Pokemon Go: Looking Silly In Public For Pokemon

[commandercool]

Has anybody else tried this trainwreck high-maintenance, low-function non-game thing yet?

Ask me again in three days I guess, but right now Pokemon Go is wedged firmly in the "I wish I could recommend this but I really, really can't" category. It just doesn't work. Server uptime is more off than on. The AR on my phone just isn't functional despite meeting all hardware and software requirements. The one gym I've tried to fight just glitched out and crashed every single time I was about to KO one of their Pokemon. Items are worthless because the second you equip one the server crashes and consumes your item but doesn't give you any effect out of it. 10% of the time when you catch a Pokemon your game locks up. It constantly forgets your settings and turns the music and sound effects back on when you have them set to off. Etc.

It's so frustrating to play that I recommend avoiding it like the plague until an update comes out and hopefully fixes things, or they get their servers actually up to par with the traffic, or anything really. It's effectively just a super-simple grindfest, but the social elements plus the collecting element do make it fun in theory. It's fun to compare which cool rare Pokemon you have with your friends. But it just seems like it was released in a barely-functional beta state or something. Fingers crossed things get fixed soon because I really do want to enjoy this game. And hey, if nothing else it's caused me to take a lot more walks the last few days and that's cool.

[Sect]

So, after my sister and a guy in my unit talked me into getting it, I ended up in a graveyard with my roommate hunting for Zubats and monuments. We came across this guy, playing with his smartphone, and he gave us a knowing look.

[commandercool]

Graveyards are a cheat for this game because they count every other monument as a Pokestop. I was just at one trying to fight the broken, worthless glitch gym (there are actually two gyms, but one is already controlled by my team) and I ran into three other dorks wandering around with their phones out. Kind of fun.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

I went for a walk on a nature trail today, and found... nothing.

So far I'm really disappointed with the overhype. I'll keep playing, sure, but it's nothing like how it was made out to be. It's a complete non-game that is an extreme battery and data vampire (there should be ABSOLUTELY NO REASON for how intense that is), and you can't even participate in the fucking game unless you have your phone unlocked and on (the "battery saver" is utterly worthless), which means you constantly have to be walking around, staring at the thing.

If I can run my GPS with the screen off and still have alerts for when I should turn, there's no reason why I can't walk around with it in my pocket and have it go off when I'm near something/a Pokemon approaches instead of having to keep the screen on and sucking my battery dry.

This had (rather, HAS, if they get their shit together) so much potential and right now, it's buggy trash that should have been in beta longer. Right now it just feels like a shitty GPS with a random minigame built in. You can't even do battles outside of Pokemon gyms. That's like 75% of what Pokemon is to begin with!  Collecting and training and battling! This is just collecting and collecting and collecting.

[Ruka]

I think my main complaint is the high battery cost. It even makes a dent in my Xperia z3 compact.

I did see the version number, and it looks like it's still technically beta. Make of that what you will.

[commandercool]

Fucking christ. So I just walked down the block to a gym on the corner, battled it, game glitched out when I won and crashes. Restarted, did it again, game glitched out. Again, game glitched out. I sat there for 20 minutes hacking away at it over and over and over and it's just an invincible gym that can never be captured apparently. So keep that in mind, once you have a gym you just win the game because it's impossible to ever capture. The core mechanic of the game literally doesn't work. Ugh.

Ran into literally ten other players in the few blocks between me and the gym, which honestly is super cool, but I wish we had, you know, a game to bond over rather than literally nothing.

[Moogs Parfait]

Servers are currently doing fine for my area it seems. I saw at least 10 groups of 3-4 people wandering the art district & city hall area.  I caught a Bulbasaur near some dead dude's statue.  People already have 900+ eeveelutions guarding gyms.  I can't keep up 

[MatsuriSakuragi]

All of my anger aside, I'd really like to know when I can find a Clefairy. It's one of my all-time favorite gen 1 Pokemon, and I will work toward having the strongest Clefable in all of Indiana.

[Moogs Parfait]

It actually is location based. My area has Eevees as an uncommon, it's our best option besides the rats and birds. 

[MatsuriSakuragi]

I've caught a couple Eevees. Does that mean Clefairy aren't even in my area?

[Moogs Parfait]

Are you in a plains/grassland type area?  I am and I'm wondering how much that matters.  For Clefairy... Do you have a mountain nearby?  Maybe find a group for your city to ask.  Pokemon currently on the map are the same for everyone. I sent a group running to the Bulbasaur earlier.

[Jq1790]

While my phone refuses to get past the Niantic logo, I did read up just a moment ago that Clefairy are only available at night, so there's step 1.  As for locations, nothing popping up yet that I can give you but if anything does pop up I'll edit the post or post a new one or something.  It could just be rare.

[OverlordChirei]

I've caught a couple Eevees. Does that mean Clefairy aren't even in my area?

remember to go to mt. not-moon on monday night and you may see clefairy dancing around a moon stone

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Also, is there any other way to level up your pokemon than just... collecting the same fucking pokemon over and over and over and transferring them one candy at a time?

[Moogs Parfait]

No it's like other mobages where you feed dupes to each other.  But for random pokes on the field I think catching better ones is better than spending stardust. I saw an out of context discussion that it was important to save star dust?

[MatsuriSakuragi]

I mean, you have to spend stardust to feed them anyway, right? I don't really understand the system yet.

Just got back from a late-night walk to the grocery store for a couple things I needed. Managed to catch a few Pidgeys (which gave me enough candies to evolve one to Pidgeotto), and caught a Psyduck as well. No sign of Clefairy. Maybe Monday nights are, in fact, better?

[aUsernameIsFineToo]

AR mode runs like a PowerPoint on my Nexus 5X. The game also gobbles up RAM, killing every background app, even the ones that show a status bar icon.

