ORAS Route 101 weirdness

[screw_dog]

Sooo, I've been catching pokemon on route 101 in order to stuff in my Pokebank, and I've noticed something a bit strange. It seems that I cannot fail to catch any normally encountered pokemon (Wurmple / Poochyena / Zigzagoon).

I've caught about 80, all of which were caught first-time with a normal pokeball, and without damaging or statusing any of them. According to the known catch mechanics, there should only be a 1 in 3 chance of doing that, and I've managed about 80 in a row. This also seems to work for hidden pokemon, but I haven't caught enough to be sure. And I think, but I'm not sure that I haven't had any critical captures either. If I head over to route 102 the catch mechanics seem normal.

My hypothesis is that route 101 has been made an exception to the normal mechanics so that when you start out you don't have to try too hard to catch your first pokemons.

Anyway, I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else on the 'net, so I thought I'd point it out. Especially if it's just a glitch in my game or I'm just that lucky. If not, it should probably be noted on Bulbapedia.

 

[SnorlaxMonster]

I've contacted people who've looked into the Generation VI capture routine before (here it is, if you're interested), as well as asked people on my Twitter to see if they can fail to capture a Pokemon on Route 101. If this is true, it certainly is very interesting.

 

[Joshawott]

IT'S TESTING TIME!

For the purposes of my testing, I bought 20 Pokéballs and only had one Pokémon in my party to begin with - a lv.1 Spearow (that obviously levels up as I catch more Pokémon). For each Pokémon, I would simply throw the Pokéball at them when the battle commenced.

#01 ) Lv.2 Poochyena (Hidden Pokémon). Caught.
#02 ) Lv.2 Wurmple. Caught.
#03 ) Lv.2 Zigzagoon. Caught.
#04 ) Lv.2 Poochyena. Caught.
#05 ) Lv.2 Zigzagoon. Caught.
#06 ) Lv.2 Wurmple. Caught.
#07 ) Lv.2 Wurmple. Caught.
#08 ) Lv.2 Zigzagoon. Caught.
#09 ) Lv.2 Zigzagoon. Caught.
#10 ) Lv.2 Wurmple. Caught.
#11 ) Lv.2 Zigzagoon. Caught.
#12 ) Lv.2 Zigzagoon. Caught.
#13 ) Lv.2 Zigzagoon. Caught.
#14 ) Lv.2 Poochyena. Caught.
#15 ) Lv.2 Sewaddle (Hidden Pokémon). Caught.
#16 ) Lv.2 Zigzagoon. Caught.
#17 ) Lv.2 Wurmple. Caught.
#18 ) Lv.2 Zigzagoon. Caught.
#19 ) Lv.2 Poochyena. Caught.
#20 ) Lv.2 Zorua (Hidden Pokémon). Caught.

It might also be worth noting that out of those 20, 8 of them were holding items. Which could be coincidental, but strikes me as curiously high when compared to other routes.

Then to compare, I went to Route 102 with the intention of catching 10 Pokémon, but the first one broke out straight away.

Obviously, my sample size wasn't very high, but the results were still promising.

EDIT:
I've reached out to my friends on Facebook to help me. One has reported to have caught 50 Pokémon without fail.

 

[Kallyle]

Huh. That's a really interesting factoid there. I suppose it was done to ensure that newbies could actually catch a Pokémon if they were having trouble.

 

[Tiddlywinks]

I've actually expected this to be the case since X/Y (and Kalos Route 2). When I've wanted to catch some random Pokemon, I've gotten into the habit of heading to that first route and just throwing Poke Balls, and I haven't noticed an exception. Like screw_dog said, I think they're just giving players an easy start.

 

[BlackButterfree]

Wow, this is pretty awesome. If they make capture rates 100% on every first route, that would be awesome.