"[Discussion]EX Raids - A Reckless Pursuit of Niantic's Vision?"

#PokemonGO: This is just something that crossed my mind a few days ago, and I decided to share it to see if anyone feels the same way about this.Niantic are the creators of this game and as such they have significant right to pursue their vision for the game, something which I fully support them doing. However this is one occasion on which they should allow a lot more influence from the community than usual.Back when Exclusive Raids were announced, we players were ,for the most part, far from impressed. We, as a community, were not happy with raids that had much more red tape involved than the normal variant, as many players struggle with gathering people for open raids. Throwing in elements of fixed locations at fixed times with a preset group of people who might and/or will have other responsibilities elsewhere at that time is a surefire way to raise needless difficulty.However, such matters have already been discussed in depth on this subreddit before, so I don't need to continue to highlight the obvious pitfalls.Upon seeing these pitfalls, the community instantly reacted to warn against EX Raids and we made our grievances known here and on other platforms. There was and still are people who like the EX Raid concept, and I completely respect their opinion and acknowledge that they do exist. But for the most part, our voice that was heard loudest was a unanimous "We don't want EX Raids, please put those efforts into other projects!"It was at this point that the guys at Niantic should have stopped up for a minute and said "Hold on lads. Our players don't want Exclusive Raids. It might be a good idea to pull the plug on this and redirect the resources into something that will be better received."The thing is, they listened. To quote from their pokemongolive site, "We have collected some valuable early feedback on the new EX Raid Battle feature".This is where the 'reckless pursuit' I speak of comes into play. Niantic listened to us vehemently speak against EX Raids, but are now pushing on with it, trying to put it through a beta test in an attempt to make them work. I am sure a lot of improvements can be made in this beta, but if the end goal is our ideal version of EX Raids, we will spend however many weeks it takes the beta to finish just to end up with the requirements becoming more and more relaxed to the point where it is just a regular raid, or pretty darn close to one at any rate.Ultimately, this is going to consume more resources than before, and frankly, we players aren't going to be delighted with what we get. It is blatantly obvious that EX Raids are seen as vital additions to the game by Niantic, but they are going to come at the expense of player satisfaction and developing other aspects of the game. This behaviour is actually quite worrying as Niantic is actively saying 'We are going to make EX Raids whether you want them or not.'This isn't the only schism between what Niantic wants this game to be and what us players want the game to be. Personally, I think the quarterly update schedule is another example. Pokemon Go isn't a normal mobile game, and I don't expect a typical 1-2 week update period, but 4 times a year is pretty spartan. In the 15 months since release, we have more or less gotten a buddy system, pokémon from the Johto region, and a gym restructure that allowed for raid bosses to appear. While all have been major additions, the time gap just makes progress feel insanely slow. I do appreciate the fact that it gives Niantic the time to make the big things happen, but it does make the waiting game feel kind of ridiculous when we are still waiting for basic additions to the raid boss mechanic from the last quarter such as the ability to show interest in raid bosses without the first person dropping a raid pass to get into the lobby to start the group count, something that should have been there from the start.Although, this issue also ties back to the topic of this discussion. Right now, we are in the last month of this quarter, meaning a new "major update" should be on its way in the next three weeks, but there is honestly no hint as to what it could be. Hoenn region pokémon still seem a long way away yet, and I would be (pleasantly)surprised if trading or some kind of PvP was almost ready without us knowing. There is nothing else in the master files to hint that something else is coming. But given Niantic's push with EX Raids, it is beginning to look like they are our "major update", which is really quite disappointing to me, and shows that the schedule Niantic wants to follow isn't always going to benefit the players, should a quarterly update prove to be as lacklustre as an EX Raid. But the true update remains to be revealed, so I will withhold any further apprehensions and theories.All said and done, my goal here today wasn't to complain or slam Niantic for wanting to follow their vision. I really just wanted to highlight that they can, just like us all, be a bit too stubborn at times. I can see this as something of a fatal flaw of Niantic going forward, but we just need to make Niantic aware of it once, so that the next time we tap them on the shoulder to break their tunnel vision, they won't get lost in going hellbent trying to make something we don't want work for us, because they understand why we gave them the tap in the first place.Because, if anyone from Niantic ends up reading this, even though as players and pokémon fans our priority is often wanting more features to augment our real life pokémon adventure, deep down we really do care for you guys. We don't want to see you put weeks of work into systems and features that won't ever be used or used reluctantly. It will never make the job feel worthwhile, and we want this game to be the delight it one day will be, for both creators and players alike.But back to you guys here on reddit. Can you think of other examples of times where Niantic let the pursuit of their vision impact negatively on the quality of the game? I think that this is something that needs to be discussed and would love to hear other opinions on the matter. Remember, it is important to highlight previous mistakes so they can be avoided in the future! via /r/pokemongo http://ift.tt/2gRNxwN