• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

'Pokémon GO' Cuts Off Access To Pokévision And Other Creature-Finding Apps

Mariolee

Member
This is exactly what I meant in my post above. These kinds of posts in the online Go community are disgusting.

Again. This is not the first time this has happened. This is what people replied to me in the last thread.

He's saying Niantic deserves more credit for lucking out with the Pokémon IP and slapping it onto Ingress like that's some sort of monumental task. I wouldn't even argue with him, he's white knighting pretty hard.

The fact of the matter is there was a beta. They knew it would be big. They should have had the servers to handle it. They shouldn't remove features. They shouldn't allow GPS spoofing and they shouldn't hold a complete lack of communication. It's a messed up situation and the people sitting back and defending them aren't making matters easier.

The game is broken with no fix in sight.

post-64231-this-is-fine-dog-fire-comic-Im-N7mp.png

What evidence of a high chance is there? And going further, how can one calculate a high probability?

But this is a bad talking point to begin with. We shouldn't need to be theorizing odds. That's a consequence of Niantic not communicating with its customers and us being left with fuck-all to figure out.

But to be more apt, I don't think the tracking will come back. Given the heavy server side focus of the game (which has its own severe flaws since some things could be client side without being prone to cheating), and with the currently high player base, tracking as it exists brings an additional burden.

Why they implemented tracking the way they did was a headscratcher by itself.




It absolutely comes off like white knighting.

Everyone's grievances are legitimate, but the only thing I was talking about in that other thread is about how people are conducting themselves in response to Niantic's fuck ups.
 

kami_sama

Member
Negative!

There was a tracker. You were tracking down Pokémon. That was the main point of the game imo. To track down pokemon. Not to just walk around anywhere lost not knowing if you should be crossing streets aimlessly or headed over to here or there.

Tracking! Gotta track them all!

Yep. I still remember the first days. You wandered about, but it was always great to search for pokemon you found in the tracker.
 
Again. This is not the first time this has happened. This is what people replied to me in the last thread.





Everyone's grievances are legitimate, but the only thing I was talking about in that other thread is about how people are conducting themselves in response to Niantic's fuck ups.

Everyone's grievances are legitimate huh? I'll call that padding. I don't think you give one shit from the way you treat people with said grievances.

That the white knights ITT and others are putting more effort regarding people's responses to Niantic's decisions as opposed to helping find solutions or discuss what a company should be doing is the most telling aspect of their posting.

What are you, Niantic's surrogate PR team?
 

dity

Member
Again. This is not the first time this has happened. This is what people replied to me in the last thread.





Everyone's grievances are legitimate, but the only thing I was talking about in that other thread is about how people are conducting themselves in response to Niantic's fuck ups.

I 100% agree with you. I've said I think that this is an overreaction and all this hate, maliciousness, the whole thing is absolutely ridiculous. People are being horrible within the community right now.
 
There's already Pokevision alternatives, but you'd know that if you looked it up. Niantic wasn't able to kill the tracking beast.

And stop bloody saying I'm "making excuaes for shit behaviour". This thread is like a wall. No matter how much I say I agree that their communication sucks you people here never seem to read it or something. I don't think the app is broken, I still think it's fun, I think Niantic's communication is shit, I think the reaction to this whole thing is absolutely ridiculous.

But, why am I here defending it? Because this game makes me enjoy exercising more. It makes going out more fun for me. I don't leave the house to find specific thinga but instead take it with me as I walk and turn exercise into an activity instead of a chore. This has me elated. I thought this app would be ass but since it came out it has made physical activity for a person like me with conditions that leave me exhausted all the time and with chronic pain a really fun experience. Seeing people breath fire about the app and shit on everything about it and people who still like it or are at least patient makes me sick. It's absolutely ridiculous behaviour. It's a damn mobile game. It's fun, it's social, it's helping. It's amazing to be able to go out and experience this game with other people who aren't making any discussion about this game a horribly negative experience.
Any other Pokevision alternatives are just going to get shut down too. It's not just that they shut down Pokevision. It's that it was providing something the game was lacking, and doing it well without fixing what was already in the game instead. There is zero reason to view what they did positively. They made a broken game and shut down the best alternative to fix it without fixing the game themselves.

