Routes Are Still Annoying
Routes in Pokemon GO are kinda simple. You go up to a Pokestop or gym, start a route, then follow a glowing trail all the way to another Pokestop or gym. And that’s… kinda it. There is some leeway when it comes to actually following the path, as it has to deal with GPS sway and things like that, but you still have to stick kinda close to the route. If you travel too far away, you have to backtrack and then MANUALLY resume the route. At the end of the route, there’s a chance of finding a Zygarde Cell (up to three, apparently) and you have a chance of meeting Mateo, an NPC who you can exchange a gift with.
Problem is, I don’t like Routes. They’re not very interesting. They also kinda go against the whole idea of exploring. You have to follow a route from beginning to end to get a reward. But most routes are player-made and very much dependent on local Pokestops. The routes near me, two of them I made. One of them goes for a nice loop around some nearby Pokestops, and the other goes from one Pokestop near my house to a nearby park. But other routes I’ve seen just kinda go all over the place. The first route where I live, it kinda snakes around a handful of Pokestops before wandering off on its own, and goes though an area that isn’t easily accessible. At the mall, the routes are even worse. There’s three. One just does a loop through the mall, but can be iffy due to the funny GPS in there; one just goes round in a loop; and the other is a 2km ramble that doesn’t even attempt to make sense. It also weirdly goes straight through a random field. But all of these routes force you to stick to an annoying path, rather than letting you go anywhere interesting.
They still don’t even work properly. For reasons unknown, you can’t enter showcases while doing routes. And for a lot of people, you still can’t use Adventure Sync while doing a route. Which is probably more annoying than it should be, because routes are pretty mindless and don’t have much going for them. It’s normally just a simple path. It’d be nice to be able to tab out and not have to backtrack a lot because the route automatically pauses, because I can’t use Adventure Sync at the same time. Making routes is also equally buggy, and the last two routes I’ve done, I’ve had missing text on the “Are you sure you want to complete this route?” screen. Up until recently, the main reward for routes, Zygarde Cells, didn’t even spawn on looped routes!
But the real problem is that there isn’t much reward for them. Oh yeah, sure, you have a chance to get Zygarde Cells, up to three of them. I managed to get 2 in one route the other day, but I’ve also done plenty of routes that haven’t spawned a Zygarde Cell at all. But that’s kinda it. Okay, there was that time my brother got two Fast Elite TMs for doing a route, but for the same route, I got 3 berries and some revives. I could have spun a gym and gotten about the same amount of stuff. There are also supposed to be special route-only spawns, but all I’ve ever seen is the odd Tropius or Pansear, the only regional Pokemon we have here. And they’re not guaranteed or anything, there’s just a chance that a Pokemon MAY spawn.
Not even the new NPC Mateo can do anything. All he does is give you a random gift from a random player. It’s the closest thing we have to a Wonder Trade, and is nice if you have an egg slot for a 7km egg, but 7km eggs are currently REALLY bad and the gift has a chance to just be from somewhere nearby. Even then, it’s such a small addition that it’s not really worth talking about. If you want gifts from around the world, it’s easier to just find some friends to send you daily gifts.
Overall, I just don’t find routes fun or rewarding. Everything they can give you, aside from Zygarde Cells, can be easily accessed from elsewhere. And because Zygarde is a one-off Legendary Pokemon and mine is a 2-star, I don’t feel the need to actually do them, outside of special research. That Zygarde of mine will never be maxed out, so what’s the point of doing (way over) 250 routes to change its form?