Did Niantic Mess Up Mega Rayquaza Elite Raid Day?

Mega Rayquaza was back to raids in the form of an elite raid day in Pokemon Go just yesterday. However, there were some ups and downs about the event that many people were unhappy about. I’m here to share my thoughts and personal experience of this event, with some suggestions for Niantic in the future.
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[@darkrai7597]

I understand the effort to make these in person so players can meet up and play together. But having an elite day is just disastrous. People were stressed driving around to make it to other elite raids in time. It was so dangerous with people driving while on their phones or parking in non-designated parking areas. Pokemon Go should not be a game played while driving.

[@Want300]

This… fine… put them only in parks, but make every gym in the park be the raid at each hour, less stress more gameplay

[@SirOreo_]

@@Want300 fr make them respawn or something lol

[@marshadow13]

This was my experience

[@nguyen925]

I don't mind elite raid days.. but increase the shiny odds ?

[@someguymc]

@@Want300 agree! park gyms reset at each interval. problem solved.

[@Kodashy]

Very bias opinion... sorry Brandon but if the only good thing is "this helps to bring people together" then it completely failed. Making it a "everyone get into a car and drive around" that is not bringing people together... If helping 1 or 2 people to find the "right gym to start and meet people" is the best argument, then again, improve the Campfire meetup system or do something to notify the people in a better way where are people meeting for regular Raid Days, do not make it a driving experience. I have nothing against Brandon, but we need to think about the smaller communities too, this is just a BAD event and goes against the "group experience" 100%... For anyone that does not play in a major city this was just a bad experience... and for what I am seeing, it was not that much better in big cities.

[@sahm32323]

I feel Brandon has forgotten not all of us are fit or play pogo full time. Most of us have work . Some like I have health issues

[@ThomasBrown-s1w]

Exactly. Niantic don't even think about those who are affected by a natural disaster, where the whole town is closed off. Ya, unfortunately, we were affected, not just our livelihoods in general here in Lahaina, but also very limited to playing the game. Tell the truth Brandon, you're an unofficial rep. I remember that one video where in relation with the remote raid nerf, where you said that if we chose to play the game, then that's our choice. One of my cousins stopped playing because of the nerf; prior to the nerf, we always hung out with each other at least once a week, Wednesday, in particular

[@bigwooh4367]

If they want people to meet up, sure keep the elite raid gym format, with the exception of one change: let the raid boss respawn every 5/10 minutes at the same gym. People will still meet up at the gym during the 45 minutes period, but then people don’t need to rush in their cars to get to the next gym. You can actually get some meaningful interactions with people this way instead of run and gun without saying hi

[@erictravis9552]

This person gets it. 💯🎯

[@mingweilim9300]

Agree. People should understand the interaction part ofnthe game.

[@D1zzle777]

But many players don't want in person interactions... Many just want to play the game with existing friends or family acme catch pokemon.. why are they forcing everybody to go meet new people.....

[@bigwooh4367]

If they make sure that once you have started the raid, you can end the raid and catch the boss without any issues even if the boss had respawned, this idea should work. But with all of Niantic's problem with raid mechanism and things tend to screw up after the raid boss timer ends, I will probably not see such a change in my lifetime

[@DanielDinhCreative]

For context, in Melbourne (2nd biggest city in Australia), we only had about 20 eggs across the whole city at 9am, all in the suburbs (20+ min drive apart). Most people cancelled plans because there was no point doing just one raid per hour, especially those coming from out of town. There was also talk about a make-up event from different independent sources. At 10:30am, all the eggs suddenly spawned, and it was confirmed there'd be no make-up event. So we had to organise 100+ people to get to the meeting point in

[@Kn1f3Y]

To add as well, the game is set up to be used and played while walking/running, the fact that these eggs were so random and so far apart, forcing people to drive or use public transport to go to a location where it's even viable to go attempt as a group. In my local community , there were a total of 4 eggs that spawned and 3 of the 4 were on different hours. Those that can't drive or travel due to personal reasons basically had no chance since there's already barely enough people to actually attempt the raids and the motivation to go to a different area for locals skyrocketed due to lack of raids.

[@thamSihou]

Agree, raid day would be nicer. We will still gather somewhere which had alot of gym to raid tho.

[@Holo-qu6ln]

I took the train into London for the event, there were 4 raids at Buckingham palace. Wasn’t worth the trip.

[@Christopher-yc5py]

The raid locations were way too far apart. What made Kyogre and Groudon great was that everyone could walk together from one location to the next for long periods of time without needing to rush.

[@Tribalkelectroc]

Elite Raids should not exist!

