Persistence Gambit

[MizEileen]

This could be a question, but I don't think any one has the answer. A few days ago I ran out of Pokeballs after an ammo battle with a Pollywag. Normally, like any sane person, I would have run away, but I was in a vile mod. "Fine creature," I told the Poke, "I'm not letting you go."

I've had some experience as an adult with play pretend. If you want to know more , I will tell you about it. It is a surprisingly useful and empowering strategy for dealing with certain problems, so I decided it was time for some serious play pretend. I shot pretend Pokeballs at my Pollywag and walked around.

And yes, I recommend doing this. There was at least one immediate pay off. Watching my Pollywag dance was a lot more pleasant than seeing the schematic of the same old streets. Second, I got to see his full range of animation.

Then after about ten minutes of this, I realized I had missed my bus and was going to have to wait fifteen minutes for another one. Pollywag still on screen, I walked a few blocks, doubled back to the Pokestop where I had battled him originally nd ran away. I had to run away if I wanted more Poke Balls. Well, there he was right where I had dropped him. I put the same Pollywag back in my sites, pelted him again, and ran out of Poke Balls, ran out of ammo. Rinse. Repeat. It was time for another stare down session. I think I saw some new animations but I am not sure.

Of course, the bus came and my GPS dies on buses, so I let the Pollywag go. All of this left me wondering.... (Here are the questions)

1) How long can you keep a Poke on the screen if you have no Poke Balls? So far, my persistence runs have been seven to ten minutes. Life happens. Battery is another limitation but there are ways around that. I have a long charging cable and with a fifteen foot extension cord, I can hook my phone up to a plug in the apartment and keep a GPS signal indefinitely, but does Niantic have some sort of time limit? Can you capture a Poke just by sitting on it for say thirty to sixty minutes?

And how far can you walk away from the site of capture when you have a Poke in your sites, if you just want to spend your battery life staring him down?

2) I've seen more and perhaps different animations when I've done persistence. Some of this may be improved observation, but there might be hidden animations in there.

3) Finally, a variation of Persistence involves slowing down the hunt. This time you have Poke Balls so no play pretend needed. You capture your Poke on a busy street or where there is too much sun glare. Maybe he has those orange/red circles. You need to concentrate. You have limited ammo. Can you shoot a Poke every five to ten minutes? Does this improve your chances especially if you take your time to get in the optimum position. As a bad shot, this really interests me.

But I'm also interested in seeing the full range of animation or whether Niantic times out a stalled capture or anything else that is there. Has anyone tried not running away when out of Poke Balls or slowing down a capture for any reason?

 

[Neltharion83]

This sounds like a big pile of self deception.

Self deception can be like a drug for some people who are into magical thinking.

Other people prefer real drugs, while others prefer to stay sober. I think self deception is just as damaging as real drugs (with the exception of some really hard drugs).

Bad things can happen to you if you can so easily let go of the fundamental assumption that is required to understand the world and to successfully navigate the world. That fundamental assumption is that reality is real and can be understood.

A wild spawn lasts 15 minutes. When the time is up and you get it into a pokeball and it jumps out of the pokeball, it will have a 100% chance to run away. When the time is up and you leave the combat screen, it is either gone or you get "error" when you click it and it disappears.

So all you do is to decrease your chances. Its a counter-productive waste of time.

 

[MizEileen]

I am a huge fan of magic. At times it is effective. I don't care about my chances or being productive so I'm fine there, and as I said watching a persistence Poke dance is better than staring at the street sometimes. If you've ever watched small children with no money for a video game machine you'll get the idea. This really is not a bad activity, since the machine eats quarters, and the kids have fun without spending a dime. They give up on this (sort of) when the adults give them an argument similar to yours. If they continue, they say they are deciding whether to play. I've so far learned that you can't drop a presistence held Poke at a different Poke Stop. It was an Eevee I could have cared less about. You can drop the Poke at its native stop.

Usually I don't double back so if I were looking to make kills (How you make kills with no Poke Balls is beyond me) I'd be on to the next stop in the hope of finding more Poke Balls. I'd then lose the Poke at the next stop. Since I can't hunt anything anyway if I'm out of balls, watching the Poke dance is good entertainment.

And the world is a pretty unknowable place most days.