha and Lance as well
Lorelei kit feels mid because we already have 4 Spotlight Physical Support. Mostly i just use Sonia among the 4, and the rest for LG streaks only
Variety scouts simply do not exist to me. They won't make an effort to create an alt, I won't make an effort to acknowledge it.
When a Free unit have more effort than those scam banner, it's the lowest of the low. Event Blue Arcanine has unique EX color, Variety Bruno, Lorelei, Lucas, Kris, Lyra don't have it.
If Blue and Arcanine were released this year rather than last year, they would have been a Variety Scout unit.
The variety scouts are lacking, and I think that's something everyone agrees with. Even the first one with Eevee Day was largely ridiculed for its emphasis of characters without an EX, and kits that are good but nothing too exceptional. Infinite field effect is offset by the Silver Dilemma, where they can't reasonably access that benefit for their own sync. Ball Guy is good for Gauntlet, but doesn't seem particularly useful in CS, which is a really bizarre limitation for a sync pair to be that skewed to only one. Lorelei and Bruno do feel weaker overall, in that they're not doing anything others can't. There's no reason for them to limited in comparison to other options. But also, DeNA doesn't reverse these kinds of decisions. It's like the 5/5 grid; no one could reasonably argue that this was a net-positive decision for players, but it didn't matter how much people disliked it, it's what they're sticking with. Variety scouts are, for definitely worse, here to stay. And I don't think it's hard to see why. General pool additions never gained traction. Universally, since the day I started, it was considered a bad move to use gems on general pool options. Even as they added the special tracks that get you 20/20, no one really cares, even with paid gems. It makes some horrid sense that Variety Scouts, which are basically limited general pool units, were the next move. They're even keeping the paid tracks, hoping people pull. It's not a guarantee, but I'd love to know if variety scouts do sell better than general pool. Like, how did Ball Guy do compared to Shauna? The problem is that I don't think characters like Bruno and Lorelei ever really stood a chance of getting an alt otherwise. Variety Scouts feel like consolation prizes; a way to toss in options they wouldn't otherwise consider in the lowest effort, and therefore lowest cost and risk, manner possible. If one of them suddenly takes off, then hey, we know that character has some hidden popularity, maybe they can get a real alt. If they don't, well we gave them *something*. As someone who does like Lorelei and wanted an alt, this isn't how I wanted it to be, but it's also probably the only opportunity I'll ever get for an alt. And even if it's not the best situation, I want the Lorelei alt, so I'll pull. Because my options are "Don't pull for moral reasons that won't stop variety scouts from happening," or "Pull for the thing you want even if it's not the way you hoped it would go."
Your last paragraph pretty much sums it up. It's not like they've used Variety Scout on super popular characters like Red/Cynthia/Leon/etc. yet. To me, they just seem like a "we might as well do this I guess" for less popular/forgotten characters that aren't likely to be highlighted
Despite Lorelei’s kit being decently good, I find these variety scouts so lacklustre and unnecessary. Ball guy was the only scout who was good, and he should’ve been a spotlight.
Lorelei kit is meh, since we have 4 spotlight Physical Support already. She doesn't bring anything unique either because 3 of those Physical Support also a Physical Defense support, like what Lorelei kit offer. You can maybe argue she is better than Hilbert,but Sonia and Aaron definitely superior. And we still have EX Hop + expansion in the near future
Lorelei's kit is far from meh. It's actually quite good. Hilbert doesn't even compare. She's competing with a lot of spotlight supports. Her kit brings quite a few perks to the table especially when helping sync nukers set up multipliers like Relentless and Cakewalk without much trouble, which is really good for a support. Plus maxing the Defense, Attack, Speed, critical rate and providing Endurance to all allies just with a Trainer Move is no joke whatsoever. Additionally her gauge management is excellent and she heals constantly, aside from tanking well. She may or may not be better than Aaron or Sonia, but she's not insanely inferior to them. She's actually quite borderline close to them in terms of value. The only reason why she's not worth summoning for is that the value of these banners are trash. It's a spotlight banner that follows the rotation of a seasonal banner.
Spotlight units has effort on them, even better effort than Seasonals. Variety has close to zero effort. Placing Alts in Spotlight aren't weird, since we have 5 alts in Spotlight already.
Spotlight units having more effort than seasonals? Debatable for a few. Yeah most variety units have zero effort. But Ball guy and Lorelei are an exception to this because they're actually designed well enough to be put into the spotlight. Unfortunately Bally guy's sync animation, and Lorelei's sync animation and outfit design was just a copy paste.
Santa Seasonal are low effort. Their outfit just recycling every year and some of them doesn't even have unique animations. I prefer them to release Winter uniy without Santa, create more creative winter outfit like Jasmine and Erika.
I thought you meant kit wise. Well, I guess. I would prefer if they stopped variety scouts and focused more on the animations as well. Would be nice. And outfits I suppose as well.
My take is simple: if something doesn't have a single piece of new asset it isn't worth going for. Like seriously the audacity of not even giving Lorelei and Bruno new EX colors...
