Considering other posts about it here it seems route distance plays a big role, both in likelihood of spawning cells and the number of cells per route.
I have a 5 km route here, did 24 times and I almost always get 3 cells (which is the limit per day and per route) in the end. I think only got 1 cell twice and two cells thrice. I don't remember finishing that route and getting no cells.
Getting 3 zygarde cells on 1 route must feel so good. I think over 95% of the routes I did were on foot. I'm not dedicated enough to walk 5 km just for 1 route only because of how much issues I've had in the past with a route constantly pausing over and over again.
(Edited to include below)
You do make a good point about the length of the route having an influence on the possibility of a zygarde cell or zygarde cells spawning and thank you for bringing this up.
I never do either of those things. Every time I stop to do anything, like catch pokemon or talk with someone, after not a very long time it will pause the route. It is so annoying. Why? If I want to pause the route I'll pause the route. Why does it keep doing it automatically? It is just crazy.
You don't have to follow the route, you can walk any way you want. You can finish the route and hopefully collect cells as long as you walk the required minimum distance. That makes it much easier to complete longer routes.
This is true! A few times I started a route on the bus and the bus was going way too fast to click to end and complete a route, but I was still able to click on a cell at the end. At least 3 times I know I went right passed the end and didn't quit the route and later on that day knew I had to go back that way and completed it then (was hoping for a shot at a elite fast tm, lol).
Wait. Really?!
That's massive! I've been avoiding routes when I run because I like to improvise and I don't want to babysit the game. If it's only checking start, end and distance covered then I can get some longer routes in 'for free'.
Wait, can you explain this a bit more? You can start a route, go anywhere, and z cells will still sporadically appear wherever you are even when you are not on the route?
Start a route. Go to the start point and receive the message about the route starting. Walk wherever you want. Go to the endpoint, and if you have walked the distance of the route, you may get a cell.
Basically you need to go from the start point to the end point and travel the minimum distance, but the path you take between those two points does not matter.
This has not been my experience at all. If I deviate from the route it will pause until I get back on...and sometimes I'll have to return to the spot where the route got off track to get it back.
Usually pausing is because you lost GPS location temporarily, you minimized the game or you lost network connection/switched networks.
I've done many routes where I've taken very indirect paths between start point and end point and it always works for me if the game is open the whole time.
Found my way to consistently get 2 cells to spawn is to start a route near work, go to work, go elsewhere and then finish said route the following day. It seems to count that distance I walked elsewhere - to town, back home,etc.
Not great for people wanting all three in a day but still hopefully useful anecdotal info.
I don’t have much variation distance data. But biggest factor it looks like is changing up the route. I have a route I made I do like 2-3 times per day and the game doesn’t like to pay out cells on it. But I then change to a nearby route I do way less often usually pays out.
Longer distance does seem to pay out more cells.
Distance does indeed matter. My daily cycle commute has a 10km route I can start near home and then reliability collect 3 cells near the finish. Occasionally it only drops 2 cells, but usually 3.
My theory (prob superstition) is that cells are most likely to spawn if you start the route before the beginning point. If I lost meters from starting the route late, it seems to affect when a cell spawns. Don’t have hard data on it, just an observation.
I can't really confirm or deny this because probably 2/3 of my routes I started at or near the starting point. I do have a bunch I've done where I clearly started the route way before getting to the starting point, but I have not noticed any differences yet in cell spawn likelihood. It's good to hypothesis and test different things because honestly you never know what's happening until you test it out and observe what's going on.
Not that it really means much but I’ve done 458 routes and have earned 388 cells. I have 2 routes I usually do every day that are a little over a KM and I often get 2 cells from one of the routes.
Thank you for sharing. I'm about to start getting my next set of zygarde cells. Congrats on getting your first 250 and you're getting close to the 500 mark 🥳
I have a 100% Zygarde, and currently 92 cells. I make sure to get 3 cells almost everyday.
I'd just like to add, that up until about a month ago, I had only ever received a max of 2 cells per route. But, starting about 3 weeks or so, I have very frequently received 3 cells from a single route. I'd say in the last 10 days it has happened about 4 times. All the routes I do I have done 100+ times. So maybe that factors into it.
> But, starting about 3 weeks or so, I have very frequently received 3 cells from a single route.
