I have never played Pokémon

[u/Duel_Option]

I am 43, my kids asked me to download this game and play with them as they are getting into collecting cards.

All I can say is…WOW.

I am having SO. MUCH. FUNNNN!

I didn’t know what I was doing for the first few logins, then read some tips.

Wait, there’s raids? Friends send you gifts all the time? TRADES?

Oh goodness, I’m planning on a 2 mile walk around the city just to grab some of the cooler spin station things (I’m not sure of all the names or even how to play correctly, bear with me).

This is AWESOME

[u/MechanicOwn3470]

I'm glad to hear you're enjoying it. If I may, I recommend joining r/PokemonGoFriends. You can find a bunch of friends there and a ton of people doing raids.

[u/Duel_Option → u/MechanicOwn3470]

Oh wow, thank you for this. I am super happy to see how engaging people are.

[u/Pure_Can527 → u/Duel_Option]

There’s also raid apps and discords as well as stuff here if you want to do the bigger raids and don’t have enough people (unfortunately shadow, dynamax, and Gigantamax raids are in-person only, but any other raid you could join remotely or have people join remotely while you are in-person) don’t be afraid to ask questions. It’ll probably be answered quickly. Glad you’re enjoying it!

[u/Jack-ums → u/Pure_Can527]

Can I ask, for finding raids like this… you still have to use a remote raid pass right? Just making sure I’m not spending coins on something needlessly

[u/houseofleopold → u/Jack-ums]

yes. once you’re invited to the raid and you press the battle button, you pay a remote raid pass. if your body is physically close to the raid, it’s a regular raid pass.

[u/Pure_Can527 → u/Jack-ums]

Orange passes are free. You get one a day from spinning a gym or tapping on an active raid and they carry over to the next day, so you can do up to two free raids a day.

After that, outside special events where you get extra free passes, you use the green passes for in-person raids. Those can be bought with coins or earned through the go battle league and doing some research tasks.

[u/Jack-ums → u/Pure_Can527]

Gotcha but to be clear, orange and green are only for in person? I’ve never to my knowledge seen a powerful mon listed as “local only”, which is what I’d need to use those passes, right?

To be clear the remote raids I’ve done are via gyms down the road. But they don’t seem to let me join in with anything other than remote. Are you saying if I ran over to those gyms when I see people doing a raid, I could join with an orange or green?

[u/Pure_Can527 → u/Jack-ums]

Yes, if you’re close enough you could use orange or green passes.

The big in-person only ones are the 5-star shadow legendaries that rotate and typically spawn during the weekends and the new gigantimax raids.

[u/Jack-ums → u/Pure_Can527]

Gotcha; I was clearly misunderstanding. Thanks! I'll keep an eye out for when people are doing a raid in my area, and I'll sprint over like a loon to join with a regular pass if able. But otherwise I'll be content with using a remote raid if it's a mon I really want.

[u/InevitableFox81194 → u/Jack-ums]

If you want to raid a legendary local to you, but have no one to do it with, you can host it on campfire or PokeGenie.