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23 New Pokémon from the Hoenn Region Available Later Today

Niantic just made an announcement on the official Pokémon GO site that they are releasing 23 additional Pokémon from the Hoenn region into the game sometime later today.  These will all be brand new for me as my encyclopedic knowledge of Pokémon ends abrupty at #151.  Part of the excitement of Pokémon GO has been discovering the new generations that came out after I’d finished my run with the card game in the late 90s.  Despite many of these Pokémon being old enough to vote they are new to me.

Niantic’s official announcement states the following:

Trainers,

Starting later today, 23 additional Pokémon originally discovered in the Hoenn region in the Pokémon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire video games will begin appearing in Pokémon GO for the very first time. As you’re out adventuring with friends and family and exploring your local neighborhoods, be sure to share your favorite moments and photos using #PokemonGO on your social media channels.

—The Pokémon GO team

This brings the total number of Gen 3 Pokémon to 100 with 35 left to go.  Many people were a little put off by staggering the release of the Hoenn region Pokémon but I think it’s going pretty well so far.  We’re almost two months in and I have plenty of hunting and farming left to do even to complete the Pokédex with what’s available right now.

I’m looking forward to seeing what new odd-looking creatures I’ll be introduced to later today!

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Pokémon GO Generation 3: Round 2

After the initial launch of Generation III Pokémon GO has now seen the addition of more ice and water type creatures into the game.  The introduction of more Pokémon has definitely been exciting.  More exciting still is the new weather system which means the possibility of catching more powerful (up to level 35) Pokémon in the wild as well as overall higher IVs.

Delibird has been released and if most players are like me then most players are already sick of catching them.

Exciting for me is that I managed to finally get my steel gold medal, catching 200 steel Pokémon in the game.

The next day I rounded everything out by finally getting my gold fighting type medal.  This is largely thanks to the influx of new fighting types in Generation 3 such as Makuhita and Meditite combined with them spawning more often in the frequently cloudy weather here in the Midwest.

This leaves me with dragon type being the only gold medal I need.  Unless Generation 4 releases some common dragon type Pokémon I shouldn’t see that until some time in 2021.

Wailmer raids have started showing up in the game.  This is exciting as Wailmer’s evolution, Wailord, takes 400 candies to evolve.  There is a great nest nearby but with temperatures in the negatives it’s unclear whether I’ll be able to spend any time there to eventually evolve my Wailord or if it’ll take me several months like my first Gyarados.

Only 3 million XP stands between me and level 40.  So basically I only have to do the entirety of level 38 again and I’ll be there.

I have about 12-14 evolutions ready to go for the Pokédex at this point.  So far the pacing of this generation has been pretty good.  It’s not taking as long as the first two but still a challenge.

At this point recent updates have left a few annoying things with the games, some of them bugs.  These things desperately need to be addressed in a future update.

1.) The transfer/appraisal bug.

On the surface this sounds minor but it is a huge hassle once you get to playing.  Any time you appraise, transfer, or evolve a Pokémon it takes you all the way back to the top of your Pokémon storage screen.   If you have maxed out your storage to 1500, or even at any amount, it means a lot of scrolling, searching, and wasted time.

2.) Scrolling between battle teams, Pokémon, and eggs.

For some reason scrolling between them now requires an extremely delicate touch.  It’s easy to be on your battle party then slide all the way over to eggs.  It’s not the end of the world but it doesn’t match the scrolling in any other section of the game and is frustrating when you’re just trying to get to your Pokémon.

3.) Battle parties not allowing additions.

Some battle parties I have will not allow me to add a sixth Pokémon.  This didn’t happen when the feature was initially released, it only started happening with the recent update.  It pretty much makes some of my custom parties useless.

4.) The Pokédex page.

