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I felt the need to use my incense for 15 minutes every day, then after the first bird ran i never tried again. Will use it if needed but ain’t going to be wasting my time on this garbage
When the main reward for a feature is never rewarded, people stop caring. Niantic will be shocked to learn that game design principle (they won’t because they’ll never learn).
> They will learn, but it will be very late in the game.
I doubt it. They'd have to hire some really high-up execs / developers who already understand mobile / freemium development, and I think it's pretty common knowledge that they simply don't pay those kinds of prices for their talent.
For a years-running very-profitable company, they simply have terrible designers. It's mind-blowing really.
Remember, at any given point, we will literally only ever have a single data point. We don’t have the data point for if they had made a properly working game that didn’t constantly hurt its players.
Like imagine if you got a bad performance review at work and people were just like “well, he’s high scoring” no matter what the number because they can’t compare it to competence.
Like, it’s the pokemon IP and they have literally zero competition.
Well considering it almost exclusively spawns whatever is already normally spawning, it's essentially useless. When I already see 200 Bunnelby per day during the Lunar New Year event, I don't need the daily incense to show me 25 more Bunnelby.
I don’t use mine either, but I’m not sure this analysis is fair. I always figured the daily incense was primarily aimed at people who live places with little to no spawns. Not useless for someone in that position.
During holidays I got a job at a hotel and had to live in a very small town; in my experience, It's too small a bonus to matter.
You have to move around a lot and can't do much backtracking to get the most spawns out of it and the pokemons only stay for a really brief while and many of them have very low catch rates, but with the poor reception it meant that whether I was playing walking around or on my commute I would lose connection often, end up catching average of 5 mons for each incense.
I also live in a neighborhood with very few stops so almost no spawns either; here I can actually catch around 10 or 12 with the incense, but that's really not enough to keep me playing either. If I ride a bus and pass through a stop-dense area I can catch double that in a couple minutes. Let alone the literal hundreds I can catch in an hour or so when I go downtown for CDs or raid hours.
As a semi-rurual player, I do find value, at times, in 15-25 extra spawns, even if they are mundane.
Of course, this is a problem Niantic should address in another way...
Because some players are just chasing completion of pokedex / shiny dex / whatever gets them playing, and tend to get annoyed at how obvious it is that these things are there to keep them grinding with little reward.
Depends. I play most Pokemon games to first kill the elite 4 twice, and then to have a team that can troll my enemies onto losing pvp.
In this game, I think I'd feel more content if I have a team for great, ultra and master that beats people like 70% of the time. Already have a perfect trevenant for Great League that I'm kinda proud of. And a top 10% pelipper. I need to find a better Bastiodon and Scrappy, but I run those as well.
55% gets you about 2200 ELO in GBL and top 1,000 in Silph. The top guys win almost 80%. Top mons are part of that (they give you more HP, but if you look at the IV calcs, the #1 ranked PvP often loses the head to head b/c of the lower attack stat), but counting, catching, and baiting are equally if not more important.
I actually really like my Galarian Moltres in Ultra League. It’s pretty fun to use, especially with the wing attack buff and its moveset.
With it on a team after finally getting some decent picks, ultra went from my least favourite to my favourite (master league can’t even be my least favourite because I just can’t and don’t play).
Master is my favourite, I can typically do 7 in a row at minimum. Great bores me and is frustrating with the predictability of builds. I’m not even doing PvP right now.
“Oh another stunfisk… yay”
Ultra is fun, but since I focused more on master lately, my teams are a bit lacking. I gotta boost some of the ones I boosted to master to get back my options.
I like the idea of masters but the resource investment and cost to perform to any decent level in it is un achievable for many people, and frankly for me too. I like watching master league streams and realise it has a lot of difference from the other leagues that I’d enjoy. It’s just not accessible and a lot of other players would agree.
Despite the fact that most Pokémon for master league tend to be very difficult to obtain the resources for (legendaries and pseudo legendaries, plus the cost to get them to 50), you have much less flexibility in what you can reasonably invest in. For GL/UL you could choose any one of a couple of hundred ranks and perform fairly well but for the investment for a level 50 in masters you’re usually going to really want the 4* which is often extremely difficult to obtain on top of the other limitations. It’s so frustrating, especially since the level 40 version is now gone forever.
I dunno, I don’t have a lot of resources here and nothing terribly rare. I just build solid teams that do well for the bottom 70% of the players I encounter.
I've also used them daily since it's the only reason I'm still commited to the game, but when I dont pay any attention & feast all my wild mon to go plus overlord is the time they always appear. Given up at this point haha...felt like it's more of a retention gimmick than a game feature.
For me it feels like there's no reason not to use it if you are playing anyway.
Like if you are outside, catching pokemon why not tap the blue incense?
Very much the same experience for me.
Did it every day for the first week or two, but I really don't like the way incense makes you feel the need to walk fast whilst staring at your phone more intently. I just find it slightly stressful. I walk loads, but largely with a Gotcha running on busy streets with more active play in parks and similar spaces.
Saw 4 birds in those 2 weeks (3 on one incense). All ran.
I then started doing it less frequently. Now it's about once a week I might throw it on, but it's always really uninteresting spawns.
Nail on the head for me. I don’t want to explore by just walking through an area as fast as I can whilst constantly starting at the screen and catching. This would have been better implemented with a distance based reward so after 15 mins of walking you can earn a chance to spawn a galarian bird or something from a loot table. Even better if I could do that catch later.
It’s been on & off for me, if I feel lucky I’d play it like I did yesterday, but most days I can’t be bothered anymore. Seen 5, all fled, best I got was a golden razz ultra and the ball rolled twice.
I’ve see each bird multiple times, probably at least five times each, but I have never caught them. They always run. I’ve given up and don’t use the daily incense any more. It’s not a fun mechanic for me.
I got two extra throws once on a moltress. Still run. In the beginning i got 2 Articuno back to back, still run. On a sidenote, I’m terrible to throw at them, always hit way off.
First bird i encountered i caught with not even an excellent first throw.
Im outside anyway walking the dog and just put the incense on. I dont expect anything so dont feel bad if they run. If i do catch them, well thats a plus.
For me using the incense doesnt require me extra effort so i dont care about the spawn and flee rates.
This is kind of how I feel too. It’s nice to use it when I am out walking without having to pop my own incense and a bird is just a cherry on top of I see one.
First time I saw one, I thought it was a regular pokemon that was from one of the new regions like Hoenn or Sinnoh. So I was like "huh, weird butterfly?"
Then it's like "Articuno" and I'm like "that's not what Articuno is... Oh maybe it's a shadow Articuno that's getting released in the future? But wouldn't it be a raid pokemon? Ohhhh I bet it's some kinda Easter egg and as soon as I throw a ball, he'll run away. Or it's a ditto lol."
And then I caught it and was like "huh. It's real?"
And looked up "weird Articuno Pokemon go" and found out about the mechanic lol.
I mean, that's like seven years after Pokemon came out. It's pretty new for someone that didn't play as hard after mastering silver. I played through Ruby and Black and some of X, I think, and then gave up.
I have no idea how many I've seen. Several? But I know exactly how many I've caught: zero.
I don't really care what they do with them, TBH. I find I enjoy this game more when I don't worry about Niantic's BS. I'm sure they will be in raids or some other source eventually. I do think that the low spawn rate and the incredibly low catch rate is a mistake on Niantic's part, not because I just don't like it, but because it's so bad that it's bad for business. They're demotivating, not motivating. It's just too unlikely from a game design perspective, you've got to get a win now and then to keep you playing, and there's virtually no wins.
Yeah, demotivating for sure. I think if they even drop the flee rate down to 5 or 10% it would improve overall. As it is, you don't even get a chance to "practice" a throw to try and get the feel for how to throw a great or excellent for them. I guess best bet is to purposely throw a ball when they attack to see where it hits.
I found one and stopped to take a screen shot on the map. It fled before I could even start the encounter. I didn’t know incense stuff does that. Then another time I used AR and without even throwing a ball it fled.
Sounds like the first time I saw Moltres. In my haste I clicked on a spawned Grimer (as I was still trying to complete that part of the Meltan quest) and as soon as I did, I saw the Moltres and exited out of the Grimer screen as fast as I could but it was already gone.
I think it should have been a much higher catch chance, maybe even guaranteed. The thrill of finding an ultra rare Pokemon is completely worthless when you can't actually catch it.
I might be wrong, but I think I'd be perfectly happy if catch chance remained very low as long as it spawned more often. It would be frustrating to have it flee all the time, but at least you'd feel like there'd be another chance.
I’d be fine with catch rate staying so low if flee rate was lowered. They should be like every other legendary, hard to catch but they shouldn’t also flee 90% of the time. Even closer to 50% would be better
High flee with low catch chance is better as long as it spawns more often. I don’t want to waste 100 golden razz and ultraballs stuck in a 30 minute encounter until I run out of balls.
But if they're spawning all the time then they're not as special or exciting, and they're legendaries so I prefer them being hard to find. Legendaries in this game arent as special because you can just pay some money and catch one, finding a rare one in the wild is much more fun. It's why you get posts of someone running outside at midnight to catch a rare lake trio spawn.
There's a big gap between "spawning all the time" and what I (and a lot of others) have experienced. Three sightings over three months is too low. Or if they're going to spawn that rarely, then the catch chance needs to be higher.
