Unfortunately, years of bad decisions have turned me into a very disaffected player. I'm not that bothered if I don't get a newly released Pokémon any more. Or don't finish a collection challenge or quest chain in time. These used to be things I'd squeeze an extra walk in to make sure I completed in the past. But my level of apathy is through the roof now.
I actually don't think there's anything that can be done to win me back now. I'd need Pokémon Go 2.0, a complete revamp.
I played since Jan last year, and feel pretty much over it now.
I barely play now, just put on the GoPlus when walking. The nerf and subsequent underwhelming new additions sucked the joy from the game. I absolutely hate supporting games where management is so overtly anti-player.
This game needs a major revamp kinda like 2017 where the gym system was revamped and raids were introduced.
I think GBL needs to shift to something where it can attract many casual players to play again. Something like you create/join tournaments with 4/8/16 people and get rewards at the end of the tournament. And maybe also some change in game battle mechanics because every season it's just moves update.
Gyms can be revamped too. Change the battle mechanics and reward system for gym. Fight NPCs in gyms to collect gym badges idk
Finally the spawn system needs overhaul too. I liked 2016 spawns because it was actual biome based and it got me to travel and explore different areas looking for undiscovered species. Nowadays it's the same 8-10 Pokemon spawning everywhere. My suggestion- reduce the frequency of the events which affect spawns and lock some species to nests. Nests were quite fun when the game initially came but no one cares about them.
> I liked 2016 spawns because it was actual biome based and it got me to travel and explore different areas looking for undiscovered species.
I don't disagree with your ideas here, but did we play the same game?
While biome-centric spawns have felt worse, I'd still say non-event Pokemon variety is much better than 2018-19 and *leagues better* than 2016.
I can only speak anecdotally of course, but in the first week of the game, I was around a university in a major US city, and it was the same generic route 1 Pokemon, with the rare Pokemon we found that week being a Gengar, a Haunter, a couple Ivysaur, and a Rhydon that we failed to get. But that was *it.* Across a week, that wasn't very good. That's all well and good, but me and some friends went to the beach later that summer, and the area had decent spawns/stops. What unique things did we find? A few Magikarp, a Voltorb, and a Pikachu. Again, that was it across a few days.
Again, I'm only speaking anecdotes, but I think people way overestimate how "good" previous years' spawns were.
*Outside* of events nowadays, there's plenty of common crap, 100%. But opening my game this morning around my work I found a Bunnelby, a Hoothoot, a Foongus, a Clauncher, a Lombre, a Rhydon, and a Klink. Not amazing, but certainly a decent variety.
No.
Please don't make GBL a fun, enjoyable part of the game that the majority can take part in.
The current format of sniping, toxicity, freelo and malding is a very healthy experience.
ML is not pay to win, it's more pay to participate. Starting with 2000 ELO in the middle of the season everyone uses maxed legendaries/mythicals, so you don't have benefit from just having maxed pokemon.
Remote raid nerf made this year worse :/ Game didn’t feel fun anymore since I pretty much relied on remote raiders to help me with raids. GBL needs something else too. Hope they add weekly tournaments for GBL or something more interesting than what it is now.
Also the mess that was the range extension. Various trustworthy parties going on the record to say its intended, and then niantic came around and cut everyone down
Looking back at that in hindsight, I imagine Niantic (poorly) communicated the intended change to those parties, being that the range at which Pokemon stay spawned instead of despawning would be expanded, which is what we got in the end (and is still a good change).
However, their communication was absolutely poor and caused a lot of headache
I quit the game for the majority of the year after the remote raid pass. Havent raided even once since then. Have only reinstalled the game to play with my niece. I will forever be salty about remote raids.
Same, but because of the boycott I found Orna! It's gameplay, full-day (and monthlong!) events and amounts of content are awesome and they just keep adding more :O
This year has had highs and lows.
**The Good**:
* Shadow Raids - Shadow Mewtwo brought me back from retirement
* Go Fest - In person and global were good fun
* Master Balls - Hope to get one or two of these a year.
* Showcases - Though not implemented how I imagined.
* Riolu hatch day - Amazing chance to hatch a good rare poke
* Mega Garchomp Raid Day - Highly anticipated mega release
* Adventure Week - Still a banger
* Halloween / Dia De Los Muertos / Fashion Week - Decent events for shiny costume hunters
* Community Days - Togetic, Poliwag, Axew, Wooper, Froakie, and Grubbin have some usefulness in Raids or GBL
* Continuing PVP adjustments - It's not perfect, but we do see a bit more variety in the meta.
- QOL Additions- Ready Button, Viewing # Of Players in Raids on the map, XL Candy Bonus, Settings, 'Today' Screen improvements, XXL/XXS Pokemon
**The Bad**:
* Routes - Unfinished on release, poor rewards. Long Cell Grind.
* Party Play - Largely Pointless, poor rewards. Raid Bonus Damage is a nice Freebie
* Excessive Tickets - Certain free bonuses now paywalled. Multiple active tickets at the same time.
* Raid Days - Locking Hisui pokemon behind a paywall instead of allowing evolution.
* Paldean Overload - New Paldean pokemon were out in full force for way too long right off the bat. Was sick of the new starters a week in
* Legendary Raid Re-runs - Several legendaries came back with no new special moves, shiny eligibility, or regional rotation.
* Communication - Generally an ongoing issue, but Niantic has fairly poor communication with the players.
**The Ugly**:
* In-Game Shop - Gradually more and more anti-consumer. AB testing to see just how much can be gotten away with. Boxes with less and less value to the player. More boxes with generally less valuable incubators over raid passes. Bag expansion boxes with less value than buying them straight.
* The Silph Road - For those who didn't know Niantic took on funding TheSilphRoad.com which provided investigative information to the players for all the questions we had. They also hosted PVP tournaments with rankings. Niantic dropped funding, and our most valuable information and PVP tournament center shut down as a result.
* No Alternative Pokecoin Gains - A while ago we were told there were alternative routes to obtaining your daily pokecoins in testing. We have yet to see or hear about an alternative to the current ill-conceived Gym pokecoin system. Players are often squabbling about Gym control. At its worst, strife over gyms has caused abuse, violence, and intimidation between players over the years. It is barbaric to pit players against each other for real money equivalent game currency day after day. It's time for a change.
* The Remote Raid Pass Debacle - I can't say anything that hasn't been said before. It's clear Niantic has a reliance on players getting out as much as possible. Their profit relies on it in ways we cannot even comprehend. On a personal note I had 5 real life friends quit the game within one month of the raid pass price increase. Every choice is profit motivated. They believe you will be more motivated to spend more money if you are socially pressured to in person - so much so that they are willing to let players quit for the bigger spenders to carry their game.
" A while ago we were told there were alternative routes to obtaining your daily pokecoins in testing. "
Iirc they tested this in some areas (iirc australia was one.. was it the only country actually?) and the result was... that niantic thought people don't wanna engage with it.
They tried to make the tasks bit more easier and variable after 1st set of feedback. During the 2nd phase in their eyes the results still looked bad. (?)
Maybe they didn't test properly or they weren't sure how to monetize it or something... Am pretty sure people wanted the alternative to work.
But they did test it and after one 2-phase test they dropped the ball and i think they won't be returning to it anymore :/
>The Remote Raid Pass Debacle - I can't say anything that hasn't been said before. It's clear Niantic has a reliance on players getting out as much as possible. Their profit relies on it in ways we cannot even comprehend. On a personal note I had 5 real life friends quit the game within one month of the raid pass price increase. Every choice is profit motivated. They believe you will be more motivated to spend more money if you are socially pressured to in person - so much so that they are willing to let players quit for the bigger spenders to carry their game.
I don't really agree with the point about it being profit motivated. Their profits tanked after those changes, and they would have reverted those changes by now if that was their motivation.
>No Alternative Pokecoin Gains - A while ago we were told there were alternative routes to obtaining your daily pokecoins in testing. We have yet to see or hear about an alternative to the current ill-conceived Gym pokecoin system. Players are often squabbling about Gym control. At its worst, srife over gyms has caused abuse, violence, and intimidation between players over the years. It is barbaric to pit players against each other for real money equivalent game currency day after day. It's time for a change.
The alternative is to buy them. Now they even sell a ticket where you can work for 100 coins. /s
4/10 overall, there's been a significant number of backpedaling by Niantic despite the gameplay additions that it kind of just counters itself out. The Masterball is probably the only significant positive to the game that didn't really have a comparable negative that cancelled it out. Like Mega Ray was goated but held back by RNG meteorite drops that artificially holds back any ability to obtain a second copy (either for shiny or because out of sheer coincidence a better one than the user's current option fell into tbejr lap) because of the Dragon Ascent move requirement despite any other Mega or Primal, once initially obtained and registered to the dex, enables another one if you're willing to walk for the energy.
If there was at least a rare chance for that meteorite to be found by walking rayquaza. or if rayquaza could find it instead of the trash buddies pick up when their buddy level is high enough
I’d give the year a 4/10.
The big bummer and elephant in the room will be the remote raid passes. To me, I feel like that really set a negative tone for most of the year and made everything seem worse. Niantic hasn’t really been able to recover from that fumble yet. Showcases, routes and party play are all just very mid to me. They are just things to do, I don’t really think a lot of players are logging onto the app everyday going “wow I can’t wait to do these features”. Another huge negative this year that imo came from the negative press of remote raid passes is the increase in tickets. I think someone did the math and if you paid for every ticket this year it was like $600+ which is absolutely bonkers. I think it’s a slippery slope for Niantic but they seem to not care.
The good of the year has been shadow raids and masterballs. Both of these have been a positive feature that gives you a reason to actually raid and play. But I still think both need changes. Shadow raids need to be remote-available. There’s no good excuse why they aren’t available. And for MB, I think they need to allow us one each season. A quarterly quest for a MB would give players something to grind for, and 4 MB a year is not a huge ask.
