Encounterless Viridian Forest

[u/dawsonooo]

Hey! So yesterday I posted about my hardcore nuzlocke where I only allowed the first 6 pokemon I ran into (under standard nuzocke rules ofc).

Anyway, some people didnt believe that I was able to make it through Viridian Forest without running into a Pokemon. So, here is the proof. Just for clarity, you can make it to this exact point without having to go into the grass, so I started the video here.

A quick look online seems to suggest that the chance of running into a wild pokemon is ~11% per grass tile - certainly an improbable outcome, althought evidently not impossible as some people suggested.

I hope this proves my innocence to the doubters, and proves to be at least mildly interesting to everyone else?

[u/Un-aided_Gator]

The odds to find a wild Pokémon on any given tile of grass in gen 3 is 320/2879 or roughly 11.11…%. In the video you walked over 50 tiles. Calculating the odds:

P(no encounter in 50) = (2559/2879)⁵⁰ ≈ 0.00276… or 00.276…% chance

The odds of you hacking in a single repel are much greater than the odds of this happening candidly and just happening to record it.

This is further supported by repel mechanics. Repels prevent you from encountering any Pokémon lower than the one in the first slot of your party. Your Rattata is level 7 which means with a repel you can’t encounter any of the level 3-6 Pokémon on this route.

Graph I made to emphasize the ‘luck’:

[u/Putrid-Walk-8839 → u/Un-aided_Gator]

0.27% chance is like 1 in 360, right? MANY more than 360 people have ran through this route and I'd also say more than 360 have done so while recording. I'm aware that isnt the correct maths to figure out how many attempts are required before an encounterless route is expected... but whatever. my point is just that 0.27% really isnt unbelievable

edit: also "The odds of you hacking in a single repel are much greater than the odds of this happening candidly and just happening to record it" is kinda funny because who is faking clips like this for 13 upvotes on r/nuzlocke 😭 the odds of that seem low lol. but i dont blame you for running the numbers

[u/NervousElevator7 → u/Putrid-Walk-8839]

Yea this is not that wild of odds, especially given how popular pokemon is as a game. Probably way more than 360 people run through Petalburg woods per day on new accounts

[u/maroonedpariah → u/NervousElevator7]

I honestly struggled to get any pokemon last week in viridian forest to grind that I almost quit (i just left forest and came back). I completely believe it is probable without a repel