EX raid system is 100% rigged; No Exception
106 raids total, I cannot count how many of them are in parks (But most are in cities), NO EX RAID PASS.
Nobody i know personally has one while others have multiple, including big youtubers.
Pretty sure it is rigged against the active playbase and for big youtubers, casuals and new players.
Even reversal is quitting for this bullshit from hell.
Nobody will pay for a raid pass anymore outside of the regular legendary if this continues.
Answers
Try having done 359 raids without a pass.
I agree, the system does suck, but I don't think it's rigged, just poorly executed. I know many players who have had one (in some cases, two or three) some of which are active raiders and who definitely deserve them, but there are many others who have been shut out completely.
As a recent example, a level 40 player who raids quite a bit, didn't get a pass from a local upcoming EX raid while his wife, who is level 33ish and has done less than 50 raids, did. Both fought the gym at the same time. It's that kind of thing that annoys me the most.
Not rigged, but non-intutitive.
Raiding at the wrong parks won't help you.
Raiding at the wrong time is unlikely to help you.
Best strategy I have found:
- Find out where local EX raids are.
- The week after the EX raid, be sure to raid there, approximately at the same time of day as the EX raid was (for example, if the EX raid was at noon, raid around noon).
Do that at as many gyms as you can.
A group seems to help, but a magikarp will work. A few local L4-5 raids at sponsored gyms, at the right time, have resulted in over half of those participating in the L4-5 raid being given an EX pass.
I've done 185 without seeing one, and have been in at least 5 cases where members of that raid get the EX pass, and I don't.
More importantly, the numbers for people who've had 0 passes, compared to more than 1 pass, do not add up... there must be a hidden factor, and my theory is a bug, and from my city's fairly large local raid group have a working theory as to what's wrong - its that the "random" allocation is locked.
it's best explained with a demonstration by example: - A gym is selected for the next EX raid wave, and a number of accounts will be invited (for this case, lets say its 20), the game determines how many people will be eligible (meeting the raided there recently etc) (lets say there's 70), it needs to select them by a weighted [by gym badge] number - that should be random. I can see a number of reasons it might be useful to have that number saved to check later. So each of the 70 accounts get their random number (probably a value 0-1 as most RNG codes give that) and save it lets say that gets assigned to each user in a parameter (lets call it "SORT_RNG"). They get modified by the gym badge etc (likely multipliers - though I don't rule out the %ages), and then sorted to determine the top 20 that will get the pass, as the 20 accounts with the highest modified "SORT RNG". - THERE IS NOTHING WRONG TO THIS POINT.
The problem is, on the next wave, if "SORT RNG" isn't reset to a new random value, you get locked with what you first drew. If you got a "SORT RNG" of 0.95, you are quite likely to keep being in the top few, hence people with 6+ EX invites, people with decent "SORT RNG" say 0.7 will make it in or out depending on the number eligible, and a bit of luck on what other values exists. but if your "SORT RNG" was a bum roll first up (say you get 0.1), the chance of being in the top 20 is very low ever - and there's nothing you can do.
This explains the observations on raid passes from a few weeks ago, where ~80% have never had a pass, but that 15% had more than 1 - if there was a random distribution, these numbers are completely incompatible.
It would be proven wrong, if there were 2 people that EXCLUSIVELY raid together had instances in EX raid waves, where only one gets a pass, and which one swapped (and they had the same qualifications for that one [not picked for a different gym in that wave, same badges]), in my city there are no instances of that, despite quite a lot of raid couples.
Would be a bug that might not be super easy to spot.
Apparently Park Map and Graham Firefighting boat museum was not there, although both of those were eligible. I think i know where the meeting is but i never raided there personally and usually when i go there there are no raids. (But the other side, namely two cherries at island east has tons of them.)
I know, current ex-raid system is similar to lottery scheme, you will be chosen at the specific raid, specific time and specific location based on Niantic selection algorithm. Based on my only experience, level 40, silver gym badge, I remembered that raid was T2 together with another raider in the weekday morning at the park. Actually, this was the second raid at that gym and got the pass on Christmas Day (evening time slot). I was extremely nervous for a whole week before the ex raid, afraid of the bad throws, so doing tons of throwing practices on other pokemons, finally throwing three balls to catch 88IV. Yes, very happy indeed, big deal for Pokemon player of course, then I did a tons of raids to collect more candies for power up, finally max out today. Obviously Niantic uses Mewtwo to promote more raid passes and get bigger revenue, in return the players get the raid bosses (including candies, TM, berries, potions, etc) and a chance of getting ex raid Invite pass, so Mewtwo is treated as a non-guarantee bonus for the players. I think the ex-raid selection criteria and pass cancellation handling are the most concerns now.
To me, beside the ex-raid part, Pokemon Go has a lot of goals you can set for yourself, for example, maybe reaching certain trainer and stardust level, building up several battle teams for certain raid bosses or pokemons, collecting 100%IV of certain pokemons, etc. Just keep on trying, wishing you to have ex raid pass super soon.
Here's the thing. EX raids are random. Therefore, it is expected that a few people will have many EX passes, and a few people will have none. Most people will be in the middle.
I got my first one last week, for a raid tomorrow. I had done about 100 raids (30 legendary) when I got it. Also getting his first pass was a guy from a nearby town, who has over 1000 raids under his belt, and over 200 legendary raids. It's not fair, it's random.
As was said above, keep doing raids at sponsored gyms (if you have them) and parks, and you'll increase your chances of getting the pass.
The main place I play is a lower income community around the college where I work. There are very few parks there, and no sponsored gyms. The raid group I'm in there justifiably complains about the lack of EX raids in their community, and I completely sympathize with them (got mine during winter break, from a raid closer to my house).
Again, it's not fair, it's random. And that's the way things work in games. Would you quit Monopoly because your opponents rolled more doubles than you did? (Or would you quit because it's a boring game over the long haul? That reason at least makes sense.)
Few people? I believe over half of the players, especially high participation players don't have one yet, including me and my family, as well as reversal who basically quit because he cannot get one, and many others.
Also if you get an ex raid pass, it is still possible you cannot go to there at that day, you did not arrive in time, only a few people get the pass and they were forced to solo or duo it and Of course for whatever reason mewtwo breaks free of all the premier balls and run away.
Yes it is. My only EX pass was obtained over holidays, from a gym in the middle of a roundabout, on a busy main street of the city. I interacted twice with the gym (bronze badge). That clearly indicates that I was invited because in that city I was a casual player. I won't be able to attend and time will say if I get another one in my city, where I hold gold badges, play more actively in more appropriate locations.