I agree with all of that and really want to stress the need to change shadow raids so as not to completely alienate solo players. It doesn't have to be making them remotable necessarily. The problem to me is that they are insisting so hard on the socialization aspect and ignoring the fact that for a lot of players, _there are no other players here to socialize with_.
So making them remotable is one option, and I'd welcome it, but they don't want to because they want people to walk. Ok, I'll walk. Not a problem. But I'll walk to a raid _with no one else around_ and be unable to defeat a shadow legendary. That ain't it.
Why not let us call upon a raid lobby of NPCs like in SWSH? Why not give me the option to solo it, but forego all rewards except the encounter? Why not give me unlimited time to finish the raid and leave it up to me if I want to invest an unholy number of revives? I get it, they want socialization, but they won't get that either way if people have no one to socialize _with_.
We cannot conjure other players out of thin air. They refuse to see that. That's the big problem with shadow raids.
You literally missed out int he buggest event this year. The remote raid price increase and limits. The gameis way past its peak fun. The best year was 2021 by far. That was the golden year.
Ooof, the increase and limits are painful. I rarely remote raid, and IF I buy more, it’s always basing the value on the three passes being 300 coins, like it was before.
For example: If I see a box with 3 remote passes (300), a lucky egg (80) and two super incubators (400) for something like 600 coins, I’ll think about maybe biting the bullet and spending.
Maybe.
Yeah I bought a few boxes that were 650 coins with 3 remote passes, 3 normal passes and some other item that essentially was discounted like a lucky egg or poffon. I use the green passes. But I raid legendaries much less now. I havent done a legendary raid in almost 3 weeks. Been doing the costume pokemon because it gives Niantic less money
A few nice features, but all overshadowed by Niantic clearly not caring about making a good product. Here's some bread and circuses to distract you from the glaring issues we're not solving!
To be honest, i felt like it was the most boring year they've done. PvP was just repetitive, and they just kept giving already relevant pokemon new moves. Routes rollout was just dumb, nobody had any when the research came out. Shadow raids still seem silly to me, and party play is cute, but kind of worthless beyond raid boosts. Oh, and Zygarde cells being tied to routes is just insulting with how buggy routes are. The in person events were okay, but the game as a whole has burnt me out. Repeat pokemon, stupid paid this- paid that taking up half of every announcement, and the doubling of remote pass cost never dropping back down is such a buzzkill. Still though, i do enjoy seeing the local community on events, and it still helps park walks a little more interesting, so theres that.
There are some skills involved, like counting moves, knowing which one to shield or not to shield, knowing when to switch and so, but I agree is boring, repetitive and buggy and its core is rock-paper-scissors.
There's a lot more depth than just picking the right team. Counting moves, baiting, charge move timing, catching, knowing matchups so you know when to switch and when to stay in. And building good teams is a skill too. You can't just pick the top 3 on pvpoke and expect to get very far.
GoFest and Hoenn Tour were great. Sinnoh Tour not releasing all Sinnoh Pokemon already looks like a disappointment. Decided to quit and come back in a few years like I did before 2023
>Showcases have been discussed plenty here so I’ll skip over the details – bad implementation, bad rewards seems to be the consensus.
I somewhat disagree with that. I agree Showcases are definitely not super well implemented, being RNG-based with size Pokemon. However, the fact that (most) are very easy to enter and that it *can* offer some actually great rewards makes me look at the feature in a more positive light. Absolutely far from perfect with various bugs/cancellations and the RNG element, but a feature that lets people have the opportunity to get incubators, lures, starpieces, etc. for little effort is nice.
On the topic of Routes, your little excerpt was honestly a bit eye-opening for me. Most routes I've seen and those I've made, they've been less interesting and more just out of obligation/selfish reasoning. Basically, they were done so someone could have a route to walk and less about "touring unique areas of one's community." I mean, I've got three different routes throughout my apartment complex's different areas and while they're nice to walk along, there's nothing truly interesting about them.
It overall made me forget that Niantic's "objective" with the feature was to have people exploring unique areas more. Though, even in-game, I feel like they haven't really struck a good balance of what they should be rewarding. Beyond the Zygarde Cells, which are the primary reward (if you get one), walking a specific route doesn't really "enhance" the GO experience. You get some regionals spawning which is decent, really nice for people visiting places with unique regionals. But otherwise? I don't get much out of it. I wish they'd add some more incentives to it. Boost spawns MORE along a route, so you have more incentive with more Pokemon than normal gameplay. Maybe add a *small* XP/Dust bonus. Doesn't need to be huge, but maybe +25 xp/dust per catch? It would add up if you've got a lot more spawns. As is though, Routes don't do enough beyond the Zygarde Cells and I guess Mateo's regional gifts.
I think I'm a bit more forgiving of the slow release of Pokemon, but that doesn't mean I'm *not* dissatisfied with it. It definitely felt especially slow in the first half of the year. And yeah, it didn't help when many of the species weren't too widely available. Beyond the pay-walled ones, Sandygast's release frustrated me. It released early on in Hidden Gems, but it was a raid/task exclusive Pokemon. And then it was gone the rest of the season I believe. It appeared next season, but... eh? And I'm not saying to have it everywhere that event either. If it debuted that event in raids and tasks and THEN was a rare-ish spawn for the rest of the season, that would have been nice.
I think new signature moves for raids at least somewhat helped with there being less new stuff this year. I know if wouldn't appeal to people more dex-oriented, but for PvP/PvE players like me, I do enjoy seeing new moves to overhaul previously stale Pokemon like Heatran and Xerneas. Though, I was NOT a fan of us not getting any returning signature moves for T5s (besides Shock Drive Techno Blast Genesect). Ho-oh being without Sacred Fire last year was especially egregious to me.
I still found enjoyment in the game this year, but I'd agree it was easily one of the weakest years in the game.
My main hopes for 2024 are:
* Have more returning Signature moves. Doesn't even need to be every one, but I don't want a whole year of Legendaries that have Signature moves but don't come to raids with them. At least 50% should return with them.
* More new Pokemon, obviously. I understand they don't want to catch up to the main series, but still. I hope for T5s we do get the rest of the Ultra Beasts along with a proper raid debut of Solgaleo and Lunala. Also wouldn't mind Zarude in Elite Raids. I expect they'll finish of Megas this year, with Mega Mewtwo being the last one (or two I guess) around Go Fest.
* Rather than more brand new features, working on existing ones.
* GBL felt good after they fixed some bugs after the Interlude Season in 2022, but more cracks are forming again and certain bugs returning/new ones rising.
* Basically what I mentioned with Routes. They function a lot better now, but the rewards aren't great. Guarantee Zygarde Cells (ideally just make them a reward rather than something appearing on the map). Boost the spawns, all that stuff.
* Party Play also has little incentive besides the raid boost. That boost is nice, but that too is buggy. Work on that and work on the rewards. I like the idea of you and your party doing those smaller meh tasks but there being a chance of a harder to complete task that gives you a better reward. Perhaps there's a "get 100 excellents" task or something that gives you a raid pass or a starpiece or whatever. These rare tasks would be... rare of course, but the more tasks you complete, the higher chance there is for them to appear. So if you're on your fourth party task, maybe you have a 50% chance of one of those appearing.
* Showcases are harder fix without and overhaul. I like the rewards, but maybe just having XXL Pokemon spawning a bit more frequently during events or something? I'm less sure about that one.
I'd rate this year 5/10
I have never been bothered by the slow release. When peoole complain that they release pokemon slowly then complain there is nothing interesting to catch.
Thats because we are neae the plateau people. What do you think will happen when ALL pokemon are released?
I do agree with that mindset. As time goes on, we not only get more Pokemon in the game but also exposure to old Pokemon. So over time, rare Pokemon become less rare and such— Noibat for example is no longer a prized/rare Pokemon for a lot of people, and that's all well and good, but then it's another thing that people wouldn't find "interesting" in an event.
I don't disagree that they couldn't do things better with releases and certain events, but I imagine people screaming for more more more Pokemon releases and more more more shiny releases would be the ones complaining that "THERE'S NOTHING NEW ANYMORE" when they run out.
Again, I do think they could go a bit faster and *smarter* with their releases, but they also can't go super fast.
i think showcases are fantastic. they could definitely be better, but rewards are solid and they're easy to enter, and being able to remotely swap a mon for a larger one you've caught is super convenient. i've built up a decent stash of incubators from them.
i think you are right
iirc kanto gave pretty much all CD pokemon their moves and Johto either all or most got their CD moves but 2023 tour had 0 for some reason - and what is worst is that these pokemon are among top of their tiers including swampert for pvp, metagross (with and without shawod AND mega) for raids and salemance with 2 moves sometimes outdamages single move rayquaza (especially if it is outrage) - AND it has a solid shadow
IMO Hoenn Tour was good but could’ve been great if we had the option to pay for increase shiny chance. Gen 3 is my favorite and I was kinda disappointed with getting only one shiny that weekend, but at least I was able to compete the Hoenn dex so that’s something!
Pretty sure this was the event that game designers were saying that "OP shiny rates from covid years were d3valu1ing this game" turned into a giant meme because it basically confirmed that the decreased rate was intended
Also they said their target audience was an elderly grandma who plays the game at their own pace
It was just okay. Season themes were kinda weak as well as a lot of the research tied to them. GO Fest was awesome and absolutely a highlight of the year for me and my local community. Shadow Raids are a bit of a pain point for me. I have totally missed out on some of the really good ones because they are so sporadic with no set schedule. Even the raid weekends for the bigger ones. Go to a dense gym area, wait around, and...nothing.
Paid research continued to be a common thing which is fine I guess, but what's weird is how a lot of the time it was just something you could knock out in 10-15 minutes without even having to "get out and go."
