December Community Weekend
Pokemon Go decided to end community days for 2019 with a bang by repeating somewhat what they did in 2018, by having a community day weekend, bringing back all of the year’s community day Pokemon for one final send off before leaping into 2020, while also bringing back 2018’s Pokemon. So we get two things: a collection of Pokemon from 2019 and a collection of Pokemon from 2018.
One of these was done really well. The other, not so much.
When it comes to the implementation of the 2019 community day stuff, I couldn’t be happier. We get two days’ worth of spawns (between 9am and 9pm), as well as two three-hour periods between 11am and 2pm where community day Pokemon spawn as normal. The Pokemon in question are split into two groups during the “normal community day” hours, meaning you’re not completely overwhelmed by spawns. The Pokemon in question spawned in genuinely very good amounts, especially when combined with the 3 hour lures. There were other Pokemon spawning as well (it wasn’t like other community days where the Pokemon in question was literally the only Pokemon around) but that wasn’t actually a problem with this event – the other 2019 community day Pokemon would spawn as well, instead of the normal ‘trash’ spawned that you normally get, filling the hole. So basically most of the Pokemon around were valuable Pokemon you wanted to catch.
But community day spawns were not the only things available. Double catch stardust and halved egg hatching times also gave you a reason to play – especially since eggs obtained during the community day event also contain community day Pokemon. And you can also evolve literally any Pokemon with a community day move and get that move during the event’s time. This means you can get yourself a Meteor Mash Metagross or a Smack Down Tyranitar or evolve any of the starter Pokemon obtained during the recent Kanto Starter raid event.
When it comes to the 2018 community day Pokemon though, there’s a lot to be desired. Because the 2018 community day Pokemon are pretty damn inaccessible. They’re supposed to appear from eggs the same way that 2019 community day Pokemon do, and they’re also supposed to appear in level 1 raids, but that’s just… too unreliable.
Way too unreliable.
There’s two issues – firstly, the eggs you get from this event also contain 2019 community Pokemon and they also contain a ton of other Pokemon as well, which means the pool of Pokemon you can get huge, severely limiting the chance of getting a Pokemon you want. I hatched multiple 10km eggs and I didn’t get a single 2018 Pokemon. I did get a shiny Slakoth, but I really didn’t need more shiny Slakoth, a Pokemon with a shitty evolution and is only worth evolving for the high CP Slaking can get so you can throw it in gyms.
The other method is to get these Pokemon via raids, but I was out for 4 hours on the Saturday and saw ONE raid, for a Chikorita. Everything else was either a level 5 Terrakion raid or a level 2 raid which isn’t worth doing. There should have been WAY more raids available. I mean, why not make it so all raids during the 3-hour main event had raids on them? I’d love a chance to get a shiny Larvitar but that’s not going to happen because there are no level 1 raids containing Larvitar and the egg pool is so bloated that your chance of getting one is tiny – I got very lucky and hatched two Larvitars in 8 10km eggs, but most people I doubt were that lucky, nor did they spend €10 on a ton of incubators.
Sunday did have better raid spawns compared to Saturday, but about 50% of all the raids I saw were Terrakions, which no one wanted to do
If you wanted to catch up on 2019 Pokemon, then this event was absolutely brilliant. If you wanted to catch up with 2018 Pokemon, unless you already had Pokemon ready to go, it’s a disappointment.