Niantic has been making some adjustments to the Community Day formula for a while. Evolved spawns appearing in parks to make Candy XL more accessible, allowing one extra special trade during CD, and most recently group bonuses are just some examples of the adjustments they have been working on lately to revamp the old Community Day formula.
And then, Deino Community Day was officially announced. Deino is probably one of those top-tier Community Days that trainers have been waiting for in the last few years. As a pseudo legendary, Hydreigon is without a doubt a fan-favorite to many trainers around the world, and Niantic decided to introduce new group bonuses and mechanics to make the gameplay feel a bit different and more engaging.
But did they work out as intended? Let’s see!
Community Day duration
6-hour Community Days were fantastic. Trainers were less pressured by FOMO and could try to find a gap in their busy schedules to go out and play. But that made it less likely to find other players and play as a group. Both options have their pros and cons, but that’s not the main point of this article.
For the first time ever, Deino Community Day introduced a new, completely revamped formula. The first three hours featured normal gameplay, but starting at 2 PM, new “Tier 4” Eggs would start appearing. In order to “extend” the duration of the event, trainers would need to coordinate and play as a group to take down Zweilous and make Deino appear for 30 minutes within a 300m radius from the gym where the raid took place.
So technically, Deino Community Day didn’t last only 3 hours but 8 instead. Well, at least if you managed to find enough people willing to use their raid passes on Zweilous. And that’s probably the first issue worth mentioning, solo and rural players had no chance to extend the duration of Deino Community Day, as 2-3+ players were required to take down the T4 Zweilous.
Some sort of tool to coordinate would’ve been helpful. Will Niantic’s new app Campfire help with that? We’ll have to wait and see.
Tier 4 Zweilous raids
New mechanic
This new mechanic has some potential but its first iteration was a bit flawed in my book. What we used to have for free in the past was now locked behind a paywall, it kinda felt like a “slot machine”.
I personally tried to coordinate with my locals without much success despite my efforts. People preferred to hold on to their raid passes to use them on Mewtwo, and it was very hard to find enough trainers willing to participate. Instead of coordinating to extend the bonus for others, some trainers opted to keep their passes and wait until other trainers activated the bonus for them.
“Why would I want to spend my raid pass on Zweilous instead of Mewtwo if:
- It can’t be shiny
- I already caught plenty during CD?” – said one of my locals.
And this has a simple solution: give out 2-3 free passes to everyone who spins a gym photodisc from 2-7 pm.
Were they really Tier 4 raids?
Apart from that, Zweilous was potentially soloable in cloudy weather by using L50 fairy type Pokémon. But instead of being a regular “Tier 4”, Zweilous had 15000HP (Tier 5 HP) and a Tier 4 timer (180 seconds), which technically made these raids “Tier 6”. So instead of just 1-2 trainers, 2-3+ were needed:
Tier 4 difficulty is now known! It is still 180s and hp has increased from 9000 to 15000
Zweilous is in raids from 11am to 2pm local time and can be duoed with level 40 Gardevoir, Togekiss or Granbull.
If you don't have those, no worry, it will be an easy trio with dragons! pic.twitter.com/ZDbr1BP7Yk
— Pokebattler (@Pokebattler_com) June 25, 2022
The 30-minute gap and other raids
Another important aspect worth mentioning is that Tier 4 Zweilous raids started spawning at least 30 minutes after the first part of CD finished (at 2 pm) and not right after as some folks were expecting.
True, this 30-minute gap could be used to go grab something to eat or squeeze in some trades, but at least in my case it turned out to be the moment trainers decided to call it a day and split up.
You need to consider that unlike during Raid Hour, Zweilous raids didn’t appear everywhere. T3s and T5s were also spawning and it was pretty difficult to find an optimal route or any gym at all with a Tier 4 Zweilous egg about to hatch. If you don’t have enough gyms around you, bad RNG can make you wait for a while before you see one pop up. And that would probably kill the hype.
Zweilous spawns
Zweilous spawning near active lure modules was a cool new feature. One of the main concerns when Community Days went back to 3 hours instead of 6 was the fact that grinding Candy XL would be much more difficult. So Niantic decided to make Candy XL more accessible by:
- Increasing the Candy XL drop chance
- Adding evolved forms of the CD-featured Pokémon in the wild
But for some reason, Zweilous spawns could not be shiny.
So my main takeaway to Niantic from this new style of Community Day, other than saying "Please stop reducing rewards from paid Special Research:
If you're going to do this boost of middle evolutions from catching at Lures, please give those Pokémon a chance of being Shiny
— Joe Merrick (@JoeMerrick) June 25, 2022
The Twitter thread above by Joe Merrick sums it up pretty well. I have played every single main series game and in all of them you can encounter all Pokémon as shinies (except those that are shiny-locked, which are mainly legendaries/mythicals that are usually distributed through events and special codes).
Why can Deino be shiny but not Zweilous? It just doesn’t make any sense.
One of my main objectives was to farm as many Candy XL as I could, so not being able to catch shiny Zweilous in the wild wasn’t that bad (for me). But I understand how important it is for plenty of trainers to catch as many shinies as possible.
Shiny hunting is one of the main play styles in Pokémon GO and the backlash after Pokémon GO Fest 2022 clearly proves that. So arguably, having wild non shiny-eligible Zweilous instead of shiny-eligible Deino spawns was one of the worst aspects of this Community Day for some.
Parting Words
Here’s the tl;dr of the article:
- The extended duration of the event was fantastic but it only benefits trainers that can find enough people to raid the new T4s, clearly punishing solo and rural players
- Not many trainers seemed to be interested in raiding Zweilous as it couldn’t be shiny and they already caught plenty during CD
- Some trainers opted to hold on to their passes and use them on Mewtwo instead of Zweilous, which made it really difficult to find enough people to trigger group bonuses
- If finding enough people to raid these T4s has been already difficult with a pseudo legendary Pokémon like Hydreigon with a meta-shaking move, can you imagine how hard can it be if the featured Pokémon is a less exciting one?
- This mechanic still has some nice potential and could be reworked to make it more appealing
- The 30-minute gap after the 1st part of CD finished ended up being the moment some groups split up
- If Tier 4 raids are promoted as part of the event, please make them real Tier 4s. Buffing Zweilous’ raid HP to 15000 (Tier 5 HP) but keeping the Tier 4 timer (180 seconds) without notice was not a nice surprise
- Finding Zweilous in the wild was a great way to farm candy XL, especially with a Level 2 or 3 Mega active. But it doesn’t make any sense to not activate its shiny
What do you think? Did you like the new formula? I personally enjoyed it but I believe it still needs some work. Would you like to share your feedback with us? Please leave a comment down below or tag us on our social media channels, we’d love to know how YOU played Deino CD!
Happy hunting, trainers!
