Hello Trainers! Pokémon GO 0.187.0 is slowly rolling out through the iOS App Store. This update has a lot, including the return of the evolution quest, Professor Willow’s friend gets emotions, costumes, and hints at some pretty big Quality of Life updates.
🚨⚠️ Disclaimer ⚠️🚨
Please be aware data miners have publicly reported everything in this article (PokeMiners). Information shared through these channels is not affiliated nor approved by Niantic, and is always subject to change. Do not take it for granted, features change and get scrapped all the time. It is very important that you are aware that these things CAN and WILL CHANGE.
Additionally, this article contains my thoughts and opinions in regards to the code that was shared online – all of these should be treated as conjecture, not as hard statements. If you’re OK with that, feel free to read further. Potential spoilers ahead.
You can read the official release notes here
Let’s get into it!!
Official Release Notes… Notes
I don’t normally include these, but there’s a couple of big notes.
Hello iOS 14
This version allows trainers running iOS 14 to play Pokémon Go!
Mega Charizard Evolution Bug
If you evolved a Charizard into Mega Charizard Y before you evolved it into Mega Charizard X, the game was making you pay the full 200 energy to evolve it again instead of giving you the discount. This is fixed in this update.
ok… NOW let’s get into it!
Two New Filters
BY_EVOLVE_WITH_ITEM BY_EVOLVE_MEGA
As mentioned in the release notes, searching “evolvemega” will bring up Mega-eligible Pokémon.
Avatar Face Section
FACE
This is another section to the avatar screen, like gloves, or shoes.
Willow’s Friend can emote!
IDLE_B GREETING GREETING_B REACT_ANGRY REACT_ REACT_HAPPY REACT_LAUGH REACT_SAD REACT_SCARED REACT_SURPRISED
It appears that Willow’s friend will be able to greet him and react to him as well.
New Move – Gust
.V0345_MOVE_GUST_FAST
Gust has been added as a fast move.
More Costumes
HALLOWEEN_2020_NOEVOLVE COSTUME_1 COSTUME_2 COSTUME_3 ... COSTUME_9 COSTUME_10 COSTUME_1_NO_EVOLVE COSTUME_2_NO_EVOLVE COSTUME_3_NO_EVOLVE ... COSTUME_9_NO_EVOLVE COSTUME_10_NO_EVOLVE
A ton more costumes have been added, including 10 that can’t evolve.
The Return of the Quest Evolution
EVOLUTION_QUEST .get_QuestEvolutionSettings
It’s back!
GUI Widget
EvolutionQuestWidget DropdownArrowClicked questTextColorExpanded questTextColorCollapsed progressBarColorActive progressBarColorInactive progressTextColorActive progressTextColorInactive dropdownArrow questProgressArea questRequirementMessageText questRequirementStatText questProgressStatText questProgressBar barImage
It looks like a new GUI widget was added to display quest progress. Perhaps to the Pokémon detail section, so you can see your progress, directly from the Pokémon? This could be linked to the Mega’s, or it could be an entirely new way to evolve Pokémon that require friendship in the main series games rather than just walking them x kilometres.
Mega Evolution Animation
megaEvolveFadeInDuration megaEvolveFadeOutDuration
A new fade out for the Mega Evolution animation.
Gym Cache
CacheGym GetCachedGym RemoveCachedGym
Gyms will now cache, which can be removed. This is likely to resolve the issues surrounding old gym pictures not updating.
Download All Assets
ClearCachedVersion LoadAllAssetsAsync cachedAssetBundle m_CatalogAssetBundle m_LoadTextAssetRequest IsLocalCatalogInBundle BundledCatalog add_OnLoaded remove_OnLoaded .get_OpInProgress .get_OpIsSuccess bundlePath LoadCatalogFromBundleAsync loadOp
This is exciting, it looks like we’re getting a feature that’s currently available in Wizards Unite. The option to download all the assets the game uses. This will allow trainers to download everything to your phone so the game isn’t downloading certain things after you launch the game. So you’ll be able to download the assets on wifi and then head out and play.
Real World AR Mapping
There’s a lot added for this, so I won’t list all of it
ARCapture has_seen_mapping_tutorial InstallArMappingSubStates InstallGrapeshotBindings GrapeshotUploadService CreateBackend .get_IsScanValidationEnabledAcrossAllGames
It looks like Niantic has put some more work into the AR Mapping that was discovered a little while ago.
POI Image Gallery and Voting
POI_FULLSCREEN_INSPECTION IMAGE_GALLERY GET_IMAGES_FOR_POI SUBMIT_PLAYER_IMAGE_VOTE_FOR_POI IS_IMAGE_GALLERY_ENABLED ImageGalleryReflection GameClientPhotoGalleryPoiImageProto .get_ImageId .set_ImageId .get_SubmitterCodename .set_SubmitterCodename .get_CreationTimestampMs .set_CreationTimestampMs .get_HasPlayerVoted .set_HasPlayerVoted .get_NumVotesFromGame .set_NumVotesFromGame ImageIdsToVoteFor ImageIdsToUnvote IsImageGalleryEnabledProto IsImageGalleryEnabledOutProto
This looks a lot like what’s currently enabled in Ingress. Portals in ingress can hold multiple pictures that can be “liked.” The default picture of the portal is the picture that has the most likes. If Niantic were to implement this into Pokémon Go it would be huge, especially for all those stops and gyms of baseball diamonds and soccer fields that were taken in the winter could be upgraded to Summer pictures.
Hidden Shop Items
RefreshWithPromise ShouldShowInShop IsSkuAvailable
This looks like Niantic is implementing an easier way to add things to the shop without making them immediately available.
Conclusions
There are a couple of pretty major Quality of Life updates to the game in this update, there’s no official word from Niantic about them so this could just be them throwing it into the code to do some testing to see how feasible the features are.
Being able to download the game’s assets on wifi would be huge for trainers who have limited data plans, and being able to easily “upvote” a picture to make it the default picture of a stop directly from Pokémon Go would save a lot of headaches in getting photodisc pictures updated.
Lastly, fingers crossed Gust is actually a viable move and that eventually Ho-Oh and Lugia get a chance to learn it because let’s face it… they’d be beast with a good flying fast move.