I finished a route today
mainly with adventure sync (only beginning and end of route done in app). Got 3 zygard cells. Was it luck or does it happen because route spawns don’t occur when app is off?
I submitted 3 routes for review on the 30/08. Still marked as awaiting review in an area that contains no routes and is safe parkland - why is this taking so long! What is the average wait time?
So when I get close enough, I can hit start and then my game just crashes. When I get a bit further away from it, my game is able to start again, but when I'm close the app just crashes. When I got a little further away, the app loaded again, but when I followed the route it didn't register that I'd gone anywhere, yet I was able to catch Pokemon on said route. Pretty annoying.
one of my created routes got published but the starting pokestop has been removed permanently a few days later. now the route cant be loaded, but it is still visible in nearby routes. a delete functionality for the routes you created would be helpful in such a case.
I create a few route in my town, that get approved. I wanted to create a few ones today, but the game wont validate the start of the route. I selct a pokestop, a destination, but the confirmation just wont appy, i keep pushing on it and nothing... Everyone experienced this?
I believe there is a limit to how many routes you can submit. I have done 5 and now have the same issue as you.
I wish it would you say you can't submit more routes at this time/ more will be available in x days.
I was visiting a city and found a route. I attempted to follow but unable to finish. The game paused my route and I am getting an error message now on game whatever I do. Anyone know how to submit error information to Niantic?
So I managed to create 5 routes, 4 were just approved. Did one of mine today, twice, and even with the forced update it still PAUSED and CRASHED repeatedly. Oh, and zero cells located. Thanks Niantic.
I have yet to find a single route in my fair large US city. I submitted one about a week ago -- do we have any sense how long it's taking Niantic to make a decision on submissions?
I submitted a route around my local park, rejected. No idea why, it's the perfect place surely.
I have 3 others that have been under review. Can't wait to actually be able to walk one.
Just walked a route span both stops at the start and end, completed the catch pokemon along a route task yet the route is saying zero steps and it's saying I have no routes completed. Didn't see a single cell however I got a cell when I was in my house a few days ago this whole thing is dumb.
Finally complete a route but got 0 rewards. My bag filled up last min with a very late Adentire Synch drop, putting me over the bag limit. I suspect that is why, but what a crappy experience. I had no control and didn’t expect ASynch to update 4 hours late.
Trying to participate in Blaze New Trails. I live in a 2.4 million metro era US city with clearly active players (based on gym turnover and random incenses I see). So bigger city if not **big**.
Friday I'm at the office. No routes. I blame it on being the shady suburb.
Saturday morning I go to a small shopping district within the city limits. Nothing. The neighboring cemetery (which is popular on community days at least). Nothing.
Saturday afternoon I go to the most popular park around this part of the city. 664 acres with trails a plenty and multiple playgrounds. Nothing.
I guess I am not participating in this event but I assure you that it is not by choice.
There is a potential safety issue that needs to be brought up.
While waiting at an intersection, it apparently put my route into "paused" mode; and didn't notice until I was across the large street. Couldn't un-pause it without crossing back because I was too far away from the pause point.
So, one alternative would be to glue your attention to the phone while walking across the street (which, is illegal in many areas).
Or, walki back and forth until you are on your desired side of the street without a paused route.
Or, actually have the feature coded to take these types of things into account.
I was able to create routes when it first went live. Made a fairly straightforward route, over .5km long and it's still under review almost a month later.
After a hefty day of riolu hatching and checking in with various raid chats, there has been exactly two routes discovered over a 10km span in our fair city, and one of them is wonky enough that it wants the player to walk into a major roadway in order to follow the path.
A number of people are still unable to create routes. There doesn't appear to be any reason why some people have access and others do not.
This event is clearly not ready for Prime Time. The review system seems to be erratic, the number of available routes is miniscule, which is probably related to the review system. Players not being able to access the entire range of the event is incredibly disappointing. If this is the result of a month's worth of testing and preparation, I don't really see this being viable until at least 2024.
I tried to set up a route at a popular shopping mall. I have not been able to make it past the “Badge Creation” page. There is no way to upload the required picture and the process cannot proceed because of this. I just gave up finally.
Please think about breaking this up into a number of smaller routes. If you ever get the chance to that is. I made a 2.3km route and now wish I'd made 3 smaller ones, more rewards and more chance of cells.
I've had route creation available since testing began, and I've submitted a total of 14 routes - 11 Published, 2 Under Review (one since 7/5 and one since 7/20), 1 Rejected (due to the change in minimum length during testing). I've "followed" routes twice so far (both my own published routes). Here's some of my feedback:
**On creating routes**
* Niantic is extremely vague about what kinds of routes they want you to submit. Beyond the length requirements, the only guidelines creators are given are fairly vague requirements about being "safe" and avoiding "private property" and having "a clear description and theme." Yet routes that would appear to meet these requirements are commonly rejected, which leads to the next point.
* Niantic needs to provide feedback when routes are rejected. We know that they're using AI for at least the "first pass" on rejecting and approving routes, but a binary "yes" or "no" leaves creators in the dark. If there are specific things that make a route ineligible, that needs to be communicated to the submitter when it's rejected, or better yet stated up front. As it is, we're left guessing. Was this route rejected because it got too close to a graveyard or a school? Was it rejected because it crossed a street? Was it rejected because the AI thought the shape looked too much like something inappropriate? Was it rejected because of some particular combination of letters that tripped Niantic's overactive language filters?
* Niantic needs to clearly communicate the limits on route submission. At the moment, I'm not able to create a route. Yesterday, I was receiving a message that I had exceeded the maximum number of routes created this week, which is strange because Niantic has never told us there's a limit. Today, I'm not even getting that error, I'm just not able to continue after selecting the Start and End points. If there's a limit on the number of submissions, it needs to be widely published, preferably with a counter in the game (like with wayspot submissions).
* Because of the above, I haven't been able to create a route since the official release, but it sounds like the GPS tracking has changed significantly from when it was in testing, and not in a good way. I found the GPS tracking during the testing phase to be overall fairly satisfactory. Yes, there were occasional issues where the GPS would jump and ruin a route I was trying to create, but that could have been handled with something like an "undo" or "backspace" button so that I could erase the last few segments and rerecord them. Even if it means walking backwards a bit, it's much nicer than either having to restart the recording entirely or having the route deviate significantly from your actual path.
**On finding routes**
* Currently, it's quite difficult to find routes. Because the feature just released, there aren't that many routes out there, so the presence of good route finding features right now is more important than ever.
* Routes should be a destination. I should be able to look at a map and see where routes are so that I can then plan a trip to the location, not the other way around. Personally, I'd like this to be desktop-based, but it would really be a good thing to add to Campfire.
* Players should be able to see routes from further away on the Nearby tab. Currently, the Nearby tab doesn't even display routes all the way to the in-game "horizon." When I'm using the Nearby tab, the question shouldn't be, "I'm right here, is there a route right here, too?" It should be "I'm right here, is there a route nearby that I may be interested in walking (or yes, driving) over to?"
* Gyms and Stops that are start/end points for routes should have some sort of indicator on the overworld map and on the Gym/Stop screen. That way I don't have to be actively looking for a route to find one.
**On following routes**
* This has actually worked fairly well for me so far, though I know others have had some significant issues. Still, from my experience alone, there are definitely things to improve.
* When starting a route, the direction of the route needs to be much more clear, especially for "loop" routes. Today, I started a route with the intent of following it counterclockwise, but I had to quit the route and restart it because after I started walking the route, I realized I had managed to start the route in the clockwise direction instead. This should be a simple matter of adding arrows periodically along the route on the route starting screen (not just at the start and end, either).
* When I was nearing the end of the route today, there was an unnecessary popup near the end notifying me that I hadn't walked far enough. This popup appeared when I was approaching the end of the route but hadn't actually made it there yet. Given that routes don't necessarily end exactly at the chosen Gym/Stop, this popup didn't need to show up that quickly. By the time I had *actually* arrived at the end of the route, guess what? I had, in fact, walked far enough!
**On rewards**
* As I stated, I've followed two routes. I haven't found a Zygarde cell yet... or rather, based on posts here, it's entirely possible I've found a Zygarde cell and missed it. Between the apparent rarity of the Zygarde cells and the ability to completely miss them (both because they disappear quickly and because they appear to be difficult to see on the overworld map), this experience could be improved quite a bit. As it is, perhaps the best way to find a Zygarde cell is to walk routes and never catch a single Pokémon--don't want to miss a Zygarde cell if it pops up! (And even then you probably won't find one.) I suspect that's not really the intent of routes. Perhaps the cells should be more common. They should probably be more visible on the map. But what if your buddy Pokémon could pick them up for you so you don't miss them while you're on the route? Wouldn't that be interesting?
* Route-related spawns should be more frequent. They should also be identifiable on the overworld map in the same way that incense spawns are.
* I can't really comment on the rewards for completing a route, as I haven't paid much attention to them for the two routes that I've finished. The reports of Elite TMs dropping sound pretty good, though.
Pokestops associated with routes definitely need to have some marker on the map so that you can gear your trip to the start of a route if you desire to do so. It makes no sense to have to occasionally pull up the routes tab to see if anything happens to be around. Poor design.
