That is sadly true. My friends and I drove half an hour yesterday to a bigger city with a livelier Ingress community (Pokemon stops are originally Ingress portals). It gets *ridiculous* sometimes, like, this is barely uncommon:
And there are generally 3-4 pokemon in range of my home, from people in the development using their cell phones. The limiting factor is definitely pokeballs.
And *then* there's the fact that the late-game is all about raiding (like any MMO, heh...) which involves forming social connections with really dedicated players willing to drive to raid sites on like ~1 hour notice. And then you get to see all the blatant cheating. I personally use the 3rd-party maps for gym battles, but those same maps will tell you exactly where to find any wild pokemon you want.
Why is this a happy? Because I enjoy the game a lot, playing my own way and not sweating it (: People cheat, fine, it's 99% co-op anyway. It keeps me from getting jealous of their legendary-stacked teams
Raid fights are cross-team, except for a tiny bonus for contribution level. And gyms actually reward you when an enemy team *captures* it, so "fighting" over gyms is really an exchange of favors.
And I only go out for group raids about once a week, now that I do it at all. I mainly use the game to reward me for walking - hatching eggs gives some exclusive rewards. (Exclusive to me and cheaters, heh). It also gets me out of the house every day (or every couple of days if I'm in such a funk that I game the midnight rollover). That's had a significant effect on my mental health, I'm convinced. Keeping that "streak" up also gives special rewards.
I mostly just play to fill my pokedex out, and power up a few pokemon which I like the design of. My advice would be not to worry about playing optimally, just do what feels fun. And it can be a social thing (though I ignored that aspect until a couple months ago, heh.)
Edit: The premium currency can be got by leaving pokemon to defend gyms. Anything will do, just find a gym of your team that isn't full. You can get at most 50 coins per day this way. One pokemon in one gym for 8 hours is enough for that (though you only get paid when the gym is defeated - hence the perverse incentive).
You can also join in raids despite being low level. 6 pokemon will probably faint, but you should be able to share the rewards like everyone else. Rewards include rare candies, TMs to randomize moves, and ironically revives.
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Topic: [MILK] There were 12 eggs here what did you do with them? (Happy thread?!) (Read 16302938 times)