Moon/Sun Calling for help in Sun/Moon

[Marc]

At first I didn't really mind the "calling for help" feature some wild Pokemon take advantage of, but it's starting to really affect me when my objective is to catch Pokemon (no ultra ball for better catch rate yet).

Maybe it's because I'm using caught Pokemon more than my starter for less OHKOs ><

What do you guys think about the feature?

 

[Leaandro15]

I think it's really annoying Marc and that it's just like a horde of Pokémon just that one of the Pokémon receives more energy. Then it gets super strong and it faints you Pokémon. Also I think you should you should train your Pokémon more dude and level them up because if your Pokémon's level are low then you might get a chance of losing and then you'll have to start all over again.

 

[3905]

I encountered a bonsly. I wanted to catch it.
I got it to read health. it summoned another bonsly. Fainted the first bonsly and got the other one to red. It called another bonsly. Repeat this process about 5 times. The last bonsly proceeds to call a Sudwoodo. I ended up catching a Sudowoodo after a solid 10 minutes of killing bonsly.

Same thing happened when I tried catching Cubone except that I actually got Cubone in the end.

 

[4771]

just some things u might not know about the battles:

• the more pokemon that show up, the more likely they are to have high iv's, up to a max of 4 perfect iv's
• the only way in SM to get a pokemon's hidden ability (outside of transfers/breeding) is through these battles
• every time another pokemon shows up, the chance for the next one to be shiny increases slightly.
• after a few pokemon show up, the ev's gained from each one doubles, making ev training a bit easier

so while they might be kinda annoying early on, they can definitely be helpful once you've beaten the game and just need some good pokemon to use :T

 

[J9794]

just some things u might not know about the battles:

• the more pokemon that show up, the more likely they are to have high iv's, up to a max of 4 perfect iv's
• the only way in SM to get a pokemon's hidden ability (outside of transfers/breeding) is through these battles
• every time another pokemon shows up, the chance for the next one to be shiny increases slightly.
• after a few pokemon show up, the ev's gained from each one doubles, making ev training a bit easier

so while they might be kinda annoying early on, they can definitely be helpful once you've beaten the game and just need some good pokemon to use :T

Dem mechanics, I'm loving dem. How checked are them?

And about the question of the thread, I have mixed feelings about it.

On one hand, it makes harder to catch pokemon for the reasons you mentioned and also because the summoned pokemon can be an enemy of the one who asked for help. Really. I was trying to catch a carbink, it called a sableye, and sableye fainted carbink. What's even worse, that sableye seemed to be impossible to catch, I got its HP to red and starting throwing great balls to it. It escaped in the first try. Every. Single. Time.

On the other hand, it makes training a bit faster if your pokemon doesn't OHKO because you get an infinite supply of pokemon to beat without having to wait for the battle to end and look for another battle. Also, it makes it a bit more challenging, because wild pokemon are usually too weak compared to the trained pokemon you carry, so a 2 vs 1 makes the things more fun.

 

[Samuel_1802]

Just like @J9794, I have mixed feelings about this mechanic, specially because I'm not done with the main game yet (really taking my sweet time wih the game, almost 30 hours in and I haven't entered Mallow's trial). On one hand, there's all the nice perks you get from chaining SOS Battles, something in particular is that you can find evolved Pokémon (I was in a battle against a Bagon and it spawned a Lv.18 Shellgon, I looked at Serebii and it turns out you can also find Salamence at Lv.10-13 through this method on Melemele's Route 3, even before you battle Hala) but on the other there's the difficulty in catching a Pokémon since (for some reason) we're still unable to aim Poké Balls with multiple Pokémon on the field.

 

[J9794]

Just like @J9794, I have mixed feelings about this mechanic, specially because I'm not done with the main game yet (really taking my sweet time wih the game, almost 30 hours in and I haven't entered Mallow's trial). On one hand, there's all the nice perks you get from chaining SOS Battles, something in particular is that you can find evolved Pokémon (I was in a battle against a Bagon and it spawned a Lv.18 Shellgon, I looked at Serebii and it turns out you can also find Salamence at Lv.10-13 through this method on Melemele's Route 3, even before you battle Hala) but on the other there's the difficulty in catching a Pokémon since (for some reason) we're still unable to aim Poké Balls with multiple Pokémon on the field.

You can get low level fully evolved pokemon? That sounds really cool :O, I think I'm gonna abuse this calling for help mechanic more

 

[3905]

I had another fun experience with this mechanic today.
I found a wild Elekid. Got it to red.
It summoned a pokemon. Out of all the pokemon it could summoned, it chose Chansey.

You can get low level fully evolved pokemon? That sounds really cool :O, I think I'm gonna abuse this calling for help mechanic more

You can, but you would have to deal with a near impossible catch rate.

 

[4771]

Dem mechanics, I'm loving dem. How checked are them?

i basically copied it from serebii, but 1 of my friends who's already beaten the game tried them out and they seemed right to him :T
there's also some pokemon u can only catch from the battles, like mareanie and snorlax

 

[3905]

i basically copied it from serebii, but 1 of my friends who's already beaten the game tried them out and they seemed right to him :T
there's also some pokemon u can only catch from the battles, like mareanie and snorlax

I'm guessing my Chansey would fall in that list as well.

 

[3823]

I'm guessing my Chansey would fall in that list as well.

Yep! I caught a happiny today and it was an SOS only pokemon. (Took me a while to realize that, but hey)

 

[Aura Knight]

This sounds kind of like how enemies 'call for help' in Earthbound, but I agree, this mechanic can be exploited with the proper circumstances. Since I want to be a better battler, I will definitely use this method. But with anyone with other goals such as catching all the Pokemon, yeah, this can get very annoying.

 

[Mistral]

I'm a little annoyed by it, but I'm otherwise indifferent to it. I know some people that are really annoyed by it, but I'm just treating it as an opportunity to gain some extra EXP for my Pokemon, annoying as it may be. When I get to the point where I'm just catching Pokemon for the purposes of dex completion, I imagine I'll get a lot more annoyed by it since I'll just be trying to catch Pokemon, not battle them for EXP. (Though I guess I'd be battling them for EXP too since I'd need to level up other Pokemon. I dunno.)

 

[sai_kanzen]

It's a fun way to get exp without having to start a new battle and it's been said to give a higher chance for shinies.

 

[AyoGG]

At first I was really annoyed by this feature, but I've grown to like it, especially post-game!

Chains from 30 onward already guarantee 4 IV Pokémon (although DexNav didn't need a chain this long, sneaking up on the Pokémon takes much more concentration)

It's also great for EV training as the Pokémon called for help give out twice as much EVs. Not to mention the shiny chance (I found a shiny Cubone on the 38th chain )