"Niantic deletes top rated community comment from Facebook update"

#PokemonGO: Here is a link to the Facebook update posted by Niantic: http://ift.tt/2ajelpm hours after a member of our community posted his thoughts on the direction of the game in response to the update, Niantic deleted the comment after it received attention from tens of thousands of people.  Here's what the comment read:  Dear Niantic,  This is an open letter from me and hopefully echoes the voice of many other fans of Pokemon Go. First of all, let me thank the Niantic team for creating Pokemon Go. It is impossible for me to express how much his game means for me, but I will try. It has gotten me to go out to enjoy the outdoors and exercise, connect and reconnect with others, and most importantly put Pokemon back into the spotlight. For once, I feel like the 15 years of Pokemon trivia and knowledge I have collected holds meaning for more than just me. Remembering what type the 700 some Pokemons are and what moves are super effective has never been so satisfying as when you are discussing what are the best Pokemons to take down a gym with a Dragonite with a girl (no sexism intended). And this is why I wish that Pokemon Go not only continue to have the success it has had, but become something and revitalize the entire Pokemon community. To do that (this is where it gets a little ranty), I think what we need is better communication. Right now I think you are infinitely more troubled than I am about the recent events and declining popularity of your game. And am scrambling to fix the many understandable issues associated with the popularity of the game. So instead of harping on you about the tracker and how Pokevision was pressured into shutting down, I’m going to talk about more subtle things. The server side changes to attacks, the various mechanics change to capturing, and the removal of the battery save feature. These three things all have one thing in common, they all happened while leaving us in the dark. I know the changes to attacks were mentioned in the patch not long after, but the changes occurred server side long before the patch actually hit. Which was… confusing for a while since we had no idea what it meant, especially for those of us actually caring about battling. But whatever, you mentioned it in a patch that it was permanent and I think all and all it was a good balance change. The other two issues, however, was much worse. Let’s start with the battery save since I have much fewer things to say about it. It is no secret and pretty obvious that it has been removed. Now I understand that there might be many, many valid reasons why this was done. For one, all it did was turn the screen black, not turn it off, which doesn’t save all that much battery on Apple devices. Also, it has been causing periodic crashes where the game would not turn back on after and the app had to be restarted. It’s fine, but what bugs me is that there was no word of it in the patch notes. It would have taken one sentence to explain it: “the battery save option has been removed due to related crash issues until improvements can be made”. Done! Easy and no one would have had a second thought. But now it’s an issue constantly brought up when people talk about the patch, not because they wanted it that badly, but because it was a hidden change.  A similar issue has occurred with the catching mechanics. Curveball physics seems to have changed or Pokemon distances have been messed around with. The curveball bonus went away, and when that was fixed the “Nice”, “Great”, and “Excellence” changes are gone. Pokemons seems to run away more now and attack/dodge wayyyy more. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. Is this a recent change or is it just because I’ve leveled more? I don’t know – and that is the problem, and what I think is the ultimate crutch of why the game has become less popular. We, the player base, just don’t know. It feels a little weird to mention the lack of tutorial given the hours I’ve already sunk into this game (a modest level 23), and yet, there are times where I have no idea what’s going on when it comes to capturing. Does getting a better throw mean better catch rate? Do curveballs improve catch rate? Did the physics and catch rates change or am I just sucking at throws/getting unlucky. More than the difficulty of finding Pokemons in the suburbs or unable to track down rare Pokemon spawns, the uncertainty is what frustrate me the most. I just graduated from my education degree, and something I learned from interning in schools is that people hate to be left out of the loop. A kid is much more likely to behave well if you give them a reason and explain to them the reasons and why things have to be a certain way instead of just telling them that’s how it is. What’s more, the solution is not to pretend something didn’t happen, because people will find out, especially now with the prevalence of internet. That is why I’m upset, not because things have changed, but because I have no idea whether they are changed for good or it’s a temporary bug, and because I have no idea why any of these changes occurred and what they mean for the game in the future. I want you to know Niantic - I am not one of those people who will write in and threaten “I will quit your game”, or “I want a refund”. Instead, I really hope your game will continue to grow and that you will overcome this hurdle. I hope the community will forgive you over your recent decisions on many issues. But for any of that to happen, you have to talk to us, apologize for things YOU think YOU should apologize for and stand up for what YOU want to stand up for. I will stay of the game and hope that it continues to bring me more joy than frustration and believe that the Niantic team is there to create a game not just because of profit but because in their heart each and every one of them has an inner Pokemon Master wanting to make their childhood dream come true.  Sincerely,  Wen  This response was perfectly civil, peaceful, and from the heart. In no way did it attack Niantic or go against them. I can't believe they would delete public opinion like this, especially on Facebook. Edit: This comment isn't being hidden by Facebook's algorithms. Other top comments still remain. via /r/pokemongo http://ift.tt/2aOw5JU