Introduction of Gigantimax feels rushed, and treating Gmax starters as 6* is jumping the shark.

Gigantimax pokemon should have been a "capstone" of Dmax raids. The introduction of 1star tiers first for entry level pokemon makes sense, and 3star as the first challenge that requires either investing moderately in some pokemon or fighting in groups also makes sense.

But we've only had 2 of those, and the natural next step would have been to release a few more before either the fist DMax legendary 5star raids, OR the first Gmax pokemon as intermediary raids before legendary pokemon start dropping:

1* - Entry Level. Most first-stage pokemon that can evolve go here.

2* - Intermediary Challenge, for the weakest Gigantimax pokemon (Pikachu, Eevee, Meowth) who are still first-stage pokemon.

3* - First Moderate challenge, most final form pokemon go here, with exception of pseudo-legendary first-stage pokemon.

4* - First Major Challenge, all the remaining non-Legendary gigantimax go here.

5* - First Massive challenge, all legendaries go here, just like regular raids.

6* - Ultimate Challenge, reserved for Gigantimax Legendaries (Urshifu, Melmetal, and Eternatus unless they want to make it 7* for extra specialness)

If they wanted to break the "only 4 players" model that was so novel for Dmax battles, they should have reserved it for 6* battles a year from now. Jumping us straight from 3 to 6 feels needlessly punishing, forcing us to find 10+ others so soon undermines part of the unique nature of Dmax raids, and of course releasing Gmax versions of pokemon we just caught a few weeks ago feels utterly invalidating to our time and effort.

Despite not liking Dmax in the main series games, this feature had the potential to add unique and interesting new play to the game. If they really wanted to be user-friendly, they could have made it so that releasing a Dmax pokemon gives you an item that makes another pokemon of the same species Dmax capable, and then done the same thing for Gmax pokemon, so that we'd still have to catch the new releases but then could use our old favorites or already powered up pokemon instead of them.

As it is, the whole thing has been so badly handled that I'm extra glad I have a "don't spend money on games while they treat players antagonistically" policy.