Why look at the fans when they can look at their wallets.
Yeah, whales are their clear target at this point. I mean they always have, but especially these days.
A while ago, you commented how with each update Shuffle gets worse while FE Heroes gets better and it's really remarkable to compare the 2. Even though one is a strategy Gacha and the other is...a puzzle game in theory they both have the end goal of trying to get people to buy currency to get transient goods. But, even though it's making a lot of money per day, Heroes continues to make wonderful quality of life changes , take fan feedback, and add new stuff to assist. There's content clearly meant for advanced (/lucky) players and an assortment of content that even newcomers can access. Orbs (the currency) and assorted items are generalyl not in short supply for free players. THey've actively made grinding easier to do. Stamina Potions and Duel Crests (the other things you can buy with orbs) are in
steep supply; Light Blessings are rarer but due to stamina changes they aren't that needed and no super difficult content has come out that neceessitates them. Indeed the content that would be easiest to wring orbs/blessings out of often forbid it. You now get one free pull on every new banner and it takes the place of the "5 orb" first pull so subsequent pulls on that set are cheaper.
Did you know that the "starter support" stuff that Heroes ran a while back is actually a permanent thing for anyone who starts? No matter when someone starts, they'll be able to pull from the Ike/Ninian/Genny/Julia banner with its 5% 5* focus and 5% normal 5* rates. And get a free 4* Narcian. And I think maybe they still get to choose a free CYL hero?
The most whale baiting thing on offer are the limited-time seasonal banners and even those have gotten an extension from 2 weeks to 1 month.
Contrast with like anything in shuffle, even within its first year. Content is annoying. You're STILL forced to grind on the same 2 stages forever. Constant waves of hard, frankly unfair content. Items are all at once: hard (relatively) to come by in bulk, take forever to actuall make use of (especially RMLs) once you do use them, and sometimes only very marginal improvements. Escalation Battles are constantly coming, they're super long, they get in the way of doing any sort of grinding for other things. Competitions are a disaster. Main Stages have been awful for a while but now are just START OUT as money sinks.
Anyway
I'm not sure what the buffs to the type combo abilities are, but I'm side-eyeing them hard. I mentioned earlier Silvally was key to S RAnking basuclin (with items because *throws arms in air* and I have an awful suspicion that will be a consistent thing moving forward: eat through huge HP totals by hoping you get lucky on combos in fixed move stages with a ton of disruptions that you should be spending your time on instead.
Also an interesting set of new pokemon, huh? The autumn variants (hey a timely main stage addition), the boss is a legendary variant, just randomly throwing Victreebel in as a main stage after months, making
shiny genesect as the ex stage. And without Disruption Buster? Considering that ability was in from the start (& only on...Porygon-Z?) I would have thought it was made for it honestly.
Since they're actively dipping into alternates for this, that says to me they just do not want to put alolan pokemon in the main stages at all. This leaves their options very limited. Assuming the zygarde core/cell are going to be eventual events, and that he unowns stick to safari
Wooper, Quagsire
Castform sunny, rainy, overcast
Primal Groudon, Primal Kyogre
Speed Deoxys
Torterra
Empoleon
Burmy-Sand & Wormadam-Sand
Unfezant Female
Deerling-Winter, Sawsbuck-Winter
And then possibly Shiny Hawlucha, Shiny Charizard, Shiny Metagross, Shiny Xerneas &/or Shiny Yveltal.