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Old Gym Withdrawal

Even though the old gym system had its flaw, I'm really missing it badly. I battled and prestiged every day in gyms. Taking down a strong level 10 gym solo was such a huge satisfaction and high. The challenge was fun. I miss it so much. Anyone else having withdrawals?

Asked by GS17 years 9 months ago

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The only thing I'm bothered by is they didn't tell us to grind up for Ace Trainer before pulling it. I'm stuck at 855/1000 forever now.

That would drive me nuts. Fortunately I have the gold Ace Trainer badge.

I think if Niantic kept the old gym mechanics and only implemented the one type or specie limit in gyms it would have been a good move.

I would have done it with just a day or two notice!

Yeah, wife is only at 300 or so I think...Funny how medals can also be "Legacy"...(at 1300+ myself) and glad I am part of the "old" crew knowing how it used to be...

They literally took away 50% of the gym game with this move...You can't even test mons anymore...(say if you wanted to solo Blissey with 1 Machamp...with you controlling what Blissey to fight against).

Shit I thought I was the only one bothered by that one silver medal. It's an eye sore. Thought I had OCD.

Ya I'm kinda missing it too. There to easy to take. But I don't miss it because the spoofers in my area would keep the gyms for months.

All Niantic could have done against spoofers is to allow any trainers that were fighting in a gym to have their names shown. That would have deterred some spoofers because reporting would have been easier. Spoofers aren't taking over new gyms the way they used to because the new gyms suck. They are all raiding now.

And ironically there have been a few times where I'm glad I had a spoofer helping out haha

Same here. Haha.

I think the main spoofer in my town just bots the gyms. You can only hold the for at most an hour before getting kicked

Yup. No reason to battle gyms now. Battle those weakened pokemon just to send them home to their trainers with coins? No thanks.

In fact, around here, many of the gyms are more stagnant. They sit around for days with pokemon with no motivation.

It's absolutely backwards. It goes against my competitive nature and it ruins the spirit of competition.

This in what Niantic wants. They want to kill gyms as a reliable source of coins.

I was proud when I finally figured out how to prestige and was able to collect maximum coins. But I never had the time to take down a level 10 and therefore don't miss that at all. Now a fully motivated 6 mon gym doesn't take too long, and the (usually) red gym near work is lunch break entertainment :)

The XP for battling is still too low, but I like the stops and badges and being able to check on my defenders.

Some changes are good, some bad.... Overall, with some future improvements (I hope), I like it better now.

I think Niantic had to do something to bring back casual and new players but doing so screwed the high level trainers that loved to battle.

A big eye opener for me was seeing the stats of trainers in the raid lobbies. 99.9% of the time I would have the highest battles won stat in the lobby and I would see many level 35+ trainers with only a few hundred battles won. I was like what?!? I know players in my area that doubles my stat and I thought I was slacking.

Ugh. My battles won and km walked are both ridiculously higher than so many other players that I've met doing raids. Are they mostly just sitting around using lures and lucky eggs to level up?

Hahaha. Yeah I've wondered that too. But I noticed trainers around my level with crazy low battles-won stat caught a shitload more mons than me.

Me toi, at lvl 37, 4400 won I'm by far tio in my city. Only a level 38 mystic us close, a bit more than 3509. He and one more 36 mistic top me fir ace ( I'm shy of 2000), but neither one top me on total. More 36-38 top me on pokemons, one toos me on km (a bit over 2500).
I miss the old way....

Not bad. I'm 37 also. My main Dragonite alone got over 6500 wins. Haha. I personally know a guy from my area that's 39 and got 19k wins total. One time I saw a level 40 in a lobby with 24k wins. That's the highest I've seen so far.

Impressive; but in my city (400k) not more of the trainers are well informed, so was quite tedios to take down level 10 gyms. I've noticed from lvl 4 raids I did and from the fact that lvl 36 asked for help for soloing doable lvl 3 rauds. One even struggled with a level 2 weezing (few seconds left).

I'm only level 33, so I doubt I can solo a level 3 raid.
I was able to beat a weezing solo even though I didn't have any level >30 ground or psychic types.

You can; except Flareon and Jolteon, you can with lvl 30 counters. Unfortunatelly Niantic didn't do math, so lvl 30+ can solo same as lvl 40; maybe Flareon is different, but the 2 anecdotals I read about were not too detailed. Jolteon is flat out impossible.

In my defense I don't think that Pidgey I placed had many battles to win before this :)

Should I be ashamed in a raid lobby (the few times I'm not alone) that I have only 477 battles won at level 35? Right now, they probably don't notice, game lag is so bad you can barely select your lineup (and I have some decent attackers and try to pick the best counters) and don't have time to compare.

I used to do more prestiging than battling - and this is also battling - even against a superior opponent if you did it right for max prestige gain. I don't have my gold ace trainer medal, either, I'll admit. But I'm not a clueless noob when it comes to battling and will contribute my share in a raid.

