The introduction of the 12k “Strange” Eggs has given me a new reason to fight the Rocket Bosses (Arlo, Cliff, Sierra). Prior to this, the various Shadow Pokemon that they doled out after beating them was nice, but usually the Shadow Pokemon I got were 1* or 2*, so they were useless to me. If I already have a good Pokemon (even non-shadow), I didn’t keep the Shadow. The Shadows Pokemon I have gotten have still been not that good, but at least now I have a chance at a good Pokemon in the “Strange” Egg. Granted, these are Dark and Poison, so the selection is limited so far. However, as long as these are 3* minimum Pokemon, the value is there. (Though my Fiancee just showed me a 2* Trubbish, which was worth about as much as a 2* Orange Floppy and Useless). Maybe a 91+ IV Grimer could be out there in the future. Grimer is at least one of the best gym defenders, so There are repeats from some of the 10k eggs (Larvitar, Absol, and Deino), so there is are precedents for repeats.

Speaking of 10k eggs, there are a couple of things I would like to see. First, enough of Feebas in the 10k eggs. I know it’s a point of contention amongst fellow trainers as well. 10k takes dedication of precious resources (incubators… even if the free one is still a resource that can be dedicated to another egg) and time spent playing the game (even through Adventure Sync). It takes a long time to get a 10k egg finished, even in the current (The Seasons Change: Part 2) discount in walking requirement. 10k should be a reward… not a let down. Every time I get a Feebas, it is a let down. It’s like… why did I just walk 10k for this? If anything, a 10k egg should have a decent reward. The majority of the other options for the 10k eggs are at least 1* Raids (Timburr, Klink, Absol, and Shinx have been seen in recent 1* raids) and/or rare Pokemon (Axew, Golett, and Deino are good examples) and that should be the requirement for a 10k egg. Put Feebas in 2k eggs which are mostly common (Wailmer being the exception in my experience) or otherwise long to evolve Pokemon (which ties Wailmer in at 400 candies). At least the agony of Feebas will be averted from 10k.

Similarly, Trubbish in 12k is a letdown. At least the others are in 10k (Larvitar in Adventure Sync eggs, Absol and Deino in regular 10k eggs) and the others (Sandie, Scraggy, Pawniard, and Vullaby) are not seen in the wild as of press time. Trubbish is Feebas of 12k. Let’s keep the long distance eggs worth the walk.

Another gripe, especially now with the new 12k egg (and its desirability in the forefront), is that we cannot delete unwanted eggs. More often than not, I have the full compliment of 9 eggs. I don’t walk with Super Incubators often, I save them for 10 and now 12k eggs. It’s not so bad with a 2k during the current (as of publishing) The Seasons Change: Part 2 Event and not so bad with a 5k. Problem is that then after that, spinning Pokestops becomes impossible. When we spin Pokestops, we get eggs if we have the spot more often than not. (The other problem with this is that no spins equals no gifts, which is an enjoyable part of the game. A future post will discuss this further.) Frankly, I want a 12k egg when I beat a Rocket Boss, and not a random egg. I think most players do. We can delete unwanted Pokemon and Items. Why not eggs? They can be just as unwanted.

Just a thought: 10k eggs get us 1* type Pokemon generally… how about 30k eggs giving out 3* types and 50k eggs giving out 5* types? Keep those rare, except for an initial introductory 30 and 50k egg, but at least those would make the game more fun to me. A chance at getting a 3 or 5 star type would make the length worth it to me. Just something different and fun.

I just got my 10th Best Buddy (Silver Medal). This is one I wanted to get as I like Darkrai, but there have been a few starts and stops to get others going as well. I put both Dark Pulse and Shadow Ball to make this the best it could be…

As was recently announced, some of the bonuses that have been part of the game since the current situation started will remain in the game after October 1 and some will no longer be in the game. No matter if you are familiar with them or not, I will go over them as things I like, things I am not sure about, and things I do not like and wish were not changed.

I like that the maximum number of Gifts than can be carried will remain at 20 gifts. On those days I am able to collect a lot of gifts (usually weekends and the occasional day off), at least the next day I can send out more the next day. I like sending out gifts as much as possible. I want to help my friends as much as I can and that is really the only I can on a regular basis.

Similarly, the number of openable gifts will remain at 30, which is good for those of us who cannot get out to too many Pokestops during normal travels. I need replenishment and gifts are one of the few ways I can get replenishment when I am.

