Everyone used to love the EX Raids, because of how exclusive they were, how you had to plan around it, and guess what, if you couldn't, oh well. I had missed quite a few EX raids even when I had passes because I couldn't be there at that time, or I couldn't get back to that specific gym.

Niantic is clearly trying out EX raids again and I think it's great! It's bringing back some sort of exclusivity without being behind a payroll (which is what people complain about, non-stop). Also, with making it just EX Raid gyms, it seems they're trying to get the actual COMMUNITY back together.

Today was the first time in a while I saw a dozen or so people standing outside their cars talking prior to the raid happening. Talking about their accounts, and talking about going to the next gym a few miles away.

Having the separate times was Niantics way of hoping to get everyone, regardless of a job or school, this exclusive Pokémon. They could have and probably should have, made a 10am raid as well, that could have helped a lot of people.

People want guarantees with everything. That's why they released the master ball. At least we had multiple times and locations. You used to wait to get a raid pass for an armored mewtwo, just for it to run away and have no chance until you got another EX pass. If they made it a guarantee catch, they might as well make every raid a guarantee, screw it, every pokemon a guarantee.

Next complaint is going to be "seriously Niantic? I drove 3 minutes to an EX raid, sat there by myself because I didn't want to reach out to my community's facebook/discord/reddit/Twitter group, and you couldn't even guarantee me a SHUNDO??"