[@JaydenPalser-ky1hb]

Fr

[@mrshreddy6753]

Elites are one of the worst decisions they’ve made IMO. Accidently went to the wrong starting point? Oops your sol. Can only get to the spot 5-10 minutes after the raid appears? Oops the people there already did it and now you gotta wait and see if anyone else shows up to help. Just do away with them.

[@amgkv2.025]

Amen

[@courraffe]

bruh, it's one of the only raid to socialize so far, but putting Mega Rayquaza in Elite raids shouldn't happen in the first place

[@LOSTNFOUND223]

@@courraffewe have shadow raids to socialize , don’t need anything more than shadow raids to be honest..

[@kingvegeta7868]

This was the worst event ever. I agree with the people complaining about the people driving

[@Biggiexcheese]

Bro raid day was horrible for me. last year when we could actually join remote raids it was awesome but this year with only in person it absolutely sucked especially with the eggs spawn being so random and so far apart Ngl they should just completely redo the event They should just let us use hacks at this point not that I support it or do it though Also love the vids

[@user-lj3ez7so4p]

The least I'd expect from Niantic honestly considering he's gave us no good updates since covid and the updates that have happened just ruined the game

[@basedjj93]

I had fun

[@milesmalonedokkanstuff7017]

There is something so trippy about hearing him talk in a flat tone 😂

[@TimmyMicBobbins]

Right! Never heard him like this before just started following him before the recent raids

[@AceToast777]

I’m just sick of the strict timed events that happen for 4 hours on a weekend. I am stuck working every weekend during prime event hours/community days.

[@sahm32323]

Not all of us can play pogo full time. Elite is just that. For an elite group. Sad but true

[@Joekool88]

Has Niantic ever not mess up?!

[@austynparks682]

I was honestly so against getting campfire but has been a massive game changer for getting raids done easier. I've also found my community has a way more massive community than I thought.

[@jv8800]

They f up real bad

[@tsgtajirisilvergaming90]

Niantic " we want you all to go out and play in person " This is a driving sport to hunt all the raids down . I'm in Texas with alot of gyms... Only 4 were Elite raids. Just lots of cars following the same route 🤦

[@joshualang7647]

Same, almost got hit trying to get to raids all day

[@AbrahamChou-rc2lq]

There were so many issues…. One I don’t have many raid passes, and I was hoping for a raid day with free passes. Also even so it was so hard to find the elite raids. I end up having to drive around, and if I start at the wrong spot, there is nobody there…. Then if there’s no one you drive but everyone already left and raided… it’s poorly designed, and there are better ways to do it.

[@Want300]

Put Rayquaza in regular 5 star raids for 10 days… I will be happy. I got the energy, meteorites… lemme farm candy and candy xl now please

[@Houndlock643]

This! This! This!!^^^

[@user-lj3ez7so4p]

O that sounds nice

[@Godbunny101]

Or make it friday and weekend with some free meteorites

[@BlackBeltBoyte]

I am in a remote community. We have a nice community but still small. I get kicked from one raid and there were only four in our area. So I got 3/4th of what everyone got in my community.

[@bobbyrdayton9866]

At least u got something stop complaining

[@StrangMuZ6]

Stop riding niantic. y​@@bobbyrdayton9866

[@clampy7987]

@@bobbyrdayton9866 most people got much less than what they got. i personally got nothing due to my area.

[@InfamousSslickX]

I can understand Niantic's perspective on trying to have the community come together but in rural areas it will be redundant. You need to cater to everyone, not just one side of the market.

[@richarddelo3506]

The elite raid format yesterday made me care so much less about this game.

[@ThePlagueDrFrost]

I was really excited for raid day until I realized you had to do it in person, I can’t go do them in person and I have no friends so I was hoping to remote raid a Mega Rayquaza 🙁

[@benjaminhowland1719]

same

[@PkmnTrnAnt]

Find friends

[@Sniipez-]

Do you live in a city or near one?

[@ThePlagueDrFrost]

@@Sniipez- yes I live near one, but it’s not really a Pokémon GO community

[@Sniipez-]

@@ThePlagueDrFrost maybe there is a Facebook group or a whatsapp group that you could join Im always travelling by train to the next big city near me to play bigger pogo events

[@KDIY]

In San Francisco we were able to play 24 raids. We had to play in 2 different parks and ended up walking 17 km at the end of the day. All this was possible thanks to our community ambassadors that woke up at 6:00 AM trying to figure out a route to maximize our chances. I agree, more time to organize is needed. In our community, we have a lot of people that travel from other cities to play big events, and not knowing where we're going to play makes it hard for them to plan the trip to San Francisco.

