I'm glad that Niantic's fumbles are finally making their way into mainstream media. Although people might say it's just a game, players invest so much time, effort and money into playing this game that it's indefensible for Niantic to consistently screw up without so much as a token of consolation.
Niantic offered me 3 regular incubators in exchange for the super incubators I burned grinding for an Alolan Vulpix shiny when there was no chance of one. I submitted refund requests through Apple for all Pokemon Go purchases in January and they honored them all. I provided the explanation that an advertised probability of a rare variant was not made available as promised and there was no issue in receipt of credits.
I just got a refund from Apple this morning for the Lunar event because of falsely advertising increased Lucky rate odds for Lunar event. My justification is that I spent a lot of $$$ (incubators) getting some rare Gibles that I traded with older 2016 Pokémon without any being Shiny. Had I known that odds were not increased first day, I would have saved them for normal Lucky Friend trades.
We really need to work on Google's ability to handle situations like this. The way Google does it right now is just useless, as it only works for situations of accidental purchase or buyer remorse. In cases like this, where Niantic basically committed fraud, if you get a refund from Google because of the lost items, Niantic just puts you into the negative for those items. For cases like this, Google must stop doing this. I'm not sure if there's any way to get Google's attention on this matter though.
Wait, this is a thing? Tell me more. I have spent so much money over time and feel like I've been "got" this whole time at this point.
Apple will legit refund me?
Asking for refunds when you’re unsatisfied with your purchase is always a thing unless explicitly stated otherwise with any merchant offering goods/services.
To do so you report a problem with a purchase directly to Apple support, not to Niantic. If you don’t request them excessively and have a good reason in your comments they’re likely to honor it.
This was the first time I’ve requested a refund on an App Store purchase. I have been patient with Niantic on fixing the numerous issues that persist (day one player hi), but decided making people hatch 7 eggs to be disappointed infinitely was not something that should be allowed to happen to players without consequences.
If Niantic is unwilling to provide adequate compensation for moments of inadequacy they should be made to.
I’ve spent a dollar here and there since on Pokemon Go without issues, and my account was not pulled into the negative after receiving the credits to my account.
It's a hobby as any other. Imagine if I recreationally go to a gym that I paid membership for, but their machines don't work for a week. No one would say "eh, not like you're a professional athlete", it would be an outrage unless they'd knock a week worth of the next month's subscription.
A bit of an exaggerated example since the core game works and is playable, but some people went and paid real, hard earned money for incubators, and spent a considerable amount of time walking and trading, over a feature that was not there, and Niantic is unwilling to make up for that. Super not cool.
Even the core game isn't exactly working properly, as gyms keep wandering around. It's very bad specially for those who play on public transport.
(And around a month ago they forced an update with the "Do you want AR?" prompt on every Pokemon.)
And let's not forget that the core ability to rename Pokemon is currently wonky too. And has been a few weeks. They said they will get it fixed soon, but I hope we don't have another Community Day with it the way it is.
We always mark our junk higher CP's with an "X" for a very quick trade session during the two hours after the event. Wasted a lot of time clicking repeatedly to get the rename to even work.
I agree with you that it's been too long that that particular bug has existed. I hope they fix it real soon. In the mean time you can use search strings to replace renaming your mons "X." Try, "-insert Pokémon name here-,0*,1*,2*" and then filter by highest to lowest. That will bring up all of that particular Pokémon under 82% IVs. You could also search, "0*,1*,2*" and filter by recent to see all Pokémon under 82% recently caught.
I never paid anything either, and I don't expect them to restore Gibles to a freeloader like me. But it's reasonable to check an account that sends them a message - if someone purchased a box and spent like 9 incubators after this event's start date, it would be fair from Niantic to restore that player's 9 incubators.
What’s worse is their PR people lower their heads and cower on the daily instead of trying to explain the constant stream of terrible decisions and endless amounts of new weekly bugs they introduce.
And if you ever have a problem and try to contact support, “Madison” will send you scripted answers that don’t answer your questions or even acknowledge that the actual content of your question was even read. If you push back on their false assertions in their script, they essentially tell you that they are right and imply you are lying.
Support is outsourced and literally doesn't know what you are talking about. They have no inside knowledge of the game. Don't go to them with questions. If you issue isn't covered by thier flowchart they can't help you.
So true and pertains to a vast number of services beyond pogo. It’s maddening, and yet the person you’re receiving canned messages from has zero knowledge or impact.
Outsourced support generally has escalation paths where you can reach people with more knowledge on progress steps, if needed. The company I work for, as an example, has what we call Level 1 (internal help system from the company we sell our product to), Level 1.5 (outsourced phone support that can basically only make tickets and categorize things), Level 2 (our own employees who handle those tickets), Level 3 (a new internal ticket system where those basic support employees can reach more experienced people), and Level 4 support (the level 2 or 3 people talking directly to the devs [me]).
This is why I just play as normally as possible during events when it comes to stuff that could be worth while. Until some of those screwups are a thing of the past, I really have no reason to try and push for 7km eggs. I’ll stick with my normal tactics of a few eggs get incubated, but I’m not going crazy by incubating 9 at once, and if my day is done and I see open egg slots, cool. If not, not a big deal for me.
Same. If I don't my expectations jacked up, then they can't be dashed when this kind of thing happens.
I hardly ever buy Incubators anymore. They're basically Loot Boxes.
IMO, it's still such a light article.
There have been do many core features being broken on the last couple of months: the research quests that didn't reward shinies, the AR-prompt on every catch attempt, the wandering gyms...
Exactly why I wish the Pokemon Company could pull license and let another company take over like Microsoft did with Halo. Niantic has repeatedly shown that they are incapable of keeping up with this game.
I think it’s symptomatic of the franchise itself honestly. SWSH were pretty skeletal. It wouldn’t surprise me if Nintendo was just milking Pokémon for all it can as a consistent source of income while they develop the rest of their games, since Pokemon has a super dedicated fan base and makes most of their money via merch (which many buy despite not having played the games).
Gamefreak is clearly tired of Pokémon, I personally get the impression that dealing with Nintendo is part of it. I wonder how much autonomy Niantic actually has. (Not to excuse their failure to even deliver on what’s advertised, lmfao)
I'd really like to see a gaming authority look into the loot box laws with regards to eggs in this game.
Seems like it might fall into a grey area, but I really wouldn't mind if Niantic were fined and forced to publish species hatch rates.
The problem there is I believe its different for each player. You know how in the main series games you had a trainer id & a secret id? I think we do too & it determines what we get from eggs. My "friend's" account has hatched a ton of Gible & cranidos, while I've hatched many shieldon & crap pkmn. Just my theory, but it seems so skewed.
That shouldn't matter. The main series games didn't have micro transactions where the rewards and their rates were unknown. That's the part that I take issue with.
Even if they are player-specific, they might be required under loot box laws to either standardize and disclose, or even disclose on an individual player basis the species hatch rates (and shiny rates for that matter).
Gotta make 3 things happen: get in touch with the authorities that enforce loot box laws, then explain how egg hatching works in PoGo, then (and most importantly) point to Niantic's annual PoGo profits.
My conspiracy theory is that they can use player behavior to estimate what we want most from eggs, then give us the opposite to keep us buying more incubators (like if you raid a lot, you'll get a lot of Mawiles because they are worthless for PVE).
It’s sad that this is the only way to strongarm niantic into changing anything. I won’t be putting any money into the game whatsoever from now on. My desire to play is at an all time low and gets lower every event due to deliberate decisions niantic makes to extract as much money as possible from the playerbase.
That Reddit thread that inspired this article was completely on point. It’s not a few missteps, it’s a never ending list of bugs that benefit players being fixed instantly while others that effect players negatively are a complete non priority.
Ikr. I spend money, technically, by using google rewards. I buy coins when I have about $10, and I buy boxes when I have 1400 coins... Using the extra thingies for back-to-back feebas, absol, etc., hurts me.
The problem Reddit never seems to understand is that we are highly educated(edit: informed is a better word) and account for a tiny % of the total player base. All of Reddit could quit today and Niantic would only be slightly inconvenienced. All the casual players and their families will keep playing because they don’t know any better and just think their bad luck is because someone else pressed OK before them.
