"After taking down 54 raids, 70 bronze gyms, 3 silver gyms, and 584 gym-hours defended, here is my opinion on the state of Pokémon Go"

#PokemonGO: I used to be the guy people knew here for xp grinding, so take everything I say here with the grain of salt that I have a bit of a hardcore lens on:The gym meta punishes players who dumped stardust into maximizing the best pokémon. I'm sure I'm not alone in stating that I've had to pump millions of stardust into sub-par, sub-IV defenders in order to make this meta work (9 Blisseys over 3100, none of which are viable - however my 60s IV snorlax is now ideal at 2999CP, one of the best defenders). Not a huge fan of this at all, seems like it wasn't well thought out. Maybe just my opinion, but wanted to get this out of the way.I'm worried about the development and longevity of raids. Currently, they cost players $1 each, and since we've been cut down to $0.50 (cents - we're talking pennies here) per day, you have to grind 2 hours of gyms in order to do one raid. Seems a little off to me, but it is beta.Raids are still early, so I'm not expecting a finished product, but there's a few things that are bugging me, on top of the bugs that bug me. Obviously there is not a lot of diversity in spawns, but I hope we see varied CPs soon enough that allow for some variety. Hopefully more variety with raids in general.TMs are cool, but be ready for them to become over-inflated. This equates to IVs and stardust becoming everything, and luck playing far less of a role. I'm okay with this. Props to Niantic for this surprise.If legendary pokémon are coming soon, and we won't be able to put them in gyms, we're going to re-enter a period of stagnation like we saw before the gen 2 launch. They've released a ton of new content, but they need to complete the cycle by giving us something sustainable to do with our legendaries, and unfortunately I don't mean AR camera shots. PvP might be their solution, so timing is everything.The most promising part of this game to me currently (after PvP, since it doesn't exist at all yet) is exploration. I love adding new gyms. My atlas shows 129 total gym badges, and I haven't traveled anywhere yet. I live in Austin, TX so I have a massive advantage of a lot of people and I get that, but there is something so cool about the thought of having hundreds, even thousands of gyms, from all over the world. It's truly epic to see this on a global scale.Personally, I need to slow down and smell the roses. This Chicago event is going to be fantastic, and I'm looking forward to meeting people from around the world. Hoping to hit 100 raids before then, with gold badges for berries and gym hours. 500 rare candy is my goal but 250 will do :)Cheers all. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2u5oewo