Rejected Pokémon Go Route with over 90,000 uses highlights major issues with feature

Pokémon Go Routes are under fire once again after a popular one was removed by Niantic for some bewildering reasons. Moderation has been questioned and players have now asked the developers for a fix.

In a Reddit thread dated Sept. 10, a player reported the Route they had submitted, which had counted over 90,000 uses since its introduction, was suddenly rejected for being in an “inaccessible area.”

In response, players speculated that surprising rejections like this one have happened recently due to abusive reports made by numerous users.

“Most likely someone reported it since they didn’t get a Zygarde cell and got pissy about it… we’ve got a local player who does that where I am, and she keeps getting Routes nuked,” one player said. “Me and my fellow Route makers are becoming extremely reluctant to keep making Routes, because we don’t want to either A) be banned from making Routes or B) just flat out be account banned because we ‘abused the Routes feature.'”

In Pokémon Go‘s community forum, other players reported their Routes were rejected for the same reason, even though they had been completed by many players since their first approval.

Players are frustrated over this problem because they don’t have the means to fight abusive reports and aren’t sure it’s the real reason they’re being rejected in the first place. There’s also no way of making an appeal on a Route’s rejection, other than reaching out to the game’s support.

“Routes are a poorly-designed and managed feature and I really don’t see any point in putting any more effort into creating them if this is how it’s going to be,” one player complained.

These complaints add up to many others revolving around the feature. Introduced in July, Routes are customized paths players can create themselves that the devs either approve or reject. They’re supposed to encourage players to visit interesting areas near them.

The feature has been plagued by bugs, however. While some unsafe Routes have been approved, such as featuring paths on highways, others were rejected for reasons players don’t agree on.

To adult insult to injury. some players can’t earn the highlighted reward for completing Routes— Zygarde cells—thanks to them disappearing before they’re able to pick them up.

Despite players begging for a mix, Niantic has remained silent on the matter.