It can be easy to forget at times, but MOBAs like Pokémon UNITE are, in fact, team games. That being the case, communication with your team is vital to success, so let’s discuss how to interact with teammates effectively and efficiently—without any unnecessary friction.
An unfortunately common aspect of any online team game—much less MOBAs—is that pairing up random people and telling them to work together often can lead to some complications. It’s one thing if you’re talking and playing Pokémon UNITE with your friends, but when asked to play a coordinated game with complete strangers that you can’t even talk to, it can get frustrating at times.
Unfortunately, this frustration often boils over into the game, in the form of players taking out their aggression on their teammates, either through angry messages in a chat box or even detrimental actions in-game. Fortunately, using what communication options are available in-game can often help prevent such an outcome by helping people understand where other players are going or what their plans are. Let’s take a look at what that entails for UNITE specifically, and how the game was designed to avoid instances of player toxicity.
Before loading into a standard or ranked game of Pokémon UNITE, players first must enter the character selection screen alongside all of their teammates. No two members of the same team can play the same Pokémon at once, and so naturally everyone inevitably scrambles to select the Pokémon they wish to play before anyone else can take it away. Beyond that, it’s generally understood that of the five members, two must go to the top lane, two must go to the bottom lane, and the remaining member must inhabit the central area. This also can result in tension, especially in the case of the central area, a very experience-heavy position that is quite popular among players. All in all, the team’s five members must solve two problems: who gets to play where, and who gets to play what character.
Normally, this is the part where one player would likely type in the chat box and say, “Dibs on Dragonite!” (or “give me Dragonite or I’ll lose on purpose” in some unfortunate cases). Only, hold on a second—Pokémon UNITE doesn’t have an in-game chat box. The game was designed for a console in the Switch, and so typing out a message doesn’t really compute like it does with, well, a computer.
Interestingly, this has both benefits and drawbacks as far as its consequences in regard to teammate interaction. On the one hand, players can’t be immature and say, “Well, if you don’t let me do this, I’ll make you lose,” or throw vicious insults at each other that are hardly appropriate for a game intended for younger audiences (or older ones, for that matter). On the other hand, it means that overly specific and detailed communication that can be beneficial to the team can’t happen easily, such as discussing synergies between selected Pokémon or ideal team compositions. This sort of give-and-take in regard to communication is a concept that game developers have to wrestle with constantly, however UNITE does take steps to address the limitations of its system.
Despite not having a proper chat box in the pregame character selection screen or in the game itself, Pokémon UNITE does provide a way to interact with your teammates in a somewhat reliable way. This takes the form of quick chats, small preset messages accessed by pressing the Up button in-game or the Minus button in the character selection screen that are meant to convey specific bits of information between teammates.
In the character selection lobby specifically, these messages allow for teammates to communicate their preferred role and position on the team. Being able to very clearly state “I’ll go to the central area” or “I’ll go with the Attacker Role” without having locked in a character yet allow you to coordinate with teammates to avoid incidental overlap. Additionally, if you wish to play a character in a way that differs from its traditional uses, such as Sylveon in the central area or Alolan Ninetales as a Supporter, then you can easily communicate such intentions so teammates do not think they need to cover those aspects of the team composition themselves.
Unfortunately, this does not prevent people from being obstinate if they so desire, but it can certainly help inform those with innocent or practical intentions. As such, it can be difficult to determine how best to resolve a situation where two players desire the same role, position, or character. Ideally, one player would simply relinquish the position and pick something else (at least, that’s highly recommended). Unfortunately, there is no way to truly solve this dilemma otherwise, which is why I highly recommend simply being polite and having multiple picks prepared in case this situation occurs, to avoid friction and let teammates play what they’re initially comfortable with.
After loading into the game, communication options in Pokémon UNITE become much more varied. Quick chat still is present, but with additional message options that can be fully customized in the main menu screen. Three are always present: “keep the pressure on”, “retreat”, and “gather here”. The others (of which you may select four) range from requesting backup to commands such as heading to a specific area or being aware of ambushes. Being able to actively decide which of these options are available in-game is an interesting approach, as it prevents all options from being available at once albeit permitting far more specific options to exist by doing so.
