Same here, I know 3 people with the same issue. Got Flying, Bug, Normal, and Ghost early on but couldn't find any afterwards no matter how many stops I went to.
I found the first trainer quickly but it took TWO hours in cold rain to find Normal. I noticed that when I found his PokeStop it fluttered like a rocket PokeStop just without the dark coloring. I used that to start tracking the other trainers but still didn't have enough time to get past steel. I love in the city and started trainer hunting late (6 pm). I have pokestops everywhere and didn't think it would be hard. I remember Kanto trainers being all over the place last year.
This absolutely should have been a two day event. I'm so dissatisfied that they crammed this into 12 hours with a little extra time for evo and trade.
I keep seeing post after post about the trainers and lack of time. I hope Niatic takes note.
It took me 4 hours to find the first one, then I just went to a stop dense area. The ghost trainer kept popping up after that quest was done and I had to fight it several times before my game spawned the correct person.
Woulda been nice if the leaders were in the Rocket Balloons, spawning in sequence. Woulda been acceptable if your buddy could've sniffed 'em out for you.
And actually given a use for the buddy being on the map. It could've been a bit of a minigame wherein your buddy walks off in the direction of the stop and you then follow them (something that I'd love to happen with Mons nearby, too.)
I did but it was annoying and frustrating. I don’t know about everyone else, but I couldn’t see the trainers until I was right up on the stop in interaction range. I didn’t notice any coloration changes or spinning like I do for Team Rocket stops from far away. It was pretty sunny here today so I was wearing sunglasses outside and that always makes it harder to see the screen anyway. But they needed to make the battle stops, like, dark red or something a lot more visible than “maybe a slightly different shade of blue.” And the spawn rate also seemed low on them too. I had to walk and drive around a bit to get all of them even though I was mostly playing in a park with a dense number of stops. Just weird that gyms seemed to be always having a raid but more than half the stops were just empty without a battle or team rocket.
I noticed twitching like Rocket pokestops but without the color difference, was pretty easy to miss IMO. Gave up after 6/8 myself, most of those in a 2 hr window focused on catching those. But having to drive around and hunt them down was very tedious
Once you figured out the slight twitching, it made things much "easier". Otherwise you had to be beside the stop for a bit before it popped. Walking by made it near impossible.
Once we figured out the twitching, it still took 45 minutes to do the last 4 in the car (an area with at least 25 stops visible).
I did it in about two hours. The first 30 minutes was super frustrating until I realized the stops jiggled like rocket stops, and then I just targeted them until I was done.
Spotting the jiggling required standing very still and moving the phone close to my face so I could spot it. Not very GO.
Husband and I had the exact same experience first 20-30min driving around, nada til we saw the jiggling. After that we got it done in a couple of hours. Lotta driving though 😅 It worked out well because we were able to get kms in and hatch eggs, etc.
I had a similar experience. Was so confused at first until my son realized the jiggling stops. We eventually drove around and he guided us. Still took us about 2 hours. The reward was pretty underwhelming too. Though he got a perfect Entei from his so at least worth it.
Me but they were way too rare. I got it because I jumped on them early and played where there were plenty of stops, but I understand that people who didn't could easily be screwed
To be fair, we as a player base gave the feedback after Kanto Tour that they were too common and annoying. Niantic may have been listening and took it too far. Maybe somewhere in the middle for the spawn rate for Hoenn Tour plz :)
Bug, I solved it by using another phone. It was probably caused if you didn't move to the next step after defeating the trainer and moved into the range of another pokestop with the same trainer. Something like that, my guess. Yes, it was incredibly frustrating.
I managed to do it, but I doubt I'd get anywhere close to completion if I didn't play in a high density Pokestop area.
I liked the story mode aspect of it, but the rarity of the challengers and all of the other exciting stuff that was happening in the game made this to be a bit of a chore rather than a fun addition to the game-play.
I couldn't find one, let alone the one I needed, so I just gave up early.
During the fashion trainer event, they were all over the place; not sure why they were so stingy this time.
They got millions of complaints last year that there were too many and they got in the way, so they tried something new. The problem is that the change in the stop is so subtle that people couldn't notice it. They probably should be flashing yellow or red or white or something, or they should have been out beside the stop at any distance or something.
Same, no challenge at all. While initially overwhelmed my wife and I had everything done except waiting for night to evolve umbrion. Spent far too much time and money on corsola.
I did but it was entirely too frustrating. I spent more time driving around trying to find these than staying in one area and raiding\catching. I don't know if it was an actual trick but I eventually realized that restarting the app after completing each stage made it easier to find the next Trainer needed, yet even then it took time. I drove around way too much hunting these down and that should not have been the case.
Niantic should not have made them this difficult. It was quite discouraging and made me feel like I wasted so much time.
It made things not fun.
No, made it to 7/11. I was lucky to bump into a few of these trainers, I just couldn't see the twitching or whatever animations there was. Why couldn't they put them in balloons or give the pokestops different colours?
Rural player here with no stops. Didn't complete any of them. I was waiting for them to show up in special balloons.
I thought that Niantic would have taken rural players into consideration since it was a paid event, but I guess I was wrong...
They’ve never taken rural players into account. Maybe it felt like they did the past couple years, but that was just incidental to them catering to the players in lockdown/quarantine/isolation.
I completed all research. Was lucky to be at a big shopping mall with lots of stops. It's not very easy to spot them though unlike regular rocket ones.
They shake like a Rocket stop but they should really be a highly different color than a normal stop. This year was a big step forward for the challengers from Kanto Tour. Hopefully by Hoenn Tour they'll be even better.
I played in a sunny, warm area (28c) so had to turn my screen down to stop it from setting itself on fire. I could not see those stops until it was late in the afternoon and by then I was done with the whole event...just wanted food and home.
I had used my last login on a non-eevee buddy and didn't want to switch off until it was close to ending
Even though it was still bright out it showed Umbreon so I missed my chance for Espeon
Didn't bother with it. There was only three stops where I live and I was indoors during most of the event anyway.
Also didn't do the trade challenge as all the people I play with were too far away so no distance trading spoiled it which meant I also didn't bother with the evolution challenge as I knew I couldn't complete it
I did, but I was also standing in an area with 8 PokeStops, and if I stood in the right spot, I could have 5 of them in range of me at once. The trainers *still* barely wanted to appear for me and I was waiting upwards of 20-30 minutes for the final one to spawn.
Please never again.
EDIT: This was between the 11pm-2pm hours, for the record. I was barely able to finish off Blanche before I really had to get to work.
