Level up! Climbing the ranks to reach level 50 in POGO!

Trainers spoke it into the universe, and it eventually came true. Pokemon Go finally increased their level-cap from level 40 to 50; but are the challenges worth it to become, “the very best”?

For the longest time, a struggle for the earliest Pokemon Go players was the simplicity of the mobile app and no greater challenges occurred after a period of time. Even after reaching the highest feat in the game at level 40, some Pokemon Go players lost enjoyment playing the game as much as they wanted to. The biggest struggle was keeping the oldest of Pokemon fans entertained when introducing new Pokemon to them because not all original Pokemon players continued with the series after the first two or three generations. Even in a middle of a pandemic, the app creators at Niantic handled their general audience and over-performed to make sure that they kept their general gaming audience still interested in playing. With the level increase for POGO players, the interest for the app should raise even higher and be more dedicated than it was before.

Increasing the max level you can reach in POGO has been just as much a blessing as it is a curse. Now with the all-time maximum level at 50, the experience and dedication required to climb the rankings to reach the new benchmark are more difficult than before. The average player had to gain total experience points of five-million in order to reach level 40; how many trainers want to do that again? Going on and reaching the next level at 41, the player has to get to six-million. Now that the stakes are raised, a trainer will have to be even more dedicated to the next level. A player can reach the most points of experience when challenging a great deal of five-star or Mega-Evolution raids; even more so if a player is making Ultra Friends from players on their friend list. Accumulating those experience points can take a lot of work, especially if a trainer is using a Lucky Egg.

As far as the experience points go, there have even been more objectives to complete when reaching each new level in POGO. Now when the trainer reaches a new level, there is a special field-research task when hitting each new ranking for the app. In the past, there has never been this direct order from the game’s primary objective coordinator: Professor Willow. The Pokemon professor in POGO has also made the difficulty of reaching brand new levels in the game just as troublesome when earning experience points. Even with the first task going from levels 40 to 41, a trainer must actively participate in thirty raids and catch 200 Pokemon in a single day. As the levels increase, so do the objectives for the trainer to accomplish to remain a dedicated trainer.

Trainers that were level 40 already in POGO that were looking for a more demanding challenge in the app to make the game more difficult received what they were asking for. Even more traditional Pokemon franchise players pay more attention to the core series games than they do the handheld app. Now that the synchronization between the app and core series game is more fluid thanks to Pokemon Home, the dedicated Pokemon fan can finally find the balance between the two. From a collector’s point of view, for someone who wants a ‘Shiny-Live Dex’ on their Pokemon Home database, they can definitely transfer Pokemon from the app to the cloud-system so that the certain individual can accomplish this feat. A subscription to Pokemon Home does have a standard fee; however, it is strongly recommended for players that truly love the franchise.

Even in an anniversary year of Pokemon, it was almost a must for the creators of Niantic to move forward with making the game more difficult when raising the in-game level cap. There are remarkable events to celebrate with Pokemon to commemorate 25-years of being a successful franchise, and this is twice over for POGO due to the fact they are celebrating their five-year anniversary. The week before the physical date of Pokemon’s anniversary, POGO is having a Pokemon GO Tour: Kanto event on Feb. 20, 2021, so players can have their own Pokemon Red or Green experience in the app. This event alone should give out a lot of experience points for trainers to take advantage of, and will probably come with a great deal of day-of incentives where players can catch limited Pokemon. Tickets for this event cost $11.99 (or USD equivalent) and can be read about on the official Pokemon Go website blog here.

It is truly amazing that Pokemon Go has continued this long being a popular application for their users. From original Pokemon players with generation one to the introduction to new players playing the game for the first time; this series has brought together plenty of players. The developers at Niantic and Game Freak have spent a great deal of time working together to make the experience of Pokemon more special by connecting this application with the main series. Either with Pokemon Home or the Let’s Go series on the Nintendo Switch, POGO users have even more to unlock past the app and enjoy their experiences even further. Increasing the difficulty of the level maximum to 50 is only the beginning of what Niantic has readily available to their gaming audience; there is, even more, being developed to make the game more challenging for their users. Time will tell when these new challenges reveal themselves; but for, now trainers will need all the discipline they need to reach that next level.