Pokemon GO's latest major addition, Trading and Friends, has had a generally smooth launch. There are some bugs that are causing problems, but nothing too widespread. That said, there may still be some drama from the community thanks to a surprising nerf of the game's new Gifts.

Gifts can be sent to in-game friends to increase friend status and reward your buddies with some items. The new system gives Pokemon GO players even more reasons to visit Pokestops, so that they can collect enough gifts to send to all of their friends daily. Despite the popularity of the system, Niantic seems to have already decided that too many items were being handed out with each gift.

After just a few days, many users are now reporting that Gifts seem to have been nerfed. Based on community reports, it looks like these adjustment have been made to Gift item quantities...

pokemon-go-gift

Regular Ball 5 > 3

Great Ball 5 > 2

Ultra Ball 5 > 1

Regular Potion 2 > 1

Super Potion 2 > 1

Hyper Potion 2 > 1

Max Potion 2 > 1

Revive 2 > 1

Max Revive 2 > 1

Pinap Berry 10 > 2

This is an interesting change and impacts different types of players in very different ways. The most hardcore Pokemon GO players are constantly hitting maximum capacity on items anyway, and have been needing to trash items to make room for each Gift they were opening. On the other end of the spectrum, casual players, especially those in rural areas, were finally able to stock up on items without traveling to the nearest Pokestop.

At this point, Niantic hasn't explained the decision for the nerf, so it will be interesting to hear if the developers open up about the motivation behind the change. We'll keep an eye out for an official announcement and post an update if one arrives.

Until then, good luck out there, trainers.

Pokemon GO is currently available in select regions on Android and iOS devices.

Source: Reddit