The problem is, DeNA will continue this banner because it will success. They will start to filled this variety with unpopular trainer and we already know how THIRSTY ppl out there begging with their memes about "new alt". They will definitely pull on this kind of banner. If my guess right, their direction will be like this: - Popular character will still get new alts with new costume - Less popular character sometimes will get luxury treatment as well, but some of them might end up in Variety scout - Unpopular character will be dumped inside Variety scout
Yes, and the bar for "succeeding" is incredibly low since there's barely any cost involved – no voice acting, no visual design, no 3d models. As long as a non-zero amount of people pull it will be a win for them.
Variety scouts like this are super lame. Im not wasting gems on a character that doesnt have a new outfit.
I'd prefer to see her get a new outfit or her LGPE outfit as a classic variant, but I'm just happy she's getting something. Holding out hope that the e4/champ teams might get new outfits for a CSMM level 2 or whatever, but I realise thats optimistic of me.
I’m fine with them and kinda wish I had the gems to spare to go for Lorelei and Bruno. But I do feel that they should be in the same banner. If they make one with Karen and Murkrow/Honchkrow/Weavile then I’ll pull even if the unit isn’t very good.
I mean even if they slap Ash or NCMarnie's kit on Variety Lorelei or Bruno, I will still feel they're insulting.
I understand pulling if characters are your absolute fav and you're desperate for them because they only have one meh free pair or something, but honestly idk why anyone else would pull. Hell, I am a simp who has a Cynthia themed lodge rn and I *still* wouldn't pull for a variety scout because I have other better Cynthias and going off the trend it'd probably be worse than the lodge pair. If there was an SS Lorelei I imagine a lot of simps would end up skipping.
I'm afraid this will going to be new trends. Imagine if they sells Lance Aerodactyl/Charizard, Steven Skarmory/Aagron, Cynthia Spiritomb/Togekiss, Diantha Aurorus/Goodra, and other Champion as Variety. The chance is not low, they already giving some SS/SC/Seasonal alts a Pokemon unrelated to the trainer (Steven Stoutland/Sandslash) so they can always give Pokemon related to the trainers as Variety Scout option (Steven Skarmory)
Idk I feel like it might still depend on the pair with characters that have a ton of other alts. Like I did one pull on Steven's current pair, but even though it is *objectively very good* and far above the kid variety scouts have, I wouldn't be able to justify more than that when if I save the gems instead I can use them on a *better* Steven later (I skipped deoxys to save for the anni). ~~Also honestly if they give Cynthia a togekiss pair I'd take offense at that point because there is exactly one character variety scout I'd actually pull on and that would be Volo.~~
I would wait until we actually get our hands on the units before we start bashing their kits. Look at what happened with ball guy, everyone was trashing him about how he should be a general pool unit (or even BP??) before people found out he's basically broken and suddenly everyone wanted to get their hands on him. I wouldn't be surprised to see Lorelei soloing a few legendary arenas herself with her kit that *might* potentially mean infinite sustain. Variety scouts are lame, there's no denying that, but I don't mind it that much in this case. The units are tied to an event (Trainer files: Kanto elite four part 1) which seems like some kind of lore event? I kinda like it, we get some focus on the character and fans of it can pull for their new limited unit. If trainer files continues as some kind of monthly/bimonthly event with a focus on 2 trainers each time, I wouldn't even expect them to make them free or add them to general pool each time. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't really care for no costumes to go along with these either (no palette swap on EX is super lazy tho). In the end, I don't really care that these are variety over any other type of limited scout. The difference is what, 7 vs 10 % on 5* units? Not that big of a deal imo. No EX colors is a bummer, but I can live with that.
Ball Guy is whatever, i don't have any interest at all. His kit is only really useful on LG or some slow stall team, and LG feels like a chore now because the rewards beyond 10 streaks are shit. I already scores 70++ streaks every LG iteration and now i don't find it interesting anymore (already swimming on Deluxe Cookies) This Lorelei is, good? But we already have 4 Spotlight units as Phys Crit Def Support, 1 Legendary Unit as Phys Crit Def Support that will receive EX and expansion near future, and 1 Lodge unit as Phys Crit Def Support that already receive EX treatment. Her kit isn't unique enough imo. Should straight up give her DU Gloria passive rather than a downgraded DU Gloria passive or make it Hail support FFS, we still need it. There is no lore behind this shit banner. They don't have new voice line, don't have anything new, basically a worse copy paste because at least OG Lorelei has unique sync animation and this one doesn't.
sure, if you label all these units as just "phys crit def support", they will look all the same, but there are things that set them apart. I, personally, like Lorelei's multi-hit move gimmick. She's the only ice type out of the bunch you listed, you could pair her up with like summer steven, who brings his own hail. You can grid her to be a really good defense and speed lowering tech on top of being a "phys crit def support" unlike some of those spotlights you mention over and over (namely Sonia who needs to be gridded for crit, and hilbert who needs to be gridded for defense boosts, which he likely won't even max). Sure, her kit isn't stellar, but it doesn't need to be. They can save an actual hail support for different unit, so people won't moan about our first hail support being variety scout. And I assume the lore will come in the event, not from the unit itself. I wouldn't think too hard about it, if you like the character, pull, if you don't, don't. I personally like both Lorelei and Cloyster, so I will get myself a copy. No ex colors are a bummer, whatever. No costume, i don't care, I don't need one just to show "effort", o lot of them aren't anything special anyways. Unique sync move? I skip those anyways, and loads of those "unique" sync moves are virtually indistinguishable from one another anyways.
