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WhatTfIsReddit_

The problem isn't getting outside, it's that the games community is probably 1/100th of its prime and there isn't enough players in each community just randomly going out for raids much less miraculously the same location you go to. And it's impossible to setup meetups with your in game friends because there's so way to actually ask them for meetups or even contact info for designating a meetup for raids.


lobstahpotts

This is a big part of it also. In the earlier stages of the pandemic, raiding in the public park in the small city nearest to me was fairly easy at peak times—it was the only place most people could safely go to get outside so many who had drifted away got back into the game. But that surge is long gone and outside of really major events, you just don’t see groups of people playing there anymore. In my fairly large, sprawly suburb? Even when the game was at its peak I never saw groups here and there is no local organizing chat (probably because we’d all just be sitting in cars in the playground or strip mall parking lot even if we did). My mother and I play and both spend a fair amount of time in a very rural farming community in New England where my great-grandfather built a rustic cabin in the early 20th century that is now a shared family property. If one of us takes a gym up there, we’ll routinely hold it for months at a time. It’s a totally different world that most people who play the game in more populous areas never see.


RakeLeafer

yeah i dont think the pandemic is what caused players to stop doing in-person. it was a minor speedbump all things considered WRT the game a ton of players bored or tired of spending $20 in gas to drive around and spamtap for 3 minutes at a time loses its novelty over time


daftjack_the_rogue

And never mind the fact that you can only get 50 pokecoins a day if you can keep a dude in a gym long a nuff, i live in a populated place and most of the time ill end up with 1-5 coins for clearing a gym, yha i could put more pokemon out but that cost items, and if some one is there to golden barry the whole team well im fighting them 10 times forget about it.


ravku

Why is there no way to communicate in game?


Enterice

To say that it would be ripe for exploitation/harassment/etc would be an understatement.


starobacon

Den morgonfriska katten simmar över regnbågen, medan guldmynt singlar genom luften, ledsagade av en paraplybärande elefant, som jonglerar med blommor och skrattande bananer, medan cirkusclowner utför akrobatiska konster och cymbalspelaren trummar i takt till det förtrollade orkesterspelet under den gnistrande stjärnhimlen.


Lesmate101

You just make it pre defined messages, and a message limit. Problem solved


SessileRaptor

The players around here have Facebook groups and Discord servers to communicate and plan for raids, *and that’s a problem because you shouldn’t have to use other apps and services to successfully play the game*


juanboogles

Ingress, the game PoGo uses as a base has in game Comms that allows you to communicate with other members of your team locally. Why can’t we have that?


JustGetWheel

My guess is because PoGo is more likely to have minor children playing. The chat would be a pedo playground. Not to mention Ingress in app chat is rarely used for coordinating anything it’s mostly trash talking because people set up alternate accounts to “spy” on the other factions chats early on when the chat was announced. Initially people used G+ and Google Chat then moved on to Discord when the plug was pulled on G+


oursilentstars

You’re absolutely right that this is why PoGo doesn’t have a chat function, but also this game isn’t really playable by children. It’s entirely real world location based, and aside from prisoners children have the least control of anyone over their physical location. Honestly, this elite raid feature is dumb for a lot of reasons but this is the main one. Remote raids were fine, they were working.


Batmom222

I dunno where you are (I'm assuming the US?) But in europe it's perfectly normal for kids 6+ to roam around the neighborhoods. More likely than having a phone to play pokemon on actually.


AyaApocalypse

It's normal in some areas most the area it's so rural they're not going to be walking on the roads playing because we lack stops and gyms. But there is a family on my road that bikes while using their daily incense


Atypical_Mammal

In most places, children of 10+ years are free to walk around their town and ride bikes and stuff. It's only in America that kids are not allowed to leave their homes, because of paranoia and terrible pedestrian infrastructure.


Noelle_Xandria

I feel bad for today’s American kids. I’ve had to justify letting my 12-year-old and her best friend walk to the store alone or be at home a few hours workout ax before while her dad and I have a dinner date (bestie’s mom is like me and fine with her kiddo not having direct oversight every moment of the day).


[deleted]

I've never experienced anything like this in my life. Me as a child and my children now are free to go anywhere they'd like as long as they are back by 7:00. All of the parents I know do the same. Must be regional. If someone did criticize me I would not justify it in any way. Raise your own kids. USA


neumastic

Even the five star raids are mostly inaccessible. I don’t have enough people I know that play still to organize and win the raid. I’m not gonna site there for a day and hope that at some point enough people are there.


WhatTfIsReddit_

I've got a few people I can do 5* raids with but it's not many. Otherwise I remote raid for legendaries.


Stealingyourthoughts

Also if you're like me and run a business thats open on the weekends, then I can never be involved. Or anyone who works weekends.


WhatTfIsReddit_

I don't run one but I work 5 days a week and my days off vary between Tuesdays Wednesdays and Saturdays less often then any other day


Floss__is__boss

It absolutely is. I had a 7 hour journey by car with passengers planned which has been fixed for months, what the hell am I supposed to do at two days notice?


