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[bananafactory]

Wouldn't playing "naturally" still have netted you them? Grated you wouldn't be aware of the direct spot, but going to places outside your normal routes, if those routes weren't getting you things you wanted, was the point of the game.

Regardless of what side of pokevision app style use any of are on, Niantic needs to be more vocal and get an improvement or fix out fast.

Not really, even if you get in the vicinity there was no way to reliably hunt them down. I can't tell you how many times I spent a half hour looking for something that despawned 5 minutes into my search and I didn't know. Not to mention it's pretty much the same 10-15 Pokemon across the entire city and there's no real difference in neighbourhoods except for Downtown

And the 'Nearby' indicate sometimes shows Pokemon 3-5 blocks away, which means a search radius of anywhere from 9-25 square blocks, which is just crazy.

 

[AcademicSaucer]

They need to release a big update soon.

 

[EdibleExplosives]

Hilarious that they've cut these off before fixing their own tracker.

 

[charlequin]

That's what happens when developers get attached to how they think people want to play instead of observing how people play.

Pretty much. This is the game development equivalent of Twitter: "What about, instead of fixing problems that make this service miserable to use, we transparently made greedy changes to try to wring out money? That'd be cool right?"

Yesterday there was an event at the University of Buffalo. If I had to guess there was probably 750+ people there while I was there from 7-9. They were giving away free drinks, had prizes, had charging stations and the range of people went from kids, college students, families, just everyone. They had a laptop setup with Pokevision too. When an Abra popped up they announced it and there was a mad rush for it. When a Nidorino popped up, same thing. It was really cool, I don't see how Pokevision hurts the game at all.

This is the other thing. This game -- when it's working well, at least -- has an unprecedented social aspect. Knowing where rare Pokemon spawn means people will gather there, which means people will hang out, talk to each other, and enjoy themselves above and beyond playing the game itself. With zero tracking of any kind that element is almost completely eliminated.

I don't understand the backlash.

It's not part of the game. They are in the right to remove it and allow themselves to make the game they want.

It's like this game made people forget that a game like this takes a while to get to where the devs want it.

That said, game is generally lame anyways.

"I don't understand why you guys liked this to start with, and now I don't understand why something that changed made you like it less!"

 

[pompidu]

They need to release a big update soon.

Cannot wait for the update where they remove Pokemon all together.

 

[Kyou]

It's fine if they want to go after the pokemon trackers but they really should have done that AFTER re-implementing the footstep tracking system.

 

[Onaco]

My girlfriend said it feels like WoW to her for the past three months; Niantic did it in three weeks.

I said it looks like the remains of an open-world game you've completed. All of the objectives seem stripped out and bland.

 

[Teknoman]

Welp, I uninstalled. Everyone in my office who still plays uses GPS spoofing, the rest of us have given up.

No in game or out of game tracking? So the only way to find critters is randomly or by spending money on a lure? Fuck that.

It's definitely not permanent, but they should make a statement as well.

 

[Darryl M R]

Here

Just grab the latest release for your OS

Thanks! I'm having an issue enabling Java for my API and having the google map load correctly

 

[spekkeh]

Makes sense. Between Pokemon trackers and GPS spoofing, lots of people were already finishing the game. For others it would just be a matter of time. And it also ruined the Gym play for people who didn't use trackers. So it was taking a pretty big chunk out of their monetizability.

Would've liked there to be some way in which you could track them though.

 

[CryptiK]

Bigger they are the harder they fall. Some extremely stupid decisions on Niantics side of things, the right way would have to have fixed the ingame tracker first, then get rid of the radars.

 

[LoserMakesGood]

Shit maybe Pachter is going to be right about Pokemon Go after all.

 

[sir_kevith]

I was fine playing how it was. People used a lot of lures in my city though. I haven't played in a week but it's a f2p game and I honestly expect nothing from them lol.

 

[wrowa]

Not really, even if you get in the vicinity there was no way to reliably hunt them down. I can't tell you how many times I spent a half hour looking for something that despawned 5 minutes into my search and I didn't know. Not to mention it's pretty much the same 10-15 Pokemon across the entire city and there's no real difference in neighbourhoods except for Downtown

And the 'Nearby' indicate sometimes shows Pokemon 3-5 blocks away, which means a search radius of anywhere from 9-25 square blocks, which is just crazy.

