The game is really badly designed when it comes to exploration. Even with the steps working, Pokemon are only around for 15 minutes in most cases which is not enough to locate that rare 3 step Snorlax. Also in the area around me there isn't really any variety - you basically get the exact same common Pokemon everywhere, and you can only get the rare ones by being lucky. Sitting between multiple lured Pokestops is the most effective "gotta catch'em all" strategy and is pretty much the opposite of exploring.
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Pokemon GO update removes footprints from nearby tracker
- Thread starter Owari
- Start date
The game is really badly designed when it comes to exploration. Even with the steps working, Pokemon are only around for 15 minutes in most cases which is not enough to locate that rare 3 step Snorlax. Also in the area around me there isn't really any variety - you basically get the exact same common Pokemon everywhere, and you can only get the rare ones by being lucky. Sitting between multiple lured Pokestops is the most effective "gotta catch'em all" strategy and is pretty much the opposite of exploring.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Basically quit with Pokevision's removal. I live too rurally to want to spend 5 hours aimlessly wandering only to receive 3 Pidgey and a Rattata. Terrible decision by Niantic, wouldn't be surprised if the number of players slumps precipitously overnight.
dglavimans
Member
Wtf Niantic remove the steps AND bring down PokeVision. Seriously i dont like PokeVision and find it cheating but this is a really really dumb move if they dont fix the steps asap
Exact my situation. This update breaks the game for me.
I'm still baffled how there is such an incredible passive attitude to Pokevision.
Like look, I understand that people were frustrated that the footprints stopped working almost immediately, and felt justified in using the map because of this, but if there was anything that was violating the spirit of the game, this was it.
Even if you want to entirely ignore the gym system, this game lives and breathes off of filling the pokedex, and the social interaction between people who are trying to do so. Working together with strangers, passing off information about where people have "found" certain pokemon, hunting groups that try and triangulate down every single "uncommon" thing that pops up, this is what keeps a lot of the people around here going with it. It's what the very app was designed for. It's a (multplayer) social experience.
Pokevision removes that social aspect almost entirely. Why crowdsource information when I can just hit up the map and pinpoint exactly where everything is, all the time? Stuff like how our town determined where Electrabuzzes and Magmar's spawn on a regular basis (along with the boundaries of those locations) was all just done organically as information spread between people. One or two people here and there caught something, that spreads to their friends and soon to social media, others come and try and confirm it, and voila.
All Pokevision did was hurt the longetivity of the game, because it greatly reduces the amount of time it takes to nearly cap out on your pokedex (aside from the literal uncatchable ones at the moment). People essentially sacrificed any long term joy with this game to get a 3-4 day rush into their systems, followed by a "Is that it?" kind of feeling when the well runs dry. Or just sitting around not playing until the map shows you something good. I'm really sure that's the kind of interaction Niantic/TPCi had intended for when they made it.
I'm tired of hearing the "It wasn't hurting anybody" or "You just want THEM to not have fun". Pokevision passively affected us by removing the very core drive of the game, and taking all the guesswork/exploration that it was meant to invoke as a "Pokemon trainer" out to explore, discover and catch Pokemon.
I get that is sucks that there is currently no in-game system to replace it (because honestly, I found the footprints worked pretty well, when it worked), and Niantic has been hooooooooooooooooorrible in their communication about it, but none of these things justify what was essentially cheating, no matter how much people desperate want to tell themselves it's not hurting anybody.
Look, we understand it clearly. I've taken trips far out of town to see what it's like. And it's never great.
But this is a problem for Niantic to fix. Do I have any faith in them doing so? Eh. But findng a way to better increase the variety and amount of pokemon in rural areas is a better overall solution to "Let's have a mapping tool that points out exactly where everything is"
I get that it's shitty "right now" for people outside of thee main centers of populace, and this is a failing of Niantic, but those maps aren't the answer. They were a bandaid that masked the actual problem.
Like look, I understand that people were frustrated that the footprints stopped working almost immediately, and felt justified in using the map because of this, but if there was anything that was violating the spirit of the game, this was it.
Even if you want to entirely ignore the gym system, this game lives and breathes off of filling the pokedex, and the social interaction between people who are trying to do so. Working together with strangers, passing off information about where people have "found" certain pokemon, hunting groups that try and triangulate down every single "uncommon" thing that pops up, this is what keeps a lot of the people around here going with it. It's what the very app was designed for. It's a (multplayer) social experience.
