Since this morning, the long-awaited trading feature is finally available in Pokémon TCG Pocket. However, many players are facing a rude awakening when they look at the details for trading.
How does trading work? You can only trade cards with people on your friends list. To do this, you send a request and later receive your desired card. Additionally, there are specific rules that you must follow. For trading, you need 2 currencies:
- You need trading tokens if you want to trade cards of a rarity of 3 diamonds or higher. To obtain them, you must trade in duplicate copies of cards. For 3 diamonds, you need 120 trading tokens, for 4 diamonds it’s even 500 tokens, and for 1 star, you’re looking at 400 tokens.
- Just like in Wonder Trade and events, there is also stamina for trading. It regenerates over time or can be replenished with hourglasses to shorten the time until the next trade.
Especially the trading tokens are causing a lot of frustration in the community. Many players have a problem accessing enough trading tokens.
Almost simultaneously with trading, a new expansion for Pokémon TCG Pocket is being released:
Players believe: The T in TCG stands for Expensive
What is the problem with the trading tokens? As many users write in the Reddit forum, the number of cards that must be destroyed for trading tokens is far too high. To trade a single card, multiple cards of a higher rarity must be traded in.
Reddit user jetc11 gives the example that for a 3-diamond card, two 1-star cards must be traded for tokens. The rarity of the two types of cards differs by 2 levels. To trade a 1-star card, you even need 5 copies of the same rarity.
This would make trading too expensive for many. Reddit user hurtbowler claims to be a whale, meaning a player who invests several hundred or even thousands of euros into a game. Even he finds that trading is too expensive and that Pokémon TCG Pocket wouldn’t see another cent from him.
What do other players say about this? There are numerous threads on Reddit where the trading feature is accompanied by memes. A Reddit user was excited about the new feature but was disappointed when he saw the costs.
- User Jimanji03 thinks the T in Trading Card Game is unnecessary and says: “Just rename the game to PCGP at this point.”
- User Tidus1117 still has hope: “I believe this is a mistake. They will likely fix it after seeing the feedback and complaints from people.”
Other users also have the problem of needing duplicate cards for flair, which allows cards to be equipped with special effects. Therefore, there are likely many players who no longer have duplicate copies because they spent them on flair.
At the same time as the trading feature, new cards are entering the game. The stars of Collision of Space and Time are Dialga and Palkia, the cover Pokémon of Diamond and Pearl. All the new cards available with the new expansion can be found here: Pokémon TCG Pocket: All new cards from Space-Time Smackdown in the list
