Niantic has added a new Raid feature showing how many people are in a lobby from the overworld, but players think this quality-of-life feature came “way too late” to be viable.
On April 21, players started to notice a change in UI when looking at Raid Gyms on the Pokemon Go overworld. Instead of a countdown timer, players could see a new icon showing how many players were currently in the lobby waiting for the battle to start.
This new feature was initially praised when shared online, as many players love to Raid in person, but it’s hard to find Raid where other players are participating. This makes it easier to pinpoint active Raiders and join in on the battle.
Yet, many players aren’t sold on the idea, with quite a few claiming the feature was added too late.
Pokemon Go raid lobby feature may have launched too late
A post was shared to the Pokemon Go subreddit by user Peepingvaleya who joked that Niantic could finally afford the update after bumping up the prices of Remote Raid. However, users in the comments weren’t as lighthearted with their criticisms.
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A number of users pointed out how disheartening the update is, as they can now see how many nearby gyms have “0 people raiding at any given time of the day.” One user commented, “Cool, now I can see 0 f*cking people at every raid near me even faster. Thank you, Niantic.”
Another player attempted to praise Niantic for the update but pointed out what they thought was a flaw. “This is a great idea… but how tf am I supposed to get to a gym that’s a map-length away in 2 minutes?”
But the majority of players criticized the timing of the update, stating it was released “way too late” and would have been more viable had Niantic not nerfed Remote Raid Passes.