As for your explanation of your defense, no one cares that you like the game. This is just another situation "It doesn't effect me very much, so let me just come in and downplay an issue and make excuses as to why you guys shouldn't be as mad as you are." Which is the most tired bullshit around here anymore.

Not everyone thinks it's as fun anymore. Everything you said applied to the game before they took out this feature, so using it as a defense as to why it's OK for them to be incompetent or why people shouldnt be mad at them for it is totally backwards. It's less social now already because of the drop off we've seen. And it's only going to get worse if they don't fix a bunch of the bugs and generally clean up the app to where it isn't a hassle to fucking use half the time. So much shit about this game was already medicore to straight up buggy in the first place, it shouldn't be remotely surprising that there is backlash that there was an update that actually took more features out.

Whats embarassing behavior is sitting there saying you're sick that people are complaining about a product that is clearly broken in many ways, has been since day one, and has actually recently been made worse. If you don't like a bunch of people complaining about a broken game you like, maybe stay out of threads like this instead of coming in and trying to downplay everyones frustrations just because you don't care.

Good for you, you like the game, that doesn't mean you should go around finding the best way to make excuses for incompetence. It is broken, no matter how you want to rationalize it otherwise.

There is a whole list of shit that straight up doesn't function correctly in this game, and a lot of it is directly tied to progression and catching Pokémon. I'd been doing my best to ignore all of that shit too, but when the company straight up comes out and takes away one of the last things that still makes the game fun for me I'm not going to sit here and act like nothing is wrong. Or have people come in here and tell me and others that we are over reacting that an already buggy game just got even worse.
 
Pokémon GO is serious business you guys.
Oh Christ, this shit again. Dude, just leave if you've got nothing of worth to add.

Yeah, Pokemon Go isn't serious business. But that doesn't mean you can't have a passion for video games and expect better of the people who make them for you.
 

Mariolee

Member
Everyone's grievances are legitimate huh? I'll call that padding. I don't think you give one shit from the way you treat people with said grievances.

That the white knights ITT and others are putting more effort regarding people's responses to Niantic's decisions as opposed to helping find solutions or discuss what a company should be doing is the most telling aspect of their posting.

What are you, Niantic's surrogate PR team?

You can call it whatever you want. And how have I treated people with said grievances? Just look at my original posts.
 

Sami+

Member
My favorite part of Pokémon by far and without question is competitive battling so reading all this I'm kind of glad Pokémon GO never interested me... :/
 

dity

Member
Any other Pokevision alternatives are just going to get shut down too. It's not just that they shut down Pokevision. It's that it was providing something the game was lacking, and doing it well without fixing what was already in the game instead. There is zero reason to view what they did positively. They made a broken game and shut down the best alternative to fix it without fixing the game themselves.

As for your explanation of your defense, no one cares that you like the game. This is just another situation "It doesn't effect me very much, so let me just come in and downplay an issue and make excuses as to why you guys shouldn't be as mad as you are." Which is the most tired bullshit around here anymore.

Not everyone thinks it's as fun anymore. Everything you said applied to the game before they took out this feature, so using it as a defense as to why it's OK for them to be incompetent or why people shouldnt be mad at them for it is totally backwards. It's less social now already because of the drop off we've seen. And it's only going to get worse if they don't fix a bunch of the bugs and generally clean up the app to where it isn't a hassle to fucking use half the time. So much shit about this game was already medicore to straight up buggy in the first place, it shouldn't be remotely surprising that there is backlash that there was an update that actually took more features out.

Whats embarassing behavior is sitting there saying you're sick that people are complaining about a product that is clearly broken in many ways, has been since day one, and has actually recently been made worse. If you don't like a bunch of people complaining about a broken game you like, maybe stay out of threads like this instead of coming in and trying to downplay everyones frustrations just because you don't care.

Good for you, you like the game, that doesn't mean you should go around finding the best way to make excuses for incompetence. It is broken, no matter how you want to rationalize it otherwise.

There is a whole list of shit that straight up doesn't function correctly in this game, and a lot of it is directly tied to progression and catching Pokémon. I'd been doing my best to ignore all of that shit too, but when the company straight up comes out and takes away one of the last things that still makes the game fun for me I'm not going to sit here and act like nothing is wrong. Or have people come in here and tell me and others that we are over reacting that an already buggy game just got even worse.