Yeah, I lost all my motivation to actually try to hunt down Pokemon once I realized that monsters only spawn for 10 - 15 minutes before they despawn again (and that the in-game radar will still show you Pokemon that aren't actually there anymore).

If you actually go out of your way to find specific Pokemon, you'll just end up hunting ghosts most of the time.

 

[The Horror the horror]

This is something Nintendo would do, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were somehow involved with this.

 

[Teknoman]

I'm sure all the big game journalism personalities and YouTube personalities will have videos about this today or tomorrow, forcing them to make a statement.

 

[Harpuia]

I wonder what they're reasoning behind this is. Maybe they're looking into having something like this be a feature you can buy. Like some kind of item that basically reveals all the Pokemon in the field of view that the app gives you.

I can see where pokevision can come in handy for extensive planning. Though I still personally feel like the three foot-print, hot/cold approach to finding pokemon was probably the best, without making the game feel like some kind of weird Skyrim/Fallout "here's the waypoints, go walk straight to them!" approach.

At some point this seems to be internal strife at Niantic over what they want this game to be. Based on their decisions, it looks like they want the game to keep the explorer vibe to it, and maybe keep some of the communal effort in? It's something that gets lost due to pokevision.

The alternative they seem to have gone with is "IDK, LOL, walk around randomly until you find something". Which is a completely wrong approach. I hope they took down the radar feed because they're fixing it, and not because it's permanently gone.

 

[HeisenbergLannister]

They need to release a big update soon.

The most recent update is their biggest update so far, adding such highly requested things such as completely removing the tracker, removing the battery saver option on iOS, seemingly upping the chances of Pokemon escaping and fleeing to force people into buying more items, and clearly the most important: new icons for the pointless medals.

An update so big that it's turned off a portion of the fan base. That's when you know you're doing something good. /s

 

[The Cowboy]

That's what was featured in the launch trailer.

Just rewatched the trailer and its amazing what is missing in the game compared to what the trailer actually shows.

Trailer shows; Trading (coming soon, apparently), actual directional tracking in that it had arrows pointing to Pokémon in your area (which also tells you when you are in range), battling wild Pokémon to weaken them for a catch attempt (i can't get over this being missing, and that we have razz berry's instead - lol), battling random people (i wanted this so much), raids to catch super rare Pokémon (again, i wanted this a lot).

Its amazing how misleading the trailer is compared to how bare bones the game actually is, considering how the devs are dealing with the tracking (the lack of it and silence on it) - i wouldn't be surprised if anything from the trailer actually ever shows up in the actual game.

 

[spekkeh]

This is the other thing. This game -- when it's working well, at least -- has an unprecedented social aspect. Knowing where rare Pokemon spawn means people will gather there, which means people will hang out, talk to each other, and enjoy themselves above and beyond playing the game itself. With zero tracking of any kind that element is almost completely eliminated.

Lures and gyms to the same thing, if not better.

 

[Ridley327]

I'm sure all the big game journalism personalities and YouTube personalities will have videos about this today or tomorrow, forcing them to make a statement.

Jim Sterling is going to have a ball with this.

 

[Escargo]

I think there's a lot more GPS spoofers now. So many dragonite on gyms but there's not even a dratini in the area. These dragonite are all 2k+ too. I want one lol

 

[Kyonashi]

They have not said anything about why they removed, why it was broken, if they are fixing it, or if it will ever come back

Yeah, so why is everyone behaving as if they've cut the feature entirely? It was obviously a part of the plan from the beginning to have a tracker, they have most likely removed it because it was broken and just confusing in its current state. I'd be very surprised if they don't bring back it or a similar feature soon.

 

[ShooterMcGavin]

RIP

July 2016 - July 2016.

 

[DrWong]

This is something Nintendo would do, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were somehow involved with this.

Those 2 pokego update threads are delivering.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Makes sense. Between Pokemon trackers and GPS spoofing, lots of people were already finishing the game. For others it would just be a matter of time. And it also ruined the Gym play for people who didn't use trackers. So it was taking a pretty big chunk out of their monetizability.

Would've liked there to be some way in which you could track them though.