Pokevision removes that social aspect almost entirely. Why crowdsource information when I can just hit up the map and pinpoint exactly where everything is, all the time? Stuff like how our town determined where Electrabuzzes and Magmar's spawn on a regular basis (along with the boundaries of those locations) was all just done organically as information spread between people. One or two people here and there caught something, that spreads to their friends and soon to social media, others come and try and confirm it, and voila.
All Pokevision did was hurt the longetivity of the game, because it greatly reduces the amount of time it takes to nearly cap out on your pokedex (aside from the literal uncatchable ones at the moment). People essentially sacrificed any long term joy with this game to get a 3-4 day rush into their systems, followed by a "Is that it?" kind of feeling when the well runs dry. Or just sitting around not playing until the map shows you something good. I'm really sure that's the kind of interaction Niantic/TPCi had intended for when they made it.
I'm tired of hearing the "It wasn't hurting anybody" or "You just want THEM to not have fun". Pokevision passively affected us by removing the very core drive of the game, and taking all the guesswork/exploration that it was meant to invoke as a "Pokemon trainer" out to explore, discover and catch Pokemon.
I get that is sucks that there is currently no in-game system to replace it (because honestly, I found the footprints worked pretty well, when it worked), and Niantic has been hooooooooooooooooorrible in their communication about it, but none of these things justify what was essentially cheating, no matter how much people desperate want to tell themselves it's not hurting anybody.
Look, we understand it clearly. I've taken trips far out of town to see what it's like. And it's never great.
But this is a problem for Niantic to fix. Do I have any faith in them doing so? Eh. But findng a way to better increase the variety and amount of pokemon in rural areas is a better overall solution to "Let's have a mapping tool that points out exactly where everything is"
I get that it's shitty "right now" for people outside of thee main centers of populace, and this is a failing of Niantic, but those maps aren't the answer. They were a bandaid that masked the actual problem.
Crowdsourcing information doesn't work when spawns remain for 15 minutes, with no information on if a Pokémon is ever coming back. It was still quite social with PokéVision, it was very easy for random people to get up and look for a PokéVision Pokémon together.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I spend half my time in Nottingham and half my time in rural Wales at the moment. If you live in a city, or even the suburbs, losing Pokevision is probably just an annoyance. You still have a decent chance of running into something good if you walk around long enough. If you live rurally, this actually killed the game. I could spend 5 hours outside tomorrow and find at most ~10 Pokémon. The chance that one of those is not a Pidgey, Rattata, Weedle, or Zubat is pretty low. That's the best case scenario. In the real world, I have my nine to five. I can't go hunting 5 hours a day. If you're rural, blocking trackers has meant making the game entirely pointless. One of the worst decisions I've seen a company make.
Maybe you just live in a good location, but here you can't go hunt for area specific Pokemon. Everything is basically everywhere, and it's impossible to find "good" spots that can spread via word of mouth. That Dragonite has just as much chance of spawning in my living room as it has anywhere else.
Person 1: "I caught a Gengar on Rogers Street"
Person 2: "Cool! I'm going to walk around there tomorrow and see what I find. Want to come with?"
Cool for you if you live in a town large enough to stumble upon Pokemon Go players all the time.
I meet three guys in the first week and thats it.
That makes this all a little hard, you know?
hamster3 3
Member
You need something like Pokevision after about 50% of youre Pokedex is full. We are both level 22 with over 90 Pokémon caught and the only hope we have of getting the rest is through eggs or a lucky sighting on Pokevision.
We had just sat down in a pub yesterday afternoon when I checked Pokevision and saw the first Lapras I'd ever seen on Pokevision in this area so I went out to get it on both our phones while she watched the drinks. There was another guy there with 2 phones whose manager had sent him out to catch it and a few other guys.
Tbh I think Pokevision has improved the social interaction for the game that's been missing since the 3 step bug has come on the scene.
We had just sat down in a pub yesterday afternoon when I checked Pokevision and saw the first Lapras I'd ever seen on Pokevision in this area so I went out to get it on both our phones while she watched the drinks. There was another guy there with 2 phones whose manager had sent him out to catch it and a few other guys.
Tbh I think Pokevision has improved the social interaction for the game that's been missing since the 3 step bug has come on the scene.
