Finally, Trainers, FINALLY

February 15, 2017 5:35 AM

Pokemon Go addicts, warn your spouses and work. Generation 2 will begin dropping sometime later this week, along with new Evolutions, new Encounter Gameplay, new Berries, new Avatars and Expanded Wardrobe.

Updates usually happen on Thursday, and the six hour lures have been extended until 6 hours until 4:00 P.M. PST on Saturday, February 18. GET HYPE.

posted by Brandon Blatcher (109 comments total)

Does this mark the beginning of spring?
posted by I-Write-Essays at 5:41 AM on February 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

In other mobile Pokemon news, Pokemon Duel is getting a balance patch tomorrow. (In particular, it seems like Mew is getting some significant buffs.) If you're not familiar with it, Pokemon Duel is a mobile revival of an old and poorly marketed (but excellent) Pokemon tabletop game, and worth checking out if you enjoy tactical board games with a risk-management element.
posted by NMcCoy at 5:46 AM on February 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

"Nanab Berries and Pinap Berries! Giving a Pokémon a Nanab Berry will slow its movements, making it easier to catch. The Pinap Berry doubles the amount of Candy you’ll receive if your next catch attempt succeeds."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:49 AM on February 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

OMG, I'm absurdly excited for this. My nephew turned 13 and made honor roll, so we're getting him a phone of his own on this Friday! I lose my poke-minion in the car, but I gain a full-time Instinct team member!
posted by gladly at 6:04 AM on February 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

Holiday weekend!
posted by k8t at 6:06 AM on February 15, 2017

I am about 95% ridiculously excited, 4% saddened that my local gyms won't stay a lovely sea of eternal yellow forever now, and 1% determined to get that bloody Lapras and complete my Gen 1 dex first. Off for a walk, brb...
posted by Catseye at 6:37 AM on February 15, 2017

OH noes, I am running out of space on my phone , and need to delete shiz for every stupid app update. I may as well start deleting pictures now.

Double OH noes, I only have .93 G of data left until Monday!

Triple Oh Noes, that link triggered my company's "this is definitely not a work website, you must be shamed for even trying to visit it!" button.

OTOH, we have Monday off, AND it's supposed to be in the 60's in the greater Chicago area!
posted by Fig at 6:48 AM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

I was just thinking that I might stop playing a little bit after the event finishes today. Guess not!
posted by dinty_moore at 7:01 AM on February 15, 2017

Also I thought I was close to getting all of the Gen 1 pokemon (I rarely see a new one out in the wild anymore), and then realized I was only at 123/238. Better walk more eggs!
posted by dinty_moore at 7:05 AM on February 15, 2017

I live in a stupid place so I suppose it's really all I can expect, but I've just become increasingly frustrated with the lack of variety in the pokemon I see. I'm just catching the same creatures over and over again, my pokedex is expanding at a slowpoke's pace, and I really don't care about evolving my 20th eevee. I'd sort of lost interest in playing although I have been trying to catch some pink things. I'm excited about this new update but I will defer judgement until I see how many of the new beasties are actually available to me to catch out here in this stupid place that I live.
posted by the turtle's teeth at 7:21 AM on February 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

OK sure, but if I play this do I get Fire Emblem orbs?
posted by selfnoise at 7:30 AM on February 15, 2017 [7 favorites]

Is it still impossible to tell which way you should go to find a pokemon that's not inside your interaction radius?
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:43 AM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

So I stopped playing last week. I was on a hike, and had the phone out because there was full service on this mountain and a ton of pokestops for all the POIs on the trail. There was a ton of Geodudes and Shelders everywhere, which are rare at my usual haunts. Of course before the hike finished my phone died, even though I had it on battery saver mode. When I got back to the car I plugged it in the car charger and it wouldn't charge, and wouldn't turn on anymore. I left it plugged in for the entire hour ride home, and tried it again and it still wouldn't turn on. I contacted my service provider through email and after some instructions I got into the boot menu, restarted it that way, and... it still wouldn't turn on. Finally it started flashing the Red Light of Death whenever I pressed the power button.

I had to request a replacement. I thought that was a giant sign that maybe I should stop playing this goddamn game.