What even is finishing the game? It's pretty open-ended. Is it hitting level 40? Because I don't think any human accounts at all have done that. Is it completing the regional Pokedex? Because that's like 2 or 3 players worldwide, again excluding bots. Not to mention you could play for a while after reaching both those goals with the aim of better IVs and movesets. Tracking doesn't even make a huge amount of difference to gyms - Vaporeon, even post-nerf, is a top ten Pokemon and very easy to acquire. The pool of rare Pokemon that are better than Vaporeon is quite small, and even a tracker doesn't help get you them at a sufficiently high rate to go to town. Even using Pokevision I've never seen a wild Snorlax and I'm on 102 caught. I've caught maybe 12 Dratini, which is... not enough to get a Dragonite evolved. I caught a Dragonite thanks to Pokevision, but it was CP 36 and so even all 12 Dratini don't give me enough candy to get it anywhere. Anything rare I mostly got from eggs.

If anything, trackers increase monetization because they kept people playing. I've uninstalled the app. I know a number of others who do likewise. Even if we're only 10% of the player-base or whatever, that's still a 10% drop in revenue.

 

[SinCityAssassin]

This is something Nintendo would do, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were somehow involved with this.

Well that's just special.

 

[Tagg9]

I went back to playing the game when Pokevision went live, because it made finding rare Pokemon actually possible and fun again. Until Niantic implements something similar in the base game, I'll probably be taking a break for awhile.

 

[Chaos17]

What purists? Where are these mythical people who think this is a fun game without any way whatsoever to find the Pokemon you're looking for? Pokevision filled a hole Niantic themselves created when they broke the tracking feature, I think people were largely content to use the in-game tracking and accept its limitations as long as it actually worked.

This

Edit: if any IOS user want a refunt they can ask it it seems.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/4vgncl/psa_itunes_refundpokemon_go_purchases/

 

[Maintenance]

How's that saying? Flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long.

 

[CrunchyFrog]

It's so odd. They're clearly spending 90% of their time dealing with server issues, to the point that this app not only feels like a beta but is slowly regressing into alpha stages. How do you mess this up so royally?

 

[The Sum of Zero]

I went back to playing the game when Pokevision went live, because it made finding rare Pokemon actually possible and fun again. Until Niantic implements something similar in the base game, I'll probably be taking a break for awhile.

Same.

 

[Major Gripex]

Well I have no incentive to play this game anymore. It was fun while it lasted.

 

[FleetingFlowAir]

This'd be good if they fixed the footprint tracker.

This was my thought. Never used these apps, but they probably should have done this after the tracker is alive and kicking. Being so abrupt with these changes has led to several negative reactions in this thread.

 

[Teknoman]

Still not seeing lowered low lvl catch rate being true. Caught several low ratatta and paras, and only one took two poke balls.

That's most likely user panic from the latest update.

 

[Brinbe]

Fucking stupid. Just unbelievable how dumb they are.

 

[shoryukens]

They cut this without even fixing their own Pokemon tracker. So now a major part of the game is gone and there is no workaround.

I'm starting to believe Niantic is out of their league with a game that demands this much maintenance.

 

[Chinner]

I hate to say this, but they really need some type of PR/community manager. The silence is awful, and they don't seem to partially get why this game is successful.

It's obvious Niantic is out of their league with this game.

 

[charlequin]

Lures and gyms to the same thing, if not better.

Nah. There's a lure on almost 24/7 at the coffee shop next to my apartment, but you don't get a hundred people hanging out there for a +40% pidgey spawn rate.

Yeah, so why is everyone behaving as if they've cut the feature entirely?

Because they pointedly refused to say "we're fixing it" rather than "we're aware of it," and the latest update trimmed out any evidence that such a feature was ever present.

Also, some of us played Ingress and were already aware that Niantic is a terrible developer.

 

[Red]

Just rewatched the trailer and its amazing what is missing in the game compared to what the trailer actually shows.

Trailer shows; Trading (coming soon, apparently), actual directional tracking in that it had arrows pointing to Pokémon in your area (which also tells you when you are in range), battling wild Pokémon to weaken them for a catch attempt (i can't get over this being missing, and that we have razz berry's instead - lol), battling random people (i wanted this so much), raids to catch super rare Pokémon (again, i wanted this a lot).

