what is the point of the best defenders since defending gyms is pointless?try to lvl a gym up for 20 mins when someone 8 lvl below took it down in less than 5 f*** this s***
Answers
I agree and wouldn't be surprised if they tweak gyms again. They went a bit too far originally on prestige for gyms and then reversed it a bit too far the other way.
I wouldn't be surprised if they change it again and it ends up somewhere in the middle.
They realized there were too many level 10 gyms everywhere so they made it easier to take down gyms. They may tweak that again too.
I don't think they are done with gyms yet.
This may have been because of the opposite side of the update (maybe...).
If a single player could take down your whole gym under the new system, he could have done it under the old one (just needing roughly twice as many resources). That's not really an unreasonable ask.
So why did it happen the next day? I had two gyms near my house, both level 10 on my team. The bottom pokemon were steadily rotated out by cheaters (using an alternate account to remove the lowest and replace with their own). I lost one of the gyms I had personally taken down from level 10 on my own to my own f** teammates. The other one I went from the top of the gym (all lower pokemon were put below me and I was top of 10) to the very bottom spot before the gym was taken by an opposing team.
After that experience, I refused to ever take down a gym again. F** giving a free spot to cheaters who'll attack their own team.
After the gym changes though, gyms won't get to 10. And I HATED not being able to get coins at all because I wouldn't have a gym to take. So I was a lot more willing to take down those gyms. It's not a big deal to go out for 5min and take down a level 1-3 gym each day for coins. It was awful to put in 2 hours of work to only have it negated after a week or so due to cheating allies.
I think they must realize they made too big of an adjustment. I think they did it because gyms were stagnating. But I think they were stagnating a lot because players were dropping out. Then they made the change and turned off some of the more dedicated players. Now I see mostly the same players taking down gyms at the same time of day. Just a repetitive cycle
This might not work in all areas, but I live in a city and have come to learn which gyms in a 2 mile radius are more stable than others. If your interest (like mine) is the easiest route to coins, this knowledge is probably more important than anything.
It took me a while to figure out, but there are about 15 out of 80 gyms in my area that tend to stand for about a week. I usually only join these gyms (needing to replace one or two per day to collect for the max of 10), and I often prefer leveling up one of these stable gyms, even from Level 6 to 7, over taking a free spot in some unstable Level 3 gym that won't last the day.
On the flip side, I try not to attack gyms of opposing teams (unless they've just taken one of my most stable spots). I figure that if I take down a medium or high level gym anywhere near my favorite gyms, that just means scattering a bunch of opposing players who might now have a reason to attack one of the few gyms I can otherwise comfortably remain in.
Plus, by taking down an opposing gym and opening two free spots I'm giving an extra incentive to players of my own team not to train up the gyms I'm already in and would rather just hold for longer.
Training over battling! Pax Pokemona, peace and love, swords to plowshares, and more coins for all.