The changes in a nutshell
1) The changes benefit the casual player. Everyone gets in a gym now. Everyone gets coins. Everyone gets a Tyranitar and Lapras.
2) The high level players who put a ton of time into the game will soon be leaving.
To point #1 - Gyms are now filled with tons of players in the low-mid 20s. Anyone and everyone can participate in gyms. You don't get many coins (50max) but you do get some. Very beneficial for the casual player. You used to have to work to prestige a gym up to get your mon in or take down a lower level gym and add your poke to get coins. The defender mattered in hopes you could hold it. You hoped that other team members would fill up the gym and prestige it higher. There was actually a challenge involved. Now, not so much. You get a gym, you get a gym, everyone gets a gym! Easy mode.
To point #2 - us players who are "hardcore" who built up a stable of 20+ defenders, or who loved attacking gyms with their elite attack team, or people like myself who had a massive stable of prestigers ranging from 1000-2400 to prestige any mon including Blisseys have nothing to do anymore. I've participated in a few raids but so what? I got a few more Snorlax for defense? But I don't need them because you don't want to defend gyms anymore - you want them to be defeated. So you get a few more Tyranitars for attacking - but gyms are filled with crap and any 5 year old mashing his/her phone can defeat a gym now.
Overall it is what it is. Niantic decide to cater to the casual player in the mid-20s so they can participate in gyms and get coins. For us who put hours and hours into maximizing our pokemon with the best IVs and movesets.... well there is nothing to do.
I'm not sure I'm even upset about not playing this game much anymore. I drive by a gym that always used to be controlled by our team... in the past I would stop to beat it. Now? I just keep driving. Not really worth the effort to knock it down... especially knowing I'm probably giving them coins. So I keep going.
If Niantic has decided that the high level players in the 30s don't really matter then it is what it is. I can probably spend my time better doing other things anyways.
The gym scene is dead. Its easy mode. And if that is the case you don't need defenders and you don't need attackers - so once you have 1 of everything its over. I guess it is what it is.
Answers
We had a seriously bad spoofing problem in our city. Really bad. One team went from 30% of the gym to the majority - and it was all one spoofing team. About 12 accounts and they would roll through here.
Our team joined up with the third team to combat the spoofer. We said we wouldn't attack each others gym (for the most part) and focus 100% on the spoofer. There were some seriously big battles in our city. It wasn't stagnant at all. For us high levels we would continue to prestige up our own gyms and open spots for others to fill it up. We created our own level 10 gyms so other teammates could come and fill it up so the spoofers had a ton of work to do to tear them down.
100% agreed on everything you said. But I have one last hope. I'm doing a lot of raids to get to this so called "hundreds of raid wins to get a legendary pass" in hopes of catching legendaries when introduced. Raids also gives you plenty of TMs to tailor the moveset of legendary counters - tyra, Golem, Rhydon, etc. I would not waste TMs on defenders due to the points you made about gym defending - a complete joke currently. My goal now is to develop a team of counters to each legendaries. That is my only motivation at this point. Once we pass that phase I shall see if it's worth continuing to play.
So I changed one Dragonite fast move from SW to DT. I changed my other Dragonite's charge move from HB. My Tyranitar no longer has fireblast.
But now what? I'm sitting on other TMs but for what? My pokes have no use. Don't really need defenders or attackers. So do I really care what moves my guys have anymore?
Completely agree with this take. Festival for casuals, but hardcore folk got the shaft... I'm lvl 38 and considering to quit as I see no point in levelling up, powering up mons, participating in gyms etc. I have a good collection of mons and million dust, don't even know what to power up now or walk as buddy... totally confused. What's even the point to level up from 38 to 40 apart from bragging rights?! Some good features like raids, but gym rework has been a major disappointment for me. I very much hope Niantic makes some changes ASAP or else they will be losing a lot of high level users.
I'm almost level 37. After 37 levels I pretty much have my "perfect" stable of mons. I have about 75 mons which I invested a ton of time, dust and candies in. As mentioned above I changed my Dragonite and T-tars moves. But does it really matter? You don't need to spend coins on raids. One a day is honestly more than enough. Eventually raiding will die because how many Snorlax or Tyranitars do you need?
You could do 1 raid a day for 30 days and get more than enough TMs over that time to "fix" the mons you need to change. I went 3 months with my Dragonite having Steel Wing and I made due. I'm sure over the course of a month of free raid tickets the average person can get enough TMs and rare candies to power up anything they wanted.
My walking buddy is a grimer as my 2400CP 96% Muk needs candies. I do show him off in gyms but it doesn't matter anymore. I have enough rare candies to take him to 2500CP... again tho that doesn't matter.
Maybe I'm coming across mad but I'm not. Just pointing it out that everyone will have everything in a month and you don't even have to spend coins. Don't even need to hatch eggs anymore. Does it matter if my Rhydon is 98% or 75% now? Nope. Does it really matter what moveset it has any more? Nope.
Just saying it is what it is.
