What the heck is Niantic doing? Nests removed, trackers removed.

[Neltharion83]

So yesterday i used fastpokemaps to check how the nests are doing because someone told me that the new nests are not working anymore. The nests were rotated just a few days ago.

One amazing new nest appeared just a few days ago, what used to be a mankey-nest turned into an eggsecute-nest. I wanted to farm it this month because exeggutor is such a strong arena pokemon and i do not have one, i wanted to farm several of these, and enough candy to power up the best ones.

So i scanned yesterday, and all nests in my city were gone, only random pokemon everywhere, no trace of a nest anywhere. Now i wanted to check if they fixed it and returned the nests. Fastpokemap tells me that there was another security update and many trackers got banned once again, fastpokemap is down until further notice.

This sends a clear message and its not a good one. They do not want us to farm rare pokemons at amazing nests. They want us to stay home and play something else, something other than pokemon go, or maybe camp out at lure modules.

So the most up-to-date info i have is that for the first time ever, they removed ALL NESTS, so the concept of going to new locations to farm specific rare pokemon is REMOVED FROM THE GAME, and i have no way to see if they changed it back, because now they messed with the trackers again. Without giving us an in-game alternative.

So thats it. Unless they fix this, i am no longer playing, they lost me. This comes after they lost a few friends of mine, because these friends are either app developers for iOS/Android, or they like to use custom apps, operating systems, or cryptography. So they have rooted phones for reasons other than to cheat at a stupid game.

First they outright kicked out a bunch of players for the offense of using the hardware they purchased in the way they want to. In the case of app developers, a rooted/jailbroken phone is a must, otherwise you cannot test your custom apps that obviously do not yet exist on the official platforms.

And now they pissed off anyone who likes to visit nests to catch rare pokemon, including me.

Its no surprise that the game is going down, it seems like the idiots at Niantic are running it into the ground on purpose. As a guy who at this point only needs rare pokemon, with the nests gone and the trackers gone, its broken to the point of not being playable.

I regret spending so much time and 40 euros on that stupid game, with the shitty way they treat their players, fans and customers, they made me regret it.

 

[VisualJae]

Rage posts never go anywhere positive, so rather than deleting this whole thing (you seemed to have put in a great deal of effort to rant), I'll make a few points.

1. I know of fastpokemap. Am I surprised there are issues with it interacting with Niantic? Not. At. All. Did no one learn from the original PokeVision? We already know an in-game tracker is being beta tested in San Francisco.

2. No offense to anyone who spends a great deal of time programming apps for phones, but I'm positive, at least from a game design perspective, that Niantic won't care if you can't play with your rooted/jailbroken phone. You're not in the majority and therefore priority won't be placed on catering to your needs.

3. If nests are gone, so be it. As long as wild diversity is altered so there is excitement in discovering something new. It's not the end of the world. Compare hunting down specific Pokémon to a loot-hunting game. You get some control, but not total control. Your fate is heavily influenced by RNG.

And in closing, quit if you're not having fun. That's how ALL games work. Don't play if you don't like it. No need to moan and groan.

 

[Neltharion83]

Interesting attempts at justifying it.

What they deserve is a player strike, everyone outside of san francisco should just stop playing or at least and more importantly stop spending a single cent until they fix the big problems.

Whoever wants truly random pokemon can continue playing.

Its not for me because the last content left for me was to track down rare pokemon that i still need or that are strong in the arena meta. So thats it, unless i get a working tracker, integrated into the app or third party, and that tracker shows me that the nests are back and/or that its possible to actively hunt down rare pokemon, i am out of here and officially on strike.

 

[Flowerchild]

i am out of here and officially on strike.

okay cool good to know. ^_^

seriously, Jae's right. Calm down - if you don't like the game you're perfectly welcome to stop playing. If you want to have a civil discussion about what you dislike about the game, I think plenty of people here would be willing to participate in something like that. Calling for a boycott of the game and saying what Jae's doing is "attempting to justify it" doesn't make you come across as someone who wants to have a real discussion here. Since this is an active section, there clearly are people who still enjoy the game despite the changes.

 

[Iceman3k]

In my honest opinion, all of these trackers and spoofers literally ruin not just the point of the game, but the game in general. Additionally, VisualJae makes a valid point.

This game was made for the sole purpose of exploration and seeing what's out there. I've been doing it naturally the whole time since I don't believe in using third party apps or tools to make it all easier or sugar coated. Even to this day, I enjoy playing on my time off, even if there is a Squirtle on radar that taunts me and doesn't spawn. When I hear about nests changing, I go to whatever Parks are in my part of the state, to see what I can find. That's what makes it exciting for me. Going somewhere I haven't been, but is reachable by my limitations since I catch the bus.

If you or anyone else want to do anything want to just rely on cheating (you read that word correctly, CHEE-TEENG) by trying to instantly pinpoint from using multiple third party tools, then don't play at all. It becomes a total waste of time on your part.

 

[Neltharion83]

In my honest opinion, all of these trackers and spoofers literally ruin not just the point of the game, but the game in general. Additionally, VisualJae makes a valid point.