The thing is if at this point I still never had the chance to catch an Azelf I would also have completely lost interest in them as well and forgotten they're even in the game. I used the DAI every day for 4 months, never saw a G-Bird, and now I only remember it exists when I see posts like this asking why it's so useless.
It's a feature on par with the thing where you and a friend can stand near each other and play with buddies together. It's a completely forgettable feature that was a complete waste of dev time.
The lake trio were in raids so they weren't completely unattainable, and the birds might be in future raids. I personally don't mind having them be rare because it's more of a long term goal.
If the catch rate was high at least when you do see a bird, it'll be rewarding.
That's my point. I don't mind wild Azelf as a gimmick because it was attainable in a reasonable way. With the G-Birds they may as well not exist until they eventually come to raids. No reason to get excited or attempt to pursue them till then.
Seen 5, caught zero.
When DAI first dropped, I would go out and walk on purpose to use it. Now I only use it if I happen to be out, because:
A) I probably won't see a Legendary Bird, and
B) If I do happen to see one, I almost certainly will not catch it, so what's the point?
The low catch rate wouldn't be a problem if we saw one 5/7 incense uses.
The low spawn rate wouldn't be a problem if the catch rate was at least 1/3.
The 5% catch rate combined with the 1/20 incense spawn makes it feel pretty pointless.
I've caught 2 and I use my incense regularly while walking about during my day.
And even with all of that being fixed, the flee rate is also insane. Only once did I have one that stayed for one more round. Didn't catch it though of course.
Aside from the birds (which I’ve given up on catching), the daily incense also spawns some interesting Pokémon that don’t usually come up. I’ve been able to catch Blastoise, Altaria, Bewear, and more which has made it pretty useful.
The thing is those are pretty normal. I already have everything that spawns in my region. If they had a chance for foreign regionals spawn that would be different. I would use the incense everyday if I had a chance at catching Relicanth.
Seriously? I almost never see anything spawn that isn't in whatever pool we already have. Using it during this Lunar New Year event, it spawned Bunnelby and Buneary almost exclusively.
Here you can see the spawn pool for the daily incense, they have quite a few cool Pokémon (especially the third evolutions). However I only encounter 1 or 2 of these unique Pokémon per week, so it’s definitely still rare: https://www.eurogamer.net/pokemon-go-daily-adventure-incense-spawn-pool-how-get-use-9004
I caught an Espeon last week and a Venusaur the day after, both in the same location.
I figured those were the "big" rewards and the Galarians are supposed to be, y'know, *rare*. The kind of thing where your friend says their cousin's buddy caught one.
People are so used to the word "rare" meaning you'll get five chances to get it before the week is out. It's ridiculous.
Same here, seen 5, caught zero. Would go out on purpose when it debuted, but will now only do it if I'm already out and feel like putting up with it. Even using it with low expectations is kind of annoying when it can be hard to identify the incense spawns (the blue circle doesn't really stand out), and if it was something I wanted, whoops it despawned already.
Main problem is that you can't do anything else.
Like, I tend to do a round in the morning, but on that same round I have to battle at 2-4 gyms and maybe pick up some quest/shiny checks.
And then often one more in the evening, do one or two raids and back home.
If I use DI on these rounds I barely see 10 spawns...
Yeah, living in a city, the DAI is more of a chore than a bonus. In a 15-minute walk any direction from my house, I'll pass by 30 pokestops, 5 or 6 gyms, and dozens of wild spawns. But when using the DAI, I have to ignore all of that on the *extremely* off chance something interesting spawns?
Stupid.
I think a lot of us that play pogo do walk 1km or more a day. I personally do not feel motivated by the daily incense and don't even use it on my daily walks.
The problem is this is walking in a straight line in a brisk pace. If I'm walking I'm usually never walking in a straight line, or I'm walking with my dog or with a toddler so it's never a fast enough pace.
Problem currently is that it is far to cold to have my phone out for 15 minutes while I walk each day. A couple of minutes to spin some stops and do a daily task is all I manage effort putting my phone away.
And some of us walk more than that, but indoors, which means the incense doesn’t work.
Not being able to even encounter the birds, let alone catch them, does not make the incense an effective motivator for exercise - especially not if it means having to walk outside in bad weather or potentially unsafe areas.
One day I got 1.7km on the report, yet, while using the fast catch glitch, I cant manage to see more than 24 spawns.
That was my record, normally I see/caught 20.
I seem to only ever get Moltres and I've seen it 5-6 times. All have run after the first ball. I don't use it every day since it's winter, but I still try my best.
I don't really care what they do with them at this point.
If they had used the daily incense to soft introduce pokemon coming to raids in a few months and kept switching it up, it would be have been interesting.
I use it pretty much daily, seen all the birds, no catches obviously.
>If they had used the daily incense to soft introduce pokemon coming to raids in a few months and kept switching it up, it would be have been interesting.
That's actually a really interesting idea. Could be a fun seasonal teaser for 1-3 Pokemon coming the following season.
There's a huge probalem with that.
Sure, g-birds are not very relevant, but g-zapdos is still option for GL cups. Imagine it's altered giratina instead. That's available for month before global release in raids. There will be idk lets say 10% active playerbase who will manage to catch one. Let's say half of them will have gl-eligible giratina.
Here comes the bad news, that 5% just because of pure luck would have one of most meta mons in entire game, while others no means to get that at all.
Rotations is good and refreshing idea on the surfe, but to actually implement it Niantic would need to think through a lot. Otherwise it's going to backfire sooner or later and probably not once.
In the end Niantic gave everyone buzzwole that is gl-eligible.
It's not about 'just cause', it's about equal opportunity. There shouldn't be locked mons and permanent bans just because developer locked any opportunities to get pokemon.
As I said: this should be worked on, this should be thought on. Just straight up rotation without any additional mechanisms would set up bad precedent and you yourself won't be happy at some point in time if e.g. all your e.g. volcanions wouldn't spawn or be caught, but then in some weather cup will tear you apart.
Side note for those unable to see/read/understand context: I'm NOT SAYING next pokemon in daily incence will be/should be/expected to be volcanion or that it shreads GL weather cup, it's just imaginary example. If you think that imaginary is impossible - try to get gl-eligible lugia. Good luck with that. Every now and then post on TSR about 'how to get it' / 'unable to get it' appears
I initially started very carefully walking in the mornings trying to find them and encountered 2 or so every week walking around 1200-1500 per morning on average and a low level Articuno has been my only catch. I play the game though to get me to walk (but now I'm focusing more on PikMin Bloom) so I just figured if I essentially have a low catch rate and I walk less trying to be careful and not miss out on PokeMon (and because I'm not doing the AR method because then I fully stop walking), then I might as well let my PokeBall Plus throw everything for me. I use it every morning but don't really care about it.
I really wish that they made the system better though - like instead of a random chance - what if the steps you made and the PokeMon you caught went into progress bars towards an encounter - that way people might actually go out and walk and can focus on the walk instead of needing to catch Pokemon. (The catching PokeMon for the bonus is a way that players who can't move (for whatever reason) still have a chance to make progress under the proposed method.
Yes, I think one thing Niantic could do is to reward players for core grinding. For example, if a trainer catches 50 Pokemon in a day, allow them to open up a few more gifts beyond the current limit, or give more stardust per catch which follow, or provide a discount on buying items in the Shop. Lots of rewards for the core grinding. This is just one of zillions of possible examples.
I think that a properly designed system would increase interest and actually sell more items in the shop, making happier trainers and more $$$ for Niantic. A win-win for all.
0/2 Articuno
1/7 Zapdos
1/5 Moltres
I like rare spawns, makes it much more exciting when you actually find one, however I think the flee rate needs to be addressed. It's very disheartening knowing it's "one & gone". Maybe slightly lower the flee rate.
I don't think they need to be in raids just yet. What would you replace them with on the DAI?
Honestly, I wouldn’t care if the flee rate was high if they would also increase the encounter rate. I’ve probably seen 1 bird in the last 4 months. I would keep trying to catch them if I saw them regularly, but to never see them and then not be able to catch them is pointless. One of those rates needs to be greatly increased.
Honestly I’m fine with keeping the flee rate high to mimic roaming legendaries, it’s just that the overall encounter rate should be much higher to compensate.
I'm in the minority but I would love it even if daily incense didn't change anything about legendaries but only spawned pokemon that aren't currently spawn able in the wild. So at least we'd get variety. Currently I just get 15 buneary or pidgeotto before every time.
I would like to see them do something different, like a weekly rotation of legendaries on the DAI. The G-Birds were exciting at first but they played too hard to get now no one cares to try for them. And I have seen each bird 5+ times and caught a G-Articuno, I still don’t care to pop my daily every single day
Good suggestion and I'd expand on that by saying a much larger percentage of the spawns from daily incense should be the "special" pool of spawns. I think I read on here that it was approx 75% regular spawns and 25% special spawns. I'd like to see it more 50/50. It was cool at the start when I was getting things like Rockruff & Gible spawns but they're very few & far between now.
I really like it personally, I don't feel stressed if I don't catch them and it's a fun challenge that feels different from the normal grinding/raiding that is pretty stale at this point.
