I took a break from LA to finish up some old research on SWSH curry Pokémon. This is probably the least well-known and most tedious method of shiny hunting in Pokémon Sword/Shield. Here's a megathread with all the findings in one place.
As I mentioned almost a year ago, the SWSH curry minigame relies on a new stat called sociability. Every Pokemon has a sociability stat that ranges from 0-255, and the game decides whether a wild Pokémon will appear based on your party's sociability. https://x.com/Sibuna_Switch/st...
Camp sociability increases through natural interactions in camp or by making curry. Higher grades of curry add more sociability. You need at least 2 party members to gain any sociability points. Eggs, of course, are excluded from camp interactions.
The game checks whether your entire party has enough sociability to be eligible to attract wild Pokémon. Most people don't ever see a Pokémon come to camp because they don't stay in camp long enough to build up sociability among their party members.
If your party has enough sociability to attract wild Pokémon, the chance of one appearing depends on the grade of curry you made. Here are the exact rates of a curry Pokémon appearing for each curry grade.
How do you make great curry then? Part technique, part components. Each ingredient and berry has its own rarity, and berries have flavor profiles. The final curry flavor is the highest total flavor; tied flavors result in tasteless curry. Full tables: https://docs.google.com/spread...
Experience and friendship gain depend on the curry components. Base friendship gain is half of total berry rarity rounded up. Base exp gain is 6 * ingredient rarity + total berry rarity, with a cap of 50, with multipliers for the Pokémon level. These increase with technique.
Curry Pokémon can be shiny! Their shiny rate is 1/4096, and they are unaffected by the Shiny Charm. The Curry Mark appears on 100% of Pokémon attracted to curry. The minigame is unaffected by the Mark Charm.
Many people have reported that curry spawns rarer species such as 1% Antique Sinistea more frequently. The weight calculation for each curry slot is (1 - regular chance)^2 * 100. This is summed up across all slots to get a new encounter rate. Lots of float casting is involved:
As an example, Route 1 Skwovet has a 40% normal hidden encounter rate. Curry weight for Skwovet is (1-0.4)^2 * 100 = 36. Total weight of all the slots is 326, so the curry Skwovet rate is 36/326 = 11.04%. The float casting causes some weights to be 1 point lower than expected.
I've included all the curry encounter rate tables for Sword and Shield! These are calculated with the previous formula, taking into account the float casting that slightly alters some of the values. Happy hunting! https://docs.google.com/spread...
@Sibuna_Switch Looking at the chart, it does look like Gigantamix + 10 Starf Berries are the best combination
@SHRetro I showed that it's possible to get Charizard solo with Gigantamix and a Cheri Berry previously. https://x.com/Sibuna_Switch/st...
@Sibuna_Switch do pokemon keep sociability if transferred from home and back, or do they retain this stat even when transferred from one game to another?
@LocalFurDerg Somewhat answered in the quoted tweet in the 2nd message, it stays even if traded around, and doesn't get wiped like how friendship can be if a Pokemon visits too many trainers.
@Sibuna_Switch Do wild pokemon also appear when camping with multiple people?
@aforgotto They only appear in the base game routes. All the locations with curry tables are in my last post.
@Sibuna_Switch Ahhh, now I don't feel so badly for playing around with my mons in camp during the hunt. Stop trying to get me back into my current hunt for shiny Purrloin the Curry Connoisseur. I still have Regina trades to do 😮💨
@Sibuna_Switch This is incredible, thank you for your research
@Sibuna_Switch Always got annoyed that I never got any Pokemon to join my camp and now I know why. Thanks for breaking down the method for us. Awesome work as always
@Sibuna_Switch Yooo!! Previously, mostly everything was estimated such as chance of spawns and spawn rates. Actually having concrete numbers is awesome. This is super helpful for the curry hunting community, thank you!
@Sibuna_Switch Whoa what? I didn’t know wild Pokémon could come into your camp 😱
@Sibuna_Switch All those shiny Wooloo 😲 Took me over 3600 encounters for just one of those things 😒😅
@Sibuna_Switch You know what I’m gunna do that today too ..
@Sibuna_Switch @CoffeeToaf @mgb_switch paradise
@Sibuna_Switch Ohhh my gosh. Anubis you hero.
@Sibuna_Switch I didn't even know Sociability was a thing at all, let alone obtaining mons via making CURRY
@Sibuna_Switch How you get the best rank for curry though
@Sibuna_Switch I just realized i never made a bad curry when i played sword and shield
@Sibuna_Switch *Me, who didn’t know you could encounter Pokémon this way*
@Sibuna_Switch Do you know if you can do runaways for hunting arceus? I’d test it myself but I don’t really know how to. It’s fine if you don’t.
@Sibuna_Switch Great thread, thanks for your work !
@Sibuna_Switch Thank you for the thread! This has been one of the few types shiny hunts I have never tried in Sw/Sh because I didn’t understand the mechanics and was waiting for more info on how to build a team or optimize it somehow. Can’t wait to learn more