"The Silph Road's APK mine of v0.67.1 is complete! 15 Major Additions: Battle Teams, Legendaries, Max Deployment Limits, 'Healing Mode,' and more!"

#PokemonGO: To the thousands of new faces who have joined the Silph Road recently: welcome! Please check out our top stickied post and sidebar to learn what the Silph Road is all about. The Silph Road team's long-running APK teardown series examines the new code changes introduced with the latest APK for hints at what's to come in Pokemon GO. Glad to have you with us on the Road!Wake me up, travelers - we must be dreaming.This latest APK saw massive code changes and has taken a while to chomp through! But we're finally ready and excited to share our findings.Many major additions have appeared in the APK which have already been covered in the official release notes or the more complete official overview of the changes:http://ift.tt/2sQWDCm include:The new Gym systemThe new Raid systemNew items (TMs, Golden Razz Berries, Raid passes, 'Premier balls' for use after Raids, etc)Gym Badgesand more!But ... that doesn't mean there aren't a few insights to be gleaned from an APK analysis! We'll ignore the many features contained in the above resources and just focus on those which stood out the most.Ready? Let's dive in!1. Battle Teams?A new construct has appeared in the codebase called a Battle Team. Trying not to get too hyped, but this appears to be the much-requested ability to pre-store a battle team(s)! The following attributes give us cause to get excited:LastUsedTeam - likely referring to the 6 Pokemon selected in the previous battleTeamNameMaxLength- ...is this the ability to name battle teams? (!)BATTLE_TEAM_PREFERENCE_KEY- Perhaps the 'preferred' or 'favorite' team?Now, this is highly speculative until the Gym update turns on - at which point it will be obvious to all! But in the moments before it goes live, this does appear to point to pre-selectable battle teams, travelers.2. Battle Networking UpdateThis doesn't appear to be a major upgrade, but there are several updates revolving around remote network calls during battle. Keep an eye out travelers, and see if you can notice what may have changed!3. Max Total Deployed Pokemon LimitOnce again, this is speculative, but it appears there is a new limit in the code (whether active or inactive at this point has yet to be seen) called:MaxPlayerTotalDeployedPokemonWhile this limit may simply be in place to prevent a player deploying multiple Pokemon at the same Gym, we believe it may be more than that. Notably all 3* of these exist as distinct limits:MaxPlayerDeployedPokemonMaxTotalDeployedPokemonMaxSamePokemonAtFortThis points to a new limit on the total number of Pokemon a player can actively deploy in any Gym (fort). We'll have to wait and see if this is the case, but this may be a very high limit designed to restrict spoofers/bot networks from deploying in high numbers of Gyms in the new system!4. Legendary BattlesIt's here, travelers. Official references to legendary Pokemon have appeared in the APK!We see them in a few places. Namely, in the player stats:NumLegendaryBattleWonNumLegendaryBattleTotaland in the Item Types, where we find a Legendary Raid Ticket, a badge for 'Legendary Battles Won' and a deployment error called ERROR_LEGENDARY_POKEMON.So, altogether now, here's what we think we know:Legendaries will be encountered in Raid situations (either at events, or under special circumstances isn't clear). They will require a 'Legendary Raid Ticket' item to enter the legendary raid.We currently believe you cannot deploy legendaries to defend Gyms. This is an interesting restriction that may help prevent a significant imbalance between botters/illegitimate players (who oft find ways to score rare Pokemon) with legitimate trainers. Not to mention it will significantly cut down the black market value for accounts with these legendary species. At any rate, if this is true, we expect we'll be able to use them in offensive teams all the same. Which is all I want. :D5. 