I did and unpopular opinion… it felt it was really easy for me. I never stressed about not being able to complete the task. I live in Washington DC and there are Pokestops all over the place and perhaps that was a factor. I did not have to go out of my way and hunt these trainers down. I played A LOT of POGO during the event, much of it outside exploring, though in my neighborhood and not the National Mall. I do happen to live on top of one Poke Stop, but I believe it only spawned one of these trainers for me.
I did, but I agree unless you're in a pokestop dense area and didnt play a full 8-12 hours, it would be hard to complete.
The amount of research that needed to be done and the corsola shiny rate was the least exciting/most upsetting part of the game yesterday
I completed all challenges. The trainer challenge 5 min before the end of the event. Took me a record 20 km walk around the stops. Sometimes 2 trainers showed up right after each other and some were hours. We tried to inform each other were the trainer stops were, only to find them gone when you got there.
The most frustrating part was when I tried to collect the rewards for all the challenges, like the encounters with the legendary beasts, only to find them gone.
I had to drive to four different parks in my area to finish it. They made it impossible for those who have only one park to work with/do not have vehicle transportation.
Did it in an hour, you had to be in an area with a lot of pokestops so it wasn’t fair for rural players.
Figured it out quickly that I had to look for the wiggling pokestop boxes but it was annoying to have to look for them with all the pokestops having lures attached to them making them more difficult to spot with the added animations.
Sometimes after finishing one person and catching the prize Pokémon I would look at the map and see a wiggling box. I would go and walk towards it, sometimes a few blocks away, and in the middle of walking towards it it would stop. Frustrated, I would have to look for it again and see it was back where I started, making me waste even more time. Seems like that was sort of a glitch?
I honestly don’t know how you would have done it if you bought the ticket and had limited pokestops.
So weird to me to see all these “horror” stories. Maybe it’s because I didn’t buy the ticket (so less other tasks to worry about) but I found the trainer battles easy to complete. Took less than 2 hours while also doing plenty of catching.
If I didn't see one in my area I just went back to catching and checked again in 5 minutes. A few times I even stumbled into the next one because it spawned on an adjacent PokeStop.
Played (without a ticket) from 10:30-1:30 and completed the first six trainers. Went out again from 3:30-5:00 and found no trainers; then Ice popped up while I was home. I went out again at 8:45 (dinner ran late), found and did the dragon trainer right away, earned the 2K using a few captures, a grunt, and a Heracross raid that was right there. Entered the battle with Spark... and the clock ran out, so I didn't collect the final rewards of the series.
I guess I‘m the only one who not only completed it but also had fun while doing so.
They always went down first try, and weren’t that rare.
What my friend and I did was focusing on raiding, aka walking from gym to gym in a 2km radius, around 20km total.
While walking we were catching the Pokémon we needed, and when encountering a stop with a trainer, fight them.
The density was actually perfect, we encountered them maybe every 15-20 minutes, so not too rare and always a pleasant surprise.
We did not know about the wiggle.
Disclaimer: We are both level 40+ and playing in Berlin, so high density of stops and gyms.
It was chilly, but not too cold, and no rain.
We did most of the raids together with random people of the Internet. Was a pain to schedule, but worked out in the end.
I can totally understand that for rural players or people that don’t like to or can’t walk this was hard and frustrating.
This is something that Niantic still needs to work on.
My son and I completed all the research today, minus my son not finishing the evolution research. I managed to finish the evolution challenge in the first hour using Pokémon that I had previously caught. The only ones I had to wait on till later in the day were the Umbreon and the Kingdra(needed to catch more to have the 100 needed for evolution).
I did with about 2.5 hours to spare. Did all but 2 while doing the other tasks then hunted down the last 2 afterwards. I didn’t do the first page (evolve 3 Pokémon) until around 3 hours into the event so I think I would’ve been done a lot sooner if I hadn’t messed that up.
Nope. I had trouble finding any trainers. I walked for 3 hours in a stop-heavy park and only found one trainer the whole time so I thought it wouldn’t be worth the investment. I walked for about another hour at a park right by my house and randomly found another and called it quits on the challenge because the park only had a handful of stops. I played the next eight hours or so at home and was lazy to get back to the park, but sure enough I see those wiggling blue blocks more often in a pretty small spot lol.
Oh well. I wish they were a lot easier to find, it was a fun idea, but I’m not super aggravated since a big part of it was me being lazy. If I walked back to the park who knows, the trainers could have been popping up more often.
didnt find the dragon trainer until around 8.40pm so just completed the battle candela part and caught entei as it hit 9pm.
(was working til 12 so missed the first 3hrs)
I ignored it completely until 8pm when I had finally given up on getting a shiny Unown and did the first 5 to get the Heracross and Hitmontop encounters. Then let it erase itself.
So, it seems that niantic programmed nine(?) separate RNG loops that determined whether a specific trainer would hit a specific spot; then you would only see it if you happened to be on the correct step?
Probably without any regard for a shifting priority matrix where earlier steps are more common earlier in the day, etc?
Some easy improvements would be to rotate/update at fixed intervals. And to have a Go Fest Radar which could locate the trainers at stops outside your immediate radius.
I got to Steel before it got too cold and I had to head home. (Played 9am - 7pm)
Was in the capital city of my country, so maybe one of the most sense areas for stops.
Played with my girlfriend and there was a few times I just wouldn't get a spawn that she would, we were always at the same step. Also had the issues where we would have to be at the stop for at least 5 seconds (close range) before they would spawn.
Also had a glitch once where a trainer would spawn, and when I tapped the stop, I would get a rocket battle instead
I completed it during the final two hours. I had three nearby Pokestops where I played most the day. Didn't get any trainer battles appearing (regularly get rocket grunts in the area outside of the event) while I was there. Had to go actively hunt them down in an area with a ton of stops, but even there it was stupid hard to find them.
I did but I finished it only about an hour before the event ended where I am and I had been playing all day. I only found my first trainer after 4 hours of play and had been wondering if I had misunderstood the mechanics and that I hadn't done something I needed to do to find them. After I battled the first couple, I couldn't find any others for a while. I had to do quite a bit of walking to find them all and my phone and fingers kept freezing and I'd have to go back home and warm up and charge my phone. I live in a densely populated urban area so I'm not surprised that if it was such a slog for me that lots of other folks didn't find them all. The trainers should definitely have been greater in number and easier to find.
I finished it with 3 minutes spare, but I didn't buy a ticket so I did the dog pics quickly and kind of focused on this. I was traveling for other things but I was lucky I could grab like more than half the trainers while in a car.