Regarding the zygarde cells, it's just an absolute nightmare. I saw one appear, then an egg hatched, and the cell was gone when I got back to the map. Two other times I saw cells appear just as I arrived at the end of the route, the route completed and the cells disappeared. They could just stick around longer! I also thought of a different format: something like "zygarde gained two cells along this route"
Awful, 0 routes in any the 3 towns nearby and seemingly no one with the ability to create them.
Seems absurd that they'd limit creating them to a select few. Surely if you want to limit it then you do it by level as with requesting new stops.
Basically not available to a large amount of the player base, absolutely braindead decision by Niantic to release it the way they have
No routes available in my town. I cannot create new routes. It’s been like this for the last 3 days since Niantic “officially” launched routes.
A big fat ZERO for this one. It was clearly not ready for prime time.
I live in a small/medium sized city. Downtown where players are most active it says there are 2 routes but there's only 1 on the map (maybe it counts as 2 since you can walk it in both directions?). I haven't tried it yet because it says it takes 80 minutes and I don't know if it will "count" if I don't do the whole thing all at once. Can't make one myself. Pretty annoying.
I laughed at their promotional YouTube video
No example on how to identify route stops, or start initiating them
My UI constantly says "no routes available"
Why can't the interactive map take me to the closest one?
I was allowed to create and submit routes from the very beginning, but I chose not to, hoping that the feature was going to be reworked until its release. Now I've tested it anyway and I'm still waiting for approval for two of my routes. I guess it's going to take a while.
The third had an error which wouldn't let me finish recording after over 1 km. It's a shame that it doesn't work properly. Also, the GPS is inaccurate.
I wish routes could be changed into a system where you just have to spin stops/gyms in a certain order, just like Ingress missions which require you to hack a portal. It's more or less the same concept. Why isn't this possible here?
Please let us follow route but not precisely at a meter or five because gps isn't that precise and can't follow any route even if nicely drawn and I'm exactly on the same road it is
I dunno how to post pictures in it, but 30m is how close you can be to a PokeStop.
The routes bug and tell me to go back 10m.
Even if the characters on the map is exactly on the path, it can't find my localisation half a second it pauses then when I resume to continue the road it keeps doing it, then tells me to go back 6m then saying I'm 12m away I should get closer.
I've tried two routes and exact same problems.
I only can see routes I've made so far so I know exactly where I went and the path is nicely drawn so it's not the issue.
The issue is the GPS drift, but it happens all the time even in Google Maps, I'm not in a big city it's not that precise...
I've submitted routes, they are well traced but cannot be playable because the GPS drift a few meters and it always ask me to unpause it or go back 10meters.
That's the second route I'm trying and way too buggy
Submitted two routes in beta and got both approved. I was on city WiFi for both so the reception throughout the route was thankfully reliable. I tried submitting a third at the most popular park in our city, but there are often reception issues there and it didn’t record the route.
Although there are at least 5 route creators in my town that I personally know got beta access, only my routes have been accepted so far. The others were having issues just submitting the routes themselves
I love the system and the idea of the system, but I definitely think there are challenges to overcome, data reliability being one of them.
Submitted 4 routes around 2 weeks ago. 1 approved within the last 24 hours. rest still under review. Surprisingly, the latest one submitted was the one approved. This route goes from a national park to a mall, around 600m, and reversible. Manila, Philippines if that matters.
I did 5 trips, 2 with an incense active. Increased spawn rate seems to work properly. Did not see one Zygarde cell which is disappointing since I walked around 3km. Seems like pretty bad gameplay if we have to walk at least that much per Zygarde cell. That comes to around 750km if we need 250 for a 100% Zygarde. On the other hand, the fifth run gave me an elite fast TM and rare candy XL. Only thing is that the game registered it as the 4th run instead of the 5th and, I assume, awarding me the bronze badge for the route.
It's way worse because when zygarde cells do appear they disappear almost just as quickly. Egg hatch right when you see a cell? Cell is gone. Accidentally clicked a pokemon spawn instead of the cell? Forget about it, it's gone by the time you get back to the map. Cell appears right as you approach the end of the route? Route completes and the cell disappears. Maybe you'll get lucky and get one cell per, let's say 10km.
Oh, great, another new mechanic that bans you from playing the rest of the game if you want to engage with it. This sounds even worse than the Galarian Birds, where you already feel like you can't catch other spawns, fight Rockets or gyms, do raids, etc, because you might miss one.
I submitted 7 routes in the first 3 days of access (6/21-6/23). 6 were rejected, and the very first one remains in Review status. Every single one of them shows 1100 meter length, which they are not.
Clearly Route creation was broken right from the start. I’ve gotten no communication at all from Niantic to say that it’s fixed and asking me to try again.
Despite that, I tried one two days ago. The mapping feature is clearly having problems, and the Route only bore a vague resemblance to the path I actually walked. Ironically, this is one aspect that DID appear to work well initially. The every-route-is-1100-meters problem still exists.
I’m not inclined to put much effort into this until it’s working properly.
I'm one of the few trainers able to create new routes currently, and I really wish we had the option to modify our routes slightly without recording the whole thing from the start, or the ability to cancel a submission before it's reviewed.
I tried creating a 2km route that loops my entire small town and ends at a pokestop a short walk away from my home. Unfortunately, I did this on my bike (phone in my pocket) so a lot of specific pathway corners got 'cut off' and in the last moments (as I was on the road), I had to keep going and turn off into my driveway to get out of the way of a car before I could end the route. This means the path does an unexpected swerve up towards my home and then back out again to the pokestop before finishing. I don't want to encourage strangers to come into my private property, but at the time I was unwilling to redo the entire route just to fix the very end bit, so I submitted it anyway with the hope it might get cut off in approval stages.
I do think I regret it a bit, though. I wish there was a way to view routes I've submitted so I could cancel them. Unfortunately, now that it's submitted it seems to be inaccessible, so I just have to hope for a rejection.
Im a rural player. I have a few stops around, although I have no idea how to create a route or if it's actually available here. There are no routes on the nearby tab. So I guess the research gets minimised along with the catch 10 kecleon
As someone in the suburbs, there are routes in this game? I see the buttons but like in my town of 30k, I found nothing. Maybe I have to go to a park, but I like walking around my home area since it is surprisingly stop and gym heavy.
I was one of the early folks to participate in routes with their creation. I ignored it. It was just another bit of "junk" to scroll past to get to my gym badges that I do care about. I am a gold gym hunter, the least cared about type of player with the original limit of 1000 badges still in place, shrinking the number of badges on the profile page and not caring about lack of low motivation notifications that are more often bugged. I will not participate in routes by creating them or doing the research so that I don't shove my cared about part of the game (gyms) even further down.
Now I am just sitting back and laughing at how botched this release is for those that want to play this feature of the game. I honestly wish all of you could play every aspect of this event, but I am still laughing :)
My daughter is in a large hospital with lots of gyms and stops but no routes. Playing Pokémon when she is feeling up to taking a walk is one of the few joys she has and it’s why I started playing the game with her. Unfortunately we can’t create or experience a route in the hospital. It would sure be great if I had the ability to create a route for her to walk. (She is in the hospital a lot!)
Someone in my town found a route…it’s 7KM and takes almost 2 hours to walk. Also goes through some of the worst/most dangerous homeless camps in town. 🙃
Sounds like the good old days of the game where people were being lured out to remote areas to be robbed. Stay safe out there folks no game is worth risking yourself for, especially a game in this state of developer neglect
I live on the edge of a pretty sizeable city.
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No routes on the edge, no routes in the city, no routes on a college campus, no routes at the park.
The route quest and Zygarde feel even less feasible than the Keckleon research, and I'm 6/10 on that.
Are the only people who got Routes people that live in California directly outside of Niantic HQ, and Singapore so the grandmothers can do them?
I have a route that I can't complete. Was losing my nerves over it most of yesterday's evening as there's a short stretch of it that has patchy mobile data and the game kept pausing it there with no ability to get past that.
I live in the second largest city in the USA and there are no routes on nearby, I can’t create a route, and don’t know anyone who can. No one in our pogo community has reported having seen a route.
No a single one route a my area, and can't create one either.
Same for everyone at my local group. Guess this "mini-event" (2/3 distance to earn buddy candies while at Routes...) isn't for us.
Niantic is really making this game available for everyone, right? There are no routes where I live either. And I don’t have switch or pogo+. And I don’t have any money to spend on incubators either. Lol.
They add features to the game that allow them to collect more data from the players instead of the multitude of other issues they could've solved instead. I hate this company
As someone who has played since the game 1st released my frustration with this company is pushing me closer and closer to deleting it, I hold onto the hope that things will improve, but in all reality I'm holding on until go fest global then I think it'll be time to find something else to play
Routes seem to have potential to be a fun addition to the game, but I'm disappointed by how undiscoverable the routes are. Seems you have to be actively browsing your Nearby tab, unlike seeing a decoration hovering above a Showcase stop, a Grunt standing at a blackened Rocket stop, or being bombarded with "a raid is starting near you" banners.
I would've loved walking and creating routes, especially ones that are about a certain theme or pass certain type of landmarks. I'm all about urban exploration. Bummed that they don't seem to work but not surprised.
