Whether it meant anything or not, that choice sure affected how I had to play the game. I chose Instinct and we got universally bullied throughout at least the first year. We couldn't hold a gym to save our lives back then, and from what I've heard that was the case anywhere you went. I don't regret it tho. Underdogs rise up!
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Team flavor text
Remember way back when, when you started playing PoGO, got to level 5, and had to pick a team? Each trainer offered up some flavor text that hinted at meaning at the time, but seems to have turned out to be just random noise. If my memory serves me well they were:
Y: Sparky was about trusting a pokemon's instincts, and hatching pokemon.
B: Blanche was about studying pokemon and evolving pokemon.
R: Candela was about pushing pokemon to their limits and pokemon fighting.
Any chance these team differences will ever have any effect in the game? Or was this just meaningless flavor text. Or has it had some game effect already that I don't know about?
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I would also comment that although I don't think it had any affect on the mechanics of the game, it was an interesting study of personalities. Certain personalities tended towards certain teams. I would say that in general, the text fits Valor perfectly, I think it attracted the more gung-ho players. I've always thought mystic to be the most organized. Instinct seemed to have attracted less people overall. I chose it because I knew it wouldn't be as mainstream as the other two, and I like to be different, but I'm not sure what we're about as a group. Guess I just used my intinct on that choice...
I picked Instinct mainly because I thought Zapdos would be the most useful bird. I agree with your assessment on Valor. They were certainly the most obnoxious. I first started playing on an Army base and they were Valor and vocal about it. When I got home, as soon as I would start battling a gym and car full of valor players would drive up and take the gym down and shout Valor!
Mystic is the majority and the most organized. Most of my current friends are Mystic and are very organized. They knew my name. They said I gave them fits and they simply gave up on gyms in my territory (the old days.) They said Instinct was made up of solo players, but were the most dedicated.
I just got 40 yesterday, but I always roll around with two same color level 34s I started in August '16.
I didn't want to spend 1 hour plus to flip a gym and be immediately kicked out--two Instinct players in this smallish neighborhood got 40 last June.
However, I'm actually maxing my stuff now, so I raid about as good as any here with the 1. I mainly need those 34s to do boosted Tyranitars with nobody else.
I too picked Instinct, because for fire, as well as Moltres, there was Arcanine (best fire early on), and as well as Articuno, there was Lapras (strong pre nerf), but there was no electric replacement for Zapdos. Happy with underdog status, and it makes it easy to find gyms to hit, but harder to find gyms to drop into. Wish I could get those extra raid balls from the team contribution, but just forced me to throw better.
In my area:
Blue: Majority, somewhat organised.
There is a cluster of 4 gyms which they claim as “blue territory”. They will let other teams stay for a while in the area in the afternoon, but all gyms will turn blue in the evening, or get attacked non stop. However, this has invited some hardcore yellow spoofer challengers to go there on occasion and try staying overnight at the gyms there, feeding as many as 2000 GRBs!
Red: Minority, more organised. CP 3219 ZH/DG Blisseys are pretty common in red gyms here. Aggressive GRB feeders.
Yellow: Minority, mostly solo multi-account players. L37+ ZH/DG Blisseys are very common. Attempts to take down every blue/red gym with a T5 egg on it. Aggressive GRB feeders
I'm in Yellow and I can say for sure that Blue and Red spoofers and GRB feeders are just as common. It's up to the point where I don't bother to solo gyms anymore, people will feed even when the mons have been inside for 12 hours. Or someone pops out of nowhere at the very last moment and steals battle priority from me.
Edit to add: as for multi-accounters, the gym at my office building is regularly fought over by three people with multiple accounts, one Blue, one Red, one Yellow. I know this because their accounts are similarly named. The Blue and Yellow players have four accounts; the Red player has three. Was cheated out of a gym spot this very afternoon at lunchtime.
I actually didn't consciously pick a team. On day two or three the game was out, I caught something while walking to work that unknown to me, leveled me up to 5. There was no battery saver feature at that time and after I put my phone back into my pocket, my leg must have hit team mystic.
I don't know what I would've have chosen if I knew what I know now. Mystic gyms were everywhere, but spots were at a premium and sniping was rampant.
Now, it's not really a hassle to get the 50 coins a day with gym ownership spread out and stagnant. As for raids, while the mystic and valor teams seem more keen on taking over gyms before tier 5 raids, there are usually more mystics showing up for those raids to balance out the ball distribution.