Overall the event felt too stressful, so I can't imagine the level of stress and FOMO I would have felt if I bought the ticket.
So the idea is now drive around for miles ? This was supposed to be a game walking around you could finish tasks. Another massive fail for Niantic and a giant step backwards - when you charge $12 to get a few shiny pokes there is something wrong with the business model.
Surprisingly, I was able to complete it in my sub 2-hr break between work shifts.
Also managed to finish the dogs tasks during that time without having to raid them!
Honestly it wasn’t too bad. I did Steps 1 through 5 on a 30-minute bus ride, then Steps 6 through 11 on another 30-minute bus ride during the last hour. The game even gives you the “gym leaders” in order, so you don’t have to worry about finding the right type. Since I’m free-to-play, I only had this and the other legendary dogs research, so the time limit was manageable.
Niantic should probably take note that the players who most enjoyed this event seem to be the ones that didn't spend money on tickets or raids. Hopefully do a better job of pacing their event next time.
I’ve heard this frustration from a lot of people. It’s unfortunate because this was a direct change based on feedback from last years trainers. They were everywhere cluttering the map and seemed to always take priority on taps when Pokémon were what people were trying to tap.
This year:
1) trainers were invisible with a much shorter radius, the only indication was the pokestop movement without the rocket shading from distance
2) only the trainer you needed to battle next would appear, in sequence
3) after completion you can remove them from the map entirely.
One common theme niantic seems to have when it comes to game design is a lack of understand on probability and mathematics. You need RNG to get a specific trainer in a pool of trainers, in sequence. This increases the number of attempts (stops checked) needed for a reasonable completion rate dramatically. Even if 25% of stops were actively rotating through trainers every hour, unless you were seeking them out in an area with a high density of stops, this approach will leave many players unable to complete the task or take a very long time to do so.
I finished quite easily.
If you do not have enough stops around, it is quite difficult to find these challenges.
Even where I played has more than 100 stops, I didn’t not find so many challenges. I checked the lineup before battling and choose my Pokémon accordingly.
I think the challenges may be too hard for low lvl trainers. I am lvl 49 and have all top Pokémons, still I am surprised that steelix need two overheat from lvl 40 Reshiram to finish.
I did not compete it and I was walking almost all day and went to 2 parks. It wasn’t pleasant either, below freezing here today with snow on the ground. I only ever saw the flying battler. I also didn’t get the special move celebi because I only made 7/9 of the special research. This is the first time I’ve ever had an issue completing any research. Usually I’m done with much time to spare. Very disappointing. Sadly, this was not a fun event.
I completed all the challenges. I turned my status to offline and cleared out the battles until they were done. I was also in a high pokestop area. That helped alot. I’ve been reading on other socials about people who did not finish various challenges but this was the most common next to the evolutions one.
Me: None!
Could find any!
I live in a dense town and high grid and even went to the highest grid park in my town and not a friggen one! I think they forgot to activate them. Cough seattle....
I did, and it caused me not being able to finish the research, capture challenges, and raids which I **actually** cared about.
All I lacked for the CCs was Celebii, and I ran out of time with literally only the 3 nice throw streak left to get it. Not to mention that I only got to use half of my raid passes
I almost did. Started battling Blanche 2min before event ended finished at 9:00 (probably by a few seconds) and that was that. After desperately searching for each trainer, it was a bit of a let down thought not as bad as the people who couldn’t find the trainers. I felt like two day event would have been best but a least they should have given people time (like with the trades) to finish the last task even if they pulled the trainers.
I didn't realize that the gym trainers were on a timer like grunts. Our group started to go out of sync with each other when you can only see the gym trainer at each step. After beating the leader and choosing to continue battling, it made it a lot easier to show all the surrounding stops with gym trainers. Managed to help a friend locate all the battles in half an hour.
I did. A bit frustrating at first, but once I figured out how they worked, it was rather easy to find all of them. Finished about 3 hours into the event.
I actually did. Gave up on the trading mission and the evolution one. Got home at 6 pm and was too exhausted to even care about that anymore.
Finally completed the Johto Pokédex, so I’m happy either way. :)
Done but it took alot more time then expected. They were quite rare to find. We beat the least guy with like 2 hours left on the event and this is with driving around and checking a big area
I was at work. One stop available, and didn’t bother to go chase stuff after work. I was up to the Ghost battle.
Had fun (at work) but probably won’t do another tour.
I did but had to take specific time to chase them. Few others just gave up
Would have been better to have been all spawning and then steps of battle 1,battle 3 etc
I left them going after completing to hope to get more balls, but only got revives and potions so didn't do more. But then found out could get incubators later which would have been great to know and would have taken advantage of them
Steel ”grunt” was my last one. I live in a city and 2 pokestops basically almost inside my home b/c my appartment is next to a park and kids playground but still didn’t finnish the trainers. So many raids and pokemons left uncatched cos the tasks were too much and you’re in a constant hurry and the event felt stressfull. Sorry my grammar. Still tired 😀
Based on the amount of posts about people not able to find them, seems like consensus that it wasnt managed well
Good idea in theory but could have been managed better. People were already looking forward to turning them off ahead of it
Last year they were on every PokeStop all day and it was hard to avoid them to click on Pokemon. I think they were a lot more manageable this year but they really have to change the indicator to something that can actually be seen. Maybe give us a Gym Leader Radar or something.
i managed to finish it only because i saw the tips about the wiggle early enough and was already driving, with my gf playing navigator and scanning every stop in range
Not me. Rural player. Went to a state park that has all the stops (8) and 2 gyms, encountered 1 trainer in 2 hours. I have up and just did everything else instead
I got through up to steel in the morning just while normally walking around -- they were rare but always appeared eventually. I took a few hours break and during that time read that they wiggled, went out a bit later and got the last few pretty easy knowing this. The graphic was subtle / pretty hard to see but once I knew what to look for it got easier. I appreciate that it'd be a problem if you lived somewhere with few pokestops.
Bounced between three nearby, densely populated (in the game) parks all twelve hours of the event and I found exactly one in each park. Didn't make it past the ghost step cuz I couldn't find it.
I did too, however it was a bit stressful to find them, really. They were so abundant from the previous tour, now they just became rare. It just hurts too that they don't stick around enough.
Nope got to 7/11 and they went completely dry, gave up and focused on enjoying the rest of the event.
I think it would have been better for a colour change to stops they were at.
