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With the Twilight Trails season underway in Pokemon Go, the game has quietly reduced the number of Team Go Rocket balloons to once per day, which raises concerns about accessibility and benefits nobody.
Team Go Rocket balloons are floating hot air balloons that appear on your map in Pokemon Go, bringing grunt and leader battles directly to your location, without the need to visit Pokestops -- in-game digital landmarks tied to real-world locations such as parks, murals, historical monuments, churches, libraries and other public places with high foot traffic.
Outside of special events, a Team Go Rocket balloon used to spawn four times a day; once every six hours, beginning at midnight. When the Twilight Trails season started Sept. 8, trainers started receiving only one balloon per day.
A lot of players assumed the reduced number of balloons was the result of an error in the game's code, but it turned out to be an unannounced, intentional 75% reduction Scopely Explore made behind the scenes.
When a trainer reported the issue to the game's support, Scopely responded stating there was a significant change this season regarding the appearance of Team Go Rocket balloons.
"This adjustment has been implemented intentionally and is functioning as designed," the support team wrote in response to the concern. "Thank you for your understanding as we make this transition."
Upon defeating a Rocket grunt, trainers are awarded one mysterious component and an encounter with a shadow Pokemon, which deal 20% more damage per second than regular Pokemon. That bonus matters most particularly in raids when trainers need to deal damage quickly in order to defeat a raid boss before a timer runs out.
By obtaining six mysterious components, trainers acquire a Rocket Radar, which is an item used to find and battle one of the Team Go Rocket leaders -- Arlo, Cliff or Sierra. Upon defeating them, trainers receive a 12 kilometer egg, and by stacking 12 of those in your inventory and hatching them all with a starpiece on, you can efficiently build your total stardust -- one of the resources needed to level up a Pokemon in the game.
Someone in a rural community relying exclusively on balloons could previously acquire a rocket radar within two days. But now that process takes six days for one radar, and if you want to stack 12 of the 12 km eggs without ever visiting a Pokestop, it's going to take a little over two months of consistent gameplay, daily egg space coordination and a whole lot of dedication to do that.
If you're wondering why Pokemon Go would limit something that not only helps its player base catch more Pokemon, but also encourages people to log in and actively play the game at several points throughout the day -- because one might think that would be one of their primary objectives -- well, that's the million-dollar question.
Many notable trainers, including Brandon Tan and Daniel "FleeceKing" Amos, have called upon Scopely to revert the Team Go Rocket balloon spawns back, with both pointing out the change is particularly hurtful for rural players who don't have a lot of Pokestops around to find rocket grunts or leaders.
If the incentive is to get more people outside to explore, Scopely should be sensitive to the fact that accessibility is a big issue for people with disabilities.
It's also worth noting most adults -- the vast majority of Pokemon Go's player base -- don't have time to be out and about grinding the game every day. Some people have work, family and volunteer lives to balance over playing Pokemon Go.
Simply, Scopely should leave well enough alone and put the Team Go Rocket balloon feature back to the way it was or introduce a new feature -- such as temporary, personal Pokestops -- that would improve accessibility and make up for the unwelcomed change.
Mirror Staff Writer Matt Churella is at 814-946-7520 and mchurella@altoonamirror.com