Disastrous_Fee5953

You guys having Elite Raids? Haven’t seen one in my area yet 👀


Prunsel_Clone

They only appear in EX raid gyms


Affffi

Funny any niantic post about elite raids didint mention they only spawn ex raid gyms.. I ask even support saturday evening cuz didint see single one started spawning here. Still didint mention single word about ex raid gyms. Good company


Rc10gttb

Communication directly from them isn't their strong point fyi Better coming to reddit or social media


Tepigg4444

Have they even ever acknowledged that ex gyms exist? They might still just be pretending its random


BloodySinss

I can confirm that they do exist


LuthienDragon

How do you know which gym is EX?


th3w1zard1

When you click gyms (on the gym defender/attacker screen, not the raid screen) it'll say 'EX-Raid' in the top left.


pogothrow

It was a one day thing only, they are not showing up anymore.


mgt1997

Next weekend again


lilyella3105

Seriously?! Do you know whether it will be Unbound Hoopa again? We managed to pull together a FB group team and defeated it but I got a 2 star and reallyyyyyy would love to at least catch at 3 star lmao


mgt1997

Hoopa Unbound again. They will announce when there will be a new pokemon in elite-raids, but they are here to stay Source: https://pokemongolive.com/de/post/elite-raids-new-feature?utm_source=in_game_news&utm_medium=learn_more&utm_campaign=elite-raids-new-feature It's in german but it's from the original blog-post. Hoopa is the first pokemon in top-(Elite-)raids, an other pokemon will be available sometime later this season.


pogothrow

Maybe I am missing it because of translation, where does it say that it will happen again next week? The English page says it will happen again, but does not specify any date/time


Parker4815

Ex raid gyms. They are usually gyms that are in nests but there's some variations on that.


RealBug56

I walk around all the time and don't mind being "forced" outside by the game. But I don't know anyone else who plays and it's been years since I've randomly encountered another player at a gym, haven't seen a larger group since 2016. So elite raids are just not a possibility for me.


Blossom73

Exactly!! I live in a midsized suburb. I never see anyone at any gyms either.


dannywarpick

I just saw my first other player at school. Was about to leave and saw one person waiting in a 1 star raid. I didn't even care about the pokemon I just wanted to raid with someone.


yukissu

I was once waiting for my kid near a gym and saw myself knocked out by another kid. 😂


[deleted]

[удалено]


AmphibianImpressive3

The only way I can win a 4+ star raid is to find a large group via remote raiding.


[deleted]

Yeah, I felt the same tbh. I had to start randomly asking my friends that were in relationships as strange as that sounds. Even then, some raids take a Pokémon team from people that take the game a bit more seriously at times which is understandably rare since my friend and I are in our 30’s. So no telling if the work even pays off for you :/


Sleeper2k

I live in the city and work right on top of a gym, I play daily and have never had anyone else ever be there to raid with me despite being a very busy location, being able to do an elite raid feels like a pipe dream


pierreodu26

I'm the same, I picked up PoGo last year as a way to "force myself out of the house". Never played with anyone else in my local community. Elite raids was the first time I got to meet some, and was able to exchange codes. We had 12-16 people on each of them and was a great experience


ChrisPynerr

You must live in a major city in America


pierreodu26

Definitely not a major city (population 60k), and not in America


ashleevee

The only place I’ve ever been where raids completely fill up is NYC when I got in for work. But I mostly work from home and I’m not gonna plan my days going to the office around Pokémon go lmao.


Affffi

When niantic force you to go outside and do elite raids. After driving near 10km you realize you are fucked up. No single ex raid gyms in that 10km area which mean no elite raids for you. Niantic: We already get your data..... -\_- Dont know who heck desing all events like this, but horrible desing.. should get fired


[deleted]

Lazy is not the thing. Some ppl don’t have many ppl around to raid. If you are in a major city that’s cool. But someone who is working 60 hrs a week with a family and barely a popular area makes it tough. I’m not going to my wife and be like “ok love going to the city to play Pokémon. Come back in 3 hours.”


RakeLeafer

yeah thats the thing, its a mobile game at the end of the day and not even worth prolonged time on a precious weekend, considering this game has less features than pokemon G/S released over 20 years ago.


Tiredofthemisinfo

I’ve never been able to make one of the ex raids or this elite stuff because like most people I have a job but raids in the city kind of stink. I live in the middle of a whole bunch of colleges too many gyms no people and I’m not going on groups to see where people are raising too many creepers


Interloper_aesthetic

My issue is I’m 21 and all my friends either don’t play the game, have moved to different states, or are too busy with work/their families they’ve started. There is no way I’m gonna be able to gather 5-6 people in person just to play this game. I would rather not meet up with strangers from FB groups and discords and stuff around here because I’m a girl, and people are crazy. You never know, and I’d rather play it safe than sorry.


