Or some people may be content and feel like they're satisfied and don't want any form of any end game content loop at all, which is fine and I'd be curious to see how popular that opinion is, too.

Early on I was a proponent of a PvP element added, an opt-in setting where you could allow other players to invade your world by spawning in on their ship where they attempt to hunt down you or your base for some kind of objective. The mention of PvP at all is a sore spot for a lot of people here, and while I still think that would be a fun addition, I'd also like co-op endgame loops.

The thing I desire most in games like this is having my base raided, BUT with base raid mechanics that don't steer players in a direction of making their base some hyper-optimized death cube that's easier to defend. Think how 7 Days to Die horde bases are. Or how V Rising meta is people creating an entire floor of honeycombed walls with nothing else on the first floor of their castle but walls. It's ugly, it's tedious, it doesn't feel immersive.

But I still think there's something to it that can be refined. In Windrose it could be called a Blood Tide or something like that, an event where all manner of horrors rise from the ocean, and ghost ships arrive at your shores to storm your base to reclaim the mysterious artifact that has allowed you to live when all others are doomed to death.

I've seen a few people observe this as well, and others on this sub tell them that they're wrong and are just imagining it, and i'm here to tell you that the people noticing this are right. I'm frankly astounded if you AREN'T noticing it. Wild pokemon now are so incredibly annoying with how much they bounce around and attack.

Most importantly, I just want to spread the word because I want to see more people upset about this otherwise i'm afraid they aren't going to change it. What's the angle here? Sell more pokeballs? Sell nanab berries? Or just piss people off for the sake of it?

Hi everyone, I played in 2016 casually and returned within the last year. There is a lot of information about the game available now, but I also fear that there's too much. It leaves new players overwhelmed as to what they should be focused on and how to approach progressing your roster toward soloing 3 star raids and participating in 5-star raids. So i've got some tips that I learned through mistakes I've made, and some resources to help you along.

RESOURCES.
Leekduck.com has become my best friend in keeping up to date with events to prepare for and look forward to. I check it daily.

Leekduck also has raid hosting apps, but I prefer PokeGenie which is an app you can install. It's a really clean and organized way to join and host raids. Raiding is easy, hosting sometimes puts you in a long queue. If you want to host, I recommend looking at what people are waiting in queue to join then try to host those as much as possible to get your host score up, which lets you host a bit quicker.

If you're like me and you drive your wife around a lot and can't stop as often to actually catch pokemon, you may also want an Auto-Catcher. This is a cheat device officially sanctioned and sold by Nintendo, which is odd, but hey, it is what it is. They also stopped producing it so it's super expensive now, but you can find off-brand ones that work really well that are safe to use that are still expensive. It's a major convenience.

Next: GENERAL TIPS.

#1 - Prioritize when to play hardcore and when to play casually. Often this will be on community days or during special events. I got more shiny and sought after pokemon and EXP in the few days of playing GOfest hardcore than I did over the last few months of casual play.

#2 - Don't waste stardust, but also don't hoard it. You won't have enough to power up every pokemon you like, or even everyone that is good. You'll need to figure out what to prioritize, which is very hard. Later on, I've created a list to help with exactly that problem. At the same time, a mistake I, and many others, have made is the hoarding of stardust to use on hundos and shinies. If it's a good pokemon you haven't invested in (3-star), just invest in it. Because guess what? Your roster for raids is 6 pokemon. Even if you get the fabled shiny hundo to invest in later, you'll still be making use of the pokemon you invested in up until this point for a very long time to come. Just spend your dust and candy on good 3-stars.

# 3 - Shadow pokemon. If you've looked at a tier list, you'll see the top of them is flooded with shadow pokemon. It's also flooded with mega pokemon and legendaries. It's all overwhelming. The list I'll provide will help cut through this noise as well. Shadow Pokemon are great as ultra end-game optimization, but aren't worth thinking that much about early. Keep good shadow pokemon you get, but realize that investing in them is a lot more expensive.

# 4 - Mega pokemon. I love them conceptually, but it takes a while before new players can actually start accessing them regularly. A lot of them are mega evolutions of pokemon that are rather mediocre or even bad when not mega-evolved, like Pidgeotto. This makes investing in these specific ones a trap. Consider Mega forms a cherry on top of already good pokemon, like Charizard, Venusaur, Garchomp, Salamance, Rayquaza, Mewtwo, etc. If a pokemon is bad without going mega, save your stardust on investing in one (unless it's a hundo then just go for it, I know I would). The thing to keep in mind with Mega pokemon is that they only last 8 hours, they have a long cooldown, and you can only have one at a time. You need to focus on a roster that is ALWAYS good, my list to follow will help you do just that.