But ok those berries sounds amazing and I might reinstall it on my new phone. God help me.
posted by numaner at 7:48 AM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

My wife is at level 36. We live next to a middle school in a kid-dense neighborhood, and she is constantly taking and retaking gyms from 12 year olds (sometimes she has 20 gyms at a time). They actually dropped support for my phone (an older Android) so I have an excuse not to play... otherwise I might have a lot less free time.
posted by miyabo at 7:52 AM on February 15, 2017

From Bulbapedia:

Junichi Masuda has stated in his director's column that the kanji that inspired the [Johto] name mean "castle palace" (城都) or "lattice-shaped palace" (条都); this meaning is connected to the city of Nara, which was the basis for Violet City. Johto has a very traditional Japanese theme, which is portrayed in some of its settlements, including Ecruteak City and Violet City.
...
Johto is based on the real Kansai region in Japan. This trait is most noticeable in its geography; however, the Kansai influence also defines the culture in Johto.


Somehow I like the idea of Kansai pokemon. However, this new change is going to exacerbate the "hurry up hurry up there's a Lapras no wait wait wait" dynamic when there are pokemon players in our group.
posted by kurumi at 7:58 AM on February 15, 2017

Still no trading, I need me a goddam Farfetch'd!!!
posted by Sternmeyer at 8:15 AM on February 15, 2017

I'm officially excited.
posted by joannemerriam at 8:31 AM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

So exciting! Keeping with my tradition of being behind the times in every way, I just started playing Pokemon GO last month. It's been a fantastic activity to share with my six year old daughter and it looks like we picked a really good time to come on board!
posted by 256 at 8:37 AM on February 15, 2017

I thought that was a giant sign that maybe I should stop playing this goddamn game.

Probably. Where are your gyms? Asking for friend.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:42 AM on February 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

Is it still impossible to tell which way you should go to find a pokemon that's not inside your interaction radius?

Yes. But the new tracker tells you what Pokemon are near a stop, so if you go to a particular stop showing a Veonat, you'll find said monster (assuming you get there in time). 'Cause who doesn't need more Veonats?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:48 AM on February 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm at 114 caught and 132 seen and it's a goddamned grind to get anywhere in this game. So far the best thing I ever did was have an extra couple hours when I had to head up to San Francisco for meetings and I managed to get about half a dozen new pokemon but otherwise it's mostly the same ones over and over again plus the grind of walking out eggs and buddy candies. Not to mention the futility of regionals - although someone did put a Farfetch'd in a gym nearby so at least I've seen one.

Eggs are a futile slot machine arm that I keep pulling in hopes of getting something useful but nope, just more of what I already have. And the 300km I'm going to need to walk to evolve Venusaur is a lot of 2 km dog walks.

I'm sure a lot of people are excited about new Pokemon but it's just more of the same and honestly doesn't actually help anyone find the rarer pokemon. I guess the Valentine's event did deliver me Lickitung so there's that. I figure I should give up and just organize a Pokemon trip and do what the game is designed to do - make me spend money.
posted by GuyZero at 8:49 AM on February 15, 2017

Ah, so there was a Valentine's Event! I was wondering why I'd suddenly stumbled upon ALL THE JIGGLYPUFFS. (Also a few Lickitungs, which is all well and good, but I really wanted Chansey or Porygon.)
posted by PearlRose at 8:51 AM on February 15, 2017

Also gyms, what a joke. There's an assortment of 3000CP Lapras, Dragonites and other massive pokemon camping at all my local gyms from trainers with names like "JoeFromChina" who I assume has a really great GPS spoofer.
posted by GuyZero at 8:51 AM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

the turtle's teeth, the jump for me and my spouse to go from enjoying walks and catching stuff (me) to going quickly up ranks, conquering and holding gyms, and filling the Pokedex was joining the local Pokemon Facebook group and their message group. They talk often about nests at local parks, when the nests shifted, what the new nests are, what good IVs are popping up...

I still like to go on walks (except when it is below freezing), but joining that group and their Discourse group got my husband from levels below me to levels above me. (It also helps that he has a Pokestop in range of his cubicle.)
posted by jillithd at 8:56 AM on February 15, 2017

Honestly, my wintertime issue is that the GPS location on my phone is horrible indoors, and most of my winter walking is through the skyway, so it constantly thinks I'm driving while I'm walking, or pokemon fade in and out while my Pokemon avatar teleports between my actual location and three blocks away.

But the GPS location does work fairly well while I'm on the local bus, where it stops every block, and that goes slow enough that it still thinks I'm wandering around. Which feels like cheating, but if it doesn't work when I actually am walking, it's really easy to justify.

Plus the battery drain means that I'm unlikely to want to play pokemon go if I'm walking around on errands or marching for a protest.

