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15 Essential Pokémon GO Quality of Life Improvements

I play Pokémon GO every day without exception.  I’ve never missed a day since I installed the app on July 9, 2016.  I’ve probably spent more time in aggregate playing this game than any other game I’ve ever played.

And I’ve played a lot of games over the years.

Obviously I love the game or I wouldn’t subject myself to this.  That being said there are so many areas where I see there could be huge quality of life improvements that would make the daily play of the game so much more fun and less frustrating.

As I said I love the game but it is tedious.  Very, very tedious.

Here are what I am identifying as the top improvements that could be made to relieve some of the tedium and leave more time for the fun parts of the game.

1.) Shiny Indication

Some Shiny Pokémon are easy to identify.  When you tap on a shiny Mareep or Dratini, it’s instantly obvious, even before you see the sparkles fill the screen.

With others, the difference is barely noticeable.  During Community Day, where the entire object is to capture a new shiny, you are generally playing outside int he bright sun.  It can be difficult to distinguish between a normal and shiny Pokémon in regular light, in the sun it is barely possible.  During the three starter Community Day events I caught shiny Pokémon without even realizing it.

It would be great if there was something more to identify a shiny.  One option would be to have an icon hover above the Pokémon like with weather boost.  My preferred option would just to make the sparkles continuous throughout the encounter, radiating outward during taunts.  This would eliminate any ambiguity and lessen the possibility of having a shiny run on you.

2.) Sort/Search by Distance/Location

For trading distance is important but when you’re in the trade screen you have no indication of where a Pokémon was caught.  Sorting by location would be a great way to easily find Pokémon for the best distance.  Perhaps a little readout below each in the list showing the distance caught from current location (e.g. 7km, 150km, 823km, etc.).  Perhaps even color coding the tier it’s in (0-10km, 10-100km, 100km+) based on how many candies you’ll be rewarded on distance (1, 2, or 3).

3.) Show Us The IVs Already!

If I had to pick one change I’d like to see in the game, this would be it.  Show us the IVs and stats!  Show us when we catch a Pokémon so we can quickly make a transfer decision.  Show us on the main sorting screen to make bulk transfers quicker and easier.  The appraisal system is so incredible tedious and wishy-washy.
As a proud member of Team Instinct I’m subjected to Spark being super misleading with his appraisals.  “Room for improvement . . .”  “. . . definitely got some good stats . . .”  33%?  C’mon, Spark, just be upfront with me and tell me this Natu sucks!  I can take it.  Are you afraid of hurting my feelings?
Better yet, just give me the exact numbers so I can make a split second decision and move on.

4.) Separate Pokémon Storage “Boxes”

With 1500 Pokémon storage and rumor to be 2000 soon we really need a way to divide up our huge Pokémon inventories.  Being able to quickly mark a Pokémon for trade or evolution would be a great way to not have to scroll or search as much.  Just hanging out in your evolution box for mass evolutions or jumping into your trading box to trade with friends would make for a much more enjoyable experience.  Even having an option to custom name a box (like you can with Battle Parties) would be great.  Right now naming all of my Pokémon “Trade” then searching for “Trade” each time is cumbersome.

5.) Nearby Tracking

This is something people used to be shouting about nonstop but it still remains true.  If I’m in a location with even a few Pokéstops nearby my entire Nearby tab is filled with Pokéstop spawns.  There could be a Snorlax 150 feet away from me, just outside of my sight radius and I wouldn’t know because Nearby would be showing me that there was a Taillow half a kilometer away at the library.
We used to have the extremely confusing footprint tracking system when the game first launched.  It was very ambiguous but eventually we got used to it.  It was the equivalent of someone saying, “You’re getting hotter, you’re getting colder,” as you moved around.  Some type of similar system or compass could work.
The Silph Road launched their own Silph Tracking Tool a while ago.  The idea behind this tool was actually really cool.  It works 100% independently of the game but the premise behind it works pretty well.  If something like this was built into the game it would really bring back a level of exploration and excitement we haven’t seen since the very early days.

