does anyone play in chch mostly outter chch ?

I posted this on TSR, but the auto mod removed it .. so I thought I'd ask here.

Last night I did my first evolution session in a long time and during that hit 30 million XP. It got me thinking that since reaching level 40, XP growth seems to have become easier .. and I am wondering if that is because the game now awards more XP, or if it is something I am doing.

Some numbers
Started playing on the 6th July 2016 (around 8pm), hit Level 40 (20 million XP) on the 17th September 2017 (15 months from start) and hit 30 million XP on the 10th January 2018 (4 months)

Raids started around July, and so for a few months, the extra XP from raids have helped me jump from Level 38 to 40 and since the beginning of raids I have done 105 L1-4 raids (around 3k XP per raid) and 160 L5 raids (around 10k per raid). So while that is a good amount of XP growth, it doesn't really count for all of the XP and how it seems to be easier to get.

Does anyone else have the same feeling that XP is seeming easier to get now ...

Not for me, lol. I'm grinding my way from 38 to 39 at the moment and it feels like it's taking forever. My New Year's resolution is to make 40 before December 31st. I think if XP was being awarded faster above 40 it would be well known by now, with high-profile players like Brandon Tan and Reversal hitting 40 multiple times. You do seem to have experienced a spectacular jump in XP accumulation, though. 

I've been following all the S2 cell research with great interest and have managed to use the findings to identify some good EX gym candidates in my area. Browns Bay, about 20 minutes from where I live, has had several EX raids at a gym on the beach. The locals started raiding the gym right next to it quite enthusiastically, and now the second gym has an EX raid (for next Tuesday). Given that no two gyms in the same L12 S2 cell can host EX raids in the same cycle, they're now in the enviable position of knowing which gym in the park to concentrate on at any time (unless it's a week when neither gym has had a raid, in which case they can just do both). At least now we know which gyms in the area are EX capable, and which ones we should be concentrating on in any given week. Our EX gym hasn't had a raid since Christmas, so we're raiding that one a lot this week, but once that gets passes, we're going to try to trigger another in the same cell. Should be an interesting experiment!

We did an interesting experiment in attempting to trigger an EX raid.
We achieved that goal and in doing so, proved Niantic to be liars.  Their stated criteria for EX passes was high level on the gym and lots of raids (paraphrased) yet most of the passes given out were to low level players that had only one interaction with the gym in question, that being the raid that triggered the pass.

So we call BS to Niantics supposed criteria as many deserving players with hundreds of raids completed and many gold gyms got nothing.  Even those raiding near continuously over the weekend got nothing as opposed to those who wandered up to one raid only and got a pass.

Needless to say, many extremely annoyed people when the passes came out.

That and of the two gyms that got an EX raid, one has 7 players that we know of, the other has 12.  Mostly lower levels in the 7 too.  So that could be fun.

Some of the Dunedin players have worked out what gyms to prioritize based on the available information provided by S2 cells, OSM etc etc.
I haven't been following most of it however .. mostly because of exactly what geoffwnz has said - Niantic's "rules" on how they give out passes is complete and utter BS and as a result I've decided not to be drawn into an attempt to trigger raids.

I'm currently level 38 ( my mate is 39, and he started 2 months after me ) in my town we got a new gym which used to be a pokestop which makes the total of gyms 26. about 19 are gold for me and atm raids are getting low as the group loses interest in it. one stage we had 17 spoofers helping us that we didn't mind ( as it was lugia )

so far no Ex passes ( just one person who got one for dunners ) 

haven't got the nz regional relcainth yet 

geoffwnz:

 

We did an interesting experiment in attempting to trigger an EX raid.
We achieved that goal and in doing so, proved Niantic to be liars.

There's no doubt that their developer notes don't correlate with people's experience. So much anecdotal evidence of casuals and new accounts getting passes on their first raid, while high-level players who raid often get nothing.

Out of interest, can you describe what you did? We're keen to try it out to get some very dedicated members of our tight-knit crew their first Mewtwo.

