Pokemon GO rant

[Rageaholic]

Pokemon Go is one of the greatest things ever invented. For those who aren't familiar, it's a Pokemon game for your smart phone. What makes it unique is that the world you explore in game is based on the the real world. And to move around in that world, you move around irl. This is all done via GPS. So if you've noticed more people than usual walking around aimlessly looking at their phone, it's likely they're playing Pokemon GO.

However, the game is very picky about your location. This can be a PITA with gym battles, in which you need to be within a small radius of the gym (which are usually certain landmarks) to interact with them. But the moment you're even an inch out of the radius, you can no longer interact with them (and at times, you even get disconnected). With GPS not always being a hundred percent accurate, you can see where this is a problem. If the GPS roams in the middle of a battle, you can get kicked out, even though you were within the radius all along.

And the kicker, this stupid error can actually get you permabanned

To them, a GPS that moves a few yards outside of a radius is the same as someone who's spoofing GPS (the latter has been such a problem that they've banned rooted devices from the game all together). Now I'm no expert on GPS's or smartphones, but I'd think they should be able to tell the difference between a roaming GPS and a spoofer. Banning people for something so petty and beyond a players control is such a dick move.

[wolfie]

There seem to be a lot of poorly-thought-out games out there. Pokemon Go seems to be particularly bad - interpreting inaccuracy in a known-to-be inaccurate system as cheating, setting up "attractions" in "no-go" areas, and a "3 unique accusations of cheating = permaban" policy. The last one shows an appalling ignorance of SCs. I'm sure there are some people who would regard any incident of another player beating them (either combat or catching a rare Pokemon) as cheating and report it.

I've got a thread about the issue in CS - shout out to Supercell. Not only are their games VERY efficient (i.e. small amount of data used), but they're well-behaved. I had to replace my phone, and after going into Game Center my bases in Clash of Clans and Boom Beach were seamlessly restored. All that I lost was that my "turn off background music" setting was restored to the default of background music being on.

[jackfaire]

Part of the problem is that rather than programming Pokemon GO from the ground up they re-skinned Ingress.

[Greenday]

Part of the problem is that rather than programming Pokemon GO from the ground up they re-skinned Ingress.

Basically.

Pokemon Go is an example of lazy programming. their solution to fix bugs is to just get rid of much needed features. The game without tracking is worthless as it is.

[Rageaholic]

There seem to be a lot of poorly-thought-out games out there. Pokemon Go seems to be particularly bad - interpreting inaccuracy in a known-to-be inaccurate system as cheating, setting up "attractions" in "no-go" areas, and a "3 unique accusations of cheating = permaban" policy. The last one shows an appalling ignorance of SCs. I'm sure there are some people who would regard any incident of another player beating them (either combat or catching a rare Pokemon) as cheating and report it.

Youtube has the same three strikes crap. It has allowed anyone to flag videos for any reason and the burden is on the uploader to proof fair use. It's a terrible system all around.

On the topic of attractions in "no go" areas, yesterday, I saw a Gym in the middle of an intersection (on a boulevard, but still).

Basically.

Pokemon Go is an example of lazy programming. their solution to fix bugs is to just get rid of much needed features. The game without tracking is worthless as it is.

The tracking thing has been pissing a lot of players off. Niantic won't fix it, but still wants to shut down any third party software that helps players find Pokemon. And when I think about it, it should be an easy fix. Just have the Pokemon that show up on the tracker appear on the map. You'd still have to get within a certain distance to battle, but you wouldn't have to wander around aimlessly to find it.

[HYHYBT]

In a sense, this is the opposite end of a problem that's generated no end of threads on CS over the years: businesses insisting on making every customer happy, no matter what, even the troublemakers and those who cannot possibly be made happy short of free everything for life.

My understanding is that Square (those things that let you run credit cards on your cell phone) works similarly: let everyone in to begin with, but then ban anyone who actually causes you to have to do any work.

[Rageaholic]

So Niantic is continuing to alienate it's customers by adding more and more restrictions to the game. A few weeks ago, they made it so that no Pokemon will spawn when you're going above 30 MPH. But now, you can't even spin pokestops to collect items.

At first, this seems like a sensible idea. They don't want people driving while playing the game, but what about passengers? According to redditors, this screws a good portion of players, especially those in rural communities, who's best chance to play was as a passenger in a car or public transportation (on their way to work or school). And with winter on it's way...

I wouldn't mind these stupid restrictions so much if

a. Niantic communicated better with customers. They're not even accepting requests for pokestops.
b. There wasn't already so many other things that need fixing (coughtrackingcough) that they're ignoring and have been ignoring for 4 months now.

[Greenday]

So Niantic is continuing to alienate it's customers by adding more and more restrictions to the game. A few weeks ago, they made it so that no Pokemon will spawn when you're going above 30 MPH. But now, you can't even spin pokestops to collect items.

Yea, but you get extra XP for your first pokemon catch of the day and first pokestop collection of the day!

Because that is somehow supposed to matter at higher levels? Nothing is helping me achieve the goal of catching more pokemon and evolving them.

[Bloodsoul]

Oddly enough I've been walking around playing Pokémon since the GameBoy days since it's turn based, giving me plenty of opportunity to make sure my locale is safe to travel through before taking my next turn.

[Rageaholic]

Yea, but you get extra XP for your first pokemon catch of the day and first pokestop collection of the day!

Because that is somehow supposed to matter at higher levels? Nothing is helping me achieve the goal of catching more pokemon and evolving them.

Eh, I suppose you could lucky egg/mass evolve before getting the weekly bonus (though in your case, I'd spend more coins on egg incubators).

They also made battling a bigger pain, particularly training gyms. The prestige you get for training gyms has been halved (and you take away double from battling enemy gyms). This wouldn't be a big deal if they didn't

a. force you to pick 6 Pokemon every time you wanted to train
b. give you significantly less prestige if any of those pokemon CP are above the CP of the pokemon you're fighting.
c. Set all your highest CP Pokemon as the default so you have no choice but to manually scroll through hundreds of Pokemon just so find something.

It's one of the worst designs I've ever seen. If just one of these would be fixed, it wouldn't be nearly as time consuming to train gyms. I want to go up to the person who designed this and scream "What were you thinking?"!!!

[kathykit]

Pokemon Go is one of the greatest things ever invented. For those who aren't familiar, it's a Pokemon game for your smart phone. What makes it unique is that the world you explore in back drop game is based on the the real world. And to move around in that world, you move around irl. This is all done via GPS. So if you've noticed more people than usual walking around aimlessly looking at their phone, it's likely they're playing Pokemon GO.

Just agree your point. This is the game can let people go around!
Just like my husband, he willing to go around with me, just like dating!
And provide a chance to interact with others.