One of the key elements that contribute to camaraderie in Pokémon GO is the Friendship system, which allows players to connect with one another in various meaningful ways. From pinning postcards to levelling up, the Friendship feature has enriched the gameplay experience, making it more enjoyable and rewarding for trainers. In this article, we will delve into the different aspects of Pokémon GO Friendship and how it enhances the overall gameplay.
Adding Friends
Adding friends in Pokémon GO is a straightforward process. Players can share their Trainer Codes with others or scan the QR code of another player. Simply go onto your trainer profile, click the ‘Friends’ tab and then ‘Add friend’. Here you can find your trainer code, or you can enter someone else’s code.
Friend requests will show up as a yellow banner at the top of the “Friends” tab. You can have a maximum of 650 friends in Pokémon GO.
Sending Gifts – Sharing the Love
PokéStops offer Gifts that players can send to their friends, you can hold 20 at one time. These gifts contain helpful items and can be opened once a day by the recipient. Sending gifts to friends is an excellent way to maintain friendship levels and help each other progress in the game. Moreover, gifts can contain special 7 km eggs that hatch Alolan and Galarian Pokémon, adding another layer of excitement to this feature.
Trainers can only send 100 Gifts per day and open 30 Gifts daily in Pokémon GO. You can send one particular friend 1 Gift per day. This limitation is in place to ensure a fair and balanced gameplay experience and to prevent potential misuse.
During events 7km eggs may contain event themed Pokémon, and there may be bonuses that impact how many gifts you can open or hold.
Buddy Pokémon – A Helping Hand
A player’s Buddy Pokémon can also contribute to the Friendship experience by bringing gifts when the player is running low. This thoughtful feature helps trainers who might have trouble accessing PokéStops frequently or during special events when PokéStops provide more gifts than usual.
Pinning Postcards – Sharing Adventures Across the Globe
Pinning postcards is a delightful way to connect with Friends from around the world! When you receive a Gift, you can pin it to your postcard book. Pinning a gift will save it and you can look back on them later.
Not only this, pinning postcards can help you unlock and collect all Vivillon patterns in Pokémon GO. The pin icon is to the right of the ‘open’ button when you open a gift from a friend, you cannot pin a postcard you have already opened.
How to get Vivillon and all Vivillon Patterns in Pokémon GO
Vivillon
The butterfly-like Pokémon, Vivillon, is known for its unique regional variants. Each variant is tied to specific real-world regions and is distinguished by its wing patterns, which naturally occur in different parts of the world.
Every time you pin a Gift Postcards from Friends across the globe, you have the chance to earn an encounter with a Scatterbug from that Friend’s region!
You’ll earn a Scatterbug encounter after you’ve pinned a specific number of Postcards from a Vivillon pattern’s associated region. The number of required pinned Postcards rises every time you unlock a Scatterbug encounter. The pattern the Scatterbug is associated with will be highlighted above its evolution button.
Vivillon patterns map
The official Vivillon map shows where you can find each version of Vivillon:
There are 18 Vivillon patterns for you to collect in Pokémon Go, with each one being connected to a selection of regions from around the world.
Here are all the Vivillon patterns currently available in Pokémon Go and which regions they’re associated with:
- Archipelago – Caribbean and South Africa
- Continental – Argentina, Central Europe – Germany, Poland, Denmark, Central Asia, India
- Elegant – Japan
- Garden – UK, Ireland, New Zealand
- High Plains – Western United States, Eastern Europe
- Icy Snow – Greenland, Northern Canada, Northern Europe (Norway, Finland, Sweden)
- Jungle – Colombia, Northern South America, Central Africa, Indonesia
- Marine – Chile, Greece, Eastern Europe (Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria), Spain
- Meadow – France, Italy
- Modern – Eastern United States
- Monsoon – Southeast Asia
- Ocean – Hawaii, Galápagos Islands, Madagascar
- Polar – Alaska, Eastern Canada, Western Canada, Southern Argentina and Chile, Northern Europe (Norway, Sweden, Finland)
- River – North Africa (Egypt), South Africa, South Australia
- Sandstorm – Middle East
- Savanna – Brazil
- Sun – North Australia, Mexico, Madagascar
- Tundra – Iceland, Southern Norway, Sweden, North Japan
Evolving Vivillon
In order to evolve Vivillon, you will have to earn 125 Candy to evolve Scatterbug into Spewpa, and Spewpa into Vivillon.