This game was made for the sole purpose of exploration and seeing what's out there. I've been doing it naturally the whole time since I don't believe in using third party apps or tools to make it all easier or sugar coated. Even to this day, I enjoy playing on my time off, even if there is a Squirtle on radar that taunts me and doesn't spawn. When I hear about nests changing, I go to whatever Parks are in my part of the state, to see what I can find. That's what makes it exciting for me. Going somewhere I haven't been, but is reachable by my limitations since I catch the bus.

If you or anyone else want to do anything want to just rely on cheating (you read that word correctly, CHEE-TEENG) by trying to instantly pinpoint from using multiple third party tools, then don't play at all. It becomes a total waste of time on your part.

If nests exist, i need no tracker, i know that i can just go to known nests and that i will find something by walking around in that area.

If they really removed the nests, its a different story. It means any place is as good as any other place. Going somewhere you have not been has no meaning anymore.

The trackers are merely a substitute for the footsteps we had early on and that got removed without replacement for server stability reasons, and for the new in-game system that is limited to san francisco.

So you focused on one of two issues, but my problem is that both issues compound each other. I can play without trackers if there still are nests to explore. But the nests are gone, that is just as significant, if not more significant. Now any park is as good as any other park.

 

[TheDeathryder]

Like Neltharion, I can live without trackers, though I won't go out of my way just to end up finding another rattatta/pidgey, if anything at all. If there is no tracking system, and no nests, meaning pure random spawns, I see no need to leave the pokestops since it would be just as likely a pokemon would show up there as anywhere else, and camping them out is boring. All I ever see anymore outside of nests is evo fodder, I don't even remember the last time I found a rare pokemon outside of a nest/egg. At least with fastpokemaps I had incentive to go to areas I normally wouldn't.

Think of it like the handheld games, why bother going through a route and massive cave puzzle when you're just as likely to find the rare/legendary pokemon just outside of town? The legendary was the reason you went out of your way to fly to the other side of the map right after getting the necessary HM to get through the puzzle.

 

[Maserati777]

I currently only have a few more Pokémon I can likely evolve by catching Pokémon in the wild around here before Winter comes in which case I won't be able to continue with the game until Spring since I won't be walking around outside anymore hatching eggs and at this point most of the Pokémon I have left to evolve/get I can only get from eggs.


I don't think any of the nests around here have changed, assuming they are nests. I'd love it if they replaced our Eevee spawns with Machop or Abra.

 

[azurile13]

I don't think nests were removed - I've certainly not seen such a thing happen in any rotation. More likely, the species was replaced by something so common that you didn't realize it was the new "nest" pokemon. Two cycles ago, I had a Shellder nest. Last cycle, I thought it was "removed," but on the most recent rotation, it has become a Voltorb nest. I don't think the nest ever went away. It probably was just replaced with something like a Rattata nest that no one noticed.

 

[VisualJae]

Yes, "migration" is the term I see used fairly often in some GO communities.

I know for a fact that nests have mass migrated a few times in NYC alone, the most infamous being a massive influx of Electabuzz in Central Park that lasted a few days(?) before they moved out and Nidoran♀ moved in. Prior to the Electabuzz, Central Park was dominated by Pinsir.

While I was there yesterday evening, Central Park was filled with Ekans.

Citi Field (Mets' baseball stadium for those who don't know) was notorious for being a Charmander nest for quite a while. Another recent migration had Squirtle move in. Today it's a Growlithe nest.

It's a good move on Niantic's part in getting people to explore new places. While my personal favorite Dratini hunting locations have not changed, I wouldn't mind visiting new docks, piers or beaches for Dratini. Staying in the same area day after day can get stale.

Regarding third-party trackers, remember the game is not designed for players to be able to see beyond a certain distance. The in-game tracker is broken, yes, we all know that and it sucks. But when it did work, it covered 300m. What you see on your nearby list is what you're supposed to be able to track. You're not supposed to be able to see what Pokémon you can drive your car to 10km away before the Pokémon despawns. That's not how the game is designed and intended to be played.

If you want to drive your car 10km to find a rare Pokémon, you're supposed to do it through pure discovery on your nearby list. There is excitement in randomly spotting a rare Pokémon on your nearby list and experiencing the adrenaline rush as you figure out where it is. Using a third-party tracker completely shatters that experience because you cut out the random discovery part and the work required to find the Pokémon.

This goes for nests, too. You don't "need" any third-party trackers when looking for specific Pokémon of a nest. But there is the same discovery aspect of coming across a nest in the first place. You can't replace this experience using third-party tools.

 

[Neltharion83]

I think i will visit some nests to see if maybe the trackers gave wrong information prior to going down. That is a possibility.

Nests rotate every month, sometimes its 5 or 6 weeks, sometimes some nests are unaffected by one of the rotations.

When the trackers showed truly random pokemon where the nests should be, it was just 4 or 5 days after the most recent nest rotation.

When a truly rare pokemon shows up in your nearby list and you know for a fact that you cannot cover the entire area in 15 minutes, its not excitement, its frustration, so i just try to actively ignore that nonsense.

Its Niantic saying:

If our app would work as intended, and if we would not despise our customers, you would now know where to walk and your chance of getting that rare pokemon would be high. But we at Niantic despise our customers and the app is incomplete, so we will tease you with that nearby rare pokemon that you will most likely not find in time. The only customers that we at Niantic respect are the ones that happen to be in San Francisco.