[@Northside_RC]

You're the first content creator I hear not complaining about the elite raids for Rayquaza. Thank you - very refreshing. All the other CC's are sounding like: Niantic messed it up - why couldn't I get 40 or 50 Rayquazas today? why did they told us it will be a raid day and then it was an elite raid day. etc etc. Simple answer: You don't need 40 of them. I think it was a great day - better than the normal raid days. We met with different people at different arenas and had no big problem taking Rayquaza down with 6-10 people. With only our 4 family accounts it would have been harder - no question - but the party play and friendship bonus helped a lot, too. Sure - we only did 6 raids in total in 2 hours and had to spent 4 green raidpasses ... no free 7 passes or up to 30 or 40 raids in 3 hours like garchomp raid day ... so what. We used our bicycles and If we would have used the car we should have been able to do 8-10 in the first 2 hours. The only thing i would complain about is: 1 shiny out of 53 encounters for all the players in total seems not to match the 1/10 shiny odds for elite raids. Luckily I got this only one 🤩 I would say spawning the eggs in the evening before is a great idea - I was wondering where the eggs were the day before, too. Luckily I am in europe and we saw the eggs 6.00 a.m. in the morning. Campfire helped a lot in planing our raid route. There is only one big problem with campfire. If you have children and they have kids accounts they can't use campfire to sign up for meetups and so they won't get any free items from the ambassadors hosting the events. You should be able to do this with your parents account for them ...

[@TREOL]

Damn bro. You have the platform and clout to speak for the community louder than this.

[@craigchilman3649]

Here in Queensland Australia the nearest one to Me was a 40 minute drive and then there was no guarantee that anyone would be there so yet again we get screwed 🎉

[@jonesycollects9641]

I understand you technically work for niantic plus your the #1 player so the goal is to put out a fire right but you have a role to play for the community. A raid day with regular eggs would be amazing like during kyogre and Groudon. You mentioned safety right? Elite raids are so far out right? People drive place to place right? You can still use campfire for regular raids.

[@IzzRei]

I run a campfire group for Aurora IL and I know that our experience is different then what most players have but this meet up was our most successful meet up we have ever had. We broke our records for both RSVP’s and check-in’s but it took a fair amount of work. Myself and our wonderful mod team made promotional posts to various platforms through Facebook groups and discords before hand. We (the mod team) planned ahead to be up at 6am and make a raid plan for each time slot. We created maps with raid orders and coordinates and pushed those out to all the platforms. When the time came we had crowds. And it was beautiful. We got compliments from so many people thanking us and how much these meet ups reminded them of the glory days of raiding and how much they loved it. When there is challenges, if you as a group organizer are able to overcome them that makes you as a group more vital. There is no perfect solution and the overall meet up was very stressful for us, but the end result is something we are proud of and happy with.

[@joelhogarth5089]

Terrible idea to have it as elite raids

[@The_WhiteWolf_Valkyrie]

This was an event I was really looking forward to, as I moved away from my PoGo community right before this guy came out and this was going to be my first. Planning was difficult. I admit, I still don't understand Campfire that well. I didn't see anything where people were posting about where they were going and what directions they were going. We have a solid crew, but knew the 4 of us wouldnt be able to take one alone in that first hour, and it would still be impossible when our 5th person met up with us at the next hatch. I was so excited at first when we pulled into the park, seeing the swarm of people standing in the middle of an open field brought back amazing memories from the 2016 days playing. But that quickly went away. As we were walking up as it was hatching, one person in our group managed to get into a lobby right as it was going in. That left the 3 of us and 2 other stragglers alone. After, the one who got in said his group only had 8 people in it. I remember the good ole days raid train days where if we had a lobby that had room and there was still time on the hatch, we would jump out if we saw stragglers to give everyone a chance if there was enough time on the raid, then boom, you have solid party to hit the others in the area. I think the panic of not being able to plan well made people not care or even think of helping others. 3 in my group and the other 2 missed that raid, and the second the herd went to. But we decided to just run to the 3rd hatching in the same park while the herd finished the second one. Just kinda stinks that 5 people missed out on 2 chances due to the chaos, and that small party missed out on extra energy with a faster take down. Everyone was in such a rush they didn't talk to anyone else other than their immediate group. It became pure herd mentality just following the biggest group of people and just hoping you could keep up with them, especially after leaving this particular park which was the only one to have several hatches at the 12:00 hour. Our 1:00 hour was just a pure disaster with how spread out they all were. We did one and gave up. Tried again at the 5:00 hour and no one showed up to the one we were at, still saw nothing on Campfire of people communicating. Just sad. I think I was more upset at how I got that wave of nostalgia that got crushed into the dirt.

