Pokémon GO News
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TIP - One of the 1st ppl to hit Level 30; My impressions w/ the scaling & things you need to know about Lvl 25+ - by Riggnaros
After putting in a solid week straight of playing and hitting Level 30, I decided to take a few days off and share some of my thoughts (proof:https://twitter.com/riggnaros/status/754441342575673345). I like this game a lot, and I love Pokemon (dont we all), but the hardcore gamer in me cant help but be annoyed at so many of the simple things that could have made this game so much better.
Here is a list+explanation of the top issues that I feel need to be addressed asap:
First and foremost; Scaling is WAY off in every area and needs to be adjusted. Pokemon that you capture do not need to give the same xp at level 30 as they do at level 1, especially rare/evolved/high CP Pokemon (Snorlax/Venusaur/2k CP/etc). It makes no sense that a 10cp Pidgey should be giving the same xp as an 1600cp Scyther. Stronger, evolved, and more rare Pokemon should reward you with more xp, plain and simple. Also, the way each level scales with xp is horribly designed. Most people are probably around level 20ish at this point and dont realize it, but once you get to 25+ it starts to sink in just how daunting each level is when it comes to xp required. Yes, Im sure some ppl will say "its fine" etc; every game has its fanboys (as well as haters), but this is just realistic. As someone who has gamed for their entire life, some of which has been at a competitive level, I can promise you this scaling is out of touch and will be a huge problem in the coming weeks/months if its not addressed.
- SCALING
Here is a graph and spreadsheet Klik_Vox made that shows just how out of hand the scaling gets:
https://twitter.com/Klik_Vox/status/753972508941058048https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bgeFZl3_XfcvWF0DdYp27WWRpFdckM2BFywZt3q17VA/edit
Outside of evolves, Pokedex entries (which dont exist at later levels), and egg hatching, this game has no source of bulk xp to chip away at these astronomically high numbers. I can guarantee it will be changed at some point, but that point needs to be sooner than later. This could be fixed if they remedy the above mentioned problem of Pokemon xp scaling, along w/ every other source of xp in the game.
I understand the difference in geography dictating the variety offered to each reason, but I think all Pokemon should be somewhat avaliable in every region. Someone like myself who lives in the country doesnt even have the option of being near an ocean or mountains. Ive caught almost 4000 Pokemon and have yet to even SEE a Drowzee, Voltorb, Shellder, Seel (among others)... That is not okay. Im not saying they should be 'common', but they should be available.
- Pokemon diversity
Yes, the radar 'works' in its current state, but it would be much more convenient if it had slightly better/easier ways to navigate. Sure, its fun to be out running around finding Pokemon, but its very annoying if you have to spend half an hour navigating around buildings, traffic, etc just to turn around and go back the way you came because two steps just turned back to three.
- Improving the radar function
inb4 someone points out the 'directional pulsing'. Its inconsistent and doesnt work 80%+ of the time. Also, fix 3step bug.
I dont know how their formula works, obviously, but I can promise you that once you hit mid 20s, you will start to notice even the most common of Pokemon have an abnormally high chance to evade capture. In no scenario should a 10cp Pidgey/Ratatta/Weedle be able to avoid capture from a lvl 29 Pokemon trainer, much less avoid it 5-8 times in the same battle (no exaggeration).
- Problems catching 'trivial' Pokemon at lvls 25+
From level 29-30 I went through over 1000 Pokeballs. Literally. I cannot stress how ridiculous this would be for someone playing w/o spending coins on Pokeballs (ie playing the game f2p - which is the majority). If they are expecting players to sit around and camp Pokestops for HOURS just to have enough ammo to grind their half a million xp (the requirement from 30-31, 500k), they need to rethink their approach.
Nothing is more annoying than popping a Lure+XP Egg+Essence just before the servers crash or something else comes up and you have to stop playing Pokemon for a few mins.
- Stopping consumable timers when inactive
I dont care if its less money for Niantic, its only fair to the player. One of the first things on my to-do list Monday morning is calling their customer support and trying to work out some form of solution for wasting about 30% of my consumables due to their server instability (over the course of a week).