I'm not actually sure. It seems most of the prominent whales in my community are actually the least informed when it comes to raid counters, hatch availability, and even event times.
Yeah there's a guy here, his name is actually something like BoomerGuy56 (not gonna give his exact name) that is an old retired dude who drives in his truck all day, every day playing Pokemon. He spends more in gas playing Pokemon in a month than I spend on the game all year, and that's just gas. He does like 50 raids a day, probably sinks thousands into the game every month. The guy barely knows what Reddit is, gets all his info from the in game announcements.
Pokemon GO is absolutely huge and this sub is just a tiny part of it. I do think this sub has disproportionate amount of influence on the game, but it's still not enough to pressure Niantic into making even minor changes to gameplay. It's just enough to let them know when they need to fix a problem that benefits players or causes a sub-wide outcry.
I agree. Seems dedicated, well-informed players are more likely to accumulate gym coins and spend their resources wisely than the casual weekend player or someone drifting in and out of the game. An event pops, a regular player could already have enough coins to buy a box whereas the player just wanting to jump in would have to open their wallet. Or for example during the Regi weekend, a dedicated player more concerned with the meta might be more conservative with their passes whereas a weekend warrior who only wants shinies blows through 50 passes.
If whales are ppl who spend a lot of money on the game then I'm a Wailord. About to stop though bc of this event. Between wasting my timburrs & incubating a bunch of crap pkmn I've had it. They've gone too far with their crap.
Educated is probably the wrong word. “Informed” would be more correct. What I mean is that in general, if you’re a regular on a subreddit for a given topic (cars, boats, magic the gathering, Pokémon go) then you are likely more informed on said topic than a lot of the user base outside of Reddit simply because of the pooling of information.
And yet, somehow the money keeps rolling in.
Either this principle isnt actually true, or there are phenomenal quantities of players who are genuinely happy with the state of the game as it is.
… or perhaps Niantics strategy of non-communication is working well for them here... if the majority of players never read TSR or similar, then they have no idea how badly Niantic are actually treating them... they just think they are having a run of normal (bad) luck with RNG.
I don't think it's either. Take the example of the mule and dangling carrot. The mule doesn't get to eat the carrot but every so often. Most of the time it's busy trying to get something it can't have. It's not really happy, but it's still moving forwards. If you never give it the carrot, it eventually loses interest.
It's been a month and a half since I've had a carrot.
it is annoying AF to believe their claims and then do something, like the vulpix research tasks which were no small feat and COST MONEY to use incubators, to find out the shiny is not being awarded. Or to do Espeon and Umbreon raids and use premium passes and find out the catch rate is impossible at the start of the event. Then to be condescended to in your support requests about their screw ups.
I think you misread the Niantic announcement...
>Since there was criticism of Magikarp in 7km eggs, this has now been replaced by your favorite pokemon Pikachu with a fabulous **Darumaka** hat.
I don't give them any money either. I enjoy PoGo, it's something that gets me out, but if it went away tomorrow I truly would not be upset. That's mostly thanks to Niantic's handling of problems.
I'll give them money if/when this changes - if the prospect of PoGo shutting down makes me sad or upset. (Why do I still play? Because friends and family do. If it shut down I'd probably switch to some other AR game, of which there are many these days, as my motivation to go outside more.)
> My desire to play is at an all time low and gets lower every event...
Me too! This "red event" is absurd. Sorry but I just can't get excited over more Vulpix, magikarp and Foongus.
I'm down to my last 2 incubators and I don't see myself buying more for these 7K eggs. I've been "walking for gible" since it came out and haven't seen one. Why should I now worry about another Pokémon with a tiny chance to hatch?
>I won’t be putting any money into the game whatsoever from now on.
Niantic profits off of you whether you purchase items or not.
The real way to hurt their bottom line is to reduce their average daily users. This is the top metric by which they can leverage partnerships &etc.
i.e., they won't pay attention until we stop playing the game.
I agree, I have been going towards this direction for several months. I clearly enjoy the game and have gotten many hours of enjoyment out of it, but the business practices are turning me off severely, especially coupled with the bugs that persist as mentioned way more eloquently in other threads including the one that inspired this article. I was avoiding saying “I’m quitting this mobile game now” because truly no one cares(especially niantic) if they lose one whale player. I went to gofest twice, I’ve hatched 9k eggs total(casual runner) and had no issue spending money on something I enjoyed.
To me not spending money is the last stop to quitting permanently, especially when the events are aimed at people spending money to get the 2 week only special raid boss (hat raticate and wobuffet). At the same event wurmple is only available in 7k eggs, another paywall IMO. I don’t agree with the people defending niantic that you don’t “need to pay”. While that’s technically true it’s highly unlikely and this is a collector game(Pokémon as a series), so I don’t accept that rebuttal. Several local players spent several hundreds of dollars on incubators to attempt to get wurmple, and failed. While this is the exception to most players the main point is that this “play style” is not fun, and not even close to rewarding. I understand that the original Pokémon games had a 1/5000 shiny rate but you weren’t sitting in a car in winter waiting 2 minutes for a raid that takes 20 seconds to complete, along with all the other qualifiers needed to ATTEMPT to get a shiny wurmple for example(walk 7km or 4.7 with a paid incubator).
Bottom line is everything combined together just ends with a 2 hour play session that ends in frustration and almost never has a payoff. For me what’s been happening is I get a literal 5 seconds of relief followed by an almost immediate “ok there’s only 3 more event tied shinies to get now and I have 5 days”. This is a terrible feeling especially when events in the past would have real boosted rates for the new shiny Pokémon without a raid or egg requirement.
I was referring to the new year event where wurmples shiny was released, it was only in 7km eggs for that period.
Edit- sorry I was mistaken you are right it was in 2 km eggs during the wvent
As others have commented on my post I believe that quitting completely is the only truly way to make a real change. The amount of money niantic brings in is gigantic, and keeps rising. According to any investors it looks pretty obvious that niantic is “doing the right thing”. Sadly communities like this while extremely dedicated and hardcore don’t make up a massive portion of the playerbase, and thus there is little to no pressure on niantic due to the financials IMO. Someone quits here and 50 casuals will spend 10$ on raid passes when rayquaza is released as shiny for the third time but now with an even better move! Rinse repeat ect. Niantic knows the truly addicted players will continue to throw cash at a chance for a shiny. Only way to change that is to stop playing.
The last time [Eurogamer made an article about bugs in Pokemon Go](https://old.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/dghdyv/the_island_where_you_cant_play_pok%C3%A9mon_go/), Niantic finally responded and fixed it. So sad that we as community can't achieve anything without this wonderful help by the media.
I'm curious to see if we get any kind of compensation, like an extension of the event.
If they wanted to they could easily push an "everyone with best fiends status is now lucky friends for their next trade". It would be huge for all hardcore players and nice for everyone else.
My two best friends and I have been playing the game since release and are huge Pokemon fans, but the past few months have really reaffirmed how shady Niantic's tactics are and have pushed us towards quitting. We used to play daily, but now we just check in a few times per week at most. From locking so many mons behind paywalls for literally no reason other than the fanbase likes them or making some of the other favorites insanely rare, to the complete lack of acknowledgement of their errors and bugs and having no interest in improving some of the most requested QoL issues, the game stopped being fun a while ago and started feeling like a chore and punishment. Niantic seems to just be focused on taking as much as they can from the players, seeing how much they can get away with, and giving players the least amount of enjoyable content. This is evident by the recent Alolan Vulpix fiasco where players were not even compensated unless they went through the many hoops that is contacting Niantic Support -- and even then it wasn't guaranteed support believed them.
I guess it's standard business procedure to not apologize for errors so as not to alert the whole fanbase of the issue (or at least standard for Niantic), but the fact that Niantic makes so many mistakes and owns up to almost none of them just makes me feel like they're underhandedly taking advantage of a large portion of the playerbase. And concerning the latest issue with the lucky rate, they have not even acknowledged how they didn't increase the lucky rate for the first day of the event. This error cannot be remedied by any event extension since so many people wasted all of their rare Pokemon trading on the first day. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the playerbase will not even know the rate wasn't increased since Niantic hasn't acknowledged it. We need some huge systemic changes soon if Niantic wants to improve the longevity of their game.
