What's the point of gyms?
For the minuscule payout of 500 stardust and 10 pokecoins per gym, with a max of 10 (if you can get that many), I still don't fully get the point of them. I don't see the reason for having a tier list either, because at the end of the day if you don't have a Dragonite, Snorlax, or Lapras then you shouldn't be in a gym because all that matters is CP. Yeah, you want to "defend" but it's no secret that gyms even with the best Pokémon to defend with and defensive movesets still fall very fast, thus having the highest CP possible is all that matters so that you are the last to be kicked out. Team demographics is obviously dependent on geographic location, but on my college campus and all throughout my town Mystic dominates gyms. All are level 10 with a bunch of 2700+ Snorlaxes, Laprases, and Dragonites (Funny, right?) and they've been stagnant even with the changes. If there's turnover, they reclaim in a matter of minutes.
My highest CP Pokémon is a 2381 Arcanine with a suboptimal moveset. I have Pokémon that should counter these Pokémon in gyms but can't simply because they greatly beat me in CP.
The gym system is far from balanced and what you get out of it is nowhere near what you put in. I'll continue to take weaker gyms for stardust and pokecoins I need every now and then, but otherwise I see no reason to bother since it's unbalanced and still far from fair.
Answers
I got lucky picking the right team too I guess. I just picked what my girlfriend picked and apparently what 90 percent of my town did.
2300 is pretty low for lvl 27, how many eggs have you hatched? You've put a lot of time into the game, might as well drop 20 bucks into it. It makes it way more fun having 9 incubators going, and the dust boost is great. I'm sure you would get some good hatches.
Outside of Dragonite and Snorlax, there aren't any pokemon that really go much above 2300 at level 27...
I have a 93% Vaporeon at 2296 as my highest, also level 27.
Exeggutor, Lapras, and Arcanine are the only three others that are higher than Vaporeon at 150-180 max CP higher. At the top of those, a 28.5 Arcanine is only 2105 to 2430 CP.
Basically, if Growlithe and Exeggcute are uncommon in your area (and by default powering up Snorlax/Lapras is tough if you don't hatch one, and getting a Dragonite at all can be tough) it's not surprising to only have 2300 as your best at level 27.
Although to be fair I don't purchase incubators. I've gotten a bunch of free ones from previous gym holdings (although I can't seem to hold gyms anymore, my own team just keeps replacing me). I've hatched only around 125-150 eggs.
Yes. You are lucky. There is no game if there is no gym turnover. We have tons of gyms and almost zero stops. Everyone has quit here.
Sure gyms are easy. Coins are almost worthless. I transfer 99 percent of what I hatch with the incubators I buy with them. If I decide to put a Pokemon in a gym I may not get it back for months, literally. Yes, you are lucky. At least you have something to do besides catch pidgeys and hope for 10k eggs.
It seems like you might have made this post as a rhetorical question, to complain about gyms. I'll answer with what it is for me, anyway.
Collecting from gyms gives me something to work towards other than collecting the Pokedex. I make it a personal challenge to play entirely free to play style, but make coins from gyms for bag and storage upgrades, as well as incubators and occasionally lucky eggs. I also enjoy the combat system. I don't pick my defensive Pokemon entirely based on CP, but also try to choose ones that are good defenders and have good movesets. They do also need to have high CP, however. It sounds like your town has an exceptionally rough gym situation, so I understand why you'd be frustrated with it. Most of the gyms in my area were level 10 with around 2000 CP+ prior to the update. All teams had gyms, but some had more than others. I'm not sure yet what the situation is currently.
I would assume any college area would be tough to play unless you were on the dominant team...even then, college = young people with too much time so I would assume constant turnover and everyone is probably lvl 30+ already. With 2700+ CP, yeah, you're locked out no matter what and that's why the gym scene would get stagnent...Too much work to take them down, and zero rewards.
Also, if you were on the dominant team, it's even worst since you can't even attack your own team and with min 2500+ CP, you will never be able to leave anything. That's sorta like my area now (2400+).
That said, with CP creep, we'll probably all just see Dragonites and Snorlaxes at gyms eventually so maybe niantic will change it to be lvl of the mon based instead so a lvl 30 Chansey will actually sit higher than, say a lvl 29 Dragonite...Also, for people with a lot of gyms, casual players or with only 1 or 2 powered up mons may get to eventually sit higher if the hardcore player doesn't power up everything...Still a problem with wild catches up to lvl 30 though (arcanine usually).
Still, there are probably downsides with that too since low level players are completely locked out now with that change....
I think base on statistic base is better smth like
- Defend point gain from time you sit in the gym(each point per every 10 minute) and it will stop counting once you get kicked out of that gym and you can use this point on other gym if your point higher than other your pokemon will sit on the higher position but it will recount the point once you spend it.
«the minuscule payout of 500 stardust and 10 pokecoins per gym» I think this is the core of the point.
