Pokemon GO update adds catch bonuses, tweaks gym battles

Late last week, Niantic detailed a new update for Pokemon GO that would tweak gym training sessions and add certain catch bonuses to the game. That update is rolling out now for both the Android and iOS versions of Pokemon GO, and it brings with it a number of other changes, including user experience improvements and minor fixes.

Niantic has already laid out its plan for the changes that are coming for gym battles today. With this updates, players will be able to take up to six Pokemon into battle when training a gym controlled by their faction – previously, trainers were only allowed to bring one Pokemon, which usually meant many repeat attempts to do any significant amount of training with a high-level gym.

Additionally, the CP of Pokemon in gyms may be temporarily decreased to accommodate lower-level players who’d like to train up gyms their faction controls. This means that new players will stand some kind of chance of training a gym stocked with high CP Pokemon, which in turn means an increased opportunity to add one of their own monsters to the line up.

The revamp to gym battles seem to be the biggest update coming along with this patch, but players will also find that they’re being awarded bonuses as they catch more Pokemon of the same type. On top of that, the egg and incubation screen will now periodically update to display distance walked, meaning that the days of closing the screen and re-entering it just to get an update on your progress are over. The length of Pokemon GO‘s evolution animation has been decreased as well, so you’ll be able to fit more Pokemon into those Lucky Egg-fueled evolution marathons.

Finally, this update brings minor bug fixes with it, including fixes for “several audio issues.” Niantic didn’t get more specific than that, but in any case, nondescript bug fixes are better than no bug fixes at all. The update should be available for both platforms today – on Android, you’re looking for version 0.41.2, while iOS is getting brought up to version 1.11.2.

SOURCE: Niantic