Gravy Boat
Member
This is probably the worst comparrison I've read on NeoGaf to date.
Even just GPS bouncing between pokestops and gyms gives spoofers a massive advantage over everyone else.
Going after fairly harmless trackers rather than people actually breaking the game is fucked up.
This doesn't work because the way things are set up, catching a Gengar somewhere does not mean that Gengar will ever show up at that spot in the near future.
Moral Panic
Member
Such a fun game.
Pokestops just give them items, and the gyms are pointless if they can't spoof themselves to rare high CP Pokemon.
It's not about practicality. It's about taking a walk and having fun with a friend, not the Gengar specifically.
Then you can also remove the app from your phone, helps save the battery
Why walk when you can sit at the midpoint between three lured Pokestops and catch more rares in an hour than in days of walking randomly?
mangochutney
Member
I agree that ultimately it is on Niantic to come up with solutions for the rural locations, but as you concede, the situation in said areas is dire.
So therefore why cut off the things that help those people enjoy the game before implementing your solution?
Those people now have little incentive to open the game, so therefore little incentive to purchase items (something they might be more likely to do if there's few Pokestops nearby giving them items).
Some people have said well at least they won't be hammering the servers now, but they've still been up and down like a yo-yo and Asia is dead right now, and latency is still hovering around the same figures prior to the API changes that kill off lots of services and Pokevision's take down.
So that hasn't helped much - though yes will at least offer a slight relief.
N30RYU
Member
I give it two more weeks till this game dies.
Right now this game isn't fun anymore. Once you got a decent number of pokemons if you're a collector type the game is dead...
The battle system is garbage and without a reliable radar this game has become a walk and incubate eggs game and catch whatever pops...
Right now this game isn't fun anymore. Once you got a decent number of pokemons if you're a collector type the game is dead...
The battle system is garbage and without a reliable radar this game has become a walk and incubate eggs game and catch whatever pops...
PSFan
Member
Do you have some kind of super lure or something? Lures used around me still spawn the same pidgeys, rattattas, etc, 95% of the time.
And the fact that most evolutions require 50-100 candies make it even more tedious to try and find those uncommons and rares you need to catch among those overcommon Pokemon.
There are bots out there that take your account details and powerlevel through a python script.
Leave it running for 4-5 hours and you're level 20+ with hundreds of pokemon and thousands of dust. I mean, people have hit the level cap of 40 with these bots already, which takes about 20 million XP.
They have to crack down on that shit before it spreads like wildfire.
Explain. Whats the point in having that App open when nothing appears/ the pokemon appear in a radius of 5 km? Then I can delete the app and walk without it.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
If you live in a decent population town there's normally a permanently lured stop somewhere. I get nothing when I am at home, but when I travel up to Nottingham, if I go to the castle there's basically just a giant gang of Go players in a spot that has four overlapping Pokestops, all of which are lured. Surprising age range - I think parents figured out it was a fun place to take kids, so I've seen everyone from 4 to late 50s there. Most of the stuff is poor, but there's a new spawn every minute and a half or so, so something good eventually turns up. We used to have great fun using Pokevision because someone would just yell "Lapras 8 minutes on Station Street!" and a mob of ~50 people would leg it. Now there's no incentive to even do that.
Moral Panic
Member
This is a Pokemon catching game, not a go for a walk with your friend simulator.
Bear Force One
Banned
Well I was holding out hope buy now I'm just about done with this game. That was the part I enjoyed when I worked.
Now the game is just thinly disguised work.
Now the game is just thinly disguised work.
It doesn't make sense to me either. You can run a bot to play the game for you in a city you don't even live in (far more efficiently than you ever could), yet the one thing that made the game viable in the burbs and rural areas had to go.
Taking Pokevision away turned seeing anything remotely rare on your nearby screen into a game of "Well... is this rare enough for me to wander this area aimlessly?" with the answer usually being no.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
dity, I think you just need to accept you are wrong. This thread *is* mostly casual players - I've spent like $1.50 on the game and am pretty low levelled compared to most players in urban or suburban areas. The proportion of people who've quit the game since yesterday is pretty high. This was not a good move for Niantic. The community worked pretty hard to fill a niche and they shut that down.
They should get rid of that, yeah. But thankfully people will probably report those accounts if they take gyms anyway.
You two can't understand Pokemon Go being a walking and social situation enhancer? Drives conversation, adventure, bonding. Even if you just catch commons, at least you had fun together doing it.
