Pokemon Go raids have become “impossible” after Remote Raid nerfs
After spending 24 hours with Pokemon Go’s new Remote Raid changes, several players have reported that in-person raiding has become impossible.
Despite the community’s best efforts to thwart the Remote Raid nerf, Niantic proceeded with the changes on April 6. Even a petition with nearly 90k signatures and an organized boycott of Pokemon Go was not enough to stop the dreaded update.
The Remote Raid nerf consisted of two major changes affecting the game’s playability for rural and disabled players. The first was a price hike, making Remote Raid Passes cost almost double their original amount. And the second was a limit of five Remote Raids a day per trainer.
Niantic claimed this update was for the sake of Pokemon Go’s long-term health. But 24 hours into the new era of raiding and trainers have reported that raids are impossible without Remote Raid support.
Niantic / The Pokemon CompanyPokemon Go Raids are “impossible” without Remote players
In the days leading up to Pokemon Go’s Remote Raid nerf, many in-person raiders were very vocal about their opposition to the impending changes. They claimed that raids would become incredibly challenging without Remote Raiders being able to assist.
Players reported that this hypothesis was correct a day into the update. Reddit user Caldwell-luc was among the first to share their experience.
“I live in a small city (100k) with a very small POGO community. Went out this morning to do a Lugia raid with my kid. Of course, at 7:30 AM, there is nobody else there,” they wrote. “Hosted the raid on PokeGenie at 43 minutes left in the raid. At 3 minutes left, closed the lobby as there were still 66 open lobbies in front of us.”
Several other trainers shared their experiences in the comments, most of which highlighted the difficulty of organizing a Pokemon Go raid in a rural area. One user stated they invited five of their friends to take on a raid, but three of them had already reached their daily limit.
Others theorized that third-party services to organize Remote Raids (PokeGenie, Raid Finder) would become obsolete due to the lack of players able to participate.
“I had to enter the queue for a Mega Lopunny raid 25 minutes BEFORE the egg hatched to have enough time to comfortably beat the raid,” featherjoshua wrote. “When I joined, there were only 57 hosts ahead of me.”
Luizbep had a similar story, claiming they opened a lobby on PokeGenie the moment a Lugia raid egg hatched. But with five minutes left before the raid disappeared, they had only moved from 355th place in the queue to 55th, making the raid “impossible.”
These are only a few of the comments out of the dozens left by disgruntled players under Caldwell’s post. And if players are to be believed, it seems raiding has become more difficult than ever for in-person players as well as Remote Raiders.