[@jah3009]

The answer is yes they always mess up the raid days. It’s honestly insane they just need to stop doing them shadow raids are local and so are com day raids that’s enough

[@justinchanwh]

I was also looking at campfire to see how the earlier time zone works (I am living in the US Central time zone). It was a fun event that I am glad to meet few new players around my town. Would be happy if Niantic does the following 1. We get to a point that we have more than 20 players and would need to separate the group into two. I am in the second group and would love that the elite raid would open up the private group feature. Then, we do not have to wait the first group's timer goes down in the lobby (provided the first group trainers do not ready up). 2. It would be helpful if the elite raids are within walking distance, not driving distance or within the same park. We need to drive from one raid to another and did 4 in an hour (total of 8 for me between 5-6:46pm) and with road construction, it makes it harder. 3. As Brandon was saying about planning, I agree with him that the elite raid eggs can show up at 10pm the night before rather than 6am in the morning. It gives more time to plan the routes.

[@generalchilly3436]

Elite raid day is a stupid ass idea that ruined rayquaza day. I only had the time to do two of them and im 25 mega energt away from mega evolving it and didnt even get the fucking meteorite. Im beyond pissed about it

[@pand0ra204]

U didn't complete the timed research for the meteorite? The drop rates at the actual mega ray raids are terribly low

[@jesusrojas.]

Damm I got 2 meteorites

[@jesusrojas.]

@@pand0ra204Fr there was 2 if you put a code

[@ymcavalier3555]

Really nice to meet a fellow Singaporean today in Rockville - we appreciate you and Princess stopping by for an impromptu visit!

[@Rollwithvince]

Hi Brandon, hope you are doing well. I hope that you can hopefully understand the challenge people with mobility issue could deal with. I totally understand that this game want equality without cheats, hope that you can communicate with Niantic about this issue and hopefully to just use the joystick to move around without the teleport to spoof. Thank you

[@ryanzutell1423]

Thank you for these videos with community tips. You’ve really inspired me to attempt to grow and untie the community in my town

[@boahmali311]

it was a bit of a scare checking that morning and seeing absolutely zero eggs in my nearby city, we almost cancelled our plans, luckily it got fixed before we cancelled

[@KhaDuongBao]

Campfire doesnt even exist in my region😂

[@xavierlopez2299]

For me I’d do this- keep the regular raids being one legendary and one mega in rotation, but have one day a week for an elite raid that consist of a random legendary that’s not in rotation. No exclusive elite Pokémon just a random optional Mon people can go for. Not having something exclusively in an elite raid especially something as significant as a rayquaza. Event as big as that should definitely have been in regular raids

[@Stand.Your.Ground.]

Campfire is 100% the way to do it. At least in Oregon and Washington. We had over 200 people show up.

[@KDIY]

Same in San Francisco

[@DaveSzumlanski]

0:27 I totally thought you were going to say "shed some LIGHT on the situation!" I want to add that I had a bunch of fun. Medium sized town, and Campfire was the MVP of the day. We were able to get 10 raids in, and it was awesome to see people out again!

[@dontaskmeaboutmyday4839]

It was crap for me, only like 3 raids in my area and the others were several hour waits in between eachother. Sucks when you have other things to do and also very annoying how the raids last only 45 mins

[@FiddlersGreen75]

As Noob, I was really excited about this and been preparing my team every since the announcement. unfortunately, the day did not work out at all. I didn'tparticipate in a single raid. There was just one gym available in my town and no community. so looked for the meet up in Nürnberg and by the time I got there it was over. I was really hoping to meet some local players. So that i can finally get in on some bigger raids.

[@user-lj3ez7so4p]

Niantic doesnt let us remote raid cause he wants us to go outside and get fresh air which i respect the problem is what he doesnt understand is that u have to live in a major city in order to do these cause it takes 10 players or more to beat so if u dont live in a major city u aint gonna have enough players to take any down and if u live in a spot like me u wont even get 1 other player to help u take it down so its seriously unfair and a terrible decision to not be able to invite friends or use pokie genie

[@davidm4773]

Had a great time and met some great people! Was very happy with the event.