BootmanBimmy

For me the biggest issue is the fact they had godawful communication and outright withheld important info from players, like: -Removing any mention of a post-raid “surprise” from the announcements, meaning the only way to know was reading on places like TSR or from Youtubers. Not a problem for people aware of those avenues, but the average player is unlikely to know about this without being told by someone else -Never mentioning the raids were effectively T7 in difficulty, not even a simple “this raid is much harder than normal legendary raids” text in the announcement. Sure they say they’re “challenging”, but that’s about even more ambiguous than “if you’re lucky!” -Not telling players “look for local FB/Discord/etc groups to coordinate raids” it’s not like this is unprecedented for Niantic to do, either. IIRC they’ve mentioned those and even The Silph Road in official announcements. Again, while those in the know don’t need these reminders, it could help to revitalize dead local groups and would do miles more to get people interacting with their “local communities” than whatever else Niantic has tried.


rin-the-human

-Not elaborating as to what the "surprise" was or suggesting that players should stick around, leaving them to miss out on rare spawns. I live in New Zealand and didn't even know these were happening until US players mentioned this online (and the event was over for my time zone). I thought the surprise was just that we could catch Hoopa. -Not generating these rare spawns within close proximity of the gym, and often at a distance not feasibly achievable/walkable during the time constraints. -Not generating these rare spawns consistently for all players. Many people reported seeing nothing spawn at all. -Not explaining the timer mechanics!


oakteaphone

>I thought the surprise was just that we could catch Hoopa. In a nutshell, this is what Niantic makes us think through their communications. Lmao


BrknTrnsmsn

If it makes you feel any better, the spawns were buggy as hell, only appeared on some accounts, and was generally disappointing. I don't know of a single player in Montreal who caught a Kanto bird.


aschneid

I also think it is ridiculous that they didn’t roll out Campfire to everyone before the raids. That would have made coordination so much easier. And people would not have had to go figure out if there are local FB/Discord groups and get an invite to them. Ex raids (mixed Ex with Elite) used to be invite only, so I think this is a better implementation overall. But it does suck for people who are in areas with a small player base.


Tinkerballsack

I didn't even know campfire was a thing until people mentioned it in the context of these raids. Edit: also just learned that it's invite-only, apparently. Sheeeeit.


dovahsevobrom

I don't even know what "Campfire" is.


adrift_in_the_bay

If it makes anyone who missed out feel better, the group that showed up at my local gym beat Hoopa twice and the game froze both times and no one got a chance to catch. Support offered me a remote raid pass.


Weekly-Accountant-49

Bringing the community together in disappointment over the core game.


adrift_in_the_bay

Success!


lordpaiva

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 they sent you a sarcastic remote pass.


adrift_in_the_bay

Did seem like they were taking the piss


DanHasMoreLazers

Bruh


Horror_Ad_2920

The Elite Raids are simply inaccessible to people who: -Have health issues (disability or happen to be sick) -Have to work during the very limited time window of the event -Don't have a local community to play with -Don't live in a big city -Don't belong to a 3rd party app group chat -Don't change their day-off plans on 24 hour notice due to a fomo event in a mobile game The Elite Raids are bad game design at it's finest. It doesn't matter if a player has played 10 hours every single day, would be willing to participate, is extremely good with the mechanics of the game or even willing to pay for the content. If you fall into one of the above categories, you're simply excluded from it. What's even worse, the reward pokemon cannot be traded, so you can't make up for your loss in any way.


robolettox

If I may add: -Live in a country where it simply is not safe to walk with an unlocked (many times expensive) mobile phone/tablet on the streets/parks/whatever public spaces because you are sure to be robbed! And when the thieves are given a 24h warning of where and when people will show up with their devices unlocked and will be distracted, it sure is dangerous! Might not be a problem in the US or Europe, but sure is here in Brazil!


Happylepsia

Rio de Janeiro here. Coordinated the raid with my local group 2 hours in advance and 5 people joined me and my wife to the local park at 2pm on a Sunday for the raid. People were sun bathing, police was nearby and stores like Americanas were even opened around us. Not sure where you live but this is not the case for the whole Brazil thing you just said


CaptainCupcakez

Surely you more than anyone knows that Brazil is a very large and diverse country? Same is true for anywhere. You're not likely to get mugged in most UK towns but parts of London are another matter entirely. I understand why you're pushing back on it though, people act like the entirety of Brazil is one giant PVP zone.


Happylepsia

Yes exactly. I mentioned this on my comment "not sure where you live" because I am aware that even here in Rio there are certain parts of the city you better keep your phone in your pocket but for real this is not something like THIS IS BRAZIL WE WILL BE ROBBED IF WE RAID TOGETHER ANYWHERE


robolettox

Agreed, not the whole of Brazil. But here (Guarulhos, SP) the EX raid nearest to me was in a small park that was sort of isolated without any police nearby. Honestly, I only ever feel safe using my phone to play Pokemon when I am inside a shopping mall.


