"[Feedback] Why I think Niantic chose the wrong direction with recent changes"

#PokemonGO: TL;DR Recent changes in the game are ruining the whole motivation system. Instead of supposedly increasing the engagement of lower level players, in the long term they will just make the game more boring and less engaging. Included are some suggestions how to fix the motivation system, so that the game is fun again.I must admit that I’m horrified, seeing Niantic destroying even the little of what used to make sense in the game. If we continue this way, the game won’t be fun and after legendaries are gone, people stop playing it altogether.What’s the problem? By catering to the „needs“ of low level players, by making the meta game (gyms) too easy, the whole motivation system (which has never been very elaborated) is being destroyed. As it is right now, no one really needs to try hard and catch pokemon, so that they can power the good ones up have a strong team for beating gyms, defending them, beating raid bosses. The game now doesn’t need almost any strategic thinking, almost any skills and knowledge. Why would I try to feed my pokemon if there’s no incentive? I can just come to a gym and beat it with anything, type advantages don’t matter at all when everything is low CP. When no skills are required, when my success is guaranteed in 5 minutes and it’s so easy that none of my skills and knowledge can help make it more effective, it’s not fun anymore. It’s ultra boring. And with the whole gym game not having any purpose, I don’t see myself even bother in future. Why would I do a boring thing which doesn’t have any purpose?I think that there’s a basic mistake in Niantic’s reasoning. I can imagine them seeing the statistics – see? We have 90% players who are under level 20. What can we do to engage them more? Let’s make the game easier!But that’s substantially wrong!Most of the low level people who are staying low level for a long time just found the game uninteresting or boring or whatever – they just decided to quit it. The way to engage the lower level players who have potential to grow is to give them something to do, something to grow to. Of course, it’s good if these people feel that they can contribute – maybe it’s a good thing to offer more free spots in gyms, why not... But making the game easier and thus more boring is the exact opposite of what is needed to be done.I remember that it’s actually very exciting to be a dedicated low level player – everything is new, you have so much to accomplish and you can see fast progress. I remember that within a few days I was already level 15 or so and I could already beat a gym by myself – it cost me a lot of potions and revives, but it was possible. I could also join higher levels. And it was very satisfying to see that after few weeks I had a stronger army and the job was much easier. It would be actually worse for me to deprive me of this experience.I believe that the game needs the exact opposite – not making it super easy, but making it meaningful. Yes, take care of the lower level players, help them learn and grow fast, give them something they can do, so that they feel they matter as well – but don’t cripple the whole game in doing so.How to make the game meaningful? Give us a feeling that we and our pokemon can grow and achieve new and new goals that matter in the larger scheme of things. Recognize our effort (time invested) as well as knowledge and skills that we acquired.Following are several examples of what could be done that would work like this.Catching pokemonI start with this, since I think that this is an area where things actually work. Catching pokemon is actually something you can train to be good at. You are rewarded by higher xp if you are successful. And now when the raids and the legendaries are out, it’s something that really makes a difference. It might be even more exciting if you could get more stardust based on the performance, but generally, this area works quite well.Gym battlingI think that gym battling needs several things to be fun again. I agree that strong 10-level towers weren’t much fun to beat – after I knew that I can make it, I didn’t want to spend the 30-50 minutes every day. So it’s probably good that now it takes less time.But I’d like to see two thingsgym battling being responsive to my skillsgym battling actually having a purposeHow can gym battling be responsive to my skills?First, it needs to be a reasonable challenge – so that if I don’t use optimal pokemon with good DPS and type advantages, it will take more time. And there could also be some bonuses that would make things more interesting, e.g.the motivation loss depending on how fast I have beaten that pokemonthe motivation loss depending on the ratio of CP (something similar to the training)increasing bonuses for beating 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 pokemon in a row with one pokemonYou get the idea. Just make gym battling so that I can feel that if I perform better, it actually matters. Now I know that I just have to mechanically go through three rounds of boring battling and that’s it.How can gym battling actually have a purpose? Here are some of my thoughts:if holding gyms matters more AND beating gym matters more, it will actually help the gym turnover and the game starts being more fun – people could get coins and stardust for both of these – it can be easily cupped so that it doesn’t go overboardmake gym badges matter – getting a golden badge requires a lot of work, so one should actually get something meaningful (why not free raids at that gym of a certain appropriate level? I don’t think it would break the game, as it’s not possible to have plenty of gold badges; or getting more balls/higher drop rate of items from raids if you have the badge at that gym...) – but the incentive should be something unique and special, not only one or two more items after spinning that gym (which doesn’t even equal spinning another pokestop – common)make pokemon battling statistics matter – now that we can see battles won, time the pokemon spent defending – and maybe we could also see time the pokemon successfully stood the battle – these numbers could actually matter – my idea is that they could add up to the statistics of the mon – battles won could add points for attack, time defended could add points for defense and the time the pokemon remained in real-time battle could add HP points – it would be a great way that would actually reflect the fact that you use the mon for attacking and defending and it is, therefore, getting stronger. There could be a cap of course – but this would enable anyone who loves a certain pokemon make it relevant after investing some effort (e.g. if I like my Slowking, I can help it become better by using it for attack and for defense – and you can imagine how proud I would be of it, since it was a real work, not just spending stardust and candy)There are of course much more things that could be brought in the gamespecial gym mods (e.g. making a specific type of pokemon stronger, so that the gym could be a „grass“ gym etc.) – these could be quite rare items that you could get by spinning the gymsdaily challenges (e.g. collect x number of a certain type, beat x pokemon of a certain type etc.) – after which you would get something special againBut I think that you got the idea – what it would look like if the motivation system of the game was working correctly. Please take my suggestions as examples of what could be done – examples of what I consider the right kind of thinking which could help the game – I don’t insist on any specific idea (although I do think that the game with all of these things would definitely be more fun than it currently is).EDIT: minor formatting fixes via /r/pokemongo http://ift.tt/2vV8f5R