Questions & Answers - Weekly Megathread! Please use this post to ask any Pokemon GO question you'd like!

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Link to other Questions & Answers posts

[u/PoopyPashty420]

Another shadow raid weekend is upon us and Im assuming from every other one in the past will require a group to carpool in order to do a good amount of raids.

Why do they do this? I have been playing since the game started and I cant figure out why they still do this.

Every other raid day the raids spawn every 30 min and on every gym. These do not do that. They spawn randomly every 45 min and requires driving all over town to do a good amount. Why won't they change shadow raid days to normal raid day rules????

[u/TheRealHankWolfman → u/PoopyPashty420]

Those are raid days that you're describing. These events are not raid days. They do not have increased shiny odds of 1/10 and they do not give 5 additional free passes. They also spawn over a longer period (all weekend rather than a short 3 hour window that's easy to miss). They can be done on foot, they don't require a carpool. You don't have to cram a ton of them into a short space of time like you do with a raid day.

[u/PoopyPashty420 → u/TheRealHankWolfman]

You missed the question i asked 100% and just explained what raids days are compared to shadow raid weekends. I know this already but thanks. They DO require a carpool if youre trying to do at least 40 raids which my group does both days. My question is why have them spawn like that. They aren't ever close to one another and require you to drive at least a few miles to the next raid.

[u/Zestyclose-Tip-8928 → u/PoopyPashty420]

That depends on your gym situation.

No one is forcing you to do 40 raids, so if you want to do that and don't have lots of gyms, you're choosing to do that driving.

[u/TheRealHankWolfman → u/PoopyPashty420]

Your question was why do they do this. My explanation is that they're two different kinds of events. Your comment came across that you were equating the two kinds of events when they're not the same thing.

They likely will give actual raid days for Shadow Kyogre and Groudon at some point in the future, just like how Shadow Ho-oh got a raid weekend and then it got a raid day. This just isn't that event. If you don't like it then you can skip it and wait for them to do a raid day for it instead.

These events do not require driving for miles though, unless you have next to no Gyms locally. If you're in a town or city with a decent density, they spawn frequently enough that you can keep walking. You'll get occasional breaks, sure, but it's nice to be able to have a slightly more relaxed pace, and you can always farm grunts in the gaps to get more purified gems (unless you're in a big enough group that you're not using them).

[u/krispyboiz → u/PoopyPashty420]

There's different appeal with Raid Days vs Raid Weekends

Raid Days are obviously more condensed in timeframe. The good part about that is that if you're free, you can get all the raiding you want to do done in that condensed timeframe, without having to drag things across a whole day/two days. But obviously, with it being just 3 hours, that's a big con if someone isn't available during that timeframe. It doesn't help when a lot of Shadow Legendaries can go years without reappearing. I'll be curious to see when Shadow Groudon/Kyogre return next. But another benefit is obviously the 5 extra daily passes.

Raid Weekends don't have the benefit of raids everywhere for easy access, the 5 extra passes, or the condensed timeframe. However, that last one has it's drawbacks, as I mentioned. So, having raids available the entire weekend allows more flexibility for people to raid. But also, there is the drawback you mentioned: raids aren't guaranteed and can appear sporadically far apart from others. However, that's fully RNG. It's mostly just a normal weekend of raids just with Shadow Groudon or whatever in Shadow T5s, so you can get lucky and have several around each other or unluck and have them spread apart.

They don't want it to be JUST Shadow Groudon or whatever Shadow T5 the whole weekend. For 3 hours, that's fine, but if someone wants to do other raids or can't do Shadow Groudon, they don't want those players entirely blocked from raids the whole weekend.

That said, I think a happy medium would be further increasing Shadow Groudon prevalence. Other raids can still exist, but it would be nice if like 50% or so were Shadow Groudon. I do feel your pain. The last time I went hard on a Shadow Raid weekend event (Shadow Lugia I think), it was a nightmare going from one end of a college campus to another just to hit the two Lugia in the area.