Pokemon Go Player’s Gym Struggle Highlights Major Issue That Needs Fixing

Putting your Pokemon in a Gym is a great way to earn free Poke Coins in Pokemon Go, but it can also lead to a lot of frustration. A Pokemon remains at a Gym until it gets knocked out, but if a player from an opposing team doesn’t come along and challenge that Gym, it can remain there pretty much indefinitely. There’s no way to recall your Pokemon, and if you happen to put one in a gym while traveling or on vacation, it’s much harder to get that Pokemon back until someone knocks it out. In some extreme cases, that can take months!

That’s exactly what happened to one user on the Pokemon Go subreddit. User Itsalwayssunnyd visited Bridgeport, Nebraska for a weekend and placed their Gyarados at the local Fire Department. After their Pokemon failed to come home, they took to Reddit to ask the player community for some help. Thankfully, their request got noticed by a Reddit poster in the area, who headed over to the fire department and knocked out the Gyarados, helping it find its way home.

While this story did get a happy ending, it does highlight a frustrating issue with Pokemon Go. In many cases, Gym turnover can be pretty high; anyone that has ever played the game at a theme park like Disneyland or Universal Studios knows how quickly a Pokemon can end up knocked out and sent back to the user. However, there are times where more than a week can go by, if you play in an area where the game is less popular. It’s easy to see how this can lead to a lot of frustration for players that might not realize how little turnover there is at that particular location. If you put a Pokemon in a Gym thinking it’ll be back within 24 hours and it’s gone for weeks, that can cause headaches when it comes to other aspects of the game, like pvp battles.

RELATED: Pokemon Go Is Asking Players Which Community Days They Want to See

It’s unclear exactly why Niantic hasn’t added a recall option to Pokemon Go, but it probably has something to do with keeping Gyms a competitive part of the game. If players were able to easily recall Pokemon placed in Gyms, they would probably do so immediately after reaching the 50 Poke Coin daily limit. By making players wait until there’s a Gym turnover, it ensures there’s more competition to obtain and hold the spot. There has to be some kind of happy medium though; either automatically sending Pokemon back to the player after a certain amount of time is one potential option, while another is giving the player the option to recall the Pokemon after a similar period. Hopefully Niantic can find a way to fix this problem after all these years!

What’s the longest you’ve ever waited to get a Pokemon back from a Gym in Pokemon Go? Do you think the game needs a recall option? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!

[H/T: Dexerto]