Gym rework, some information

And Niantic has gone public with quite a lot of information about the new gym system.

• Six permanent slots for assigning defenders
• Only one defending pokemon of the same kind in a gym
• Gyms are attacked in the order the defending pokemon were assigned
• Each defending pokemon has a refillable motivation number. When zero that defender leaves the gym
• Berries are used to restore motivation
• Gyms can be spun like pokestops for getting items
• Trainers receive gym badges for ineracting with gyms. Higher level badges increase the rewards for spinning gyms
• Raid bosses in gyms that need cooperation from several trainers to take down
• Rewards keyed to taking down a raid boss
• New items

So, what does this all mean?

Let's have a look at the gym raid bosses first. I'll cover the new gym battling in another post.

The raid boss mechanics will be delayed. At the start of the new gym system only some beta testers will have access, and only at some gyms. During an unspecified time frame this will be expanded to eventually cover all players and all gyms.

Give it at least one month before everyone can participate.

Prior to spawning a raid boss a gym will eject every defender inside. This means that gyms will no longer stand in the semi permanent ownership of one team for weeks or even months.

There's a timer above a gym where a raid boss will spawn. When that timer reaches zero the boss spawns. While there's no data on the exakt time this is obviously a mechanism for allowing trainers to physically move to the gym.

A boss fight lasts for five minutes.

A maximum of 20 (or possibly 21, the wording is unclear) trainers can participate in one raid boss fight.

You need a raid pass, a once per day item from spinning gyms, to participate. You can only hold on to one raid pass. The in-game shop will sell premium raid passes that bypasses this limitation.

Defeating the raid boss gives you a chance to catch an extra powerful pokemon. What 'extra powerful pokemon' means is not specified.

Defeating the raid boss gives you some new items:

• Rare candies -- can be converted into any kind of candy
• Golden razz berries -- a higher that the standard increased chance to catch a pokemon in the wild, can also be given to a defending pokemon to max out its motivation
• Fast technichal machine -- teaches a pokemon a new primary attack
• Charged technical machine -- teaches a pokemon a new charge attack

So hold on to your extreme IV pokemon. It got a crap moveset? Use a technical machine.