The Second Global Mission for Pokémon Sun and Moon Has Been Revealed

The original mission wasn't too ambitious if you ask me. It's just their insanely stupid registration process buried very deep within the game and basically no explanation about what it can be used for is the problem. Should be scan the stats when you connect online, boom.

Yeah. The registration process is convoluted. It should be one button in the game. Or something automatic.

Also, they haven't done a good job of communicating why you'd want to participate. Festival coins? I'm on the 3rd island and I have no idea what festival coins are and why I'd want them. So I'm not going to jump through the registration hoops for something I don't understand. If it was, "Everybody work together and you all get (insert rare Pokémon here)," there'd be a better turnout.

The first three comments are a great indication of what a mess this system is. Too convoluted by about a mile.

@vincentgoodwin Festival Coins are used to purchase unique items and stat boosts for your pokemon in the festival plaza. It's a fun diversion for a little bit, but nowhere near as fun as Super Training was in XY.

@PrincePeach92
It's accessed by scanning 10 QR codes a day. A Pokemon like say Deino will appear in the island your currently on - usually the first grass you enter.
http://www.serebii.net/sunmoon/qrscanner.shtml

I'm glad that the goal is lower and the payout is higher, but... For Island Scan, the goal is still way too high. You have to scan 10 QR codes to even use Island Scan. So this goal now has even more roadblocks to reach than the original did.

I've got about 100 hours in my game and I've used island scan only twice. Going out of my way to try and help with this goal I could see myself getting maybe 3 a day in.

I'd love to contribute, but I've still got so much to do on DQ7. I cannot allow myself to play Pokemon until I'm done with Dragon Quest. Sorry! (I do want to contribute!)

@Moon If you really want the Festival Coins just jump on and do one Island Scan. Honestly I think that's all most people will do anyway, since it's not the easiest feature to use...

I bet you that we're not going to reach the goal.

Whats Island Scan? How do I even unlock it? What does it do? Also, how will people not linked to Pokémon Global Link be counted?

As with everything online at Nintendo it's overly complex and convoluted...

Ha, the comments don't give me much hope for this one either. I hope components like this will be more robust in the next games, Global Missions are kinda half-baked here.

So, what kind of QR codes do you have to scan? From the Pokemon website or something?

@MitchVogel Global Missions are awesome when done correctly, lile they are done by almost every other company.

Info on Game Sync

Info on Island Scan

Nearly 500 QR Codes for Island Scan

They seriously put QR codes in the game? I didn't realize that it had been in development since 2008.

Never bothered with QR stuff here, does this basically make it easier to complete the Dex or something?

Hate to be Mr. Negative but this is honestly my least favorite Pokemon game .

@KIREEK I wouldn't say it's the worst, but it's probably the most disappointing entry for me. So many features were dropped from this game, and honestly a lot of the new features are either just bad, or difficult to access.

I miss hoard battles, triple battles, secret bases, SOARING, Super Training... etc, etc...

I don't have high hopes for any better turnout. I certainly don't plan on bothering. Shame Game Freak felt the need to take out features that were well liked before in exchange for a bunch of half baked gimmicks.

@greengecko007 That's one thing I've never understood about this series. They rarely keep features from game to game; stuff is introduced and then never seen again. What's the point in that?

@MitchVogel I think the response someone involved in development (I don't remember who, could have even been Masuda) gave a long time ago was essentially that they want each game in the series to feel unique. So, rather than continuously building on the series based on what is liked and disliked, a lot of stuff gets scrapped regardless.

Admittedly though, some things get added or removed in the wake of major fan outcry. I'd be willing to bet trainer customization came back in Sun and Moon because they saw the outcry over its exclusion in ORAS, which they even responded to.

I've played through the whole story and never heard of Island Scan lol

Also why do I need a separate apokemon Global Link account when I already have a Nintendo account. What a garbage online system.

Meh, I'm indifferent to this global mission stuff. Just want to complete the dex which I've haven't tried completing since silver and gold.

Nintendo online has always been bad but Pokémon specifically is even more backwards. Honestly isn't Pokémon about "connecting people" So why is the online so messed up. Remember in the DS games when there were like 8 different ladies in the Pokémon center to talk to about online stuff. And now we have festival plaza yuck

At least we got 5 special codes from the Pokémon Company that give twice the number of "points" as a usual scan.

With these, you can get 2 Pokémon a day!

@ProfessorToad Because the system was create back with Black & White in 2010 and The Pokémon Company wont let go of their precious Global Link.