This is just a small QoL change that would be awesome if they did. Nothing huge here, just added it to my list after scrolling down and fighting the lag to transfer over 3000 Pokemon. At least put it above the map that loads at the bottom.
- Moving the transfer button to a different location
I think this will wrap things up for now. I may add / edit the list from time to time, but these are all of the huge points I wanted to address. Dont get me wrong either, I LOVE this game and Im very glad its as successful as it is, but that doesnt mean we should just be happy with the things that are clearly broken/badly designed. Hopefully they continue to patch the game and listen to feedback from the players and PoGo will only get better and better.
If anyone has any questions or comments for me, just post and I'll do my best to answer. Thank you for reading.
-Riggs
My initial post can be found here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/4s470l/i_am_currently_halfway_into_level_21_w_a_1785cp/
Statistics@lvl 30:
https://twitter.com/riggnaros/status/754668176529616897
Edit1: So it seems people are confused on what exactly I mean by saying "Pokemon diversity". Im not asking for water Pokemon to be spawning on a mountain, but rather more frequently around a lake (example: the largest lake within an hour of driving distance from me doesnt spawn water Pokemon). I shouldn't have to live by an ocean to have access to catching Lapras. You should not be forced to acquire Pokemon through trading solely due to where you live.
Edit2: It also seems some people dont understand what I mean by "scaling is a problem". Im not asking for the game to be 'easier' or to be able to 'hit max level in 2 weeks'. The level cap can be 10000 (or non existant) for all I care, so long as everything scales accordingly.
"There is a difference between designing a game that takes 'years to beat' or "neverending", and designing a game that scales horribly and forces you into mind numbing grinding 'just because'. You seem to think proper scaling and progress are mutually exclusive, but they arent. You can have both. I wouldnt care if this game didnt have a level cap, so long as the game scaled properly. Where is the fun in catching a Charizard if it gives you the same xp as a Weedle once youre level 34? It doesnt take away from the difficulty of the game if they properly scale the xp. How do you think its fair that going from level 30-31 requires the same xp as making a new account and going from level 1-25? Its not good design."
Quick PSA About PGO Issues from Former Game Developer - by fingerlickingood123
I've been reading all the rage posts today about the servers being down because of the Canadian release, and believe me, I am just as eager to get back into the game and continue playing as the rest of you, but I wanted to inject a little perspective into the matter.
I recently left a job in game development, so I know a bit about what it's like to work on an app like this, certainly not of this scale, but game dev culture is pretty similar no matter where you go, and I promise you that right now the Niantic dev team is on fucking fire. They are on fire, and they probably have been since the release. If you think the Niantic team is sitting back, laughing at the server issues while money rolls in, you couldn't be farther from the truth.
I know it's easy to call out Niantic and accuse them of being shitty and that they don't care about their players, even though they're raking in the money, etc, but there are a few other things to consider here.
The Niantic Team is definitely working their asses off, and has been for a long time.
We don't know how much money Niantic is making, what kind of cut they share with Nintendo (it could honestly be pretty small), and even so, the people doing the hard work in fixing the bugs are probably not rolling in huge bonuses.
The people making this game are probably just as hyped as we are about it; it's been their baby through the development phase, and they probably see all the Niantic bashing that is going on on the internet, but can't respond to it.
A lot of the top-level decisions might be out of their hands (like whether to divert energy to server issues or world-wide release). Further I guarantee you that someone at the high level of Nintendo is pressing down the knife hard to get the game in world-wide release, regardless of bugs because of how much money it's making.
The dev team right now probably haven't gone home since the release, have barely slept, haven't seen their families, and eat when they get 1 minute of breathing room. I'm not trying to use hyperbole here either. This is what it's like to work in the game industry. This is what is was like for my team. When something goes live with bugs, obviously upper management is not pleased, so Producers are urged to crack the whip hard/do whatever it takes to get it fixed. This means no one go homes until it's fixed. Your kid has a play tonight you were hoping to make it to? Too bad, this bug has to get fixed and shipped.