In a similar vein to quick chat messages, pings are also present that allow for further detailed information based on the map itself. By pressing the Minus button, one can expand the mini-map present in the top left corner. Once this has been done, the player can use the right analog stick to move a small pointer, allowing them to press the A button to create a ping relating to the location over which the pointer is indicating. For example, one can ping an ally to say that they need backup, an enemy to target them, or an objective to focus on it. One can even simply ping a location to draw attention to it. While the process of pulling up the map and using the pointer take a rather inconvenient amount of time, the pings themselves are quite diverse and useful, and together with quick chat allow for a pleasantly detailed system with which to communicate.
In addition to these methods, Pokémon UNITE provides players with an option to use voice chat during the game itself. Unfortunately, this option can only be altered once loaded into the game itself rather than in the pregame lobby, and the setting is disabled by default. However, if one has a compatible headset/microphone plugged into the Switch console, then they can actively communicate with other players on the team that also have the setting enabled. Furthermore, one can specifically alter whether they wish to hear and/or be heard by all teammates or just the ones they are in an invited party with. Even still, one can individually mute players they wish not to hear from on the scoreboard, should they find it necessary. All in all, while UNITE’s communication systems can seem a bit clunky or inconvenient to set up at times, they do offer a wide array of options for team coordination when utilized, allowing for detailed and constructive gameplay patterns within the context of a team of players.
Knowing how to communicate with teammates—that is, how to literally utilize the menus to make mutual interaction possible—is certainly useful and necessary. However, they do one no good if they don’t know how to, well, communicate with teammates—in the figurative sense of “I do this, so you do that” mutual understanding. Unfortunately, a team game can give you all the tutorials in the world, but it means very little in the scope of the “team” mechanic.
At the end of the day players must work together to achieve victory—not every ranked game can be won simply by getting thirty kills on Absol, after all. That said, it’s certainly easier said than done to coordinate with teammates in a game that’s constantly moving on five different screens. Therefore, now that we’ve gone over how to physically enable communicative channels between a player and their teammates, let’s go over some ways in which said player can interact with said teammates—both in good situations and in bad ones.
One of Pokémon UNITE’s most fascinating mechanics is the concept of evolution among playable Pokémon. It provides a noteworthy power spike that’s universally visible and simultaneously easy to understand, making it a sort of mandatory side quest within the context of the game at hand. That being the case, the early minutes of the game—when everyone that can evolve is still in the process of doing so—are inevitably quite volatile depending on who manages to evolve when. As such, it should be a very high priority to aid your teammates in reaching their evolution—and preventing your enemies from doing so. In a lane where one character can evolve but not the other, it is highly beneficial for the latter to sacrifice some early experience for the sake of the former.
For example, if the top lane duo is Snorlax and Alolan Ninetales, Snorlax can use its potent early strength to muscle away the enemy players, allowing Ninetales to farm the wild Pokémon and reach its level four evolution quickly. At that point, the frozen fox is considerably stronger in the moment, and can take its turn to bully the enemies with its newly found power spike while allowing Snorlax to catch up and even things out.
This concept of self-sacrifice for the sake of a teammate’s progression is often where early friction tends to take shape. If Snorlax takes all the experience for itself, the Ninetales is left as a little powerless Vulpix for too long, unable to protect itself well enough to secure future resources for itself. Alternatively, if Ninetales selfishly hoards resources even after evolving, then it’s in turn left with an under-leveled, highly disgruntled Snorlax that wonders why it provided assistance in the first place.
This problem is even more visible in situations where both players need equal experience to evolve. If one or both players act selfishly, then both will inevitably struggle, as one will fall behind and the pair will be less powerful as a whole compared to if they had simply learned to share. This is a very difficult concept for many players to get used to, especially in the realm of MOBAs, where generally speaking only two or three players out of five are the damage-dealers that get the most use out of experience. It’s very easy for one to fall into the trap of “I’m the carry, I need the resources”, meanwhile inadvertently crippling their partners’ progression—and angering them greatly along the way.
