I finally made it up the hill to level 30 in Pokemon Go.
The big moment
My wife, who is well into level 31 at this point commented that I was really catching up to her.
The reality of the situation though is that the hill just gets steeper the higher you go, while your ability to gain XP remains static.
How far until level 31?
The XP chart for levels in Pokemon Go tells the tale.
From start through to level 30 you need to earn 2 million XP. Getting from 30 to 31 is half a million more XP, or basically 25% of what you had to earn to get to 30. And after that it just keeps getting steeper and steeper, with the leap from level 39 to level 40 requiring 5 million XP.
All told you need 20 million XP to get to level 40, the maximum level in the game. Basically, most of the leveling work is still ahead of both of us. I’m just past the 10% point.
Still, we keep chugging along. Filling out the Pokedex is another aspect of the whole thing, independent of levels, and the Halloween event now upon us helps on that front.
Halloween 2017 Event
As with last year’s event, “spooky” Pokemon are out and about, which helps as some of those do not otherwise appear regularly in our area.
Better still is the fact that all candy pay outs are doubled during the event. That goes for catching, transferring, hatching eggs, or walking with your buddy. (A candy every half kilometer with my Magikarp!) Throwing a well timed Pinap berry, which stacks and doubles candy output again, has accelerated some long stagnant runs to collect 100 candies to evolve special Pokemon.
The event also has some special item boxes for sale in the shop. While they seem to be pushing incense this time around… a garbage item in an area where you get any Pokemon at all… the special accelerated super incubators are part of the middle priced box.
For just 780 coins!
Those incubators take only 67% of the steps to hatch an egg, so your 10km egg pops up in just 6.7km. That, for me, is worth the price of the box.
Meanwhile, as part of the event Niantic also opened up the Hoenn Pokedex. That means that third generation Pokemon, those that came in with Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire, are now in the game and the total number to catch is in the high 300s. 386 was the total of the National Pokedex with third generation Pokemon included.
As of last I checked, third generation Pokemon are not out in the field yet, save for a trio unleashed for the Halloween event, Sabeleye, Shuppet and Duskull (plus evolutions of the latter pair), but I expect that come November we will start seeing new Pokemon to catch.
Shuppet and Duskull in the ‘dex
Anyway, I have been trying to get out to take advantage of the double candy aspect of the event as well as getting into as many gyms as I can to earn my daily 50 coins so I can get those super incubators.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 