# 5 - Pinap berries. I didn't use enough of them, so i'm urging you to. The pokemon listed below? Pinap all of them every time.

# 6 - Friendship! Pokemon GO is a much better experience with a friend to play with, even just one, locally. I'm lucky to play with my wife. Be sure to prioritize grinding friendship every single day because it makes a big difference. Triggering lucky trades is huge, and eventually being forever friends means the base IV floor on every single trade you make is 5/5/5. You also get bonuses for raiding together. Slowly grinding friendship with strangers for this same status is a good idea. Gifting is also a great way to get resources each day. Add lots of friends from reddit and other places where people regularly shared codes. Also, you can animation cancel the slow gift giving animations really easily. The center of your screen where the X usually is? That's still there even though you don't see it. Just press there after sending or receiving a gift to cancel the animation. Giving gifts to lots of friends takes forever otherwise.

# 7 - Speeding up animations. This one is huge. Learn how to quick catch pokemon by holding down your berry icon, throwing a ball, letting go of your berry icon and running from the battle. If this doesn't make sense, just look up a youtube video. Trust me, this will save you SO MUCH TIME. You can't speed up feeding your buddy berries though, sadly. Very annoying. However, a golden razz or silver pinap instantly fills their meter. It may be a while before you have these in excess though, but it's something to look forward to.

# 8 - Searching your pokemon storage. Pokemon GO is great about custom search strings, as well as a host of built in options to help you find different types of pokemon. You can search by name, type, date caught, stats, and lots of other things. A really useful one is searching simply "4*". Typing 4* into the search bar will show you all hundos you have. Immediately favorite them to avoid every accidentally transferring, and make it a habit to do this before any transfer session. Another search string I created myself to find PvP viable pokemon is: 0attack,1attack&2*. This will find pokemon with low attack (which is better in PvP) and high defense and HP.

# 9 - Gyms. You get 50 poke coins a day for defending a gym for a total of 8 hours. You can never get more. In most areas, you can put a 10 CP pokemon in a gym and probably reach 8 hours with it. I live in a relatively busy suburb and I spread low power pokemon out across gyms and it works like a charm. A lot of people make the mistake of putting in high CP snorlax, blissey, slaking, etc. to actively defend the gym, and I've seen these poor suckers stuck defending the same gym for 2 weeks. That doesn't benefit them, and it wouldn't benefit you to do this. You WANT your pokemon to get returned to you, otherwise you don't get the 50 pokecoins. Getting these 50 coins daily is a big deal especially if you want to be free to play. And dealing with these annoying players defending gyms? Juice up good fighting type pokemon, as they annihilate the meta defenders.

#10 - Lucky trades. IMPORTANT FOR RETURNING PLAYERS. If your pokemon is older than I think 3 years, trading it will be a guaranteed lucky trade. Each account can only trigger this a handful of times, so check the age on some of your pokemon for these trades.

# 11 - Gigantamax battles. These aren't easy if you aren't prepared for them. To be the most prepared, you'll want to have three things. 1, a Chansey/Blissey with it's Max Spirit leveled up. This is a healer. If you see Chansey in Dynamax spots, make a point of farming them. 2, a tank. The best is Crown Shield Zamazenta, but this is far off for some people. Until then, just get a roster of beefier dynamax pokemon that can be type resistant. 3, an attacker. You switch to your attacker when going Dynamax form, then switch back to your tank or healer afterward. If you want to maximize your investment, investing in 3-star dynamax variants early is better than a non-dynamax pokemon, simply because the Dynamax pokemon can be useful in more content.

Finally, on to the TYPE TIER LIST. And the question to "What Pokemon do I invest in?"

https://preview.redd.it/760bm78n3cdh1.png?width=2750&format=png&auto=webp&s=3d6f67a39279e4a5cf5dc572cdeee76c3c8b79df

Not every type in Pokemon GO is created equal. Some are a lot more useful than others, because the most sought after 5-star raids are countered by certain types more than others. I've created a type importance tier list to reflect this that you can make a point to focus on bolstering a roster of.

