The seasonal nature of exclusive content in "Pokemon Go" is both its bane and largest draw. "Pokemon Go" players who acquire the latest content because of their dedication to the game get bragging rights, but players who play more casually tend to fall behind in the list of cool collectibles available in the game. The same situation is happening now because of the recent seasonal changes being implemented in "Pokemon Go."
Polygon recently covered the unannounced dwindling of Sinnoh stones. According to the publication, the Silph Road - a "Pokemon Go" fan community dedicated to compiling information about the game - noticed that Sinnoh stones were shifted from being a guaranteed research task prize to becoming part of a random reward pool.
Originally, the Sinnoh stones were introduced in "Pokemon Go" as assured rewards from research tasks which involved completing specific quests before the end of the week. While completing the weekly research tasks is already challenging, the move from an assured reward to a random draw makes acquiring Sinnoh stones definitely harder as the item is also not available in the "Pokemon Go" store.
The fact that Sinnoh stones are now harder to attain may affect the enjoyment of "Pokemon Go" players who have yet to amass a sizeable collection of the stones. Since Sinnoh stones are essential for "Pokemon Go" players to evolve certain pokemon into their fourth generation evolutions, players left behind by the research task rewards might be unable to evolve some of their pokemon. Some pokemon who need the Sinnoh stones to evolve include Porygon2, Murkrow, Magmar, and Togetic.
"Pokemon Go" players who were able to acquire a number of Sinnoh stones but not enough to evolve all their eligible pokemon may want to prioritize who they give the stone to. PokemonGoHub has a list of pokemon who can be given the Sinnoh stones with notes on which of them to prioritize.
PokemonGoHub notes that the Sinnoh stone may have only been available as a sure research task reward a week after its introduction in "Pokemon Go." This means that "Pokemon Go" players will have to accept that the Sinnoh stones can now only be acquired through the random research breakthrough rewards. Polygon has mentioned reaching out to Niantic to confirm if the removal of the Sinnoh stones as an assured reward is an intentional change, but Niantic has yet to comment on the issue.