GenericBadGuy
Member
Well at least all the programming hobbyists behind the scenes are still interested.
This is working again:
dem rattatas though
edit: and a victreebel! If you're in Myrtle Beach go get it.
This is working again:
dem rattatas though
edit: and a victreebel! If you're in Myrtle Beach go get it.
tiggerkiddo
Member
All of this hate.
Hopefully they put in back in once it's working properly, thought it was pretty annoying that it really wouldn't work and was just there to be annoying. Will be nice when they can fix it
Hopefully they put in back in once it's working properly, thought it was pretty annoying that it really wouldn't work and was just there to be annoying. Will be nice when they can fix it
I'll do you one better:
The sites not working anymore isn't that big of a deal for me. Whenever I'm in a city or more active place, I just catch anything I can since I'm happy I can at least find a lot of pokémon. Having more pokémon in less populated areas, now that would be an update I'd look forward to. But I guess that's also low on their priority list.
Why do I have to accept being wrong? Others also share my view as well. Heck, I went out today and there was no noticable drop of players gathered around lures or walking around playing. Heck people twice my age were out playing. I couldn't even find a parking spot, that's how busy it was. And that was after the update dropped.
Look, gonna be frank. Maybe you should go to a more built up area and play some time. Your experience is based upon 3 people you've seen and a kid that uses Pokevision.
Maybe for you. Other people want something more from the game than a social enhancer.
Also, I had one of the most "Pokemon" experiences today, and it was all thanks to a still-functioning "cheating" Pokemap.
I saw Alakazham in the "nearby" list, frantically searched on the map, found it and saw it had 9 minutes left, threw on my clothes and managed to reach it with 2 minutes to spare.
Without some navigation like a Pokemap or working footsteps, a rare Pokemon in the "nearby" list is nothing but a mockery because there's no way you will manage to find it within the short time before it despawns.
Gravy Boat
Member
It absolutely does happnen. On my lunch at work I tend to walk down to the city hall and sit right between two lured stops, and can easily catch 40+ pokemon in the 45 minutes I'm there. Last time I caught 2 squirtles, a haunter and a bunch of other stuff outside of the usual pidgeys and rattatas. Sitting at a lure is by far the most effective way of catching rarer pokemon in my experience.
PSFan
Member
Maybe you have fun catching commons, but everyone I meet playing this game pretty much hates it. My family, whom I play with quite often also hates it and it kills the desire to play the game that often.
The game even goes against all the lore and mythos that Pokemon has built up over the years. You could NEVER get a Pokemon like Pikachu, Clefairy or Jigglypuff from an egg. It's literally impossible in the regular games. They hatch as Pichu, Cleffa and Igglybuff respectfully. And before you say they haven't added Gen II yet, they probably should have just not had those Pokemon obtainable from eggs.
Not to mention all the different Pokemon that only evolve from trading or other means. I don't think it would have been too hard to include the evolution stones for some evolutions either.
What site is that? Pokevision is still down for me so this would be a useful alternative.Well at least all the programming hobbyists behind the scenes are still interested.
This is working again:
dem rattatas though
edit: and a victreebel! If you're in Myrtle Beach go get it.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I mean, I reckon it will survive because if we're playing Niantic vs. The Internet in a game of who can find a way round the other, my money is on the Internet and I reckon there will be a new working tracker in days, but it's deeply disatisfying when a game survives not because of but despite the devs.
No. These are problems that affect hardcore players, not the casuals. And this is a hardcore gaming forum.
It's the python app.
Bear Force One
Banned
App reviews on the App Store are plummeting and rightfully so.
Gravy Boat
Member
Adding stuff like stones and trading evolutions would have killed the game for casual players. It's not meant to be a Pokemon game on your phone, it's something else entirely. The fact that it's so simple is undoubetly one of the reasons so many people are playing it. They'll add more features as time goes on, but they needed to keep it simple at launch to draw in people with no experience or understading of the Pokemon world.
And as a life long pokemon fan, getting annoyed about Pikachus coming from eggs is really silly.
Ideally, rare Pokemon should be rarer spawns, but also stay around for a long time. Imagine how much social it would be if it was "There's a Blastoise at XXX today!" and it stayed for like 24 hours, long enough for word of mouth to spread and giving everyone in the town a chance to catch it.