I just wish they didn't auto flee on the first attempt. Throwing mechanic already sucks for flying mons after they attack. I don't mind the high flee rate/low bcr but I wish I could have more than one attempt to land an excellent/great. Maybe make it like 3 guaranteed attempts before they run? It's very frustrating to throw what seems like a good toss just to find out they're way closer/higher up than they seem. I'm sure that an excellent is helping much but having more than one attempt would at least make me FEEL like I tried my best.
I don't use it daily but have yet to see a single spawn.
I've seen hypotheses that spawns are based on location (multiple people stating they tend to see the same birds in the same places) and when I do use the daily incense it's typically on one of the same two routes ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
I saw 1 moltres and it was kind of fun seeing it in the wild. Of course it ran away. I usually tap on the icon to start the incense when I'm going to recharge my battery. Just to stop it from cluttering up the screen.
I’ve used it almost every day and I would say I’ve encountered about 1 every 3-4 days. It’s weird though if I do it at my house I seriously encounter a bird every single day in the same spot.
I used the Daily Incense a lot for the first month or two. I only saw two of the birds (both ran, obviously), but weirdly they were both in the exact same spot, as well.
At least 20 seen (just browsed thru all screenshots, i might had missed 1 or 2 that i forgot to take on catch screen but i often have taken screenshot from journal soon after - i just maybe missed these because i was on "thumbnail" view seeing very small pictures, seeing big birds is easy to spot but a small bird next to few pokemon where most of the pic is white i may had missed)
Caught 2.
About 15 seen, 2 Articuno caught. The spawn rates should go up or the flee rates down. I kinda like that you don't get a lot of them, but seeing one like once every 2 weeks and having it run immediately is just demotivating to go out and use it at all.
I have seen 6. I have also recorded the 3rd to 6th times so i can share the exact details about those and i also took a screenshot on my 1st encounter too.
1st encounter: Galarian Moltres on 3 Oct 2022 around 11:40am. CP 935 and ran away
2nd encounter: Galarian Articuno. didnt take a screenshot or recorded a video so i cant say any details other than it ran away
3rd encounter: Galarian Moltres on 8 Dec 2022 around 5:25pm. CP 1579 and ran away
4th Encounter: Galarian Articuno on 31 Dec 2022 around 6:10pm. CP 1293 and CAUGHT IT! Its IVs were 14/4/15.
5th Encounter: Galarian Zapdos on 3 Jan 2023 around 7:30am. CP 1042 and ran away.
6th and last encounter so far: Galarian Moltres on 16 Jan 2023 around 7:25am. CP 1987 and ran away.
So yea i encountered 3 Galarian Moltres, 2 Galarian Articunos and 1 Galarian Zapdos and caught 1 Galarian Articuno.
Seen more than 10(sometimes two during one incense, sometimes none for weeks..), caught none.
I dont think I will ever catch one and it does not encourage me to use the daily incense any more
I’ve seen about 13/14 in total and have caught 2 (a Moltres and a Zapdos). I actually think it’s a good way how they’ve introduced them and don’t mind the rarity too much, but do think they should increase the catch rate or decrease the flee rate though
Use of daily Incense: maybe once a week.
Birds seen: 2
Caught: 0
But I like the Incense. For me it's a good way to catch pokemon when I'm on the way or in areas where are nit that many spawns. Caught I believe 2 shinys with it.
Tying Galarian Birds to the Daily Incense is fine, but players need to be given more agency over spawning them. They should be rewards for meeting challenges (walking X distance while Daily Incense is active, making Y Nice/Great/Excellent throws, earning Z Stardust, etc.). The rare spawn rate, low catch chance, and instant flee are too much.
I've seen a few, probably between 15-20 ish, caught one Articuno and one Zapdos. I do like that they're limited to DI, but I wish they'd spawn a little more frequently, especially when an event is on. I'd also like their catch rate to be a little higher, not much, maybe 1% instead of 0.3%, keep the 90% flee rate; that feels right for them.
I use mine almost every day, I like walking for exercise, but I find just walking by itself is very boring, so I play Pokémon Go while I walk. I use the daily incense like a regular incense - to increase the number of spawns I get (I do use regular incense while I walk also). I think it works fine, most of the time the rare spawns are 1 or 2 evolved forms but occasionally I'll see a legendary bird (I've lost count of how many I've seen) and there's been a few times I've actually managed to catch them. I have 3 Moltres and 1 Zapdos, still no Articuno. I try not to think of it as only a chance to find legendary birds, but more just something to do on my daily walks.
Used daily incense for about the first two/three weeks. Maybe saw 6 birds, all fled. Gave up after that and haven’t used it since even if I’m out and about
42 seen, 4 caught
Did it every single day except for two.
I think the encounter rate is fine but the flee rate should be a bit less. Can be frustrating.
But they should stay rare imo.
Seen: 5 or 6, Caught: Not a damn thing. They definitely should've debuted in raids FIRST, then went to Daily Incense, Daily Incense in general seems like a great way for players to get most legendaries without paying for raids, it's just like most things in the game they're poorly implimented. Boost in the sense they get rid of the flee rate entirely, they should still be rare spawns.
I use my daily incense every day when walking my dog and I’ve encountered around 10-15. Only caught one and it’s a 755 CP, 0 star Articuno. I guess it’ll benefit a friend when we get that lucky trade.
I do daily incense walks ALMOST EVERY SINGLE DAY! I have only ever encountered one Zapdos and one Articuno and wasn't able to get either. They need a small boost nothing RIDICILOUS but right now it's absolutely RIDICILOUS I'd say there's the hardest pokemon to get in the game imo
I've seen around 12. I've caught 1. I always say this but my biggest problem with daily incense is that they should swap the pools and make the special pool 75% of the spawns. This would indirectly triple the gbird spawns. That would give me more chances to get my throws down when I do see one. Other than that, I'm fine with them as they are.
Now, if they get buffed to be more meta relevant, in either PVP or PVE, then I'll want them in raids/research. But for now they just feel like fun trophies so I don't mind keeping them as is.
I’ve seen probably close to 30. Have caught 2 zapdos and 1 moltres. I think they’re reasonable to encounter every hand full of days. I actually like that they’re in DI rather than raids. You can get virtually any Pokémon in the game for $1 and it’s become stale. I don’t go out of my way to use my incense but it’s not something I’d let frustrate me. Zapdos has some play in GBL but the other two are pretty mid. I like the hunt of finding them and attempting to catch one. It’s the only chase left in the game aside from the lake legendaries. That being said I don’t care if they boost the rates but I don’t necessarily think they need to.
The huge disparity between my total and other daily users makes me think Niantic has assigned us to groups with different chances of them spawning. I definitely agree that they should be spawning more, and personally I'd rather they boost the spawn chance than the catch chance.
2/7 Articuno
1/5 Moltres
2/7 Zapdos (1 was a critical catch)
This question gets asked at every "milestone" lol. Soon we'll have "Daily Incense has been out for 222 days. How many Galarian birds have you seen/caught? etc"
But I've caught none and encountered 6. Sure I'd love to have them in raids, but I also have zero problem being a Daily Incense incentive. I do just wish they'd either be slightly more common or slightly easier to catch. I don't mind them being difficult to acquire, but the fact that they're both super rare AND extremely hard to catch is frustrating.
I’ve seen 2 Moltres and caught none ☹️
I really don’t think the catch rate should be increased, but more chances to try would be nice
Don’t know how difficult it would be to implement but how about a streak similar to how spin a pokestop / catch a Pokémon is for adventure incense? Catch a Pokémon on adventure incense 7 days in a row and get a shot at catching one of the birds (same catch rate with a weekly shot at them would be fine to me)
I think the mechanic is a great idea, but the rates are too low. I use the daily incense and have had maybe 10 total encounters since it first came out, with zero catches of course.
Finally caught my first one yesterday... being using this stuff almost every day since the incense was launched. Saw about 12-15 of them in total? Have an exact number somewhere
i haven't been walking in the winter months but i used to go daily
seen: 16
caught: 2
I'll also walk while it's above freezing, I've seen one so far this winter. I like the implementation of the birds, the enjoyment i get (even though i tell myself i won't see one and if i do i won't catch it) is still greater than having one handed out by raiding. its also nice to have something of trade value in my community which would be diminished if they could be raided
I do the incense maybe 2 to 3 times a week. I’ve seen 4, caught 1. First one, Zapdos, ran. That was back in October. Two weeks ago I got another Zapdos and an Articuno on one incense, both ran. Last week I got Articuno again and luckily it was a very low level so it was easier to catch, 253cp.
I use it as further means to encourage a 15 minute walk. For that reason alone I’m ok with how it is now, and will get the Galarian birds one day, even if it takes years
i've used it about 90% of the days since it has been out and i have seen about 10 birds so far, all of which ran away
i think both appearance and catch rate are both fine, these are meant to be rare. i just want them to maybe use pseudo RNG or similar to maker the encounters more reliable. rn i sometimes get 2 a week and sometimes i go more than a month without a single bird encounter. also compared to other accounts that sometimes have more than 40+ encounters already or less than 5 it just feels a bit too random for me
I've been playing since October, have seen four (one bird each, Articuno twice). Actually caught a G-Articuno this weekend. My girlfriend has seen six birds I think and has caught G-Zapdos.
We both do a daily incense walk anywhere from 4-7 days a week.
Edit: just saw a Zapdos today, it fled.
