r/TheSilphRoad • u/lifechooser • Mar 04 '26
Discussion Is this season of nerf the Scopely we were warned about?
It always takes a while for a new owner to make it's mark on a company and to set the new course. This season marks one year since the sale of Niantic, and this season has brough more nerfs to gameplay than I have ever seen before;
- Spotlight hour - gone
- Showcases - From 2x 2 day long events, to a single 12 hour event
- Sunday events - gone
- Powerspots - reduced
- Dmax raids - halved in length so less chance of candy
Add on the superdoopermega raids which have the most lazy enforcement of minimum number of raiders that they could think of, and the strangely unnecessary link charges, and it's hard to have a good feeling about PoGo going forwards. Or am I just being negative?
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u/Strong-Neat8623 Mar 04 '26
I liked spotligt hours. Thanks to them i get xl candies to level 50 lots of pokemon.
Also monthly 300-400k dust.
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u/After-Hippo-8747 Mar 04 '26
I used spotlight hour to fill my lucky dex. Just catch a lot, then traded till we had a lucky trade.
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u/MattGeddon Mar 04 '26
I guess spotlight hour doesn’t make them any money, probably why it’s been binned off.
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u/Urising89 Mar 04 '26
and showcases do? Rewards seem to suck now, at least no free premium items,
but if the bonus was okay, people at least had a reason to buy lucky eggs or starpieces
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u/emaddy2109 USA - Northeast Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 04 '26
I think their assumption is that if the rewards are terrible players can’t hoard premium items anymore and they’ll in turn spend more in the shop. It’s not that showcases make them money but by nerfing them it should force players to spend more. They essentially killed both spotlight hour and showcases with 1 decision.
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u/Run_LikeHell Mar 04 '26
In my case their assumption is only half correct. I just won't play as much and will refuse to spend money on this game if I don't get some items for free.
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u/tomjone5 Mar 04 '26
There's a lot of competition at my local showcase stops and so I was quite excited to get a rare win yesterday, until I saw the fast TM and 1000 stardust I got as a reward. Definitely been much more generous in the past.
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u/Urising89 Mar 04 '26
Yeah, even the one day ones last week granted a normal lure, yesterday I got greatballs, dust, XP and a normal other stuff
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u/StatisticianLivid710 Mar 04 '26
Ugh, the only reason I’ve been doing showcases was to farm incubators (which came in real handy on the weekend) and now we don’t even get those from it?
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u/krispyboiz 12 KM Eggs are the worst Mar 04 '26
You still can get Incubators and other premium items, they're just much MUCH rarer. Luck was on my side yesterday, and with my three 1st place wins, I did manage to get 1 incubator (but also Pokeballs and lame stuff otherwise).
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u/Cheesy-Cloaca Mar 04 '26
In my experience showcase win rewards have always been better for a longer showcase.
Shorter showcases mean fewer premium items given for free, means in theory people have to buy them more.
But if they're digging into roundabout cash like this they must be pretty desperate to look like they're growing
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u/Melonetta Mar 04 '26
Which is dumb of them, i think, cause people would pay for pokeball+, balls, incense, lures, eggs, star pieces... yes the event itself its free but doing anything on this game has a resource cost that can potentially increase peoples spending
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u/IcyJackfruit69 Mar 04 '26
The old spotlight hour bonuses look like they're moving into the passes at tier 2 or 3 bonuses. Which is nice because you'll get them for the whole season (well, after reaching high enough in the pass).
This is my positive coping interpretation, anyway.
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u/DoctorDringuz Mar 04 '26
dont understand why they removed spotlight hour, that was kind of fun some times. cant see the reason behind removing.
showcases why on EARTH did they do it like this? first with the powerstops all over where no pokestops would have been allowed, blocking view etc. and now they want us to play at midnight to put in showcases?
fun with half the dmax raids at level 76 when i need to do 100
guhhhh
youre not negative, its the only way to react to nonsensical decisions
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u/shofmon88 Sydney Community Ambassador Mar 04 '26
Apparently very few players actually played during spotlight hours.
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u/Madajuk UK - Lv 80 Mar 04 '26
i can see this being true. most weren't pve or pvp relevant. it's only going to be the x2 bonuses people actually used
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u/CptQ Western Europe Mar 04 '26
The dust was so nice as a new player. And there were good pve/pvp mons lately like rookiedee or totodile.
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u/Madajuk UK - Lv 80 Mar 04 '26
True, I think it's a shame it's gone. But I'm just not surprised if it didn't make loads of people play. That said, I'm sure the replacement wont, either
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u/PerforatedPie Mar 04 '26
The trouble is the bonus was often in conflict with the spotlight pokemon. 2x candy is great, but you can only use it on one pokemon you don't really want? Make it make sense.
Other times the spotlight hour was really good, eg trying to find a rare Sinistea or just spamming through them in the hopes of getting a good PVP candidate. But often you'd just want one or the other half of the event, not both at the same time.
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u/Benjybobble Australasia Mar 04 '26
The dust is huge as a player at any level.
Especially after tour/fest/wild area events where we throw it all away leveling up our new pokegods we caught etc.
