This episode of the Lured Up Podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Everything we do here at the Pokemon Professor Network is powered by the community. You can join our community of supporters on Patreon for as little as $1 a month, and we offer a wide range of support tiers with various benefits, and all patrons gain access to our patron exclusive Discord, which is a fantastic place filled with fantastic people, and we currently have a goal of hitting $500 with tiers as low as $1 a month that you can help out, a collective of hard-working, part-time creators over at the Pokemon Professor Network. We hope to see you there. We would appreciate your consideration. [MUSIC] What's going on, Pokemon Go Trainers? Welcome to episode 315 of Lured Up, the podcast where we take Pokemon Go way more seriously than we do ourselves. Lured Up is part of the Pokemon Professor Network, and today is Wednesday, July 31st, 2024. This episode is streaming live on Twitch, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. I'm your host, Ken Pescatore. I'm joined by Adam Tuttle. Hey, Trainers. Hello. What's happening? Hi, Ken. Not much. Just, it's a good day. That's all it is. It's a good day. It's a good day for a good day. It's a good day. Don't have a good day. Have a great day. Have a great... All right. That's awesome. Well, we have some stuff to talk about, but it hasn't been the heaviest Newsweek. I think we're officially in the comm after the storm of, like, Gofest season, and we kind of saw this with the longest content update. What do you mean the comm after the storm? I'm just sorry, I don't know. Because tornadoes is in raids right now. I feel like that's a storm. That's a storm, Pokemon. Dude, you know how many times I've raided incarnates or natives? A whole schlop. All right. Well, this is what we have to talk about today. We're going to recap the last week of gameplay, strength of steel, Megalucario Ray Day was this past weekend. As discussed last week, Niantic Support has been super active lately, and Megalucario Day didn't relent, so that was pretty funny. We'll talk about all those Niantic Support tweets that went out. Adventure Week is up next, along with big changes to Mega Requases make good event, and we'll kind of discuss our hot takes as long as, as well as some from the community. Team Go Rocket will be taking over as part of Adventure Week as well, and this is always like the best time to hunt Shadow Pokemon. If you have a living dex like me, it's always a race to get everything kind of in the decks for shadows and purifies. If Deli Bird's not in these shadow raids, it ain't for me. Dude, I'm still mad that I didn't get my Shadow Deli Bird. I think that was, what, 2019 or so that- Ah, it was a long time ago. Shadow Deli Bird, I don't even know, let me just double check. Pure later in the chat said that someone say purified. We are streaming this live on a bunch of platforms. If you are here in the chat, we thank you. Fisher J, Matty G, Sipio, thank you so much for being here already. Love y'all. Give us a follow if you're checking this out on video, whatever platform you're on. Give us a little- Give us- It was 2019. Christmas Eve, 2019. That was the one opportunity we had for Shadow Deli Bird, man. I remember going out that night too, like I was tracking them down, and I just couldn't find one, dude. It was bad, and I remember- Christmas Eve, like I went on the 26th, the 28th. Dude, I remember going- And the 31st. You'll just get it next year. Everything in this game comes back around, right? And I'm not deli bird. Dude. It's the gift that keeps giving. No, it haunts me every year, and it's like the Christmas event comes up, and I'm like, "Be safe." Listen, I'm still upset we don't get a Christmas in July event. That, like, I feel like it's just such a missed opportunity. Just give us, like, a two-day event with Deli Bird. Just come on. Yes, I feel you. But how's your last week been? You set up as a good day. What's the scoop with your gameplay? So, gameplay-wise, I mean, I haven't really- It's- Everything revolves around, like, the event that we're going to talk about. So, it's kind of like, do we really get into it right now, or do we- Do we talk about the steal? What about the past couple days? Like, yeah, I'm going to get the shiny token tomorrow? No, I did not. And I feel, I feel, you know, because I was after it. I was hunting it. I did so many researches, and I even played during spotlight hour, and did spatial rend. Had an incense run-in. I was catching so many, and I did not see a single shiny the entire event. But you know what I did get for shinies? Was it an off-brand shiny? Oh, I got a lot. I actually got a lot of shinies. So, to start the event, I got Chinese Sizer from my research, which is kind of cool. I got two Alolan sand trues, Clink. I got a Bronzor, Chancy, Liketung, Magnumite, and Eevee. Well, okay, well, Eevee was this morning, but- But no token tomorrow. No token tomorrow. Yeah, man, that happens. That happens a lot. I've seen that a plenty where it's like you're tracking down the new shiny. You're doing the most of it. It feels like you're catching and checking the most of it, and then you come up with Bubkiss, and it's like now, after the better together event, I did so many tandem mouse researches. I didn't get the Hondo. I did so many toga-madaroos. I did the spotlight hour. I did incense constantly. Spatial Rend. I didn't get the Hondo toga-madaro. Toga tomorrow. I got the Hondo toga tomorrow. Oh, yeah? Lucky you. Lucky you, Ken. I didn't get the shiny, though. He's so casual at this game. Dude, I've been somewhat- Did you get it out of research, though? I did get it out of research, so that doesn't really count. It doesn't really count. But that's where I would have gotten mine, so. No, look, it's special research, too. It's like it's one thing if you're getting it out of field research, you know what I mean? That you're still putting in extra effort. I got it from probably one of the ticketed encounters, so it's like I had to pay to win. And I did want to say I had a task that rolled over. Like, I still had it and I hadn't completed it. And I believe it evolved three stealer catch steal or something. I believe it was the catch 10 steel type Pokemon. I have that, too. And then when I got it, when I completed it, it was a pom-y or pom-o, whatever the basic stage one is. And I was like, are you serious? So- Wait. It was orange. I know it was orange. Like, I know it was. Yeah, but- Was that a potential for that task? Or were they all toga tomorrow? I thought they were all toga-modara. I don't remember seeing anything else aside from toga-modara. But I guess it could have been. But it just seems a little shady. Interesting chat. Let us know. Was the catch 10 steel? I believe, why would it be pom-y? Doesn't make sense. I don't know. That's weird. That's something something. You know, I wish this