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NEWS: Pokémon GO Game Details Gym, Battle Updates




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FilthyCasual



Joined: 01 Jun 2015
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 19, 2017 10:52 am Reply with quote
Finally, the 52000 point gyms will get torn down.

But hey, where's the Instinct Gym in that 3-Gym picture! This is discrimination!
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Amethyst Alchemist
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 19, 2017 11:13 am Reply with quote
FilthyCasual wrote:
Finally, the 52000 point gyms will get torn down.

But hey, where's the Instinct Gym in that 3-Gym picture! This is discrimination!


The fourth Gym in the background looks to be Instinct Wink
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XerneasYveltal



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 19, 2017 11:26 am Reply with quote
In my opinion, this update appears to be quite more promising as Gyms are about to change hands more easily.

FilthyCasual wrote:
Finally, the 52000 point gyms will get torn down.

But hey, where's the Instinct Gym in that 3-Gym picture! This is discrimination!


Look a little closer on the Gym with a Gyarados on top.
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Cutiebunny



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 19, 2017 12:34 pm Reply with quote
I'm interested to see how raid battles work. Does everyone have to be a member of the same team or is it just whoever shows up? It would only work in an area with a lot of active players. While this might be great in the summer with lots of players out of school and time on their hands, I wonder how this might work on a random Tuesday in October at 11 am? There's no way my Machamp could wipe out a 25000CP Tyranitar.

Assuming that an egg will appear over a gym on a weekly basis, that would mean that no gym would last for more than a week. Huh, that blows. It was nice to have Pokemon in gyms to lessen the amount of gyms you'd need to take over per night to make coins.

Anyways, it'll be interesting to see how the dynamics of the game change, especially with the new TMs. Guess that means you can finally make those Pokemon with excellent stats but lousy move sets useful.
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HeeroTX



Joined: 15 Jul 2002
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 19, 2017 1:26 pm Reply with quote
XerneasYveltal wrote:
In my opinion, this update appears to be quite more promising as Gyms are about to change hands more easily.

Has this really been an issue though? The only gyms I've seen really last a good while (often even level 10s) is if they're fairly inconvenient to get to. Any gyms that see people with even a small degree of frequency rarely last half a day (if not more than an hour). If they wanted to see more gym activity, it seems like it'd be better to change the reward operation. Make it something like you only get 1 coin and 50 stardust, but you can claim every hour. Limiting a player to once per hour gives me no incentive to do anything with gyms for the rest of the day once I claim rewards.

(Also, LOL with their efforts to make people care about berries)
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leafy sea dragon



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 19, 2017 3:38 pm Reply with quote
HeeroTX wrote:
Has this really been an issue though? The only gyms I've seen really last a good while (often even level 10s) is if they're fairly inconvenient to get to. Any gyms that see people with even a small degree of frequency rarely last half a day (if not more than an hour). If they wanted to see more gym activity, it seems like it'd be better to change the reward operation. Make it something like you only get 1 coin and 50 stardust, but you can claim every hour. Limiting a player to once per hour gives me no incentive to do anything with gyms for the rest of the day once I claim rewards.

(Also, LOL with their efforts to make people care about berries)


Most of the Gyms I've seen are near untouchable, with Pokémon placed there by people who have been playing this game relentlessly ever since it first came out. The only people who can challenge them are people similarly obsessed with the game, and anyone who picked up the game even the slightest bit late can never hope to compete as these guys keep getting stronger. Probably helps (for them) that I live in a place with a high density population, since it means there's a high Poké Stop density, meaning Pokémon GO continues to be a common sight everywhere even now.

Particularly in Montrose, CA, which has an absurdly high Poké Stop density and is known among lots of Pokémon GO players (such that there will always be at least one around, even in the middle of the night), the only Gyms that frequently change ownership are the ones caught in a tug of war between the same few people.
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HeeroTX



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 19, 2017 5:18 pm Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:
Most of the Gyms I've seen are near untouchable, with Pokémon placed there by people who have been playing this game relentlessly ever since it first came out. The only people who can challenge them are people similarly obsessed with the game, and anyone who picked up the game even the slightest bit late can never hope to compete as these guys keep getting stronger.

The game mechanics make this pretty impossible. The only way a gym would even be close to "untouchable" is if it's stacked top to bottom with Blisseys, and even then if you have one person to assist you can do it relatively smoothly. I'm not saying you'll beat it QUICKLY, but you can definitely grind it out. (it's only tough because if only 1 person, a max Blissey can get you to "timeout" if you don't lay down serious damage) But anything else, you can pretty much grind out wins and slowly knock the thing down in a "worst case" scenario. I took down a level 10 last week that had several Dragonites, and the only issue is several of them were strong enough to 1-shot my weaker fighters. (I only JUST hit level 31 by the way)

But attackers have too many advantages in the current scheme for gyms to be unassailable.
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leafy sea dragon



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 19, 2017 5:37 pm Reply with quote
HeeroTX wrote:
The game mechanics make this pretty impossible. The only way a gym would even be close to "untouchable" is if it's stacked top to bottom with Blisseys, and even then if you have one person to assist you can do it relatively smoothly. I'm not saying you'll beat it QUICKLY, but you can definitely grind it out. (it's only tough because if only 1 person, a max Blissey can get you to "timeout" if you don't lay down serious damage) But anything else, you can pretty much grind out wins and slowly knock the thing down in a "worst case" scenario. I took down a level 10 last week that had several Dragonites, and the only issue is several of them were strong enough to 1-shot my weaker fighters. (I only JUST hit level 31 by the way)

But attackers have too many advantages in the current scheme for gyms to be unassailable.


