Pokemon Go

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

12 minutes ago, siyxx said:

I figure most of you live in the US? UK? We just got to play it like a month ago over here and everyone's been losing their minds over this game since! It's somewhat religious around here (debatable), so some people feel offended having shrines and temples turning into gyms and Pokestops (conservatives, you know how they are). And now there's a new law coming; for those playing Pokemon Go while driving on the certain roads during the certain hours will instead find themselves catching pokemons in jail for a considerable amount of time.

At the city center, shitloads of people gathering at the malls because there're limitless sakuras at every stop that it could form a "triangle of pokemon lures". Like a whole street of 'em. If I go out for lunch taking the long walk passing the shopping street and I could catch like 30+ pokemons within an hour. Taxis and motorbike-taxis also have this take-you-around-catching-pokemons service as a new marketing strategy. It's been a crazy month, really.  

On the brighter side, people really do go out more often (obviously). Hanging out at night in the park was a bit weird around here for the past 20 years of my life until now. And I heard the government will use Pokemon Go as a strategy to boost up our tourism industry as well (like release the "rare" types at some exotic destinations and so forth. Overall it's just really well-received here. I mean, Japanese manga and anime has been part of our lives since forever, so yeah.

 

Lol, I haven't noticed most of that.

One thing, being in a car or bus doesn't count towards your egg growth distance right? The app knows you are going to fast

[siyxx]

7 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Lol, I haven't noticed most of that.

One thing, being in a car or bus doesn't count towards your egg growth distance right? The app knows you are going to fast

Correct. Imagine walking 10k and got that crap Rattata lol Anyway, for those using cars/bikes, at least over here I kind of understand. They use it to go to as many places as possible, increasing the possibility to find new Pokemons. We have lots and lots of small alleys over here and one place can be quite far from another, can't explore them all on foot so bikes are the answer!

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

I'm interested in what peoples goals are when they play the game. 

To be honest I just play it because it makes my walk home a little more interesting. I'm not going out of my way to find new Pokemon, dont care about collecting them all, and not sure I'll ever be hardcore enough to fight in Gyms.

So what is it you are trying to do..

[Xray the Enforcer]

Kansas City WorldCon was a goldmine for Pokemon. We helped Neal (Aussie BWB) get himself a Tauros, then he and I stalked a neighborhood for a Porygon while Mr. X laughed at us. One of the other BWB dropped her hair dryer to run outside and get Dragonite. And I went from 1 Eevee/3 candy to "all three Eevolutions + extra candy" in like two days (for some reason, Eevees are very rare where I live and work). Same goes for Venonat and Clefairy. So now I'm up above 100 Pokemon in the 'Dex. Still trying to get enough Squirtle to evolve a Blastoise, and Charmander into Charizard. 

As for why I play? It's for two reasons: 1) fill up the Pokedex and 2) explore various game mechanics. There were tons of Pokemon players at WorldCon this year -- I met a bunch while we were stalking some 'mon near the convention center. It was fun.

[SerPaladin]

On 8/26/2016 at 4:59 AM, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I'm interested in what peoples goals are when they play the game. 
...
So what is it you are trying to do..

It started out as a way to play a game with my sons. At 13, they've moved beyond Mario and simple fighters, and at 47, my reflexes are a liability for Overwatch or any of their FPS games. Early on, I had fun driving them to the boardwalk to hunt. Now they have a core squad of 5 kids, and another larger group of friends. They organize and carry out raids to take the dozen gyms within bicycle distance, saving them from the dual scourges of Valor and Instinct. I'd say they do this a couple times a week, maybe even thrice.

While they play a war game, I'm playing a resource game that has a collection component to scratch my collecting itch. I've caught more types than they have (108 now), because I learned to spend my poke-coins only on incubators. I'll grab a handful of poorly defended gyms on my way to work, and repeat it daily, to feed the incubator purchases. I've also learned to enjoy heavy traffic, or at least see the upside, as an average speed of under 10 mph counts as "walking" for my eggs.

It's kinda zen for me, a pastime with some adrenaline when I catch a new one. The game is insidiously well designed to keep a player like me playing.

[Baitac]

I caught my Mr. Mime the first evening of our holiday in Spain. I also caught a wild Onyx for a total of 102. Had great fun battling at Barcelona airport. I snuck in a Gyarados when a gym went gray. 

[HexMachina]

I now have all three eevee evolutions all at a reasonable CP (between 1000 and 1150). I also managed to take over a gym and keep my Vaporeon there long enough to claim the reward twice, which I counted as a win  I caught my first Kabuto too, thus beginning the fossil grind  

Hatching loads of eggs too, what with walking the dog twice a day, walking to and from work, and any errands around the shops. Got several abras, another Jynx, a Rapidash and a Chansey

[Xray the Enforcer]

6 hours ago, SerPaladin said:

While they play a war game, I'm playing a resource game that has a collection component to scratch my collecting itch. I've caught more types than they have (108 now), because I learned to spend my poke-coins only on incubators. I'll grab a handful of poorly defended gyms on my way to work, and repeat it daily, to feed the incubator purchases. I've also learned to enjoy heavy traffic, or at least see the upside, as an average speed of under 10 mph counts as "walking" for my eggs.