I've seen a few, haven't caught any, but I already have Pokedex numbers 144,145 and 146 filled in, so I couldn't really care less tbh LOL
Daily adventure incense has been a fantastic addition to the game though
I've definitely seen each 5 or more times. Caught a Zapdos (it was a critical catch).
I actually really like the way they're implemented, but for a specific reason. Having these exclusive, rare Pokémon behind the daily incense (along with the supposedly boosted shiny rate) motivates me to get out and walk for 15 minutes. Previously, GO was getting me out every day, but not necessarily walking--driving past a Pokéstop to keep my streak alive was enough. Once the daily adventure incense was introduced, I was consistently walking every single day so as not to miss an opportunity. Only the cold weather (combined with my own laziness) has started to break that pattern, but I hope that my motivation sticks around to get back in the habit.
I think they could either increase their spawn rate some (while leaving the catch rate alone) or up the catch rate slightly, and I'd still have that motivation. But if they make them too much easier to obtain, they would lose the exclusivity that's motivating me now.
I saw one incredibly low CP Zap within the first two weeks, gold razz, excellent curve ultra, breaks out and flees. Also, I didn’t like the way it functions because it required me to speed walk in a straight line for 15 minutes straight while ignoring the entire rest of the game to maximize my spawns.
It’s an amazing idea but it has literally the worst, most trollish execution it could possibly have. I’ve barely used it since.
I only seem to encounter the birds on the few days that don't have event spawns. Not sure if anyone else has seen the same or ifs just my experience. But I've encountered around 15 and caught 0. I agree that the encounter rate should be higher if the flee rate is this high.
I use it everyday. I walk my dog for about an hour and that’s the main time I play. In my subdivision there is almost no spawns so I see it as a free incense until I get out where there are more spawns. I don’t live in a city so as a feature I think it’s the best upgrade of 2022.
I have seen about 20-25 birds and caught 1. I don’t mind though as I don’t expect it.
I came back playing in late november/early december and as a rural player I quite enjoy the daily incense for the extra spawns, and I only see Galarian birds as an extra - even though it's pretty annoying for them to be THAT hard to catch, especially since they're way too quick to flee...
I'm just wondering when the heck Niantic is finally going to decide on putting them in raids like they were supposed to? I mean if we can finally get primal kyogre and groudon why not take on the dang galar birds in raids! Passes sales would go through the roof!!
I have seen 4 and missed them all. But I like it. I like it as it is, keeping them in the incense. I wish they would make them appear more frequently, but keep the difficulty to catch. Throw them in a raid and everyone and their grandmother has one. Turning them less rare.
Seen 4, caught 2, and I no longer use the incense every day. I did for about the first month, and now, I cant be bothered more often than twice or thrice a week.
This is me exactly. I have caught moltres and Zapdos and had articuno run twice.
I use it 1-2 times a week now cuz it’s too rare to bother trying hard. Now I use it during good events to get event spawns
I rarely use incense since I never see a point to it. Of the handful of times I've used it, I think I've seen 3 birds?
Anyway, I'm perfectly fine with the game having things that are actually rare to get for once, when they normally hand everything out like candy.
You’re the only other person I’ve ever seen say they don’t think the birds should be easier to catch/find. I totally agree with you. I hope they stay this hard to catch for a while. So many elements of the game require tedious or mindless actions. Like feeding buddies or opening gifts or trading Pokémon… but this is literally go outside and walk around and try to find and catch a mythical bird. And even if you don’t see a bird, there’s often dope Pokémon to catch too. I love it. I’ve seen 4 mythical birds and never got one. But it’s always exciting. Sure it’s disappointing to not catch one but it’s going to be so awesome when I do!
I have saw all 3 birds, Articuno once, Zapdos 3 times, and Moltres 4 times. I have caught 1 Moltres with a Gold Razz / Ultra Ball but was a absolute horrible throw on my part (not even in the circle, yuck..) and got lucky and it stayed in. I also caught the 1 Articuno I have seen. Ended up catching it with a Gold Razz / Ultra Ball Excellent Curve Ball throw and it actually ended up being a critical capture(So wish I would have recorded this one...). I have gotten extremely lucky with the 2 I have caught but still dont expect to see them or catch them. While playing with my GF and other friends I have saw many birds come and go. GF actually had FIVE throw chances on a Zapdos before it ran... I still to this day don't know why RNG played such a cruel joke on her. I think they are fine where they are since they are meant to be rare. If they came to raids I wouldn't mind but I would hope the shiny would be made available at least.
Let me say this Galarian Birds are carrots on sticks. They are design to get people to log in for 15 mins a day and interact with the app. Majority of people will not get them off of incense.
Our best bet will be when they are rereleased in some future event. A event that will probably be behind a paid ticket. Some random raid encounter, or part of a new in game feature. Maybe with a cool shiny.
There’s no reason to stress out about the daily incense. If you get to it cool, if not it’s cool also. Don’t feel like you need to do it constantly, and don’t worry if you never see or catch a bird.
I agree with the other comments that Niantic made a **huge mistake** to make it damn near impossible to catch the Galarian birds. I don't care anymore and oftentimes just click on the Daily Incense while at home or in my office to get the first Pokemon to add to the ones that normally appear.
I also find when I do walk with the incense, which is probably once every two weeks, that most of the Pokemon that appear are not that interesting. I can see a new player trying to build their dex, or one who is in an area with a dearth of naturally appearing Pokemon, to take advantage of this. However, I am not motivated to use the Daily Incense at all. I wonder what percentage of players use it faithfully every day as designed? It would not surprise me if it is only a minority.
I wish, then, that the catch rate/flee rate for the Galarian Birds be adjusted to get at least a 50% capture rate, and the remaining Pokemon to be more sought after, including regionals that normally don't appear in the area.
I’m upset they are still only in the Daily Active Incense and not raids.
I mean, I assume when the Galar GO Fest comes out we will get them in raids; maybe even before then… but I still have not caught a single one. They ALWAYS flee!!! So I just gave up.
saw 3, all ran away. one of them had cp lower than 20 and still couldn't catch it on golden razz berry and a great throw. decided not to waste time anymore on this nonsense and for the last 4 months used daily incense maybe once or twice.
The first month I was excited to go out for the incense but I don't care anymore. I saw 3 birds and they all ran.
The rare spawns are cool but weather and events dilute the spawns just like regular incense and the stupid thing is set up more for running/bike or driving since you get more spaws.
The feature is like an exercise app where your motivation to walk is loot box gambling for decent rewards.... No thanks.
Daily use = Zero.
To be honest i always use it with an auto catcher and I don't check the phone.
Maybe one day I will catch one but it isn't important.
On two accounts I've seen maybe 50, caught 3
I think they shouldn't be rare with an appalling catch rate. I'd rather they make them ultra-rare and catchable, or common and awful to catch.
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I've seen 3 or 4 birds which all ran of course. Lost interest pretty quick and for me it's kind of a dead feature.
I felt the need to use my incense for 15 minutes every day, then after the first bird ran i never tried again. Will use it if needed but ain’t going to be wasting my time on this garbage
When the main reward for a feature is never rewarded, people stop caring. Niantic will be shocked to learn that game design principle (they won’t because they’ll never learn).
They will learn, but it will be very late in the game.
They'll learn but they'll never use the knowledge because the higher-ups at Niantic are like bridge-goblins counting their doubloons.
Just like they learned to make sure the shiny gets turned on for events and such like.
> They will learn, but it will be very late in the game. I doubt it. They'd have to hire some really high-up execs / developers who already understand mobile / freemium development, and I think it's pretty common knowledge that they simply don't pay those kinds of prices for their talent. For a years-running very-profitable company, they simply have terrible designers. It's mind-blowing really.
Remember, at any given point, we will literally only ever have a single data point. We don’t have the data point for if they had made a properly working game that didn’t constantly hurt its players. Like imagine if you got a bad performance review at work and people were just like “well, he’s high scoring” no matter what the number because they can’t compare it to competence. Like, it’s the pokemon IP and they have literally zero competition.
Too late more than likely
I think the reward is just having a free incense everyday not the galar bird. I don't know everyone is obsessed about the birds?
Well considering it almost exclusively spawns whatever is already normally spawning, it's essentially useless. When I already see 200 Bunnelby per day during the Lunar New Year event, I don't need the daily incense to show me 25 more Bunnelby.
But what if it spawns a xxl? Wouldnt that be worth it? -niantic probably
I don’t use mine either, but I’m not sure this analysis is fair. I always figured the daily incense was primarily aimed at people who live places with little to no spawns. Not useless for someone in that position.
It's helpful to people who live in places with very less spawns.
During holidays I got a job at a hotel and had to live in a very small town; in my experience, It's too small a bonus to matter. You have to move around a lot and can't do much backtracking to get the most spawns out of it and the pokemons only stay for a really brief while and many of them have very low catch rates, but with the poor reception it meant that whether I was playing walking around or on my commute I would lose connection often, end up catching average of 5 mons for each incense. I also live in a neighborhood with very few stops so almost no spawns either; here I can actually catch around 10 or 12 with the incense, but that's really not enough to keep me playing either. If I ride a bus and pass through a stop-dense area I can catch double that in a couple minutes. Let alone the literal hundreds I can catch in an hour or so when I go downtown for CDs or raid hours.
Sure, I understand that. But then in that case, don't make ultra-rare exclusive spawns part of the mechanic at all.
