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How Could Niantic Mess Up This Bad?

Niantic has had millions of complaints about Ex Raids being on the week day instead of the weekend. I haven't complained yet for at least it was right at lunch hour "11 am or 1 pm" which made it a tad manageable. But now I got a pass for this Friday at 2pm... Niantic must know the large amount of their player base are adults right?

Asked by PunchYerSelf5 years 7 months ago
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by hkn 5 years 7 months ago

https://sgexraidmap.com/ shows that all the EX Raids on 4 August (Saturday) start at 1100, 1130, 1200 or 1230. The previous round was 27 July (Friday).

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FFS. They. Rotate. Throughout. The. Week.

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You do realize, for example, that other countries have different weekends, etc.?

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Not. Everyone. Has. Weekends. Available. Either. Also. Why. Are. We. All Typing. Like. This. FFS.

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Been a lot of weekdays in a row though, here it has been at least 12 since an EX on a weekend. Make the varying of the day of the week more dynamic/random. Since they don't or won't, I just guess they want it 10am to 4pm weekdays bc less people raid on normal passes then.

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I'm in the same boat in that EX raids in the middle of the week almost always involve me taking time off work to attend. That said, I've still been able to attend about half of all EX raids I've gotten invites for. Keep singling out EX eligible gyms, the day and times do get rotated and eventually they'll line up for you.

If they kept them all on weekends only comment sections would be flooded with people complaining about it because they work weekends. It already happens for community days.

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Last it has been on a weekend it was May. I think they tried to get kids playing in the summer, then they'll carry it over to some EX raids on a few weekends for the start of school. Having said that I never see any kids playing or at Mewtwo raids.

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I've seen kids at multiple (not including my own.) It's always a blast to see them get their first Mewtwo. So excited!

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I'm 4/7 in attending EX raids that I got a pass for, and 4/4 on those raids. I mean, if you get an EX pass you can't make, it's a bit frustrating, but how different is it from not getting the EX pass at all? Keep trying, and another one will work out for you.

Of course, if this is your first EX pass and you can't make it, sure, that sucks. But if you have others, well, remember that plenty of people have never got one, so quit your bellyaching about it.

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by daltry 5 years 7 months ago

I have missed 4 of my last 5 invites. Don't go and don't sweat it.

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I work in a major city during the week, about 2 hours from where I live. I do the majority of my raids near where I work and I do not go there on weekends.If all the EX raids were on weekends I would not be able to attend any. I'm sure many people have this similar issue, just for arguments sake.

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by aSp 5 years 7 months ago

Stop assuming that what is best for you is also going to be best for everyone else.

The majority of people who work 9-5 don't play pokemon go - I wouldn't be surprised if a large percentage of the player base of PoGo are casual workers as opposed to full time 9-5.

Just because people complain loudly about something doesn't mean they are the majority.

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The majority of people I raid with work "Day Shift" - meaning any time between 4am and 9am to 2pm and 7pm (depending on the weather). It is a very common occurrence for there to be 20 of us given raid passes for an EX raid and then having 6 be able to show up because only 6 are able to move their schedules around to do a raid at 10:30am on a Wednesday, for example.

Nearly everyone I raid with is over 30, employed full time, and a huge number of us are in Landscaping or other occupations that allow us to travel all across town, making PoGo a very attractive game for us. Heck, most of the people I raid with had never played any Pokémon game before PoGo. When I raid with other groups (normally near my work), the situation appears to be similar - though there seem to be more people running home Day Cares near my work, so it's a common thing to see a woman with 4 kids under age 4 in tow as she's doing a raid.

I was just in an entirely different city, and did a number of raids - and found a very similar demographic. Mostly older, mostly day-jobs, mostly people who were in an industry that allowed them to move across the city on a daily basis. And because they were a much smaller player base, they were quite targeted with how they raided - AND how they handle EX Raids. Many of them were sharing passwords with other players so that players who could make the EX Raids could bring 3+ devices to ensure that as many people who got the EX passes could use those passes because it was unusual to be able to get any more than 10 people out to do any of the EX Raids (they avoid intentionally triggering EX raids in certain parts of town because not enough players can get to those raids in the daytime hours to even do the raid at all - those are essentially "Raid here at your own risk." area's). Their entire Discord server (some 200 players seemed to be active in the week I was there, and Silph Road had the numbers pegged at almost 1000) is geared around making it possible for the "Full Time 9-5" players to play the game to the fullest.

