Pokémon GO

Ivy

resident enigma
is a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributor
I'm back from a recent trip to Egypt and Turkey so those receiving gifts and wondering, that's where I've been. Egypt is where Sigilyph and the Pharoah trim for Furfrou are exclusive in the game. Changing Furfrou form was easy, tracking down Sigilyph was a challenge and often logged into the game to see if it showed up at the hotel I was staying at, which fortunately it did, otherwise, the streets of Egypt are like playing Frogger to get from one side to the other since they hardly have any traffic lights.
Same; I was recently in Taiwan and Thailand and got some decent stuff like Sawk, Sensu Oricorio, Farfetch'd, Corsola, and Torkoal. Not to mention the really cool gifts and of course amazing IRL experiences lol.
 

QuentinQuonce

formerly green_typhlosion
So Vivillon has finally landed. Fully expecting a subreddit or a discord to pop up shortly with code swaps but until then my code is 8006 0569 7020 if anyone wants (semi-)regular gifts; I'm in the UK so my pattern is Garden which won't be too difficult to get.

Had a lot of fun with this so far though. I've not been enjoying a lot of what Niantic have been doing recently but this, much like Zorua, has been genuinely interesting and engaging - blending the Pokemon's lore with Pokemon Go's gameplay mechanics. Given that you'll need 2250 Scatterbug candy to fully evolve all the different forms I'm prepared for this to be quite the slog (hopefully Scatterbug will eventually spawn wild too) but it's a marathon not a sprint.

I have a fair few international friends so was able to get most of the forms from going through the existing gifts on my friend list. The only ones I still need are Ocean and Icy Snow which I think will be the hardest to get so if anyone's in those regions, please HMU.
 

QuentinQuonce

formerly green_typhlosion
Almost at the platinum medal for Vivillon! But I still need

1 Savanna

1 Ocean

2 Archipelago

2 Sandstorm


If anyone can help, please add my code and send gifts: 8006 0569 7020 (garden here)
 
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Expert Evan

every battle has a smell!
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
While I recall in the Video game my location was Polar but in Pokemon GO it appears to be Modern. I'll be vacationing in Puerto Rico soon so that should satisfy any needs for the Archipelago form.

Edit: some of you probably noticed I traveled to Egypt and Turkey last month, so am rather curious if anyone waited until Vivillon was live to open those gifts whether they applied towards the Sandstorm or Marine variants or something else instead.
 
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Expert Evan

every battle has a smell!
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Fortunately I've been friends with someone from UAE (with goateeVGC) through twitter but for confidential purposes I will only share FCs with him through private messaging to prevent him from getting inundated. I'm currently 2 points with sandstorm and look forward to getting 3rd and final for the encounter.
 

QuentinQuonce

formerly green_typhlosion
Fortunately I've been friends with someone from UAE (with goateeVGC) through twitter but for confidential purposes I will only share FCs with him through private messaging to prevent him from getting inundated. I'm currently 2 points with sandstorm and look forward to getting 3rd and final for the encounter.
Well, if you can pass him mine it'd be greatly appreciated - I can imagine anyone from Sandstorm is inundated right now, so I'm happy for him to delete me as soon as I've pinned gifts (I still need two)
 

Expert Evan

every battle has a smell!
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Added Ampha to couple of accounts, also notified my UAE friend hopefully he'll add your FC Green_Typhlosion

Edit: here's my current vivillon status with my mystic accounts
goatee64: 8
done: Continental, Elegant, Garden, High Plains, Jungle, Modern, Monsoon, Polar
Savanna is 1/3 done
goateeVGC: 5
done: Continental, High Plains, Modern, Polar, Sandstorm

son's valor account: 7
done: Continental, Garden, High Plains, Meadow, Modern, Monsoon, Polar
Marine is 2/3 done
Ocean is 2/3 done
River is 1/3 done
Savanna is 1/3 done

Reminder, I should be in the Archipelago section by Thursday so I'll do my diligence to delete all my Modern gifts to make room for the newer gifts.
 
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QuentinQuonce

formerly green_typhlosion
Also kinda wanted to share my sadness here, was playing on bus early december and found this and couldnt leave the bus View attachment 480309
There's a bloke in my local Whatsapp group who has some sort of radar program that shows what Pokemon are spawning and where, and occasionally he'll post in the group if there's an Unown, Mesprit, or any species with 15-15-15 IVs. I'm never close enough to get there in time before they despawn and it's honestly worse than not knowing they're there at all.
 

Expert Evan

every battle has a smell!
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
I'm recently back from the Caribbean so hopefully some of you got an Archipelago Vivillon while possible. Up next trying to get to best buddy with lucky hundo Blaziken on goateeVGC at least. The buddy system can get tedious, usually try to use poffins before 70 points since catch assist is necessary.
 
