Pokémon GO

Apparently the March and April research breakthrough rewards pool will be: Raikou, Entei, Suicune, Lugia, Ho-oh, Regice, Registeel, Regirock.

I seriously don't understand why the monthly breakthrough rewards don't just happen at 00:00 on the first of the month. We have to wait until the morning of the second for them smh.

Oh, and that list of rewards is atrocious. Niantic is really rushing out events (friendship, CD, Valentine's, Special Weekend, Latias, Palkia, Clamperl, Meltan in the span of three weeks), while ever so slowly releasing new Pokemon/re-releasing old legends. I'd rather they just put Latias/Latios in the research breakthrough.
 
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Expert Evan

every battle has a smell!
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
I’m AnthonyTran59, sorry I haven’t played in awhile.
We're only 2 days away from becoming best friends. If you can at least receive my gift and send me a gift and I open the following day then that should do at least, or wait for me to send you another gift if you want to lucky egg the occasion which is worth an additional 100,000 XP it's up to you.

I'm looking forward to raiding Dialga just haven't been able to get and the gyms next door to me hasn't spawned one yet. I heard it can be done with 3 especially in cloudy (fighting boosted) conditions along with a best friend or 2 and best counters so I have my lineup ready to go.
 

Expert Evan

every battle has a smell!
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Mission Dialga done, and while I prefer to use Machamps and other good fighting and ground types, I often hate how it initially recommends stuff that may resist Dialga's moves but doesn't attack nearly as well so I'll be purposely let those certain pokemon faint and not revive them again until a later time. That especially goes for heatran and steelix to name a few.
 
Battle Showdown event



Date + Time Mar. 5, 2019, at 1:00 p.m. PST (GMT −8) to Mar. 12, 2019, at 1:00 p.m. PDT (GMT −7)

Features

  • Fighting-type Pokémon like Mankey, Machop, Makuhita, and Meditite will appear more frequently in the wild.
  • If you’re lucky, you may encounter Shiny Mankey and Shiny Machop!


Bonuses

  • 2× Catch, Battle, and Raid Stardust
  • 2× XP for Gym Badges
  • Earn up to five rewards per day from Trainer Battles, including Rare Candy.
  • Earn up to three rewards per day from challenging team leaders, including Rare Candy.


Move
A new move has been permanently added to the game! Power-Up Punch will now be available for certain Pokémon, such as Poliwrath, Hitmonchan, Kangaskhan, Medicham, and Lucario.
 
This may be slightly off-topic, but has anyone started to really get tired of this game yet? The entire game feels like a chore and there really isn't anything "fun" about it. For a few months now, non-event days for me consist of launching the game in the morning, collect task reward, go out a spin a Poke Stop, catch a Pokemon, and that's it.

The battling feature has been irrelevant to me because I live in a rural area with hardly any players, and I partake in as many events as I can, not counting the week/two-week long events. Even those have become a major chore. Walk around the same area spinning Poke Stops, catching Pokemon, transfer those with less-than-ideal IVs, which are most of them. There's a tremendous lack of excitement in the game, compared to when it first started, where I basically went out every day trying to catch Pokemon. Part of it is probably due to me moving from an urban area to a rural one, but other than that, to me, it's due to four main factors:

1. Ridiculous EXP grind to level up in the 30s. Even with double EXP events and Lucky Eggs, it takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to level up. Granted, it doesn't help that the lack of excitement in the game contributes to this vicious cycle.

2. Slow rollout of Pokemon. I mentioned it earlier when March breakthrough rewards were announced, but it doesn't make much sense to me that the gen two legends are still in breakthrough rewards while adding in the Regis. It would've been much easier to just have the three birds for January, gen two for February, and now the Regis for March. I'm sure I'm not the only one who got a ton of repeats. We just got the Battle Showdown event, as if we don't already have a ton of Machop/Mankey/Makuhita/Meditite. Meanwhile, has the entire gen 4 dex been released?

3. Loosely tied in to the above, but the distribution is atrocious right now. I understand that as we get more Pokemon available and limited spawn areas, it becomes difficult to balance everything, but do I still have to be seeing Rattata and Weedle everywhere I go? Stage 1 and 2 Pokemon used to spawn every now and then, but now they're just non-existent.

4. Exclusives, either by region or egg. Part of the game is encouraging people to venture outside and visit different places for different spawns, but I honestly don't think it's realistic for Niantic to think that the majority of players can afford to travel to different continents just to capture region exclusives. It's about time we got Heracross and Illumise over here. How about, instead of re-releasing a Pokemon but with an exclusive move, just have other regional exclusives available on Community Day? By the way, I still don't have a Riolu, while every 7km egg recently has been Smoochum.

