Recent changes to Incense made Pokemon different in many ways. A lot of people have not been able to enjoy Sunday Community Day.
On March 13, 2022, the March Community Day took place, with Sandshrew and Alolan Sandshrew as the main characters. On the surface, everything seemed normal, and fans of Pokemon GO who aren’t following the update may not even notice that something has changed. Of course, everything changed after using Incense, because that’s when you could see Niantic did something terrible.
It is worth recalling that the above mentioned changes have been in the game for 2 weeks. The Incense update went live on March 1, 2022, with the start of the new season and the introduction of the Alola region. Since then, players have been asking the developers to withdraw the unfortunate nerfs, because, according to many, the game is not as much fun now as it used to be (see: Pokemon GO players are complaining about the Incense changes. Should Niantic withdraw them?).
The worst Community Day?
The Community Days are mostly positive for Pokemon GO players. This is a good opportunity to catch a large number of shiny versions, collect candies, Stardust, or experience points.
Many players cannot always go for a few hours’ walk (whether it’s because of the weather, illness, duties, or anything else), so it was a good solution to use Incense, which lasted up to 3 hours during Community Days.
The old version of this item allowed you to attract 180 Pokemon in 180 minutes (each appeared every 60 seconds). The changes hit Incense really hard. Today Incense attracts the creature every 5 minutes, which is 12 per hour and 36 for 180 minutes. The difference is huge and it has been felt by everyone who has used this item in the last 2 weeks.
After the end of March Community Day, various threads and videos with similar titles started to appear on the Internet: “Niantic hates us”, “Worst community day”, “This really sucks”. Players complained that they had never caught so little creatures before, although they were using Incense as usual. Some ended Community Day with a very poor result without even exceeding 40 gains.
Of course, you have to remember that the above allegations only apply to the incense-related case. Those who played in the field and spent their time actively, probably did not feel any major changes, because the creatures appeared in many places.
Unfortunately, players who could not leave the house that day often had a hard time, because a heavily weakened Incense often prevented the completion of Special Research (mainly through the “catch 15 Sandshrew” tasks).