is like a dumb quality of life thing, that when you complete a research, it says what the research is before you collect it, when you're looking at it in the today view. Because a lot of times I'll complete three researches, and they're all encounters, and I don't know which is- Like, you know what I mean? Like, I wish it just showed you which task it was. Even if it was a shadow. No, but like, show me the task name. Like, show me- This is the completed one for use five berries or something. You know what I mean? Like, show it to me. I guess, yeah. Because then it would let you know- Oh yeah, those are the tasks with this pool associated with it or something like that. Matty G in the chat saying that had to be glitch. Well, speaking of tasks, I did complete my Gofest. Oh wow. Because I fused my Necrozma. I fused my 100 Necrozma with a lucky Lunala, and it turned out to be a hundo. I don't know is that because the Necrozma is, so it will automatically be? Because everybody was saying it like it's a dice roll. You don't know what the stats or the IVs will be. So I'm just going to leave it as a Dawn Wings. Matty G saying that would be nice completed catch five. So you didn't have the catch 10 steel. Oh, it was catch five? Yeah. Okay, I know it was catch something, but it was, I was so upset. Scipio saying yes Necrozma stats determine the power of the fusion. Oh, okay, cool. Based on the Necrozma. Thank you. Yeah, everything's based on Necrozma. I play this game sometimes, but uh- But I finally completed the research there. I did catch a 100% Pharaoh seed. Ooh, which was kind of cool. Let's just look at the event real quick on PokemonGoLive.com. Triple say on paper. So on PokemonGoLive.com. Look at all this text with no photos of the Pokemon. Still sour shoes about that. Beldam was the big chase for a lot of people. Beldam's been around since GoFest right here and there on different events and people are definitely digging in and prepping for Mega Metagross. I saw Glaw from way spotters. Got the Hondo. Beldam was like, that's a nice catch. I think I have two. I have one Metagross fully powered up and then I have one Beldam that I just left. So Skarmory clink Pawnyard token tomorrow. I know you sent me a couple Pawnyard. Thank you for that. Yeah, those are the only ones I saw and then I couldn't see any more. Three-star raid Steelix Seizor my while Agron. I'm not down to do these if they're not the Megas. Give me Megas Steelix. Give me Megas Seizor. Give me Megas Agron. Yeah, I didn't do any of those. Yeah, no real interest there for me. Any clink Pawnyard and Talgrumadaro? I am a fan, I gotta say, of field research that rewards Mega Energy. I dig that. I like that. Not only because I just want to hoard the Mega Energy, but I think this really improves the accessibility of Megas because if people never got a chance to raid the Mega or they were short or let's say they got a Hondo after the fact. Like I have a recently caught Hondo, it was a ghastly, right? But I have a Hondo Gengar that I want to add to my Mega Rotation that I'm like 16 Mega Energy Short. Why? Why are you 16 Mega Energy Short? You need to get good, sir. Get good. I have like 10 Gengar in my Mega Rotation. I've used up all my energy. But through research, that's when you can kind of pick up on that. The time of research, there was really nothing to it again. Just no difficulty in these timed resources. Yes, I agree. It's kind of a bummer. Collection challenges, showcases. We had a false alarm in our showcase chat. The other day, Kube. Cost of the Cube. I was like, get ready to snipe in five minutes. And everyone's scrambling. I thought it was tomorrow. And then we were like, oh yeah, this tomorrow. Yeah, that was pretty good. I think I got first, first, and fourth. I got like 40 of something, dude. I was-- You were cooked. I was nowhere in the realm of existence at all with that. But strength of steel, what'd you think? Was this worthy of an ultra unlock? Was-- I don't know if it was worth an ultra unlock. I think this is more like, this event was just there. And they called it an ultra unlock. That's what it felt like. I'm just saying. Well, I think that if it didn't have the triple dust, it wouldn't have been-- I think the triple dust was probably-- Probably was probably the event's bonus. That's the ultra part of it. That's what I'm saying. Like, if it didn't have that, it wouldn't have felt right. So because it had the triple dust, like I'm not necessarily excited to catch scarmories. You know what I mean? Like-- No, not at all. I'm good on that. I'm totally good on that. Let's go to Mega Lucario. Mega Lucario, which was this past Saturday, the 27th. This was the third ultra unlock. Now, here's an event that doesn't make sense. Okay, talk to me. Because the closer we got to it, so I got an invite on my way home from work. And the first one I did was a shiny Lucario. I'm like, there goes the whole event. That's the whole event. That's the whole reason to go play. It's not a new shiny. No, I understand that. But like, the new Mega Lucario is-- That's the chase, is the mega. So you want the candy. And I feel like because they allowed remote raids for this, it was just kind of like, I did a couple, I'm okay for now. Because you were doing them so quick, you had big energy payouts. Yes, and I was physically in a city with lots of people. So I had the advantage of being able to do quite a few more. But overall, I just feel like if it wasn't remote, I think a lot more people would have tried to come out and play for it. Adam, I'm kind of thinking you're describing elite raids. I know, I know, which is weird. Adam wants elite raids. No, I just think-- You played this game in person. I just think it's a-- It took the specialness away very quick. I feel you, man. But like, this is new. That chat said, "Did 59 in person 10 shinies know Hondo at 5pm? I started to do remotes and got the Hondo first remote, gave me the 1544." Hey, man. Wow. See, that's a good blend. He raided all day in person 59, then started doing remotes at 5. That's legit. That's legit. Yeah, I mean, I did several remotes because I just kept getting them after the fact. But like at 5, it just like, it was just cold turkey cut. Dry it up. Nothing. Yeah, and it's like, at least-- So were your remotes like locally? Like sort of local, like from the local group? That's why it pays to have a diverse friends list. I mean, we do. So I'm surprised that your raids dried up. But when you have friends in different time zones, it's the best because you can kind of follow the events across the globe. Like you start getting them in the beginning from New Zealand and Australia and Japan and then Asia and then Europe. And then it's like, then you get it. And then you're like, oh, it's done for us. And then you still get to get some stuff from the West Coast. I really enjoyed this event. I had stuff to do all day Saturday. I had a lot of