What is the best way to earn Dream Points?

Question

To unlock some of the better hidden abilities, it seems like you need a massive amount of dream points (10k to unlock Vulpix or Poliwag).

What are the most efficient ways to gather the required points in the shortest amount of time?

Answer 1

Although point gains per day will depend on the person, this analysis can probably help you get ahead and optimize your visits. Each day, since you're allotted only an hour to amass dream points, we'll need to find the best method by looking at the chart given here (Post-April 2011 Update):

• 1 Point - Trading items via Share Shelf
• 10 Points - Picking Berries
• 10 Points - Watering a friend's Berries
• 10-30 Points - Winning a minigame
• 50 Points - Sending a new Pokémon to the Entree Forest

Trading items via Share Shelf seems like an easy way to obtain points, but since you cannot swap for items you already have or put on that shelf yourself, this option becomes inefficient very fast.

Picking berries is also a good way to obtain Dream Points. You may have noticed that some regular berry varieties (e.g. Razz and Bluk) take a lot less time to grow than the EV-reducing berries (e.g. Tamato and Qualot), or the "high-value profit" berries (e.g. Jaboca and Rowap). By planting many quick-growing berry varieties in place of others, you can ensure that most or all of your crops will be available for picking.

Assuming that you already starting earning points, you may have at least 4 or 5 rows in your garden. There is a considerable Dream Point gap in obtaining the 5th and 6th rows (3.5k -> 10k requirements). So in this case:

• A 4 row garden will yield (4 rows)x(3 plots)x(10 points)=120 points each day
• A 5 row garden will yield (5 rows)x(3 plots)x(10 points)=150 points each day

Next on the list is watering berries. Note that you have 20 available uses per day, giving a total of 200 points if you use them all. However, this might prove to be a little difficult to do if you don't already have Dream Pals who are active in gardening, considering that when you explore random gardens, there are many players you might run into whose gardens are inactive or have already been filled to the brim with water. It takes considerable luck and may not be worth your time if you're unlucky. Otherwise, it's a good source of points.

As for minigames, what many people may not realize is that upon taking the maximum steps on the island of dreams, before going to the tree, you can actually hit the back button and return to your home and cross the Dream Bridge again for another 10 steps, but not necessarily in the same place. Although a finite number of events have been set each visit, you can repeat this process as much as you'd like, as you're very unlikely to run out of events unless you plan on avoiding all minigames, going exclusively for items. But since it doesn't appear that items give you any points, this is probably not what you want to do.

Most minigames take a few minutes (some have time limits), and allotting ~40-50 minutes to playing these games might allow you to finish 20-25 games if you're good with them. In some games, you might be able to fail the game early, but the amount of points awarded may be correlated to your performance (I'm not quite sure). Finishing 20 games will net you 200-600 points, which is probably a much better alternative to devoting time looking for berries to water.

Lastly, on your way out of the Dream World, you can send a Pokemon to the Entree Forest, allowing you to get a guaranteed 50 points per visit, provided that you put some effort into at least one minigame. If you would like, you can invest a bit more time in playing minigames, as the game does not actually boot you out until a couple minutes after an hour has passed, and if you are at the tree, it will continually prompt you until you leave.

Taking all this into consideration, if done properly, one can potentially earn at least ~600 points per day, giving your tucked-in Pokemon a free level-up as a bonus for having 500+.