Although Pokemon GO players look forward to the annual Pokemon GO Fest gathering each year, the unique circumstances caused by COVID-19 left many wondering if the celebration would happen as planned. To everyone's delight, Pokemon GO Fest 2020 was announced to be completely remote globally. However, the first virtual GO Fest would run into a number of issues over its 2-day period.
During Day 1 of the event, many players ran into bugs that dampened their experience like caught Pokemon staying on the Overworld map or problems bringing up the menu. But heading into Day 2, a problem more serious than Team Rocket's takeover occurred when Remote Raid Passes began failing for players.
Since their implementation earlier this year, Remote Raid Passes allow anyone to join a raid without being near the location. But issues plaguing the Pokemon GO servers caused some trainers to be disconnected from Raid battles and also lose their pass in the process. Various players voiced their complaints on social media like PherVera who made a Twitter post about the error occurring in a battle against Dialga.
While many trainers who experienced the problem are wondering if they just lost a pass for nothing, others are directing them to make a support ticket to get compensated for the server issues. However, since most trainers experienced problems during GO Fest 2020, customer service is severely backed up and it may take several days before receiving a response. But even if those players managed to get another Remote Raid Pass, it's still too late to try and capture other legendary Pokemon like Palkia.
Even without the Remote Raid Pass problem and other server issues, the design choices during Day 1 and Day 2 are making trainers question if the event could have been handled differently. While Shiny Pokemon were a big draw during the event, RNG differed greatly with some individuals getting dozens of shinies while others only caught a few or even none in rare cases. As a result, a small number of trainers who bought the admission ticket for full access only got their guaranteed rewards including Victini.
In the end, despite servers issues and complaints, Pokemon GO Fest 2020 was still a success that allowed trainers all over the world to participate to some extent. However, Niantic needs to make sure that players won't be affected like this again especially if virtual Pokemon GO events continue to be the norm going forward.
Pokemon GO is available now in select regions on Android and iOS devices.
Source: Dexerto