Pokemon Go Nerfs Drop Rates for Rare Candies and Golden Razz Berries

Pokemon Go has nerfed the drop rates of two of its most sought after items: Rare Candies and Golden Razz Berries.

Earlier this week, we reported that Pokemon Go had added Potions to the list of potential items that players could earn for beating Raids. At the time, we believed that the change was a good thing, as potions were in short supply for many players who participated in multiple raids in a day. While Potions can be obtained for free from PokeStops and Gyms, adding them as a Raid Reward allowed players to heal up their Pokemon more quickly and get back to battling and capturing Legendary Pokemon.

However, as players ran through gyms yesterday, they noticed that Golden Razz Berries and Rare Candies seemed to drop at significantly lower rates than before. Since we didn’t know how Pokemon Go‘s Raid Reward system worked (it was seemingly random,) we dismissed the complaints as bad luck from the game’s notorious RNG system.

Last night, the Silph Research Group, a fan-group dedicated to unlocking the secrets of Pokemon Go, posted their findings about how the Raid Reward System worked. While the research was based on data from before Potions were added to the Raid Reward pool, it proved that Pokemon Go had set ratios for rewards….which meant that the game nerfed the release rates for Golden Razz Berries and Rare Candies.

A Breakthrough in Raid Rewards

The Silph Road’s full research findings can be found here and are definitely worth a read. To summarize their findings, Raid Rewards are divided into bundles, which are then distributed based on the Raid Level and how many Premier Balls a player earned during the battle.

Each Raid Level has its own set of “reward bundles” containing a fixed number of items. A Level 1 Raid, for instance, will only give out 1 Rare Candy per “Reward Bundle” while a Level 5 Raid will give out 3 Rare Candies per “Reward Bundle.” Revives and Golden Berries also had sets of “Reward Bundles,” which varied in size depending on the Level of Raid you participated in.

How many Reward Bundles you get is determined by how many Premier Balls you get and the Level Raid you beat. So, players will get between one Reward Bundle if they only earn 5 Premier Balls in a Level 1 Raid, but they’ll get ten Reward Bundles if they earn 13 Premier Balls or more during a Legendary Raid. So, you earn more rewards and have a better chance of getting Rare Candies and other rare items for every Premier Ball you get at the end of a Raid Battle.

What’s more, it’s also possible to get multiples of the same type of reward bundle after a battle. So, if you got six Reward Bundles, it was possible to get three sets of Revives, 2 sets of Rare Candies, and 1 set of Golden Razz Berries. That’s why some players would get 20 Revives after a Raid Battle, or 9 Rare Candies at a time. 

Like every other part of Pokemon Go, what rewards you get after a Raid Battle also came down to a bit of luck, too. Before potions were added last week, players had the same probability of getting a set of Revives as they did getting a set of Golden Razz Berries. The probability varied by level (since you had a slightly better chance of getting TMs in higher level Raids), but it roughly came to a 30% chance for Revives, Golden Razz Berries, and Rare Candies per Raid. 

How the Golden Razz Berries and Rare Candies Were Nerfed

While the Silph Road haven’t obtained enough data to figure out the new probabilities with Revives, it seems pretty clear that Pokemon Go adjusted the drop rate for Golden Razz Berries and Rare Candies downwards to compensate for the addition of Potions. While revives seem to have been affected too, it’s obvious that players no longer have a 30% chance of getting Golden Razz Berries or Rare Candies after a Raid.

If players had a 30% chance of getting Golden Razz Berries before, it seems that they now have a 13%-18% chance depending on if Pokemon Go distributes all types Potions evenly or if they only distribute certain types of Potions per Raid Level. 

Obviously, halving the distribution rate is a pretty big nerf and really hurts a player’s chances of accumulating Rare Candies and Golden Razz Berries. Considering that many players used the Golden Razz Berries to catch Legendary Pokemon (as it gave players a much needed catch bonus), nerfing how often players can get them could also impact future Legendary Raids like the upcoming Mewtwo event. 

We’ll have to see if Pokemon Go adjusts the distribution rates, or if this is the new norm. Now that we know how Raid Rewards works, it seems that Pokemon Go has more tweaks to make in the coming weeks.