| Pokémon | Condition | Evolution |
Scatterbug
|
25 candy |
Spewpa
|
|
Spewpa
|
100 candy |
Vivillon
|
Tracking Vivillon progress
You can track your Vivillon progress by tracking a medal for each pattern, and by using the official in-game map:
Friendship Levels and XP Gains – Growing Stronger Together
As players interact with their friends in various ways, such as sending gifts, participating in raids, and battling together in Gyms, their friendship levels increase. There are five friendship levels: Good Friends, Great Friends, Ultra Friends, Best Friends and Forever Friends. Each level provides various bonuses, such as reduced Stardust costs for trading, attack bonuses in raids, and additional Premier Balls during raids. The journey of increasing friendship levels not only brings about substantial in-game advantages but also strengthens the bond between players.
Eggs and Coordination
Players that are working on levelling up in Pokémon GO know how quickly the required XP for each level grows. One way of grinding XP is through friendship level ups.
| Friendship Level | XP | XP with lucky egg |
|---|---|---|
| Good Friends | 3,000 | 6,000 |
| Great Friends | 10,000 | 20,000 |
| Ultra Friends | 50,000 | 100,000 |
| Best Friends | 100,000 | 200,000 |
When people are looking for friends on twitter, you are likely to see the phrase ‘egg for UF/BF’, this means that they want to put a lucky egg on when you hit Ultra Friends and Best Friends to make the most of those huge XP gains. For this, when your friendship says ‘Play together for 1 more day to become Ultra Friends / Best Friends!’, you should message the person you are friends with and arrange a time for you to both have a lucky egg on before one of you open the gift for the day.
After removing a friend, your Friendship level can be recovered for a limited period of time. If you re-add a friend during that time period, your Friendship level will be restored. After 120 days you can re-add a friend and your friendship will be reset to 0, where you can go through the XP grinding again.
Raid and Trade Bonus – Best Friends
As trainers reach the friendship level, Best Friends, they unlock a range of bonuses. The most notable benefits include the possibility of acquiring an extra Premier Ball during raid encounters and the ability to trade Pokémon at a much lower Stardust cost. Additionally, when trading Pokémon, there is a guarantee that the Pokémon will have a minimum of 5 Individual Values (IVs). This makes trading highly valuable Pokémon much easier and promotes more interaction between players to achieve these high friendship levels.
Bonuses in Raids
| Level | Damage Bonus | Extra Premier Balls |
|---|---|---|
| Good Friends (1 Day) | 3% | 0 |
| Great Friends (7 Days) | 5% | 1 |
| Ultra Friends (30 Days) | 7% | 2 |
| Best Friends (90 Days) | 10% | 4 |
Bonuses when Trading
| Level | Discount | Regular & Regional | Shiny & Legendary | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Caught | New | Caught | New | ||
| Good Friends | 0% | 100 | 20,000 | 20,000 | 1,000,000 |
| Great Friends | 20% | 100 | 16,000 | 16,000 | 800,000 |
| Ultra Friends | 92% | 100 | 1,600 | 1,600 | 80,000 |
| Best Friends | 96% | 100 | 800 | 800 | 40,000 |
Blue Circle Indicates Interaction
- Opening a Gift – if your friend opens a gift on one day that counts as interaction for the day, you do not need to open the gift from them as well. Unless you want to of course!
- Trading
- Participating in a Gym Battle together
- Participating in a Raid Battle together
- Battling each other
- Doing a Weekly Challenge together
To help players keep track of their daily interactions with friends, a blue circle appears around a friend’s avatar in the friends list after they have been interacted with for the day. This visual indicator is helpful in managing daily activities and maximizing friendship progress.
Lucky Friends
Once you become Best Friends, all subsequent friendship interactions that would normally increase your Friendship level (i.e. doing raids, opening gifts, etc) have a small chance to make you and your Best Friend become Lucky Friends. You have one chance to become Lucky Friends with each Best Friend every day.
You’ll be notified by an in-app notification and will be able to see that they’re your Lucky Friend in your Friend List and Friend Profile page. When you are Lucky Friends with someone, the next time you trade with each other, both Pokémon will become Lucky Pokémon. After the trade, your Lucky Friend status will be cleared. You can try to become Lucky Friends again by increasing your Friendship.
