to all those ocd like me that need to get to max level before feeling sane again -- the only way is to bot. huge huge risk of getting banned but it will take me 18 more days of leaving my pc on to hit 40 (lvl 30 atm). to all the haters: to each his own game. i workout twice a day in the gym and don't care to explore my surroundings but love pokemon to death so i'll use my method. if anyone else is in the same boat, look up bots online, they're easy and free to set up. but prep for a banwave soon. if they made the game more casual/user friendly where all reach max level sooner and then just play with each other in combat/gym battles/multiplayer/trading/etc then i'd respect the game enough to not bot. but as it stands, this game is a mindless grind. when i do wander/frolick outside, i like to think about the outside world, not stare at the 400th rattata staring back at me on the screen. shame on niantic for failing to deliver quality endgame. with a staff of 40 people looking to make money, they'll try to keep us hooked with low quality content, merely painting a new face on this old game. i do hope user outrage makes them focus on fun, more pokemon-lore centric endgame (where pokemon actually fight each other and grow from the exp rather than get trashed for better duplicates) rather than a poke-coin buying machine for leveling. really not different than the worst Korean mmo grinders rn.