Pokevision seemed to be going to shut down when steps came back anyway. They lament not being open until that feature was fixed. Go and use an alternative and have fun like you used to. Others are using alternatives. It's like torrent sites- when one goes down, several more pop up. Go use an alternative. Every second you sit here talking about how mad you are is basically time you've wasted not hunting - the whole reason you're mad in the first place.

Your attitudes boggle me. They're disgusting and solutions to said anger exist right now, even if I don't like them. If they're what made the game fun for you, then go use them!

If you seriously sit here and try to tell me that it's about the principle of the thing (which you were aboce) I honestly just think you're being angry for the sake of it. Go and have some fun with an alternative.
 

Blues1990

Member
I'm a bit bummed with the outcome, but I remain optimistic for a solution. I enjoy playing the app, but I won't lie that there were species of Pokemon that I wanted to get to buff my team. Eevee's in particular are weird in my case, as for finding them, it yo-yo's back between getting them like cheap 5 cent candy to making it almost impossible to obtain at certain points.
 
Everyone's grievances are legitimate huh? I'll call that padding. I don't think you give one shit from the way you treat people with said grievances.

That the white knights ITT and others are putting more effort regarding people's responses to Niantic's decisions as opposed to helping find solutions or discuss what a company should be doing is the most telling aspect of their posting.

What are you, Niantic's surrogate PR team?

Seeing you call someone out for they way a poster is treating someone....wow.
 

johnsmith

remember me
Even when the tracker worked it wasn't as good as this:

8Kmxc7L.png


This is what we need if they don't want us using 3rd party programs. Direction and distance.
 
Pokémon GO is serious business you guys.

Why are you in this thread? You stated yourself you lack the mental capacity to understand why people even want to use the tracker, yet you're still in this thread? Perhaps another round of vague, passive aggressive posts that achieve nothing? Kinda like the white knighters here!
 

CrazE

Banned
Yep. I still remember the first days. You wandered about, but it was always great to search for pokemon you found in the tracker.

The feeling of... 3 prints... 2 prints... 1 print.. none. Ok now.. he's going to pop up any second! I'm so close!

Ahhhh... those were a good 4 days or so. :D
 
You can call it whatever you want. And how have I treated people with said grievances? Just look at my original posts.

Like this gem?

It's because of comments like "developers have no fuckinf idea what they're doing" that makes us somewhat disregard the aforementioned criticism against Niantic. It's perfectly fine to be frustrated, but to level comments like this without actually knowing what they're doing and how hard they're working behind the scenes just feels in my opinion incredibly immature.


so putting them together, mariolee says all grievances are legitimate......unless they happen to annoy him, then they're just disregarded!
 

oti

Banned
Oh Christ, this shit again. Dude, just leave if you've got nothing of worth to add.

Yeah, Pokemon Go isn't serious business. But that doesn't mean you can't have a passion for video games and expect better of the people who make them for you.

You need to relax. Being frustrated is one thing. Calling others names is unacceptable.

The feeling of... 3 prints... 2 prints... 1 print.. none. Ok now.. he's going to pop up any second! I'm so close!

Ahhhh... those were a good 4 days or so. :D

It was very cool. Hunting down Psyduck in the middle of my city was an awesome adventure. Especially since there was only one other guy playing it lol. That was a week or something before it came out officially in Germany. I really hope they fix he footprints asap.
 
You need to relax. Being frustrated is one thing. Calling others names is unacceptable.



It was very cool. Hunting down Psyduck in the middle of my city was an awesome adventure. Especially since there was only one other guy playing it lol. That was a week or something before it came out officially in Germany. I really hope they fix he footprints asap.

Someone responds to your shit posting and your only answer is to tell them to relax?

Do you annoy someone in real life and tell them how they should respond as well?
 
Like this gem?




so putting them together, mariolee says all grievances are legitimate......unless they happen to annoy him, then they're just disregarded!

Speaking of gems

How the hell do you justify this?

And we'll all be curious if you'll keep your drool catcher from all the deep throating you're doing on Niantic when they no longer need your white knighting.