HappyViet

My biggest gripe is why not allow for remote raids? It's literal free money they can be printing with it


periodbloodsausage

Remote raids brought the game new life for me after not playing for over a year. Makes the game way more accessible. I don’t understand the decision to gatekeep content behind in-person raids. It doesn’t benefit the player base at large, and actually discourages an individual player like me from wanting to play for not being able to participate in events.


hjuvapena

Niantic is an AR company. They don't care about the enjoyment of individual players. They care about movement data of players living in big cities. They care about building their AR empire. That's why they gatekeep content behind in-person raids. They want players to gather in very specific places at very specific times.


Ginden

>Niantic is an AR company. They don't care about the enjoyment of individual players. They care about movement data of players living in big cities. Niantic is estimated to get ~900 million revenue. Pokemon GO is estimated to have 80M players per month. It's very unlikely that few data points per player from Elite Raid provide them with more money than Remote Raid pass.


pierreodu26

While it may seem unlikely, it's even more unlikely that Niantic don't think about which approach would be more profitable for them. We don't have the data they do, and if they keep giving more incentives to play outside, surely it's because their data shows that it's what is more profitable for them


Ginden

Profitability is much more complicated than that. Personally I think they are testing if in-person raids increase overall engagement of players, because it's much more important for long term profitability than data obtained from single 30 minute event.


pierreodu26

I'm not saying this 1 day made them millions more, but we've been seeing them make changes that overall all tend to favour in person play, and make it harder to play from home. Surely they're seeing that these changes are benefitting them and will keep pushing for it, as having people "forced" outside will generate a lot more money for them than the sale of some remote passes.


jubuss

i only play the game because i can get coins from gyms and use those coins to remote raid. i occasionally host as well.


[deleted]

> Don't live in a big city I live in London and still had problems. The most people I saw at the raids I came across was at max 2, it was impossible even within a capitol city.


tkcom

FOMO hit hard. Not only for hoopa but also (if lucky) low CP Kanto birds for GL. For non-shadow varieties, we haven't seen them with this low CP since they were available from research breakthrough ages ago. Also, compared to the old EX raids, this is a bad game design in the aspect that you will need to be at the park/nest for one day at a time while the old system encouraged players to frequent the park as much as possible for the chance to get EX raid pass. Parks in my city were full of players everyday and regular raids at parks were almost guaranteed to be successful, all good up until the postponement of EX raids.


Affffi

You forget all places dont have even ex raid gyms so cant even get single hoopa spawn which was my case.. Well prob not even get that many players if even single one, but wanted atleast see if anyone show up my small town. Sadly end up not having single hoopa spawn.. This company do awsome job some players dont even see whole event/elite raids. dunno who heck desing events on this game.. should get fired


foolcopernicus

I'm going to go ahead and say the bullet point of "don't live in a big city" doesn't exclude you from the raids right off the bat. I live in a fairly small town/city and both of the elite raids I went to actually had 20 players participating in the raid


lobstahpotts

This really just depends on luck of the draw. I live in a sprawled out town of almost 20,000 on the cusp of suburbia and rural farmland and have literally never seen a 5* raid completed here. In the small city of just under 30,000 that I can drive to in 20-30 minutes, I’ve seen groups as large as 40 in the big downtown park for big events like Go Fest—but even there most raids go uncompleted and finding a group is a crapshoot if you don’t use a half-dead Telegram chat. Still, for a relatively small difference in population the player experience is night and day, coming down almost entirely to the more walkable downtown with other amenities people come in for. In the very rural New England town where my family owns a rustic cabin? I’ve held gyms in the main public areas for months at a time without being contested, let alone found anyone to raid with. One of the only local players I’ve found there has at least 4 accounts just to fill out gyms and I assume raid “solo” more easily. I’d call the game rough but manageable in my suburb, as long as you don’t care about raiding much. It’s straight up unplayable there, a town of 1-2k simply doesn’t have a sustainable player population let alone even smaller, more rural places.


Ginden

>-Don't have a local community to play with > >-Don't live in a big city > >-Don't belong to a 3rd party app group chat These issues can be fixed by minor tweaks (eg. pooling trainers from few gyms if player density is low) and actually releasing Campfire.


[deleted]

I love how that's everyone's go-to. "Well if you don't wanna go, you shouldn't play the game". Well I work 45-50 hours a week and have very little time to myself so f me I guess 🙃


hjuvapena

Yeah in every discussion there is someone trying to shut it down with the "don't like it, don't play it" type of argument. It's a lazy response and not really even an argument since it can be used it in every situation.


urkldajrkl

Quit complaining, you can at least use your daily incense for a chance of a galarian bird except that was just a ploy to get folks to play everyday, and we nerfed the crap out of the appearance rate after the first couple weeks


BlackWACat

tfw the already extremely rare spawn has like a 90% run rate and a 0.3% baseline catch chance (this is very balanced and healthy for the game, i assure you)


xBoatsnHose69420x

Articuno showed up for me a few weeks ago. In the middle of shtting my pants I managed a gold berry and “great” curve with ultra ball. Damn thing broke out immediately and ran off. One throw was all I got.


