Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Mr. Thou like shiny thing?

Yeah, looks like "shiny" is on everybody's lips these days. I want to say I can't blame them, but really, with millions, if not tens of millions of people playing, did you expect no one to find shinies? The usual rate is 1 in 8192, not 1 in 16777216. So of course everybody who finds one brags about it on the internet, and with the sheer volume of players, it leads to the inevitable "shiny rates have gone up!" crap we see every single time a new game comes out. I've grown so jaded to that stuff that I can't possibly believe it without proof. And guess what? We now live in a datamining-free world, so there goes any chance of finding proof for or against it in the near future.

But hey, it's not like Gamefreak hasn't been trying to make shinies more common (after gen 3 changed up things so that shinies no longer automatically meant crap IVs). We had the Masuda method from gen 4 on, which multiplies your odds by 6. We had the Pokéradar, which was frustrating yet sort of effective in gen 4. And it then made a return in gen 6, where we have the added fun of red herring patches which automatically break your chain (which is more frustrating, that or a random Bidoof? You decide). Still, this time around the Pokéradar's sole purpose is to find shinies, as opposed to gen 4 where its primary purpose was to find species you wouldn't ever encounter in any other way, and chaining was a little something on the side that got way out of hand, because shiny is awesome.

But then Gamefreak decided to throw in something for aquatic Pokémon, since there was no way to chain for these. Enter consecutive fishing, a method that's in theory impractical because your chain can be broken simply by not getting a bite, which is totally random (and rather common). Now, have you noticed the two words that change the meaning of this sentence completely? "In theory". Because in practice, Suction Cups exists, and its field ability greatly increases your chances of getting a catch, to such an extent that finding a shiny requires none of the skill and knowledge Pokéradar chaining requires, it's just a matter of fishing on cruise control until you get a shiny, and getting your chain broken by not getting a bite becomes the exception, not the rule.

I can't help but think Gamefreak genuinely forgot about Suction Cups when making this thing up, and quite frankly... I can't blame them. Sure, they programmed it into the games over and over, and who knows how much of it is copypasting, but I think we've reached critical mass in terms of game mechanics, since every little thing can be affected by so many others that it becomes hard to keep track of at times. Remember when Serebii inaccurately listed Intimidate as lowering attack by two levels, despite only having a single screenshot to work with? Well, the thing that was Intimidated was a Simple Bidoof, and things got way out of hand. Of course Serebii was going to forget about it, because come on, it's BIDOOF. HM slave extraordinaire, not extraordinary Simple abuser.

So, even if the base shiny rate remained the same, are shinies too accessible now? Should have things remained the same as in generations 2 and 3, with a flat rate of 1 in 8192? They definitely feel a lot less special than they used to, in my opinion.

Edit: Should've mentioned hordes too, they really help. Rolling the dice five times instead of one comes with obvious effects.

13 comments:

  1. They are a little less special but still aren't common by any means. I kinda thought they should have added a new type of shiny or albino-like with rarer odds and no way to chain or hunt them since they seem to keep making it easier to get shinies. Then again, that could just be seen as over a complicated or needless addition and shinies could just be made hardier to find again.

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  2. I don't believe the shiny rate went up because hundreds out of millions of people have found one so far, I believe it went up because five of my friends found shinies in the first two days after release, with two of them finding two or more (and that's without using specific mechanics or abuse). It absolutely could be a coincidence, but my friends play Pokemon pretty frequently, and we've only had maybe two shinies between us over the last 15 years. I think it's likely that the rate went up, and I think it's because GameFreak has acknowledged their existence in recent games and want to exploit them more for events and such.

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  3. No matter how easy they make it to find shiny Pokemon I still have crap luck. Even with that shiny amulet thing from Black 2 and White 2 I still never found any. I got one shiny Rapidash from Soul Silver and that is it.

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  4. I know its cool and all because they are rare but most shinies look dumb anyway. I bet the rate has stayed the same, I see no real reason to change it.

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  5. I was scared to death when I saw my first Shiny (I Beleive it was Koffing) in Crystal, because I had my Venusaur from Red, and in Red my game corrupted after I traded my venusaur to crystal, so I thought my Crystal cartridge was dying too. Plus, I had no idea what a "Shiny" was.

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  6. The number of shinies I've found over the years can be counted on two hands (not counting the handouts like events and gyarados), and the only one that can be considered any good is my shiny probopass. Yeah, a probopass. I happened to be breeding them at the time and hatched a shiny. The rest of them are junk just like any other wild pokemon. They're not special other than their rareness and a lot of them are just lazy (omg persian with a slightly lighter hue on the inside of its ears!!!!!!)

    I hatched a shiny hoothoot that probably could be usable (for a noctowl). It's sparkly gold, but if it ever evolves, it will turn into that ugly inverse color noctowl. So no way am I doing that, and I don't think an eviolite is going to save it.

    I get slightly annoyed whenever I see someone hacked their entire team to be shinies inside master balls. What's the point? They obviously hacked them, so they don't even get the bragging rights for rareness.

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    1. My best shiny was Volcarona in Black 2. Due to that I had the delusion for quite a while that that Volcarona was meant to be shiny...

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  7. My shinies include a Whismur in Emerald and a Steelix from Heartgold.

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  8. I got a shiny Rattata on Leaf Green, a shiny Geodude and Beedrill on Platinum, a Pidgey and a Basculin on Black, and a Volcarona on Black 2.

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  9. For so long I only ever got useless shinies. In Emerald I found 2... Zigzagoon and Spinda, possibly the 2 worst pokemon in the game. I still trained them to level 100 though, and having a level 100 pokemon with pickup did have its advantages, namely having a small chance to find more earthquake TMs :D

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  10. Funny you should mention hordes. I just caught a shiny Seviper I found in a horde today. This was in Y version, so it was one of the ones ganging up on a Zangoose, not the other way around, thank god! Trying to catch the pokemon being ganged up on is annoying enough as is without having to worry about it being shiny...

    Seeing as the comments have gone on the "what shinies have you gotten?" tangent, may as well throw in my 2 cents. I don't tend to go out of my way to look for shinies in games--I'll take a non-shiny pokemon that I've bred for IVs and the right nature over a shiny one with bad stats any day. The only shinies I've ever found I found by complete accident. Not counting events like the legendary dogs needed to get Zoroark in BW1 or set shinies like the Red Gyarados and the Haxorus in BW2, I caught a shiny Snorlax in Leaf Green, a shiny Carvanha in Emerald, a shiny Swanna in White 1 that I used as a stylish HM slave, and now this Seviper in Y. I think I have a few more lying around, but I don't recall off the top of my head which ones, and I'm too lazy to dig through the PC boxes of all my games to confirm it =P

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  11. LOL this is really funny because I actually did brag about getting a shiny on my pokemon X version to all my friends "LOOK WHO HAS A SHINY AND YOU GUYS DONT NAAAAH NAAH NAH NAH NAAAAAAAAAAAH" (Im not that obnoxious, but you get the point) I found a shiny spoink, third shiny I've seen my whole life) by the way, just so you know, not that it matters, I'm mightypie9001 for some reason I gotta use my real name on this website...stupid google...

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    1. Well that's weird, I don't. GOOGLE YOU USELESS FUCKS STOP MESSING WITH THE YOUTUBE LAYOUT, HERE'S SOMETHING YOU SHOULD TAKE CARE OF

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