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‘Pokemon GO’ Raids Are Live, But There’s A Huge Catch

By Simon Alvarez
Published on: 15:11 PST, Jun 22, 2017

Pokemon GO gyms have gone back online, and they are debuting some cool new features. Among the most notable of these is the new raid system, which all but confirms that something massive is going to happen in the upcoming Pokemon GO Festival in Chicago this coming July. While the raid system is just as fun as it was built up to be, it has one particular catch that affects a large number of Pokemon GO players.

See, the raid feature has been activated, but only players who are Level 35 and above can access it. This means that the feature, which has been long teased and highly anticipated, could only be enjoyed by players who have racked up around 6 million XP or more since starting their game, according to a Forbes report. That amount of XP, of course, corresponds to a ton of walking, and there are only a select number of PoGO players who are in this particular level.

The raid feature is pretty much what everyone expected. There are currently five tiers of raids in the game, with the first two levels being accessible for solo players. Levels 3 to 5, however, require a group to participate in. At the current iteration of the feature, it remains a bit difficult to determine its actual specifics, especially since the feature remains inaccessible for the majority of the game’s active players.

Since gyms have just been restored to the mobile title, the specifics of the raid system remain unknown for now. However, the in-app store does offer raid passes for 100 coins, as noted by avid Pokemon GO fans in online forums such as Reddit. With these passes, Pokemon GO players would be able to participate in raids multiple times a day.

Considering that the raid feature is pretty much locked to the top 5 percent of the game’s active players, there is a good chance that Niantic is still calibrating the feature. After all, the mechanics of raids, as well as their difficulty level, would surely still be adjusted by the developer depending on how the strongest players in the game perform in these trial runs.

This is not to say that raids would be exclusive for high-ranking players alone, however. After Niantic calibrates the feature adequately, there is a good chance that it would be rolled out to the mobile game’s entire player base. This means that even new players, if they have the guts and resources, could participate in these battles to further their experience and acquire more spoils for their accounts.

The changes to the game’s gym systems are currently being rolled out. Apart from the addition of raids for high-ranking players, Niantic has also changed the functionalities of gyms. Instead of being based on Prestige like before, Pokemon GO gyms would now allow up to six monsters to defend it, provided that there is only one type of monster in a group. Gyms could now be spun for items as well, just like PokeStops.

[Featured Image by Niantic]

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