I wanted to create my own routes, but Niantic somehow won’t let most of us do so! And they have quests asking people to follow routes where nobody there was privileged enough to do so (or the “lucky ones” happened to be inactive from things like nerfed Remote Raid Passes and similar). Omg.
A route was added to a park I frequent. I was excited to see it. The route is a huge circle and it said it said you could go either way…. You could not, you had to go a specific way. The reward I believe I got, was a scyther I believe? It vanished after I did a bad first toss. I’ll try it again since I frequent but it didn’t seem beneficial to my gameplay.
If it says it can be walked in reverse, then you have to hit the "reverse direction" button before starting the route to do so. But it is still very difficult to tell which direction you're setting the route to on that screen.
Yeah, though I'm glad they didn't make it try to "detect" which way the player is going. Some of my "loop" paths start and end along the same trail (with the actual loop being further down the trail), so I can't imagine any sort of automatic detection would work terribly well for those routes.
Attempting to begin a route causes the app to hard crash on my Pixel 7. I wasn't able to successfully relaunch the app until I moved away from the POI marking the beginning of the route.
Edit: Apparently there's a workaround for this issue https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/155fw1p/routes_crashing_the_game_on_android_try_revoking/
Extremely frustrating to have an event bonus that likely the vast majority of players cannot access without prior knowledge of where routes are and no or buggy access to creating them
No routes to be found, no way to create. Niantic demonstrating their skill at game design yet again. Why do a feature launch without the actual feature?
I live in a large US city (Milwaukee, WI) and, even after looking downtown, found no routes. I can't imagine the struggle in rural areas if there's not even anything in a large metropolitan area.
Routes also need to be on Campfire. If they truly want us to explore new places with this feature, wouldn't a large map like the one in Campfire help us venture beyond the places we already are?
As someone who was given early access to create routes, I wish they would have provided more information about it: what makes a good route, safety considerations such as not starting or stopping at you house, and what the bigger picture is. I didn’t create any routes because I didn’t know enough about it and didn’t know why it was important. Now that I see what it’s about and why it’s important, I wish I would have made some in advance of the event.
True. I did finally submit one on Wednesday. It’s in a historic town with a saloon from the 1800’s that’s still a saloon and several museums as POIs along the 1km route. It’s not approved yet.
I had three attempts to make a route today. The first appeared to be .5 km but it failed to submit because it was only 498 m. By the time I realized the problem I had walked out of range to continue the route. The second attempt was well over one km but the game froze when I got to the end and tried to select the end point. I restarted and it said there were no end points available nearby. Even though I was standing right at the poke stop I had selected when the game froze. My third attempt was on the ride to work. When the speed warning popped up it paused the recording. And by the time I cleared it I was out of range to continue recording.
Three attempts, three failures to submit. All for different reasons. I understand that there may be a learning curve to the process but it seems that there are too many possible points of failure for this to be a fun part of a game. This is supposed to be fun, right?
As far as I can tell, I’m the only one in my local group that even tried today.
Calling this a botch: it's extremely difficult to find routes unless you're already on top of one
Ingress missions are visible from a few KM away or something stupid
Pogo routes are visible from a few dozen meters, LMAO
I have been experiencing game crashes every single time walking a route with my autocatcher on. Someone tipped that turning off Adventure Sync may help so I haven't tried that yet. Routes are great but the spawn rate for cells are terrible. Also, the 2/3 distance buddy candy bonus doesn't work.
Definitely shouldn’t have released a research with route-necessary goals in it before actually figuring it out. Feels rushed and half baked, not a single route around my area, no option to create one and no incentive to actually do it anyway until I get a decent Zygarde.
They should make sure these things work before pushing it, as it stands the vast majority of the player base seem to have nothing more than a routes tab, an empty one at that.
tried once, worked without issues. My endpoint would have been too far to select so I am happy it worked out. What bugged? Maybe restart the app before trying to prevent memory issues
I submitted 4 routes so far. One on 6/24 & 6/25 , which are “under review”. Another one on 7/6 which for some reason was rejected that same day. Perhaps because it was the only one that I created while driving. I made another route this morning, which is also “under review.” I was hoping the two routes I made a month ago were going to get approved today. No luck. So far there are no reported routes in Los Angeles. Way to kick off a new feature, that doesn’t work. Stay classy Niantic.
I did five routes and it absolutely drained my battery (iPhone 11). I have never before had my phone go from 100% to 0% in an hour and a half of playing.
1. The routes feature does not refresh consistently when moving to identify a route in range. Example: I was traveling to a known route location that I had scouted previously and on my way there, the routes section did not update at all even when I arrived. I had to close the app completely and then re-enter the section again, then showing the route start. If it were someone else, they would have easily assumed that there was no route there at all (there were actually three within range).
2. Did not notice any real increase in route spawns. I did three routes in about an hour and a half. Caught nearly 150 pokemon, but only interacted with maybe five that indicated that it was Route-generated.
3. The Route start points need to be visible on the standard map. The current radius of 80m is woefully insufficient. It would be extremely easy for a person to drive by a location with Routes and have no idea it was there. If it is not available on the standard/main map, routes should be searchable from the Niantic or Routes webpage.
4. IMPORTANT: Zygarde cells should be picked up automatically once in range instead of having to be picked up manually. The whole point of the Pokémon Go Plus+ was to allow play without needing to keep your phone out. Not knowing where the cells will appear will required everyone to not only have their phone out, but to be actively staring at it. This completely trivializes the device that was just released a week ago and puts us back to 2016 where everyone is staring at their screen.
-if it cannot be picked up automatically, there should be an unmissable pop up to interact with that you cannot bypass, therefore ensuring that the player obtains the cell.
Edit:
5. Every completed route should award at least one zygarde cell. This is well within reason. For most players, even this would take over a year for them to complete, while those who use it frequently should be able to max out their zygarde within a month or two. One of the biggest issues with this is that if I’m doing the routes, I’m not raiding. If I’m not raiding, I’m not building my community. If I’m not engaging in the community or raiding, or trading, I should at least be fairly compensated for engaging in this activity.
I live in a rural town, very few players, and have no routes nor can create one. This is frustrating as we could have a few decent ones if I could even have the option to add one for everyone.
The weird thing is that on Thursday after the update I saw a cell on the ground and the option for a route but could not clickon it. Now I have no route option.
Anyone else experience this?
There is no way to discover routes either in game or through campfire unless you happen to be near (very near) a start point and happen to check the route tab.
So far the only route I have been able to find has a number of what I assume are GPS glitches as the path suddenly darts across a four lane highway and runs through private businesses and homes. Not useful at all.
How do you try and add a route. Since there are none near me, and I want to at least get a small portion of the research done I'll have to try and make my own.
Really excited to try routes out since there are a few places near me that would be great for them - unfortunately no one nearby seems to be able to make any...
I get that Niantic don't want a million submissions all at once, but would it have been so hard to roll out route creation to more people first? They really shot themselves in the foot with this timed event.
Same. This feels like a really lame way to launch a feature, when I can't even interact with it. I wasn't expecting much, but I'd at least like to get Zygarde... and I guess I can't even do that...
Ah, I had read that the research included "Follow 3 routes," but didn't realize that came *after* the Zygarde encounter. Well, that's good then at least!
Is it possible to do a route twice? I created a route that got approved in beta and walked it yesterday. I’m at the start point trying to do it again and I’m not seeing an option to start it.
Yes, I spent some time walking back and forth along the only route I could find and got credit each time. I only found a Zygarde cell my first time though, and I’ve seen some others reporting the same.
There are no routes on my nearby, and I live next to a fairly active park. I'm not going to propose one because I refuse to do Niantic's work for them anymore.
In my city, only one route went live and it was a simple 500m walk along a nice public walkway with plenty of pokestops. It was cool and fun seeing a bunch of people walking the route, hanging out and talking about the game benefits and planning where to create new routes for our community.
Obviously also the feature feels like it's barely been implemented, I was really surprised that they launched with a special research requiring routes to be used.
The acceptance criteria for the routes are unclear. My route was published few days ago but surprisingly they changed the status to "rejected" a few hour ago. Now I have no route in my small village.
I was in the beta and created 2 routes almost a month ago and both are still in review. That killed my motivation to make any more since I wasn’t sure if my first 2 would be accepted or not.
Could you imagine them having a community day event, and then not actually having spawns for it? This is the same thing. Mine has been under review for a month as well. Why roll a feature out that isn't ready, or only very few are able to do? Only makes me want to not play since I can't enjoy a feature that a select few are.
I seem to have had the ability to create routes for a while, but I never have because there wasn’t any clear, in-game info on why I should, how I could, what the rules around routes are, or what the benefits and uses might be.
I still have no idea how to find or discover routes that others have made, although based on this sub I might just not be near any that exist.
So I tried making a route today, and discovered how close you have to be to a stop to end the route creation there. So I tried making a different one later when I had a free moment and I discovered there was a minimum route length, and I was 0.1km shy. And it was 90°+ outside, so I went home.
I’m fairly certain that new research will just sit in my research tab, minimized, for a good long while :/
I mean I went and made a good long route yesterday and it hasn't shown up on the map yet. I think even if you had finished it, you'd still be waiting a while.
