Niantic's internal task force for Pokemon Go met its September 1 deadline, delivering its finding to Trainers left upset following a series of in-game feature rollbacks related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The plan to remove Pokemon Go's bonuses and distance increases, implemented to keep players safe during the pandemic, was revealed months prior to the official removal. In particular, reduced interaction distances for PokeStops and Gyms became a sore spot for fans since the pandemic is still ongoing, and they serve as an improvement towards greater accessibility. In response to the decision, fans began pushing back with #HearUsNiantic on social media.
Today, Niantic responded with the results of its Pokemon Go task force, acknowledging it "has a lot of room to grow when it comes to communication" with Trainers. The biggest part of Niantic's new post was mostly about its poor history of communication, and the company plans to implement updates via a developer diary every other month that includes details on events and features.
There are also plans to keep working with some of those community leaders Niantic spoke to over the past month, and it will bring "greater visibility" to its Known Issues page to keep folks in the loop on the status of bug fixes.
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As for those other bonuses, things are changing there, too. Pokemon Go bonuses will no longer change on a country-by-country basis, Niantic will implement bonuses globally for different seasons. The Season of Mischief will be the first to begin bonuses set at a global level, so everything players in New Zealand get, everyone gets. As a result, the 10x experience for first-time PokeStops has been cut, in addition to the removal of two free Raid passes from gyms.
The developer also included an update we already knew about, by reaffirming that the PokeStop and Gym interaction radius will remain doubled as a permanent feature. There wasn't a lot of firm news here, but Niantic noted it wants to continue to encourage players to explore new places, and it'll share updates on future plans that serve that idea "in the coming months."
Pokemon Go's Season of Mischief just kicked off today, so you'll finally have a chance to see for yourself how these task force changes will work going forward. You can read Niantic's full statement on its official website.
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