Over 100 days have now passed since the introduction of the new Forever Friends remote trade feature on December 8th last year. With it taking 90 days to achieve Forever Friends from Best Friends (that is, without any weekly challenge bonuses speeding you along), the first remote trades since the pandemic are being made, at far greater distances than the 40km radius available back then.
From my perspective, it’s the first feature in years I’ve been able to get excited about. You see, I’ve been on something of a GO Hub hiatus since having children (two babies in three years – more intense than Eternamax Eternatus battles, I have to say!) and on pretty limited playing time. Obviously my kids are and always will be my priority, but so many features introduced in the last three years have been extraordinarily difficult to participate in if you A, happen to be pregnant and not particularly mobile, or B, have a small baby.
Routes, Party Play, Wild Area – you name it, it hasn’t worked for me. Dynamax and Gigantamax only became possible with the introduction of remote battles, if I was prepared to spend the money. And while I obviously don’t have a monopoly on responsibilities or mobility challenges, as someone who once walked the full eight hours of a GO Fest day, only stopping to refuel with fast food fried chicken, it’s been disappointing to be so restricted from the game.
So with that in mind, I wanted to take a closer look at the remote trade feature – the positives, the negatives, how it can be improved, and how all trainers can get the best from it. My thoughts and those of some of my GO Hub colleagues are shared below.
The Good
For me, remote trading is a breath of fresh air – 90 days of interactions does mean I really have to grind for it, but I can participate in this feature, without compromising on the real world stuff that matters, or indeed spending oodles of money in this cost-of-living-crisis universe we’re all living in.
I’ve especially enjoyed reconnecting with friends I used to raid with to discuss trades, and it’s been great to finally fill dex entries I’ve struggled with over the years. Looking at you, shiny Corsola!
I also like that you don’t actually need to track down the trainer to organise the trade – I’ve found the “choose three, get one” mechanic, as well as the ability to decline if necessary, enables balanced trades. You can decide if what you’re getting is worth what you’re giving up without any hard feelings, or at least that’s what I’ve found so far.
The trades I’ve made so far also caused me to go back through my storage and look out things that I might not have initially tagged for trade – a wide range of options is generally helpful in finding a workable trade, but it also turns out we’re all collecting slightly differently – I might not especially care about the level 1 shiny Scorbunny I caught last week, but I suspect someone will!
Rounding off my positive thoughts, the ability to earn bonus friendship progress through weekly challenges is very helpful in reducing down that 90-day loop to trade. If you manage to link up with the same person each week, you can get it down as low as 45 days.
Furthermore, the ability to view available Pokémon once Forever Friends is reached, regardless of whether a trade is currently available, is very helpful in thinking ahead to what the next trade might look like.
Finally, 90 days of friendship interactions has so far meant that I’m often lucky with the friend by the time the trade arrives. This has had some spectacular results, including a lucky hundo Heracross for me and a lucky shiny hundo Rayquaza for a friend!
Further thoughts from the GO Hub team
- “I have many Lucky Friends from far away, so getting to trade with them is definitely a dream come true!” – MeteorAsh
- “Picking three for my trader to pick which one they can give me is actually pretty nice and appreciated; to give them a choice of what to give out. I also like how there’s no need to communicate for the trade, you just make the request, pick your top 3 choices, and pick the one you want to give out and that’s it.” – Lawaii
- “I like that remote trades don’t count as special trades!” -Raj1729
- “I have loved the surprises, and the things people have offered for trade. I’ve had two shlundos from remote trading!” – kittypokemonsalot
The Bad
The primary issue for me is not having enough information in the trade screen. While I assume you can’t see the other trainer’s Pokémon nicknames for safety/potential abuse reasons, I suspect my trading partners can’t tell I have a Clone Pikachu available. I can’t tell if my friend is offering an Elegant Scatterbug or a Sandstorm. And as someone who has always liked to collect both genders of shiny from Community Days, it’s annoying that I can’t see if it’s a male Grookey or a female. And the unregistered filter and icon, both of which I like a lot and could potentially help in making clear what Pokémon would be new for me, unfortunately don’t seem to work consistently – I’ve had times where it’ll show as unregistered something I definitely have, or I’ll turn on the filter and something that is unregistered won’t be included, even though it has the icon when the filter is switched off.
More seriously, I ran into a glitch where my trading partner had hit Forever Friends with me, but it said we were seven days off at my end. My game recognised the trade request he’d made, but I couldn’t respond to it, blocking my ability to remote trade entirely. We eventually realised it was a known desync bug where the bonus friendship progress from a weekly challenge, which is 7 days, had registered on his account but not on mine. For anyone else who has this glitch, unfriending and re-friending synced us back up and allowed the trade. Fair warning though, you’ll probably lose the XP!
Further thoughts
- “I don’t like the 90 day interaction. And it resets after one remote trade, which means another 90 days interaction.” – Raj1729
- “Doing another 90 days just to get another Remote Trade available really sucks. Like you made the effort to get to Forever Friends to trade remotely only for the feature to get locked again until you complete another 90 days of interactions. I get what they’re trying to do by limiting the feature, but this time lock is a bit insane.” – Lawaii
- “The process is not always fun even though it’s exciting. There’s a looming pressure to pick trades of equal or more value, and it’s often frustrating to establish a successful trade.” – MeteorAsh
- “I have rejected a few remote trades. I am always happy to send over most things, but one trainer had a non-shiny Gulpin to offer in return only, and was asking for shiny regionals and shiny baby Pokémon… no?!” – kittypokemonsalot
Ideas to Improve Remote Trading
As you might have guessed from my negatives above, I’d really like to see more detail available in the trade screen. Given the problem of finding an equal trade, more information can only be helpful.