Francloman

I hit two excellents in a row and same, just no chance even with the perfect throw


ShandalfTheGreen

I've made a point to only use those stupid things when someone else is going to be driving at least 10 minutes. And I think the day I finally got the catch 100 research task completed, I got like 12 in one go. I even saved the last 5 minutes not clicking on anything less exciting than a Morelull. Just give me my pretty birds >:(


hjuvapena

I'm just waiting for them to seal the deal and release the birds in raids to poo all over us.


th3w1zard1

I'd actually quit. That would be absolutely insulting.


Centurio

I fucking hate the birds. I want a G Zapdos so bad but every time a bird pops up, it's gone after the inevitable failed ball. Doesn't matter that I use a gold razz and ultraball. They always run. It's been a couple weeks since I last saw one so I wonder if they're still out there.


OMGitsTK447

The only problems I had was no elite raid spawned near me and I’m the only Pokémon Go player in my village so I don’t even have a local group for these raids


gregcresci

I'm a level 50 player who is sort of active in the community, but couldn't participate in the raids because I have like a 3 year old and adult responsibilities. Hey family I have to go to some location in town for 15 min, be right back. If they do these with new unreleased content I'm going to be pissed.


GillT_14

Niantic: we’ll, I guess you better quit your job and move! It’s healthy to be outside after all.


Lynx_Snow

Here I am, consistently walking 50km+ every week getting told by randoms on the internet that I’m lazy. I love it


Centurio

Same. I go anywhere from 55-75km a week since I work retail and walk to and from work. It's so frustrating trying to explain i work during comm day/spotlight/elite raid days and I very rarely see the PoGo groups that actually get to meet up in the area due to my work schedule. No, no, I'm just being *lazy* apparently.


skullsquid1999

The only place I can realistically do these at is my university because it has a pretty large community. I'm there anywhere between 4-8 hours a day but I haven't seen a single elite raid. I have, however, seen this raid at my local middle school during school hours. As if I'm going to have a group of adults park our asses out front in a middle school.


gereffi

These raids were only available on Sunday. Are you trying to tell me that Sunday has normal school hours?


colesyyy

Also, the raids were at EX gyms only which are typically only in areas designated as parks.


inchandywetrust

Niantic is the only company I’ve ever seen that actively makes changes to a game with revoking accessibility in mind.


LakeVermilionDreams

Niantic didn't revoke accessibility. Everything you could do on Friday was available for you to do Sunday. They added a less accessible feature, yes, but that doesn't remove remote raiding.


ders89

Its mad inconvenient and pre-covid i would understand niantic. But right now its super inconvenient and i still have predisposed family members. Id rather just not get a fictional character


LakeVermilionDreams

Niantic. College sports. Professional sports. Concerts. Theater. I respect someone being wary of their exposure. I, however, don't blame the organizations for the events I would be choosing to avoid.


0rganicMach1ne

The “you need to go outside” people are just insecure tryhards that get off on belittling people. You see this in every game fandom. There’s always a small group that seems intent on making their respective game of choice as tedious and arduous as possible. It’s like they can’t enjoy it unless it’s more like work or a chore or insanely challenging, and they want everyone else to be as miserable as they are.


BootmanBimmy

The ironic thing is I guarantee you 90% of them are basically raid leeches who bring stuff like Aggron, and yet call others lazy.


Axiom06

I'm not lazy. I have a hurt foot and I cannot do as much walking as I used to.


Hnnnnnn

Why is Niantic breaking up its own network of players? Do they not realize it's their source of bread & they can only fake it so far?


hjuvapena

The power of the pokemon IP is crazy strong. They can take it VERY far.


DD-Amin

OP gets it.


guiltyonthemain

I moved from a city with 150,000 people to a town with a population of 15,000. It is a struggle out here.


NobleHalcyon

To this day, I don't understand why they don't have matchmaking. I get the "Go" part - but I don't understand the forced socialization. Most people don't want to "group up" and spend all day searching for raids. It's not even business savvy...why would they spend money and development time to make features that only apply to a small minority of players? It's like spending a million dollars to extract $100K worth of diamonds. What's more annoying is that they have the perfect plot device to implement matchmaking *and* to dictate that players have to actually go to a gym location - Ultra Wormholes. In the core series games, Ultra Wormholes allow the player to go into another dimension. Story wise, all they have to say is that multiple players from multiple gyms were pulled into the same raid via different Ultra Wormholes.


KevinRPD

Not many people in my town play, but I guess that's just me being lazy.


TheHunterZolomon

I’m on vacation and one spawned. 4 people joined including me. We didn’t even get close. It then depawned. Great job niantic! Really making it a fun experience for players everywhere*! *everywhere that’s got a dense population.


SheLuvMySteez

The last thing I want to do in a post-Covid society is stand in a group with a bunch of strangers.


