It’s time to free Pokemon Go Gym Defenders who have been trapped for months

Having Pokemon Go Gym Defenders stuck for ages is an old issue players are sick and tired of, especially with the same zero or 50 Poke Coins cap. It’s high time Niantic changes this for good.

Gyms are the only means in Pokemon Go to bag free Poke Coins, so players try to put as many of their strongest Pokemon as they can to earn them and buy useful in-game items.

If the cap limit of only 50 Poke Coins, no matter how long your Pokemon defended the Gym, wasn’t frustrating enough already, there’s another major problem, and that’s getting stuck defending a Gym for months or even years.

It would have been fine had there been any motivating factor to make your Pokemon last as long as possible in a Gym. In fact, even getting guaranteed Poke Coins regardless of whether the trainer claimed their day’s haul or not, would have made it worthwhile.

One revamp that devs Niantic can bring to the system is adding a time limit to Defenders being available in Gyms. After this fixed time, players should be able to reclaim their Pokemon or it automatically returns to you with Poke Coins.

This would go a long way in farming Poke Coins and also make the trainer find it rewarding to grind Gyms, improving the state of PVE in the game. So, when a Reddit user named ‘MKBtravel’ posted about their Gardevoir being in a Gym for more than a year, others shared their woes.

A player wrote, “Such a wild flaw in game design. Why don’t they do anything about this? Add continuing rewards or allow players to withdraw their Pokemon” while another added that there should be dividends “beyond the 50 coin cap for these long gym holds.”

The Pokemon Go community has been eager for a Gym revamp for a long time now, and with 2024 already bringing exciting additions such as Biomes and another Master Ball for all players, this much-awaited upgrade should also be on Niantic’s list for the year.