Pokemon Go

[TheMightyEthan]

Apparently Niantic is not happy about these sites.  My thought is then they should fix the damn tracking bug.

[deanb]

It's not a bug, they've disabled the tracking for now to ease on server pressure. As it stands they can be unhappy with it but they've an open API they're using so stuff like this was bound to crop up to fill the gap.

[TheMightyEthan]

Well okay, whether it's a bug or intentional, the lack of proper tracking makes these sites far more appealing, because otherwise your only option is to walk around randomly just hoping one happens to pop up.

[Mister Jack]

Plus, if they don't want people using these sites they should make it easier to find something besides FUCKING PIDGEYS AND RATTATAS!

 

I know the game needs easy starter pokemon but the Pidgey and Rattata population is completely out of control and needs to be culled.

[deanb]

Personally I've noticed that while locally I have the usual suspects, there's definitely been a tweak the last week or so towards a few rare/uncommon pokemon cropping up in neighbourhood. Horsea, Meowth, Electrode, Magnemite n such cropping up.

 

(btw it's sort of a childish giddy to be able to be discussing the original 151, sure there's some interesting new ones but man is nostalgia on the originals strong. Heck just spotting the outline and knowing the names of them is sweet).

[CorgiShinobi]

I finally caught a Pikachu around town.

 

Then a Kabuto pops up next to a Jack in the Box. Kabuto/Kabutops were one of my favorite Pokemon in Red/Blue. I landed two Pokeballs dead on, but it broke out each time. After the second Pokeball, it ran away.

 

Like, if we're going to be walking around and a rare Pokemon shows up, why include running away? It is a real game mechanic by the way, not technical. You can determine the ease of catching said Pokemon by the color of the ring that appears when throwing a Pokeball.

[deanb]

If it's a rare pokemon that's when you want to be using your Great Balls and Ultra Balls. Pokemon would run away in the regular games too. I think it's fairly fine, rare pokemon aren't that rare, especially given in most cases you'll need to be catching multiples of them. I'm fairly fine with it, but I guess how I can see it's frustrating. The more frustrating element is the curveball bug that lets you waste dozens of great balls n ultra balls.

[CorgiShinobi]

Well two things:

 

1. I don't have any Great or Ultra Balls. It's actually a little hard when I practically have to go to a college campus to find Pokestops.

 

2. Wild Pokémon would not run away outside of the Safari Zone (or the Beast Trio in Gen 2). You as the trainer could attempt to run away. If you didn't want to battle or you knew your Pokémon would faint, it was an option.

 

EDIT: Actually, you might consider Abra and its Teleport as a "running away" Pokemon. If I thought about this a little more, there are exceptions, but it's not the rule.

Edited July 30, 2016 by Atomsk88

[Mister Jack]

So the game got a new update that removes the paw print tracking entirely since I guess that's easier than trying to fix it and removes the battery saving mode entirely from the iOS version of the game. 

 

What is Niantic thinking?  This makes the game objectively worse, and I haven't heard anything along the lines of "Oh, it's just a temporary removal until we get it sorted out."

 

At least they rebalanced the overpowered Vaporeon while they were at it.

[TheMightyEthan]

The battery saving mode is because it was causing crashes on iOS.  Presumably that's termporary until they can fix it.

 

Hopefully the pawprints thing is also temporary, otherwise yeah it makes the game terrible.

[deanb]

I think removing the footprints is just to remove any potential confusion /while/ they fix it. What does suck is they took out the likes of Pokevision n such so yeah makes it a pain cos tbh I'm not wanting to be grasping around blind running around streets in circles.

 

Yeah unsure on removing the battery saver on iOS. Given it's only on iOS they've done that and it still works on Android I'd guess it's a hardware issue with iPhones?

 

In general they're just shit on communication front. While they maintained a big ARG with Ingress they still had a reputation of lack of communication on updates n such.

 

Cynical side of me is thinking it's to shake off the more casual players, ease stress on the servers then all be fine with just the die-hards left.

 

Personally I'm quite happy they've removed the "randomly spinning balls" bug cos that was infuriating. Otherwise I'm happy for gandering around on my usual walks with the added bonus of pokemon popping up.

[TheMightyEthan]

  On 8/1/2016 at 9:09 PM, deanb said:

I think removing the footprints is just to remove any potential confusion /while/ they fix it.

That's my assumption, but like you said their communication is terrible.

[CorgiShinobi]

I'm really hurting without Pokevision as I go on a 2 mile walk and only find a Paras and a Pidgey. Well, actually there was a Growlithe, but it broke out of my first Pokeball and ran away.

 

Somewhere out there, right now, is a Hitmonlee. However, I can't afford wandering for 20 minutes to find it.

