Niantic Responds to Pokemon GO Criticism

Areloch

It's that one guy
Dec 10, 2012
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COMaestro said:
Saltyk said:
I just want the battery saver option back. It was apparently removed as well. Why? I tended to keep it on in my pocket at work so I could hatch eggs, but not the game likes to do stuff in my pocket (nothing too bad, but it might click on a nearby Pokemon or open the menu) and it kills my battery even faster. Without battery saver, it basically makes egg hatching way more difficult for me.

For the record, I could easily hatch 2-3 2 Kilometer eggs or a five kilometer egg each day at work.
What did they do to the battery saver? I still have a battery save option in the settings, my screen still dims when I turn it upside down and it tracks my movement just fine (or at least as well as it ever does).
From what I've seen on reddit, it was removed from the iOS build because iPhones don't use AMOLED screens, meaning that making the screen blacked out doesn't really save any power. It also had some bug-out issues. It's still in the android version because a lot of android phones use AMOLED, meaning that just blacking the screen reduces power consumption, making it actually work as expected.
 

The Hungry Samurai

Hungry for Truth
Apr 1, 2004
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I can accept the loss of pokevision and the like. I didn't use them, felt like cheating.

I'm still pretty miffed at the loss of footprints and their suspicious lack of the word "temporarily" when saying they removed it.

Tracking and battling are the only true strategic/skill based elements of the game since Pokemon catching can result in random failure even in optimal situations ( I've had Pokemon break out and run away on a curved excellent ultra ball throw with berry in effect) and the battle system is in need of some major overhauling.

If they don't intend on fixing tracking soon they're gonna start losing fans fast as people get bored of playing a slot machine you have to walk around to play.
 

Clankenbeard

Clerical Error
Mar 29, 2009
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Elvis Starburst said:
Aggieknight said:
You had me until you straight up lied about this one. Mewtwo is in the game along with the other legendaries, but has data shown it has no catch rate right now. So it's probably not able to be caught at the moment.
I foresee an excellent money-making strategy here for Niantic. Set up a bidding section on their website for parents to try to outbid one another for a 5-minute windows of Mewtoo to show up at theirs kid's party coordinates. And then sit back and watch the cash roll in.

Does anybody know if there is a mandatory monetary contribution for businesses that are requesting to be set up as Pokestops? Or is all just free if you have something interesting to show on the Pokestop icon? A business near me (Precision Flamecutting) made the cut (literally) because they have a neat flame-cut metal sculpture out front of their building.
 

Aggieknight

New member
Dec 6, 2009
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Elvis Starburst said:
Aggieknight said:
You had me until you straight up lied about this one. Mewtwo is in the game along with the other legendaries, but has data shown it has no catch rate right now. So it's probably not able to be caught at the moment.
Or I straight up typo'd when getting the pikeman named mouth past autocorrect. Along with every other pikeman in my post.
(AC errors in that sentence intentionally left in place)
You're right, meowth. Not mew two.
 

Maze1125

New member
Oct 14, 2008
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Kaimax said:
Clankenbeard said:
Can you still track Pok?mon now (without any feet indicators) based on their relative position in the list? Like I want "THAT one". I walk one direction and "THAT one" shifts down in the list. So, I turn around and walk the opposite direction until it shifts back up. Eventually, I can home in on the one I want. Does this still work?
Yes, it still works.
The Tracker works like this, Top left means it's closer, while bottom right means further.
Nope, not true at all. You just got lucky.

This video has clear examples of the nearby list not matching in anyway with the pokemon nearby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIdI53krdSA
 

COMaestro

Vae Victis!
May 24, 2010
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Sheo_Dagana said:
Kaimax said:
Clankenbeard said:
Can you still track Pok?mon now (without any feet indicators) based on their relative position in the list? Like I want "THAT one". I walk one direction and "THAT one" shifts down in the list. So, I turn around and walk the opposite direction until it shifts back up. Eventually, I can home in on the one I want. Does this still work?
Yes, it still works.
The Tracker works like this, Top left means it's closer, while bottom right means further. I managed to track my Pikachu when it was still bugged. It was actually harder as there were only 3 mons at that time, 1 pikachu and 2 rattatas. I just walked east first until the Pikachu actually was gone from the tracker, tried walking the opposite direction made it appear on the tracker again. Finally found it when I was walking to the west of my location.

