Pokémon Go fans find hidden mechanic behind catching raid bosses
Legendary.
After a year of research, Pokémon Go fans have uncovered a hidden mechanic involved in catching creatures from raid battles.
The research, published today by fan resource The Silph Road, appears to show a secret modifier that boosts the likelihood of catching a raid boss over the course of an encounter.
Simply put, the longer it takes you to catch a boss, the more likely it becomes that your next Premier Ball throw will actually do so. Or, as The Silph Road reports: "You are more likely to catch the raid boss on the 10th throw of the encounter than on your first."
As ever, The Silph Road used crowd-sourced data from dozens of dedicated players and more than 6500 raid boss ball throws.
The results showed that, even accounting for other catching modifiers, another hidden mechanic was affecting catches so that they became more likely to succeed as time wore on.
However, the research cannot conclude what exactly the parameter is which is improving the likelihood of catches over time - be it number of balls left, number of balls thrown, or some other factor.
Regardless, the effect is the same - and apart from being an insight into the inner workings of Pokémon Go, it does have some interesting implications.
Say you have just five Golden Razz Berries - a relatively rare item which strongly boosts your chances of a catch. Knowing that the game is quietly boosting chances of a catch already, you could save these to even further boost your chances rather than use them on your initial throws.
Conversely, you may decide to use an easily-found Pinap berry for your first set of throws, just in case you're lucky enough to catch it earlier but without investing more valuable items.
Finally, the effect isn't seen in any other methods of catching Pokémon - in the wild, from research or via Photobombs.
Raiding will be a big part of this year's Go Fest 2021 event, due to take place this weekend. More on all that here.