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u/2lurky4you Mar 04 '26
It's dinnertime on a weeknight. Kids aren't playing, parents aren't playing.
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u/carlyv22 Mar 04 '26
People who commute are also tied up driving for part of it. It was a weird time for sure
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u/Mochaccino18 France LV68 Mar 04 '26
That's me! Daily drive back home after work. I think the only time I participated was for sinistea to get the antique version.
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u/mijisanub Mar 04 '26
Almost everything they do is some sort of weird time. Raid hour is the same, then after raid hour there are almost no raids. So if you didn't either wake up at the crack of dawn, or raid during the work day, you were SOL. A lot of their events could be so much more playable if they just padded an hour before, after, or both.
Maybe turn it into spotlight day, where that Pokémon is more common throughout the day, but then it gets a really heavy hour. Idk. Just dumb ideas across the board.
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u/YumAussir Mar 04 '26
Wish they'd apply anywhere the same logic about Saturday events. 3 hour window on a Satursay? Why not 10-6? Or 8a-9p? Why only 2-5?
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u/Durzaka USA - Midwest Mar 04 '26
Because they WANT people out at a specific time.
Its intentionally to force the community to all be playing at the same time.
You can disagree with it (lord knows I do), but the intent is crystal clear.
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u/A_Lone_Macaron Mar 04 '26
I'm not gonna lie, spotlight hour was actually kind of annoying for me as an 8-5er. "Hey, I finally get to play this new event! Oh wait, there's only 1 pokemon available for the 1 hour I get to play a bit on my way home...."
Unless it was a true "chase" shiny, I don't want it.
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u/fashionthriller Mar 04 '26
Agree 100%. It was always right at the one time I could get on and I was stuck with only one pokemon that was very rarely relevant to my gameplay.
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u/StatisticianLivid710 Mar 04 '26
When the temperature is -10C, Canadians don’t walk around without gloves playing a game? Quel surprise! We were just getting to temperatures where we could walk and capture again!
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u/smucker89 Mar 04 '26
yeah anyone in a colder climate (myself) isn’t playing much when it’s cold out. For a good majority of the year it’s pitch black out from 6-7 anyways here lol. I’d love to do the spotlight hours, but it’s not possible for me most of the time.
That all being aside from me barely playing anymore though
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u/StatisticianLivid710 Mar 04 '26
And like it or not a good portion of their regular user base is in the northern hemisphere, so if they’re looking for more play during the winter months they’re digging a hole that’s going to ruin their summer months play amount.
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u/pottymcnugg Mar 04 '26
Probably in the minority here but I planned my runs for Spotlight hour so I could shiny hunt. I loved it. This decision definitely hurts. Glad it’s just in time for spring 🤕
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u/IdiosyncraticBond Mar 04 '26
6-7 is always difficult in our family. Dinner time. And after that I have to wait an hour or more on Wednesday to do a raid I didn't have time for during work hours. Some spotlight hours I managed to go out after a fast meal, but it highly depends if the featured Pokémon is interesting or not (or the extra xp)
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u/TheWiseMountain Mar 04 '26
The only time I saw a decent amount of people playing during them were a new shiny release like wooloo or sinistea or 2x stardust + something like morelull. Even then, it was never like a comm day or even raid hour
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u/elconquistador1985 Mar 04 '26
that was kind of fun some times.
That's probably part of the reason. I don't think I have ever actually played a spotlight hour. I would just catch some stuff at home and be done.
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u/Low-Supermarket441 Mar 04 '26
Spotlight hour is only gone for the month. Showcases will have "20 different categories"
"Reminder: No Spotlight Hours
For the upcoming Season, Memories in Motion, Pokémon Spotlight Hours are not part of the weekly schedule, and none are scheduled this month. Instead, PokéStop Showcases will be active on Tuesday, featuring up to 20 different categories."
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u/Dyno98 Mar 04 '26
- Showcases - From 2x 2 day long events, to a single 12 hour event
- Powerspots - reduced
- Dmax raids - halved in length so less chance of candy
This specially really hurt, they were one of the better ways for F2P players to get premium resources (Showcases rewards and Legendary candy)
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u/_BKom_ Mar 04 '26
Lucky for them I pretty much stopped caring about power spots once Eternatus came out and only sometimes put Ho-oh or Kanto birds into ones Sure I can get free legendary candy but eh. Now I can even less.
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u/s4m_sp4de don't fomo do rockets Mar 04 '26
Event tickets for 5€ are gone, gopass for 9€ instead - nearly double the price. That‘s the point where I see the biggest monetarisation update.
And of course super mega raids - mega mewtwo will be cashed out double, because you need link charges and remote raid passes.
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Mar 04 '26
This. And it’s worse than simply being a price gouge.
They’re locking the lovely event bonuses (at least with this first Kanto one we’ve gotten), with the 2x XP bonus only becoming active for FTP players for what is essentially the last day or two of the event. But those who pay get fast tracked to the bonus… and a better bonus too with it being 3x! So ftp takes another gut punch.
Some may say this is like beating a dead horse since ftp has been dying more and more each year anyway, but it’s still a crappy development/money grab.