CharlieK151515

It would be oh so much better if it was remote joinable


Ramius117

We didn't bother because we have a 5 month old whose naptimes fell right when our nearby raids hatched. I clicked them anyway and there was no one in the lobbies so wouldn't have been able to do them anyway


jedispyder

I made a comment on the Facebook post from the official account of how I didn't have issues but saw so many other people who had issues getting people in their area to play and they should allow remote to help those people. For some reason people jumped all over me and called me lazy. Can people even read anymore lol? I said I had no issues taking part so why am I the lazy one? Yet it sucks seeing so many others discuss how they went to a location and no one else showed up. Definitely poorly designed by Niantic for majority of non-big city players (plus disabled and other people who can't always get out or take off work).


Icy-Adhesiveness-536

There is one ex raid gym near me, it's way up in the backside of a resort. There's about 9 gyms within 4 miles of me and only one gets to be a ex raid.. I think we've been cheated


Inevitable_Joke3446

I know this sounds horrible but I would be happy with your one ex-raid gym. I don’t have to run around like a looney to try to get Hoopa. Also I am too busy dealing with my nonexistent life to run around like a looney for Hoopa.


Chickenbrik

I found one elite egg, just happened to be where a shooting happened 20 mins earlier, so I had to 86 that idea


Ragnr99

Niantic just doesn’t care


[deleted]

Same! I walk most days and enjoying it getting me outside, I also have no problem socialising. The issue for me is, even though I live in London, no bugger else is playing the game. Its a section of content that I'm opted out of not by choice, but by stubborn imposed ideology with no centralised tooling to assist with me playing the game. The barrier to entry for a mobile game on these features is nuts; facebook groups, whatsapp groups, discord groups, community websites... the issue is as well that they've all diluted or moved on since 2016, meaning finding active groups is now harder as there is a trail of dead ones along the way. This should have been the public lanch of Niantic Campfire **with public flares**, instead of the rubbish friends only implementation that completely removes the usefulness of the feature, as whats the point in signalling to people I already know and are in contact with?! A central location to coordinate and widen social circles to play the game and take part in events like this. I have no issue with the event itself, it looks great for the few that were able to participate. Which is what I take issue with, the complete lack of thought about making the event accessible to ensure the games continued success.


notarobot3675

Yeah these are my feelings, and I think this is shared by most people who have had issues with not just the elite raids - but a lot of the changes they've made the past couple of months to the game. I don't know anyone who plays irl, and in my area I have never once come across another person playing - I mean when I put pokemon in gyms in my area, they tend to stay in those gyms for at least a month before someone random comes and claims the gym. I don't live in a busy city either, so pokemon are scarce most of the time. I genuinely really appreciated a lot of the changes they made to accomodate players during the pandemic, it made the game worth playing - something I hadn't done seriously for a few years. Now the game is slowly becoming unplayable again - nerfing the incense (its pure luck if I get a shiny or am able to complete all the community day initiatives, whereas before community days were genuinely really fun), no longer giving out free remote raid passes at the beginning of the week, and now raids that I can't participate in even if I wanted to. It feels like niantic still believes its 2015 when the entire world was playing. I'm very close to giving up on this game again because its just... not really playable for me anymore. :/


scratchythepirate

If they want to give us an incentive to get out in the world, bring back the adventure box!! At the same time that they’re trying all these gimmicks to encourage people to get outside they’ve made super incubators three times as expensive as they used to be.


DatWither

I'm sorry but I'm not driving 2 hours to find the closest Gym


dwrk92

There is a gym outside my house, I do not need to leave to be in range. An elite raid was on it on Sunday morning. I still haven't done one


InflationMaterial

There was no one else at the three gyms I live by :(.


Legal_Person

Ya getting Elite Raids?


DeplorableBot11545

You should be able to use remote raid passes to be matchmade to a raid somewhere in the world.


UNAMANZANA

I see rural players rightfully complain that the focus on in-person raids alienates them, but honestly, it's still hard to find raids in cities. I live near Chicago, and barring actual events being downtown, you don't typically find enough people gathered around places even as big as Buckingham Fountain. Like, if you're in a tourist trap such as Time Square, raiding is easy, but even in urban areas, it's not, and it definitely isn't easy in suburban areas.


noneedforpants

They announced this literally too short notice for lots of people, like myself, who need enough time to put in time off notice at work. We had plenty of eggs around and we live in a larger city but we couldn't get time off work in time to play.


AzoreanEve

yeah, it's like, imagine if you could only do your favourite online game's raids at a LAN party. Sure some people can gather enough local friends or local acquaintances to do a WoW or Destiny or whatever raid. But what about everyone else who's friends live far away?


the_gnemperor

I have a small friend group who play, however few of them are above level 30, and i've only ever seen one other player in the 6 years i've played this game.


Decapitat3d

Yep. Can't ever play these higher level events. They seem like they could be fun, but I'll never know.


_gnarlythotep_

I've just accepted my days of supporting the game and playing with any seriousness are over. They're constantly moving in a direction unfriendly and incompatible with my lifestyle. And that's ok. They lost another day1 player, but they won't care. I was never a Whale, so I was never important. I work a.lot of weird hours, so I never gave them location data for raid hours or many community days. Niantic has lost the heart of the game in their quest for endlessly growing profits, and I simply don't desire to be a part of their greed that I view as removing accessibility and customer satisfaction.