Walk into one direction while viewing the whole list of nearby pokemons, and observe how far or close the pokemon that you want from the upper left spot and just pray while you're doing this that you have enough time before it despawns
It doesn't work for everyone. The position of a Pokemon on the Nearby list was never a great indicator of how close you were to it... hence, the feet. Just because the Meowth I'm chasing drops down to second doesn't mean I'm getting further away, it may mean that a newer, closer Pokemon spawned. I tried to chase an Ivysaur down this morning on my way back from work (he suddenly appeared in my top three so it's not like he despawned) and had no luck trying this method. Pokemon appear within a certain radius, and my following the feet, it was pretty easy to track them. Once you understood how the radii worked, my friends and I had no trouble finding whatever we were after.

In fact, in my area, Pokemon that aren't even on my list appear, and I'm not just talking about a rare or uncommon Pokemon or two, that happens, but Venonats and Drowzees that weren't on my nearby list at all showed up before any of my top 3. Hunting is borked until Niantic decides to fix it, which is annoying, because that's how I was having fun with the game... hunting Pokemon with my friends and working together to find them. Sure you can still catch Pokemon, but you basically have to hope you stumble across it. I mean come on, the trailer featured hunting down Pokemon as one of the main draws of the game. The tagline is "Gotta Catch 'em All" not "Hope You Stumble Across Most of 'em."

OT: If THEY say it was affecting their servers, well I guess I have no choice but to believe them. All I can say is that since the tracking feature stopped working, I was having a much smoother time playing the game, despite Pokevision. Hell, Pokevision didn't even work most of the time, and when it did, it didn't show you ALL of the Pokemon that could appear; many a Bulbasaur slipped through the cracks for me. But at least it was something. I'll take them at their word for now that it was interfering with their work, but if they start selling items like "PokeRadar" that works for a half hour to give you exact locations, I'm going to be pissed.

Also, one thing this recent patch doesn't mention is increased capture difficulties. Myself, everyone I know that plays, and lots of people on Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter are all complaining that it suddenly got a LOT harder to capture Pokemon after the update. They keep breaking out of balls, which means a lot more are now running away. Plus, no longer getting an EXP bonus for landing a 'Nice', 'Curve ball', 'Great', or 'Excellent'? Bleh.
Yeah, I've really noticed the increased capture difficulties too. Even something as weak as a CP 53 Weedle is suddenly breaking out of two Pokeballs before getting caught. That's just ridiculous. I think they really upped the difficulty for the cheaper to evolve ones, Weedles and Pidgies, to reduce the ability for easy leveling they provide.

Also, they still give the 10 XP bonus for Nice throws, though they did get rid of the Great and Excellent bonuses. For no good reason that I can explain.
 

Saltyk

Sane among the insane.
Sep 12, 2010
16,755
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Detroit said:
Saltyk said:
I just want the battery saver option back. It was apparently removed as well. Why? I tended to keep it on in my pocket at work so I could hatch eggs, but not the game likes to do stuff in my pocket (nothing too bad, but it might click on a nearby Pokemon or open the menu) and it kills my battery even faster. Without battery saver, it basically makes egg hatching way more difficult for me.

For the record, I could easily hatch 2-3 2 Kilometer eggs or a five kilometer egg each day at work.
No wonder I couldn't get my saver to work. I carried a portable charger with me and thought that was interfering with it somehow. I wonder how much it'll cost to hatch my 10km egg now.
That might be an issue with your phone. Does it still have the battery saver option on your menu?

COMaestro said:
Saltyk said:
I just want the battery saver option back. It was apparently removed as well. Why? I tended to keep it on in my pocket at work so I could hatch eggs, but not the game likes to do stuff in my pocket (nothing too bad, but it might click on a nearby Pokemon or open the menu) and it kills my battery even faster. Without battery saver, it basically makes egg hatching way more difficult for me.

For the record, I could easily hatch 2-3 2 Kilometer eggs or a five kilometer egg each day at work.
What did they do to the battery saver? I still have a battery save option in the settings, my screen still dims when I turn it upside down and it tracks my movement just fine (or at least as well as it ever does).
It seems they removed the options from phones other than Androids. I have no idea why they did that. Sure, it bugged out on me and sometimes I had to restart the app to be able to do anything, but that was far less annoying than not having it so that I either can't hatch eggs or have to deal with the app killing my battery even faster (while opening menus and whatnot in my pocket).
 

