Trading Is Now Available in Pokemon Go

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You’ll only be able to trade with people nearby, but costs can be reduced by leveling up your friendship. By Andrew Goldfarb

Update (June 22): Trading is now available in Pokemon Go for players level 10 and above.

You can see an example trade in the video below:

Original story follows:

Nearly two years after launch, trading is officially coming to Pokemon Go.

Niantic announced this morning that trading will arrive alongside a new Friends system, which will offer various social features online or nearby.

Each player will have their own Trainer Code that they can share with friends to exchange friend requests. Once someone has accepted your friend request, that player will appear on your Friends List, where you can interact in various ways.

In a Q&A for members of the press at E3, Niantic software engineer Kirsten Koa clarified some of the new features surrounding Friends, including trading, special new eggs, a new Gifts feature, and more.

Friendship Levels

Once you’ve added a friend, you’ll be able to achieve one of four Friendship Levels: Good Friend, Great Friend, Ultra Friend, and Best Friend.

Raising your friendship level will offer various bonuses, including reduced Stardust costs for trades, extra damage during gym battles alongside a friend, and additional Premiere Balls during raids alongside a friend.

These are the bonuses for each friendship level:

Good friend: Trade all Pokemon except Mythical Great friend: Stardust discount for trading, attack bonus during gym battles with that friend, one additional Premiere Ball for raids alongside that friend Ultra friend: Additional stardust discount for trading, larger attack bonus during gym battles with that friend, two additional Premiere Balls for raids alongside that friend Best friend: Major stardust discount for trading, largest attack bonus during gym battles with that friend, four additional Premiere Balls for raids alongside that friend

Koa noted that these bonuses will not stack – for example, if you’re raiding with a Best Friend (which gives you 4 extra balls during raids) and an Ultra Friend (2 extra balls during raids), you’ll only receive the bonus from the single highest friend in your raid group, so you’d only get 4 extra balls for the raid, not 6.

You can increase your friendship level with a particular friend by sending gifts (see below), trading, or participating in gym battles or raid battles together. Your friendship level can only increase once per day per friend, and Koa explained the following ranges for achieving a friendship level:

Good friend: 1 day Great friend: 7 days Ultra friend: 30 days Best friend: 90 days

The current cap for each player’s friends list is 200 friends, but Koa said that number could grow in the future, and Niantic will never require players to pay for additional friend space like with Bag or Pokemon storage.

Trading, Stardust, and Pokemon IVs

Trades will only be possible with players on your friends list, and only if you’re within 100 meters of one another. Players will need a minimum trainer level of 10 in order to participate in trades.

You’ll also be able to participate in a Special Trade, which is for Legendary Pokemon, Shiny Pokemon, or Pokemon not currently in your Pokedex. You can only make a single Special Trade per day (not one per day per friend – only one per day total). Koa clarified that this “once a day” limit does not refer to a 24-hour period, and confirmed that it will reset at midnight like with Catch and Spin streaks.

All trades will require Stardust, with massively reduced costs depending on your friendship level. An example in screenshots released by Niantic shows a 1,000,000 Stardust fee for a Special Trade, reduced to just 40,000 Stardust if the players are Best Friends. Koa confirmed that both players will pay the same Stardust fee for each trade.

Players will also receive candy bonuses depending on the original catch location of the Pokemon being traded. If the Pokemon were caught far apart, you’ll receive extra candy. The current upper limit on these bonuses is a 100KM distance between the Pokemon’s original locations.

Finally, the HP and CP of Pokemon traded to friends will be reset, resulting in random new IVs for the Pokemon you receive. The range of possible HP and CP outcomes can be extremely wide or extremely narrow depending on your friendship levels, with Best Friends much more likely to receive stronger Pokemon.

Gifts and New Alolan Eggs

PokeStops will now occasionally drop Gifts, which you can send to friends on your list. Gifts will include a “postcard” from the PokeStop where you picked up the gift, as well as a rare item. Koa clarified that these items include rarer items within the normal PokeStop pool (hyper potions, revives, etc.) and not raid and research-exclusive items like Rare Candy or TMs.

When a player receives a gift, they’ll also have a chance to receive a new 7KM egg, which will eventually hatch to reveal an Alolan Pokemon.

The particular Pokemon in these 7KM eggs will be exclusive to hatching, though this will not be the only way to receive Alolan Pokemon moving forward -- other Alola forms like the previously-released Exeggutor and the recently-announced Diglett and Geodude will still spawn in the wild.

More Upcoming New Features

Niantic also teased more new additions coming to Pokemon Go, including new music and additional social features.

Niantic said the new Friend features outlined above, including trading, are coming “soon” and are expected to be released before this year’s Pokemon Go Fest, which will take place on July 14 and 15 in Chicago.

Niantic product marketing manager Kento Suga said the goal is to make Pokemon Go the “most sociable game in the world,” and to keep an eye out for new features. One example of a new social feature on Pokemon Go's roadmap is the ability to add friends via Facebook, but Niantic couldn't confirm when to expect that or any other in-game social features in the future.

For much more on Pokemon Go, read about the features you may have missed if you haven’t played Pokemon Go since launch.

Andrew is IGN’s executive editor of news and can’t wait to trade for the last three Pokemon he needs. You can find him rambling about Persona and cute animals on Twitter.

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