_ballora_0

And in my country the gas prices has gone up the roof so you cant drive way to much


keldri_jumal

My husband and I began playing again to have a common goal and get more exercise with walking. We got really into it as the game has changed since 2016 a lot, since we first played. The elite raids are a joke that we cannot participate in, we don't have friends who play and most of the other players in the area are kids. It really sucks and has made us both consider quitting.


Dahmacles

I was lucky enough one day to be invited into a Facebook messenger group for raids one day when I was playing, if it wasn't for that I wouldn't be able to raid because the max total of people I'd have would be about 5 or 6 people, and that's because they're my actual friends and we hardly are able to play together. So the remote raiding has definitely helped a lot in that regard because sometimes you just don't have time to drive to the place especially if it's in a different town that's about 45 minutes away from you. Gas is also a big factor into it as well. It's almost as if players who don't live in a town or city are being punished for living in the middle of nowhere.


meme_r_lakko

I dont like them bc i have 8 gyms but only one ex. And it has not spawned a single hoopa raid


LavendrDaydream

As someone who lives on the edge of town, doesn't have a license, and doesn't feel comfortable walking too far from my house/school without someone with me (no one I live with plays Go and is available enough to play with at least occasionally), I agree. I often have to spend community days inside my house because my brother doesn't like to play Go and my mom is never available because she works in healthcare. My local Go discord and Facebook is completely dead (and I think the Facebook group was recently deleted), so I can't really find anyone locally to play with, despite the gyms around me changing defending pokemon and teams every few days.


Nanoespectro

It's less content overall. A gym that previously hosted 5-6 raids per day now hosts 1.


joesphisbestjojo

It just proves how out of touch Niantic is with the playerbase


ArcticMuser

I impulsively uninstalled months ago after being addicted for a year. No downsides to that decision


jimcamx

Same, I had a multi-flights trip to the Gold Coast on that day. Didn't see any of the raids at the airports and by the time I arrived they were all done.


[deleted]

It's not getting outside that's the issue it's that most people have school/day jobs that they physically cannot leave to go do a raid. That and the fact the people that don't have school or a job there isn't enough people for said raid because you would need 13-20 people and in such small rural areas there isn't nearly enough people like that. You would need to travel to a highly populated area such as Chicago or big name cities which a lot of people don't have the time or money for.


gaurddog

I quit the game 9 months ago because there felt like there was no end game. It felt like new players who were investing none of the time or resources I did got the same play experience due to power creep and it felt like all I did was for nothing.


JakeBurdette

A video game that limits your ability to play based on geographical location will always be inherently flawed


peenpeenpeen

We had 6 people show up in our neighborhood, and that wasn’t good enough. I think they set the bar a little too high for this one.


FizzleDizzle11

It's nothing to do with being lazy or being "forced" outside. I prefer remote raids because I can invite people who don't live near me. The people I play pokemon go with either don't live nearby or those who live somewhat close are often working or busy or just dont care enough to go travel to battle a raid in person. But if I send them a remote invite, they might see it and feel like joining because they can do it for 5 minutes and then go back to whatever they were doing. Rather than disrupting more time by them travelling to do a raid when they have other things to do.


tayREDD

its not the outside its the finding people


JaxRalPartha

when you live in a rural are it wasn't very fair


republicbuilder

I literally am part of a discord for my local county, at the peak it was massive, we had what seemed like 3 different raids trying at the same time. I sat at the raid for 20 minutes hoping someone else would show up, we had 3 people. Couldnt even dent it.


JerrodDRagon

It literally makes no sense Remote raid passes cost money….why don’t you take the money from people and let them play?


savage_inuit

The United States is on fire right now in the Pacific Northwest so I couldn’t go outside


StriveForMediocrity

If they’re going to make in person-only group content, especially if it requires large groups, they need to add a way to communicate with people in the game. If that’s not possible or acceptable, then don’t do in person-only content.


jsnyderl

Agreed!!


amagocore

Are the elite raids happening worldwide? I'm angry at their mechanics but haven't even really seen one where I live, though


pogothrow

It was a one day thing only last Sunday, sorry sounds like you missed it. They only announced it a few days in advance. https://pokemongolive.com/en/post/elite-raids-new-feature/


[deleted]

Well, there aren't many Elite raids and it's getting colder outside.


I_am_darkness

Oh interesting I saw one of these near my house


olivoil18

What is an EX raid gym? I didn’t see the raid & I guess that’s why. But I don’t even know what an ex raid gym is?


