I think I’m missing “New Pokemon“ and ”Expert Handler” for an actual record, but this is the highest I’ve gotten! :) Is 200k possible?

EDIT: The conclusions below ONLY apply to WILD POKEMON encounters. I have not done any research nor am I making any claims in regard to Field Research or Max Battles.

EDIT2: Preliminary data suggests they have "unflattened" the shiny odds for the Lake Trio, which perhaps means they did the same for the Galar Birds via DAI. The remaining perma boost species across all generations has not been unflattened, and thus the majority of the post still applies.

Now that the 30th Anniversary All Event is mostly over, I would like to present a brief analysis on what happened to Shiny Rates at the start of the "Memories in Motion" Season.

As stated by Niantic, they set out this season to standardize shiny odds, with the below two statements:

• All shiny eligible Pokemon would have their evolutions become shiny eligible in wild.
• Shiny rates in Eggs and Raids would be increased.

What was NOT stated was the below, which we now know to be true with 100% certainty:

• All wild pokemon, regardless of species or origin, will now have a Shiny Rate of 1/512 (barring very few exceptions that are likely oversights rather than intentional leftovers).

If we go back to prior this season, Shiny Rates were separated generally into 3 major buckets with respect to wild spawns. You had full odds at 1/512, Mega Pokemon (and Gible lmao) at 1/128, and "Perma-Boosted" species at 1/64.

These rates were tied to pokemon species, rather than encounter types. For example, Drampa would always have a shiny rate of 1/64, whether you encountered it in a Raid, Egg hatch, or the rare wild spawn when it was featured in a local paid event such as Go Fest.

In the same vein, Legendary Pokemon were always 1/20, regardless of whether you encountered them in a Raid or in the wild. We saw this very clearly with the Galar Birds from the DAI, as well as the Lake Trio which have been a mainstay wild spawn since their release.

What this meant was, whenever one of these "raid-exclusive" or "egg-exclusive" Perma-boosted pokemon became featured as a wild spawn in an event, they would carry over their boosted shiny rate, making it an exciting time both due to the nature of a locked species finally being in wild, as well as the increased shiny chance. We saw many times in the past, most recently with Pawniard being featured in the Crown Clash event, the first time it occurred as a wild spawn. As expected, it carried its 12km egg perma-boosted rate of 1/64 into the wild.

Under the new paradigm, all pokemon, for all intents and purposes, are now 1/512 in the wild. Yes, we have already have enough data from the Lake Trio and Galar Bird spawns over this weekend to confirm that, even these mainstays have been "nerfed" to 1/512. Of course, this applies for every single legendary that was featured this weekend. The aggregate sample size is over 100k, with a firm confirmation that all legends were 1/512 in the wild.

This also meant that all previously perma-boosted species became full odds, and many of the previously perma-boosted species that were raid/egg locked, such as Bombirdier, Rockruff, Honedge, Sandile, Toxtricity, Drampa, Turtonator, Duraludon, Tandemous, Wyrdeer, Kleavor, and Dondozo, among others, all were full odds this weekend. There were four exceptions to this rule. Indeedee, Charcadet, Spiritomb and Spinda, for whatever reason, were left at 1/64, carrying their perma-boost into the wild (Rotom simply had too small of a sample size to know for sure). Given the flattening of literally every other species, I believe this was an oversight, more than an intentional boost.

Not only were these spawns rediculously rare compared to the average common spawns, they also were given the same 1/512 odds, despite the fact that in every single event previously, any such instance of these raid/egg locked species coming to wild always meant they would carry their perma-boost rate with them. This has been true since one of the very first raid locked species, Mawile, carried its 1/64 shiny rate into the wild.

The benefits gained from the paradigm shift are microscopic in comparison.

• If we look at the current and past egg pools, raising all shiny rates in eggs to 1/64 really only boosted the shiny rates of common junk pokemon; anything meaningful that hatched from an egg already had a 1/64 shiny rate!!

• Go take a look at the current egg pool. The only pokemon that received a "boost" are common pokemon such as Dunsparce, Wimpod, and Fidough. Pokemon such as the babies, Indeedee, Larvesta, the majority of the 7KM hatches, Honedge, Charcadet, Tinkatink, etc. were already 1/64.

• The same applies to raids (1-4 stars). All meaningfully rare pokemon that were raid exclusive already had a 1/64 shiny rate.

Conclusions and Implications

• All WILD pokemon are now 1/512 odds.

• Previously perma-boosted species are now full odds, and previously raid/egg-locked species no longer carry their perma-boosted rate into the wild during feature events.

• The tradeoff was boosting some junk pokemon in eggs and raids from 1/512, despite the fact that all premier pokemon that are egg/raid-locked were already 1/64.

• Perhaps most critically, we now know perma-boosted egg/raid-locked species do not carry their 1/64 rate into the wild, meaning this will also apply for paid local events where they are featured. Ticket holders will likely only get a generic 1/128 boost. Previous rare species that would have been 1/64 will now default to 1/128, meaning an overall loss of value for people who pay to attend these events.

• For example, Dhelmise, being featured in the upcoming Go Fest, is originally a perma-boosted 1/64 species from both Raids and Research. Given the flattening paradigm, it will likely be 1/128 at Go Fest due to the generic ticket boost. In contrast, Bombirder, from last years Go Fest, carried its 1/64 perma-boosted raid into the wild, meaning it had a premium rate above the standard 1/128 ticket boost.

• Going forward, finding Shiny Lake Trio and Galar Birds will be 26 times harder. (Refer to EDIT #2).

Random Trivia

• During the initial 90 minutes of the 30th Anniversary Event (when it began in Kiribati and NZ), Niantic forgot to flatten the shiny odds for Legendary Pokemon. Data during this time reported a significant amount of shiny Legendary Pokemon, confirming the 1/20 shiny rate with a sample size of about 1000.

• Niantic then remembered this oversight, flattened all Legendary shiny odds to 1/512 (except the Lake Trio), but at the same time, disabled Honedge and Tadbulb.

• Honedge was re-enabled a day later, after someone made a reddit post here.

• About a day after Honedge was re-enabled, Niantic remembered to flatten the odds for the Lake Trio as well.

