Community Day : A Rant

DubiousAffairs

Welcome, grab a chair, we're here for a bit.

Where to start ? Let's do the "positive" bit.

This time, the times were given as local times. That is nice, and should have been done that way since the beginning. Not much of a change of hours for me, I'm in France and that meant that it was the same thing.

However, Niantic still call this a "Day" while it's only three hours, and inconveniently placed. Once more, I managed an hour out of three, and fortunately I wasn't as busy as I usually am.

On to the rest.

Communication was once more terrible. Where are those in-app notifications that don't entirely disappear if you take too long to read them or tap your screen. I don't want to have to follow Niantic on Twitter or Facebook to get basic information. This is something that has been talked about since the beginning.

Our characters, hired by the Ministry of Magic, are lugging around magically enhanced suitcases, at least give us a decent desk with a calendar for the important dates. Important notices can appear in the in-tray, and we could have a folder for the archives. (While you're at it, why not add a Scrollodesk : a handy compendium of info about the various characters with whom we interact, and stick the Friends List in there too, instead of the Map page)

Give us a hint that there is a notification waiting for us in-character : have one of the owls or memos usually flying around the map fly in circles around us until we read it. Give us a clock and/or countdown somewhere visible too, events are limited and they are not something we should miss because we just didn't follow Niantic on social media.

Actual Gameplay : this latest community day was terribly thought out. Shouldn't "community" also be about welcoming new players, having a chance to meet them ? All oddities on the map for the event had their stats boosted. Why? I mean, more XP is good, but at what price?

I started playing when the game released, am currently a lvl 34 Professor, grade 12, 145 Spell Energy.

Doxies suddenly took me 2 hits, and werewolves up to 5, after having spent my previous load of books on Full Moon Hunter : "Defence Breach vs Werewolves". What energy I had was depleted very quickly, with only one inn and one greenhouse close enough for the day's schedule. By the end of my first Baruffio's, I had gone through most of that energy, had barely 40 left. The end of the Elixir also came after too few encounters, thanks to the Preening Vampire. If it insists on personal grooming in the middle of a battle, I want to be able to hit him then.

WHAT ABOUT NEW PLAYERS ?

According to the number of busy greenhouses/Fortresses and Dark Detectors, there already aren't that many players around me. I've seen less than five of each "indicator" since I started playing. Shouldn't you make sure that new players want to keep playing ? I would have hated stumbling on that event in my first month with 75 energy and ridiculously weak hits.

That's all for now, or until I remember some things I probably attempted to blank out.

Edit : Please, do not plan XP gain or SE expenditure/gain based on players having access to Sponsored Inns/Fortresses. It is unfair to those who don't have any (Or, in my case, possibly two in the whole country, if they take part at all, as the Niantic website is utterly useless.)

MrSciGuy

Couldn’t agree more.

Acumen

I don't see why you're complaining about communication. It's easy to get the updates you're looking for. All you have to do is...

1. Open a web browser and navigate to the HPWU community forum.
2. Discover a quest on a hidden section of the forum labeled "Muffin-Top Project".
3. Following the instructions outlined in the quest, you board a bus from Bordeaux to Paris. During the ride, you must disable a bomb mounted to the undercarriage of said bus which will explode if the speed the bus is traveling at falls below 80km per hour.
4. Assuming you've disabled the bomb successfully, stop at the CDG airport and board a plane to LAX.
5. Once you've landed, use a lesser known ride sharing service called Floober to travel to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles on Gower Street in West Hollywood. On the way, your driver might offer you some biscotti from his uncle's bakery. If you accept it, the quest is over.
6. When you arrive at Roscoe's, you will have a potato thrown at you by a mysterious old woman. She is your mentor.
7. You stay with her through the winter in a studio apartment in Compton, while she teaches you how to repair shattered iPhone screens and make kombucha.
8. When spring comes, the old woman sends you on your way. You must take countless selfies in the Forest of Indifference, then climb the Geographically Fluid Mountain while typing a bad review about a Hampton hotel in London Docklands. The journey is too difficult, and you pass out.
9. You wake to find yourself laying in a comfortable bed in a well kept room. Your hair is long. You've been in a coma for quite some time. You look around at the animal trophies on the walls, the family photos on the shelves, and the view outside the window. You discover you're in Alaska, in a guest bedroom at Sarah Palin's home.
10. There's a gentle knock at the door. It's Keith Richards wearing a sundress, and he brought you a cup of hot cocoa!
11. He compliments your hair, you compliment his dress, and then he tells you all about the 2019 October Community Day that happened three years ago.

See? Simple. What's the big deal?

AuroraKadavra

@Acumen that is one fantastic imagination you've got there!!!

Always slay me with your posts 😂😂😂😂

Dogoutlaw

@Acumen I’m in tears!😂😂😂 Hubby and I are rofl!! You are amazing!!

kiheikid

i agree with @DubiousAffairs

it is misleading to advertise that the event will feature increased spell energy (which was not our experience, because there are no more sponsored inns anywhere in our county, and because the regular inns and greenhouses were relatively stingy with SE, and because there was no spell energy on the ground), and then double the stamina/hit points of WVD encounters without telling us to prepare beforehand

Ginnungagap

@kiheikid if it makes you feel better, I was in an area with sponsored inns. There was no difference with them from any normal day. Not sure what the attempt was, but it seems to not have occured.

Imaginatio

@Acumen I was imagining having to do that while reading your post and I couldn’t stop smiling😂😂😂