Pokémon GO news (June 18): Friends, Trading, and Gifting / Pokémon GO Summer Tour 2018!
Pokémon GO news: Friends, Trading, and Gifting coming later this week, and more details about the Pokémon GO Summer Tour 2018!
Pokémon GO: Friends, Trading, and Gifting
Today, Niantic announced that friend features will be available as early as this week. You will soon be able to kep track of their adventures in the game, but also send them items, earn bonuses, trade Pokémon, and more. To become friend with someone, you first need to get their Trainer Code and then enter it in-game in order to send an invite. If they accept it, you’re good to go!
Once the update has rolled out, you will be able to get special Gifts from the Photo Disc of a PokéStop or Gym. However, there’s a catch: you cannot open it, and you can only send them to someone on your Friend List. Inside the Gift, they will find various helpful items, but also a postcard showing where you picked up the Gift.
Also, there will sometimes be a special surprise egg inside: it contains the Alolan form of a Pokémon from the Kanto region!
You will be able to increase your Friendship Level by sending Gifts to a friend, but also participate in a Raid or Gym Battle with them. The higher your Friendship level, the more bonuses you unlock when playing together. For example, you can get an Attack bonus when you take part in a Gym Battle or Raid Battle with a Great Friend. Important note: you can only increase your Friendship Level once per day per friend.
There’s another way to increase your Friendship Level: Pokémon trades! Presumably in order to limit abuse (especially from hackers), you can only trade Pokémon with friends that have reached Trainer Level 10. You can actually get a bonus Candy for the Pokémon you traded away, and if the Pokémon traded were caught in locations far apart from each other, you get a bigger bonus.
Unfortunately, there’s a catch: you need to spend Stardust to trade Pokémon with anyone, and some trades require more than others (that’s the case of Legendary Pokémon, Shiny Pokémon, or Pokémon not in your Pokédex. The higher your Friendship Level with someone, the lower the amount of Stardust required for a Trade.
Finally, there’s one more catch: Special Trades can only occur once per day with a Great Friend or Best Friend, and it requires a lot of Stardust.
Here’s some screenshots for the Friends Feature in Pokémon GO:
Source: Niantic
Pokémon GO Summer Tour 2018
During the weekends of the Pokémon GO Summer Tour 2018, players from all around the world will be able to tackle the Professor Willow’s Global Challenge: a special set of Friend Research task.
During this callenge, players will be divided in 4 parts, each with its own set of Friend Research tasks (though the bonuses are unlocked for everyone):
- The Americas
- Europe, the Middle East, and Africa
- the Asia-Pacific region
- the main research site itself
There will be 3 opportunities to complete these Field Research Goals. At the end of each one, if all goals are met for each area, then an even bigger bonus will be unlocked!
Here’s the list of Field Research tasks:
Next, here’s more details about the Pokémon GO Safari Zone in Dortmund and the Pokémon GO Fest:
Pokémon GO Safari Zone in Dortmund (June 30th and July 1st)
- increased spawn of Roselia (including Shiny Resolia) during the
Pokémon GO Fest (July 14th and July 15th)
- Trapinch, Feebas will appear more frequently all over the world
- Plusle and Minun, will also appear more frequently worldwide as themed Field Research tasks are completed. Catching those will reward additional Stardust. Shiny version of them will also appear.
- Alolan Diglett and Alolan Geodude will start appearing during this event.
Source: Niantic
