Pokemon GO recently added a highly requested feature to its raid mechanic through an update, though fans have criticized the timing of the update due to the continued controversy surrounding the game. It's been a strange month for the highly popular mobile title. While the game has enjoyed sustained success, even through a pandemic which forced the world to stay home, the fanbase has been fed up with recent changes to the Pokemon GO experience, including the popular Remote Raid items.
Last month, Niantic announced major changes to the Remote Raid item in order to get players to continue going out to these actual locations. However, by making the items more expensive and putting a limit on how many can be used, the developer seems to have alienated many of its players, especially those using them for accessibility reasons. The pushback has been very loud, with many boycotting the game, starting petitions, and some Pokemon GO players have even opted to sell their accounts entirely.
While Niantic has not addressed the issue head on, it has continued to evolve the experience in the weeks following including finally adding a new feature to raids that fans have been asking for. Fans playing Pokemon GO will now see a UI change when looking at the Raids list, indicating how many players are currently in the lobby waiting for it to start. The change makes it much easy to pinpoint active raiders, as before, players would have to click into each raid to see if there was anyone waiting or not. Unfortunately, as much as players wanted this feature, it doesn't appear to have changed the minds of the community at large.
Response to the tweak indicates that it may have launched too late, as many players are still outright angry at the Remote Raid changes. Over on the Pokemon GO subReddit, a user named Peepingvaleya joked that the change was made now that Niantic was able to afford the feature after the price increase for remote raid passes. Others joked that the update now allows them to see how many nearby gyms have 0 people raiding, while others lamented that it was still impossible to get to a raid that's a map length away in two minutes. However, the majority seem to agree that the update has come far too late and would have been received much better had the remote raid changes not happened.
The remote raid situation isn't the only raid controversy the game has seen recently. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, Pokemon GO players were convinced that Elite Raids were secretly nerfed. While these activities are highly challenging anyway, fans noticed that the recent arrivals of Regidrago and Regieleki have had their base catch rates lowered from the usual 6% to only 2%. While Niantic hasn't responded, players have remained frustrated as no matter what they do, the Pokemon will likely escape.
Pokemon GO is available on Android and iOS.