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have ex raids damaged your community?

So our region finally got it's first ex raid due next week and as far as we can tell only 7 people were invited and almost exclusively to fairly casual players (only one uses all their free passes per week).
This almost inevitably led to a fair number of a large number of players feeling fairly bitter.
It has created a significant sour note to the week and damaged what was a health happy community.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of thing?

Will Niantic please cease these stupid exclusionary raids before they further damage the best parts of their game?

Asked by Frostystuff6 years 3 months ago
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Answers

by Sebhes 6 years 3 months ago

I do notice people gotten bitter. In my humble opinion they are taking things too serious. Its a very very casual game not worth a sweat to worry about.

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True, but when you add in all the investment of time, research, grinding for dust and human nature, then...emotions are bound to run high. Also, from my experience the raid chat groups sometimes remind me of social media problems teenagers have with bullying where things are said that wouldn't be if that person was standing in front of them.

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You're very right. I've been there and done that, I'm glad I managed to grow up in the sense that I'm able to put things in the right perspective.

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In my opinion, the anger isn't that Ex raids invites are rare, it's that they are distributed in a horrible way.
I got my first invite on the 1st of October, after doing a single Magikarp raid and defending the gym for a couple hours at best.
And afaik that's the earliest Ex raids were expanded to many parts of the world and non sponsored arenas.
I hand't even done 10 raids back then, and not a single T3 or T4 raid.

The avarage 10 year old could probably think of a way to make the system more fair.

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Our town has had 4 or 5 EX Raids and it has indeed caused some bitterness, especially with several very active high level players being shut out completely and others being lucky enough to have been invited to multiple.

I wouldn't say it's really damaged the community though. I think everyone would probably agree that the system isn't great, but almost nobody has raged about it. I must admit to being a bit annoyed at one of the most recent raids, not getting a pass at a gym which I raided at the night before it was issued, and was the first gym I got a gold badge for.

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I was soured on the community long before the EX raids were even a thing. But that's mostly due to people acting like snotty children in the social media realms, so I left all Facebook and Discord groups. It's prevented me from earning dozens of legends like some other players, but given that none of them are really that useful and I was lucky enough to get one crappy mewtwo, and I can solo nearly all the T3s that are possible, it has not negatively affected my play experiences.

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I would suggest that it's not the EX raid system nor its failings that have damaged your community. Sounds it's petty, entitled brats that have done so.

In my community there is some saltiness, but most people just accept that it's bad luck and move on with their lives. Thankfully! Calm down, we'll all get Mewtwo eventually!

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I was with you all the way, right up until you said... "we'll all get Mewtwo eventually".

...but have a thumbs up for the rest of it

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Heh, fair enough. Do you not think we will?

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If we stick it out to the bitter end, we will probably all get our free MewTwo egg that is 20km to hatch, which they give us because they're desperate to draw people back in after they don't make anywhere near projections for a second straight quarter. Maybe.

As for getting an EX Raid pass? No. I don't expect to get one. Ever. I don't expect there to ever be an EX Raid in the area I can regularly raid in. Ever. I'm amazed that there was an EX raid done on a Gym that I have ever raided at (and only raided at it due to extremely unusual circumstances that aren't likely to reoccur). None of the people I raid with - some of whom have more than 1000 raids (one of the women who raids with us has caught more than 40 Ho-Oh's. CAUGHT, not raided. Caught.) - haven't received an EX Raid. Filthy Casuals like myself haven't gotten one either. (I've only done 117 raids in total. Having a full time job and a child makes raiding somewhat difficult.)

So no, I'm not expecting ANY sort of EX Raid pass to come to me. At all. Ever.

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You are absolutely right on, and yes, everyone, at least serious players, will get their Mewtwo eventually. Most likely, it will be from an eventual EX pass, but they'll probably also make him available in other ways, such as the two-day Farfetch'd release as a special reward for a global challenge, or some such thing.

I remember when evolution items were new, and everybody was whining because they didn't have all the evolution items within the first couple of weeks. Now, I wish I could trade my extra evolution items for 20 stardust, like my extra nanabs.

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I also think the system is a failed experiment, and Niantic should just stop it now. I’m not that bitter though because in the end adding a Mewtwo to my squad won’t change much.

