Pokemon Go vs Ingress

What I like about Ingress

You can make plans and follow them. You can say, "I have ten minutes, let me see if I can grab keys for these four many portals" or "Can I fill this hole in fielding". In pokemon, you can't really set out to *do* something most of the time.

There's a big incentive to visit different and out-of-the-way portals which is really interesting. Getting keys for them, or linking to them, mean the portals are *different*, not just "go to whichever ones are closest".

You can look up where's an interesting place to go to.

What I like about Pokemon Go

Filling the pokedex and collecting high-level pokemon gives you a form of progress which you can always increase. In Ingress, the only form of permanent progress was levelling-up, which was fun at low levels, but it was about conquering territory which was always transitory.

There's three teams, not two. I don't know why, but that seems to make it a lot more fun, both in how gyms change hands, and in meeting people.

The flavour is really nice, I love seeing different pokemon.

When you get to higher levels, there's not quite such a cliff of "now it's too hard to level up, and there's nothing else to do, there's no point".

Problems I'm starting to have with Pokemon

I've had a *lot* of fun with it. But I am starting to find some problems.

The new scanner sort-of works. It at least tells you what's within 200m. But it seems like that's not *totally* reliable. And it doesn't seem to tell you pokemon in order. But that means, I never have the satisfaction of tracking a pokemon methodically. It's either "walk along the river" or "rush backwards to establish the edge of the circle, then dash in one direction, and either frantically search around 200m from the first point, or reach another edge and triangulate". It's not a *fun* process, it's aggravating.

You don't play only at pokestops.

I mean, it's realistic that you don't get good intermediate indications of progress, you just have to try your best and then wait for success. But getting positive feedback is one of the things that makes games fun!

Now I have most of the pokemon which often spawn nearby, there's a lot less point going for a little walk and capturing some. I used to take a little wander, catch a few, come home. Now it's "go and see if there's a rare one, there isn't". Or, waste a bunch of pokeballs catching pidgeys I don't really need.

And it's hard to *work towards* filling my pokedex. ETA: Either someone tells you where a rare pokemon spawns, or you just wander around and hope. Either way, you get a random success for no reason, followed by a long period of failure.

So I may stop. But I wish it would become possible to start over, while being able to switch back to my original account occasionally. Like, in Ingress, having multiple accounts even if it took time to switch was a big advantage, because you could put multiple high-level resonators on a portal. But in pokemon, it seems like it wouldn't make that much difference. I'm sure I *can* start another account, but it would be nice if it was officially supported, "yes, that's what you're supposed to do, we won't ban you". Maybe with a built-in delay for switching or something.

Pokemon scanner maths puzzle

As best as I can tell, the pokemon go scanner reports whether a pokemon is within 200m or not. It updates about every 15s (?) When a pokemon is within about 50m (?) it appears.

My current strategy is, when I see a pokemon appear, continue in the same direction, assuming it's more likely I've walked into its radius than that it just spawned, and that it's more likely I've entered its radius closer to head on that obliquely. Mathmos, does that sound true?

If I walk about 200m and it isn't there, I try to curve round sideways. If it disappears again, I backtrack, and knowing two points approx 200m away from it, head for one of the points of those triangles.

But I'm wondering, would it be better that when I see it appear, I immediately turn sideways in the hope of finding two nearby points on the edge of its radius, and then extrapolate a point perpendicular to a line between them? That's harder, because it means I deliberately walk away from it. But maybe it would be quicker to narrow down where it is?

If there weren't a noisy gps and periodic updates, and those numbers were all precise, what would be the best strategy? It reminds me a little of Dr Leader's "you are trapped in a gladiatorial arena with someone who runs at exactly the same speed as you" puzzles, but hopefully simpler :)