It's kinda zen for me, a pastime with some adrenaline when I catch a new one. The game is insidiously well designed to keep a player like me playing.

This is actually a very good description as to why I play as well. And I laughed out loud when you talked about traffic. We were stuck in traffic on I-95 a few times on Saturday, and I kept getting annoyed when it sped up enough that I couldn't "walk" my eggs anymore.

[AndrewJ]

Just a quick hint on Abras (I can't recall if this has been discussed already, or not. But anyway...)

Razzberry and Ultraball every time (or Great Ball, if that's the highest you have). They have a 99% flee rate if they break out of your ball. So if you ever want to collect the 125 candies to evolve it to Kadabra and then to Allakhazam, then maximise your chances to catch them every time you see one.

(At least it's reported to be 99% chance. I know they've fled every single time they've broken out on me. So it may well be 100%, as far as I know)

 

[SerPaladin]

On 8/29/2016 at 8:26 PM, AndrewJ said:

Just a quick hint on Abras (I can't recall if this has been discussed already, or not. But anyway...)

Razzberry and Ultraball every time (or Great Ball, if that's the highest you have). They have a 99% flee rate if they break out of your ball. So if you ever want to collect the 125 candies to evolve it to Kadabra and then to Allakhazam, then maximise your chances to catch them every time you see one.

(At least it's reported to be 99% chance. I know they've fled every single time they've broken out on me. So it may well be 100%, as far as I know)

 

I haven't even seen another Abra since I caught my first one. Those two evolutions, along with Growlithe and Mankey evolving, are on my "not very likely" list.

Aside from hitting a surprise from an egg, I think I'm going to max out at 121 Pokemon. Ignoring the legendaries and the localized ones, the rest just never appear in the mid-Atlantic region. I've seen one Grimer, no Muks, no Porygon. Based on my progress rate, that means I'll hit the "end" of this game in about 3 weeks. So Niantic, I hope you're planning on that event for the legendaries happening soon. The "collector" player type is getting close to the wall. in about a month.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

On ‎8‎/‎29‎/‎2016 at 8:26 PM, AndrewJ said:

Just a quick hint on Abras (I can't recall if this has been discussed already, or not. But anyway...)

Razzberry and Ultraball every time (or Great Ball, if that's the highest you have). They have a 99% flee rate if they break out of your ball. So if you ever want to collect the 125 candies to evolve it to Kadabra and then to Allakhazam, then maximise your chances to catch them every time you see one.

(At least it's reported to be 99% chance. I know they've fled every single time they've broken out on me. So it may well be 100%, as far as I know)

 

I caught an Allakhazam while in KC, as well as quite a few others that I've never seen around my area, but they are on my son's account.

My son and I got tired of sharing (and re-adjusting our character back and forth ) so I created my own account. (it also happens to coincide with his getting an upgraded phone capable of handling the game)

 

Since I know a lot more this time around, I have caught 48 pokemon and am level 15 in just 4 days (I left him with 74 pokemon and at level 21). Apparently, when it comes to me, he is very competitive.  We cannot be on the same team (sorry team Blue!) and he and his brother think team Red are/will be the a-hole team, so I was forced on to team Yellow. I have mixed feelings, I think team “Instinct” is where I belong, but yellow is my least favorite color of all time.

 

I think I will at least try my first gym battles this weekend. Kind of excited about it.

 

eta: A little lunch time fun:

Spent 35 minutes in the park today, perfectly situated between 3 pokestops all with active lures.

 

New catches: Ekans, Vulpix, Parasect and Dratini

 

Also caught 2 Psyducks, 2 Scythers, 8 Magikarps ( I’ve never caught so many fish so quickly before) 2 Evees, and countless of the little guys (rats, pidgeys, weedles).

 

I used a magic egg, and also went from just level 15 to level 16

 

I just stood there and caught one creature after another.  I know what I’ll be doing with my lunches the rest of the week (park is near my work, over 45 minutes from my house, unfortunately)

[Xray the Enforcer]

A Charmeleon spawned randomly right around the corner from my house this morning. It took like 20 Pokeballs, but I caught the bastard.

[AndrewJ]

I have 55 Abra candies currently - and I'm pretty sure I hatched one at some stage, which brings a lot of candies with it. And I managed to catch a Kadabra in the wild (and fortunately he "amazes" whats-her-name). So Abras are definitely hard to come by, but I'm progressing slowly and will get Allakhazam eventually (or get lucky and catch him, like Lany).

I've never seen a Muk either, but I have 23 Grimer candies (of the 50 required).

I have 131 in my poke-dex all told. Lickitung I only ever saw once and caught. I've never seen Chansey or Lapras in the wild, but hatched them both in the past couple of days. I've caught 2 Snorlaxes. Porygon and Aerodactyl I don't have and have never seen. But I know from the Facebook group for my city that others have caught them (extremely rarely, in the case of Porygon).

So yeah - some stuff is very rare and it might take a long time to find them. It's just a matter of getting lucky, really.

