Although the hype for Pokémon GO has died down a bit, there are still plenty of players out there who are set on catching 'em all. And now it's about to get a whole lot easier to capture the more rare monsters in the game.
Developer Niantic announced on Wednesday, Oct. 5 a new feature that will soon be added to the world of the augmented reality app.
Now when gamers focus on catching specific types of monsters, they will be rewarded with the new "capture bonus" feature when they earn medals in the game, which will in turn increase the odds of stumbling upon the more hard-to-find creatures.
Finally a feature that puts the medal system to good use.
Currently medals are rewarded after completing objectives. The most common kinds include when the player catches a specific type of Pokémon multiple times.
"These new bonuses will give you a better chance of capturing Pokémon with a related type," Niantic writes in a blog post.
This might sound confusing, so here's exactly how capture bonuses work:
After being rewarded with a medal for catching certain types of Pokémon such as Kindler, Psychic and Gardener, the player then has a higher chance of capturing monsters that are similar to these, but more rare.
"For example, as you reach a higher tier for the Kindler Medal, your bonus to catch Fire-type Pokémon such as Charmander, Vulpix and Ponyta increases," Niantic said.
While Niantic didn't do a great job at describing the ins and outs of this feature, we can assume that capture bonuses will make it easier to capture the rare Pokémon when tossing out a Pokéball to add to their Pokédex.
A third-tier Kindler medal awarded for Fire Pokémon is expected to give a bonus of +3, whereas a "Punk Girl" medal for catching 10 Poison Pokémon will only give the player a +1.
However, it's still not clear how much this bonus system applies per level when it comes to helping catching the rare monsters.
Being able to successfully catch rare Pokémon has been reportedly hard to do once the player reaches a higher level in the game. This could all now change thanks to this new feature.
Trainers will also be able to make their way to a new tier by catching multiple Pokémon of the same type, with the bonus being the average of the bonuses for each type.
"For example, Pidgey is both Normal and Flying type. Your bonus in this case would be the average of your Normal-type and Flying-type bonuses," the developer added.
Gamers will have to wait to get a clearer picture of how to master this feature when it comes to an update which will be released "soon." Niantic did not reveal the exact release date of the update.
At least it is making good on its promise the new features will be added to the game regularly. Last month the developer launched its new buddy system feature that lets trainers team up with a buddy Pokémon that collects in-game rewards while walking alongside the player's character.
Pokémon GO is available to download for free for iOS and Android.
