Stufful Community Day was yesterday. I was unimpressed.
Yes, a brand new Pokemon is great. We’re all on even footing and any shinies are new shinies. I like getting new shinies. It also is a cuter Pokemon and attractive to the younger/family set (not that I care), though Bewear looks like a person in a bear costume. Good on Niantic for planting 100,000 trees in honor of those of us who finished 5k walking. The bonuses were fire. However, these few positives are much outweighed.
First, the 3 hour slot is not good. I liked the 6 hour slot much better. It gave more players a chance to play in the way they chose, be it that they were free all day or not. I do know at least one person who could not play at all due to the time slot. I imagine there are many others in the same situation. I played for 5 hours on a 6 hour Community Day normally, taking an hour for lunch around 1PM. I also took time to refresh and renew with friends during the 6 hours. The social aspect (which Niantic is pushing now) was helped greatly since during the 6 hours I could stop a while and not feel like I lost a significant amount of the allotted time. I enjoyed playing relaxed and not worried about if I was going to miss out on a great Stufful .I didn’t feel like I could stop playing much during the game to refresh without losing chances at a good Stufful or getting the amount of candies needed to get a couple good Stuffuls to Beware and to at least L40. The fact that this was a brand new Pokemon did not help at all with the negative feelings. I would give up a lot of the other bonuses other than 2x catch candy (this time since it was a new Pokemon) for 6 hours. (For a Pokemon that has been out a while which has the usual 125 among two different evolutions 2x dust or XP would be just fine). I felt like the extra bonuses were all window dressing to cover for the lack of time. FOMO is not the way to play this game. I was also very fortunate to play in a park environment where there are plenty of stops and places to go. I can only imagine for the more rural players who don’t have a reliable area with lots of stops and spawn points. Plus with the nerfed incense, that makes playing the game even harder on CD on days where the weather is sub-optimal.
The player rewards for the 5k challenge were extremely underwhelming. Cherubi have been plentiful in the wild during this stretch, so it was not much of a reward. Cherubi is a common daily field research reward during Sustainability Week. So it’s not like they were uncommon during this timeframe for the challenge. If they were overall more plentiful, they would be a starter type, at least by my definition. What about the missing in action two from the Collection Challenge – Weepinbell and Gloom? If not them, at least 5 different Pokemon so this way we could have a fun variety – even if they were all starters? Another thought that was given to me, how about Cherubi, the two Cherrim, then the MIAs from the Collection Challenge… or two of other Sustainability related – Trubbish and Grotle that are high stardust.
The special move is absolutely useless. I looked and Drain Punch is rated with Tackle is 4.7 damage worse in raid and 2.4 damage worse in PvP (for those who care about PvP) at L35 than Superpower. YIKES! I thought Special Moves were supposed to be great moves.
I am thrilled that some new trees were planted, but 100,000 trees worldwide seems a little short of the mark. I feel cheated in a way since I am 99.99% sure that enough people walked 5km well before I even started out for the day. If this did not happen by the time Japan finished their day, I would be surprised. In doing a little research on this, it costs 1 Euro per tree with the group they have partnered with. 100,000 Euros is significantly less than they have given to other projects that benefit only certain portions of society.
Wailmer and I would like to have a word with the CD selection team as well. Wailmer has been out for a long time and has not had very much in the way of much recognition throughout the game (at least what I have seen). Wailmer is still the only 400 candy/1 km walking per candy Pokemon that has not had a Community Day. This new Pokemon got one on its debut. Why? Wailmer is cute too… who can resist that smile?
Overall, Stufful Community Day was C-/D+ territory. Too many things going on negative for me to give it a better grade.
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