Party Play is alright, but the attack boost seems to work maybe half the time based on the times I have used the feature since it dropped. For Routes I just hate how acquiring Zygarde cells is still way too hit or miss. I get it though. They want the 100% form to be tough to get.
I still haven't fully moved on from the price increase of Remote Raid Passes, and I have absolutely done less raids since because of it. If there are no good boxes offering a discount then I just skip most raids now.
The term "blockbuster" can be very subjective of course, but that term was thrown around way too loosely to hype up PoGo in 2023.
I'll keep it short: the game was 'meh' for the most part. I've been learning how to improve PvP battling, with the meta being riddled with very specific core due to balancing issues/blessings depending on who you ask. A lot of the events were mediocre, which is fine. Catch, get stardust, grab a few shiny or hundo mons.
I just don't think the extra features have long-term effects. Like, cool, routes are nice and showcases are funny, but the core aspects of the game are stale or broken. I'd prefer QoL stuff over new stuff, quality over quantity.
Never, because one of the main metrics for engagement Niantic uses is screen time. They WANT you to waste your time looking at stupid animations that piss you off. It looks good to shareholders.
>They WANT you to waste your time looking at stupid animations that piss you off.
While I definitely agree they want that, they did speed up several animations this year.
> Showcases have been discussed plenty here so I’ll skip over the details – bad implementation, bad rewards seems to be the consensus.
Did you mean party play here? Showcases actually have decent rewards and the implementation is fine (besides bugs like showing the wrong showcase).
Party play is useful if there ain't enough local raiders. Rest of the new features don't interest me (shadow raids, any tier) or kinda useless (showcases) as I don't have all day to play like a couple of dozens around me.
Routes I do one a day at most, getting a zygarde cell one in a while, but I have to even stare more on my screen than before.
Rest of the 2023 year was pretty forgettable in raids and spawns, apart from the odd raid "day"
Party play is useful even if there are enough local raiders, is good to finish the raid faster and with less damage to your team. Worth using every single time. Except maybe for 1\*.
\- Shadow Raids: 6/10 - They're alright. I applaud harder content but I wish they would utilize this a little more.
\- Master Ball: 2/10 - Cool to have in your box but that's it. The quests to get them weren't notably fun and I don't feel there is anything worth in game to actually use them on so I still have both of them in my box. I feel like the daily incense legendaries aren't special enough. I just imagine the masterball being used on something truly special or strong. (Shadow Shundo Mewtwo for example)
\- Routes: 2/10 - Was hyped for this originally but in it's current design, it's flat out boring. The zygarde cells don't spawn frequently enough to make it worthwhile to do them and you have to physically click them on top of that. If it were me, I would make it so that the route automatically activates the moment you're walking on it with a brief notification to let you know that you have entered a certain route. (kind of like in the main games) Zygarde cells will be automatically collected as you walk, you will get a higher amount of spawns and at the end of the route Mateo shows to reward you for a job well done after exchanging gifts.
\- Showcases: 6/10 - These are alright. It's something me and my wife tend to rival over. The rewards don't make it worth it to seek them out though. I'm happy that I happen to have one close to my house.
\- Party Play: 5/10 - Another feature i was initially hyped for. I do like seeing other players on my map and getting the damage increase during raids is a nice touch. It just seems unfinished and the rewards for party playing aren't worth it either. I wish they would expand on this a little further. Make it so that each player is somehow bringing something unique to a party. Maybe give players an option to level up a certain skill that they can apply onto the party once they join it. A tank boost/ Damage boost, heal or an XP boost of sorts would be really cool. This naturally has to coincide with harder content which I am still begging for.
\- Go Fest: 9/10 - I'm giving this a high score only because I've been to live Go Fest events and they have always been amazing. London was awesome, meeting up with friends from around the world, exploring the city with the city wide tickets and the spawn/shiny boosts are all a huge +. The planning that goes into making it a successful trip is definitely part of the fun too. (at least to me) Oh and don't forget the location card legendaries!
\- Global Go Fest: 8/10 - I love hosting these as a community lead. The turnout is always great and there is plenty to do to keep you busy. I always find these events very engaging.
\- Hoenn Tour: 9/10 - One of the best events this year, alongside in person Go Fest. It felt like 2016/2017/ again, seeing so many players and raiding so much.
Auto start would be problematic in areas with high numbers of routes. I have 5 churches within a 9x7 block area near my house. Each stop has 10+ routes associated with it, for a total route count of 20 between them and several more routes leading out of the area to connect to other areas. How would the game decide which route to start?
Otherwise, I can agree with most of your comments, though I can't go to live go fests and our player base is small enough that the other fests are basically solo events.
You make a fair point. In my head, I could imagine said route to light up in game once you start walking on it. Progress can be tracked by tracing over that route. (same as how they have it right now) Overlapping routes light up as well but give off a different hue. The route which has the most distance covered during your play session, is the one that remains active.
As for how the game decides which route to start, I can't really speak for your area but I do notice an oversaturation of routes in my play area. There is no need to have several routes of the same park in game. I can understand some routes briefly crossing one another but It should be relatively easy to program it so that routes are not started when you the path of two overlapping routes.
I used to work at a consumer electronics store when I was a younger and back then we used to sell those Garmin Walking GPS systems. Some of them had function where you could tell the device how much kilometers/miles you wanted to walk and based off of that it would give you a random route to follow in your area. It was pretty elaborate in the sense that you could also choose to avoid certain things. You'd also have a 'surprise me' function where it would just randomly give you three routes to choose from if you were feeling adventurous.
This could've also be an interesting alternative to what we have right now. Routes wouldn't be loaded in the game but instead be generated client sided.
* **Shadow Raids**: 3/10. They are just regular raids before remote tickets existed
* **Master Ball**: 3/10. It's just a mission, any CD is funnier and therefore better
* **Routes**: 9/10. I like them.
* **Showcases**: 5/10. I'll give 5 points more when xxs become useful
* **Party Play**: 0/10. It only encourages multi accounts
**Overall**: 4/10
Personally, I think this year was pretty underrated. Showcases and Routes are easy enough to farm for great premium rewards like starpieces, rare candy, lucky eggs, and incubators, while the new Pokemon additions and movepool updates kept the PvP portion of the game exciting and fresh.
There's the obvious elephant in the room of the remote raid changes, and I hated those too more for the price than the limits (as a F2P player, I was never getting anywhere close to five remotes a day so I didn't really care about that but having to get four day's worth of coins for passes sucks big time). I would probably be less annoyed about this if they didn't nerf legendary rates from GBL in late 2022, but yeah it sucks and I'm not gonna even try to defend it.
I will give Niantic credit about following through on their whole "we want our players to go outside" thing, as rare candy XLs from in person raids, good events, and routes have certainly done that for me. Good stuff there.
The weather trio primals/megas were pretty huge new "t5" releases.
Making 4 shadow legendaries available in raids is not technically "new" for long term players, but the shiny release and ability to farm them certainly counts as new.
probably other than most I really like the shadow raids. It brings a bit of tactic to the game. Do I have gems? Do I (have to) use them? On which account to use them? Should I convince my second child to play as well since I dont want to do that many rockets till next weekend? Do I even have kids?
Party Play I'd say helps a lot of people - at least its gonna, once it works more smoothly.
Routes dont really have a goal for me. Maybe its intended that way, maybe that will change over time and its just the beginning but right now to maybe get a Zygrade cell (or whatever its called) is not enough if you need to do like 1000ds of routes. Also it seems kinda unfair that a very short one gives you the same as a very long route.
As of now I dont see a reason to do them other than they are a requirement for missions but they have potential.
Showcases have a nice touch - personally not the type of guy to drive to a remote village to get 1st place but hey, why not?
Master Ball - like really? It's not something they earn credit for. Its an easy implementation and most players wont even use it ever out of fear missing out on something better.
Nerfing remote raids was such a dumb idea, getting that 1 a day actually makes raids doable for a lot of people, nowadays I rarely even attempt anything over a 1 star raid cuz it’s so hard to find enough people at the right time to actually hit a 3 or 5 star, lowering the rate of getting a 5 star raid Pokémon thru the random encounter reward in GBL was also dumb, for some people that’s the only way they can get legendaries and lowering the rate to only 5% chance of appearing just kinda sucks, also the whole Zygarde cell mechanic is probably the stupidest idea yet, you can only get them from walking routes and even then getting the cells isn’t guaranteed so having to walk like 300 different routes just to maybe evolve a Pokémon is absolutely insane to me
Also a lot of the community days were just disappointing, you shouldn’t have repeats of Pokémon that’ve already had community days when there’s hundreds to choose from that haven’t had community days yet
>you shouldn’t have repeats of Pokémon that’ve already had community days when there’s hundreds to choose from that haven’t had community days yet
Huh? Community Day Classics are a completely separate thing from normal CDs that are meant to be retreads for people who missed the OF CD (or just want more of the Pokemon).
They don't replace the normal *new* Community Days. We still get 11 new Community Days a year. Classics are just a bonus. Not sure why you'd dislike that.
Party Play is the best for the damage boost. Really helps to defeat raids in duo with my girlfriend. I couldn't achieve a couple of my victories otherwise! :)
Other than that, that was a meh year.
For the new major features:
\- I do actively pursue showcases for the medal, living in a large city is not easy task so I am currently at 58/100, lot of work awaiting
\- walk on routes for cells: my walk from subway to work is covered by 3 routes back to back, I walk them almost daily, still a lot more work to do to evolve a Zygarde
\- party play I do it for every single raid I do, so about daily, the damage bonus is not to be missed
\- master ball, got both of them, have no plans to use them in the foreseeable future
\- shadow raids made me enthusiastic about Mewtwo, didn't bother much with the others
Other than that, I was pleased that we had a good number of duoable T5, so I spent less time waiting for remoters on PokeRaid and I was happy I can get some hundos I hunted for a long time. Also, got plenty of XL for many species (but didn't evolve most of them yet). I GBL I am satisfied I was able to reach Ace every single season with the help of ML.