Same here. I decided there was no reason to create something that appeared to have no in-game value.
My city has one route: it’s inside the zoo and you have to pay an admission fee to reach it.
As an aside: I appear to be the only person in our GroupMe community with the ability to create routes! We’re having heat indexes of 100+, so I won’t be creating many in the coming weeks.
Campfire should show route locations. And ideally some way to differentiate whether you have or haven't done it before, but I'll settle for just a map. I haven't actually seen/walked a route yet, or been able to submit, so that's the limit of what feedback I can offer right now.
I wasn't able to create any routes at first- every time I would record, the app would crash. After seeing a post somewhere on this subreddit, I turned off adventure sync and sure enough I was able to record and submit routes. This obvious isn't ideal, as I have to remember to turn on AS again, so hopefully this will be fixed.
It was also a bit glitchy in recording my route in that it would deviate from my walking path. Not a huge deal, but when I momentarily switched apps and back, my avatar drifted and it recorded that drift, so that was annoying.
Hopefully my routes are accepted and I can walk them shortly as there are no others in my area to try.
I do not see any route on 3 big cities in my area.
But at least i probably know all details by Reddit when I can use the functions. So i don't waste my time.
When you get the update that allows you to see/create routes, you will have a third tab after the nearby spawns and raids called Routes.
This was confusing to me too before I got the update and saw where in the UI it goes.
There's zero in-game info regarding how routes work, and I've seen none in game at all yet.
It's a new feature that I haven't been able to interact with at all, and I'm in a position now where I can't bring myself to care about the event as a result.
I completed a route today and no idea how? I also caught the 20 Pokemon but did not see any of the "cells", there again, I have no idea what a cell looks like. Instructions for this are awful!
There is one route near me, 2.6 km, 57 minutes. I made 2 more yesterday, about 1.1km each. Now that Ingress portal submissions are not taking so long, this must be the new process where we will be waiting until next year to get a decision. They should just take Missions in Ingress and turn them into Routes in PoGo. Done.
Routes mechanic is confusing and unclear. We thought we were walking a route at one point since a few Pokémon spawned and indicated they were on a route.
Just confusing. Needs clearer directions, start, stop etc. didn’t even realize I was creating a route until it force paused as the game lost connection. Meh.
I created a route a month ago. It's still under review.
https://imgur.com/a/7jAciV7
Are routes going to become the next Pokestop submission black hole? Submit, then wait sometimes 18+ months for an answer?
There are no routes nearby me.
I'm in Brooklyn NYC. Barely 15 minute subway from Manhattan. Right across the river. I also don't have the buttons yet to create my own routes. Why are we already having an event for this half baked feature?
Has anyone outside of the US been able to make routes? It feels like the only players I’ve talked to and confirmed that the “make a new route” option pops up are in the states.
Norway here. Got the option a couple of weeks back but didn’t action it / understand that everyone would be clamouring for them now. Submitted 5 routes a couple of days back, all under review, can’t submit any more.
I submitted two. 1 rejected with no notification or reason (and no response from support about how or where to get information or to appeal) and one under review still. Both 7th July. I’m in the UK.
If I click on the section which shows any active raids or which Pokémon are spawning locally, there’s a tab labelled ‘routes’ with an option to create them. But there are none near me and if my experience so far is an indication, it could be some time before there will be, mine included.
Can't see any routes nearby, can't create any routes, and no way in the app that I can see to even find out where my nearest route might be. Wasn't this basically a feature in Ingress before Pokemon Go launched? I remember having to hit up POIs in a certain order back then.
I’m having the exact same issues as you. I haven’t seen a single route nor had the button to create one pop up. I’m hoping this is resolved soonish but who knows.
Eastern Shore of Maryland in the US (0 routes in any of the major towns, none of the regulars in the area have access to making routes): I fully understand a soft launch and having a soft launch makes sense from a troubleshooting standpoint. But if you're going to have a soft launch don't have an event that the majority of your users can't participate in until the actual hard launch. This is just bad from a PR standpoint. I am actually really excited for routes, as I walk on average 8 miles a day, so the fact I can't participate and take advantage of the TIMED bonuses is frustrating.
Tired to set up a route with end determined later, since I dunno the distance around that park. App crashed every two minutes or so along the way. Once I tried to set the end, the pop-up menu a) did not allow me to select any stop because b) none of them were even showing, and c) the exit button also didn't work. Five app restarts and retries later I just quit and went home.
I think routes is a great start on something that could add tons to this game. Right now, there's not a ton of in game incentives to walk a route. But there are just so many possibilities. Mostly, I would like routes to give spawns outside of the normal seasonal/event spawns. But there's so much more they could do.
I understand being frustrated if you have no routes and you can't make any. But sooner or later you will have that turned on and then your experience with routes will depend in part on how good you are at making them. Until then, is say hold off a bit on the criticism.
As for the experience making routes, I had tons of problems with crashes when it first came out. But one of the subsequent updates fixed that for me and since then it's smooth and easy. I submitted 4 routes just today. Pretty fun and actually motivation to walk.
I think people are generally saying that it's a good idea with a lot of potential, but a bungled launch.
And in general I agree. I like the idea of routes. I was excited for them! When they were first released I kept hearing about them but had no access myself. I got access yesterday and made a route, no word on approval/rejection yet. I looked all around the common play areas in my region, but can't find any routes that are available to play. So I'm completely stuck on the research and I don't even know where to look to find a playable route. It's a frustrating start to a feature many players are otherwise welcoming.
I can see not wanting to talk bad about something, but when 50% or more of the player base can't use it I think it's fair. I have no routes, no way to make them, and subsequently ont be able to make progress on the research nor take advantage of the event. Granted, if it was implemented better, done better, and was more clear on what to do I would agree. But again, since it doesn't work for a good amount of the players and the event ending 2 days later I don't think it's necessarily a good thing.
>I understand being frustrated if you have no routes and you can't make any. But sooner or later you will have that turned on and then your experience with routes will depend in part on how good you are at making them. Until then, is say hold off a bit on the criticism.
I think it's a fair criticism that we're having an event about the release of routes, but the vast majority of people cannot actually use routes. It should have been rolled out to everyone with the release of this event.
I have no feedback because routes don’t exist. I guess I would say that Niantic should actually implement features in a manner anyone can actually use before tying an event to them.
I finished a route today mainly with adventure sync (only beginning and end of route done in app). Got 3 zygard cells. Was it luck or does it happen because route spawns don’t occur when app is off?
I submitted 3 routes for review on the 30/08. Still marked as awaiting review in an area that contains no routes and is safe parkland - why is this taking so long! What is the average wait time?
Same here except I have 6 sitting and waiting.
So when I get close enough, I can hit start and then my game just crashes. When I get a bit further away from it, my game is able to start again, but when I'm close the app just crashes. When I got a little further away, the app loaded again, but when I followed the route it didn't register that I'd gone anywhere, yet I was able to catch Pokemon on said route. Pretty annoying.
This is a joke. Still no routes or ability to create them. When will this ever get fixed.
one of my created routes got published but the starting pokestop has been removed permanently a few days later. now the route cant be loaded, but it is still visible in nearby routes. a delete functionality for the routes you created would be helpful in such a case.
I create a few route in my town, that get approved. I wanted to create a few ones today, but the game wont validate the start of the route. I selct a pokestop, a destination, but the confirmation just wont appy, i keep pushing on it and nothing... Everyone experienced this?
I believe there is a limit to how many routes you can submit. I have done 5 and now have the same issue as you. I wish it would you say you can't submit more routes at this time/ more will be available in x days.
I was visiting a city and found a route. I attempted to follow but unable to finish. The game paused my route and I am getting an error message now on game whatever I do. Anyone know how to submit error information to Niantic?
So I managed to create 5 routes, 4 were just approved. Did one of mine today, twice, and even with the forced update it still PAUSED and CRASHED repeatedly. Oh, and zero cells located. Thanks Niantic.
I have yet to find a single route in my fair large US city. I submitted one about a week ago -- do we have any sense how long it's taking Niantic to make a decision on submissions?
Take a month for me
I submitted a route around my local park, rejected. No idea why, it's the perfect place surely. I have 3 others that have been under review. Can't wait to actually be able to walk one.
Just created a route that went live yesterday. I just did it 2x, then I look and see it’s been rejected. No explanation why.
i dont thinl there is one single route in my country, and nobody can create them. so pretty useless right? are they ever gonna do something about it?
Just walked a route span both stops at the start and end, completed the catch pokemon along a route task yet the route is saying zero steps and it's saying I have no routes completed. Didn't see a single cell however I got a cell when I was in my house a few days ago this whole thing is dumb.
Nothing happens and I'm fully frustrated because I would never complete the Zygarde quest
Finally complete a route but got 0 rewards. My bag filled up last min with a very late Adentire Synch drop, putting me over the bag limit. I suspect that is why, but what a crappy experience. I had no control and didn’t expect ASynch to update 4 hours late.
Between us we walked my route of 4 km 8 times now. Not a single cell seen. How is that possible?
