Pokemon GO Fest 2020: Why trainers have mixed feelings about the event

Paul Cot

After all the hype Pokemon GO Fest 2020 is now in the books, but trainers seem to have mixed responses to the huge event.

The 2020 edition of Pokemon GO Fest was the first to take place virtually. Previous events had taken place in specific locations but this year’s was available to all players.

This seems to have been welcomed unanimously by trainers – after all, the more the merrier, right. The full experience was behind a $14.99 paywall in the form of a ticket but nonetheless there was plenty of value to be had.

It was arguably the biggest event in the world of Pokemon Go in all of 2020. As such, it will come as no surprise trainers were more than willing to share their thoughts on it. These ranged from loving it to harsh criticism.

Shiny luck

One trainer was delighted with their Shiny haul over the two days. We’d all be loving GO Fest 2020 if we got the 25 (or more) Shiny Pokemon Gary got.

However, Shinies were hit and miss among trainers. While some players were obviously lucky like Gary, others bemoaned their inability to get more than even a couple.

Val Josh remained upbeat about their two Shinies, sharing on Twitter: “Not the best ONLY 2 shiny 🙁 but it could of been worse. Thanks Pokémon Go!”

Meanwhile over on Reddit Izzynewt was unlucky enough to get zero Shinies. “I feel you, I got 0 shinies and that makes me really sad, like at the end I just closed the game feeling kinda empty…”

Anecdotally, trainers that walked around, as opposed to just staying at home, seemed to catch more Shiny Pokemon. The use of Incense also seemed to make a big difference.

We’re unsure if this was intentional as we doubt Niantic will have be wanting to encourage trainers to play outside given the nature of the event in the first place. With that said, there are far less restrictions across the world than there were just a few months ago.

Despite the array of bonuses on offer, trainers pinpointed their enjoyment on their Shiny success, which always come down to luck. This was summarized well by another Reddit user, OhMyGoth1 who said: “I mean, for people who had good RNG, it was probably amazing. For people like me, who went nearly 5 hours between shinies, it was pretty disappointing.”

Server issues

Few players complained about the bonuses themselves. There’s no doubt they were plentiful and the Day 2 Special Research even offered five Mythical/Legendary Pokemon as rewards. That was in addition to the boosted rare spawns such as Gible and Togetic.

Server issues plagued Day 1, though. Pokemon that were already caught remaining on screen and being unable to access the Friends list were just a couple of the highlighted issues.

Then, perhaps more annoyingly, was the Remote Raid Pass issue. Trainers reported using them and being quit from the Raid due to the aforementioned server problems. “I’ve wasted at least 3 over these 2 days due to it being buggy not keeping me in the raid,” HungryRaichu said on Twitter.

There was always going to be contrasting opinions on how enjoyable Pokemon Go’s GO Fest 2020 was. The overarching feeling on the event was positive, which given how difficult that is to achieve, Niantic should be commended.

Given the overall success it will be interesting to see if GO Fest reverts back a physical event in 2021 or carries on virtually. They may well consider the latter after seeing how popular it ended up being.