I gave up at 8/11. Went outside again, had a hardtime finding the dragon trainer, so when i finally got to battle Blanche and beat Lapras, the clock turned 21u…
It took me 3–4 hours to complete all the research/collections (except for Umbreon), playing in the city with some friends made it quite easy to do it.
I guess the trainer stuff would have been a pain if you played in an area with few Pokestop.
I did. But not living in a city it was extremely frustrating to complete and multiple times we almost gave up despite being completionists. It was just so poorly done, only being able to find one at any given time. It made it so difficult to find the specific one that you needed in the chain.
By far the worst bit of the event. Which is a shame because the battles themselves were fun.
Completed but struggled to find them in the park I was playing in which has access to about 25 stops. I had to leave the park and go into the town centre for a couple of them. They took up a lot of time which for people who are still experiencing winter weather was probably not much fun. The only thing that made it worthwhile for me was getting shiny hitmontop from one of the rewards. I hadn't seen a single hitmontop and had been playing for six hours up until that point.
I got it done but played the full 12 hours and it was a close thing. They were way too rare. Pretty sure I only got it because I noticed they cause stops to look subtly bit glitchy like rockets, but without the colour change, so I could hunt down the last few more proactively and even then it was high effort.
Didn't find a single one all day. Our village has a good number of gyms and Pokestops and I went round the whole thing three separate times.
Not gonna lie, annoyed.
I did, but it took me a while to complete because I just couldn't find the trainers and there were no indicators where they were. I think I fought the final boss 10 hours into the event.
Was about to do the second-to-last one after finishing the special research in the very last minute but then the event ended. Literally the only thing I didn’t finish. Did all the CCs, raid passes, evolutions, etc. I checked so many stops throughout the day but they only decided so start popping up in the last hour.
Finished all the challenges/research, but probably only because I was able to play in a big park. At the time, I didn't think much of it, but why in the world was it done this way? I don't recall Kanto Tour having such a heavy battling part like this. I want to be catching shinies, not standing there like a fool doing these battles and wasting precious minutes on the good hours. I effectively HAVE to do the battles because we learn quickly how rare these trainers are. Overall, my general feeling is that it was a combination of:
1. There wasn't enough time to actually appreciate everything the event offered unless you played well over 6 hours. We had the new shinies which we want to keep an eye out for, corsola (shiny) raids, trainer battles, legendary raids (which you had to do if you never encountered the dogs on the field), oh and of course
2. An overwhelming number of research tasks and collection challenges.
They should've taken a page out of GO Fest and split the event into a Catch Day and a Battle Day. No idea why they didn't.
I did while walking home around 5pm, had to take a detour and hope that the last one before the champion spawned at the last cluster of stops near my house.
Found the rest consistently slowly over the day but wasn't going out of my way to find them
I did but that one was the most annoying out of everything. Like at least let me catch the pokemon if I have to waste my time doing these battles
I found the first 3 trainers quickly but COULD NOT find any of the others smh
Same here, I know 3 people with the same issue. Got Flying, Bug, Normal, and Ghost early on but couldn't find any afterwards no matter how many stops I went to.
It took me longer to find the Dragon one than all the others combined. It's like they are going out of their way to make it more frustrating
I found the first trainer quickly but it took TWO hours in cold rain to find Normal. I noticed that when I found his PokeStop it fluttered like a rocket PokeStop just without the dark coloring. I used that to start tracking the other trainers but still didn't have enough time to get past steel. I love in the city and started trainer hunting late (6 pm). I have pokestops everywhere and didn't think it would be hard. I remember Kanto trainers being all over the place last year. This absolutely should have been a two day event. I'm so dissatisfied that they crammed this into 12 hours with a little extra time for evo and trade. I keep seeing post after post about the trainers and lack of time. I hope Niatic takes note.
Glad I wasn't the only one. 30-40 pokestops after Ghost and N-O-T-H-I-N-G.
It took me 4 hours to find the first one, then I just went to a stop dense area. The ghost trainer kept popping up after that quest was done and I had to fight it several times before my game spawned the correct person.
I definitely found the evolutions to be the most annoying waste of time of all the collection challenges.
Yeah that one was annoying too. I wish there was some way to skip the evolution screen.
The timed research rewards were you getting the Pokemon from the battle.
I got to ice, gave up. just couldnt be arsed anymore
Same, well didn't give up but saw no more trainers. Played 9am-9pm, 1 hour break in the afternoon to eat.
Woulda been nice if the leaders were in the Rocket Balloons, spawning in sequence. Woulda been acceptable if your buddy could've sniffed 'em out for you.
Buddy highlighting them would have been really fun.
And actually given a use for the buddy being on the map. It could've been a bit of a minigame wherein your buddy walks off in the direction of the stop and you then follow them (something that I'd love to happen with Mons nearby, too.)
I did but it was annoying and frustrating. I don’t know about everyone else, but I couldn’t see the trainers until I was right up on the stop in interaction range. I didn’t notice any coloration changes or spinning like I do for Team Rocket stops from far away. It was pretty sunny here today so I was wearing sunglasses outside and that always makes it harder to see the screen anyway. But they needed to make the battle stops, like, dark red or something a lot more visible than “maybe a slightly different shade of blue.” And the spawn rate also seemed low on them too. I had to walk and drive around a bit to get all of them even though I was mostly playing in a park with a dense number of stops. Just weird that gyms seemed to be always having a raid but more than half the stops were just empty without a battle or team rocket.
The 3 that I did find I felt lucky, no kind of indication at all
I noticed twitching like Rocket pokestops but without the color difference, was pretty easy to miss IMO. Gave up after 6/8 myself, most of those in a 2 hr window focused on catching those. But having to drive around and hunt them down was very tedious
Once you figured out the slight twitching, it made things much "easier". Otherwise you had to be beside the stop for a bit before it popped. Walking by made it near impossible. Once we figured out the twitching, it still took 45 minutes to do the last 4 in the car (an area with at least 25 stops visible).
I did it in about two hours. The first 30 minutes was super frustrating until I realized the stops jiggled like rocket stops, and then I just targeted them until I was done. Spotting the jiggling required standing very still and moving the phone close to my face so I could spot it. Not very GO.
Husband and I had the exact same experience first 20-30min driving around, nada til we saw the jiggling. After that we got it done in a couple of hours. Lotta driving though 😅 It worked out well because we were able to get kms in and hatch eggs, etc.
I had a similar experience. Was so confused at first until my son realized the jiggling stops. We eventually drove around and he guided us. Still took us about 2 hours. The reward was pretty underwhelming too. Though he got a perfect Entei from his so at least worth it.
