Pokemon Go

Wild Ditto spawns are definitely messed up right now because of, hilariously, the even that features it. With all this rare stuff overwriting the normal spawns, very few types that can be Ditto are around. I used to see them every other day and now I've only seen one the entire duration of the event thus far—and it was before I got to that part of the chain.

Ah, it's not just me then. I suspected as much, but with how different play can be from region to region, I didn't want to assume too much.

I ran into one wild Ditto during this event (from a Whismur encounter), but it was before I hit that step in the quest chain. Luckily, there are a few encounters out there that I find easy to nail for an excellent throw (in particular, thanks to the number of times I've encountered them, Drowzee), so when I did finally find the right quest (which took a bit in part because I hit that quest after I did a few level 5 raids, which meant my bag was a bit full), it didn't take me too long to finish it.

Right now, I'm a bit stalled on the "get 5 candies" quest, mostly because I'm stubborn and refusing to walk with something besides Shinx, though the whole "I don't want to freeze my butt off" issue is there too.

One of the advantages of living in Europe is that Mr. Mime is everywhere and an easy target for excellents.

Today I got a 100% Shedinja. ...yay...?

Cresselia is actually a pretty easy Excellent target, too (ring gets a tad small, but it's a pretty short and intuitive lob to hit it). I've completed three of those quests thanks to her. The one quest I actually got the credit for, though, was, of all things, on a Graveler.

The step that is somehow stalling me now is "Catch a Cubone". Seriously, those things were all over the last two days and now they're suddenly hiding from me. I have the Scyther and Drowzee quests all covered, too, so this is just really frustrating.

Incense helped me with both that and the fossil ones.

Finally got Meltan.

So I take it it's impossible to evolve unless you buy Let's Go? Not buying that game. I know you can walk it but apparently it's 10km per candy.

And doesn't it take 400 candies to evolve?

Oy, I'm not convinced it's even worth the trouble if that's the case, at least for me. I'll just wait to see if there's an easier way to get it in the Gen 8 games.

Well, you don't need to buy it. You can just trade to someone else's game. Barring that, your only options are walking, farming from feeding it in gyms or dumping a boatload of Rare Candy on it.

Oh, so you can just borrow someone's game?

Don't even need to borrow. It takes about a minute to connect your phone to their game, so you just need to find someone willing to meet in person and let you do that. From there, it's about another one-minute process to trade something into their Go Park.

I'm the only one with a switch in work, hah. Oh well, Meltan is cuter.

Any connections to the larger Go community in your city? Chances are someone will have a copy there.

Speaking of community, I have a question.

Will the 2km eggs I have still crack open with the Sinnoh-evolving pokemon after the egg-hatchathon event ends?

The contents of the egg are determined when you pick them up, so yes, if the RNG determined the egg will have a Sinnoh-evolver in it, then it will always be that no matter when you hatch it (even if that moment is a year later, for example).

Oh neat, damn 5km taking up space and they'd only hatch today.

Dumb question time: does "play together for 1 more day for a friendship upgrade" mean 1 more interaction, or does it mean after 1 day we are eligible for the next step in our friendship?

It means your friendship will level up on the next increase.

So, 1 more interaction (whether that's me opening their gift or them opening my gift)?

Yep. My friendship level went up with foreigners, so our interaction was only through gifts.

How is coin earned from gym considered? Is it when you deposit the mon, or when you obtain the mon? Can you "withhold" it by not opening Go for the next day if you know you reached the limit for today?

You get coins when it's kicked out, depending on how long it stayed in the gym for. Not opening Go doesn't change that.

Ah darn, so you're at the mercy of randomness then. I guess it is better to seed many gyms of your team.

"Randomness". You can discern the movements of the other team by paying attention to when you tend to be kicked out and try to take advantage of that. For example, the gym near my house always gets attacked in the evening, so filling it myself in the morning is the best strategy.

I work in a college library so it's usually random in my part. Also I commute, though I tend to avoid putting certain mons in certain gyms in the route because some of them tend to be... well... abandoned haha

Yeah, some people are just opportunists, so it'll feel random when stuff gets returned. For the most part, you can discourage this at semi-busy gyms with a beefy enough line-up by keeping them berried up. Be prepared to Golden Razz if you really want to hold certain gyms over the midnight refresh, though.

I mean, there's always some element of random, considering that you never know just when usual schedules will get disrupted (maybe someone started their commute late, and thus will attack the gym later than usual, for example, or someone else happens to wander by because they had an appointment in the area). But yeah, I highly recommend doing a mix of gyms that are out of the way and in heavy traffic. Particularly if you sometimes end up on days where you're not able to hit many stops, since the extra items from a fully leveled gym can help mitigate that tremendously (I have two gyms close to my house that I got gold in just for that purpose).

You also may want to have different classes of gym defenders for each type. I like to put the 'mons that are more for bragging rights in the out-of-the-way gyms on the theory that, when someone does finally come along, it'll tempt them into attacking the easy gym to let me collect my 50 coins. For me, this list includes Chimecho, shiny Medicham, shiny sunglasses Blastoise, and any of my shiny hat Pikachus. For gyms that tend to have higher turnover when I'm desperate for coins, that's when I bring out the really bulky stuff like Blissey and Snorlax. However, if I'm more interested in just getting the points for the gym and I'm not as worried about coins that day, I'll usually throw in a Glass Cannon like Ursaring or Charizard that'll at least dent them as they kick me out.