You're acting like a angry child in this thread. The number of times I have seen you spout "white knight" in the last few pages is beyond ridiculous as well.
 

Mariolee

Member
Like this gem?

so putting them together, mariolee says all grievances are legitimate......unless they happen to annoy him, then they're just disregarded!

I see no problem with my post. I did say "somewhat" disregard, in the same way that if someone acts unprofessionaly in presenting their case it's harder to take them seriously. Which is happening here.

In addition that quoted part was cobbled together from actual posts people made previous to my post. For example:

Not but this is a major sign of incompetence considering this feature was a big part that enhanced the main point of the app.

But no, I guess everyone critizing this decision must be salty because it turns out the amateur developers who run this actually have no fucking idea what they're doing.

And how about my follow up post in that thread?

Sure, I agree. Niantic appears to be dropping the ball in terms of communication. I wish they would hire a community manager but that shit takes time, and when I am assuming all of their resources are going to making the game actually work I can understand why there is a hole there. There are a ton of problems I personally have with Pokemon GO. My main point in my post however is that the tone of the discourse needs to be less vitriolic.
 
Pokevision seemed to be going to shut down when steps came back anyway. They lament not being open until that feature was fixed. Go and use an alternative and have fun like you used to. Others are using alternatives. It's like torrent sites- when one goes down, several more pop up. Go use an alternative. Every second you sit here talking how mad you are is basically time you've wasted not hunting - the whole reason you're mad in the first place.

Your attitudes boggle me. They're disgusting and solutions to said anger exist right now, even if I don't like them. If they're what the game fun for you, then go use them!
I'd just rather stop playing until they actually fix things in game. I dont need to go out, find something else that will actually make the game work just to find out that they're shutting that down too.

I can do other shit with my time. I don't need this as motivation to be active. In fact, I had it on earlier today when I was walking around, and another function wasn't working, so it's not like finding an alternative to Pokevision even helps fix the game in all of the ways I'd want it to. What you don't seem to understand is that Pokevision going down and them not fixing the tracker is just the straw that is breaking the camels back for some people.

-I'm tired of my location not tracking for my egg counts.
-I'm tired of there being no real reason to level up Pokémon.
-I'm tired of having to reboot the app half a dozen times every play session because it doesn't want to load new Pokestops.
-I'm tired of Gym Battles being boring as shit.
-I'm tired of Pokeballs freezing when I catch something and rebooting my app to find out what I caught was gone.
-I'm tired of the same shit being in my neighborhood every day. (Which is possibly the biggest problem. I have no real reason to walk anywhere around my neighborhood for this game anymore because I've caught dozens of things that spawn here. This means that pretty much the only time worth playing anymore is either when I'm out already doing something, in which case it's mostly the same shit over and over, or wait until I can plan a day out with my friends and hope that the app doesn't get buggy for the few hours I go out with them)

These are all things Pokevision doesn't fix. So when we get an update and the major change in the game isn't fixing any of these issues (Except maybe the Pokémon location spawning. People have been saying that's changed but everything around me is the same as it ever was), but instead making another issue they had even worse, you shouldn't be surprised when a bunch of people are getting fed up with Niantic and how they're handling their game.
You need to relax. Being frustrated is one thing. Calling others names is unacceptable.



It was very cool. Hunting down Psyduck in the middle of my city was an awesome adventure. Especially since there was only one other guy playing it lol. That was a week or something before it came out officially in Germany. I really hope they fix he footprints asap.
I'm very calm. It's just that what you said isn't adding anything to the conversation, and you're also not a mod, so you're not really in a position to tell other people how to act. Drive by snark posts are even less useful than people going around throwing insults at each other.

Either way, I didn't call you anything.
 
Speaking of gems

How the hell do you justify this?



You're acting like a angry child in this thread. The number of times I have seen you spout "white knight" in the last few pages is beyond ridiculous as well.

I guess you could say I am beyond annoyed at the high level of disregard towards a significant percentage of the player base. I find it beyond unacceptable that the various issues are given a hand wave or labeled entitled. It's beyond stupid and beyond a pathetic attempt to play PR shill.
 