I stopped playing because of that in the beginning of November, and only picked it up again after spending some time in Florida at the start of the new year. It's been a mild winter, but still unpleasant enough that I'd prefer the human habitrail option over bundling up and going outdoors.
posted by dinty_moore at 9:25 AM on February 15, 2017

dinty_moore, if you like to hatch eggs or get miles on a companion, bad gps can be *great*. Plug the phone on and leave it running pokemon, and you can get quite a bit of km a day.
posted by tavella at 9:27 AM on February 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

I still play a bit, but only because A) My desk is near a pokestop, so I can just leave my phone on all night and spin it every now and then, and B) It does give me a reason to actually go out and walk during lunch when I am normally too lazy to do so just for the health benefits.

Otherwise, I simply cannot recommend to anyone that they try the game. It's not even really a game, in the sense that you can play it much at all. It's more like those Idle Games that fill up sites like Kongregate, where it's just a desktop toy that you occasionally interact with, except that it takes up all your memory and battery to run it and you can't, for example, easily listen to music or read while you walk for it.

Even here, what we're getting is... more berries that can allegedly make it easier to catch pokemon in some undefined way. It's taken them half a year just to add anything beyond the most rudimentary customization options to avatars, let alone the things that anyone who wants to play Pokemon really desires: trading and battling.

I mean, there's so many potential sources of interest for a game that has walking as a core mechanic. Just having more variety of "stops," like medical stops that did free healing, or training stops that could let you battle your pokemon *to increase their strength*. If they don't want to implement player-to-player location-based interaction for safety reasons, what about trading stops, where you leave a pokemon or item that can be claimed by an offer of another pokemon or item from another trainer, like Wonder Trades? Just friggin' anything, people. What about quests? Maybe some pokestops need items from you with XP as a reward. Or you have to take an item or a particular pokemon from one location to another nearby. This is literally just stuff off the top of my head, based on the most basic video game interactions from game history. I can't imagine it would be particularly difficult to gin up things like this, even with the most obstreperous and opaque code in the world.

I just wonder what could have been if they'd made an actual game that was interesting to play. I've experienced higher levels of interest just clicking on Kingdom of Loathing and grinding junk sprites for a hundred adventures.
posted by Scattercat at 11:26 AM on February 15, 2017 [8 favorites]

I don't think I'm having the right sort of GPS troubles for that, unfortunately. Mine are more dealing with GPS dead zones, so either my avatar stops walking while I'm still going, only to teleport a few minutes later to my current position (which seems to read as driving), teleporting for a brief second to a place three blocks away and then teleporting back (counts as driving/not walking), or all of the pokestops/pokemon disappear for a minute, and when they reappear, I didn't walk at all.

The three blocks teleportation thing is kind of useful, as it happens in the same spot every time and there's a pokestop there, but otherwise - Pokemon wasn't really created to be played inside of buildings, and I don't really have that much in an incentive to walk outside to a location that's half a mile away when I have the option to walk there and never go outside.

I mean, I'm lucky that my cold-weather city has aboveground walkways instead of the typical pedestrian tunnels, but either way, it's obvious that the biggest impediment to playing is that it's really hard to convince people to go outside when it's super cold out and they have other options, and they didn't really do much to help encourage people to remember the game through the winter months.
posted by dinty_moore at 11:37 AM on February 15, 2017

Even here, what we're getting is... more berries that can allegedly make it easier to catch pokemon in some undefined way

The press release makes it pretty clear that one of the new berries will make a Pokemon move slower, while the other new one will double the candy reward.

It's more like those Idle Games that fill up sites like Kongregate, where it's just a desktop toy that you occasionally interact with, except that it takes up all your memory and battery to run it and you can't, for example, easily listen to music or read while you walk for it.

The bug that dimmed your music has been fixed for several weeks now.

As to your other criticisms, even Niantic would agree with many of them. They're waaay behind schedule in what they hopped to have implemented, due to the popularity of the game. But supposedly trading and player vs player are coming this year, so patience. In the meantime, enjoy walking around your city or town!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:51 AM on February 15, 2017

It does give me a reason to actually go out and walk during lunch when I am normally too lazy to do so just for the health benefits.

This used to be my biggest reason to play. But then a half an hour break turned into 45 minutes just because I was spending way too long to catch pokemon or getting into the gyms around here. Now that I joined a Fitbit challenge with friends, I use that as my motivation to get out and walk and actually look at stuff around me instead of pokemon on the phone.