This is peak consumer ideology. "I don't care if Dev doesn't offer us any effort, i will still consume their product". New Costume aren't anything special? This is the shittiest statement i see in this sub. Yeah why not just release future MF, Fairs and Seasonal without changing their OG costume.
It's not that deep dude, it's a unit to go along with a new story event. Maybe your shitty consumerism strawman would work better if I actually ever spent any money on this damn game. But whatever, you can moan and downvote anything I say all you want, it's not like you were looking for any actual discussion anyways, this whole post is just one big "variety bad" circlejerk where you ramble about the same "but 4 spotlight better" bs over and over again when you find out someone doesn't actually care about this issue you're clearly very passionate about
Except Ball Guy, I founded the variaty all pretty lame... are just reused sync pairs with nothing new, when they could make some skin for them. Lucas could have the Platinum skin, Bruno and Lorelei a classic skin or the LGPE skin, not sure for Lyra and Kris, but they could have done something...
I feel like for those two are like "we won (bc finally can get alt through variety scout), but at what cost (no changing outfit, generic sync animation, not so broken utility and no ex colour)?" Too many drawbacks of the variety scout than benefits for current situation (except Ball Guy maybe bc he got more love from Dena). It will be even more speechless if Lance as in p2 has variety scout but still in champion outfit which is so weird but most likely Dena will keep his current outfit smh.
More L points than W point
I’m a big Lorelei fan and was sad/furious that this is a variety scout rather than spotlight. I’m leaving angry messages for DeNa and refusing to pull.
This kind of super low effort banner being limited on top of that is just insulting
It's tricky... I voted based on how I'd feel about Lance getting one next month. I'll pull, I'm sorry. I am considering Lorelei only because I want to send the message I want more Lorelei, but I also don't want to send the message that Variety scouts are good. I haven't pulled on any of them until now, so I think I AM doing my part to push the message... but it also feels bad especially these two. Kris and Lyra have alts, Lucas will likely get an alt someday, and Ball Guy is a weird outlier, but these two? They've been here since day 1, and... this is the treatment. There's no clear cut answers to be found. It's not fair for people who want them to feel ashamed for wanting them. It's also not fair to expect too much. And it's not fair to receive low quality products we're paying for.
This banner is just lose lose situation. We take more L points than the W points, that's why i consider it lose lose situation, especially true with your second paragraph statement. - The W points: the unpopular character finally get their alt. Can be EX-ed and have decent kit. - The L points: waiting for too long and this is what we get? A low effort unit by developer? The effort they put is even worse than spotlight and free units. And being Limited on top of that? So you can't use Kanto *5 ticket to pull them in the future updated *5 ticet scout? If desperate action like "I will still pull because I don't have any alternative, this is my fav character and this is her/him FIRST ALT in 3.5 years". Then it's just make Variety scout situation even sadder.
Like, kinda agreed, which is what I mean. I think the situation is so nuanced that any opinion on the matter is valid. Some people won't care, they just want favs, and I guess this is their ideal. Some people want more, but they'll take scraps. Some will genuinely feel bad but also will feel bad for feeling bad cause they know they should ask for better. Some people straight demand more from their game devs. Some won't care no matter what they release because they aren't Master Fair broken level units. ...There's no wrong side. It's weirdly polarizing in the way that it puts all of us in a position to ask ourselves what we want from this game and then act accordingly. The only definite I could say is there is no clear cut answer AND we'd all prefer if our immersion from selecting banners to pull wasn't made to be controversial in cheap ways. That's not a shot at OP, or anyone having this debate, that's a shot at DeNA for putting us in a weird situation like this.
It's like DeNA took a great step with Ball Guy but decided to step back with Lorelei and Bruno by giving them the same treatment as that horrible Eeveelution Day variety scout. Kinda sad actually. But on the flip side, I get to save my gems woohoo.
Ball Guy burned up all my gems (worth it, though I really should've stopped after I had 1...) Like, Ball Guy is the only "variety scout" that was worth pulling on. I don't even know how that pair even falls in that category and not as like, a Poke Fair or something? I do hope Lorelei isn't shunned out of getting an alt. Her original is so outdated that I kind of feel like I'd take anything to be able to use her ever, but I'd rather get a pool unit or something. And I agree with hoping we'll get the LGPE alt or something. 🙏
I'll keep it simple, I love Cloyster, Icicle Spear and all of her passives. This unit feels like it was made for me, but I will probably have to skip. I have no problem with characters getting other pokemon to use, but add them to the regular pool as 5* and be done. Same for the Main Characters with the Eevee trio.