@Luna_110
You can scan any sort of QR code. Go to google images, search for QR codes and scan away

@Tsurii This system is so convoluted, and isn't explained well in game. You can't blame people for causally playing the game instead of taking the time to read up on what the global link or these challenges are.

I don't even know what this island scan thing is, though I think it is something to do with QR codes. Since I'm still playing through the main story, I haven't yet read through all the secrets in the game. Yet, something like this really shouldn't be a secret though.

This is a bit silly, they reduced the goal by 100x the previous one but I wouldn't be surprised if maybe 1%-10% of the playerbase have even used the Island scan

They should just count everyone who catches Pokemon using Island scan while connected to Wi-Fi even if they don't have global-link account and don't sign up for mission(I mean when you use the Wi-Fi I'm sure you agree to them collecting data anyway).

These would be reasonable goals taking into account the total playerbase but it seems they're filtering out too many players.

@Tsurii It's not that registration is necessarily impossible for the average gamer if they applied themselves, so much as the game giving no real indication of the purpose or even existence of half these features through standard single player mode, and little real incentive to go through with them even if known.

While there are advantages to having nearly all the communication features bundled together in the Festival Plaza, it fundamentally feels like it was designed by a different team and then added as a Pokedex app with little explanation. The whole thing feels a little surplus-to-requirement and... odd - and then to bury a registration process for an event inside a building in a world in an app that never gets properly introduced or explained, is just... not asking for uptake.

Plus, the incentive is only worth something to people who want Festival Points anyway.

I like the idea of Global Missions, but the uptake really is the result of painfully misguided design decisions reaping what they sow.

Anyway, to stop being a negative nancy, I actually really like S/M and much prefer its inclusions to the things that have been left behind. On the whole.

If you don't want to endlessly hunt for QR codes, this page will randomly generate one with each refresh.

http://qr.hellfroze.net/

If I hadn't already beat the game, gotten all the legendaries already and completed the pokedex maybe i'd be more tempted. However FF15 calls my name every night instead right now .

Gotta continue scanning them animal crossing qr codes then >_<

@Mega_Yarn_Poochy This is SUPER helpful! Thank you!

@Tsurii It's not difficult if you're well informed. In truth, because of how the learning process for the event is structured, it's most likely to miss out on most of the player base, and incur revealing questions such as "Why would I want the reward, anyways?" Or even the question in the third comment here, "What is Island Scan?"

Never assume your entire player base is going to consist of geniuses who go out of their way to learn everything. Expecting your player base to quickly learn a process that's this convoluted is poor design. So the real question should be, "What the hell is wrong with game designers, event planners, and programmers this generation?"

I'll just stick to the core game. This crap is just noise.

oh yeah I forgot about this.

@Yorumi I recall even really old online games like Phantasy Star Online including in-game access to setting up one's account, receiving event messages, and using a relatively simple mission setup process available in every lobby. And that was from 16 years ago now, on a 1GB sized game.

It can't be more difficult to make the signup process for these global missions a simpler affair that's all accessible in-game, than it is to require looking away from the in-game interface more than once. It makes me wonder what the designers/programmers/planners were thinking.

Just checked the numbers today, we're around 40,000. I'm not optimistic. They f* it up by requesting a Game Sync, which many have no idea how it works. We might fail once more.

@Tsurii The thing is, most people don't even bother about Festival Plaza features, and the game does a poor job on explaining why and when you should visit that place. It's a poor system with great features buried very, very deep.

Now we're over 50,000. IF (and a big if) we can gain 10,000 for every 6 hours, and as there are 290 hours left, we would have 290/6*10000+50000=533333... oh no, I'm not optimistic either!

To everyone, don't just use any random QR code or generator. Use the one Mega_Yarn_Poochy provided as that's the only way to halve the wait time, giving you two scan chances instead of one in a day.

Tap the QR SCANNER in the menu by the way, in case anyone was wondering

It's ending tomorrow and I'm pretty much sure that it will end in another failure. Why? Because they chose wrong time for this global mission. The goal is only at half so far (500k from 1m) and I doubt in less than two days we will reach the goal when so far we hardly managed to reach the first half. I missed the first mission so I was excited about this second one, but sadly... even though I tried to contribute as much as I could (and I'm still trying to) there is very small hope of reaching the goal before the deadline. When the mission started I was out of city spending my winter holidays without wi-fi connection so I couldn't contribute even if I wanted since this requires internet connection (at least for linking the darned gamesync account), that's why I think they chose wrong time. I know in Japan they don't celebrate Christmas (well at least not like in USA or Europe) but this is global mission >.> I think most people like me were out of internet reach and were spending their holidays not home...