With nearly 400 Pokémon currently accessible this page is a mess.   With images loading server side it takes forever for them to all populate.  The ever-so-slight color variance between generations makes it difficult to figure out where one ends a new one begins.  Tabbing them by generation seems like a very easy and minor fix to implement.  Additionally a search feature or ability to select by type may be in order.  Anything to make finding who you are looking for easier.  Additionally there seems to be a bug where an additional Barboach shows up after Groudon is unable to be clicked on even though that is not the correct spot in the Pokédex.

It’s been pretty common place that with every new update comes a handful of new and frustrating bugs but as we approach the year two mark for Pokémon GO I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect some of these things will be changed for the better.

I anticipate two things from 2018: a fix for some of these frustrating bugs and finally hitting level 40.

Happy New Year!

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Slakoth Mega Spawn?

Slaking is the Pokémon everyone playing Pokémon GO wants right now.  Even though plenty of information has come out about it being extremely overrated, it is hard to resist the Pokémon with the highest CP in the overall game.  Since the Gen 3 launch nearly a week ago I’d only caught a few Slakoth leading up to today so I was preparing for a months long journey to getting my first Slaking, much like my time working toward Dragonite and Tyranitar.

Imagine my surprise when I was on my way to work and stumbled upon a small neighborhood which was bursting at the seems with Slakoth.  Everywhere I turned there was another and another.  I just kept catching them over and over.  With it being party cloudy everything I was catching was weather boosted and I caught a few with decent IVs.

I also stumbled upon my first Vigoroth, Slakoth’s evolved form.  I’d seem a silhouette of one on day one of the Gen 3 launch that I passed up, not yet realizing what it was.  He had a really high CP but, not thinking anything of it, I used a Pinap berry and caught him on the first throw.

It turns out he had IVs of 96% and was level 34.  It turned out from all the Pinap berries I’d used and all the Slakoth I’d caught I was already ready to evolve my first Slaking.  I did not delay and was not disappointed.

Slaking instantly became my most powerful Pokémon in the game by almost 1,000 CP (I never power anything up).  After evolving him I still continued to catch Slakoth on the rest of my afternoon journey to work.

So, what happened?  Why was a Pokémon so hard to find all of a sudden spawning like Pidgeys?  I was under the impression that Slakoth nests didn’t exist, much like Dratini and Larvitar.  Momentarily I thought I’d simply stumbled upon a nest.  After more thinking I’m wondering if some weird switch was accidentally flipped and suddenly they were spawning everywhere in the game for a brief time.

At any rate it was a pretty remarkable hour or so of playing the game.  On the one hand it’s exciting to have my most powerful Pokémon without even needing to use any candy or stardust to power up.  On the other hand some of the thrill of the hunt is now suddenly gone.  I can’t remember any Pokémon that I’ve desperately wanted that took me so little time to catch.  I walked Larvitar for well over one hundred kilometers to get enough candy to evolve right before raids came out.  I walked and hunted Dratini for months.  Even Abra and Machop took me forever in the days before Pinap berries.

I don’t know if there’s any truth to my theory of an accidental mega spawn but I’d be interested to know if anyone else experienced any similar situations today.

With Slaking out of the way so early I’m not setting my sights on Ralts and eventually Gardevoir.  Ralts has been another rare find in my area.  I’m not sure if another Mega Spawn is possible but I’m intrigued to find out what exactly happened today.

In the meantime I’ll be putting my Slaking in gyms where, apparently, it will be nowhere near as effective as I’d hoped.

It doesn’t get much better than that.

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Pokémon Go Gen 3 Launch and Real Time Weather

Generation 3 is upon us in Pokémon Go.  Well, at least one third of it is.  I’ve been saying for some time that the launch of a new generation of Pokémon is exciting but that excitement will be shortlived.  After the first weekend of playing through the game I am already sick of Zigzagoon and Gulpin, however, there are plenty more of the new generation that I haven’t caught.

The excitement of registering a new Pokémon to the Pokédex is always exciting.  In the 90’s when the card game was huge I was always more interested in collecting all the Pokémon.  Once you catch ’em all, there needs to be something to keep you playing.  In the case of Pokémon Go it is certainly a lot more affordable than the hundreds of dollars I spent on those damn cards.