Doubling the number of remote raiders from 5 to 10 per raid is a blessing. I know there were times where I wanted to invite people and so did a friend. We might not have been able to get everyone in. With this change, this allows more people in, which makes the experience better for all trainers, especially those who live in areas where raids are few and far between except for remote raids.

Giovanni coming back out in October will be fun. I enjoyed playing the quest and having a month long goal to try to get every month. Playing hide and seek with Giovanni was one of the highlights of the month.

Triple bonus for 1st Pokemon Catch of the day (usually the guaranteed spawn or the first Rocket Grunt Balloon) is a no brainer. So is the one free Daily Research and the increased distance to interact with Pokestops and Gyms. I like these ideas.

Remote trainer battles at Good (1 Heart) Friends is good to satisfy those Battle Another Trainer Daily Researches. I like this idea for that reason. It also allows for more PvP is a true no pressure situation where you have to win once in 5 times to move on and get rewards. There are rewards in trainer battles.

The jury is still out on “Pokemon habitats will increase and more Pokemon will appear in the wild”. Sounds great, but will I finally be able to get home spawns, like everyone else?

The jury is out on this “once a day, your Buddy Pokemon will bring you gifts from nearby Pokestops when you’ve nearly run out.” How many will I get? What is “nearly run out”? When will I get these? I cannot get to many nearby Pokestops, and therefore need my Buddy to find gifts most days. Otherwise, I will be able to only give out a handful. Not fair to me and other more rural players who cannot get out to Pokestops.

The jury is still out on this “incense effectiveness” thing. If home game incense goes back to the way it used to be, I will be very disappointed. I used to get no home spawns with incense before the current situation. Reading further, the 1 hour incense will remain, which is nice… but I would rather it be that 1/2 hour at home (not walking) and 1 hour while walking. I get bored after about 40 minutes with home incense. Making Home Incense 30 minutes is a good way to change the effectiveness of incense and reward walking (1 hour of effectiveness). As of now, this remains the only way I can get home spawn. If home incense is once every 5 minutes like I have heard, that will effectively kill home use of incense.

For those who like Go Battle League, the removal of walking distance is a plus. I don’t care.

Not a change yet, but the fact that remote raiders will eventually do less damage is a bad thing. For some of us, the only way we can win 5* and Mega raids is through remote raids. Making these raids harder by nerfing remote players will only serve to frustrate the more rural players even further.

Gifts have enough Pokeballs in them, IMHO. I want to keep my potions and revives on high replenishment rates as well. Also, maybe once in a while throw in some Super Incubators (see next point). Let’s make sure that we can keep up with Rocket Grunts and the future with Giovanni.

Pokestops should drop gifts 100% unless you are full up. I like that and it makes sense so that players know that when they no longer get gifts from a Pokestop, we have to give some out to our friends. That was a nice reminder to send gifts and I could stop and send and then get back out to play. Now it’s check in every so often and waste time and effort in seeing if I am full or not.

1/2 distance eggs should remain. Who wants to walk 10 k to hatch a Feebas? It’s not worth a 10 k egg. I got so used to the 1/2 distance it will be disappointing to not be able to get them going like I have become accustomed to. The 2 k egg Pokemon aren’t really worth 2 k much either. I wish there was a way to get rid of the eggs if we don’t want them.

Hopefully some day, Ex-Raids will come back. Those were fun. I got to see some people at them I didn’t see very often, but I knew were active in the communities I got them in. I saw some of my friends there I see often and got to enjoy time with them. I got to invite my now Fiancee to a couple on weekends when she was available as a part of a date and to introduce her to some of the people I play with on a regular basis. I would have liked to maybe get one from her to meet some of the community by her. We also got Pokemon that were not generally available in them.

With the recent Remote Raid Boom, many of us have been able to play with our friends at various gyms. I have hosted raids for people from various places that I have been and will continue to do so. I have participated in raids that others have hosted as well. I enjoy being able to host my friends when I go out and play at various places where I play. I have hosted a few raids from my house at the local gym to me a few times in the past. This is in spite of the raid costing me a Remote Raid Pass. Note that when I click on the gym by my house when there is an active raid, even if I don’t participate in the raid, I get a regular (orange) Raid Pass. However, if I am going to participate in the raid, I have to use the Remote (blue) Raid Pass. I do not understand this. My solution is the “Home Gym”.