The equal trade issue mentioned by my GO Hub colleague above could be addressed in some way as well. I’m spit balling here, but a balance indicator might work – for example, someone trying to offer a shiny Community Day Pokémon and requesting a shiny Gigantamax Grimmsnarl in return might get an extra confirmation message like, “Hey! This trade may not be accepted – would you like to select again?”, while the other trainer would also receive a message – something like, “You may be trading a rare Pokémon for a common one – are you sure you want to continue?” You could still make the trade as long as all parties were satisfied, (Heck, back in 2018 I traded a shiny Meditite for a Farfetch’d, costing 1 million stardust, and both of us were very happy with the trade. You just never know what people will value!) but at least there would be some sort of signal that the trade might be unfair or unrealistic.
On the smaller scale, I don’t think there is any reason why the new special background indicators should only be in the remote trade screen. It’s a helpful feature that might as well be available in the main Pokèmon collection screen. It’d be nice not to accidentally attempt to transfer background Pokémon all the time.
Further Ideas
- “Permanent remote friends. Once the extra 90 day interaction is done, we should be able to permanently remote trade. Also not just for remote trade but trading in general, Stardust cost should be completely removed for non special trades.” – Raj1729
- “A wishlist for the top 5 or so Pokémon you’re looking for. TCG Pocket has this feature wherein one can display up to three Pokémon they want, making it easier and simpler to get the trade done. With this, you can be sure that the person is happy with what they are receiving.” – MeteorAsh
- “Offer more in-game information for trainers on how to mark their Pokémon for remote trade, as many trainers haven’t tagged anything yet.” – kittypokemonsalot
- “Keep the 90 days requirement to get another Remote Trade, but with the following improvements:
- Incorporate double friendship points into events for people to seize the opportunity to make daily interactions to speed up their progress with their friends. They could also introduce triple friendship points to help make friendship progress even faster.
- The lucky floor for remote lucky trades should be at the minimum of 13/13/13 (Mighty Pokémon odds) instead of the normal 12/12/12 floor. I feel like a little boost for chances to get a perfect IV after all of this effort to get to Forever Friends/get another Remote Trade is needed here.
- Adding one or two more friend slots for the Weekly Challenge party would help a ton for people. This is especially goes to the fact that we now have the max limit of friends of 600 in Pokémon GO and there’s a good chance that a majority of Trainers has a lot of friends to work with and can’t make progress with everyone. Or take a page from Pikmin Bloom and add the option to replay the Weekly Challenge after you finish one by using a Weekly Challenge Ticket. We also definitely need an increase to the daily sending/opening gifts limit (opening especially).
- The 40km trade radius could return to help local Trainers trade remotely with their lucky friends without using the Remote Trade feature, but only at certain special events. Having extended trade radius for local Trainers could compensate the time they have to make to Forever Friends/another Remote Trade while making progress at the same time.
- Incorporate communication via Campfire to the trade request so you two can be more clear on what you’re looking for. The current system is fine at is, but there’s a chance that the person you’re trading with doesn’t have Campfire (you can check in-game by going to their profile and click the Niantic logo on the top right corner) and you might want to clarify something, but it’s impossible to communicate when you can’t message them through Campfire. This feature would also help enhance the remote trading experience for people by letting them communicate with each other in an official companion app; in other words, it would make using Campfire a little more worth it.
- Have people be able to add add their number one choice out of their three choices so one’s trader knows which of the top three one is really eyeing off.” – Lawaii
Tips for Successful Remote Trading
I think the feature is going to work best long term if we just aim to be fair with each other. So my top three suggestions for players getting started with remote trading are pretty simple – be flexible, be realistic, and be ready to hear or say no. If the person you’re trading with doesn’t have anything you’re after, pick something you wouldn’t mind having better stats on. Even if it’s not a guaranteed lucky trade, it could still become lucky, or come out with good IVs by chance. That said, if the trainer asks for your best trade stock in return, decline the trade! Similarly, if you’re trading with someone with a huge range of things you want and you think you may not have anything they need, pick at least two options that are less rare, or they have multiples of, to give them flexibility to find the balance on their end. And again, be prepared to accept a decline and adjust your expectations.
My other tip is to tag as much as possible for remote trade – I personally tag all of my trade stock, and I’ve searched my storage for more options to add since getting started with trading. Seriously, the more you have available, the more your trading partner will have to work with.
If you’re completely new to trading, check out our GO Hub ultimate guide.
More advice
- “Be sure to have your Pokémon tagged for remote trading! And remember that you can’t just trade a relatively common shiny (Blast Burn Charizard) for a regional shiny.” – MeteorAsh
- “Double check before confirming the trade!” – Raj1729
- “Make sure you add your mons (particularly shinies, backgrounds, legendaries) to your official Remote Trade tag ASAP so that your friend can view your list on what you have the offer before making a Remote Trade. That way, you both know what you have in store and can tell each other what you want. Also, if one were to give their Dynamax/Gigantamax mons the remote tag, if you’re planning on dropping them in Power Spots to collect candies, the system won’t actually let you do it because they have the Remote Trade tag. Finally, if the person you’re trading with has Campfire, establish communications with them to keep track of your progress to Forever Friends and maybe update each other on what you have to trade when you two get there.” – Lawaii
How about you, trainers? Have you been remote trading like mad or are yet to dip your toe in the water? What are you enjoying, and what would you like to see done better? And most importantly of all, what new cool Pokémon have you received? Let us know!