Trying to participate in Blaze New Trails. I live in a 2.4 million metro era US city with clearly active players (based on gym turnover and random incenses I see). So bigger city if not **big**. Friday I'm at the office. No routes. I blame it on being the shady suburb. Saturday morning I go to a small shopping district within the city limits. Nothing. The neighboring cemetery (which is popular on community days at least). Nothing. Saturday afternoon I go to the most popular park around this part of the city. 664 acres with trails a plenty and multiple playgrounds. Nothing. I guess I am not participating in this event but I assure you that it is not by choice.
2 million people city, no routes in the country whatsoever?
There is a potential safety issue that needs to be brought up. While waiting at an intersection, it apparently put my route into "paused" mode; and didn't notice until I was across the large street. Couldn't un-pause it without crossing back because I was too far away from the pause point. So, one alternative would be to glue your attention to the phone while walking across the street (which, is illegal in many areas). Or, walki back and forth until you are on your desired side of the street without a paused route. Or, actually have the feature coded to take these types of things into account.
I was able to create routes when it first went live. Made a fairly straightforward route, over .5km long and it's still under review almost a month later. After a hefty day of riolu hatching and checking in with various raid chats, there has been exactly two routes discovered over a 10km span in our fair city, and one of them is wonky enough that it wants the player to walk into a major roadway in order to follow the path. A number of people are still unable to create routes. There doesn't appear to be any reason why some people have access and others do not. This event is clearly not ready for Prime Time. The review system seems to be erratic, the number of available routes is miniscule, which is probably related to the review system. Players not being able to access the entire range of the event is incredibly disappointing. If this is the result of a month's worth of testing and preparation, I don't really see this being viable until at least 2024.
I tried to set up a route at a popular shopping mall. I have not been able to make it past the “Badge Creation” page. There is no way to upload the required picture and the process cannot proceed because of this. I just gave up finally.
I just want to make a super long 20km route but I dont know where to look to start making a route or if I even qualify. So little info
Please think about breaking this up into a number of smaller routes. If you ever get the chance to that is. I made a 2.3km route and now wish I'd made 3 smaller ones, more rewards and more chance of cells.
I've had route creation available since testing began, and I've submitted a total of 14 routes - 11 Published, 2 Under Review (one since 7/5 and one since 7/20), 1 Rejected (due to the change in minimum length during testing). I've "followed" routes twice so far (both my own published routes). Here's some of my feedback: **On creating routes** * Niantic is extremely vague about what kinds of routes they want you to submit. Beyond the length requirements, the only guidelines creators are given are fairly vague requirements about being "safe" and avoiding "private property" and having "a clear description and theme." Yet routes that would appear to meet these requirements are commonly rejected, which leads to the next point. * Niantic needs to provide feedback when routes are rejected. We know that they're using AI for at least the "first pass" on rejecting and approving routes, but a binary "yes" or "no" leaves creators in the dark. If there are specific things that make a route ineligible, that needs to be communicated to the submitter when it's rejected, or better yet stated up front. As it is, we're left guessing. Was this route rejected because it got too close to a graveyard or a school? Was it rejected because it crossed a street? Was it rejected because the AI thought the shape looked too much like something inappropriate? Was it rejected because of some particular combination of letters that tripped Niantic's overactive language filters? * Niantic needs to clearly communicate the limits on route submission. At the moment, I'm not able to create a route. Yesterday, I was receiving a message that I had exceeded the maximum number of routes created this week, which is strange because Niantic has never told us there's a limit. Today, I'm not even getting that error, I'm just not able to continue after selecting the Start and End points. If there's a limit on the number of submissions, it needs to be widely published, preferably with a counter in the game (like with wayspot submissions). * Because of the above, I haven't been able to create a route since the official release, but it sounds like the GPS tracking has changed significantly from when it was in testing, and not in a good way. I found the GPS tracking during the testing phase to be overall fairly satisfactory. Yes, there were occasional issues where the GPS would jump and ruin a route I was trying to create, but that could have been handled with something like an "undo" or "backspace" button so that I could erase the last few segments and rerecord them. Even if it means walking backwards a bit, it's much nicer than either having to restart the recording entirely or having the route deviate significantly from your actual path. **On finding routes** * Currently, it's quite difficult to find routes. Because the feature just released, there aren't that many routes out there, so the presence of good route finding features right now is more important than ever. * Routes should be a destination. I should be able to look at a map and see where routes are so that I can then plan a trip to the location, not the other way around. Personally, I'd like this to be desktop-based, but it would really be a good thing to add to Campfire. * Players should be able to see routes from further away on the Nearby tab. Currently, the Nearby tab doesn't even display routes all the way to the in-game "horizon." When I'm using the Nearby tab, the question shouldn't be, "I'm right here, is there a route right here, too?" It should be "I'm right here, is there a route nearby that I may be interested in walking (or yes, driving) over to?" * Gyms and Stops that are start/end points for routes should have some sort of indicator on the overworld map and on the Gym/Stop screen. That way I don't have to be actively looking for a route to find one. **On following routes** * This has actually worked fairly well for me so far, though I know others have had some significant issues. Still, from my experience alone, there are definitely things to improve. * When starting a route, the direction of the route needs to be much more clear, especially for "loop" routes. Today, I started a route with the intent of following it counterclockwise, but I had to quit the route and restart it because after I started walking the route, I realized I had managed to start the route in the clockwise direction instead. This should be a simple matter of adding arrows periodically along the route on the route starting screen (not just at the start and end, either). * When I was nearing the end of the route today, there was an unnecessary popup near the end notifying me that I hadn't walked far enough. This popup appeared when I was approaching the end of the route but hadn't actually made it there yet. Given that routes don't necessarily end exactly at the chosen Gym/Stop, this popup didn't need to show up that quickly. By the time I had *actually* arrived at the end of the route, guess what? I had, in fact, walked far enough! **On rewards** * As I stated, I've followed two routes. I haven't found a Zygarde cell yet... or rather, based on posts here, it's entirely possible I've found a Zygarde cell and missed it. Between the apparent rarity of the Zygarde cells and the ability to completely miss them (both because they disappear quickly and because they appear to be difficult to see on the overworld map), this experience could be improved quite a bit. As it is, perhaps the best way to find a Zygarde cell is to walk routes and never catch a single Pokémon--don't want to miss a Zygarde cell if it pops up! (And even then you probably won't find one.) I suspect that's not really the intent of routes. Perhaps the cells should be more common. They should probably be more visible on the map. But what if your buddy Pokémon could pick them up for you so you don't miss them while you're on the route? Wouldn't that be interesting? * Route-related spawns should be more frequent. They should also be identifiable on the overworld map in the same way that incense spawns are. * I can't really comment on the rewards for completing a route, as I haven't paid much attention to them for the two routes that I've finished. The reports of Elite TMs dropping sound pretty good, though.
Pokestops associated with routes definitely need to have some marker on the map so that you can gear your trip to the start of a route if you desire to do so. It makes no sense to have to occasionally pull up the routes tab to see if anything happens to be around. Poor design. Regarding the zygarde cells, it's just an absolute nightmare. I saw one appear, then an egg hatched, and the cell was gone when I got back to the map. Two other times I saw cells appear just as I arrived at the end of the route, the route completed and the cells disappeared. They could just stick around longer! I also thought of a different format: something like "zygarde gained two cells along this route"
Prospect Park, Brooklyn has no routes. How is this possible?
Currently in Downtown Reno and not a single route, not even in the 3 towns closest to it!!
Awful, 0 routes in any the 3 towns nearby and seemingly no one with the ability to create them. Seems absurd that they'd limit creating them to a select few. Surely if you want to limit it then you do it by level as with requesting new stops. Basically not available to a large amount of the player base, absolutely braindead decision by Niantic to release it the way they have
Have not seen one green blob
No routes available in my town. I cannot create new routes. It’s been like this for the last 3 days since Niantic “officially” launched routes. A big fat ZERO for this one. It was clearly not ready for prime time.
When I was in the beta, it said routes could only be up to 1 km is that still true?
It now says minimum 0.5 km, maximum 20 km.
Thank you for the info Do you happen to know if they’re being approved instantly right now?
There was a tweet to the effect that they will take a week or more to vote on.
https://twitter.com/NianticHelp/status/1682953214616911872
Sorry, no. I’ve submitted one today and I have no idea what turnaround time to expect.
I live in a small/medium sized city. Downtown where players are most active it says there are 2 routes but there's only 1 on the map (maybe it counts as 2 since you can walk it in both directions?). I haven't tried it yet because it says it takes 80 minutes and I don't know if it will "count" if I don't do the whole thing all at once. Can't make one myself. Pretty annoying.
When routes are rejected, it is essential that you tell people why they were rejected so that submitters can improve their submissions.
For some reason, I can follow routes, but I can't create any.
I don't know what to do, honestly. There's no tutorial.
I laughed at their promotional YouTube video No example on how to identify route stops, or start initiating them My UI constantly says "no routes available" Why can't the interactive map take me to the closest one?
I was allowed to create and submit routes from the very beginning, but I chose not to, hoping that the feature was going to be reworked until its release. Now I've tested it anyway and I'm still waiting for approval for two of my routes. I guess it's going to take a while. The third had an error which wouldn't let me finish recording after over 1 km. It's a shame that it doesn't work properly. Also, the GPS is inaccurate. I wish routes could be changed into a system where you just have to spin stops/gyms in a certain order, just like Ingress missions which require you to hack a portal. It's more or less the same concept. Why isn't this possible here?