Weather, on the other hand, is a new game play element.  This is the sort of thing the game has desperately needed for a while.  The introduction of weather is so much more than I originally thought.  It’s not just a cool effect thrown on top of what’s already there.  The introduction of weather influences spawns of certain types, it makes them stronger, it improves their IVs, and it strengthens their attacks.  Raiding in weather is even better as you have the opportunity to catch higher level Pokémon (up to level 25) and deal more damage in those battles depending on what Pokémon you select.  There is now more strategy in raiding and gym battling.  Sometimes the strategy is just cursing up at the few clouds in the sky so that you have a chance to catch a level 25 Ho-oh.

I didn’t know about the weather boost at first so when I came upon a 836 CP Eevee in the wild I was shocked.  I thought maybe they’d done a CP rebalance again as the max CP for a level 30 Eevee is 830 CP.  I’ve never encountered one beyond 800 CP in the past.  Now I’ve caught several even higher than this one.  The max level for wild spawns is now level 35, something that makes the weather effects that much more interesting.

Increased Pokémon storage is another great feature.  It seems crazy but my storage was constantly filling up with only (only?) 1000 slots.  With 1500 I can now bank a heck of a lot more Pidgeys for the next double XP evnet.

Adding Waterfall as a quick move has just made Gyarados the strongest water type attacker in the game as it should be.  Eevee, at least where I play, are extremely common and having a dozen overpowered Vaporeon is relatively easy.  With the 400 candy needed to evolved a Gyarados it only makes sense that it is more useful in the gym and raiding systems.

The introduction of Slakoth (evolving eventually into Slaking) makes for a fun hunt.  It took me forever to accumulate enough Dratini to evolve Dragonite or enough Mareep to evolve Ampharos.  It’s nice to have something challenging to work toward.  The bonus is that this time it will be a Pokémon which could be extremely important, if not just fun, to use in gym battle and defense.

Overall this new update has been a breath of fresh air.  It’s great to get out there, find new Pokémon, and see this game take an interesting strategic turn.  Ultimately releasing all seven generations would be fun but it would be short lived.  What this game needs is more little tweaks like the one we just witnessed.  More stats, more strategy, and more nuance in the game play.

I’m very excited for what this new update has brought.  This is the biggest rework to the game since the new gym system and raids were introduced.   I hope Niantic does not sit back for too long before rolling out nice new features like these again.  The game has taken a great step forward with depth but there is still more work needed to increase the overall percentage of time I, and many others, spend playing this game.

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It’s Raining Hoenn

Niantic surprised us all this morning with an announcement about Generation 3 Pokémon dropping later this week.  Even more surprising is the announcement of a new weather system in Pokémon GO.

This has been rumored for a while now but actual weather hitting the game will mean an increased chance of catching particular Pokémon.  Even more interesting is Pokémon battle effectiveness will also be adjusted based on the local, real time weather.

While it seems a little cruel to increase certain Pokémon spawns in the rain and snow it is also a very interesting change to the game.  While the third generation of Pokémon will add a very brief excitement to the game it’s just a matter of time before we catch them all and are left with the same game and same problems.  I’m in favor of anything which improves the level of strategy involved, particularly in battle.

Generation 3 Pokémon are apparently going to be released in waves based on type.  For example they will release all the fire type Pokémon, then all the grass type, etc.  I know a lot of people will have a lot of different opinions on this tactic but I really feel like, while fun, a new generation of Pokémon is not the most pressing need in the game right now.

 

Niantic has been full of surprises for us lately.  The Global Catch Challenge ended with the release of Farfetch’d, something I was not super excited about as a grand prize.  Then they shocked us by releasing Ho-oh shortly thereafter.  While we all knew Ho-oh was coming eventually no one seemed to know when.  With the double XP, and even after the event, Ho-oh raids have been some of the best attended I’ve been to.  After a month of Suicune it was easy to get excited about a potentially useful Pokémon raid being released.  It was even nicer after Suicune went away and you didn’t have to take your chances waiting for a Tier 5 egg to hatch.