The berries sound great, but my biggest issue has always been how often even weak little Pidgeys popped out of the ball. I think when they address that I'd be more inclined to come back.
posted by numaner at 12:08 PM on February 15, 2017

And Ingress 2.0 is still supposedly coming "soon" just as it has been forever. grumble grumble Niantic
posted by neilbert at 12:23 PM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

Somebody on Reddit posted that the player numbers had gone from over a million to 53,000 (whether that's true isn't relevant) and slagged them saying "wow, some success". Given that the servers were melting down I'm sure the Ingress devs are perfectly happy with 90+% of their user base going away.
posted by GuyZero at 1:18 PM on February 15, 2017

They've made a butt load of money, so the number of players doesn't matter that much.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:26 PM on February 15, 2017

100% agreed, Scattercat. I keep thinking, they took Pokemon, which was a really good game, and Ingress, which Niantic basically built Pokemon on and which I also heard was really good, and took all of the good parts out of both of them, thereby making a game which successfully obeys COPPA laws and is completely crap once the novelty of seeing Pokemon in AR in your neighborhood wears off.

trainers with names like "JoeFromChina"

OMG, Bannon is investing in your local gym
posted by gusandrews at 4:36 PM on February 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm newly at Level 29. Caught 146 so far. So annoying that I never see Kangaskhan, Farftch'd, or Mr. Mime. 2 candies away from evolving Grimer. Hasn't been a whole lot of fun playing lately but it's something to do while I walk. How will I feel with new Pokemon? Ok yeah HYPED.
posted by soakimbo at 6:10 PM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

I found out about Gen 2 just after I finished walking my Machamp into evolution, and had only Muk and Aerodactyl (aside from the regionals and the three legendarily) to get. Since June I've been working at a school that's a 35 minute walk from the nearest train station, but I'll be leaving there at the end of the school year, so I'm not sure how much I'll keep playing after that. Without that walk to school, I'm sure I wouldn't have the gold medal for Jogger, and I probably would've abandoned the game a while back. I guess I'll keep going a bit longer with the new ones coming out, but I'm definitely more out than in at this point.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:16 AM on February 16, 2017

I should clarify that when I say "easier to catch in an undefined way" I mean "without actual numbers attached to anything." How much easier to catch? How much slower?

Pokémon was a game of numbers, albeit sometimes hidden on purpose, and comparing or manipulating those numbers was a major source of appeal for the whole thing. The lack of clarity for even basic game functions - my spouse just found out yesterday that it's possible to select multiple pokemon in the inventory and transfer them for candy simultaneously - is another major problem with the game.

I mean, I'm glad they're doing something. I just don't feel like it's enough.

(I get that new pokemon will help some folks get jazzed. I never played anything but Red/Blue, so everything after the first 151 is just a blur of irrelevance to my nostalgia glands.)
posted by Scattercat at 4:36 AM on February 16, 2017

he lack of clarity for even basic game functions - my spouse just found out yesterday that it's possible to select multiple pokemon in the inventory and transfer them for candy simultaneously - is another major problem with the game.

I'd recommend she follow the Niantic website, Twitter or Facebook page and enable "accept emails of events and updates".
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:26 AM on February 16, 2017

So annoying that I never see Kangaskhan, Farftch'd, or Mr. Mime.

I saw Kangaskhan and Mr. Mime in gyms, but I thought they weren't available in North America. I figured the players who put them there were just bragging about their intercontinental travels.
posted by gladly at 7:20 AM on February 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

I figured the players who put them there were just bragging about their intercontinental travels.

Or inadvertently revealing themselves as GPS spoofers.
posted by mushhushshu at 8:51 AM on February 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

Okay, I just did the update, and now my Pokemon have the masculine and feminine symbols on each of them. Is breeding going to follow? I don't know how I feel about that.
posted by gladly at 10:33 AM on February 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

Ask them what pronouns to use!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:39 AM on February 16, 2017 [5 favorites]

They're promised breeding from the beginning so yeah, I guess this lays the groundwork for that.
posted by GuyZero at 10:40 AM on February 16, 2017

I've got the update downloading now. I stopped playing months ago because 1) in my touristy area gyms are retaken every few seconds and it is not fun for me, and 2) all across the enormous city of Los Angeles there are still basically the same eight or so Pokemen. With the arrival of light rail to my house I thought it would be a great way to explore the city but nope. I'm looking forward to trying the new version.
posted by Room 641-A at 10:43 AM on February 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

How does breeding even work? Can I mix a Snorlax with a Dragonite and create the beast of my dreams?!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:43 AM on February 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

Pokemon breeding in the existing games... sounds like you get a couple pokemon together and eventually get an egg which will hatch a pokemon of the same type.
posted by GuyZero at 10:51 AM on February 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

But no, you can only breed similar pokemon.
posted by GuyZero at 10:52 AM on February 16, 2017

Does it have fun breeding animation like the Sims? My Pokemon interest may have just spiked.
posted by Fig at 11:00 AM on February 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

Well, my Sims interest just spiked.
posted by Room 641-A at 12:34 PM on February 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

And Ingress 2.0 is still supposedly coming "soon" just as it has been forever.