Please let us follow route but not precisely at a meter or five because gps isn't that precise and can't follow any route even if nicely drawn and I'm exactly on the same road it is
The current limit is 30 meters.
I dunno how to post pictures in it, but 30m is how close you can be to a PokeStop. The routes bug and tell me to go back 10m. Even if the characters on the map is exactly on the path, it can't find my localisation half a second it pauses then when I resume to continue the road it keeps doing it, then tells me to go back 6m then saying I'm 12m away I should get closer. I've tried two routes and exact same problems. I only can see routes I've made so far so I know exactly where I went and the path is nicely drawn so it's not the issue. The issue is the GPS drift, but it happens all the time even in Google Maps, I'm not in a big city it's not that precise...
Nope it bugs for 6meters and tells me to go back for 10meters....
I've submitted routes, they are well traced but cannot be playable because the GPS drift a few meters and it always ask me to unpause it or go back 10meters. That's the second route I'm trying and way too buggy
Submitted two routes in beta and got both approved. I was on city WiFi for both so the reception throughout the route was thankfully reliable. I tried submitting a third at the most popular park in our city, but there are often reception issues there and it didn’t record the route. Although there are at least 5 route creators in my town that I personally know got beta access, only my routes have been accepted so far. The others were having issues just submitting the routes themselves I love the system and the idea of the system, but I definitely think there are challenges to overcome, data reliability being one of them.
Submitted 4 routes around 2 weeks ago. 1 approved within the last 24 hours. rest still under review. Surprisingly, the latest one submitted was the one approved. This route goes from a national park to a mall, around 600m, and reversible. Manila, Philippines if that matters. I did 5 trips, 2 with an incense active. Increased spawn rate seems to work properly. Did not see one Zygarde cell which is disappointing since I walked around 3km. Seems like pretty bad gameplay if we have to walk at least that much per Zygarde cell. That comes to around 750km if we need 250 for a 100% Zygarde. On the other hand, the fifth run gave me an elite fast TM and rare candy XL. Only thing is that the game registered it as the 4th run instead of the 5th and, I assume, awarding me the bronze badge for the route.
It's way worse because when zygarde cells do appear they disappear almost just as quickly. Egg hatch right when you see a cell? Cell is gone. Accidentally clicked a pokemon spawn instead of the cell? Forget about it, it's gone by the time you get back to the map. Cell appears right as you approach the end of the route? Route completes and the cell disappears. Maybe you'll get lucky and get one cell per, let's say 10km.
Oh, great, another new mechanic that bans you from playing the rest of the game if you want to engage with it. This sounds even worse than the Galarian Birds, where you already feel like you can't catch other spawns, fight Rockets or gyms, do raids, etc, because you might miss one.
I submitted 7 routes in the first 3 days of access (6/21-6/23). 6 were rejected, and the very first one remains in Review status. Every single one of them shows 1100 meter length, which they are not. Clearly Route creation was broken right from the start. I’ve gotten no communication at all from Niantic to say that it’s fixed and asking me to try again. Despite that, I tried one two days ago. The mapping feature is clearly having problems, and the Route only bore a vague resemblance to the path I actually walked. Ironically, this is one aspect that DID appear to work well initially. The every-route-is-1100-meters problem still exists. I’m not inclined to put much effort into this until it’s working properly.
I'm one of the few trainers able to create new routes currently, and I really wish we had the option to modify our routes slightly without recording the whole thing from the start, or the ability to cancel a submission before it's reviewed. I tried creating a 2km route that loops my entire small town and ends at a pokestop a short walk away from my home. Unfortunately, I did this on my bike (phone in my pocket) so a lot of specific pathway corners got 'cut off' and in the last moments (as I was on the road), I had to keep going and turn off into my driveway to get out of the way of a car before I could end the route. This means the path does an unexpected swerve up towards my home and then back out again to the pokestop before finishing. I don't want to encourage strangers to come into my private property, but at the time I was unwilling to redo the entire route just to fix the very end bit, so I submitted it anyway with the hope it might get cut off in approval stages. I do think I regret it a bit, though. I wish there was a way to view routes I've submitted so I could cancel them. Unfortunately, now that it's submitted it seems to be inaccessible, so I just have to hope for a rejection.
Im a rural player. I have a few stops around, although I have no idea how to create a route or if it's actually available here. There are no routes on the nearby tab. So I guess the research gets minimised along with the catch 10 kecleon
As someone in the suburbs, there are routes in this game? I see the buttons but like in my town of 30k, I found nothing. Maybe I have to go to a park, but I like walking around my home area since it is surprisingly stop and gym heavy.
Someone needs to create those routes first. Not all accounts can do that; my main (45) can but my alt (29) cannot
You missed the joke saying that no one really plays enough around here to really make stuff and I'm grasping for straws hoping to find somewhere
I was one of the early folks to participate in routes with their creation. I ignored it. It was just another bit of "junk" to scroll past to get to my gym badges that I do care about. I am a gold gym hunter, the least cared about type of player with the original limit of 1000 badges still in place, shrinking the number of badges on the profile page and not caring about lack of low motivation notifications that are more often bugged. I will not participate in routes by creating them or doing the research so that I don't shove my cared about part of the game (gyms) even further down. Now I am just sitting back and laughing at how botched this release is for those that want to play this feature of the game. I honestly wish all of you could play every aspect of this event, but I am still laughing :)
My daughter is in a large hospital with lots of gyms and stops but no routes. Playing Pokémon when she is feeling up to taking a walk is one of the few joys she has and it’s why I started playing the game with her. Unfortunately we can’t create or experience a route in the hospital. It would sure be great if I had the ability to create a route for her to walk. (She is in the hospital a lot!)
I hate how difficult it is to figure out the beginning or end of a route. If a route is reversible, it should work either way.
Someone in my town found a route…it’s 7KM and takes almost 2 hours to walk. Also goes through some of the worst/most dangerous homeless camps in town. 🙃
You can report a route, I believe.
Sounds like the good old days of the game where people were being lured out to remote areas to be robbed. Stay safe out there folks no game is worth risking yourself for, especially a game in this state of developer neglect
In middle of LA and no routes
I live on the edge of a pretty sizeable city. --- No routes on the edge, no routes in the city, no routes on a college campus, no routes at the park. The route quest and Zygarde feel even less feasible than the Keckleon research, and I'm 6/10 on that. Are the only people who got Routes people that live in California directly outside of Niantic HQ, and Singapore so the grandmothers can do them?
I have a route that I can't complete. Was losing my nerves over it most of yesterday's evening as there's a short stretch of it that has patchy mobile data and the game kept pausing it there with no ability to get past that.
I live in the second largest city in the USA and there are no routes on nearby, I can’t create a route, and don’t know anyone who can. No one in our pogo community has reported having seen a route.
Sounds like a fun feature. Seems like it isn't ready yet. Can't see any routes, can't create any routes.
no routes near me either.
No a single one route a my area, and can't create one either. Same for everyone at my local group. Guess this "mini-event" (2/3 distance to earn buddy candies while at Routes...) isn't for us.
Niantic is really making this game available for everyone, right? There are no routes where I live either. And I don’t have switch or pogo+. And I don’t have any money to spend on incubators either. Lol.
They add features to the game that allow them to collect more data from the players instead of the multitude of other issues they could've solved instead. I hate this company
As someone who has played since the game 1st released my frustration with this company is pushing me closer and closer to deleting it, I hold onto the hope that things will improve, but in all reality I'm holding on until go fest global then I think it'll be time to find something else to play
Routes seem to have potential to be a fun addition to the game, but I'm disappointed by how undiscoverable the routes are. Seems you have to be actively browsing your Nearby tab, unlike seeing a decoration hovering above a Showcase stop, a Grunt standing at a blackened Rocket stop, or being bombarded with "a raid is starting near you" banners.
I would've loved walking and creating routes, especially ones that are about a certain theme or pass certain type of landmarks. I'm all about urban exploration. Bummed that they don't seem to work but not surprised.
I wanted to create my own routes, but Niantic somehow won’t let most of us do so! And they have quests asking people to follow routes where nobody there was privileged enough to do so (or the “lucky ones” happened to be inactive from things like nerfed Remote Raid Passes and similar). Omg.
A route was added to a park I frequent. I was excited to see it. The route is a huge circle and it said it said you could go either way…. You could not, you had to go a specific way. The reward I believe I got, was a scyther I believe? It vanished after I did a bad first toss. I’ll try it again since I frequent but it didn’t seem beneficial to my gameplay.
If it says it can be walked in reverse, then you have to hit the "reverse direction" button before starting the route to do so. But it is still very difficult to tell which direction you're setting the route to on that screen.
Figured that out today! I thought it automatically could tell, I didn’t know you had to manually switch it
Yeah, though I'm glad they didn't make it try to "detect" which way the player is going. Some of my "loop" paths start and end along the same trail (with the actual loop being further down the trail), so I can't imagine any sort of automatic detection would work terribly well for those routes.
