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[Sword & Shield] How to get Sport Ball and Safari Ball from Cram-O-Matic and odds.

RMR

51
Posts
8
Years
  • Age 35
  • Seen Dec 11, 2022
I wanted to share some informations I may have discovered about Cram-O-Matic that I couldn't find on the Internet.

If you check the most famous websites gathering informations on Pokémon, they say about the Cram-O-Matic that you have 0.1% chances of getting a Sport Ball when crafting four Apricorns together (no matter which ones) and 0.1% chances getting a Safari Ball.

I did some extreme (and unwilling at first) testing with Cram-O-Matic and Apricorns, and I do think there's a way for the game to discriminate if it will give you a Sport Ball or a Safari Ball 1 time out of 1000: if you are mixing colors of Apricorns or not.

At first, I did an "organic testing", because I wanted to get the Apricorn balls (there's seven of them, with 1% chance of getting one if you mix four Apricorns of the correspondant color) by the way of the Cram-O-Matic for myself. I may have crafted around 700 balls to get them all since I don't remember being surprised by my own luck at this time. But I got no very special Ball (Sport or Safari) in the process. I also wanted those Balls, so I began gathering large amounts of Apricorns.

At the time, I was thinking both Balls were at 0.1% each as famous websites are stipulating, so I thought I could get one out of the two of them with around 500 tries (0.2%). And after that, with 1000 other tries, I would have fairly good odds to get the missing Ball (0.1%). So I gathered just enough Apricorns to be able to craft 1500 Balls, since I was willing to get rid of it as fast as possible then. (By the way, as I have a regular Switch and no cheating device, I always gathers Apricorns by looking for the Blue-Shirted Lady all around Isle of Armor for hours... hundreds of hours as it will finally turn out.)

I did gathered enough Apricorns for it. So I decided to go for the most efficient way of crafting Balls: mixing four different colors of Apricorns. I'll explain a bit more later. Out of those 1500 craftings, I got no very special Ball at all.

So, I decided to gather 999 of each color of Apricorns to maximize my chances of obtaining the very special Balls. Reaching this point would allow me to craft 1748 Balls in a row.

I did it, and once again I crafted Balls by mixing 4 different colors. Thanks to this method, I was able to craft 999 Balls without interruption, without having to change the "recipe" because of shortage of ingredients. That's what I called an "efficient way of crafting Balls". Once the four colored Apricorns were down to zero, I was left with three different colored Apricorns at 999. Then, I was mixing two of one color, one of another one and one of the last one. And once the Apricorn I put two times in the recipe was down to only one left, I just mixed the two last ones as two of one and two of the other, until they reached zero. So it was always a mix (1/1/1/1 then 2/1/1 then 2/2).

Out of these 1748 crafting, I got three Sport Balls, but no Safari Balls. So, I gathered one again enough Apricorns to craft 1748 Balls.

The second time I did 1748 craftings, I got once again three Sport Balls and no Safari Balls. I began to get suspicious, but as I'm not superstitious, I just decided to change a bit my way of crafting for a go with doing all the 1748 craftings by going with two colors of one, two colors of another one (and all same colors for the remaining one at the end).

This third time, I got no very special Balls at all. As I was quite sure some of my previous Sport Balls were from the final stage of 2/2 mixing, I decided to go on to the next step of testing for the next 1748.

The fourth time, I mixed three of one color and one of another, which was a mix that didn't appear in my first "efficient" method. I got 4 Sport Balls and no Safari Balls. 10 Sport Balls for no Safari Balls, I was almost sure there was a trick, and I was about to test it. The next time I would do the whole thing crafting Balls by putting four times the same color.

This fifth test got me 2 Safari Balls and no Sport Balls.

I have no proof of my beliefs, it may have been an incredible coincindence, but it's consistent with the testing on this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TieEbKKaf1o and with EVERY single comments in it that stipulates which Apricorns were used to get a very special Ball (yes, I read them all, and they all follow the same trend). So, I can't say 100% it's the way this game works, but I STRONGLY recommand anyone who wants a Sport Ball to mix colors of Apricorns (no matter how, as long as it's not four times the same, I got Sport Balls for 1/1/1/1; 2/1/1; 3/1; and also probably form 2/2) and anyone who wants the Safari Ball to mix four times the same color of Apricorns. I recommand it because my belief is there is 1/1000 chance to get a very rare ball, but which one out of the two possibilites is decided by the game on whether you mix different colors or not.

As for the odds, if we add the likely 700 craftings of my "organic test", the 1500 craftings of my first try for the very special balls, the 5 times I crafted 1748 Balls, plus for each time some more 200 craftings (because once an Apricorn hit the 999 spot, I did some craftings to get its number down and same for the others Apricorns, down to the point were the Apricorn in the least quantity was, so I could continue gathering them without wasting time on an Apricorn already at 999; and when all Apricorns were close to 999, I used the Berry Trees to get them all to exactly 999), we get arround 12 000 craftings. I got 10 Sport Balls and 2 Safari Balls. So, I agree with the famous websites the odd is 0.1% but not for each of the two very special Balls. It's a shared odd, you have 0.1% of getting a very special ball, which one being determied by mixing of colors or not for Apricorns.

TL;NR : I crafted some 10 000 Balls by mixing colors of Apricorn, I got 10 Sport Balls and no Safari Balls. I crafted almost 2000 Balls by mixing four times the same color of Apricorns. I got 2 Safari Balls and no Sport Balls. I do believe that mixing different colors or not is the way the game discriminate which of the two very rare Balls it will give you. Odds are 0.1% for the one Ball you are aiming for, the other being impossible to get as long as you craft Ball by the same ratio mixing. Nothing proven, but I highly recommand to follow this trend.
 

shadowmoon522

Master of Darkness & Light
1,005
Posts
11
Years
  • Age 33
  • PA
  • Seen Apr 22, 2024
i hate how they needlessly attached rng to the damn things like this, rather they had just stuck to being able to make them in batches like how it could be done in HGSS
 

RMR

51
Posts
8
Years
  • Age 35
  • Seen Dec 11, 2022
That's true for the Apricorn Balls, but it's the first time we are able to get the Safari Ball and the Sport Ball freely in the inventory outside special events in the game. So, I can uderstand why they made those particularly difficult to get.
 
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