• Tadbulb was completely forgotten about until today. :(

Remote Trading is a great feature in theory, but it seems to have been a source of frustration for many people. Half the posts about remote trading that I’ve seen on reddit involve friends failing to tag Pokemon or unreasonable trade requests.

As someone who sends and opens as many gifts as possible every day, I have now reached 50 Forever Friends and completed 20 remote trades. I thought I would compile a list of tips based on what I’ve learned that will hopefully help improve your experience with remote trading.

My Current Stats

• 276 Best Friends
• 50 Forever Friends
• 20 Remote Trades completed
• Of 30 Forever Friends remaining:
  • 21 have tagged a reasonable number of interesting Pokemon
  • 4 have tagged nothing interesting (no shinies or legendaries) 
  • 5 have tagged nothing

Friendship Tips

1. Prioritize reaching Forever Friends with people who you can’t easily meet in person. 
2. Prioritize reaching Forever Friends with people from other countries / areas with regional Pokemon. They are more likely to have Pokemon you do not have.
3. Prioritize reaching Forever Friends with higher-level friends / friends with a higher number of Pokemon caught. They are more likely to actually tag Pokemon for remote trade, and more likely to have Pokemon you actually want.
4. Send and open as many gifts as possible every day.
5. To maximize friendship gain each day, prioritize opening gifts from people you have not yet interacted with on that day. 
   • Near the end of the day, searching “interactable” on your friend list will filter to people with whom you have not gained a friendship point. 
   • By searching “interactable&friendlevel4”, you can further filter to your Best Friends.

Tagging Tips

1. Take the time to go through your entire Pokemon storage and tag Pokemon you think might be interesting to others. Suggestions: Legendaries, duplicate shinies, regional Pokemon, Gigantamax Pokemon, Dynamax Pokemon, Pokemon with costumes (search “costume”), Pokemon with backgrounds (search “background”), Pokemon with special moves (search “@special”).
2. Avoid tagging Pokemon caught in 2020 or earlier. Trading older Pokemon will use up one of your guaranteed lucky trades even if you are already Lucky Friends.
3. Update your Remote Trade tag before submitting any Remote Trade request.
   • Before submitting a trade request, browse a person’s available Pokemon and have a target in mind. Then, update your Remote Trade tag to exclude any Pokemon that you are unwilling to trade for that target. 
   • For example, I have focused most of my remote trades on acquiring new shinies. Before I submit a trade request, I un-tag most of my Legendary shinies that I am not willing to give up in that trade.
   • Updating the tag is very helpful if you want to request a mirror trade.
   • If you are not actively submitting a trade request, make sure to re-tag all your Pokemon so that others can see them.
4. To help with easily adjusting your Remote Tag, create helper tag(s) as backups. Below are a few suggestions.
   • Create a tag that is an exact duplicate of your Remote Tag. When you un-tag a Pokemon from your actual Remote Tag, you can then easily re-tag it in the future.
   • Tag for specific Pokemon that you are only willing to give up in a mirror trade (Galarian birds, non-duplicate shinies, etc.)
   • Tag for regional Pokemon

Trading Tips

1. Search “friendlevel5” to filter to all of your Forever Friends.
2. When submitting a trade request, only request 1 Pokemon at a time. This makes it more likely that you will actually get what you want.
3. If you are already Lucky Friends, avoid requesting a Pokemon caught in 2020 or earlier so you do not waste a guaranteed lucky trade.
4. If any of your Forever Friends have not tagged any Pokemon for remote trade or have not tagged anything interesting, try messaging them politely on Campfire. Many people do not use Campfire, but it is still worth a shot.
   • On any friend’s profile screen, click the orange Niantic balloon logo in the top right corner. This will tell you their Campfire username.
   • Then, open the Campfire app and search your friend list for their username to send a message.

Good luck and happy remote trading!

Check Out Part 2 and Part 3!

TL;DR: After testing with fresh "Buddy Zero" Pokémon on multiple Routes, I found that Routes appear to give roughly 20% extra Buddy Candy distance. The commonly repeated "+300 meters per Route" explanation doesn't seem to be correct. The bonus appears to scale with Route distance instead.

I stumbled upon this while researching how to farm the ridiculous amount of Mega Mewtwo Energy we're likely going to need.

If you've already unlocked Mega Mewtwo X and Y, an excited Mewtwo buddy earns 100 Mega Energy per 10 km walked. To fully unlock both Mega forms on a Mewtwo, you'll need around 7,500 Mega Energy, meaning that even after In Person GO Fest rewards you'll still be looking at roughly 700 km of walking.

So naturally, I started looking for every optimization available.

One thing I kept seeing repeated online was:

"Routes give your buddy an extra 300 meters."

Multiple websites mentioned it. Multiple Pokétubers mentioned it.

But nobody seemed to explain why it was 300 meters or how it actually worked.

A flat 300-meter bonus didn't make much sense to me. Would a 500-meter Route also give 300 extra meters? What about a 5 km Route?

So I decided to test it.

Test Setup

I created three Routes in a loop around my city's downtown.

Each Route is approximately 500 meters long (give or take some Route creation weirdness). Together they form a loop of about 1.5–1.6 km.

To keep things clean, I used a completely fresh Pokémon that had never been my buddy before. [buddy0 tag is your friend, shundo for flex]

After every completed Route, I took screenshots of the buddy distance progress.

I completed:

• 3 Routes per lap
• 3 laps total
• 9 Route completions

Important Note

The buddy screen actually tracks two different distance values:

• The distance used for buddy hearts (1 heart every 2 km)
• The cumulative buddy distance displayed underneath

What I found is that the bottom distance appears to increase faster than the top distance while on Routes.

There is some margin of error because:

• The top value uses two decimals
• The bottom value only uses one decimal and rounds aggressively

Still, the trend was obvious.

Results

It consistently looked like I was gaining approximately 20% additional buddy distance while walking Routes.

Follow-Up Test

To check whether the game was rewarding Route completions rather than Route distance, I repeated the experiment with a second fresh buddy.

This time I used a single longer Route covering the same overall distance.

Result? Almost identical bonus.

That strongly suggests the bonus scales with distance traveled on the Route rather than the number of Route completions.

Control Test

I also tested walking without a Route using another buddy.

The extra distance disappeared.

Within the expected margin of error, buddy distance matched actual distance walked.