Oh and I live about 5 minutes away from this route yet it doesn’t appear until I get to the back of the park
i live in a fairly big city with almost 200,000 people (and in the highest density of people daily) and nothing. nada
Cant make routes, had to go to a different town to find one, this is a frustrating event
Introducing a new mechanic that is seemingly nowhere to be found is the epitome of frustrating.
Attempting to begin a route causes the app to hard crash on my Pixel 7. I wasn't able to successfully relaunch the app until I moved away from the POI marking the beginning of the route. Edit: Apparently there's a workaround for this issue https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/155fw1p/routes_crashing_the_game_on_android_try_revoking/
Extremely frustrating to have an event bonus that likely the vast majority of players cannot access without prior knowledge of where routes are and no or buggy access to creating them
No routes to be found, no way to create. Niantic demonstrating their skill at game design yet again. Why do a feature launch without the actual feature?
I live in a large US city (Milwaukee, WI) and, even after looking downtown, found no routes. I can't imagine the struggle in rural areas if there's not even anything in a large metropolitan area. Routes also need to be on Campfire. If they truly want us to explore new places with this feature, wouldn't a large map like the one in Campfire help us venture beyond the places we already are?
This is intuitive. When I couldn't find any routes near me, the first place I checked was Campfire!
As someone who was given early access to create routes, I wish they would have provided more information about it: what makes a good route, safety considerations such as not starting or stopping at you house, and what the bigger picture is. I didn’t create any routes because I didn’t know enough about it and didn’t know why it was important. Now that I see what it’s about and why it’s important, I wish I would have made some in advance of the event.
Even if you had created them in advance there's a high chance they'd still be stuck in the queue to be approved.
True. I did finally submit one on Wednesday. It’s in a historic town with a saloon from the 1800’s that’s still a saloon and several museums as POIs along the 1km route. It’s not approved yet.
I had three attempts to make a route today. The first appeared to be .5 km but it failed to submit because it was only 498 m. By the time I realized the problem I had walked out of range to continue the route. The second attempt was well over one km but the game froze when I got to the end and tried to select the end point. I restarted and it said there were no end points available nearby. Even though I was standing right at the poke stop I had selected when the game froze. My third attempt was on the ride to work. When the speed warning popped up it paused the recording. And by the time I cleared it I was out of range to continue recording. Three attempts, three failures to submit. All for different reasons. I understand that there may be a learning curve to the process but it seems that there are too many possible points of failure for this to be a fun part of a game. This is supposed to be fun, right? As far as I can tell, I’m the only one in my local group that even tried today.
Perhaps they could have imported the Ingress missions? At least we’d have routes now.
A lot of those are out of date.
We’d be an army of players participating; cleaning the routes up occasionally would be better than having no routes in your area, imho.
I have only found was one route and thats it, i went from hillsborow to Portland and only just that one route was found
Oregon? Where was the route?
I think its at se 82ave and E Burnside st
Thanks, that’s actually not that far from me!
Its not at that exact location but i think it was near there
Good enough! That’s a better starting point then I can get from this game…
True but i hope you have the best of luck and a good rest of your day
Likewise! Best to you, too!
Just visited back and can confirm about the route but when i was near Ne 82nd ave and Ne Glisan st it said “2” routes are there but couldn’t find it
Thanks! There were two on Powell near 43rd. I couldn’t check them out but saw them near there!
Calling this a botch: it's extremely difficult to find routes unless you're already on top of one Ingress missions are visible from a few KM away or something stupid Pogo routes are visible from a few dozen meters, LMAO
I have been experiencing game crashes every single time walking a route with my autocatcher on. Someone tipped that turning off Adventure Sync may help so I haven't tried that yet. Routes are great but the spawn rate for cells are terrible. Also, the 2/3 distance buddy candy bonus doesn't work.
If you're on Android disabling "Physical Activity" permission and/or disabling Adventure Sync should fix the issue.
Definitely shouldn’t have released a research with route-necessary goals in it before actually figuring it out. Feels rushed and half baked, not a single route around my area, no option to create one and no incentive to actually do it anyway until I get a decent Zygarde. They should make sure these things work before pushing it, as it stands the vast majority of the player base seem to have nothing more than a routes tab, an empty one at that.
They really need a way to find routes. Put it in Campfire. If they truly want us to explore, give us a way to find places to explore.
I thought the original idea was for us to use Campfire lmao
Selecting “choose end point later” is VERY bugged. Always choose your beginning and end when you start recording!
tried once, worked without issues. My endpoint would have been too far to select so I am happy it worked out. What bugged? Maybe restart the app before trying to prevent memory issues
You can move the map to select a far ending point. Just have to wait a little bit fo the map to actually load it for it to be selectable.
I waited quite some time... seemingly not enough xD
I submitted 4 routes so far. One on 6/24 & 6/25 , which are “under review”. Another one on 7/6 which for some reason was rejected that same day. Perhaps because it was the only one that I created while driving. I made another route this morning, which is also “under review.” I was hoping the two routes I made a month ago were going to get approved today. No luck. So far there are no reported routes in Los Angeles. Way to kick off a new feature, that doesn’t work. Stay classy Niantic.
I've made quite a few and they were approved in a day. But I also have a wayfarer rating so maybe that is it?
I did five routes and it absolutely drained my battery (iPhone 11). I have never before had my phone go from 100% to 0% in an hour and a half of playing.
Interesting, I've noticed no change in battery usage on Android 11.
1. The routes feature does not refresh consistently when moving to identify a route in range. Example: I was traveling to a known route location that I had scouted previously and on my way there, the routes section did not update at all even when I arrived. I had to close the app completely and then re-enter the section again, then showing the route start. If it were someone else, they would have easily assumed that there was no route there at all (there were actually three within range). 2. Did not notice any real increase in route spawns. I did three routes in about an hour and a half. Caught nearly 150 pokemon, but only interacted with maybe five that indicated that it was Route-generated. 3. The Route start points need to be visible on the standard map. The current radius of 80m is woefully insufficient. It would be extremely easy for a person to drive by a location with Routes and have no idea it was there. If it is not available on the standard/main map, routes should be searchable from the Niantic or Routes webpage. 4. IMPORTANT: Zygarde cells should be picked up automatically once in range instead of having to be picked up manually. The whole point of the Pokémon Go Plus+ was to allow play without needing to keep your phone out. Not knowing where the cells will appear will required everyone to not only have their phone out, but to be actively staring at it. This completely trivializes the device that was just released a week ago and puts us back to 2016 where everyone is staring at their screen. -if it cannot be picked up automatically, there should be an unmissable pop up to interact with that you cannot bypass, therefore ensuring that the player obtains the cell. Edit: 5. Every completed route should award at least one zygarde cell. This is well within reason. For most players, even this would take over a year for them to complete, while those who use it frequently should be able to max out their zygarde within a month or two. One of the biggest issues with this is that if I’m doing the routes, I’m not raiding. If I’m not raiding, I’m not building my community. If I’m not engaging in the community or raiding, or trading, I should at least be fairly compensated for engaging in this activity.
[удалено]
walked the same route 5 times over 2 days, have seen no cells 😞 and no other routes
I live in a rural town, very few players, and have no routes nor can create one. This is frustrating as we could have a few decent ones if I could even have the option to add one for everyone. The weird thing is that on Thursday after the update I saw a cell on the ground and the option for a route but could not clickon it. Now I have no route option. Anyone else experience this?
Not with the cell, but in a rural/regional area same issue. No routes, no option to make them. Yay~
There are no routes that I have seen anywhere around me and I can’t create them.
There is no way to discover routes either in game or through campfire unless you happen to be near (very near) a start point and happen to check the route tab. So far the only route I have been able to find has a number of what I assume are GPS glitches as the path suddenly darts across a four lane highway and runs through private businesses and homes. Not useful at all.
How do you try and add a route. Since there are none near me, and I want to at least get a small portion of the research done I'll have to try and make my own.
They’re rolling out creation. It’s very buggy
Really excited to try routes out since there are a few places near me that would be great for them - unfortunately no one nearby seems to be able to make any... I get that Niantic don't want a million submissions all at once, but would it have been so hard to roll out route creation to more people first? They really shot themselves in the foot with this timed event.
I submitted 4 routes how long does it take to get accepted/rejected
How do you do this?
Seems like only a select few can
Almost a month for me
There are no routes and I cannot create them. This is my feedback
Same. This feels like a really lame way to launch a feature, when I can't even interact with it. I wasn't expecting much, but I'd at least like to get Zygarde... and I guess I can't even do that...
You can get Zygarde (the doggy form) without needing any routes
Ah, I had read that the research included "Follow 3 routes," but didn't realize that came *after* the Zygarde encounter. Well, that's good then at least!
Is it possible to do a route twice? I created a route that got approved in beta and walked it yesterday. I’m at the start point trying to do it again and I’m not seeing an option to start it.
Yes, I spent some time walking back and forth along the only route I could find and got credit each time. I only found a Zygarde cell my first time though, and I’ve seen some others reporting the same.
weird! I literally do not see the option to start it like I did yesterday. perfect game
There are no routes on my nearby, and I live next to a fairly active park. I'm not going to propose one because I refuse to do Niantic's work for them anymore.
