Please support Game Informer. Print magazine subscriptions are less than $2 per issue

X
report

Data Miners Have Allegedly Uncovered Pokémon Go's Deepest Secrets

by Elise Favis on Jul 23, 2016 at 09:30 AM

Pokémon Go player Matthew Egan, along with other data miners from the research team The Silph Road, have allegedly unearthed a multitude of Pokémon Go's secrets, from the level cap to whether Ditto is truly out there or not.

Pokémon Go has become a cultural phenomenon since its launch earlier this month, but it's also been plagued with server issues. Read more about our impressions of the augmented reality mobile game by heading here, and discover all the strange and crazy stories we've heard about the game here.

Warning: If you'd rather find these secrets out yourself, don't read any further!

Here are all the findings, as seen on Reddit and initially posted on Egan's Facebook:

  • The Trainer Level Cap is 40.
  • Egg's cap at Level 20, so if you get an Egg at Level 37 it'll still hatch at the same quality as if you were level 20.
  • Wild Pokemon cap at Level 30, meaning after Level 30 everyone will find the same max CP Pokemon and it'll be a matter of spending the candy and stardust to upgrade them to your level's cap based on their CP arc.
  • Curveballs and Accurate Throws (Nice, Great, Etc) have been confirmed as helping with the capture chance of a Pokeball throw.
  • There may be future Incubators that reduce the amount of kilometers needed before they hatch. (There is an incubator called "distance" in the code)
  • Moves have an Accuracy and a Critical Hit Rate.
  • Each unique Pokemon has it's own Capture and Flee rate.
  • Move Damage may go up with Trainer Level.
  • Pokemon do become harder to catch as you level up.
  • Mewtwo, Moltres, Zapdos, Articuno are Legendary.
  • Mew is Mythic.
  • Farfetch'd is out there... somewhere. As is Ditto.
  • The Charge Meter is filled 0.5 for each 1 HP of damage dealt. This means a super effective move that does more damage will charge the special attack faster - that is actually really important to know.
  • To level from 39 to 40 takes FIVE MILLION EXPERIENCE, and going from 1 to 40 takes Twenty Million. On my best day I can get about one hundred thousand exp, maybe 125k. So that's like 3-4 months to go from 39 to 40. Won't be seeing that any time soon!
  • Pokemon have a base Attack, Defense and Stamina (HP) - thus they do not have a Attack and Special Attack stat like in the 3DS games.
  • Dragonite has the strongest base attack for non-legends, at 250.
  • MewTwo has a base attack of 284.
  • Moltres has the highest base attack of the three legendary birds.
  • Articuno has the highest base defense of the three.
  • Zapdos is almost as high as Moltres in base attack but is likely lower due to Type Advantage.
  • Pokemon have an evolution modifier AND a HP modifier when they evolve both CP and HP go up a set multiplier.
  • Defending Pokemon at a Gym attack every 1.5 seconds.
  • The Master Ball is in the game, no clue where it is found.
  • The Legendary Pokemon do have a spawn rate - BUT - they have no capture rate, could this mean they require a Master Ball?
  • STAB is present in the game, giving a 25% Bonus to an attack move. STAB stands for "Same Type Attack Bonus" and means if a Grass Pokemon uses a Grass move it will hit harder than if a Ground Pokemon used the same Grass move. This is a big deal confirmation.

[Source: Matthew Egan, Reddit]

Correction (07/24/16): An earlier version of this article credited the wrong source for where this information surfaced. These findings were found by Matthew Egan along with data miners from The Silph Road, who originally posted this information via Facebook. We sincerely apologize for this error. Out of respect towards Egan's voiced privacy concerns, we are not providing a direct link to his initial Facebook post.