Ingress Community Manager Andrew Krug has dropped hints about April 1st. And Niantic does like that day. PoGO evolved from an April 1st prank, during Ingress's invite-only beta for Android, they dropped a fairly major backstory plot event on the April 1st of that year, and then a few years later they did the Pac Man easter egg in Ingress on April 1st. Seems as good of a date as any.

--------------------
But no, you can only breed similar pokemon.

For certain values of "similar". [Caution: TV Tropes link]
posted by radwolf76 at 12:59 PM on February 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's live! I just caught a... ladybird thing and a crow in a hat, it's going to take some time to learn the names. New shadows all over the place!
posted by Catseye at 3:15 PM on February 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

There's a sale on storage upgrades too, but I can't even get into the app right now. Boo.
posted by gladly at 3:39 PM on February 16, 2017

Yeah, the app has crapped out again. I'm kind of shocked this is still an issue.
posted by GuyZero at 3:57 PM on February 16, 2017

I got in and caught a couple of things (something vaguely raccoony and a bird?) But now everyone else apparently has noticed gen2 is live and it's so slow I'm not even having luck spinning the pokestops.
posted by tavella at 4:04 PM on February 16, 2017

I'm shocked this is still happening too.
posted by gladly at 4:10 PM on February 16, 2017

So fun - I see a new Pokemon right beside me! I tap it! The spinner spins! Error! The Pokemon disappears!

Thanks Obama Niantic!
posted by GuyZero at 4:12 PM on February 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's a little slow but not bad, considering the area. I'm excited to see a lot of shadows and I caught four Snubbles and a Slugma! I have a lot to read up on but I'll give it another go. Of course it's supposed to rain all weekend.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:00 PM on February 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

The new ones all look so...weird. And brightly colored! On the upside, I've added 15 new pokies to my pokedex today.
posted by gingerbeer at 10:10 PM on February 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

Added 42 new ones last night in mad dash around the city with several other adults who like chasing imaginary monsters.

The servers were wicked slow at first, but settled down after an hour or so. The massive influx of people probably overwhelmed things.

The new generation is odd. More brightly colored and with some really bizarre looks (Snubull), as if not much creativity went into some of the designs. Still fun to be catching new stuff amidst the War on Instinct, lol.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:12 AM on February 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

I think I live on top of a Snubbull nest, plus I just caught a Houndour. This is definitely fun again! Everyone seems a little friskier now; almost all seem to need a berry and/or a great ball to capture, and most seem to escape at least once now.

The biggest challenge so far is that I sort my Pokemon by number so I have to get used to where the new ones are in the list. I still need to read more, but I do have enough candy to evolve an Onyx. I'm going to try to walk off the six eggs I've got incubating to hatch an egg and start hatching/evolving. Rain is supposed to be the worst of the season so far so full-pokemon may have to wait a few days. (Can you snow-and-winter affected people gomsomewhere indoors to walk around? What do you do?)
posted by Room 641-A at 8:29 AM on February 17, 2017

I caught five new ones today. There's a pokestop near my desk, but the far more active pokestop is on the other side of the building, so I've taken a few walks over to that one whenever I see something interesting on the radar. Not bad considering I've been stuck doing some actual you know... work today at the day job.

Question though. I found a Sunkern, and to evolve, it says I need 50 candy and this odd looking item. It looks a bit like a flaming berry of some sort. Can anyone explain what's up with that to me?
posted by PearlRose at 12:58 PM on February 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Some of the new evolutions require an additional item. (see the end of this article)

For Sunkern it needs a Sunstone which pokestops probably drop infrequently, not sure if anyone has seen one yet.
posted by GuyZero at 1:38 PM on February 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

I have! Another 30 Oddish candy and my Gloom can become a Bellossom.
posted by tavella at 3:40 PM on February 17, 2017

I just realized Ekans is snake spelled backwards!
posted by Room 641-A at 7:38 AM on February 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

Wait 'til you figure out Arbok!
posted by gingerbeer at 8:27 AM on February 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

OMG.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:46 AM on February 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

I just realized Ekans is snake spelled backwards!

