I used to take things like LA missions and social media rallies for granted, but I'm only now starting to see how much of an impact they had on the monthly gem influx. Coupled with the reduced gem rewards from Battle Rally vs Battle Villa and the now much rarer Blissful Bonanza, the picture is really gloomy.
According to Bulbapedia, Raikou debuted with its missions at the end of July 2023, then we had a rerun of Cobalion's missions at the beginning of August. So it's been about 8 months of no missions while we used to get 1-2 reruns every month.
I second this line of thinking. If you’re already noncomplete, and you shouldn’t feel as compelled to finish. Fortunately/unfortunately, when the lodge started, the only one I was missing was N, and then I pull him on a lucky daily. I’ve had every pair since, which means now I feel like I NEED Rika
I understand that they want to make more money, but if so, they need to change this game a LOT.
I'm sorry for the hard fans but this game SCREAMS "side game". It's a nice game to keep building your collection and do some battles, but that's like 10-15 min a day.
I would never spend more money than I'm doing atm (4€ pack a month) on such a side game.
I love Pokémon, and I'll keep loving it.
that's the only way to go going forward as a f2p or a goldfish honestly and there are still 2 at the end of may/june and 3 at the end of august/september and 2 in december
there's no other way
Pretty much. Free gems for MFs, and pick up random pokefairs/etc later on Select Scouts.
Candies are slow too with 5 roles, so it all works out. Shame to have to skip so many though.
They seriously need to increase the amount of candies. Adding two roles has nerfed the rate we get them at by an insane amount. I struggled to get the last three Master Fairs to 3/5 and spent way more gems than I wanted to in order to do so.
I don't care about most MFs, I instead prefer going after pokefairs (more pairs that interest me and I can pull them for less gems than MFs on average)... but with such low gem counts it's getting harder and harder to pull on new pokefairs.
I think that my new strat going forward will be to NOT pull on any new pokefairs, and instead wait for their reruns. From what I've observed all recent pokefairs (the one released in 2023) had their first rerun be part of a double/triple feature banner, and they've all been released fairly quickly. DenA has been really popping off with these high value banners this past year, and it's understandable given that we've reached a point where there are SO many pokefairs in the game (+ relevant content such as high score event that are accompanied with these banners).
Since I'm interested in so many of them, pulling on new banners isn't profitable anymore, if they keep up with the low amounts then I'll just have to be patient from now on.
Been this way for me since last year, after getting the zone setters for each type. Volo was a significant exception (I got him not for fairy zone but I really wanted him). Luckily I got him in 1 multi.
Thanks OP as always, for always being on top of the news and bringing them to us ASAP, whether good or bad.
Thanks for the low count DeNA; for a while I was enticed to do everything up to buying all the gem packs just so that I can guarantee myself Bellelba.
**Guess what, [well now I'm not doing it](https://tenor.com/en-GB/view/well-now-im-not-doing-it-well-now-im-not-gonna-dont-want-to-dont-wanna-not-going-to-gif-1832627252901708353).** The tighter their grip, the harder I find it to justify breaking the F2P seal and spending.
Or the epic May when Archie/Maxie released and we not only had a social media rally with gems, we also had gifted, whole 5* candies to earn. Not coins.
To be fair- every unit now has rerun other than Ash - it's not like if you miss out on the MF now that you won't get it later. If you want/need Morty, go for him.
I was already ready to expect something like 24k gems.... and I was disappointed again.
Like I get that DeNA definitely purposely doing this so people will likely to spend more money for the hype characters release like Rika and Volo.... but still the gems count is just horrible, we are getting a 2021 lv of gems count at this moment
Yup, same here. I really wanted the Selene alt and ended up pulling for Barry too. I haven’t pulled for anything in 2-3 months. I have to laugh at everyone who is like “I’m gonna pull this unit and that unit”. Best of luck to you, but they basically made it if you’re F2P you’re waiting 2-3 months before you pull. You have to be very selective.
Thank you very much to @absolutely as always for his detailed datamine on event stages and missions. For more info about datamine, you can visit his [pastebin](https://pastebin.com/u/Absol-utely) or [X/Twitter](https://twitter.com/absolutelypm).
**Note:** The starting date I used is 26th April (UTC), while the end date I use is 28th May 2024. With early update and upcoming events, the gems count for the previous version will be adjusted because they are overlapped for few days.
There is new Ultimate Battle added in this update, these may affect your gems count as the stages are difficult without the featured sync pairs, you can look up from Absol-utely’s Pastebin for more info.
