"[story] better to have loved and lost….. or not"

#PokemonGO: I was on my way to dinner earlier this evening. As I was walking with some (non-pogo) friends and we were in a rush, I wasn’t exactly in the mood to play, and simply left the phone in my pocket to accrue some km’s.As we approached a neighborhood known for dense, cluster spawns, I decided out of the blue to pull out my phone just to see what’s out there. To my delight, a skinny black critter appeared right in front of me.An Umbreon, I thought to myself. Since I already used the Tamao trick, I thought, how lucky it is to have a chance at a second Umbreon without having to walk 10km, and proceeded to click on the critter.As the catch screen loaded up, I started to realize how wrong I was. That skinny black critter was no Umbreon.It was a freaking Unown.My heart stopped as I marveled at the incredibly lucky break - pulling out the phone at exactly the right time, at exactly the right place, to have an Unown show up literally in my face.having played pogo for 8 months, I know better than to take my chances when it comes to rare spawns like this. Even at a measly 239 CP (level 9-10 per gamepress), ultra-razz curveball it is. The catch circle turned light green, and the ultraball screamed forward at a 45-degree angle.Entered the usual lightshow.Wiggle, wiggle, breakout, and……..Unown ran away.As I stood on the busy street in stunned silence, I literally could not comprehend what just transpired.the light green circle would have implied an approx. 75% catch rate. Together with the curveball bonus, it should have been a sure thing even in the absence of nice/great/excellent bonuses.and instead the game trolled me hard with an insta-flee. I have never in my life gotten trolled so hard in a video game.As I spent the evening going from disbelief to shock to blinding rage, I can’t help but question Niantic’s intent behind the flee mechanic. I understand they want to prolong the game’s longevity by making people grind hard for ultra-rares. No problem with that. But to further punish players who overcome these odds with insta-flees, I think that’s a bit much.No, it doesn’t make me want to grind more or play more. It’s actually the exact opposite - it demoralizes and disincentivizes enough to make me want to quit the game altogether. Video games are supposed to be difficult but fun - things like this are the exact opposite of fun.I’ve had my fair share of disappointments in this game: fleeing dragonites, dragon pulse Lapras, gym spot stolen by spoofers after training 30 mins in 10F cold, etc. But this is a whole other level. The rarity of Unown pretty much makes it a (statistically) unique spawn. Can’t hatch it, can’t evolve it from a lesser form, and the chance of randomly encountering it again is practically zero.I can’t help but think that punishing game mechanics like these are at least partially responsible for driving otherwise legit players to scanners and spoofing.When Niantic releases legendaries down the road, I hope they thought through the implications of the flee mechanic. If the legendaries are one-off, unique spawns that have non-zero flee rates, it will pretty much guarantee a meaningful % of players will have the mons flee in their face and end up frustrated/angry enough to stop playing. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2mCNNR3