Further, they're not purposely trying to release more bugs with new updates, this is just the nature of things when there's huge pressure on a development team and quick turn-arounds are expected. Things get rushed through an already stressed, over-tired programmer, get pushed to QA, who also go through it as fast as they can since they are given a deadline, and flagged issues get fixed as quickly as possible and OH LOOK WE'RE PUSHING IT LIVE, OH GOD.
Fixing bugs without re-introducing new ones takes a certain amount of time, it's not just one programmer opening up the code-base and making a quick one-line change. It has to go through this entire funnel, and I promise you, the faster it goes through this funnel, the more things get missed, and go live broken.
Also, they can't just magically hire more programmers to get the bugs fixed faster. A normal hiring process is usually at least a month in length, with multiple interviews. I'm sure Niantic is under super heavy security clauses because of their involvement with Pokemon, so that's going to restrict their ability to hire even further. A new hire needs to be properly vetted, and even after you get them in the door, you can't just throw a programmer into a brand new code-base and expect them to understand and start fixing bugs immediately. They have to take time to understand how the code was written so they can contribute meaningfully without introducing more bugs. Should they have foreseen this and hired more developers ahead of time? Probably, but also it probably wasn't in their budget for a game that they had no idea how well it would do. I don't think they could have expected the explosion of excitement it generated.
Game developers sacrifice a lot to make these games, even when it was in development I'm sure they experienced lots of crunch (working late for a continuous period day after day with no extra pay) to hit their milestones and get the game out on time. Because of this they probably feel a strong link with their company (Niantic) and the game they made, and a lot of them take it personally when people start throwing accusations like "Niantic doesn't care about their players, they're just getting rich off of us," around. Since they're working with/under these mammoth companies (Nintendo/Google) there is probably a very strict policy on how they communicate with the public. They see what we're all saying, but they probably are not allowed to respond.
So let's be the awesome community we have been so far (helping people, sticking up for other players, picking up trash, etc,) and inject a little bit of kindness into our hopes for the game issues and long-term health of the game!
TL;DR: The servers will be back up soon, take a breath, and remember that a very dedicated group of people behind the scenes sacrificed a lot to make this game for us, that has brought us so much joy. A lot of this things we are seeing either take time to fix, or are probably out of their hands. They might need a little encouragement right now; hug a game dev today.
Is anyone else starting to lose interest in the game due to frustration with servers? - by Doomaga
The game is amazing. I'm in EU. Level 22.
I just headed into the nearest major City with a friend and my girlfriend, servers were down the whole 2 hours I was there. Couldn't get logged in once.
I am a long term Pokemon fan. Sealed original Pokemon Red sits pride of place on my shelves, and I loved this game and being active and riding the hype train.
But 25% of my time is restarting the app and waiting for it to load. And that actually feels like more than half the time. As time goes on, I'm getting more sick of it, and am slowly but surely losing interest.
I understand why they haven't increased their server capacity, because when the hype dies down they don't want to be left with the cost of servers they don't need. But I feel like they're holding ground too low. I don't know whether the claim I saw on here the other day of 20% of the games population can be supported is true, but if it is, I don't know why they don't try sit at 30% or 40%. Or why do they not have a short-term expandable service like Amazon provide, I can't believe that Google is incapable of providing that service?
Anyway, rant over. I just wanted to see if anyone else was burning out on the loading screens and freezes as well, or if I just need to take a break and try let things settle down before going back to it.
Why does no one recognize Eevee as a problem - by Factualx
Everytime I post this it gets downvoted and I don't understand.
Currently you can evolve an Eevee at 650cp into a 1.7k Vaporeon that can destroy anything. (25 candy)
If you triple evolve a Nidoran male at 650cp you end up with a 1.4k-1.5k Nidoking (125 candy)
And that Vaporeon/Flareon/Jolteon you got for 25 candy will DESTROY that Nidoking you spent your life working towards.
And this applies to pretty much every triple evolve. I post something like this daily and it gets downvoted, but I will say AGAIN, Eevee is game breaking and needs to be changed
PSA about playing in cemeteries - by Musical_Muze
I love Pokemon Go.
