Trainers hoping to use the official launch of the Pokémon Go Battle League as a distraction from current events are going to have to remain patient because Niantic is working to fix some ongoing errors.
Season one of the Battle League launched at 3pm CT today. It was taken down 25 minutes later, however, due to players frequently being unable to find matches and how the ranks were reset for preseason players. The servers are back up, but Niantic could take them down again if the error persists.
This wasn’t a big issue in the preseason tests where Niantic was more focused on trying to eliminate players being disconnected and penalized with a loss or strategies that seemed to give certain Pokémon an edge in the online battles. But now, it looks like there will need to be even more fixes applied to the game before the Battle League is readily available again.
Players were reporting that each time they tried to match into a battle, they’d receive a notification saying “Error Finding Match” and be booted from the search. This also happened when two players matched up and the system tried to load into battle, which resulted in the error notification and battle cancellation.
As for the rank issues, Niantic accidentally adjusted ranks based on the wrong percentage, according to Pokémon database website Serebii’s Joe Merrick.
Due to the delay, the developer is increasing the number of battles that players can participate in from five to eight for the rest of the day. Further outages could happen as more errors pop up, but the service is live and functioning as of 4pm CT.