We were riding around with my daughter and her boyfriend, catching monsters when eKans showed up. He yelled out what he usually calls it, "Snakes spelled backwards". The lightbulb went off in my head and then quickly dimmed because I hadn't figured it out.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:33 AM on February 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

Oh hey so now this game is officially NO FUN because the convenient gym to my apartment now has 3 Blisseys which each have so much HP I have absolutely no ability to deal enough damage to beat one in the match time limit.
posted by ckape at 3:32 PM on February 18, 2017

Some quick thoughts:

25 new caught/evolved, yay! But no sign of any of the new objects you need for the new evolutions. tavella, did your special item just come from a regular pokestop? Anyone else finding them?

caught 65 snubbels since Thursday, too bad they only have one evolution.

I accidentally transferred my one Machamp. It won't be impossible to evolve a new one, but he was a good fighter with upgrades. C'est la vie.

Are xmas pikachu the same as regular pikachu? I don't see a lot but I'm close to evolving one, and it would help if I didn't need to keep both kinds.

Are people starting to keep pairs of Pokémon for breeding? It's taking up a lot more room. I do wonder if the gender-specific Pokémon will mate with each other. So far I haven't seen any crossover in the Nidoran family. Are Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan going to do it??

Also, it keeps crashing on my iPad.

I think I saw a Pokémon being born?! There was a glowing blue orb near a pokestop and I when I clicked on it turned into a Larvitar.

Thanks for posting this, I'm not sure I would have found out about the upgrade for a while.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:13 PM on February 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

The stones are very rare and very random. Was in a car with three other people hitting Pokestops. Two of us got stones, two didn't.

53 new ones so far for me!

Xmas Pikachu are like regular 'chu.

No idea about breeding.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:02 PM on February 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Level 27, and still no Snorlax! I really enjoyed the Valentines promotion, walking around Chicago's north shore where my mom's memorial is a pokestop. I also took my partner to dinner in Algonquin, Illinois, which is famous for being a great hunting ground. The place was absolutely lit up with lures for what must be miles along the river. But my app kept crashing and getting stuck, so we just ate in the seafood restaurant and went home, a few Magicarps and Mankeys to the good.

I've heard that you get the special stones at the end of a 7-day streak. Today is mine, so I'll make sure to spin and see.
posted by BibiRose at 5:43 AM on February 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I got one special stone at the end of my streak. They can also be caught in the wild at a Pokestop.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:53 AM on February 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oh, Brandon Blatcher, you mean they can be caught like pokemon? Is it hard to spot them?
posted by BibiRose at 6:02 AM on February 19, 2017

No sorry, they can't be caught like Pokemon. They'll appear, very rarely, when you spin a Pokestop. All reports indicate it's a pretty rare rate and random, so don't get your hopes up.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:52 PM on February 19, 2017

I got a sunstone today and I don't think I'm at the end of any streaks. I've gotten sixteen or so each of Pinap and Nanab berries, for anyone comparing. Also, what I actually need are the special items that appear to be a tin can and a crown. It's cool to have the special item, I just wish I could use it.

Some observations: you can only feed Pokemon one kind of berry at a time. The evolved Pokemon I caught gave five candies. The Pinap berry appeared to double the candy (a regular Pokemon gave six instead of three).
posted by Margalo Epps at 2:08 PM on February 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

51 new ones, though I have two more waiting on me to make a choice of which species I want to use my metal coat and king's stone on (or getting a second one of those.) I also picked up a sunstone, but haven't quite got enough sunkern yet. Those are the only three stones I've gotten so far, all from pokestops (my streak cycle was not well attuned to this release.)

My fairy and psychic gold badges just because that much easier. Already got psychic, and I'm just 17 away for fairy. Snubbulls are everywhere here, as are Natu. Dark also looks like is going to be easy, already at silver there. My electric and steel ones are still creeping along at the same pace, and ice and dragon may be bronze forever.

Most amusing to catch: Sudowoodo. It stares at you and faintly twitches from side to side, but does not otherwise move.

Cutest: Teddiursa!
posted by tavella at 2:21 PM on February 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Today is day seven of my streak and I got an Up-Grade! It only works on Porygons, which I haven't seen at all around here. I've caught 36 new ones and hatched two baby Togepi, and just turned 28. My worst medal: I've only seen one dragon type, even though they like the water.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:44 AM on February 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yeah, on the seventh day of your streak, you get a stone, lots of reports of that.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:11 AM on February 21, 2017

Gym fighting/training has changed for me. I've only done a little, but the lineups presented by the game are very different and characters I don't even remember having are coming up in the top six. Definitely more storage space is required because I have no idea what to discard anymore. The rules for getting into gyms also seem different. The other day I won 4 consecutive rounds in a friendly gym against only 3 or 4 characters, but no space opened up, which I normally feel it would do after like 3 rounds.