This list will not include any specific Starter pokemon, as almost all starter pokemon and their evolutions are good. Pinap berry them and catch them. They're worth investing in. Many need Elite TM's to be their best if not evolved/caught during a special event.

Normal pokemon aren't included because they almost all stink, except Eevee. Catch and pinap berry every Eevee you see, as Eevee evolutions are very strong and useful especially early on, and some remain useful for a very long time.

I've included a few legendaries of each type, while if you're new you may not be able to get them right away, these are ones to focus on specifically if they do happen to appear in a raid or elsewhere.

S-Tier Importance

🥊 Fighting

Legendary:

Zamazenta (crowned shield)

Kaldeo (resolute)

Terrakion

Wild:

Lucario (evolves from Riolu)

Conkeldurr (evolves from Timburr)

Machamp (evolves from Machop)

Breloom (evolves from Shroomish)

Hariyama (evolves from Makuhita)

Note: My personal favorite attack type, because not only is it strong against high tier steel bosses that are somewhat common, it’s also incredibly useful against pesky gym defenders like snorlax, chansey, etc. as well as dangerous shadow snorlax grunts. Also has a lot of strong pokemon that are also accessible, though not many legendaries.

⛰️ Ground

Legendary:

Landorus (therian)

Groudon

Wild:

Garchomp (evolves from Gible)

Mamoswine (evolves from Swinub)

Rhyperior (evolves from Rhyhorn)

Excadrill (evolves from Drilbur)

Swampert (evolves from Mudkip)

Note: While the legendary ground pokemon are few, the wild ones are very powerful compared to the legendaries.

❄️ Ice

Legendary:

White Kyurem

Black Kyurem

Wild:

Baxcalibur (evolves from Frigibax)

Mamoswine (evolves from Swinub)

Glaceon (evolves from Eevee)

Weavile (evolves from Sneasel)

Galarian Darmanitan (evolves from Galarian Darumaka)

Note: In my opinion, the best attack type in the game for late game raids. Ice counters dragon without being weak to dragon, double dips against Rayquaza, and any area it’s weak in the other S tier damage types of Ground or Fighting cover.

A-Tier Importance

🌑 Dark

Legendary:

Yveltal

Darkrai

Zarude

Wild:

Tyranitar (evolves from Larvitar)

Hydreigon (evolves from Deino)

Meowscarada (evolves from Sprigatito)

Greninja (evolves from Froakie)

Honchkrow (evolves from Murkrow)

Note: Dark is generally just ghost but better in most circumstances. Your options are decent for wild pokemon especially here, but a little limited with legendaries. Importance: A

🌸 Fairy

Legendary:

Zacian (crowned sword)

Enamorus (Incarnate)

Xerneas

Wild:

Hatterene (evolves from Hatenna)

Gardevoir (evolves from Ralts)

Togekiss (evolves from Togepi)

Sylveon (evolves from Eevee)

Note: While Fairy types don’t end up as S tier in the very late game, if you’re a newer player or even one that’s been playing a while but isn’t hyper end-game with your roster, Fairy is really strong. Where your optimization isn’t just ‘rush as much DPS as possible’ but actually cares about not fainting. Making a Garvevoir Fairy oriented instead of Psychic gives you a work horse early, so does Sylveon. Importance: A

🔥 Fire

Legendary:

Blacephalon

Reshiram

Heatran

Volcarona

Wild:

Chandelure (evolves from Litwick)

Darmanitan (evolves from Darumaka)

Fire starters (evolve from Charmander, Cyndaquil, Torchic, Chimchar, Tepig, Fennekin, Litten, Scorbunny, Fuecoco)

Note: It’s hard to get your hands on most of these pokemon so prioritize getting fire starters juiced up enough, most of them are good, and most can mega. Importance: A

⚙️ Steel

Legendary:

Zamazenta (crowned shield)

Zacian (crowned sword)

Dusk Mane Necrozma

Kartana

Wild:

Lucario (evolves from Riolu)

Metagross (evolves from Beldum)

Excadrill (evolves from Drilbur)

Magnezone (evolves from Magnemite)

Note: While the steel damage type by itself isn’t amazing, it’s still useful against a decent variety of raid bosses. More importantly, the quality of pokemon of steel type is just through the roof. I’d highly prioritize every pokemon above aside from maybe Magnezone. Importance: A

B-Tier Importance

🐲 Dragon

Legendary:

Eternatus

White Kyurem

Black Kyurem

Rayquaza

Wild:

Baxcalibur (evolves from Frigibax)

