In most places, L40 hardcore players compete by number of times they have hit 20 million
e.g. 40 million XP = 2x L40, 60 million = 3x L40, etc
Unsurprisingly in Singapore, hardcore players compete by number of L40 ACCOUNTS. I know someone with 6 L40 accounts, 2 of which hit 40 pre-raid era.
Answers
I'm admittedly addicted to PoGO but even I have a life outside the game. I honestly wouldn't play this if I lived in Singapore with how intense most players seem to be and how pretentious and pathetic they sound for bragging about throwing away so much money and time of their lives into a mobile game. That's next level loser status. It's not even a game with competitive potential that would reward such a high time investment, like games such as CS:GO or even the main series games are. The VGC contestants can make a living out from playing Pokemon games, which makes sense since e-sports are officially a thing now. I just don't see the point of it in PoGO and it makes me worry a lot for those players. It's one thing to enjoy a game so much that you play it for several hours a day, but it's a completely different issue when your level of commitment gets so absurd and self-demanding that you genuinely think that's it is anything to be proud about. To each their own I guess...
Whether in school, at work or playing games, Singaporeans are extremely competitive. There is even a Hokkien/Singlish term for this tendency: kiasu (afraid to lose).
Nevertheless, the players that DragoniteSlayer described in his original post remain a tiny minority (even among active raiders). I am level 37 and spent about $5 per month for 6 months.
"In most places", then goes on to talk about a tiny country. Good for them, though. Very cool storytelling session.
At this present moment there are no real benefits to surpassing L38, as you can already max Pokemon out at that point. Are the rewards you get when you hit L39 and L40 incredible? Or just the usual combination of balls and berries and eggs and lures and incense and incubators?
EXP, post level 40, is a completely wasteful endeavour unless you are striving for the goal yourself.
A prime example is Brandon Tan and he's #1 in the verified Level 40 club for exp. What content do you see him producing and how good of a player is he actually? He's a good driver and WAFU raider I'll give you that.
Whereas, Kieng and KaitoNolan are only a few places behind in the exp race and have cooked up quality solos (e.g. the only flareon solo documented) and are superior players who know what they are doing.
Yes, generally exp has a correlation of how good you are (my 22mil account is inferior to a 100mil in general) but the number of maxed mons and the knowledge to use them, along with crazy solo/duo challenges completed, are the bigger differentiator for player quality.
Car raiding or van raiding in a group of players, driving off from a raid when the battle starts and driving to the next raid already.
Completing such raids is more about the skill of your driving and knowledge of the gyms and mapping. It says nothing about the quality of your pokemon and your other achivements.
Despite relying on public transport (and my legs), I actually did something similar once. There were two legendary raids starting ten minutes apart and their distance was two bus stops. Furiously tapped the screen while waiting for (and boarding) the bus, then tried (and failed) to catch the legendary during the bus ride. This requires familiarity with local bus routes.
For raiding this way, I usually use sgpokemap to find raids that are within walking distance, and mass evolve in between while walking/running.
For chasing mons on sgpokemap (though it's technically cheating), I use ofo bike.
And I think I'm familiar enough with the bus routes in my area. I've gone on several bus/MRT chases for mons on sgpokemap.
