2nd Gen Why are the PokéBalls so weak in this Generation?

[Guest123_x1]

Anyone else other than me so frustrated that the capture balls in this Generation, especially the standard three variants (Poké, Great, and Ultra) are considerably weaker than they were in Generation I?

I'm on the route east of New Bark Town, and tried to catch an Arbok. Had it down to 1 HP, and lost my Scyther and Lapras to poisoning. I had 9 Great Balls, but couldn't catch it in ANY of them. I had used three PokéBalls, and was unsuccessful this time too before I restarted the game.

In fact, using the calculator at https://www.dragonflycave.com/calculators/gen-ii-catch-rate shows I would have had a 52% chance of catching 1HP Arbok in Great Balls with no status, which, of course, is overly optimistic, since the capture formula rarely works to the player's advantage.

I've also had situations where I had catch-rate 255 Pokémon such as Zubat and Pidgey down to 1 HP, and it took me THREE Pokéballs in such situations to capture them. To add insult to injury, these exact same circumstances in Generation I would have all but guaranteed capture (in fact, I would have gotten them with as much as 1/3 HP left, given the way the capture algorithm worked back then).

In fact, my frustration with the capture balls being ridiculously weak in Generation I is one of the reasons why I gave up on Pokémon gaming back in 2006.

All of this makes me wonder why GameFreak changed the catch formula starting in G/S/C, when the formula from Generation I worked fairly well in comparison. (Perhaps there were game-breaking glitches involved with the Gen. I formula, besides the well known quirk of Great Balls being better than Ultra Balls in certain situations?)

 

[eldon-satoka]

I guess they were just tweaking their algorithm to make the game a bit harder, and then realised later that it wasn't fun to waste 50 pokeballs on a single pokemon? There are lots of other instances of stuff being tweaked back and forth, including hilariously low encounter rates for certain pokemon. (Who seriously thought it was a good idea to make Tauros so hard to find in the original games?)

 

[Dunsparce]

I believe they changed it because in Gen 1 it was possible for Pokeballs to completely fail, as in the ball doesn't even put the Pokemon inside it briefly, this was seen most commonly with Chansey in both the Safari Zone and Cerulean Cave.

When I first saw the topic I thought you were going to mention that 3 of the 7 Apricorn balls don't even function properly. Love Ball only works on same-sex Pokemon of the same species instead of opposite sex, Fast Ball only works on Magnemite, Grimer, and Tangela instead of all fleeing Pokemon, and Moon Ball only works on Pokemon that evolve with Burn Heal(which there are none) instead of Moon Stone.

Also due to another error Freeze and Sleep are the only status effects that increase catch rate in Gen II. Poison, Paralysis, and Burn do not increase it at all.

 

[Amabilis]

I believe they changed it because in Gen 1 it was possible for Pokeballs to completely fail, as in the ball doesn't even put the Pokemon inside it briefly, this was seen most commonly with Chansey in both the Safari Zone and Cerulean Cave.

I think missing is basically the same deal as the Pokeball moving once before breaking. They mostly change it because having the Pokeball miss was probably more frustrating than having it shake briefly. Even though they aren't very different mechanically. Off course, I'm not completely sure about this.

In terms of the catch rates being nerfed, I think it might be caused by the changes they made to gen 2's engine. Dunsparce pointed out that the Apricorn Balls don't work properly, as well as most status effects. I think the regular Capture Balls might have similar programming issues.