In Pokémon GO, the Valentine’s Day event 2021 is currently still ongoing. However, there is stress around the collector challenge. Is it really fair?
This is the Valentine’s Day event: The Valentine’s Day event in Pokémon GO is running until February 18th. During this time, there are bonuses related to pink Pokémon and the new monster Somniam celebrates its release.
However, there is also a collector challenge. For this, you need to catch 12 Pokémon that appear more frequently during the event. The problem is: At least 4 of the Pokémon require you to do raids.
The new collection in Pokémon GO divides the community
The problem is: Among the 12 Pokémon, there are 4 monsters that you can currently get almost exclusively through raids:
- Latias
- Latios
- Espeon
- Umbreon
Additionally, there is Mamolida, which only appears more frequently in raids and quests. The quests say “Catch 20 Luvdisc” or “Win 2 Raids”.
If you want to complete the collector challenge, you definitely need to do raids. This is a sore point for some trainers, as it seems that Niantic is enticing players to spend money again – at least according to some trainers’ assumptions.
We summarize some voices here:
- Ok_Albatross6576 writes on reddit: “The collector challenge looks more like stress rather than fun.”
- Landosystem responds: “4 raid passes for just 2 charge TMs! Of course, you get more from doing 5-star raids, but that’s beside the point.”
- Xpiya comments on MeinMMO: “I was happy about the 3 remote raid passes, but then I immediately get a collection quest where I have to do at least 4 raids to complete it. So I receive something for free, and promptly the collection quest is designed in such a way that I have to use what I’ve just received.”
- KarlDieter writes in our comments: “So I need to do 4 raids for the collector tasks? (2x Legendary + 2x Eevee evolution). Thanks, Niantic’s ideas keep getting better.”
Is this really such a big problem? Firstly, it should be mentioned that you only need to invest in 2 raid passes for sure. Latias and Latios are also rewards from the PvP league – but not guaranteed. However, you must catch Umbreon and Espeon from raids.
Additionally, there is a free raid pass available every day that you can invest in for this as well. There are also regularly gifted remote raid passes. For the Valentine’s Day event, for example, 3 new remote raid passes were given as gifts.
However, you can argue on the other side that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, you shouldn’t meet other trainers for raids and in general, you should leave the house as rarely as possible. Therefore, it’s better to rely on the remote raid passes and reinvest the gift from Niantic directly.
In the past, there have been several collector challenges that included relatively rare Pokémon. All in all, however, you didn’t have to do as many raids so far. The research for Valentine’s Day is in this case already “the worst”.
Typically, most Pokémon in a collector challenge are the regular spawns in the wild. So if you go around a bit, you should have completed most of the challenge.
However, there are also always some few monsters that are a bit trickier to catch. For example, it was Kindwurm during the Hoenn event, which could only be caught through raids or at a former smoke day.
Now there are several Pokémon that you can only obtain through raids. So you must invest in some raid passes in order to receive some items as a reward at the end.
Vote in our poll
What do you think about this? We’ve embedded a poll here for you. Do you find the collector challenge successful or do you think that you have to do too many raids for it? Vote here:
What alternatives could you imagine? Let us know in the comments!
What’s next? In February, the big Kanto tour is still upcoming, which will bring many new Shinies into the game. A corresponding ticket costs 12 euros.
Additionally, there will still be a Kanto event and raid and spotlight hours for this month. However, there is already a preview for the coming month. There are first teasers for a Community Day:
Pokémon GO shows footprints for Community Day in March – Who is coming?