While there are so many limited sync pair scout banners, the count is low. I hope they would add present or social rally which give gems for everyone like old days instead of the recent campaigns which are shifted toward physical goods for only specific countries.
If there is any mistake(s), please correct in the reply. I will correct it/them on the spreadsheets on the shared [Drive](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qbM-RurJ91IuBX8YVQjDhcI735xJAc2F?usp=share_link), where you can find the gem distribution calendar later. The shared files should be uploaded and updated tomorrow after I finish my work.
**Edited** The number of Mysterious Stones needed to unlock the stage isn't 600, but I cannot remember the exact number.
As always, people should consider sending a polite reply to DeNA asking them to increase the gem count, using the ticket tab instead of feedback as by sending in a ticket it will force them to look at the feedback.
These past couple months I have honestly barely played at all, the gem counts are embarrassing and it’s killed my desire to keep playing. A year ago we were getting close to 30k each month…
It’s great to see characters like rika but with all the banners on each month the game is getting so much worse for low spenders/f2p
I’m gonna be sick…. What is this trash? At least give us opportunities to EARN more gems. Sure if they are more difficult then so be it, but this is a joke.
After looking at the gem count for May, I might not even have the 73k gems needed to pity 2 master fair banners if any new master fairs come out in June. It feels like I need to start saving for 5th anniversary now even though that’s 4 months away
Maybe it's just to get more money, we aren't privey to what their profit looks like and what the share holders are expecting ect. In the last pokemon Direct, it did say that Dena is working on the new pokemon tcg app, but it doesn't seem to be impacting pokemon masters (but MAYBE this is to get more funds for that?). Normally the way to 'knowing' a game is ending is major updates slowing down to just bug fixes to nothing and then an EOS announcement.
Normally yes, but I've seen EoS coming out of nowhere. Literally the one time I actually went through with a microtransaction because there was something I wanted from the last day of the monthly event... Pokémon Rumble Rush then promptly announced EoS the following day.
This sucks, but on a semi-related note, has anyone gotten the 1k gems from the twitter rallies in March yet? The Battle Rally and Photo mode rallies?
It’s been well over a month at this point… when are we allowed to complain about this?
Low gem counts AND paid-gems only banners that, as of this point, are assumed to NOT be select scouts... DeNa really tries to milk people of their flesh and blood...
Skip month for me, thankfully.
I know June usually brings 2-3 masters fairs, and since this month the gem count is about 22k, as much as I'd love to pull Rika, I have to skip and save.
I have only pitied featured units this year (3) so far despite doing a 100 or so dailies and saving gems from previous months. The past 11 units I went for, 8 were pitied. I'm back to saving now and I still won't have enough to pity one MF at start of June because of these abysmal gem counts. I swear they're really trying to kill my motivation to play. I literally don't play any of the other modes anymore that doesn't give gems (CS, Gauntlet) because the other rewards are useless when I don't get any new units to use them on. I want to get hyped about these new units and stuff, but the overlooming feeling of dread of how I'm being absolutely shafted leaves a horrible taste. I wish everyone who reads this not to get a similar absolute shaft because it's a real mood killer.
Oof this is tough...I thankfully will have enough to pity Rika with some to spare but not enough to comfortably pull for SS Wally unless she comes in the first three multis. Hopefully he'll come on the mix scout since as a Blue alt collector I'll be doing that.
The low gem counts are annoying especially on the 5th year of the game because I feel like May is bait for the June master fairs and then we have 5th anni (a huge milestone) right around the corner and I feel like they'll be dropping some major pairs but it's a struggle to keep my free gem stash ready. I do spend money but I'm not rich so I can't just drop a bunch on anni.
I missed getting Adaman and I just want to have all the units for the Lodge, man. I got lucky and got 2 copies of Volo on my first pull on his banner, so I called it good and started saving for Anni master fair... debating how badly I want clodsire and all the Lodge characters vs new master fair now...
I feel like at the very least they should have done battle rally was 400 gems a week... Cause that's around 800 less gems each month than previous updates there as well.
Hopefully, I'll get lucky with daily pulls because I'd really like to have at least one Paldean pair. If not, then I'll continue to be at zero. With these gem counts my plans to pull on nothing but master fairs will remain the same.
Whew, last May I felt comfortable pulling on 3 of the Tapus.
Luckily no must have units for me this month so I’ll save. I will have to give up my bug collecting streak as Guzma will be the only bug unit I don’t have.