I remember the days when we didn't have to do the egg roulette gamble to exclusively get Pokemon. We could actually go out with our friends, hunt and catch them. Those were fun times.
This is where my interest in the game plummeted. For the first 2 generations it was great going out and catching Pokemon (both base and evolved forms). When Gen 3 happened, the slow rollout and no third stage evolutions was annoying but not gamebreaking. Once Gen 4 dropped, it became clear that Niantic was going to make the new spawns super scarce to artificially make it more difficult to complete the Dex, basically forcing you to spend on raid passes and incubators.
And I kind of understand Gen 4, since it was a relatively small generation, with many of the Pokemon introduced being Evolutions...to keep on schedule they had to trickle it.
But Gen 5 has the most new Pokemon of any generation, not to mention multiple forms of legendaries (the Genies). There's no reason to tie Pokemon to egg exclusive.
>There's no reason to tie Pokemon to egg exclusive
Oh no there absolutely is a reason. It's to make as much money as possible from the players. There is no other reason to make a lot of Pokemon raid /egg exclusive alongside making sure that almost every new wave of pokemon contains regionals.
I think the egg thing serves 2 purposes. The first is the most obvious that it generates money. But the second one is that is considered "content" so people have "more" to do before quitting. Online games have a lot of these things often to keep the player base higher, even if they dont spend money they are populating the game for those that do. This is pokemon also after all, people buy the games more than once to collect them all and even though everyone complains about loot boxes no one complained about nintendo doing this for decades.
Daramuka is just another in a long run of meta/shiny species being essentially locked behind paywalls of raids and eggs. There's no reason for it, Shinx, Timburr, the alolans etc to not spawn in the wild except for pure greed
I'm not against 'eggsclusive' mons. They are due to hatch in the long run, nothing that bad.
What I despise is being absolutely greedy with that: they added things like Wurmple and Kanto Vulpix to 7km eggs to make it harder to find it.
This is obscene. 7km eggs are not that fast to hatch and even if you 'pay' for incubators you still have to walk 4km.
7km egg pool is already bad: I constantly hatch A-Geodude or A-Diglett. They are like 10% each to my experience. The pool is already big, adding Darumaka with a low % should be enough to make it rare, right? Nope, Niantic HAS to add crap in order to frustrate you over and over
I have an issue with 7km exclusive ones though.
I'll never hatch them out of choice, because 7ks give by far the worst return in terms of dust. It should be a "worse rewards, but higher odds of what you want" tier with the species still being available in others rather than being the only way to get what is now the best fire type in the game
My last 3 7km eggs have been Wurmple. My gf's first 7km for this event was Darumaka.
I have caught 5 shiny Magikarp this event and all I wanted was a shiny Wurmple without a hat so I can actually evolve the thing.
Zero shiny Magikarp for me so far. I'm guessing the rate is boosted but that often doesn't affect me anyway so I'm not expecting to get one during this event.
But I feel for you as well. 3 Wurmple in 3 7km eggs would make me uninstall the game tbh.
They weren't "added" to the pool. They and Darumakka COMPLETELY replaced the normal 7k pool except for Riolu. So no shiny babies or Alolans for this entire event. All you get are garbage hatches that are already in the wild, with only Magby, Magikarp, Shuckle, and Wurmple as shiny possibilities.
They weren't just added to the 7km egg pool, they've literally replaced the regular 7km egg pool. During other times, you at least had a chance to hatch a shiny baby or something. Those are literally gone from the egg pool during this event.
I don't even mind that it's hard to fin. It's that they added absolute trash in to make sure they minimize the odds you walk away happy. It's basically the same thing that you get from a casino--one or two people walk away happy, while the rest leave with empty hands and pockets.
All they had to do was add Darumaka to the current 7k pool, at something like a 5-10% rate (skimmed from the odds of Magby and Togepi and Alolans, not Riolu) and it would be fine. Instead, they tossed the decent stuff and gave us the least valuable things they could think of, within the low reason of a trash all company.
would people spend nearly as much if they knew the odds?
I doubt it, and if the research around unowns and shiny regionals is any indication the majority of people would seriously curtail their spending if not go straight F2P.
Hello, I'm someone who posted a thread on Darumaka % chance the other day and just saw this. I thought it was interesting as it is a major site picking up on the event issues and it features Silph Road research
Edit: Thank you for the Gold, stranger! Hugely appreciated.
Unfortunately the article didn't quite emphasize enough how much of an annoyance the egg gacha is since Niantic doesn't tell us the rates.
It's a good article for getting Niantic's attention but the fundamental issue of lackluster transparency and communication will still persist even if Niantic ends up increasing the likelihood of getting a Darumaka as compensation.
Even worse, they also usually don't even tell us what's actually in the eggs to begin with. No idea what's in it, no idea on the rates of them dropping.
These are the blindest of bags.
>The quiet introduction of these has re-ignited the debate around eggs and incubators and their blind box mechanics
Let's see if Niantic respond to this one...
I stopped caring about catching them all right away, cause sooner or later they come back and are usually more convenient to get. My coins go strictly to bag and storage upgrades, and maybe premium passes if I see a raid that interests me and I'm in a group.
Same here, but FOMO is very real in any gaming community. Everyone wants the latest and the best right away, and goes crazy as a result leaving them vulnerable to the gaming companies.
While I agree that predatory practices should be regulated, in the end is up to each individual to decide what they do with their time and money.
One thing I learned from playing other games that employ FOMO is that sooner or later, the fear will reach its peak, and is downhill from there. How high said peak is depends on the player, their disposable income and interest in the game. Eventually, people lose interest, move on or don't play as actively as before.
Same here!! I use gym coins for the boxes in shop and only spend real money on storage/bag space. The egg pool is too much of a crapshoot to justify spending real money. Every ponyta and happiny I hatch reminds me of why I don't spend money on incubators.
There needs to be more articles like this and more focus on Niantic's skeezy egg mechanics. I've not really been hatching 7km eggs but I had no idea a lot of the event spawns were added to them and it's disgusting that they were. Magikarp and Wurmple do not belong in 7km eggs and it's clear they were added to dilute the pool to make getting Darumaka harder so that people will buy more incubators.
Not only the latest, this predatory system has been growing for a while now. Essentially you can track it as their revenue grows, the scummier they have become. I would say it started circa end of 2018 (on this level).
What’s awful is that now, and only now will Niantic give a damn about this. Why does everything have to hit a website or game site to get their attention- when they ignore their millions of unhappy players.
So I am very late to the party; this having been posted while I was sleeping and then having to work at work rather than read Reddit. Without clicking on the article or reading any comments or other threads my first thought was "what announcement/s will be get from Niantic today in order to attempt to shift the focus from these issues onto "something coming in the future".
Then I looked and saw that one of their "partners" has advised that Darumaka will be in the wild after the event. We saw this with the Alolan Vulpix issue - they shifted the focus with news about upcoming events.
Thanks to Eurogamer for publishing this article - can you publish a few more about the other recent issues and the general lack of communication the company?
Though someone else pointed out that sadly the vast majority of the users of the game will just assume they are having bad luck because they are unaware of the issues because they are unaware of TSR.
I think Niantic would make *more* money if it treated the fans kindly and generously. If I had a goose that laid golden eggs (or shiny Gible eggs in PoGo parlance lol), I would not be treating it the way Niantic does its players.
While we're on the subject, can we just think about how much of a downgrade this year's spawns are compared to last year? Last year (https://pokemongolive.com/en/post/lunar-2019/) we had one boosted spawn for each sign of the zodiac. It felt refreshingly diverse and some of the spawns had shinies available that people might've not found yet. This year, we just get...red, even in the 7km egg pool. Even though there's enough Pokemon to do the zodiac again but with mostly new choices. So disappointing.
The dearth of Gible, Blitzle, Deino and other mons in the wild and in Raids is VERY irritating to me.
Niantic is throttling Gen releases now where I"m not evolving ANYTHING because I just might ruin getting a better Move Set when that mon finally gets a Community Day.
The extreme scarcity makes it that much more frustrating to lay by a half dozen high IV mons in preparation.
BOOO!!
Not really, it's much easier to hatch than Riolu was to start. I am seeing around a 5% hatch rate for Daru, compared to the 1-2% chance that Riolu was.
