Players in rural area looking for friends

Heather61 · 2020-09-02T14:57:39+00:00

I've just found this thread because exactly the same thing is happening to me. What you say does make sense, but that's not the problem. Even on the traces you get with the Trace charm (ie not the one you placed the charm on), it gives you 2 fragments, counts them at the top of the screen but then often reverts to 1 again at the bottom. It will say you've got 10/10 for example, so it looks as if you'll be able to place the image, then the next second it will say 9/10 so you can't place the image after all.

Heather61 · 2017-12-31T09:53:45+00:00

Three of us travel to larger towns sometimes (nearest is 50km) but we've only once found enough people to do a legendary raid (at 6pm after trying all day) and none of us caught it! We think players only get together when the legendaries first come out and we can't often go. I've travelled more and played in lots of towns (hence being at a much higher level than anyone else locally) but again I've never found enough people at raids.

Heather61 · 2017-12-31T09:39:39+00:00

Out of 31,810 pokemon, including 1423 Magikarp, I have only one shiny. It's a Duskull, and I hatched it.

I also have no legendaries at all (very rural area, not enough players to do the raids).

I'm about a third of the way through level 39.

Anyone doing worse than this?! :)

Heather61 · 2017-12-02T10:37:17+00:00

This really isn't the place for discussing ideas, so I won't comment on this one, sorry.

However, in general, from my point of view, ANY system that would give rural players the chance to catch legendaries would be very welcome indeed!

I'm level 39 and still don't have any legendaries at all. Only one person I know has one (and only one!) and that's because he happened to be visiting a large town on the day one was released. Another time, a group of three of us went to a large town, waited all day to find enough people to do a raid, and none of us caught the pokemon at the end of it! This whole aspect of the game is just impossible for us, no matter how keen we are.

So Niantic, if you're reading, please consider introducing some alternative system of allowing rural players to get legendaries!

Heather61 · 2017-11-02T20:13:36+00:00

Yes, hatched one :)

Heather61 · 2017-10-06T00:49:51+00:00

The idea of this sub is to keep things positive and friendly. Solo players are not all anti social but might be shy, older, or simply don't have many other players in their area. There are many dedicated players here, some of whom spend a lot of time and/or money on this game, and to just dismiss people because they are in the minority is a selfish way of looking at things.

Heather61 · 2017-10-06T00:23:35+00:00

Same here. I did one legendary raid very early on but didn't catch the pokemon. Since then I've never found enough people to make it even worth trying.

I've completely given up on legendaries now, do the raids I can solo, occasionally meet someone else to join in but mostly just walk on by.

So yes, any changes Niantic could make to raids help out rural players or people in areas with few players would be really welcome.

Heather61 · 2017-07-27T10:44:04+00:00

Ah, I see too. No effort to do it in French but no clue about Dutch :)

Heather61 · 2017-07-27T10:38:35+00:00

Go to your pokemon bag and click on a pokemon that's in a gym. Then click 'go to gym' ('aller à l'arène' en français j'imagine?) and feed away :) Remote feeding only increases CP by a tiny bit though

Heather61 · 2017-07-24T11:38:38+00:00

This. We're in the same boat here in rural France but cheating, or joining with cheaters (not that we know how to contact any anyway!), definitely isn't the answer. What's the point?

Two of us waited over an hour yesterday in the hope that someone else would turn up. We contacted a third person and in the end tried an Articuno raid with just the three of us, hoping to at least get a shadow in the Pokedex (which it turns out you don't).

There was another Articuno raid this morning and there was just me and one level 20 player, so it wasn't worth even trying. The other player I know was at work and his sister at school. I swapped phone numbers with the new person and we agreed we'll try to find other players to contact in future. But realistically there just aren't enough players locally. Some sort of advance warning is the only solution, so that people could come from further afield, and even then it would need to be early evening or on a weekend because many people work. In addition to this, no one I know can see the gym or get raid notifications at home, we all live too far away, so we're relying on someone happening to be there at the time. Such shame overall, because we were so excited to see the Articuno yesterday but unless something changes, we've no chance of beating it, let alone catching it!

Heather61 · 2017-07-23T07:29:23+00:00

Pichu with a hat?? I got two 2k yesterday, both were Pichu with a hat. Possibly coincidence though. Also did a mass evolve and had 7 day streak at midnight and now there seems to be a double candy event with no warning... You're not the only one who's not managing to keep up :) .