Garchomp (evolves from Gible)

Hydreigon (evolves from Deino)

Salamence (evolves from Bagon)

Note: Dragon types are a late game priority, because Dragon types are glass cannons, typically only good against other Dragons and also melting quickly in the process. Good when you only care about pumping DPS and literally nothing else, but Ice is a better dragon counter than dragon is, while also not dying fast to dragons. Of course, still get White and Black Kyurem just for being amazingly statted and also being ice type, and get Rayquaza because it’s Rayquaza. Importance: B

👻 Ghost

Legendary:

Dawn Wings Necrozma

Blacephalon

Lunala

Wild:

Chandelure (evolves from Litwick)

Dhelmise (has no evolution; catch as Dhelmise)

Dragapult (evolves from Dreepy)

Gengar (evolves from Gastly)

Note: While I think Dark is better at doing what Ghost does, and generally has more powerful pokemon, Dawn Wings Necrozma is goated and should still be a priority. Good wild caught ghosts aren’t super common, either. Importance: B

🧠 Psychic

Legendary:

Dusk Mane Necrozma

Dawn Wings Necrozma

Mewtwo

Lunala

Wild:

Metagross (evolves from Beldum)

Hatterene (evolves from Hatenna)

Delphox (evolves from Fennekin)

Alakazam (evolves from Abra)

Gardevoir (evolves from Ralts)

Note: There are plenty of decent wild pokemon to choose from for psychic types, and many can mega evolve. The Necrozma variants are clear winners and should be priority when available. Importance: B

C-Tier Importance

⚡ Electric

Legendary:

Zeraora

Regieleki

Xurkitree

Wild:

Vikavolt (evolves from Grubbin)

Electivire (evolves from Elekid)

Magnezone (evolves from Magnemite)

Note: Good for Kyogre raids and a few fliers, but not that commonly required for most difficult content. Lack of options as well for good attackers. Importance: C

🦅 Flying

Legendary:

Rayquaza

Landorus (Therian)

Yveltal

Wild:

Salamence (evolves from Bagon)

Toucannon (evolves from Pikipek)

Honchkrow (evolves from Murkrow)

Staraptor (evolves from Starly)

Note: Mediocre damage coverage of types that aren’t super common, and most of the wild caught pokemon of this type require elite TMs to really shine. Importance: C

💎 Rock

Legendary:

Terrakion

Wild:

Tyranitar (evolves from Larvitar)

Rhyperior (evolves from Rhyhorn)

Rampardos (evolves from Cranidos)

Tyrantrum (evolves from Tyrunt)

Gigalith (evolves from Roggenrola)

Note: While there are extremely few good rock legendaries to look out for, there are a lot of really solid wild caught rock pokemon to build. Importance: C

💧 Water

Legendary:

Kaldeo (resolute)

Palkia (Origin)

Kyogre

Wild:

Water Starters (evolve from Squirtle, Totodile, Mudkip, Piplup, Oshawott, Froakie, Popplio, Sobble, Quaxly)

Clawitzer (evolves from Clauncher)

Gyarados (evolves from Magikarp)

Note: All of the water starters are pretty good and you’ll probably have a few decent Kyogres eventually. Importance: C

🍃 Grass:

Legendary:

Kartana

Shaymind (sky)

Zarude

Wild:

Grass starters

Breloom

Roserade

Tangrowth

Note: There aren’t many grass legendaries and Kartana is the clear winner. There are plenty of grass wild pokemon, including all of the starters, that are good. Importance: C

D-Tier Importance

🐛 Bug

Legendary:

Pheromosa

Volcarona (evolves from Larvesta)

Wild:

Vikavolt (evolves from Grubbin)

Kleavor (evolves from Scyther)

Scizor (evolves from Scyther)

Centiskorch (evolves from Sizzlipede)

Note: Nintendo hates bug type pokemon for some reason. They are consistently the worst type in almost every pokemon game, and even when we got a legendary bug cycle, they were still relatively bad compared to other legends. Bug as a type is weak to 6 things and only strong against 3, and the 3 things it’s strong against aren’t that common. Volarona is good, but is a big long grind. Importance: D

☠️ Poison

Legendary:

Eternatus

Naganadel (evolves from Poipole)

Nihilego

Wild:

Gengar (evolves from Gastly)

Roserade (evolves from Budew)

Venusaur (evolves from Bulbasaur)

Note: Man, is poison struggling for good pokemon. The roster is small, but they’re decent. One better than bug You won’t be hurting too much if you don't have a great poison roster. Importance: D

For your own use and mine, I've made a search string of these wild pokemon to send to my wife for trades.

