Gift Items Nerf
Sometime today they nerfed the hell out of the items you get from gifts. According to someone in my raid group the "bundle" amounts per item got reduced to the following:
Poke Ball: 5 -> 3
Great Ball: 5 -> 2
Ultra Ball: 5 -> 1
Potion: 2 -> 1
Super Potion: 2 -> 1
Hyper Potion: 2 -> 1
Max Potion: 2 -> 1
Revive: 2 -> 1
Max Revive: 2 -> 1
Pinap Berry: 10 -> 2
It sucks but I saw it coming a mile away. At 1000 bag storage I had to routinely pitch things just to accept new gifts.
Answers
I went from about 20 to over 160 ultra balls this weekend alone. It was insanity.
You'd think Niantic would have this figured out by now, then again they still recommend lobbies of 9 people for 2 star raids and 5 for 1 star while making those tiers easier and easier. Compare the first wave to having middle stage starters to now where everything is base stage. Even during the Kanto event they opted for the base starters when second stages had already been tier 1 raids.
They don't learn and don't care to. Look at the epic mess up they had at Go Fest. I don't know if you remember, but way back a while ago, I think when gen 2 came out, they messed with the speeds of attacks, and Blissey was literally impossible to beat without timing out. They fixed the problem, but why you they not test something or do a simple math problem before releasing it? But as long as people keep buying raid passes, they will carry on as they always have.
And the issue isn't that they make mistakes, it's that they appear either not to care, or are completely incompetent. I mean how are they a tech company and can't do simple math or understand wireless capabilities?
I think their recommendations for raids are geared for players of level 10-15, at least at the low levels.
I also think that they didn't nerf the gifts, they buffed them at the start of the event to get people excited about gifts. I suspect this is always what they expected the new normal to look like, and they started up with a bang.
That's exactly one of my issues with the game...they gear it for all these new, low level players, but then make it extremely easy for people to level up. A couple weeks ago we created an account for my younger child. He is level 14 and has only caught 162 pokemon and never battled a gym. My wife is about as casual as you can be, probably done 10 raids, battled in a gym half a dozen times, really only plays with me when we go to the Mall of America just for pokemon, and she is level 29. When I see players under level 30, I just assume it's a second account. What's in the game for me? Getting 6 100% level 40 Machamps or Tyranitars? To what, still not be able to solo a T4 or T5 raid? How about something for the long time players that doesn't involve spending money on raid passes?
Yep, this morning in Thailand I opened my first gift of the day and got a whopping: 1 Revive, 1 Max Potion and a 7K egg. At least I got the egg! I for one don't mind this as my storage is already high (1,800) and the past few days have been a nightmare trying to reduce it so as to open more gifts. I suspect we will all be bored of 7k eggs in a week's time and will only share gifts to get the bonus balls for raids.