[@AnthACD]

Would appreciated the 24 hour wait. We are 8 years into this, it would be different if we were in year 0. I was the one in our community to try and create meet ups. Two Elite gyms didn't get Mega Rayquaza show up at all I am in semi rural FL. It would be nice in a Campfire update on the map you can see it is an Elite raid gym special symbol next to the name . Like I didn't realize one new gym was an Elite raid gym. Many trainers in our area doesn't use Campfire to its full ability. We are in a semi Rural area so many of the Elite raid gyms are various locations isn't easy to do a bunch in that specific hour. We are lucky to have a state park that has 7/13 Elite raid gyms clustered together. Just hope and pray that you can get them at close times together. Like 3 at 12, 2 at 1pm and so on. If you don't have att or Verizon your cellular data isn't the best at the state park. Also, you need to pay to go in unless you have a state park pass. One nice feature to it is I have access to other FL state parks. Also, mosquitos are bad this time of year there. I moved into this community little over 2 years ago. It's not completely United and I am trying to bring it together a bit this past year. First year I just observed from a distance and feel it out. There are many who arent even level 40. I get it There are some communities in different county's where they may have more Elite raids. Question is do people have the ability or transportation from someone else to get there. It is up to the person to figure it out. I get it you can't please them all. Would had it been better if Niantic did it both but at different days? One day will be an Elite raid day, second would be for just one hour it is Mega Rayquaza. The Elite raid will wield you more Mega Energy, rare candy and Rayquaza Xl candy. A guarantee Meteorite and special spawn of sorts.

[@sourfeet4676]

Like the videos keep it coming.

[@sigisoltau6073]

I'm not angry or disappointed. How can I be? There aren't any elite raid gyms near me so I was unable to take part in it so I'm neither angry nor disappointed. Closest elite raid gym is 300 miles away.

[@ianoleary8122]

Elite raids are a joke, no benefit to do it instead of a regular raid day. Just stresses people out and excludes tons of players. Even with the special spawns after it was pointless because everyone just left for the next one.

[@BarbaraGreen-db1hd]

It was a great day for me! Met lots of new trainers from our West Texas town! It was fun and we did about 8 raids. Only did the noon and one pm raids. We are blessed to have a great leader for our group!

[@craigchilman3649]

It was a massive fail end of story. I would’ve purchased between 15 to 20 remote raid passes but instead I didn’t do one.

[@epiceverything9495]

In my opinion the change that needed to be made was to allow them to be remote raided but still only in elite gyms because there’s still limited spawns so that in person people still know where to meetup as a group but also not excluding rural areas

[@aoaronkwok8530]

Totally mess up. We can’t gather all trainer for elite raid tower. Some of them staying far from it😢

[@krystalkasprzyk1789]

Ive been playing since day 1. I honestly don't even bother with elite raids.

[@puff3922]

No we didn’t get 8 hours notice in Melbourne. It was not a small hick up. It was a massive fail. I agree campfire is a great platform. There were less than 20 eggs across all suburbs in Melbourne at 9:30 am, and we cancelled the meet up as we had to travel 30kms apart to 4 different suburbs to get 4 raids in 2 hours. As I was driving to prepare for what would be our first location, the eggs suddenly appeared around 10:30am. But it was not like your experience where we can walk. They spawned in different areas and we scrambled to come up with new plans. Our first location was in a gym that was in the middle of a football pitch. And because we didn’t plan, we ended up disturbing a local football match. Imagine 30 cars turning up and couldn’t find parking. We couldn’t plan for routes, let alone scout location for safe parking. It was not how I would normally host raid. We didn’t get to talk or interact or rest because all the locations require driving. Even the 15 minutes between 12pm and 1pm eggs we used it to drive to the next available location.

[@BayAreaBurner]

Hmm sounds like a sponsored response for Niantic here

[@biggmeech4264]

Where I was yesterday or I should say in my hometown didn’t have a Mega Elite Rayquaza Raid at All until 5pm Hawaii time! I’m not mad since I just wanted a better Shiny,a Hundo or Shundo!! Mahalo Braddah BrandonTan91 for ALL of YOUR videos!

[@davidfancher5228]

It was Very Difficult. it was 115 degrees here on Saturday so people were driving around looking for raids. There was a mall with access to gyms but only one raid at noon and 1 at 1pm. two Raids is just enough to mega evolve one.

[@Maya-mi2hp]

This Elite raid was a disaster. We are many players i our community and all of us 47 people gathered to raid 3 rayquazas, imagine the unpleasant surprise when we discovered that it wasn't possible to split into several groups because the option to PRIVATE GROUP wasn't available. Shame on Niantic😠 Many players spends a lot of money and time and this was far from OK.

