Pokemon Go

I did some sleuthing in various places, and what I've seen so far is a) the Lake Trio only spawn in areas tagged with aquatic spawns (guess I'm hitting the waterfront this weekend), and b) they are described as being super rare (one person I saw described them as "Unown-level rare" - I really hope that isn't the case, although I admittedly wouldn't be surprised if it were the case).

I saw some reports of the Shellos moment as well (as well as the stray couple of people who burned Rare Candies to get a Gastrodon). My guess is that they're almost ready and are just trying to figure out who gets which form, and we'll get them when they next do a water event (which I figure will be soon, with it corresponding with a three-day Kyogre window to correspond with our current three-day Groudon window).

My understanding is that the lake trio spawn in places tagged as "Natural Water" on OSM, so the ocean is out of the question. A shame, since I live on the seafront. The only places with the tag in my town are the small lakes in the park with all the EX gyms.

Also, apparently their flee rate has been reduced to zero in the master file. So that's something.

Edited by Anura on Apr 30th 2019 at 7:05:22 PM

I have questions about "natural water," because I can promise that the nearest body of water to me (the Atlantic) is definitely not man-made.

"Natural=Water" is a subtype of the Natural key which is used to denote geological and landcover features. Water in particular is used for lakes and ponds as well as, despite the name, man-made water bodies such as reservoirs. It does not include oceanic stuff like beaches or bays, and the oceans themselves are counted under the Place key. It also doesn't include rivers or other waterways, only sitting bodies.

This will highlight areas suspected to be involved, all forms of "natural=water" in blue, and "natural=lake" and "water=lake" in gray in case Niantic are being more specific than that.

Edited by Anura on Apr 30th 2019 at 10:01:40 AM

There’s another unannounced raid hour today at 6pm.

I don't know just how true that is - I took a look at the app for the nearby possible locations, and a good chunk of the largest river nearby is apparently designated "natural water" for purposes of these spawns.

That said, the easiest places by said river for me to reach, plus the river closest to where I live, do not count. There is only one spot on my usual stomping grounds (next one of the most popular EX gyms in the area) that apparently qualifies, though I do know how to get to two of the others with varying degrees of ease (one I can get to easily on foot and might try a midnight stroll for in the next night or two; the other requires buses and trains and may be my Saturday morning stroll).

I mean, I get that they're not supposed to be easy finds, but oof. This isn't quite as bad as my issues with regionals (at the very least, couldn't they have extended Pachirisu just a little more south to let me have a chance at one without traveling?), but this is going to take some dedicated hunting.

Also, while I'm not expecting or demanding this, just watch the Lake Trio be on rotation similar to Solrock and Lunatone.

It's a crowd-sourced map, and an outdated version at that. Niantic don't update the ingame copy of it very often.

Edited by Anura on May 1st 2019 at 3:52:38 PM

Nope. As with all gachas, gotta cater to whales in order to survive. Go has gotten away with being a bit more casual overall, but it's still pretty apparent in their business model.

The weird part is that the people whaling for Pokemon Go aren't giving their money to Niantic for the most part. They end up traveling and the money in question goes to companies that facilitate travel. I didn't pay Niantic handsomely for the chance to catch Volbeat; I paid Delta and Virgin (okay, I paid to visit my in-laws, but the chance at Volbeat was on my list while I was there).

Sure, there are opportunities to whale like you do with other gachas (the various fests, obviously, but also paying for passes to tackle legendary raids more frequently), but I find it pretty hard to say they're catering to whales.

Maybe I'm just more used to how cynical things get with other gacha games (I also play Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and they're downright blatant in catering to whales).

The only gacha in Go’s design are eggs and raids. This is pure random chance, with no opportunity to pay for more chances. Unless it turns out that lures and incense can spawn the lake trio, but I doubt that.

Well, you kinda can, if you're in an area with high gym density, pay to get the passes needed to lean hard into raids (I mean, if you're the type who has the time to raid 4-6 times a day), but even that helps only so much, and it really doesn't give you that much advantage over someone like me, who has been totally free-to-play from the beginning.

I said raids were gacha. The lake trio aren't, because you can't pay for more chances at seeing them.

