Pokémon GO just made leveling up your team’s gym a whole lot easier

Pokemon Go has officially been available to download for 3 months now. In that short amount of time, diehard players have spent their every waking moment “catching them all,” turning their focus on the game’s (broken) Gym battling system. Unfortunately for newcomers looking to get their feet wet with the game, they’re facing nearly impossible odds with extremely high level Pokemon already occupying most gyms, making take-downs or gym leveling a nearly impossible feat.

Since the only way to gain Poke Coins in the game was by placing your Pokemon in gyms (and either immediately cashing out or holding it for as long as possible), the game was basically throwing the middle finger at newbies who may have felt coerced into using real money as the only means of purchasing additional PokeBalls, bag upgrades, and egg incubators. Not a good look for a game trying struggling to keep veterans interested and new users pouring in.

But it looks like we could be seeing a new side of Niantic. After announcing last night that they’re rewarding players with catch rate bonuses based on acquired medals (think of these as in-game achievements or trophies), they’re also announcing that they’re making gym leveling up much easier for everyone. Coming soon in a future update, players can now take 6 of their best Pokemon to “train” in friendly gyms — no longer just 1 — something that was previously only available when battling an opposing team’s gym. This will make it easier for anyone to level up their own team’s gym, allowing them to place their own Pokemon and gain precious Poke Coins.

So what happens when you’ve got a full roster of CP 10 low evolution Pokemon going up against a CP 3,000 Dragonite? Don’t worry. Niantic says they’ll be adjusting CP levels during these training sessions to match your Pokemon and give you a fair fighting chance, no matter what your trainer level is. Pretty cool, huh? Again, this is only when training up your team’s gym — not when taking down an opposing one.

By making Pokemon more accessible to everyone — new and old alike — nobody should have a problem diving in and enjoying everything the game has to offer. It’s definitely a solid move by Niantic. Here’s to hoping more fine tuning of Go’s gameplay mechanics are already in the works, because as anyone will tell you, the game is still far from perfect.