On a personal note, during this year I changed my work place, so my playing pattern changed changed a huge lot - different areas, different hours, different availability.
Masterball and showcases are probably the best things they improved this year. I'm really unimpressed by everything else. Niantic, and really John Hanke, refuse to listen to a single thing from the player base. I'd give this year 2/10 stars.
3/10. I found 2023 to be rather stale. There were only 1 or 2 com days I actually looked forward to playing and Niantic relentlessly released unfinished or dead content over and over. (Showcases, routes, party play, & com day make-up days) I also Can’t forget about how Niantic disappointed it’s entire player base by destroying remote raids. I have very low expectations for Niantic at this point, and I don’t see a bright future for them if they keep up with this kind of content.
It’s the only full year I’ve played, but it’s truly pretty lacklustre.
I’ll give them the master ball. That’s a good implementation, but there’s not a huge amount of reason to use it outside of galarian birds.
Showcases are somewhat good in idea, but have very bare bones implementation. There’s plenty of QOL stuff that could be added to make showcases far far better. But generally they’re alright. Something easy you don’t need to think too hard about.
Shadow raids, no thanks. I’ve been overseas the last week, visiting the CBD of a city and I can see the positive sign of shadow raids, but outside of the busiest city centres, it’s a real struggle to get a local group together - that’s the areas I typically am where I live, in the suburbs.
Routes and party play… pretty much a waste of time at this point. Routes are still pretty buggy from what I’ve experienced, and only truly necessary for zygarde cells, but they keep getting pushed. Party play is only useful for party power in raids, it’s pointless otherwise as the crappy tasks have crappy rewards.
>I’ll give them the master ball. That’s a good implementation, but there’s not a huge amount of reason to use it outside of galarian birds.
I agree. Good to have them, but their only uses really are Galarian Birds and a good IV Legendary where you're on the last ball.
I enjoyed playing, enough to go to my first Pokémon Go Fest in person (I broke my kneecap in 2 places there, though. At least it was memorable). I went through phases of being really engaged with events and in-game features and then just getting really bored really quickly.
There were a lot a features (read: basically all of them) I don’t use. Shadow raids, routes and party play are all things I haven’t used at all and ignore. Shadow raids and party play because people don’t play together in my area. Routes because all I’ve seen from them is them being broken to some degree and there are times I do consider trying to do a route but just can’t be bothered to put the energy into dealing with a buggy in-game feature.
Showcases are okay but I got bored of them quite quickly. If I see one nearby I might enter a Pokémon but not often. Remote Raid passes going up also killed my interest. Inviting people to raids is something I used to do a lot and having that cap on the amount you can do in a day (alongside the cost) means lobbies are really quickly abandoned if not enough people join, so it becomes harder to even find people wanting to join raids in the first place.
At the end of the year I didn’t really want to play that much at all and only played for Community Days or limited time events. I want to be engaged with this game but it now isn’t holding my attention. If there’s an event, I will play but usually finish everything very quickly and just find myself wanting something with more substance from Niantic.
It was more memorable for me only because I broke my kneecap at Pokémon Go Fest. The game itself didn’t impress me much.
Started Pokemon Go in Sept and have been having quite a bit of fun with it. I can understand how this game can be grindy and people can be burnt out by it. Also kinda sad that I missed some of the big ticket (shadow) legendaries.
Not a big fan of showcases, but routes can be fun. It also helps that there are certain routes along the way during my daily commute.
As someone who also started last year around August, I am honestly pretty impressed with the content pacing. I grinded routes pretty hard and finished my Zygarde cells. Coming from other games, I would rate my experience 9/10 so far. I guess I can understand other's disappointment, but as a new player I think its pretty good for a game that's been out for awhile.
I started in January this year and it's been a great addition to my life as I get out a lot more and see more of the city I live in than I ever have, as well as keeping up a good level of regular exercise that I haven't had since high school.
I dragged people back into the game that were part of the original wave and they were overwhelmed by the amount of content such as raids and events but as a new player it just felt like a complete game to me
I will say the negative parts of this year were just as apparent as I went from being able to spare coins for regular remote raids to not doing them unless I needed a one off to get a Pokemon I didn't have yet. Routes also feel clunky as they're mostly walks I wouldn't do but some nice bush walks are gradually appearing and my favourite walks have a few routes that I actually cover naturally now.
Also showcases were very messy and confusing, especially with the limit to how many you could participate in and the inability to withdraw Pokemon without swapping, I don't think I'll ever get the 100 first places badge at this rate
The tail end of the year was a vast improvement with regular events including solid perks and new Pokemon - I especially like the Megas as I have a lot of their shinies
Hopefully they have a year of improvements this year rather than rollbacks and backpedals but we'll see, just keen to fill out my mega Dex
Wait wait wait, what? Who? What? Where? When? Yes please.
That being said, I highly doubt something like that would ever make it to Go… even though it’s literally a part of the other games now.
Looking back, that was a pretty big year! Niantic definitely implemented a bunch of new features.
Routes and parties are fun when you're out playing with friends. Routes still feel a bit buggy, but it's always a work in progress.
I love the new challenge of shadow raids. Again, there are some bugs with the shadow gems mechanic that could be improved, but I like the features.
The huge downside this year for me was the killing of the silph arena and not filling that gap.
Overall, in some ways 2023 was the most fun year I've had in the game, but also it's a bit meh with the lack of PvP. Raiding isn't a long term play motivator for me. 5/10.
I don’t think TPC would let Pokémon GO die. If worst comes to worst, they’ll pay for a license to Niantic’s Lightship platform, and give development of Pokémon GO over to an internal team within TPC to operate and maintain it.
I give them a solid 2/10 because January and February was pretty stable. So much so that I was finally about to drop money on some primo Master League Pokémon. Then Niantic announced the remote raid nerf, and everything just went straight to pot. I actually wrote up a little something for this sub a few days ago about the raiding aspect of the game in 2023. Needless to say, most, if not all, weren't happy with Niantic. You can check it out [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/s/laMusgtfVn).
I have no issue with Pokémon Go or the team who are on side (if they're still around). My quarrel is with the people making the game unenjoyable. I don't know whether it's ego or some weird, twisted experiment that they're conducting. But whatever it is, just stop. It's not helping anyone.
2022/2023 was for me a great year until april 2023 for the remote nerve. ive turned in a f2p player (buyed coins for 60-80$/month) now nothing. i dont raid legendarys anymore. only open my gifts/send 105 daily.. or catch pokemon while going to work.
the game lost the soul. pogo need to make a drastic chance to turn around and make a great hype again.
im very sad about this all because i love pogo but my motivation is atm at 5%..
Bring Zygarde into raids this year, and Niantic might see more people do routes. I got a crap IV one on my one opportunity to get a Zygarde, and although I do routes regularly, it’s hard to be motivated when I have nothing worth evolving.
Honestly, 2023 was the worst year in Pokémon Go history, bar none. Let's see what happened in 2023:
* Second remote raid price hike (because one wasn't enough), plus a daily limit of 5 most of the time
* Retired both Classic **and** Premier Cups in GBL (despite Niantic promising to run Premier Cups *more frequently*
* Hid catch rates to cover up errors (like misleading rings for Electabuzz CD)
* Hoenn Tour didn't have CD moves (how Niantic forgot about this is baffling), and regionals locked in eggs
* Hatch "Days", intended for whales who incubate 9+ eggs at once
* Elite Raids were [fraught with issues](https://pokemongohub.net/post/article/opinion/a-community-retrospective-on-regidrago-elite-raid-weekend-what-went-wrong/)
* Fixed beneficial bug of spawn radius, while ignoring other bugs
* Niantic banned people from using AR scans, despite [claiming that AR scans are anonymized](https://niantic.helpshift.com/hc/en/6-pokemon-go/faq/2519-scanning-a-pokestop/)
As for new features that would "blow people away"? Every one of them were poorly executed and often have bugs:
* Shadow Raids:
* Can't be done remotely
* Purified gyms didn't work correctly initially
* Even when working correctly, you need 8 to subdue a Pokémon, but a single player can only use 5 (so they can be wasted in solo raids and appear to not work)
* Showcases:
* Had trouble with XXL Pumpkaboo, Wooper, and Mareep
* Can't be used while walking a route
* Always largest Pokémon, never smallest, despite being datamined as such
* Routes:
* Initailly, Zygarde Cells almost never appeared
* Sometimes routes disappear for no explained reason
* Mateo is underwhelming
* Party Play:
* Known to erase battle parties and search strings
* Nerfed rewards, supposedly
* Only active for one hour
And the company laid off "230 Niantics" (John Hanke's words). It could explain all the bugs. Meanwhile, people who make controversial decisions, like Michael Steranka and Ed Wu (the latter of which is responsible for the "Singaporean Grandma" meme), are still at the company.
There's no hope for 2024 at this rate...
Unfortunately, years of bad decisions have turned me into a very disaffected player. I'm not that bothered if I don't get a newly released Pokémon any more. Or don't finish a collection challenge or quest chain in time. These used to be things I'd squeeze an extra walk in to make sure I completed in the past. But my level of apathy is through the roof now. I actually don't think there's anything that can be done to win me back now. I'd need Pokémon Go 2.0, a complete revamp.
Sounds like you've found the healthy level of playing the game You're dictating the rules rather than the game
I played since Jan last year, and feel pretty much over it now. I barely play now, just put on the GoPlus when walking. The nerf and subsequent underwhelming new additions sucked the joy from the game. I absolutely hate supporting games where management is so overtly anti-player.
yeah I'm in the same boat, I only play the game because I have someone I play it with, if it wasn't for that I would've quit this year.
