Pokémon GO

me said:
I've finally finished 15 raids for Throwback Challenge. Should be pretty easy here on ou- oh nevermind I have to catch a Dragon-type Pokemon for 4/5...
Did two Zekrom raids the past two days. Failed to capture the first one but managed to snag a 15/15/15 on the second one. I'd been having trash IV luck with raid captures and research reward captures for a while so that was nice. Genesect had garbage IVs, though.
 

Codraroll

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Please allow me to rant a little:

Who the heck thought "Event-themed 5 km Eggs" was a good idea for an event bonus? The practical translation of it is: "Every single freaking Egg is a 5 km Venipede egg now, a Pokémon that literally spawns on every street corner during the event anyway, only now you have to walk a while to obtain it"

Granted, at least the half distance bonus is still active, so you don't have to walk that far to hatch it, but it takes some of the excitement out of the whole Egg mechanic.
 

Codraroll

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Laughs in only hatching 7km eggs because Galar
Ooh, you get Galar 'mons in those? Apart from Stunfisk and Meowth? Allegedly there are more, but I've found 7 km Eggs defaulting to Alola forms I've already got aplenty. Kind of like how 10 km Eggs tend to yield Shinx, and if not Shinx then Feebas, Absol, or Sawk.
 
Yeah, it's split half between Alola forms and half between Galar forms. I've got every Galar form except Stunfisk, so I'm keeping on keeping on until I get it, since I can candy grind normal zigs once the bug event's over.
 
Please allow me to rant a little:

Who the heck thought "Event-themed 5 km Eggs" was a good idea for an event bonus? The practical translation of it is: "Every single freaking Egg is a 5 km Venipede egg now, a Pokémon that literally spawns on every street corner during the event anyway, only now you have to walk a while to obtain it"

Granted, at least the half distance bonus is still active, so you don't have to walk that far to hatch it, but it takes some of the excitement out of the whole Egg mechanic.
I actually took part in Silph Road research on those eggs and... Ledyba and other insignificant things polluted my box.
At least Scolipede is cool, but that's it.
I did get Solosis though....
 

Codraroll

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Rather have Shinx than the absolute army of Absol and Feebas I've hatched.
It feels to me like these three Pokémon comprise well over 70% of all 10 km Eggs, with Sawk being at least another 10-15%. I've occasionally got Riolu and Klink too, but the others in the 10k pool have been extremely rare.
 
It's already July in most timezones, so this is a bit late, but...


Some other announcements:

Main July events
  • July Research Breakthrough reward: Larvitar (shiny available)
  • Kyurem arrives in five-star raids starting from July 7 at 1:00pm PDT
  • Kyurem will also be available during Raid Hour (every Wednesday at 6:00pm local time)
  • Spotlight Hours every Tuesday at 6:00pm local time
    • July 7: Taillow; double transfer candy bonus
    • July 14: Zubat; double evolution XP bonus
    • July 21: Oddish; double catch Stardust bonus
    • July 28: Buizel; double catch XP bonus
  • GO Fest weekly challenges as previously announced.

So nothing exciting apart from Kyurem I guess. Can't believe we were complaining about all those random legendary rewards we got from Research Breakthrough last year. At least extra candy from those were useful.

Kyurem arrives in five-star raids and more in July!



Trainers,

Here’s what you can look forward to during the month of July.

July Research Breakthrough encounter

From Wednesday, July 1, 2020, at 1:00 p.m. to Saturday, August 1, 2020, at 1:00 p.m. PDT (GMT −7), Larvitar, the Rock Skin Pokémon, will be available as a Research Breakthrough encounter. If you’re lucky, you might encounter a Shiny Larvitar!

A Pokémon with a mysterious power... Kyurem arrives in five-star raids!

First came Reshiram, then Zekrom—now, Kyurem is coming to Pokémon GO! Starting Tuesday, July 7, 2020, at 1:00 p.m. PDT (GMT −7), Kyurem, the Boundary Pokémon, will be waiting for you to challenge it in five-star raids. In addition, there will be Raid Hour events featuring Kyurem every Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. local time while it’s in five-star raids.