6.) Nearby Filtering

Another great option would be nearby filtering.  Right now Pokémon GO has a built in algorithm to determine what Pokémon we see in Nearby.  It would be great if we could toggle on/off what Pokémon we want to show up.  Maybe I’m hunting Zigzagoon because I haven’t evolved my first ever Linoone.  But let’s face it, once I catch a Linoone what are the odds I’ll ever want to be alerted about a Zigzagoon ever again?  Simply toggle Zigzagoon off and it’ll never bother you again.
I’ll catch Weedles, Pidgeys, and Whismurs for XP and evolutions but what are the odds that I’m going to travel out of my way to catch one?  I may be working toward my Tiny Rattata medal and actually seek them out but after I’ve achieved 300 tiny Rattata the odds are I would choose to simply toggle them off and never be alerted to their presence again.
Also, by default, Venonats should be toggled off.  Maybe even without an option to toggle them on for any reason.

7.) Link to Pokédex on Pokemon Screen

Another nice feature would be a quick link to jump to the Pokédex screen from the Pokémon info screen.  This way you wouldn’t need to back out of the Pokémon list, go the Pokédex, then scroll through several hundred Pokémon to find the one you were looking for.

8.) Candy Totals in Encounter Screen

I find this would be incredible helpful in a lot of situations.  Sometimes you’re not sure how many candy you have for a particular Pokémon.  If there was a little readout up top that displayed your current candy total for that Pokémon you could make better decisions about berry usage or whether or not you need to capture that particular Pokémon.

9.) Better Friend Gifting Indicators

The newly implemented Friends features have been very welcome, however, I think there’s some room for improvement.  You can now see if there has been friend interaction in the same day with a blue halo and you can see if you’ve sent a gift the same day as well.  You still have to tap on every friend individually to see if they have an open gift slot if they haven’t opened a gift in over a day.  There should be an indication of whether or not you can send a gift at all.  Additionally, sorting by friends who need gifts would also be handy.
10.) Quick Friends & Gyms Button
In two years there have been so many new features added to the game.   The core menu items (Pokédex, Shop, Pokémon, and Items) remain the only options when you tap the Pokéball.  What would be really useful would be options for Gyms and Friends from that main menu.  These are part of the game that are accessed considerably more frequently than the Pokédex or Shop and it’s a little goofy that they’re both buried under the main avatar menu.

11.) Friends Search

I have a mere 63 friends but it’s already becoming troublesome to navigate and find friends without a search feature.  This was added to the Pokémon Storage section a while back and I can’t imagine living without it there.  It seems like it would be trivial to add to the Friends section.

12.) Friends List Slide Bar

While we’re at it, why can’t we also have a slide bar like in the Pokémon Storage section?  This would be another simple quality of life fix that would make managing a large friend collection a lot easier.

13.) Daily streak indicators

Sometimes I genuinely can’t remember if I’ve spun a Pokéstop that day or not.  An indicator on the Me screen would be very helpful to quickly answer that question.  A grayed out Pokéstop would indicate no stop spun, a solid blue one would indicate the task has been accomplished.  There could also be multiple small Pokéstops in a similar manner to the gifts in the Field Research section to indicate how many days in a row they have been spun and if today is complete.
The same would be true of catching Pokémon.  Generally this is simple to accomplish even without leaving the house but I imagine in rural areas there could be more uncertainty as to whether or not one has caught a Pokémon that day and this could be helpful.