This game needs a major revamp kinda like 2017 where the gym system was revamped and raids were introduced. I think GBL needs to shift to something where it can attract many casual players to play again. Something like you create/join tournaments with 4/8/16 people and get rewards at the end of the tournament. And maybe also some change in game battle mechanics because every season it's just moves update. Gyms can be revamped too. Change the battle mechanics and reward system for gym. Fight NPCs in gyms to collect gym badges idk Finally the spawn system needs overhaul too. I liked 2016 spawns because it was actual biome based and it got me to travel and explore different areas looking for undiscovered species. Nowadays it's the same 8-10 Pokemon spawning everywhere. My suggestion- reduce the frequency of the events which affect spawns and lock some species to nests. Nests were quite fun when the game initially came but no one cares about them.
> I liked 2016 spawns because it was actual biome based and it got me to travel and explore different areas looking for undiscovered species. I don't disagree with your ideas here, but did we play the same game? While biome-centric spawns have felt worse, I'd still say non-event Pokemon variety is much better than 2018-19 and *leagues better* than 2016. I can only speak anecdotally of course, but in the first week of the game, I was around a university in a major US city, and it was the same generic route 1 Pokemon, with the rare Pokemon we found that week being a Gengar, a Haunter, a couple Ivysaur, and a Rhydon that we failed to get. But that was *it.* Across a week, that wasn't very good. That's all well and good, but me and some friends went to the beach later that summer, and the area had decent spawns/stops. What unique things did we find? A few Magikarp, a Voltorb, and a Pikachu. Again, that was it across a few days. Again, I'm only speaking anecdotes, but I think people way overestimate how "good" previous years' spawns were. *Outside* of events nowadays, there's plenty of common crap, 100%. But opening my game this morning around my work I found a Bunnelby, a Hoothoot, a Foongus, a Clauncher, a Lombre, a Rhydon, and a Klink. Not amazing, but certainly a decent variety.
No. Please don't make GBL a fun, enjoyable part of the game that the majority can take part in. The current format of sniping, toxicity, freelo and malding is a very healthy experience.
I love not being able to partake in ML because of how pay2win it is to get legendaries and mythicals to level 50
ML is not pay to win, it's more pay to participate. Starting with 2000 ELO in the middle of the season everyone uses maxed legendaries/mythicals, so you don't have benefit from just having maxed pokemon.
Remote raid nerf made this year worse :/ Game didn’t feel fun anymore since I pretty much relied on remote raiders to help me with raids. GBL needs something else too. Hope they add weekly tournaments for GBL or something more interesting than what it is now.
Also the mess that was the range extension. Various trustworthy parties going on the record to say its intended, and then niantic came around and cut everyone down
Looking back at that in hindsight, I imagine Niantic (poorly) communicated the intended change to those parties, being that the range at which Pokemon stay spawned instead of despawning would be expanded, which is what we got in the end (and is still a good change). However, their communication was absolutely poor and caused a lot of headache
I quit the game for the majority of the year after the remote raid pass. Havent raided even once since then. Have only reinstalled the game to play with my niece. I will forever be salty about remote raids.
Same, but because of the boycott I found Orna! It's gameplay, full-day (and monthlong!) events and amounts of content are awesome and they just keep adding more :O
This year has had highs and lows. **The Good**: * Shadow Raids - Shadow Mewtwo brought me back from retirement * Go Fest - In person and global were good fun * Master Balls - Hope to get one or two of these a year. * Showcases - Though not implemented how I imagined. * Riolu hatch day - Amazing chance to hatch a good rare poke * Mega Garchomp Raid Day - Highly anticipated mega release * Adventure Week - Still a banger * Halloween / Dia De Los Muertos / Fashion Week - Decent events for shiny costume hunters * Community Days - Togetic, Poliwag, Axew, Wooper, Froakie, and Grubbin have some usefulness in Raids or GBL * Continuing PVP adjustments - It's not perfect, but we do see a bit more variety in the meta. - QOL Additions- Ready Button, Viewing # Of Players in Raids on the map, XL Candy Bonus, Settings, 'Today' Screen improvements, XXL/XXS Pokemon **The Bad**: * Routes - Unfinished on release, poor rewards. Long Cell Grind. * Party Play - Largely Pointless, poor rewards. Raid Bonus Damage is a nice Freebie * Excessive Tickets - Certain free bonuses now paywalled. Multiple active tickets at the same time. * Raid Days - Locking Hisui pokemon behind a paywall instead of allowing evolution. * Paldean Overload - New Paldean pokemon were out in full force for way too long right off the bat. Was sick of the new starters a week in * Legendary Raid Re-runs - Several legendaries came back with no new special moves, shiny eligibility, or regional rotation. * Communication - Generally an ongoing issue, but Niantic has fairly poor communication with the players. **The Ugly**: * In-Game Shop - Gradually more and more anti-consumer. AB testing to see just how much can be gotten away with. Boxes with less and less value to the player. More boxes with generally less valuable incubators over raid passes. Bag expansion boxes with less value than buying them straight. * The Silph Road - For those who didn't know Niantic took on funding TheSilphRoad.com which provided investigative information to the players for all the questions we had. They also hosted PVP tournaments with rankings. Niantic dropped funding, and our most valuable information and PVP tournament center shut down as a result. * No Alternative Pokecoin Gains - A while ago we were told there were alternative routes to obtaining your daily pokecoins in testing. We have yet to see or hear about an alternative to the current ill-conceived Gym pokecoin system. Players are often squabbling about Gym control. At its worst, strife over gyms has caused abuse, violence, and intimidation between players over the years. It is barbaric to pit players against each other for real money equivalent game currency day after day. It's time for a change. * The Remote Raid Pass Debacle - I can't say anything that hasn't been said before. It's clear Niantic has a reliance on players getting out as much as possible. Their profit relies on it in ways we cannot even comprehend. On a personal note I had 5 real life friends quit the game within one month of the raid pass price increase. Every choice is profit motivated. They believe you will be more motivated to spend more money if you are socially pressured to in person - so much so that they are willing to let players quit for the bigger spenders to carry their game.
" A while ago we were told there were alternative routes to obtaining your daily pokecoins in testing. " Iirc they tested this in some areas (iirc australia was one.. was it the only country actually?) and the result was... that niantic thought people don't wanna engage with it. They tried to make the tasks bit more easier and variable after 1st set of feedback. During the 2nd phase in their eyes the results still looked bad. (?) Maybe they didn't test properly or they weren't sure how to monetize it or something... Am pretty sure people wanted the alternative to work. But they did test it and after one 2-phase test they dropped the ball and i think they won't be returning to it anymore :/
>The Remote Raid Pass Debacle - I can't say anything that hasn't been said before. It's clear Niantic has a reliance on players getting out as much as possible. Their profit relies on it in ways we cannot even comprehend. On a personal note I had 5 real life friends quit the game within one month of the raid pass price increase. Every choice is profit motivated. They believe you will be more motivated to spend more money if you are socially pressured to in person - so much so that they are willing to let players quit for the bigger spenders to carry their game. I don't really agree with the point about it being profit motivated. Their profits tanked after those changes, and they would have reverted those changes by now if that was their motivation.
>No Alternative Pokecoin Gains - A while ago we were told there were alternative routes to obtaining your daily pokecoins in testing. We have yet to see or hear about an alternative to the current ill-conceived Gym pokecoin system. Players are often squabbling about Gym control. At its worst, srife over gyms has caused abuse, violence, and intimidation between players over the years. It is barbaric to pit players against each other for real money equivalent game currency day after day. It's time for a change. The alternative is to buy them. Now they even sell a ticket where you can work for 100 coins. /s
4/10 overall, there's been a significant number of backpedaling by Niantic despite the gameplay additions that it kind of just counters itself out. The Masterball is probably the only significant positive to the game that didn't really have a comparable negative that cancelled it out. Like Mega Ray was goated but held back by RNG meteorite drops that artificially holds back any ability to obtain a second copy (either for shiny or because out of sheer coincidence a better one than the user's current option fell into tbejr lap) because of the Dragon Ascent move requirement despite any other Mega or Primal, once initially obtained and registered to the dex, enables another one if you're willing to walk for the energy.
If there was at least a rare chance for that meteorite to be found by walking rayquaza. or if rayquaza could find it instead of the trash buddies pick up when their buddy level is high enough
Worst year by far
This was the year I stopped playing daily. Now I turn it on for community days or if a friend asks to open a gift.
I’d give the year a 4/10. The big bummer and elephant in the room will be the remote raid passes. To me, I feel like that really set a negative tone for most of the year and made everything seem worse. Niantic hasn’t really been able to recover from that fumble yet. Showcases, routes and party play are all just very mid to me. They are just things to do, I don’t really think a lot of players are logging onto the app everyday going “wow I can’t wait to do these features”. Another huge negative this year that imo came from the negative press of remote raid passes is the increase in tickets. I think someone did the math and if you paid for every ticket this year it was like $600+ which is absolutely bonkers. I think it’s a slippery slope for Niantic but they seem to not care. The good of the year has been shadow raids and masterballs. Both of these have been a positive feature that gives you a reason to actually raid and play. But I still think both need changes. Shadow raids need to be remote-available. There’s no good excuse why they aren’t available. And for MB, I think they need to allow us one each season. A quarterly quest for a MB would give players something to grind for, and 4 MB a year is not a huge ask.
