Pokémon Go to have Elite Raids that don’t sound very player-friendly

gamepur.com:

There have been several questionable additions to Pokémon Go by developers Niantic, but the recently announced Elite Raids seem to take the cake for the boldest and most anti-player gameplay mechanic introduced yet. The first Elite Raid to arrive will appear this Sunday, October 16, featuring Hoopa Unbound.

How an Elite Raid will work is similar to the previous one, three, and five-star raids already in the game. When an Elite Raid egg appears at a gym, it will take 24 hours for the egg to hatch before the raid Pokémon appears, and players can battle it. Therefore, an Elite Raid Pokémon will only appear for 30 minutes, and players can only enlist the help of those in proximity; no one can use a remote raid ticket to participate. Elite Raids will happen at 11 AM, 2 PM, or 5 PM depending on when the egg appears in a player’s local area.

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Players will undoubtedly find the length of time it takes for an Elite Raid to be obscene, especially if these follow the same mechanics of other raids. When a raid egg appears above the Gym, it essentially locks down the Pokémon players have placed into them, preventing other players from challenging them or taking it over. Everything freezes for the raid until the Pokémon hatches and is defeated. Normally, a raid egg takes an hour to hatch, and then it’s available for another hour. The Elite Raid freezes the Gym for an entire day, preventing players from doing anything with it until it’s defeated.

This type of format doesn’t sound too player-friendly in the grand scheme. We can see Niantic trying to make it community-centric by having specific times when these Elite Raids will be