A major shakeup to how shiny odds are handled in Pokémon Go has quietly made many species’ coveted shiny versions harder to find.
That’s according to fans who have been keeping a keen eye on the shiny chances for the nearly 1000 Pokémon species now available in Pokémon Go, using reliable crowd-sourced information gathered en masse from bot accounts to see the hidden impact of recent changes by developer Niantic.
Approached by IGN for comment on the changes, a spokesperson for Niantic said it did not discuss exact shiny odds as a matter of standard policy, despite the hunt for shiny Pokémon being a core reason that many players engage with the game.
At the start of the game’s new season, Niantic advertised the fact that it would allow players to encounter the shiny versions of evolved Pokémon in the wild for the first time – a move which on the surface seemed like it would mean players would encounter more shiny Pokémon than before. (Previously, just a Pokémon’s base species would normally be found in its shiny version within Pokémon Go, unlike in the main series games, with a small number of exceptions.)
Additionally, Niantic said it was permanently boosting the shiny chance of all Pokémon found in eggs and in raids, meaning that players who regularly hatch creatures or raid (and who pay to do so more frequently) would also likely be rewarded with more shiny creatures.
But what Niantic did not mention was that, seemingly, it had balanced these changes against a general flattening of existing shiny odds which had long given a boost to rarer species. Within Pokémon Go, fans are aware that the game’s base shiny rate is 1/512, though certain species have had a longstanding “permaboost” to 1/64. This includes uncommon species such as Chansey and Onix, as well as those which debuted via eggs or raids such as Rockruff, Sandile and Mawile.
Pokemon Go Safari Zone in Yokosuka, Japan
In the past, the trade-off here has been that some species which are harder to find (or which don’t typically spawn in the wild at all outside of certain in-game events) were more likely to be found shiny, as the chance of finding them at all was more remote. This was also the case with evolved Pokémon that could be featured in Mega Raids (the only main exceptions to the game’s previous lack of shiny evolved Pokémon in the wild).
Now, according to player-sourced data, almost every Pokémon found in the wild has that same base rate of 1/512, whether it’s a common Pidgey, an uncommon Charizard, or a member of the Legendary Lake Trio. The only exceptions look to be leftover errors on Niantic’s part, rather than any general rule.
In a vast thread on the changes posted to top Pokémon Go fan reddit The Silph Road by user ch33psh33p, the move away from tying shiny odds to specific species is suggested to really only benefit “junk Pokémon in eggs and raids” that previously would have been set as 1/512. This is because many desirable creatures here (Drampa, Duraludon, Honedge, etc.) were already boosted, meaning that change has mostly acted as a nerf to those rare species’ previously boosted odds in the wild.
With shiny odds officially kept opaque, and more than a little uncertainty over how specific species are actually meant to be handled, fans are once again calling for more clarity from Niantic, particularly when it comes to spawns of the ultra rare Lake Trio and Galar Legendary Birds, which appear to have had their shiny rates flattened alongside everything else.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