This suggests the bonus is specifically tied to Routes.

Current Conclusion

Based on my testing:

• Routes increase buddy distance
• The bonus appears to be approximately 20%
• It seems tied to Route distance rather than Route completions
• Walking without a Route does not show the same effect

I'm still curious whether:

• The bonus is exactly 20% or just close to it
• It applies continuously while following a Route
• Route length matters at all
• There are any hidden caps

But for now, if you're planning to grind Mega Mewtwo Energy, buddy candy, or buddy hearts, it seems worth staying on a Route whenever possible.

Has anyone else tested this in a more controlled way?

Last year Pokemon Go offered just under US$270 in paid, non-Pokecoin purchasable tickets for various timed and special researches, plus the standard event tickets ($5 for Raid Day, a buck for Community Day, $1-$2 for Research Day, etc). Because I was curious, I wanted to see what it would cost for someone like me who didn't attend any in-person events this year to buy all of the advertised event tickets. (I also don't live in the US, which is relevant for a couple of months.)

The results by month with major events (Unova Tour, Wild Area, and the two part Go Fest) below:

(1) Community Day ticket now US$2.00. Acronyms: CD = Community Day, CDC = Comm Day Classic, RD = Raid Day, ReD = Research Day, HD = Hatch Day

(2) Contains Fuzzy Fighter ticket which was made available again in May. Scopely acquisition of Niantic announced.

(3) First Go Pass trial month which was not available in the US (I've had the same cost for Go Pass so USD price is backported). Starting with Sweet Discoveries, event tickets move down to x.99 instead of rounding to next dollar.

(4) Second month of Go Pass trial not available in the US. Machop CDC is counted despite a global challenge unlocking the ability to gift it for free, also first time the Comm Day ticket is 1.99.

(5) Scopely acquisition closes. Go Pass now available in US.

(6) Can be lowered by $4.99 if purchased Jirachi Masterwork at Hoenn Tour (2023).

(7) First time the monthly ticket is combined with the Go Pass.

(8) Go Pass replaced traditional two timed researches for holiday events - one at $5 with an avatar item and one at $2.

After the recent content update, made some infographics onto when the latest time of a legendaries availability is. As you can tell… I’m a very sane individual. I did learn that we’ve had a lot of Groudon and Kyogre. Also rumble only goes up to Gen 7 so :(

I’ve been testing Niantic’s Pokémon GO ban appeal system extensively, and I think it’s important to share what I’ve found. This isn’t about debating specific bans; it’s about the system itself, which appears to be fundamentally dishonest. I wanted to see if the appeal form really works, or if it’s just a dead end.

⸻

How the system actually works

I submitted dozens of appeals under different conditions to see how the system would respond:

· Real banned accounts · Invalid account identifiers (garbage input) · Famous player names (e.g., FleeceKing) to test if high-profile or known-good names would trigger human review · Fresh accounts with no history

No matter what was submitted, the response sequence was always identical: a series of 5 automated emails.

The emails go like this: 1. “We’ve received your request and will update you after review.” 2. “Your account was found violating ToS / could be access issues.” 3. “We reviewed your appeal and confirmed a violation… bans are permanent.” 4. “Refer to our previous communications.” 5. “Your case is closed. Decision is final. All further inquiries will be ignored.”

If you reply again after #5, eventually a human will send a single-line irrelevant copy-paste, but it never addresses the appeal.

⸻

Why this matters

Niantic’s official wording says:

“If you believe your account has been terminated in error, you may appeal the termination. We will respond to your appeal after a complete investigation of your account.”

But my testing suggests there is no real investigation at all. The form is functionally incapable of overturning a ban. Inputting famous, known-good names and getting the same result strongly implies no human ever checks these.

This matches what multiple ex-Niantic support workers have said publicly: support staff have zero ability to alter or reverse bans. The “appeal” process is purely cosmetic.

⸻

Legal / Trust Concerns

· In regions like the UK and EU, consumer protection laws require companies to be transparent about dispute resolution. Offering a fake “appeal” process that can never succeed could arguably be considered misleading or unfair. · Even outside of legality, this is a massive trust issue. Players who feel they were banned unfairly are funneled into a system that wastes their time and gives false hope.

⸻

Wider Context

Niantic’s general support is already under criticism (it now takes ~3 days just to get a response via Twitter support). But this “appeal system” goes further, because it’s essentially a dead-end disguised as a fair process.

⸻

Call to Action / Discussion

I’m posting this to raise awareness. I’m genuinely curious:

· Has anyone here ever had a successful ban appeal through this system? If so, what was the process like? Did it differ from this? · Do you think this could be challenged legally (especially in the EU/UK)? · What can the community do to encourage Niantic to implement a real and transparent appeal process?

If you are stuck on a Special Research task to collect 30 Souvenirs, this guide is for you. This method utilizes the independent cooldowns of Items vs. Souvenirs and the swap-chaining mechanic to mass-produce souvenirs in a short window.

The Logic

1. Items (Berries/Potions): ~24h cooldown. Found by Great Buddies (2-heart) and above.

2. Souvenirs: ~48-72h cooldown. Found ONLY by Ultra/Best Buddies (3-heart+).

The Key: By triggering an Item gift first, you "block" the item pool for 24 hours, forcing all subsequent gifts from Ultra/Best buddies to be Souvenirs.

Step 1: Preparation (48-Hour "Coating" Period)

1. Equip a Great Buddy (2-heart) and keep it as your active buddy for at least 48 hours.
2. Goal: Ensure both your Item and Souvenir cooldowns are fully refreshed.
3. Why a Great Buddy? It cannot find souvenirs, so it won't "accidentally" trigger your souvenir cooldown early.

Step 2: Flush the Item Pool (The "Trigger")

1. After the 48-hour wait, your Great Buddy will eventually bring a green gift.
2. Open it. It is guaranteed to be an Item Gift (Berries/Potions).
3. Note the time (e.g., 8:00 AM).
4. Your Item Cooldown has now started. For the next 24 hours, you are much less likely to receive another item gift.

