{"id":1590,"date":"2022-11-08T06:42:29","date_gmt":"2022-11-08T06:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itparadise.net\/2020\/11\/08\/the-pandemic-is-over-in-pokemon-go-for-players-from-new-zealand-and-the-us\/"},"modified":"2022-11-24T15:40:48","modified_gmt":"2022-11-24T15:40:48","slug":"the-pandemic-is-over-in-pokemon-go-for-players-from-new-zealand-and-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/?p=1590","title":{"rendered":"The pandemic is over in Pok\u00e9mon Go for players from New Zealand and the US"},"content":{"rendered":"

Niantic reverted some of the pandemic-era changes made to Pok\u00e9mon Go<\/em> in the US and New Zealand on Sunday, including reducing the distance you need to be from the physical real-world locations of Pok\u00e9stops and Gyms to interact with them. The company announced the changes in June and has decided to move forward with its plans, despite backlash over the changes.<\/p>\n

The distance you\u2019ll need to be from real-world locations is effectively halved as part of the new update, going from a maximum of 80 meters (around 262 feet) to interact with a Pok\u00e9stop, to the game\u2019s original 40 meters (around 131 feet), according to Dot Esports<\/em>. There were multiple reasons for Niantic to double the distance originally, from reducing crowding during a pandemic, to just making it a bit easier to collect items without theoretically having to leave your house. The change didn\u2019t reinvent the game but players viewed increasing the interaction distance as a valuable accessibility improvement that\u2019s now gone. <\/p>\n

\u2018Pok\u00e9mon Go\u2019 is going back to its old self<\/q><\/aside>\n

Niantic also changed the effectiveness of Incense and the number of gifts you can receive in-game from your Buddy Pok\u00e9mon. As part of its changes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Niantic made the pok\u00e9mon-attracting Incense item more effective across the board, but now it\u2019ll only be while you\u2019re moving. Gifts from Buddy Pok\u00e9mon were similarly boosted to up to five gifts at a time at up to three times per day as part of Niantic\u2019s changes, but now the company says \u201cthe frequency of these gifts from Buddy Pok\u00e9mon will be reduced\u201d after the latest update.<\/p>\n

Tweaks like these begin to bring Pok\u00e9mon Go<\/em> back to its pre-pandemic self, even if Niantic plans to keep some other changes in the process, like an increased inventory size. Remote Raids, the ability to participate in big battles with legendary pok\u00e9mon without having to be there physically, are also sticking around. However, Niantic does plan to change the $0.99 a pop feature slightly: according to Niantic, \u201cin the future, Trainers joining the Raid remotely will do less damage than Trainers joining in-person.\u201d <\/p>\n

Collectively, it seems the changes are meant to push players back out into the world and play more in person, which makes sense given Niantic\u2019s bread and butter is<\/em> collecting location data. The timing is just a bit unfortunate. COVID-19 cases are on the rise again in the US due to the delta variant, and finding reasons to gather in large groups to collect pocket monsters probably shouldn\u2019t be high on anyone\u2019s list.<\/p>\n

You can see the full list of changes for Pok\u00e9mon Go<\/em> on Niantic\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

\n Related\n <\/p>\n

Pok\u00e9mon Go is still incredibly relevant <\/h4>\n<\/aside>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Niantic reverted some of the pandemic-era changes made to Pok\u00e9mon Go in the US…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[79,78,77,81,80],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1992,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590\/revisions\/1992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}