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This is on the money. Niantic made it harder and more frustrating to play their game, and people stopped playing it. They have utterly failed to understand what
by cheald 10y ago
This is on the money. Niantic made it harder and more frustrating to play their game, and people stopped playing it. They have utterly failed to understand what their playerbase wants, and people are falling off.
The maps really drove it into overdrive, especially with the presence of "nests", because it allowed people to figure out where they needed to be, and would then congregate there. By taking out the maps, Niantic has turned their scavenger hunt into a scratch-off lotto ticket - don't bother trying to plan or play with any strategy, just wander around aimlessly until your phone buzzes. Who wants to do that?
It's a shame, because at its core there is a compelling scavenger hunt that generated a truly unique social phenomenon, and it's very sad to see Niantic just piss that away. The game just isn't worth putting any effort into - they broke the effort-reward cycle.
- nathankleyn 10y agoIt's particularly aggravating playing it in a large city (for us London) where, without the maps as a guide, you're stuck wasting balls on common Pokémon incessantly because that's the only thing around. Add to that the fact that they made it, with a recent update, insanely likely for anything half-decent to simply run or be impossible to catch, and you have a recipe for declining interest in playing and paying to be bored.
- calsy 10y agoBut you are supposed to catch common pokemon, that's the quickest way to level up.
- bskap 10y agoAssuming your goal is to level up. A lot of people were playing for the collection aspect.
- ethbro 10y agoTrue, "Gotta level up" is a far less compelling motto.
- calsy 10y agoI don't think the motto is the 'foundation' for gameplay. Last I checked pokemon was also about battles.
- calsy 10y agoUm yes, its called 'evolving' your pokemon. Commons evolve into new high CP pokemon which fill up your pokedex AND give you high XP in the process.
- bskap 10y agoYes, but there's only one evolution track per pokemon (except Eevee which has 3 in gen 1). The optimal strategy for grinding experience is to catch a million pidgeys and evolve them all into Pidgeottos for the experience and then transfer them because Pidgeot isn't that powerful of a pokemon. The optimal strategy for building the pokedex is to catch enough pidgeys to get a Pidgeot and then you don't need to catch any more pidgeys.
- Thriptic 10y agoI think the game absolutely needs PVP / better gym mechanics and trading to survive. Right now the emphasis is 95% on collecting, which is why people are losing interest.
- vintermann 10y agoAnd it wasn't going fast enough for them? But maybe they didn't want it to go fast. Maybe it was supposed to be unfeasible to get a full set in a reasonable amount of time. This doesn't seem too unlikely if they want to implement trading at some point.
- fphhotchips 10y agoThat's nice and all, but it's not fun.
- Bahamut 10y agoI found plenty of rare Pokemon walking around while I was visiting London in late July, including a Dragonite.
- shreve 10y agoI was totally fine wandering around aimlessly until my phone buzzed, but they also took out battery saver mode. I never even found out about the existence of maps until they were banned. Removal of such a benign, yet helpful feature as battery saver mode is what made me quit.
- blahshaw 10y agoBattery saver mode was added back in recently, FYI. Though it still seems buggy. The app occasionally fails to wake after raising your phone.
- madeofpalk 10y agoBut Pokemon Go got popular before all the third party maps and tools came out.
- hrrsn 10y agoInitially, there was half decent tracking available inside the game, which was then killed off. Third party maps filled the void (but was admittedly less fun), which were then killed off again without tracking being replaced. This is entirely on Niantic.
- derefr 10y ago> By taking out the maps, Niantic has turned their scavenger hunt into a scratch-off lotto ticket ... they broke the effort-reward cycle You're phrasing this almost as if Niantic wanted there to be third-party mapping apps in the first place, and then changed its mind. The game Niantic released doesn't have mapping, and didn't intend to have an open API. This can be read as an implicit statement that the game design that Niantic thought people would enjoy playing, doesn't involve knowing where pokemon are. Presuming there was at least one actual game designer involved in creating the game, there's likely already some sort of effort-reward cycle built into the game that doesn't involve mapping. It might not be one you like playing, but that probably means that you were not the audience Niantic designed (and playability-tested) the game for.
- SmirkingRevenge 10y agoThey do seem to have a thing against unsanctioned map apps/enhancements. It was true in Ingress as well. I always assumed it was because they wanted to distance themselves from anything that could be construed as enabling some kind of stalking behavior - or at least construed as "too much" stalker-enabling (Ingress is already pretty stalker-enabling without map enhancements - but the map enhancements definitely make it many times more effective). If that was at all a reason for their reticence to create capable ingress mapping tools, it must be doubly so for PGO - a game that will attract many more minor age children than Ingress.
- mahranch 10y ago> almost as if Niantic wanted there to be third-party mapping apps in the first place, and then changed its mind. Didn't they though? At the very beginning of the game, you had footprints you could track and use to "hunt" down nearby pokemon. They took it out because it was hurting their servers. Maps allowed similar hunting. I would say that Niantic did in fact, change its mind.
- AndroidTim 10y agoI see what you mean but that's partially true but not entirely correct. Yes maps were not part of the original design but neither was the current system. You see The beta users had a very good indication where Pokemon were. In fact they had a superior system to even the 3 step tracking. They had the distance away from a Pokemon displayed in METRES! That would have been amazing. So the audience Niantic designed and "playability tested" didn't have the piece of crap tracking we have today. Who needs a map if u got descent tracking. Dude WAKE UP from your delusion it had nothing to do with design and targeted audience. It was all about saving BAND WIDTH.