[@mariomezquita3492]

As a newer player this was a disappointing event. My kids and I were enthusiastically looking forward to it, but the eggs not appearing until 6:00am meant little time to plan (Saturdays for players with kids can be hectic, even when those kids also play PoGO). We weren't helped by the rain, but that's not Niantic's fault (unless then control the weather...) We live on the outskirts of a mid sized UK city, so we decided to stay around where we lived rather than to go into the city, and found one park with 2 Elite Raid Gyms. We thought there would be players there given that the one showcase pokestop at the park had 12+ pokemon for the showcase. But when the rainy raid started, we could only find 3 more players there, and we were all relatively lower level players, which meant though we tried several times, we just couldn't bring Mega Rayquaza down. The one upside is I'm now friends with those 3 other trainers (who remained hidden throughout, but sent me friend requests later), so at least I've got local trainers on my friends list. On a side note, I tried looking for a local community (local to my immediacy, not to the city), but found it difficult. I did find some local players on FB, but as for an actual community, it has proven much more of a challenge. I know there are players out there in my area. The gyms always have pokemon in them. The showcases can have anywhere between 5 to 25 players competing in them. But I don't know if there's a community, or if there are community ambassadors. I did look at the PoGO page to see if there were any official ambassadors for my city, but the nearest one was an hour or so away in another city. I did install Campfire, but have run into problems with it for accessing all of the features. But yes, was looking forward to the Elite Raid day, but it felt a bit of a let down in the end. :(

[@declanpower2620]

The point about Elite raids bringing people together is very valid, and I have seen this first-hand. However, I think having the 3x 1-hour raids offer more flexibility for communities and leaders to set up meet-ups using campfire. especially in suburban or rural areas where elite raid gyms may be more spaced apart. Instead, the community could be more focussed on one area that is densely populated with gyms for ease of communication and trainers that do not have access to private transportation can easily participate with everyone

[@nixequestrian3721]

I agree with not have elite eggs showing 24hours before, your idea of 10pm elite eggs is the ideal solution. I have to disagree with your point about raid days having too many gyms & players not being able to find enough people to play with- The short answer is remote raids are an option for raid days & often there are masses of people wanting to remote raid them. IME, Raid days themselves also discourage raiding via car in most cases, whereas the opposite is true for elite raids (& things like shadow raid days). I'd hazard a guess that for many players if not most of them, doing elite raids can only be done effectively by sitting in a car & driving to raids. I do agree with having fixed time raids for the same-ish reasons tho- I'm a planner & like when everyone one knows where to meet & when. I actually would prefer shadow raid days had fixed hours for the t5 shadows to hatch for the same reason- trying to find shadow raids to do, plot routes to get as many done as possible, then try to either get people onboard with doing them in that order or trying to figure out which order other people are committed to doing them in, is often more hassle than the potential reward. I do use campfire & agree it is helpful- it'd just be more helpful if others used it for raiding as well. My last point would be if Niantic are going to do time restricted raid events, then please increase the catch rate- it shouldn't take 5mins or more to catch the pokemon if you are limiting raids in both time & availability. IME, all it does is put lower level &/or newer players off of playing. ie. For Ray elite raids, there were approx 26 people playing in our community (which is a really good turnout here), but between 5 & 7 of those people were consistently not making it into lobbies with everyone else as they couldn't catch their Ray after the first raid (the highest level of those players was 33). I did half the raids than I could have done & had a failed raid because I knew if someone didn't hold back & wait, the ones struggling to catch their pokemon were going to miss out on most of the raids due to the time frame & distances between them. I did just 5 raids in 2 hours (which was fine for me personally as I only wanted the meteor & candy anyway) before deciding to call it quits, as there was no community interaction since everyone was in cars & the limited time frames to get to & complete each raid was pushing people to rush & ignore those unable to keep up ie. lower level & newer players. If the catch rate had been boosted, the newer &/or lower level players could have kept up & their experience of the event would have been decidedly more positive without taking away from difficulty of taking the raid boss down.

[@sage61079]

Must be nice to live in an area that you can just walk to each Elite raid. I think a lot of areas this is just not possible. In our town the raids were so spread out you had to drive/race to each one. There is no “community” we are each in our own car and no one talks to each other. It’s not fun, it’s stressful trying to keep up.

[@bviptech]

Campfire didnt show many raids until 10am in Sydney. Then they showed up.

[@Cluckenstein]

Niantic desperately needs to do something for rural players. I think they should just lower the raid boss' CP based on how many people are in the lobby, and make the raid boss go down to a lower level than 20 (25 if WB) if there's only one or two people in the lobby. This way smaller communities could still get these pokemon but they would have to invest in them more since they'll be at a very low level (I'd imagine 2-4 for 1 player). Course niantic would never do this, we can't let people have fun and participate in events, can we?

[@sigisoltau6073]

Yeah. Force them to stop playing. That's what Niantic is doing, forcing us rural players to stop playing. Does Niantic want us? No. They only want the big city players.

[@JuanSanchez-is1jq]

For people who live outside of a dense city, the amount of drive required for this was actually scary. I managed to beat two raids in a park where I am sure some people spoofed their location. I was there waiting and out of nowhere a the raid gets almost full with players. However, nobody was around. I was so confused...