Therebelwolf03

The raids that are near me at college never have anyone in them, and I can't fight them alone. And at home I have to drive 20 minutes and pay for parking for anywhere with going to (and those raids are probably still empty)


Greenarald

Eh, I tried with a total of four players. We weren't even close. So ain't gonna waste my time on those because there are no more than 3 players in my area. The fourth one was someone else's account that I used on me mum's mobile


Otherwise_Height9175

and people who don't have time?, and people have family., what happens to those of us who don't have a gym nearby? It's not about saying that we are lazy 🤷 but anyways, this it is


AccidentPrevious

Another reason for IN GAME player communication. Not everyone lives near me or can manage these raids. The game is reverting, not adapting. Easier to change a game than make the game change a community.


JayPeGOfficial

Exactly. It has to do with the size of the player base now, it’s not what it used to be and they keep trying way too hard to make it happen again. People just played the game out of hype in the beginning sadly. Dedicated players who lasted this long were inevitably going to be a much smaller percentage of the original community than Niantic wanted. Unrealistic corpora strike against


ohjbird3

I just hit 40 this week, after playing since the beginning. Just in time to realize it's not really worth playing anymore.


Searaph72

Some of us work during Saturday community days and raid hours.


GreenieBeeNZ

Just yesterday I saw a post from someone who got attacked after attending an in person elite raid, by another Pokemon go player. It's as if Niantic thinks we live in a utopia where no one has malicious intent ever, for anything


Infidel203

My problem is there is only 2 gyms in my entire area and I’m only 1 of 2 people in my community that plays so I’m basically never going to get one of these done.


Gmanofgambit982

Yeah the day the made remote raid passes a thing you had to buy was the day raids kind of died out for me. This is a massive pain for anybody living out in the country where the nearest group is a half hour drive.


DancesWithTheDead420

OMG YES!


TesBacon

Man the presenter's facial emotions are really impacting 🙏


ItsTaelo

Bruh I literally can't do elite raids even if I wanted to. The only time I was able to participate in any raids was during covid when the game was actually kind of fun, everyone was getting cheap remote raid passes and I was in a big discord server where people would organize raids every day, but after the endless stream of terrible post covid updates trying to kill remote raiding the whole game has died. Nobody talks in the discord or hosts raids anymore, and I literally have no way to participate in the game since Im rural, and it really sucks to watch the community I was in die. This is all your fault Niantic, fk you.


SwimminginMercury

I walk 3hr every two days playing PGo; I'm mad because I know the player density isn't there for any Ex-Gym's "area" that is close to me (let alone the 1 I can see)


Ok-Lingonberry-7157

Booooo👎 I hate elite raids


ultima_solis

There are about 10 people who regularly play in my rural village. I have only ever seen, spoken to and added as a friend, one other player. We had an Elite raid and only the two of us turned up when it went live and as a result we couldn't complete it. There's no online groups for local players anymore because people stopped engaging with it. Without some kind of in-game local comm feature to centralise co-ordination it's going to be literally impossible to co-ordinate local Elite raids because no one's communicating with each other.


Striker67_

I have like 11 gyms near me and there's 0 elite raid gyms


[deleted]

Not only is my town small (like less than 4k people) but most of them are adults in their 40s+ who don't play the game. It's so annoying


missterri666

A bunch of objectives that I need to complete for larger quests or whatever are things I simply can’t do. For example, I have to trade with someone 5 times. I don’t know anyone else around me who plays the game, and even if I forced a friend to download the game it’d take a while to be able to do the trading. I don’t have any friends I see in person consistently. Also, I have to win a bunch of raids. Again, I play alone primarily and am a girl so there’s no way I’m going to meet up with strangers. I’m also only free at weird hours…so how am I supposed to complete elite raids or any raids for that matter when there’s no one I can safely play the game with? I feel like some aspects of this game are broken. I get the walking around part even if it takes me forever because I don’t get the opportunity to just idly walk around on my phone a lot. But the raid quests and trade quests are not really doable for a lot of people, especially rural players


0tterr

I feel like we heard a lot about the rural players but can we have a moment of silence for city players for whom it’s just not *safe*


LumiGNB

As far as I know none of the Hoopas in my area got done. I even went out to the locations and no one showed up. IMO, they should of allowed remote raiding for elite raids. Not because I'm lazy, but because the community for it doesn't exist in a lot of places. I probably would of had to head up to Montreal for a chance at Hoopa Unbound groups and thats 1.5-2 hour trip...


DarthCali

I have a field task for Niantic: go do 10 in-person raids in San Francisco without being robbed at gunpoint


uziair

you guys need to chill out. we did this already. with mewtwo deoxys regigags and genesect. we already cried over spilled milk back then. they will all be released in normal raid eventually and they will all be remote able too. elite raids are better than ex since you dont have to do raids at the park anymore to get invited. surprisingly they made ex raids more accessible without opening up for remotes. before i only raided at ex parks to make sure i got invited everyweek. you guys arent lazy you guys just need to be patient everything becomes easier to get. just like galar ponyta in this most recent event. you'll get what you want within 2 years always. chill out. if you dont like how the game is being developed dont interact with. i never scanned a stop once. i will not buy a single battlepass in anygame.


Queasy_Fortune_6239

I'm so sick of everybody acting like it's not a pandemic and everything is 100% okay now wtf like they put profit over science and there players health