family stuff I had to take care of. And so I was wrapped up most of the day and I had a two, two and a half hour break, something like that. And I was able to-- I was a couple towns away in Freehold, New Jersey, which is like maybe 30 minutes from Red Bank. And I could jump into Freehold Discords, Freehold Campfires. Like, yo, anything going on? There was a campfire meetup set up, chatted in there. Like, yo, it was just happening. Like, I don't see any flares or anything. And they're like, yeah, we're on our way. And I went to this one park that probably had about 10 gyms in it. And we just sat there for two and a half hours and did the three cycles of raids. I did about 35 in person. And I think maybe a dozen or so remote, no hundos, but did get the shiny on raid 32, in-person raid number 32. I got the shiny, so. Well, I got five shinies. That's wild. That's absolutely wild. I still don't have shiny riolu. I had a laccario from the trade and now I have another laccario. And I think the last raid I did was a weather boosted laccario and it was in 1925. So it's a 15, 15, 14. I'm with you, though. The raids were getting wrapped up so quick. I mean, I put four or five laccario into the mega rotation and I'm still sitting on like 6,000 energy or something like that. So I don't know. I don't see the point in stacking it like that. Like, I don't know. I think you described elite raids. I think that kind of an interesting thing, because are you turned off by the remotes or are you turned off? I was turned off because like the special. Or the remotes or the lack of people out because they knew they could remote it. I think both, honestly. Because it didn't feel as people were in the raids, but they weren't. I was in Lowell, Mass. So Massachusetts. That's not, you know, it's pretty busy place. Popular. And yeah. And Lowell, Mass, they had a folk festival. And there were tons of people there. There were tons of people. There's no reason that there should not have been people in like every single raid. And it was like I was inviting people to try to get raids done. Yeah, but you could like duo the thing. You didn't even like need a group. Yeah. Well, you know what? And then like I joined one, but I started walking and I went too far and I ended up getting like kicked out of it halfway through. And I didn't realize it till like we got to the area where we were going. I just tapped on the screen and it just like went away. And I was like, oh, great. And then the timer rotated. So I lost it. Let's see. Pull up my. Yeah. If you could pull up your pants, that'd be great. Pants on the ground. Yeah. So this was my, I got my Lucario's pulled up here. I got a 1490 that I got the shiny here. But yeah, nothing, nothing too crazy. 1501, let me put CP. Let's look at 1528, I think was my best of the day. Yeah, this is a Forest Palm Lucario. So not, not great from, from a stats perspective. I couldn't, I couldn't get my hands on, on too much. Man, I'm dead battery squatter right now. I got 11%. All right. So that's, that's make a Lucario raid day. I think that kind of feeds into a little bit of an issue. And, and this is a, this is an interesting one. We're going to look at nine to support tweet saying trainers. We are aware of an issue that affected some time zones, which the mega Lucario raid day ticket bonuses were not applied for a few hours after 5 p.m. local time. And then they go on. They had this issue that affected certain time zones. They never clarify what time zones had the issue. It's like, why would they do that? Why would they not say who's affected? Well, because they don't want to give it to everyone, but just the people that are complaining. But they're, no, it's not the people that are complaining. It's people that are in those affected time zones, but like, what are the affected time zones? No one knew. So it's like, I have people saying like, oh, well, I think I was in the effective time zone. Like, if you look at, and I'm going to pull it up here on screen, if you look at the actual event information, there was something with it that there was a typo with the time. Here you go, 5 to 8 p.m. The remote raid limit will be increased from 20 from 5 to 8 p.m. That was not the case in some time zone. So people had to use, I guess they were raiding more locally. I don't know. They're giving passes back to people. Just, I hate when nine tech support does this. It's great that you're communicating. Like, thanks. Thanks for that. But could you have a little word economy here and just like tell us exactly what's going on. So people know what is happening because definitely some clarity. Some vagueness. Some vagueness going on there. All right, let's move on to some current stuff here, Adam. We have adventure week coming and we talked about this last week and the overall adventure week event itself. This is without talking about Team Go Rocket. If you're not going to travel to a new place to take advantage of the five times for the new Pokéstops bins. I don't know how exciting this event is. Now let's not get it twisted. I'll be out there playing every day. No matter what, you know what I mean? There's, you know, shouts to all the players that are just troopers. But when you look at the encounter list here, Diglett, Amunite, Kabuto, Dunsparris, Rogan, Rolla, Drillbur, Bunelbee, Eredactel. Being the rarer of the event. A couple of fossils in eggs. Cranidoshield onto Artuga, Archin, Tyrant, Amora, which is in there, which is cool. That's a holdout for a bunch of shiny hunters. A pretty deep field research bench here. Like a lot of different Pokémon. Again, Eredactel mega energy they're giving out. And $2 paid timed research that actually has some consumables in here. So this is pretty cool. Collection challenges, showcases, web store bundle, all that. On its own, doesn't look too, too, too strong. But really what makes this what it is. Is the paid time research. Is the paid... It's the $2 research. Is Team Go Rocket. So Team Go Rocket coming over. You're paying for one super incubator, and you get a second one and a regular incubator. Plus the encounters. And extra encounters, yeah. Plus the encounters. I think that's a deal. I know a deal when I see one, Ken. The 29 says prepare for Rocky Roads ahead, as Team Go Rocket takes over Adventure Week. The whole Adventure Week, the five day or six day, whatever it is, Adventure Week. Four day Adventure Week. Special research story will be available to save Shadow Cresselia. So there you go. Shave Shadow Cresselia from Giovanni. Shadow Lugia will also be in five star raids. Like I guess they're doing like a raid-ish weekend. Saturday the 10th and Sunday the 11th. Now, meaning no Shadow Sweetcoons that weekend. Just Shadow Lugia. But in the video that they had like a promotion for this, they showed Shadow Apex Lugia. So people were like, what? Is the video wrong or is the blog wrong? It's yeah. No, no Shadow Apex Lugia. Just