A Shiny Topic for Shiny Pokemon!

[DrampardonMe]

Lucky or not, let's talk shinies! Those you own, those you really want, it's all good!

Had that Korean event Gastrodon lying around and decided to try the Masuda Method to hatch a shiny Poliwag. Lucky me, it worked just the day before St. Patrick's Day! That's right, I'm raising it to be a Poliwrath.

Mind you, this is only the second time I've hatched a shiny Pokemon in my life (Pansear on Pokemon White was the first, also with the Masuda Method), and honestly, I was getting fed up trying to find a shiny Poliwag during the Mass Outbreak event. It didn't help I was looking for a green Poliwag, since all I knew was Poliwrath's shiny was green and didn't realize its prevos were pale blue until I looked them up (which makes Politoed's shiny weird, too). Pokemon hatch at Lv. 1, anyway, and it's more fun for me to raise them from the ground up. Plus, it's in a Heavy Ball. You can't tell me that's not a cool Pokeball.

Anyway, never got the hate for green shinies-- offhand, the only one I recall being even remotely ugly is Dragonite's-- but then green's my favorite color, so I COULD be biased here. I'd share other shiny Pokemon I've gotten in the past, but I feel like I've somehow mentioned shinies I've caught in other topics-- just from Scarlet alone, haha. Don't let that stop you from sharing your own stories here, though!

[Del]

a year or two ago I decided to try out shiny hunting in Violet, it's kinda crazy how easy it is in those games. think I got like 6 or 7 shinies in like 2 or 3 hours? I think it was like, 2 or 3 Pawmis, and some other stuff I've already forgotten. I'm not really a big shiny guy in general though, since a lot of my favourite Pokémon (read: grass starters) have kinda ugly shinies.

I've considered going back into Let's Go to do some shiny hunts fairly recently before too, but then I learned how the shiny chaining mechanic in that game ACTUALLY works and I just can't be bothered anymore lol

[DrampardonMe]

^To be fair, yeah, I have more shinies on Scarlet than I was ever lucky enough to find in previous games--not that I'm complaining! Before that, I typically didn't get more than one per game, maybe two if I played it enough. Not to defend its relative ease, but most shinies I found were down to pure happenstance rather than seeking them consciously. I think the first one I caught was a shiny Psyduck, which more than made up for the only shiny* I ever failed to catch-- a shiny Psyduck in the Great Marsh of Pokemon Pearl.

If I had to gripe about shiny colors, I never evolved my Pansear, because Simisear's shiny is underwhelming in comparison, and at that point I didn't want to find that out the hard way... I'm also not a big fan of shiny Hariyama, but if I had a spare shiny Makuhita, I might consider raising one. I almost wish there were more than one shiny color, but that would lead to "Oh, I found a shiny Pokemon, but not the one I wanted". Not sure what Game Freak could do to spice up shinies more at this point, though. Custom colors are a pipe dream, haha.

*Unless you count a Misdreavus that ran away faster than I could throw a Pokeball at in Pokemon Legends: Arceus, but that was my fault for being ill-equipped, maybe?

I've considered going back into Let's Go to do some shiny hunts fairly recently before too, but then I learned how the shiny chaining mechanic in that game ACTUALLY works and I just can't be bothered anymore lol

Never played the Let's Go games. Dare I ask how bad that mechanic is?

[Del]

Never played the Let's Go games. Dare I ask how bad that mechanic is?

so the way we used to think it worked was a simple "catch chain = higher chance of spawns"; reach 31+ catches in a row and your odds of shiny go up a bunch, which is cool!!!! except when some people did some digging into the code last year (or maybe end of 2023? I forget), it turns out that it only raises the odds for the next of that species that spawns, so if you catch your 32nd Caterpie, it's ONLY the next Caterpie that spawns that has the boosted shiny rate, and the rest of the Caterpies won't have that boosted rate, unless you continue your chain and catch a 33rd, and then only the NEXT Caterpie has boosted odds, etc.

it's not like, criminally bad I guess? the odds are still really good either way, but boosted rate only applying for one spawn is so miserable of an implementation it sucks the wind right out the dang sail