Probability of receiving an item from trainers who hand them out? (Gen 2)?
Hi, I’m playing Gen 2 (Crystal on cartridge). I’m trying to gather PP UPs from Kenji on Route 45, I’ve gotten 1 from him so far, and someone I know also playing the same game has received several. In each of these instances, it has beenuscalling Kenji. Most of the time he is training, but occasionally asks you to come to Route 45 (on the day, or tomorrow) and hands you a free PP UP (no rematch).
I am wondering whether anyone knows what the expected number of PP UPs is if he is called every day, say over 1 week? More generally, does anyone know the mechanics of the game in this regard?
Iassumeit is no different for Kenji than other trainers who hand out items, though that’s just a guess.
It seems there isn’t much info on this online.This postmentions timers and so on, but concerns trainers calling you, rather than you calling them for items.
Pleaselog inorregisterto add a comment.
Roughly you will get from 9 or 10 PP Ups every 30 days, but there’s a pattern as it is not entirely random every day. The following is my own reading through the GitHub code, and tested on a real game too. I would like to further discuss if something was not clear.
Technically, Kenji has a secret daily countdowntimerthat, when it reaches 1, then when you call Kenji during the DAY (10 am - 6 pm), he will ask you to visit. If the timer reaches 2, then he will tell you to visit the next day. If you obtained the PP UP, then the daily countdown timer will reset to arandom number between 3 and 6. If you did not call him or claimed the item, then the timer will be reset the next day in the same fashion.
So first, if you’re just beginning to gather PP UP’s, on any given day, without any info, you will have a 1/6 chance that Kenji will be on a break. It does not matter if you just registered him that same day. So you will need to call every day to check when he is on a break, but rest assured that this first step will take you at most six days.
Now for example, let’s assume you obtained a PP UP from Kenji on a Monday. Then the next time Kenji will be on a break will be a random day between Wednesday and Saturday, with equal probability (1/4). And the corresponding “call me tomorrow” will pop up the day before (between Tuesday and Friday). So you should still be checking every day, but at least you know exactly a range of days where you should be expecting it. So let’s say you got the next PP Up on Thursday, so now you know will receive the next one on a random day between Saturday and Tuesday of the next week. And so on and so forth…
Those are the probabilities, now for rough averages. From these numbers you’ll get between 1 and 4 PP Ups a week (more commonly 2). No more or less. That’s about 6 to 15 every month (30 days). Let’s make a calendar starting from “Monday 1” (the first day you got a PP Up and you are keeping track)
Worst case scenario: you get PP Up every 5 days every time! The dates you get a PP Up are
Monday 1 - Saturday 6 - Thursday 11 - Tuesday 16 - Sunday 21 - Friday 26 (a total of 6 times)
Best case scenario: you get PP Ups every 2 days!
Monday 1 - Wednesday 3 - Friday 5 - Sunday 7 - Tuesday 9 - Thursday 11 - Saturday 13 - Monday 15 - Wednesday 17 - Friday 19 - Sunday 21 - Tuesday 23 - Thursday 25 - Saturday 27 - Monday 29 (a total of 15 times)
Of course, those extreme scenarios are just as common as encountering a shiny Pokémon with perfect IV’s.You will more commonly get from 9 or 10 PP Ups after 30 days. So I hope that finally answers your question.
PS: Very briefly, if you’re interested about the other trainers (Alan, Gina, etc) every time they call there is roughly a 6% to 9% chance they will give you an evolution stone. The Pokéfans will give nuggets with 25% chance, Jose will give you a Star piece with 22 % chance and Tiffany will give Pink Bows with 4% chance.
Ok, so after watchingCrystal_’s videoand then, looking through the code fromGitHuband testing it for myself, I think I figured it out.
First, in crystal version, Kenji does not call for a rematch ever so, this is not a possibility to interfere with your PP UP collecting.Second, he will not call you to let you know when you can come and collect a PP UP from him.Whenever Kenji call you he will say:
Finally, you have to call him in order to find out when you can talk to him to get a PP UP. How does it work?
When calling Kenji, he has hisgreeting:
“Kenji here…”
andtime-based response:
and then… he has his 3 possibleresponsesthat are chosen randomly.
• “I plan to take a lunch break, so come see me then! Ayiiiyah!” (Morning)• “I’m taking a break on ROUTE 45! Why not drop by if you are free?” (Day)• “I rested up over my lunch break. Now it’s time to resume training! Ooooryaah!” (Night)
and then he will give you hisfarewell:
“Anyway, we’ll chat again!”
Now the important part is the third part,response, this is where it is decided if he will have a break or not.In my findings and testing, I found that I could not find him directly on break any day I called. I would only get the 1.responsewhere he tells me he has time tomorrow. Now, this is because he cannot have a break unless he tells you “I can chat tomorrow” making the 3responsesthe game has to choose from to be only 2 choices. Since the lunch break response can’t be triggered w/o the prior “we can chat tomorrow”, it will fail as a choice returning it as a “call back another time” response. This makes your chances of getting a “we will chat tomorrow” response a 1/3 chance.
So, you have a 1/3 chance to trigger his “we can chat tomorrow” response, which guarantees the following day to be a lunch break day. Now, on lunch break days, you can only collect the PP UP from him during DAY hours. If it is MORNING, he hasn’t gotten to break yet. If it is NIGHT, you missed your chance for a PP UP and have to wait until the next time.
If anything is unclear and needs clarification, let me know and I will do my best! This is all assuming the code from GitHub is accurate and true to the original game and that I had found all relevant information to Kenji and this gift event in the code.
See RareCandyBar’s Answer for a more complete answer.
Other source used for referenceBulbapedia