That being said, I need to say something to all players.
I work at a cemetery (to be left un-named) in northern Virginia which has over two dozen pokestops/gyms on the grounds.
We're already having talks about either banning the game on the premises or un-registering all the pokestops and gyms. I'm arguing against everything, but it's an extremely up-hill battle. Nothing has happened yet, and I hope it won't, but my co-workers are worried about how people playing the game could impact our customers.
So please, if you go to a cemetery hunting for Pokemon, for heaven's sake please remember where you are and be respectful. This goes for all other businesses you visit as well, but I can only speak for what affects me personally.
May your pokemon always be rare, and may your pokeballs always hit their mark.
EDIT: does anyone have any promotional ideas we could use for the game that wouldn't be either super tacky or super morbid? I'm trying to pitch this to my co-workers in a better light.
EDIT 2: if you lived in the area of a cemetery, would you come to a "Pokemon Ghost Walk" at midnight?
An experiment with distance tracked in Pokemon Go, as recorded over a 10 mile (16 km) race. TL;DR: about 40% of the true distance is recorded by Pokemon Go. - by trim17
So I signed up to run a 10 mile (16 km) race long before I even knew about Pokemon Go, and I decided to do some experimentation to see how well the app tracks distance. I knew from previous runs that it wasn't completely accurate, but I wanted to get a solid data point for the community as well.
I recorded the distance tracked by the "Jogger" medal when I got to the start line of the race. The distance was 40.08 km.
The course is a USATF-certified 10 mile course, which is 16.09 km. I recorded the distance on the Jogger medal after crossing the finish line. The distance was 46.62 km, for a total of 6.54 km recorded. Dividing 6.54km by 16.09 km run in total yields an abysmal40.6% rate.
Here are some things I did to try to minimize external factors affecting this experiment:
While this isn't the most scientific experiment, it does seem to confirm that the distance tracking in Pokemon Go will short you. Interestingly, Apple's Health app, which uses the pedometer, recorded the full 10 miles of the race just fine. Pokemon Go's tracking will make hatching those 10.0 km eggs a potentially long slog.
- I disabled Wi-Fi on my phone so that my phone wouldn't constantly be switching networks. Wi-Fi points are also used for geo-location and aren't always accurate, so I wanted to track via GPS as much as possible.
- I did not catch any Pokemon during the race to avoid the dreaded frozen Pokeball bug and avoid crashes or restarts.
- I did not spin any Pokestops during the race.
- I used a phone holder to keep my phone in my hand the entire race, which should help with the phone's accelerometer to count steps.
- I ran about 7 mph/11 kph during the race, which is lower than most of the "cut-off" speeds I've seen online.
Obviously, this weekend has seen massive instability from Niantic's which may be a factor.
TL; DR: 6.6 km recorded for a 16 km race.
Pokémon GO Highlights
Gifs and Pic
FIXED typos +1 new one! More warnings for Pokemon Go trainersMan says he's going to "Purge" Pokemon Go players on FB. Get's arrested.
Yes! no no no NO NO NO NONONO NOOOOOOOO!
ore warnings for Pokemon Go trainers - illustrated
It's the best my manager could come up with. I think it's pretty clever.
My kids are running a lemonade stand at our local Pokestop! They use lures to attract buyers!
I am not a smart man.
I designed a pokedex iPhone 6 case and 3D printed it
Now I don't have to unlock my phone to be dissapointed
We simply call this "The Spot"
I have had it with these mother fucking snakes on this mother fucking plane!!!
Do you guys still want to be in Team Mystic?
No WAY! :D .... no way... :(
Finally...it is over.
Updated Rarity Chart
My city doesn't have many interesting landmarks...
So rare nests really do exist..
When your trying to capture a pokemon and your just sitting there like....
I'd like to meet the guy who named this PokeStop.
A friend of mine is really proud to be on Team Instinct
I cleaned up the cleaned up Pokémon Egg List
Pokemon Go: A Guide to Hidden Stats
Thank you 10k egg
A picture from Disneyland!
Is this common?