Pokémon Go Routes can now be submitted by all players who have reached level 40, but users are still concerned about the questionable review process by Niantic.
“It would help the community a lot more if they would speed up the approval process of those still under review,” wrote the top-voted comment under a Reddit thread sharing the news from Oct. 2.
They’re afraid delays for getting approval for Routes will only get longer due to widening the pool of players who can send suggestions, in addition to seeing more low-quality Routes being added to Pokémon Go.
In addition to expanding the pool of submitters, the developer brought quality-of-life changes to Routes, including listing more of them in the Nearby tab, adding directional arrows, and a count of Zygarde Cells collected.
Since their release in July, Routes have been controversial, as has their approval process. On July 25, dangerous or uninteresting Routes sparked complaints in the community.
In September, on the other side, players reported having their accounts suspended for submitting Route suggestions that weren’t accepted due to a policy to curb abusive submissions.
Niantic has adjusted the policy with gradual warnings, but now that many more players are able to submit Routes, some are afraid it will be adjusted again.
In the comments of the thread, players reported some of their worst Routes submitted were approved by Niantic “almost instantly” while others are still pending despite being objectively of higher quality.
Users have been complaining of other aspects of Routes, such as Zygarde Cell mechanics. Many players are still missing those precious items, which are randomly given while or after completing Routes, due to how they appear in the game’s overworld.
Further adjustments are planned to be introduced to Routes now that the feature is being expanded in Pokémon Go, though, such as further expanding the pool of players who can suggest Routes, more Zygarde Cells rewarded, more notifications, and other quality-of-life improvements.