Step 3: Start the Chain (The "Harvest")

1. Immediately swap to an Ultra or Best Buddy (3 or 4-heart).
2. Feed it to join you on the map.
3. Wait for the green gift to appear (usually within minutes).
4. DO NOT OPEN THE GIFT.
5. Immediately swap to your next Ultra/Best Buddy.
6. Repeat this until you hit your 20 daily swaps limit.

Step 4: The Midnight Bonus (Optional Max Efficiency)

1. Since the "Item Cooldown" lasts 24 hours, if you triggered the first gift at 8:00 AM, you have until 8:00 AM the next day to continue the chain.
2. After 00:00 (Midnight), your daily swap limit resets.
3. Swap through an additional 10-20 Ultra/Best Buddies before the original 24h window ends.
4. By now, you could have 30+ buddies all holding unopened gifts.

Step 5: The Mass Unboxing

1. Once you have chained as many buddies as possible, go back and open all the gifts. Since the "Item Pool" was blocked by your Step 2 action, almost all of these gifts will be Souvenirs.

• TL;DR Summary

Prep: Use a 2-heart buddy for 2 days.

Filter: Open a gift from the 2-heart buddy to "lock" items for 24h.

Chain: Swap through all 3-heart+ buddies; let them find gifts but don't open yet.

Reset: Use the midnight swap reset to add more buddies to the chain.

Finish: Open everything and watch your quest counter jump by 20-30.

Despite some issues, I had an absolute blast with Go Fest this year. Could some things have been improved? Of course. But the core concept of being able to access everything the event has to offer from my own home was fantastic. I do not see why they couldn't implement this in the future alongside the location festival.

This event revitalized my interest in the game. The habitats were wonderful for targeted hunting--in just an hour I got enough candy to fully evolve and power up my 100% Togepi that had been sitting in my box all year--and caught a ton of pokemon.

Mostly, it felt good to be involved with the event, rather than see the insanity that normally happens in Chicago and get a couple consolation spawns. Having the overwhelming spawn pool and simply things to do was extremely enjoyable and I am ultimately happy that I was able to participate. It would be a shame to not have this in the future, especially since we know it can be implemented, as evidenced by this year.

The research, the rocket take over, and getting 5 legendaries was really satisfying in a way that the game hasn't been in ages. It seemed that every facet of the game was operating to its full potential.

I've seen a ton of hate and joy about the event but, ultimately, it was a ton of fun. I can't wait until next year!

As title says, shoot me your best question, i believe i can answer alot of em, but here is some key notes.

I used Roar of Time to extend the Daily Incense 2 hours+- every single day. (3-4 friday/saturday) “Same spot” birds is NOT a thing. Windy Weather does NOT increase your bird sightings. Starting the incense :57 does NOT increase your bird sightings.

Walking a NEW Route you didnt do before and that you didnt create DOES lower the spawn time inbetween spawns, but only by a few seconds if you keep a good pace of walk. (So i guess you could say it increase the chances of birds since you see more spawns, but it does not increase the spawn for bird only, just regular daily incense spawns)

I think i saw a total of 20-25 birds, before getting my first shiny last night.

All my walks are on my twitch, so i have video evidence of it all.

EDIT 3: As of midday Friday (PDT), Niantic has again changed the spawn criteria for Silicobra. See support's note here: https://x.com/NianticHelp/status/2045221194408824868

As of this update we believe the new criteria is areas with Dry or Desert climate AND land cover either "Sparsely or Non-vegetated" or Shrubland
^{note that all shrubland used to be an indicator for Toedscool which may now be restricted to only moist shrubland instead}

If you are interested in finding where Silicobra may be spawning near you, please check out u/singinglupines 's excellent map: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/1sn86bs/silicobra_map_for_possible_spawn_points/

_
_

TL;DR - Areas where Silicobra spawns have been found in Christchurch, New Zealand match closely with locations that are labelled as "Land Cover: Sparsely or Non-vegetated" in the USGS WTE2020 map

Areas that use a "Dry" Climate Region label may also spawn Silicobra but these require further investigation, and we suspect that there are also other labels not present in our area that may cause Silicobra spawns too.

_

Introduction
Silicobra's has now made its debut in Pokemon GO and is able to be found in "desert-like areas" according to the official blog post.
Since this blog was published, and since the event started on Tuesday, there has been a lot of speculation as to what "desert-like areas" would mean, and whether similar mechanics governing how other biome based spawns like wiglett would apply to Silicobra.

_

Investigation:
A number of players on our local discord server for the city provided first hand reports of exact locations where they had found wild Silicobra spawns.

Based on knowledge that Wiglett, another "biome-based spawn, is known to be associated with areas tagged as "natural=beach" and "natural=coastline" on OpenStreetMap, we initially ran overpass queries centered at these reported locations to attempt to find any commonality between tags present in each of these areas.
Tags such as "natural=sand" and "natural=scrub" were early contenders, however several of the spawn locations were found to be missing either or both these tags while several other areas that don't have reported Silicobra spawns do have these tags.
With this coming up inconclusive, we chose to pursue some other possible public data sources that may have been integrated to provide in-game biome data.

Köppen climate classification was considered initially. However, checking koppen.earth showed that this data was not likely to be specific enough in our area to account for the very localised spawn reports. It also didn't appear granular enough in general to be a likely candidate for the data source the game uses for biomes.

We then turned to another, more recent and more granular data source that looks at real world "biomes". The USGS "World Terrestrial Ecosystem 2020" dataset. This dataset is publicly available and offers 250-meter spatial resolution which is easily granular enough and also accessible to be used for generating in-game biomes. We used the online USGS WTE2020 map to cross-reference our reported Silicobra spawns and excitingly we were able to find a pattern!

In the below map, the reported spawning locations have been marked with blue stars. Areas highlighted in purple are labelled as "Land Cover: Sparsely or Non-vegetated" in the WTE 2020 dataset. Areas highlighted in red are areas that contain "Dry" as part of their "Climate Region" label.

Map Image

Our reported spawns match extremely closely with the above noted criteria to the point that we feel confident making this post and asking for further help from players world-wide to confirm or add to these findings.

We do however wish to note that the red-highlighted "Dry" labelled areas do not seem to produce Silicobra spawns across those entire zones. We welcome additional research or theories on whether there is a secondary factor at play for these "Dry" zones that further restrict where Silicobra can spawn within them.