regular old Shadow Lugia. I think it was Hamtaro. Oh, shout to Hamtaro as the Pokeball turns for hitting 100 episodes on their podcast. Adam, I know you had brought that up before we recorded. Make sure we shout out Hamtaro. Shout to Hamtaro, David. Congratulations on 100 episodes. It's really awesome. I saw that he had posted the Gail of Darkness. What are you looking at, Adam? You're making me nervous. I'm pretty sure I just had like a hornet. A bear? A hornet. Like a bee. A hornet? Yeah, like it flew right here, like next to me. And then I was like- Don't worry, there are friends. No, it was Hamtaro though. He posted on Twitter. He posted the Gail of Darkness, Shadow Lugia. It was like, release the real Shadow Lugia, you cowards. With that Gail of Darkness one. Everybody wants that. OG Shadow Lugia. Team Go Rocket more frequently. Charging away frustration at frustration in your search bar to get your Pokemon that have frustration charging. Or you could just leave it. Use your TMs. Or you could just leave it like Adam. What I do is I have a living decks for my Shadow and purified. So I get everything clean to where I don't have to transfer anything. And I have what I want to keep for my living. Then I do at frustration. Just rip through 50, 60, whatever. Many new Shadows I've picked up for the living decks since the last frustration event. And just do it all at once. New Shadow Pokemon, there will be new Team Leader Pokemon as well. Timber Turtuga, Archen, are adding to the mix. Shadow Raids, Shadow Marip, Whooper, Kranados, and Shieldon with three stars, Nuzzly from Nectric Vibrava. I don't know about these. We've had Shadow Seedot before. You know what I mean? Like, it doesn't... Is Shieldon... Is like a Shadow Shieldon or Shadow Bastion really good in PvP? Or is that just kind of like a... For the Bastionon, you needed it to be like a perfect stats. So I mean, maybe if you can get a perfect 15/15 Shadow Shield or Shadow Shieldon, I don't know. Field Research, Mysterious Components, Charge TMs and Fast TMs, Showcases. There will be a bundle with Rocket Radar and all that good stuff. I like these events, but I think we talked about this during... Wait, the bundle is going to be $10. I was going to say any guesses as to how much it is, but... Yeah, it's 10 bucks, 10 bucks. And don't worry, it does come with Pineparies. Silver. It's Pineparies. Silver Pineparies. So you know it's worth more. I think you would say that when you get the Giovanni research, you don't rush to finish it, right? I don't. I never do. See, I'm the absolute opposite. I am on a tear to get through to Giovanni. I wait for the balloon, you know what I mean? Like, I want to just get the research over and done with, and then I try to catch up with all the grunts. So, let us know how you out there handle the Giovanni quests. Is this something you prioritize or do you just kind of... Because it is something that you'll just get to when you get to it. I love the rockets though, so I'm constantly doing them. So that's all I have. I'm okay. I saw a Rocket before we podcasted, and I decided to do a Ternatus Raid instead. We got some people in the chat here. People in the chat. Keeping that many fossils and 7K eggs is not great. Also, shadows will get... Yeah, I'm not hatching anything. Shadowcranidos will get people raiding. Looking forward to Shadowcresselia, Spolic in the chat. Again, new Shadow Pokemon and... New Shadow Legendary. Yeah, that Lougy is coming back because if you missed it the first time, missed it the second time... Now you can miss it a second time. A third time? No, well this dude. Shadow Shiny Pokemon are awesome. They're good. They're fun. They're fun to collect. It's fun to collect. But all right, Adam, it's been about a half an hour, a little bit earlier than that. Let's take a break. When we come back, we're going to talk about Mega Requaza. We'll share our hot takes on... I don't know. This whole kind of flip from elite raids to an elite raid makeup day to a regular raid day, raid hour, pseudo raid hour. I don't know. I don't know how I feel about it. I got feelings, so we'll talk about that when we come back. Does that sound good? That sounds great. As he's hydrating. All right, audio listeners. We'll be back right after this. And we're back from our break. Thank you so much for that. Appreciate it. I just want to take a minute to recognize some of our patrons. Huge thank you to our gym leaders, Ben, DJ Wonderbread, GK, Hall to Counselor, Joseph, Kimberly, Mythical, Hitch, and Nogandude. Shout out to our newest patron breaker. Thank you so much. Thanks. And for the first time in four years, the lured up executive producer tier is available on Patreon. Thank you so much. The Paul bot has held us down for four years in the executive producer tier. Had stepped down this week. So shout to Paul bot for supporting us for so long. We really, really appreciate it. But that tier is available. If anyone wants to jump up in there, the executive producer spot for lured up is available. And a special thanks to the other executive producers on the network, Tish Smith and Kate de Cons. And make sure you check out pokemonprofessor.com for everywhere you can connect with us. Check out all the shows on the network. Get some merch, leave us reviews, all that good stuff at pokemonprofessor.com. All right, Adam, let's get into the big news here, which of course is mega requests and the bombshell that niantic dropped on the 29th. Knowing that this was coming back for a elite rate event and it was going to be a 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. elite rate. So that's what they originally had said. Yeah, then this comes out. It says mega requests a special rate event. It says Saturday, August 3rd at 11, 1, and 6. Mega requests will hatch from rate eggs in rate hours at the following times. So it's a rate hour format. Alex Tuttle has liked a stream. What's up, brother Tuttle? Alec is in the stream? What's he doing now? He goes to bed at like 8.30. There's no way he's awake. Well, someone's hijacking his computer and like stream. It's probably Lindsey. Lindsey, what's up? Saturday, August 3rd, 11, 1, and 6, the makeup. Okay, now here's what's weird. Elite raids were exceptionally limited. You had to really track them down. Heavy duty coordination, especially with the 6 a.m. thing. Oh yeah, but I just want to stay in my car and not talk to anybody. Okay, that is a downside of elite raids, but they flipped the script on this. And it says, "We apologize for the incubines of our dedicated trainers experienced during the initial appearance of mega requests in June to compensate for technical issues that occurred during this event. We're holding a special raid makeup event on Saturday, August 3rd." Thank you for your understanding. We appreciate your continued passion for Pokemon Go. Remote raids lifted to 20. Adam, can you remote raid an elite raid? I don't