Posted in: Games, Mobile Games, Niantic, Pokémon GO | Tagged: Niantic, Niantic Labs, pokemon, pokemon go, roselia

Pokémon GO Roselia Community Day Review: A Bud Or Dud?

Yesterday, Niantic hosted the second Community Day of 2021 in Pokémon GO. Roselia Community Day featured boosted Roselia spawns in the wild with a higher-than-normal Shiny rate, a bonus of 1/4 Egg hatch distance, and two special moves when Roselia is evolved to Roserade during the event. Community Day has become a subject of discussion amongst Pokémon GO trainers, many of whom feel that this monthly event has gone from being the most anticipated day of gameplay to a skippable event. Let's see how Roselia Community Day measured up to past events.

What Worked in this Pokémon GO Event

• The spawns were fixed: Last month, Niantic tried something out with Machop Community Day that did not work. They completely nerfed non-event spawns, with some trainers reporting that they saw one non-Machop spawn throughout the entire event. Things were back to normal this time, with a mixture of Roselia and other, standard spawns. This is much preferable, because it gives those who aren't interested in this event something else to do.
• Two moves: This is the first time we have seen a Pokémon get two exclusive Community Day moves in one day. While the moves weren't great (see below), this sets a good precedent going forward.
• The ticketed research: This was also back to normal after last month's Machop research nerfed the rewards.

What Didn't Work in this Pokémon GO Event

• The Charged Attack is useless: Giving Roserade a Fire-type Charged Attack makes no sense. While I initially wondered if it would give Roselia coverage, the only situation in which Roselia benefits with this move is if it's facing another Grass-type Pokémon… which it can already generally defeat with its Poison-type attacks and just, in general, being an elite Grass hitter. Off-type moves can work as, for example, Magmar with its Electric-type Community Day move was given coverage against Water-types. Roserade with a Fire-type move adds a bit of quirk and nothing else.
• Roselia, to an extent: Listen, I love Roselia. Was it cute seeing it all over the place? It sure was. Community Day used to focus on the Shiny release of Starter Pokémon and rare spawns, giving them meta-shaking moves. Roselia is a far better Community Day choice than Magikarp, Machop, and other species chosen of late but it still lacks the hype of pre-2020 Community Days.
• Hatching eggs: It's winter. There's snow for many players. The current event already gave 1/2 Hatch distance. It seems like a Stardust, XP, or even Candy XL bonus would've been a better option.

Overall

It seems as if Niantic made alterations to this event in response to the backlash over last week's underwhelming Machop Community Day. Will they continue to bring Community Day back to its former glory? Well while many chalk the changes made to this event up to the pandemic, remember that Niantic already had these changes in their code pre-COVID. The changes in Community Day were made as a planned action, not in response to the pandemic. Now, Niantic has expressed that they know players are unsatisfied. Their next moves will speak volumes for what the future of Community Day will be.

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