It's possible to tilt the odds a little in your favour, though (if you're so inclined). That's kind of hwo I got my Lapras and Chansey in the past couple of days. I was sick of all the 5km eggs clogging my egg storage. A supermaket chain here had iTunes cards on sale for 20% discount on the weekend. So I bought a couple of those and bought 1,200 coins for A$15 (less the discount - so $12) and grabbed a bunch of incubators. I cleared out pretty much all the 5km eggs, opening up room and managed to get 3 x 10km eggs in return. And was lucky enough to hit the jackpot with 2 of them (the third gave me a Magmar, which is ok but I've caught/hatched him 2 or 3 times already).

 

 

[Dr. Pepper]

The US National Parks system has been a damn goldmine.  I randomly opened it up while going for a hike one day only to discover there were like 10 pokestops at the small visitor's center and pokemon popping up every few feet.  It's been like that each time I've entered one of the parks while on vacation this week.  

[HexMachina]

I discovered that Durham city is an absolute hive for water type Pokemon. Caught loads of Magikarp in the grind for my Gyarados, some Staryu, a tentacruel, goldeens, seel, three squirtles, a Kingler and even "sighted" an omanyte. In addition to the water types I ran into an Ivysaur (which I unfortunately didn't catch, though admittedly it was also 700+ CP, so not surprised it fled before I caught it), several Nidoran (female), some Clefairy and a jigglypuff. And because of the small size of Durham city most of the pokes tips are practically on top of one another, so I spent some time drinking a coffee just seeing what popped up in the market square, which was fun

[AndrewJ]

Another thing to remember is Niantic seem to be changing spawns every few weeks.

First example - there's a small park about 5kms from my house that used to be over-run with Eevees. You'd normally get about three of them in 15 minutes. On the other hand I had never seen a Kabuto until finally catching my one and only of them around three or four weeks ago. And then Niantic changed the sapwns. Eevees are far less common, but that park is now Kabuto heaven.

Second example - at my house in the suburbs, we saw almost nothing but zubats for the first three or four weeks. With maybe the odd Pinsir or Weedle here and there. Then a few weeks later we started to get more uncommon stuff popping up. Nothing with any regularity, but we saw and caught one Snorlox, one Dragonair and a few others (Rhyhorn, Kadabra etc). And I mentioned yesterday that I'd never seen an Aerodactyl. Last night right after getting to into bed, I had a look at the "sightings" list and guess what silhouette I saw there. My wife and I jumped out of bed, put on our dressing gowns and drove 100m or so down the road to one of the three spawn spots we know of around our house. I can now cross Aerodactyl off the list.

Anyway... the point is if there's certain Pokemon that virtually don't exist near you, well that can change at any time when Niantic rotate spawns around.

 

[Guy Kilmore]

1 hour ago, AndrewJ said:

Another thing to remember is Niantic seem to be changing spawns every few weeks.

First example - there's a small park about 5kms from my house that used to be over-run with Eevees. You'd normally get about three of them in 15 minutes. On the other hand I had never seen a Kabuto until finally catching my one and only of them around three or four weeks ago. And then Niantic changed the sapwns. Eevees are far less common, but that park is now Kabuto heaven.

Second example - at my house in the suburbs, we saw almost nothing but zubats for the first three or four weeks. With maybe the odd Pinsir or Weedle here and there. Then a few weeks later we started to get more uncommon stuff popping up. Nothing with any regularity, but we saw and caught one Snorlox, one Dragonair and a few others (Rhyhorn, Kadabra etc). And I mentioned yesterday that I'd never seen an Aerodactyl. Last night right after getting to into bed, I had a look at the "sightings" list and guess what silhouette I saw there. My wife and I jumped out of bed, put on our dressing gowns and drove 100m or so down the road to one of the three spawn spots we know of around our house. I can now cross Aerodactyl off the list.

Anyway... the point is if there's certain Pokemon that virtually don't exist near you, well that can change at any time when Niantic rotate spawns around.

 

The sylphroad link does a pretty good job at tracking the spawns and their changes.  I know the Twin Cities has a reddit page where they keep track of nests and track them with each migration.  (There have been 2 so far.)

[Xray the Enforcer]

Two changes, and they've been 23-24 days apart, IIRC. On that timetable, we should see a switch in mid September. It's important to remember that not all nests migrate species (I caught a shitload of Voltorbs at the same spawn point pre- and post- the last migration), but before Tuesday I'd never seen a Charmeleon spawn anywhere in my neighborhood...and then there it was. As such, I'm trying to mark Slowpoke nests this weekend to hit them, as I need two more before I can evolve it. 

[Xray the Enforcer]

Niantic confirms Buddy System in upcoming update. The upshot: you can choose your favorite Pokemon to become your buddy, then you can walk to earn it candy. That means you won't be stuck for months trying to catch one last 'mon for its candies to evolve your Grimer into a Muk. That's a really nifty feature, IMO. Anyway, update will likely happen next week although no firm timetable as far as anyone is aware.

 

[HexMachina]

I too hatched a Ponyta today, with 666CP. I've named him Lucifer