Niantic has responded to community backlash over sudden Remote Raid nerfs for Shiny encounters in Pokémon Go today, calling the occurrence a “technical issue” and promising to compensate players who were impacted while the problem was live.
Over the last several days, players noted an oddity in Pokémon Go’s current five-star raid rotation, which currently features multiple region-locked Legendary Pokémon.
Azelf, Mesprit, and Uxie are all Legendary Pokémon that can only appear in raids within select regions. This makes them prime candidates for players to use Remote Raid passes on, so they can help friends from around the world complete the raids and catch Pokémon which would normally be unavailable to them with in-person content.
From June 1, when the rotation began, Japanese data website 9db collected data from hundreds of players and reported Shiny odds for the Sinnoh Lake trio had tanked from the usual 1/20 rate (about a five percent chance) to around one percent or less—but only in Remote Raids. This led to community backlash and speculation Niantic was once again making detrimental changes to Remote Raids, this time without actually informing anyone.
Today, Niantic has seemingly debunked the nerfs. Apparently, an undisclosed issue caused Shiny encounter rates for Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf in Remote Raids to be much lower than players are used to—though those numbers still haven’t been shared publicly.
With this fix now in place, Shiny odds have jumped from around one to two percent back up to that four to five percent mark Pokémon players are used to. Niantic will also be compensating players who were impacted by these Remote Raid errors.
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Anyone who participated in an Azelf, Mesprit, or Uxie Remote Raid from June 1 until the fix was implemented this week will be refunded all of the Remote Raid Passes they used and gifted an additional one too.
Niantic also told players to keep an eye out for a “special Raid event” that will be officially unveiled shortly. Dot Esports will update this article with more information on that event when it becomes available.
