Season 10 Go Battle Day dust bonus is a huge downgrade and isn’t worthwhile at all

Let’s do a little calculation.

Dust bonus is basically 4 * the dust reward and not end of set rewards. For most people, it translates to 4 * the dust from the first box in basic rewards. That box normally rewards 900 dust. 4 * means it is now 3600. That’s a bonus of 2700 dust per set. Which translates to 54k dust for all 20 sets. That’s all you get that’s actually a bonus. Unless you win 5/5. There’s minimal difference between winning 1/5 and 4/5 in terms of dust, which is the difference in end of set rewards, 375 dust per win.

We can generously argue that the bonus is also the fact that we are allowed to play 20 sets. In that case we can count 15 sets as the bonus at 3600 dust per set + end of set rewards winning an average of 3 per set. The bonus becomes 2700 * 5 + 3600 * 15 + (3125 * 1.3 ) * 15 = 131250 dust as a bonus for playing all sets. Which is 157k dust total.

The more realistic scenario is that people would play and win 1/5 and quit all 20 sets trying to maximize dust and minimize effort which would net you 120k. Which translates to 142k total. Note how the difference is very minimal compared to the above player trying hard and winning 3/5 in all sets.

That is unless you are winning all 5/5 which is nearly impossible unless you’re tanking. Which brings us to the thing everyone has been talking about. In Niantic’s dumb attempt to discourage tanking, they actually encouraged it further. People used to tank in Go battle nights to farm Rare candy. Now they do so to farm dust. Because the 5th reward is the only one that’s worthwhile.

This may seem like a petty point to be upset about. I mean they are giving us >120k dust for free. Why be upset at all? Let’s compare this to past seasons. I’ll do the 1/5 and 3/5 scenarios.

In season 7, a winner of 1/5 over all sets would get 3500 * 3 per set. Which translates to 140k bonus dust. Or a bonus of 192k, using the generous method of calculation. Which results in 210k dust total. The dust reward from the first box is an extra 18k. That’s 228k total dust.

Winning 3/5 would net you an extra 45k dust. The difference is much more substantial. Resulting in 273k dust total.

What about those who win 5/5 in all sets? in terms of total dust, in season 10 they would get 5k * 20 + 10.8k * 20 = 316k. In the past seasons (pre season 8) they’d get 15k * 20 + 2.7k * 20 = 354k. Even tankers are losing dust on this deal :p.

Moreover, the original Go Battle Night was an excellent time to use premium passes with 0 risk. You’d get double the end of set rewards + bonus dust from the 3rd box. Now premium passes are worthless unless you gamble that you’d win 3/5 minimum to get the dust reward. Which I would add isn’t worth as much as getting the end of set rewards multiplied.

Honestly, I thought we’d move forward in terms of dust rewards, not backwards. Required dust gets bigger with new Pokémon releases, new shadows, new legendaries. Not to mention XL Pokémon and all the new PvP leagues. As it was, getting 250k wasn’t enough to power up a single Pokémon to the max + double move. Now we’ve moved to new territory where GBL dust events are cut by quite a margin. We didn’t even count double dust rewards pre season 8 with triple dust boxes which aren’t worth nearly as much. To add insult to injury, Great Battle Days/Nights are long events that require a big time investment. They are free in terms of money but they need time and effort. Niantic promised we’d be moving towards a future with more trust, better rewards, and more communication. Yet here we are.

TLDR: if you win 3/5 today in all your sets, your total dust is ~54% what it used to be pre season 8. Not counting premium passes or star pieces.

Let me know if you find any errors in my calculations. I apologize in adavance, some of this was done hastily. Thank you!