Eevee,Dreepy,Piloswine,Beldum,Magnemite,Electabuzz,Magmar,Roselia,Drilbur,Rhydon,Scyther,Grubbin,Oddish,Gible,Darumaka,Litwick,Makuhita,Shroomish,Timburr,Larvitar,Deino,Cranidos,Frigibax,Chansey,Bulbasaur,Charmander,Squirtle,Pikachu,Chikorita,Cyndaquil,Totodile,Treecko,Torchic,Mudkip,Turtwig,Chimchar,Piplup,Snivy,Tepig,Oshawott,Chespin,Fennekin,Froakie,Rowlet,Litten,Popplio,Grookey,Scorbunny,Sobble,Sprigatito,Fuecoco,Quaxly

Simply copy/paste that into your pokemon storage search bar to find the unevolved forms of the pokemon I've mentioned.

Of all of them, Drilbur, Machop and Rhydon were common around me and became my top tier work horses that carried me through a lot of the early hard times.

Finally, the grail pokemon:

Legendary Grail Focus: 
Eternatus
Zamazenta - Crowned Shield
Zacian - Crowned Sword
Dusk Mane Necrozma
Dawn Wings Necrozma
White Kyurem
Black Kyurem

Eternatus won't be in raids, but Zamazenta, Zacian, Necrozma, and Kyurem will be. These are by far the most generically useful pokemon to have invested in. They just showed up for GOfest and there's no telling when they'll be back. They are a little confusing, because they're unlike every other pokemon, but it's important you know how they work.

Zamazenta/Zacian require you fighting only their Sword or Shield versions specifically to get energy. You will need 1000 energy of EACH to transform one of them.

Necrozma and Kyurem are the same, as you must fight their enhanced forms to actually get the energy you need to fuse them. However, they also require a fusion mechanic. They each fuse with another pokemon. The stats of the other pokemon, shiny status, etc. doesn't matter. The pokemon being used for the fusion is essentially just food.

To get Dusk Mane Necrozma you will need a single Solgaleo to fuse with.
To get Dawn Wings Necrozma you will need a single Lunala to fuse with.
To get White Kyurem you will need a single Reshiram to fuse with.
To get Black Kyurem you will need a single Zekrom to fuse with.

It sounds like a lot, and you can forget it for now, but it's simple once you sit with it for a moment. Just make sure that when these pokemon are back in raids you remember when I said how important they are and you make it a point to figure out how they work so you can get your own.

I poured ~300 hours into the game, got a really nice end game base, but just didn't feel inspired to continue. As the game gets updates, I also don't really feel like jumping back in where I left off an entire year later.

I mentioned the idea of fresh start servers earlier, but people were really against it. I'm wondering if that's changed, or if the devs have spoken on this at all. To be clear - I'd never suggest that live servers get shut down for this. These would be a handful of optional servers.

The Trampled Earth passive just makes Trample an Earth skill. It doesn't use Landslide anymore, so it doesn't scale for shit. There's pretty much no build at all where Trample can actually be used to do anything meaningful.

It also seems like basically every Landslide aspect is gone now, too. They just got rolled into skill tree passives, and got no other aspects to replace them other than generic Earth aspects.

My disappointment is immeasurable.

I'm 36 and feel like I've been corrupted by the virus of thinking I need to relentlessly optimize and 'keep up' with total strangers in a game where my ability to keep up... doesn't really matter.

I have some people on my friends list who were level 70 hours after the expansion launched and I just don't feel like they're having fun with the game. What's the point of rushing the content, to compete with strangers? Is anyone even impressed? Does this actually yield ANYTHING at all for the person doing it other than a bit of ego satisfaction that they 'won' a race that most people weren't even participating in against them to begin with?

This same thinking can be applied to following guides or feeling pigeon-holed into the most meta builds even though it doesn't really even matter. So what If the build that I made is weaker and can clear a few torment levels less than the best build? What difference does it actually make?

This is my internal struggle. Despite saying all of this, I still feel drawn to wanting to have a look, even if just for curiosity's sake, but I know it will burrow itself into my brain like a worm and will affect the way I approach playing. It's hard bros, but i'm sticking it out for as long as I can. Really enjoying the new expansion so far.