Edited August 2, 2016 by Atomsk88

[deanb]

Yeah when Pokevision was a thing if I saw a pokemon I wanted I'd check for it n head to it, but as it stands I'm largely happy gathering what pokemon may crop up (which a bunch of us are definitely noticing a change in those that are showing up) and waiting until they sort the tracker some more.

[TheMightyEthan]

I would be more comfortable waiting if they would confirm they're actually going to fix it instead of maintaining radio silence. My assumption is they're going to fix it, but we don't actually know.

[deanb]

from the seemingly most legit actually Pokemon Go FB page:

  Quote

 

Trainers,

As many of you know, we recently made some changes to Pokémon GO.

- We have removed the ‘3-step’ display in order to improve upon the underlying design. The original feature, although enjoyed by many, was also confusing and did not meet our underlying product goals. We will keep you posted as we strive to improve this feature.

- We have limited access by third-party services which were interfering with our ability to maintain quality of service for our users and to bring Pokémon GO to users around the world. The large number of users has made the roll-out of Pokémon GO around the world an... interesting… challenge. And we aren’t done yet! Yes, Brazil, we want to bring the game to you (and many other countries where it is not yet available).

We have read your posts and emails and we hear the frustration from folks in places where we haven’t launched yet, and from those of you who miss these features. We want you to know that we have been working crazy hours to keep the game running as we continue to launch globally. If you haven’t heard us Tweeting much it’s because we’ve been heads down working on the game. But we’ll do our best going forward to keep you posted on what’s going on.

Be safe, be nice to your fellow trainers, and keep on exploring.

The Pokémon GO team

 

https://www.facebook.com/PokemonGO/posts/940141879465704

 

So yeah seems they're working on actually sorting it/improving it. Just seems in the meanwhile they find it better to turn it off than leave it enabled but severely broken. It's dicks about the pokevision sites n such. I imagine "maintain quality of service for players" is more lingo for "we felt it was cheating and created a vaguely unfair advantage for people using them" than "it was directly and on a technical level fucking with our servers" or whatever.

[Thursday Next]

Unless it's effectively doubling their server traffic cos everyone is using phone to access and PC?

[TheMightyEthan]

Solution: use the same red-orange-yellow-green transition they do for the likelihood of catching a Pokemon.  Ones that are far away start out red, and they fade toward green as you get closer.  Solved, easy to understand.  If they want to limit server load they can just have it only do it for one that you click on to track.

[deanb]

I don't think the issue was with being able to display the distances in a symbolic way given it started off with the 0, 1, 2, 3 footsteps. I think it's more they're running the tracking server side rather than client side that puts probably the biggest load on their servers since they have to track your location, the pokemon nearby locations, and then tell your phone to change the footsteps depending on your distance and with all the pokemon on a different timer to each other also update the entire nearby list if some appear or disappear. And does this for everyone in the same area.

A solution would be to do it client side which means just sending a list every 10 minutes or so to the app and the app does the distance calculations but that makes it easier for folks to muck about in the code n say make the app think you've got a ton of Dragonites nearby or whatever.

 

As for the double server load, the Pokevision would only let you pull it from their site every 30 seconds(and since majority of pokemon appeared from 5-20 minutes at a time you didn't need to refresh constantly) and it's a single source. The vast majority of folks I know using it would usually only have one person in a group using it and normally only pulling out if a particularly rare or uncommon pokemon showed up on the Nearby list.

[TheMightyEthan]

I was suggesting the colors in response to Niantic's (and a lot of other people's) claims that the footsteps were confusing.  How they were confusing I can't fathom, but that's the claim.

 

To lessen server load I suggested only displaying the distances like that for the one Pokemon you've highlighted, which should reduce the data to about 1/9 what's needed to display distances for the whole list.

[Mister Jack]

 

Jesus Christ.

 

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[TheMightyEthan]

So apparently the Articuno that one lady got was legit, it really did come from Niantic.  That means the fact that they've now yanked it back out of her account is a real dick move.

[CorgiShinobi]

I'm going to stop playing either until things get fixed or for good. I'm running out of Pokeballs more often as Pokemon become harder to catch. I wasted my last five on a single Eevee that kept breaking out or batting away the Pokeballs. Unless I pay real money, Pokeballs of any type are hard to come by when Pokestops want to give you a load of Revives and Potions. I've also mentioned that unless I go to the college campus, Pokestops are very far from each other where I live.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, they've done a really good job of squandering the initial interest.

[Mister Jack]

I'm right there with you. The infestation of Pidgeys and Rattatas was kind of amusing at first but it REALLY got old quick. That screenshot I posted? It's like that everywhere I go. The balance is atrocious.

 

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