New Update Makes Pokémon GO Training At The Gym Sooo Much Easier!!!

Training Pokémon at the gym just got a whole lot easier! 

One of the problems with the current gym experience has been that you could only bring one Pokémon to battle. Even with a Pokémon with a sky-high HP, like a Snorlax, training at a gym could get to be very heavy going, very quickly. Basically one battle and you were done, making it very difficult to rank up in your own team's gym and, leaving you with the feeling that it wasn't really worth the time or effort.

A new update aims to rectify that! As Niantic Labs have just announced on their website:

"As we continue to make improvements to Pokémon GO, we have made an enhancement to the Gym experience for Trainers of all levels. In an upcoming version of Pokémon GO, when training at a friendly Gym, Trainers will be able to bring six Pokémon to battle instead of one. In addition, the CP of the Pokémon you are training against may be temporarily adjusted lower during your training session to generally match your Pokémon’s battle capabilities."

As Paul Tassi, one of my fave Pokémon contributors, elaborates in his article for Forbes, "The core idea of this is to help make it easier for lower-level players to help friendly gyms. Right now, if you’re level 15 and the lowest rung of your gym is a level 28’s 2400 CP Snorlax, your 1100 Tauros just isn’t going to cut it. By allowing you to bring six Pokémon to battle and have CP downscale to closer match your own team, that should mean that friendly gyms are more of safe havens for new players to do just that…train, as opposed to brick walls that serve no real purpose."

Paul isn't too sure if the new update will make the gym experience better or worse due to the preponderance of that he describes as "7-10 level fortresses full of the same four or five crazily high CP Pokémon" in his area. 

I have those fortresses in my area too, but since I'm in the 'burbs where some kind of travel is required to get to the nearest gym, I can usually find a level 6. I agree with Paul though, limiting levels to a max of 6 would make for a lot more fun!

Time will tell whether the new update will make the experience better or worse for trainers. My first impression is that it will make things better, and I'm looking forward to being able to try for myself. Fingers crossed for a rapid roll out that allows for some weekend play!

Playing Pokémon GO? Five Fixes For The First Frozen Fingers Of Fall!!!

We’re hardly into Fall in the Midwest and already the temperature has dropped to finger aching levels during my morning pre-work forays to catch ‘em all.

Cool gloves - but not for the cold!

Having lived in the Chicago area for more than 10 years I’ve got the gear to be outside – but being outside while interacting with my smartphone? Not so much.

Quora has some good suggestions about playing Pokémon GO in the cold, but for me the major issue is keeping my hands and fingers warm. As this thread on Reddit elaborates, “As someone who's been walking around in an NZ winter I can confirm that the phone does nothing to stop your fingers from freezing. My solution was to buy some touchscreen friendly gloves.”

Truth. Not wearing gloves is already uncomfortable and causing my fingers to ache. It’s going to be impossible in a couple of weeks when the cold really kicks in.

So, below five fixes to keep fingers from freezing and the “GO” in Pokémon GO as the temperatures fall.

1. The most cost conscious fix first. Cutting a small hole in an old pair of gloves just big enough for a fingertip or a part of your forefinger to touch the phone’s screen. My experience on my Samsung phone is that a fingertip is all that is needed to throw balls, and I quickly adjusted from using the pad of my forefinger to just my fingertip. It sometimes requires wiggling to line my fingertip up with the hole – but the price can’t be beat! Start with a very small hole and increase in size until you find the size that will work for you.
2. The Pokémon Plus device would be a great alternative that would allow playing while keeping my gloves on. Unfortunately, these have been sold out almost since day one. They can be purchased on Amazon or eBay – but at three times the price, sometimes running into triple figures. With many coming from Europe it’s a price I’m not willing to pay – especially since many of the “stores” offering them have only been in existence for a week or so.
3. Touchscreen sensitive gloves offer a solution to being able to interact with your phone, or if you are going to go this route, then,
4. Touchscreen sensitive gloves with heating offer the deluxe version of keeping warm while playing. After much research I found a pair that look good – I could also wear them as my “normal” gloves - and that come with single use heating pads. After reading customer reviews about rechargeable units breaking, and the recent Samsung Note experience, rechargeable just did not seem to be the way to go. The heating pads are a pricy $15 for 10 but I thought I’d give them a try. My ideal solution would be a heating pad that I could pop in the microwave and that would keep its heat for the hour that I would likely to be outside. The eight hours of the single use heating pads are overkill – perhaps practical on the slopes, but not for suburban ‘mon hunts.
5. Last but not least – take your fingers out of the cold and walk indoors. Successful walking and ‘mon stalking indoors depends on where you live. If you’re in an urban environment with covered or underground walkways that also include PokéStops – lucky you! I’m in the ‘burbs and while our forest preserves and trails are wonderfully endowed, our closest malls are not. Artwork and PokéStops seem to go together, so an indoor alternative could be a building that’s open to the public and that is also well endowed with both artwork and PokéStops...until someone opens the first indoor PokéTrails... 

I’d love to hear suggestions about good indoor PokéPlaces to walk – and if you’re in the MidWest, how you’re planning to keep your creature catching going when the regularly scheduled blizzards return to the Prairie!