Just a little over a month ago, Niantic unveiled the Forever Friends and Remote Trading mechanics as an early Christmas present to Pokémon Go players around the world. But now, players are warning others that the feature might not be working as intended.
Remote Trades work similarly to Local Trades with a few caveats, though the gist is simple: You can trade remotely with someone on your friends list without having to be near them—but it takes a very long time to unlock the mechanic. As one of the first Pokémon Go players to unlock the feature, Tagman50 posted a YouTube video yesterday with the intention of showing how it’s supposed to work, but what he discovered was something much worse. What was seemingly meant to be a Lucky Trade didn’t result in a Lucky Pokémon. And with the mobile game’s limitations around trading, this is a huge deal.
The video shows how Pokémon Go marked the person Tagman50 had chosen to trade with as a Lucky Friend. This status guarantees that the next trade you make with this person will be—you guessed it—Lucky, which makes Pokémon have higher IVs and require less Stardust to power up. Your chances of reaching the Lucky Friend status are limited, so you want to make a wise decision about which Pokémon to send over in these types of trades.
Later in the video, Tagman50 sent over a Shiny Spiritomb, a rare Pokémon in the game, in exchange for a Nidoran. Though the game said it would be a Lucky Trade, the Nidoran he received wasn’t Lucky, which meant the trade did not work as intended. And given how a Pokémon cannot be traded a second time, this is a pretty big loss for both players, but it feels especially bad knowing such a rare Pokémon was on the line. At the end of the video, Tagman50 also revealed that the trade cost him one Special Trade, which you only get once per day.
Multiple people in the comments of the YouTube video and on Reddit claimed they experienced the same situation. At the time of writing, Niantic hasn’t addressed the issue, and Destructoid has not yet been able to verify the bug.
Outside of raising awareness for this bug, Tagman50 showed the mechanics of a Remote Trade, which is likely useful for most trainers. Most people haven’t used the mechanic since the feature takes a long time to unlock. You must be Forever Friends with another trainer, which takes 90 more Friendship Points after hitting Best Friends. In most cases, you can only earn one Friendship Point per day by completing activities like sharing Gifts or fighting alongside your friends in Raid Battles. However, you can also earn additional points in some features, like Weekly challenges, according to Pokémon Go’s official Help Center.
Once you’ve become Forever Friends, you gain the ability to trade remotely. As shown in Tagman50’s video, you must tag a Pokémon with a Remote Trade tag. Then, when you initiate a Remote Trade, your trading partner can see all of your tagged Pokémon and a bit of information about each one, like when and where they were caught, as well as their attacks. Both of you can select up to three Pokémon you want to trade for from your trading partner’s list. You can then choose one of the three Pokémon your trading partner has requested. Then, both players have a chance to review and finalize the trade. The game gives a 24-hour period for the trade to be finalized.
It’s possible the game’s developer may release some sort of compensation, like a Lucky Trinket, to those impacted, as many users on Reddit suggested. But until we get a guaranteed fix, I’d recommend not using the Remote Trading feature—or at least, not using it to send over any Shiny Legendaries.
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