I tried Google Rewards to get coins faster, and quickly earned $3 which I put towards discount storage, but that seems to have dried up very fast.
posted by BibiRose at 7:12 AM on February 21, 2017

I think they changed Gym fighting again within the past hour or so.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:03 PM on February 21, 2017

I just had a Hoothoot turn into a Ditto. Anyone else spot any new Dittos?
posted by Margalo Epps at 10:13 PM on February 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

Maybe that means Sentrets can be Dittos too? As far as I can tell they're the new Rattata.
posted by invokeuse at 11:22 PM on February 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

I've had a Sentret turn into a Ditto.
posted by tavella at 1:14 AM on February 23, 2017

I fiiiiiinally have enough to evolve my dragonair and dragonite, so I switched buddies. Did you know that if you pick Togepi you gently cuddle him or her in your arms, instead of them walking beside you? Also finally level 30!
posted by tavella at 10:04 AM on February 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

Ya Ditto is in Sentret too.

Note that if you want more than one umpreaon and espeon, walk an Eevee until it receives two candies. You must walk it concurrently, so don't start walking it and then stop. Once that Eevee has found two candies, then evolved it. A daytime evolve get you espeon, night becomes an umpreaon.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:50 AM on February 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

The Blissey situation has improved slightly, so now I have a Machamp and two Rhydon capable of damaging them fast enough to beat the match timer. The Machamp seems to be the optimal one to use against them, but I've only just recently evolved my first and its power isn't particularly high so it can't take on a high-level Blissey alone.
posted by ckape at 3:08 PM on February 23, 2017

(Still think that people who put Blisseys in gyms are assholes, though)
posted by ckape at 9:13 PM on February 23, 2017

Tavella, I noticed that with Magby too-- I think it's true of all the "baby" Pokemon. I have enough candy now to evolve him to Magmar, but I'm putting it off because I get a kick out of seeing my avatar carrying this precious little creature in her arms.
posted by Pallas Athena at 4:23 AM on February 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

Blissey is an annoying non-issue. My 3k Rhydon with fight/stone edge beats everyone I've come across, with 20-30 seconds to spare, every time. IT's almost pointless to use them, 'cause everything in the game can be beaten, with enough time.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:25 AM on February 24, 2017

Well when you're level 29 and your Rhydon maxes out at 2700 there is not always enough time.
posted by ckape at 8:48 PM on February 24, 2017

I've heard that you get the special stones at the end of a 7-day streak. Today is mine, so I'll make sure to spin and see.

I got a special stone at the end of my last 7-day streak, but nothing this week. I haven't seen any in the wild either.
posted by gladly at 5:04 PM on February 26, 2017

yeah, lots of people got'em on that first 7 day streak, but not the second one.

Well when you're level 29 and your Rhydon maxes out at 2700 there is not always enough time.

What was the CP on the Blissey?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:17 AM on February 27, 2017

I'm going to be so bummed if I don't get a stone tomorrow. In fact, it will greatly discourage me from playing because I'm sitting on a bunch of Pokemon waiting to evolve, and I'm kind of back to where I'd before the upgrade, catching the same handful of Pokemon.

On the plus side, I caught a Pikachu wearing a party hat this morning! (And when I evolved the one with the Santa hat it kept the hat.)
posted by Room 641-A at 8:27 AM on February 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yes, the stones are nice touch, but I've given up looking for them, which is not a good thing for the game. The drop rate is so low and random, there's literally nothing I can to get a stone, other than play for hours at time, hitting every single Pokemon stop I can and that's not fun.

I got about Slowpoke candies, but can't evolve any to get a slow king, because randomness.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:55 AM on February 27, 2017

I get why they wouldn't want to do this, but allowing an item marketplace between players would really help keep people engaged. Because I've gotten a couple of stones, but since it's so random, it's going to be forever before I'll be able to do anything with them. Meanwhile, I need a couple of other stones.

Or, more perplexingly, why you can't buy a stone out of the shop the way you can with incubators or lucky eggs, because I can imagine that there are some people who are frustrated enough to do just that.
posted by dinty_moore at 11:19 AM on February 27, 2017

People with multiple accounts are quite a problem in the game.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:40 AM on February 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

What was the CP on the Blissey?

It's not so much of a problem if there's just one Blissey (although the highest I've fought was 2900-something and I have my doubts against anything much higher than that), but having multiple Blisseys in a gym can easily burn through the few pokemon I have which can beat the timer on high-level one.
posted by ckape at 2:30 PM on February 27, 2017

I did not get an evo item for my streak, but I did get one from a poke stop! I was able to evolve my Onix into a Steelix and got enough candy to evolve a grobat into a crobat so that made up for it.
posted by Room 641-A at 3:17 PM on February 28, 2017 [1 favorite]

Is there a buddy guide that includes Gen 2? I'd like to do some strategizing without waiting for my current buddy to be at 0km...
posted by Margalo Epps at 1:37 PM on March 1, 2017

I don't know about optimizing evolutions and whatnot, but I think we can all agree that the best buddy is and will always be having Magikarp flopping along beside you.

