A game-freezing Pokémon Go bug plaguing Party Play is leaving the community divided over the feature. While those affected are fuming over Niantic’s nonchalance, players who haven’t faced the bug are highlighting Party Play’s benefits over its issues—and it’s difficult to choose sides this time.
In a Reddit post dated Oct. 30, a player named u/LastandLeast urged players not to use the bugged Party Play feature, shedding light on an issue that had locked them and their friends out of Pokémon Go.
“I and my friends are currently locked into a party and stuck on a choose your challenge page,” they wrote. They also revealed they know a few players who were stuck for over four hours and that common workarounds like restarting the game, logging in from a different account, and even reinstalling the game did nothing to fix the issue.
Later as an update to the post, LastandLeast said they were able to get back in after the Party Play session ended in an hour. “All of us were logged off when the party ended and it freed us,” they said.
While many in the comments shared how frustrated they are with Niantic not bothering about such game-breaking bugs, others tried reminding them that every software program comes with its share of hiccups.
For me, a bug that resolves within a few minutes is acceptable, but having to wait for hours to get back into a game is a bit too annoying for my patience. Then again, if it’s a bug that isn’t affecting everyone, I’d ease up on the judgment.
But from a good look at the long thread of comments, it definitely doesn’t seem like the bug is affecting an insignificant number. According to reports, Niantic has even acknowledged the problem on Twitter and has been asking affected Pokémon Go players to wait for the session to end for the issue to go away.
One player claimed that Party Play has been glitchy for a week now, and Niantic has been less than helpful about it—as usual.
It’s not just this bug, but players are apparently not happy about the new Party Play Challenges, which have been made significantly harder to complete but remain no more rewarding than before. The new missions were released on Oct. 31, and the game-freezing bug came with it.
Well, Niantic definitely has a lot of fixing to do for the bugs affecting Pokémon Go’s Party Play feature, but the challenges are most likely going to stay the same—no matter the outrage.
