Nianitc should immediately stop any xp bonuses from levelling up friends. They wont, but they should.
Giving XP for that has completely broken the levelling system, it means reaching level 40 is no longer an achievement. There's no sense of satisfaction, nothing to brag about there. It's hollow. I reached level 40 two months ago, i've since added another 4 million xp on. I play a moderate amount, not a huge amount, and i only have about 60 friends. It's just too easy.
To achieve meaningful things in life you don't do it by taking shortcuts, that's not how life works. It's a shame that Niantic decided to take away the meaning of level 40 by giving us such a "great" shourtcut.
Friendship is much better than yet another mass evolution. The sheer tedium of another half hour every three days spent on generating 65K isn't something I miss.
(For perspective, I was about 1.2 million into 39 when trading dropped, and hit 40 about 45 days after that. The vast majority of my experience has come from catch + hatch, some evolutions, and only about 2 million from raids)
That's what made it such an achievement though. The people who reached level 40 before raiding were serious grinders who didn't get anything handed to them on a silver platter like us who got there later.
Fun anecdotal story: a friend of mine who as more time to manage friendships has went from being 5 million exp behind me to 20m+ ahead of me. That really tells something about how all other exp gaining methods have become almost completely irrelevant compared to friendship.
I agree and disagree. I feel that up to a point the mass EXP is broken, it gives a lot of casuals a false sense of them beign able to handle things. Last month I was with a ground of like 4 others agaisnt giratina and saw they were all level 35~ish, and when I asked what they had they all said mewtwo, we ended up failing the raid and them blaming it on me for using rayquaza.
On the other hand, it is helpful for letting someone get up there in the levels, I knew some friends who joined up again, I gave them a guaenteed lucky kyogre and most of my spare mewtwo for some dragonite and such because they didnt have much (and despite me not liking nonshadow ball mewtwo for practical applications on set up players, it is a survivable protean for those ill equipped), and the EXP from friends helped get them up there to be able to raid a lot faster so they could enjoy the game more.
Me and a couple people I raid with could not agree more. I 4 man t5's because I am sick and tired of carrying people that refuse the level up their mon. For perspective, a group of 6 between levels 35-40, failed Cresselia several times before giving up. My quad squad have beaten it with over a minute on the clock. A group of 5 failed Ttar today, I shed a single tear for them.
This is all down to the friendship exp. They're gaining levels but don't power up, use the right counters or even make teams. They practically beg people in our chat when the month is nearly over for the current T5 but they refuse to actually help out. Raids are supposed to be done together and basic raid etiquette is to actually contribute but honestly, they may as well be lobbied or using Aggron :/
I disagree - being a high level never meant anything.
Sure - if you level only on friendship you don't have anything useful. However you still probably got a bunch of stardust from the gifts...
Even from the original leveling system, where hatching, catching, and evolving were the only sources of XP - being a higher level didn't mean you were a stronger player. If you spent your stardust on everything you felt like, you didn't have stardust to power the best stuff. I had friends that were steadily 1-3 levels ahead of me and had WAY better pokemon than me with a full page of 2000+ CP stuff while my best were a few high level Hypno because I never powered anything before hitting level 30.
However when I hit 30 and started powering my better stuff, I leap frogged all of them. They wasted hundreds of thousands of stardust while I used mine efficiently.
Likewise now, I'm only level 38 and that includes 9 best friends and 20 more ultra friends (1.9M xp before doubling most of them), yet I probably have a significantly better contribution to most raids versus other players. Aside from the fact that I'm missing Rayquaza due to having not played last winter. I have top counters at level 40 or at least high 30s for most raids. Meanwhile most level 40s use autoselected teams and even if they don't they don't have the optimal counters powered.
I disagree. Being high level used to mean you were a serious player who spent a lot of effort on the game and I never saw anyone above level 35 in those early days who was wasting stardust on suboptimal pokemon, they put all their stardust into meta defenders and maybe a few elite attackers. But that was a long time ago.
The thing is: level 40 means nothing. If you stand still in your house during 3 months, get over 100 friendships and get to level 40, you'll still have no decent Pokemons, no decent amount of stardust to top more than 2 Pokemon and whatsoever. Spending hours and hours playing a game repetitively shouldn't be ever awarded, it just makes addicting easier and harder, especially for kids. It's just a game after all, there is nothing to brag about if you spend 8 hours walking outside your house searching for Pokemons.
I totally agree when I started playing Pokémon I only had a few select friends and was leveling up very slowly regardless of the countless hours of doing raids and catching Pokémon i am now leveling up more quickly from the XP of gifts I went from 20 friends to 150 in a matter of days thanks to this site it paid off tho I’m getting ahead of my friends and they have no idea how I’m doing it 😂
Niantic only cares about attracting new players & making it easier for them to catch up. Am not complaining tho, growing the playerbase is fundamental to keeping the game going long term, which benefits the hardcore players aswell. We may moan, we may complain, but the games still here, doing well & in a pretty healthy position from what I can tell.
Pokemon GO was already a newb friendly game, they can join raids at level 10 or w/e, catch the legendary after everyone else has taken it down, get a load of xp and level up quickly.
As others have said, XP is not stardust. Giving excessive amounts of XP does not enable them to power up their pokemon. So it's not really enabling them to catch up quickly.
Will achieve 40 in 17 months, started around gym change. Era of raids and friends. Quality account despite the raids and friends due to lessons learned from others. Have soloed Zam, duoed Aggron and numerous quality trios.
Raids and friends helped bootstrap the account more quickly but doing the right things still can yield an account you can be proud of and that can contribute significantly to the community.