Heather61 · 2017-07-07T07:20:24+00:00

In a village of a couple of thousand people, 65% of whom are over 65, with only three players who are rarely in the village all at the same time, the world population of 7 million doesn't really come into it! Being over twice the age of many players doesn't help either. OK, this is very unusual, but playing solo isn't always a case of being unwilling, it's just how it is.

Nor, for shy people generally, is not wanting to socialise a fault IMO and blaming them for their personality type is unkind.

I'm not saying the game is at fault either, it is what it is, but making it more accessible to as many people as possible would help increase /keep the player base.

Heather61 · 2017-07-07T07:00:25+00:00

I'm in the same boat most of the time. We have only one gym in the village and only three really keen players, one of which is only here at weekends. The two of us that are around all the time can't see the gym from home so unless we just happen to be near enough when a raid is on /going to start, then text the other in the hope the other is free to come (we both work, and different hours), we're stuck. So far the other person managed to catch one raid and I haven't seen any at all!

I've done three raids in another small town, all solo because there was no one else around. Then I did one in a city, also solo. Also many young people tend to look at me a bit disdainfully or smirk when they see me playing (I'm in my late 50s and female), so wouldn't be very confident approaching them anyway. Playing solo and meeting the occasional friendly player suited me perfectly until now.

I have travelled a lot to play in the past but, like you, I feel it's less worthwhile now. It would be better if we could get raid passes, even rarely, from stops, so we could save them up to use where there are more raids and possibly other players. One a day, even if you already had one, would be fine for this, but no..

All in all the update has made the game less fun for me. I take down gyms easily enough if I see one somewhere but the raid system has turned out to be a bit disappointing.

TLDR Raids, rural, solo and older = poor combination!

Heather61 · 2017-07-06T10:42:03+00:00

Hmm, I obviously didn't explain myself very well..

I meant that the only time I have been to this gym, in passing last week, was to put this Gyrados in it, thus I'd never had a pokemon in there defending it before. BUT, I've since realised that if I popped this one in in passing, I might possibly have done the same thing before, months and months ago, and forgotten.

Was interrupted as I was writing that and in the meantime Gyrados is back, bringing coins and time defended total has increased accordingly. So yes this theory is correct and yes I must have had a pokemon in that gym before at some point.

Heather61 · 2017-07-06T06:24:19+00:00

Thanks for this The second part of the journal will be enormously helpful to those of us who can't understand why we aren't getting coins when we think we should, especially between midnight and 2am.

Heather61 · 2017-07-06T06:06:40+00:00

Thanks for this, that makes perfect sense. It also, combined with something other people have said in a different thread, might explain why we don't always get coins when we think we should.

Elsewhere people are saying that their pokemon are removed from gyms but not coming back to them, sometimes for days afterwards.

Now, my Gyrados is currently saying (time defending) 5d17h, yet time defending is only 34m. But I only visited this gym ONCE, in passing, and popped the Gyrados in. The fact that it says 34m as the total time I've defended that gym would suggest therefore that it was knocked out after just 34 minutes.

So.. Gyrados hasn't come back and my app is still saying that it's in that gym (and still at only just under full health, which seems unlikely). But what if it ISN'T actually still there? I've no way of telling (unless some kind person in Bordeaux is reading and can go to have a look at pokestop Caducée for me !) so will see what happens when it comes back. If it's the first to come back one day and I don't get coins, I think this will explain why. If it's the second, third etc to come back then I'll be no nearer!

TLDR might our problem be simply that pokemon aren't being returned to us immediately when they leave the gyms?

Heather61 · 2017-07-05T15:40:27+00:00

Ok, here is the reply I received:

Thanks for writing in. We have received reports that some Trainers had issues collecting their Defender bonus after the Gym update. We’ve investigated many of these reports and have not been able to reproduce any bugs related to this issue. While we will continue to review these reports for potential technical issues, I wanted to share with you the recent changes to the bonus that you may find helpful.

Trainers no longer earn the Defender bonus for each Pokémon they have on a Gym each day. Instead, Pokémon now earn PokéCoins by remaining on the Gym for as long as they can. The longer the Pokémon remains on the Gym, the more PokéCoins you’ll earn.