Heads up that Sierra has Shadow Beldum as her capture. We've got a few more days of Rocket Takeover, so might be good to rush through a few of her for Shadow Metagross potential. If going out (especially with CD being a thing) it might be a good time to hunt her since Noibat isn't too big of a presence to demand min-max capturing.
 

Expert Evan

every battle has a smell!
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Nice when a TR executive has a pokemon in demand, won't surprise me if swinub is that pokemon in the future. I still need xl candies for Beldum so I'm hopeful there will be a special community day for Beldum in the near future. As far as the Vivillon collection is going, my main account is at 12 while my alt is at 14. Some of the regions seem so exclusive even Leekduck's Penpal site can be tricky and most probably grab a gift then remove you as a friend if not from desired region. I still need Icy Snow, Sun, Ocean, Marine, Sandstorm (on main account) and Tundra, I know my alt has Marine, Tundra, Ocean and Sandstorm but not pushing my luck. I'll also need gifts again from River since I accidentally transferred one that I got.
 
I suspect a Beldum CD Classic might be in the next couple months since we already had two for Dragonite and Larvitar (i.e. other Pseudo Legendaries, and definitely not as huge value battlers as Metagross by comparison), and I wonder about Salamence since its Mega just dropped while Metagross's is still to come (Hoenn tour going to Primals and the Latis for big features).
 
In Niantic's continued efforts to drive their cash cow into the ground and free themselves of what they act like is some horrible albatross of an IP they have hanging around their neck, they have officially announced the limitations on number of remote raids that we've been expecting based on datamines, along with price increases and minimal incentives to get people to raid in person:

https://pokemongolive.com/post/remote-raid-passes-update-2023

I would really like whoever is making these decisions to actually go out and play this game somewhere/sometime where the weather is terrible. I played the Hoenn tour on a brutally cold and windy day, and I ended up doing a ton of remote raids to try and get shiny Deoxys, spending actual $$ on this game for the first time in a while to do so. If I had been limited to 5 raids a day I would just not have bothered.

I really hope this game manages to survive long enough to get a few more shiny mythicals.
 
In Niantic's continued efforts to drive their cash cow into the ground and free themselves of what they act like is some horrible albatross of an IP they have hanging around their neck, they have officially announced the limitations on number of remote raids that we've been expecting based on datamines, along with price increases and minimal incentives to get people to raid in person:

https://pokemongolive.com/post/remote-raid-passes-update-2023

I would really like whoever is making these decisions to actually go out and play this game somewhere/sometime where the weather is terrible. I played the Hoenn tour on a brutally cold and windy day, and I ended up doing a ton of remote raids to try and get shiny Deoxys, spending actual $$ on this game for the first time in a while to do so. If I had been limited to 5 raids a day I would just not have bothered.

I really hope this game manages to survive long enough to get a few more shiny mythicals.
I live in a fairly Suburban area where the number of players is not very high. The most I see others play the game is when people step out for Raid Hours or stuff like Hoenn Tour. All this to say that in-person raiding in my area is not remotely viable on a Daily basis if I want anything above 3*'s (which have steadily been getting worse for PvE Content and tend to be bad for PvP because of the IV floor), and Remote Raiding getting kneecapped further cuts my ability to participate in them.

My assumption is that they want people going out to locations more often to spin stops and such, because that makes for more enticing data to sell to companies (which inevitably is a larger income than the sale of In-game coins would ever manage to be), but they don't seem to realize that the drop-off of active players (hell I was mostly in a "check during lunch" mode for most of the week) is going to kneecap participation and thus data to farm anyway. This would make them more money on paper but inevitably fall flat in practice.

Alternatively they don't like the amount of money they make off this because of the cut TPC takes for the IP, I have no number to substantiate this particular assumption though.
 

QuentinQuonce

formerly green_typhlosion
I get it, they want people going out, so they're increasing prices...

...but why the limit on how many remote raids you can actually do in a day? FFS just let people play the way they want to play! If someone wants to buy 20 remote passes and do 20 raids a day that's up to them. Not that anyone should be giving Niantic money atm. If you're thinking of doing so please just give it to me instead, I've got a project I'm currently fundraising for so it'll do far more good there.

And in return for this nerf we get... boosted drop rate for XL candy for in-person raids. I do about 5 or 6 raids IRL per week usually and that generally gets me 1 XL candy per week, so I'm thrilled at the thought of maybe getting 2 instead. Double very little is still very little.