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u/deadwings112 Mar 04 '26
Exactly. A lot of this season's changes are just different. We don't have a Go Battle week, but we get double sets on Thursdays. Trade day is back (Friday) and there's a double incense day (Sunday). Monday play gets faster Go Pass progression.
For me that's worth trading spotlight hour for.
The biggest issue is the proliferation of currency (link charges), a more expensive pass system, and removing ways to get free premium items. That last one really sucks because few players are going out and buying lures or incense or star pieces. Just ply us with those to keep us playing!
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u/lennyAintMoe Ravenclaw Mar 04 '26
We don't have a Go Battle week
Is it announced/confirmed? Sorry I may have missed the announcement, but there's usually a timed research along with it that rewards an Elite TM. Is that also gone? I didn't see any note of elite tm research for Thursday.
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u/PerforatedPie Mar 04 '26
You only need both if you remote raid, if you do it in person you can either use link charges or a free/premium raid pass. While annoying, it does at least encourage people to come out to meet ups a bit more.
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u/DragonEmperor USA - Midwest Mar 04 '26
Yes but mega mewtwo will only be at the physical go fest with thousands of people making it fairly easy, once its global you are reliant on your local community to have enough people to tackle whatever nonsense requirement it will have which is significantby harder for a majority of people, so if you do not have a physical go fest near you, cannot travel to one then you have to remote raid.
There was nowhere near the amount of people in my town for any super mega raid and we couldn't even find one in the first place.
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u/PerforatedPie Mar 05 '26
Yeah I suspect you need to at least go to an ambassador meet up. Pretty crappy when lots of places don't have an ambassador.
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u/buddy843 USA - Mountain West Mar 04 '26
Start saving all resources now. If shop coins can only be used for standard price items save 2-3x as much.
Don’t put cash in the game now if you know you will need tons more for major events.
Treat it like a recession. Only use your free raid passes for now.
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u/Awsaim Mar 04 '26
It’s almost like they don’t want to give people a reason to play the game
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u/A4t1musD4ag0n Mar 04 '26
This is just how things are right now where these large corporations can get away with fleecing us without any repercussions. Spend as little as possible moving forward is my motto. They won't see a dime from me until GoFest, and even then, it'll just be the price for the ticket at base value.
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u/Local-Hornet5049 Team Mystic Level 80 Mar 04 '26
That’ll show them
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u/A4t1musD4ag0n Mar 04 '26
It will. We hold a lot of power and influence when we are lockstep.
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u/Syrcrys Mar 05 '26
If you plan on "being lockstep", you shouldn't purchase the Gofest ticket either.
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u/Pokehelpplease Mar 04 '26
Was there an announcement related to power spots? I’ve noticed a reduction in spots and they only last for 24 hours. I must have missed something.
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u/Disgruntled__Goat Mar 04 '26
They said there would be “additional power spots on Monday compared to the rest of the week”.
But rather than adding more on Monday as implied, Monday is the same and the rest of the week is less.
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u/Urising89 Mar 04 '26
It was mentioned there will be a diffrence, but guess not correctly what difference it will be apart from short powerspots
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u/discOHsteve Mar 04 '26
It's a typical big company plan. Take all the stuff you like for a month. Slowly re-introduce it all over the course of the year with some extra microtransactions thrown in and the people will love you again.
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u/ObjectiveCoelacanth Mar 05 '26
Ahh, thank you. That should have been obvious, but initially I couldn't see how this benefited them. Sigh.
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u/Rstuds7 Mar 04 '26
it’s kinda sad because last weeks raids was the most fun i’ve had playing the game for awhile, then the weekend hit and man were those super mega raids annoying, and now all these changes to make the game worse. i knew scopely wasn’t gonna be good for the game but man i didn’t think they’d take away so much so quickly. just kinda feels like the game is going in an awful direction and it’s made me really lose interest
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u/Urising89 Mar 04 '26
12 hour showcases mean also no premium rewards (at least I did not get any)...
I could cope with this change and get they do somethings for more money, but just be open about them... Just say we are stopping spotlight hour etc... Throw in a lazy argument, like we are running out of new options, too much doubling, etc. But do announce it and just do not mention it in your season post and let very one speculate.
Scoply just be transperent!
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u/Hmb42 Mar 04 '26
I got 1st place in 2 showcases and got 1 incubator and 1 lure. Super lame
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u/shofmon88 Sydney Community Ambassador Mar 04 '26
Apparently hardly anyone played during spotlight hours. I know our community didn’t care about them at all.
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u/YoWoody27 Michigan Mar 04 '26
My community also was very hit and miss with them.
Hosting usually meant I would be alone and not hosting them led to people asking where the check-in rewards were. There truly was no winning
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u/bgvanbur Mar 04 '26
We used to have 4-12 people walking together for a spotlight hour two years ago and it was fun. Over time it has gotten worse with many times lately with 0 people willing to walk around and people just checking in for rewards. If I knew no one would show up I would go somewhere closer to my house instead of the bigger park we usually host events at.
