I paid for the ticket. My expectations were for at least double digit shinies per day – 20 on day 1 with great rates and 10 on day 2 with good rates, great raids, good times with friends and my Fiancee, and the days being worth the ticket. In many ways, it wasn’t. For the record, I played hardcore for 14 hours of the 16 where I was walking around with some resting and the other two were lunch where it was catch what I can. This focuses on the things in Niantic’s control.
Let’s get this first point out of the way… it was not even close to a good shiny weekend. I got 10 total, which is better than 2 years ago, but is certainly disappointing at best. 2 of these really doesn’t count since one was a hatch (Galarian Ponyta) and the other was a new to me Kyogre. Both of these are not specific to the weekend. So really, down to 8. Of the new to the game shinies, I only got Numel. The only other new to me shinies I got were Galarian Weezing and Rufflet. Otherwise I got duplicates of Larvitar, 2 Mudkips (didn’t we just recently have a CD for this?), Wingull (which I evolved into another Riptide right away!), and Swinub. Yes, all favorites, but I was expecting to get others too. I do not know of anyone who found shiny Karrablast. Definitely an EPIC FAIL on this end. I was concentrating on mostly shiny – the only non-shinies I was clicking on were: Golett (rare), Bergmite & Vanillite (out of season and I know Vanillite is not common), and Galarian Mr. Mime, Torkoal, and Tropious (Regionals – more later!). I would believe that a lot of others who are not in the regions where these mons are found played similarly. After the collection challenges, I focused on the known shinies. For a pay event, it should be RAINING shinies. I sometimes get more shinies on Community Day, which is about 20% of the time I played concentrated over the weekend. I am hearing that others experienced miserable rates. This certainly should not happen.
I was also very disappointed in the handling of the incense. Yes, it was great that the incense was back to full strength and then some for ticket holders. There were problems aboud though. City hour had no regional. Galarian Weezing, though rare, is not a regional. Klink, though a great T1 raid, is not a regional. Galarian Darumaka (7 k eggs) and Pancham (12 k eggs) were curious choices at best. I know I hatch enough from those eggs that they are at least semi-common for me. Also, the 45 seconds per spawn was way too fast. I know at least 10 times I missed a desirable incense mons (Axew, Galarian Mr. Mime, Tropius, Torkoal, Unowns) since I didn’t recognize them right away and they despawned before I got a chance to identify and click on them. There was also multiple times where a lesser desirable mon and a desirable incensed mon were stacked and the lesser desirable mon was selected first. Then Sunday’s incense was very undesirable. I could count on one hand the number of the more desirable Pokemon on one hand each. So, maybe 5 Tropius, Unown, Torkoal, etc… I was hoping to have a full chance at getting a good one of each, but that was disappointing.
The raids were overall better than average. Having Axew around was really great. Having the new Nihilego around was fun. It made the second day different and fun. I wasn’t much of a fan of having Groudon around, especially considering that we get two raid Wednesdays with Groudon versus only one with Kyogre. Who’s bright idea was it to put the middle Alolan starters in Tier 3? Those should never have been out in the first place and were a gigantic distraction for me. They displaced more desirable raids and getting invites from them took my eyes away from what I wanted to do a few times. Even if on Day 1, it was just T1 and T5, that would have been fine.
The regionals should have been shiny. I was clicking on them as I saw them to try to get a few extras to see if I could get a good one now or later in trade. At least give us a chance to get a shiny and some glory there as well.
Friends and I were wondering, where’s Relicanth? The other Hoenn regionals were around and so it seemed very strange not having the other one around. This could be part of the grand finale plan, but it just seemed odd.
The Collection Challenge, much like the Alola to Alola Challenge was WAY too easy. Like I was able to finish in 50 minutes total actual time after factoring in wait time between environments. When I saw that it was spaced over the two days, I was thinking I would need them both to finish and was not concerned, except for maybe one uncommon per environment, like usual. I was surprised the first time through that with some minor concentration on what I needed, it was over quick. Maybe I shouldn’t be complaining too much, but I would have liked a bit of a challenge.
The choose your own adventure was fun. I chose exploring since it fits me the best, though catching would likely have been fun as well. The biggest problem I have is that there was no real reason to challenge oneself other than… stickers… STICKERS! Frankly, I don’t see the big deal over stickers. I would have liked to have seen tiered rewards so those of us who chose the tougher path could get better rewards. I don’t consider stickers to be a better reward. I would have also liked commemorative medal in my collection. Something that would be a nice reminder of the day I had. Stickers are not it. Hopefully this will be back in other events, tuned up to give better rewards.
Hopefully the grand finale will be worth it. We shall see come August.
Moose's Pokemon Go Blog 