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I guess some explanation is due for this. Say, I have an Abra with Synchronize (Modest nature). I want to pass the nature onto that opposing Pokemon. But there's that 50% chance that it won't activate, and it doesn't.

In this case, is it possible for the opposing Pokemon to still get Modest nature?

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yes i would just have a non boosted  1/25 chance (there are 25 natures)

1 Answer

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Best answer

Technically speaking, yes.


Practically speaking, impossible to find out

>From Pokémon Emerald onwards, if a Pokémon with this Ability is leading the party, there is a 50% chance that wild Pokémon encountered will have the same Nature as the Pokémon with Synchronize. Starting in Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, this also applies to gift Pokémon in the Undiscovered Egg Group.

--Bulbapedia

Think of it in this way:
There are a total of 25 natures,
and a 50% chance of one nature.

This implies, the other 24 natures have a (50% / 24)

= 2.08 %

Now, assuming that the Modest nature was acquired without the boost, the chance would be (50% / 25) = an even 2%

So, the difference is a tiny 0.08%, which is practically impossible to distinguish from, because, it may be counted separately, or the chance was just "added over" over to the other 50%. Now, the question lies: Can a Pokemon be guaranted to have a nature more than 50% of time ? If yes, then it is simple. Chance of Modest nature is 50.08% meaning that the Ability did not activate. If not, tough luck, we still can't figure it out.

Here's to more confusion:

>In Generations III and IV, Nature is determined by the Pokémon's personality value. In later games, it is stored in an unrelated variable.

--Again, the pot-pourri of all Pokemon information.

Further,

>From Generation V onward, Nature is determined by a separate byte, unrelated to the personality value.

--Take a guess.

About Personality Values:
>A Pokémon's personality value is an unsigned 32-bit integer that is created when the Pokémon is first encountered. It is set when a Pokémon appears in the wild, when an Egg is first received from the Pokémon Day Care by the player (in Generation III* except in Pokémon Emerald and in Generation V) or by the Day-Care man (in Emerald and Generation IV), or when a Pokémon or its Egg is received from an NPC.
As an unsigned 32-bit integer, its value can be anywhere from 0 (32 zeroes in binary) to 4,294,967,295 (32 ones in binary), (both) inclusive.

Yay, more probabilities! (Attempt at sarcasm, for those of you who are sitting in the back)

So yeah, tough question, mate. You pulled off one of the most impossible to answer question ever. Congrats. Go celebrate with cake. (Not sarcasm. Cake is good.)

Finally, the answer to this mysterious byte that holds the answer:

It is formed by a pseudorandom number generator (basically, something so complex, that they gave it a name so long that I had to copy + paste that instead of actually typing it. Wowzah.).

More about this piece of extreme level algorithms that only Alan Turing and other such evolved minds can think of:
>In order to generate 'random' events in games and other forms of software, they must get as close to looking it as they can. There are limitless ways of accomplishing this. The degree of apparent randomness depends on the ability to predict the next result of the algorithm.

And then,

>First, the generator must have a seed, a number to start with. This number is usually a date and time referring to the first time that the algorithm is called during the usage of the device or the software's active session. Seeds are also occasionally derived from user input, as it is highly improbable to do the exact same thing more than once, making it appear 'random'.
This number is put through a complex algorithm, and the result is formatted according to the needed context. The raw result then becomes the seed for any subsequent uses of the random generator. Therefore, the nature of the generator is a recursive algorithm.

--Yea, you guessed it. 10 points to Griffindor. Yay.

Finally! Some answer! It all depends at what time you catch/ encounter your Pokemon! (lol.)

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Lol, sorry for putting you through that xD. I just have one question though.

Wouldn't 2.08% and 2% be of two different cases altogether? I mean, 2.08% is acquired while taking Modest as 50% (case where the Synchronize modest is the only one) and 2% is acquired while taking only Synchronize and not Modest (case where modest appears without Synchronize). Finally the chances for Modest in the first case is 50% and the other case 52%. I'm just confused as to why you subtracted those two chances...

Otherwise, fantastic answer :O
It's ten points to Griffindor, don't you know how to Harry Potter?
Yikes!  Thanks a ton (again),  Astro.  Yeah,  in my defense though,  10 minutes onto this answer and you start to lose a bit of  your fine tuning abilities.  I really missed that tiny error. (How amateur.)
Oh,  and Qwerty (damn I like your name),  I subtracted the 2 percentages to show how small the difference is,  making it really hard to distinguish. Not any other reason,  to be honest. I was just comparing how close the app was,  between the 2 cases.  Besides,  the 2% added to the 50% makes it  easier for us to see the significant difference,  so the 0.08% doesn't matter Inn that case. However,  if you assume the integral value of the probability to be added over to 50%, that is to say,  if the final sum was still 50%, or rather,  the initial probability was 48% and that unboosted chance was finally counted in to create the 50%, then and then alone we see the difference and significance of the 0.08%. [Now I'm really confused too lmao,  but if you just think it through,  you'll understand it better than I can explain it lol]
Tbh I was confused because 2.08 stood for every other nature, and 2% stood for modest in case it had a chance. For every nature but modest, the original chance was 2.08 and theoretical one was 2%. The difference here is 0.08, that I understood.

But modest had an original probability of 50% (synchronize) and theoretical probability of 52% (synchronize + the calculated 2%) . So the difference here is 2%. That's where my confusion lies, did I assume something wrong??