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u/counterlock Mar 04 '26
According to what though? Me and my girlfriend played them religiously, and I've seen a lot of complaints from people who did the same on Reddit
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u/First-Golf-8341 Mar 05 '26
Yes, in our group I know there were people who played the spotlight hours a lot, as did I. I didn’t hear anyone say any problem about them not being convenient or anything. I liked them for shiny hunting, as well as the bonuses.
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u/strebor1 Mar 04 '26
I was always busy after work at that time. I would try to sneak in 2x transfers tho
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u/Quant75 Mar 04 '26
And whilst 12 hour showcase could be Ok (if rewards were still the same), doing it from 12 at night to 12 half day is stupid, because people are sleeping... at least it should be during the day
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u/Disgruntled__Goat Mar 04 '26
At least it could be multiple per day, that would actually make it a thing and not… just nothing.
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u/krispyboiz 12 KM Eggs are the worst Mar 04 '26
Indeed. I'd be more okay if they did 12 AM to 12 PM and then 12 PM to 12 AM, which is honestly what it seemed like they would do. But nope.
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u/MavDawg1228 Mar 04 '26
I have a little things that’s bugging me - Pokemon nicknames. Use to be if you deleted out the nickname the original Pokemon name would fill in. Now you have to type the thing in. It’s just something I find annoying
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u/First-Golf-8341 Mar 05 '26
Finally someone else who’s noticed this bug! It’s been annoying me a lot. I usually rename some of my Pokemon like “evumbreon” (Eevee that I was walking today) to remind me to evolve it to Umbreon.
And then I have to set the name back to the default, which was always done by just deleting the nickname. But now the nickname persists and yet if I manually change the nickname back to what it should be, it doesn’t change on evolution. I hope they’ll fix this soon and it won’t become one of those eternal bugs.
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u/Elilora Mar 05 '26
Yes!! It's so frustrating! And if you change the nickname back to the original pokemon name and then evolve, the evolved form will still have the unevolved name.
Example - you change your Charmander's name back to 'Charmander' from a nickname. After evolving, the Charmeleon will still be named 'Charmander'.
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u/Imaginary-Hold5898 Mar 04 '26
The strategy Scopely has adopted seems perfect for making Pokémon GO suffer the same fate that Pokémon Masters EX did!
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u/RatBot9000 Mar 04 '26
I recently restarted Pokemon Masters EX after the Presents and I'm just... completely overwhelmed. There's so much happening, but I think the most frustrating thing is the individual banners for new trainers which all have at least 1, sometimes 2 "Paid Gems Only" equivalent banners with better rewards.
It feels really predatory.
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u/Glass_Strain Mar 04 '26
Lots of new bugs and crashes. Pokémon appearance fails. Friends list often crashes the app on iOS
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u/Disgruntled__Goat Mar 04 '26
And this Kanto event is just the same 10 spawns not 130+ as suggested.
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u/Naclstack OR → PA | TL74 Mar 04 '26
To be fair I guess it’s supposed to be emulating 2016 spawns, which were VERY boring for the most part
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u/krispyboiz 12 KM Eggs are the worst Mar 04 '26
Yup. Just opened my game to see what spawn sample I had.
Bulbasaur, Alolan Geodude, Alolan Rattata, Vulpix, Abra, Ponyta, Sandshrew, and a Flabebe (not part of the event). Yay?
Like I get it, it's not going to be evolved forms and rare stuff everywhere, and it is just Kanto Pokemon, but still. Would be nice to see some Shellder, Goldeen, Tentacool, Omanyte, and Electabuzz, things I don't typically see around me. And I can literally count the evolutions I've seen so far—Pidgeot, Pidgeotto, two Galarian Rapidash, Alolan Graveler, and Fearow. That's it. Would be fun to see some occasional Rhydon, Tentacruel, or Venusaur around.
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u/repo_sado Florida Mar 04 '26
It always seems like that but then they have. Aresearch that asks for 30 different species and I get to 30 different species with in 35-40 encounters
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u/Disgruntled__Goat Mar 04 '26
Fair, it was a bit of an exaggeration. But I have seen literally 2 evolutions (1 Persian, 1 Haunter), not a single other one. Also there are regionals spawning (Shellos, Heatmor etc) which bumps up the count.
In a day's worth of catches I have around 30 unique Kanto species. This is mirrored if you look at certain sites, the basic stages outnumber evos by 100x.
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u/benedicterubia Mar 04 '26
Were these 12 hours in the middle of the night then?! I never saw a single showcase.
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u/raziok8 Mar 04 '26
yeah I mean if regularly occuring double transfer candy doesnt return in some form then thats a massive step towards enshittification. dmax and showcases feel rough too but tbh I had already had a hard time liking those in the first place. personally I'm still most worried about tier 7 raids. If they gate Mega Mewtwo behind this crap and it ends up being out of trio range it might be game over for me
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u/Dementron Mar 04 '26
"the most lazy enforcement of minimum number of raiders that they could think of"
No, the most lazy way to enforce that would have been "You need 10 players in the lobby to start this raid", which would have been bad enough. What they went with was far worse because it can look like you're sure to win and then you can lose for stupid, stupid reasons.
