Arriving at Level 41 in Pokemon Go

Back in December of last year Niantic unlocked the next ten levels in Pokemon Go.  The game, having been capped at level 40 for over four years, was finally going to give people some new advancement goals.

The catch for the next ten level was that, in addition to the usual exp grind, players were going to have to complete some specific tasks along the way.  For some, those who had been at level 40 for a long time and who had continued to accumulate exp, the tasks were the real gates to the next levels.

For people like my wife and I, who hit level 40 less than a month before the new levels were unlocked, the exp hill was going to be the main limiting factor.  I finished the four tasks, which included catching 200 pokemon in a single day, long before I was even close to level.  We both managed to tip over into level 41 this month, with the exp being the final gate as expected.

A level up at last

With the level you get some prizes.

Some gifts for your level

But then you are quickly back to looking at the exp curve to get to level 42.

The tasks to get to level 42 are not too tough.  They are:

• Evolve Eevee into each of its forms
• Use items to evolve Pokémon 15 times
• Make 3 excellent throws
• Use 200 berries to help catch Pokémon

Only the Eevee evolution task is going to take some effort really.  And part of that is because the basic evolves are random chance. (The naming trick only works on your first evolve, which I did years ago.)  I had been saving up some Eevees for this, and then got seven Jolteons in a row.  Time to catch some more Eevees.

In the end though, the exp will be the final gate for most levels.  The level gradient looks like this:

• levels 1-39 – 15 million exp
• level 40 – 5 million exp
• level 41 – 6 million exp
• level 42 – 7.5 million exp
• level 43 – 9 million exp
• level 44 – 11 million exp
• level 45 – 13 million exp
• level 46 – 15 million exp
• level 47 – 18 million exp
• level 48 – 21 million exp
• level 49 – 25 million exp
• level 50 – 30 million exp

There are ways to speed up gaining exp.  My biggest score was when I used a lucky egg, which doubles all exp earned, then had somebody transition to a best friend, finished my weekly pokestop spin and pokemon catch, and did two five star raids with our group.  That was worth about 350K right there, though that was the stars aligning just right as the best friend was somebody in our raid group, so we were able to coordinate.  Otherwise, a good day gets us a raid and the usual catch and stuff, so often rings up less that 20K exp.

As for the tasks, looking at the list posted over at Polygon, only the tasks for levels 49 and 50 seem like they are big enough to be a significant barrier to level.  And, even then, the exp curve for those are so big that you will likely have plenty of time to work them out.

But we’re still just working on level 42, which for the most part means working on exp and catching every Eevee that shows up.