'Healing Mode' at the GymIt appears that healing items (potions & revives) will be available to be applied at the Gym right before battle itself! So, no more need to go out to the main screen, select 'Items' and go through the whole dance to apply a potion before returning to the Gym. This is a very welcome time-saver, if so!6. Berry LogisticsAs has been mentioned and rumored from glimpses we've seen of the Motivation system, berries are about to become a bigger part of daily life.Berries now have a new badge: BERRIES_FEDThey contribute to your Gym Badge score, and now have their own tutorial!Adding complexity to berries, we see the following error states:ERROR_WRONG_TEAMERROR_WRONG_COUNTERROR_TOO_FASTERROR_TOO_FREQUENTThis seems to point to combinations and cooldowns that have different requirements than we're used to with berries. Good thing there's a tutorial. ;)7. Gym Badge TiersGym badges appear to be able to be upgraded to the following tiers:VanillaBronzeSilverGoldThese are able to be upgraded according to their Gym badge score, which you appear to be able to increase through the following actions:Winning defensive battlesFeeding BerriesDeploying PokemonWinning Raid battlesAnd possibly 'losing all battles' (Though we're not sure why this is included. haha)8. Raid Premier Ball AwardsIn a Raid, you appear to be awarded more 'Premier Balls' based on a few factors. These include:The base PokeballsIndividual damage contributionTeam Damage contributionGym OwnershipThe percentage of damage inflicted by your teamA 'Bonus Item Multiplier' (unclear at the time of publication)9. Fancy Code to Display the 6 Gym PokemonA lot of code was added that apparently was designed to display the Gym's defending team without a Snorlax blocking out the other Pokemon. This is a small thing, but it's a very nice touch and some fancy code that makes Gyms look legit!10. InboxThe Inbox is about to get a whole lot more useful.We see many different types of messages are now capable of generating a notice and appearing in the inbox (such as earning progress on Gym Badges, earning PokeCoins from defending Pokemon returning, etc).11. LobbiesThe 'Lobby' is a new construct in use in the Raid mechanic. It's the waiting room you will sit in before officially joining the Raid. Lobbies enable both public and private access - though private Raid lobbies are still largely lacking documentation. The following actions appear regarding lobbies:JoinLobbyisPrivategroupCodesuggestedGroupSizeNotably, there are also new errors, such as ERROR_NO_AVAILABLE_LOBBIES which seems to point to interesting cases where Raids are "full." Time will tell!The lobby system is very promising, and may add an additional social layer than we were expecting when it comes to Raids. We'll be watching Lobbies particularly closely.12. Gym Badge MapThis has appeared in leaked screenshots already, but its implementation has left a big imprint on the APK. We see new code that uses the S2 API, and ways to cluster and navigate the map to display where your Gym Badges are from.Overall, this is an awesome feature that makes collecting Gym Badges infinitely more fun.Notably, you can also now sort Gym badges by: Name, Defending, and Score13. Push NotificationsObviously, push notifications are coming with this update! We see notifications for the following:POKEMON_HUNGRY_PUSH_NOTIFICATION_ENABLEDGYM_REMOVAL_PUSH_NOTIFICATION_ENABLEDPOKEMON_WON_PUSH_NOTIFICATION_ENABLED14. Bonus Gym LootCode referencing the increased payouts at friendly gyms reference the following:AwardedGymBadgeLootBonusLootRaidTicketsTeamBonusLootIn one of the best mechanic changes in this update, it appears that there are multiple levels of 'bonus loot' that will be given at friendly Gyms - having a Gym badge and/or your team owning the gym will increase the payout!15. Raid LevelsThis is a largely unexplained feature at this point, travelers, but there are 5 "Raid Levels" appearing in the APK. We'll have to wait and see what this entails!Whew.That's not even all the new additions this time, travelers, but this list reflects the largest additions that the Silph Road team feels deserve a highlight in this teardown.Overall, we're just so, so excited to see all this goodness headed our way. The Gym system will never be perfect. But this is a giant leap forward, and has us more than excited to start shredding it up.Feel free to check out the graphic assets that were added this time that traveler /u/Koi-pond isolated here. We're not going to post them here, but they're fun to ogle. :)And now the wait begins for the new Gym system to hit. It could be any moment, travelers.We'll see you on the Road!- Executive Dronpes - via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2rOm3Ax