Belated Free-for-All!

[inkstone]

Hello trainers!

I hope you're enjoying the double XP/stardust event and that, if you live in the US, you had a lovely Thanksgiving.

The current in-game event + Ditto + CP rebalancing seems to have stolen a lot of attention, so not much in the way of news. I did find this little piece about how PokeGo can be used to encourage interest in conservation efforts. I thought it was a nice change of pace from all the "POKEGO IS DESTROYING OUR PARKS!!" articles, which -- if you do enough digging -- a not-insignificant number seem to stem from affluent people freaking out over the riff-raff.

Since it's been a while, how are y'all doing? Enjoying the in-game event? Struggling to find a ditto? Mad about the CP rebalancing? Let's chat.

Comments

[inkstone]

Let's see.

My playing has slowed down considerably since starting the new day job, but I finally reached level 26 a few days ago. But thanks to the current event plus streak bonuses & lucky eggs, I am well on my way to level 27. In fact, I gained ~120,000XP while playing for a couple hours at a local park today! That was pretty exciting.

The reason why I went to the local park -- it's the one where I'd done my magikarp farming during the summer -- is that I'd heard it'd become a seel nest & they weren't kidding. I caught 31 in 90 minutes (with an additional 2 running away from me). I was able to evolve 2 dewgongs! So-so IVs but eh, that's two new entries in my pokedex at least.

I will say this event is no joke. Catching my first ever seel + 7 day catch bonus streak + accuracy bonus = over 10,000XP gained! Alas, I didn't get a curveball bonus (I pretty throw curveballs exclusively these days) because seels are so close that they won't register as curveballs.

Oh yes! And I have 2 dittos. My friends are pretty salty about this. XD

[tyger]

I'm definitely enjoying the event! :D Haven't found a ditto yet, but I've gained a couple of levels, which is pretty great. :3 Also found a diglett, which is new to me.

I am constantly out of pokéballs, though. Anyone got any tips for getting a stash, or is it just luck?

[serpentine]

I am enjoying it very much. Managed to catch a Ditto luckily enough on Wednesday night when I was visiting my mother, who lives in a place where Pidgies and Rattata are far more common than where I live.

I also managed to pretty much get most of the XP to get me to level 27 and I hope to make a decent amount of progress toward level 28 before the event ends.

Rebalancing

[brightknightie]

The rebalancing has done wonderful things for gym diversity in my area! Before, it was always, always the same 5 pokémon species. Now, you see all kinds of pokémon, and my pet vileplume sometimes even holds the top spot for several hours before a dragonite tops her.

Perhaps it will get boring again once everyone powers up their rhydons, but... fingers crossed! I love having to look up the type advantages to battle a pokémon that I don't know well. :-)

[gorgeousnerd]

No Dittos for me yet; I hope I can still get one after the event because it doesn't look like I'm getting one during. I have too few Pokeballs to do a proper Ditto hunt, and I'm sick and it's been cold/snowing, but just having the event is great because the daily bonuses for first catch/first stop of the day have boosted my collected XP dramatically. I think I'm going to lucky egg in the next day or two to really maximize the double XP.

[grammarwoman]

No Dittos for me, either. I've been hunting down all the commons I can get, but they stubbornly stay themselves, alas.

[malnpudl]

I got to Level 31 on the first day of the event -- about a 100K leap in XP -- and have been rocketing up ever since, working the event as much as I can manage because man, do I need the stardust. At the rate I'm going, I will almost certainly get to Level 32 before the event ends.

Also, my local park has turned into a Bulbasaur nest, which makes me ridiculously happy since it's my favorite mon (in all its evolutions). I'm greedily accumulating as much candy as I can before the next nest migration.

I got two Dittos! Woohoo! The first, on the first day, was from a Magikarp and has a 154 CP, and the second, just yesterday, was from a Pidgey and is a humble 96 CP.

The really fun thing was battling a gym with a Ditto in it. Since the Ditto had very low CP, I used my own even lower Pikachu to battle it -- and the Ditto transformed into a Pikachu! Apparently that's what its "Transform" fast move means? Unfortunately I didn't get to try it again to see if it would always transform into a Pikachu or if it would transform into whatever it was battling against or...??? Anybody know?

I've also managed to FINALLY evolve a Charizard. Unfortunately it has the weakest possible moveset. Dang it. But oh, well, at least it's a new one for my Pokedex, which is up to 139, holy crap.

I'm getting discouraged about getting all of them (or at least everything available in the US) because I have never even seen a Hitmonlee, not even in a gym, much less had a chance to catch one. Where do the damn things hang out? Very frustrating.

Question for the hive mind: I have never caught or hatched a Clefable or a Jigglypuff that got a good appraisal (i.e., had IV > 80). And that's in spite of Clefables being common as dirt around here, and Jigglypuffs aren't rare. Is there such a thing as a high IV Clefable? What about Jigglypuff? Should I give up and settle for something in the 70s?

[healingmirth]

I have been Real Sad about snorlax, y'all. I stumbled upon one in town a while back, and he was my pride and joy for months despite his relative terribleness, but it's been a long time since he was high enough to be a good gym defender around here, and I just couldn't face the slog of buddying him.

And then today, after hatching onix, electrabuzz, eevee, and hitmonchan out of the eggs I started the event with, I? Hatched a max-hp Snorlax. How I was blithely carrying a 428lb egg in my backpack, I could not tell you, but I will take it.

Caught my first ditto with go+, after giving up on the slog a couple days in, and was prepared to be sad about missing the full song and dance, but I found another one the old fashioned way on Sunday, so all is forgiven. Still pretty neat, and I'll probably drop it in one of our high-turnover gyms as soon as I remember, so I can play around a bit.

Speaking of which, all our gyms are vaporeon, vaporeon, vaporeon, gyarados, vaporeon now, which Zzzzzzzzz.... Super easy to tear down with the jolteon boost, pain in the butt to train up because all my jolteons got boosted and all my plants movesets are half psychic or poison. I think I'm going to try to max an exeggutor just to break up the monotony.

[ephemera]

Two Dittos in two days was a highlight ;) - actually 3, but one I traded for candy, because at 10CP it couldn't transform fast enough to not die instantly in battle/training, and there does seem to be a link between Ditto's stats and the stats on transform, which makes powerng up a Ditto have some point.

(Huh - I'm using an Incense as I type this, and apparently you can find Ditto's amongst incense-lured Pidgies... CP62, though, and low stats...)

I finally hit level 30, thanks to the double XP, which is exciting (and Max Revives are a thing - I didn't know that!) and the bonus stardust means I have been able to max-power several of my best beasties to their new mazes, which is satisfying.

I also finally walked my Bulbasaur the gazillion KM it's taken to evolve my first Venusaur - next up Charmander... I also caught a baby Snorlax, so that's three new-to-my-Pokedex critters this week.

[healingmirth]

I'm not quite organized enough to make a new top level post right now, but in case anyone's browsing around, nest migration hit this evening, and then more (all?) regions got the new tracker shortly thereafter.

I can tell I'm going to be spending a lot more time staring at it than usual, even though I think literally nothing interesting has ever spawned in walking distance of here.