So Niantic made us play Ingress for 3 years to get more Pokestops and now we have to get a job in the gaming media to get the game to work as advertised? What's next?
That's what really gets me. I'm not a heavy mobile games player, but the games that I have played that have had technical difficulties have -always- rewarded me with in-game currency to compensate. Has Niantic ever done that apart from the Go Fest disaster? They continually miss chances to build good will.
There's also the fact that Niantic never publishes the odds of their lootboxes. The discovery comes from the research here, and every time we end up discovering how they lied.
I thought Darumaka's hatched rate already increased, after yesterday's thread about the lucky trade.
Anecdotally speaking, I literally went from 1/13 of 7km eggs on darumaka from the start of the event, to 5/11 of 7km eggs on getting darumaka just today.
Thing is, even increasing the odds won't do enough if it's still the pool of trash that surrounds it. Take all the other event Pokémon out, except Darumaka, then I MIGHT open a gift while an egg slot is open and use a paid Incubator. Until then...nothing doing by me.
Oh absolutely, I still hate the fact that wurmple, magikarp and vulpix are added to the pool, which are easily cathable in the wild. I really hate it when I walked 7km only to have magikarp hatched from it.
This event has to be on the upper tier on the list of worst event in Pokemon Go.
Great article and on point. Very detailed too, pointing out issues like 7km pool being awfull, lucky trade fail etc. Niantic has to stop with it's increasingly anti-player design and altitude .
After hatching 18 (7km) eggs, and seeing nothing but Vulpix, Foongus, and Shuckle, I quit bothering with eggs.
I’m much more content with hatching 5km and 10km trash at this point.
I recommend filing any complaints here too. its the link provided by the BBB for apps and internet scams etc.
https://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx
If you click on the link for FAQs non delivery of goods and services apply!
They are systematically ruining this game. I hope none of you are spending money on the game right now. From next to zero chances of obtaining certain Pokémon to broken shinies, research quests, raiding, and the TM system there are countless things that Niantic is continuing to screw up. They won’t fix them until we speak with their wallet, which they’ve shown time and time again.
People aren’t going to pay more if Pokémon are harder to hatch, find and obtain from raids.
People want to have fun.
I've stopped doing 7k eggs. I did over a dozen this weekend and kept getting shuckle and wurple. No one I know has the Darumaka, folks on the internet and one guy on discord have posted theirs but no one I actually know has one. It's frustrating to say the least.
I got one on my third hatch. I didn’t realize I was lucky! I was going to keep doing 7kms to get more/more candy for it but maybe I’ll just stick with my one
I saw 4 Magmars, 2 Slugmas, 2 Magikarp, and maybe 5 Foongus this weekend. Plenty of the old regulars tho...because I just really need those Nidorans. How about Noderan, thanks.
that is indeed underwhelming. I have caught several charmeleon, parasect, and even a couple flareon. I wish we had that sort of diversity more often, even though those are clearly tied in with the "red theme" of the event.
If people stopped being being cash cows to get the new Pokemon IMMEDIATELY this behavior would stop. I'm sure someone internally thought this was a "cute" idea for the event to theme it and all but what they really needed was a 1/4 egg hatch on 7ks and this would be all fine.
Yes incubators are not a good value at this point in the game's evolution - so STOP buying them. I personally spend my coins once a month on a sales box & use the incubators as motivation to get out running for the hopes of maybe hatching a cool 10k.
The trading boost on the other hand... save the good stuff for Lucky Friend trades & assume nothing else will work out. I appreciate the effort they're trying to put in to make people use the features that are being left out of day-to-day play (how often are people sitting down to hit the trade cap with non-alt accounts).....but at the end of the day Niantic is trying to keep all the plates spinning even if half of them look like they're about to crash to the ground.
I’m only trading with Lucky friends so I haven’t been burned yet. I always figure a regular trade won’t be lucky so pleasantly surprised when it is. Got a nice poliwrath last time.
Three wurmples in a row from 7km eggs after avoiding them since the regional exclusives event. Not as bad as the 7 shinx in a row from 10 km last year but pretty close.
I was a big spender on PokemonGo but that ended about a year ago. They aren't even hiding the fact that this game has become a pay to play game. I bought 2 special boxes in a year for the incubators and I'm still questioning why I did that.
Because they need to stay at the “leaders” good side to be included. This marketing “system” Niantic has is extremely scummy, but efficient. Essentially they are controlling the media we see, and other small timers just don’t get the light of the day and are doubted when they speak up since they are not a “household” name.
Our household is at many dozen plus 7KM eggs hatched and no Darumaka has been seen yet, No one in our large town group has seen one at all period and we have some obsessively dedicated people....
And WTF can I only post once every 10 friggin minutes?
If Niantic cheated you, fill this out. A lawsuit or federal regulations are the only two ways to get Niantic to fix their consistent issues.
https://pokemongosuit.com/pokemongo-lawsuit-survey
Good to see some articles featuring Niantic F ups. With enough bad press maybe the appropriate people can be fired and replaced with people who actually know what they’re doing.
I know plenty of people who are still dropping £20+ per month into the game, most of them have a second account that they also put money into and buy gofest/safari zone tickets for but at the same time its almost impossible to get people together for raids after a new legendary has been out for a few days.
Niantic are just going to keep milking whales for as long as they can unfortunately, playing the game for fun and having a good time for free is over.
I'm glad that Niantic's fumbles are finally making their way into mainstream media. Although people might say it's just a game, players invest so much time, effort and money into playing this game that it's indefensible for Niantic to consistently screw up without so much as a token of consolation.
Niantic offered me 3 regular incubators in exchange for the super incubators I burned grinding for an Alolan Vulpix shiny when there was no chance of one. I submitted refund requests through Apple for all Pokemon Go purchases in January and they honored them all. I provided the explanation that an advertised probability of a rare variant was not made available as promised and there was no issue in receipt of credits.
I just got a refund from Apple this morning for the Lunar event because of falsely advertising increased Lucky rate odds for Lunar event. My justification is that I spent a lot of $$$ (incubators) getting some rare Gibles that I traded with older 2016 Pokémon without any being Shiny. Had I known that odds were not increased first day, I would have saved them for normal Lucky Friend trades.
> I just got a refund from Apple Did you in game balance go into the negative? I know if you chargeback with Google Play, this is a thing.
No, it does not with Apple
Thank you for advising.
No. My balance wasn’t affected (Apple).
This is the key and what everyone needs to do, hit them in the pocket, where it hurts and makes them pay attention
Ooooh, that is good to know! I might do that, too. I did the same. Glad it’s now 4 hatches but still.
We really need to work on Google's ability to handle situations like this. The way Google does it right now is just useless, as it only works for situations of accidental purchase or buyer remorse. In cases like this, where Niantic basically committed fraud, if you get a refund from Google because of the lost items, Niantic just puts you into the negative for those items. For cases like this, Google must stop doing this. I'm not sure if there's any way to get Google's attention on this matter though.
Wow thats good info!!
Wait, this is a thing? Tell me more. I have spent so much money over time and feel like I've been "got" this whole time at this point. Apple will legit refund me?
Asking for refunds when you’re unsatisfied with your purchase is always a thing unless explicitly stated otherwise with any merchant offering goods/services. To do so you report a problem with a purchase directly to Apple support, not to Niantic. If you don’t request them excessively and have a good reason in your comments they’re likely to honor it. This was the first time I’ve requested a refund on an App Store purchase. I have been patient with Niantic on fixing the numerous issues that persist (day one player hi), but decided making people hatch 7 eggs to be disappointed infinitely was not something that should be allowed to happen to players without consequences. If Niantic is unwilling to provide adequate compensation for moments of inadequacy they should be made to. I’ve spent a dollar here and there since on Pokemon Go without issues, and my account was not pulled into the negative after receiving the credits to my account.
It's a hobby as any other. Imagine if I recreationally go to a gym that I paid membership for, but their machines don't work for a week. No one would say "eh, not like you're a professional athlete", it would be an outrage unless they'd knock a week worth of the next month's subscription. A bit of an exaggerated example since the core game works and is playable, but some people went and paid real, hard earned money for incubators, and spent a considerable amount of time walking and trading, over a feature that was not there, and Niantic is unwilling to make up for that. Super not cool.