It's all stick and no carrot, as usual. Really considering taking a break, it's just a habit this point and rarely a genuine source of pleasure. I'm only rarely buying remote passes atm but I just hope they see a massive loss in profits for this. They probably won't.
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
In Niantic's continued efforts to drive their cash cow into the ground and free themselves of what they act like is some horrible albatross of an IP they have hanging around their neck, they have officially announced the limitations on number of remote raids that we've been expecting based on datamines, along with price increases and minimal incentives to get people to raid in person:

https://pokemongolive.com/post/remote-raid-passes-update-2023

I would really like whoever is making these decisions to actually go out and play this game somewhere/sometime where the weather is terrible. I played the Hoenn tour on a brutally cold and windy day, and I ended up doing a ton of remote raids to try and get shiny Deoxys, spending actual $$ on this game for the first time in a while to do so. If I had been limited to 5 raids a day I would just not have bothered.

I really hope this game manages to survive long enough to get a few more shiny mythicals.
You know those stories about how people saw the steadily declining sales of Pokemon after RBY and debated whether or not it was just another 90s fad on its way out like Pogs or Beanie Babies? The history of Go is the closest we'll get to witnessing the alternate timeline where this prophecy actually came to pass. The insane amount of momentum Niantic was gifted during the Summer of Go and the way they just absolutely squandered it with their mismanagement merits a movie-length expose
 
It's all stick and no carrot, as usual. Really considering taking a break, it's just a habit this point and rarely a genuine source of pleasure. I'm only rarely buying remote passes atm but I just hope they see a massive loss in profits for this. They probably won't.
This exactly. Niantic knows just how much blowback they are going to get for this, and yet all they offer to assuage players is a promise of more XL candy, remote raid passes in research breakthroughs, and a new cheaper 3 pack of premium raid passes (I still have over 30 of these from years ago when boxes were still good). Beyond this it's just vague claims of amazing future incentives to get players outside.

For me the game has pretty much just become a means of gradually filling my living shiny dex. The fountain of new mons is running dry, I don't even remember the last time there was a new legendary in regular 5* raids instead of something recycled. These are the problems Niantic and TPC need to solve to reinvigorate the game and get people outside agin. Niantic has overplayed the FOMO card to the point where I just don't care if it's anything other than a shiny mythical.
 

QuentinQuonce

formerly green_typhlosion
This exactly. Niantic knows just how much blowback they are going to get for this, and yet all they offer to assuage players is a promise of more XL candy, remote raid passes in research breakthroughs, and a new cheaper 3 pack of premium raid passes (I still have over 30 of these from years ago when boxes were still good). Beyond this it's just vague claims of amazing future incentives to get players outside.

For me the game has pretty much just become a means of gradually filling my living shiny dex. The fountain of new mons is running dry, I don't even remember the last time there was a new legendary in regular 5* raids instead of something recycled. These are the problems Niantic and TPC need to solve to reinvigorate the game and get people outside agin. Niantic has overplayed the FOMO card to the point where I just don't care if it's anything other than a shiny mythical.
Honestly even this isn't really doing it for me rn. I didn't buy the shiny Jirachi research and don't intend to.

I was pleasantly surprised that the Hoenn tour was (for the most part) free; I assume I did a few Groudon/Kyogre raids remotely but I've got a stack of coins saved up from daily gym knockouts so it didn't cost me anything but time.

I can also highly recommend using an app that shows you where the hundos are, it's genuinely made the game more rewarding for me and I feel like I've used my time more efficiently. Obviously it helps to be in a city; on the most recent community day I wound up getting three of them.
 
For me the game has pretty much just become a means of gradually filling my living shiny dex. The fountain of new mons is running dry, I don't even remember the last time there was a new legendary in regular 5* raids instead of something recycled. These are the problems Niantic and TPC need to solve to reinvigorate the game and get people outside agin. Niantic has overplayed the FOMO card to the point where I just don't care if it's anything other than a shiny mythical.
I'm in a similar feeling boat at the moment. I only play more than "open game, catch one or two things, maybe Solo a raid" on stuff like Community Days, and the game has basically become a farm for Shinies, High IV Legends (since several are useful in Main Series but junk rares in Go like Ho-oh), or species I can't get because of the games I didn't buy last Gen (namely Galar DLC and Regional Variants like the Birds whom I need Moltres and Articuno for on my Bank dex).

Which reminds me of another thing: Wild-Spawn Legendaries feel like a terrible addition as handled, something I can say as a mechanic rather than one handling as it was with the Adventure Incense. The Galarian Birds or the Latis or such basically would have abyssmal spawn rates, and then retain the low-catch Rate of Raid Bosses with a ridiculous flee rate. What is the point of this? Most of the Legendaries they do this with aren't particularly Meta in PVP or PVE, so it's not like it's a power imbalance, and it's not like we can hunt them since they're either fixed spawns or from the DA Incense that you can't even pay to get more of. It's stoking FOMO in a way that doesn't even make them money when it works, it just got a lot of my friends to give up using their Incense.
 

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