[@amybingham9294]

I always miss out on these kind of raids because of not many people round my area that play

[@fazeriftyt609]

There were 2 eggs at 12-1 and 2 eggs from 5-6. 4 raids the whole entire day in my city

[@AstuteArguteness]

Incentivize people coming together, but do not penalize if its not plausible.

[@TwistedRage84]

@BrandonTan91 Our community is located near a State Park. During our 1pm hour, the only raids were located inside the park. One issue, there is an entrance fee. Not everyone in our community is able to cover.

[@jaxmillion]

I dont get the concept of elite raids. Niantic wants people to come out but like.. people come out on regular raid days. I live in NY. And i swear, there were more people out during the groudon and kyogre raids than there were for rayquaza. I think what make people want to do raids is the pokemon, and the benefits of the event. We had an elite raid with no shiny boosts, or extra raid passes. Really lackluster for one of the best pokemon in the game

[@ameliarose47]

I only found out the day before that i was getting off work early. And let me tell you, the ONLY reason i was able to go was because i was on campfire in groups finding out where everyone was going and coordinating. I went to a park with 4 raids, so not tons, but hey. I met fellow players and it was my first in person event. But if youre not near a park or on campfire, this event was basically impossoble.

[@mm58rj]

You are completed correct. I’m from NZ (Christchurch) where there is a huge park and I was expecting more raids inside of it, I was only be able do 2 raids as the 12pm did not show up and I had to work from 3pm. Have bought lots of passes, but I was not able to use it. No much time to plan as I live 40 minutes from the park. 😢😢😢

[@benh7467]

I was able to get like 12 raids in, but had to drive nearly 20 minutes from my house

[@williamtacheny3055]

In town I live in there was 2 eggs appeared in 50 mile radius

[@Freddy-gc5wn]

It would help so much if they dont start 1 raid here and the other only one at that specific time span (lets say 12 o'clock) is at the other end of the city even though there is another top raid gym right next to the first one.

[@rlrobbins9151]

Ever community is different. Elite raids here are so hard they are hated so much that most of the community boycots them. The few who played only used their 2 free passes when the raids were at the normal raiding park. The gyms were so far apart that it often took 15 minutes to drive from one raid to another. I even used campfire. I ended up chasing random trainers I've never met before but as soon as they had enough trainers, they raided. I often showed up as they finished or were already gone. The 5pm and 6pm raids, I missed 4 I drove to telling them I was on my way but not being able to text and drive telling them I wasn't there yet and only got in one. That one, 9 trianers, no one spoke. I stood in a park clearing to be seen. 2 might have been in a car, 2 might have been at a bench but I couldn't tell if they were playing or just using the phones for something else. The other 4 trainers I have no clue where they were. The earlier raids, we lost some having only 4 trainers and it having outrage and not being able to invite others. I'm the most dedicated player I know here and even I won't drive one and a half hours to catch a few pokemon in the nearest bigger city, not even for Ray. On Wednesday nights when every gym is a raid (supposed to be) the community (mostly older retired trainers) gather, they interact, they show in numbers between 20 and 60 and it is fun even for the most tired "they put this back in raids again" legendary. I would guess if Ray had not been elite, but like a normal raid hour, the community would have turned out around 80 strong. I see why elite raids are hated here. I'll just do my free passes if it's convenient and not waist 4 hours chasing ghosts next time.

[@christopherlawyer4214]

I did the event in Tampa, Florida at Al Lopez Park. (remember being there about a year ago?! :) ) We had a huuuuge crowd of about 200+ people for the 12pm raids. Unfortunately Florida decided to be Florida and we had an absolute torrential downpour for the 1pm raids. Still a very successful event. I wound up doing 12 total raids on my main account and 4 on my alt.

[@Erif917]

It was chaos, lots of people couldn't do the raids cause they needed a car to move from raid to raid, and we might have broken some laws while doing this event driving around the city.

[@annebaker8054]

I was playing in New Zealand and we only had 6 eggs hatching in the whole of Auckland (biggest city/ popular place to play pogo) when it hit 12pm. We were only able to do one raid at 12pm and it showed all the eggs that was going to hatch at 1pm. We should of just had a raid day for Ray.

[@njtruscott77scotty29]

The prep time wasn't the issue for me, it was the lack of eggs available within walking distance. Effectively forcing people to drive around isn't the way to get people to come together as a community.

[@peterroy406]

Luckily in my area there was a campfire group that had about 20 or so people so I could do about 3 rays. The biggest trouble for me is I was working during 3 of the 4 raid hours😅

[@sxanity]

I had to drive over an hour to do 6 raids. We have a couple ex gyms in our town but they never host elite raids so we have to drive all over.

