The Meta and Why it is the Way it Is

How Pharah is outgrowing her Guardian Angel

If you're interested in joining the Silph Road team on a project, we'd like to chat! Familiarize yourself with our guidelines, traveler! This is not a general discussion board! A lot is happening, travelers! Here's a quick summary of the recent major events on the Road. For a full history, visit our Comprehensive Historical Timeline wiki page! Over the past two weeks there have been increasingly more posts in regards to the stagnancy of the gym system. The two biggest hot button topics are the ways by which a player gets their daily coins and whether to not to allow legendaries as gym defenders.

The purpose of this post is to show that there is not one simple "switch" that Niantic can flip to suddenly make gym battling sustainably fun, but there are ways in which they could adapt the current system to create an ever-changing meta in Pokemon go.

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Certain cards, monsters, themes, Pokemon or types work better at a certain time based on their inherent usefulness or overarching power in comparison to what is currently available. This keeps the game from becoming indefinitely stagnant. In POGO now, the closest thing to a meta we have is powering up Pokemon to counter legendaries or powering up Machamps to take down normal types in Gyms. When the birds were around, Golem was about as "meta-relevant" as could be. With Blissey, Chansey, and Snorlax, the most meta gym attacker is Machamp. There are numerous posts and comments on the road of ideas for a new gym system, but I believe that a complete gym rework has too high a cost to be done now.

Imagine all Golden Gym badges being lost because of a Gym rework, or players ending up with something else similar to the training badge we all have from the old system. Although there is no simple switch that can be flipped ie, Legendaries on gyms. Because the meta would quickly become Machamp for Blisseys and Tyranitar for Lugias , I think there are two adjustments Niantic could make to improve the current system.

I'm sure someone has said it but I haven't seen it. There is no quick fix to indefinitely create a better defender than Blissey. There needs to be a changing variable that allows for Pokemon to be much better now , even if they won't stay that way forever. Niantic has shown that they have the ability to adjust monthly incentive in other things when they introduced breakthrough rewards and research tasks based on the breakthrough reward. For example, August will be a more electric themed month with Raikou and electric research rewards.

In addition, you may notice increased strength of Electric-type Pokemon as they defend gyms near you.

Now even though you did not change the gym system or take away from the usefulness of Blissey, you have temporarily created a meta and something possibly better than Blissey. Maybe thats a 1. Maybe more, maybe less. But a Jolteon buffed to cp or more because of a boost maybe CP Zapdos? At the very least, edging out Snorlax and Slaking. The meta for gym defense then becomes powering up Jolteon, Amphoros, A-Golem, while the meta for attacking gyms becomes more centered around having your Groudons and Rhydons powered up.

The stagnation towards the end of the month is over when Entei is released and gym defense becomes centered around Flareon, Blaziken, Charzard, etc. I'm not going to go as in depth because the core concept of change is the same here. But rather than boosting defenders, give aid to attackers. However instead of boosting their stats, give rewards for the month. In addition, you may notice your Electric-type Pokemon growing stronger as you fight beside them gym battles this month.

Increased cp, lower stardust costs, or candy. Just some sort of incentive to take Raikou and Zapdos into battle instead of a Machamp army. I don think this point would be as effective as the first, but is worth saying. Optimally, this is in addition to my first point. I do think the current gym system is stagnant, but do not think we need to wait for an entire gym rework. We need insentive to use things other than Blissey and Machamp. We need Niantic to create a changing meta.

Have it coincide with the monthly breakthrough rewards so it continually changes. In the same way, give us some incentive to use certain Pokemon to attack gyms for a month. Weather could be used to greater effect with defenders to add a changing meta, though some mono-weather locations would still stagnate. Another idea that has been popular in the past is having bonuses on certain gyms. Suppose certain gyms had an assigned type that gave a boost to matching defenders. That could encourage a variety of defenders, especially if it's a significant boost.