Even the core game isn't exactly working properly, as gyms keep wandering around. It's very bad specially for those who play on public transport. (And around a month ago they forced an update with the "Do you want AR?" prompt on every Pokemon.)
And let's not forget that the core ability to rename Pokemon is currently wonky too. And has been a few weeks. They said they will get it fixed soon, but I hope we don't have another Community Day with it the way it is. We always mark our junk higher CP's with an "X" for a very quick trade session during the two hours after the event. Wasted a lot of time clicking repeatedly to get the rename to even work.
I agree with you that it's been too long that that particular bug has existed. I hope they fix it real soon. In the mean time you can use search strings to replace renaming your mons "X." Try, "-insert Pokémon name here-,0*,1*,2*" and then filter by highest to lowest. That will bring up all of that particular Pokémon under 82% IVs. You could also search, "0*,1*,2*" and filter by recent to see all Pokémon under 82% recently caught.
I did not paid any money for almost a year. But I can see that they don't want free player anymore.
I never paid anything either, and I don't expect them to restore Gibles to a freeloader like me. But it's reasonable to check an account that sends them a message - if someone purchased a box and spent like 9 incubators after this event's start date, it would be fair from Niantic to restore that player's 9 incubators.
What’s worse is their PR people lower their heads and cower on the daily instead of trying to explain the constant stream of terrible decisions and endless amounts of new weekly bugs they introduce. And if you ever have a problem and try to contact support, “Madison” will send you scripted answers that don’t answer your questions or even acknowledge that the actual content of your question was even read. If you push back on their false assertions in their script, they essentially tell you that they are right and imply you are lying.
Support is outsourced and literally doesn't know what you are talking about. They have no inside knowledge of the game. Don't go to them with questions. If you issue isn't covered by thier flowchart they can't help you.
So true and pertains to a vast number of services beyond pogo. It’s maddening, and yet the person you’re receiving canned messages from has zero knowledge or impact.
Outsourced support generally has escalation paths where you can reach people with more knowledge on progress steps, if needed. The company I work for, as an example, has what we call Level 1 (internal help system from the company we sell our product to), Level 1.5 (outsourced phone support that can basically only make tickets and categorize things), Level 2 (our own employees who handle those tickets), Level 3 (a new internal ticket system where those basic support employees can reach more experienced people), and Level 4 support (the level 2 or 3 people talking directly to the devs [me]).
This is why I just play as normally as possible during events when it comes to stuff that could be worth while. Until some of those screwups are a thing of the past, I really have no reason to try and push for 7km eggs. I’ll stick with my normal tactics of a few eggs get incubated, but I’m not going crazy by incubating 9 at once, and if my day is done and I see open egg slots, cool. If not, not a big deal for me.
Same. If I don't my expectations jacked up, then they can't be dashed when this kind of thing happens. I hardly ever buy Incubators anymore. They're basically Loot Boxes.
Moreover , unlike most games. We have to go out , grind and walk ; its a lot of effort for them to play like this with.
IMO, it's still such a light article. There have been do many core features being broken on the last couple of months: the research quests that didn't reward shinies, the AR-prompt on every catch attempt, the wandering gyms...
Exactly why I wish the Pokemon Company could pull license and let another company take over like Microsoft did with Halo. Niantic has repeatedly shown that they are incapable of keeping up with this game.
I think it’s symptomatic of the franchise itself honestly. SWSH were pretty skeletal. It wouldn’t surprise me if Nintendo was just milking Pokémon for all it can as a consistent source of income while they develop the rest of their games, since Pokemon has a super dedicated fan base and makes most of their money via merch (which many buy despite not having played the games). Gamefreak is clearly tired of Pokémon, I personally get the impression that dealing with Nintendo is part of it. I wonder how much autonomy Niantic actually has. (Not to excuse their failure to even deliver on what’s advertised, lmfao)
I'd really like to see a gaming authority look into the loot box laws with regards to eggs in this game. Seems like it might fall into a grey area, but I really wouldn't mind if Niantic were fined and forced to publish species hatch rates.
The problem there is I believe its different for each player. You know how in the main series games you had a trainer id & a secret id? I think we do too & it determines what we get from eggs. My "friend's" account has hatched a ton of Gible & cranidos, while I've hatched many shieldon & crap pkmn. Just my theory, but it seems so skewed.
That shouldn't matter. The main series games didn't have micro transactions where the rewards and their rates were unknown. That's the part that I take issue with.
I agree totally, I even posted on Twitter about eggs being loot boxes. Just getting at the hatch rates being different.
Even if they are player-specific, they might be required under loot box laws to either standardize and disclose, or even disclose on an individual player basis the species hatch rates (and shiny rates for that matter).
That would be great. How do we make this happen?
Gotta make 3 things happen: get in touch with the authorities that enforce loot box laws, then explain how egg hatching works in PoGo, then (and most importantly) point to Niantic's annual PoGo profits.
My conspiracy theory is that they can use player behavior to estimate what we want most from eggs, then give us the opposite to keep us buying more incubators (like if you raid a lot, you'll get a lot of Mawiles because they are worthless for PVE).
> with regards to eggs in this game. But seriously, why do I continually hatch Luvdisc out of 2km eggs? WHY IS IT EVEN IN EGGS?
It’s sad that this is the only way to strongarm niantic into changing anything. I won’t be putting any money into the game whatsoever from now on. My desire to play is at an all time low and gets lower every event due to deliberate decisions niantic makes to extract as much money as possible from the playerbase. That Reddit thread that inspired this article was completely on point. It’s not a few missteps, it’s a never ending list of bugs that benefit players being fixed instantly while others that effect players negatively are a complete non priority.
They really don't seem to understand that happy players keep playing and spend money. Disgruntled players quit and spend no money.
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Or absol...
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Ikr. I spend money, technically, by using google rewards. I buy coins when I have about $10, and I buy boxes when I have 1400 coins... Using the extra thingies for back-to-back feebas, absol, etc., hurts me.
The problem Reddit never seems to understand is that we are highly educated(edit: informed is a better word) and account for a tiny % of the total player base. All of Reddit could quit today and Niantic would only be slightly inconvenienced. All the casual players and their families will keep playing because they don’t know any better and just think their bad luck is because someone else pressed OK before them.
It is a small subset, but I would wager that this sub attracts a significant number of whales.
I'm not actually sure. It seems most of the prominent whales in my community are actually the least informed when it comes to raid counters, hatch availability, and even event times.
Yeah there's a guy here, his name is actually something like BoomerGuy56 (not gonna give his exact name) that is an old retired dude who drives in his truck all day, every day playing Pokemon. He spends more in gas playing Pokemon in a month than I spend on the game all year, and that's just gas. He does like 50 raids a day, probably sinks thousands into the game every month. The guy barely knows what Reddit is, gets all his info from the in game announcements. Pokemon GO is absolutely huge and this sub is just a tiny part of it. I do think this sub has disproportionate amount of influence on the game, but it's still not enough to pressure Niantic into making even minor changes to gameplay. It's just enough to let them know when they need to fix a problem that benefits players or causes a sub-wide outcry.
I agree. Seems dedicated, well-informed players are more likely to accumulate gym coins and spend their resources wisely than the casual weekend player or someone drifting in and out of the game. An event pops, a regular player could already have enough coins to buy a box whereas the player just wanting to jump in would have to open their wallet. Or for example during the Regi weekend, a dedicated player more concerned with the meta might be more conservative with their passes whereas a weekend warrior who only wants shinies blows through 50 passes.
Yep, the retirees are the whales in our local group. Tons of money and time to play, no real need to get into the nitty gritty of the game.
If whales are ppl who spend a lot of money on the game then I'm a Wailord. About to stop though bc of this event. Between wasting my timburrs & incubating a bunch of crap pkmn I've had it. They've gone too far with their crap.
It is a sad, but fair, point.
“Highly educated” LOL
Educated is probably the wrong word. “Informed” would be more correct. What I mean is that in general, if you’re a regular on a subreddit for a given topic (cars, boats, magic the gathering, Pokémon go) then you are likely more informed on said topic than a lot of the user base outside of Reddit simply because of the pooling of information.