Mine's name is Mr. Flippy.
posted by ckape at 6:54 PM on March 1, 2017 [3 favorites]

Two weeks later and I think I'm done with Pokemon Go for a little while - at least until the weather gets nicer. I'm at the point where I'm essentially deleting pokemon to catch the same pokemon and then deleting them again to catch more of the same (and doing the same thing with items, too). The only time I'm likely to catch something new is if I hatch it from an egg, but the pedway teleportation problem has gotten worse, so that my 3km walk yesterday showed up as .3 km. I mean, I suspect the teleportation problem is because of my phone and not the app, but it still is impeding the game.
posted by dinty_moore at 6:56 AM on March 2, 2017

I don't know about optimizing evolutions and whatnot, but I think we can all agree that the best buddy is and will always be having Magikarp flopping along beside you.

YES! I just evolved mine after walking it since buddies were invented, and it is so much less charming as Gyarados.
posted by invokeuse at 9:02 AM on March 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

I've been walking a Grimer forever and am now about 15k from having a Muk.

Since the pineapples were introduced, I feel evolving a Magicarp is in the realm of possibility, but how do you get a decent sized one to evolve? The ones I get are like 10 points.
posted by BibiRose at 8:06 AM on March 3, 2017

I get why they wouldn't want to do this, but allowing an item marketplace between players would really help keep people engaged.

Niantic's other game, Ingress, has shown them that even with their level of anti-bot and anti- location spoofing detection, allowing item transfer between players results in a robust third-party black market of people reselling rare in-game items. And that's with Ingress's much smaller and decidedly niche playerbase. PoGO, even with its number of active users down from the dizzying heights of last summer, continues to absolutely dwarf it, owing to that game's more mainstream appeal.

However, recently Niantic has announced that they've implemented a way to track these items back to those Terms-of-Service breaking sellers and when they catch a seller using bots to farm these items and location spoofing to deliver them, they'll comb the database for every item the seller's bots generated, and remove those items from the game, no matter whose inventory the items are currently in, with a courtesy email to the account holder explaining that their inventory is smaller because either items they bought in violation of the ToS, or someone else bought and passed along to them, have been deleted.

I would not be surprised in the least if, as for many other things in Pokemon GO, Ingress was being used as a testbed to work out the kinks of such a system before they implement it on their cash-cow.
posted by radwolf76 at 10:52 AM on March 3, 2017 [3 favorites]

Since the pineapples were introduced, I feel evolving a Magicarp is in the realm of possibility, but how do you get a decent sized one to evolve? The ones I get are like 10 points.

Omg yes. I now have 344 candies and I probably had 200 max from all the months of playing before the pineapple. The two current Magicarps I have in inventory are 130 and 133*; I assume that's the highest I've ever gotten or I would have kept the other ones. I'm just biding my time now.

*That one's a "wonder." I don't really battle so I don't crunch the numbers too much, but the "wonder" is the highest appraisal for the blue team so I usually just keep the highest wonder to evolve.
posted by Room 641-A at 11:56 AM on March 3, 2017 [1 favorite]

Magikarp max CP is 220.
posted by GuyZero at 12:14 PM on March 3, 2017 [2 favorites]

Up to 72 Johto so I have my gold medal, woot. I actually have a couple more than I could evolve but I want a better Croconaw before I evolve Feraligater, and I am waiting until I have 125 for Tyranitar to pick my Larvitar to evolve.

I only got an item on my first streak, but I've picked up 4 at pokestops, so I don't feel deprived there. Though I would like a dragon scale, darnit. And another metal coat would be nice, so I can get Steelix.
posted by tavella at 1:29 PM on March 6, 2017

67-year-old Singaporean man catches Lapras, has fatal heart attack.
posted by radwolf76 at 1:45 PM on March 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

I just got my daughter a Pokemon Go Plus for her seventh birthday, and it's amazing. She's super excited to go for a walk with my at any time now, even just to go get groceries, and I don't have to worry about her dropping my phone. Plus, it's great for battery life. The extra drain of the bluetooth is more than offset by not having to have the screen on.

We caught a party-hat Pikachu on her birthday and it was probably her favourite thing about the whole day.
posted by 256 at 8:07 AM on March 7, 2017 [5 favorites]