Can Gyms be replenished with new Pokémon by the owners? It seems like every time someone challenges one of these Gyms, especially in the aforementioned Montrose area, there's a different, fully replenished Pokémon by the following day, if not earlier than that.
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HeeroTX



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 19, 2017 7:01 pm Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:
Can Gyms be replenished with new Pokémon by the owners? It seems like every time someone challenges one of these Gyms, especially in the aforementioned Montrose area, there's a different, fully replenished Pokémon by the following day, if not earlier than that.

With the new system it sounds like you gotta keep the Pokemon happy, but under the old system you had to train the gym back up and then you could put a new Pokemon in. (which is why you rarely got a gym with a bunch of Blisseys because then you yourself had to beat them just to train it up) It's also why gyms generally were easier to beat than to train. If you beat a Pokemon you'd knock it down at least 500 prestige, but training had a minimum of +100 prestige. So you could knock them down faster than people could train them up if you got into a fight over a gym. You also knew exactly what you were fighting (so could setup type advantages) whereas the gym holder had no idea what would come to fight.

As an example, if you knock a 52,000 prestige (max amount previously) Level 10 gym down to less than 50k, then the bottom Pokemon got knocked out. So you could just fight the bottom 2 or 3 mons until you got it down to 7 Pokemon in the gym. Rinse. Repeat. Since you get 6 to attack with, you should be able to beat at least 1-2 pokemon in a gym before all yours are knocked out unless you have nothing at all of note in your roster. The only reason Blissey are tough is because the type advantage is lousy + rare, and Blisseys have WAY too much HP.

The other problem with the previous system, is in an area like that that's "active" and held by one team, you'll never hold that gym, so you have no incentive to take it unless you just want to take ONE gym and claim reward, and done. (or if you SPECIFICALLY want to spite that team) It's usually better to go to either a remote area or an area for YOUR team and put pokemon in several gyms then claim rewards. Which is why I said they should've lowered the claim amount but increased the frequency. Having it at only once per day discourages messing with loaded gyms unless you're REALLY confident you're gonna take several really quickly.
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Cutiebunny



Joined: 18 Apr 2010
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 19, 2017 8:28 pm Reply with quote
HeeroTX wrote:
The other problem with the previous system, is in an area like that that's "active" and held by one team, you'll never hold that gym, so you have no incentive to take it unless you just want to take ONE gym and claim reward, and done. (or if you SPECIFICALLY want to spite that team) It's usually better to go to either a remote area or an area for YOUR team and put pokemon in several gyms then claim rewards. Which is why I said they should've lowered the claim amount but increased the frequency. Having it at only once per day discourages messing with loaded gyms unless you're REALLY confident you're gonna take several really quickly.


What I would do is go to the remote area, stock up on coins, and then go wipe out the level 10 gym afterwards. I'd usually wipe out a level 10 gym 1-2x per week due to the time involved (around 30-40 min).

I always figured I was doing the people in the area a service. It put the gym in play again, especially when someone would drop off a 3100 CP Blissey. The more difficult the gym, the more fun it was for me...I enjoyed bringing down the impossible gyms because it would wound those players' pride the most.
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leafy sea dragon



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PostPosted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 12:09 pm Reply with quote
HeeroTX wrote:
With the new system it sounds like you gotta keep the Pokemon happy, but under the old system you had to train the gym back up and then you could put a new Pokemon in. (which is why you rarely got a gym with a bunch of Blisseys because then you yourself had to beat them just to train it up) It's also why gyms generally were easier to beat than to train. If you beat a Pokemon you'd knock it down at least 500 prestige, but training had a minimum of +100 prestige. So you could knock them down faster than people could train them up if you got into a fight over a gym. You also knew exactly what you were fighting (so could setup type advantages) whereas the gym holder had no idea what would come to fight.

As an example, if you knock a 52,000 prestige (max amount previously) Level 10 gym down to less than 50k, then the bottom Pokemon got knocked out. So you could just fight the bottom 2 or 3 mons until you got it down to 7 Pokemon in the gym. Rinse. Repeat. Since you get 6 to attack with, you should be able to beat at least 1-2 pokemon in a gym before all yours are knocked out unless you have nothing at all of note in your roster. The only reason Blissey are tough is because the type advantage is lousy + rare, and Blisseys have WAY too much HP.