My anecdotes are worth exactly as much as your assumptions, and my anecdotes say that the majority of active players who Raid are "Day Shift" workers that could be classified as "Full Time 9-5" workers, not Casual.

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My experiences are different.
I raid with players of massively varying ages, all with massively different occupations.
From a CEO of a medium size company who comes out on lunch and weekends, defence force personnel who work many varying shifts, students from both high school and uni, shop workers who have varying shifts each day/week, hospitality workers who work mostly nights and weekend, as well as 9-5 office workers, small business owners, and nearly any other position or profession you could think of.

In your particular part of your particular country you may be able to see some confirmation bias to help you believe that the majority fit your limited definition of the average PoGo player.

However, the one thing I have noticed while playing PoGo, is that it attracts a far more diverse player base than nearly every other game out there.
The only thing we have in common (apart from PoGo itself) is our diversity...and that is one of the most redeeming aspects of the game.

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And what you're seeing in your neck of the woods is feeding your own confirmation bias in believing that the majority of the player base is not employed in a "full time 9-5" job, leading to your definition of what the average PoGo player is - which, ironically, isn't significantly different than mine. You just seem to think that because you decided to include a few others that don't work the standard 9-5 job, your definition is superior to mine.

You assert that the majority of players are not people who work 9-5, then go on to mention a vast array of different people you play with - and a plurality (if not outright majority) of them are at the very least nominally 9-5 workers on a regular basis? You're defeating your own assumptions here. You toss in Students as if they're a significantly different kind of "worker" than a standard 9-5 employee, but education is essentially 9-5 work - and students often have even less of a chance to get to an EX Raid in the middle of the day because they're regularly using Public Transportation or cycling because owning a car can be bloody expensive; so if the raid isn't close to Campus, they probably aren't going to be able to take advantage of it while I - being employed full time and owning my own car - can sometimes drive to the EX Raid even if it's at an inconvenient time.

Also, as someone who has worked both Evenings (3-12) and Overnights (10pm-8am) in his life (for 8+ years combined, the worst decision of my life health-wise), raids between 11am and 3pm would be even more difficult to do as it would massively interrupt my sleep schedule. Either I would be staying up extremely late (as working 10pm to 8am normally causes you to go to sleep as soon as you get home, so you can do social stuff in the evening before going to work) or extremely early (as you would be getting up quite a bit before your Evening shift as most people on Evenings try to keep some semblance of a Day-Night cycle, so try to sleep right when getting home). When you're working a shift that is counter to your natural internal body clock (the natural body clock is Day = Awake, Night = Sleep, so if you're working Evenings or Overnights you're going against that) one messed up cycle can actually damage your health. EX Raids during the "sleeping" hours can do that. So those shift workers you mentioned probably aren't all that keen on doing EX Raids at 11am any more than 9-5 workers are - and have an even better reason to want the raids some other time.

This Cycling of raids through the week isn't good for anyone. It's not good for 9-5'ers. It's not good for people who work on the Weekends. It's not good for Students. It's outright terrible for people who work shifts that would cause them to be asleep during the EX Raids. The only people it's good for are people at Sponsored Locations who get extra foot traffic during those EX Raids - and as I'm in Canada, and as far as I know we have no sponsored locations, I'm not even sure how good it is for those locations; I know I'd be unlikely to buy something at a Coffee shop when I'm doing an EX Raid (even if they had it at Second Cup or Tim Horton's) unless I was forced to be inside the place during the raid. Even then I'd probably only get a small item and go. So I'm not even sure how good these raids are for the Sponsored Locations.

Overall, the EX Raid system is an interesting idea shackled with a terrible implementation.

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No, I didn't claim that any limited definition will fit the MAJORITY - I was very deliberate in NOT claiming majority. In fact, I was saying the opposite.
You missed my point...I said there is no single neat little definition that can claim to encompass all players, and therefore setting times and days according to a limited definition is guaranteed to miss some.

It is better to have a varying time schedule than one that fits a limited definition of a player.
A rolling schedule is far more inclusive than one that fits a limited audience.

If the current system is 'no good for anybody' as you claim, then how is it that there are many many players with 10 20 or even 30 Mewtwo?

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I work on weekends. I was thrilled when I could finally get my mew a couple months ago

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Even us kids cannot attend ex raids because they are in school hours...

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Note that Mew and Mewtwo are completely different species. Mewtwo is earned from Ex Raids while Mew is earned through Special Research.

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