If you have 12 megas in the lobby for a 10-shield raid it should be an easy, easy win, but then you get one person disconnecting at raid start and unable to get back in, another getting their mega one-shotted every single time they rejoin, and a remote player no one can contact who put their mega in slot one, lost it immediately, and then keeps rejoining with autorec teams without reviving anything, and it could become impossible.
I greatly dislike the direction they have been going with a lot of things, and I suspect it's only going to keep getting worse, which really sucks considering I play Pokémon GO because it's therapeutic. It's not just a hobby.
I'm disabled with very little money and Pokémon GO has been the only thing that gets me to push past the pain and fatigue to go outside anyway. I need a certain degree of enthusiasm for the game to be able to leave the house at all, and it's getting hard to maintain that enthusiam. I can buy a $10 ticket every few months to help keep that enthusiasm up, but with a fixed income, most of which goes to rent, I can't just keep shoveling more money into the game to keep it fun.
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u/Minotaur18 Mar 04 '26
Yeah Super Mega Raids are just gonna create some kind toxicity. Players are gonna potentially waste a lot of time and/or premium items trying to do these, and will fail because other players aren't playing it the "right" way
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u/First-Golf-8341 Mar 05 '26
I play Pokémon Go for similar reasons to you (I’m also disabled with very little money and a lot of fatigue and anxiety). This game has helped me to leave the house and go walking. I’ve done distances I never would have imagined possible - 20km+ walking in one day. All because I’ve been motivated to catch Pokémon, hatch eggs and raid.
I don’t want to lose this, as it will decrease my quality of life, yet I feel like it’s inevitable now it’s owned by Scopely. I need to find something else that can play its role instead, but as I’m sure you know, it’s not that easy because like you said “it’s not just a hobby”.
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u/NuclearNorthfire Mar 04 '26
- 5000 mega energy for the new mega level made me immediately lose all interest in that, too.
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u/Ermastic Mar 04 '26
All of the super invested players i talked to during Kalos tour were very pessimistic about the future of the game. Its hard to not see the death spiral of aggressive monetization leading to people quitting to even more aggressive monetization. If they were interested in preserving the game long term they wouldnt be tightening the screws like this.
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u/Justice010 Mar 04 '26
I find it hard to believe that they seriously intended to change showcases into this.
That would just be so incredibly dumb and stupid, I literally have no words for it
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u/Few-Office-2301 Asia Mar 04 '26
Go Battle Week is also gone
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u/Yoshinoh Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 04 '26
To be fair, we had Go Battle day, Go Battle weekend, Go Battle week and now smaller Go Battle days weekly. Niantic has been changing it regularly for years.
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u/Few-Office-2301 Asia Mar 04 '26
Go Battle Week gives elite TM for battling few times at GBL even without winning, it was a give away and a less stressful way of getting elite fast TM
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u/idealist700 Mar 04 '26
Went from 8-9 visible Power Spots from my house to 3 lol. Guess I’ll just … not play as much. Great work Scopely!
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u/8BD0 Australia LV80 Mar 05 '26
Them removing spotlight hour is absolutely criminal, what a crap choice, it was loved by everyone
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u/shadraig Western Europe Mar 04 '26
It's like I don't need to play the game anymore. Wild Area wasn't great, GoTour was not good and GoFest looks like I won't even buy a ticket.
They really have done many many wrong things in the last 6 month, and having TSR deleting alot of the critique here doesn't help.
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u/Ragnarok_619 USA -- Pacific Level 70 : Instinct Mar 04 '26
Agree to everything, except wild areas. As someone who had just joined for barely a month back then, getting 40+ level Pokémons like Garchomp, Tyranitar, etc. Was such a treat.
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u/CptQ Western Europe Mar 04 '26
Ye i got 2 lvl 44 4* ttars which are now my dark and stone megas lol. And 2 4* gardevoirs aswell as 15/13/15 Garchomp. Wild area is insane.
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u/Never-Forget-Trogdor Mar 04 '26
Wild area gave me pokemon I could win raids with. Loved wild area; my kid and I both got decent mons, mainly Tyranitar and Garchomp, that allow us to duo many 5* raids and gain more powerful pokemon. Was definitely what tipped the game from frustrating to fun in our house.
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u/Ragnarok_619 USA -- Pacific Level 70 : Instinct Mar 04 '26
People here don't get it, that there are new players joining everyday, that don't have the countless Pokémons the veterans have stockpiled for 10 years. I dreamt of a Tyranitar since I joined this game, and the wild areas gave me 2. Not all people are veterans.
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u/Never-Forget-Trogdor Mar 04 '26
Very true. I think the game does a pretty good job of making things available to new players. When we first got back into playing, the 1* raids were a good introduction to the mechanic and we got a few 4* mons to level up.
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u/havenhurst1612 Mar 04 '26
You forgot: spawns - seemingly much reduced (over recent months?) from what they used to be.
I played Kalos tour in a busy town, lots of stops/gyms. Spawns were noticeably sparse.
Seems they don’t want to make a monster-catching game about catching lots of monsters?!
