Pokemon Go is alive again, or not?

I think it is dry too. People get excited over the Legendaries, just like the first raids. It dies down. My guess is they will milk the rest of the Legendaries until they can release gen 3.

I guess I am mildly entertained by trying to work on gym badges, but that has turned in to a 1 day a week thing, as opposed to an every day thing.

I certainly don't have much motivation. I'm not really sure what there is to work for. Gyms are nothing more than tapping with Dragonite.

I think game is more alive than ever but its not for me anymore.
I gladly just surf these forums but not particiapate in game itself.
And i agree guys above, the game is alive now but how long?

The game has always been a bit of a slow grind to me.

Still is.

As a mostly solo player legendaries are pretty meaningless as currently configured.

It can be stale and was so for me before all of the recent changes. Before, I really failed to get the point any more after rolling one bad move set after another. I had decided that I just couldn't take yet another grind of gathering 124 candies just to be let down again. And I was doing nothing on the gym scene because I never have 40+ minutes to pound away on a level 10 Blissey tower only to have it taken back immediately. But then they announced the changes, including TMs, so I decided to stick it out. I'm having more fun with the game than I think I ever have. But it depends on what you personally want to do.

I was excited to see individual battle stats when fighting a gym, and I'm working on increasing it for my favorite mon. I only wish they showed that in app.

I'm working towards Gold level on gyms. I finally achieved that today and am close on 2 other gyms.

I'm working on my Raid and Defender gold medals. I'm close.

I'm enjoying powering up mon and filling out my top roster with diverse move sets.

I'm having fun with the raids, even though I have yet to do a legendary and have won only one level 4 due to being stranded in suburbia with no other players.

So are there things they could do to make the game even better? Sure. But, at least for me, they've made a lot of strides in the last month or so. I mean they managed to get me excited when I was literally >< this close to deleting the app.

The game will die if & when the only players left are the hard-core high level players that have been around since the beginning. If the only way to keep it fun for casual & new players is to dumb down the gym/battling system, that's okay with me. I'm level 38 and I've been playing since last July, and it's still fun for me. Battling can be as much of a challenge as I want it to be. I can put in goofy mons like Miltank in gyms, next to some level 22 player's Ponyta. I can try to take down a gym with prestige-level attackers, or I can try to sweep it with a single Blissey or Dragonite. Under the old system, lower-level players were completely shut out of the gym system, as were any mons other than the "big 7" or whatever.

I get that some high-level players feel the game isn't challenging enough or that all of their hard work doesn't confer enough of an advantage, but Niantic can't and shouldn't build the game around the top 2% of players, thereby shutting out everyone else.

Some of the legendaries will be just trophies, yeah.

But some of the legendaries will be useful for raids.

The end-game here is to become stronger and stronger so that more and more level 3 raids can be soloed by you.

They went a little raid-centric forgetting about everything else the game can offer. I was flabbergasted that raid bosses were able to be captured, getting a sum of candy would have been quite enough while still having players hunting the old fashioned way in the meantime.

In areas where raids can't be completed and gyms aren't being taken down to receive coins there isn't a whole lot of incentive to progress.

They had a good idea and ran way too far with it. They need to reel it in, smooth out the bugs, make hatching/catching worthwhile, and not focus on the store so much.

I don't have a problem with tap and swipe mechanics, but as I posted a few weeks ago, tweaks would have made the gym system better.

Miss training friendly gyms. You should have to earn your way in.They could have added raids and put species limit on gyms without the other drastic changes. Maybe also required taking a level 10 down to 40,000 prestige points to knock out bottom guy, to make it harder for shavers. Those things would have been enough. That, plus making type advantage stronger than STAB. IMO those changes would have been just right.<

The last battle round to finish off weakened mons is tedious at best.

Also, it took me months to get my first ttar, then next thing I know they're a dime a dozen. That doesn't seem right. And I'm not quite sure what the point is of not allowing the birds to defend gyms.

I think a lot of the earlier "whining" posts already hashed all this out...

I think the main problem for a lot of people is coming and expecting that much MORE from the game when it's actually a casual, mobile, beta/alpha, will never need a lot of skill/ability type game. Even now, people in legendary raids ask what level you are assuming that even means much when it comes to knowledge...

I play and still play as much as before, but I always consider myself "casual" since I mostly do it when I am out and about (and maybe like some of you, I spend more time posting here and reading the SR than actually playing). I don't "grind" or take/make many trips to play, but even with that said, I think I play TONS more than most players since honestly, there isn't that much to do so most people barely touch the app IMO other than do that 1st day catch/spin (I got a dog too so I am forced to walk daily...and play and playing gives me something to do).

It's also funny to be in these raids and the bulk of the trainers have like 10 battles or 200 or very very very low numbers (I'm well over 3k+, mostly from the old gym meta...).

The bottom line is there is very very very little content and the only things to do are still (after 1 year):
1) Catch Pokemon
2) Raids (which means catch better/more rare Pokemon)
3) Gyms (which isn't fun to me).

I was hoping there would be more of a Tamagotchi thing to do when you aren't out and about, but that probably isn't where they are headed...

The new gym update was done to get more people engaged with gyms, but ultimately, I think it all boils down to the direction of where the game is headed long term on a road map for game/software development and I don't think any of that would please the hardcore folks at all...

If you look at the Video games and the Trading Card games, they don't try to flood the market with uber mons (Lapras in Japan, 100% Catch rate for Legendaries, etc...). If something is overpowered, it's disabled (Lysandre's Trump Card) since skill/winning in THOSE games can actually win you real $$.

I'd say for everyone who wants to be the very very best, play the video games or TCP...I'm sure it's more stimulating and challenging and rewarding.

I've been in some raids and people there would joke that all their kids/grandkids think Pokemon Go is now an "old person's game" since a lot of the players are old folgeys. I tend to agree since that's what I see too.

The commercials may have a lot of young/hip/pretty/hot gals and guys, but I don't think I've EVER seen any of those people actually playing the game...

The TL:DR: Just play casually. Play to collect mons/best moves, etc...There is no endgame or competition or showing others you are the best. Play the video games or trading card games if you want to do that.