Linking article as proof of claims https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-news/earn-greninjite-in-pokemon-legends-z-a-ranked-battles-season-1-october-2025
Some megastones, including at least the stones for Delphox, Greninja, and Chesnaut, are exclusively locked behind various walls as they are limited release items as a rank reward for competetive play.
-They are TIME SENSITIVE (each being sequentially avaliable for the first 3 reanked seasons, the first being just over 2 weeks long which is wildly short) which punishes people for not getting the game soon enough or playing during certain times in what is primarily a single player game
-They are SKILL LOCKED as they require you to get to a certain rank (K) during the season, which is ridiculous for a game marketed for kids to have to do this in competition with minmax adults who we know will play this too [edit] it's just more tedious if you get poor results which is mostly just compounded by the season time limit. This is the least of the three limits
-They are PAYWALLED as you need to compete online to rank which means paying for nintendo online.
This is absolutely absurd to have these things that were shown in the release trailer to be locked behind all these walls in a childrens game.
Edit: yall are so stuck on point 2 that you're ignoring the other parts and it feels disingenuous.
by SolasLunas
44 Comments
[deleted]
I would not go as far to say it’s skill locked. It may be ranked but you still get points even if you don’t come in first. I got rank K in like less than an hour.
I don’t like the system they’re implementing either, but some silver linings are that you can’t lose rank, and these mega stones are supposed to return later on. So even without skill you can grind out ranks, and there’s always a later season to obtain them. Not that those make it good. Just slightly less annoying.
Am I missing something? How are people already having maxed out teams on launch day? Especially at bottom ranks
Edit: Ranked battles are so fucking miserable. Just filled with hacked mons and no lifers. I hope whoever decided to put mega stones for a limited time behind this steps on legos for the rest of their life
I’m just nervous. I’m waiting until Christmas to play and I hope I can get chestnaughtite
And i am still waiting for my preorder copy from nintendo store to arrive..
Just play the game until most of your mons are around Level 30, fully evolved and you have a few megastones. Thats like halfway through the game. From there it should not take longer than an hour to reach K
It’s near impossible to lose rank if you play like you have fingers. Just be a vulture and steal kills, everything syncs down to 50 so you can do it insanely early. A friend of mine had it as soon as he unlocked ranked play. I got mine in an hour.
As for NSO, you get a free trial of 7 days. Start it 3 days before the current season ends and get the next one as soon as the season shifts. You get 2 free
I got the Greninja stone by using my starter, the story Absol, and a Dedenne. Took half an hour. You can still rank up even if you lose as long as you do tasks that give you points. Just steal kills and stay mega evolved. It’s so chaotic I just won somtimes by button mashing. Not really skill locked unless you just don’t know how to play the game.
And it says in game that the stones will be redistributed in future seasons so it’s not time locked.
The online battle club is pretty easy. Most people either bring a starter or a pokemon like gyarados and lucario. Also for the love of god dont play at night thats when the savants play
I don’t understand why they couldn’t have done something as simple as giving you an item as a reward that you can then use to select any of the stones. Would have skipped all this FOMO bullshit.
But, nope. This is what Pokemon has become now. Sad to see.
I’m 100% sure that they will make some Greninja, Delphox and Chesnaught distribution with his megastone in the future like ralts now, but the problem will be the same.
The backlash around the ranked megas is 100% warranted IMO. Ranked has been the only area I’ve had issues with bugs with inputs just not working at times. And the fact the lowest player can lose points, it’s like, so if someone is not good at it, they just don’t get to mega the 3 starters? It should not be a thing, and even looking at the stats, they clearly made those 3 some of the strongest new megas too. The FOMO is totally unnecessary.
Used the alpha gyrados and took maybe 15 min to get the stone.
Wait the the megastone is locked after 2 weeks? I don’t get my switch 2 for like another month 🙃
Paying $70 for a collection game only to be told that you cannot collect something because you were late to the party is total bullshit. It’s one thing to lock out a cosmetic shiny Pokémon through limited time awards, but it’s a completely different topic when it’s a competitively strategy being removed from you completely.
A game cannot be competitive if there is no even playing field. It makes me so sad that they implemented AAA slop mechanics into Pokémon.
There’s isn’t a skill check, for now at least. Maybe at the start of subsequent seasons.