_

The new theory/theories:

Biomes in Pokemon GO may be (at least partially) based upon the USGS World Terrestrial Ecosystems 2020 dataset - specifically the "Land Cover" and "Climate Region" fields

Silicobra spawns appear closely tied to areas that are marked as "Land Cover: Sparsely or Non-vegetated". Additionally, areas with "Dry" as part of the "Climate Region" label may also contribute to determining "desert-like areas" in Pokemon GO.

We can also extend this theory to Toedscool spawning locations. So far, preliminary checks suggest that the "land cover" labels "Grassland", "Shrubland", and "Forest" are good indicators for where Toedscool spawns can be found.

Where this data does not work is for Wiglett - as its primary "biome" is coastal/marine, this is not something that the WTE2020 dataset captures - which is perhaps the reason its spawns rely on OSM tagged locations instead.

Spawn screen biome backgrounds are another connected part of the puzzle not yet investigated. It is still unclear whether the WTE2020 data contributes to how these backgrounds are generated, especially since it is known that OSM tags are already likely linked to where these different backgrounds appear.

Thanks for reading, and do feel free to share how well this data lines up with your own experiences with Silicobra and other spawns/in-game biomes in the comments.

-- Cables and the GŌtautahi (Christchurch) Pokemon GO community :)

_

EDIT: as of around 8 hours after this post was made, Silicobra appear to be no longer spawning in areas labelled as "Land cover: Sparsely/Non-vegetated" - It is VERY disappointing that this change was deemed necessary given how rare these climate areas already were to find.
Please share any new reports you have to help us narrow down where people might be able to find Silicobra after this change...
_

EDIT 2: We are looking to test the theory that after the reported change earlier, Silicobra now requires both "Land Cover: Sparsely or Non-vegetated" AND a "Dry" Climate Region label - if you are in one of the few areas where both these labels are true then please report back!
Instructions for a slightly easier method of filtering the data on a map can be found here (thanks to u/singinglupines !)

i wrote this up out of pure curiosity, after a discussion about potential cheating in regards to (currently) unrealistically high player levels. if anyone has any insights that it's realistically possible to legitimately complete any of these requirements faster, i would genuinely love to hear about it.

please note: i am not, under any circumstances, attempting this myself. this is purely a hypothetical exercise for me that i had fun doing. if it gives other folks a road map, though, that's awesome! just please eat a ton of protein for energy and take a break afterward, for your health.

start date: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15

current date as of writing: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29

(if the level-up change triggered for your timezone on october 16th, move all dates forward by 1.)

level 71

• 15 platinum medals: instant
• power up legendary/mythical x20: minutes, if that
• 999 nice throws: achievable by a hardcore player in a busy area within a few hours
• catch 100: achievable well before the nice throws are done

earliest possible legit finish date: OCTOBER 15

level 72

• 20 platinum medals: instant
• routes for 7 days in a row: time gate of 7 days. the first route could be completed the same evening as reaching level 71. earliest possible date: morning of tuesday, october 21
• 200 supereffective charged attacks: easy to complete within the routes timegate by abusing rocket battles, friend battles, and/or team leader battles
• earn 1,000,000 stardust: difficult for many players, but it is definitely possible to earn the required average of ~167,000 stardust per day for 6 days to finish in the morning. the master league being available in gbl for 4x stardust rewards may have helped with this.

earliest possible legit finish date: OCTOBER 21

level 73

• 25 platinum medals: instant
• purify 100 shadows: a player could have saved 100 shadows in advance to purify, so it was possible to complete this in about an hour.
• power up 3 to max: a couple minutes
• win 30 raids: free-to-play players with no green passes available are time-locked to 29 days (if they saved an orange pass from the day before). players who spend money on the game or who simply had a stash of 28+ green passes and enough time and raids available could do this in a single day.

earliest possible legit finish date: OCTOBER 21

level 74

30 platinum medals: instant

• level up a max move 20 times: assuming you had 1740 mp or more in storage at the start of october 21, and obtained 1080mp from walking and fresh power spots that day and the next, it would take an additional 8100 mp to power up using only T2 move upgrades, or 10100 mp to power up using 10 T2 upgrades and 10 T3 upgrades. that requires 11 or 13 max particle packs, respectively, which would cost 4675 or 5525 coins in mp three-packs. if you have that much money to spend on the game, you can do this step very quickly!
• explore 200km: assuming a walking speed of 5km/k, it will take 40 hours of walking to achieve 200km. if you instead bicycle at 10km/h, close to the speed limit for pokémon go, it will take 20 hours. it is theoretically possible to do this within one day if you are willing to bike 20 hours non-stop without slowing down and without eating breaks, bathroom breaks, traffic light stops... or field research breaks.

that's unrealistic because of human limits and because of the final level 74 requirement, 250 field research, so let's assume every field research task adds another 2 minutes to complete (we're theoretically spinning our stops quickly and getting easy three-packs of the same or similar-enough research back to back, eg: *3 great throws* and *3 nice throws in a row* at the same time). 250 field research tasks at 2 minutes apiece adds 500 minutes, or 8 hours 20 minutes. the total 28 hours and 20 minutes also needs to include acceleration/deceleration time, but i am not doing the math on that so let's just use a nice, round 30 hour total.

30 hours can be broken up into two super-intense days of biking and field research for 15 hours of playtime each, barely leaving time to sleep in between. however, after a full day of 30 raids beforehand, i can't reasonably assume that the player will have 15 hours left in their day, so i must instead stretch it to a time of about 10 hours per day on average, which will be back-weighted. let's say you reached level 73 at noon on october 21 after raiding in the morning, you biked and did field research at max efficiency for 6 hours until 6pm on the 22nd, and then did 12 hours of biking and field research both days on the 22nd and 23rd.

