Adventure Sync & Let's Go research

[ephemera]

Thing the first: we're nearly three weeks into the new "Adventure Sync" feature, and - how's it working out for you?

Thing the second: New research! (spoilers in link) What do you think? How are you doing?

Comments

[ephemera]

New research yay, from my perspective, although I am eyeballing some of the later stages, which are going to be markedly harder to complete in this biome when there's not a special event running (I think that's vague enough not to be a spoiler!) I really do enjoy having the longer-running narrative/challenge thread, and as tie-ins to games I have no intention of playing goes, this is far from the worst case. I think they've steered a fairly well-balanced line between giving the Lets Go games a good boost / a reason for players of both games to link them, and making Meltan available to non-Let's Go players (I say this as someone who doesn't expect to have access to a switch with Let's Go, unless someone does something random at a community day or something) I wish the research wasn't time-bound to start, so if someone comes to or back-to the game early next year they would also have options, but: it's Niantic. What are the odds that this is the only time this 'mon is available? (Also, the hilariously bugged roll-out of the research and associated regular research on Friday was - classic Niantic?) It lightened a long, tough day, though, which I appreciate

Adventure Sync is - proving less than whelming in reality, and I think that's because of my platform choices. I'm an Android user, and my fitness tracker is a FitBit, and even though I've installed Google Fit one my phone, it's still a much different experience than the all-Apple folks seem to be having. The first week was mostly backdated data, and because I don't usually carry my phone with me when walking about at work etc, and tend to be playing PoGo most of the time I'm walking around with my phone in my hand, the week's distance was somewhere between 1/2 and 1/3 of what my fitbit tracked. The second week, I made a conscious effort to turn PoGo off when getting to work (rather than just in the background) and carrying my phone with me as much as possible. I also jumped through *all* the hoops to have two empty egg slots on Sunday night. I got the 50k rewards, but only the one 5k egg, which is - good, but a tad disappointing. This week I've had a tough work week, and despite a fairly active weekend, including a 4-hour walk this afternoon, am still short of the 50k line. I've got work to do, and I'm not super enthusiastic about going out to roam the streets of my estate for no real-world reason in the cold and dark, but would totally be hitting the elipticiser for the remaining 3.3km if I could get it to work

I spent some time last night experimenting with trying to get me eliptical time to count - I added .3km for one 11-minute batch (Phone in my pocket, PoGo off, Google Fit on "track workout") which is fairly un-related to the step-count, and suspiciously like the "generic drift" number others have reported, but 0km for the second batch (same set up, but location services off, but I was going faster and might have triggered the speed break point) I also tried borrowing my partner's old Google Wear watch, but that didn't manage to pick up any distance itself, and further research seems to indicate that PoGo treats that as synched and therefore "suspect" data in any case, so Apple Watch to Apple Phone seems to be the only wearable / phone combo that this actually works on.

I'm not complaining: the possible devise permutations are mind-boggling, and I'm still getting a bunch of rewards for free, but I wish there was at least one wearable that worked with Android that I could maybe think about for Christmas, because carrying my phone around all day, and elipting with a phone attached to me is not super-convenient, and I can imagine that a lot of people would really benefit from being able to "count" stationary exercise for all sorts of reasons.

[kirin]

Adventure Sync has been treating me quite well, in that last week I got my first Riolu from it, which is pretty much the best thing available! Got up to 50k again this week so we'll see what tomorrow brings. It's succeeding in its goal of getting me walking though... according to my phone's health app history, my average distance since the beginning of summer was much closer to 25k/wk.

As for the new research... well, some stuff went on in my personal life that's made me want to avoid just sitting at home with my feelings so I went out and dove in to it a *little* obsessively; I'll probably finish it tonight, heh.

[ephemera]

Hurray for constructive distraction activities! That's an impressive speed run, there, although I'm sorry for the need for that distraction.

Hurray for a Riolu, too! I was really *really* hoping for that 10k egg last week! For me 25k/week is very doable, even on a busy work week, but 50k is a bit of a stretch, so does encourage more walking, which has to be a good thing.

[ayebydan]

I have so many research tasks on the go. Things are just not working in my favour to get the last of each thing done. :(

[ephemera]

Some of the "gates" are frustratingly outside an individual's control - you can only catch things that spawn, etc. I hope you get the things you need to unlock the nearly-done research!

[melannen]

I got the "evolve a magikarp" task literally two days after I evolved my first magikarp, and it took me two years to get the candy for that one. So I guess that research track is going to stall for awhile!

[ayebydan]

Mate. The magicarp one sucks. I live next to a canal and they still hardly ever spawn. Still trying to get wailmers ffs. And I don't want to make magicarp my candy as I am trying to evolve chancy but given I am disabled I don't walk that often and my commute is often above 20mph fml

[melannen]

The good thing is that magikarp only take 2k per candy, so I usually had it as my default buddy (except not right now, because I'm still trying to get the other research track that needed 20k with Evee). And even then, I made no significant progress except when it showed up for festivals. (I haven't even seen a Wailmer since the water festival.)

[ephemera]

There's a couple of sections of the Meltan research that are "earn Y buddy candy", and I have switched out to walking a Karp to get through those faster - my Shinx evolution is going to have to wait a while!