Ok so basically they want us to wander around aimlessly and get lucky right? How fun.

Excellent feedback that quite simply encapsulates one of the many issues that MUST be resolved, not hand waved.



Dear White Knighters (you know who you are),

As someone who has worked professionally in game development, I do find the white knighters to be the most cancerous of the videogame community. You interrupt the feedback loop, you stymie it. Feedback/roasting of companies is a natural process that is normally the direct result of fuckups. That feedback, if appropriately addressed, results in a happier customer base and in the end, a fatter cash flow.

You think you're 'helping' the situation? No, you're the shittiest part of it.
 

MutFox

Banned
So people are actually saying Pokevision wasn't cheating?
The regular foot tracker and Pokevision are different.
If you argue they're the exact same,
any logical discussion is just not going to happen.

The foot tracker is probably being reworked.
Most likely the code for the previous foot tracker was being used by Pokevision.
In trying to eliminate Pokevision and the like,
they probably broke their own tracker.
Only way to eliminate the hack would be to take it out and rewrite the code.
Though it'll be hacked again next time it comes out.
It's hard to eliminate hackers, they'll probably have to eventually live with cheaters winning.
In the end all the gyms will have all the cheaters with awesome Pokemon, while regular users will try and catch up the legit way.

It's even harder when a vocal and loud minority screams at the developer that this type of cheating makes the game fun for them.
 

Darryl

Banned
If the in game tracker worked the number of people who cared about this would plummet.



I wish it was. I did that all day the first day and found nothing - because all the interesting places nearby aren't hugely populated. It's about wandering around dense areas where there are more cell signals. That's where pokemon spawn.

It's because people are front loading the experience and wanting to do it all within a few weeks. It is about going around to new places. But instead of casually using the app when they go out or to new places, people have gone overboard and now want to catch them all asap. People are min maxing to get the best Pokemon as fast as possible. So now Niantic is blocking players from this meta that players have built and are instead trying to get them to play the game they built.
 

oti

Banned
I think Pokemon will release an official "poke vision" app for a fee.

I could see them selling a precise tracker as an item that functions for a limited time. That would be awful. Just make the footprints work and add a compass or something.
 

Toki767

Member
So people are actually saying Pokevision wasn't cheating?
The regular foot tracker and Pokevision are different.
If you argue they're the exact same,
any logical discussion is just not going to happen.

The foot tracker is probably being reworked.
Most likely the code for the previous foot tracker was being used by Pokevision.
In trying to eliminate Pokevision, they probably broke their own tracker.
Only way to eliminate the hack would be to take it out and rewrite the code.
Though it'll be hacked again next time it comes out.
It's hard to eliminate hackers, they'll probably have to eventually live with cheaters winning.
In the end all the gyms will have all the cheaters with awesome Pokemon, while regular users will try and catch up the legit way.

It's even harder when a vocal and loud minority screams at the developer that this type of cheating makes the game fun for them.
Sites like Pokevision popped up because the tracker was broken. Let's not try to rewrite history here. It's only been a month.
 

Ridley327

Member
So people are actually saying Pokevision wasn't cheating?
The regular foot tracker and Pokevision are different.
If you argue they're the exact same,
any logical discussion is just not going to happen.

The foot tracker is probably being reworked.
Most likely the code for the previous foot tracker was being used by Pokevision.
In trying to eliminate Pokevision and the like,
they probably broke their own tracker.
Only way to eliminate the hack would be to take it out and rewrite the code.
Though it'll be hacked again next time it comes out.
It's hard to eliminate hackers, they'll probably have to eventually live with cheaters winning.
In the end all the gyms will have all the cheaters with awesome Pokemon, while regular users will try and catch up the legit way.

It's even harder when a vocal and loud minority screams at the developer that this type of cheating makes the game fun for them.

Didn't Pokevision and their ilk pop up only after the steps were broken in the game?
 

Joni

Member
So people are actually saying Pokevision wasn't cheating?
The regular foot tracker and Pokevision are different.
If you argue they're the exact same,
any logical discussion is just not going to happen.