The only benefit of the “Home Gym” is that a player does not need to use the Remote Raid Pass in order to complete a raid at that particular gym. If you can see a gym to get a daily regular Raid Pass, if you do not have one at the time, you can use that regular Raid Pass at that particular gym. Every player should have one gym where this is true. Players who do not have a gym in their screen should be allowed to “see” the closest gym to them while a raid is going on. If they choose to raid, they use an regular raid pass. If it’s a second or subsequent raid, a Premium (green) Raid Pass can be used as if it was close enough to use a regular (orange) Raid Pass. This would give the more rural players a fairer chance to get the various raid Pokemon without having to ask friends for remote raids, especially for the raids that players can win without other players. This also allows for all players to host their own raids, which is a major part of the fun of remote raids.

With the current COVID situation, Pokemon Go has made strides to become a game where we can at least play at home somewhat. Many of us still need to go out to spin a Pokestop, but at least we get gifts from buddies on a regular basis, a guaranteed home spawn every day, and a daily research among other changes. There are still some things than can be done to help all players, especially more rural players, to make this a game where we can play at home on those days when we don’t want to go out, but it will still be better to go out.

Playing a recent “Home Game” for an hour got me thinking of some things that can be improved in one way or another. For me a “Home Game” means that I throw an incense out and play for an hour at home based on the various Pokemon I get based off of the incense. I get a bunch, about 1 a minute with some minutes yielding 2 if I make a few first ball catches in a row. This is good for when I need a day off from walking and/or just don’t have the desire to go out for whatever reason. This is great since I only have one good spawn point by my house and that is at the corner of a main thoroughfare road. I know I have argued for this before, but every single player should get a reliable set of home spawns that come every so often during the day without the need for incense, daily spawn, daily/weekly researches, or any other means.

I have seen plenty of other people talk about their home spawns on various chat with people who are similarly situated in suburban areas. Everyone is surprised when I mention that I only get one home spawn a day, which is the spawn everyone gets when first checking into the game. It’s rather embarrassing to see other people brag on their home shinies and home 3* or better Pokemon, and I can’t even say that I have one.

I am surprised that since I live within sight of 4 Pokestops and a Gym, I figured I would get spawns all the time. After all, there are usually some spawns a decent distance from stops. I have seen spawns at a few spots along the side road that I take walks from home on. They are mostly centered on or near corners (my house is on a corner). I am not completely sure how many spawns that these spots get on a regular basis, but it is certainly more than what I get at my house. I have seen spawn sites miles from a Pokestop when I go along a natural trail I know of (which I am working on putting every 1/4 mile marker as a Pokestop, but it once was 4 miles between Pokestops along the trail and there were spawns along the trail).

Knowing this, I do not understand why I cannot get spawns at my house. The game should know where I live. After all, part of the game is having location on and I would imagine they can find patterns in where people live, work, play, etc… They should be able to find where players play and would be interested in having spawns. I had hoped with the expansion of the spawn points in non-urban areas would have helped me, but not at all. I may have mentioned this before, but I will continue to mention this until I get reliable home spawns.

I was told the other day about a Machop nest at a park I had not been before, but might go to again in the future for a change of scenery. So on the 6th day in a Machop Nest, the Shiny Gods relented.

I had a decent enough Community Day… got 10 shinies and a 93 IV. I didn’t play the entire 6 hours. I don’t have an affinity for Porygon other than it is a new Shiny, so there’s that. Also, I got my 2nd Shiny Bird today. Articuno joins Moltres as Shiny Birds.

How was yours? Comment below.

Lots and lots of new things going on. Some great, some good, some jury’s still out, some need to be called out.

Should be Great: Spawn Points Changes for the rural player (granted, those players who had their spawn sites widened out may disagree, but those are likely more urban players and they probably have a more robust amount of spawn points). I wish I could rate this great. It seems as though in many areas, especially the rural areas, that there are more spawn points. This is great news to balance the game out and let players who don’t have as many opportunities to catch in the past should (theoretically) have more. Note the key word in that sentence and read on.

Has to be Called Out: Spawn Points Changes (in my experience) A lot of people have benefitted and talk about new or more home spawns. I was hoping to get some home spawns with this improvement. However, I still get 0 home spawns without incense. Bitter Disappointment

Great: Less tiers in raids. Sometimes simpler is better. In this case, less tiers in raids is awesome. This makes more raids accessible for all players. 1* (and previously 2*) raids tend to be the smaller basic Pokemon which will help the newer players. Turning the 2* raids easier will make it easier to collect those basic Pokemon. Remember, the Newbie Quests include getting Gold Medals in the first few generations. Raids tend to favor those generations from what I can tell. This also allows for all raids other raids to be soloable for the veteran players. By the time a player can solo a 3* raid, those players are looking to enhance talent levels, which raids can provide. Former 4* raids are generally in that range. Also, veteran players can assist newer players in these raids knowing full well that a victory is not out of grasp. This leads to less wasted passes as well. The prizes are also kicked up a notch so 1* raids yield 2* prizes and 3* raid yield 4* prizes. Hopefully with this comes more raids, especially in areas where gyms are more spread out.

