Niantic fucked up .... lets not fight it
The game was flawed before , but now I don't think the game would survive for long
Answers
Where to start
-TM is here and it will make people don't care much about egg hatching to re roll any more
- gym is becoming a huge task just to collect 50
- still no progress for rural and non major city players it is even worst now
Only good thing is raids which could have been added to the old gyms along with some other tweaks , personally I wouldn't play as much as before if I kept playing at all
Define "overpriviliged" for the trainers in this game... I'll wait
TMs, we made this argument on this site before, and months before this update. The sides were (it will happen) vs (it wont happen), thus leading us into a conclusion that "if it happens, they would be very rare," because the grind for catching/hatching pokemon with better movesets would stop, because we have TMs to use on our already high IV mons. But Niantic proved both sides wrong by a) making TMs available, and b) not making them rare at all...
Rare candy.. cool, but whats rare anymore? With events and raids, you can have anything you want.
Here you go. I play since start, regurarly every day. Visiting water spawns, lured cluster spawns, nests etc. Till this point I have
- one SW dragonite (farmed from 3 candy to ~125 in USA when I was on a holiday there)
- one machamp (luckily with double fighting)
- so far I have 6 larvitar candy
- one hatched and 2 wild (trash IV low level) Snorlaxes (had to walk the fuck out of it to power it up)
- one hatched chansey with bad IV and 56 candies total and 0 Blissey (despite the fairy event)
- one Charizard, Blastoise, Venusaur - all I got ONLY thanks to the event (I think it was christmas). 2 of them are lvl 20 hatches cause I didnt catch A SINGLE good IV one above level 20. Venu got powered up despite mediocre IV's cause I needed him.
- 2 good exeggutors (again, event)
- 600 bag storage and 500 mon storage, some of this bought for real money cause there was no way to collect more than 40 coins per day. Gyms were SO stagnant that I couldn't take down 3 of them before enemy team reclaimed one of the previously tore down by me
- 1 Alakazam (with bad moveset)
- 2 gyarados (one from USA, one from event)
and the list goes on. I live in a 800k city, full of spawns, pokestop, but the spawn are SHIIT. Therefore people fought for gyms like maniacs for incubators were the only way to get things. As you can see despite living in a big city, if not for
- events
- USA trip
I would have NOTHING. Maybe except eeveelutions. Literally nothing. You see what do I mean by overpriviliged? People being in 30 stangant gyms stealing spots from other players. People having evolved 10 machamps crying "I only have 5 c/cc machamps, 0 c/dp I am gonna kill myself" type. People "OMG another DT/HU dragonite FU rng" type. People "my army of 2 moveset each Alakazams" type. All of those were overpriviliged IMO, and, weirdly enough, most of them are complaining about the new system now.
Ye, you can get only 50 coins instead of 100, but those 50 coins can be aquired by probably something like 80+% playerbase, not 10%. Ye, you can catch a level 20 good IV mon and rerol the moveset, but you still need to get the candies somehow. As for the TM's I got 3 charged, all 3 used on my Alakazam mentioned above, and I still do not have the moveset I want. And I did about 2 raids per day since they came out. So plz, cut the bullshit about everyone having every mon fully powered up immediately, because of TM's and raids ruining game. That is just a lie. TM's and raids are the solution the game needed for more people to be competitive.
I too acknowledge many flaws exist, but looking on the bright side first:
- I hope the 50 daily coins/max is temporary; especially since raids have been introduced and I would rather not spend MORE money on coins now prior to the gym update
- This update benefits level players (casuals) by reducing gym stagnation
- shaving has been reduced through this update
- raids are pretty cool so far, granted they have some problems, but I enjoy the real world interactions they have fostered
- I in particular am VERY fortuante to have received the ideal movesets for many Pokémon. With that being said, I love the addition of TMs. Initially, I too thought they would water down the value of some Pokémon, and make people strive to acquire perfect/high Iv Pokémon,l and then obtain TMs to get ideal movesets. However, TMs now save a lot of time and candy. And especially since cp is no longer a detining factor for gym placement, ivs are even less important now. They also allow for the creation of some cool legacy moveset combinations (DB/OR or DT/DC dragonite)
- Their communication with the community has increased significantly recently. Yes, they aren't perfect, but looking at where they were earlier in the life of this game, I say they have made progress.
- DAMAGE MULTIPLIERS. What I believe is the most underrated change, this has made so many movesets viable!! Solar beam Typhlosion? Now one doesn't need to worry that it doesn't get STAB on SB as it hasn't been reduced, and now does even more damage...against ALL of its weaknesses. How about Sucker punch gengar? Paired with focus blast, this moveset is ideal against blissey and Snorlax variants that aren't running zen headbutt/psychic.
They have made some progress. I'm going to cut them slack and bet they will make some changes in the weeks to come regarding the new gym system.
The new gym system causes gym stagnation. People are putting in low mons in hope, somebody will fight them at all. I just had a hard fight against a 11 CP Rattata. 3 times, with 11, 8 and 6 CP. Used my 3500 Tyranitar in hope it will not faint till fight is over or I get a timeout. Finally I put in a Hoothoot I cought beside that gym. Many gyms here are full of trash mons. Only 1 or 2, not 6. Nobody wants to stay in gyms anymore. What an improvement in the game meta. Shaving has been reduced this way, also spoofing for gym spots. Nice.
From a small town standpoint, there's only a few regular players now, so raids suck. I went to a Raid with a Vape (at a gym in the downtown area), and no one came--at 1:30 in the afternoon. Not a soul. You can't do it solo. And something like this has happened three times now. Jolly good for all of you who all play at the same time, or have so many players you can defeat a level 3 or 4 raid easily. I am so close to quitting, and I'm sure many others are as well.
That's why I'm doing only level 2 raids anymore. Sometimes level 3 if a second player is there.
No chance for a level 4 raid, especially because the high amount of raids in town. There are too much of them, so less players take place in 1 raid because raid passes are limited to 1 per day and coins are given less than before. After the "It's new" effect only a few level 4 raids will be playable at all.
I think it is fixable.
- needs to be a reward for taking a gym not just being in it
as it stands if you take it your mon is solo until someone else drops something in, while solo it is an easy take down for someone.
hence spending 15-20 minutes is likely to get you nothing
dropping in on someone elses work is more likely to get a reward.
2) feeding mechansim, your mon is attacked. the game tells you it needs a berry. A normal player can not get back, a spoofer can. It only benefits spoofers. Has niantic given up and decided this is the way people are going to play now?
- stagnant gym. There has to be a way to recall a mon say after 3-4 days. Again multi accounts are disproportionately benefiting.
4) should be able to see the raid lobby before spending your raid pass.so it is not wasted trying to solo a level 3-4 gym. and no it isn't about who is physcially there. In a busy area I do not try and look at everyones hone. and 2/3 of raid participants are spoofers so can't tell who is there and who isn't.
- it shouldn't be that hard to figure out when someone shaves their own account out and then sticks their mon straight back in.