Niantic is addressing the issues facing dedicated Pokémon Go players around the world who aren't leaving their homes due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 

The game was updated earlier in March to make Pokémon-attracting Incense Packs 99% discounted, making it far, far easier for players to lure monsters to their location without having to move around as they usually would. This meant they could have many more encounters without leaving their homes.

However, players were running into an issue on the Pokéball front. Without being able to visit Pokéstops, replenishing their stocks of balls to use on new monsters was becoming very difficult, or very expensive. 

Now, the developer has again stepped in to make available to everyone a super cheap bundle containing 100 Pokéballs for them to buy. On top of that, daily bonuses and XP rewards are increasing three-fold to help players progress without too many issues.

The changes should be welcome - Pokémon Go is in a weird niche as a game that remains hugely popular but, obviously, normally depends on activity and mobility to play. 

Today view

Niantic also showed off a new panel the app will be getting, called Today View, a summary of ongoing events, live bonuses, daily streaks and more, to get a sense for what's happening in-game. 

The downside to all of this, of course, is that a range of events and real-world encounters have had to be cancelled for players, and you'd imagine it's likely that more will go the same way down the line. Still, it's great to see Niantic taking quick steps to mitigate the impact on its players.