Yopaz

Sarcastic overlord
Jun 3, 2009
6,092
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Kibeth41 said:
Hide and Seek is terrible if you already know where everyone is hiding.
But Hide and seek where you have to search an area of 31 square kilometers in less than 15 minutes with no clues of where you're going is fun and fair, right? Add in that the target you are supposed to find can be within places that have restricted access (construction sites, factory areas) or even on the ocean (I caught a Ponyta while riding the ferry, a friend caught something in the middle of the ocean when his GPS was acting up). Also you seem to have misunderstood something essential. Pokemon Go wasn't supposed to be hide and seek. It was supposed to be a GeoCaching game which is a kind of game where you know the coordinates, approximate coordinates or hints about where you are supposed to be going. This update removed the tracking feature and thus it is no longer a GeoCaching game, but a hide and seek. Well, we can still use Pokevision to make this into the game the developers wanted to create, right? Oh, they prevented that without fixing the built in functionality first.

I supported the third party functionality because the game was broken. I would have considered it cheating if the game offered a suitable replacement. A game should not be made difficult by poor design. You still had to navigate with Pokevision, you didn't get an arrow leading you straight to it so it was still in the spirit of GeoCaching. Removing any kind of tracking is not in the spirit of GeoCaching, even Hide and Seek has some defined rules about where you can find someone hiding.

Oh, and the social aspect that you said Pokevision removed? It was still there. But rather than people saying "There's a ponyta within a 100 meter radius" they would say that there's a "ponyta around that corner if you haven't caught it already".

They made some cosmetic changes to the game while removing important functionality. There's no way of defending this update.
 

Detroit

New member
Dec 22, 2012
93
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Saltyk said:
-Saver snip-
Whoops, thanks for the heads up. It got turned off after the update, turned it back on again.
Gonna try it out today, wonder if it's still buggy like ya said. My game would partially freeze up as well sometimes.
 

Yopaz

Sarcastic overlord
Jun 3, 2009
6,092
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Kibeth41 said:
Yopaz said:
Kibeth41 said:
Hide and Seek is terrible if you already know where everyone is hiding.
But Hide and seek where you have to search an area of 31 square kilometers in less than 15 minutes with no clues of where you're going is fun and fair, right? Add in that the target you are supposed to find can be within places that have restricted access (construction sites, factory areas) or even on the ocean (I caught a Ponyta while riding the ferry, a friend caught something in the middle of the ocean when his GPS was acting up). Also you seem to have misunderstood something essential. Pokemon Go wasn't supposed to be hide and seek. It was supposed to be a GeoCaching game which is a kind of game where you know the coordinates, approximate coordinates or hints about where you are supposed to be going. This update removed the tracking feature and thus it is no longer a GeoCaching game, but a hide and seek. Well, we can still use Pokevision to make this into the game the developers wanted to create, right? Oh, they prevented that without fixing the built in functionality first.

I supported the third party functionality because the game was broken. I would have considered it cheating if the game offered a suitable replacement. A game should not be made difficult by poor design. You still had to navigate with Pokevision, you didn't get an arrow leading you straight to it so it was still in the spirit of GeoCaching. Removing any kind of tracking is not in the spirit of GeoCaching, even Hide and Seek has some defined rules about where you can find someone hiding.

Oh, and the social aspect that you said Pokevision removed? It was still there. But rather than people saying "There's a ponyta within a 100 meter radius" they would say that there's a "ponyta around that corner if you haven't caught it already".

They made some cosmetic changes to the game while removing important functionality. There's no way of defending this update.
There are many ways of defending this update, actually. Because they didn't do much wrong.
They removed tracking, an essential feature for GeoCaching, and bonus XP and increase in capture probability for nice, great and excellent throws. They added... cosmetic things? My point is that they removed two important aspects of gameplay without adding much new. How do you defend it?

First of all. You seem to be thinking that I'm defending the action of tracking being removed, and saying it needs to stay out. No, I'm defending the action of a bugged feature being taken out until it can be reimplemented.
No, I am simply stating that you don't understand thaat this feature is essential.