Overall new generations are always very exciting.  One of the best parts of the game is catching a brand new Pokémon and watching it get registered to your Pokédex.  Sadly it is also one of the shortest lived joys.  After a few hours of Farfetch’d I was already sick of seeing them.

After a few catches unless the Pokémon are very rare or very useful there’s no real point in catching them.  At this point I’m most excited about catching a Pidgey for the XP, a Rattata to get one step closer to my gold Rattata badge, or a Magikarp for another crack at a shiny.

The introduction of weather is one of the most exciting changes I’ve seen in a while because it is a step toward new game play features that are greatly needed to keep long term players interested.

Here’s to hoping we have an exciting December ahead of us!

 

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3 Billion Was Not That Farfetch’d

Well, we did it.  As a global community, around this time last night, we successfully caught 3 billion Pokémon.  There was really no doubt that this would happen. but it was still fun.  With that milestone we saw the release of Farfetch’d, previously only available in Asia.

In reviewing the reward tiers this was pretty much the least exciting.  Double XP and 6 hour lures was a nice incentive.  Double stardust was probably the most enticing reward as stardust remains one of the most difficult things in the game to obtain.

Getting access to Farfetch’d gives me mixed emotions.  Part of me feels like the region exclusives should stay locked in their regions.   The excitement of catching a brand new Pokémon and seeing it registered to your Pokédex is one of the most powerful things in this game.  However, as the final reward for this event it was a little anticlimactic.  As with any of the region exclusives once you catch one that’s pretty much it.  There are too many Pokémon in this game that are completely useless.  Farfetch’d, along with all the other region exclusives, is one them.  It’s no good for battling and no good for attacking, it’s simply a Pokédex filler.  Once you catch one, you don’t really need any more.

While it was nice to catch I hit the streets, put on a lucky egg, and tried to do as many raids as possible.  Tier 5 raids dish out a whopping 40,000 XP during this event with a lucky egg on and after catching Farfetch’d I was eager to try to collect as much XP as possible before the event concludes.

This afternoon I finally hit level 39.  That means I’m 75% of the way through the game.  Now begins the length 5 million XP slog to level 40.  Short of double XP events it’s going to be some pretty slow progress from here on out.

Overall I think this event has been a little different and pretty fun.  However, what it proves is that he addition of new Pokémon only introduce a very brief excitement back into the game.  There are some fundamental changes and additions that need to be made if they are going to capture the same level of enthusiasm that the game once enjoyed.

Until then I’ll continue to play every day, slowly making my way to 40.  I haven’t missed a day since the game came out.  The difference is between those days where I play for a total of 20 minutes, and the days where I am walking 20 kilometers and end up playing for 10 hours or more.

Let’s hope I’m still level 39 when the next round of excitement begins!

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Late to the Party

So I finally did my first Suicune raid today.  A combination of work and personal obligations, cold weather, and dwindling interest in raiding from the community made it so that it took me twenty four days into November to finally complete a raid.

With a lucky egg I was more interested in the 40,000 XP than I truly was in catching the Legendary Beast.  This is something that Niantic will likely need to address in the near future.  A few months ago nothing was more exciting than raiding and I was organizing raid groups of thirty or more to raid at 5:30 AM before work.

With the introduction of Suicune, the worst of the Legendaries released so far, there is really very little interest to get groups together.  I attempted a few times so far this month but could never get enough people together.  Today I happened upon a group of fourteen with little organization.

I’m hoping that Niantic has something up their sleeve to entice the community to be more active in future raids.  These were my first raids since the rewards were adjusted which was another nice enticement.

Currently I’m looking to simply make it to Level 39 by the end of this event and continue on the grueling journey to Level 40.

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Rare Clear Communication from Niantic Regarding Pokémon GO Raids

Yesterday Niantic announced some clear changes and explanations surrounding the EX Raid system in Pokémon GO as well as changes to the regular raid system.  You can see the official announcement here.