I can't change the past (should have been more active in gyms, maybe) and also can't fix the frustrating changes for you pros. But I'm optimistic that it will get better for everyone.

This used to be a gym where 10 trainers got 10 coins and 500 stardust a day. It is currently 11 hours old and it will stay like this for at least 7 more hours, probably longer. Not sure how anyone thinks this is better...

I guess it depends on your area. I'm on the dominant local team (Mystic) but was often locked out of the gyms - no shaving, thank you. The other teams rarely bothered. But now there is a lot of turnover and unspoken understanding that if you kick us out after 8+ hours we will do the same. I usually get max daily coins, one of my mon just returned with 50 coins after midnight.

So definitely better here.

I guess my issue with that is that gyms are nothing more than a revolving door for players to get coins. There is no point in having defenders, it is actually beneficial to put a garbage pokemon as a defender. Because of that, there is no point in having real attackers, outside of raids, which still doesn't really matter.

I guess I would prefer Niantic just gives people their free 50 coins for logging into the game every day, and create a gym system that is mildly challenging and takes a little strategy. Make me want to take them down...

Just a quick rant...was trying to do a Charizard raid today...There were 7 of us...I am level 38, everyone else was under level 26 and they were using pokemon like Ninetales and Rapidash. Naturally, we couldn't beat it, until more players showed up...
Honestly, what is the point in even having attackers? Just join a raid with whatever garbage you have and let the higher levels take care of it...I am all for casual players being involved in the game, but this is a little ridiculous...

I've had similar experiences. Wasting potions because others decide to fight with garbage or wrong typing. And some of them are 30+ level trainers.

Yup, fainted 5 pokemon 3 times before help arrived...

I meet plenty of level 30 players who nothing about typing.

Yup, which really blows apart the myth that a defender is only as good as its worst match-up (because players aren't stupid and will always use the best counter.)

Lol, when I told someone at a gym that Lapras is a very good Dragonite counter, he brought in a Lapras with WG/HP against a Dragonite.
Before that, he used Vaporeons for literally everything, even Exeggutor!

Using Vaporeon for everything would be a huge improvement for most of the people I run into...

Actually I do agree with that. I don't want to count the number of times I've seen Blisseys attacking gyms or raids with me.

Last week I was fighting a Rhydon raid with 3 other people. I was using hydropumpers Vaporeon, Gyarados (Rhydon didn't have stone edge), and a SW/OR Dragonite. 2 others were also using water. But thanks to 1 person who used Snorlax and Blissey, we couldn't defeat Rhydon in time, though we were very close (8-10% HP left).

There are even level 38 YouTubers who know zip about typing. Hi Jonno!

I don't see garbage mon in local gyms, they're getting my blissey or lax cause I want to stay in for a while. But I do get your complaints. I'm not real high level (35) and would love to have someone show up for a tier 3 or 4 raid... anyone. So I try 3's alone, no success so far.

The system has serious flaws that I hope will get fixed and make it rewarding for hardcore players again.

Maybe it has to be like this for now to get rid of cheaters.... which is good, I hope we can all agree on.

The simplest solution...give me stardust, or something, for taking down a gym. Make it beneficial for me to take down a gym, something more than giving coins to the other players...

That would create an insane rate of gym turnover most likely by alt accounts.

Well put a cap on it, obviously. But let's not act like people aren't using alt accounts to take down gyms after their 8 hours now.

And isn't gym turnover what they wanted? Get rid of all those stagnant gyms? At least that would encourage people to build strong gyms, put in real defenders, to deter people from attacking their gym and choosing another one. Right now you just stick whatever garbage pokemon in there and transfer them once they collect their coins.

Well said.

I definitely miss the old system. In fact I haven't battled a single gym since the rework. I just throw in a random pokemon when I see an open slot and hope they will come home on different days. My "best" defender is currently a Chinchou that has been sitting in a gym for almost 6 days and is still fully motivated!!!!!! So much work invested in my defenders and my prestigers for nothing!

It does help save on the potions...

True. But since I don't battle anymore I don't need them... I only do raids and for that I have more than enough potions

Even Blisseys don't stay around for 10 minutes here in Singapore, if no one feeds them berries.
Instinct is seriously disadvantaged by this new system, but someone created an instinct bot system to help other instinct players hold gyms, and valor accounts to help return their pokes when they have stayed for long enough.

No fun in taking out strong mons that are weakened.

I think the phrase "stayed for long enough" epitomizes the problem with the current gym system.

Also, if someone tries to shave a mystic gym, the instinct bots will destroy the whole gym.
The instinct bots operate in only 2 places with high density of gyms (at least 8 in 500 metres)

Today I was fighting a Tyranitar in a gym with 2 other people. I was using C/DP Machamp, and guess what the other 2 were using?
Not having a Machamp isn't any excuse. If they have a Blissey, they would definitely have a Vaporeon.