Welcome Party Is The WORST Special Research
Today, I completed step 4/4 of Welcome Party, a Special Research. The research was introduced in October 2023. I finished it at 6:25pm on the 26th of February 2025. And all I got for it was, literally, a t-shirt.
Welcome Party was special research which was supposed to introduce us to the Party Play mechanic. And it kinda does do that. Kinda.
Actually, no, it doesn’t. Welcome Party just makes you do a billion Party Challenges. And these have to be done with another player our three. It’s literally 1 step of “catch 10 normal types and do 10 party challenges, then catch x of a certain type and do 30 more party challenges.” Seriously, here’s a step by step guide of this research:
‘Welcome Party’ Step 1 of 4
Complete 10 Party Challenges – Chansey encounter
Catch 10 Normal-type Pokémon while in a Party – 2000 XP
Rewards: 2000 Stardust, Eevee T-shirt and an Eevee encounter.‘Welcome Party’ Step 2 of 4
Complete 30 Party Challenges – Lapras encounter
Catch 15 Water-type Pokémon while in a Party – 3000 XP
Rewards: 3000 Stardust, Vaporeon T-Shirt and a Vaporeon encounter.‘Welcome Party’ Step 3 of 4
Complete 30 Party Challenges – Alolan Raichu encounter
Catch 15 Electric-type Pokémon while in a Party – 3000 XP
Rewards: 3000 Stardust, Jolteon T-Shirt and a Jolteon encounter.‘Welcome Party’ Step 4 of 4
Complete 30 Party Challenges – Alolan Marowak encounter
Catch 15 Fire-type Pokémon while in a Party – 3000 XP
Rewards: 3000 Stardust, Flareon T-Shire and a Flareon encounter.
What an EXCITING special research! Totally worth the time! Those rewards are totally worth it! As is the handful of stardust and XP!
Okay, one sec, let me calm down a bit. My sarcasm generator is overloading.
But yeah, steps 2-4 are the same, just with different Pokemon. And 30 party challenges does sound kinda simple, but they are tedious, and if you add more people to your party, the tasks don’t get any easier. If you get a challenge to walk 2km with one person, it changes to 3km for 3 people and 4km for a full party. Sure, the distance is shared between you, but you still have to walk 1km each just for a Diglett or a Magnemite. Other tasks include making X number of nice/great/excellent throws, using X berries, spinning X Pokestops or catching X Pokemon, and they all scale with party size. The party leader is the only person who can choose what task you do as well.
And the rewards aren’t even good. There’s a rare chance of getting a Tandemouse or a t-shirt with Eeveelutions on it, but most of the rewards are worthless. Ah yes, use 20 berries between 2 people and get 6 berries back, what a good deal! There’s also a winning raids party challenge, but that only ever seems to come up AFTER you’ve done all your raids.
They can take a while as well if you’re in a big party. It’s actually more efficient to have multiple pairs rather than groups of 3 or 4. And the Welcome Party special research requires you to do 100 party challenges. That’s a LOT of challenges in general. It’s not hard, but it’s boring. And it’s the same exact tasks repeated three times. Why didn’t they bother mixing it up a little? Like, say, maybe 10 party challenges per step, and something like “use Party Power in a raid” or something? Even the Routes and Daily Incense introductory special researches are more interesting, because they actually do introduce you to what they do.
I’m not going to complain that it sucks for solo players (it does, Welcome Party is not doable solo) but the challenges just aren’t fun. They just don’t feel worthwhile, even if they are things you’d be doing normally, and doubly so because, unlike normal research from Pokestops, you can’t just delete the party challenge and get a new one. If you don’t like any of the three choices of challenge, the only way to get more is to just pick the easiest to finish it as fast as possible, or disband the party and remake the party for another roll at three different challenges. And for what? 600 stardust? A Koffing? 6 Razz Berries? Nothing, basically. Things you can get with relative ease by just catching some Pokemon or spinning some pokestops.
Oh, also, the party challenge screens tend to pop up on top of whatever you’re doing. And you have to wait a bit to close it and continue with what you’re doing. If, for example, the host is still catching a Pokemon from a raid, you’re kinda just sitting there, waiting for a new challenge. And, at first, you couldn’t close out of the screen until it timed out (after 90 seconds) or the party leader picked a challenge. Thank heavens they fixed that.
The special research encounters also suck. Everyone and their pet already has the Kanto Eeveelutions, and the other Pokemon are… okay, I guess. Good for PvP, but only if you trade them to get PvP-relevant IVs. “But what about the t-shirts?” Yeah no they suck. It’s just a plain t-shirt with an Eevee or Eeveelution on it. It’s on the same level as the free t-shirts you get for GoFest. Sure, an Eevee fan will like it, but we can do better than this.
The ironic thing is, when you ignore Party Challenges, Party Play is actually genuinely not bad. You can share items (incense, star pieces and lucky eggs), see your friends on the map alongside you and get access to Party Power. The Party Power in raids is awesome, it basically charges up alongside your charged attacks, and, when pushed, will make your charge attack deal double damage. This is actually great for Pokemon with slow-charging moves, and moves like Dragon Ascent, Sunsteel Strike and Moongeist Beam become STUPIDLY powerful.
Either way, I’ve finished this stupid research. Could I have done it more quickly? Probably. But it was so boring that I didn’t want to, and since I have a shrinking local community, finding people to play with who can be bothered with Party Play gets lower and lower all the time.
It’s just not fun. And, in a video game, not being fun is one of the biggest gaming sins one can commit.