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>Auto Battles take place through a new feature called Let's Go that lets players send off their partner Pokémon to explore the nearby area, during which they can take on wild Pokémon in their own fights
>Auto Battles (as the name suggests) take place independently of the player's involvement. This means that, while you can stick around and watch your Pokémon battle another, you can also walk away and explore the area.
>You can have one Pokémon out and walking with you in the Paldea region’s great outdoors," the website reads. "When you have a Pokémon exploring with you in the field, you can use the 'Let’s Go' feature to send that Pokémon off in the direction you indicate. The Pokémon you send out then independently picks up items in the area and even has Auto Battles with nearby Pokémon.
So yeah, it's not even "the game plays itself for you" or anything like the auto-battle system other JRPGs have had for years, way to blow up over nothing. It's more akin to the "send a Pokemon out on a job" that Sword/Shield had, except you can see what it's doing now. And from the sounds of it, you can't use it when fighting other trainers anyway, much less human opponents, only wild Pokemon out on the field.
Also considering it's 100% optional I don't care. The idiots who still complain about the exp-share even have a better argument than people complaining about auto-battle since that's something you can't turn off or not use, and I could not care less that exp share is a thing.
And no, this is not a sign that auto-battles will replace normal battling. On top of how this is nothing like what auto-battles in JRPGs are normally like, that would completely destroy having tournaments that The Pokemon Company loves to brag about having. A large chunk of their last Pokemon direct was dedicated to tournaments, they aren't going to destroy that source of revenue and PR.