14.) Quick Trades

Now that QR codes are live (within the last hour or so) we need a feature to quick trade.  If we have QR codes active within the game, why not have a feature where, with a quick scan we can be trading instantly with another player on the fly?  This would be a big improvement over to hunt through our clunky friends lists.
15.) Remote Berry Feeding Within Sight of Gym
This is probably the most minor change I’d like to see.  I live right down the street from a gym where I frequently have Pokémon.  It would be so simple to simply tap on the gym and feed berries remotely.  Instead I have to go to my avatar, scroll to gyms, sort by defending, tap on the gym then tap on the Pokémon to get to the gym to feed.  This is unquestionably the smallest quality of life feature I can imagine.  In fact, I may be the only person on Earth that would like this feature.  At any rate, it seems easy enough to code but I wouldn’t exactly halt work on any major features to roll this one out.
The game is better now than ever.  With some simple fixes the ease of playing could be dramatically improved.  If Niantic could implement any of these fixes it would greatly relieve my daily frustrations.
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Metallica’s “…And Justice For All” (8-bit Cover Album)

 

Finally a version of …And Justice for All where you can hear the bass!  A truly remarkable heavy metal album is dumbed down here using the sounds of the NES.  This was an important album in my musical development and it was a joy to realize it alongside the sounds of the video games that were contemporary to its release.

Click above to listen on YouTube.

Download “…And Justice For All” on Google Play

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Is the Pokémon GO Johto Festival the Best Event Yet?

The Johto Festival may be the best event ever in Pokémon GO.  I’m not sure it’s the most fun but it seems to best thought out so far.  Pokémon GO is a game I never gave up on.  I’ve played every day since July 9, 2016 but there were long stretches where I was playing for less than ten minutes a day.  Niantic has put a tremendous amount of energy into making this game fun again and with the new features I find myself playing for the equivalent of hours a day.

The event sort of snuck in alongside the Celebi Special Research that was announced on August 20th.  I was excited about Celebi being release because, even though I already caught Celebi at GO Gest, it’s always fun having special research to do in the game.  As a reward I will receive 20 Celebi candy which is nice but would be more exciting if my Celebi was higher than 73% or if Celebi was at all useful in the game.

Tagged on to the global release of Celebi was the surprise release of the Johto Festival.  This event is similar to the Kanto festival in that it is spawning huge numbers of Johto region Pokémon, with an emphasis on Pokémon that will evolve in Gen 4.

Screen shot from The Silph Road.

In the announcement it was said that “Pokémon originally discovered in the Johto region, such as Natu and Sunkern, appear more frequently in the wild.”  At first this seemed like an odd designation of Pokémon to choose to represent the Johto Region.  I should have picked up on what this actually meant which was that these Pokémon’s shiny variants had just been released.

The thing that makes this event so good is that they have really done a great job of integrating so many things: friends, research, 7 day bonuses, evolution items, buddies, evolutions, gifts.  The only thing they really didn’t incorporate in some small way is the weather system or battling.

The normal event we’ve seen lately is simple: introduce some new shiny variants, have them spawn in increased numbers, and include something like increased candy, XP, or stardust.

With this event they have included two Pokémon spawning more frequently, Natu and Sunkern, both with the possibility of being shiny.  In addition you can get a Pineco through research task.  The interesting part is that you need to evolve Sunkern and Natu to get Pineco.  Additionally you also need Sunstones to evolve Sunkern.

If you’re like me you’re kicking yourself for trashing dozens of Sunstones after not really having any use for them for months.  Niantic has shown a little mercy by including additional research tasks which will award you Sunstones.  The layers to all of this make this event and the shiny hunt much more interesting than in the past.

So far I’m 0-6 for on Shiny Pineco.  I’ve largely ignored Sunkern and Natu for the past year, something I’m really kicking myself for now.  This event makes me question if I can ignore any Pokémon moving forward for fear of being short on candy.  This has lead to an extra layer of strategy where I’m forced to trade Natu and Sunkern in order to get the candies I need for more evolutions.

During the last event Snubbull and Houndour were released into the wild and shinies with no increased spawns.  The catch was that Snubbull and Houndour spawn in my area no more than once a week if I’m lucky.  With the Johto Festival we’re seeing a huge increase in both of these Pokémon which have now given me a fighting chance.

The Special Research starts simply enough with needing to power up a Pokémon 5 times, battle a gym 2 times, and battle in a raid.  This was all simple though as a stardust hoarder I was a little resentful of having to be forced to use some of my stardust.