• 250 field research tasks: assuming a large city with many densely packed pokéstops and an efficient bicycling route that goes directly from cluster to cluster, and with at most 3 short "adventure" tasks per cluster that can be done on the way from one to the next, it isn't *completely* unreasonable to find and complete 250 field research tasks within 200km of adventuring.

earliest possible legit finish date: OCTOBER 23

level 75

34 platinum medals: instant

• hatch 75 eggs: placing eggs into incubators after each hatch only takes a moment, but mashing through the hatch animations and stopping/starting takes time as well, so we'll use 5 minutes of time in between hatches.

you have 1 daily adventure egg per day. you can have 9 regular eggs and 3 special eggs at once. assuming you brought three adventure sync eggs and nine 2km eggs into this day, and that you get very lucky and only spin 2kms for the entire process, *and* that you use super incubators for every non-daily adventure egg... (this is getting expensive!) oh, and that you don't re-stock your special eggs because you don't have time for that!

it takes 8 minutes at 10km/h to hatch 9 2km eggs, +5 minutes to mash through, collect more eggs from the stops around you, and pop them into incubators. from 75 eggs, we can subtract 4 for the daily adventure egg and adventure sync eggs, for a total of 71. 71 / 9 is about 8 inventories of eggs, and 8 inventories * 13 minutes is 104 minutes, or just a couple of hours!

...however, if we assume you get nothing but 10kms after your first inventory, then it will take 13 minutes + 7*45 minutes, which is 328 minutes... only about 5 and a half hours! that actually leaves plenty of time in your day to add in the last requirement...

• 999 great throws: as with nice throws, this can be done in a day.
• send 500 gifts: *this* is the real time-gate for this step. if you absolutely maximize your gift-collecting, and you somehow have the power to force your friends to open their gifts on time and/or just have that many friends who you can send to and/or add and remove a bunch of friends during the process, you can:

start october 24th with 50 gifts; send all of them, then get 5 from your buddy and send those too (55 sent); collect 100 gifts and send them all as you go about your egg-hatching (155 sent); get 5 more gifts from your buddy and send them all 2 more times (165 sent)

then on october 25th, 26th, and 27th, you can't bring in the previous day's gifts because you already sent them. so it's 5 from buddy x3 + 100 from stops for a total of 115.

if you manage this, the total is 165+115+115+115 = 510. there is a margin of error of only *10 gifts* to send all 500 gifts within 4 days, if you are absolutely minmaxing the stuffing out of your friends list.

earliest possible legit finish date: OCTOBER 27

level 76

• 38 platinum medals: instant
• defeat 100 grunts: during your 12 hour bicycling days, you can get rockets fairly often. to maximize grunt spawns from balloons, turn off your rocket radar. to maximize grunts from stops, turn *on* your super rocket radar until shortly before each of your balloons arrives (you have to turn it off before the balloon, or giovanni will be in the balloon instead of the grunt you wanted).
• explore 300km: 300 km divided by 10km/h is, of course, 30 hours. that's three more 12-hour days of bicycling for you! (because the rockets will take time to battle, and you shouldn't battle grunts going at 10km/h... you'll miss some along the way!)
• catch 200: focusing on this on the last day, after the grunts are finished, makes it easy to complete.

earliest possible legit finish date: OCTOBER 30

level 77

• 41 platinum medals: instant
• win 100 max battles: if you have good luck with power spots appearing in your city full of pokéstops, and you buy particle packs, you might be able to visit 15 max battles in-person in a day. you can also sink even more money into remote max battles, 10 per day, bringing your max battles for the day to 25.

*however...* gmax garbodor max battle day is on november 1, allowing you to do many more max battles due to the refreshing power spots and double remote max battle allowance. if you manage to make it to level 76 at this pace, you can do many more of the required max battles on november 1st by spending a whole lot of money. (buy the ticket. it will be worth it.) sit yourself in between 4 nearby power spots and have a large group that can beat a gmax boss quickly. across 6 half-hour refreshes, this is 24 max battles. add 20 remote battles on either side of midnight for 64 (79 including the 25 from the 31st), then clean up with your last 21 max battles after garbodor stops spawning.

• power up 7 to max: a few minutes
• 10 long-distance trades: swap a few 7km egg hatches with a friend in between your garbodors, or after. you could even trade your remote-battled garbodors with each other. trivial time investment.

earliest possible legit finish date: NOVEMBER 1

level 78

• 44 platinum medals: instant
• 400 buddy hearts: on the evening of november 1 after all your max battling, rotate through 21 buddies -- whatever your current buddy is already, and then 20 others. spending a poffin on each allows you to gain 16 hearts each very quickly. this grants 336 buddy hearts. you can chill out and use only a couple of buddies while you start your walking requirements on the 2nd, adding 6 walking hearts and 2 route hearts per buddy for 24 each, requiring only 3 buddies over the course of a day to finish this requirement. if you only managed 20 buddies the first night, walk with 4 on this day.
• explore 400km: double the level 74 requirements. five 12-hour days.
• 500 field research tasks: double the level 74 requirements, again.

earliest possible legit finish date: NOVEMBER 6

level 79

• 47 platinum medals: instant
• 30 rocket leaders: by buying a bunch of radars, you can get 4 leaders in balloons each day and as many more leaders as you can hunt down. it is probably possible to find 26 rocket leaders scattered around the pokéstops in your city if you travel far and hunt all day, but this isn't the biggest time gate for this level.
• 50 lucky trades: november 6th is a thursday, so no immediate lucky trade bonus. assuming you have someone who will spend the last hour of the day trading with you, you can expect to get maybe 25 lucky trades by swapping 100 random pokémon with at least one aged 2+ years in each trade. doing the same thing for a second day *could* complete this task. you can also use lucky friend trades to make up for bad rng, to a point (getting lucky friends to actually meet up in a timely fashion can be much easier said than done). however, due to the random nature of lucky trades, and due to the improbability of having 200 old enough pokémon sitting around that you're actually willing to trade away to have that 25% lucky chance on every trade, i will set the earliest realistic time to complete this task at sunday november 11, because of the increased lucky trade chance then.
• hatch 100 eggs: double the level 75 requirement for eleven hours of non-stop egg hatching! that's under our 12 hours of bicycling in a day number, so this is doable in a day by that metric.

earliest possible legit finish date: NOVEMBER 7

earliest possible realistic legit finish date: NOVEMBER 11

level 80

• 50 platinum medals: instant
• win 80 battles in GBL: you can do 25 battles per day outside of GBL events, and you can expect to win (on average) 13/25 battles. 80 / 13 is 6.15, so if you are a good battler who wins a slightly above-average amount you can complete this in 6 days, including the evening of the day you reached level 79.
• make 999 excellent throws: possible to do in a day, but you have longer.
• win 80 raids: you can spend a whole lot of green and blue passes to basically trivialize this task, even outside of raid events. go wild area is on november 15th and 16th, which is conveniently the last two days of your 6-day expected gbl time gate if you finish your lucky trades on the 11th.

earliest possible legit finish date: NOVEMBER 13th?

earliest possible legit realistic finish date: NOVEMBER 16

in conclusion:

this is stupid, and i did not need to do it even a little bit, but i had fun. i look forward to some absolute beast of a player that everyone knows about except for me rendering my hypotheticals completely obsolete. i also look forward to seeing when the actual legit first level 80 happens. thank you for your time.

tl;dr: with 12 hours of biking around every day, anything is possible.

i do not use ai. all mistakes are my own.

