In Pokémon GO, players can now raid from home. At least in theory. In practice, trainers face problems that make the new feature more complicated than one would wish.
These are remote raids: Basically, the new remote raids work like normal raids. You get a remote raid pass in the shop and participate in a group battle against a strong Pokémon in an arena.
However, you do not have to be on site to participate in the battle. From home, you can select from the “Raids Nearby” and jump directly into the raid. If there are many arenas in your area, you often have some options available. However, this does not apply to all players – and remote raids come with a few more problems.
Criticism of Remote Raids – What Needs to Improve?
These are the problems: Currently, there is a lot of discussion about the new feature on reddit. Trainers see a lot of potential for improvement: For instance, players have little benefit from remote raids if they have few arenas nearby. Because even if you can play remotely, the “Raids Nearby” only include arenas within a certain radius. This can be a lot in big cities – but it becomes scarce in the countryside or smaller towns.
“I cannot see a single arena for remote raids from my house, even though I am a 5-minute drive from several,” reports user ProtoJMan (via reddit).
Empty lobbies in hard raids: Another problem especially shows with the returning raid hour. Hard raids can only be completed with multiple players – but it is not always easy to gather enough people.
Often, especially in areas where there are not many trainers around, you face empty lobbies. Whether a raid is currently popular can only be seen once you go into the viewing mode. If you wait in the lobby, you need luck for other players to join – and in the worst case, you have already used your pass.
“Why should I buy a remote pass (…) and rely on a bunch of random players checking the lobby and joining me?” summarizes user alphafirestar (via reddit): “If I sit in the lobby for 45 minutes waiting for others to join, I can’t check other raids in the meantime. And if I jump into another lobby because these people have joined, do I have to waste a new pass?”
Lack of communication: In the discussion, it is often criticized that Pokémon GO currently lacks an in-game tool to facilitate raid organization. Either by allowing you to see how many people are participating in a raid from outside – or at least through some sort of in-game chat.
Another highly requested feature would be the ability to invite friends directly to a remote raid – regardless of distance. This would at least help bypass the distance problem as well as the uncertainty about how many players would join.
Many trainers would like to see an improvement of the new feature. Will it be optimized in the future? In many other areas, like stackable items, Niantic has at least already made improvements and simplified playing from home.