I suppose using a few thousand stardust on my 98% Machamp wasn’t the end of the world.

After that you need to make three new friends, evolve an evolved grass type Pokémon, And Catch a Pokémon 3 days in a row.

The last of these tasks was a little annoying.  While I don’t feel the need to have to complete the research in 3 hours like people did with Mew it just isn’t very exciting to have to catch one Pokémon a day for three days.  This is simply a speed bump, not an actual challenge.  It would be a lot more interesting if they’d made something challenging that very well could have taken three days but would keep you engaged rather than this overly simple task.

At Pokémon GO Fest you had to catch 10 Pokémon of several different types to get past one task.  With a three day time span it would have been nice to see something like that.

In Part 3/8 you need to reach level 25, use a Sun Stone to evolve a Pokémon, and hatch 9 eggs.  The Sunstone thing would have been welcome at any time in the past but this had me even more upset about having dumped so many Sunstones in the trash over the past months.

With part 4 I am once again resting my Chansey to walk an Eevee 10km, Evolve an Eevee during the day into Espeon, then sending 20 gifts to friends.

Being at the half way point two days into the event seems a little quick but I do know through reading spoilers that there is another speed bump approaching soon.

All in all there are a lot of moving parts to this event that make it more interesting than any in the past.  I love the addition of a Special Research and I’m really hoping they include this in upcoming events.  That additional piece makes everything that much more engaging.

For a game that struggled so much during its first year the continued improvements just keep coming.  With everything they keep throwing out there it doesn’t even seem like a big deal if we don’t see Gen 4 until early 2019.

Just kidding, that would be a huge deal and players would revolt.  However, since players are always complaining about everything anyway, what’s the worst that could happen?

 

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My Ideas For Pokémon GO Generation IV Evolutions

With Generation IV just around the corner I’ve been thinking a lot about how that roll out will look.  Sure, we’ll have plenty of new Pokémon to catch and hatch, but what about all the evolutions from Pokémon that are already in the game?

There are 21 Pokémon from Generations I through III that will evolve in Generation IV.  In addition there are seven baby forms.

When Generation II launched I remember one of the most anti-climactic things was simply evolving the Pokémon where I already had the candies.  I had a Crobat immediately and evolved both Espeon and Umbreon the same day as well.  Hitmontop was a challenge because you needed to hatch the right Tyrogue and Blissey was also challenging in that Chansey candies were so ultra rare at that point.

As we’re over two years into the game at this point, even casual players should be sitting on a decent number of candies for a lot of these Pokémon.  Additionally, with the introduction of raids, rare candies are not exactly hard to come by and anyone can dump candies into any Pokémon they choose.

Evolving these next generation Pokémon minutes after Generation IV launches and adding 21 Pokémon to your Pokédex would be a considerable letdown.  Not only do I have all the candy resources I need, I’ve got all of the Pokémon in the list ready to go with either good or great IVs at this point.

Even the Mew quest was a little bit of a letdown.  As a serious player there were so many items in that quest that I just automatically accomplished.  If quests had launched on day one it would have taken me months to get my Mew.  I would have felt so much more accomplishment at getting Mew, and probably even more anger at the fact that his IVs were at 76%.

I’m hoping they utilize Special Research to get some or all of the Generation IV evolutions.  Research has been out for months and my Special Research tab is looking pretty sad.  That’s eve though I’ve had the opportunity to do twice as much Special Research projects as most players by attending Go Fest (i.e. two).

Potentially you could have a quest for each evolution item.  Completing the quest would give you the evolution item, then maybe even introduce it into the pool of evolution items you get during your 7 week streak.  A challenging quest would be a great way to get your first Pokémon for the Pokédex.  Let’s face it, with evolution items at this point I’m trashing them to make space in my storage as there’s no real reason to evolve more than one or two of any of the Gen 2Pokémon that require them.