Its amazing how misleading the trailer is compared to how bare bones the game actually is, considering how the devs are dealing with the tracking (the lack of it and silence on it) - i wouldn't be surprised if anything from the trailer actually ever shows up in the actual game.

I expected them to roll those features out over time. Was surprised how half-baked it felt on release but was still happy with it. Even with the broken tracker I enjoy playing, but I don't know how Niantic has fumbled communication so massively for this game. Do they have a community manager? A PR department of any sort? Are these features still planned? Will they be replaced?

 

[wrowa]

This is something Nintendo would do, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were somehow involved with this.

The problem isn't really the shut down of the sites that fundamentally undermine what the game is actually about.

The problem is that Pokemon Go's own monster tracking is fundamentally broken in multiple regards, which made tracking websites a necessity. If Niantic want to shut down those sites, fine, but provide a working alternative before doing so.

And while Nintendo obviously never developed a game that is this server intense, Pokemon Go's lack of polish is actually very un-Nintendo.

 

[bananafactory]

I kind of understand why people associated the game with Nintendo now. Even though they have nothing to do with it, the way they're misunderstanding and fumbling the relationship with their audience is extremely familiar

 

[yami4ct]

From the outside, this seems like a desperate attempt to slow people's rate of filling their pokedex. The collecting element of the game seems to be the only thing hooking people. Once they are through with that, they're gonna move on. You can try to add stuff beyond the original 151, but that will take time and won't hit nearly as hard.

Had they made battling compelling, they maybe would've had a shot of hooking people long term. You can only live on pure collecting for so long. Once people run into the actual game part of the game, they stop caring.

 

[SinCityAssassin]

I kind of understand why people associated the game with Nintendo now. Even though they have nothing to do with it, the way they're misunderstanding and fumbling the relationship with their audience is extremely familiar

We already got the joke made 10 minutes ago, but nice attempt at trying to be clever and funny.

 

[charlequin]

The problem isn't really the shut down of the sites that fundamentally undermine what the game is actually about.

The problem is that Pokemon Go's own monster tracking is fundamentally broken in multiple regards, which made tracking websites a necessity. If Niantic want to shut down those sites, fine, but provide a working alternative before doing so.

Right. Even, if they can't get it working in the app that quick, combo the shutdown of unofficial API access with new public APIs that provide less information (this is what Niantic ultimately did after fucking up necessary third-party Ingress apps in a similar way.)

 

[Brinbe]

Seriously, a response like this fundamentally makes zero sense at all considering the tracker is broken to all hell. How the fuck do you play the game then otherwise? FIX THE DAMN GAME, THEN TALK.

 

[bananafactory]

We already got the joke made 10 minutes ago, but nice attempt at trying to be clever and funny.

I wasn't trying to be funny, simply making an observation. It hurts to watch companies have such an incredible item on their hands and not have a clue what to do with it

 

[Zomba13]

Maybe this is all part of the plan to reimplement the tracking? Like, we know it works. It worked around launch, I even managed to play with it for a day the day it launched in the UK. We know it works and works well, it encourages exploration/walking AND it actually works as a hot/cold indicator and it's easy to triangulate a Pokémon's location.

Maybe removing it completely and then trying to shut down the various trackers and maps is a way to get people to stop playing the game so the server load is lowered so they can then turn it back on fully without the game exploding again?

Though, as a business it seems you wouldn't want to purposefully turn away customers so you can offer a better product. You'd want to improve the product so everyone that wants it can take advantage of it instead of turning away the ones that want it until only the die-hard are left.

 

[Gorillaz]

From the outside, this seems like a desperate attempt to slow people's rate of filling their pokedex. The collecting element of the game seems to be the only thing hooking people. Once they are through with that, they're gonna move on. You can try to add stuff beyond the original 151, but that will take time and won't hit nearly as hard.

Had they made battling compelling, they maybe would've had a shot of hooking people long term. You can only live on pure collecting for so long. Once people run into the actual game part of the game, they stop caring.

its amazing how shallow the battling itself is, unless there is a real uphaul with that there was no way it would be more then a collecting app for people

 

[brokenbeans]

That's me done then.