Niantic

I don't know what niantic is thinking but they're killing their own game by rendering everything that made it fun useless. I am giving up playing to the degree I use to play. I remember why I got out of it for 10 months in 2018. Every time I get back into and go hard core niantic finds ways to burn and screw over players and I remember why I stopped. Niantic has clearly rendered every item in their store in-game shop useless. I don't know what they're thinking by doing this. The only two items they haven't mucked with yet are the meltan box and the go+'s. The game is more than catch pokemon and they know that. If they're trying to go back to pre 2018 ways of playing they can count me out. I've significantly reduced my game play already and pulled out my switch pokemon games. Raids are have gone from unlimited per day to 3 remote and 2 in person daily. Remote raid passes started out as one penny and increased to their most expensive item in their shop 525 coins. This killed most of the game for players. I got really good at raiding and they decided it was an exploit and filled it. Incenses. They use to spawn 1 a min now they're 1 every 5 min. For some reason they now have a high run away ratio which renders them totally useless. Blue Incenses. These are not as good as they advertised them to be. They were sort of a half affed apology from niantic when they increased the regular incenses from 1 min to 5. They are to spawn 1 a min for sure (while moving) and they barely spawn that. It's all randomly algorithmic and you could either get a lot or very few. The legendry birds that spawn from it have a 100% run away ratio thus making them difficult to get. You use to be able to auto fill in the quest with the gotcha evolve but they have filled that exploit and you can no longer drop a blue incense and expect the go+ to catch it. Lure modules. They use to mob spawn originally. That was fun. They didn't like this so they limited it to 1 a min then changed it to 1 every 5 min. This sucks and half of them end up running way. They keep mucking with the spawn time and rang it any where form 30 min to 90 min. Remote playing. Niantic could care less about remote players. In areas with zero grid pretty much forget about playing. I originally had to drive 1.5 hrs to a grid and half the time the game would be glitchy as heck. Go+ devices. These open up a whole new door for playing pogo. The devices are frustrating as heck to operate when they act up. When I have to replace them I find 2:5 work correctly. There is absolutely zero customer service with companies you buy them from and niantic. I probably went through 3 before I found one that was stable and worked. Their shelf life ranges from <1 mo to 1-2 yrs if you're lucky and careful about it. Instead of adding in a patch to allow great and ultra balls on older devices they're forcing players to buy a new device that allows this feature. Sorry but that's all about $$ and niantic knows that. Game is quickly turning into a pay to play game. I have been playing since 2016 and this game use to have several free features. All you had to do was suck up a little extra grinding to get it. It is very quickly becoming a pay to play game. 7+ star raids. While I enjoy raiding these spawns are very limited and you literally need a full group to beat these bosses. After getting good at raiding I have found most players have zero clue how to host a raid or do one. Niantic really needs to consider raising the xp rewards to higher amounts for their raids. 4 star 10k 5star should be 15 k and slowly increasing with the raid difficulty. Raid bosses have a high run away ratio. Niantic gave players more pokeballs but legendaries still have a 3:5 run away ratio. By limiting raids to 3 remote 2 in person raids they have pretty much screwed players over. By limiting remote raids if you're using a remote raid app such as poke geni or raid and your host screws you over that's one less raid you can be rewarded with. Adventure sync. Adventure sync isn't perfect and doesn't always work. My job is very active now and I have noticed it doesn't always sync correctly. Nor tally steps correctly. This makes me wonder about their algorithm and honoring correctness. God I hope niantic doesn't decide to put a step limit on their game as I can easily average 60k at work. Oh, I'm sorry but we're limiting players to 100k a week. That would suck if that ever happens. I use a phone swing as well in my off time and that would suck. A couple yrs ago I was physically disabled and this helped me continue to play. God I hope they never patch this exploit. Aggressive gym players. I've given up with gyms out side our neighborhood gated community. You can never get more than 15 min in a gym before you're booted. Too many players have a work or home advantage which allows them to constantly watch it. No rules against it but players use this advantage all the time. This is why I bought a home next to the neighborhood park. I got lucky and one of the exorcise stations spawned a gym. Last year we had a few players be incredibly aggressive with our gym. They would hog it and immediately kick players out that tried to drop theirs in. Niantic has zero rules about aggressive gym players. This became a bit of an issue and we as an hoa had to send them cease and desist letters. They were getting a bit aggressive with home owners too as they crossed paths with us. I'm pretty easy going, enjoy getting my daily 50 but know it's not always possible to get. These players were way too aggressive. Multi accouters. I know I'm one. Nearly every player I know has any where from 1-5 accounts. This is an exploit in the game and if you have one account per phone niantic can't do squat about it. I save my old phones now instead of turning them in. If niantic didn't want us to cheat then they'd enact better protocols. Driving around town to play. This is how I play with the go+ to auto collect. This is honestly the closest I get to playing a to. Some players how ever heavily exploit this. There's a few players that hog the 15+ gyms in the area. I have seen too many players drive to parking lots and squat in their cars until the raid starts. A few business removed their gyms because they got tired of players hogging the spots. There's pluses and minuses to this. One gym sadly had to be removed due to an incident last year (2022) where a player got severely injured in a bad neighborhood. No he didn't make it. Wayfaring Reviewing. Most players have no clue how to correctly nominate stops. It's a 6 question form but it's filled out like a 2 yr old that can't fill out a simple questionnaire. When I nominate stops it often takes multiple attempts before a could of been valid criteria stop goes through. The review process can either be very quick or super slow. Some stops go through in a timely manner of <6 mo while I have some in my list that have been waiting for 2+ yrs. Go Fest. Face it niantic has botched about 3 go fest events. Then gave a half affed apology and said all purchases final. Even if you went out of the way to buy a plane ticket and hotel room. Now with restricted raids go fest raid day is going to suck. I'd coin collect all year and use my coins to cash out on remote raids for this day. Niantic has botched their game by doing this. This year I have decided to not buy a go fest ticket. Bring back the 10a-5p community days. One group approached niantic and forced them to change it to 2p. My work schedule does not allow 2 pm community day. Incenses have a super high run away ratio and thus defeats the purpose of participation. Parks are full by 2 pm and I have to show up 1 hr early if I so much want a parking spot. 10 am worked perfect. Parks were not busy, I could participate a couple hrs before work then just let the go+ auto collect until end of event. Sorry niantic but most of the world can get their affes moving before noon on a weekend. Battle go league. This is glitchy as heck and niantic refuses to patch it. Players exploit glitches like crazy and every time I play i have a 60% loosing ratio. Thus defeating the purpose of it. Accounts play differently. I am a multi accounter and have like 5 accounts. Why? No one raids in my area and it lets me take down 5 star raid bosses my self. I have noticed even without bans or strikes that each account plays differently. That's unfair niantic. Players pay different prices in the store. Sorry niantic but this is an ftc violation. I can verify this with my multi aco$#*!s and other online complaints on social media threads. Do not release dates in a timely manner. Niantic releases dates for future events too close to the event it self. My line of work writes schedules about 3 weeks out. All too often they wait until 2 weeks before to release the info. Recently I have decided to stop participating in sudden release events. Some times they start and stop so suddenly I can't participate in them. 7 day reward = garbage. Before 2019 you use to be able to get good rewards from you 7 day research reward. Niantic is now giving players garbage rewards. Super common spawn spawns that aren't even worth attempting. It all started with flower hat eevee and they've gone beyond the point of a joke. Fewer spawns at stops. I have noticed significantly fewer spawns from stops and gyms compared to years gone by. I am noticing 1-3 spawns per stop instead of 5-7 in years gone by. Parks that have a 30+ grid have very few spawns.