Pokémon Go

[Tanooki]

Damn right it's luck. My wife got into this out of sheer curiosity and if anything says how much it's starting to bother me...today alone she caught a ponyta and a charmander on our own street, but at the end she also spotted Snorlax but at her few level status had no chance to bag it. I did get Meowth at the grocery store though, and an hour ago waiting at a light caught a mid 400s Raticate at the side of the road.

The pokemon she sees are also available for you too. So if she sees one it will be popping up on your map. This is confirmed with friends.

Oh I know that, but I was stuck home working, she was out in the car on the street and saw them so she stopped and went for it. I convinced her in part to play it when she was waffling that pokemon aren't a shoving match they all populate for anyone on a spot. I'm just bugged I didn't get a shot at those 3, mainly snorlax as I've got a couple dozen great balls.

[ExedExes]

It's official, after ** 93 ** hours, Vaporeon has left the gym! That leaves me with just a Flareon out there somewhere. Longest stint ever, longest stint there will (possibly) ever be!

I plan on restocking over the next couple of days. There have been complaints of all Pokémon being harder to catch with the new update, and I don't know if it's that or the higher level "curse" that seems to be prevalent, but I wasted a ton of balls for a Pinsir today around 800CP. I need more Great Balls and Ultra Balls! My potions are still good, even after the gym run, fortunately.

Also, Niantic posted a statement on the Pokémon Go Facebook today:

Trainers,

As many of you know, we recently made some changes to Pokémon GO.

- We have removed the ‘3-step’ display in order to improve upon the underlying design. The original feature, although enjoyed by many, was also confusing and did not meet our underlying product goals. We will keep you posted as we strive to improve this feature.

- We have limited access by third-party services which were interfering with our ability to maintain quality of service for our users and to bring Pokémon GO to users around the world. The large number of users has made the roll-out of Pokémon GO around the world an... interesting… challenge. And we aren’t done yet! Yes, Brazil, we want to bring the game to you (and many other countries where it is not yet available).

We have read your posts and emails and we hear the frustration from folks in places where we haven’t launched yet, and from those of you who miss these features. We want you to know that we have been working crazy hours to keep the game running as we continue to launch globally. If you haven’t heard us Tweeting much it’s because we’ve been heads down working on the game. But we’ll do our best going forward to keep you posted on what’s going on.

Be safe, be nice to your fellow trainers, and keep on exploring.

The Pokémon GO team

So it looks like an effort at communication is happening. Let's just hope we can get some sort of better tracking back again soon.

I also evolved a Golbat today between posts here. I'm at around 30K XP, still need 45K more.

[Tanooki]

I saw that note, they clearly do care, if anything to keep people from being pissed off and leaving which means they don't get paid on the bonus poke-coinage.

Either way I fall into that camp, it has become annoyingly hard at any level to get some pokemon since that last update. My wife is around I think lv5 and she is like pissing 5 balls or more on lame ass little pidgey, rattata, lame worms/bugs, and other dumb crap that should be a one ball snag, two max with bad luck. I've having the same even with random 50ish CP junk and I'm lv12 and it'll take like 5 balls. At some point I quit because it's not worth pissing supplies if something worthwhile comes by.

[BogusMeatFactory]

I am at level 19 and have not experienced any change in difficulty.

[alienjesus]

I am at level 19 and have not experienced any change in difficulty.

I am level 20 and I 100% have. Everything breaks out of balls now. 10CP pidgey frequently break out of pokéballs. This never happened until I started to hit the teens in levels.

Pokémon run away a LOT more too. If a pokémon gets out of more than one ball now, it's 50/50 whether they';ll stick around. It doesn't matter what it is - pidgey, magikarp or something much rarer or more powerful. Running away is a thing I have to be concerned about now, whereas it was never even a factor earlier on.

[ExedExes]

I am level 20 and I 100% have. Everything breaks out of balls now. 10CP pidgey frequently break out of pokéballs. This never happened until I started to hit the teens in levels.

That is exactly the issue I'm reading about (and I have at times being level 21). It took me 5-6 balls to get a 50 CP Squirtle earlier. A SQUIRTLE. But I did find another Rhyhorn inside a Walmart today, and that only took 2 balls @ 500CP. Go figure.

My Flareon came back today, so I'm no longer holding anymore Gyms. But this Flareon returned to me with FULL HEALTH, not 1 HP as it usually does. I don't understand that, but hey, I don't have to use any potions!

[BogusMeatFactory]

At level 20, you experience higher CP pokemon, so you might be having that issue. From others, they say they can not catch a 10 cp pokemon and waste 20 balls to catch them. That is an out and out lie. I catch them all day. Are the circles around the Pokemon orange? If so, you need to use great balls or higher and use berries. If it is green, you shouldn't be having any trouble.

I swear it is all in people's heads. Today I walked around for 3 hours. Caught me near 60 pokemon and came out with more balls than I had coming in. Yesterday I went to the zoo and spent the whole day catching like a mad man. No problems there. Regularly, with tough pokemon I have used 5 pokeballs to catch something in the mid range difficulty.

Most balls I have ever used was 30 on a 1000 cp Dragonair, but that is to be expected. That thing is crazy powerful and was red to catch. I think people just enjoy finding things to complain about.

[Tanooki]

It's not a lie, we're not all corroborating on our stories here to drive you nuts. The higher your level the worse it has become. Totally reasonable with the higher CP stuff, but when you're in the 10-150cp~ range stuff for example (and really so the 2 digits types) they shouldn't take 5-10 balls and often run off. But what's weird though is I know the company is aware of it as they do daily, hell multi-daily tweaks. Yesterday I couldn't catch shit, but today I got a drowzee which was a new catch with 1 or 2 balls, and a few other oddballs I came across (again) I've had before were 1-2 ball catches as well. The aggressiveness of the game seems to work like a bloody yo-yo, once it's down you get your ass handed to you on wasted supplies and bail outs, and when it comes back to your palm it's reasonable like the earliest days of it going live.

They're clearly suffering from and working on balancing issues.

[marurun]

I'm starting to think CP isn't always a good indicator of how easy something is to catch. Sometimes a lower-CP creature will be attacking like crazy, knocking away flung Pokeballs, easily breaking free, and then running away after a couple failed captures, and the next will have a higher CP and catch cleanly on the first try. I think when you are lower level you run into far fewer of the temperamental ones, and when you are higher level you have a greater chance to run into them.

[Tanooki]

I've felt for a bit watching that some factor in it is aggressiveness too, as some just stand there like dopes and others will lash out every 1-3 seconds or so. The more bitchy they are they do seem harder to get, unless it's luck, or you time bashing a pokeball on their forehead before the animation really gets going (to where it would just bounce off) as it's like you catch them off guard.