It's easy to realize that you can save ages of time by simply buying in the shop:
20€ for 2500 coins is 0,08€ for each 10 coins, saving maybe half hour of time you'd spend to erase each enemy gym with no idea of how it'll last. Half hour of time is way more valuable than 8 cents!
About 500 Stardust: they are easy to get by catching just 5 random pkmn.
All that said Niantic is getting rich...
But on the other hand, what is the funniest and most satisfactory part of the game?
Interacting with others: Gyms.
Showing your power: Dominating the city with your pkmn in level 10 gyms!
Very small payout...and very big addiction served to the community!
Being in 10 gyms is 5000 stardust thats like collecting 50 pokemon a day so the benefit is huge. As you get to mid levle 30's stardust becomes hella scarce and 5K a day is an absolutely huge payout. The 2 free incubators from the GC payout every three days aint bad neither. Thats a huge amount of money saved/earned for an active daily player.
Getting fixed easy 5000 stardust everyday would be absolutely stunning.
Though, from my point of view, my conditions and my city that's Impossible!
But I'm not talking about Being.
Being fixed in a gym for a week or two is much more (though it's something unpredictable and out of our control).
I'm talking about conquering everyday.
I am level 30 and the maximum of gyms I controlled for more than 2 days in a row is 4. My personal record of gym controlled at once is 8 so far, but most of them last Very few, so everyday I (you, he, anyone, ...) should do the same cycle and conquer 6 gyms to get to 10, and that would take at least 2 hours, if lucky.
Conquering 5-6 or more gyms everyday is Cost-opportunity trade NOT worth!
Clearly the others answering are in more rural areas. They love the gym system b/c they get free coins for clicking a button every 21 hours.
I need to spend at least an hour every night to collect 20 coins max. Normally I need to hit about 5 gyms to get that, because I get sniped by spoofers on 3 of the 5, (Spoofing is a HUGE problem by me) and by the time I finish off, my first defenders already falling.
And yes, you're right. CP is all that matters. I've been telling everyone who would listen that from day one. I have 4 gyms near my apartment and 2 are level 10 with 10 Dragonites (lowest 2950), the other 2 have a handful of Snorlax/Lapras. One Arcanine on the very bottom. That's it.
Attacking is so stupid easy that someone can come along and take 15 min to waste an hour of your work (not including the hour you spent prestiging the 2 gyms you got sniped on by spoofers), so it doesn't matter what your moves are. At all. Your Dragonite may as well have Fury Cutter/ X-Scissor. Literally the only difference will be how many potions you made the attacker use.
The system sucks. It's totally broken. Doesn't get fixed soon, I'm done.
Supposedly sniping by other teams should be fixed now. Are you still getting sniped?
If you were getting sniped by other teams, was it just one pokemon that they put in the gym? If so, what would happen if you would beat that Pokemon? Seems easier than moving to another gym and fighting it.
By the way no, I don't consider the gym system to be free coins, but I still do enjoy fighting gyms. I'm not getting sniped constantly either, though.
Let me tell you about rural players that love the system. We get 100 coins a day.
We have to pay 800 for 200 balls, 1250 to use incense to play from home. Or drive half an hour to a spawn point with no stops.
Yay. We get 100 coins and don't get to battle gyms, use stops, or find rare Pokemon regularly. You know what's on my nearby list? Nothing. At all. Should I go for a walk? I can't, we don't have sidewalks or flat roads.
Those 100 coins make zero difference. I would rather gyms have turnover and have stops like you guys have any day. You act like you have to go go take gyms for a few coins, you're spending more on gas than the return on coins you're getting. Just buy a Google card for 10 bucks if you ONLY care about the coins.
Completely agree.. what's even more frustrating than the gym system itself are the cheaters - people with multiple accounts (one account to put in a CP 20 Horsea to Bubblestrat the gym and another account to put in a high CP to reap the rewards), and people who are obviously using GPS spoofers or hackers. How else can the same 3 people fight and level up 3 gyms at virtually the same time when there is literally NO ONE in sight at one of the gyms and it's surrounded by open space. People just have no integrity anymore and can't even play a simple game by the rules.
The game also gets infinitely less fun after you hit level 30 - power up costs are ridiculous, and the CP gains are cut in half. This is the only game I can think of where you get PENALIZED for reaching higher levels. All that said, I'm pretty close to being done. 4 months has been more than enough. I originally started because I walk a lot and it was just something to do while I walked. I'll just go back to actually looking around and enjoying the sights rather than staring at my phone trying to catch yet another Pidgey, Ekans, or Paras.
Hopefully Niantic will get a handle on the spoffing. Its ridiculous where I live, one guy is everywhere. Albeit he has no more level 10 gyms cuz I took them all down but he has 20+ level 3 gyms with his main account and one of his alts typically Arcanines. All I know is he works 4x harder than me now so I dont mind spending an hour a day taking all his trained gyms lol.
