Pokémon Go maker apologises after switching off Shiny Pokémon yet again
As it names two Community Days for November.
Pokémon Go maker Niantic has apologised for its latest slip-up which saw certain Shiny Pokémon made unavailable.
It's the latest in a long, long line of incidents were the possibility of finding the coveted Shiny versions of creatures - which players spend hours and money grinding for - have accidentally been switched off.
As ever, Shiny Pokémon have a low chance of being found in any situation, so any individual player would likely have no indication they're wasting their time/resources/real-world money hunting a particular Shiny creature without success.
And, as ever, it's only when the Pokémon Go community pools resources and realises no one has found a particular thing globally for a noticable amount of time, that Niantic finally notices.
This time around, the affected Shiny Pokémon were the current three Shadow creatures exclusively available from the game's trio of Team Go Rocket bosses Sierra, Cliff and Arlo: Drowzee, Omanyte and Growlithe.
Battling each boss requires you first find and defeat six Team Rocket Grunts - or use in-game coins to skip this step. The low odds of their Pokémon then being Shiny is designed to be encourage players to keep playing for another attempt.
This week, communities of Pokémon Go players collaborating via Discord and reddit realised there had been no reports of any of these Shiny Pokémon being found in a week - and, as ever, it was a thread on top fan reddit The Silph Road which seemed to finally bring it to Niantic's attention.
To be fair to Niantic, the issue was quickly acknowledged via the game's support Twitter and fixed within hours of the Silph Road thread being created. A further message apologised and announced a relatively generous free bundle of items in the shop, available for the next week.
Still, fans remain exasperated this keeps on happening - and each time it is left to the game's community to belatedly try and work out when it is happening again.
Instances of the problem stretch back to at least January 2019, with more than a dozen instances of slip-ups since. Most recently in August, Niantic forgot to switch on the Shiny possibility of Unown during the make-up event for Pokémon Go Fest 2020, prompting a make-up event for the make-up event for Australia and New Zealand, where players calling for the issue to be fixed got it sorted in time for the rest of the world.
A permanent solution to this issue would be appreciated by the game's community, rather than it being left to community reports to flag and diagnose.
In other Pokémon Go news, the game will host two Community Day events in November, making up for the game's lack of one in March (skipped while Niantic scrambled to implement new gameplay mechanics in the face of COVID).
Electabuzz is up first on Sunday, 15th November, with (hopefully) a chance to catch its Shiny version, a new research story, and an exclusive event move for evolution Electivire. Magmar gets its turn in the spotlight next on Saturday 21st November, with another research story and exclusive event move for evolution Magmortar. Both days will offer 1/4 hatch distance for eggs, useful for Pokémon Go's new 12km egg variety.
