Pokemon Go Fest Players Complain of Poor Shiny Rate

Pokemon Go Fest attendees are not happy with the event's poor Shiny rate. Today marks the first day of Pokemon Go Fest, a two-day global Pokemon Go event that provides players with the chance to capture rare Pokemon and encounter the mythical Pokemon Shaymin for the very first time. One of the main draws of Pokemon Go Fest is that players are more likely to encounter Shiny Pokemon. While Pokemon Go noted that this year's event would bring some changes to how Shiny Pokemon will appear, many players aren't thrilled for what they consider to be a poor rate. 

For this year's event, Pokemon Go players with a ticket will get a boosted Shiny rate both in the wild and when they use an Incense. The Shiny rate is also supposed to be higher today compared to Sunday's rate. During past events, players have caught dozens of Shiny Pokemon during the event, especially if they played during the entire day. However, over on the Silph Road subreddit and on Twitter, players believe that Pokemon Go has turned down the Shiny rate for the event. One player said they played continuously for four hours and only caught two Shiny Pokemon, while another player said they caught zero Shiny Pokemon over the course of 7 hours. 

Part of the issue is that Niantic does not disclose the Shiny Encounter rate during "boosted" events, likely so they don't discourage players from purchasing a ticket. If Pokemon Go Fest only has a marginally higher Shiny rate than normal, Niantic developers may feel that advertising that will discourage ticket sales. So while we can't say for certain whether the Shiny encounter rate is lower than normal, there do seem to be a bit more complaints than in years past. It's also possible that some players are having incredibly bad luck – even a boosted Shiny rate doesn't guarantee a Shiny Pokemon as the game uses RNG when calculating encounters.

Pokemon Go Fest runs today and tomorrow from 10 AM to 6 PM local time. Be sure to let us know how many Shiny Pokemon you caught in the comment section!