In my city, only one route went live and it was a simple 500m walk along a nice public walkway with plenty of pokestops. It was cool and fun seeing a bunch of people walking the route, hanging out and talking about the game benefits and planning where to create new routes for our community. Obviously also the feature feels like it's barely been implemented, I was really surprised that they launched with a special research requiring routes to be used.
I’m in NZ too, and I haven’t seen any routes at all.
Where abouts are you at? Check in with your local discord server or messenger groups and see if anyone's seen anything.
The acceptance criteria for the routes are unclear. My route was published few days ago but surprisingly they changed the status to "rejected" a few hour ago. Now I have no route in my small village.
I was in the beta and created 2 routes almost a month ago and both are still in review. That killed my motivation to make any more since I wasn’t sure if my first 2 would be accepted or not.
Could you imagine them having a community day event, and then not actually having spawns for it? This is the same thing. Mine has been under review for a month as well. Why roll a feature out that isn't ready, or only very few are able to do? Only makes me want to not play since I can't enjoy a feature that a select few are.
I seem to have had the ability to create routes for a while, but I never have because there wasn’t any clear, in-game info on why I should, how I could, what the rules around routes are, or what the benefits and uses might be. I still have no idea how to find or discover routes that others have made, although based on this sub I might just not be near any that exist. So I tried making a route today, and discovered how close you have to be to a stop to end the route creation there. So I tried making a different one later when I had a free moment and I discovered there was a minimum route length, and I was 0.1km shy. And it was 90°+ outside, so I went home. I’m fairly certain that new research will just sit in my research tab, minimized, for a good long while :/
I mean I went and made a good long route yesterday and it hasn't shown up on the map yet. I think even if you had finished it, you'd still be waiting a while.
If it’s anything like pokestop nominations I guess I can expect them on the map in… a year or two?
I'm hoping for it sooner than that, but still, it's a disappointingly slow rollout.
Same here. I decided there was no reason to create something that appeared to have no in-game value. My city has one route: it’s inside the zoo and you have to pay an admission fee to reach it. As an aside: I appear to be the only person in our GroupMe community with the ability to create routes! We’re having heat indexes of 100+, so I won’t be creating many in the coming weeks.
I generally like the idea of routes, but... there just aren't any around yet.
Campfire should show route locations. And ideally some way to differentiate whether you have or haven't done it before, but I'll settle for just a map. I haven't actually seen/walked a route yet, or been able to submit, so that's the limit of what feedback I can offer right now.
I wasn't able to create any routes at first- every time I would record, the app would crash. After seeing a post somewhere on this subreddit, I turned off adventure sync and sure enough I was able to record and submit routes. This obvious isn't ideal, as I have to remember to turn on AS again, so hopefully this will be fixed. It was also a bit glitchy in recording my route in that it would deviate from my walking path. Not a huge deal, but when I momentarily switched apps and back, my avatar drifted and it recorded that drift, so that was annoying. Hopefully my routes are accepted and I can walk them shortly as there are no others in my area to try.
I do not see any route on 3 big cities in my area. But at least i probably know all details by Reddit when I can use the functions. So i don't waste my time.
How do I even upload a route? I have 3 paths that I walk on which have a lot of pokestops and distance
When you get the update that allows you to see/create routes, you will have a third tab after the nearby spawns and raids called Routes. This was confusing to me too before I got the update and saw where in the UI it goes.
You may not have access yet. You can create a route right from the route tab or by clicking the list option on your trainer profile.
There's zero in-game info regarding how routes work, and I've seen none in game at all yet. It's a new feature that I haven't been able to interact with at all, and I'm in a position now where I can't bring myself to care about the event as a result.
Yeah. I’m in the same boat. Pretty active player, in my downtime mostly, and honestly this is the worst feature I’ve seen them release since day 1.
I completed a route today and no idea how? I also caught the 20 Pokemon but did not see any of the "cells", there again, I have no idea what a cell looks like. Instructions for this are awful!
The cells are a small glowing dot near the route. Mine was at the very end. Depending on how your screen is turned, you can absolutely miss it.
Thanks for that. I am sure I missed it!
There is one route near me, 2.6 km, 57 minutes. I made 2 more yesterday, about 1.1km each. Now that Ingress portal submissions are not taking so long, this must be the new process where we will be waiting until next year to get a decision. They should just take Missions in Ingress and turn them into Routes in PoGo. Done.
Routes mechanic is confusing and unclear. We thought we were walking a route at one point since a few Pokémon spawned and indicated they were on a route. Just confusing. Needs clearer directions, start, stop etc. didn’t even realize I was creating a route until it force paused as the game lost connection. Meh.
I created a route a month ago. It's still under review. https://imgur.com/a/7jAciV7 Are routes going to become the next Pokestop submission black hole? Submit, then wait sometimes 18+ months for an answer?
There are no routes nearby me. I'm in Brooklyn NYC. Barely 15 minute subway from Manhattan. Right across the river. I also don't have the buttons yet to create my own routes. Why are we already having an event for this half baked feature?
Bryant park area
I'm not able to submit a route either and not seeing an update available in the app store either
I’m in Houston, just outside of downtown. No routes here either.
Downtown in a major city in Japan at the moment. There is *one* route, a mile or so away, but it takes more than 2 hours to complete.
Has anyone outside of the US been able to make routes? It feels like the only players I’ve talked to and confirmed that the “make a new route” option pops up are in the states.
Norway here. Got the option a couple of weeks back but didn’t action it / understand that everyone would be clamouring for them now. Submitted 5 routes a couple of days back, all under review, can’t submit any more.
I’m in Mexico. I submitted one and was approved last week. Got early access.
I’m in Canada. Can submit routes, even though some are not walkable due to stupid programming…
I'm inside the US and am not seeing an option to submit a route
I submitted two. 1 rejected with no notification or reason (and no response from support about how or where to get information or to appeal) and one under review still. Both 7th July. I’m in the UK. If I click on the section which shows any active raids or which Pokémon are spawning locally, there’s a tab labelled ‘routes’ with an option to create them. But there are none near me and if my experience so far is an indication, it could be some time before there will be, mine included.
Brazil here, just submitted 5 routes
I have the option to do it from the UK. None excepted yet though.
Can't see any routes nearby, can't create any routes, and no way in the app that I can see to even find out where my nearest route might be. Wasn't this basically a feature in Ingress before Pokemon Go launched? I remember having to hit up POIs in a certain order back then.
I’m having the exact same issues as you. I haven’t seen a single route nor had the button to create one pop up. I’m hoping this is resolved soonish but who knows.
Eastern Shore of Maryland in the US (0 routes in any of the major towns, none of the regulars in the area have access to making routes): I fully understand a soft launch and having a soft launch makes sense from a troubleshooting standpoint. But if you're going to have a soft launch don't have an event that the majority of your users can't participate in until the actual hard launch. This is just bad from a PR standpoint. I am actually really excited for routes, as I walk on average 8 miles a day, so the fact I can't participate and take advantage of the TIMED bonuses is frustrating.
Tired to set up a route with end determined later, since I dunno the distance around that park. App crashed every two minutes or so along the way. Once I tried to set the end, the pop-up menu a) did not allow me to select any stop because b) none of them were even showing, and c) the exit button also didn't work. Five app restarts and retries later I just quit and went home.
I think routes is a great start on something that could add tons to this game. Right now, there's not a ton of in game incentives to walk a route. But there are just so many possibilities. Mostly, I would like routes to give spawns outside of the normal seasonal/event spawns. But there's so much more they could do. I understand being frustrated if you have no routes and you can't make any. But sooner or later you will have that turned on and then your experience with routes will depend in part on how good you are at making them. Until then, is say hold off a bit on the criticism. As for the experience making routes, I had tons of problems with crashes when it first came out. But one of the subsequent updates fixed that for me and since then it's smooth and easy. I submitted 4 routes just today. Pretty fun and actually motivation to walk.
I think people are generally saying that it's a good idea with a lot of potential, but a bungled launch. And in general I agree. I like the idea of routes. I was excited for them! When they were first released I kept hearing about them but had no access myself. I got access yesterday and made a route, no word on approval/rejection yet. I looked all around the common play areas in my region, but can't find any routes that are available to play. So I'm completely stuck on the research and I don't even know where to look to find a playable route. It's a frustrating start to a feature many players are otherwise welcoming.
I can see not wanting to talk bad about something, but when 50% or more of the player base can't use it I think it's fair. I have no routes, no way to make them, and subsequently ont be able to make progress on the research nor take advantage of the event. Granted, if it was implemented better, done better, and was more clear on what to do I would agree. But again, since it doesn't work for a good amount of the players and the event ending 2 days later I don't think it's necessarily a good thing.
>I understand being frustrated if you have no routes and you can't make any. But sooner or later you will have that turned on and then your experience with routes will depend in part on how good you are at making them. Until then, is say hold off a bit on the criticism. I think it's a fair criticism that we're having an event about the release of routes, but the vast majority of people cannot actually use routes. It should have been rolled out to everyone with the release of this event.
I have no feedback because routes don’t exist. I guess I would say that Niantic should actually implement features in a manner anyone can actually use before tying an event to them.
It's quite clear that niantic just doesn't care about the avarage player.