[@a.ramosakadrumgrl6677]

Yes, they messed it up. There were zero around me for later in the day. It was too hot to be out during the day. I wanted to do the last 2 hours, but nothing was available for me, so no raids for me.

[@Frankstr3x17]

I personally had a good experience did about 18 raids, wouldve been 19 but got kicked out of one, the only thing i didn't like was having to drive far to get to the next raid but it was fun being around people and granted i didnt get anything with good IVs but i got 1 shiny and was just happy to rack up a lot of energy

[@DiddyInu]

Thank you Brandon 🙂 Hope Niantic listens to your suggestion

[@HartHendrix]

My consorted caught two shinies in a tie during the 5/6pm raid day. He traded me one but that’s insane

[@corruptedangel9941]

I live in a smaller town and got 3 surrounding towns group together so we could actually take down a mega rayquaza. Just to find out that between the 4 hours we were getting a total of 6 raids….no more then 2 an hour, it was gutting and honestly embarrassing trying to keep everyone around so we could get the later raids

[@NolanKernaghn]

Me and my friends all wanted to raid but we couldn’t do any raids😢

[@walkerdrake8880]

i live in rural area but was able to do 11 raids even had on at 6 clock egg with 16 people so that was cool to see in my small town that many people show up the problem we encounter was everyone was speeding to get to the next raid which seems kinda sketchy and also people were trying to launch has soon as the egg hatched so we finish and mayber fit in another raid or 2 just seem for such a cool pokemon to jump thru so many hoops seems a lil much i mean just copy kygore and groudon days raise remote to 20 have them spawn everywere and just let people play

[@sdsk8rboi]

The raids at noon and 1 PM were fine. Using my e-bike and with the raids lasting 45 minutes instead of the usual 30 minutes for elite raids, I was able to do 5 raids each for noon and 1. But the 5 PM raids were a dumpster fire with Niantic having server issues. I was only able to do two raids and I couldn't do the catch on the second raid because of the server issues.

[@Mrhoaf]

I had 2 different experiences. At 12, it was people driving around in cars, and pretty stupid. At 5pm, my town had a park with 3 raids and it was a great experience to walk around with a large group completing the raids. Of course this is the exception, not the norm. It was a lot like real RAID DAYS when a large group walks around completing raids together. Elite Raids are one of the worst events in the game. Raid Days are the best events outside of Go Fest/Tour events.

[@deltafrequency8538]

14 gyms in my town and a very close town nearby and not on gym had mega rayquazza...

[@mewtwogaming9979]

In My City there is 2 elite Raid Gym but there is no egg 🥚 in between 12 to 6 pm🥚 and I m waiting till the last hr for the elite Gym raid both gym is in different side one is North ⬆️ and second one is in south ⬇️ very different to go there is such dangerous areas 😢

[@ouchman2099]

I can't speak for anyone else but I took the day off in the middle of my work week, I work graveyard shifts too and I was sacrificing my sleep schedule for this. I live in a rural area and right after work (working from 5pm to 5am the following day) I drove an hour to my home town to meet up with a group of friends for Mega Rayquaza. Went to bed at 6:30am and woke up at 10am. I was looking around and there was No Elite Gyms. I told my friends the bad news and I drove an hour BACK to my town. After that I was praying that there were random people that I could meet up to beat the raid and after a total of 4 tries, I was only able to catch 1 Rayquaza. I just feel like my day was stole from me.

[@frijoles9749]

If you live in Las Vegas it was a blast !! Lots of raid and people coming out !

[@F5xToRefresh]

The driving is nuts. Even when it was possible to walk some people drove anyway and then they would start the lobby and everyone who was walking would now have to run to not get left out of the lobby and then stuck alone unable to raid. They need to make it so you can stay at one park and get just as much out of it as if you went to every local park.

[@UWish0430]

I never encountered a single raid gym in my area.

[@johannesmootz4925]

6:45 unfortunately this point contradicts with my experience. Had it been a normal raid, we wouldn’t have even needed larger groups for raiding since defeating an elite raid boss is significantly harder. In the end it equalizes: regular raid with less people per raid will grant the same if not a better result than fighting an elite raid with let’s say three times the group size

[@apeeters21]

I’m living in a rural area .. I wake up at 6:00 to find a community to play those raids .. I had to drive with the car for a hour to get to that community and stay there the either day to get those raids done.. got a lot of ppl that could help me with remotes . But not with inperson events , it was kinda harsh for me this for someone that don’t have a community and driving to a location for a hour .😅. And drive there around to catch much rays that I can . And get back again for a hour 😅.

[@lorenzolopez7228]

Hey Brandon, you should make a video explaining how to navigate and best use the campfire app. Thanks!

[@jesusrojas.]

wym it’s super easy