It's like gosh darn. Almost as if programmers ACTUALLY do something and their job isn't just pressing the "fix bug" button to have everything hunky dory.
I know, I also know that removing a bug shouldn't remove essential features.

And you and others need to stop defending Pokevision as if it's at all comparable to the tracking feature.
It's not compareable, but unlike the built in tracking feature it is functional. I also explained that for a GeoCaching game it is within the intended purpose of the game as you still need to actually navigate based on coordinates. Removing tracking made the game completely random. This is not in the spirit of either GeoCaching or Hide and seek. I said this exact sentence in my last post, but you ignored it.

The tracking feature created a large part of THE ACTUAL GAME. As I said. It's a glorified version of hide and seek. But I guess it's more comparable to Marco Polo.
It's not supposed to be hide and seek, it's supposed to be GeoCaching. I explained the concept of that in my last post. Also if you play a game of Marco Polo and remove the Polo part all you're left with is a terrible game. Although, even with the removal of Polo you still have a defined area of where you can search so this is still worse.

But at no point in the game were you EVER to pinpoint exactly where EVERY Pokemon had spawned. That destroys the game. Don't try and rationalize it as not being cheating. If I did this shit in ANY OTHER GAME, then people would harp on about me breaking the rules.
No, but when I started to play you could come pretty close to this by using the in game mechanism.

As I said in a different thread. Every cheater thinks their situation is different. Because, it's not cheating if you try really hard to rationalize your actions to yourself so you don't look likenthe bad guy.
The game is not functional, yet they get people to pay money for it. I'd say that is cheating the customer. You don't have the customer pay for a broken game without expecting outrage. Disagree with me? Too bad, because Niantic obviously doesn't. They have issued refunds to customers that are pissed off at the update. They know they can't defend their update, why should you defend it? Their update broke the game. People have been called cheaters for fixing frame rate issues, FOV, texture bugs etc. You compare using Pokevision to using aimbots, wallhacks, GodMode, noclip and Action Replay/GameShark. Using Pokevision is more similar to using Walkthroughs and savescumming. I wouldn't defend the use of Pokevision if the game functioned as intended. This is because the game isn't hide and seek. I repeat it is NOT hide and seek.
 

Yopaz

Sarcastic overlord
Jun 3, 2009
6,092
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Kibeth41 said:
It was essential. The feature was causing server issues.
So you say. After the removal I get a lot more delay between hitting a Pokemon with the Pokeball until it actually registers that I've hit it. Well done on fixing the server issues?

It's not quite as essential as you're claiming.
The game is GeoCache. I've explained why this is an essential fewature numerous of times. After the removal of the feature it can no longer be referred to as a GeoCaching game. The removal of the feature changed the concept. It's kinda like adding zombies and weapons to Dear Esther. Sure, it's still playable, but it's a different game.

Okay I feel that most of your reply drags back to this assumption.
Because you still refuse to understand how important hints about location is when you are playing a GeoCaching game is. I've explained it numerous times and you stubbornly call it a hide and seek game where hiding in the middle of the ocean is fair game.

The entire basis of me defending this update from the very start is that this feature is coming back when it's fixed. I have not shifted from this stance. I do think it's an integral feature to the game, but it's better to have a playable game with no tracking, over an unplayable game with tracking.
Temporarily breaking the game is still breaking the game. I played it when the tracking was functional, when the tracking was bugged and when the tracking was removed completely. I can't see how you can claim it was unplayable before tracking was removed when I can't say that it's broken after it was removed, because honestly it is equally unstable now, but the new stability issues are slightly different than the previous stability issues, I actually hatched an egg while sitting on the coach because the connectivity issues had me running across town. Oh, and the catch rate issues and the XP issues that followed the update you completely ignored.

You, me, and all other players can handle playing the game without tracking or Pokevision until it comes back. My entire stance is that players need to stop being so whiny about Niantic fixing bugs and closing down cheats.
Until it is fixed we are no longer playing the GeoCaching game that was advertised, so yes, this is a big issue. Even if it is temporarily (with no set time point) the ENTIRE CONCEPT of the game has changed.