know. Is that what this is saying? These are saying that these are not elite raids. It's just saying that there will be raid hours three times. Oh, I like that they changed the terms. Oh, because they realized elite raids are not that great. And if you look over here, there's free time to reach. We will get the count from you. Here we go. No, that's the poke to bear. Where was the one? They actually said that, I think it was Niantic support, said that this will be a true raid hour format where you'll have a 25-minute raid egg, five-minute cooldown, and then the gyms will refresh. So, let's say you're living in a rural area. You have two gyms in your downtown total. And none of them were EX-eligible gyms. You were screwed. You weren't getting any elite raids, right? Yep. Now they're doing a raid hour format. Which means they're at every single gym. They're at every gym. And the possibilities are endless. They'll refresh twice an hour. So, let's say you have one gym in town. You still could raid six times if you raided at all three different times. I was just going to ask, if I raided my local time, does the clock switch over at midnight? So, I do another 20. Is that how that works? Oh, you mean for remote raids? Yeah, like if I did 20 remote raids and then it turns midnight, do I get another 20? Yeah. But that wouldn't help us because the event's over three hours. It's more than three. You know what I mean? Like the West Coast. It's not too late. You wouldn't be able to take advantage of that window. Oh, here it is. Okay. So, Basher BallGod said 9 to support posted it today. I'll pull it up. It says trainers mega-requdays will appear at all gyms during the raid hours on Saturday, August 3rd at 11, 1, and 6. And will be available to challenge for 25 minutes, with up to two challenges per gym in the hour. So, there you go. There's the confirmation. So, all right. Lots of unpack. Lots of unpack. They are making it 20 remote raids. So, they're clearly not afraid to monetize this event in ways that elite raids just couldn't. They're giving free research to everybody. So, you'll get the media, right? And you're going to have to work for it. So, I'm assuming it's going to be like last time where they don't just give you the media, right? But you actually have to complete a raid to get it. But now, you can just toilet raid it, right? So, I put up a tweet the other day kind of saying like, you know, shout out to all the actual elite trainers that raided mega-requdays. So, when it came to elite raids last month. Oh, that's me. Oh, that was, you know. And then I said, and slow-clap to all the toilet raiders that are excited to raid it this weekend from their toilets. Listen, there's people going to be out. I agree. Because they added a third time. So, if you can only get to one. They can only get to one. Yeah, dude, it's going to be popping off. It's going to be popping off. Now, the interesting thing is the raid times don't allow for back-to-back hours. So, there's a cool down between 11 and one, and then one to six. So, trainers aren't going to, maybe the 11 to one, people will wait that extra hour. But people aren't going to, like, hang out for five hours and wait for six o'clock to roll around to get more raids. Like, this will be another group of trainers, probably. But also, will other raid eggs appear in ruin? The mega-requdays are raids? No, because during raid hours, it's all gyms. So, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, but there's gaps in between. So, during those gaps? No, but I'm sure that I'm still-- Get dicey? No, I don't think that'll be a problem. I don't think that'll be a problem. Here's some perspective. So, there's just going to be no raids during the in-between. There could be, but they'd be over. But, look. Would they? So, the social media world, the Twitter world, is heralding Niantic. Wow, this is a Niantic win. Thank you for listening to us. Uh, you know, it's amazing that you're actually doing this, and then they'll kind of do a backhanded dig on paying remote raids, whatever the case may be. But, the angry mob has been sedated a little bit. They're kind of chilled out, because they're getting what they wanted. And what they wanted was no elite raids, and the ability to remote mega-requdays. So, what does this say for the integrity of Niantic's court values? And are they doing this to appease the people? Or is this the exit strategy for elite raids, and we won't see them again? I hope this is the exit strategy. I truly hope that. Cipio in the chat says, "Just think of the inevitable toilet raider who gets the Shundo Ray." You should flush it, delete it immediately, transfer it. Flush it, oh my gosh. Take a selfie. So, if this was, if this was the send-off, and elite raids don't come back, what does this do for core IRL communities? Because they didn't say, because of last time when you did elite raids, it's very focused on your initial appearance of mega-requaza in June. They're not saying anything about elite raids. If Twitter didn't exist, and you were just a trainer outplaying elite raids, you would think that the game was flourishing and it was awesome, because if you had that in your community, obviously the rural trainers, I talked to Coach Kev today. Shots Coach Kev in the Lord Up community used to live in Pasei County, New Jersey, very urban, lots of stuff going on, big area, shots of the Fairlawn, New Jersey, Ray Group. And he moved out to the Poconos in Pennsylvania. He's like, "Yo, I get it now." He goes, "I have two gyms in town, and when I'm at the one gym, I don't even have service." That's how in the sticks he is. So clearly, there's a huge segment of this game that wouldn't be able to get to elite raids, even if they wanted to, right? There's other roadblocks. So we know that elite raids impact accessibility hugely. But where does it draw the line of that being a problem versus Niantic saying, "Okay, this is how we instill difficulty. This is how we instill exclusivity." And it's okay that not all of our player base can experience all the things in our games, where some in the community are like, "No, everyone has to be able to do and have everything." So what are your thoughts on that? And is that reason alone that elite raids should go away for the accessibility? Or is it because of, they should go away because they're tech- Because EX raids are better. There was just something about getting that invite and being like, "Hey, you were chosen." That felt good. That was like, okay. It was like in the letter from Hogwarts. Yeah. And even if you couldn't attend, it was still cool to know that if I had the availability, I could do it. It was exclusive in that way. So, Spalik in the chat saying, "I think they're doing this because elite raids have been broken from the start. I agree with them being broken. I've never had the additional spawns. I've never seen the timer." Oh yeah, I forgot all about that