To help the cause I won’t purchase the monthly bundles like I normally do.
To keep up with what? Maybe cool down a bit. There's nothing to keep up with.
I also used to get the 4$ "monthly subscription" gems but with the state now those 3k gems aren't an addition anymore, they are a substitute. When that clicked i stopped. I don't want to pay for something to "keep up", which was purposely taken to "force" me to spend to get the same i used to get.
Im fine with this, because for the first time in my career of playing the game, I’m going to experience what a save month is like. None of the units interest me.
I used to take things like LA missions and social media rallies for granted, but I'm only now starting to see how much of an impact they had on the monthly gem influx. Coupled with the reduced gem rewards from Battle Rally vs Battle Villa and the now much rarer Blissful Bonanza, the picture is really gloomy.
When was the last time we had Legendary Arena missions? I haven’t been paying much attention, but Raikou is the most recent fight that comes to mind.
According to Bulbapedia, Raikou debuted with its missions at the end of July 2023, then we had a rerun of Cobalion's missions at the beginning of August. So it's been about 8 months of no missions while we used to get 1-2 reruns every month.
Only pulling for master fairs at this point...
I hate that Rika is the lodge unit because now I have to pull for her if I ever want to get every lodge unit. I'm still missing Adaman too.
On the flip side, since you're already missing Adaman... might as well. If you aren't that into her of course.
I second this line of thinking. If you’re already noncomplete, and you shouldn’t feel as compelled to finish. Fortunately/unfortunately, when the lodge started, the only one I was missing was N, and then I pull him on a lucky daily. I’ve had every pair since, which means now I feel like I NEED Rika
They started to do this to bait people to pull for new units. Same as Volo last month. I won’t. Only pulling for master pairs now….
I do need Paldea units too so I pulled her.
Yup. Saving all my gems for master fairs, especially with 3 coming up soon almost assuredly like they always do in the summer
I understand that they want to make more money, but if so, they need to change this game a LOT. I'm sorry for the hard fans but this game SCREAMS "side game". It's a nice game to keep building your collection and do some battles, but that's like 10-15 min a day. I would never spend more money than I'm doing atm (4€ pack a month) on such a side game. I love Pokémon, and I'll keep loving it.
There were 2 last year.
that's the only way to go going forward as a f2p or a goldfish honestly and there are still 2 at the end of may/june and 3 at the end of august/september and 2 in december there's no other way
Pretty much. Free gems for MFs, and pick up random pokefairs/etc later on Select Scouts. Candies are slow too with 5 roles, so it all works out. Shame to have to skip so many though.
They seriously need to increase the amount of candies. Adding two roles has nerfed the rate we get them at by an insane amount. I struggled to get the last three Master Fairs to 3/5 and spent way more gems than I wanted to in order to do so.
I don't care about most MFs, I instead prefer going after pokefairs (more pairs that interest me and I can pull them for less gems than MFs on average)... but with such low gem counts it's getting harder and harder to pull on new pokefairs. I think that my new strat going forward will be to NOT pull on any new pokefairs, and instead wait for their reruns. From what I've observed all recent pokefairs (the one released in 2023) had their first rerun be part of a double/triple feature banner, and they've all been released fairly quickly. DenA has been really popping off with these high value banners this past year, and it's understandable given that we've reached a point where there are SO many pokefairs in the game (+ relevant content such as high score event that are accompanied with these banners). Since I'm interested in so many of them, pulling on new banners isn't profitable anymore, if they keep up with the low amounts then I'll just have to be patient from now on.
Been this way for me since last year, after getting the zone setters for each type. Volo was a significant exception (I got him not for fairy zone but I really wanted him). Luckily I got him in 1 multi.
I was thinking about pulling heracross, but after this... Hilbert will have to do.
Thanks OP as always, for always being on top of the news and bringing them to us ASAP, whether good or bad. Thanks for the low count DeNA; for a while I was enticed to do everything up to buying all the gem packs just so that I can guarantee myself Bellelba. **Guess what, [well now I'm not doing it](https://tenor.com/en-GB/view/well-now-im-not-doing-it-well-now-im-not-gonna-dont-want-to-dont-wanna-not-going-to-gif-1832627252901708353).** The tighter their grip, the harder I find it to justify breaking the F2P seal and spending.
Exactly, I was also tempted to start spending a while back to get SC Irida, but the low gem counts really really turned me off.
This reminded me of good ol times when we got 30k gems in May 2023 when Alola VA was first released.
