i scraped this together and had a pal test it out. it took him about 4 hours between signing up and collecting the referral reward, which we expect to be about average. so:
How to Speedrun Referral in 3 to 5 hours
exact time is kinda luck-dependent
1. you don't need to know anything about pokemon
2. the more you click, the faster you progress. this is easier on desktop.
3. your goal is to get
50 evolutions. you personally must click to evolve the pokemon.
NOTE this guide is for speedrunning the referral quest. it doesn't explain why or how things work, it just tells you what to do to complete this task.
you can follow it as you read. you don't have to read the entire guide before you start, though if you have the time that might be a good idea.
it glosses over or imperfectly makes use of certain features in the name of that goal. everything except your starter is completely replaceable, so don't worry. you can get more.
>>>BEGIN
go to
CupOfCocoa's profile and click the sign up button at the top of the page. this will autofill the referral section with their username in the final steps part of signing up. if it isn't there, copy and paste it in.
the lab is the tutorial. read it, click on Party at the top of the page, and hold your egg. leave the page open. wait a minute or so and then you can hatch it.
claim the dex at the lab, then refresh the page to adopt 5 eggs.
>>> ! IMPORTANT
if you see one of the following eggs,
adopt it immediately:

->

A green Egg with a bright red marking near the top. It's encased in a sticky film.

->

A tan Egg with a red spot. It's encased in a sticky film.

->

A red Egg with a tan bottom and a small yellow spot. It's encased in a sticky film.
these are
caterpie,
weedle, and
wurmple eggs (
C/W/W), and they're the focus of this guide. variety doesn't matter, these are the only three pokemon we care about – and if you only get one of the three, that's fine.
if you can get them right at the start, that's great. if not, don't worry. you can get them later anyway. take 5 random eggs.
now click
this link. in the "userscripts" tab, tick "QoL". it will make your life much easier. refresh the page without navigating away or clicking on another tab.
NOTE: if you have cookies disabled, go into your browser's settings and whitelist pokefarm.com
>>>CLICKING
at the very top of the page, you will see "<number> users online (Open 10)". click Open 10.
see the round absol face in the top-right

? this is where notifications go. check them.
if you enabled the QoL script, above the list of names, you should see three checkboxes. tick "
Hide all click fast"
this puts all the buttons you need to click in the same place, on the Next Page button. put your cursor on that button and spamclick. sometimes it might look like there's nothing there but there's an invisible button.
keep clicking until all 5 eggs are ready. go to party to hatch them, then click "fields" in the navbar. drag all 6 party pokemon into the field.
return to the lab for your reward and next task. tick "notify me when new eggs are available" and reload the lab at every opportunity. you want C/W/W. nothing else matters.
every time new eggs are available in the lab, drop everything to refresh. no C/W/W? come back in 5 minutes.
>>> ! SHELTER – everything relies on this
the shelter is like the cs pound, but it's open all the time and there's a daily adoption cap instead of a timer.
go to the shelter. if you enabled the QoL script, untick everything in the search tab, and scroll down to the Search Keys. add 3 searchfields. type "wurmple", "weedle", and "caterpie" in one field each. make sure "custom egg" and "custom pokemon" above are ticked.
you have
infinite reloads in the shelter, but you
can only adopt a small amount each day so be careful. some eggs and pokemon can look really similar. pay attention. this is the one point in this speedrun to slow down and take our time. it pays off.
when adopting from the shelter, these are your priorities:
0. any egg, at all, of any variety. ideally this is satisfied by 1, but if not, just take anything, you need an egg from the shelter to progress.
1. at least one C/W/W egg
2. C/W/W
breeding pair: one male and one female. pokemon of different species can breed, so just make sure they're C/W/W and different genders.
if you're getting a breeding pair and no eggs please make sure you
adopt at least one egg of any kind from the shelter you need to do this to progress.
keep reloading for the C/W/W eggs or pokemon.
->

->

->

caterpie -> metapod -> butterfree

->

->

->
weedle -> kakuna -> beedril

->

->

->

wurmple -> silcoon -> beautifly

->

->

->

wurmple -> cascoon -> dustox
when you get a notification about the first egg being ready to hatch,
hatch it and immediately go to the lab to claim your trainer card. do not delay. do these immediately.
keep going until you have 0 adoptions left. on normal days this is 6. it might occasionally be more. if your party gets full, move any hatched pokemon into your field.
if you've been reloading for a long time and you really can't find any, don't panic. do this instead:
1. adopt 1 random egg (for the tutorial).
2. click
this link. it starts a new thread in the trade forums.
title: "[W] Caterpie Wurmple Weedle"
body: "Looking for a
breeding pair of Caterpie, Weedle, or Wurmple in any combination. The pokemon in my field are available for trade except my starter. I have no money to trade."
or if you really don't care about your starter, offer that for trade too.
if you need to get your C/W/W from the forums, don't adopt anything more from the shelter. its contents refresh every so often, so come back whenever it's time to check the lab and reload a few times to see if any show up.
>>> SETUP
before you continue, look at all of the following:
1. on your party page, to the right, you'll see a task list. if it's not there, your browser window is too narrow and they're at the bottom of the page instead.
every time you go to your party to hatch or evolve, if a task is at full completion, click on it. click the Claim Reward button at the bottom. this is a valuable supply of money.
2. click
scour. buy the fashion case. click new mission, and pick a (none C/W/W) pokemon to go on it. if you're keeping your starter, that's the mon to use. this will bring in items. you'll sell those later, just make sure you always have a scour mission going.
3.
wishforge. you may have to come back to this if you can't afford it yet. but if you can afford it, buy the badge case. scroll down for the bug gems