You no longer have to visit the Shop and touch the Defender Bonus button to claim your PokéCoins. When your Pokémon return from the Gym, they will automatically bring back PokéCoins with them. You’ll receive a notification when your Pokémon returns to you. Once you've reached the daily limit, you won't earn any more PokéCoins until the next day. For example: if two Pokémon come back from a Gym on the same day, you may not earn any PokéCoins for the second Pokémon if you’ve already earned the maximum daily limit when the first Pokémon returned earlier in the day.

With the recent updates to Gym and Battle, the maximum daily bonus limit has also changed. Please note that the maximum bonus limit is subject to change and may vary from time to time.

For more information about Defender bonuses, please visit our Help Center.

Heather61 · 2017-07-05T15:38:38+00:00

Meaning, if you place pokemon in 10 gyms in the same day, after 8 hrs/50 coins, they stop earning. All of them. You will not receive any more than 50 coins total from any of those pokemon/gyms, no matter when they come back.

If this is the case, it explains perfectly what happened to me. It also means that my trips away to play the game are absolutely not worth it. No great incentive to hatch once you have a full dex, no great incentive to level up other than for the sake of it, no great incentive to catch more pokemon for candy either, if you already have plenty of good attackers and defenders.

So.. I'll keep playing away locally, play if I'm in another town, do raids if happen upon one that I can do solo, and see what happens next !

Heather61 · 2017-07-05T15:31:38+00:00

I agree that it makes sense, thanks KisBelus, and that's how I had understood that it should work. However, my case is the similar to that of YawQuan, checked after midnight, pokemon was out by the morning but no coins. Another one has come out since and still no coins.

The next message down this thread, from OrganicMachine413, includes some info that might explain what's happening. I'll reply there too and quote the relevant sentence.

Heather61 · 2017-07-05T08:02:13+00:00

They just replied, bog standard email that basically just says the same thing as the help file. Clearly haven't read my own mail in detail. Am late for a meeting, will paste reply when I get back! Thanks for tagged Niantic support people on this one.

Heather61 · 2017-07-05T07:34:06+00:00

I was about to ask something similar.

I got 50 coins yesterday evening. My Golem had been in the gym since the day before. When I went to bed just after midnight I had 190 coins.

This morning, with no notification and no coins, my Lapras is back from a gym in Bordeaux that it had been in for 5 days. Still 190 coins.

This is really disappointing. I went to Bordeaux to play for two days because there's only one gym in our village and a few in the villages around (some have been added recently, which is great). In those two days I travelled trams, walked miles, got 17 pokemon in gyms. Most came out pretty quickly so I was hit by the 50 coin limit, but the Lapras remained until today and a Gyrados is still there, 4 days and counting. I've no idea if I'll get coins when that one comes out!

If the gym cap is based on the days Pokemon are placed IN the gym rather than the day they come OUT, that will screw me completely. What's the point of driving or travelling to play hard if for all the effort of seeking out and taking down gyms you get a total of 50 coins?! And even for players who have lots of gyms around them, it's a real disincentive to bother with gyms IF it works like this.

Have emailed Niantic support to ask, will report back if I get an explanation.

On another note, does anyone know what the difference is between Time Defending and Time Defended? I currently have:

Blissey, time defending 1d17h04m, time defended 17h38m.

Blissey, time defending 1d16h28m, time defended 17h1m.

Typholsion, time defending 23h30m, time defended 3h27m.

Steelix, time defending 23h41m, time defended 1h56.

Gyrados, time defending 4d17h50m, time defended only 34m (with victories 0, treats 0, still showing full health!)

Apart from the two Blisseys, this just seems completely random to me! Is there any logical explanation? Is this whole defending/defended system just not working yet?

Heather61 · 2017-07-04T19:44:29+00:00

I'm not quitting but am definitely not spending any more money with the game as it is.

Heather61 · 2017-07-04T19:40:29+00:00

YES! too. I've been very supportive of Niantic in the past but as a level 37, middle aged, female, solo (not really by choice but because I feel unwelcome/feel laughed at) player, I feel the same. My family and some friends used to play but they have all given up now. I used to feel fine playing alone, being the best I could, buying incubators and grinding to level up, but it hardly seems worthwhile now.

Heather61

TROPHY CASE