Pokémon Spotlight Hours

In the month of July, Pokémon Spotlight Hour will take place every Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. local time, and each hour will spotlight a different Pokémon and special bonus!
  • Tuesday, July 7, 2020: Taillow will be in the spotlight, and you’ll earn twice the Candy for transferring Pokémon.
  • Tuesday, July 14, 2020: Zubat will be in the spotlight, and you’ll earn twice the XP for evolving Pokémon.
  • Tuesday, July 21, 2020: Oddish will be in the spotlight, and you’ll earn twice the Stardust for catching Pokémon.
  • Tuesday, July 28, 2020: Buizel will be in the spotlight, and you’ll earn twice the XP for catching Pokémon.

Don’t forget—GO Fest weekly challenges start July 3

Celebrate Pokémon GO’s fourth anniversary by completing weekly challenges to unlock more species of Pokémon that’ll appear during Pokémon GO Fest 2020! Learn more here.

Please be aware of your surroundings and follow guidelines from local health authorities when playing Pokémon GO. Upcoming events are subject to change. Be sure to follow us on social media, opt in to receiving push notifications, and subscribe to our emails to stay updated. For the latest on in-game events and feature updates, be sure to check this help center article.

—The Pokémon GO team


Willow Report

Willow Report: Strange Scraps

Trainers,

We’ve gotten word from Professor Willow that the team leaders have found some eyebrow-raising scraps of paper while training with their buddies for the Pokémon GO Fest weekly challenges. He’s shared this log with us because the scraps seem to be related to Team GO Rocket, and he needs your help to figure out what they can possibly mean. We’ve prepared his report for you below and will continue to update it as he shares more of his findings.

—The Pokémon GO team




Date: 6/30/20

Subject: [Willow Report] Moonlit scraps

Blanche had left recently to do some research on sun- and moon-related Pokémon that were appearing during the solstice. Upon returning from a research excursion to study Clefairy, Blanche carefully placed scraps of paper on my desk.

“Something’s up,” Blanche muttered. Looking at the “R” logo on the paper, I knew that whatever it was, it wasn’t good. Blanche brought up the dark object that Trainers noticed in the background of a recent Clefairy image, surmising that these might somehow be related. The Team Mystic leader also mentioned that in the area where this image was taken, they saw some Team GO Rocket Grunts who were acting more suspicious than usual. This will require further investigation.



—Professor Willow
 

Codraroll

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Do we know what Pokémon will be featured in July's Community Day yet?

An issue I'm starting to get with Pokémon Go is that while it previously used events to feature new or rare Pokémon, in the past year or so they've shifted the spotlight over to Pokémon that were already extremely common. Shinx as a Research Breakthrough 'mon (as if it didn't already feature in two thirds of 10 km Eggs), a spotlight hour for Shellder, and a Community Day for flipping Weedle. It's as if Mojang had an event in Minecraft where you could get more Cobblestone. I'd appreciate the effort to make an event at all, but the payout is so crummy that the event just becomes insulting.

Meanwhile, there is a ton of interesting Pokémon out there, which would be really cool to get in events, but Niantic seems to have figured out that the public would be willing to pay to access it increase their chance of obtaining it. So Gible remains an extremely rare hatch from the rarest type of Egg, Timburr is raid locked while its Gen I counterpart Machop is one of the most common spawns in the game, and most of Unova apart from Tympole/Venipede/Pidove/Lillipup might as well not be in the game at all.

And as if that wasn't enough, the constant events featuring Com Mons only serve to make the rare Pokémon even more unobtainable. 90% of Eggs seem to be 5km Eggs containing a common Bug-type Pokémon these days. Venipede, Spinarak, Dwebble, and the like already fill the spawn tables, and now they fill the Egg tables too. In theory you can get Galarian Darumaka and reportedly Zigzagoon from 7 km Eggs, but the odds of getting a boring old Alolan form seem to be overwhelmingly larger.

It's all so ... ugh. It's clear that the contents of the game are being held back to increase sales of loot-box like consumables, and even though it may be possible to get everything as a free player, it's blatantly being made more and more tedious. It's not that the good content isn't available, but it's gated away behind increasingly many layers of RNG. And those layers can only be opened - maybe - if you pay to access the keys.

If the July Community Day is another crummy Gen I Pokémon that overwhelms the spawn tables already, I'll seriously reconsider playing the game at all.
 
Do we know what Pokémon will be featured in July's Community Day yet?
It was voted to be Gastly that evolves into Gengar with the featured move Shadow Punch.


