Helpful tips for beginners Pokemon GO Guide
Last update: 25 July 2016
Since Pokemon GO is much different from regular games from the series of Pokemon, and since probably not all of you have played this game, it's worth to get familiar with the information below. This chapter contains information that will be useful mostly to beginners, but the advanced players will also find something of interest.
General
1. Catch all the pokemons you encounter. Pay no mind to the limited amount of slots (you can enhance it later on) - useless Pokemons can be sent to Professor, which will grant you Candy linked to the given Pokemon. Every pokemon caught means more XP. Pokeballs can be collected easily in Pokestops.
2. Don't waste stardust for any Pokemons. Stardust is needed to augmenting them (it raises their CP - Combat Power, and health). The best way is to collect a substantial amount of the dust and upgrade a few of the best Pokemons used for fighting as much as possible.
3. Use Stardust on Pokemons that already have high CP. There's no point using it on Pdgeyu with 10CP, if you'd caught a Pidgeot with 130CP. It's also good to keep a surplus of the dust in case you catch a rare and powerful Pokemon - you can then quickly upgrade it.
4. CP (Combat Power). It substitutes all the combat stats from a "regular" Pokemon game (such as attack, defense, special attacks, speed, etc.). The higher this value the stronger the Pokemon.
5. Appropriate choice of Pokemons is as important as the CP. If you send your strongest fire Pokemon to face a water opponent, you will most probably loose, even if your CP was higher. Check out your opponent beforehand and respond with an appropriate Pokemon.
6. If you're living in a very small town or in the country (where there's less than 2000 players), you will unfortunately not find any challenge. At the current stage the game's in, you won't find any Pokestops, let alone the Gyms. If you're playing just for fun, however, or don't mind spending some money, you can easily play.
7. Choosing the team (5th XP level) does not influence the game - that's purely cosmetic. If you have some friends with one team, go with them - you'll have more control over the Gyms.
8. Don't try cheats allowing to fake your position on the map, or driving a car around the city. First of all, it will get you a quick ban, second, it kills the whole point of the game, which is going out to the world and interacting with other people.
9. You can buy Pokemons for real money, but also by maintaining control over the Gyms. Every Pokemon in the Gym will grant you 10 Pokepoints every 21 hours real time.
10. Don't spend your Pokecoin lightly - save them and spend for useful items. Pokeballs can be obtained for free in Pokestops, same as Lucky Egg.
11. If any of you friends are playing, join their team. It will be easier to resolve the matter of using the Lure Module, which can be placed in a Pokestop, resulting in a much greater number of Pokemons in the vicinity. Lure Module can also be used by other players from the same team.
How to gain experience quickly in Pokemon GO?
1. When evolving Pokemons, it's good to focus on those "weak", such as Pidgey, Caterpie, Weedle. Each of those requires only 12 Candy to get to the highest form - XP growth will be identical.
2. If you're planning to evolve Pokemons to get some XP, hold on with that for some time. Accumulate the required amount of Candy first, and then get a Lucky Egg - either in a Pokestop or by buying it for Pokecoin. Activate the item and evolve the all the Pokemons - you will get 1000XP instead of regular 500 for each (boosted by the Lucky Egg). The best way is to accumulate the right number of Pokemons first (those "weak ones" I mentioned - Pidgeys, Caterpies, etc.) and the right amount of Candy. This way allows you to get couple of thousand XP in half an hour!
3. If you're living in a big city or have access to city center (where are many Pokestops and Gyms), go there (in the real world). Getting from one spot to another and fighting a trainer in the Gym, catching Pokemons, and hatching them from eggs can get you from 2000 to 5000 XP in an hour. And all that while enjoying a walk with your dog on a sunny afternoon.
Saving energy and data
1. Turn off the augmented reality (AR), the camera of the device used for placing the creature in the real world. It is just a visual feature which you don't need, which quickly becomes boring and which makes it harder to capture Pokemons. It also consumes great amount of energy from the device's battery.
2. Invest in a Powerbank. These devices are very cheap and even the least expensive models should be enough for charging a smartphone. A better Powerbank with bigger capacity will cost more than a dozen of dollars but you can use it for other things as well (for example for charging digital camera). It's pointless to play the game without having additional power source - the phone will lose energy in about a hour.
3. Don't even think about using Google maps in offline mode in order to reduce energy and data consumption of your phone. Pokemon GO doesn't use Google maps and you will only waste time and space on your phone.
4. Allow your phone to rest from time to time from the game. Pokemon GO increases the temperature of the smartphones and as everyone knows high temperature isn't good for electric devices. If the phone has temporarily high temperature nothing bad should happen, but if it is hot for a few hours a day then your smartphone can quickly break.