If it weren't for the tie-in to Let's Go, I probably would have quit already. But now I'm wary of it being tied in to SS in one way or another, so yeah.

TL;DR: I'm sick of seeing the same Pokemon spawning and hatching. This game is garbage right now.
 
This may be slightly off-topic, but has anyone started to really get tired of this game yet? The entire game feels like a chore and there really isn't anything "fun" about it. For a few months now, non-event days for me consist of launching the game in the morning, collect task reward, go out a spin a Poke Stop, catch a Pokemon, and that's it.

The battling feature has been irrelevant to me because I live in a rural area with hardly any players, and I partake in as many events as I can, not counting the week/two-week long events. Even those have become a major chore. Walk around the same area spinning Poke Stops, catching Pokemon, transfer those with less-than-ideal IVs, which are most of them. There's a tremendous lack of excitement in the game, compared to when it first started, where I basically went out every day trying to catch Pokemon. Part of it is probably due to me moving from an urban area to a rural one, but other than that, to me, it's due to four main factors:

1. Ridiculous EXP grind to level up in the 30s. Even with double EXP events and Lucky Eggs, it takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to level up. Granted, it doesn't help that the lack of excitement in the game contributes to this vicious cycle.

2. Slow rollout of Pokemon. I mentioned it earlier when March breakthrough rewards were announced, but it doesn't make much sense to me that the gen two legends are still in breakthrough rewards while adding in the Regis. It would've been much easier to just have the three birds for January, gen two for February, and now the Regis for March. I'm sure I'm not the only one who got a ton of repeats. We just got the Battle Showdown event, as if we don't already have a ton of Machop/Mankey/Makuhita/Meditite. Meanwhile, has the entire gen 4 dex been released?

3. Loosely tied in to the above, but the distribution is atrocious right now. I understand that as we get more Pokemon available and limited spawn areas, it becomes difficult to balance everything, but do I still have to be seeing Rattata and Weedle everywhere I go? Stage 1 and 2 Pokemon used to spawn every now and then, but now they're just non-existent.

4. Exclusives, either by region or egg. Part of the game is encouraging people to venture outside and visit different places for different spawns, but I honestly don't think it's realistic for Niantic to think that the majority of players can afford to travel to different continents just to capture region exclusives. It's about time we got Heracross and Illumise over here. How about, instead of re-releasing a Pokemon but with an exclusive move, just have other regional exclusives available on Community Day? By the way, I still don't have a Riolu, while every 7km egg recently has been Smoochum.

If it weren't for the tie-in to Let's Go, I probably would have quit already. But now I'm wary of it being tied in to SS in one way or another, so yeah.

TL;DR: I'm sick of seeing the same Pokemon spawning and hatching. This game is garbage right now.
The problem is that you're in a rural area. I never really used PG until I got to college. College campuses in an urban area are very active and make for fun raids and CDs. I'm enjoying the game more than ever personally but that's because I have the fortune to be in a great area to play. I'm level 35 right now and level-ups come slowly but it's ok.
 
The problem is that you're in a rural area. I never really used PG until I got to college. College campuses in an urban area are very active and make for fun raids and CDs. I'm enjoying the game more than ever personally but that's because I have the fortune to be in a great area to play. I'm level 35 right now and level-ups come slowly but it's ok.
I know that's part of it, but even when I head to the city on weekends it doesn't change. I don't really play in a group of friends I suppose, but even if I did, I don't see much changing. Still the same old stuff spawning.
 

Blitz

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If you're not getting anything from this game, take a breather and come back later. We all have different wants / haves for what we expect out of Go.

I myself consider Go to be a social activity when I go out with buds and just bum around during Community Days or a random weekend. I went hard when I started playing and even though I'm nearly at 80M exp, I don't play with the same degree or passion as I used to because my goals have shifted. I'm out of college, PvP is boring, Trading only does so much, and when you've already amassed the dex and armies for Raid Bosses, there's not much to look forward to. I think if I was solo playing this game, I would have quit long, long ago.

FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is a legitimately big thing in Go due to the way event exclusive Pokémon or moves work, so one thing you have to put aside is that before you take steps to ensuring you are still enjoying yourself. I know some people want to collect every 100%, every shiny, finish their dex, beat every tier 3 solo or duo every Legendary, but whatever the case, you gotta find something that hooks you and stick to that. You moving and going solo may make the process monotone atm, which is why I say take a step back and evaluate what you're getting out of this game, then make a decision. You might surprise yourself.
 
I feel like I'm mostly doing that already. Legit just launch the app for daily rewards, and don't touch it again unless I have an egg hatch. I don't even plan on participating in the starters CDs and honestly haven't been doing them because the battling aspect of the game doesn't interest me. I play this game mostly for Pokedex completion, which is what annoys me so much about the region exclusives and rarity of egg exclusives, though the latter might also just be bad luck?