The staggered roll out of Gen 3 did a lot to keep things interesting but I think we need more.  In order to make Gen 4 a fun and engaging roll out, here’s my proposal to ensure that no one is able to complete 20% of their Sinnoh Region Pokédex within minutes of launch.

Generation 1 Evolutions

Gen 1 Pokémon have been out for more than two years.  I’m all for making things accessible to new players but there needs to be some challenge to evolving any of these in Gen 4.  These are all screenshots of Pokémon from my collection.  Even for the super rare Tangela I have 156 candies, that’s without ever using a Pinap berry.  I went months to hatch my first Tangela and I think I’ve only ever seen one or two in the wild.  To just evolve it instantly would be too easy.

Here’s a breakdown for how I’d like to see the Gen 4 evolutions for Gen 1 to work out.

Magneton to Magnazone

  • Candy Cost: 100
  • Walk Magneton 10km
  • Complete Evolution Item Research Task
  • Evolve During Rainy Weather
  • Must have Gold Rocker Medal
  • Must have Gold Depot Agent Medal

Lickitung to Lickilicky

  • Candy Cost: 50
  • Must Defend Gym(s) for 12 Hours with Lickitung

Rhydon to Rhyperior

  • Candy Cost: 100
  • Win 100 Gym Battles With Rhydon Before You Can Evolve
  • Must be Trainer Level 35 or Higher

Tangela to Tangrowth 

  • Candy Cost: 50
  • Gold Gardener Medal
  • Special Research Task to Unlock Grass Evolution Item

Electabuzz to Electivire 

  • Candy Cost: 50
  • Gold Rocker Medal
  • Gold Pikachu Fan Medal
  • Special Research task(s) to Unlock Electric Evolution Item
  • Evolve During Rainy Weather

Magmar to Magmortar 

  • Candy Cost: 50
  • Gold Kindler Medal
  • Gold Sinnoh Medal
  • Evolve During Sunny Weather

Eevee to Leafeon 

  • Candy Cost: 25
  • Walk 10km
  • Evolve as Buddy in Sunny Weather
  • Gold Gardener Medal
  • Gold Backpacker Medal

Eevee to Glaceon 

  • Candy Cost: 25
  • Walk 10km
  • Evolve As Buddy in Snowy Weather
  • Gold Skier Medal
  • Gold Backpacker Medal

Porygon2 to Porygon-Z

  • Candy Cost: 50
  • Gold Pokémon Ranger Medal
  • Walk Porygon2 10km
  • Evolve During Partly Cloudy Weather

 

Generation 2 Evolutions

Not being in the game as long as Gen 1, the Gen 2 evolutions could potentially be a little easier to achieve.

Aipom to Ambipom

  • Candy Cost: 50
  • Can Only be Evolved from Aipom Received in Trade

Yanma to Yanmega

  • Candy Cost: 50
  • Gold Bug Catcher Medal
  • Win 20 Gym Battles Using Yanma

Murkrow to Honchkrow

  • Candy Cost: 50
  • Gold Delinquent Medal
  • Must Trade 5 Murkrow
  • Must be Evolved Between 12am and 1am

Misdreavus to Mismagius

  • Candy Cost: 50
  • Complete Ghost Pokémon Special Research Tasks
  • Can Only Be Evolved on Halloween

Gligar to Gliscor

  • Candy Cost: 50
  • Gold Ruin Maniac Medal
  • Gold Bird Keeper Medal
  • Walk Gligar 10km

Sneasel to Weavile

  • Candy Cost: 50
  • Evolve During Snowy Weather
  • Gold Skier Medal

Piloswine to Mamoswine

  • Candy Cost: 100
  • Gold Skier Medal
  • Must Win 3 Piloswine Raids

Togetic to Togekiss

  • Candy Cost: 100
  • Complete Research to Obtain Fairy Evolution Item
  • Use Fairy Evolution Item

Generation 3 Evolutions

Gen 3 have been around for around eight months.  These are the least likely for players to have tons of candies for but I’m certainly not hurting for candies on any of these Pokémon.  It would be great to see some challenge brought to these evolutions as well.

