Many players hoping to capitalize on an increased chance to catch shiny pokémon in yesterday’s Pokémon GO event were upset to find that the supposedly raised shiny drop rate was broken for the majority of the event. While people play different games for a wide variety of reasons, one thing that unites almost every Pokémon player is the innate desire to collect ultra-rare shinies, so these players’ frustrations aren’t unfounded.
In Pokémon titles, encounters with “shiny” palette swaps of pokémon are rarer than those with virtually any other creature in the games (doubly so for shiny versions of legendary or mythical pokémon), and that’s no different in ARG mobile game Pokémon GO. That entry’s odds of running into shiny pokémon are approximately 1 in 450, a random drop rate that’s even more astronomically stacked against players when considering that they’ll be encountering more than just the species of shiny for which they’re searching. The most effective strategy for tilting luck in their favor has been strategic use of wild pokémon-attracting Incense, and Niantic regularly further evens the odds by increasing the appearance of particular pokémon during Incense Day events and increasing their shiny drop rates to about 1 in 133.
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Niantic tweeted a reminder that yesterday’s Incense Day would star Gen III’s toothy water-dark type Carvanha, and players around the world were excited for their own region’s six-hour window to activate Incenses and go fishing for new shinies. Unfortunately for Australian, New Zealander, and Japanese players, the entire Oceania region seems to have gotten the short end of the stick, with shiny drop rates having evidently not been increased until the event was practically already over in their locations. Needless to say, players that have come to reasonably expect shiny drops of featured pokémon were confused and livid, with the below tweets being just a small sampling of the online storm kicked up by Niantic’s apparent mistake:
5 hours so far … 1 shiny carvana…. yep ….
— 🖤xSamiiSlayerx🖤 (@samii_fraser) May 17, 2020
That’s not what they’re saying at all.. the shiny rate wasn’t boosted for NZ and Australia. They forgot to change it for the first 5hrs of the event 🙄
— Mary (@maryjeanquang) May 17, 2020
Pokemon Go Players after last Incense Day: Make the Shiny Rate Boosted for all pokemon that come of incense not just one specific one.
Niantic: Okay but what if instead we just boost none of them instead
— Justin Leach (@Basssteeler10) May 17, 2020
While some players (possibly not from the Oceania region, and therefore likely out of the loop) came to Niantic’s defense, the vast majority of the visible public response to Niantic’s slip-up was critical. Niantic supporters have a mild point that no player is “entitled” to a shiny for simply volunteering their time during an event – as that’s unfortunately not how probability works – but it’s inarguably unfair that Oceania players had to serve as the global Pokémon GO community’s guinea pigs over a developer oversight. Incense and Community Days are particularly engaging for players everywhere who don’t live in certain climates or geographical regions where certain pokémon reside, as they normally can’t simply activate an Incense and place a lure module at a local pokéstop to attract Carvanha at a waterfront if they live inland.
Granted, not being able to catch shiny Carvanha and other event pokémon isn’t quite on the same level of missing out on a shiny legendary in Pokémon GO. That doesn’t mean that Niantic shouldn’t do a better job of ensuring that all players are given the same opportunities and experiences as their global neighbors, though.
Source: Pokémon GO, xSamiiSlayerx, Megan Warwick, Justin Leach, maryjeanquang