[ephemera]

oh - ouch! Yeah - that's a bummer, for sure!

[melannen]

I was hoping that Adventure Sync would track distance based only on gps and not need a data connection (which is the #1 thing I keep waiting for them to do...) but it doesn't seem to.

I haven't had much luck with it even when I do have data; I'm not getting the full distance I'm walking unless I have the game up, anyway. I don't know if it's settings or my phone or just that the distances I've walked so far haven't been long enough, but so far not a lot of joy.

[recessional]

....huh. Adventure sync for me tracks via the iPhone pedometer? Which is not dependant on data.

[melannen]

I'm on Android, and it's entirely possible my pedometer's screwed up (or doesn't work on my phone); I've never used it for anything before. I'll have to mess with it more now that I know it does work that way for other people.

[recessional]

thumbs up

Yeah as long as I'm carrying the phone it tracks my steps - you have to make sure that option's on in settings (the privacy section, on iPhone, obvi I have no idea on Android!), but then it just tracks steps and distance and feeds that via Health to PokeGo.

Fitbit tends to think I take a few more steps than Health does but over the last week the counts for when I've been carrying the phone have been within fifty steps of each other. When I do treadmill later I'll turn off data and wifi both just to double check.

[ephemera]

There seems to be a *ton* of variables for Android, which makes it tricky. I definitely noticed distance being added when my android phone is with me walking around inside, and the game is off, but I usually have at least weak wifi or data while I'm doing that, so that may not be a helpful data point.

If you have the game on, it's tracking distance via GPS (but needs a data connections, because game) With the game closed, it's taking data from Google Fit, and I don't know how that works with no data. I guess the first troubleshooting question is "Is Google Fit getting step data on you?" - you have to make sure that Google Fit and PoGo have mutual permissions, and thus far no data imported from any third party pedometer except an Apple Watch seems to be counted for Adventure Sync

[melannen]

It really annoys me that it doesn't actually need data to track distance (my little guy still navigates the map just fine, the app still runs, the phone knows exactly where I am, it'll even spawn pokemon if it already knows they're there, and if I walk between two wifi sources that are less than .25 km apart, it assumes it's just the connection glitching and counts it, but any longs and it doesn't) but it insists on having data to count the distance anyway just because, I guess?

Having poked around some more, it looks like my phone does not have the capability to do step tracking (I do have an iPhone too, but it's just old enough that it can't update to iOS 11, so pokego stopped working on it last winter). Oh well, another thing that in theory would have been really great but in practice just points up that pokego is really only designing for a certain subset of people.

[ephemera]

That is, indeed, supremely annoying of them! Adventure Sync does seem to be highlighting the device divide. (I don't know if it helps any to know that their main site just says "Samsung 8 users - sorry, you're SOL" so it's not just those of us on older phones!)

[ayebydan]

I am like you. It is hardly noting any distance at all outside the active game and I am on android. I mean, release something that works for all or don't release it. The game still glitches like hell for me anyway and this is just insulting lol.

[ephemera]

(Off topic - love your icon!)

I definitely noticed distance being added when my android phone is with me walking around inside, and the game is off : PoGo has to be all the way closed for at least 10 mins for it to then look for the Google Fit data when it comes back up.

[melannen]

If it's using the pedometer to track, it'll only work if you're walking, not if you're on wheels (and it may not even read walking right, if your gait is too different from the kind of gait it expects.) So if you don't walk much, it's probably that.

Or you're like me and your phone can't actually do the pedometer. Or it's just glitchy. Lots of fun choices!

[lilacsigil]

I'm on an iphone but in a rural area and it's astonishingly inaccurate for me as well. It's never been great on the active game but it gives me almost nothing outside it (3.6km in the game, 3.7km outside it).

[upanddisappear]

i love getting credit for all the walking i do at work!

i'm on 3. got my ditto from the field research and won 2 gym battles, just waiting for two tier 1 or 2 raids.

[soc_puppet]

I am completely baffled by Adventure Sync. My main stalling point is that my steps count for distance walked for eggs and buddy candy, but not for distance prizes? For example, I've been walking my Luxray since just before Adventure Sync launched. This week, I've earned 3 Shinx candy at 5k each through walking/taking steps, but Adventure Sync says I've only walked 3.7km this week. Baffled, I say. Why do I get distance for my steps on eggs and candy, but not the prizes?

For the record: Android, no other linked devices (my Go Plus was acting super wonky since before I switched phones, and now won't connect unless I jump through half a dozen hoops); I've found it counts steps best when I have another app running constantly (most commonly Audible), even if the phone is otherwise sleeping.

[soc_puppet]

Oh, I'm also one of many people waiting impatiently for more Pokemon storage space. It's difficult to believe that 1500 spots aren't enough, and yet, here I am.

[melannen]

They really need to give out more storage space every time they roll out a new set of pokemon - I can't imagine what it's like to start the game now with the default bag space and so many different pokemon.

[cesy]

Yes, they really do.

[cesy]

I added a sync app that copies my Fitbit into Google Fit so I can get it into Pokémon, and that seems to work.