You're acting as if I'm fine with the fact that there's currently no way to track Pokemon. I'm not, but I understand the concept of necessity (which apparently a lot of players do not).
If you're not fine with it, don't defend the decision. You claim to understand the concept of necesseity, but as I said a GeoCaching game needs some sort of tracking feature to be a

And the removal of tracking is no excuse to use a third party site to give yourself a BLATANT advantage over most players.
Third party fixes are considered cheats by people who don't want to use them and by the developers. As I said you still need to navigate and find your way in order to catch Pokemon so it is in the spirit of a true GeoCaching game. It won't magically give you a Pokemon. It can also reveal if a Pokemon is in the middle of the ocean, which is something that happens a lot. I also never said it was comparable (you ignored that completely).

The game is entirely functional, so your statement about that is a blatant lie.
You said the game was unplayable prior to removal of tracking. That's a blatant lie too. I guess it's fine when you do it, but not when I do it. Besides I have explained this to you a coupole of times by now. GeoCaching NEEDS tracking to be a GeoCaching game.

Niantic don't get players to pay money for a F2P game with extremely uninvasive micro transactions (using currency obtainable in game). So that's two blatant lies you've made. Shows how unapologetically you're trying to paint Niantic as being really shitty, despite the facts.
I haven't said anything about the currency not being obtainable in the game. I have said that they earn money on micro transactions and that they have in fact issues refunds following outrage due to the update.
http://gamerant.com/pokemon-go-refund-request/
From the article:
The end result of these actions is that it is now much harder to figure out just how close any given Pokemon is while playing the game, and it?s a change that some gamers are angry about. Kotaku reports that some Pokemon GO players are now requesting refunds for their in-app purchases, citing the tracking changes in their complaints. A Reddit thread started earlier today contains many people reporting the results of their attempts to get a refund through either Google Play or iTunes and quite a few gamers appear to have been successful.
And
Both Apple and Google have short time limits for requesting a refund on an in-app purchase, but some players who made purchases weeks ago are reporting success by speaking directly to customer support instead of using an online form
This actually states that people outside the realm of the normal refund policy have actually received refunds on their purchases. You called it a blatant lie and look here, I can back up my claim.

And on a final note: A lot of whiners have lost sight of what they were complaining about to begin with. The complaints started purely because they removed the feature without confirmation that it was coming back. 3 days later, they confirm it, and people choose to continue bitching.
Yes, they have "confirmed" it. In a vaguely worded response giving no timeframe and no specific information. It's just a claim that they're going to make it better than ever. If that was a statement that was true even 20% of the time I would have supported every Kickstarter project. Vague promises isn't something I consider to be sufficient to be satisfied.

Considering that they also introduced issues with catch rate and XP bonuses I don't think it's petty to be dissatisfied about the update. It would be wonderful if you could stop quoting me out of context and ignoring huge chunks of what I am saying, because I am sick of saying that tracking is essential in a GeoCaching game.
 

Yopaz

Sarcastic overlord
Jun 3, 2009
6,092
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Kibeth41 said:
Yopaz said:
I'm too lazy for this.

The game is still playable. Stop throwing a temper tantrum until it comes back.

I got bored writing partway through a reply so I stopped. Frankly, this is taking so much time over a topic I really don't give too much of a shit about. Gamers ***** about everything, and this is just one of those times. I'll leave my progress in spoiler tags anyway:

No date was given because no company gives out dates which aren't solid. Niantic haven't hired a clairvoyant or an oracle to predict exactly when the new tracking system will be finished.

Removing the feature was a necessity. The tracking ran server side and tanked the servers, rendering the game unplayable for many. By the time it was removed, it no longer worked anyway.

Referring to the game as "hide and seek" has always been in reference to the game when it HAS tracking. As an argument against using Pokevision to cheat. It would be wonderful if you could stop quoting me out of context.

Yeah you can stop trying to defend the usage of Pokevision. as I've said before. "It's not cheating if you try really hard to convince yourself it's not."
You accused me of lying twice. I provided evidence for the statement you referred to as a lie and your response is that you're bored. You ignore large chunks of what I say and defend Niantic by claiming that they have made the game more stable.

I won't go into details about what you have said earlier, but this sentence is too wonderful to pass on:
It would be wonderful if you could stop quoting me out of context.
Read this sentence and ask yourself this: "Have I ever responded to Yopaz without removing large parts of his post?" I know the answer and I am fairly sure you do too. Not counting your first post I have included every single sentence of your posts.