Single post in Site-wide Goal Adjustments

Oh, well, fair enough! Kinda weird that it didn't get documented anywhere though, the Wiki is usually quite thorough with such updates! Thanks for finding it. Let me just recalculate my conclusions with this resurfaced information: - EDIT: It looks like the linked shiny nerf was actually done in conjunction with a buff to non-HM users, enabling chaining from 35 to 38, which was a 2x buff, completely cancelling out the nerf. I believe this was done in order to narrow the excessive 6x gap that HM granted at the time, making it 3x instead, and subsequent updates allowing chaining to 39 reduced the HM gap to 2x, drastically reducing the advantage in hunting that HM users would receive over free-playing users. - Totally free-to-play users (specifically users who don't even trade for things) have since seen +87.5% increase to Shiny odds with the Radar buff and Amulet addition, representing a mere -6.25% overall nerf to their odds. EDIT: Thanks to the 35=>38 chain buff mentioned above, free players actually have the full +87.5% higher Shiny chances than they did "pre-nerf"! - Since Shiny Charms were buffed to be permanent items that can be recharged for GP, it is possible to consider these "semi-premium" items. You can get a couple of them totally free within a year of online bonuses if you save up for that, but more realistically you can pick them up without too much trouble in the Marketboard or Trade forums. If we factor them in, the 2x => 2.5x buff means that "semi-premium" users have seen about a +17% increase to their Shiny odds since "pre-nerf" times. EDIT: Actually +134% with the 35=>38 non-HM chain buff! - It does remain true that "fully upgraded" users using the Übercharm for Shiny hunting purposes (if there were any) did see a drop in odds due to that Charm now only affecting Melans, but realistically the Übercharm was always advertised as a Melanistic boost item and I doubt anyone was seriously using it specifically for Shiny hunting. With its rework, Melan odds went up by +50% (4x => 6x), and notably it decreased the amount of "trash" Shinies people would get while they were Melan-hunting. - Leaving aside the Übercharm since realistically it wasn't a "shiny hunting buff", it was always a "Melan hunting buff", users who already had HM did see the full impact of the Shiny Nerf. However since then, the combined effect of all the little updates along the way have led to the odds being only 22% lower than "pre-nerf" levels, however in exchange the Melanistic rates are also +134% improved, before factoring in the Cobalt Amulet's bonus (up to 1.75x on top). As mentioned previously, the goal of the Übercharm changes was specifically to reduce the number of "excess Shinies" that were incidentally hatched while trying to hatch Melanistic Pokémon (which funnily enough also reduces Troll Party frequency so in theory is less frustrating!) and to that end I believe we have succeeded. EDIT: Additional data: approximately 16.5% of active users currently have Hypermode - quite a chunk of them did not buy it themselves, but that's another point for another time. This means that 83.5% of users are actually benefiting from higher Shiny odds than they had "pre-nerf" (which, reminder, wasn't even a nerf for them since they got the 35=>38 chain buff at the same time). Meanwhile the 16.5% of HM users might potentially be seeing 22% lower rates than pre-nerf. This means that overall there are approximately 70% higher shiny rates overall globally across the site than there were "pre-nerf". So it all kinda comes back to my initial query, "shinies were nerfed?" /lh To which the answer is "yes, a tiny bit, for a small percentage of users, who now have drastically higher Melan odds instead because the nerf was for balancing reasons that have totally worked."