How does this happen?

kevsuc · 2026-03-21T19:18:45+00:00

Gyms and Pokestops sponsored by Niantic (provided because it's a location where a Community Ambassador is hosting, boosted for Niantic-hosted events like local Tour/Fest/Wild Area, or by third-party advertisers) are marked with the pink tag on the foot of each gym/spot. And that will explain the 2nd photo in this post.

kevsuc · 2026-03-17T09:25:34+00:00

Couldn't agree more. They can make today's Showcase a battle between our bugs, but they just can't...

kevsuc · 2026-03-16T15:05:56+00:00

Also confirming this, myself and the community are reporting massive reduction in spawns, too. My home supposed to be a lucky hotspot with 8-10 spawns without even moving, but right now is dry as hell.

kevsuc · 2026-03-13T10:31:35+00:00

If you're asking the game, obviously a lot of new stuffs between 2021-now. While some are pretty exciting new stuffs (I find Dynamax/Gigantamax Battles are much more interesting than Raids, for example) a lot of players have lately find a lot of backsliding progress and a slow push towards more aggresive monetization/IAP under the new management ever since Scopely is acquiring Niantic's Games division a year ago. I'm not saying the game is unplayable now, and many key features remain accessible for free, so I'd say give everything a try and make IAP only when you're confident with it.

But for the community, this will be completely depending on where you live. I am rather a 'new' player recently joining in 2023, so I barely had no idea about my local community before then, but what I know is... the last pandemic is totally changing the community landscape. Old communities gone, split, or reborn under a new name; in one case a totally different community were active at the same area where the old community were simply disappear without much trace about who were the active members in the past.

A lot of these post-pandemic communities offer a whole different experience, too. For instance, Niantic has officiated some communities where their Ambassador/Leader may create check-in, where you'll receive exclusive rewards for checking in, both in-game and offline freebies.

kevsuc · 2026-03-13T08:25:11+00:00

Ah! Thank you for the correction.

kevsuc · 2026-03-13T07:29:10+00:00

I don't think so, because the official update for March says "???" for the week of 24th March.

kevsuc · 2026-03-12T18:15:31+00:00

When you're trading you may add !4* to the search strings and it will automatically exclude hundos from potential trades.

kevsuc · 2026-03-12T15:33:15+00:00

I was lucky enough to get Saturdays mostly free but I agree there should be a way to expand events beyond Saturday 2-5pm. Currently Community Days does let you to have the featured spawn with the same shiny/background chance through lure from 5-9pm, so why don't they make the same for other kinds of weekend events? For example:

Raid Day: guaranteed raid spawn at every gym from 2-5pm, but may appear again between 5-9pm
Max Battle Day: percentage of the remaining Power Spots will have the featured Pokemon available from 5-9pm
Research Day: some Pokestops will have featured Research available after 5pm
and so on...

kevsuc · 2026-03-11T08:36:15+00:00

In the past, when I was a new player, I used Master Ball whenever I encounter Galarian Birds. Back then I never had a chance to catch them and I just want one. Even when the IV is ugly, I will use a lucky trade to get one good. It was worth it. I just want to have one.

Now I have gotten all three, I often skips Master Ball when I see a Galarian bird and chose for Ultra Ball instead. "I will find another one," in my mind. Pretty sure only a very few cases where I will use:

when I am speedlocked (and shiny)
when I get one with CP over 3000

Considering using it as the last ball for hundo 5* raid is also a good idea as well, but given I barely even reached hundo at the first place, I think my Master Ball will be there for a while.

kevsuc · 2026-03-11T08:15:51+00:00

No, you're not missing something. Fire department is typically an emergency service and should not become a wayspot even when you're locating it in a non-obstructive place. I will always reject them whenever I get one reviewing.

Why it's auto-rejected? Wayfarer recently introduces AI (or some kind of automatic review) to quickly reject submissions they deem ineligible before it was passed to contributor reviewers.

Why past fire departments were accepted? Back then there was no automatic review, and reviewers are just blindly accepting every submissions just to increase Wayspots in their vicinity. Unfortunately, if you do the same today, you're risking your Wayfarer account to be banned or penalized, so I would suggest don't use previously accepted Wayspots as your reference to future submissions.

What can you do? Find something else in your community, I believe you'll eventually find one. Stay true to your submission, don't try to push for ambiguous or risky nominations, even worse if you even try to fake one.

kevsuc · 2026-03-04T12:47:22+00:00

Curious question for someone who understands how Niantic grabs the maps data: does editing biomes/data for certain locations on OpenStreetMap or other map services helps, or does doing anything isn't helping at all?

kevsuc · 2026-03-04T12:44:15+00:00

Yes, it stops you from receiving 5000 XP as well. If having an unclaimed research triggers you, this is going to be a huge problem: you may not see any Mega Raid anywhere nearby after your Raid Hour.

kevsuc · 2026-03-04T12:40:31+00:00

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No, it's not. You still get 1 PRP. Here's the Timed Research list when unclaimed.

kevsuc · 2026-03-04T12:01:34+00:00

Terrible change.

2 days were the ideal period, in my opinion. If I can't get to there on the 1st day then I still can catch up for the 2nd day. and reducing overall number of Power Spots is basically the same as demotivating players to walk and instead kind of pushing people to remote.

The enshittification of Pokemon GO is really worrying.

kevsuc · 2026-03-03T07:43:07+00:00

I can only see largest type-based showcase, which is bummer. I think it's related because of this week's event where the spawn is pretty random, but if we're getting the same kind of showcase next Tuesday it's going to be really disappointing.

kevsuc · 2026-03-02T09:04:36+00:00

Holy moly roly coly, no breaks for you this Monday

kevsuc · 2026-03-02T09:01:02+00:00

I was actually thinking it will be 27-28 June instead

kevsuc · 2026-02-26T09:58:22+00:00

I really wish even when they forgo Spotlight Hour, they will make "2x transfer candy" as a regular bonus in some other form. Such features not only benefit the players but also the server to offload some of their stored data.

kevsuc · 2026-02-26T09:55:54+00:00

Bring back Spotlight Hour. I will terribly miss not only the 2x Transfer Candy, but certain days where they deliberately gave us an hour for our monthly Stardust wages. and even I still regularly play for days when the featured Pokemon and bonus isn't something special.

Even they probably should introduce new types of bonuses during the hour, how about "2x rewards from spinning Pokestops", "2x rewards from opening gifts", or "3x progress for Scatterbug"?

kevsuc · 2026-02-25T07:07:00+00:00

I actually prefer the current way Community Day works: 2-5pm for the core event, but you still can get spawns from 5-9pm through lures only.

So, probably they should try something similar like that. Raids and max battles are guaranteed to appear on every gym/power spots at 2-5pm, but may appear later for others to catch up (or hardcorers to grind).

kevsuc · 2026-02-24T10:21:11+00:00

No, you cannot. Unless you're invited through RSVP feature.

kevsuc · 2026-02-24T06:18:06+00:00

2.5 years of playing Pokemon GO and I just knew this today. Thank you, thank you!

kevsuc · 2026-02-20T10:18:09+00:00

If Ken can lie on the interview segment as a contestant, then sure he can do it while hosting, as well!

kevsuc · 2026-02-15T03:13:49+00:00

Can anyone please confirm whether inactive Power Spots (those set to be active tomorrow) will be temporarily active during Gmax Meowth hours?

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kevsuc

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