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No sour notes here, luckily. We've had a few raids, but even though some naturally are disappointed at not getting an invite, we still support eachother and wish everyone going to an EX raid good luck.
Can't remember hearing any bad words about people who've been invited, just tongue in cheek remarks as we joke about it.

I understand people getting annoyed for not getting an EX raid pass when there's an EX raid happening at a gym they've done raids at (it's happened to me as well), but taking it out on the lucky ones who got invited is just petty and childish.

And I hope that now they've started the more "official" EX raids, things will change.

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by Pingo 6 years 3 months ago

We haven‘t had any raidpasses - other cities already a douzen.

But yeah community would probably get even worse. Actually all people are aged 20+ but they behave like children. Eg if somebody hatches a good Larvitar, Dratini or Snorlax there isn‘t a congratulation. More like „you are always lucky“ „again“ „I just get crap“. Some days ago I cought a 100% (there is no iv map where I live) and people were bitter that I didn‘t post it in time - it was 1:00 at night and nobody would have gotten there anyway. Some of them were even laughing when a 100% Raikou run away from one player because they felt like he had too much luck anyway.
Hard to believe they are all adults.

Mewto will make it worse but I feel like he only comes when this starbucks cities have there 100th...
No need to tell you guys that I‘m salty about that

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Yes when raids first came out we had to manage groups of 60 for Lugia raids. When we got our first and only ex raid couple months back a lot of people didn't get it and quit the game. Now we maybe get 7 or 8 to raids these days. The Ex Raid disaster killed Pogo in my area.

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I play mostly from work, in a University near an impoverished community. Most of my raid group are people from that community; and all of them rail about how all the nice neighborhoods have the EX raids - there aren't any Starbucks here, and the few small public parks we have only have a few gyms that haven't hosted any EX raids. Players that are level 36-39, all very dedicated, and all fairly convinced that they won't see an EX raid pass until Mewtwo gets nerfed some more, if ever.

I understand that Niantic wants to make sure that spoofers and the few elite hard core players don't dominate the EX raids, but this structure, with it's randomness, will be inherently unfair to some people, and those inequalities can be seen as falling partly along socioeconomic lines. We're still playing, but there's some angst about it all.

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As for EX Raids ruining my community? It's not currently ruining the group I raid with as none of us think we're going to get an EX Raid in our area anyway. And we haven't had one in our area - this is probably why it's not harming us. We're all in the same boat, Filthy Casuals (like me) and Hardcore players alike.

Maybe if we got one, and most of the people I raid with didn't get one (even though some of them may have 1000 raids under their belts) that might cause friction in our group. If my daughter were to get an EX Raid pass and I didn't? (When I am ALWAYS doing a raid with her, or I'm double-phoning it with her account on the second phone) Particularly if some of the heavy raid players didn't? That would likely cause a great deal of friction - not at her, or at me, but at Niantic.

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My city has had 13 or 14 EX rounds, however, not a lot of players have more than 1 Mewtwo. Usually 4 or 5 locations spread around city each week. Sunday 12/3 at a park I frequent 6 people showed up--A real 39, real 38, real 35, someone's alt account 33; real 32; someone's alt account 29; alt account 27. It was Confusion/focus blast and we beat it with 65-70 sec remaining. There is a lot of interest in getting a pass it seems, not too much when it is happening

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I never understood the concept of Exclusive raids. Raids' appeal was their inclusive nature. Exclusive raids go against that. If Niantic wants a special raid for dedicated trainers, they should be clear on the requirements for invitation; otherwise it's demotivating.
As for me, as a rural player, I've yet to see anyone else raiding. If I do, I wouldn't want to exclude them.

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i think the 4 months of waiting built before anyone here got an invite set the groundwork, and it has been fairly widely reported that this wave went out almost exclusively to "casual" players.

(incidentally i would consider myself intermediate there are many more dedicated then me although I was one of the more active in the early stages of raids)

the dashed expectations combined with the fear that it'll be several months before we see another one. There has been a bit of an attitude of 'you don't deserve it compared to so and so' and the that a bordeline number of passes was handed out just adds more negative feeling to the mix.

On top of that raid numbers have been falling off sharply which could further damage our prospects. In early Ho-oh raids we were having 20-30 show up at raids and now we struggle for numbers unless it's a ttar.

Incidentally I probably wouldn't have been able to go to this raid even if I had a pass as it would represent a couple of hundred dollars of lost earnings and mewtwo is not worth that.

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