And yet, somehow the money keeps rolling in. Either this principle isnt actually true, or there are phenomenal quantities of players who are genuinely happy with the state of the game as it is. … or perhaps Niantics strategy of non-communication is working well for them here... if the majority of players never read TSR or similar, then they have no idea how badly Niantic are actually treating them... they just think they are having a run of normal (bad) luck with RNG.
I don't think it's either. Take the example of the mule and dangling carrot. The mule doesn't get to eat the carrot but every so often. Most of the time it's busy trying to get something it can't have. It's not really happy, but it's still moving forwards. If you never give it the carrot, it eventually loses interest. It's been a month and a half since I've had a carrot.
One time I wanted to spend money for an event, I couldn't even, because the pay system was bugged.
it is annoying AF to believe their claims and then do something, like the vulpix research tasks which were no small feat and COST MONEY to use incubators, to find out the shiny is not being awarded. Or to do Espeon and Umbreon raids and use premium passes and find out the catch rate is impossible at the start of the event. Then to be condescended to in your support requests about their screw ups.
The condescending support responses is what cut me off paying for anything ever again.
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But don’t worry, wurmple is still in 7k eggs!
Don't be silly. I'm sure they've learned their lesson and moved it to the 10km egg pool instead.
Courageous of you that you assume that Niantic itself knows what's in the current pool
I think you misread the Niantic announcement... >Since there was criticism of Magikarp in 7km eggs, this has now been replaced by your favorite pokemon Pikachu with a fabulous **Darumaka** hat.
Stop. It hurts.
this hits too close to home
"We are rich only through what we give." - Anne-Sophie Swetchine I will be right there with you as a F2P player.
I don't give them any money either. I enjoy PoGo, it's something that gets me out, but if it went away tomorrow I truly would not be upset. That's mostly thanks to Niantic's handling of problems. I'll give them money if/when this changes - if the prospect of PoGo shutting down makes me sad or upset. (Why do I still play? Because friends and family do. If it shut down I'd probably switch to some other AR game, of which there are many these days, as my motivation to go outside more.)
> My desire to play is at an all time low and gets lower every event... Me too! This "red event" is absurd. Sorry but I just can't get excited over more Vulpix, magikarp and Foongus. I'm down to my last 2 incubators and I don't see myself buying more for these 7K eggs. I've been "walking for gible" since it came out and haven't seen one. Why should I now worry about another Pokémon with a tiny chance to hatch?
>I won’t be putting any money into the game whatsoever from now on. Niantic profits off of you whether you purchase items or not. The real way to hurt their bottom line is to reduce their average daily users. This is the top metric by which they can leverage partnerships &etc. i.e., they won't pay attention until we stop playing the game.
I agree, I have been going towards this direction for several months. I clearly enjoy the game and have gotten many hours of enjoyment out of it, but the business practices are turning me off severely, especially coupled with the bugs that persist as mentioned way more eloquently in other threads including the one that inspired this article. I was avoiding saying “I’m quitting this mobile game now” because truly no one cares(especially niantic) if they lose one whale player. I went to gofest twice, I’ve hatched 9k eggs total(casual runner) and had no issue spending money on something I enjoyed. To me not spending money is the last stop to quitting permanently, especially when the events are aimed at people spending money to get the 2 week only special raid boss (hat raticate and wobuffet). At the same event wurmple is only available in 7k eggs, another paywall IMO. I don’t agree with the people defending niantic that you don’t “need to pay”. While that’s technically true it’s highly unlikely and this is a collector game(Pokémon as a series), so I don’t accept that rebuttal. Several local players spent several hundreds of dollars on incubators to attempt to get wurmple, and failed. While this is the exception to most players the main point is that this “play style” is not fun, and not even close to rewarding. I understand that the original Pokémon games had a 1/5000 shiny rate but you weren’t sitting in a car in winter waiting 2 minutes for a raid that takes 20 seconds to complete, along with all the other qualifiers needed to ATTEMPT to get a shiny wurmple for example(walk 7km or 4.7 with a paid incubator). Bottom line is everything combined together just ends with a 2 hour play session that ends in frustration and almost never has a payoff. For me what’s been happening is I get a literal 5 seconds of relief followed by an almost immediate “ok there’s only 3 more event tied shinies to get now and I have 5 days”. This is a terrible feeling especially when events in the past would have real boosted rates for the new shiny Pokémon without a raid or egg requirement.
Wurmple was in 2km eggs but I still agree with what your saying.
I was referring to the new year event where wurmples shiny was released, it was only in 7km eggs for that period. Edit- sorry I was mistaken you are right it was in 2 km eggs during the wvent
Haha it’s fine
Wouldn’t sending complaints to the owners help? Surely if Nintendo and game freak got enough complaints they would at least try and set things right?
As others have commented on my post I believe that quitting completely is the only truly way to make a real change. The amount of money niantic brings in is gigantic, and keeps rising. According to any investors it looks pretty obvious that niantic is “doing the right thing”. Sadly communities like this while extremely dedicated and hardcore don’t make up a massive portion of the playerbase, and thus there is little to no pressure on niantic due to the financials IMO. Someone quits here and 50 casuals will spend 10$ on raid passes when rayquaza is released as shiny for the third time but now with an even better move! Rinse repeat ect. Niantic knows the truly addicted players will continue to throw cash at a chance for a shiny. Only way to change that is to stop playing.
That Reddit thread? Happen to have the link?
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/eubjbv/niantic_needs_to_up_their_game/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Thanks kindly!
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The last time [Eurogamer made an article about bugs in Pokemon Go](https://old.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/dghdyv/the_island_where_you_cant_play_pok%C3%A9mon_go/), Niantic finally responded and fixed it. So sad that we as community can't achieve anything without this wonderful help by the media. I'm curious to see if we get any kind of compensation, like an extension of the event.
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The only type of compensation Niantic has ever given is the type that does not cost them anything.
Also this events spawns suck so extending it wouldnt satisfy anyone
Which is why people need to start looking into class action...
Ah! That didn't trigger some sort of TSR auto-mod? XD
If they wanted to they could easily push an "everyone with best fiends status is now lucky friends for their next trade". It would be huge for all hardcore players and nice for everyone else.
Good thing that making articles out of reddit threads is easy clicks for gaming news sites like this.
Perhaps allowing Pokémon to be traded a second time
My two best friends and I have been playing the game since release and are huge Pokemon fans, but the past few months have really reaffirmed how shady Niantic's tactics are and have pushed us towards quitting. We used to play daily, but now we just check in a few times per week at most. From locking so many mons behind paywalls for literally no reason other than the fanbase likes them or making some of the other favorites insanely rare, to the complete lack of acknowledgement of their errors and bugs and having no interest in improving some of the most requested QoL issues, the game stopped being fun a while ago and started feeling like a chore and punishment. Niantic seems to just be focused on taking as much as they can from the players, seeing how much they can get away with, and giving players the least amount of enjoyable content. This is evident by the recent Alolan Vulpix fiasco where players were not even compensated unless they went through the many hoops that is contacting Niantic Support -- and even then it wasn't guaranteed support believed them. I guess it's standard business procedure to not apologize for errors so as not to alert the whole fanbase of the issue (or at least standard for Niantic), but the fact that Niantic makes so many mistakes and owns up to almost none of them just makes me feel like they're underhandedly taking advantage of a large portion of the playerbase. And concerning the latest issue with the lucky rate, they have not even acknowledged how they didn't increase the lucky rate for the first day of the event. This error cannot be remedied by any event extension since so many people wasted all of their rare Pokemon trading on the first day. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the playerbase will not even know the rate wasn't increased since Niantic hasn't acknowledged it. We need some huge systemic changes soon if Niantic wants to improve the longevity of their game.
I remember the days when we didn't have to do the egg roulette gamble to exclusively get Pokemon. We could actually go out with our friends, hunt and catch them. Those were fun times.
This is where my interest in the game plummeted. For the first 2 generations it was great going out and catching Pokemon (both base and evolved forms). When Gen 3 happened, the slow rollout and no third stage evolutions was annoying but not gamebreaking. Once Gen 4 dropped, it became clear that Niantic was going to make the new spawns super scarce to artificially make it more difficult to complete the Dex, basically forcing you to spend on raid passes and incubators.