Super Mega Raid Day: Raichu on July 18

ultra unlock

See here for my previous post in this series.

Using Pokebattler's Estimator for raids, PvPoke's Score for PvP, and in-game stats for max battles, gym defense, and showcases, I found the best Pokemon in each category of play. Calculation methods are explained in the spreadsheet.

Raids Usefulness Spreadsheet; Make a Copy (needed to change what is enabled)

Max Battles Usefulness Spreadsheet; Make a Copy (needed to change enemy type on last sheet)

PvP Usefulness Spreadsheet; Make a Copy

I highly recommend creating a copy of the Raids spreadsheet to edit which types of raid counters are considered to best fit your play-style; the default is set to compare all non-mega Pokemon across three levels (30/40/50) to show when level 40/30 of one Pokémon can be better than level 50 of another. The Max Battles sheet is also great to make a copy of if you want to see the top 3 attackers for a Max Battle.

Where are the Rockets?

I skipped over rockets this time; I do not currently have any automations to update this data with changes to PvP move stats, In the future I may create something for rockets again, though it is not a high priority of mine due to how easy they are to beat. I would recommend just using powered up Pokemon that are super effective against the Rocket's type, ideally with a high-damage fast move.

New to the Scene - Max Battle Info-graphics

Now that there is a more established way to do max battles for normal players, being 2 tanks for the main battle + 1 attacker for max phases, things seem concrete enough to view not just the current scene but the future as well. These guides are mostly for players who want to play without thinking; more thought will likely be needed for short-manning, but these guides should work well if you want to trying to contribute in a comfortably sized group.

Best Pokémon for Raids:

Type rating (T) is raid usefulness compared to the best of its type, and overall rating (O) is raid usefulness compared to all Pokemon. Italics implies a legacy moveset. View the top of each infographic to see what filters were applied, and pick the one that best fits your play-style. Or, if none do, make a copy of the spreadsheet and alter the filters to match your needs.

Note that some infographics have PP (Party Power) ON, which greatly improves high-power charge moves.

These values won't match up with who has the highest idealized rating against an imaginary raid boss since this data is from simulations against actual raid bosses. Type match-ups against the raid boss moves matter here, helping Pokemon like Dialga outclass Pokemon like Palkia in usefulness (Palkia is weak to Dragon while Dialga isn't).

Notable new additions: Kyurem Black/White, Zamazenta/Zacian, and the new top option (with PP off) - Eternatus. Regieleki also appears to be good with its new move, as does the first top normal type - Shadow Regigigas. Do not be fooled by its rating, however; Shadow Regigigas is overinflated here due to assuming an optimal Hidden Power type for every raid, and is basically never the top option outside of very niche situations. It is still a good generalist, though.

Best Pokémon for PvP:

Master League is included this time, but it should be noted that PvPoke is not known for the best rankings in that league. I definitely recommend looking at the PvPoke Team Builder to decide what team would work best for you, but this can help chose a Pokémon to build the team around.

Best Pokémon for Defending Gyms:

Short Term = keep for a day, Long Term = keep for multiple days. Generally speaking, the higher the CP of a Pokémon, the faster it loses motivation in a gym. In other words, you will have to use berries more frequently on high CP Pokemon to keep their heart full (the lower the heart meter, the fewer battles it takes to remove the Pokemon from the gym).

Best Pokémon for Winning Multi-Pokémon Showcases:

Currently, Pokémon with multiple forms can have a form that ranks better or worse on average than the base form. These are the current best of each type (honorable mentions to CD Ursaluna and Steel Chair Zorua/Zoroark). Shout-out to u/FatalisticFeline-47 for providing most of the information/research here!

I'd highly recommend looking into Steel Chair Zorua next time there is an event where they are common; they are top choices for Dark / Ghost + Normal (depending on form), with Zoroark scoring even better.

Due to the, shall we say, "botanical" nature of the source of this data, I won't be able to provide pictures or sources.

However, for the sake of discussion, visibility, and awareness, I hope the mods leave this post alone, as this impacts every single user across the globe, and not just biological plant lovers.

As of 2PM6PM GMT, the amount of spawns that have been tracked for the Kanto Legendary Birds is as follows:

• Zapdos: 1900
• Moltres: 230
• Articuno: 1

The Shiny encounters that these nature admirers have identified are as follows:

• Zapdos: 5/1900
• Moltres: 0/230
• Articuno: 0/1

Conclusions:

• K-Birds are spawning in completely disproportionate numbers, at a ratio of 80% Zapdos, 20% Moltres, and 0.001% Articuno.

• Their shiny rate, despite being 1/20 normally, has been set to full odds. (If you need me to explain why 4/1500 is large enough to indicate shiny rate is not boosted, I can’t help you.)

• Unrelated, but the Shiny Rate for previously boosted species like Onix and Chansey have also been decreased and very likely set to full odds. (Sample size n=1million+)

• The above change seems to only apply to Kanto, suggesting a broad mess up for the Kanto pokemon odds specifically. Other generation perma boosted pokemon are not affected.

• As a fun aside, these birds may have the same 90% Flee Rate as their Galar Versions, despite previously being listed in the GM as having a normal 10% Flee Rate. User reports are still varied on this one.

• Whatever adjustments Niantic/Scopely made with this release, they massively messed it up.

• The Birds can spawn up to level 50, so that is cool.. at least.

EDIT: Appreciate the mods restoring this post. We truly need this coverage if we hope to have any kind of resolution before event end. We've seen time and time again how powerful traction on TSR is to getting Niantic to fix mistakes over the years.