This shouldn't be happening on a new phone, and it just shows how unoptimized the app is. What does work is the "going places to catch Pok?mon" part of it. So far I've caught 6 of 'em, playing casually. I'm probably not going to get into this game too much.

[Iced Fairy]

Gyms seem to be a huge waste yeah.  I've never had it not crash on me.  Then again giving up on gyms might be the best because the whales have gone mad already.  (760+CP Vaporeon???)  Just catching vulpixes and hoping for ninetails at my apartment.

[commandercool]

Yeah, that's the problem with every PVP game ever, whales just shit on the experience for everyone else. I'm not sure if just chipping away a bit at some ultra-buff whale Pokemon matters since, you know, gyms don't work at all so I can't figure out their mechanics, but it might? Maybe enough normal players working together can still matter? I don't know.

[BT]

They need to enable trading / battling ASAP. That is all. People have been asking for a Pokemon MMO for years and if this is what Nintendo finally put out then they're shitheads.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Ahahah I finally get to a gym and start a battle

And the game

Fucking

Crashes



what a tragedy of a non-game

[commandercool]

I think it can be fixed. I think it can all be fixed. But will it be, and in a timely fashion? All I know for sure is, it's making me real thankful for PAD and how functional it is and how much of a real game it is.

[OverlordChirei]

So I had to wait until this morning to start to see if a certain something was true.

Apparently it is.



Did anyone else have trouble putting their name in and have like everything be taken?

[MatsuriSakuragi]

I think it can be fixed. I think it can all be fixed. But will it be, and in a timely fashion? All I know for sure is, it's making me real thankful for PAD and how functional it is and how much of a real game it is.

I dunno man. I went to a different (enemy color) gym, and I totally STOMPED the Pokemon there, but it just stayed alive at 1 HP until time ran out. I beat the everloving hell out of that Drowzee and it just... didn't die. And the game lagged out. Fuck this.


Anyway, did about 2 hours (approx. 5 km?) of collective walking around. Today's notable catches/evos:

Wigglytuff, found at the coffee shop I walked to. Named her Powerpuff bc she's huge
Dratini, found near a bridge PokeStop.
Staryu, found near my apartment.

Eevee -> Vaporeon, who is just fucking massive at 600ish CP. Gonna take some gyms on with this baby. You know, once the goddamn game actually works as a game.


Data drain was not as bad as I had initially thought. Battery drain is fuckin' REAL though. 2 hours of play and my battery went from 100% to 15%.

God, this has SO much potential. I hate to see it go to waste.

So I had to wait until this morning to start to see if a certain something was true.

Apparently it is.



Did anyone else have trouble putting their name in and have like everything be taken?

My ign is MatsuriShirabe because Framboise was taken and I couldn't fit many other words with Framboise.

It's 2016. Why are there such small character limits for names, still? God.

Also nice find on the Pikachu. I haven't seen one since I first started, and I never had a chance to go out and find it.

[OverlordChirei]

My ign is MatsuriShirabe because Framboise was taken and I couldn't fit many other words with Framboise.

It's 2016. Why are there such small character limits for names, still? God.

Also nice find on the Pikachu. I haven't seen one since I first started, and I never had a chance to go out and find it.

Pikachu is apparently a "secret" that you can do at the start of the game. You have to literally get up off your ass and walk away from the 3 starters that appear three times. When they pop up again, a moment later a fourth blip will appear on the map, and it'll be Pikachu.

I had to be doodmaster3000 because like every name I tried was taken. Gonna be the best like no one ever was then vanish from the public eye.

Wigglytuff, found at the coffee shop I walked to. Named her Powerpuff bc she's huge

smh gibe plis

EDIT: I found something slightly amusing, and I really hope this game gets better.



Apparently a regular pikachu according to the games' pokedexes is 6.0kg, and 0.4 meters tall. This thing is friggin fat!

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Pikachu is apparently a "secret" that you can do at the start of the game. You have to literally get up off your ass and walk away from the 3 starters that appear three times. When they pop up again, a moment later a fourth blip will appear on the map, and it'll be Pikachu.

I had to be doodmaster3000 because like every name I tried was taken. Gonna be the best like no one ever was then vanish from the public eye.

Nah, Pikachu was on my radar, but it was 3AM and my battery was near dead, so I didn't bother. I just caught my Bulbasaur straight away, without running away from them.

smh gibe plis

shes mine fite me scrub

oh wait

you can't

gg niantic

[commandercool]

I dunno man. I went to a different (enemy color) gym, and I totally STOMPED the Pokemon there, but it just stayed alive at 1 HP until time ran out. I beat the everloving hell out of that Drowzee and it just... didn't die. And the game lagged out. Fuck this.

I know. The literal exact same thing happened to me. In two different gyms across probably twenty attempts. It's infuriating.

God, this has SO much potential. I hate to see it go to waste.

Those are my precise thoughts right now.

Apparently a regular pikachu according to the games' pokedexes is 6.0kg, and 0.4 meters tall. This thing is friggin fat!

Yeah, XL and XS Pokemon are sprinkled in with the rest and have stats to match. Rumor is that it doesn't actually effect anything except certain achievements, but nobody actually knows. Because none of the mechanics in this game are actually explained anywhere.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

I think the sizes mean absolutely nothing. When I evolved Eevee, it went from being like 7kg XL to a 3kg XS Vaporeon. But it's still huge CP and has a really sweet Hydro Pump attack too.

[OverlordChirei]

shes mine fite me scrub

watch me catch a clefable in a few days and it'll be super fucking awkward

[MatsuriSakuragi]

you wouldn't dare

(for real tho if they ever get their heads out of their asses and enable trading I will trade you)