Pokémon Go! (Android/iOS)

[Phube]

I caught an Abra today so I'm happy. But I did notice pigeys, rattatas & weedles of about 100-180 were a lot more difficult to catch with a normal ball, no Razz berry!

 

And I'm one of those players who lives no where near a Pokestop, just gonna be a nightmare if I'm wasting balls left right and centre!

[Falcon_BlizZACK]

I've updated but don't really see the difference in its enjoyability. Didn't care to open the 'Nearby' feature and wait to be surprised. Hopefully the persistent freezing has been resolved.

[Phube]

The view from my house:

 

 

 

 

Pokestops, pokestops EVERYWHERE!!!

 

 

Oh and getting rid of battery saving mode is annoying too...

[BowserBasher]

Cam confirm battery saving mode is gone from iOS version. Well that was dumb. Even if it didn't save much battery, being able to turn the phone upside down and put it in my pocket whilst I walked was better than having my pockets activate random buttons whist it was in there.

[Guy]

I'll get used to the more difficult catching soon and there will be other tracking methods released in future if Niantic don't fix theirs. The game will start dropping numbers and popularity soon, but the die-hards will persist until they've caught them all. To be Pokemon Masters is, after all, our destiny.

[bob]

 

Drowzees everywhere!

[Agent Gibbs]

I haven't noticed too much of a difference, Drowseys are as common still, but i did have kadabra spawn at my house after updating and caught him with one ball - so thats something

 

 

Power saving modes removal is utterly ridiculous too! atleast let us lock our screen and it still work! thats the only thing that annoyed me

[Dcubed]

This vid seems to sum things up nicely

 

[Shorty]

Have they stated a reason for taking away battery save mode? It was handy, stopped my device getting too warm and seemed to conserve a little battery when running alongside Spotify.

 

And lowered the capture rate? How about you fix the things that are broken before you start straying into nerf territory.

 

I wonder if this will get any traction in the media. Normally when devs start to mess up a game you love, complaining about it feels like shouting at a wall. But PoGo is a lot bigger....

[Agent Gibbs]

Have they reduced spawns full stop? i used to be able to leave my phone on charge with the app open and a pokemon would appear maybe every 20 min? tonight i've had 4 in 4 hours (one was a kadabra but still). I went for a walk earlier and that also seemed to spawn less, every 400-500m a pokemon spawned, tonight it was far far less frequent..............

 

So no tracking

and less frequent spawns?

Are pokemon going extinct because we caught too many?

[Goafer]

Have they stated a reason for taking away battery save mode? It was handy, stopped my device getting too warm and seemed to conserve a little battery when running alongside Spotify.

 

It made mine crash quite often, so maybe that was a common thing? It would come out of the battery save mode and nothing would work on the touch screen, forcing a restart. I'm sure I read a few people were having similar issues.

 

I've already noticed the harder catch rates. Today a level 50 Weedle broke out of the first great ball I threw, then immediately ran away. I can't imagine how hard it must be to catch a much higher level Pokemon. With gyms being guarded by lvl 1000+ Pokemon and it now being much harder to catch anything comparable, it's basically made it even harder to catch up with the hardcore players from before the patch.

 

I was already getting a bit bored by Go, but I kept playing occasionally, but now there's less reasons for me to play. I can only really do a tour of Pokestops on the weekend and I wasn't going to spend money on items until they'd fixed it, so I imagine I'll just run out of balls quicker now and ignore the game until the weekend. Although, if I'm not playing it as regularly, I imagine I'll just forget about it all together.

 

In short, I don't have the balls to keep playing. Fnar.

[Eddage]

There seems to be a lot of overblown reaction to the latest update which as far as I'm concerned is way out of hand.

 

Tracking/Footprints - This was disabled in the last update as apparently it was putting a lot of strain on the servers. It makes absolute sense to remove the footprints all together until they find a way to get it working without said strain.

 

Battery Saver - There were loads and loads of reports that the game would be unresponsive after returning from battery saver mode. I experienced this myself about 50% of the time and so had already turned it off and hardly noticed any difference in battery usage (and if you're really desperate).

 

Harder to Catch - This seems anecdotal at best. There were already reports that once you hit level 20 or 25 weaker Pokemon became harder to catch and there is no real evidence that they have made it even harder in the update. I personally hadn't experienced it and since the update, if anything, it seems even easier. The random curve balls seemed to have decreased and weak Pokemon seem to be caught with one or two balls (by weak I mean CP, not the Pokemon itself. E.g. a 300+ CP Pidgey is always going to be hard to catch because it is a high level Pokemon). Also, RNG is RNG.

 

This game is far from perfect but I feel like people are blowing some things out of proportion.

[Phube]

Anecdotal evidence: I'm a level 17 (Not too high, not too low) and I met a 108 caterpie on the road. It took 4 razz berries and 5 Pokèballs to capture. This is excessive to say the least... I mean if I'm wasting 5 balls in a low level caterpie what next...?

[Serebii]

I was so happy to have been proven wrong by GO. With the tracking, it was ridiculous fun.

 

Now, with this patch, they have just ballsed everything up. Tracking is gone. Pokémon run a lot more often than they should (Had more yesterday than I had combined since launch), and aren't captured. Experience boosts are removed.

 

They've essentially made the game what I feared it would be, ridiculously bad, unfair mechanics to encourage purchasing of items.

 

They took the enthusiasm I had gained after being massively sceptical and have completely trashed it. I'm not having fun.