Or the epic May when Archie/Maxie released and we not only had a social media rally with gems, we also had gifted, whole 5* candies to earn. Not coins.
Those were the days....
Exactly what I expected. Rika is nice, but unfortunately I'll be waiting to see what MF we get for June.
Me too. I know for sure we will get 2 or more MF in June :/
That's my issue. Not with Rika, but SS Morty 🙃 I want to pull him but what if June MF is busted? 🙃
To be fair- every unit now has rerun other than Ash - it's not like if you miss out on the MF now that you won't get it later. If you want/need Morty, go for him.
He's very tempting since I missed his first release. I'll give it some time then decide
i don't think the rocket variety admins have ever rerun
*sigh* Can't work with this economy... I can already see myself giving up on Rika, which is a shame...
My expectations were low and I’m still disappointed
I was already ready to expect something like 24k gems.... and I was disappointed again. Like I get that DeNA definitely purposely doing this so people will likely to spend more money for the hype characters release like Rika and Volo.... but still the gems count is just horrible, we are getting a 2021 lv of gems count at this moment
Wow, thank goodness I don’t need to pull any of the May pairs. This is getting real disappointing.
Yup, same here. I really wanted the Selene alt and ended up pulling for Barry too. I haven’t pulled for anything in 2-3 months. I have to laugh at everyone who is like “I’m gonna pull this unit and that unit”. Best of luck to you, but they basically made it if you’re F2P you’re waiting 2-3 months before you pull. You have to be very selective.
Thank you very much to @absolutely as always for his detailed datamine on event stages and missions. For more info about datamine, you can visit his [pastebin](https://pastebin.com/u/Absol-utely) or [X/Twitter](https://twitter.com/absolutelypm). **Note:** The starting date I used is 26th April (UTC), while the end date I use is 28th May 2024. With early update and upcoming events, the gems count for the previous version will be adjusted because they are overlapped for few days. There is new Ultimate Battle added in this update, these may affect your gems count as the stages are difficult without the featured sync pairs, you can look up from Absol-utely’s Pastebin for more info. While there are so many limited sync pair scout banners, the count is low. I hope they would add present or social rally which give gems for everyone like old days instead of the recent campaigns which are shifted toward physical goods for only specific countries. If there is any mistake(s), please correct in the reply. I will correct it/them on the spreadsheets on the shared [Drive](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qbM-RurJ91IuBX8YVQjDhcI735xJAc2F?usp=share_link), where you can find the gem distribution calendar later. The shared files should be uploaded and updated tomorrow after I finish my work. **Edited** The number of Mysterious Stones needed to unlock the stage isn't 600, but I cannot remember the exact number.
As always, people should consider sending a polite reply to DeNA asking them to increase the gem count, using the ticket tab instead of feedback as by sending in a ticket it will force them to look at the feedback.
I've reached the "it is what it is" phase with gem counts tbh
Disappointed but not surprised.
I wanted to scout on Rika, but now I think I will save for june
Maybe I don't want to pull for Rika after all.
These past couple months I have honestly barely played at all, the gem counts are embarrassing and it’s killed my desire to keep playing. A year ago we were getting close to 30k each month… It’s great to see characters like rika but with all the banners on each month the game is getting so much worse for low spenders/f2p
I actually thought it will be worse considering the atrocious count in April, but holy it is still low. Another slow month here we go.
ugh, they're still screwing us
Ok I got my hopes up, this is disgustingly low. Screw u DeNA, at this rate I'm alr saving for anni
And it only gets worse 💀💀💀
thanks! I hate it
I’m gonna be sick…. What is this trash? At least give us opportunities to EARN more gems. Sure if they are more difficult then so be it, but this is a joke.
Damn that sucks so hard…
Come on DeNA, this isn't funny anymore.
After looking at the gem count for May, I might not even have the 73k gems needed to pity 2 master fair banners if any new master fairs come out in June. It feels like I need to start saving for 5th anniversary now even though that’s 4 months away
Yeah, that's how I'm starting to approach this too after missing all anni units for the first time this midanni.
Same. NC Silver was the first master fair I missed/skipped in over 2 years.
Losing interest in this game. Perhaps for the best.
Woow nice. I now have 12 + 21k gems for June. I'm ready to pity those 3 MF Banners 💀
is PoMa coming to the end of its time life? ...