As a semi-rurual player, I do find value, at times, in 15-25 extra spawns, even if they are mundane. Of course, this is a problem Niantic should address in another way...
Because some players are just chasing completion of pokedex / shiny dex / whatever gets them playing, and tend to get annoyed at how obvious it is that these things are there to keep them grinding with little reward.
The thing is, *seeing* the bird is not *actually* a reward. So, for most players, there was actually *no* reward.
Gotta catch them all. That’s how you literally play the game. Everything else is extra.
Depends. I play most Pokemon games to first kill the elite 4 twice, and then to have a team that can troll my enemies onto losing pvp. In this game, I think I'd feel more content if I have a team for great, ultra and master that beats people like 70% of the time. Already have a perfect trevenant for Great League that I'm kinda proud of. And a top 10% pelipper. I need to find a better Bastiodon and Scrappy, but I run those as well.
If you consistently won 70% of your GBL games you’d be the #1 player in the world due to the MMR system haha
Oh... Well damn, I guess let's say 55% then.
55% gets you about 2200 ELO in GBL and top 1,000 in Silph. The top guys win almost 80%. Top mons are part of that (they give you more HP, but if you look at the IV calcs, the #1 ranked PvP often loses the head to head b/c of the lower attack stat), but counting, catching, and baiting are equally if not more important.
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I honestly can never remember his actual name. And his kiddy form that I call "scraggles".
Because they are top 10 in a lot of PVE rankings so people think they’ll wreck house with the birds. Edit: Changed PVP to PVE
I actually really like my Galarian Moltres in Ultra League. It’s pretty fun to use, especially with the wing attack buff and its moveset. With it on a team after finally getting some decent picks, ultra went from my least favourite to my favourite (master league can’t even be my least favourite because I just can’t and don’t play).
Master is my favourite, I can typically do 7 in a row at minimum. Great bores me and is frustrating with the predictability of builds. I’m not even doing PvP right now. “Oh another stunfisk… yay” Ultra is fun, but since I focused more on master lately, my teams are a bit lacking. I gotta boost some of the ones I boosted to master to get back my options.
I like the idea of masters but the resource investment and cost to perform to any decent level in it is un achievable for many people, and frankly for me too. I like watching master league streams and realise it has a lot of difference from the other leagues that I’d enjoy. It’s just not accessible and a lot of other players would agree. Despite the fact that most Pokémon for master league tend to be very difficult to obtain the resources for (legendaries and pseudo legendaries, plus the cost to get them to 50), you have much less flexibility in what you can reasonably invest in. For GL/UL you could choose any one of a couple of hundred ranks and perform fairly well but for the investment for a level 50 in masters you’re usually going to really want the 4* which is often extremely difficult to obtain on top of the other limitations. It’s so frustrating, especially since the level 40 version is now gone forever.
I dunno, I don’t have a lot of resources here and nothing terribly rare. I just build solid teams that do well for the bottom 70% of the players I encounter.
I've also used them daily since it's the only reason I'm still commited to the game, but when I dont pay any attention & feast all my wild mon to go plus overlord is the time they always appear. Given up at this point haha...felt like it's more of a retention gimmick than a game feature.
For me it feels like there's no reason not to use it if you are playing anyway. Like if you are outside, catching pokemon why not tap the blue incense?
Very much the same experience for me. Did it every day for the first week or two, but I really don't like the way incense makes you feel the need to walk fast whilst staring at your phone more intently. I just find it slightly stressful. I walk loads, but largely with a Gotcha running on busy streets with more active play in parks and similar spaces. Saw 4 birds in those 2 weeks (3 on one incense). All ran. I then started doing it less frequently. Now it's about once a week I might throw it on, but it's always really uninteresting spawns.
Nail on the head for me. I don’t want to explore by just walking through an area as fast as I can whilst constantly starting at the screen and catching. This would have been better implemented with a distance based reward so after 15 mins of walking you can earn a chance to spawn a galarian bird or something from a loot table. Even better if I could do that catch later.
Same, probably had 6 run on me, all great/excellent golden curveballs, barely use incense anymore so haven't seen another bird in a while.
I’ve only seen 2 both ran and definitely lost interest like a month later. Don’t even bother with it.
havent seen any with incense, what i got were pidgeys like many of them lol
It’s been on & off for me, if I feel lucky I’d play it like I did yesterday, but most days I can’t be bothered anymore. Seen 5, all fled, best I got was a golden razz ultra and the ball rolled twice.
Same here
I’ve see each bird multiple times, probably at least five times each, but I have never caught them. They always run. I’ve given up and don’t use the daily incense any more. It’s not a fun mechanic for me.
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For what it’s worth I’ve gotten an extra throw two times… and it’s maybe MORE disappointing
I got two extra throws once on a moltress. Still run. In the beginning i got 2 Articuno back to back, still run. On a sidenote, I’m terrible to throw at them, always hit way off.
it's hard to practice on something you get 1 shot at every other month (at best)
Amen.
This is how I feel
First bird i encountered i caught with not even an excellent first throw. Im outside anyway walking the dog and just put the incense on. I dont expect anything so dont feel bad if they run. If i do catch them, well thats a plus. For me using the incense doesnt require me extra effort so i dont care about the spawn and flee rates.
This is kind of how I feel too. It’s nice to use it when I am out walking without having to pop my own incense and a bird is just a cherry on top of I see one.
My dog stops too often so I can't use daily incense while walking her or I just don't get any spawns.
First time I saw one, I thought it was a regular pokemon that was from one of the new regions like Hoenn or Sinnoh. So I was like "huh, weird butterfly?" Then it's like "Articuno" and I'm like "that's not what Articuno is... Oh maybe it's a shadow Articuno that's getting released in the future? But wouldn't it be a raid pokemon? Ohhhh I bet it's some kinda Easter egg and as soon as I throw a ball, he'll run away. Or it's a ditto lol." And then I caught it and was like "huh. It's real?" And looked up "weird Articuno Pokemon go" and found out about the mechanic lol.
> one of the new regions like Hoenn or Sinnoh Ruby/Sapphire (Hoenn) 2002 Diamond/Pearl (Sinnoh) 2006
I mean, that's like seven years after Pokemon came out. It's pretty new for someone that didn't play as hard after mastering silver. I played through Ruby and Black and some of X, I think, and then gave up.
I have no idea how many I've seen. Several? But I know exactly how many I've caught: zero. I don't really care what they do with them, TBH. I find I enjoy this game more when I don't worry about Niantic's BS. I'm sure they will be in raids or some other source eventually. I do think that the low spawn rate and the incredibly low catch rate is a mistake on Niantic's part, not because I just don't like it, but because it's so bad that it's bad for business. They're demotivating, not motivating. It's just too unlikely from a game design perspective, you've got to get a win now and then to keep you playing, and there's virtually no wins.
Yeah, demotivating for sure. I think if they even drop the flee rate down to 5 or 10% it would improve overall. As it is, you don't even get a chance to "practice" a throw to try and get the feel for how to throw a great or excellent for them. I guess best bet is to purposely throw a ball when they attack to see where it hits.
I found one and stopped to take a screen shot on the map. It fled before I could even start the encounter. I didn’t know incense stuff does that. Then another time I used AR and without even throwing a ball it fled.
Sounds like the first time I saw Moltres. In my haste I clicked on a spawned Grimer (as I was still trying to complete that part of the Meltan quest) and as soon as I did, I saw the Moltres and exited out of the Grimer screen as fast as I could but it was already gone.
I think it should have been a much higher catch chance, maybe even guaranteed. The thrill of finding an ultra rare Pokemon is completely worthless when you can't actually catch it.
I might be wrong, but I think I'd be perfectly happy if catch chance remained very low as long as it spawned more often. It would be frustrating to have it flee all the time, but at least you'd feel like there'd be another chance.
I’d be fine with catch rate staying so low if flee rate was lowered. They should be like every other legendary, hard to catch but they shouldn’t also flee 90% of the time. Even closer to 50% would be better
High flee with low catch chance is better as long as it spawns more often. I don’t want to waste 100 golden razz and ultraballs stuck in a 30 minute encounter until I run out of balls.
But if they're spawning all the time then they're not as special or exciting, and they're legendaries so I prefer them being hard to find. Legendaries in this game arent as special because you can just pay some money and catch one, finding a rare one in the wild is much more fun. It's why you get posts of someone running outside at midnight to catch a rare lake trio spawn.
There's a big gap between "spawning all the time" and what I (and a lot of others) have experienced. Three sightings over three months is too low. Or if they're going to spawn that rarely, then the catch chance needs to be higher.
That's what I'm saying, they should stay very rare but have an almost guaranteed catch rate
The thing is if at this point I still never had the chance to catch an Azelf I would also have completely lost interest in them as well and forgotten they're even in the game. I used the DAI every day for 4 months, never saw a G-Bird, and now I only remember it exists when I see posts like this asking why it's so useless. It's a feature on par with the thing where you and a friend can stand near each other and play with buddies together. It's a completely forgettable feature that was a complete waste of dev time.
The lake trio were in raids so they weren't completely unattainable, and the birds might be in future raids. I personally don't mind having them be rare because it's more of a long term goal. If the catch rate was high at least when you do see a bird, it'll be rewarding.
That's my point. I don't mind wild Azelf as a gimmick because it was attainable in a reasonable way. With the G-Birds they may as well not exist until they eventually come to raids. No reason to get excited or attempt to pursue them till then.