stuff. They just talked about it. Says, "Honestly, they need to replace elite raids with Dynamax raids." We know Dynamax is coming. How are they going to do that? Was the elite raid system going to change into the Dynamax raid system? Like, I don't know. I love elite raids. I love elite raids. What I do know is that we need... Okay, so they're doing this. They're making this raid event. So, this is the makeup for the elite raids. So, every time we beat one of these raid-hour Pokemon, will we get the extra spawns? And if not, we need a makeup. basketball got so spoiler, the Dynamax raid system will be broken. I totally agree. But anyways, I think... Oh, I'm in the way. Joshua Miller liked the stream. Thank you, Joshua. Appreciate you. If we don't get the extra spawns around these gyms once we defeat it, I feel like we need another makeup day. Oh man. It's a perpetual cycle of makeup. Just saying. If we don't get that, we're going to need a makeup day. So, because they want us to forget, they're like, "Listen, we know we said an elite raid." So, they promised us the elite raid, and then they take it away. And they're like, "Ah, hey, you can remote raid." But they're also taking away those extra spawns. Yeah, but did anyone really care about the extra spawns? Remember, you knew it was a chance to get the Cantonian birds? Yeah. Who's ever seen that? Nobody. Nobody. And you're moving to the next gym immediately. No, you're waiting for five minutes. Well, I'm just saying, Ken. All right. Here's my full take. I'm just saying. We need a makeup for the makeup that they had already promised, and then took it away for this makeup, which doesn't actually make up the fact that the spawns should be there. Am I wrong? I don't think so. I've never seen the spawns. I'm just saying. I don't think I'm wrong. So, I be remiss if I didn't say that elite raids, while they do support Niantic's core values, exercise, exploration, real world social interaction, what ends up happening in practice is the car thing. And we've talked about this. Sitting on the toilet. Because you have, well, not with elite raids, but with elite raids, the people that do go out for them aren't like, all right, everyone lets meet up at the clock tower and do one raid, and then we'll be on our way. It's like, no, they want to hit 10 of them. They want to hit 15 of them. So, the only way to do this is to stay in your car. This is getting the car, right? So, and a second, thankfully, makes the effort to drive to the new place and get out of the car, group up in a huddle, do the raid, run back to the cars, and go to the next spot. We get out of the car every time, and if you don't get out of the car, you're getting lambasted with dirty looks, because that's part of it. We want to make sure we're still out and talking and hanging out. Normally, it's the people in the cars giving you dirty looks. Well, yeah, they're like, "Guys, are we talking yet?" Look at these goody two shoes. These must be some boot liquors. They're sitting in the air conditioning, like rolling Twitter, waiting. They're waiting for the mess up. They're waiting for something to be broken. No, no, no. Let me get back to the point here, though. Let me get the point is we're not going to get these extra spawns. So you need to make up for them. So we need to make up for this event already. It's already needing a makeup event. No, so here's the thing. Who agrees with me? Leave a comment. Chat, listen, listen, listen. The beauty of elite raids in areas that support them, areas that have communities that can participate and drive the ship, is that they encapsulate the spirit of being a Pokemon trainer completely for me. The immersion is there because I have to coordinate. I have to talk to other people. I have to be motivated to move, move quickly, and get beyond top of my training, right? So you could just light a flare in campfire and then just not talk to anybody. There's a problem when there's always problems. No, you have this perfect setup for real-world social interaction. I've met tons of new trainers from elite raids because you have people that drive in from other towns if they see something going on in campfire, or whatever the case may be. But so like when elite raids work from a community perspective, they work really well. And this is when you see the groups of Jamal's community with 100 plus people and Hamtaro's community with hundreds of people. You see all this motion, all this action, all this coordination, and it's like this wouldn't have happened for raid hour. This wouldn't have happened for a spotlight hour. They're happening because this is elite raids and this is a big deal. But we're going to get burned out real quick with all your remote raid passes. You're going to burn through them and then nobody's going to be out. It's just going to be. Well, that's the problem because there's so many. But if it was an elite raid and it was remoteable, there'd still only be one or two gyms in town or whatever the EXL is for gyms. That makes it that's different because you're still going to have to have boots on the ground, but now that they're going to be everywhere, and let's not get it twisted. You don't need a lot of people to defeat Mega Requaza. You know what I mean? It's not like a giant party. You don't. You don't. But I think that this shows weakness to some point in some way of Niantic. And I feel like they caved. Like, I don't feel like they did this out of the service for the community. I feel like we're still going to need that makeup event. Well, you stop. I can't stop. No, I feel like they're there that they did this because either they knew they couldn't get elite raids, right? Or they just wanted to quell the flames a little bit. I don't know. Spalik says our raid community would still be raiding on elite raid day. That's what I'm talking about. So in my community, we'd be out there in front of them. Yeah, and I mean, I would try to hit one, but like I'm doing something now. So it's not like priority for me. No, but he says if the elite raids would have worked correctly from the start, we wouldn't even be talking about this. You're absolutely right. Correct. You're absolutely right. They'd been screwed up from the beginning. And it's like first couple were bad. Yeah. And it's like how? Go back to the EX system. That was flawless. Not flawless, but it was a lot of fun. It felt special. It felt special. Okay. That's what this game needs. Something that feels special. But look, if there was no, if there was no elite raids, and they were just doing a mega requests, a triple raid hour, whatever you want to call it, raid day, people would still love it. If this was just a standalone event, just as it is, 20 remote raids, remote raidable, like people would love all of that, it would be a good event. So I'm not doubting that people will be playing during the makeup event. There's going to be a lot of people out, a lot