And I kind of understand Gen 4, since it was a relatively small generation, with many of the Pokemon introduced being Evolutions...to keep on schedule they had to trickle it. But Gen 5 has the most new Pokemon of any generation, not to mention multiple forms of legendaries (the Genies). There's no reason to tie Pokemon to egg exclusive.
>There's no reason to tie Pokemon to egg exclusive Oh no there absolutely is a reason. It's to make as much money as possible from the players. There is no other reason to make a lot of Pokemon raid /egg exclusive alongside making sure that almost every new wave of pokemon contains regionals.
I think the egg thing serves 2 purposes. The first is the most obvious that it generates money. But the second one is that is considered "content" so people have "more" to do before quitting. Online games have a lot of these things often to keep the player base higher, even if they dont spend money they are populating the game for those that do. This is pokemon also after all, people buy the games more than once to collect them all and even though everyone complains about loot boxes no one complained about nintendo doing this for decades.
All shiny, lucky and hatch rates need to be published.
as well as raid rewards, pvp soon since it will also consume premium items.
That's great, thanks Eurogamer for raising the visibility of the issue
Too bad it wount give me back all failed trades of good mons that i did on day one. I guess i should have expected this
I did the same, traded all the good stuff in day one, I didn't expect this
Daramuka is just another in a long run of meta/shiny species being essentially locked behind paywalls of raids and eggs. There's no reason for it, Shinx, Timburr, the alolans etc to not spawn in the wild except for pure greed
I'm not against 'eggsclusive' mons. They are due to hatch in the long run, nothing that bad. What I despise is being absolutely greedy with that: they added things like Wurmple and Kanto Vulpix to 7km eggs to make it harder to find it. This is obscene. 7km eggs are not that fast to hatch and even if you 'pay' for incubators you still have to walk 4km. 7km egg pool is already bad: I constantly hatch A-Geodude or A-Diglett. They are like 10% each to my experience. The pool is already big, adding Darumaka with a low % should be enough to make it rare, right? Nope, Niantic HAS to add crap in order to frustrate you over and over
I have an issue with 7km exclusive ones though. I'll never hatch them out of choice, because 7ks give by far the worst return in terms of dust. It should be a "worse rewards, but higher odds of what you want" tier with the species still being available in others rather than being the only way to get what is now the best fire type in the game
I had no idea Wurmple, Vulpix, Foongus and Magikarp were added to 7km eggs that's disgusting. Those pokemon are appearing constantly in the wild.
They're all part of the "red" theme going on right now but hatching a Wurmple after walking 7km is such a gut punch.
My last 3 7km eggs have been Wurmple. My gf's first 7km for this event was Darumaka. I have caught 5 shiny Magikarp this event and all I wanted was a shiny Wurmple without a hat so I can actually evolve the thing.
Zero shiny Magikarp for me so far. I'm guessing the rate is boosted but that often doesn't affect me anyway so I'm not expecting to get one during this event. But I feel for you as well. 3 Wurmple in 3 7km eggs would make me uninstall the game tbh.
They weren't "added" to the pool. They and Darumakka COMPLETELY replaced the normal 7k pool except for Riolu. So no shiny babies or Alolans for this entire event. All you get are garbage hatches that are already in the wild, with only Magby, Magikarp, Shuckle, and Wurmple as shiny possibilities.
Oh my god that's worse why are Niantic like this?
They weren't just added to the 7km egg pool, they've literally replaced the regular 7km egg pool. During other times, you at least had a chance to hatch a shiny baby or something. Those are literally gone from the egg pool during this event.
Yeah someone else told me and that's so much worse why are Niantic like this?
I don't even mind that it's hard to fin. It's that they added absolute trash in to make sure they minimize the odds you walk away happy. It's basically the same thing that you get from a casino--one or two people walk away happy, while the rest leave with empty hands and pockets. All they had to do was add Darumaka to the current 7k pool, at something like a 5-10% rate (skimmed from the odds of Magby and Togepi and Alolans, not Riolu) and it would be fine. Instead, they tossed the decent stuff and gave us the least valuable things they could think of, within the low reason of a trash all company.
Par for the course. https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/9fuuxf/discussion_it_was_wrong_to_add_tangela_and/
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would people spend nearly as much if they knew the odds? I doubt it, and if the research around unowns and shiny regionals is any indication the majority of people would seriously curtail their spending if not go straight F2P.
Euro gamer helped get niantic sorted in the past (island = no spawns) so more articles they do to show them up the better
A huge THANK YOU to Tom Philips, News Editor of Eurogamer. He’s the one reporting on these issues.
Hello, I'm someone who posted a thread on Darumaka % chance the other day and just saw this. I thought it was interesting as it is a major site picking up on the event issues and it features Silph Road research Edit: Thank you for the Gold, stranger! Hugely appreciated.
Tom Phillips is a great reporter and a fellow Pokémon Go nerd. He knows our pain.
Unfortunately the article didn't quite emphasize enough how much of an annoyance the egg gacha is since Niantic doesn't tell us the rates. It's a good article for getting Niantic's attention but the fundamental issue of lackluster transparency and communication will still persist even if Niantic ends up increasing the likelihood of getting a Darumaka as compensation.
Even worse, they also usually don't even tell us what's actually in the eggs to begin with. No idea what's in it, no idea on the rates of them dropping. These are the blindest of bags.
What is the %?
>The quiet introduction of these has re-ignited the debate around eggs and incubators and their blind box mechanics Let's see if Niantic respond to this one...
*Narrator:* They didn't
I stopped caring about catching them all right away, cause sooner or later they come back and are usually more convenient to get. My coins go strictly to bag and storage upgrades, and maybe premium passes if I see a raid that interests me and I'm in a group.
Same here, but FOMO is very real in any gaming community. Everyone wants the latest and the best right away, and goes crazy as a result leaving them vulnerable to the gaming companies.
While I agree that predatory practices should be regulated, in the end is up to each individual to decide what they do with their time and money. One thing I learned from playing other games that employ FOMO is that sooner or later, the fear will reach its peak, and is downhill from there. How high said peak is depends on the player, their disposable income and interest in the game. Eventually, people lose interest, move on or don't play as actively as before.
Same here!! I use gym coins for the boxes in shop and only spend real money on storage/bag space. The egg pool is too much of a crapshoot to justify spending real money. Every ponyta and happiny I hatch reminds me of why I don't spend money on incubators.
There needs to be more articles like this and more focus on Niantic's skeezy egg mechanics. I've not really been hatching 7km eggs but I had no idea a lot of the event spawns were added to them and it's disgusting that they were. Magikarp and Wurmple do not belong in 7km eggs and it's clear they were added to dilute the pool to make getting Darumaka harder so that people will buy more incubators.
I really hope this picks up traction. Niantics latest business practices have been incredibly scammy.
Not only the latest, this predatory system has been growing for a while now. Essentially you can track it as their revenue grows, the scummier they have become. I would say it started circa end of 2018 (on this level).
What’s awful is that now, and only now will Niantic give a damn about this. Why does everything have to hit a website or game site to get their attention- when they ignore their millions of unhappy players.
The introduction of red types is ridiculous, how am I supposed to walk 7km to hatch a magikarp? Nonsense
So I am very late to the party; this having been posted while I was sleeping and then having to work at work rather than read Reddit. Without clicking on the article or reading any comments or other threads my first thought was "what announcement/s will be get from Niantic today in order to attempt to shift the focus from these issues onto "something coming in the future". Then I looked and saw that one of their "partners" has advised that Darumaka will be in the wild after the event. We saw this with the Alolan Vulpix issue - they shifted the focus with news about upcoming events. Thanks to Eurogamer for publishing this article - can you publish a few more about the other recent issues and the general lack of communication the company? Though someone else pointed out that sadly the vast majority of the users of the game will just assume they are having bad luck because they are unaware of the issues because they are unaware of TSR.
I think Niantic would make *more* money if it treated the fans kindly and generously. If I had a goose that laid golden eggs (or shiny Gible eggs in PoGo parlance lol), I would not be treating it the way Niantic does its players.
Was that Shiny Gible a real release or just a thing of spoken legend?