Great: Heatran made its triumphant return to 5* Raids. One of my favorites and I hope to get another good one to build up.

Jury’s Still Out: Mega Evolutions. Too new and I haven’t had enough first hand experience with it. Yes, check Leek Duck or your favorite Pokemon News site for more on this. It sounds neat, but I am not 100% sure of it yet. More as I play and see what this all entails. I have played a few and like what I see so far.

I just got Best Buddy #9 yesterday during the day and then got the last candy for Level 40 for my Kyogre that I call Johnny Canuck. This is my highest CP Best Buddy and is as of now #2 overall. #10 will be the gold medal and is estimated to be 160 hearts away. I also do need to find the buddy after so I can get “Buddy Ball” on it for when I walk it, as I call the Buddy Level 2 Catch Assist.

This will be a TWIP style for the last couple of weeks. There were a few other events in real life and Pokemon Go that I want to cover, but do not have a lot of content for an entire post.

Tropical Storm Isaias knocked out my cable (and therefore wifi) for 6 days plus between the 4th and 10th. I was only on Cell Phone Data at that time, and my data plan month starts the 3rd. So outside of some Pokemon play and checking in to tell people I am OK, just wifi free, I was conservative with data to avoid overages. I have a smaller plan, which works normally. I know people who had no power, which is even worse… so I am fortunate there. Just that we all know that the problems that we are individually experiencing are difficult and sometimes we do not see the bigger picture.

Orange Floppy and Useless (OFU) Community Day was in that time. Some of you will call it Magikarp Day. I went out to play and caught enough OFUs that I could have had a fish fry. Some were shiny. I don’t know stats, I don’t care. I did the $1 ticket since the rewards are worth much more than $1… not for any liking of OFU. Getting a couple of extra incenses and a poffin is worth more than $1 right there. That and I do get some fun out of the questline, so it is worth it. I even wore a pin the has a representation of OFU on it which says “I’m Useless” on it. Just in case there is ANY doubt, this was the worst Community Day I have been a part of, worse than Chimchar (and I can’t stand Chimchar either, but that’s another story) and worse than Turtwig (I got 0 shinies that day. I am not kidding). I am also saddened that the double evolution part of Community Day is now no longer a reality. Yes, OFU was helpful to the newer players for that research, but that’s what Spotlight Day or maybe a special like Snubbull Day is for. There was something wonderful about being able to get double evolved Pokemon finished on Community Day. Though OFU is a struggle at 400 to evolve.

There is one good thing out of all of this… now that we’ve had one 400, there is one 400 to evolve that deserves some spotlight since it gets (seemingly) no love. PUCKY FOR COMMUNITY DAY (Wailmer/Wailord). There, I said it. Why not? 5* raids around Pucky Community Day be Kyogre. Make it a whale festival. Let’s go for it and make it a hockey festival (Pucky was the Hartford Whalers logo, the Orca is part of the Vancouver Canucks logo) .Spotlights on your choice of Piplup (Pittsburgh) – though usually triple doesn’t work, Meowth/Persian (Florida Panthers). Psyduck (Anaheim), Teddiursa/Ursaring (Boston), Ponyta (the Calgary Flames have used a flame horse as an alternative logo), and Carvanha/Sharpedo (San Jose). Niantic, make it happen during the next hockey season. (I can dream, can’t I?)

As Unova Week ends, for those of us in the Northeast, was Bouffalant rarer than it should have been or is it just my bad luck or were my expectations just wrong? I was expecting to see a lot more than just 4 (and I hatched 2 of them). I am sure glad that they were more of a larger regional than just the NYC area that was originally posted. I had said I would get for 6 players if this proved to be a small area that Bouffalant was in (and proved to have more spawns than it did). I believe they all have scored one… or at least can score one very easily as they all live in places that have seen at least one Bouffalant that I have heard about. I hope this is around to stay like other regionals and not just a Unova Week thing.

I am looking forward to Heatran weeks as the featured 5*. I like Heatran and look for a compliment to the full powered 98 IV I have already. That and I look forward to another crack at a could Deinos. Maybe this time I will get a shiny? Time will tell.

Until next time, everyone… let me know what you think. Thanks for reading as always.