pokestop | Tuesday Tips: The Buddy System!

inkstone posting in

All right, I received the update a few minutes ago. Hopefully, this means that it's live for everyone on both Android and iOS!

Here are the official patch notes:

Implemented Buddy Pokémon: Trainers will now be able to choose one of their Pokémon to be their buddy. A Trainer can earn Candy for their Buddy Pokémon by walking a certain distance

Made it easier to select smaller Pokémon on the screen

Fixed an issue where Eggs would sometimes hatch without displaying the animation.

Improved performance reliability when a device switches networks to no longer cause the application to hang or stop updating

Pokémon GO Plus support

Minor text fixes

Other changes not mentioned in the patch notes:

Your trainer journal now notes when you receive an egg from a PokeStop

The design of your profile page has slightly changed.

So has the design of the team leader appraisal overlay.

PokeGo no longer works on rooted or jailbroken phones.

And now for details on the Buddy System!

Each pokebuddy requires a certain distance to earn a candy. This distance is generally dependent on the type of egg they hatch from. If a mon hatches from a 2km egg, you need to walk 1km to earn a candy through the buddy system. If they hatch from a 5km, you need to walk 3km (2.5km rounded up). If they hatch from a 10km, you need to walk 5km.

Starter mon (bulbasaur, charmander & squirtle) have a 3km requirement.

Don't worry. When you add a buddy, the screen tells you the distance requirement!

If an egg hatches while you're walking a buddy, your buddy will find an extra candy!

If you evolve your buddy mon, you will lose all progress to the next candy. So time your evolutions!

But if you switch your buddy to another mon and then back again to your original buddy, the system remembers the total distance. It just has to be the same mon (i.e. not evolved).

Your buddy mon can train and fight at gyms. Yes, this means you can walk your buddy mon when they've fainted. Which, uh, is an unfortunate visual.

But you cannot leave your buddy mon to defend gyms.

There's an easter egg involving pikachu: after you walk 10km (or pikachu finds 10 candy, whichever comes first), pikachu will jump onto your shoulder. (It's a reference to the anime.)

I believe that's it. I'll update this entry if I stumble across anything else. If y'all discover other things, tell us in the comments!! Otherwise, tell us how you're planning to use the buddy system and who you're walking first!

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

inkstone

I'm first planning to use the buddy system to fill out my pokedex! I have a bunch of mon that only need a few more pieces of candy to reach their next evolution. Once I have a decent number ready, I'm going to have an evolution party. :D

I'm starting with Geodude because I am literally only one candy away from Graveler.

From:

jack

Aha! Pokemon update at last. Just after installing android update and restarting.

Now I have an aerodactyl shadowing me! It looks awesome.

From:

jack

...5km per candy. Maybe I should have picked jigglypuff instead. Or magikarp or gyarados BOTH OF WHICH WILL LOOK AWESOME. But no, I went with my stubborn rockdinosaur :)

From:

inkstone

I know lots of people are walking their magikarp but the mental image of that fish flopping along behind you never fails to make me crack up.

From:

jack

There was a lovely gif on tumblr I can't find now of someone's avatar running on a map, and they'd made a leash and a magikarp trailing behind them :)

I can't decide if Magikarp or gyarados is funnier, they both have the same effect, but one can't walk at all, and one is TERRIFYING :)

From:

malnpudl

HOT DAMN! *chair dance*

My buddy is my Bulbasaur, which is my only 100% rated Pokemon. And it's a plant, so it's a favorite anyway. Double happiness! Double goodness! Woohoo!

From:

zhelana

I really don't understand how you get a 'mon to start walking with you. Nothing says "buddy" on it anywhere?

From:

inkstone

The option is in the menu from your trainer profile. :)

From:

zhelana

thanks :)

From:

recessional

AHAHAHAHA. Excuse me I have to walk my baby fire lizard. A LOT. x.x

From:

inkstone

Haha, yeah. I hatched a charmander with great IVs, so I'll be walking him a lot too. But later.

From:

recessional

Yeah I'm . . . so not looking at this one from a game-logistics pov. XD My Charizard is probably not going to be above 1.2K CP, but I don't care, I want my dragon. *cough*

From:

havocthecat

That's how I feel about my Dragonite-to-be.

From:

recessional

*grimace* I could technically have a Dragonite, but I actually prefer the look of the Dragonair: the Dragonite is one of my big disappointments of the game, because (to me! nobody else has to agree with me) they look so . . . stupid. >.>

Serious MMV, etc. But this is why all my hopes are on my wee firelizard. >.>

From:

havocthecat

They are! Why did they go from sinuous and blue to clompy, bulky, and orange? But they're super powerful. So I plan to (eventually) have all the evolutions of that particular pokemon and max them all out. Just because. And also having a Dragonair walking around with me is pretty awesome.