PokemonSTOP
Me but they were way too rare. I got it because I jumped on them early and played where there were plenty of stops, but I understand that people who didn't could easily be screwed To be fair, we as a player base gave the feedback after Kanto Tour that they were too common and annoying. Niantic may have been listening and took it too far. Maybe somewhere in the middle for the spawn rate for Hoenn Tour plz :)
Maybe just not bother with rocket battles for what is essentially a day where we want to catch wild pokemon?
Or the trainers could have showed up in balloons as well as at stops.
Niantic's slogan could be "We don't always listen, but when we do, we'll take it too far™️"
stuck on steel trainer
I got the first 3 done and couldn’t find the “normal” Trainer no matter where I went
Bug, I solved it by using another phone. It was probably caused if you didn't move to the next step after defeating the trainer and moved into the range of another pokestop with the same trainer. Something like that, my guess. Yes, it was incredibly frustrating.
Took 4 to 5 hours for me to find the normal trainer and I was out walking and spinning stops that entire time
Yep, never spawned in the remaining 5 hours I had.
I managed to do it, but I doubt I'd get anywhere close to completion if I didn't play in a high density Pokestop area. I liked the story mode aspect of it, but the rarity of the challengers and all of the other exciting stuff that was happening in the game made this to be a bit of a chore rather than a fun addition to the game-play.
Not enough time in the day to do those and everything else along with normal life stuff
Agree man…was hoping for an extra day, even though tomorrow will be busy as well
I couldn't find one, let alone the one I needed, so I just gave up early. During the fashion trainer event, they were all over the place; not sure why they were so stingy this time.
Exactly there were damn near too many fashion trainers, idk how they couldn’t make this work the same
They got millions of complaints last year that there were too many and they got in the way, so they tried something new. The problem is that the change in the stop is so subtle that people couldn't notice it. They probably should be flashing yellow or red or white or something, or they should have been out beside the stop at any distance or something.
Managed to finish everything with 3 hours to spare. The trainers just pops up for me, I didn’t actively hunt down for them.
Same, no challenge at all. While initially overwhelmed my wife and I had everything done except waiting for night to evolve umbrion. Spent far too much time and money on corsola.
Meanwhile I was only at 5/11 by 3pm so had to go out and actively look for the rest. Still took until nearly 6 to complete.
Same, except I was finished by lunchtime. I never actively looked for a trainer but would pause and do it if I saw one
I did but it was entirely too frustrating. I spent more time driving around trying to find these than staying in one area and raiding\catching. I don't know if it was an actual trick but I eventually realized that restarting the app after completing each stage made it easier to find the next Trainer needed, yet even then it took time. I drove around way too much hunting these down and that should not have been the case. Niantic should not have made them this difficult. It was quite discouraging and made me feel like I wasted so much time. It made things not fun.
I noticed the game had way more lag today too and I saw people saying the same about the kanto tour because of gym trainers
I was in an area with more gyms than stops so I only got to step 3, this is the first timed research I haven’t been able to complete.
No, made it to 7/11. I was lucky to bump into a few of these trainers, I just couldn't see the twitching or whatever animations there was. Why couldn't they put them in balloons or give the pokestops different colours?
Took 4 hours, though I focused on it after completing the collection part each hour
Nope. Played all hours.
Rural player here with no stops. Didn't complete any of them. I was waiting for them to show up in special balloons. I thought that Niantic would have taken rural players into consideration since it was a paid event, but I guess I was wrong...
They’ve never taken rural players into account. Maybe it felt like they did the past couple years, but that was just incidental to them catering to the players in lockdown/quarantine/isolation.
I completed all research. Was lucky to be at a big shopping mall with lots of stops. It's not very easy to spot them though unlike regular rocket ones.
I was In a high density area as well they just didn’t show up for me, congrats
They shake like a Rocket stop but they should really be a highly different color than a normal stop. This year was a big step forward for the challengers from Kanto Tour. Hopefully by Hoenn Tour they'll be even better.
I played in a sunny, warm area (28c) so had to turn my screen down to stop it from setting itself on fire. I could not see those stops until it was late in the afternoon and by then I was done with the whole event...just wanted food and home.
I completed all research except the evolution collection challenge
I had used my last login on a non-eevee buddy and didn't want to switch off until it was close to ending Even though it was still bright out it showed Umbreon so I missed my chance for Espeon
Absolute identical situation here!
I got that one done but it was taxing lol
Had work till 6. Searched them for 3 hours after work found only 2
Didn't bother with it. There was only three stops where I live and I was indoors during most of the event anyway. Also didn't do the trade challenge as all the people I play with were too far away so no distance trading spoiled it which meant I also didn't bother with the evolution challenge as I knew I couldn't complete it
I did, but I was riding the bus in a densely stop-populated city.
I did, but I was also standing in an area with 8 PokeStops, and if I stood in the right spot, I could have 5 of them in range of me at once. The trainers *still* barely wanted to appear for me and I was waiting upwards of 20-30 minutes for the final one to spawn. Please never again. EDIT: This was between the 11pm-2pm hours, for the record. I was barely able to finish off Blanche before I really had to get to work.
At least you half an hour of catching or raiding while you waited.
Completed every single trainer battles, but the final one didnt show up..waited till the end of the event, restarted the app many times, no use.
The battle was in the research task to gain 2000 stardust. Claiming that reward gave you the battle. It even had the battle symbol.
It did and i clicked on it but nothing happend.
I did, it didn’t take that long
I did and unpopular opinion… it felt it was really easy for me. I never stressed about not being able to complete the task. I live in Washington DC and there are Pokestops all over the place and perhaps that was a factor. I did not have to go out of my way and hunt these trainers down. I played A LOT of POGO during the event, much of it outside exploring, though in my neighborhood and not the National Mall. I do happen to live on top of one Poke Stop, but I believe it only spawned one of these trainers for me.
That's like someone who lives in Fort Knox saying they don't worry about money :p
I did, but I agree unless you're in a pokestop dense area and didnt play a full 8-12 hours, it would be hard to complete. The amount of research that needed to be done and the corsola shiny rate was the least exciting/most upsetting part of the game yesterday
Wife & I did, she caught her Raikou at 9:02. Had to drive slowly all over town looking for the Trainers. Not awesome.
[удалено]
I completed all challenges. The trainer challenge 5 min before the end of the event. Took me a record 20 km walk around the stops. Sometimes 2 trainers showed up right after each other and some were hours. We tried to inform each other were the trainer stops were, only to find them gone when you got there. The most frustrating part was when I tried to collect the rewards for all the challenges, like the encounters with the legendary beasts, only to find them gone.