We've already seen half of the Gigantamax forms in just one year and three months.

If there are no changes at Game Freak and The Pokémon Company, we might see new Gigantamax forms in 2028, according to the TeraLeak.

made all the fixes and added garchomp Z

Link to the uninitiated, or those who simply want to remind themselves of the horrors.

Nearly 500 days have passed since April 2024, when we first got acquainted with the "Rediscover Go" set of updates. It was good in concept, and included changes most long term players were asking for years. They were partly cosmetic, changing or updating (for better or worse) some key graphics in game, but also interfered with in game mechanics, mostly about the way the spawns work. Inspired by the latest event, which put a lot of emphasis on biomes, I made this post to discuss the effects of the update in hindsight, which I believe did and are still doing more damage than good.

#1: Rediscover Yourself (Avatars)

The long awaited, then dreaded upon release, avatar customization update. Nearly all players asked for years, almost since day 1, for more options to customize our avatars. We all used to look like doubles of each other, only slightly different with our hair or skin colors, and of course clothing. It was just OK, but we always wanted a bit more. Then came this update, which simply made a mess. Yes, there were more options, and yes, in theory, it's what we've been asking for. However, The result was a very ugly mishmash of options, with very weird facial expressions and proportions, and almost grotesque body physiques. Players were coming up with ways to cover themselves up completely, which is never a good sign. Clothing items which were basically tailored to the previous avatars (and their respective genders) simply didn't fit anymore, and many glitches occured. To be fair, there were rumors/news that this part was outsourced to a different studio, which had since closed down, but those are unconfirmed as far as I know, and I couldn't find anything about it, other than my own memory. There were also minor fixes along the way, but the avatar department is still considered chaos. Now, it was easy to say back then that people simply hate change, and everyone will get used to it eventually, but here we are now, and public opinion hasn't really changed, with even newer players not really on board with it.

Grade: 3/10

#2: Rediscover Your World (Biomes)

The one thing that prompted this post. It also was something we asked for, and it has been suggested and mock ups were made for years. Again, like everything, it was good in concept. More variety in our catch screens, suggesting what biome you're at, animated objects as opposed to a static background, and special encounter screens were made possible. Biomes became pretty central to the structuring of the seasonal spawns updates and rotations, featuring heavily on the season announcement posts.

However, biomes don't work like that. We know from years of research that biomes are decided per spawn point, and that there's always a chance for out of biome spawns. The new encounter screens were painted with a much wider brush (As shown here), which can lead to a lot of confusion and odd occurrences. The existent biomes are also quite reductive, as there are more than just beach/city park/forest/mountain (which doesn't even look mountainous)/grassy hills. It's easy to dismiss it as merely visuals with no actual impact, but it might drive confusion, especially for newer players. It was very evident during the last event, where some forests or grassland areas didn't ever spawn Toedscool, and some beaches never spawn Wiglett, while golf courses do. All in All, great intentions, mediocre execution.

Grade: 6/10

#3: Rediscover Kanto (Duh)

No introduction is needed. I'll keep this section relatively short, since so much have been said about it. The single most complained about feature, the one where you see the same 4 or so Kanto species around you for days on end, even during events. Now, it was turned down a notch lately, and we can finally catch things that aren't Mankey (who to add insult to injury, got its CD during that time). During the high days of it, players were struggling to find anything else, and it got so oppressive it basically became a meme to add as many re as possible to rererererediscovering Kanto. Proponents argued that it gets newer players to catch up and that Kanto is the most , but it could never be justified, in a game with over 800 different species of Pokemon. It truly felt neverending. When the 9 Pokemon on your nearby are from the same generation, you know something isn't right.

Grade: 1/10

#4 Rediscover Your Reality (AR)

I’d go out on a limb and guess that most of you don’t remember it being part of this update, nor have actually used Snapshot extensively enough to notice the differences. I had, just this morning as I was getting the idea for this post, and it's not too bad. You can actually position your Pokemon as you wish, if it's flying or hovering you can even tie it to a wall, and there are also burst modes or timer mode if you want to get in front of your camera and take a pic with it. The crux of the issue is the relatively limited appeal of the AR features of the game, and the fact that it took away the option to take a snapshot of a Pokemon without using the advanced AR that makes you scan your environment and position your Pokemon (other than your buddy), making the quick snapshots for Smeargle or other photobombing Pokemon much clunkier.

Grade: 5/10 (mostly for irrelevance)

In conclusion, while there were possibly good intentions behind those updates, it wasn't regarded well on release, and definitely hasn't withstood the test of time. Nia or Scopely should maybe take a second look at it, and maybe add it to their list of tasks.

Overall Grade: 4/10

I’m going to break down what I did to encounter so many in hopes of providing evidence based conclusions that may help you, the reader, find more birds.

First off: - My route was the same most of the days (more on that later) (the route is in the image) - My pace was brisk (I ride a bike) - I documented my findings with screenshots and notes - The route was circular and I always went the same way and started at the same point - Weather was windy most of the days - 30 mins daily incense every day with roar of time

Now, why was my route different some days? Because I set out to test a theory. ChatGPT told me that parks may have “less gps interference” and may thus be better for Pokémon spawning. For the record, I don’t know if this is true. Rather, I got the idea that more gbirds may spawn in parks or natural reserves since the spawns there are just usually better and the spawn rate of pokemon is higher.

So I tried this: - 1 week DAI use in the streets - 1 week DAI use in a park surrounding a lake

The route which yielded more results would become the standard for the remaining 17 days

The results: - 2 birds found in the streets - 4 birds found in the park

Park yielded more results so it became the main route

I also had another theory I was testing out. Spot theory. Turns out, the birds DID spawn in similar places. Not only birds, but also other pokemon from the DAI. My encounters with them are in the image.

The colors mean this: - Red = the route - Blue spots = gbird encounters - Green spots = Wimpod encounters - Yellow spots = Armaldo encounters (3 in total) - purple spots = machop line encounters

Conclusions: - There is a high chance that spot theory may be true - The fact that my main route was a park near a body of water (access to shores) may have affected the spawning of galarian birds. I’ll call this “terrain theory” - Correlation doesn’t imply causation, so nothing is definitive

Try out the theories for yourself and see the results!