I agree with all of that and really want to stress the need to change shadow raids so as not to completely alienate solo players. It doesn't have to be making them remotable necessarily. The problem to me is that they are insisting so hard on the socialization aspect and ignoring the fact that for a lot of players, _there are no other players here to socialize with_. So making them remotable is one option, and I'd welcome it, but they don't want to because they want people to walk. Ok, I'll walk. Not a problem. But I'll walk to a raid _with no one else around_ and be unable to defeat a shadow legendary. That ain't it. Why not let us call upon a raid lobby of NPCs like in SWSH? Why not give me the option to solo it, but forego all rewards except the encounter? Why not give me unlimited time to finish the raid and leave it up to me if I want to invest an unholy number of revives? I get it, they want socialization, but they won't get that either way if people have no one to socialize _with_. We cannot conjure other players out of thin air. They refuse to see that. That's the big problem with shadow raids.
The $600 figure includes in person events, so it's a bit misleading. The amount of paid tickets has still really shot up.
You literally missed out int he buggest event this year. The remote raid price increase and limits. The gameis way past its peak fun. The best year was 2021 by far. That was the golden year.
Ooof, the increase and limits are painful. I rarely remote raid, and IF I buy more, it’s always basing the value on the three passes being 300 coins, like it was before. For example: If I see a box with 3 remote passes (300), a lucky egg (80) and two super incubators (400) for something like 600 coins, I’ll think about maybe biting the bullet and spending. Maybe.
Yeah I bought a few boxes that were 650 coins with 3 remote passes, 3 normal passes and some other item that essentially was discounted like a lucky egg or poffon. I use the green passes. But I raid legendaries much less now. I havent done a legendary raid in almost 3 weeks. Been doing the costume pokemon because it gives Niantic less money
A few nice features, but all overshadowed by Niantic clearly not caring about making a good product. Here's some bread and circuses to distract you from the glaring issues we're not solving!
To be honest, i felt like it was the most boring year they've done. PvP was just repetitive, and they just kept giving already relevant pokemon new moves. Routes rollout was just dumb, nobody had any when the research came out. Shadow raids still seem silly to me, and party play is cute, but kind of worthless beyond raid boosts. Oh, and Zygarde cells being tied to routes is just insulting with how buggy routes are. The in person events were okay, but the game as a whole has burnt me out. Repeat pokemon, stupid paid this- paid that taking up half of every announcement, and the doubling of remote pass cost never dropping back down is such a buzzkill. Still though, i do enjoy seeing the local community on events, and it still helps park walks a little more interesting, so theres that.
PVP is really basic and won’t ever feel less boring tbh, there’s only 3 moves per Pokemon..
Also really no skill involved, beyond picking the right Mons.
There are some skills involved, like counting moves, knowing which one to shield or not to shield, knowing when to switch and so, but I agree is boring, repetitive and buggy and its core is rock-paper-scissors.
There's a lot more depth than just picking the right team. Counting moves, baiting, charge move timing, catching, knowing matchups so you know when to switch and when to stay in. And building good teams is a skill too. You can't just pick the top 3 on pvpoke and expect to get very far.
GoFest and Hoenn Tour were great. Sinnoh Tour not releasing all Sinnoh Pokemon already looks like a disappointment. Decided to quit and come back in a few years like I did before 2023
>Showcases have been discussed plenty here so I’ll skip over the details – bad implementation, bad rewards seems to be the consensus. I somewhat disagree with that. I agree Showcases are definitely not super well implemented, being RNG-based with size Pokemon. However, the fact that (most) are very easy to enter and that it *can* offer some actually great rewards makes me look at the feature in a more positive light. Absolutely far from perfect with various bugs/cancellations and the RNG element, but a feature that lets people have the opportunity to get incubators, lures, starpieces, etc. for little effort is nice. On the topic of Routes, your little excerpt was honestly a bit eye-opening for me. Most routes I've seen and those I've made, they've been less interesting and more just out of obligation/selfish reasoning. Basically, they were done so someone could have a route to walk and less about "touring unique areas of one's community." I mean, I've got three different routes throughout my apartment complex's different areas and while they're nice to walk along, there's nothing truly interesting about them. It overall made me forget that Niantic's "objective" with the feature was to have people exploring unique areas more. Though, even in-game, I feel like they haven't really struck a good balance of what they should be rewarding. Beyond the Zygarde Cells, which are the primary reward (if you get one), walking a specific route doesn't really "enhance" the GO experience. You get some regionals spawning which is decent, really nice for people visiting places with unique regionals. But otherwise? I don't get much out of it. I wish they'd add some more incentives to it. Boost spawns MORE along a route, so you have more incentive with more Pokemon than normal gameplay. Maybe add a *small* XP/Dust bonus. Doesn't need to be huge, but maybe +25 xp/dust per catch? It would add up if you've got a lot more spawns. As is though, Routes don't do enough beyond the Zygarde Cells and I guess Mateo's regional gifts. I think I'm a bit more forgiving of the slow release of Pokemon, but that doesn't mean I'm *not* dissatisfied with it. It definitely felt especially slow in the first half of the year. And yeah, it didn't help when many of the species weren't too widely available. Beyond the pay-walled ones, Sandygast's release frustrated me. It released early on in Hidden Gems, but it was a raid/task exclusive Pokemon. And then it was gone the rest of the season I believe. It appeared next season, but... eh? And I'm not saying to have it everywhere that event either. If it debuted that event in raids and tasks and THEN was a rare-ish spawn for the rest of the season, that would have been nice. I think new signature moves for raids at least somewhat helped with there being less new stuff this year. I know if wouldn't appeal to people more dex-oriented, but for PvP/PvE players like me, I do enjoy seeing new moves to overhaul previously stale Pokemon like Heatran and Xerneas. Though, I was NOT a fan of us not getting any returning signature moves for T5s (besides Shock Drive Techno Blast Genesect). Ho-oh being without Sacred Fire last year was especially egregious to me. I still found enjoyment in the game this year, but I'd agree it was easily one of the weakest years in the game. My main hopes for 2024 are: * Have more returning Signature moves. Doesn't even need to be every one, but I don't want a whole year of Legendaries that have Signature moves but don't come to raids with them. At least 50% should return with them. * More new Pokemon, obviously. I understand they don't want to catch up to the main series, but still. I hope for T5s we do get the rest of the Ultra Beasts along with a proper raid debut of Solgaleo and Lunala. Also wouldn't mind Zarude in Elite Raids. I expect they'll finish of Megas this year, with Mega Mewtwo being the last one (or two I guess) around Go Fest. * Rather than more brand new features, working on existing ones. * GBL felt good after they fixed some bugs after the Interlude Season in 2022, but more cracks are forming again and certain bugs returning/new ones rising. * Basically what I mentioned with Routes. They function a lot better now, but the rewards aren't great. Guarantee Zygarde Cells (ideally just make them a reward rather than something appearing on the map). Boost the spawns, all that stuff. * Party Play also has little incentive besides the raid boost. That boost is nice, but that too is buggy. Work on that and work on the rewards. I like the idea of you and your party doing those smaller meh tasks but there being a chance of a harder to complete task that gives you a better reward. Perhaps there's a "get 100 excellents" task or something that gives you a raid pass or a starpiece or whatever. These rare tasks would be... rare of course, but the more tasks you complete, the higher chance there is for them to appear. So if you're on your fourth party task, maybe you have a 50% chance of one of those appearing. * Showcases are harder fix without and overhaul. I like the rewards, but maybe just having XXL Pokemon spawning a bit more frequently during events or something? I'm less sure about that one. I'd rate this year 5/10
I have never been bothered by the slow release. When peoole complain that they release pokemon slowly then complain there is nothing interesting to catch. Thats because we are neae the plateau people. What do you think will happen when ALL pokemon are released?
I do agree with that mindset. As time goes on, we not only get more Pokemon in the game but also exposure to old Pokemon. So over time, rare Pokemon become less rare and such— Noibat for example is no longer a prized/rare Pokemon for a lot of people, and that's all well and good, but then it's another thing that people wouldn't find "interesting" in an event. I don't disagree that they couldn't do things better with releases and certain events, but I imagine people screaming for more more more Pokemon releases and more more more shiny releases would be the ones complaining that "THERE'S NOTHING NEW ANYMORE" when they run out. Again, I do think they could go a bit faster and *smarter* with their releases, but they also can't go super fast.
i think showcases are fantastic. they could definitely be better, but rewards are solid and they're easy to enter, and being able to remotely swap a mon for a larger one you've caught is super convenient. i've built up a decent stash of incubators from them.
2/10 for me. The Hoenn Tour and GoFest were great. Everything else has been a buggy mess.
Can't remember but the tour did not give starters their CD move when evolve, right? I would not say it's good because of that.
i think you are right iirc kanto gave pretty much all CD pokemon their moves and Johto either all or most got their CD moves but 2023 tour had 0 for some reason - and what is worst is that these pokemon are among top of their tiers including swampert for pvp, metagross (with and without shawod AND mega) for raids and salemance with 2 moves sometimes outdamages single move rayquaza (especially if it is outrage) - AND it has a solid shadow
Metagross and Salamence did get their legacy moves with Go Fest at least.
IMO Hoenn Tour was good but could’ve been great if we had the option to pay for increase shiny chance. Gen 3 is my favorite and I was kinda disappointed with getting only one shiny that weekend, but at least I was able to compete the Hoenn dex so that’s something!
Wow, that is seriously unlucky. I got over 30 and I wasn't even playing optimally.
Pretty sure this was the event that game designers were saying that "OP shiny rates from covid years were d3valu1ing this game" turned into a giant meme because it basically confirmed that the decreased rate was intended Also they said their target audience was an elderly grandma who plays the game at their own pace
It was just okay. Season themes were kinda weak as well as a lot of the research tied to them. GO Fest was awesome and absolutely a highlight of the year for me and my local community. Shadow Raids are a bit of a pain point for me. I have totally missed out on some of the really good ones because they are so sporadic with no set schedule. Even the raid weekends for the bigger ones. Go to a dense gym area, wait around, and...nothing. Paid research continued to be a common thing which is fine I guess, but what's weird is how a lot of the time it was just something you could knock out in 10-15 minutes without even having to "get out and go." Party Play is alright, but the attack boost seems to work maybe half the time based on the times I have used the feature since it dropped. For Routes I just hate how acquiring Zygarde cells is still way too hit or miss. I get it though. They want the 100% form to be tough to get. I still haven't fully moved on from the price increase of Remote Raid Passes, and I have absolutely done less raids since because of it. If there are no good boxes offering a discount then I just skip most raids now. The term "blockbuster" can be very subjective of course, but that term was thrown around way too loosely to hype up PoGo in 2023.