The foot tracker is probably being reworked.
Most likely the code for the previous foot tracker was being used by Pokevision.
In trying to eliminate Pokevision and the like,
they probably broke their own tracker.
Only way to eliminate the hack would be to take it out and rewrite the code.
Though it'll be hacked again next time it comes out.
It's hard to eliminate hackers, they'll probably have to eventually live with cheaters winning.
In the end all the gyms will have all the cheaters with awesome Pokemon, while regular users will try and catch up the legit way.

It's even harder when a vocal and loud minority screams at the developer that this type of cheating makes the game fun for them.
The trackers still work, so they didn't change the code. They just added a block on the number of renews which pokevision just can't handle. As for it being cheating, it was as useful as their original systems before they switched to footprints with the option of seeing the rest of the world and be jelly of santa monica. It was basically a walkthrough video.
 

Darryl

Banned
Didn't Pokevision and their ilk pop up only after the steps were broken in the game?

Do you honestly and truly believe that PokeVision was a result of the tracking steps being broken? People were trying to find out where all the nests and spawn points were the day the game released. It has nothing to do with it.
 

dity

Member
I'd just rather stop playing until they actually fix things in game. I dont need to go out, find something else that will actually make the game work just to find out that they're shutting that down too.

I can do other shit with my time. I don't need this as motivation to be active. In fact, I had it on earlier today when I was walking around, and another function wasn't working, so it's not like finding an alternative to Pokevision even helps fix the game in all of the ways I'd want it to. What you don't seem to understand is that Pokevision going down and them not fixing the tracker is just the straw that is breaking the camels back for some people.

-I'm tired of my location not tracking for my egg counts.
-I'm tired of there being no real reason to level up Pokémon.
-I'm tired of having to reboot the app half a dozen times every play session because it doesn't want to load new Pokestops.
-I'm tired of Gym Battles being boring as shit.
-I'm tired of Pokeballs freezing when I catch something and rebooting my app to find out what I caught was gone.
-I'm tired of the same shit being in my neighborhood every day. (Which is possibly the biggest problem. I have no real reason to walk anywhere around my neighborhood for this game anymore because I've caught dozens of things that spawn here. This means that pretty much the only time worth playing anymore is either when I'm out already doing something, in which case it's mostly the same shit over and over, or wait until I can plan a day out with my friends and hope that the app doesn't get buggy for the few hours I go out with them)

These are all things Pokevision doesn't fix. So when we get an update and the major change in the game isn't fixing any of these issues (Except maybe the Pokémon location spawning. People have been saying that's changed but everything around me is the same as it ever was), but instead making another issue they had even worse, you shouldn't be surprised when a bunch of people are getting fed up with Niantic and how they're handling their game.

I'm very calm. It's just that what you said isn't adding anything to the conversation, and you're also not a mod, so you're not really in a position to tell other people how to act. Drive by snark posts are even less useful than people going around throwing insults at each other.

Either way, I didn't call you anything.

I seriously am very confused. Pokevision evidently made the game fun for people after the tracker died, even you are mad that Niantic stopped that alternative. Now you refuse to use the alternatives to the alternative? What the heck. This is more over the top silly than before.

Also, not sure about others but I don't have those bugs anymore after the 1.1 update. The game is real smooth now.
 
So people are actually saying Pokevision wasn't cheating?
The regular foot tracker and Pokevision are different.
If you argue they're the exact same,
any logical discussion is just not going to happen.

The foot tracker is probably being reworked.
Most likely the code for the previous foot tracker was being used by Pokevision.
In trying to eliminate Pokevision and the like,
they probably broke their own tracker.
Only way to eliminate the hack would be to take it out and rewrite the code.
Though it'll be hacked again next time it comes out.
It's hard to eliminate hackers, they'll probably have to eventually live with cheaters winning.
In the end all the gyms will have all the cheaters with awesome Pokemon, while regular users will try and catch up the legit way.

It's even harder when a vocal and loud minority screams at the developer that this type of cheating makes the game fun for them.
It's certainly a good thing the devs don't appear to have ears or mouths then, otherwise they might actually be concerned with patching anything but minor text fixes.

Also, way to ignore any previous arguments made and establish yours as if it's the definitive opinion to have in regards to Pokevision's existence.
 