The only excitement I get from this game nowadays is when they release new Pokemon. That said, it's been a while since the gen 4 fossils have been released and I've only ever seen one Cranidos and one Shieldon. This is the kind of stuff I mean in my earlier post. Rare Pokemon is fine, but this is ridiculous. Oh, and the different versions of Pikachu is reaching Pokemon Shuffle level.
 

Blitz

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Discord Leader
I agree - I think one of the shitty things Niantic has done has been the awful drip of Gen 4 content, spacing it out... waiting for the likes of Cherrim, Garchomp, Hippowdon, Gastrodon, and Wormadam lines to show up has been ridiculous. Even things like Smeargle which only came out now, and the lack of Kecleon or Jirachi just shows their willingness to stretch the content out for no particular reason.

On the plus side, regionals / eggs aren't TOO bad given the existence of trading. Sure, you need to have a group of people you can approach to even begin doing this, but it's a start and it helps alleviate the frustration of not completing the dex (where it was otherwise impossible before unless you cheated). Pachirisu, Tropius, Carnivine, Relicanth, etc. all types of regionals which are land-locked to very specific places can eventually get to your hands, and that's great.
 

Expert Evan

every battle has a smell!
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Looks like for the next week I'll be targeting 5 gyms in particular that I've been seeking to flip to gold so watch out here I come.

Not sure if others have experienced similar but I've been having terrible network error issues more frequently sometimes up to 30 minutes and almost had to completely miss a raid but was fortunate enough to borrow another device. I also had some minor issues at yesterday's deoxys ex raid but managed to get it done before it timed out and join a raid group that was ready and catch once again.
 
Lately, the weather isn't so good either, and I have RL chores that I have less time and excitement in GO. I even skipped EX Raid today because of tired state. I have had suburban start with the app and I can certainly say that's not much fun compared to being in urban campus area where raid bosses and people come up easily.
My goal is pretty much gym Gold badges, since idk what else I like to do with the lack of endgame. I'd rather spend my time drawing pretty arts I can show without bragging than spend hours hunting perfect legendaries and brag about it, making one looks more like poacher than trainer. I don't have interest in PvP battles either, but....
 
I myself live in a city, and the community is very active. Discord is always busy, the Facebook page conversations are lively, and there's a lot of people out participating in events.

I also aim at completing the PokeDex, and gather Pokemon powerful enough to take on gyms and defend them for as long as possible, but that's pretty much it. I don't do PvP, have traded only a handful of times, and only raid when it's on my way to/from work. I get very excited about the release of new Pokemon, but I'm also disappointed about the slow-drip. Some days, I go out and catch as much as I can, do Raids and chase certain Pokemon. Other days, I open up the app, do a few things, and not go back to it the rest of the day. Blitzamirin is right when he says that FOMO is very real in this game, and stops me from completely not playing.

My issue with the social aspect of the game is probably on me, but social anxiety makes it very difficult to meet new people even when I know they're also playing the game. So I play alone, in a sea of others players, which can make it a bit lonely.
 
To be fair, Pokemon Go has been around for more than 2 years, lasting longer than a lot of mobile games. A lot of mobile games lose steam after 3-6 months, while Pokemon Go is still going strong in terms of popularity. That itself is impressive, in my opinion.

As for the Pokemon spawns, here's what I observed. Traveling between provinces (somewhat long-distance travels) gave me a noticeable change on spawning Pokemon between the two areas while roaming around the city where I live in usually gives me just the same set of Pokemon (aside from events ofc). There are some rare surprises though. So if you happen to travel to another place far from home, I recommend trying out the game.

I don't know why some people dislike them but I love holiday events. They give me a chance to gain more candies and exp, while also allowing me to replenish stardust.

My only spite is like what others said, spawning evolved Pokemon are now almost non-existent. But hey, that's what you get when there are too many unevolved Pokemon competing for spawns.
 


Challenge Rayquaza in this Special Raid Weekend!

Trainers,
Are you ready for a challenge? From Friday, March 15, to Monday, March 18, there will be a Special Raid Weekend! The Legendary Pokémon Rayquaza will be available in Raid Battles! Take a look at the details below:
Date + Time
  • Friday, Mar. 15, 2019, at 1 p.m. PDT (GMT −7) to Monday, Mar. 18, 2019, at 1 p.m. PDT (GMT −7)
Features
  • The Legendary Pokémon Rayquaza will be joining Raid Battles!
Do you have what it takes to take on Rayquaza? Get ready to GO, Trainer—and best of luck!
Stay safe, and happy exploring!
—The Pokémon GO team
The Japanese page explicitly states that shiny Rayquaza will NOT be available during the event.
 