Perhaps the most noteworthy (and common) example of this concept is a widely lamented behavior of many players, and so I will address it here as an aside: it is highly recommended that the Pokémon in the lanes allow the Pokémon in the central area to defeat all of the wild Pokémon that initially spawn there if they do not instead try to ambush one of the lanes. To elaborate, in a standard or ranked game of Pokémon UNITE, defeating the five Pokémon specifically that spawn on one half of the central area—one Lillipup, two Corphish, one Bouffalant, and one Ludicolo—is just enough experience to reach Level 5. This Level 5 threshold is where many Pokémon that frequent the central area position find their first significant power spike. For example, many Pokémon with two evolutions (such as Gastly) evolve for the first time at Level 5, resulting in a drastic increase in their fighting capability. Even for others that don’t evolve such as Absol, Level 5 is when the first of their move upgrades becomes available, also offering a significant boost in power.
Robbing any of the initial five wild Pokémon in the central area from the player working within it significantly hampers their development in the early game if they haven’t already taken measures to find experience elsewhere (i.e. attacking a lane or defeating their enemy team counterpart). This means that they will be significantly less powerful than they should be relative to the pace of the game if no swift action is done to correct this discrepancy—such as in turn stealing resources from someone else.
By the same token, the player in the central area should not steal the initial wild Pokémon that would normally belong to the laners for the same reason. This is one of the most common points of friction that occurs between randomly matched teammates in Pokémon UNITE, and it is often incredibly avoidable. In most games, players in the central area should choose between attacking a lane early before Level 5 or farming up to reach Level 5, not being greedy by choosing both or stealing from the laners’ resources in the process. In turn, the laners should allow the central area player to farm all five Pokémon within their area if the latter chooses not to spend time seeking experience elsewhere.
Due to the existence of such specifically contentious examples as the one listed above, one of the greatest boons in-game communication provides to the players is the ability to coordinate plans in advance. This is especially beneficial when playing in a group of people you know and have a designated shot-caller, but even when playing alone one can still make useful contributions to team strategy. One of the biggest examples of this relates to the prior situation directly. At the very beginning of the game, if the player in the central area sends out the quick chat message “headed to the top path”, then they can communicate to the rest of the team that they should reasonably be expected to attempt to ambush the top lane as part of their initial early pathing. As such, the players in the top lane have time to set up the ambush, while the players in the bottom lane know that they’ll likely be without help for a small while—and have access to the central area’s bottom Corphish as compensation for this fact.
On the other hand, if the central area player sends out the message “please let me level up first” then the players in both lanes know to stick to their own lanes for resources and not expect help in the first minute or so of the match.
Another important example of this line of action is coordination around objective Pokémon. When Rotom, Drednaw, and Zapdos are slated to spawn, it’s generally understood that moving over to and beginning to set up around the objective you wish to take in advance is strategically favorable. However, miscommunications can happen in situations where teammates prioritize different objective Pokémon, disagree on the team’s current strength, or simply lose track of time and miss that the objective is spawning soon.
In each of these cases, sending out quick chats or pings ahead of time can help solidify a team’s understanding of its own members by alerting everyone to what one or more players wishes to do. If one player pings Drednaw’s area thirty seconds before it spawns, then players who agree with trying to secure it have time to reset before the objective, and players who disagree have time to send other messages in response, which in turn can sway the team all over again.
Utilizing communication in these ways can not only avoid unnecessary friction between teammates, but it can also allow players to make each other aware of their plans before even enacting them. Just make sure to give ample warning ahead of time, so that everyone has time to prepare and react to what it is you’re planning to do!