Ridley327

Member
Do you honestly and truly believe that PokeVision was a result of the tracking steps being broken? People were trying to find out where all the nests and spawn points were the day the game released. It has nothing to do with it.

No, the point is that the in-game tracker being broken wasn't because of those sites. It was already broken by the time any of them made any kind of headway.
 
Except that I believe it was already implemented in the beta?

From Forbes:


This is what I'm talking about. Is this discussion? Just drive by trashing on the developer?

If it worked so well why was it removed?

Whether or not Niantic is technically capable of something is irrelevant. For one, they're clearly not given that features have been entirely removed due to issues. Secondly, the choices they're making are absurd. If the beta had a functional distance tracking system, the final game should have as well. Footsteps are a bullshit arbitrary unit that just make the game less enjoyable.
 

Mariolee

Member
Excellent feedback that quite simply encapsulates one of the many issues that MUST be resolved, not hand waved.



Dear White Knighters (you know who you are),

As someone who has worked professionally in game development, I do find the white knighters to be the most cancerous of the videogame community. You interrupt the feedback loop, you stymie it. Feedback/roasting of companies is a natural process that is normally the direct result of fuckups. That feedback, if appropriately addressed, results in a happier customer base and in the end, a fatter cash flow.

You think you're 'helping' the situation? No, you're the shittiest part of it.

Ok. Thanks. Apologies for being a cancer of the video game community.
 

SS4Gogita

Henshin!
Even if the tracking wasn't broken, I loved Pokevision because it would actually make me exercise. There's a park just north of Orlando where there are 4 PokeStops that are constantly lured and you could hit all at once if you stood in the middle of them, so me and my friends would just sit there and watch the Pokemon pop up and we didn't even have to try. We only occasionally walked around the lake next to the park, but at a very leisurely pace. With Pokevision I was able to find out that there was a Pikachu about half a mile from that spot one time, but it only had 5 minutes left before it despawned. You better believe I ran to go catch it.
 
I seriously am very confused. Pokevision evidently made the game fun for people after the tracker died, even you are mad that Niantic stopped that alternative. Now you refuse to use the alternatives to the alternative? What the heck. This is more over the top silly than before.

Also, not sure about others but I don't have those bugs anymore after the 1.1 update. The game is real smooth now.
It's more that I just don't care about playing until they fix everything in game now. Pokevision didn't fix nearly every problem I had with the game, and it didn't even fully fix tracking Pokemon. I found it pretty spotty anyway, but it was better than nothing. I mostly only used it to see if there were any Pokemon worth catching around my house when I was sitting at home. Instead of looking for another means to do that, I'll just skip playing the game in those situations until we actually have a tracker again.

If anything I'm going to stop playing not because they shut down Pokevision, but because they pushed out an update for their game that not only didnt fix any of the problems I had, but straight up took out a feature and have no indication of when that will be fixed either.

And again, it's great that youre not having any issues, but everything I listed still exists for me and eveyone I know. In fact, everyone I've met over playing this game the paat two weeks has the same complaints and used Pokevision. So the game running well for you doesn't really sway my opinion of Niantic. Literally only one of the features of this game functions correctly now and this is after a situatuon where Niantic was putting out an update that could have fixed these things. Instead we got the "Transfer" option moved and some extra customizable stuff for your avatar.

This game was barely worth playing at this point to me with how many features were buggy, and now Niantic made the game even worse and is making it clear that they're going to go after things that temporarily fix their problems for them. It's quickly becoming a game that's not worth playing.
 

oti

Banned
Even if the tracking wasn't broken, I loved Pokevision because it would actually make me exercise. There's a park just north of Orlando where there are 4 PokeStops that are constantly lured and you could hit all at once if you stood in the middle of them, so me and my friends would just sit there and watch the Pokemon pop up and we didn't even have to try. We only occasionally walked around the lake next to the park, but at a very leisurely pace. With Pokevision I was able to find out that there was a Pikachu about half a mile from that spot one time, but it only had 5 minutes left before it despawned. You better believe I ran to go catch it.

That's pretty cool. They should integrate Pokémon GO in running Apps or something. "Hit this pace over the next 5 miles and get a Pokémon as a reward" or something. 😄
 

butzopower

proud of his butz
Excellent feedback that quite simply encapsulates one of the many issues that MUST be resolved, not hand waved.



