Quick question about Cute Charm...

[Pokemaster Ash]

While I'm waiting for a response about Tropius (see Mythbusters topic, end of page 1), I have another quirky little....something to ask.

Okay, usually I don't care too much about the genders of the Pokémon I catch (save some....special cases). However I've heard that when a Pokémon with Cute Charm leads the party, the chances of encountering a wild Pokémon of the opposite gender becomes very likely (even when said opposite gender is very rare, like in 12.5-25% range). Would this effect work on Pokémon found in the Mansion (like Eevee), or is this only applied to regular wild Pokémon?

[EngiMatikul]

Yea, I actually had a HUGE PROBLEM trying to get a female ledian when I had my female Delcatty in the front, so I'm pretty sure this is true. However, I dunno if this will even out the odds for rarer type genders...


*should go try with togepi* In any case, I don't see how pokemon mansion would be any different. :V

I have a female Eevee if you want one :V

[Chris 2.1]

So would this help in finding a female Combee, or is it different for Pokemon from sweet honey trees?

[Pokemaster Ash]

I dunno if it'd work on the trees or not. As far as needing Eevees, I think I can handle that on my own. A little patience with the Mansion and I'll be fine.

Now if only I could figure out what the deal is with Tropius, but that's an entirely different topic (literally).

[Phoenixsong]

Yes, the Cute Charm thing is true. I believe that it increases the chances of finding opposite gendered-Pokémon by 50%, although the number might be different. This means that, for example, a male Skitty will still be harder to find than a female (and I know this from personal experience) because the male Skitty rate will become 62.5% as opposed to the 87.5% that already exists for the female. You'll run into almost exclusively, if not exclusively, males of other, less skewed species.

Correct me if I've done some incorrect math here, but I think that's how it works.

[Pokemaster Ash]

Well one would assume that if the rate of encounter for the one gender is raised, then inversely the encounter rate of the other gender is lowered to balance.

However would it work on semi-special encounters like the Mansion Pokémon, or the Honey Tree ones, or the swarms?

[rinku]

Can't see why not. I THINK this feature was in Emerald as well, but I never tested it.

[Phoenixsong]

Well one would assume that if the rate of encounter for the one gender is raised, then inversely the encounter rate of the other gender is lowered to balance.

However would it work on semi-special encounters like the Mansion Pokémon, or the Honey Tree ones, or the swarms?

One would assume that, but that's not my experience. I was specifically hunting for a male Skitty, and the majority of the Skitties I found were still female (when I found a Skitty at all). I saw more males than I normally would, but still not that many.

Cute Charm and like abilities don't technically decrease chances of anything happening; they just increase the chance of finding what you're specifically looking for over what would normally happen. I think. Normally, that means that, yes, you'd find more of what you're looking for than what you're not. Actually, my reasoning wasn't right there, and I apologize. I can't really explain exactly how it works now that I think about it, but in the case of something like Skitty, yes you will still find more females than males.

Ah, whatever. Someone like Negrek or Poryhedron could explain it better than I could. I'm not sure why I bother, I'm always either wrong or else I make no sense at all...

[Pokemaster Ash]

Okay, I got the chance to test my luck today with Eevee appearing in the Mansion in Pearl. Cute Charm DOES work in these cases, and it works very well. Of course, the trick is getting ones with good natures, but I can deal with that. I know it's a bit unorthodox to have all female Eeveelutions, but I figured I'd do it to mess with some people I know on IRC.

Just leaves me with one more problem, but that's not related to this topic.

[Poryhedron]

Having 62.5% male and 87.5% female doesn't make any sense at all. Those two figures must add to 100% because they refer to the fraction of encounters that are male or female.

It's possible that Cute Charm improves the odds of finding the opposite gender by 50%, meaning "by half again". This would mean that, when you lead with a female with Cute Charm, most species would turn up male 75% of the time (half again of the normal 50% is 75%, which means the chance of females is reduced to 25%.) It would also mean that Skitty would be male only 18.75% of the time, which is still an increase from the usual 12.5% but not much of one.

Then again, given Pokémaster Ash's testing, maybe the chance of finding the opposite gender actually has 50 added on to it, turning a 12.5% chance into a 62.5% chance. In that case, though, the chance of finding the other gender would drop from 87.5% to only 37.5%. Remember, finding a female really just means NOT finding a male. Or vice versa.