The other problem with the previous system, is in an area like that that's "active" and held by one team, you'll never hold that gym, so you have no incentive to take it unless you just want to take ONE gym and claim reward, and done. (or if you SPECIFICALLY want to spite that team) It's usually better to go to either a remote area or an area for YOUR team and put pokemon in several gyms then claim rewards. Which is why I said they should've lowered the claim amount but increased the frequency. Having it at only once per day discourages messing with loaded gyms unless you're REALLY confident you're gonna take several really quickly.


Now, I don't know much about retaking these Gyms because they seem insurmountable, but it sounds like that'd only work on an unattended Gym. Rather, there seems to be groups of people around here all aligned on the same team who seem to work together to defend these Gyms. By that, I mean there always seems to be at least one person nearby at all times watching the Gyms to restock or or heal its Pokémon or whatever it is they do that somehow gets a full-HP Pokémon of comparable strength soon after it's been challenged.

How quickly it gets replenished depends on the location. I mentioned Montrose because that is the most competitive area for Pokémon GO in all of southern California (and they get reset within hours), though in less populated areas, they seem to get restored within a day as well, unless it's really remote, like the small desert and mountain towns.

But the idea is that there are a bunch of people here to seem to live, sleep, and breathe Pokémon GO, and they treat defending the Gyms like their lives depend on it.

Can the Gyms still be taken by someone on another team if there's someone nearby ready to put another strong Pokémon there? (Then again, perhaps what I'm seeing sometimes is the Gym actually being taken, but then quickly retaken before any spectators can notice. I'd see the animation for when a Gym is being challenged, and the Pokémon disappears, then the same Pokémon reappears with the same alignment and usually the same owner.)
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HeeroTX



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PostPosted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 4:59 pm Reply with quote
Just a few more things of note from the OLD (no longer gonna be relevant) system:
-Timing did play a role. If you only go at really active times of day, there will be people around for sure.
-Location DOES matter, but "active" gyms are actually easier to fight unless it is ONLY one team and those people REALLY have nothing better to do. A nearby gym was right next to a bunch of restaurants and a big park, people would sit there and literally fight that thing all the time. That meant it rarely broke level 3 and you'd never hold it for more than a few minutes, but if you only wanted ONE gym you could take it. But seriously, to defend a gym "endlessly" you'd flat out need to sit next to it ALL DAY and just wait for someone to challenge it. Sure you CAN do that, but who does? UNLESS...
-There HAVE been cheaters that "spoof" location data on the app and hit gyms no matter where they actually are in the real world. I know Niantic did things to stop that, but people still did it. I had someone do that right when I beat a gym and I fought that person for 30mins - an hour just out of spite. (eventually they stopped fighting the gym for a while at least) But that's generally rare.

Really, it's POSSIBLE that you're looking at a "bad" gym that's right off a school or apartment complex or office that several people on the same team are in and they're able to handle the thing while watching TV or working or something else. But in that case, just go move on to another gym, THOSE gyms are ALSO very rare. (unless you've got a lot of homeless with cell phones in CA that hold gyms... that's possible too I guess, in which case I haven't seen THAT particular situation)

EDIT: Also, since I'm not sure what your "heal" comments mean. Defending pokemon always go back to full HP after each fight UNLESS you knock them out of the gym. That's their ONLY advantage. But each win (even if you only beat 1 out of the 10 pokemon in a level 10) knocks down the prestige of the gym. Once the gym drops a level, the lowest CP pokemon was knocked out.
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HeeroTX



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PostPosted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 6:27 pm Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:
Can the Gyms still be taken by someone on another team if there's someone nearby ready to put another strong Pokémon there?

One other thing, if your specific issue has been gyms that actually have been "actively" defended, then this change is bad for you. The new system doesn't really do anything about gyms that people keep an eye on, in fact it actually encourages that behavior, whereas the old system was more "put em in and leave em there till they get bumped".
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leafy sea dragon



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PostPosted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 7:15 pm Reply with quote
HeeroTX wrote:
One other thing, if your specific issue has been gyms that actually have been "actively" defended, then this change is bad for you. The new system doesn't really do anything about gyms that people keep an eye on, in fact it actually encourages that behavior, whereas the old system was more "put em in and leave em there till they get bumped".


All right. I don't know anything about claiming or owning a Gym because of these actively-defended Gyms everywhere (and because Gym-sniping is absolutely rampant when anyone DOES take them down), so I didn't know the healing was automatic and instant. I don't know how these people do it, but in areas with high Gym density, there seems to be maybe two or three people as part of the same team who collectively own all of the Gyms and there's always at least one defending it even in the middle of the night. Nearly every Gym is in or nearby a residential area though, so I figured it's someone living around there who's obsessed with the game and is highly competitive.

Is there some way for the device to notify you if a Gym you own has been challenged or conquered? Sometimes it feels like they just somehow always know if someone is challenging their Gym.
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Mr. Oshawott



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PostPosted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 8:50 am Reply with quote
Hopefully these new changes to the Gym mechanics mean Gyms featuring a Chansey and/or Blissey won't be as commonplace and harder to conquer...
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