Technologies

Pokemon TCG Pocket’s Deluxe Packs Prove That Pack Points Are Outdated

The pack-opening pity points system is pitiful, and the new Deluxe Packs exacerbate its biggest flaw. There’s an easy way to improve it.

Pokemon TCG Pocket is more than a mobile game: It’s a money-making machine. The virtual trading card app raked in more than $900 million in its first six months, eclipsing even Pokemon Go’s revenue in the same post-release time span. As it turns out, fake Pokemon cards are just as much of a hot commodity as the real thing.

People love ripping open card packs, hunting down ones with their favorite illustrations of fan-favorite Pokemon. It feels great to beat the odds by pulling an elaborately inked full art or a shiny secret rare. But it really starts to irk me when I’m missing only one or two cards from a set and I can’t get lucky enough to pull them out of a pack.

Pokemon TCG Pocket has a «pity points» system that’s supposed to make this feel less terrible. Every time you open a pack, you earn five pack points, which you can directly trade in for a card of your choosing.

You can trade in 35 points for a common card, but if you want to get the rarest cards from a set, they could eat up 500 points, 1,250 points or even a whopping 2,500 points each. That means you’d have to rip open 500 card packs in order to earn a single copy of one of Pokemon TCG Pocket’s rarest cards.

It sounds absurd (and it is), but that’s to be expected for a free-to-play game, especially one where the developer makes money by encouraging players to pay for extra card pulls. My real big issue with pack points is that they’re restricted to the expansion set you earned them in.

For example, I have 315 pack points for the recent Secluded Springs set, which is an expansion I’m missing a great deal of cards for. I also have 700 pack points for the game’s first-ever expansion Genetic Apex — but those points are locked to Genetic Apex, and can’t be used for any other set. I’ve accrued hundreds of pack points, but they’re essentially useless to me because they won’t help me complete the sets I’m still missing cards in.

Pokemon TCG Pocket expansion sets are released on a monthly basis, which means no one really has time to earn enough pack points for a rare card before the next shiny slate of cards is dangled in front of your eyes. It propagates a desperate sense of FOMO that I’ve criticized in the past, and the latest expansion set has exacerbated this issue more than ever before.

If Deluxe Packs are time-limited, what happens to my pack points?

In a sense, the latest Pokemon TCG Pocket expansion resolves the problem of hunting down missing cards from previous sets. The time-limited Deluxe Packs include cards from every previous Pokemon TCG Pocket expansion set, which means you can round out your collection while chasing the newest and rarest full art cards. You’re even guaranteed to pull a valuable Pokemon Ex card from every Deluxe Pack, which seems like a pretty good deal on the surface.

But there are looming issues with the Deluxe Pack Ex set that dim the celebration that should be surrounding its release. For starters, players only get four cards from a single Deluxe Pack Ex pack, whereas any other set would reward players with five Pokemon cards.

The worst part of this launch is how it interacts with the pack points system. Since pack points are locked to the expansion set you open, Deluxe Pack Ex pack points will be functionally useless once the set goes away at the end of October. I’ve opened over 50 Deluxe Packs and have nearly 300 pack points, but there’s no way I’m going to accrue enough of this currency to unlock any of the set’s rarest cards.

The launch of the Deluxe Pack Ex expansion has rubbed salt in a festering wound — and the worst part is that there’s a very simple solution to improve the pack points system across the board.

Universal pack points are the simple solution

Instead of locking pack points to any one set, they should be an account-wide currency instead. Every time you earn pack points, they should be added to one large pool that you can use on any of the in-game card sets. That way, players wouldn’t have to feel a manufactured sense of guilt for ripping open packs from older sets.

While it’s customary for gacha games to have a pity system that guarantees a certain reward after a certain number of pulls, it’s by no means a requirement for these games to have these systems. In a sense, I’m grateful that the pack points exist in Pokemon TCG Pocket in the first place.

I think we should always argue for a more consumer-friendly experience in modern gaming. Overhauling the pity system so that pack points can be used universally across all of the in-game card sets will make the game fairer and give more players a real chance to get the rarest cards.

It creates a greater sense of parity between free-to-play and paying players, and it might even cause some people to spend more money on pack openings to boot. Universal pack points are a win-win for players and DeNA alike.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Nov. 15, #888

Here are some hints — and the answers — for the NYT Connections puzzle for Nov. 15, #888.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle includes some tricky words. If you need help sorting them into groups, you’re in the right place. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Yum!

Green group hint: Grammar time.

Blue group hint: They win Oscars and Tonys.

Purple group hint: Think DMZ.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Enhance the taste of.

Green group: Punctuation marks.

Blue group: Kinds of actors.

Purple group: ____ zone.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is enhance the taste of. The four answers are flavor, salt, season and spice.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is punctuation marks. The four answers are colon, dash, period and slash.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is kinds of actors. The four answers are character, film, method and stage.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ____ zone. The four answers are buffer, comfort, time and twilight.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Nov. 15, #418

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle No. 418 for Saturday, Nov. 15.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a fun one. Not really sure what the yellow category has to do with sports, but OK, whatever. If you’re struggling but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Keeps your head warm.

Green group hint: Nothing but net!

Blue group hint: College signal-callers.

Purple group hint: It’s a bird! It’s a plane!

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Headgear.

Green group: A score in basketball.

Blue group: First names of SEC QBs.

Purple group: Super ____.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is headgear. The four answers are balaclava, cap, hat and visor.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is a score in basketball. The four answers are basket, bucket, field goal and make.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is first names of SEC QBs. The four answers are Arch, Diego, Trinidad and Ty.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is super ____. The four answers are flex, Sonics, speedway and star.

Technologies

Older Pixel Phones Score a Handy New Feature: Call Recording

Google says the feature is also coming to non-Pixel phones, though the specific models are unclear.

There are some times when you need to record a phone call — whether it’s for school or for legal purposes — and Google now offers this to more Pixel users. Google is rolling out call recording to older Pixel phones, and even some non-Pixel phones which use the Google Phone app.

Both Pixel 9 and Pixel 10 phones already include the AI-powered Call Notes function to generate summaries of your conversations. According to Google, the ability to record calls is now coming to Pixel 6 devices and up.

Read more: Best Pixel Phones of 2025

Pixel users with Android 14 software or later, and the latest version of the Google Phone app, can access Call Recording settings by going to Phone > Settings > Call Recording. Users can set up the ability to always record calls, as well as record from certain numbers.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

When in a call, users can press the record button at the bottom of the screen. The other party will then hear a message saying that the call will be recorded. Recordings will be kept indefinitely or you can choose to delete them after seven, 14, or 30 days.

While Google’s support page says the feature is available to non-Pixel phones with Android 9 and up, the feature does appear to be device-dependent. I attempted to use the feature on two recent Samsung Galaxy phones — one with AT&T and one on T-Mobile — and confirmed that the «Call Recording» option doesn’t appear.

A representative for Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Apple iPhone users can also record calls.