After this weekend’s update, many Pokemon trainers were somehow suddenly off their game. Wild Pidgey and Rattata, among other low-level wild Pokemon, suddenly decided that their lives in the wild were worth staying in, and began resisting trainers like never before. Higher level wild Pokemon made themselves entirely elusive, fleeing more readily than ever. On top of removing any and all ways to track Pokemon, including by direction, the update made Pokemon harder to catch. While talk floated around that Niantic was intentionally driving players away to lower the server load, this was never substantiated, and an explanation for the changes beyond trying to ease life for the servers by getting third party services off of them was never officially put out by Niantic.
As it turns out, not only are wild Pokemon harder to catch, masterful Pokeball throws that used to yield XP bonuses no longer did, and their effects on the odds of catching a Pokemon were almost nullified. While it may sound like the game was made far harder intentionally to increase dependence on in-app purchases, it turns out that this is all a glitch. Niantic took to Twitter today to report to users that they are familiar with the bug, and are working on a fix for it. A timeline for said fix, however, was not touched on.
According to Niantic, the bug affects Pokeball accuracy, the chances a Pokemon will flee, and the various XP bonuses. This means that even a perfectly thrown Pokeball at just the right moment may only register as a normal hit, and a Pokemon that would normally stick around and let you lob Pokeballs at them all day may decide it has better things to do. Trainers all over the web are noting the glitch, and replies to Niantic’s official Tweet have turned into a miniature forum to discuss not only the issue at hand, but the state of the game and the community around it. Niantic’s job posting for a community manager vanished, meaning that they have seemingly hired somebody for the position. Many fans have been complaining about Niantic’s lack of communication when it comes to Pokemon GO, so a community manager at this point may be just what the doctor ordered.