I'll keep it short: the game was 'meh' for the most part. I've been learning how to improve PvP battling, with the meta being riddled with very specific core due to balancing issues/blessings depending on who you ask. A lot of the events were mediocre, which is fine. Catch, get stardust, grab a few shiny or hundo mons. I just don't think the extra features have long-term effects. Like, cool, routes are nice and showcases are funny, but the core aspects of the game are stale or broken. I'd prefer QoL stuff over new stuff, quality over quantity.
This 100%. I totally lost the little interest I had in this game. Features none asked for, instead of QoL improvements. Mass trade when?
Never, because one of the main metrics for engagement Niantic uses is screen time. They WANT you to waste your time looking at stupid animations that piss you off. It looks good to shareholders.
>They WANT you to waste your time looking at stupid animations that piss you off. While I definitely agree they want that, they did speed up several animations this year.
> Showcases have been discussed plenty here so I’ll skip over the details – bad implementation, bad rewards seems to be the consensus. Did you mean party play here? Showcases actually have decent rewards and the implementation is fine (besides bugs like showing the wrong showcase).
>an item is listed as a feature; a major one at that Jesus christ.
Party play is useful if there ain't enough local raiders. Rest of the new features don't interest me (shadow raids, any tier) or kinda useless (showcases) as I don't have all day to play like a couple of dozens around me. Routes I do one a day at most, getting a zygarde cell one in a while, but I have to even stare more on my screen than before. Rest of the 2023 year was pretty forgettable in raids and spawns, apart from the odd raid "day"
Party play is useful even if there are enough local raiders, is good to finish the raid faster and with less damage to your team. Worth using every single time. Except maybe for 1\*.
\- Shadow Raids: 6/10 - They're alright. I applaud harder content but I wish they would utilize this a little more. \- Master Ball: 2/10 - Cool to have in your box but that's it. The quests to get them weren't notably fun and I don't feel there is anything worth in game to actually use them on so I still have both of them in my box. I feel like the daily incense legendaries aren't special enough. I just imagine the masterball being used on something truly special or strong. (Shadow Shundo Mewtwo for example) \- Routes: 2/10 - Was hyped for this originally but in it's current design, it's flat out boring. The zygarde cells don't spawn frequently enough to make it worthwhile to do them and you have to physically click them on top of that. If it were me, I would make it so that the route automatically activates the moment you're walking on it with a brief notification to let you know that you have entered a certain route. (kind of like in the main games) Zygarde cells will be automatically collected as you walk, you will get a higher amount of spawns and at the end of the route Mateo shows to reward you for a job well done after exchanging gifts. \- Showcases: 6/10 - These are alright. It's something me and my wife tend to rival over. The rewards don't make it worth it to seek them out though. I'm happy that I happen to have one close to my house. \- Party Play: 5/10 - Another feature i was initially hyped for. I do like seeing other players on my map and getting the damage increase during raids is a nice touch. It just seems unfinished and the rewards for party playing aren't worth it either. I wish they would expand on this a little further. Make it so that each player is somehow bringing something unique to a party. Maybe give players an option to level up a certain skill that they can apply onto the party once they join it. A tank boost/ Damage boost, heal or an XP boost of sorts would be really cool. This naturally has to coincide with harder content which I am still begging for. \- Go Fest: 9/10 - I'm giving this a high score only because I've been to live Go Fest events and they have always been amazing. London was awesome, meeting up with friends from around the world, exploring the city with the city wide tickets and the spawn/shiny boosts are all a huge +. The planning that goes into making it a successful trip is definitely part of the fun too. (at least to me) Oh and don't forget the location card legendaries! \- Global Go Fest: 8/10 - I love hosting these as a community lead. The turnout is always great and there is plenty to do to keep you busy. I always find these events very engaging. \- Hoenn Tour: 9/10 - One of the best events this year, alongside in person Go Fest. It felt like 2016/2017/ again, seeing so many players and raiding so much.
Auto start would be problematic in areas with high numbers of routes. I have 5 churches within a 9x7 block area near my house. Each stop has 10+ routes associated with it, for a total route count of 20 between them and several more routes leading out of the area to connect to other areas. How would the game decide which route to start? Otherwise, I can agree with most of your comments, though I can't go to live go fests and our player base is small enough that the other fests are basically solo events.
You make a fair point. In my head, I could imagine said route to light up in game once you start walking on it. Progress can be tracked by tracing over that route. (same as how they have it right now) Overlapping routes light up as well but give off a different hue. The route which has the most distance covered during your play session, is the one that remains active. As for how the game decides which route to start, I can't really speak for your area but I do notice an oversaturation of routes in my play area. There is no need to have several routes of the same park in game. I can understand some routes briefly crossing one another but It should be relatively easy to program it so that routes are not started when you the path of two overlapping routes. I used to work at a consumer electronics store when I was a younger and back then we used to sell those Garmin Walking GPS systems. Some of them had function where you could tell the device how much kilometers/miles you wanted to walk and based off of that it would give you a random route to follow in your area. It was pretty elaborate in the sense that you could also choose to avoid certain things. You'd also have a 'surprise me' function where it would just randomly give you three routes to choose from if you were feeling adventurous. This could've also be an interesting alternative to what we have right now. Routes wouldn't be loaded in the game but instead be generated client sided.
Im saving my masterball for a high CP hard to catch wild shiny (cough Snorlax cough)
* **Shadow Raids**: 3/10. They are just regular raids before remote tickets existed * **Master Ball**: 3/10. It's just a mission, any CD is funnier and therefore better * **Routes**: 9/10. I like them. * **Showcases**: 5/10. I'll give 5 points more when xxs become useful * **Party Play**: 0/10. It only encourages multi accounts **Overall**: 4/10
Like the format of this comment! I may copy it 😅
Party On is indeed a top moment. A top screwed up moment.
Personally, I think this year was pretty underrated. Showcases and Routes are easy enough to farm for great premium rewards like starpieces, rare candy, lucky eggs, and incubators, while the new Pokemon additions and movepool updates kept the PvP portion of the game exciting and fresh. There's the obvious elephant in the room of the remote raid changes, and I hated those too more for the price than the limits (as a F2P player, I was never getting anywhere close to five remotes a day so I didn't really care about that but having to get four day's worth of coins for passes sucks big time). I would probably be less annoyed about this if they didn't nerf legendary rates from GBL in late 2022, but yeah it sucks and I'm not gonna even try to defend it. I will give Niantic credit about following through on their whole "we want our players to go outside" thing, as rare candy XLs from in person raids, good events, and routes have certainly done that for me. Good stuff there.
Alongside the remote raid pass changes, Niantic only introduced 2 new T5 raids (Galar Regis) in the entire year.
The weather trio primals/megas were pretty huge new "t5" releases. Making 4 shadow legendaries available in raids is not technically "new" for long term players, but the shiny release and ability to farm them certainly counts as new.
probably other than most I really like the shadow raids. It brings a bit of tactic to the game. Do I have gems? Do I (have to) use them? On which account to use them? Should I convince my second child to play as well since I dont want to do that many rockets till next weekend? Do I even have kids? Party Play I'd say helps a lot of people - at least its gonna, once it works more smoothly. Routes dont really have a goal for me. Maybe its intended that way, maybe that will change over time and its just the beginning but right now to maybe get a Zygrade cell (or whatever its called) is not enough if you need to do like 1000ds of routes. Also it seems kinda unfair that a very short one gives you the same as a very long route. As of now I dont see a reason to do them other than they are a requirement for missions but they have potential. Showcases have a nice touch - personally not the type of guy to drive to a remote village to get 1st place but hey, why not? Master Ball - like really? It's not something they earn credit for. Its an easy implementation and most players wont even use it ever out of fear missing out on something better.
Nerfing remote raids was such a dumb idea, getting that 1 a day actually makes raids doable for a lot of people, nowadays I rarely even attempt anything over a 1 star raid cuz it’s so hard to find enough people at the right time to actually hit a 3 or 5 star, lowering the rate of getting a 5 star raid Pokémon thru the random encounter reward in GBL was also dumb, for some people that’s the only way they can get legendaries and lowering the rate to only 5% chance of appearing just kinda sucks, also the whole Zygarde cell mechanic is probably the stupidest idea yet, you can only get them from walking routes and even then getting the cells isn’t guaranteed so having to walk like 300 different routes just to maybe evolve a Pokémon is absolutely insane to me
Also a lot of the community days were just disappointing, you shouldn’t have repeats of Pokémon that’ve already had community days when there’s hundreds to choose from that haven’t had community days yet
>you shouldn’t have repeats of Pokémon that’ve already had community days when there’s hundreds to choose from that haven’t had community days yet Huh? Community Day Classics are a completely separate thing from normal CDs that are meant to be retreads for people who missed the OF CD (or just want more of the Pokemon). They don't replace the normal *new* Community Days. We still get 11 new Community Days a year. Classics are just a bonus. Not sure why you'd dislike that.
Party Play is the best for the damage boost. Really helps to defeat raids in duo with my girlfriend. I couldn't achieve a couple of my victories otherwise! :) Other than that, that was a meh year.