Team communication usually goes the smoothest when the team is doing well. Players are in better moods, nothing drastic needs to be done to improve the current game state, and trust is easier to find between teammates. It’s when things are going poorly, however, that many (but notably not all) disagreements in decision-making tend to occur. When a player (or players) on your team makes a call that you disagree with, it can be difficult to decide what to do. Do you ignore the seemingly erroneous call and focus on what you believe to be a better strategy, or do you follow your teammate(s) anyway for the sake of team cohesion and strength in numbers? This dilemma of “correct versus coordinated” is one that players encounter often in team games such as MOBAs, and while it’s important to stay humble and recognize that we won’t always be correct with our decision-making, it’s also vital that one learn to identify when a call is or isn’t worth following.
If a player dives in alone one versus four, it’s (usually) not the best idea. What do you do then? Do you follow them in the hopes of salvaging the play, or do you leave them to perish while you try to salvage value elsewhere on the map? Of course, these types of scenarios are always incredibly specific and subjective, and as such there’s not one specific set of rules to follow to determine whether a play or call is correct or not. There are a few ways you can judge in the moment whether or not you should be expected to follow a poor decision—or if you have any reasonable choice in the matter.
First, the number of teammates involved in the decision is an important distinction to make. If one of your teammates is trying to make a call to group up somewhere but the other three refuse to support them, then you can reasonably assume that you shouldn’t heed that call. Likewise, if all four of your teammates are pinging a coordinated strike and are moving into position to do so, then you’re likely better off supporting them even if it’s a questionable decision. Of course, not all matters will be so extreme, and many will involve a smaller number of players rather than the whole team, making this factor a highly inconsistent one.
Another concept that can alter one’s decision is risk versus reward. If a player dives in at an improper time, but the consequences of the play not working out are just twenty points’ worth of goals and two kills, then one can somewhat afford the risk of trying to help save their teammate. However, if baiting the team into a losing fight would result in the loss of Zapdos (and likely the game as a whole), then one can reasonably hesitate on taking such a large risk. When evaluating a call, try to consider what it is you get out of the play itself if it goes well, as well as what the opponents receive if it goes poorly. If you don’t think the ratio of rewards versus risks is a favorable one, then perhaps consider looking for a consolation prize to take instead.
Finally, when determining whether to follow what you see as a bad play, it’s important to consider what else you can do instead. If your team is losing a fight at the first Drednaw, for example, then you could either try to jump in and salvage the play, or you could pivot and try to take down Rotom instead as a consolation prize. This concept of “cross-mapping” is very important in MOBAs; finding conciliatory value in the wake of an unfavorable play is paramount to avoiding an enemy snowball. As such, if you feel that there’s something you can do to mitigate the damage of the play going wrong (scoring a large goal, taking a minor objective, etc.), then taking such actions is often a better decision than simply hoping you can salvage an already bleak battle.
On the other hand, if the amount of value you can salvage elsewhere is pittance compared to what you know you’ll already lose anyway, or if there’s nothing of truly noticeable value available for you to take at all, then trying to contribute to the team’s effort to turn the situation around is often the better choice. Many a coach (including mine in the past) has stated that they would prefer to see one coordinated unit committing to a bad play, rather than a fragmented squad with no cohesion at all. Either way, it’s important to remember that getting angry with teammates won’t solve the problem, so have an open mind and a short memory. There’s always the next play, whether it’s in the current game or the next one!
When all is said and done, communication in team-based games like Pokémon UNITE is complex, difficult, and almost entirely subjective in nature. In the case of UNITE specifically, the game does provide some interesting and inherently non-combative ways to coordinate between teammates, albeit some being a bit clunkier than others. However, in-game pings, chats, and messages can only do so much on their own; it’s up to the players themselves how they utilize them in relation to their teammates and the game at hand.
While the possibilities are literally endless, so too are the choices one can make—including what words that they use. No matter your skill level, your play style, or those of your teammates, always remember to keep the game level-headed, and to try and maintain a positive mental attitude so the game stays fun for everyone. At the end of the day, a game is meant to be an enjoyable experience, and while winning is often more fun than losing, losing as a team is much more inviting than toiling away in toxicity.
