PokéBase - Pokémon Q&A
4 votes
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In Bulbapedia you can see there's many occasions where the same species of Pokemon in one grassy area can appear in different levels and whenever I grind in one area I always see that most Pokemon have a certain level range and the ones with lower levels are more likely to appear than with higher levels. My question is is there a specific chance for each level in the range? Say the level range is 25-28 but the chance of getting a lv 25 is 50% then for a lv 26 it's 10% and so on. I tried to look for a chart or something and couldn't find anything but I have seen a youtuber who said "If you use a lv 37 repel trick in the Safari Zone there's a 16.66% for a Houndour and an 83.33% for a Miltank" but I don't know how he got the numbers. Right now I need this for Gold but information for any gen would be appreciated.

by
But HOW does the RNG determine the level?
It's called Random Number Generator for a reason.
^ JasonEeveelution I was about to comment exactly that.
Just because it's random doesn't mean it follows no rules.
Of course an algorithm is used to generate a 'random' number (note that RNG is never truly random), but I highly doubt OP cares about how this hypothetical RNG would work. The bottom line would be that there's a random chance for each encounter slot -- which includes the Pokemon's level -- to be selected.

1 Answer

3 votes

Pokemon games use something called encounter tables. Each area and time of day/season has its own table of the Pokemon that occur. (Sun/Moon even has separate tables for every patch of grass in one area too!)

Each table is made up of several slots, and when you encounter a Pokemon the game chooses a slot at random for the area you're in. But each slot has a different percentage, so some Pokemon appear mroe than others. The slots are the same for every table in a game but they have different Pokemon of different levels in them.

For example, in Sun/Moon there are 10 slots in each table with percentages 20%, 20%, 10%, 10%, 10%, 10%, 10%, 5%, 4%, 1%. If there was only 1 Pokemon in a route then it would have the same thing in all slots. But each slot could have a different level e.g.

Yungoos L2 (20%), Pikipek L2 (20%), Yungoos L3 (10%), Pikipek L3 (10%), Yungoos L2 (10%), Pikipek L2 (10%), Rockruff L2 (10%), Rockruff L2 (5%), Rockruff L2 (4%), Mareanie L3 (1%)

So here you can see Yungoos level 2 has a 30% chance to appear, while Yungoos level 3 has a 20% chance to appear. Same for Pikipek. But most guides just give the overall percentage, e.g. Yungoos level 2-3 has a 40% chance to appear.

by
Hey PM, the tag said "Gold-Silver"
The same thing applies to ALL games.
But you still only answered for Sun and Moon.
Actually, the only example he gave was for Sun and Moon. If the same thing applies to all games, I don't really think that he needs to give an example to each game.
I was referring to only GS.