The gym update is killing the game for me.
2 of my regular high level gyms fell the day after the update. Twice now I've trained them up to level 6 - which takes WAY too long now btw, only for them to fall down within a couple hours. Every time I pass by now it's a level 3 gym with throwaway mons (Pidgeotto, Halloween Gengars, Raticates, etc.) People are figuring out they can't hold gyms and just dump trash in them. They're not prestiging them up either because it takes too long with little to no payoff. We're almost back to launch status.
I still have 8 out of 12 gyms remaining, only due to them being in out of the way areas. Once they fall I don't see myself bothering with gyms anymore. The scale is tipped way too far into the attacker's favor. I suspect this has far more to do with Niantic not wanting their core players getting a free 100 coins per day as opposed to solving stagnation.
The problem before was the lack of incentive to attack a high level gym (we all know why so I won't get into it). Now it's worse, because by removing any incentive to defend and prestige, it cut out a huge chunk of the meta. I was working towards a good Slowbro and Poliwrath to be used as defenders as well as trying to gather more of the other good defenders with good move sets and high IVs. This created an engaging gameplay loop of catching pokemon, going on item runs, hatching eggs, grinding stardust, checking IVs, and culminating in capturing higher tier gym placements. And your reward for this was good chunks of stardust and coins for incubators, resources that directly inject back into this loop. That was the life blood of the game for me. The one thing missing was attacking enemy gyms, something I gave up on long ago because again the incentive just wasn't there.
Now? I can bulldoze any level 3 gym with any 6 2K pokemon in my arsenal. I imagine any level 20+ player can do this as well. My reward in the end is a weak gym with a slim chance of lasting past the hour. Prestiging takes twice the time as before, twice the resources, and it doesn't last. Believe me I've tried. So pokemon like Starmie, Golduck, Parasect, Scyther, Raichu, Jolteon, Sandslash, Rhydon, Dewgong, Cloyster, all niche pokemon that were valuable to prestiging against the common defenders, no longer have a purpose. Why would I use a lower CP Scyther to fight an Exeggutor, paying attention to dodges, when I can just brute force it with Arcanine?
With the state of the game, I'm not as excited to catch the base evolutions of those pokemon anymore. I don't need more, they're worthless beyond a new pokedex entry. I'm less motivated to accumulate stardust since my attackers are all capable of taking on anything at this point and boosting my defenders is pointless since they don't last. I fight gyms less so potions become less valuable. Lower defender bonus means less coins, which means less incubators and less egg hatching. The whole game starts to crumble as a direct result of marginalizing the gym game.
The simple solution to the stagnation was to give stardust as a reward for lowering gym prestige. It's the one resource in the game that's in constant short supply later on, so give players a way to earn it. Let's say for the sake of argument its 100 stardust per pokemon defeated, with an extra 100 dust bonus for an all clear. That's 6500 for a full level 10 wipeout. Not a bad haul for the time put in. And 100 dust per mon is low enough to discourage people from sitting at a level 1 gym and grinding against an alt account.
This game's been quite the journey. I've dealt with no way of tracking, disabling third party trackers, killing passenger play, and all of Niantic's other poor decisions. But cutting out the only meat the game had to it has pushed it over the edge for me. I will continue to walk my Grimer and keep a hopeful eye out for Porygon, but beyond that this journey is over for me.
