New Pokémon Go Bonus Hour Experiments

Every so often, Pokémon Go conducts experiments of new events or sub-features of events. Some of these have the potential to (and do) become mainstays after the experiment, such as Raid Hour and Spotlight Hour. This month, Pokémon Go is doing or has done a few more experiments, all of them on Thursdays and of which one takes place today. There's some importance in exploring and discussing them, and that becomes the objective of this post.

Two weeks ago, the first experiment was conducted in the form of "Go Rocket Hour". During that time, Team Go Rocket balloons became present at a very quick interval: 12 minutes, the fastest yet. In certain previous events, the interval had been reduced to 2 hours from 6 hours, but because this obviously has to take place within the hour, it had to be within minutes instead. For those confined to certain places and are looking for Mysterious Components to make a Rocket Radar, this could be considered to be very helpful, though I've heard from others that they'd like to see them at PokéStops as well since they have greater mobility. It may be that the experiment has to try this the next time around, but even with just balloons, this experiment already has value and can stand to be repeated, perhaps with, say, a quicker turnaround of 10 minutes. In general, the idea can be extended to certain limited events as well, not necessarily just an hour's worth of time.

The very next week, there was a "Mega Candy Hour". In this experiment, the bonus Candy gained by catching Pokémon of the same type as a Mega-Evolved Pokémon was increased. From what I can discern, however, the response to this experiment seems to be lukewarm tending to cold, either because others did not have a Mega-Evolved Pokémon at the ready or are unwilling to spend hard-earned Mega Energy for a bonus period of only one hour, and I can understand. The "bonus" can seem to be more easily made up when it becomes convenient to do so, particularly within the span of time of a Mega Evolved Pokémon. This "bonus" is also likely not to survive with a length of one hour, in similar vein to the "Mystery Bonus Hours" of the past (now not so much a "mystery" and integrated with Spotlight Hour), but could stand to be implemented as part of certain events, perhaps Go Fest or even Community Day. It seems to be only lucrative when it is worth it.

Then there was today, with the experiment for today being "Mega Raid Hour". As can be expected, this experiment marries the Raid Hour framework with level 5 Mega Raids, with available Gyms hosting them instead of level 5 Legendary Raids. I participated in this, and I can say that the experiment may help those who are seeking Mega Energy. This may be good for encouraging Trainers to raid the level 5 Mega Raids, though one downside that I can see is that some Trainers may not want to raid certain Pokémon when they appear, especially if a mixture of them is involved, as with times that multiple Legendary Pokémon in raids appear. Although helpful, I can see this being repeated only every two weeks instead of the weekly Raid Hour, depending on the response of others. It still has a certain value and worthy of further editions with improvements like limiting the possible Pokémon involved to just one or two, allowing for a more targeted approach.

All of these experiments have proven their worth - or not - and at least some of these may be reimplemented as they are or with modification for inclusion in other events or to make them more viable. The viability of later editions seems to be the thing that Trainers are most expectant about, because by then the experiments can be considered to be a mainstay and something that Trainers of Pokémon Go can count on for their efforts.

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