of people raiding, tons of remotes being played. It's going to be a lot of gameplay. But, but it devalues the mega requests that were caught at Gofest 2023. It devalues the mega requests that were caught at elite raids, because now you're going to be literally flooding, flooding, flooding the market with mega requests. Everyone's going to have them. And the people that were elite and organized and got on the high horse and got out there and did work. Yeah, no, but like monkey Brad and all of a sudden, Ken's her. I'm just waiting for this makeup event where we get the spawns from around. You know, imagine the games broken or something. It would be so bad. But I think they know that this format works. All they have to do is just code in that specific Pokemon. Watch, watch is not get the, the, the timed research or whatever it is. That would be like, I did a raid and it didn't give me my meteor. I've never felt the legendary is devalued by actually being able to raid it. Yeah, that's a, that's a tough one. And obviously we're not in a competitive state where it's like, uh, you know, the, or, or commoditizing the commodity, commodizing the, the Pokemon. Oh, there's a value, a dollar value. And now there's more in population. So the value goes down. I think it devalues the effort, the effort of the trainer. Yes. Every Pokemon lives on an island, right? Shouts Kyogre. Every, every Pokemon lives on an island. It's its own thing. So yeah, you can't, I'm not gonna, my Pokemon isn't going to be devalued because now someone can catch 30 of them. But the efforts that the elite trainer put in to get out there and raid and bust their butt all day doing stuff, it, they, now they're like, I could, why did I do that? I could have just sat on my toilet. Now hopefully they have the spirit of the game in mind and they're like, remember when I did the love of the game, the love of the community, or read you like, I don't even know what turn it was, but like, I tried and it didn't work. And then that was a red jilecki, red jilecki. Yeah. And then, and then they just gave it to us, we could just rate it. And I was like, why did I waste my time? I think that Niantic caved here. And I don't feel good about it. Like I think that, that they should have stuck with elite raids. And I don't know, I just, I feel a certain sort of way. And so I asked a question and I totally screwed up here on Twitter. And I deleted, accidentally deleted one of my retweets that had like, all the responses from the community. So sorry about that, guys. I'm so sorry. I can't believe you. But I put a bunch of starter topics here. And what I'll do is I'll extend this, this question out for the next week. But I put a bunch of starter topics like, does it devalue it? How many in person remotes do you typically do? How do you feel about remote rating versus in person rating? What are your spending habits in the game? And are you okay spending or does it feel icky? Because let's not forget. We feel like they're doing a favor by saying, hey, the remote raids are now up to 20. And really what they're saying is like, instead of spending 10 bucks today, you can spend 40, you know, so it's like, do we celebrate that? Like I never, I always thought the problem wasn't the cap. I always thought the problem was the price. Like who cares about the cap? I'm not doing five remote raids a day anyway. Yes, but if I do one raid or I do five, I'm still going to be bummed about paying a dollar 95 each. Yeah, I've already done two remote raids. Dude, I, I've hit my cap quite a bit over the past since go fast, since go fast. I put in here, do you like the ex raid format better than elite raids? Are exercise exploration a real world social interaction important to your gameplay? And I think that's where we see a major divide. I like the exploration. Right, but some people don't care about that at all. So they're like, I don't care that Niantic wants this. I don't care. Don't tell me how to play the game. If I want to play from the toilet, I'm going to play from the toilet. So they just don't care. So it's like they, it's almost like that the game isn't speaking to them like that. Do you have two or three friends that you play Pokemon go with in person? Like these are things that all tie in to like can elite raids be successful? How does your community coordinate? Does your community have a leader ambassador or campfire presence? Are you starved for POCA stops and gyms? Do you take part in Wayfarer? I hear that a lot. Oh, I don't have you ex gyms. Well, have you tried to add some gyms and POI to your area? If you want to be elite, you got to, you got to put in the work. And I think that's where my panties get in a bunch because I'm like, you got all these trainers out here who want the elite rewards and they're not willing to be elite. And it's like, I don't, I don't want to just give you this stuff. I want you to work for it. You should work. Well, Niantic's making sure that we don't have to work for it. We just have to work for the money to pay for it. I don't, I don't think, well, yeah. And again, this is an expensive play like to the people that are using 20 remote raids. Like, that's a big commitment for the day. Yeah, start saving your coins. That's all I'll say. You're not going to get very far if you're saving your coins. It's like you got to, you have to play for four days. I'll at least get a one remote raid pass. Yeah, we'll say the 31st. So one to, yeah, I can't even do that. Yeah, you can get 150 ex raid chat happening right now in the Twitch chats or shots. Everybody that's chatting. Ex raids were better. They felt special. They felt the invite. Yep, it felt special. Ex raids were so exciting to get the black and white invite. Yeah, like swooped in, you know, like it looks so cool. Cipio Blue, though, brings up a good point. It says I got burned too many times by ex raids that only happened while I was working. There was no getting around that. I agree. Remember, they started making them at like 1 p.m. on a Wednesday. It's like, what? It's like, I've only ever raided at this gym where the raid is. I've only ever raided there at 6 p.m. or later. Like, why are you making the ex raid at one o'clock? Yeah, but that's a good thing. Like they could figure that out and adjust time. So it's not always the same time. It's even more random. We always want clarity from Niantic, right? They're never going to tell us exes are staying or coming back or elites are going coming staying. Like, no one's going to tell us this. No, but dynamax. That's the curveball. Yeah. Our dynamax raid is going to be based on the E. And then we're going to need pereotype raids. The ex raid system is still base. Where's would was wolf? Ex raid system is still based on OSM data from from 19 zero to Brenda Tuttle like to stream. Yo, you're my mom in the stream. What is happening here? This is like the whole total cruise here. Hi, Grandma. Hi, mom. How you doing? Go to bed. It's look. The ex raid system is based the the it's a 2019 OSM update. So what's the elite raids? Are those based on the same? Yes. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Okay. So let's get rid of that. That's a problem. The elite. Let's update it. That part of it is a problem. That part of this time. While they're not using the elite raid system to look into it and fix it and or get rid of it. Oh, man. There's we and I apologize because I deleted the tweet, man. I'm kicking myself in the butt. I don't know how I possibly did it, but we had some really good. I know how you possibly did it. On both sides. While you're on the toilet. Maybe problem. I mean, yeah, 99% true. There was a lot of people going back and forth saying things like. I like elite raids because it got the community together, but I want to do a bunch. I don't want to just do one or two. Now they're like, I have 10 great 10 gyms in my neighborhood. Now I could do 30 of these things during the course of the day. I would never be able to do that many if this was elite raids. So yes, there's positives because accessibility now goes through the roof, right? You have like the people that are like virtue signaling like they're that want to be heroes for the community being like raids for everyone. Accessibility. How can it be a bad thing? It's like, well, because it directly impacts the exclusivity of a Pokemon. And it's the most desire one of the most desirable Pokemon. It that it is, but wouldn't that mean people should be willing to work for it? Or play like is this an ultra unlock like for? No, or you know what I mean? Like that's what I think requires a feels like. I still think Niantic caved. I still think that they should say something about elite raids aren't coming back. Everyone rejoice, you know, because I don't know. I just don't know. I don't I don't get it. I don't see how this supports the kind of style and personality that we've come to learn of Niantic. Are they trying to change their perception? Are they just trying to pander? Or do they really think that they can't pull off elite raids? And if they can't do pull off elite raids, will they pull the plug on them and then Dynamax raids? It's like, there's there's a lot going on here. There's a lot going on. I don't know. I don't know. And don't get me wrong either. I still love remote raiding. I feel icky about paying so much to do it. But I love raiding with the community. I love raiding international stuff. I love being able to get cool timestamps and you know, like when trading with action. YouTube was out. I was like, I want Japanese Mewtwo, you know, like send them, you know, like. But I just don't know how this supports Niantic's core values and their willingness to kind of flip on this because to this point, they've been like, I just understand how they don't see that somebody's going to complain about not getting extra spawns after defeating the raid. Will you stop with the extra spawns? I'm just saying. We're going to need a makeup for this event already. And like, they don't even know it's coming. At least this is my warning. There's just going to be a bunch of requests in the inventory like, Oh, I didn't have to work for it at all. I love that. Oh, this is so good. I'm so good at this game. I'm so so good at this game. I should, I should play this game more often. Definitely let us know what you think about this change to mega-requases elite raids. And let us know how you feel about not being able to get the extra spawns after the raids. Yeah, I mean. And will you be sharing with Niantic that we need a makeup of the makeup event? I don't, I don't think we need a makeup for the makeup. I apologize to everyone who wrote in that I deleted all their responses some way somehow. Appreciate it. Okay, believe it or do that? Dude, that was a bush league move. But we did get an email. Oh, and you know what? One more thing I wanted to do. I wanted to give a shout out to Espion Willow. You know, we had Professor Willow's birthday a little over a week ago. We were going to talk about it on the show and I didn't get around to it. But it was Professor Willow's birthday. Espion is always like cheering for Professor Willow. She's, she's, she's no joke when it comes to the Professor Willow love. And she wanted to make sure that we, we talked about Professor Willow because probably the most not listened to Professor of any of the professors in the history of professors. Right? Well, he's also not black and white, you know, with, with Professor Oak and him being like, what'd you say? Most people don't listen to him at all. That's all I'm saying. All right, I'm pulling up an email here. One second email. Yeah, have someone had responded to all of the pokedabear stuff. Why can I open this email right now? All right, it's pulling up his contact info. I apologize, but all right. Here we go. Does it devalue? It's difficult to answer. So no answer for that one. He said he's doing no remote raids in a week, only in person. He tries to do his one every day. Um, remote rating is good for rural players, but you have a community in person. Rating is way better. If you have the community, there should be a hundred percent remote rating. Remote rating has a place. It has its place. I just don't think, oh, and this is a dream or pogo that it has its place. However, I don't think this was the place for it. I think that this needed to be. You got to prove your worth. Prove your metal. If you want this Pokemon, you got to get out there and work for it. So I don't know. Let us know. I'll put links to the Twitter in the description. Keep this conversation going. Is this a net win? Does this matter to you? Will you still go outside and play? I will actually be at a card show. So I will be unavailable. Remote rating. Yeah, I'll be remote reading. Remote rating. If I have the chance. As the pogo wall turns and the chat says remote rate event for Regice. Sounds exciting. Thrilling. Riveting. All right, everyone. Thank you so much. Let's keep the conversation going on Twitter. If you're here in the chat, we appreciate you. Please give us a follower sub before you go. If you're listening to the audio and you want to check out the video, you can head over to our YouTube and watch the VOD. And if you are here in the chat, you can catch the audio version on piecatchers later this week. But Adam, if that's a show, then that's a wrap. I think that might, in fact, be a show. Just all right. I'm just still disappointed. I won't get to have the extra spawns. You can email us. Lured up at pokemonprofessor.com. You can leave us a text, voicemail, video, whatever you want. 732-835-8639. Check out pokemonprofessor.com for everywhere you can connect with all the shows on the network. If that's it, Adam, keep training trainers. Thank you so much. We'll see you next week. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