To put it simply, we picked a park that has three gyms on it and raided the carp out of it for a day and a half.  Filled the 45 min raid window as much as possible with individual lobbies going in at 2 minute intervals with solos or teams depending on the raid and player levels.

There's a heap of research about S2 cells etc that you should probably look up first to double check likely candidate gyms though.

That said, of the two EX raids we got here, one was seemingly random.  That seemed to come from a single Level 5 raid that we filled the lobby with 20 players.
The other was at the park we concentrated on.

But as has been found worldwide, people turning up to the one raid and having no other interaction with that gym got most of the passes.  My daughter being one of those.  :-p
Only very few of the high level regulars got one.

But it's not just the developer notes, actual responses from Niantic when questioned also spouted the BS about high levels etc.

Thanks! I'm very familiar with the S2 cell research and have used a combination of the overpass turbo query, Open Street Maps, and the GPS coordinates of local gyms to positively identify eligible candidates. I just wanted to check that there wasn't some special raid pattern you used :) The S2 cell that contains my suburb has only two eligible gyms and, because it's a bit out of the way, nobody really raids either of them very much - or any of the other gyms in the cell - so a sudden flurry of activity in one may do the trick. Alternatively, the next S2 cell over already has an EX gym which we're targeting this week, but the following week we've identified one that we're keen to trigger. There's quite a lot of spoofer activity in this cell, but it's concentrated on the EX gym so hopefully there won't be too much in the off week when we go for the other gym. As you said, the passes will likely go to randoms and low level accounts. That's why I'm quite keen to try my suburb first, because virtually nobody ever raids it. It's on a wee peninsula and there's only two roads in and out. You only come here if you live here. So it's a very good, controlled environment in which to try something.

Thursday and Friday, peer pressure got the better of me and I went along with raiding at specific parks in order to trigger an EX Raid.

As of yet I haven't heard of anyone getting an EX Raid for Dunedin when the passes came out today. As a result, I am going back to "I will raid when and where I can"

Haven't had any opportunities to attempt a Kyogre raid yet; read the news on Saturday but just could not be bothered heading out over the weekend and my hours at work this week limit my raid time to a non-friendly hour at lunch

I got a second pass this morning, after chipping in to help with numbers in an attempt to get my sister a pass. Needless to say, she missed out again. Some dude that turned up with 6 accounts got one on every account. I'm so over this ridiculous system that seems to punish those who try the hardest. If I could give my sister my pass, I'd do it in a heartbeat. We're going to try to create a second EX gym in the same cell this week, with trainers from our close-knit group to give the three or four who are still missing Mewtwo a better chance. It's a fine balance between getting enough activity and having all the passes go to random people we don't know.

At least my sister caught a 100% Kyogre to soften the blow a little. I've caught two so far. They're hard to hit, but if you're patient and wait for it to go to the middle and don't throw too late, it's not too bad. The circle comes back quite quickly so you have to get the ball away a little earlier than you think in order to avoid a double attack, which it's fond of doing.

I really dislike the whole raid system as it currently is. Why should I be locked out of catching legendaries just because I want to play alone?

BTW I ran into your sister at the one legendary raid that I did turn up to over Christmas (outside the church at the top of James Street). And she knew who I was and even mentioned Geekzone!

Yes - she mentioned that! The system could certainly use some tweaking. It's not equitable for everyone, especially those who can't or don't wish to play in large groups.

Was able to do a couple of Kyogre raids after work and a) tough son of a [xxxxx] to take down - had Thunder as the charge move and all of us (4x Level 40, 1x L39, 1x L37) went through at least 7 Pokemon and b) son of a [xxxxx] to capture - I resorted to alternating Nanab berries with Golden Razz to try and stop him from moving around as I haven't perfected my curve throw on the side yet ...

Sadly both attempts to capture were not successful, so the shadow will elude me until the weekend

Finally caught a Relicanth.