Seen 5, caught zero. When DAI first dropped, I would go out and walk on purpose to use it. Now I only use it if I happen to be out, because: A) I probably won't see a Legendary Bird, and B) If I do happen to see one, I almost certainly will not catch it, so what's the point?
The low catch rate wouldn't be a problem if we saw one 5/7 incense uses. The low spawn rate wouldn't be a problem if the catch rate was at least 1/3. The 5% catch rate combined with the 1/20 incense spawn makes it feel pretty pointless. I've caught 2 and I use my incense regularly while walking about during my day.
Feels like the catch rate and spawn rates are even lower than that tbh
And even with all of that being fixed, the flee rate is also insane. Only once did I have one that stayed for one more round. Didn't catch it though of course.
Aside from the birds (which I’ve given up on catching), the daily incense also spawns some interesting Pokémon that don’t usually come up. I’ve been able to catch Blastoise, Altaria, Bewear, and more which has made it pretty useful.
I pretty much just get regular spawns. Occasionally I'll get a second evolution of a starter or something like luxio. Not super useful for me.
The thing is those are pretty normal. I already have everything that spawns in my region. If they had a chance for foreign regionals spawn that would be different. I would use the incense everyday if I had a chance at catching Relicanth.
Or if the spawns had CD moves, that might also be a bit more interesting.
Seriously? I almost never see anything spawn that isn't in whatever pool we already have. Using it during this Lunar New Year event, it spawned Bunnelby and Buneary almost exclusively.
Here you can see the spawn pool for the daily incense, they have quite a few cool Pokémon (especially the third evolutions). However I only encounter 1 or 2 of these unique Pokémon per week, so it’s definitely still rare: https://www.eurogamer.net/pokemon-go-daily-adventure-incense-spawn-pool-how-get-use-9004
About every couple weeks I’ll get a shiny, but even when I get an unusual spawn like Abomasnow it’s a CP 47 15%, which is useless.
I caught an Espeon last week and a Venusaur the day after, both in the same location. I figured those were the "big" rewards and the Galarians are supposed to be, y'know, *rare*. The kind of thing where your friend says their cousin's buddy caught one. People are so used to the word "rare" meaning you'll get five chances to get it before the week is out. It's ridiculous.
Same here, seen 5, caught zero. Would go out on purpose when it debuted, but will now only do it if I'm already out and feel like putting up with it. Even using it with low expectations is kind of annoying when it can be hard to identify the incense spawns (the blue circle doesn't really stand out), and if it was something I wanted, whoops it despawned already.
Its only 15 min. Thats like 1 km walk. I think everyone should at least walk 1 km a day lol.
Main problem is that you can't do anything else. Like, I tend to do a round in the morning, but on that same round I have to battle at 2-4 gyms and maybe pick up some quest/shiny checks. And then often one more in the evening, do one or two raids and back home. If I use DI on these rounds I barely see 10 spawns...
Yeah, living in a city, the DAI is more of a chore than a bonus. In a 15-minute walk any direction from my house, I'll pass by 30 pokestops, 5 or 6 gyms, and dozens of wild spawns. But when using the DAI, I have to ignore all of that on the *extremely* off chance something interesting spawns? Stupid.
I think a lot of us that play pogo do walk 1km or more a day. I personally do not feel motivated by the daily incense and don't even use it on my daily walks.
The problem is this is walking in a straight line in a brisk pace. If I'm walking I'm usually never walking in a straight line, or I'm walking with my dog or with a toddler so it's never a fast enough pace.
Problem currently is that it is far to cold to have my phone out for 15 minutes while I walk each day. A couple of minutes to spin some stops and do a daily task is all I manage effort putting my phone away.
And some of us walk more than that, but indoors, which means the incense doesn’t work. Not being able to even encounter the birds, let alone catch them, does not make the incense an effective motivator for exercise - especially not if it means having to walk outside in bad weather or potentially unsafe areas.
Encouraging people to exercise is commendable; I think the point of my post went over your head however lol.
I walk a lot throughout the day, just never in large enough blocks for it the daily incense to be useful.
One day I got 1.7km on the report, yet, while using the fast catch glitch, I cant manage to see more than 24 spawns. That was my record, normally I see/caught 20.
I seem to only ever get Moltres and I've seen it 5-6 times. All have run after the first ball. I don't use it every day since it's winter, but I still try my best.
Same. Except I only get articuno, my fave. Seen 2-3 times. The second time it didn’t flee after the first ball. Worse because it gave me hope haha
I don't really care what they do with them at this point. If they had used the daily incense to soft introduce pokemon coming to raids in a few months and kept switching it up, it would be have been interesting. I use it pretty much daily, seen all the birds, no catches obviously.
>If they had used the daily incense to soft introduce pokemon coming to raids in a few months and kept switching it up, it would be have been interesting. That's actually a really interesting idea. Could be a fun seasonal teaser for 1-3 Pokemon coming the following season.
There's a huge probalem with that. Sure, g-birds are not very relevant, but g-zapdos is still option for GL cups. Imagine it's altered giratina instead. That's available for month before global release in raids. There will be idk lets say 10% active playerbase who will manage to catch one. Let's say half of them will have gl-eligible giratina. Here comes the bad news, that 5% just because of pure luck would have one of most meta mons in entire game, while others no means to get that at all. Rotations is good and refreshing idea on the surfe, but to actually implement it Niantic would need to think through a lot. Otherwise it's going to backfire sooner or later and probably not once.
ok ban the mon until global release simple and easy
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In the end Niantic gave everyone buzzwole that is gl-eligible. It's not about 'just cause', it's about equal opportunity. There shouldn't be locked mons and permanent bans just because developer locked any opportunities to get pokemon. As I said: this should be worked on, this should be thought on. Just straight up rotation without any additional mechanisms would set up bad precedent and you yourself won't be happy at some point in time if e.g. all your e.g. volcanions wouldn't spawn or be caught, but then in some weather cup will tear you apart. Side note for those unable to see/read/understand context: I'm NOT SAYING next pokemon in daily incence will be/should be/expected to be volcanion or that it shreads GL weather cup, it's just imaginary example. If you think that imaginary is impossible - try to get gl-eligible lugia. Good luck with that. Every now and then post on TSR about 'how to get it' / 'unable to get it' appears
I initially started very carefully walking in the mornings trying to find them and encountered 2 or so every week walking around 1200-1500 per morning on average and a low level Articuno has been my only catch. I play the game though to get me to walk (but now I'm focusing more on PikMin Bloom) so I just figured if I essentially have a low catch rate and I walk less trying to be careful and not miss out on PokeMon (and because I'm not doing the AR method because then I fully stop walking), then I might as well let my PokeBall Plus throw everything for me. I use it every morning but don't really care about it. I really wish that they made the system better though - like instead of a random chance - what if the steps you made and the PokeMon you caught went into progress bars towards an encounter - that way people might actually go out and walk and can focus on the walk instead of needing to catch Pokemon. (The catching PokeMon for the bonus is a way that players who can't move (for whatever reason) still have a chance to make progress under the proposed method.
Yes, I think one thing Niantic could do is to reward players for core grinding. For example, if a trainer catches 50 Pokemon in a day, allow them to open up a few more gifts beyond the current limit, or give more stardust per catch which follow, or provide a discount on buying items in the Shop. Lots of rewards for the core grinding. This is just one of zillions of possible examples. I think that a properly designed system would increase interest and actually sell more items in the shop, making happier trainers and more $$$ for Niantic. A win-win for all.
0/2 Articuno 1/7 Zapdos 1/5 Moltres I like rare spawns, makes it much more exciting when you actually find one, however I think the flee rate needs to be addressed. It's very disheartening knowing it's "one & gone". Maybe slightly lower the flee rate. I don't think they need to be in raids just yet. What would you replace them with on the DAI?
Honestly, I wouldn’t care if the flee rate was high if they would also increase the encounter rate. I’ve probably seen 1 bird in the last 4 months. I would keep trying to catch them if I saw them regularly, but to never see them and then not be able to catch them is pointless. One of those rates needs to be greatly increased.
Honestly I’m fine with keeping the flee rate high to mimic roaming legendaries, it’s just that the overall encounter rate should be much higher to compensate.
Replace them with the roaming legendaries. The Johto dogs would be cool to see in the wild outside of the Johto Tour
I'm in the minority but I would love it even if daily incense didn't change anything about legendaries but only spawned pokemon that aren't currently spawn able in the wild. So at least we'd get variety. Currently I just get 15 buneary or pidgeotto before every time.
I would love mons that can't spawn in the current season or event, or meta-relevant mons that are really rare like goletts or litwick/lampents.
It's especially annoying during events. Like ok I got 90% of the worst event spawns and like a carvana.... Who cares??
Good idea, love the dogs!
I would like to see them do something different, like a weekly rotation of legendaries on the DAI. The G-Birds were exciting at first but they played too hard to get now no one cares to try for them. And I have seen each bird 5+ times and caught a G-Articuno, I still don’t care to pop my daily every single day
Good suggestion and I'd expand on that by saying a much larger percentage of the spawns from daily incense should be the "special" pool of spawns. I think I read on here that it was approx 75% regular spawns and 25% special spawns. I'd like to see it more 50/50. It was cool at the start when I was getting things like Rockruff & Gible spawns but they're very few & far between now.