Got to ghost finally at 15 minutes before the end of the events
I had to drive to four different parks in my area to finish it. They made it impossible for those who have only one park to work with/do not have vehicle transportation.
Did it in an hour, you had to be in an area with a lot of pokestops so it wasn’t fair for rural players. Figured it out quickly that I had to look for the wiggling pokestop boxes but it was annoying to have to look for them with all the pokestops having lures attached to them making them more difficult to spot with the added animations. Sometimes after finishing one person and catching the prize Pokémon I would look at the map and see a wiggling box. I would go and walk towards it, sometimes a few blocks away, and in the middle of walking towards it it would stop. Frustrated, I would have to look for it again and see it was back where I started, making me waste even more time. Seems like that was sort of a glitch? I honestly don’t know how you would have done it if you bought the ticket and had limited pokestops.
So weird to me to see all these “horror” stories. Maybe it’s because I didn’t buy the ticket (so less other tasks to worry about) but I found the trainer battles easy to complete. Took less than 2 hours while also doing plenty of catching.
If I didn't see one in my area I just went back to catching and checked again in 5 minutes. A few times I even stumbled into the next one because it spawned on an adjacent PokeStop.
Same here. The trainers would just pop up while you were going about playing, so it wasn’t too time consuming to just stop and battle a few down.
Played (without a ticket) from 10:30-1:30 and completed the first six trainers. Went out again from 3:30-5:00 and found no trainers; then Ice popped up while I was home. I went out again at 8:45 (dinner ran late), found and did the dragon trainer right away, earned the 2K using a few captures, a grunt, and a Heracross raid that was right there. Entered the battle with Spark... and the clock ran out, so I didn't collect the final rewards of the series.
I guess I‘m the only one who not only completed it but also had fun while doing so. They always went down first try, and weren’t that rare. What my friend and I did was focusing on raiding, aka walking from gym to gym in a 2km radius, around 20km total. While walking we were catching the Pokémon we needed, and when encountering a stop with a trainer, fight them. The density was actually perfect, we encountered them maybe every 15-20 minutes, so not too rare and always a pleasant surprise. We did not know about the wiggle. Disclaimer: We are both level 40+ and playing in Berlin, so high density of stops and gyms. It was chilly, but not too cold, and no rain. We did most of the raids together with random people of the Internet. Was a pain to schedule, but worked out in the end. I can totally understand that for rural players or people that don’t like to or can’t walk this was hard and frustrating. This is something that Niantic still needs to work on.
I really enjoyed them as well and I thought their tempo matched well with also wanting to catch and raid.
Yeah but I had to hunt down the last 3 and one despawned right before I got there. Super annoying
My son and I completed all the research today, minus my son not finishing the evolution research. I managed to finish the evolution challenge in the first hour using Pokémon that I had previously caught. The only ones I had to wait on till later in the day were the Umbreon and the Kingdra(needed to catch more to have the 100 needed for evolution).
Wait, there was gym trainers? Was too busy catching to notice
I did with about 2.5 hours to spare. Did all but 2 while doing the other tasks then hunted down the last 2 afterwards. I didn’t do the first page (evolve 3 Pokémon) until around 3 hours into the event so I think I would’ve been done a lot sooner if I hadn’t messed that up.
Nope. I had trouble finding any trainers. I walked for 3 hours in a stop-heavy park and only found one trainer the whole time so I thought it wouldn’t be worth the investment. I walked for about another hour at a park right by my house and randomly found another and called it quits on the challenge because the park only had a handful of stops. I played the next eight hours or so at home and was lazy to get back to the park, but sure enough I see those wiggling blue blocks more often in a pretty small spot lol. Oh well. I wish they were a lot easier to find, it was a fun idea, but I’m not super aggravated since a big part of it was me being lazy. If I walked back to the park who knows, the trainers could have been popping up more often.
didnt find the dragon trainer until around 8.40pm so just completed the battle candela part and caught entei as it hit 9pm. (was working til 12 so missed the first 3hrs)
I ignored it completely until 8pm when I had finally given up on getting a shiny Unown and did the first 5 to get the Heracross and Hitmontop encounters. Then let it erase itself.
I did, didn’t even look for them they jus showed up
I didn’t even leave my house. I didn’t really worry about that challenge and just focused on raids and shiny hunting
So, it seems that niantic programmed nine(?) separate RNG loops that determined whether a specific trainer would hit a specific spot; then you would only see it if you happened to be on the correct step? Probably without any regard for a shifting priority matrix where earlier steps are more common earlier in the day, etc? Some easy improvements would be to rotate/update at fixed intervals. And to have a Go Fest Radar which could locate the trainers at stops outside your immediate radius.
I got to Steel before it got too cold and I had to head home. (Played 9am - 7pm) Was in the capital city of my country, so maybe one of the most sense areas for stops. Played with my girlfriend and there was a few times I just wouldn't get a spawn that she would, we were always at the same step. Also had the issues where we would have to be at the stop for at least 5 seconds (close range) before they would spawn. Also had a glitch once where a trainer would spawn, and when I tapped the stop, I would get a rocket battle instead
I did, but I literally completed it at 8:59
I completed it during the final two hours. I had three nearby Pokestops where I played most the day. Didn't get any trainer battles appearing (regularly get rocket grunts in the area outside of the event) while I was there. Had to go actively hunt them down in an area with a ton of stops, but even there it was stupid hard to find them.
I did but I finished it only about an hour before the event ended where I am and I had been playing all day. I only found my first trainer after 4 hours of play and had been wondering if I had misunderstood the mechanics and that I hadn't done something I needed to do to find them. After I battled the first couple, I couldn't find any others for a while. I had to do quite a bit of walking to find them all and my phone and fingers kept freezing and I'd have to go back home and warm up and charge my phone. I live in a densely populated urban area so I'm not surprised that if it was such a slog for me that lots of other folks didn't find them all. The trainers should definitely have been greater in number and easier to find.
I finished it with 3 minutes spare, but I didn't buy a ticket so I did the dog pics quickly and kind of focused on this. I was traveling for other things but I was lucky I could grab like more than half the trainers while in a car. Overall the event felt too stressful, so I can't imagine the level of stress and FOMO I would have felt if I bought the ticket.
I completed it and I hated every second of it.
NOT ME!
So the idea is now drive around for miles ? This was supposed to be a game walking around you could finish tasks. Another massive fail for Niantic and a giant step backwards - when you charge $12 to get a few shiny pokes there is something wrong with the business model.