I want type specific gyms SO bad! It would be in line with the game series so much better. I've always thought, from the beginning, that the person who started the gym who fought down the previous team and placed the first new Pokemon should get to choose the gym's theme. I would still choose other types of gyms just for fun, but I get your point. Perhaps it could be required not to be the same type twice in a row, so that if you take down a normal gym, you must start one of a different type.

Well, before worrying about Mew, I should hope they have at least one Legendary from Research Breakthrough. At first I read "weather already does the job" and was like Lol but after the re-read I agree for sure. A fat boost for weather would be awesome. But also, the idea for a boost on types is even better imo and also maintains more accuracy to the main games.

Thanks for the input! It would need to be randomised. I like the idea of a dynamic gym system, as it rewards players with a wider range of strong Pokemon.

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This could also be a gateway drug for a lot of people to realize what super effective damage means in terms of combat effectiveness. I meant to mention this also has the potential to build a stronger community! I had not thought of that but I love the idea of players getting more educated on "what works vs. A lso encouraging people to have a greater diversity in their Pokemon Storage , so when new raid bosses come out, they are already prepared from previous gym metas.

Rock types and electric types have no special interactions. You were maybe thinking of ground type. You really don't want to stick a Gyarados in a gym! So an Electric type that uses non-electric moves is still getting a boost, which makes countering with Ground types not so straightforward, making it viable to bring in dual-water Lanturn or using Ampharos with Dragon Pulse.

This way it makes the defending part a bit easier plus you could create some background story that pokemon of matching types would get along together and thus be more motivated to stick together or something. My thought is a post in CP after entering the battle, similar to how super-effective attacks are displayed upon entering battle. Or in the same way you see a raid bosses CP appear, the gym defenders CP changes upon clicking it in a gym. I do agree that the gyms are boringly stagnant have two currently on day , your idea is pretty interesting.

Any additional content and much needed depth would be a very welcome change.

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I still think abilities would also help shake things up, and I believe they were introduced in Gen 3 in the main games. I know zero about mobile game making, but would be curious to see how they would do that on a mobile platform. Abilities could make POGO very complicated very quick. It could also be a dice roll to see if anything with abilities becomes the next Blissey, the very best of the best that gyms become built around.

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I'd be down for anything new like this though! But also love the static element of things changing monthly! More pokemon would be useful, but gyms would be just as stagnant I suspect without other changes. The tapfest is boring at best, really just the notion of tapping through a predestined outcome is the most boring part to me. Well, that is not what I meant, I meant that I think OP's suggestions will help get more people interested in gym battling, even with the current battle mechanics.

My suggestions keeps the tap tap aspect of POGO. Just a little more strategy before the tap tap. To fight stagnancy I'd really like to see a reward for attacking based on the time defended. Imagine if players got a small amount of stardust for ever defender hour of a gym? So a gym that had one pokemon for 8 hours might give 80 stardust but one with 6 defenders for 10 hours might give ?

They might need to put a cap or use a reducing return formulae so that your day old gyms wouldn't give a million, but it would certainly help if people had an incentive to seek out the stale gyms rather than being jerks and taking back gyms that players only held for 1 hour.

So I hate to be negative here, but can we even expect any changes? I mean they already did a complete overhaul of the gym system. An overhaul that at the time quite a few people spoke out against. What makes us think that Niantic is going to change anything? Especially this long after it's been in use. I try to live in hope, but see nothing on the horizon for me to to stay playing. Staying tuned but barely. Accurate, but any change to get people more involved means more people playing and more people paying.

If I spent more time playing apart from raids, I personally wouldn't mind spending an extra buck or two on a raid pass here or there. I'd be overall more invested into the mechanics of the game.

I would say your ideas are brilliant. Someone at Niantic should take note on how to make the game fun again at a very low cost and with already implemented programming. And updated every month as the desired theme. The rewards however, would be "sligthly" more difficult to implement but just with the first one we'd be having a blast!! Again, cheers mate, totally support your ideas. How to not be a spammer The Community user deleted my question! How do I search?

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