I'm really excited since I don't have a Rayquaza yet. It's the weekend before finals week and that's not gonna stop me.
 
Ah yes. And to think shiny Rayquaza isn't yet there, means that Ray will have even more chances to appear. Still, I didn't have enough luck with it before, so I'd definitely try to raid as much as I can in that time.
 
To be fair, Pokemon Go has been around for more than 2 years, lasting longer than a lot of mobile games. A lot of mobile games lose steam after 3-6 months, while Pokemon Go is still going strong in terms of popularity. That itself is impressive, in my opinion.

As for the Pokemon spawns, here's what I observed. Traveling between provinces (somewhat long-distance travels) gave me a noticeable change on spawning Pokemon between the two areas while roaming around the city where I live in usually gives me just the same set of Pokemon (aside from events ofc). There are some rare surprises though. So if you happen to travel to another place far from home, I recommend trying out the game.

I don't know why some people dislike them but I love holiday events. They give me a chance to gain more candies and exp, while also allowing me to replenish stardust.

My only spite is like what others said, spawning evolved Pokemon are now almost non-existent. But hey, that's what you get when there are too many unevolved Pokemon competing for spawns.
Part of the reason Pokemon Go is still "going strong" is because there are still three (soon to be four) full generations of Pokemon to be released, as well as the remaining 4th generation. As long as Niantic still has those in their backpocket, they'll be fine. That, and recycling legendary plus releasing their shinies, as well as exclusive moves will always help.

I've done some traveling in the past few years. Lived in North America when the game first came out, then moved to Hokkaido, and have been traveling all over Japan as well, in both rural and urban areas. There is some change in the Pokemon available, but by no means anything particularly rare.

My issue with holiday events is that they bring about a Pikachu in a new hat. Just... why?

And I think we all have our issues with the Special Researches...

An idea: I honestly wouldn't mind if they just cycled between the generations on a week-to-week basis. We'd just go from 1st to 4th generation from week to week, and nothing outside of those generations will spawn within the designated weeks, except for research rewards and raids. I think that would bring some excitement back into the game, help with the distribution issue, and people would be more motivated to complete their Pokedex because it wouldn't seem that Farfetch'd.
 

Blitz

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Legendary Lunch Hour. I’ll just copy paste:

Trainers,

To give you more ways to enjoy Pokémon GO, we’re trying out a new event called Legendary Lunch Hour! From 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. in your local time zone, there will be an increased number of raids to test your battle skills alongside your friends, coworkers, and classmates. The first Legendary Lunch Hour will take place on March 13, and with your help, we hope to make this an event you can enjoy every week!

Date + Time

Mar. 13, 2019, from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. in your local time zone

Features

There will be an increased number of raids during the event hour.

We look forward to your feedback and thank you for helping with testing this new type of event.

—The Pokémon GO team
 
More info from the Silph Road about the Legendary Lunch Hour, after people reached out to Niantic:
  • This is very literally an "experiment" - they seem curious to see how it goes and what they can learn from it. (Which is awesome to see happening). We expect to see changes to the format and balance if they continue Lunch Hour in the future.
  • Currently the plan seems to be to have Raid Eggs spawning on ALL gyms during Lunch Hour (which may change, but it seemed doubtful to us)
  • Egg hatching timers will be 10 minutes during Lunch Hour
  • Raid bosses will last 1 hour
  • For this first Lunch Hour, bosses will be Legendary-only (ie, Dialga only)
So yeah. Maybe they're planning in the future to have special raid hours, with special moves or even shinies. But for now, it's just a bunch of guaranteed Dialga.
 

Codraroll

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Move
A new move has been permanently added to the game! Power-Up Punch will now be available for certain Pokémon, such as Poliwrath, Hitmonchan, Kangaskhan, Medicham, and Lucario.
How ironic that a move so dependent on its secondary effect is added to Go, a game where no moves have secondary effects and stat boosting isn't a thing. Weren't there other Fighting-type moves available, with a name less alluding to a mechanic that doesn't exist in the game?
 
How ironic that a move so dependent on its secondary effect is added to Go, a game where no moves have secondary effects and stat boosting isn't a thing. Weren't there other Fighting-type moves available, with a name less alluding to a mechanic that doesn't exist in the game?
To be fair, a LOT of moves in GO have secondary effects in the main game.

In GO, Stats can't change (other than the three moves in PvP only), Recoil isn't factored, status conditions are not applied, Critical Hits can't happen, nor can Flinching, you can't drain health, there's not different Priority...

Since Flame Charge was already a move in GO, I'm not too shocked by the introduction of Power-Up Punch.
 

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