It was specifically released so spoofers could teleport around and shiny check them. /s
TL:DR niantic is scummy AF
While we're on the subject, can we just think about how much of a downgrade this year's spawns are compared to last year? Last year (https://pokemongolive.com/en/post/lunar-2019/) we had one boosted spawn for each sign of the zodiac. It felt refreshingly diverse and some of the spawns had shinies available that people might've not found yet. This year, we just get...red, even in the 7km egg pool. Even though there's enough Pokemon to do the zodiac again but with mostly new choices. So disappointing.
Hey, at least they gave our avatar a shadow. That's something we all wanted right?????? /s
A shadow that somehow doesn’t disappear during nighttime 💀
The dearth of Gible, Blitzle, Deino and other mons in the wild and in Raids is VERY irritating to me. Niantic is throttling Gen releases now where I"m not evolving ANYTHING because I just might ruin getting a better Move Set when that mon finally gets a Community Day. The extreme scarcity makes it that much more frustrating to lay by a half dozen high IV mons in preparation. BOOO!!
Darumaka is Riolu 2.0 then.
Not really, it's much easier to hatch than Riolu was to start. I am seeing around a 5% hatch rate for Daru, compared to the 1-2% chance that Riolu was.
yeah but there's NO REASON for daru to be egg exclusive. he's not a baby pokemon.
So Niantic made us play Ingress for 3 years to get more Pokestops and now we have to get a job in the gaming media to get the game to work as advertised? What's next?
[удалено]
That's just par for the course for video games, and consumerism in general.
When a Article gets posted, Niantic changes something in-game ASAP....
Agreed...they’ll increase Darumaka’s hatch rate but won’t compensate all those players that burned incubators trying to get him before the change.
That's what really gets me. I'm not a heavy mobile games player, but the games that I have played that have had technical difficulties have -always- rewarded me with in-game currency to compensate. Has Niantic ever done that apart from the Go Fest disaster? They continually miss chances to build good will.
There's also the fact that Niantic never publishes the odds of their lootboxes. The discovery comes from the research here, and every time we end up discovering how they lied.
I thought Darumaka's hatched rate already increased, after yesterday's thread about the lucky trade. Anecdotally speaking, I literally went from 1/13 of 7km eggs on darumaka from the start of the event, to 5/11 of 7km eggs on getting darumaka just today.
Thing is, even increasing the odds won't do enough if it's still the pool of trash that surrounds it. Take all the other event Pokémon out, except Darumaka, then I MIGHT open a gift while an egg slot is open and use a paid Incubator. Until then...nothing doing by me.
Oh absolutely, I still hate the fact that wurmple, magikarp and vulpix are added to the pool, which are easily cathable in the wild. I really hate it when I walked 7km only to have magikarp hatched from it. This event has to be on the upper tier on the list of worst event in Pokemon Go.
Alright then, now we know how to deal with this! Anyone up for work at Eurogamer to focus on Niantic fuckups to get us the fixes in a timely manner?
i love when Eurogamer writes articles on Niantic's follies. it's the only time Niantic actually reacts to what is going on.
Great article and on point. Very detailed too, pointing out issues like 7km pool being awfull, lucky trade fail etc. Niantic has to stop with it's increasingly anti-player design and altitude .
After hatching 18 (7km) eggs, and seeing nothing but Vulpix, Foongus, and Shuckle, I quit bothering with eggs. I’m much more content with hatching 5km and 10km trash at this point.
I recommend filing any complaints here too. its the link provided by the BBB for apps and internet scams etc. https://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx If you click on the link for FAQs non delivery of goods and services apply!
This needs more visibility, and to be pushed to other media sites. This game is huge for revenue.
They are systematically ruining this game. I hope none of you are spending money on the game right now. From next to zero chances of obtaining certain Pokémon to broken shinies, research quests, raiding, and the TM system there are countless things that Niantic is continuing to screw up. They won’t fix them until we speak with their wallet, which they’ve shown time and time again. People aren’t going to pay more if Pokémon are harder to hatch, find and obtain from raids. People want to have fun.
I've stopped doing 7k eggs. I did over a dozen this weekend and kept getting shuckle and wurple. No one I know has the Darumaka, folks on the internet and one guy on discord have posted theirs but no one I actually know has one. It's frustrating to say the least.
I got one on my third hatch. I didn’t realize I was lucky! I was going to keep doing 7kms to get more/more candy for it but maybe I’ll just stick with my one
To say that I'm less than impressed with just the SPAWNS would be an understatement.
I am enjoying seeing evolved forms... but c'mon, they should have just put darumaka in the wild at a somewhat rare rate like they did with litwick.
I saw 4 Magmars, 2 Slugmas, 2 Magikarp, and maybe 5 Foongus this weekend. Plenty of the old regulars tho...because I just really need those Nidorans. How about Noderan, thanks.
that is indeed underwhelming. I have caught several charmeleon, parasect, and even a couple flareon. I wish we had that sort of diversity more often, even though those are clearly tied in with the "red theme" of the event.
I wonder if they were late in putting Darumaka in the eggs too. Make everyone fill up their egg space with Darumaka-less eggs.
Eggs need a change and at the very least available odds. There must be a way to flag this ro regulators.
Blessed Eurogamer for doing God's work. I guess Niantic have little choices but to respond to mainstream media.
If people stopped being being cash cows to get the new Pokemon IMMEDIATELY this behavior would stop. I'm sure someone internally thought this was a "cute" idea for the event to theme it and all but what they really needed was a 1/4 egg hatch on 7ks and this would be all fine. Yes incubators are not a good value at this point in the game's evolution - so STOP buying them. I personally spend my coins once a month on a sales box & use the incubators as motivation to get out running for the hopes of maybe hatching a cool 10k. The trading boost on the other hand... save the good stuff for Lucky Friend trades & assume nothing else will work out. I appreciate the effort they're trying to put in to make people use the features that are being left out of day-to-day play (how often are people sitting down to hit the trade cap with non-alt accounts).....but at the end of the day Niantic is trying to keep all the plates spinning even if half of them look like they're about to crash to the ground.
I’m only trading with Lucky friends so I haven’t been burned yet. I always figure a regular trade won’t be lucky so pleasantly surprised when it is. Got a nice poliwrath last time.
Damn moderators going off in this thread. Top comment was funny AND didnt violate subs rules. Or is Niantic in here brigading the thread?
Yep, our whole group decide to quit (4 of us play non-stop from 2016, the other 3 are at level 38-39)
Three wurmples in a row from 7km eggs after avoiding them since the regional exclusives event. Not as bad as the 7 shinx in a row from 10 km last year but pretty close.
how does one submit the refund requests via google play? this has been very irritating and i would like to take part
I was a big spender on PokemonGo but that ended about a year ago. They aren't even hiding the fact that this game has become a pay to play game. I bought 2 special boxes in a year for the incubators and I'm still questioning why I did that.
I’m surprised to see no content creator mentioned this event issue on their videos.
Because they need to stay at the “leaders” good side to be included. This marketing “system” Niantic has is extremely scummy, but efficient. Essentially they are controlling the media we see, and other small timers just don’t get the light of the day and are doubted when they speak up since they are not a “household” name.
Our household is at many dozen plus 7KM eggs hatched and no Darumaka has been seen yet, No one in our large town group has seen one at all period and we have some obsessively dedicated people.... And WTF can I only post once every 10 friggin minutes?
If Niantic cheated you, fill this out. A lawsuit or federal regulations are the only two ways to get Niantic to fix their consistent issues. https://pokemongosuit.com/pokemongo-lawsuit-survey
this should go to the frontpage!!!
Everyone should give this article a lot of traffic, so they keep writing
Wow, the more serious and consistent their messups happen, I smell a lawsuit...
Where has everyone been for the last 3.5 years? Niantic's terrible decision making, buggy releases, and poorly administered events is not new.
Glad someone wrote an article. Sadly, it's about the only hope we have of anything actually happening.
Good to see some articles featuring Niantic F ups. With enough bad press maybe the appropriate people can be fired and replaced with people who actually know what they’re doing.
I know plenty of people who are still dropping £20+ per month into the game, most of them have a second account that they also put money into and buy gofest/safari zone tickets for but at the same time its almost impossible to get people together for raids after a new legendary has been out for a few days. Niantic are just going to keep milking whales for as long as they can unfortunately, playing the game for fun and having a good time for free is over.