The Pokémon GO Tour: Johto took place on Saturday and sparked much conversation with its content. We look into the community and see where trainers see opportunities for improvement.
This was the event: A few weeks ago, Niantic announced the big Johto Tour, which started in February 2022 as the successor to the Kanto Tour from 2021. For the first time, all Pokémon from the Johto region were available to catch in their dazzling form (as Shiny). Additionally, there were regional Pokémon like Corasonn and Skaraborn in raids.
The event lasted for a single day. Trainers had the opportunity to unlock special content with a ticket purchase. Special research, limited research, collector challenges, and much more were part of the tour. Now trainers are drawing conclusions.
Exhausting, too much content, too few Shinys – A community conclusion
These contents were offered: For ticket buyers, Niantic had a lot to offer. It started with a special research featuring Celebi and a limited research with Raikou, Entei, and Suicune. All featuring multiple chapters and three tasks per chapter. Several collector challenges were also included. There was one for all five habitats, one for raids, one for trading, and one with special Pokémon.
Additionally, there were increased shiny chances in the wild, special raids featuring Corasonn, Skaraborn, Ho-Oh, Lugia, Raikou, Entei, and Suicune were active, and the legendary beasts could even be caught in the wild. A very special content was provided by the new GO gym trainers – these are computer-controlled opponents whose appearance and battle team are based on real trainers who applied in the weeks before the event.
All of this was combined with egg bonuses and candy bonuses that encouraged further play. In our comprehensive overview of the Johto Tour, you can see all the contents.
Cool contents, but way too much
This is what players say about the contents: In the Pokémon GO community, a quickly widespread opinion found much resonance: The contents are good, but there is way too much for a one-day event.
On reddit.com, user Ishana92 writes: “I love the concept of the Johto event. But putting it all in one day is a bit too much. Multiple hour-specific catching challenges, raid collector challenges, trading, and exclusive collector challenges, evolving the entire Pokédex from Generation 2, battling thugs, etc. It’s exhausting and feels more like a grind than playing for fun.”
In the reddit community of TheSilphRoad, this was the highest rated opinion post regarding the Johto Tour on February 27th. Many trainers agree and say that with all the content, a whole weekend could easily be filled, and the battle event with the GO trainers could have been its own event.
User WorkingOnIt64 also thinks (via reddit.com) that the Johto Tour should have been divided into several small events. “That… that was too much. Too much for one day. I specifically took the whole day off and went all out, and it’s just too much.” He wished that Niantic had stretched the event over several days, so that the priorities could be tackled one after another.
In the comments on the thread, users claim that trainers without a ticket had fewer contents and thus more fun (via reddit.com).
Too few Shinys?
This was announced: For ticket buyers, Niantic promised a higher chance of certain shiny Pokémon. This was the main argument for many to decide on a ticket purchase and the silver or gold edition.
How did it turn out? In practice, Shinys could be found, but not nearly as many as during the free community days. Trainers often report catching around 6 to 9 Shinys.
In our Facebook group for Pokémon GO, Tinka L. writes: “Too many tasks to complete in this time! The trainers only appeared at my PokéStops at 6:00 PM, so I only managed to catch flying and bug Pokémon. Shiny rate: 4 pieces in 12 hours! Disappointing.”
In the group, Filipe writes: “11 euros for 3 shinys is already bad, and I was active all day and used well over 1,000 Pokéballs.”
Tobi B. had more luck and writes “18 shinys, including one that I didn’t have yet. But overall, I’m satisfied.”
A trainer reports on reddit about his Discord group. “In the end, it must have been thousands of [Corasonn] raids […]. Not a single shiny was reported, but two perfect [catches] were. That must have left a nasty aftertaste for engaged trainers.”
Some trainers also write that they are quite satisfied with their shiny yield.
Smoke too weak
What was the problem? Trainers in the community often wrote that their smoke didn’t attract many Pokémon. Especially those who wanted to spawn more frequently and exclusively through smoke showed up very rarely.
User siamkor writes on reddit: “The most frequent complaint I see is that people hardly had Mantax-/Phanpy encounters while running smoke the entire event.”
These were the only boosted new Shinys, so the only new ones you could really expect at the event if you bought a ticket. And it required 12 hours of constant attention to your phone to check for 4 or 5 spawns per hour. That was not very well thought out. (Or worse, maybe it was.)”
User Boxinmonkey replies: “It felt like that was the problem. You paid for the unique smoke spawns, and it felt very lucky if one out of ten spawns was [one of those Pokémon]. It felt completely different than at the Kanto tour, where it was much more frequent.”
And then there were the GO gym trainers – But where at all?
What are these trainers? Niantic launched a competition a week before the Johto Tour where trainers could apply. The winners would then be activated as trainers in the game with their Pokémon and avatar for the Johto Tour, and all trainers worldwide could find them at PokéStops.
The problem: These GO gym trainers were extremely rare to encounter. That wouldn’t have been so bad if Niantic had made them optional. But for one of the battle challenges, you had to defeat all these trainers. All eight! So anyone who found a trainer at a stop by chance and managed to battle them had to move on and look for more trainers at other stops. This worked particularly poorly in rural areas.
This drove trainers to despair. Also, MeinMMO author Franzi Korittke tried to take on the challenge but eventually gave up.
Christian R. writes on our Facebook page for Pokémon GO: “The research and collecting tasks were quite good, and there were also decent rewards. Unfortunately, the gym trainer situation was extremely annoying because they hardly showed up. And there was no indication of the promised higher shiny chance.”
Doro T. writes, “Very disappointing. Shiny rate super bad, hardly anything else appeared in the smoke than in the wild. In 10 hours of gameplay, I caught exactly 6 Webarak and 9 Mantax. How one is supposed to get Shiny with that rate is a mystery to me. However, an endless supply of starter Pokémon that you can no longer stand. The task with the new trainers was also not solvable for me due to the lack of these new trainers. My conclusion is, I’m so annoyed that I need a break from playing and will never buy event tickets again.”
Severine B. writes in our Pokémon group: “I couldn’t complete the tasks. Only 4 out of 11, although I was in the park for 3 hours straight. There are about 12 stops and 2 gyms, but the trainers were not to be found. I was very upset.”
Some trainers are demanding from Niantic an event to compensate and a repeat of the battle challenge that should run over several days and significantly increase the chances of trainer spawns.
How lucky were you with the Johto Tour?
