Walking through downtown Calgary tonight I decided to login to Pokemon Go for the first time in several months and catch some spooky monsters from the Halloween event. My usual walking route contains approximately 20 or so PokeStops including a few Gyms, so when walking it forward & back, filling my item bag is usually par for the course. Except for tonight I noticed something odd – every Stop/Gym was only giving me two items. What the hell… 

After some sleuthing (e.g. Using Google) it turns out the Niantic has been messing with the drop rates of both PokeStops & Gyms for at least the past two weeks. Back on October 11th Reddit user, vtmcouver reported that they had begun to see Stops/Gyms drop only two items. Over the course of that evenings one particular user collected 250 spins from across the Reddit community (that’s a lot of walking) and came to some interesting conclusions: 

• Gyms will only drop 2 to 3 items (not including bonuses for your team controlling the Gym or daily streaks). 
• The differing drop rates may be tied to individual trainer accounts rather than be based on other criteria – say trainer location. 
• If your account is affected there is only a %10 – %12 chance that you’ll receive a bonus third item per spin. 
• Some players report never receiving a bonus item at all. 

These numbers aren’t exact, and I don’t expect that Niantic will comment on the item drop rate. It is a bit of a bummer – as a casual Pokemon Go player I kind of relied on regular PokeStop drops to provide me with enough Pokeballs to play. If these changes are indeed account wide, I guess all I can do is a shrug and I’ll be less inclined to play Pokemon Go as we head into the Winter months. 

Are you experience fewer item drops from Gyms & Pokestops? Let me know in the comments. 

[Source]