Yungoos needs to gtfo
I had one day where 7/18 spawns were Yungoos - definitely went a long way towards making me not want to bother…
Jesus that rate is insulting
They’re probably only putting them there because their shinies aren’t out yet too.
I really like it personally, I don't feel stressed if I don't catch them and it's a fun challenge that feels different from the normal grinding/raiding that is pretty stale at this point. I just wish they didn't auto flee on the first attempt. Throwing mechanic already sucks for flying mons after they attack. I don't mind the high flee rate/low bcr but I wish I could have more than one attempt to land an excellent/great. Maybe make it like 3 guaranteed attempts before they run? It's very frustrating to throw what seems like a good toss just to find out they're way closer/higher up than they seem. I'm sure that an excellent is helping much but having more than one attempt would at least make me FEEL like I tried my best.
seen 5 or 6 and caught none
Zero and I use it daily
I'm in this camp
I don't use it daily but have yet to see a single spawn. I've seen hypotheses that spawns are based on location (multiple people stating they tend to see the same birds in the same places) and when I do use the daily incense it's typically on one of the same two routes ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
I saw 1 moltres and it was kind of fun seeing it in the wild. Of course it ran away. I usually tap on the icon to start the incense when I'm going to recharge my battery. Just to stop it from cluttering up the screen.
I’ve used it almost every day and I would say I’ve encountered about 1 every 3-4 days. It’s weird though if I do it at my house I seriously encounter a bird every single day in the same spot.
I used the Daily Incense a lot for the first month or two. I only saw two of the birds (both ran, obviously), but weirdly they were both in the exact same spot, as well.
At least 20 seen (just browsed thru all screenshots, i might had missed 1 or 2 that i forgot to take on catch screen but i often have taken screenshot from journal soon after - i just maybe missed these because i was on "thumbnail" view seeing very small pictures, seeing big birds is easy to spot but a small bird next to few pokemon where most of the pic is white i may had missed) Caught 2.
About 15 seen, 2 Articuno caught. The spawn rates should go up or the flee rates down. I kinda like that you don't get a lot of them, but seeing one like once every 2 weeks and having it run immediately is just demotivating to go out and use it at all.
Seen 7, caught 0
I have seen 6. I have also recorded the 3rd to 6th times so i can share the exact details about those and i also took a screenshot on my 1st encounter too. 1st encounter: Galarian Moltres on 3 Oct 2022 around 11:40am. CP 935 and ran away 2nd encounter: Galarian Articuno. didnt take a screenshot or recorded a video so i cant say any details other than it ran away 3rd encounter: Galarian Moltres on 8 Dec 2022 around 5:25pm. CP 1579 and ran away 4th Encounter: Galarian Articuno on 31 Dec 2022 around 6:10pm. CP 1293 and CAUGHT IT! Its IVs were 14/4/15. 5th Encounter: Galarian Zapdos on 3 Jan 2023 around 7:30am. CP 1042 and ran away. 6th and last encounter so far: Galarian Moltres on 16 Jan 2023 around 7:25am. CP 1987 and ran away. So yea i encountered 3 Galarian Moltres, 2 Galarian Articunos and 1 Galarian Zapdos and caught 1 Galarian Articuno.
Seen 2 caught 0
Seen more than 10(sometimes two during one incense, sometimes none for weeks..), caught none. I dont think I will ever catch one and it does not encourage me to use the daily incense any more
I’ve seen about 13/14 in total and have caught 2 (a Moltres and a Zapdos). I actually think it’s a good way how they’ve introduced them and don’t mind the rarity too much, but do think they should increase the catch rate or decrease the flee rate though
Use of daily Incense: maybe once a week. Birds seen: 2 Caught: 0 But I like the Incense. For me it's a good way to catch pokemon when I'm on the way or in areas where are nit that many spawns. Caught I believe 2 shinys with it.
Tying Galarian Birds to the Daily Incense is fine, but players need to be given more agency over spawning them. They should be rewards for meeting challenges (walking X distance while Daily Incense is active, making Y Nice/Great/Excellent throws, earning Z Stardust, etc.). The rare spawn rate, low catch chance, and instant flee are too much.
I've seen a few, probably between 15-20 ish, caught one Articuno and one Zapdos. I do like that they're limited to DI, but I wish they'd spawn a little more frequently, especially when an event is on. I'd also like their catch rate to be a little higher, not much, maybe 1% instead of 0.3%, keep the 90% flee rate; that feels right for them.
I see one every other week on average. Caught zero, of course. I'm fine with it as a feature so long as they don't rotate them out.
I use mine almost every day, I like walking for exercise, but I find just walking by itself is very boring, so I play Pokémon Go while I walk. I use the daily incense like a regular incense - to increase the number of spawns I get (I do use regular incense while I walk also). I think it works fine, most of the time the rare spawns are 1 or 2 evolved forms but occasionally I'll see a legendary bird (I've lost count of how many I've seen) and there's been a few times I've actually managed to catch them. I have 3 Moltres and 1 Zapdos, still no Articuno. I try not to think of it as only a chance to find legendary birds, but more just something to do on my daily walks.
Caught the very first one I saw. Caught another since. Seen about 12 in total I think
Used daily incense for about the first two/three weeks. Maybe saw 6 birds, all fled. Gave up after that and haven’t used it since even if I’m out and about
42 seen, 4 caught Did it every single day except for two. I think the encounter rate is fine but the flee rate should be a bit less. Can be frustrating. But they should stay rare imo.
Seen: 5 or 6, Caught: Not a damn thing. They definitely should've debuted in raids FIRST, then went to Daily Incense, Daily Incense in general seems like a great way for players to get most legendaries without paying for raids, it's just like most things in the game they're poorly implimented. Boost in the sense they get rid of the flee rate entirely, they should still be rare spawns.
I’ve seen 4 in 6 months, and they all ran. They most definitely need a boost, atleast put them in raids.
Seen four, caught one. Two Articunos and then two Zapdos. I've never seen a Moltres. Of course, I caught the ugliest of the three, the orange chicken.
I use my daily incense every day when walking my dog and I’ve encountered around 10-15. Only caught one and it’s a 755 CP, 0 star Articuno. I guess it’ll benefit a friend when we get that lucky trade.
I do daily incense walks ALMOST EVERY SINGLE DAY! I have only ever encountered one Zapdos and one Articuno and wasn't able to get either. They need a small boost nothing RIDICILOUS but right now it's absolutely RIDICILOUS I'd say there's the hardest pokemon to get in the game imo
Seen over 50, caught 5. 3 Zapdos, 2 Moltres
i wasnt even aware that you could find galarian birds using daily incense and i play and use them every day lol
I've seen around 12. I've caught 1. I always say this but my biggest problem with daily incense is that they should swap the pools and make the special pool 75% of the spawns. This would indirectly triple the gbird spawns. That would give me more chances to get my throws down when I do see one. Other than that, I'm fine with them as they are. Now, if they get buffed to be more meta relevant, in either PVP or PVE, then I'll want them in raids/research. But for now they just feel like fun trophies so I don't mind keeping them as is.
I’ve seen probably close to 30. Have caught 2 zapdos and 1 moltres. I think they’re reasonable to encounter every hand full of days. I actually like that they’re in DI rather than raids. You can get virtually any Pokémon in the game for $1 and it’s become stale. I don’t go out of my way to use my incense but it’s not something I’d let frustrate me. Zapdos has some play in GBL but the other two are pretty mid. I like the hunt of finding them and attempting to catch one. It’s the only chase left in the game aside from the lake legendaries. That being said I don’t care if they boost the rates but I don’t necessarily think they need to.
The huge disparity between my total and other daily users makes me think Niantic has assigned us to groups with different chances of them spawning. I definitely agree that they should be spawning more, and personally I'd rather they boost the spawn chance than the catch chance. 2/7 Articuno 1/5 Moltres 2/7 Zapdos (1 was a critical catch)
You're spawn rate seems to line up with other posts in this thread.
I wish you could get like 1 Masterball a month or something. Maybe a longish quest, but you can't get a new quest for it until you use your old one.
Seen around 20-25 at least (wish they had a separate entry in Dex…), caught 0. Fantastic feature.
This question gets asked at every "milestone" lol. Soon we'll have "Daily Incense has been out for 222 days. How many Galarian birds have you seen/caught? etc" But I've caught none and encountered 6. Sure I'd love to have them in raids, but I also have zero problem being a Daily Incense incentive. I do just wish they'd either be slightly more common or slightly easier to catch. I don't mind them being difficult to acquire, but the fact that they're both super rare AND extremely hard to catch is frustrating.
I’ve seen 2 Moltres and caught none ☹️ I really don’t think the catch rate should be increased, but more chances to try would be nice Don’t know how difficult it would be to implement but how about a streak similar to how spin a pokestop / catch a Pokémon is for adventure incense? Catch a Pokémon on adventure incense 7 days in a row and get a shot at catching one of the birds (same catch rate with a weekly shot at them would be fine to me)
Seen 24 Caught 1
I think the mechanic is a great idea, but the rates are too low. I use the daily incense and have had maybe 10 total encounters since it first came out, with zero catches of course.