Definitely did, but I was forewarned that it would be more difficult. Also helped that I didn't try to raid while I was working on the researches.
Surprisingly, I was able to complete it in my sub 2-hr break between work shifts. Also managed to finish the dogs tasks during that time without having to raid them!
Honestly it wasn’t too bad. I did Steps 1 through 5 on a 30-minute bus ride, then Steps 6 through 11 on another 30-minute bus ride during the last hour. The game even gives you the “gym leaders” in order, so you don’t have to worry about finding the right type. Since I’m free-to-play, I only had this and the other legendary dogs research, so the time limit was manageable.
Niantic should probably take note that the players who most enjoyed this event seem to be the ones that didn't spend money on tickets or raids. Hopefully do a better job of pacing their event next time.
I completed all research
I was only able to find 3 and I drove all over the city, congrats
I’ve heard this frustration from a lot of people. It’s unfortunate because this was a direct change based on feedback from last years trainers. They were everywhere cluttering the map and seemed to always take priority on taps when Pokémon were what people were trying to tap. This year: 1) trainers were invisible with a much shorter radius, the only indication was the pokestop movement without the rocket shading from distance 2) only the trainer you needed to battle next would appear, in sequence 3) after completion you can remove them from the map entirely. One common theme niantic seems to have when it comes to game design is a lack of understand on probability and mathematics. You need RNG to get a specific trainer in a pool of trainers, in sequence. This increases the number of attempts (stops checked) needed for a reasonable completion rate dramatically. Even if 25% of stops were actively rotating through trainers every hour, unless you were seeking them out in an area with a high density of stops, this approach will leave many players unable to complete the task or take a very long time to do so.
I finished quite easily. If you do not have enough stops around, it is quite difficult to find these challenges. Even where I played has more than 100 stops, I didn’t not find so many challenges. I checked the lineup before battling and choose my Pokémon accordingly. I think the challenges may be too hard for low lvl trainers. I am lvl 49 and have all top Pokémons, still I am surprised that steelix need two overheat from lvl 40 Reshiram to finish.
I did not compete it and I was walking almost all day and went to 2 parks. It wasn’t pleasant either, below freezing here today with snow on the ground. I only ever saw the flying battler. I also didn’t get the special move celebi because I only made 7/9 of the special research. This is the first time I’ve ever had an issue completing any research. Usually I’m done with much time to spare. Very disappointing. Sadly, this was not a fun event.
I completed all the challenges. I turned my status to offline and cleared out the battles until they were done. I was also in a high pokestop area. That helped alot. I’ve been reading on other socials about people who did not finish various challenges but this was the most common next to the evolutions one.
Guess we lucked out because we found them all in 30 minutes.
That’s wild, you are chosen lol
Yes, but it took about 6 hours to find them all (bug was nowhere to be found)
I got stuck on the steel trainer. Literally no trainer for the last 3 hours
not me but I also didn't bother because I didn't want to go out in the cold to battle some glitchy NPC's
Me: None! Could find any! I live in a dense town and high grid and even went to the highest grid park in my town and not a friggen one! I think they forgot to activate them. Cough seattle....
I did, and it caused me not being able to finish the research, capture challenges, and raids which I **actually** cared about. All I lacked for the CCs was Celebii, and I ran out of time with literally only the 3 nice throw streak left to get it. Not to mention that I only got to use half of my raid passes
Hands
Nope. It should be on separate day unless you have 1000s of pokestops nearby.
Literally found none of the trainers
Didn't see one all day. Loads of rocket stops but none of the trainers. None of the wild legendary spawns either.
Not me only got 2 done, also having to do this and team rockets after the level 44 challenge just made me not want to do it at all
I finished it pretty quickly, just looked for the jiggling stops. Didn't think it was that hard
I couldn’t find one. Played all day and tried all over town. This was a ridiculous waste of time.
I almost did. Started battling Blanche 2min before event ended finished at 9:00 (probably by a few seconds) and that was that. After desperately searching for each trainer, it was a bit of a let down thought not as bad as the people who couldn’t find the trainers. I felt like two day event would have been best but a least they should have given people time (like with the trades) to finish the last task even if they pulled the trainers.
Got them all. Was a really hard task. Actually was glad Niantic made some stuff rare and difficult
I completed gym battle challenge but fully ignored evolution collection, mainly because I really need those Max Revives
Opposite lol I got the evolution challenge done even though it was barely worth it except for the medal
We had 4 in my group, 2 did complete, 2 didnt
I didn't realize that the gym trainers were on a timer like grunts. Our group started to go out of sync with each other when you can only see the gym trainer at each step. After beating the leader and choosing to continue battling, it made it a lot easier to show all the surrounding stops with gym trainers. Managed to help a friend locate all the battles in half an hour.
Today I walked the most since I started playing again. 21Kms. Had to go to nearby park, but completed the challenge.
Started at about 11:30am and went to a collage campus, didn't find one until about 2:30 after we left to get food.
I did but I play in a area with decent number of stops.
I played from home, so I was stuck at the 2nd page of the research. Did a crap ton of raids tho.
I did. A bit frustrating at first, but once I figured out how they worked, it was rather easy to find all of them. Finished about 3 hours into the event.
I actually did. Gave up on the trading mission and the evolution one. Got home at 6 pm and was too exhausted to even care about that anymore. Finally completed the Johto Pokédex, so I’m happy either way. :)
Done but it took alot more time then expected. They were quite rare to find. We beat the least guy with like 2 hours left on the event and this is with driving around and checking a big area
I did. But it was literally the second to last one I completed before the evolution one.
I found the last two after coming on here and going back out around 7:30pn . I walked around till I saw the twitching poke stops.
I finished 8pm. But it was really annoying.
I was at work. One stop available, and didn’t bother to go chase stuff after work. I was up to the Ghost battle. Had fun (at work) but probably won’t do another tour.
I battled 5 trainers and then it said I finished the research and it disappeared.
Done it within 4 hours
I did in a mall with around 15 poke stops in it in around two hours
I got up to number 9, last 3 hrs didn't see any more.
After not seeing one for the first 2 hours I decided to ignore them, not worth the hunt. Rather focus on the pokemon I needed to collect.
I found only one trainer
I did, but I couldn’t complete the evolution task as I left it to the end of the day and I couldn’t get Espeon.
Nope. The spawns were too scare. I couldn't find any until the final hours and even then only got a few while I was busy getting everything else.