Kirlia (Male) to Galade

  • Candy Cost: 100
  • Gold Psychic Medal
  • Gold Fairy Tale Girl Medal
  • Kirlia Must Be Male for Galade (this seems to already be the case)
  • Gold Hoenn Medal
  • Trainer Level Must Be 35 or Higher

Nosepass to Probopass

  • Candy Cost: 50
  • Gold Hiker Medal
  • Gold Hoenn Medal
  • Must Defend Gym with Nosepass for Combined 12 Hours

Roselia to Roserade

  • Candy Cost: 50
  • Gold Gardener Medal
  • Gold Hoenn Medal
  • Must Win 20 Gym Battles with Rosella to Evolve

Duskclops to Dusknoir

  • Candy Cost: 100
  • Gold Hex Maniac Medal
  • Gold Hoenn Medal
  • Must Evolve During Foggy Weather

Snorut to Froslass

  • Candy Cost: 100
  • Gold Skier Medal
  • Gold Hoenn Medal
  • Must Evolve During Snowy Weather

New Baby Pokemon

Baby Pokémon will most likely hatch from eggs.  This makes sense but it was a little unsatisfying in Gen 2 when you were just incubating eggs to try to round out your Pokédex.  Much the way the Alolan 7km eggs were fun for a week or two then got really stale.  It would be very interesting if they considered bringing out breeding in Gen 4.  This would make for an interesting extra element of game play.

The following baby Pokémon are who we will see introduced in Gen 4.

  • Mime Jr. (baby Mr. Mime)
  • Bonsly (baby Sudowoodo)
  • Happiny (baby Chansey)
  • Mantyke (baby Mantine)
  • Munlax (baby Snorlax)
  • Budew (baby Roselia)
  • Chingling (baby Chimecho)

Some ideas for how to potentially introduce these new baby forms:

1.) Hatching

This is the obvious, if boring, way to introduce the new babies.  You simply release them into 2km eggs, presumably during an event, and we just get them randomly.  This is usually not very satisfying.  Who among us did not hatch an unwelcome number (more than one) Mantine during Gen 2?

2.) Breeding at Pokémon Centers

To be honest, I’m not a scholar of the original games so I’m not fluent with the game play dynamic of how breeding worked in the original series.  The idea of having Pokémon Centers is something I heard floated a while ago for Pokémon GO but I haven’t heard mentioned again.  It would be interesting to introduce this new mechanic in the game as a place to heal, train, and breed Pokémon.

Perhaps leaving two Pokémon at a Center (a male and female) for a specified time would result in gaining an egg that you’ll have to walk and hatch.  For Happiny maybe you need to leave it at the Center for a week then walk it 20km.  For Mantyke maybe you leave it at the Pokémon Center for ten minutes and walk it for .5km because, let’s face it, who will ever want more than one baby Mantine?

3.) Research Tasks

Additionally there could be research tasks though I think the breeding requirements would be the best options.  Happiny and Munchlax should be the more difficult to obtain as they are meta relavent.  The rest of them I can’t see anyone wanting more than one for the Pokédex.

4.) Encounters in the Wild

Encountering babies in the wild may be my least favorite option but it’s something we haven’t seen before.

The Mime Jr. Dilemma

Mime Jr. poses and interesting dilemma.  This is the only region exclusive baby form being introduced. This does make things a little uneven as far as all other regions are concerned.  I suppose with trading it is more possible to obtain a Mr. Mime so maybe that doesn’t matter.  I still do not have Mr. Mime but admittedly I haven’t really made any effort to obtain one either.

Still, it seems odd that one region essentially gets an extra exclusive.

In Conclusion

Some may not think some of these ideas are fair.  For example, evolving only during snowy weather is hard for people who live in Southern California.  Currently shiny Snubbull is released in the game and I live in an area where I never see Snubbull.  I’ve caught a total of two during the event and they were from research tasks.  Like with region exclusives there would be some unbalance, but that’s part of what makes getting the rarer Pokémon such a challenge.

