"Pity" Hatching / Guaranteed Shinies

Suggestion Title: "Pity" Hatching / Guaranteed Shinies Currently, hunting shiny, albino, and melanistic Pokemon is a chance-based process with technically no guarantee that you will ever hatch one, if you happen to be incredibly unlucky. I suggest a "pity" hatching system, so that if a person hatches an extremely large number of non-s/a/m Pokemon in a chain, they are eventually guaranteed to get one. An implementation of this could look like a (maybe purchasable) feature after a player acquires the shiny + albino radars where, if the player reaches a chain of e.g. 2,499 of the same Pokemon without a single shiny, albino, or melanistic hatch (my math says about 0.2% chance of this without boosters? but it does not have to be this specific number), then the 2,500th is guaranteed to be either shiny, albino, or melanistic, and the pity counter resets to 0. Optionally, the new Pokemon could be marked with some additional icon that commemorates them as a pity hatch. 1. This should leave alone the rush of getting lucky while taking away some of the frustration of getting unlucky. 2. An extremely high counter ensures that no one can really take advantage of this feature, and realistically very few people should even be able to reach it. So, the feature should affect neither gameplay nor economy for the vast majority of players. 3. This should also hopefully mean less negativity and fewer complaints in general when players are unlucky in a hunt, as their frustration at least has an end in sight. As a bonus, players might even realize their luck isn't that bad in the likely case that they hatch a s/a/m before the pity counter kicks in. 1. Yes, randomness is a major part of PFQ's identity and part of what makes it so fun. But I think this should be the exception that proves the rule. Players can still celebrate rare finds and commisserate over unlucky runs, and pity hatches would only trigger in very unlikely cases; this doesn't change the core mechanics in any substantial way. If anything, some people might actually enjoy trying to achieve a "pity" hatch as a kind of challenge because of how unlikely it is. 2. Lucky players could dispropportionately feel less excited when it turns out that luck isn't 100% required to have what they have. While it is a valid way to feel, it should be relatively easy to cope with as players realize how hard it is to reach the pity counter anyway. 3. Slight strain on Sally as an additional read/write when an egg gets hatched. Depending on implementation, the feature itself could help pay back the memory/processing costs, maybe by costing GP or ZC to activate like any other account upgrade. This proposed feature takes pity on extremely unlucky players while possibly providing a new challenge for collectors, with minimal impact on the average player. See above. (Just a random idea that I felt like writing up btw. Even a one-word "no" is completely fine.)

As much as I like the idea, I just feel this would be ineffective or overpowered, depending on how many hatches till you get a pity special. I also feel like it takes away from the fun of the game. E.g. If it was 8192 hatches, assuming worst odds possible for getting a shiny, and no sei days, the chance is (399/400)^8192, or 0.0000000124311844%

The low likelihood is the point, and it does not have to be that exact number. What ever works with the current site balance. I'd like to learn more about what aspect of the game it takes away from, though, if you're willing to share?

Is there a scenario even possible on the site where you could hatch 8200 eggs and not at least get one shiny? If someone is chaining eggs, then they should have the PokeRadar and if they don't they.are basically wasting their hatches. Even without Hypermode the boost to shiny rates is huge. And even still, there are random hatch shinies just from random chance alone. They are definitely more in line with the actual shiny rates, but it happens. It just happened to me tonight when I snagged a few lab eggs to fill a party. And if you play the site in any meaningful way at all, you will likely have at least one of the built in boosts from ranking up which have nothing to do with your chain. If the pity rate was lower, what is the incentive to interact with the site as intended? And just like real Pokemon sometimes you go waaaay over odds. (I had to SR a Registeel 11,000 times for a shiny, well over double odds). And other times you get super lucky. RNG is a natural part of the game and there are enough ways I feel built into the game for free to make a pity timer unnecessary, at least in a way that wouldn't be overpowered.

I'll go ahead and do some math and update the OP with a different number, as it appears to have drawn more attention as a single specific number than the idea of the system itself. The point is that players unlucky enough to do everything 'right' and still not hatch a shiny still have some sort of number to play around. Average players shouldn't be affected, nor players with slightly below average luck. While the counter stays high enough, players are still better off using boosters etc.

Yeah i have to say no support both shiny, albino even melan hunting are not meant to be easy to go a 'pity' hatch would be really unfair to all of the people who have hunted either one of those before and the whole 'no guarantee' isn't exactly true sometimes a person on here can get a shiny, albino or melan in a very short amount of hatches sometimes it can take longer then that.

I think these points are addressed in the main post, but: is that to say it would happen too often so it's unfair, but also at the same time, it wouldn't happen at all because there is a guaranteed s/a/m hatch already?

The Law of Large Numbers is your "pity timer". Any artificial "pity timer" would necessarily involve cutting down the base odds so that as your "pity timer" increases, the overall odds stay the same. Ultimately such a feature would do nothing to the average, but would drastically reduce variance, which has the overall effect of basically killing off "random shinies".

I'm afraid I couldn't support this either, but I wanted to add in one point. Theoretically someone could potentially try and abuse it a little via the albino radar and z crystals. If a person avoids charging the albino radar for the first 2499 hatches (or whatever the number is), then that removes all chances of an albino (or melan). It doesn't affect shiny chances, so chances are someone would still get a shiny before then but avoiding the albino radar would definitely increase their chances of reaching the number needed for a "pity hatch". If someone keeps track, then it basically tells them the perfect time to activate both the albino radar and a z crystal (and ubercharm if pushing it) to maximise their chances of the guaranteed special being a melan. They could also choose that moment to make the egg a delta and get a guaranteed special delta. So... I think if anyone was going to actively try for a "pity hatch" they'd potentially be able to increase their odds of a melan which doesn't really seem great to me. Half the fun of boosts like z crystals is that we never know when the next special is turning up, ditto half the challenge of hunting for special deltas. Last random thought... What if someone hatches an early shiny on say their 2nd hatch, does that mean the "pity counter" doesn't apply? So... At that point they could still theoretically get to 3000 hatches with no further special anyway which... Kind of means the same issue could apply, just a little later in the hunt. - Ignore this, just realised it is answered above. New point though: I don't think the site tracks where in a chain we get albino pokemon (or if we get them), so that may complicate this idea a little. Implementing this would require the site to be keeping track of albinos hatched in a chain, and I'm 99% sure that's not currently tracked at all (the same with melans in a chain because they're just albino shinies)