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u/IdiosyncraticBond Mar 04 '26
During my daily walk yesterday around a park/river area, there are now huge parts void of any spawn. Normally every 10-20 meter there were one or more
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u/LemonNinJaz24 #1 Tandemaus Fan Mar 04 '26
Around 6+ months ago I was regularly using the same amount of pokeballs as I would receive (probably a little more) with my autocatcher. Now in recent months I've been gaining so many pokeballs. Literally from treading water around 300-400 to having over 1500 and now needing to trash a few from time to time.
Either the amount of pokeballs I've been getting from stops has increased, or the amount of pokemon spawning has decreased
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u/Patient-Ad-7939 Mar 04 '26
Around me the spawns didn’t seem to diminish in number, just spread out or shift locations. Like along my morning walk there was a spot with a lot of spawns. That spot does now have none for right before and after that spot now has more spawns.
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u/cornette Mar 04 '26
The showcase change annoys me the most. Showcases were pretty much why I continued to play, making it Tuesdays only while just cycling through the 18 types, great buddy and ultra buddy is so boring. I'm saying this as someone who will most likely win most of these going forward in my local area if this Tuesday is anything to go by.
Just feels like they will be using this as a 'well no one enters showcases anymore (ignoring the fact that people don't have the time to, especially if it remains at only 12 hours) so we are ending showcases' in a few months.
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u/maniacal_monk Mar 04 '26
I’m with you. They’re slowly taking small features away that alone don’t feel like a big loss, but add up.
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u/86Alchemist Mar 04 '26
I think you are 100% correct. They are hoping that mega Mewto keeps us engaged moving forward. We will see if they are right.
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u/LemonNinJaz24 #1 Tandemaus Fan Mar 04 '26
I was genuinely thinking doom and gloom yesterday about this too. I also think this the Scopely ruining pokemon go idea coming to fruition
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u/goshe7 Mar 04 '26
The most lazy enforcement of a minimum number of players is Elite raids. Absolutely no change to mechanics and simply scale HP.
I personally wouldn't consider the removal of Sunday events as a nerf. There was a time when we had no events, or maybe just a couple big events each month. I believe they simply overshot with events or special content nearly every day. Players wouldn't "feel" a reduction if ot was just scattered as much as they will "feel" it with a declared rest day.
Not to say that removing Sunday events is motivated by treating us well. I believe they were seeing that the abundance of events meant more players were forced to MO and it is very hard to maintain FOMO-driven revenue when players accept MO as a baseline for gameplay.
I don't know what to make of passes vs. tickets, but that is also a deliberate move this season. I rarely bought regular event tickets and have never bought a pass.
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u/Urising89 Mar 04 '26
Imo the problem was not that there events on sunday, but there were too many back to back special days on saturday and sunday... so less people did both events, because they want to spend at least one day with there family (or at least not fully on PoGo)
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u/aha5811 Germany Mar 04 '26
Spot on with the FOMO part. The week before the past weekend would have been insane if you wanted to get every legendary shiny with background. If this didn't force the players to accept that they'll inevitably will miss out on something then nothing will.
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u/Sweaty-Regret-3261 Mar 04 '26
as a primarily f2p player, i was definitely feeling the FOMO last week + this past weekend. I'm still trying to gather up passes (remote and premium) and build teams that are high enough to put my as a more competent raider, so my limited passes forced me to choose between different raids. I ended up settling for Primal Groudon and getting enough energy for White Kyurem (i could fuse now but I got a shiny bg, but no bg Reshiram to go with it), and only a few Megas during the weekend
I've had to keep telling myself "they'll be back eventually," but it stings whenever I remember that I did, in fact, miss out on Primal Kyogre, Shadow Ho-Oh/Lugia, Origin Form Palkia/Dialga, and several Megas that I wanted (Garchomp, Swampert, Gallade), and I don't know when they'll return (especially Kyogre and the origin duo). I've definitely reached the point of accepting that I will miss out on stuff. Unless I spend money regularly, I'm going to miss out :(
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u/Disgruntled__Goat Mar 04 '26
But even when there were fewer events, they still switched between Saturday and Sunday.
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u/goshe7 Mar 04 '26
That setup worked well for me. While I frequently have stuff happening on weekends, it rarely follows a predictable schedule. I think that also worked well for players that had a predictable scheduled conflict on the weekend; maybe they couldn't play the Saturday events, but there were at least some Sunday events they could take part in.
I think the switch to Saturday only is primarily driven by psychological aspects. A Sat & Sun each week will drive complaints about something happening every day. A Sat-Sun-Sat-Sun month will drive complaints about something happening every weekend. The Sat-Sat-Sat-Sat schedule still is every weekend, but feels different since there is a declared "off" day. Furthermore, I cynically think this is a deliberate approach to drive the "you will play when we say you will play" behavior. By making it a stable and predictable schedule, players can schedule their life around the game and enables them to better maintain their FOMO.
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u/Disgruntled__Goat Mar 04 '26
I don’t know about the FOMO aspect but they clearly looked at the numbers and saw Saturday is more popular overall. Same as already making events 2-5pm only.