Shiny Seel is released... for some reason.

Edited by Anura on May 1st 2019 at 10:08:36 AM

Shinies. Lures and incense give one more chances per minute at acquiring desirable Mons, which may be rares like the dragons or Lake Spirits (assuming you're in the right biome) or shinies and regionals, which are the big "make everyone jealous" trophies, aside from good legendaries/mythics. Someone playing Pokémon Drive at the perfect speed with constant Gatchaed Incenses and a full suite of Super Incubators running all the time will be miles ahead of anyone else in terms of resources. Sad items are poor value for light spenders or F2P, but for whales who don't give a crap about their cash, it's a constant advantage.

And yes, the events are also basically "pay a chunk of cash to get a bunch of rare stuff shoveled into your Pokebox".

The Silph League is sending out invites to regional PvP tournaments. I managed to qualify!

At this point, I'm convinced that Niantic are just on a roughly bi-weekly "shiny release" calendar. They'll tie it to a specific event if they can, but otherwise, "Eh, here's your shiny Seel. Good luck." I'm not complaining, though it is funny.

I really should look into a dive into whether events like Earth Day increase shiny rates across the board, or just for the newly-released shiny. I've been talking to a lot of people locally who have been running into shiny Cubone and Sandshrew (myself included; got shiny Cubone shortly after my first shiny Diglett), but that might just be due to both of them spawning a lot at the moment (though, interestingly, I'm not seeing increased Geodude spawns, which I would have expected).

From local chatter, we haven't had any Azelf in the possible spawn points, but we'll see how long it takes to appear.

I got a shiny Diglett yesterday and two more today, and my community seem to be having better luck than usual with them. Not for Cubone or Sandshrew though.

Standard hit and miss for my community. I got shiny one Diglett two days in a row over a bunch of Pokeball+ed Digletts (probably around 150ish), which is unusual for me, but typical of at least someone in my chats. Meanwhile, someone else in the chat needed to check 300 for just one, so it's probably just typical rates, but we're getting lucky.

I haven't found any Shiny Digletts (or Sandshrews or Cubones) at all so far, yet I managed to find a Shiny Zigzagoon today. Go figure. 😅

For those worried about finding them in their ultra-rare spawns, the Lake Trio are also going to be in 5-star raids this month. The announcement also confirms that they will continue to potentially spawn wild beyond the raid period.

There should be a grace period where a player can actually occupy a gym before getting shot down.

This is the second time this week where I claimed a gym for my team, placed my strongest pokemon inside it, and IMMEDIATELY had it knocked out by someone in the same area. I'm trying to earn some coins for inventory upgrades. At least give me a chance to last longer than 2 minutes! Nothing but a waste of revives. >:(

Even if they gave you 5-10 mins guaranteed, that's a paltry 1-2 coins. Really, the whole gym system needs any overhaul because it's some of the most short-sighted design I've ever seen.

One old idea was to also give coins for knocking Pokemon out of gyms, with the reward increasing the longer they'd been there.

• From the 7th to the 17th:
• Detective Hat Pikachu will appear in photobombs instead of Smeargle.
• Certain Pokemon featured in Detective Pikachu will be more common in the wild.
• There will also be research and raids themed around the movie.
• New Avatar gear.
• Shiny Aipom will be released.
• Double XP for all catches.

About the best advice I can give is to get a sense as to the regular rhythms of play locally and plan around that. If you know that someone is going to be watching a gym at a given time, avoid it. But if you know it's going to be ignored for the next few hours, that's the time to take it down. People sometimes wonder why I play at 11 at night, but it pretty much guarantees 8 hours of uninterrupted gym control.

Some new items found in the code:

• Glacial Lure: Attracts Pokemon that like the cold, and also causes certain Pokemon to evolve.
• Mossy Lure: Attracts Pokemon that like mossy scents, and also causes certain Pokemon to evolve.
• Magnetic Lure: Attracts Pokemon that like magnetic fields, and also causes certain Pokemon to evolve.

Leafeon, Glaceon, Magnezone and Probopass?

Edited by Anura on May 7th 2019 at 4:10:07 PM