Gym update make it better than ever, but improvements are still needed

Ive been playing Pokémon Go for a year and I love it--it brings my love of Pokémon with me wherever I go. The new gym system fixes many of the problems the old gyms created, making the game much more fun now that battling and defending gyms is accessible to a wider range of players. Raid Battles are fun mechanic as well, and the bonus items theyve introduced add to the gameplay and the experience for winning a raid is very appreciated.

However, as a longtime fan and "veteran" player, I also recognize a number of improvements that are needed to keep the game enjoyable. So far Niantic has been responsive to player needs, and I hope they keep it up.

SOCIAL MEDIA INTEGRATION - Magikarp Jump inundates players with opportunities to share their progress on social media, and I wish Pokémon Go would do this too. Its annoying needing to take screenshots to share pictures on Instagram, even though theres a camera in the game that should allow me to do this. It would also be cool to be able to share moments such as winning a raid battle, defeating a gym, or catching a new Pokémon directly from the app. Even better would be if you could earn in-game rewards for sharing on social media, especially since this can help introduce new players and reach the players whove abandoned the game because of earlier frustrations or boredom. Of course, not everyone is excited about social media pushes, so if such a feature were implemented, ideally it would be able to be turned on and off as a player wishes.

FRIEND GROUPS - Playing together has always been one of the best parts of Pokémon, but Go makes it hard to do this, even with the new raid battle system that all but requires cooperative play for some of the encounters. In particular, I should be able to add other players to a friends list (that shouldnt be limited in size) so I can see at an instant whos online, what teams people play for, and when they were last playing; other interesting points would be able to see their PokeDex completion rates and maybe even their gym badges and medals. Of course, an ideal system would also allow me to directly message other players to invite them to join me in a raid battle, help me tackle a gym, or even challenge them to a battle in the future. Even better would be if Pokémon Go could sync with my social media accounts--such as Facebook--and give me the option to add my friends who play directly from my friends on Facebook.

GYM REWARDS - The 50 coin daily cap for defending gyms is frustrating and discourages honest play; instead it creates a system in which getting your Pokémon out of a gym is as important as holding one. I understand the need to keep coins scarce to encourage people to purchase them, but consider this situation from a few days ago: I had a Snorlax get kicked out of a gym after 8 or 9 hours and I received my 50 coins, and then 20 minutes later, my Blastoise--who had been defending a gym for over two days!--was kicked out and I earned nothing. For over two days I hadnt been able to use Blastoise in gym or raid battles, and I received nothing despite the time and effort I put into keeping all the Pokémon at the gym motivated. A similar situation happened with my Espeon: I had already met my coin reward limit for the day, and literally 12 minutes before midnight, Espeon was knocked out after over 24 hours to no reward. Its frustrating and discouraging.

Thankfully, there is an easy solution: either remove the cap entirely, or after the 50 coin daily max has been reached, award a player 100 Stardust for every additional ten minutes defending gyms that day. After all, Stardust is just as valuable as coins and arguably a lot scarcer.

On a similar note, there should be some sort of reward for winning a battle against opposing teams gyms, especially if you take out all six Pokémon in a row (even if you dont defeat the gym and claim it for your team). A fair reward would be an amount of Stardust or trainer experience points for each Pokémon defeated and perhaps a random item if you take down all six (and the rarity of said item can decrease with multiple wins to prevent rare items from becoming too common).

GYM TRAINING - Ive got 91 Trainings for that medal and Im sure Im not the only who doesnt want that one medal to be the only one I cant improve because training was removed from the game. So training at gyms should be brought back, and since you cant earn prestige anymore, you should earn Stardust for every Pokémon you defeat while training (this would also parallel the main series games, since battling is how Pokémon earn EXP to level up and Stardust is necessary to power up and evolve Pokémon). If for some reason the amount of Stardust a player can earn needs to be limited, it wouldnt be difficult to require a Training Pass to train at a friendly gym. Training Passes could work identically to Raid Passes: you can only hold one at a time and you can only receive one per day, and in order to train more, you have to purchase a Premium Training Pass. In fact, if training earned Stardust and you could buy Premium Training Passes, I know more than a few people who would be all too eager to spend their money to "buy" Stardust.

RAID DELAYS - Ideally wed face every Raid Battle with friends, but the reality is that sometimes every Pokémon Trainer has to go at it alone--and Raid Battles are no different. The two-minute delay to join the battle is useful on the rare occasion you end up battling with random players you dont know, but when youre taking on a raid by yourself or with a group of friends, the wait is annoying. Players should be able to enter the fray as soon as theyre ready; the two-minute limit should be a maximum wait-time, not a mandatory minimum.

While I could mention more (like the lack of preset parties or the inequitable distribution of PokeStops and gyms), I feel this has been a fair critique of the latest version and I look forward to each of these issues being resolved.

The Writingwolf about Pokémon GO, v1.37.2