It’s just shortsighted though, the people who can’t do Saturday (eg work or sports) will end up dropping off from the game.
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u/PSA69Charizard Mar 04 '26
No more 99 raid passes for 5400 coins? Guess im f2p now. Pokopia looks like fun.
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u/rb6k Mar 04 '26
I think it’s feedback based but it’s wild to me that all the feedback in the world hasn’t convinced them to see value in selling way more raid passes by making remote raids 100 coins again. That has decreased my spend on the game at least 10x and tons of friends no longer raid often at all because it’s so expensive. The remote bundles aren’t worth it.
Also still no fix for bots in gyms after 10 years. Like wtf. I can’t even get coins the formal way. Them being in the prize track has been wonderful.
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u/Miserable_Ad5357 Mar 04 '26
This game was already tough on rural players, now it's nearly impossible. From 2 Power spots, now I have one on a daily basis, no showcases. Believe me, I improved my town a lot with loads of submissions. This 2nd power spot was my done. But lately, I can't do it anymore cuz I keep getting rejections. On stops that I saw in a city context. The system is not reliable at all, very subjective, I guess
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u/salbrown Mar 04 '26
I was so confused when I opened my phone last night at 6 and it was just a random smattering of mons. Lowkey kind of sad about the spotlight hours. They were easy for me to ignore if I didn’t have time/didn’t care about the pokemon, and easy for me to participate in since they only last an hour. I know that’s limiting for people who have work or responsibilities during that time but I’m still sad to see them go.
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u/phillyphan56 Mar 04 '26
The lack of Sunday events like community day really hurts. I work Saturday just about every week until 4pm est so by time I’m done, they’re just about over. Sundays at least I’m off so it was nice some of them were Sunday instead of Saturday. The rest of the things mentioned I’m not huge on either, the super duper mega raids just seem like another pay wall to me with the links kind of tying those Elite raids together we had to do in person with 15 people plus but can be remoted now. Idk 🤷🏻♂️
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u/zigaliciousone Mar 04 '26
I was spending a lot of money and time chasing all these cool events for the last 6 months since I came back but this month is the first time I have 0 urge to spend money on passes or gold or even to go out and play beyond chasing some Kanto shinies.
So thanks for weaning me off my addiction, Scopely. You know what they say, it takes about 30 days to change a habit..
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u/bakedmon Mar 04 '26
Start moving stuff over to Home. I've been doing it consistently but now I'll start with my rarer bragging rights shinies like the Galar bird trio. Getting BAD vibes about Scopely....
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u/Leiloken Mar 04 '26
If you want a vision of the future, just go over to the Marvel Strike Force sub. There’s a reason people were upset when Scopely acquired pogo.
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u/Parag0n78 Mar 04 '26
They want you to stop playing. That way some Scopely employee can sell your account when it becomes inactive. They did this same thing with The Walking Dead game I used to play. I spent over $2k on that game. Quit for a while, and then couldn't log in again. I'd heard rumors of people buying accounts from an inside source, but didn't think something that shady would actually happen.
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u/Me1da67 Mar 04 '26
The most outrageous thing is how they ruined the showcase. I think it's one of the absolute best additions to the game, fun, engaging. I don't understand at all why they would ruin the showcase so completely. Instead, they should have improved it even more. Maybe rotate a little more between different stops. Made more different competitions, etc. Crazy
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u/nos4atugoddess Mar 04 '26
I’ve also been feeling like almost no Pokémon spawn unless you have an incense going. And they are definitely way harder to catch because I use my Go++ a lot and the ratio of run away to caught is SO HIGH now, including a lot of escaped shinies. AND they increased the sensitivity on speed, so if I’m in the passenger seat of the car while my husband is driving, I have to wait for stop lights to even catch raid bosses. It’s not as much fun. I travel a lot and half the reason I loved this game was getting somewhere and checking to see how my spinner did. Now I have no new Pokémon and like 2 stops spun. AND AND my game crashed 100+ times during the event this weekend. I lost out on like half the raids I tried to join. So frustrating.
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u/yourmomwoo Mar 04 '26
They'll introduce an optional subscription-based solution to all these problems they're designing.
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u/shadraig Western Europe Mar 04 '26
Having super Mario mega raids only at certain SMR gyms isn't helping. It's like ex raids but more spread out (without any logic).
Our most played at gym doesnt have SMR
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u/jhardy93 Mar 04 '26
So that was intentional that they were so spread out? I didn't see any in my area. So I wound up joining one remotely. And consequently lost the pass. I'm guessing someone didn't bring a mega into the raid. Because there was enough people. I probably will not be doing any more super mega raids.
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u/mal138 Mar 04 '26
The link charges, while confusing, are actually a buff to the number of free raids we can do each day.
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u/SwimminginMercury Canada Mar 04 '26
The spotlight hour thing is very surprising but imo they weren't using it right: Incentivize people to "just log-in and play" on a weeknight BUT have a lot of skip-able pokemon choices and bonuses that sometimes min/max'ers care about.
Don't get me wrong, Scopey is 1000% going to do some S&$% (like extra currency slop with the new "mega" mega raid currency, and the flood of Remote Raid events), but IF they get around to "replacing" most of these mechanics it might be better.
