Daely Snack: Have shinies lost their purpose?

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Shinies. The elusive differently coloured Pokémon that were so rare that most people thought they were hoaxes/glitches/hacks. Yet, with the internet becoming more and more widespread, soon everyone knew about them. With a 1 in 8000 chance of finding them, they were truly sought after by collectors who had to put considerable effort into getting them.

With people complaining they couldn’t get one, Gamefreak threw a bone and released several shiny Pokémon as events, in addition to making some slight tweaks to the chance of finding shinies. Sorry folks that had a shiny Raikou, your’s became so common that people didn’t care about your achievement anymore. Luckily there were only a few event Pokémon, leaving a majority still hard to catch (even when using the Pokéradar).

But XY changed even more than that. They made so many tweaks that, as evidenced by the comments here and on other sites, you could easily find three shinies a day. The Safari zone with hundreds of Pokémon available, a new egg breeding mechanic, horde battles, the Pokéradar is back and maybe even a tweak to the base chance itself! This brings my to my concern of today: is there still a point in shinies?

The major thing about shinies was not that they were differently coloured. In fact, you could say that over half of all Pokémon looks worse or almost not different at all in their shiny form. No, the thing that made them cool was the rarity of finding one, the thrill of encountering and successfully catching it. It shouldn’t be only about its looks, but also on the memory that is attached to it. But with XY the rarity is gone. People will stop caring about your feat. “Oh, you got 30 shinies? I got 60, hmpf.” The whole elusive aspect went away, and that makes shinies not that exciting for me anymore as they once were.

But that’s just me of course. What do you think? I’d love to hear your opinion in the comments, and when I got the time I will try to respond to them. Seeing as this is a discussion post, keep spam to a bare minimum. If you got something interesting to say, say it, but don’t start 200 comments threads about one battle you had, use the chat.

~Daedardus~

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3,018 thoughts on “Daely Snack: Have shinies lost their purpose?”

  12. Honestly, I do feel that the values of shinies did go down, even during the B&W period. I agree with Dae’s reasoning in the post. The rarity of the shinies were their main selling point. But now you can find them easily with the FS. I felt it go down in B&W because most of the people on the GBU I faced had a team of six shinies including legends and you could get some from GTS Negotiations (where I got a lot from) but they’re most likely hacked once I try to send them over with Pokebank 🙁 But it is still a wonderful experience to catch/hatch your own shiny! Trying for a Shiny Magikarp atm with the Masuda Method and so far no luck out of the 70 some eggs I hatched but I cant wait for that moment!

    Reply

    • Hacking doesn’t really affect the actual ‘value’ of a shiny. Mainly because, most people either don’t care or feel vexation about you having a shiny (especially if they don’t, if they do they usually shove their accomplished shiny down your throat) so really obtaining a shiny is your own accomplishment.

      Shinies are still rare as hell so I’m not sure how ‘easily’ you seem to think getting them are. People keep confusing luck with skill and apparently haven’t learned statistics yet.

      Reply

        • Fishing chains are still luck. It’s only easy because you don’t have to move. xD That’s what messes me up with the radar I HAVE TO MOVE.

          Reply

          • all fishing chains are though, is a matter of whether or not you can fish ;-;
            all it is is fishing a bunch of times in a row, and the shiny odds are increased, which makes it even easier…

      • I understand your point and totally agree with you on how obtaining a shiny is your own accomplishment (which feels good). But hacking goes against the system so its no longer by pure chance. So are you saying that obtaining a shiny is skill? because i would love to have that skill but i see it as luck. Probability. And yes, in the end, shinies are still rare.

        Reply

        • No, I’m saying people seem to be assuming getting a shiny is by skill. Hacking wouldn’t affect the value of a shiny because getting a shiny is a personal accomplishment. Therefore a hacked shiny doesn’t really take away from one’s personal accomplishment of getting a shiny but doesn’t add anything either. The only way hacking would affect shiny value is if there were only a fixed number of legit shinies in the world as hacking one would lower the overall worth of their existence.

          Reply

          • Ahhh ok I got confused there. Since you explained it more, it makes more sense. Well with the hacking, it makes shinies readily available to be battled and traded instead of being a rare chance to see one (competitively). Their overall worth isnt lowered, its just their personal worth. Once you see a team with 6 shinies consistently, it gets tiresome to see especially if you lose to them

    • The only thing I find an accomplishment is hatching a 5 flawless/6 flawless shiny by breeding before pokebank comes out. That is rewarding. TCMets accomplished that!

      Reply

  18. I personally say that shinies haven’t lost their purpose at all. Shiny Pokemon may be more common in X & Y (I caught a shiny Petilil in the friend safari and breed a Timid Zorua today) but shinies still take a little bit of time and effort and thanks to shinies being more common more people can have some, people don’t have to cheat to get good battle shinies and now shinies could easily be considered a Pokemon form now like Basculin, Pyroar, Florges, etc. Shinies are still great even after being a lot more common and I still get that sense of achievement when I breed a shiny. Does anyone else agree with me?

    Reply

  23. My current team consists of Lanturn, Houndoom, Noivern, and Gourgeist

    Any recommendations for the final two members of my team?

    Reply

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