Level 41-50 Ideas

By now, most Pokemon Go players have heard that there will eventually be a Level 50. Some have seen the video that you can find on YouTube, I have not. I truly hope that this will not just be an XP grind out. The first 40 levels can be obtained by people who buy lots of Lucky Eggs, have a full compliment of Best Friends (and get 200,000 XP every time), and basically grind the XP out. Between that and (for some) sitting and catching Pokemon without needing an incense for hours on end, the grind can be done. I do not know most the various ideas that have been floated around to supplement Levels 41-50, but these are some ideas I have heard and some I will float on my own.

I have heard that certain medals may be involved since Level 50 was first floated as an idea. I finally got my Dragon Gold Medal on 7/26, so I have all the types medals. Fairy is my next least caught at 652 as of 7/31, for perspective. I would be fine with a “simulation” of the medals (example: catch 200 Fairy Types when you hit a certain level), if that catching was a part of the leveling. That would be fun, and the Go Fest requirements show that the game can count thousands and millions of occurrences. The research bar could move by 10s to show progress on a regular basis, but not be so micro each time to be barely noticeable. Losing the catch benefits would be unfair to those of us who have earned them.

The only other medals I can think of that currently exist that may be a fair gauge would be like the Ultra Hero Gold medal, which players need to defeat Giovanni 20 times. That would be a later level, as Giovanni is only found once a month. Other medals are either too random (Fisher), too easy (Scientist – besides my disdain for “evolve a Pokemon” tasks), too difficult a grind (the Raid based medals – Champion and Battle Legend at gold 1000 each Legendary and non-legendary) to be effective. A silver medal for the raids at one point would be fair. At least it’s a part of the game that is social and most people enjoy that is a good grind, but is not prohibitive.

Sticking to raids, now with the equalizer of true Remote Raid Passes, a raid based hurdle would be appropriate for levels. I would like 10-25 Legendary and 10-25 non-Legendary raids to be a hurdle. Wednesday night would take care of the Legendary raids, as well as some of the other days. Non-Legendary raids would be 4* and below, which I see about once a day from my own house. I am also a part of some cooperative agreements where we regularly send invites to each other for various raids (as long as we are on the game), so that helps. If any of my readers would like or need some help in this regard, please let me know. I know that there are players out there more rural than I am and those players can use all the help they can get, especially if this idea is implemented.

I believe that make a new Best Buddy from scratch from the day you get the next level is a fair and fun hurdle. The game shows the last time you spent time with a particular Pokemon, so the game knows you cannot use those Pokemon to clear the hurdle. This challenge is uniform for all players since everyone starts with 0 buddy hearts. This also helps to clear the Best Buddy badge series. I believe a lot of players are interested in making Best Buddies, I have a few going myself down the path at the same time. This checks all the boxes for me to be a fun level up quest.

Remember Evolve a Magikarp quest? How about one with Wailmer? Full disclosure, Wailmer is my favorite Pokemon, so I am a bit biased. I can always use another Wailord. However, this is not just my personal love for one of the largest Pokemon that leads me to this. First, I rarely see Wailmer in my travels. Maybe my inland area does not help me, I am not sure. Still, I play a lot by a lake and Wailmer is still relatively rare there too. I would like to see more Wailmers in my game travels. Second, Wailmer is one of the few true grind out evolution Pokemon, which will make this a true hurdle. The only other 400 candy evolution are Swablu and Meltan. More on those two later. Third, Wailmer has gotten absolutely no love from Niantic. No, being on the start screen is not love really, that is not game play. Major difference. Orange, Floppy, and Useless (or OFU, as I call Magikarp) was just was announced for August Community Day, which I know has annoyed a lot of players including me. The love for Orange, Floppy, and Useless is mind-boggling, especially in light of a recent Tweet from the Official Pokemon Go App Twitter Account which called Magikarp “virtually worthless in terms of both power and speed” (Frankly, I would have stopped after the word worthless, but that’s my opinion… if you disagree, feel free to comment as to why not.). During the recent Go Fest, OFU was a co-featured Pokemon during the Water Habitat time and I remember it being a nest at the lake area I play by in the last few months. I have not heard of a Wailmer nest (please let me know if you have). OFU has had too much spotlight. As to the others, I see Swablu at least somewhat regularly. Swablu is therefore a bit less of a true grind it out Pokemon. Also, Swablu will get some more love with the Ultra Unlock Week One: Dragon Week event and was a co-featured Pokemon during the Battle Habitat during Go Fest. Wailmer was conspicuous by its absence during the Water Habitat! As for Meltan, it has its own full storyline research quest already to get one! Yes, Melmetal cosst 400 candy, but unless you have Pokemon Let’s Go or know someone who has the game, you cannot get another one at this time (unless Niantic decides to give us a new one for those of us who spent the rare candies and/or ground out 20km/candy for Melmetal like I did), which makes this grind unreasonable for every player. At least Wailmer is available for all players without any special requirements and if you evolved a Wailord, you can easily evolve a second (or more).

Among the likely more controversial thoughts, would be an XP reset of some sort to get the higher levels as well. You keep the XP after 20 Million overall as a part of your activity, but it does not count toward Level 41-50. So if the XP goal to Level 41 is 7,500,000, everyone would need an additional 7,500,000 XP after the release of the ability to get to Level 41. I would imagine that a lot of Level 40 players would probably agree: had we known that there would be levels above 40, we would have played the XP game differently. I know I would have thrown more Lucky Eggs, I would have participated in the XP bonus days/hours more, I would have paid more attention to XP after Level 40, etc… Level 40 has been the ultimate goal since the beginning of the game, who would have ever thought that this would change.. I slowed down with the XP chase since I got to Level 40 since there was never any serious talk about higher levels. I understand that some people have always been interested in 100 Million XP and have pushed ahead in spite of no real benefit other than bragging rights and personal pride. I can understand the argument that those people who did play through should get the credit for the XP earned. After all, there should be other hurdles to cross when we get Level 41 and above. Also, the continuity would be that certain XP amounts equal certain levels, which does make a lot of sense. I believe that as long as there are other hurdles to clear besides, keeping a constant total XP scheme makes sense. It also gives players time to re-imagine their growth strategies if the Pokemon are allowed to power up to Level 50 along with the trainer. I know I have a bunch of Level 40 that I would want to figure out how to get powered up, as well as making decisions on certain Pokemon that are close to or at the various League Levels.

I admit I am excited for levels above 40 and look forward to seeing what the various requirements are besides straight XP and hope that some things mentioned here are possibly used, as well as other hurdles I never thought of that would contribute to the fun that is Pokemon Go!