Answered Gameplay mechanics clarifcations

[DeathsSpook]

My questions come from this post, but I'll reiterate them here for convenience. I know some of this probably runs up against what the devs want public, but I'm hoping at least some of them will be answered:

 

1. With regards to the Ranking Points formula, the two questions I have are a) The current formula seems to reward number of battles but penalize the number of wins. Is that correct? Further, b) What is the base of the logarithm in the Ranking Points formula? The Ranking Points formula as I have it, after some algebra, is Ranking Points = (t * √(u/n) * Log(b)) / 1000, where:

   1. t = Total Experience of all of your Pokemon, summed together. 

   2. n = Your total number of Pokemon

   3. u = Your total number of unique Pokemon. Note that variants of the same species count as different pokemon, e.g. Dark Mawile, Shiny Mawile, and Mawile are three unique pokemon. 

   4. b = (Battle Count (presumably now only in the battle tower))/ (Wins). 

2. How is the probability of catching a Pokemon calculated? I could not find Probabilities of catching a Pokemon at all. I'm assuming it's based on ball modifiers, HP, level, status conditions(?), and so forth, but I don't know what relationship any of these variables have to the final probability. 
3. How are encounter probabilities decided? I see a couple of separate possibilities. For clarity, I will use the term "variant-rarity" as a noun meaning "the co-occurrence of a variant and rarity": e.g. "Shiny-rare is a variant-rarity." For all examples, I will use a theoretical route with Common Starly and Swablu, Rare Fennekin and Staravia, Legendary Rayquaza, and UB Kartana, assuming the player has all badges.
   • Does the RNG first decide if an encounter happens at all and THEN what type of encounter that is, or does it roll to decide between types of encounters and no encounter in one go?  The former would be "First check if an encounter happens this step. IF an encounter happens, decide the variant-rarity". The latter would be "For each variant-rarity, check if it occurs at this step. If none of them occur, then no encounter occurs." (I suspect the former is the case: the probability of an encounter happening at all divides out a bit too cleanly from the probabilities of encountering a specific variant-rarity and of encountering a specific variant-rarity given an encounter occurs at all.)
   • Are variants and rarities rolled separately or together? For example, does RNG decide first that I'm getting a shiny Pokemon, then a rare pokemon, or does it roll in one go and decide that I'm getting a Shiny-rare?
   • Are Pokemon appearances in a particular variant rarity uniformly distributed? EG, is my probability of getting a shiny Swablu given that rolled into the Shiny-common pool 1/2?
   • Are variant-legends and variant-UBs pooled together into a single variant-veryRare pool? EG, to get a Shiny Kartana, do I have to roll Shiny-veryRare and then there's a 1/2 probability of getting it, or did I roll to get into a separate Shiny-UB pool and then Kartana appears because it's my only option? 

 

 

[billabob]

On 9/9/2022 at 4:59 PM, DeathsSpook said:

The current formula seems to reward number of battles but penalize the number of wins. Is that correct?

What do you mean by this? How are battles separate from wins?

On 9/9/2022 at 4:59 PM, DeathsSpook said:

The Ranking Points formula as I have it, after some algebra, is Ranking Points = (t * √(u/n) * Log(b)) / 1000, where:

How did you get this? It's not correct. You also can't get some of these numbers from the seasonal leaderboard such as total Pokemon. And how don't you know which base the logarithm is if you derived this yourself? The real equation is:

(√t * √u * ln(a) * ln(b)) / 1000

t = Total EXP

u = Unique Pokémon

a = Average EXP

b = Battle Count

Testing on the #1 player, BerryBlast, we get (√45,556,334 * √1,644 * ln(27,230) * ln(8,047)) / 1000 = 25133.1255, and indeed he has 25,133 points on the leaderboard.

On 9/9/2022 at 4:59 PM, DeathsSpook said:

• How is the probability of catching a Pokemon calculated? I could not find Probabilities of catching a Pokemon at all. I'm assuming it's based on ball modifiers, HP, level, status conditions(?), and so forth, but I don't know what relationship any of these variables have to the final probability. 

