Love/hate game.
I love pokemon and the entire franchise. Pokemon Go is a love hate game. Niantic is all about data collection on it's players and are hard asses about enforcing some rules over others. The game is an excellent way to get out and explore the area. The down side is if you're disabled or don't have the time for it, the game won't be playable for you. Niantic keeps adding on in game features that players love but screw them over a year or two later and remove those features. Thus stirring up the love hate game scenario. Niantic fails to listen to it's players for bettering the game. Instead they do assine decisions to screw the players over.
Recently niantic has decided to undo all it's remote play add on's that made the game fun. If they're trying to go back to the old school ways of playing in 2018 and earlier it will damage their game more than help it.
I've sort of given up on requesting/attending community day. Niantic's endeavor to reduce the incenses from 1 spawn every minute to 1 spawn every 5 minuets. Sucks. Thus rendering them useless. Another love/hate game relationship.
Raid battles. Niantic has reduced the radius for raids and you have to pretty much be right under the gym for raids. 20 m I think. Even after covid I and thousands still feel uncomfortable gathering in a tight group of 50+ people for a raid. My town has decided not to raid any more due to this. My town has a lot of gyms but they're often in areas only easily accessible to neighborhood locals.
Raid passes. Not sure why but niantic is debuting to remove these all together.Why? This generated a whole new level of playing. I can now remotely raid with other online players for those difficult 5 star raid battles. That would other wise be impossible for me to do.
Constantly playing with the meter radius to access stops and gyms. This is damn annoying niantic. Every few months they reduce/modify or change the raidus to access these. When ever they go down to the bare minimum (20m) it pisses players off because it virtually makes the game unplayable. I installed a free little library and it turned into a gym. I literally could not access it from my living room which was 50 ft away. :(.
The gotcha evolve is an excellent addon to pokemon go. It allows me to play. It auto collects for me on my commutes and errands. It's the closest I get to playing a lot. The device software is bad and it's hit or miss to getting one that actually works. They really need to add a patch that allows more than just red pokeballs. Red pokeballs have a higher run away or break out ratio and make you burn through them more. The device can either be awesome or incredibly frustrating. I wish they'd add mac numbers to these. When you're in large pogo groups it often registers all of them or disconnects.
Customer service is horrid. I'm not sure how my main account got dinned with a ban strike. They would not tell me, would not budge. I never played with fake software, never played against the rules, never was a jerk to people in public places. yet some how they stirked me wrongfully. The game often makes players have repetitious patterns and I think that's what got me. The damn game thought I was a bot and I was not. I played super heavy and reached maximum catch limit a day. I guess they don't want super heavy players. :(. That I think was the second reason.
Niantic has no problem implementing ban waves. Innocent players get knocked in the process and I think that's what happened to my account. I called and they refused to remove it. They literally just ban striked my account for no damn reason back in 2018. As a by the rule player I was appalled that they would not remove it. This made me quickly ditch that account and start over.
Niantic also has no problem banning people on old phones or not approved devices to play on. If your phone falls older than the devices they support. Yes you risk position for a ban strike. Which is total a-s-sine.
Community days. I love pogo community day but they keep changing the time frame in which it is played in. Traditionally it's 10a-2p. Which is doable for most. I work pm/evening shifts and this allows a few hrs game play before work. When they do the 2-5p tiem frame I am totally oblivious to it or at work. I often have to excuse my self to the bathroom and set up the gotcha to auto collect for me. That or no shiny.
Rural players. If you don't live in a down town area or city that has a grid you pretty much can forget about playing. When the game first came out I lived semi rural. This game caused me to move closer to town so I could play. By disabling incenses it removed any essence to allow even a bit of game play.
Like I said the game is a love/hate situation. What keeps me playing is pokemon addiction. That's it. The only money I spend on this game is the annual go fest ticket. Or when my gotcha evolve breaks. That's it.