Pokémon Go’s gym training is back to normal

Pokémon Go players will find that training at gyms will take a lot less time than it has in recent weeks, thanks to an update developer Niantic quietly released over the weekend. The update reverts the training rewards back to their original level, following widespread complaints from more competitive fans following a change last month.

“Trainers, the amount of Prestige gained when training at friendly Gyms has been reverted back to the original values,” Niantic tweeted from the game’s account. That confirms a Friday night update suspected by The Silph Road, a group of Pokémon Go researchers that closely follow changes made to the free-to-play title.

This is big news for Pokémon Go players who devoted themselves to raising their Pokémon at gyms. In Pokémon Go, members of each team can compete against teammates who have staked their claim over a gym. In November, Niantic tweaked the rate at which those gyms would award players prestige points, which would level up that gym to fortify it. Instead of granting 1,000 prestige points, players would receive just 500. That meant that strengthening these “friendly” arenas took twice as long as it did before, much to players’ chagrin.

Members of the game’s subreddit decried the original update right after release, and have continued to do so until this weekend’s change.

“As much as I love the change in attacking, the change in training a gym is horrible,” wrote user Dennisbaily last month. “It’s pretty much impossible to keep a gym for more than a few days ... [it] took me like fucking 45 minutes...”

After The Silph Road spotted the friendly gym change, however, players changed their tune. A thread announcing that Niantic had reverted prestige awards back to their original state was filled with celebratory responses.

“YES!” exclaimed Reddit user Threatening, in a comment typical of user reactions. “I loved when it was this way. I spend majority of my time taking/training gyms, so I'm happy with this.”

Now Pokémon Go fans can train to their hearts’ content at their team’s gyms without sacrificing their entire afternoon for it.