I don't know exactly and haven't looked into it very far but my impression is that it's very simple. A Pokeball has almost no chance of catching something with high HP, but under a cutoff point (around 20??) it has a very good chance of catching. Other balls raise this limit when their conditions are reached. If you've ever tried catching a Pokemon with a moon ball with 1 HP, it can easily take 20-30 throws before it catches

 

On 9/9/2022 at 4:59 PM, DeathsSpook said:

How are encounter probabilities decided?

There are no probabilities behind deciding when you encounter a Pokemon, the typical wait between encounters is about 1.1 seconds. If the current Pokemon shown is rare or legendary then it'll hang around for a bit longer so you don't accidentally walk past it.

As for variants. For common Pokemon, variants are around 1/25 - for legendaries variants are 1/2. For both those pools, the variants are divided into 25% mystic, 25% metallic, 25% dark, 12.5% shadow, 12.5% shiny.

 

Rarity is decided before variant.

 

If I'm mistaken on anything in this post please feel free to correct me. Recommend reading this thread: 

 

quick edit - lol oops that's your thread, i see what you're confused by now - here's a formula dump

 

Seasonal Points:
(√t  *  √u * ln(a) * ln(b)) / 1000
t = Total EXP
u = Unique Pokémon
a = Average EXP
b = Battle Count

Clan Points:
((t) * ln(cb)) / 10000
t = Total EXP
cb = Clan Battle Count

Global / Local Points:
(√t  *  √u * √a * ln(b)) / 1000
t = Total EXP
u = Unique Pokémon
a = Average EXP
b = Battle Count

When you have no dupes, the Global / Local Points formula becomes:
(t * ln(b)) / 1000
t = Total EXP
b = Battle Count

Edited September 13, 2022 by billabob

[DeathsSpook]

7 hours ago, billabob said:

What do you mean by this? How are battles separate from wins?

How did you get this? It's not correct. You also can't get some of these numbers from the seasonal leaderboard such as total Pokemon. And how don't you know which base the logarithm is if you derived this yourself? The real equation is:

(√t * √u * ln(a) * ln(b)) / 1000

t = Total EXP

u = Unique Pokémon

a = Average EXP

b = Battle Count

Testing on the #1 player, BerryBlast, we get (√45,556,334 * √1,644 * ln(27,230) * ln(8,047)) / 1000 = 25133.1255, and indeed he has 25,133 points on the leaderboard.

I don't know exactly and haven't looked into it very far but my impression is that it's very simple. A Pokeball has almost no chance of catching something with high HP, but under a cutoff point (around 20??) it has a very good chance of catching. Other balls raise this limit when their conditions are reached. If you've ever tried catching a Pokemon with a moon ball with 1 HP, it can easily take 20-30 throws before it catches

 

 

If I'm mistaken on anything in this post please feel free to correct me. Recommend reading this thread: 

 

quick edit - lol oops that's your thread, i see what you're confused by now - here's a formula dump

 

Seasonal Points:
(√t  *  √u * ln(a) * ln(b)) / 1000
t = Total EXP
u = Unique Pokémon
a = Average EXP
b = Battle Count

Clan Points:
((t) * ln(cb)) / 10000
t = Total EXP
cb = Clan Battle Count

Global / Local Points:
(√t  *  √u * √a * ln(b)) / 1000
t = Total EXP
u = Unique Pokémon
a = Average EXP
b = Battle Count

When you have no dupes, the Global / Local Points formula becomes:
(t * ln(b)) / 1000
t = Total EXP
b = Battle Count

 

Thank you for this. This was super helpful for the different types of point counts (and clarifying that the wiki saying "Battle Count / (Wins)" is NOT a division, but a clarification). I'm going to go through and do the math to check these later, but I'm pretty sure these are correct. 

 

However, I just did some testing vis a vis the pokemon encounter rates:

 

Quote

There are no probabilities behind deciding when you encounter a Pokemon, the typical wait between encounters is about 1.1 seconds. If the current Pokemon shown is rare or legendary then it'll hang around for a bit longer so you don't accidentally walk past it.