A while ago I posted in this thread that the game was getting really repetitive to the point where I had considered stopping, though I somehow managed to carry on playing until today, mainly because I'm still holding out for Go/Home compatibility. That said, I only ever complete my daily tasks and whatever special research we may be given for the satisfaction of completing them, and not for their abysmal rewards.

The availability of Pokemon is certainly a huge issue, but I think the execution of some of their ideas is another.

For example, I think the whole GO Rocket idea was a good one, but it was executed poorly. Having to go through the same tasks month after month for a chance at a 10/15/10 shadow legendary didn't feel quite worth it after the first two. Something about having to defeat six grunts for a radar that leads you to a leader and having to repeat that process another two times just felt tedious, not to mention you can only carry one radar at a time, and that last leader never appears for some reason.

I'm certainly not suggesting they should dumb down the game and hand everything to us players, but there's a line between challenging and tedious, and those tasks were most definitely on the wrong side of it. Kind of similar to how Battle Villa in Masters is flat out tedious at the moment because you need some serious RNG a lot of the time, else it's just resetting over and over and over again.

In any case, if they're going to let us vote for the next two Community Days, I'm hoping the options will be a lot better.
 
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Blitz

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I pretty much quit GO around January. The issues outlined by the posters above are just some of the myriad that surround the game.

The community aspect of the game will always be the #1 thing that holds it together; there’s really no way around it and it’s unquestionably the best part. Sadly, I got a full-time job at the tail-end of last year, which cut a lot of time I had to hang with friends around college. Add to the fact that the pandemic has influenced the current and future states of the game for the negative (not entirely the fault of Niantic here), as well as PvP being something I don’t care about, and the game has mostly run its course for me. I applaud those who can continue to play and enjoy the app in this capacity - hoping it improves for all of you!
 
I should have added that I pretty much play the minimum aspects of the game. I lived in a rural area with very few GO players when GO first came out and moved again last summer, and thus don't play with a group. Having a full-time job meant I couldn't really collect as many high-IV Pokemon, and even less Stardust to level them up, which means the PvP aspect of the game isn't for me.

I think what really got me into the game was capturing Pokemon, and as we've mentioned already, that part of the game is pretty much dying with rare Pokemon being ridiculously rare, and even Community Days (and Research Breakthrough). which were once used to feature rare Pokemon, are being used to feature Pokemon that were once super common and are only half as common now.

A few pages back I said that the pandemic is actually a good opportunity for Niantic to feature rare Pokemon during CDs once again. What better timing than when people actually have time because of stay-at-home orders, and more Pokemon showing up in rural areas, to build up hype again by making Axew and Deino more accessible?

If things don't really improve, and I doubt they will after seeing the July events, I'm ready to call it quits after transferring my Pokemon to Home whenever I can.
 

Ivy

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For example, I think the whole GO Rocket idea was a good one, but it was executed poorly. Having to go through the same tasks month after month for a chance at a 10/15/10 shadow legendary didn't feel quite worth it after the first two. Something about having to defeat six grunts for a radar that leads you to a leader and having to repeat that process another two times just felt tedious, not to mention you can only carry one radar at a time, and that last leader never appears for some reason.
More like 1/3/5 legendary as I had gotten a few times LOL. Needing to min-max Giovanni for weather boosts to try to roll slightly decent IVs was a pretty nightmarish design choice.

I pretty much quit GO around January. The issues outlined by the posters above are just some of the myriad that surround the game.
The community aspect of the game will always be the #1 thing that holds it together; there’s really no way around it and it’s unquestionably the best part. Sadly, I got a full-time job at the tail-end of last year, which cut a lot of time I had to hang with friends around college. Add to the fact that the pandemic has influenced the current and future states of the game for the negative (not entirely the fault of Niantic here), as well as PvP being something I don’t care about, and the game has mostly run its course for me. I applaud those who can continue to play and enjoy the app in this capacity - hoping it improves for all of you!
My dude, if you don't come back and finish Best Friends with me, I'm going to be angy!
 
More like 1/3/5 legendary as I had gotten a few times LOL. Needing to min-max Giovanni for weather boosts to try to roll slightly decent IVs was a pretty nightmarish design choice.
Ah yes, I had forgotten that Shadow Pokemon aren't guaranteed to have at least a certain total IV. Had it confused with Research Breakthrough and the recent Special Research involving Genesect. So yeah, that makes it even more tedious.
 
