Friend Cascade

An interesting phenomenon occurs in Pokémon Go regarding the friendship levels of Trainers - at least, among the members of my raid group. When someone is ready to go up in Friendship degree, notably to become Ultra or Best Friends and often through the opening of Gifts, the person often waits for several others so they can go up at the same time. When the person is ready, the others are informed about the process, and then this may lead to those others informing yet others that they are about to go up as well. This phenomenon of Trainers raising the Friendship degrees of one another is what I call the "friend cascade".

There is of course a reason for this. The elevation of Friendship degrees above Good Friends rewards Experience Points (XP) for the Trainers in question, and these are not very little as well. Becoming Great Friends awards 10000 XP, becoming Ultra Friends awards 50000 XP, and becoming Best Friends awards 100000 XP. That alone is not enough to explain this phenomenon, however. The key to this phenomenon is that these XP (like others) can be doubled by way of a Lucky Egg that is active at the moment the Friendship degree is raised, which means 20000, 100000, and 200000 XP respectively for the above. A single Lucky Egg and lots of Friendship degrees being raised at the same time can thus potentially reward hundreds of thousands of XP, something that may be relatively uncommon and yet very important to raise Trainer levels. No wonder why we all choose to wait for several others to be ready to go up in Friendship degree, which often leads to these "cascades".

The latest major "friend cascade" that involved myself also involved 21 Trainers, give or take. One Trainer informed of the readiness to become Ultra Friends with five Trainers, of which one of them was me. One of those Trainers also happened to be ready to become Best Friends with me, which led to that Trainer also informing others in that Trainer's list to also be prepared. I also was ready to become Best Friends with another Trainer and Ultra Friends with yet another one, for which the latter two were also ready to become Ultra Friends with each other. In total, I received 1 million XP from two Best Friends and three Ultra Friends, while one of my Ultra Friends did better and received 1.4 million XP out of three and eight respectively. This was an altogether amazing "friend cascade" with many relationships and just as many rewards.

This phenomenon may not be exclusive to my raid group; any Trainer with close relationships to a group of many Trainers may very well experience this phenomenon with the Trainers in the group. It's a great one nonetheless. The prospect of earning hundreds of thousands of XP in one fell swoop is enthralling, not to mention highly beneficial, especially for those Trainers who haven't maximized their levels yet. There's that, and there's also the amazement seeing a whole group of Trainers elevating their Friendship degrees at nearly the same time, through what may be a "cascade" that starts from just a few.

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