I think they messed up big time and will undoubtedly do damage control.... Can't kill the cash cow!
I still love the game, lost 10 lbs (so far) in 8 months (it was damn near impossible before for me to lose any weight, and although I have always exercised, I never had a good reason to walk every day!) I hope Niantic listens and makes the necessary major fixes.
This game is just too good to get ruined by its own developer. And shouldn't devolve into a more interesting Fitbit....
Good post, exactly what I thought.
More to the two point, no complain here
1) young gamer get good Pokemons very easily, but they cannot power up quickly, as the star dust is now hard to get. So they have to buy coins for hatching eggs... Niantic can get money from this strategy, even in a long ran for several month. After that, Niantic will have new ideas...
2) I am in level 36 and play much less, well still have some fun with the new gym with raid. But ... You known, nothing to say... Let it go....keep on walking a little bit...
I wish you have fun too... If not, let's wait...
At least we had some fun in the last year...
I totally agree with you. My gig was buddy walking and powering up my defenders. A ton of work. Now what? I'm currently buddying Lapras, but why? What's the point in buddying anything other than filling a dex spot. What's the point in leveling up? Our area is highly contested, and I always felt that I was chasing everyone else to keep my pokemon CP relevant. Now, hmm, I have no real goals. Maybe I can figure it out in a couple weeks.
Well, you are right that the dynamics has changed, but that was 100 % necessary. I think Pokemon should premiere knowledge about your pokemon, i.e. type advantages, and that all pokemons have a purpose. Were not there yet, but now I can be up against Machamp or Gengar which is fun. Fighting 50 battles to take down the old gyms were really boring. OK, soon everyone will have all pokemons, but only at lvl 20 to 25. You still need to grind for candy and stardust is really scarce, so high lvl pokemon will not be common. I assume Niantic will keep developing some sort of leauge for elite players down the road so dont give up hope.
Question is why would Niantic cater to the casual player ... I doubt casuals would pay money for supplies .... I'm sure that's more the hardcore guys ....
Only answer is they want everyone to have strong guys to take on these so called legend pokes ....
But to me they sold out all the real hardcore players... and therefore I don't trust anything this game or Niantic does from here on out because there might be another challenge but as soon as you get there...they will turn the tables again .
I only just evolved my first Tyranitar a few days before the new gyms went live.
I had to run and walk an insane amount to catch Larvitar and hatch eggs to get one with a high enough IV worthy of evolving ...
Then new gyms went live and people were catching Tyranitar left and right all with high IV....
I use this game for motivation to get exercise... so I'm not mad I had to walk or run all those kms but it made what I did in the game pointless .
I don't live in the city.... nearest pokestop or gym is 1km from my house and I don't cheat or drive around like 95% of the people do . It was all hard work .... now someone can overpower my top guys with just grabbing a bunch of lv4 raids over the coarse of a week. Pretty pathetic.
Good post. I'm in the same boat with Dragonite (as you with Tyranitar). I live in a rock biome so larvitars are somewhat common here - similar to how "common" dratini might be for people who live near water.
I walked hundreds and hundreds of kms for my first Dragonite. I actually nearly filled all my gen 2 dex before I got my first Dragonite. I didn't get him until I was level 34. Then for a brief time they increased dratini in 10km eggs and it allowed me to "easily" get my second.
I'm sure that is how you feel about Tyranitars now.
I was one of the few proud Muk owners in our town. Again I walked tons of kms to power mine up. Now you can fight tons of Muks (and solo them for that matter) and everyone has one. Can use rare candies on them if you want a good one.
Not much left to do for the mid to high level 30 players.
For us "hardcore" players our reward for this last patch was our best mons now suck in gyms. You spent time and candies and dust on your best defenders... oh sorry they are over 3000CP? They lose motivation faster and will be totally useless in gyms.
Thanks Niantic for this "reward". Slap in the face.
I consider myself a hardcore player.
Still didn't get any tyranitar or Lapras.
I don't want my gyms to be defeated.
I want my gold badge on every of my gyms.
I'm using my 4 near 3k CP Blissey towards that. I wish I had 4 more Blissey!
PS. I don't mind giving away 50 coins to rival players. 50 coins is what I used to collect on average before the update anyway. Not that the spoofers allowed you to collect when the timer was ready. At least now I get some coins if they kick me too early of the gym
Yep, this is about how I feel. I had hoped the gym change would make more pokes relevant. There used to be some purpose to the game. Even if it was chasing dratini and walking larvitars to get more 3000+cp gym occupiers. But the change really did nothing but make the pokemon that used to be relevant less relevant while providing no new goals.
I already have a good IV copy of every single gym boss. I already have a good set of attackers, that is now far more than good enough to take down anything I am likely to see in a gym now. And as people figure this out I am seeing gyms being taken less and less seriously. It's not uncommon to see things like dittos and girafarigs from level 36 players in gyms now. What's the point of high IV pokemon? What's the point of good moveset pokemon? What's the point of coins? Not sure.
