One issue that Trainers in Pokémon Go face - and likely have faced since inception - is waiting out the raid lobby timer when participating Trainers are ready for battle. While the period of two minutes (120 seconds) may be deemed necessary for raids with larger groups and/or remote participants for them to enter the lobby and prepare, it might be a bit too much for raids with smaller groups and fewer participants, such as a Level 1 raid that should be doable by even just one person. The solution for the latter case might be a "ready system" for raids to accelerate the lobby timer and get them started right away.
Such a system could (be considered to) be inspired by a similar "system" in Pokémon Unite. In that game, after participants have selected Pokémon for battle, they then tap the "Confirm" button and they will be marked as "ready" with a check mark; when everyone including those on the opposing team are as such, the selection timer is cut to 10 seconds - but still allowing for last-minute changes - to start the battle quicker. Its selection timer is not as long as the raid lobby timer, obviously because the selection scope is not as great, but the system still manages to be implemented, and that may be an incentive for how it would or could be implemented in Pokémon Go.
As for that implementation, a similar time cut could be implemented, but it may be better that participants would have to give consent to the time cut by confirming that they are ready, by way of a button. The reason is that in Pokémon Go, when the lobby timer reaches 10 seconds, no new non-remote participants may enter the lobby, and new ones are considered to start a new lobby. In that respect, a time cut to 20 seconds may be preferred in order to give a slight leeway to any new entering participants who just make it in during that time, who are regarded as "ready" regardless as they join.
To make sure that the time cut only occurs as intended, a participant could be named as the "host", who will make the final confirmation to initiate the time cut after everyone else confirms. In the case of a single-participant (solo) raid, the participant would obviously make the call to confirm by oneself. The confirmation should also come with a message to prevent accidental confirmations by any participant, including hosts themselves. It is clear that even the control process itself has to be controlled as well.
It has been a long time since the raid feature has been introduced, which itself has gone through a lot of changes over time. Yet one of the things that hasn't changed is the waiting time in the lobby for a raid, which may be both sufficient and excessive. A "ready system" similar to that of Pokémon Unite, though with the necessary caveats and considerations, may help to balance the needs of Trainers participating in raids to make sure that everyone is all set to battle, or at the least get things going to reduce the downtime during raids and make use of the uptime to battle in them.
One year ago: Be the Winning Team
Two years ago: Looking for Good News
Three years ago: Nominating PokéStops
Four years ago: Envisioning More Local VGC Tournaments
Five years ago: Slowpoke Moments
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