Saturday, November 30, 2013

Are they done trivializing cover legendaries yet?

Serebii added catch and hatch rates for the new Pokémon in his Pokédex, and the big news regarding this is Xerneas' and Yveltal's catch rates of 70. I understand that the catch rate needs to be higher for legendaries that are needed to advance the story, but am I the only one who thinks 70 is way too high? First we had Dialga and Palkia at 30, then Reshiram and Zekrom at 45, and now this. Heck, Reshiram and Zekrom were already a guaranteed catch with a Dusk Ball when in the red and asleep, it didn't need to be any easier! I would've really liked it if they kept it somewhat of a struggle... they ARE some of the most powerful Pokémon in existence after all. Oh well, this goes along with this game handing over everything like candy, from shinies to experience to perfect IVs.

As a side note, Serebii also added pages for the three event legendaries, and oddly enough they have species names, heights and weights for them. Were they discovered beforehand by the hacker, or did Serebii just fudge everything up again? What I'd heard was that the hacker was only able to get them to appear in battles, not catch them or fight with them or anything.

9 comments:

  1. With this catch rate, its health needs to be down to 71% if it's asleep and in a dusk ball. That's ridiculous. Hell, there's more than an 80% catch rate if it's down to the red and NOT asleep! It might as well just be handed to us.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My guess is this. Game Freak looked at where Xerneas and Yveltal were first catchable and thought "They appear at the end of a very long trainer gauntlet. Let's make them easy to catch in case the player's worn out." That's fine for inexperienced players, but it's too much mercy for very experienced players.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I remember seeing pics of the hacker using Dianshii and mega evolving Latios so I presume he's gotten them to work.

    So it's possible he mentioned the heights & weights and species name.
    No idea why he isn't showing the stats or anything.
    I don't think the rumored stats going around are legit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Serebii doesn't have them, so they're probably not... whatever they are. Haven't seen anything about that.

      And as far as I know, he didn't megavolve Lati@s, he just forced an encounter against a wild Mega Lati@s, which I guess is possible in the game code, since mega evolutions occupy a row in the Pokémon table just like other Pokémon.

      Delete
  4. I think the hacker did manager to use Diancie, the picture was posted on /vp/ a couple of weeks back...

    As for catch rates, I guess we should be thankful that they are not changing the capture rates of stuff like Mewtwo and the Kanto Birds. I shouldn't be able to catch every legendary in a Quick Ball.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm going to take a contrary opinion to most people on this subject. Catching pokemon takes no skill whatsoever passed statusing them, and doing a bit of damage. After that it's just chucking balls and hoping you get lucky. It is the most annoying part of the game, and a gigantic waste of time. Furthermore, any catch that takes more than a few minutes really interrupts the flow of the game. I for one am all for easier catch rates. If catching Pokemon were more skill based then we would be having a different discussion. I don't know about you, but not having to waste an hour tapping the A button repeatedly at the climax of the game is a plus in my book.

    Does it devalue that sense of success of catching something that took forever, perhaps, but I would argue that that feeling is manufactured game padding that is more than worth being traded away for a more streamlined experience. Just my opinion, but I am all for it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I actually agree with you there. I think all of the "you must struggle because it's one of the most powerful pokemon in existence" spiel is completely undermined by the very fact that the master ball exists.

      For the story-required legendary, it makes perfect sense for the capture rate to be high. Otherwise, if you didn't buy enough balls, then you run the risk of the rng screwing you over and forcing you to backtrack to buy more just to get through one annoying part of the story. And that's what low capture rates are--an annoyance, not a challenge. Now sure, you could always use the aforementioned master ball, but you only get one in the game, and it would be downright silly for the game to force you to either gamble with an abysmally low success rate, or use something that you easily could have already used on a shiny Abra or something by that point, just to get past a mandatory point in the game.

      Also, let's not forget that Zygarde, Mewtwo, and the legendary bird of choice still have very low capture rates, so there are still plenty of viable targets for the master ball beyond Xerneas/Yveltal. And that's perfectly fine, because they're not mandatory just to progress through the game!

      As for whether 70 is too high or not, it probably was, but I sure as hell wasn't complaining while I was grinding for the right IVs =P

      Delete
  6. I read on TV Tropes that if you kill your Uber or it sweeps you enough in X and Y (no soft resetting), then the offensive and defensive power of it is lowered. Probably nothing to do with IVs, though...

    ReplyDelete