From:

recessional

WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT? I do not understand it. Because yeah Dragonair are so lovely and elegant.

But my EndofAll (should be EndofAllThings but no space) was my starter, too, so I want her to be what I think is the best looking of the dragons. And then I will do things like "oh hey I could up my Pikachu in a few clicks" and so on, but. First, EndofAll to dragonhood!

I am unabashedly kinda in this game for "ooooh this one is COOL to me!" and the motivation to walk. XD But I'm okay with that.

From:

inkstone

Yeah, the evolution chain of dragonites don't make sense to me. Sleek serpentine dratini & dragonairs to...orange Barney? I don't get it. Magikarp to gyarados makes sense because it's based on a Chinese legend but dragonite? Really?

From:

recessional

Maybe they were trying to make that dragon cuddly to children? I legit have no idea, but I kinda hate it, if by "kinda" I mean "I totally hate it", which I do.

From:

inkstone

Some people were saying that since pikachu has that particular easter egg, they should have given charmander one where he ignores you and keeps his back toward you until he reaches 10km and then he turns to the normal buddy position LOL.

From:

brightknightie

That would have been awesome. :-)

Perhaps there are more Easter eggs to be discovered yet.

From:

inkstone

Could be! It'd be funny if squirtle got sunglasses or jigglypuff got a marker and drew all over your trainer's avatar. (I know the latter is a pipedream, but it'd be hysterical.)

From:

playswithworms

Hooray! Finally got the update on iOS! I can't decide who to walk first though. I started with a Weepinbell, because I have a fondness for weird plants, but then I also love the little Poliwags, so I switched for one of those, and then of course, there's Pikachu, but EVERYONE buddies with Pikachu, right? Only I switched with one just to try and it's so adorable, OMG, I really want Pikachu as my buddy. HOW WILL I EVER CHOOSE IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!

From:

inkstone

I got my geodude candy so I switched to my fire pony and AAAAAH. It's 10-year-old me's greatest dream come true!

From:

playswithworms

I don't have a fire pony and I'm entirely jealous! :D Pikachu does this little happy hiccup-hop, against which I am helpless, so Pikachu it is, lol

From:

lemon_badgeress

Thank you for posting the update! Off to check for the update now. I do wish you'd put the spoiler about the easter egg behind a spoiler cut, tho :(

From:

inkstone

Oh, sorry about that. I guess I didn't think about that in the context of a spoiler. :/

From:

lilacsigil

I'm glad about the egg fix - almost all of my eggs have hatched with no animation, so I would look at my phone and suddenly I'd have a new pokemon!

From:

inkstone

Oh, that's interesting! I hadn't even been aware there'd been one until now.

From:

recessional

Mine did it on occasion - it seemed to line up with either unreliable service, or to the game finally deciding to recognize that I had in fact walked whatever-number-km at the same time I was doing something like taking a gym, or messing around levelling up a different Pokemon, or whatever.

From:

yuuago

WHOOHOO, I HAVE THE UPDATE.

My buddy is an Omanyte for now, since they're really hard to come by over here. But I'll probably eventually switch him out for something I've only seen in other cities, like a dratini or a ponyta.

Looking forward to testing this tonight, yayyyy! <3

From:

umadoshi

PokeGo no longer works on rooted or jailbroken phones.

I'm really bitter about this. ;_;

From:

inkstone

I get that they're trying to curb the cheater problem, but this seems quite wrong-headed of them. Plenty of people use rooted phones for legit reasons and I'm quite positive plenty of cheaters don't need rooted phones at all! I actually don't see how this would curb the cheater problem. All it'll do is penalize legit players.

From:

umadoshi

Yep. *sighs* I've been linked to a workaround, but it looks like way more effort than I'm willing to go to, especially since I'm not the household techie and would have to ask C to do it. Although I probably will get him to take a quick look in case it's not actually as much work as it seems to me.

I hate how some people seem to believe there's something illicit about rooting your own phone. -_- Shame on me for wanting to have control over what's installed on a device I paid hundreds of dollars for?

From:

tyger

Yeaaaaah, charmader frand!

Also oh man, the egg fix is so great, I almost never see them hatching, hopefully I will now!

From:

brightknightie

Shout out for the fix for "when a device switches networks"!

Whenever I walked out of the range of a known wi-fi network, and my phone has to heave itself over to cell data instead, or vice versa, the game would hang or stick.

From:

ephemera

I have to say, I haven't noticed it being spectacularly better about that today, but possibly the times when I do that are also times when I'm doing something else that makes it hang...

OTOH - BUDDIES! I am walking my Flareon for Eevee candies, and she's so cute!

From:

brightknightie

You're right; I spoke too soon. The transitions from wi-fi to cell data, and back, are still rough.

They seem somewhat differently rough, with more proactive error messages and less outright hanging...