On October 17th, 2023, Niantic debuted a new Pokémon GO feature: Party Play. This feature allows groups of up to 4 trainers to see each other on the map and earn extra bonuses for playing together. Currently, the bonuses include a raid damage boost and rewards for completing Party Challenges.
During recent events, I have had the opportunity to try out Party Play with my friends. While it was a tad bit buggy, the overall experience was pretty smooth. My friends scanned my QR code and suddenly I could see them on the map, which was extremely cool. That is probably the best aspect of Party Play right now, however. Once the party began, my friends and I started working on challenges, however, we quickly discovered that the rewards were comedically underwhelming—Make 20 Excellent Throws for 1 Max Potion, Walk 3 km for 2 Pinap Berries, Catch 21 Pokémon with Weather Boost for 2 Hyper Potions, etc. The raid damage boost implementation also seemed unnecessarily tedious—you have to click a button to activate Party Power, then click on your charge move. While it worked more often than not, sometimes the Party Power button wouldn’t work and I would waste valuable time trying to click it. Overall, the party experience was pretty cool, however, the current rewards and bonuses may not be enough for me to consistently remember to start parties once the novelty of seeing my friends on the map wears off.
Needed Improvements
Party Play is a very promising feature with an incredible amount of potential. These are some ways Niantic could help this feature reach its full potential.
Increase the Party Size Limit
My main friend group includes 5 trainers. If we are all walking together at the same time, then we will either have to split into 2 parties or exclude 1 person, neither of which is very appealing. Since many people walk in groups of more than 4 trainers, I think the party size limit should be increased to 6 trainers—big enough to accommodate most friend groups, yet still small enough that your party will always feel like one cohesive group.
Better Party Challenge Rewards
Currently, the Party Challenge rewards are simply not good enough to motivate me to start a party. At the very least, Niantic should make the effort/reward ratio of Party Challenges equivalent to that of field research tasks. Perhaps they could even reward encounters with desirable Pokémon. Also, any challenge of the form “Walk X km” is soul-crushingly boring and should be removed.
Make Party Power Easier to Use
In its current form, Party Power is a hassle to use in raids. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t. Since there is little reason to hold off on using Party Power, it should just be automatically applied to your next charge move as soon as the meter fills up.
Invite Players on your Friend List
Instead of having my friends scan a QR code every time we do a party, it would be nice if I could just invite them from my friend list. This invite could pop up on their screens the same way that trainer battle challenges show up.
More Bonuses
Party Challenges and Party Power are a good start, however, I think Niantic has only begun to scratch the surface of ways Party Play can encourage people to play the game together. Adding more bonuses would allow Party Play to reach its full potential.
Conclusion
While flawed, Party Play is an incredibly promising feature with immense potential to bring people together. I look forward to seeing the improvements Niantic makes to Party Play going forward.