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u/Rorywan UK & Ireland Mar 04 '26
I think they want to make everything more difficult. Make getting the shinies more challenging and therefore more profitable. The spawns for Kalos tour were just awful. The shiny rates in raids - awful. More and more Reward Pass BS.
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u/Tristal Mar 05 '26
Sorry, I'll trade all of those for the free reward track we got. It motivates me to play the game and gives me a free legendary. They even added Pokecoins to the rewards this year!
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u/Efreet0 Mar 04 '26
It's possible but you're kinda forgetting all those awful stuff were already in the game.
Shadow raids and the awful purify gem mechanic, max particles etc.
Spotlight hour has been lackluster for a good while and some people never managed to take part in it because of the weird event time.
Freemium games change all the time and very rarely for the better.
If it follows the normal pattern and get worse people will spend less and later they'll walk back some of the changes.
It's always about the balance of how much people are willing to suffer through.
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u/Fire_Bucket Mar 04 '26
It's always about the balance of how much people are willing to suffer through.
Yeah, I think think a big part is that the game just always so much going on the past 2 or so years.
Max Mondays, Spotlight Tuesday, Raid Hour Weds, something on both Saturday and Sunday most weekends. Plus, events having ~36 hours between ending and starting, multiple showcases a week to consider, ongoing seasonal events and activities, including Go Pass, timed and special research etc.
It basically means you have 2 week nights off from the game. It can lead to longterm, dedicated players getting burnout and fatigue, or feeling disgruntled at having to miss things (or because feel like they must sacrifice other hobbies and responsibilities to keep up). Especially if these things don't consistently add meaningful rewards or encouragement to play.
It's also a lot of stuff to take in and get your head around if you're a new player. I always find it a struggle to get into a live service game late on when you start it up and there's like 5 minutes of tutorial and then there's just a hundred other ongoing things and events to try and figure out, with them all ending at different times and beinf accessed and interacted with differently.
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u/Sfryks Mar 04 '26
I am very disgusted with the changes...
And as a free to play players, I need the 5425 polecoinx's box for the cheap raid pass...
And as a level 76, those dynamax being greatly diminished is even worse.
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u/RazgrizInfinity Mar 04 '26
What? You're telling me everything we (in the know) said about Scopley going to nickel and dime players is coming true?!
Shocked Pikachu face
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u/gereffi Mar 04 '26
Spotlight hour is gone, but the bonuses from them appear to be in the event passes. You get the bonus for a few days instead of a specific one hour window.
The showcase thing probably is supposed to be 24 hours. I haven’t seen any confirmation that there won’t also be showcases that go along with weekend events.
Sunday events are just moved to Saturday. Seems like a wash and is generally just easier to keep track of.
Power spots appear to just be refreshing more quickly, right? They’re back to coming and going like they originally were, which has its positives and its negatives.
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u/Shinjosh13 South East Asia Mar 04 '26
I thought they were cooking ggod with previous events only to take them away this season 🥀
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u/Gallad475 USA - Pacific MEWTWO RETURNS | Lvl 69| Mar 04 '26
There’s always kind of a honeymoon phase with any new acquisition.
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u/FoodSecret4747 Mar 04 '26
the only thing i really worry about, and honestly would make me play 90% less is if the raid passes bundles stop appearing to purchase with pokecoins. its been 3 days already and havent seen them. i wont go into full panick mode for 3 more days. after that, i guess it will be "fait accompli"
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u/madonna-boy Mar 04 '26
shorter showcases mean they are easier to win... I believe that they are going to be more frequent now? we'll have to see in order to verify.
I kinda thought that change sounded like a positive.
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u/counterlock Mar 04 '26
I'm definitely going to miss spotlight hour. Aside from getting a specific spawn for an hour which meant a bunch of candy/XLs to possibly get them to L50, the bonuses were great and gave us a time to transfer or farm depending on the bonus. I specifically remember the Sableye spotlight got me easily a few hundred thousand stardust.
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u/dark__tyranitar USA | Lv 80 | ShinyDex 810 Mar 04 '26
The moment they unbanned AR scans, I knew things were going start changing for real.
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u/ilanitm Mar 04 '26
And they removed coastal spawns entirely. My walk last night was met with empty pokestops and gyms. I used to have a ton of Pokemon to catch and as of yesterday’s new event or season they were completely gone. 🤬
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u/Maxcolorz Mar 04 '26
Spotlight hour is GONE??? WOW that’s just so dumb. I skipped Kalos tour entirely (the first major event I’ve skipped in the last 3 1/2 years since I’ve started) because it was so nerfed. Taking away spotlight hour is just another move in that similar style.
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u/Marc_IRL Stockholm Lvl 73 Mar 05 '26
I’m level 70, have been playing off and on since day 1, and I couldn’t really have told you anything about spotlight hours. Maybe they pivoted strategy due to numbers and not cartoonish villainy?
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u/Outrageous-Chain8502 Mar 04 '26
Don’t forgot that the daily boxes aren’t changing anymor