In Pokémon GO, trainers have made a strange discovery about the charge moves of Palimpalim and express a wild theory. One player is now trying to verify this using charge TMs. We at MeinMMO show you what it’s all about.
What moves are involved? When you catch a Pokémon in Pokémon GO, it already has a random fast and charge move assigned. However, these are not always optimal for use in raids or GO Battle League, which is why you have the possibility to change the moves of individual Pokémon using appropriate TMs.
Thus, you can customize the move combinations according to your preferences. Each Pokémon has a certain selection of moves from which you can choose. This also applies to the psychic Pokémon Palimpalim, which can learn the charge moves Energy Ball, Shadow Ball, and Psycho Shock.
However, a strange discovery has now been made with this Pokémon, leading to a wild theory within the community. What that theory is and how a trainer plans to verify it are summarized for you below.
Trainers make a strange discovery with Palimpalim
What discovery was made? As reddit user Willsgb shows in his reddit post, he has noticed irregularities in the selection of charge moves for Palimpalim. He wanted to change Palimpalim’s move using a Premium Charge TM.
Unlike using a normal Charge TM, where the selection occurs randomly, you can directly choose the move with a Premium Charge TM. Willsgb did this and found that Palimpalim’s charge move Psycho Shock was listed twice. For this reason, he asked on reddit: “Why does a charge move appear twice in the list of possible charge moves?”
What do the trainers suspect? While some trainers in the comments complain about poor game coding and immediately think of a bug, other players suspect that the double listing is related to a weighting when using the standard Charge TMs.
They could imagine that Psycho Shock is chosen more frequently by the system than either of the other two moves. However, there is no official confirmation on this yet.
By the way: Starting November 14, 2022, you can use a Charge TM to unlearn frustration with Crypto Pokémon again. Which Pokémon are particularly suitable for this can be read in the following post:
Trainer starts study with 70 Charge TMs
Reddit user tkaish is convinced that the double listing of the charge move for Palimpalim must be related to some kind of weighting and wants to prove this through a study of his own (via reddit.com).
What kind of study is he conducting? As tkaish explains in his reddit post, he has initiated a self-test using Charge TMs. So far, he has already used 70 Charge TMs to randomly change the charge move of Palimpalim. Each random selection is documented by him, so that he can finally determine how often the move Psycho Shock was chosen by the system. He writes:
After the recent post by u/Willsgb about the double appearance of Psycho Shock in Palimpalim’s Premium TM menu, a discussion arose about whether this means that Psycho Shock receives additional weight in random selection (with a normal TM). There was no immediate answer, so I conducted a test.
tkaish via reddit.com
The test subject was a shiny female Palimpalim, level 3. 70 Charge TMs were applied to the Palimpalim, and the results were recorded in sequence. Palimpalim has three possible charge moves: Psycho Shock (PS), Energy Ball (EB), and Shadow Ball (SB).
A Charge TM does not change the move Psycho Shock into Psycho Shock, so I was especially interested in what happens when the existing move is either Energy Ball or Shadow Ball. If Psycho Shock had double weight due to the double listing, one would expect a TM of EB or SB to switch to PS about 2/3 of the time and about 1/3 of the time to the other “Ball” move. If there is no additional weighting, a TM of EB or SB should switch to PS about 1/2 of the time and about 1/2 of the time to the other “Ball” move.
What are his results? At the end of his reddit post, he also discusses his previous results from this investigation. Thus, there were 45 attempts where the charge move was either Energy Ball or Shadow Ball and should be switched.
In 54% of the cases, he received the charge move Psycho Shock in the random selection. In the remaining 46%, the move switched to the other “Ball” move instead. This suggests that there is no higher weighting in the selection.
In my study with 70 Charge TMs, there were 46 cases where the existing move was EB or SB. 25 of these cases (54%) switched to PS. The other 21 (46%) switched from EB to SB or vice versa. This suggests that Psycho Shock is probably not weighted twice in the random selection, even though it appears twice in the selection list. But more data is always better! If you want to throw a bunch of TMs at a Palimpalim and report the order of moves you receive, please do so here. I will post my specific data below as a comment.
tkaish via reddit.com
Since 70 Charge TMs are not enough for a meaningful result, he asks other trainers to do the same and post their results in the comments.
A first look at the comments, however, shows that other players also arrive at similar results. For example, user Mason11987 received Psycho Shock 19 times out of a total of 32 attempts (via reddit.com). It can therefore be assumed that there is no special weighting for moves that are doubly set in the game’s code of a Pokémon.
What do you think of the study by reddit user tkaish? Did you hope there would be a double weighting for these moves? Or do you even want to participate in the research yourself? Please share your opinion here on MeinMMO in the comments and exchange thoughts with other trainers.
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