Rank K sounds daunting but after playing for 30 minutes I got it. Mind you, I just unlocked megas. Got a mega lopping, taught it the three elemental punches + powerup punch, and rolled through everything not named gardevoir and meganium
We had the same problem back in XY release with blazikenite being a launch window mystery gift, I’m not surprised they did it again
This is the #1 reason I skipped. This is the first Pokemon game I haven’t played at launch (which would be a lot harder to deal with if I didn’t have Time Stranger to keep me occupied lol.) If I can’t use Mega Delphox in my KALOS playthrough what’s even the point? I’m glad people are enjoying the game, I might get it down the road if they make them available through a different method. But for now I’ll just wait for romhackers to do their thing and add in the new megas so I can play with them that way
Honestly this is my biggest issue with this game too. The FOMO and the paywalling is what gets me.
Why not bundle a free 3 month nintendo online membership with purchase of the game? That way people freely try the new online ranked system, and maybe they’ll like it and *want* to buy a membership after the 3 months are up?
Why the fuck aren’t they tied to some in game mission? Are they dumb?
So when you say ranked, you mean online pvp? Look, I know there has always been a player v player side of Pokemon since the beginning, but goddam I have no interest in that. Still thinking about getting the game but I’ll likely pass on these megastones.
We knew this and it’s why I didn’t buy the game
Getting rank K isn’t even that difficult, you get points even if you lose. it’s a bad practice I would agree, but Nintendo has been doing this for generations.
As someone who never plays any game online due to spotty Internet, locking content behind it like this essentially guarantees I’m less interested in your product. I wish Game Freak would pay as much attention to their international customers as they do to those in super-connected Japan.
They really messed up with hiding Mrga Stones behind the event.
….wow. “you have to compete against other humans for the fomo’d megastones” is truly an unpleasant addition to the series. Just escalating bad vibes.
Normally when there’s a “you have to do this in such and such amount of time” thing in an mmo, it’s a cosmetic thing not a mechanical thing. Having a mechanical thing locked behind PVP, and time limited PVP at that is a really bad decision.
The longer people wait, the harder it will get because iframe abuse and meta strategies will come out while casuals drop out of online. It’s just like f2p games where the first few seasons f2p can win some but the longer it goes on, the harder it is to win anything because people will buy the newest meta (dlc and other shit advantage)
I can’t help but imagine they’ll be released eventually beyond rank matches, and this initial release is to get people to try out the new mechanic(s). That’s not excusing it – it’s still annoying af.
Completely warranted backlash, but they’ll be a mystery gift in the future. It’s just a matter of when.
Dont buy the game.
Speak with your wallet
The only language they understand is money
Just played the ranked mode, unless you do nothing in the match you get enough points to increase your rank even if you get 4th. Anyone, no matter the skill level can eventually get there
I’m not worried. Let’s keep complaining about it, they will change it or have mystery gift options to get it.
It’s so unbelievable to me that it will stay this way, this is just an incentive for people to get on the competitive train.
For casual players it will become available later, I absolutely guarantee it.
Btw playing ranked and its a whole nother mess imo. It’s basically a free for all, no strategy or anything. Just spam your attacks and hope for the best. If you get below second place you will get points deducted so try and do other stuff like getting a high effective attack rate or something to at least scale out the negative points.
Never have I ever had less fun in a Pokémon game and I’ve played since the Gold Edition on Gameboy Color.
if you look at the in game post it says they will be rereleased down the line
I did this in the morning, took me 30 mins max to get to rank K
Here’s what i’ve noticed people use:
Charizards, Feraligators, Greninja, Gardevoir, Camelrupt, Ampharos and Abomasnow
Easy counters to many of these
Out of like maybe 10? or less battles, ive only run into the above
AOE moves are amazing. Dazzling Gleam, Surf, Earthquake etc
It took 8 total matches to get the stone it really isn’t that hard lol
They called me crazy and downvoted me for saying that this reward system was just a paywall for every fan
-If you’re a kid you have to compete with hackers
-If you’re a casual you will not experience the megas
-if you’re a fan you have to grind with hackers
Absolutely absurd.
Man I want to play this game but I just keep seeing reasons not to
Yyyep. This is why I’m not buying the game lmao.
This is as bad as the time gated events with items like Oak’s Letter
It’s not bad. I got to K within about 30 minutes. There are some matches where you get destroyed by Mega Gyrados or Salamence… but I got by with an alpha Victreebell, Ferraligatr and Gardevoir from mystery gift
I’ve been playing the older games lately instead of ZA (completing pokedex across multiple games has taken a year and a half so far). It feels nice to earn rewards and progress at my own pace. Today, i just got two shinies in Pokemon sun (Masuda Sandyghast and a shiny Klefki from Pelago.)
I got ZA. Played a bit. and have gone back to the older stuff. I’ll play ZA when i get around to it AND enjoy it at my own pace.
It’s not that hard to get, but people using hacked mons on week 1 is pretty annoying. People running around with fully optimized competitive mons already… Not to mention you can get spoiled if you want to get it before you finish the story.