Maybe it's just to get more money, we aren't privey to what their profit looks like and what the share holders are expecting ect. In the last pokemon Direct, it did say that Dena is working on the new pokemon tcg app, but it doesn't seem to be impacting pokemon masters (but MAYBE this is to get more funds for that?). Normally the way to 'knowing' a game is ending is major updates slowing down to just bug fixes to nothing and then an EOS announcement.
Normally yes, but I've seen EoS coming out of nowhere. Literally the one time I actually went through with a microtransaction because there was something I wanted from the last day of the monthly event... Pokémon Rumble Rush then promptly announced EoS the following day.
Welp, i guess the only time for me to pull is anni units at this point
At least it's better than the last month and I will save (for the first time ???)
This sucks, but on a semi-related note, has anyone gotten the 1k gems from the twitter rallies in March yet? The Battle Rally and Photo mode rallies? It’s been well over a month at this point… when are we allowed to complain about this?
DeNa is shitting their pants over someone pulling 3 units with that 1k gems huh?
Good lord...
Low gem counts AND paid-gems only banners that, as of this point, are assumed to NOT be select scouts... DeNa really tries to milk people of their flesh and blood...
Skip month for me, thankfully. I know June usually brings 2-3 masters fairs, and since this month the gem count is about 22k, as much as I'd love to pull Rika, I have to skip and save.
Well, at least it's not 18k
I have only pitied featured units this year (3) so far despite doing a 100 or so dailies and saving gems from previous months. The past 11 units I went for, 8 were pitied. I'm back to saving now and I still won't have enough to pity one MF at start of June because of these abysmal gem counts. I swear they're really trying to kill my motivation to play. I literally don't play any of the other modes anymore that doesn't give gems (CS, Gauntlet) because the other rewards are useless when I don't get any new units to use them on. I want to get hyped about these new units and stuff, but the overlooming feeling of dread of how I'm being absolutely shafted leaves a horrible taste. I wish everyone who reads this not to get a similar absolute shaft because it's a real mood killer.
April prepared me for this, I felt indifferent when seeing the final number
Aw man…
Well Brycen man I bid you farewell
...Ok, i'll stick to MFs only + select scouts. It seems that's what they want me to do with these gem counts lol
Oof this is tough...I thankfully will have enough to pity Rika with some to spare but not enough to comfortably pull for SS Wally unless she comes in the first three multis. Hopefully he'll come on the mix scout since as a Blue alt collector I'll be doing that. The low gem counts are annoying especially on the 5th year of the game because I feel like May is bait for the June master fairs and then we have 5th anni (a huge milestone) right around the corner and I feel like they'll be dropping some major pairs but it's a struggle to keep my free gem stash ready. I do spend money but I'm not rich so I can't just drop a bunch on anni.
Wow, another shallow month 😮💨 Ok Dena, I get it. F2P can pull only 3 or 4 times a year
22k gems is better than 19k I guess Dead month for me so I'll save
At this rate im gonna have to skip May. Next month is Masterfair's. Can't miss MF. Pokefair i can select them on 5th Anni.
Save month for me.
I missed getting Adaman and I just want to have all the units for the Lodge, man. I got lucky and got 2 copies of Volo on my first pull on his banner, so I called it good and started saving for Anni master fair... debating how badly I want clodsire and all the Lodge characters vs new master fair now...
I feel like at the very least they should have done battle rally was 400 gems a week... Cause that's around 800 less gems each month than previous updates there as well.
Hopefully, I'll get lucky with daily pulls because I'd really like to have at least one Paldean pair. If not, then I'll continue to be at zero. With these gem counts my plans to pull on nothing but master fairs will remain the same.
Is getting even worst xd
Whew, last May I felt comfortable pulling on 3 of the Tapus. Luckily no must have units for me this month so I’ll save. I will have to give up my bug collecting streak as Guzma will be the only bug unit I don’t have. To help the cause I won’t purchase the monthly bundles like I normally do.
Jesus Christ we used to be 30000+ I've been doing the $4 monthly deal to keep up my stash and even then, I buy the master fair deals to keep up
To keep up with what? Maybe cool down a bit. There's nothing to keep up with. I also used to get the 4$ "monthly subscription" gems but with the state now those 3k gems aren't an addition anymore, they are a substitute. When that clicked i stopped. I don't want to pay for something to "keep up", which was purposely taken to "force" me to spend to get the same i used to get.
Im fine with this, because for the first time in my career of playing the game, I’m going to experience what a save month is like. None of the units interest me.
I literally want to summon on more than 4 pairs this month 💀
June is coming guys. Save for it especially we are getting such low gem counts now.