Forever Friends and Remote Trading
A new Friendship Level is coming to Pokémon GO — Forever Friends! This new level sits above Best Friends, and to reach it, you’ll need 90 interactions after becoming Best Friends with another Trainer.
Reaching Forever Friends grants valuable rewards and XP, along with two exciting new perks:
When you become Forever Friends with another Trainer, you’ll both receive a Remote Trade opportunity with each other!
Reaching Forever Friends unlocks a new attack boost, similar to those earned at lower Friendship levels. This bonus can be earned only once and is awarded the first time you reach Forever Friends with a Trainer.
This feature will not be retroactive. All Trainers will start from zero Friendship Points once it goes live, meaning your current Best Friends will be the fastest path toward reaching Forever Friends first.
How to Earn Forever Friends
To reach Forever Friends, Trainers must earn 90 Friendship Points with each Friend after becoming Best Friends.
Friendship Points are a new progression system that replaces the old “daily interaction” mechanic as the main way to track friendship progression between Trainers.
You can earn up to 1 Friendship Point per day per Friend by completing any of the typical friendship interactions that would normally level up your Friendship.
You can also speed up progress by completing Weekly Challenges with your Friends, earning up to 7 extra Friendship Points per week. Any event bonuses that boost friendship gain (for example, double friendship points during special events) will apply to Forever Friends progression.
Remote Trades and Re-Earning Forever Friends
Every time you earn 90 Friendship Points, you’ll unlock one Remote Trade with that Friend. Forever Friends is a repeatable level: you can continue earning Friendship Points and receive additional Remote Trades each time you hit 90 points again.
However, Remote Trades don’t stack. If you already have an unused Remote Trade, you’ll need to use it before earning another one.
Additionally, each Remote Trade is tied to the Friend you earned it with. It can’t be transferred or used with any other Friend. Trainers can complete one Remote Trade per day across all Friends, regardless of how many Forever Friends they have.
How to Remote Trade with your Forever Friend
Before your first Remote Trade, you’ll be prompted to use a special Remote Trade tag to mark the Pokémon you’re willing to trade with your Forever Friends.
Once you and another Trainer become Forever Friends, you’ll each be able to see one another’s Pokémon that are tagged for Remote Trading. These are the only Pokémon available for trade.
To start a Remote Trade:
- Trainers take turns selecting up to three Pokémon from their Friend’s tagged list that they’d like to receive.
- These selections are sent to the other Trainer as a trade “wish list.”
- Each Trainer then chooses one Pokémon from their Friend’s wish list to offer in return.
- Both Trainers review the final selections and can confirm or cancel the trade at any time.
You’re not locked in during the process. Either Trainer can decline or restart the trade at any point before confirming.
If you’re Lucky Friends, your next trade — even if it’s remote — will result in a Lucky Pokémon. After completing the trade, you’ll no longer be Lucky Friends, just like with normal in-person trades.
Trainers can complete one Remote Trade per day, and Remote Trades do not count as Special Trades, no matter which Pokémon are traded.
🚫 Pokémon That Are Banned from Remote Trades
The following Pokémon cannot be included in a Remote Trade:
- Pokémon caught in the last 30 days
- Previously traded Pokémon
- Shadow Pokémon
- Mythical Pokémon
- Pokémon defending Gyms or Power Spots
- Pokémon currently set as your buddy
- Actively Mega-Evolved Pokémon
- Fused Pokémon
- Crowned Sword Zacian and Crowned Shield Zamazenta
- Pokémon placed at Pokémon Playgrounds
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Friendship feature in Pokémon GO adds a whole new dimension to the game by promoting connections between trainers, fostering teamwork, and encouraging exploration and collaboration. By pinning postcards, reaching higher friendship levels, and sending gifts, players can form lasting bonds with each other while enjoying the adventure of catching Pokémon.
Whether it’s sharing the beauty of Vivillon variants from different regions or enjoying the benefits of being Best Friends, the Friendship system emphasises the power of unity and teamwork in the world of Pokémon GO. With the addition of Forever Friends and Remote Trading there are more reasons than ever to interact with your in-game pals! So, go out there, make friends, and embark on an unforgettable journey together! Happy hunting, trainers!