I still haven't finished a Giovanni quest because when they first came out the Rocket leaders were too difficult to bother with; such a waste of potions and revives. I don't know if they got nerfed since but they seem more manageable now.

As for Zekrom, I guess I'm not getting one anytime soon either since I have not managed to spot a gym with anyone raiding it and the invite feature sounds like it probably won't arrive before kyurem.

It seems like the GO Fest stuff is being combined with the summer challenges this year. Last year the faction-tasks were related to things like unlocking the shiny beast raids, if I recall correctly. With Safari zones in previous years there were usually some boosted spawns of newly-introduced shinies for everyone, maybe along with a few other species, but it feels like that had been happening less and less with recent events.

From the wording, it definitely sounds like the unlocked Marowak, etc., will only spawn if you have a ticket, but potentially the GO Fest Elite Battle Challenge and GO Fest Elite Friendship Challenge might be unlocked for everyone?
Following up on this, apparently it's been clarified that the unlocked spawns will indeed be for everyone: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/hjiyld
 
Gastly Community Day will take place on July 19th and it'll feature... yep, "The Great Gastly!" special research for US$1.

Main points
  • Takes place July 19th from 11:00am to 5:00pm local time.
  • Shiny Gastly will be available.
  • Evolve Haunter into Gengar any time from 11:00am to 7:00pm local time that day for the move Shadow Punch.
  • July Community Day Box with:
    • 30 Ultra Balls
    • Elite Fast TM
    • Two Incense
    • Two Super Incubators
  • "The Great Gastly!" special research for US$1 (or equivalent).
  • 1/4 egg hatching distance (does not stack with 1/2 egg hatching distance event).
  • Incense will last for three hours for the duration of the event.

The featured Pokémon for July Community Day is Gastly!



Trainers,

Which Pokémon has a body that is mostly made of gas? It’s Gastly, the runner-up in our recent Community Day poll and July’s featured Community Day Pokémon! Read on for more details about the upcoming Community Day event.

Date + Time

Sunday, July 19, 2020, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. local time

Features
  • Gastly will be appearing more frequently in the wild. If you’re lucky, you may encounter a Shiny Gastly.
  • Evolve Haunter (the evolved form of Gastly) during the event or up to two hours afterward to get a Gengar that knows Shadow Punch.
  • Take a few snapshots during Community Day for a surprise!
  • There’ll be a special one-time-purchase July Community Day Box, featuring 30 Ultra Balls, an Elite Fast TM, two Incense, and two Super Incubators.
  • For US$1 (or the equivalent pricing tier in your local currency), you’ll be able to access the Community Day–exclusive Special Research story: The Great Gastly! Follow Professor Willow as he investigates some spooky happenings in his mobile lab!
Stay tuned for when tickets for the The Great Gastly Special Research story go live! Tickets are nonrefundable (subject to applicable law and the exceptions set forth in the Terms of Service). Please note that this Special Research will not include an in-game medal.

Bonuses
  • Eggs will require 1/4 Hatch Distance when placed in Incubators during the event period. Please note that this bonus will not stack with other active Hatch Distance bonuses.
  • Incense activated during the event will last for three hours.
Ready your scary faces for July Community Day! Let’s GO, Gastly fans! Also, make sure to turn on Adventure Sync to take advantage of the 1/4 Hatch Distance bonus on Gastly Community Day.

Please be aware of your surroundings and follow guidelines from local health authorities when playing Pokémon GO. Upcoming events are subject to change. Be sure to follow us on social media, opt in to receiving push notifications, and subscribe to our emails to stay updated. For the latest on in-game events and feature updates, be sure to check this help center article.

—The Pokémon GO team
 

Codraroll

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Speaking of Mega Evolutions, I think it's exceedingly unlikely that Pokémon Go will add any new ones, but it's a pretty sure guess that they would have done so if they could. So far I've only seen positive reactions to the idea of Mega Evolutions in Go, and Niantic would surely know it'd be one heck of a sales argument if they could make a few new ones. The idea of Megas takes a little to get used to, but once you're onboard, you're hyped for more. But TPC has decreed that Mega Evolutions were strictly a Gen VI thing, and that the 48 we got are all there ever will be, at least unless the main series revisits the concept.

I wonder how Mega Evolution would work in practice, by the way? I wonder if Mega Evolving will consume currency like Candy or Stardust. I wouldn't quite put it past Niantic to do that.
 

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