 

If they don't bring back tracking and sort the flee rates out, then this game will die off, and it will deserve it.

 

Harder to Catch - This seems anecdotal at best. There were already reports that once you hit level 20 or 25 weaker Pokemon became harder to catch and there is no real evidence that they have made it even harder in the update. I personally hadn't experienced it and since the update, if anything, it seems even easier. The random curve balls seemed to have decreased and weak Pokemon seem to be caught with one or two balls (by weak I mean CP, not the Pokemon itself. E.g. a 300+ CP Pidgey is always going to be hard to catch because it is a high level Pokemon). Also, RNG is RNG.

 

This game is far from perfect but I feel like people are blowing some things out of proportion.

 

It is far from anecdotal... I have not in my GO play experienced this much fleeing and it's happening with everyone.

[Eddage]

Well I've caught about 10 pokémon today, 1 ran away, 1 took 3 or 4 balls, the rest were caught first time.

 

These pokémon ranged from 15 CP to 500ish CP. In fact the 500 + Staryu I caught was one of the ones that took 1 ball.

[Dcubed]

I was so happy to have been proven wrong by GO. With the tracking, it was ridiculous fun.

 

Now, with this patch, they have just ballsed everything up. Tracking is gone. Pokémon run a lot more often than they should (Had more yesterday than I had combined since launch), and aren't captured. Experience boosts are removed.

 

They've essentially made the game what I feared it would be, ridiculously bad, unfair mechanics to encourage purchasing of items.

 

They took the enthusiasm I had gained after being massively sceptical and have completely trashed it. I'm not having fun.

 

If they don't bring back tracking and sort the flee rates out, then this game will die off, and it will deserve it.

 

 

 

It is far from anecdotal... I have not in my GO play experienced this much fleeing and it's happening with everyone.

 

Yeah, these changes do feel really mean and greedy. There's no excuse for removing experience point boosts (what is even the point of curveball shots and Nice/Great/Excellent captures anymore?) and the (likely, going by personal experience within my group of friends) catch rate alterations are just pure BS.

 

$10 million a day isn't enough for Niantic obviously... And refusing to properly address server load issues (clearly you amputate the arm if you get a cut on it ) alongside a total lack of communication (hell, even just flat out ignoring people's complaints over the "3 step bug" at SDCC) for a game this successful is just utterly absurd.

 

The handling of this game has just been a total mess. Amazing that TPC hasn't stepped in to sort things out.

[Eddage]

I have never seen a substantial increase in the difficulty of catching pokémon.

[Hero-of-Time]

If they don't bring back tracking and sort the flee rates out, then this game will die off, and it will deserve it.

 

It is already happening. Many on Gaf and Reddit have deleted the game and got refunds for the purchases they've made. Also, i've came into work this morning and the guys who were playing it aren't happy, with some of them having deleted the game.

 

Another thing which is annoying people is that Niantic aren't really talking about what is going on and when we can expect the steps to return. Apparently they have no community manager so people can't get any answers from them.

 

With the Pokemon Plus accessory being delayed, the update and the shutting down of finder sites, the game has turned into a right mess. If things aren't sorted it's going to go down as an amazing example of how to ruin one of the most popular things on the planet in the space of a couple of weeks. It also doesn't help the Pokemon brand image either. Baffling stuff.

[Glen-i]

If things aren't sorted it's going to go down as an amazing example of how to ruin one of the most popular things on the planet in the space of a couple of weeks. It also doesn't help the Pokemon brand image either. Baffling stuff.

 

Just gonna go on the record and say this is exactly what I was afraid of the moment GO was revealed.

If this does end up having a negative effect on the brand, I'm going to be in the most bitter "Smug Mode" I've ever been in.

[Kav]

I'll not bother playing/using the game now until they sort the Tracking (or allow Pokevision to be put back online) and return the iOS battery saving mode in a fixed state.

[khilafah]

Mainline Pokémon software sales up again this week on 3DS

 

That Pokémon Go effect

[Ronnie]

Just gonna go on the record and say this is exactly what I was afraid of the moment GO was revealed.

If this does end up having a negative effect on the brand, I'm going to be in the most bitter "Smug Mode" I've ever been in.

 

What do you have to be smug about exactly? Pokemon Go is a phenomenon. The popularity of Red and Blue are nothing compared to this.

[Mr-Paul]

Urgh, I really don't like what the update has done to this game. It feels more broken. Pokémon animations carry on once the ball has hit it and opened. Common Pokémon are harder to catch and run away way too often, leaving very little sense of achievement. Before, you'd go for a walk, and sure, you may not have caught loads of Pokémon, but at least you got a haul of Pidgey. Now, that's even a struggle. That's not even getting onto the lack of radar. Before I could enjoy this just wandering around, catching whatever I came across. It now feels less fun.

 

One thing hasn't changed though.

 

Zubats are still a bloody pain in the arse.

[Agent Gibbs]

Well today whilst out i caught a Haunter (74cp)

I had RUN from me three pigeys (90cp,10cp and 270cp), a spearow(71cp) and bloody drowsey (23cp)

 

Since getting the game and to the update i'd had a about the same number flee from me

 

In my experience flee rate is way up

[Guy]

Managed to hatch a Chansey, Lapras and Exeggcute today, with about 5 more added to the PokeDex through evolution.

 

Hit level 22 as well, the grind is very real at this stage and at my rate of play it's probably gonna be at least another week or two before getting to 23.