Pokemon GO finally adds its most requested feature, but there's a big catch

After years of players asking developer Niantic, Pokemon GO Finally adding remote trading. The feature was included as part of a new update this week, but players won't be able to take advantage of remote trading. In fact, in the remote trading facility Pokemon GO There are some caveats that many players may find frustrating.

Pokemon GO During the pandemic offered a long-distance business option, but this is something different. Remote trading is exactly what the name suggests: trade with anyone in any part of the world. But if you want to make your first remote trade, there are a few steps to complete first.

Pokemon GO adds a new Forever Friends status

In remote trading Pokemon GO First you need to reach a new friendship status called “friends forever”. Before this week's Pokemon GO update, the highest level of friendship Pokemon GOBest Friends, 90 friendship points required. Forever Friends bumps that add up to 180 friendship points. So, if you want to start with a brand new friend, it will take a total of 180 days to reach the forever friend status.

The good news is that Pokemon GO Recently added weekly challenges where a group of four can get 7 more friendship points after completing a task. My first weekly challenge asked our group to catch 500 total Pokemon with no maximum or minimum per person. A person could possibly complete a weekly challenge by themselves, and still earn 7 friendship points with other members of their group.

Here's how remote trading works in Pokemon GO

Once you hit friends with a friend forever Pokemon GOMost of the heavy lifting is done, but there are still other restrictions. To coordinate a potential trade, you'll mark any Pokémon you're willing to trade with a remote trade tag. This tells any forever friends that these are the Pokemon you're willing to part with, if they have an attractive offer. Then you'll see forever friend's tagged Pokemon and decide which ones you're interested in.

At any point in this process, either party can decide they don't want to continue with the remote trade, and the whole thing can start over. Obviously, if you have an external way to contact your Pokemon GO friend, you can coordinate the remote trade to make sure it goes through, but other friends may decide to swap based on each other's selections.

You can make a lucky trade using Pokemon GO's new remote trading feature!

It may seem like unnecessary hoops to jump through to take advantage of remote trading, but things are rarely that simple in Pokemon Go. While achieving Forever Friend status will take players a while, perhaps the biggest disappointment with the feature is that you can't trade Pokemon for 30 days after catching them. This means you can't simply catch a Pokemon and instantly offer it to a forever friend.

Pokemon GO Business Restrictions

The usual trading requirements will also apply to remote trading, including the stat cost for different types of Pokémon (legendary or shiny) and whether they are both registered in the player's Pokédex. For those not familiar, you cannot trade:

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Even if you don't plan on taking advantage of remote trading, the new Forever Friend status is still a welcome addition to Pokemon GO. As you earn friendship points with a forever friend, you'll earn XP and unlock more remote trades. The Pokemon GO blog post doesn't clarify, but it sounds like remote trades will be bound by the new currency/item. It's unclear whether both players need to have the item to complete a remote trade or how often you'll earn it, but we should start learning more about that as players always reach friend status.

My Take on Pokemon Go Remote Trading

While it's nice to see Pokemon GO finally add a remote trading feature, it's hard to imagine that players first started asking Niantic for a way to swap Pokemon with friends in different locations. There are already many guardrails in place to prevent exploitative Pokemon Go trades, but this feels like jumping through a lot of hoops. This is the first step to convenience that many may not think of, though.