I think their incentive is for people to actively use close gyms, once a gym has received a gold badge. You will then get more items. Chances are probably about the same as the first pokemon stop of each day(except 7 day.) Not saying this is the best incentive but sounds like their intended incentive.
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How to make gyms competitive again
I do my usual Pokemon Stop at the University on my way to work in the morning and I can’t help but noticed the lack of gym competition. The University has 9 gyms total all in walking distance. 2 of the 9 gyms are Gray (no one in it) and the other 7 mostly have pidgeys and rats guarding them.
I completely understand why they put those types of pokemon in it it’s a good strategy to have a pidgey return, collect the 50 coins then transfer for a candy instead of using a revive and potion. It still breaks my heart that gyms are no longer competitive.
What can we do?
Trainers need incentives to attack and hold gyms. So why don’t we do just that! What are trainers asking for the most lately? STARDUST “and no Niantic feeding a mon for 20 dust does not add up” If Niantic rewards players 100 stardust for each mon defeated and 2,500 for each mon returned “after a long amount of time” we should see the activity in gyms increase! Just hopes and dreams…
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Answers
Add a stardust reward along with the coin upon the return of your mon, but the stardust amount is a direct correlation as how good of a defender that mon is.
Some formula based using the following variables, lvl of the mon, def stat of the mon, moveset of the mon, and minutes in the gym.
Like max coin, there will be a max stardust as well per day.
This way we get rewarded for putting in high defenders into gyms.
I want the stardust to be a reward/incentive for attacking gyms and keep the coins for defending. And why set a daily limit on that? It's not as if Niantic would be losing money on it; they don't sell stardust.
If they did tie it to the coins and awarded only on return with a daily limit, then I don't think that would do anything to encourage gym competiveness. It's the same trap we're in now; there's no incentive to play the gym scene on any day when I've already collected.
Gyms are more stagnant than they've ever been around my area. The dominant team, instinct, are back on the gyms within half an hour of you taking em giving very little coin return for the other 2 teams, think they've just given up trying now & all is quiet. Changes were not thought through, we need bigger rewards for taking em down & more Pokémon in there to try & defend. It's called competition which ATM doesn't exist in the current meta.
I guess it depends on the area.... The local small town gyms have seen more activity than before now that my Team (Mystic) no longer has a gym monopoly. Valor finally has a chance to kick us out and they have been doing it! I have had no trouble getting 50 daily coins.
The same seems to be true for the city gym near my workplace, which used to be held by Valor but turns over frequently now.
Raids are a great way to get people to come to the gym, and while there, they might as well attack it.
I like the increased turnover and am hopeful that other changes will be made (dust, reward for taking down gyms, etc.).
Definitely noticing in my rural town gyms are even now less active than before the update! They won't flip here unless we put tiny mons in. Often we need to request a "friend" on another team to flip them. And to top it off we have dominant team players plopping in 2900 Blissey / Snorlax which just wastes our "friends" time. Sigh... The gym update worked for a couple of weeks Niantic...
