"Making medals interesting"

#PokemonGO: I'm not the first to say this and surely not the last, but - medals do absolutely nothing right now.The type medals do give a slight catch bonus and that's nice and all, but beyond that and collectors "value" there is no gain from achieving these milestones. Several people have suggested in the past how a system could be implemented, but all of them were too demanding, too complicated, etc IMO.I'd like to propose a simple yet effective 2-step plan to make medals great again. Hopefully Niantic implements something in this direction in the future, to give us more of a rewarding gameplay situation.Insert new levels above Gold. Many players have had (close to) all medals at Gold for a while now, and will want to earn the gains that they can receive from higher medal levels. Ingress already has a 5-level system to their badges, with Platinum right above Gold, and Onyx beyond that. Of course, those two should be quite a bit harder to achieve than what we currently have.Give bonuses for every achievable medal (excluding Event badges). I'll try to propose reasonable and, as I said, very simple yet related bonuses that each medal could give:Jogger: Small chance that your buddy finds 2 candies at onceRegion medals: Slightly increase catch rate of Pokemon from that regionCollector: Improved shiny chanceScientist: Gain slightly more XP from evolvingBreeder: Receive a bit more stardust and candy from hatching eggsBackpacker: Small chance to receive double items from a PokestopGym Leader: Gain slightly more gym points from defending (raise daily coin cap)Ranger: Research breakthrough awards more items (increased Research encounter IV floor)Raid medals: Receive more stardust/items from Raids (deal more damage)Berry Master: Slightly increased chance of getting candy from feeding berriesGentleman: Stardust cost reduced by a small amountPilot: Lower distance required for extra candy from tradingIdol: Receive more items from giftsMagikarp: Reduced candy cost for 400 candy evolutionsRattata: "Common" Pokemon give slightly more stardustPikachu: Better catch rate for Starter PokemonUnown: All current event Pokemon give more stardust/candyAce Trainer: In gym battles, deal more damage if your CP is lower than the defender'sThis would give more hardcore (or even semi-casual) players more of a goal to work towards while not giving new players any huge disadvantage.I am aware that quite a few are just "get more items and stardust", but I think that'd be fine as long as some of the medals do something unique. I also made sure not to include any hard numbers, because obviously it'd have to be adjusted to where those rewards would be reasonable. Perhaps you guys have some ideas. via /r/TheSilphRoad https://ift.tt/2S3IZEm