(I spent a good 30 minutes checking to make sure there is no similar post to this one, and I didn't see one so here goes!)
Today, on several different sites, it was announced that the shiny encounter rate went from 1 in 8000-something to 1 in 4000-something. This is great and all, considering I have only ever found one shiny Nincada in Emerald and I would like to get a few more, but in all honesty I hate this news. On top of all the old and new ways to get shiny Pokemon (Chain fishing, Masuda Method, ect.), I feel like shiny Pokemon are losing their novelty a little. I mean, in earlier Gens, when the only way to get shinies was normal encounters and the Masuda method, you'd find a shiny and be all "OMGOMGOMG I GOT ONE!!!!". I feel like sooner or later it's going to become "Oh look! A shiny. Great. Boxed!".
Well, of course I'm exaggerating a little bit, but this is my honest opinion. It's great that they are giving us many methods and increasing the odds for them, but I just want them to stop and leave shiny Pokemon rare and untouched. (Of course they are STILL rare, but you know what I mean!) Just a quick thread, but I just felt like sharing my opinion. :) Thanks!
There was no Masuda Method prior to gen 4, the only way to encounter Shinys were the wild or breeding. There was only one way to increase chances before gen 4. I don't know if I can consider Shinys to be rare anymore considering there's Shiny Charm, Masuda method etc however I don't think they lowered the chances of finding them, if they did Shinys wouldn't even be fun to have anymore.
LOL; they just halved the rate from 1/8192 to 1/4096? (regardless, the fraction 1/8192, which I first learned about during Generation 3, will likely be forever etched in my memory simply because of Shiny Pokemon, the same with 65536 and the Pokerus :P). I'm still wondering how the 3DS rate for Shiny Pokemon got precisely calculated..? In that case, shouldn't the Pokerus rate be able to be precisely calculated as well?
Guys, ever since pokegen, pakesave and of course RNG abuse became a thing shinys stopped being such a rarity. (and yes the 3ds is safe for now, but it won't be forever.)
Of course, Shinies have no value to me based on their rarity, I go by which ones look coolest to me. It may be a simple reason, but there it is. Whether or not a good number of people have shinies or not means nothing to me.
However, I can see why some people are attracted to rarity, to that end I propose that we keep the increased shiny rate, but introduce more shiny pallets to each pokemon. Instead of having just one shiny version there could be many. (colors, etc.) So while the rate of encounter is reduced you still wont know WHICH shiny you will get.
An increase in shiny color palettes could prove to be interesting...
Apparently there is a way to determine if a Pokemon has been generated illegally or not in these games, so I don't think that's a concern. The sense of accomplishment is in obtaining a shiny legitimately in the actual game, it still is extremely rare.
Well RNG isn't technically hacking, it falls into that gray area. It's exploiting game mechanics and tricking the game into giving you what you want from what I understand.
I personally don't like it nor consider it legit as it goes aginst what the devs intended, but there are those who disagree.
I doubt RNG-abused Pokemon will be able to be detected, since you're essentially just timing the moment at which you're catching a given Pokemon; you're not externally modifying anything (plus, IMO that would be unfair to players who, for some random reason, simply decided to catch every Pokemon they see precisely 5 minutes after starting a given
Emerald play session, while being totally unaware of the RNG abuse mechanic. Unlikely, but it's still a possibility ...).
And not to get into the "(P)RNG debate" too much, but I personally see it as valid as manipulating type effectiveness... From my knowledge, you're not blatantly given the type-matchup chart internally in most games (from my experience), but you can figure it out via "external exploits" (for example, researching the type-matchup chart somewhere online, and that's even encouraged; you pretty much
have to know the type-matchup chart to win fair fights); RNG is similarly coded into the game but relies on external exploits. I doubt we'll know whether the developers "intended" RNG abuse or not (I mean, given the properly working PRNGs of
Ruby,
Sapphire (at least, when the internal battery hasn't run dry in
Ruby/Sapphire),
FireRed, AND
LeafGreen, it seems weird that the
Emerald PRNGsomehow has problems, especially since it's based off of the FR/LG engine) or whether they just left it in.
----
But anyway, regarding the shiny rate, I'm glad that the rate was supposedly increased. Not everyone has had the opportunity to see a shiny in-game (and red Gyarados and the B2W2 predetermined shiny pokemon don't count, yet not even everyone has had the opportunity to get
those), which I feel each Trainer should at least experience at least
once. I mean, someone with 999 hours and 59 minutes of playtime should at least get
one shiny for all of that time spent playing
Pokemon.. XD
Although shiny Pokemon are compelling, it's not like 1/4096 is a walk in the park - considerable effort is still required by shiny hunters. I'm glad that shiny Pokemon have been made more accessible, especially since a lot of the "good" colors for Pokemon are their shiny counterparts...Gliscor and Frogue/Greninja come to mind... I don't really care about the shiny Pokemon with ugly colors, but a shiny Pokemon is a shiny Pokemon, so I'll take what I can get. :P
Shiny Pokemon post-Generation 2 yield no in-battle benefits, so it's not like there's much cause for alarm. I mean, people don't complain when other people have (insert applicable legendary version mascot Pokemon here), yet those are considerably rare in themselves, if not more-so (without trading or downloading events, while you can literally have PC BOXES full of shiny Pokemon in one save file, you can only have
1 of your version mascot).
Additionally, if Game Freak's spriters/recolorers are going to bother recoloring all of those sprites/models, I think you would want more people to
see it.. There's no point in dedicating all of that work (I'm not sure how long recolors take, or whether the artists do it selectively with each and every sprite/3D model, or what) to a feature that people are barely going to see while playing, especially when said work could be dedicated towards other stuff, like offering more clothing colors or something.
I'm glad Pokerus seems to be more common, too; aside from being some "rare thing"; it's only purpose is to save time, and pre-Generation 6, the time spent just
looking for the Pokerus likely far outweighs whatever time you'll save during EV Training any given Pokemon. -_-