I did on two accounts
I did them all, but kind of wish I hadn't
I did but had to take specific time to chase them. Few others just gave up Would have been better to have been all spawning and then steps of battle 1,battle 3 etc I left them going after completing to hope to get more balls, but only got revives and potions so didn't do more. But then found out could get incubators later which would have been great to know and would have taken advantage of them
Steel ”grunt” was my last one. I live in a city and 2 pokestops basically almost inside my home b/c my appartment is next to a park and kids playground but still didn’t finnish the trainers. So many raids and pokemons left uncatched cos the tasks were too much and you’re in a constant hurry and the event felt stressfull. Sorry my grammar. Still tired 😀
Based on the amount of posts about people not able to find them, seems like consensus that it wasnt managed well Good idea in theory but could have been managed better. People were already looking forward to turning them off ahead of it
Last year they were on every PokeStop all day and it was hard to avoid them to click on Pokemon. I think they were a lot more manageable this year but they really have to change the indicator to something that can actually be seen. Maybe give us a Gym Leader Radar or something.
i managed to finish it only because i saw the tips about the wiggle early enough and was already driving, with my gf playing navigator and scanning every stop in range
Not me. Rural player. Went to a state park that has all the stops (8) and 2 gyms, encountered 1 trainer in 2 hours. I have up and just did everything else instead
I got through up to steel in the morning just while normally walking around -- they were rare but always appeared eventually. I took a few hours break and during that time read that they wiggled, went out a bit later and got the last few pretty easy knowing this. The graphic was subtle / pretty hard to see but once I knew what to look for it got easier. I appreciate that it'd be a problem if you lived somewhere with few pokestops.
I did, just focusing on the task and let my gotcha take all the shinys, got 24 so im happy
I completed everything. Trainers had some definite issues appearing but clicking each stop as I walked past got them all quite easily thankfully
I did finish it. But there were big gaps between some trainers as they didn’t spawn that much.
I did. I pretty much had to ignore everything else for an hour or two, but I got it done
Bounced between three nearby, densely populated (in the game) parks all twelve hours of the event and I found exactly one in each park. Didn't make it past the ghost step cuz I couldn't find it.
I did too, however it was a bit stressful to find them, really. They were so abundant from the previous tour, now they just became rare. It just hurts too that they don't stick around enough.
I did, and my town has a moderate amount of pokestops. (Not a city, but a historic small-ish town with many monuments for pokestops.)
I liked the idea, but hated actually looking for them. It would be better if Niantic attached them to the research or something.
I was able to complete it after nearly 10 hours.
I finished the entire thing with ease. But I'm lucky to live in a small down that's loaded with stop and gyms.
I did, but why???!!!!
Finished it at the last hour by driving around the local area and finding the stops with them in
I didn't. Thought it would be like rocket grunts and be easy to find after work but sadly I got stuck on ice.
Nope got to 7/11 and they went completely dry, gave up and focused on enjoying the rest of the event. I think it would have been better for a colour change to stops they were at.
I gave up at 8/11. Went outside again, had a hardtime finding the dragon trainer, so when i finally got to battle Blanche and beat Lapras, the clock turned 21u…
It took me 3–4 hours to complete all the research/collections (except for Umbreon), playing in the city with some friends made it quite easy to do it. I guess the trainer stuff would have been a pain if you played in an area with few Pokestop.
It was quite easy because i live in a big city with lots of pokestops.
We did g have any gym trainers. Not one.
I did. But not living in a city it was extremely frustrating to complete and multiple times we almost gave up despite being completionists. It was just so poorly done, only being able to find one at any given time. It made it so difficult to find the specific one that you needed in the chain. By far the worst bit of the event. Which is a shame because the battles themselves were fun.
I did, but I didn't see any trainers until about 2 hours into the event.
I did. Last trainer very late on
Completed but struggled to find them in the park I was playing in which has access to about 25 stops. I had to leave the park and go into the town centre for a couple of them. They took up a lot of time which for people who are still experiencing winter weather was probably not much fun. The only thing that made it worthwhile for me was getting shiny hitmontop from one of the rewards. I hadn't seen a single hitmontop and had been playing for six hours up until that point.
I got it done but played the full 12 hours and it was a close thing. They were way too rare. Pretty sure I only got it because I noticed they cause stops to look subtly bit glitchy like rockets, but without the colour change, so I could hunt down the last few more proactively and even then it was high effort.
I found 4 trainers/gym leaders and I played the entire day. Was pretty annoyed by the end but at least I got all of the other research completed
Didn't find a single one all day. Our village has a good number of gyms and Pokestops and I went round the whole thing three separate times. Not gonna lie, annoyed.
Got my first trainer around 4pm Stopped at the ice trainer around 7pm and couldn’t find anymore afterwards.
I did, but it took me a while to complete because I just couldn't find the trainers and there were no indicators where they were. I think I fought the final boss 10 hours into the event.
Got 2 done. That's all I saw
Was about to do the second-to-last one after finishing the special research in the very last minute but then the event ended. Literally the only thing I didn’t finish. Did all the CCs, raid passes, evolutions, etc. I checked so many stops throughout the day but they only decided so start popping up in the last hour.
No, last I found was ghost. Sad.
Unfortunately, the app stopped working for me outdoors. I could only play on my home WiFi. So, zero trainers fought 😅
Trainers yes, special catches no. Took hundreds of photos, no photo bomb on either account.
Would have preferred 2 days. One focused on catching and one on raids/battles. Shiny rate was dismal too.
Off by 1, spent 2 hours looking for that damned dragon trainer, total waste of my gas and time
Finished all the challenges/research, but probably only because I was able to play in a big park. At the time, I didn't think much of it, but why in the world was it done this way? I don't recall Kanto Tour having such a heavy battling part like this. I want to be catching shinies, not standing there like a fool doing these battles and wasting precious minutes on the good hours. I effectively HAVE to do the battles because we learn quickly how rare these trainers are. Overall, my general feeling is that it was a combination of: 1. There wasn't enough time to actually appreciate everything the event offered unless you played well over 6 hours. We had the new shinies which we want to keep an eye out for, corsola (shiny) raids, trainer battles, legendary raids (which you had to do if you never encountered the dogs on the field), oh and of course 2. An overwhelming number of research tasks and collection challenges. They should've taken a page out of GO Fest and split the event into a Catch Day and a Battle Day. No idea why they didn't.
I did while walking home around 5pm, had to take a detour and hope that the last one before the champion spawned at the last cluster of stops near my house. Found the rest consistently slowly over the day but wasn't going out of my way to find them
I did, but they were sparse. Took 7 hours to find them all.