As for variants. For common Pokemon, variants are around 1/25 - for legendaries variants are 1/2. For both those pools, the variants are divided into 25% mystic, 25% metallic, 25% dark, 12.5% shadow, 12.5% shiny.

 

Rarity is decided before variant.

(Emphasis mine)

 

I actually know that time is NOT the deciding factor for encounters. It's clearly a step based counter: sit on a map for an hour in the same spot, and no encounters will appear. You have to move around to get an encounter. In fact, in tall grass, you can tell if a movement counts or not: if grass flies up, the game counts that one step. Experiments on Route 16 at night in tall grass that I just conducted seem to confirm that this wait is NOT probabilistic though, like you said: I very consistently got 5 official steps between encounters, at least for common Pokemon. What seems to happen is that after 4 counted steps, the pokemon disappears, while after step 5, the new pokemon appears. That said, I only tested this for common pokemon. 

 

I'm a bit skeptical at differences in variant numbers: the wiki insists that all the non Normal variants are equal, as does the encounter table I generated for my thread here, which is based on this post here. The 1/25 number for variants against the different numbers in the spreadsheet for the different variants, but the source for the encounter probabilities is starting to look a little sus in light of the very consistent number of official steps per encounter after a common pokemon. I think I'm going to have to break down and do a full trial of encounters and generate my own results. 

 

Dammit. I was hoping to avoid that. 

 

EDIT: I know we're not allowed to use bots to PLAY the game, but are we allowed to use bots that will simply record us playing the game? EG, I set up a bot that simply reads in pokemon in a route, their variant, their rarity, and the time between encounters, but I am still the one actually doing the moving around? EDIT TO EDIT: I did NOT do this, and will NOT do this unless I get explicit confirmation that it's fine. 

Edited September 13, 2022 by DeathsSpook

[billabob]

3 hours ago, DeathsSpook said:

I'm a bit skeptical at differences in variant numbers: the wiki insists that all the non Normal variants are equal, as does the encounter table I generated for my thread here, which is based on this post here. The 1/25 number for variants against the different numbers in the spreadsheet for the different variants, but the source for the encounter probabilities is starting to look a little sus in light of the very consistent number of official steps per encounter after a common pokemon. I think I'm going to have to break down and do a full trial of encounters and generate my own results. 

 

The rates aren't public any more and the encounter system was significantly reformed since that post. 1/25 is just an estimate for commons based on me counting in my head while hunting a while ago.

 

I'm confident my variant distribution is correct - look at the counts for any new legendary and you'll see it roughly conforms. https://www.pokemon-vortex.com/pokedex/kubfu

 

You can also look at new common/rare Pokemon, like Qwilfish (Hisuian) and Zorua (Hisuian) and see more or less the same distribution. But of course shinies will be over-represented as players will be more likely to catch those.

 

You're not allowed to automate the game in any way, even minor things like autoclickers and Chrome extensions changing the colour of the page have gotten people banned before, so I wouldn't recommend scraping data like that. Just write the numbers in the spreadsheet yourself

[DeathsSpook]

20 hours ago, billabob said:

The rates aren't public any more and the encounter system was significantly reformed since that post. 1/25 is just an estimate for commons based on me counting in my head while hunting a while ago.

 

I'm confident my variant distribution is correct - look at the counts for any new legendary and you'll see it roughly conforms. https://www.pokemon-vortex.com/pokedex/kubfu

 

You can also look at new common/rare Pokemon, like Qwilfish (Hisuian) and Zorua (Hisuian) and see more or less the same distribution. But of course shinies will be over-represented as players will be more likely to catch those.

 

You're not allowed to automate the game in any way, even minor things like autoclickers and Chrome extensions changing the colour of the page have gotten people banned before, so I wouldn't recommend scraping data like that. Just write the numbers in the spreadsheet yourself

Damn. Looks like I'm going to need to actually run the data. Grumble grumble grumble.