and click Notify.
4. go to the
trade center. click Wonder Trade>> start a wonder trade >> your field. select any pokemon that isn't C/W/W (or your starter if you're keeping it).
when you get a response, open the pokemon in a new tab. accept it to your field then refresh its page to check its evolution requirements. if it can evolve soon (before level 25), put it in your party if there's space, keep it if there isn't. otherwise, put it back in wonder trade.
>>> C/W/W farming
from now on, these are your priorities, in order of most important to least:
PARTY:
1. C/W/W egg in your party
2. any pokemon in your party is C/W/W or the next form (metapod, kakuna, silcoon, or cascoon)
3. any other pokemon that can easily evolve. (see below)
you only want pokemon that can still evolve in your party. if this results in empty slots you cannot fill with C/W/W or their eggs, go to the lab and adopt an egg that is described as:
encased in a sticky film
plants flourish around it
it is very light
when you hatch or evolve a non C/W/W egg or pokemon, click the three lines beneath it. check evolution requirement.
evolves in less than 20 levels is the ideal. the lower the number the better.
> if it needs more than 25 levels to evolve, you should prioritize replacing it as soon as possible.
>> if it can't evolve, it's worthless. put it in the the field.
>>> if it needs anything besides levels to evolve, it's also worthless, put it in the field.
BREEDING:
go to the
daycare. add pokemon. add one male

and one female

C/W/W. you want them to breed. two pokemon of the same species is the best pair, but any combination works.
tick the "Keep me notified of how many Eggs are being held" box
CLICKING:
next to this icon

is a number. click it for the
interactions page. at the top, under Recieved, click "open all users". make sure "Hide all click fast" is ticked at the top and then spam until you run out.
hopefully by now the daycare has at least 1 egg for you. if not, just use (Open 10) to keep spam-clicking until they do.
if you were able to order eggs from the supplier, prioritize taking daycare eggs before supplier eggs. if you happen to have

20gp and you run out of daycare slots, but there are eggs, use them to buy slots.
your egg bonus

caps out at 10. the more you click, the higher it goes.
keep clicking until your egg bonus is level 10, AND you have at least

6,000cr
stop to claim eggs, hatch eggs, and evolve pokemon as needed.
watch a video if you can, or read a book, or really doing anything that you can do with one hand and half your concentration while you click your way through all these profiles.
once you have level 10 egg bonus and 6,000cr
go to the
supplier. by now you should have hatched at least one C/W/W egg, so you can buy one.
scroll down and look in the Swarm tab. are there any C/W/W eggs? if so, choose one egg and buy it. they get cheaper the more you buy of the same kind. you're only buying the same egg forever now. really doesn't matter which one, just pick one and stick with it.
go to your
inventory. most tabs contain items that you can sell. whatever they are, go through every tab and
sell everything except bug gems.
>>> YOUR NEW ROUTINE
1. clicking. constantly clicking. if you have no notifications, you should be clicking.
2. check on and respond to notifications in a new tab. do everything as soon as it comes up.
3. every 5 minutes, new eggs in the lab. no C/W/W? refresh. can't refresh? come back in 5 minutes.
4. take eggs from daycare
5. take eggs from supplier if daycare is empty, and buy another egg if possible
6. collect wonder trade, set up a new one
7. collect items from scour, set up new scour, sell everything except bug gems.
8. check
farm news. if any pokemon can evolve, tick Quick Evolution and then evolve them. this evolves pokemon in fields.
if you have any spare moment at all you should be clicking.
once you've taken your 6 free eggs from the daycare, remove the pokemon, which are probably ready to fully evolve. from now on, the daycare is just party overflow. pokemon in there level slower, but you might just get one or two evolutions from it if you're lucky. if not, no big deal.
pokemon can't evolve until you remove them from the daycare
that's it. you follow this routine until you've got 50 evolutions.
it will take
between 3 and 5 hours depending on your luck.
once you can make the bug gem, the wishforge will notify you. make it, it increase experience for bug types.
every hour or so i strongly recommend you get up and walk around. get a glass of water. touch a pet. look out the window.
you can take a few minutes off from clicking every hour without significantly slowing down the process. if anything, it might speed things up.
things feel like they slow down after 25 evolutions or so but that's just because you're more familiar with the routine and have gone through the easy eggs. don't worry, you really are half-way there.
maybe there's a better, faster way, but this is the best thing i could think of that a newbie could do - even with zero pokemon knowledge.
>>> 50 EVOLUTIONS
so you got your 50
go to your party. click on and claim the task.
go to the lab. claim the reward.
go to
the referral page and claim one of the pokemon. then talk to cupofcocoa, who should have been gifted the other.
if this isn't clear let me know.