Ideas like only being able to evolve Pokémon during a specific day (like the Halloween idea) may seem very rigid, however, I think that paired with an event this would be very doable even for a new player.  Getting your Gold Hex Maniac medal during a Halloween event would be pretty easy, then concluding it with getting the super rare evolution on Halloween would be interesting.

With trading now in the game, these limitations could exist for people who want a challenge without training.  Anyone else that simply doesn’t want to jump through these hoops would need to go the trading route, potentially as a special trade.

If everything is just released with a simple candy cost then I guess I’ll join millions of others in just going through the motions and evolving 1/5 of my Gen 4 Pokédex in ten minutes but I’m really looking for something more interesting and challenging in this release.

And I’m really looking to never have more than one Mantyke.

 

 

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Eevee’s Last Resort

This coming Saturday and Sunday we are seeing our first ever two-day community event with the featured Pokémon Eevee.

This has been one of the most hotly anticipated Community Days yet with Eevee potentially evolving into five different Pokémon currently with two more on the way soon.

A couple of things are different about this event.   It lasts two days, presumably to get you more opportunities to catch shinies.  It features an exclusive move that will carry over with the evolved Pokémon rather than getting the move upon evolution.  And, finally, we are being allowed until Monday to evolve Eevee to retain the exclusive move Last Resort.

I’m very much looking forward to this event, just like the previous Community Day events, because it’s a great way to grind XP, hunt shinies, and collect stardust. That being said, there are some glaring issues with this upcoming Community Day.

Firstly, it seems at this late stage in the game that it is unlikely they are releasing Leafeon and Glaceon.  This would have been a perfect way to introduce Gen IV Pokémon but with everything else going on in the game they may just be waiting until December again to release the new generation.  Personally I’ll be hunting for a minimum of eight shinies to include an evolution to Sylveon in the distant future.

Secondly, Eevee’s evolutions are still random.  Sort of.  Unless you haven’t used the naming trick yet you’re going to need dozens of shiny Eevees to ensure one Vaporeon, Jolteon, and Flareon.  Umbreon and Espeon will also need to be walked 10km each before the cutoff on Monday in order to be evolved with the exclusive move.  This brings me my last concern.

The special move is useless.  As far as I can tell there is no good reason to want to evolve anything with this move unless you just want that Pokémon evolution as a collector’s item.  Last Resort is a normal type move which means you’ll lose STAB on any Eevee evolved form unless in Gen XI they release a normal type Eevee evolution.  We’ll call it Leon.

In the absence of Leon there will be no STAB for both attacks on any Pokémon evolved from this.

In other news . . .

The only thing that could work is saving up all your evolved forms to trade with friends later (much later if you want Lucky evolutions) to complete your shiny Eevee collection.

Lucky Pokémon have been interesting if not game changing.  The current evolution event has been a little strange and has lacked the fanfare of previous events.

I was left with about 175 Larvitar from the Larvitar Community Day so I’ve been trading them frantically to get between four and six candies each.  It sure beats the double candy event I’d been waiting for.

Other aspects of the event have been a little underwhelming.  The introduction of shiny Houndour and shiny Snubbull have been barely noticeable.  I’ve come across exactly one wild Houndour and one Snubbull from a research task, both not shiny.  Seeing either of those Pokémon in this area virtually never happens.

Additionally the Spinda research tasks have been just as hard to find.  I’ve finally nabbed a couple but it seems only the eighth form is released with no real idea of when future forms are showing up.

The Ultra Friends have been pouring in lately and with a lucky egg that means a sort of obscene amount of XP as a reward.

Unfortunately, after more than a year of raiding, the process has become a little stale.  It doesn’t help that the latest round of legendaries are legendarily bad.  With only high level attackers being worth raiding I’ve been just catching one or two and calling it quits.  I actually completely missed Regice and will be happy to just trade some stardust for one in the future.

Actually “happy” may be a little strong.