Dear White Knighters (you know who you are),

As someone who has worked professionally in game development, I do find the white knighters to be the most cancerous of the videogame community. You interrupt the feedback loop, you stymie it. Feedback/roasting of companies is a natural process that is normally the direct result of fuckups. That feedback, if appropriately addressed, results in a happier customer base and in the end, a fatter cash flow.

You think you're 'helping' the situation? No, you're the shittiest part of it.

A+ post right here. /s

I never used Pokevision, but my girlfriend did and she's upset it's gone. It's an unofficial client, so I feel they have every right to take it down.
 

Mariolee

Member
If it worked so well why was it removed?

Whether or not Niantic is technically capable of something is irrelevant. For one, they're clearly not given that features have been entirely removed due to issues. Secondly, the choices they're making are absurd. If the beta had a functional distance tracking system, the final game should have as well. Footsteps are a bullshit arbitrary unit that just make the game less enjoyable.

I didn't say it worked well, I'm just saying it's possible and that saying they're just an incompetent developer like multiple others posts have done and then not choosing to go after them for not adequately contributing to the discussion but instead go after the people who are saying to just simmer down a bit is just weird to me. Also, I find it hard to believe the amount of people playing in the beta was at all indicative to how immensely culture changing the actual game would be. I myself participated in the beta and it worked out fine, but I imagine doing it in a larger scale with so many more people playing would make the whole distance mechanic exponentially more difficult to fix and that may have been a problem they needed more time to figure out so they just released the game with footprints instead.

Because people seem to not believe I have any issues with the game, here are my issues (which I have already touched upon in other posts, but apparently I "handwaved" them away?):

PROBLEM: Tracking - Yes, I really dislike that it's broken. I've spent hours trying to search for Pokemon through the tracking device before realizing there was a three step glitch. Hell, last week my friends and I tried to track down a Rhydon for about half an hour, all of us going in different directions. Eventually we did find it, but one of my friends and I ended up going in the opposite direction nearly half a mile away and the Rhydon was still appearing to be within three steps despite being more than a mile away in the other direction. It's frustrating. In addition, I do think Niantic should have been way more transparent about working on this and not have taken down Pokevision and similar third party apps until they got their own tracking device working.

POSSIBLE SOLUTION: However, I do think that they took it down in order to stop from misleading people into thinking the tracking device still worked, so I get it. I can't imagine they just took out a core mechanic of the game because they were too lazy to fix it. Like, are you serious? Did this happen in Ingress? Did they wholesale take out entire core mechanics of the game forever? If not, then why not just wait more than a couple days to see if they actually end up fixing it?

----

PROBLEM: Fucking Dragonites everywhere - Every gym is filled with Dragonites (and to a slightly lesser extent, Vaporeons) and it's so annoying. I mean, I can take them down with my Lapras pretty easily but I just dislike the lack of variety within the game. In addition, I don't have the time to farm Dratinis or go to the Dratini nests.

POSSIBLE SOLUTION: I believe they tried to fix it in this update by changing the nests so there are less Dratini ones, but it sucks for people who didn't get a chance to get a Dragonite so now people with Dragonites have MORE of an advantage. So yeah, too little too late. They need to balance out the Pokemon better.

----

PROBLEM: GPS spoofing - Cheating sucks. It's annoying and takes the fun out of the game.

POSSIBLE SOLUTION: However, people have already stated that Niantic faced similar problems in Ingress and started banning such players. Considering their history, I would imagine they would do the same here.

Other than that, I'm still having fun with the game. I love my team, I love the people I still meet playing it, and I want to see it improve.
 
They probably took out the tracking to avoid the frivolous lawsuits i.e. "You told me to walk off a cliff." "You told me to walk onto private military property and get shot"

With how litigious US is, I would too just to not deal with the headaches, that is just the state of our country.
 

Mariolee

Member
Apparently if you're anything less than outraged at Niantic, you're a white knight who is the shittiest part of the community.

To be fair, it's not everyone who is saying this. Just a select few people, or even one person really. Again, I believe (most) everyone's grievances with Niantic are pretty legitimate.
 
Top Bottom