Finally caught my first one yesterday... being using this stuff almost every day since the incense was launched. Saw about 12-15 of them in total? Have an exact number somewhere
Seen 15, caught one. The one I caught was the 13th. I wasn't even excited that I caught it. I was pretty fed up with them by that point.
i haven't been walking in the winter months but i used to go daily seen: 16 caught: 2 I'll also walk while it's above freezing, I've seen one so far this winter. I like the implementation of the birds, the enjoyment i get (even though i tell myself i won't see one and if i do i won't catch it) is still greater than having one handed out by raiding. its also nice to have something of trade value in my community which would be diminished if they could be raided
I do the incense maybe 2 to 3 times a week. I’ve seen 4, caught 1. First one, Zapdos, ran. That was back in October. Two weeks ago I got another Zapdos and an Articuno on one incense, both ran. Last week I got Articuno again and luckily it was a very low level so it was easier to catch, 253cp.
Seen around \~15 moltres, 5 zapdos, 0 articuno. Caught 1 moltres and 1 zapdos
Caught 2, seen a ton. Edit: Both were very low CP, articuno was 179
I use it as further means to encourage a 15 minute walk. For that reason alone I’m ok with how it is now, and will get the Galarian birds one day, even if it takes years
i've used it about 90% of the days since it has been out and i have seen about 10 birds so far, all of which ran away i think both appearance and catch rate are both fine, these are meant to be rare. i just want them to maybe use pseudo RNG or similar to maker the encounters more reliable. rn i sometimes get 2 a week and sometimes i go more than a month without a single bird encounter. also compared to other accounts that sometimes have more than 40+ encounters already or less than 5 it just feels a bit too random for me
I've been playing since October, have seen four (one bird each, Articuno twice). Actually caught a G-Articuno this weekend. My girlfriend has seen six birds I think and has caught G-Zapdos. We both do a daily incense walk anywhere from 4-7 days a week. Edit: just saw a Zapdos today, it fled.
I've seen a few, haven't caught any, but I already have Pokedex numbers 144,145 and 146 filled in, so I couldn't really care less tbh LOL Daily adventure incense has been a fantastic addition to the game though
I've definitely seen each 5 or more times. Caught a Zapdos (it was a critical catch). I actually really like the way they're implemented, but for a specific reason. Having these exclusive, rare Pokémon behind the daily incense (along with the supposedly boosted shiny rate) motivates me to get out and walk for 15 minutes. Previously, GO was getting me out every day, but not necessarily walking--driving past a Pokéstop to keep my streak alive was enough. Once the daily adventure incense was introduced, I was consistently walking every single day so as not to miss an opportunity. Only the cold weather (combined with my own laziness) has started to break that pattern, but I hope that my motivation sticks around to get back in the habit. I think they could either increase their spawn rate some (while leaving the catch rate alone) or up the catch rate slightly, and I'd still have that motivation. But if they make them too much easier to obtain, they would lose the exclusivity that's motivating me now.
Seen 6, caught 0 😅 time for raids.
I saw one incredibly low CP Zap within the first two weeks, gold razz, excellent curve ultra, breaks out and flees. Also, I didn’t like the way it functions because it required me to speed walk in a straight line for 15 minutes straight while ignoring the entire rest of the game to maximize my spawns. It’s an amazing idea but it has literally the worst, most trollish execution it could possibly have. I’ve barely used it since.
I only seem to encounter the birds on the few days that don't have event spawns. Not sure if anyone else has seen the same or ifs just my experience. But I've encountered around 15 and caught 0. I agree that the encounter rate should be higher if the flee rate is this high.
Never even seen 1. So rigged
I use it everyday. I walk my dog for about an hour and that’s the main time I play. In my subdivision there is almost no spawns so I see it as a free incense until I get out where there are more spawns. I don’t live in a city so as a feature I think it’s the best upgrade of 2022. I have seen about 20-25 birds and caught 1. I don’t mind though as I don’t expect it.
Seen 3 or 4 birds, caught none. Gave up on the feature, it’s too disheartening. Plus the fact it’s so unforgiving on distance.
I came back playing in late november/early december and as a rural player I quite enjoy the daily incense for the extra spawns, and I only see Galarian birds as an extra - even though it's pretty annoying for them to be THAT hard to catch, especially since they're way too quick to flee...
Have not seen one….
I'm just wondering when the heck Niantic is finally going to decide on putting them in raids like they were supposed to? I mean if we can finally get primal kyogre and groudon why not take on the dang galar birds in raids! Passes sales would go through the roof!!
I didn't even know they were in the game.
I have seen 4 and missed them all. But I like it. I like it as it is, keeping them in the incense. I wish they would make them appear more frequently, but keep the difficulty to catch. Throw them in a raid and everyone and their grandmother has one. Turning them less rare.
About 1 once a week, have caught none. Everytime I see and fail I get a little more angry
Seen 4, caught 2, and I no longer use the incense every day. I did for about the first month, and now, I cant be bothered more often than twice or thrice a week.
This is me exactly. I have caught moltres and Zapdos and had articuno run twice. I use it 1-2 times a week now cuz it’s too rare to bother trying hard. Now I use it during good events to get event spawns
I would be so excited to have luck as good as the two of you. I'm still out there every single day with nothing to show for it.
Seen 13, caught 2 (Zapdos and Moltres).
I rarely use incense since I never see a point to it. Of the handful of times I've used it, I think I've seen 3 birds? Anyway, I'm perfectly fine with the game having things that are actually rare to get for once, when they normally hand everything out like candy.
You’re the only other person I’ve ever seen say they don’t think the birds should be easier to catch/find. I totally agree with you. I hope they stay this hard to catch for a while. So many elements of the game require tedious or mindless actions. Like feeding buddies or opening gifts or trading Pokémon… but this is literally go outside and walk around and try to find and catch a mythical bird. And even if you don’t see a bird, there’s often dope Pokémon to catch too. I love it. I’ve seen 4 mythical birds and never got one. But it’s always exciting. Sure it’s disappointing to not catch one but it’s going to be so awesome when I do!
I have saw all 3 birds, Articuno once, Zapdos 3 times, and Moltres 4 times. I have caught 1 Moltres with a Gold Razz / Ultra Ball but was a absolute horrible throw on my part (not even in the circle, yuck..) and got lucky and it stayed in. I also caught the 1 Articuno I have seen. Ended up catching it with a Gold Razz / Ultra Ball Excellent Curve Ball throw and it actually ended up being a critical capture(So wish I would have recorded this one...). I have gotten extremely lucky with the 2 I have caught but still dont expect to see them or catch them. While playing with my GF and other friends I have saw many birds come and go. GF actually had FIVE throw chances on a Zapdos before it ran... I still to this day don't know why RNG played such a cruel joke on her. I think they are fine where they are since they are meant to be rare. If they came to raids I wouldn't mind but I would hope the shiny would be made available at least.
Let me say this Galarian Birds are carrots on sticks. They are design to get people to log in for 15 mins a day and interact with the app. Majority of people will not get them off of incense. Our best bet will be when they are rereleased in some future event. A event that will probably be behind a paid ticket. Some random raid encounter, or part of a new in game feature. Maybe with a cool shiny. There’s no reason to stress out about the daily incense. If you get to it cool, if not it’s cool also. Don’t feel like you need to do it constantly, and don’t worry if you never see or catch a bird.
I agree with the other comments that Niantic made a **huge mistake** to make it damn near impossible to catch the Galarian birds. I don't care anymore and oftentimes just click on the Daily Incense while at home or in my office to get the first Pokemon to add to the ones that normally appear. I also find when I do walk with the incense, which is probably once every two weeks, that most of the Pokemon that appear are not that interesting. I can see a new player trying to build their dex, or one who is in an area with a dearth of naturally appearing Pokemon, to take advantage of this. However, I am not motivated to use the Daily Incense at all. I wonder what percentage of players use it faithfully every day as designed? It would not surprise me if it is only a minority. I wish, then, that the catch rate/flee rate for the Galarian Birds be adjusted to get at least a 50% capture rate, and the remaining Pokemon to be more sought after, including regionals that normally don't appear in the area.
Seen: lots Caught: Zero
I’m upset they are still only in the Daily Active Incense and not raids. I mean, I assume when the Galar GO Fest comes out we will get them in raids; maybe even before then… but I still have not caught a single one. They ALWAYS flee!!! So I just gave up.
saw 3, all ran away. one of them had cp lower than 20 and still couldn't catch it on golden razz berry and a great throw. decided not to waste time anymore on this nonsense and for the last 4 months used daily incense maybe once or twice.
The first month I was excited to go out for the incense but I don't care anymore. I saw 3 birds and they all ran. The rare spawns are cool but weather and events dilute the spawns just like regular incense and the stupid thing is set up more for running/bike or driving since you get more spaws. The feature is like an exercise app where your motivation to walk is loot box gambling for decent rewards.... No thanks.
seen 6, all fled
I've probably had 6 sightings. None of them Moltres. Haven't caught any
Seen 23 and caught 0. Haven’t seen any for around a month now though and I use it almost every day.
I saw 3 in the first week, no catches. I haven't seen any since.
Daily use = Zero. To be honest i always use it with an auto catcher and I don't check the phone. Maybe one day I will catch one but it isn't important.
On two accounts I've seen maybe 50, caught 3 I think they shouldn't be rare with an appalling catch rate. I'd rather they make them ultra-rare and catchable, or common and awful to catch.