If you have read everything I have presented, then you likely will understand why I strongly believe that Niantic used the faction ownership (Resistance, Enlightened or neutral) of portals to decide the shiny rate for Cubone and Ponyta.
There is no way I can proof this is what really happened. But using Occam’s Razor – after ruling out a single flat rate that just doesn’t fit the data at all this seems the simplest explanation to fit all the data.
So assuming that I am right or at least partly right. What questions are there for the future / what questions couldn’t I answer?
- Will Niantic do it again (or at least something very similar) on Prime Day 2. I hope this is the case. This time players will be prepared if this explanation spreads far enough.
- What was the lower rate? 1 in 500, 1 in 450 or zero? I personally favour 1 in 500 – but it could be any of the three
- Could you get a boosted shiny Cubone/Ponyta via incense? My hunch would say no – but who knows.
- Was this based on a one time snap-shot or did they update the chances as portals changed ownership (at least on an hourly / twice a day cycle)?
Why would Niantic even do something like that? What follows is just speculation.
- It could be cross promotion – albeit executed in a way that nobody knew and therefore missed the mark.
- Niantic might have tested some scoring for anomalies.
- Niantic just likes to be ‘mysterious’ at times. PokemonGo players don’t understand the secrets behind passcodes for example. The catch phrase of the Anime is “The world is not as it seems” and being mysterious would fit into this.
- Maybe Niantic collected data to re calibrate MU distribution. Would there be a better way as doing this with the much more widely used PokemonGo and play patterns in that game.
- A special project so that developers could ‘play’ themselves and have fun
I think that overall it was great if Niantic actually did it this way. As an Ingress player now I can appreciate the portal and the ownership. There would have been a few downsides though.
We heard a lot of grumbling of unlucky players. There would be an issue if players just were out of luck because ingress isn’t played in their area. In my view this isn’t an issue if players are told before. Actually it would be a huge motivation to test out the game, paint a few portals green or blue to increase your chances.
Would Ingress players appreciate an invasion of PokemonGo players? Some surely would. Ingress needs new blood. Some surely would detest these ‘newcomers’ who don’t know much and only play for a day for a shiny.
Personally this got me started with Ingress because of this analysis – and I am still happy playing.