This shouldn’t be a big deal, however, Niantic is constantly extremely vague with information surrounding every aspect of the game.

While I would still prefer that the EX Raid system goes away it is encouraging to have some sort of insight as to how it actually works.  They are responding to a very common complaint with the game and one can only hope that they listen to the other valid complaints that many of us have.

From that announcement:

EX Raid Battle changes

  • EX Raid Battles will take place most commonly at Gyms found in parks and sponsored locations.
  • Trainers with a high-level Gym Badge are more likely to be invited to EX Raid Battles taking place at that Gym.
  • Trainers who have completed a larger number of Raid Battles are more likely to be invited to EX Raid Battles.
  • EX Raid Battle start times now take into account popular Raid Battle times at that Gym.
  • Trainers invited to EX Raid Battles will receive an in-game notification if the EX Raid Battle is canceled.
  • Trainers will receive Stardust and Premium Raid Passes when an EX Raid Battle is canceled.

And, also:

Raid Battle changes

  • Trainers will now receive Golden Razz Berries for completing Raid Battles.
  • The numbers of Potions and Revives awarded to Trainers for completing a Raid Battle will decrease slightly, but the quality of Potions will increase.
  • The likelihood of receiving Fast and Charged Technical Machines for completing a Tier 3 or higher Raid Battle has increased.
  • Trainers will now receive Stardust for participating in a Raid Battle, whether they win or lose.
  • Magikarp will make a triumphant return to Tier 1 Raid Battles.

One can hope that this is the beginning of what will be much more clear communication from Niantic about updates and changes being made to the game.  The real test will be seeing if having access to this information improves anyone’s chances of actually getting the elusive EX Raid pass.

It would be nice to get my hands on a Mewtwo before they do some sort of mass release and we start catching it with Santa hats in another month.

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Pokémon GO Travel and the Global Catch Challenge

Pokémon GO players have eagerly been awaiting the announcement of a Thanksgiving event.  Earlier today Niantic announced the Pokémon GO Travel and the Global Catch Challenge.  In true Niantic fashion they’re a little short on details such as the actual start date and time or giving us a ballpark of how hard it will be to catch 3 billion Pokémon.  I don’t have any sense for how many are caught in an average week and I’m sure most players also do not have access to that information.  Nevertheless it looks to offer some potentially interesting rewards.

I don’t know what the likelihood of all of us hitting the 3 billion mark is but I suspect that no matter what it will happen.  I can’t imagine anything that would take the wind out of our nearly windless sails more than the potential for unlocking a regional exclusive and then not delivering.

Catching my first Farfetch’d would be pretty cool but the double XP and double stardust is even more appealing as I lumber slowly toward level 40.

This could keep the game interesting for another week or two but Niantic still has a lot of work to do to make this game at all compelling for most of us who play daily.

For now I’ll just enjoy these small windows of fun and hope for the eventual update that will rekindle the game for us all.

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Universal Paperclips for iPhone

My weeks long obsession with Universal Paperclips had just come to a close when I learned today that the game’s developer has just made it available for mobile.  You can now get Universal Paperclips in the iTunes App Store!

That being said I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to purchase the game for the iPhone and thank Frank Lantz for his incredible game.

Playing on the iPhone is a different experience.  Tapping on the buttons (something you’ll be doing a lot of) isn’t quite as quick as on the desktop version.  Additionally I had become very adept at leaving the Paperclips window open to get the most out of the game.  This is much harder to do on a device without true multitasking.

I can’t say I’ll log the same hours on the iPhone as on a desktop.  One of the things I enjoy most about this game is doing it in spurts, then relegating it to the background while you do other things, then returning to find that you’ve built up money, Yomi, honor, or whatever the current currency in the game is.

Perhaps this just means I’ll be able to run this on my phone while I’m on my computer in the future.  At any rate I this has been the surprise game for me this year.  I’ve had more fun playing this than many others and I look forward to the future work of Frank Lantz.