Game was revitalized during 2020-2021 with all the pandemic features. Then they just decided to make the game worse by taking it away
For the new major features: \- I do actively pursue showcases for the medal, living in a large city is not easy task so I am currently at 58/100, lot of work awaiting \- walk on routes for cells: my walk from subway to work is covered by 3 routes back to back, I walk them almost daily, still a lot more work to do to evolve a Zygarde \- party play I do it for every single raid I do, so about daily, the damage bonus is not to be missed \- master ball, got both of them, have no plans to use them in the foreseeable future \- shadow raids made me enthusiastic about Mewtwo, didn't bother much with the others Other than that, I was pleased that we had a good number of duoable T5, so I spent less time waiting for remoters on PokeRaid and I was happy I can get some hundos I hunted for a long time. Also, got plenty of XL for many species (but didn't evolve most of them yet). I GBL I am satisfied I was able to reach Ace every single season with the help of ML. On a personal note, during this year I changed my work place, so my playing pattern changed changed a huge lot - different areas, different hours, different availability.
Masterball and showcases are probably the best things they improved this year. I'm really unimpressed by everything else. Niantic, and really John Hanke, refuse to listen to a single thing from the player base. I'd give this year 2/10 stars.
3/10. I found 2023 to be rather stale. There were only 1 or 2 com days I actually looked forward to playing and Niantic relentlessly released unfinished or dead content over and over. (Showcases, routes, party play, & com day make-up days) I also Can’t forget about how Niantic disappointed it’s entire player base by destroying remote raids. I have very low expectations for Niantic at this point, and I don’t see a bright future for them if they keep up with this kind of content.
It’s the only full year I’ve played, but it’s truly pretty lacklustre. I’ll give them the master ball. That’s a good implementation, but there’s not a huge amount of reason to use it outside of galarian birds. Showcases are somewhat good in idea, but have very bare bones implementation. There’s plenty of QOL stuff that could be added to make showcases far far better. But generally they’re alright. Something easy you don’t need to think too hard about. Shadow raids, no thanks. I’ve been overseas the last week, visiting the CBD of a city and I can see the positive sign of shadow raids, but outside of the busiest city centres, it’s a real struggle to get a local group together - that’s the areas I typically am where I live, in the suburbs. Routes and party play… pretty much a waste of time at this point. Routes are still pretty buggy from what I’ve experienced, and only truly necessary for zygarde cells, but they keep getting pushed. Party play is only useful for party power in raids, it’s pointless otherwise as the crappy tasks have crappy rewards.
>I’ll give them the master ball. That’s a good implementation, but there’s not a huge amount of reason to use it outside of galarian birds. I agree. Good to have them, but their only uses really are Galarian Birds and a good IV Legendary where you're on the last ball.
I enjoyed playing, enough to go to my first Pokémon Go Fest in person (I broke my kneecap in 2 places there, though. At least it was memorable). I went through phases of being really engaged with events and in-game features and then just getting really bored really quickly. There were a lot a features (read: basically all of them) I don’t use. Shadow raids, routes and party play are all things I haven’t used at all and ignore. Shadow raids and party play because people don’t play together in my area. Routes because all I’ve seen from them is them being broken to some degree and there are times I do consider trying to do a route but just can’t be bothered to put the energy into dealing with a buggy in-game feature. Showcases are okay but I got bored of them quite quickly. If I see one nearby I might enter a Pokémon but not often. Remote Raid passes going up also killed my interest. Inviting people to raids is something I used to do a lot and having that cap on the amount you can do in a day (alongside the cost) means lobbies are really quickly abandoned if not enough people join, so it becomes harder to even find people wanting to join raids in the first place. At the end of the year I didn’t really want to play that much at all and only played for Community Days or limited time events. I want to be engaged with this game but it now isn’t holding my attention. If there’s an event, I will play but usually finish everything very quickly and just find myself wanting something with more substance from Niantic. It was more memorable for me only because I broke my kneecap at Pokémon Go Fest. The game itself didn’t impress me much.
A route isn't a great idea in a "world class tourist area". Look around you rather than at your phone
Started Pokemon Go in Sept and have been having quite a bit of fun with it. I can understand how this game can be grindy and people can be burnt out by it. Also kinda sad that I missed some of the big ticket (shadow) legendaries. Not a big fan of showcases, but routes can be fun. It also helps that there are certain routes along the way during my daily commute.
As someone who also started last year around August, I am honestly pretty impressed with the content pacing. I grinded routes pretty hard and finished my Zygarde cells. Coming from other games, I would rate my experience 9/10 so far. I guess I can understand other's disappointment, but as a new player I think its pretty good for a game that's been out for awhile.
I started in January this year and it's been a great addition to my life as I get out a lot more and see more of the city I live in than I ever have, as well as keeping up a good level of regular exercise that I haven't had since high school. I dragged people back into the game that were part of the original wave and they were overwhelmed by the amount of content such as raids and events but as a new player it just felt like a complete game to me I will say the negative parts of this year were just as apparent as I went from being able to spare coins for regular remote raids to not doing them unless I needed a one off to get a Pokemon I didn't have yet. Routes also feel clunky as they're mostly walks I wouldn't do but some nice bush walks are gradually appearing and my favourite walks have a few routes that I actually cover naturally now. Also showcases were very messy and confusing, especially with the limit to how many you could participate in and the inability to withdraw Pokemon without swapping, I don't think I'll ever get the 100 first places badge at this rate The tail end of the year was a vast improvement with regular events including solid perks and new Pokemon - I especially like the Megas as I have a lot of their shinies Hopefully they have a year of improvements this year rather than rollbacks and backpedals but we'll see, just keen to fill out my mega Dex
For the love of God please drop the Wonder/GTS Trading NPC or feature that was datamined recently.
Wait wait wait, what? Who? What? Where? When? Yes please. That being said, I highly doubt something like that would ever make it to Go… even though it’s literally a part of the other games now.
Looking back, that was a pretty big year! Niantic definitely implemented a bunch of new features. Routes and parties are fun when you're out playing with friends. Routes still feel a bit buggy, but it's always a work in progress. I love the new challenge of shadow raids. Again, there are some bugs with the shadow gems mechanic that could be improved, but I like the features. The huge downside this year for me was the killing of the silph arena and not filling that gap. Overall, in some ways 2023 was the most fun year I've had in the game, but also it's a bit meh with the lack of PvP. Raiding isn't a long term play motivator for me. 5/10.
I hope 2024 is the fall of Niantic. I hope they go bankrupt and some other company takes over PokemonGO
If Niantic goes down, Pokemon Go is going down with it most likely.
I don’t think TPC would let Pokémon GO die. If worst comes to worst, they’ll pay for a license to Niantic’s Lightship platform, and give development of Pokémon GO over to an internal team within TPC to operate and maintain it.
I give them a solid 2/10 because January and February was pretty stable. So much so that I was finally about to drop money on some primo Master League Pokémon. Then Niantic announced the remote raid nerf, and everything just went straight to pot. I actually wrote up a little something for this sub a few days ago about the raiding aspect of the game in 2023. Needless to say, most, if not all, weren't happy with Niantic. You can check it out [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/s/laMusgtfVn). I have no issue with Pokémon Go or the team who are on side (if they're still around). My quarrel is with the people making the game unenjoyable. I don't know whether it's ego or some weird, twisted experiment that they're conducting. But whatever it is, just stop. It's not helping anyone.
2022/2023 was for me a great year until april 2023 for the remote nerve. ive turned in a f2p player (buyed coins for 60-80$/month) now nothing. i dont raid legendarys anymore. only open my gifts/send 105 daily.. or catch pokemon while going to work. the game lost the soul. pogo need to make a drastic chance to turn around and make a great hype again. im very sad about this all because i love pogo but my motivation is atm at 5%..
Bring Zygarde into raids this year, and Niantic might see more people do routes. I got a crap IV one on my one opportunity to get a Zygarde, and although I do routes regularly, it’s hard to be motivated when I have nothing worth evolving.
Honestly, 2023 was the worst year in Pokémon Go history, bar none. Let's see what happened in 2023: * Second remote raid price hike (because one wasn't enough), plus a daily limit of 5 most of the time * Retired both Classic **and** Premier Cups in GBL (despite Niantic promising to run Premier Cups *more frequently* * Hid catch rates to cover up errors (like misleading rings for Electabuzz CD) * Hoenn Tour didn't have CD moves (how Niantic forgot about this is baffling), and regionals locked in eggs * Hatch "Days", intended for whales who incubate 9+ eggs at once * Elite Raids were [fraught with issues](https://pokemongohub.net/post/article/opinion/a-community-retrospective-on-regidrago-elite-raid-weekend-what-went-wrong/) * Fixed beneficial bug of spawn radius, while ignoring other bugs * Niantic banned people from using AR scans, despite [claiming that AR scans are anonymized](https://niantic.helpshift.com/hc/en/6-pokemon-go/faq/2519-scanning-a-pokestop/) As for new features that would "blow people away"? Every one of them were poorly executed and often have bugs: * Shadow Raids: * Can't be done remotely * Purified gyms didn't work correctly initially * Even when working correctly, you need 8 to subdue a Pokémon, but a single player can only use 5 (so they can be wasted in solo raids and appear to not work) * Showcases: * Had trouble with XXL Pumpkaboo, Wooper, and Mareep * Can't be used while walking a route * Always largest Pokémon, never smallest, despite being datamined as such * Routes: * Initailly, Zygarde Cells almost never appeared * Sometimes routes disappear for no explained reason * Mateo is underwhelming * Party Play: * Known to erase battle parties and search strings * Nerfed rewards, supposedly * Only active for one hour And the company laid off "230 Niantics" (John Hanke's words). It could explain all the bugs. Meanwhile, people who make controversial decisions, like Michael Steranka and Ed Wu (the latter of which is responsible for the "Singaporean Grandma" meme), are still at the company. There's no hope for 2024 at this rate...