Niantic
Niantic announced that Pokemon Go is in the process of being updated to version 0.91.1 for Android and 1.61.1 for iOS. However, research by Pokemon Go fansite The Silph Road dug into the APK file and found some interesting info under the hood.
Here are the patch notes provided by Niantic:
Improved the in-game News feature. The Pokémon Collection search function now lets Trainers search using “Shiny.” Various bug fixes and performance updates.
As Niantic said, you can now see all your shiny Pokemon together by using the search tool on the Pokedex list page. The new News section prioritizes unread news and then marks them as read according to The Silph Road
But according to The Silph Road, many more changes than that have happened. The biggest bit of info they uncovered is evidence of a new quest functionality. These quests appear to incorporate all of the existing mechanics of Pokemon Go and may even have different difficulty levels depending on Trainer Level.
Previously, the daily spin/catch bonus was called a “Quest” in the APK file according to the website. The section has since then been updated quite extensively. From the data they looked up, there appears to be two types of quests appearing: story quests and challenge quests. The list of quests has been expanded from two to 10. Here is the list of quest objectives:
QUEST_FIRST_CATCH_OF_THE_DAY QUEST_FIRST_POKESTOP_OF_THE_DAY QUEST_CATCH_POKEMON QUEST_SPIN_POKESTOP QUEST_HATCH_EGG QUEST_WALK_BUDDY QUEST_FEED_POKEMON QUEST_WIN_GYM_BATTLE QUEST_COMPLETE_RAID_BATTLE QUEST_LEVELUP_BADGE QUEST_MULTI_PART
The Silph Road also found a list of quest attributes:
Creation Timestamp Completion Timestamp Rewards Status (Active / Completed) Multipart Context Seed Goal
The website also found references to quest characters such as Professor Willow as well as character expressions known as UNSET and HAPPY.
They also found data suggesting that some quest may be gated behind certain prerequisites such as having to earn a medal, achieve a certain Trainer Level, or even having to complete a different quest.
It’s important to note that none of this has been officially confirmed yet. The Silph Road even said that the mechanics are not live with the new update and that it’s unknown how long the feature will take to launch.
In addition to the possible quest functionality, The Silph Road found evidence of new Pokedex display buttons for Deoxys and Castform to possibly toggle between the different forms of the two Pokemon. This is the latest bit of evidence for the inclusion of Deoxys. The last we saw was visual effect files for its signature move, Psycho Boost, being in the 0.81.1 version of the game back in November 2017.
The Silph Road also found changes regarding the Energy Bar in combat. They found the attributes CURRENTBAR and MAXBARS and found a new “key” system that reportedly keeps track of the bars’ progress. They theorize that this is a better way to avoid the bar progress becoming out of sync. They said that it could also point at multiple energy bars.
They also found functionality to check for device support. This comes after the announcement that devices without iOS 11 won’t be supported by the game.
Finally, the site found that the game store’s the player’s latitude and longitude in a new attribute. They theorize that this could be for anti-cheat measures or part of a future feature.
The Silph Road previously discovered that the Community Day event last January boosted the rate of catching a Shiny Pikachu. Niantic announced that a second Community Day event is happening on February 24, so we’ll have to see if the shiny rate for the exclusive Dratini is boosted as well.
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