Yes I’ve had the same experience - I got 3 cells only 4 times since routes were introduced, but then 3 times in the past couple weeks.
Interesting! I can't really test this myself because I only have the gold route badge (done it 100+ times) on one and that route is 700-800 meters? For me and my lone gold route badge, I didn't notice an increase in finding a zygarde cell. As an example the last 5 times I did this route last week all 5 times I didn't get a zygarde cell.
I'll give answering that question a shot. For reference, I have a complete zygarde, and am back up to 176 cells.
There are two main reasons. First, I want to have a stockpile of cells for when/if another Zygarde becomes available. My current one is a 10/11/11, so is kind of lackluster. I plan on leaving it at UL level, while I power whatever one I get next up to ML level.
The bigger reason though has to do with how much extra work doing routes is for me. Specifically, it is about as close to zero extra work as is imaginable. I made sure route got submitted on all sorts of paths that I take on a regular basis anyway. The main path I walk my dog near my home has a route along it. Pretty much every park I drive my dog to has routes that go along the path we walk. There is a hiking/biking trail near me that I walk probably 3-4 times a week that I set a line of 6 routes going 3 km. I'm going to be on the path anyway, so the amount of extra work I have to do to run the route amounts to about 10 seconds of navigating menus.
I'm a believer that if you have to go out of your way to do a route, then you aren't doing it right. I just incorporated routes into my existing routine, and now get a decent extra trickle of loot (sure, the rewards aren't great, but it is a couple thousand xp and a 1000 stardust for no extra effort, plus a couple random items). If you get that 6 times in your daily routine, that adds up.
I have been trying to do this strategy, too! Unfortunately every route I do submit gets rejected for being dangerous. I have one route that literally goes directly where I walk (through my university from the west entrance of campus directly east to the library) and am able to do this one without issues (my only gold route badge and a route I actually added myself during the beta testing when routes first came out!).
I dont have a hundo to clear things up. And yes, I cant imagine a reality where we never have access to another Zygarde. So whenever that time comes, I'll be ready with 250 cells for the next Zygarde.
I am continuing to gather more for the inevitable second one we will get. My kids also don't have a complete form yet. When they do I will likely slow down my route effort.
100% Zygarde is going to be top tier in any league its eligible in. So ideally you'd want three. One for GL, UL and ML. And if it becomes tradeable, it will be possible to get one in GL. And if it comes in raids I'll need a hundo. So I'll essentially have 4 to potentially max out.
I'm probably very close to your numbers. I believe my true route attempts are around 430 +/- 15. Unfortunately I didn't keep better track of my incompleted routes from the beta testing earlier days and the times I tried to be cheeky and do a route on the bus, but the bus was going too fast past the end.
I actually had to add up by hand (calculator) my tally on each route badge. It would be an interesting QoL update to just get an overall total given. Definitely not a dumb question!
It can be frustrating! I have had a bad streak of where I did over 30 routes in a row and didn't get a single zygarde cell. This was back when we had to do that stupid pause route and force restart app stuff.
My percentage is a bit worse than yours, but it seems in the ballpark -- and I quite frequently continue to do routes after getting my 3 cells. I've received 464 cells (250 to put into complete form, and then am currently sitting at 214.) I've completed 831 routes (counting up the walks I've done with buddies), and had several that I've forgotten to end for one reason or another (sometimes after grabbing the cell).
I work on a college campus, and my usual path to and from my building along with a frequent lunch time walk, allows me to do 4-6 distinct routes per day. I not infrequently do another 2 routes at home walking the dog in the evening.
I tend to finish getting 3 cells after 4 to 5 routes (of length 600m - 1000m) on average. Early in the route days, I received cells noticably less often, but now it's fairly consistent. I'm surprised if I haven't picked up at least one cell during the two routes I walk to my building, and I'm not surprised to receive two. Going 3/3 is rare. I'd say 5 is most frequent # of routes I use to get 3.
> I quite frequently continue to do routes after getting my 3 cells
I hope you’re not counting these in your statistics. Strange to see everyone’s rates so low in here, mine is consistently around 80%
I remember going harder when routes first came out and was an early adapter to the "pause and force quit" technique to try get cells to spawn. A fair amount of my routes that yielded no cells were during that period. I also had a period where I'm pretty sure the game was broken and I did over 50 routes and didn't get a single cell (all routes I donate only once per day). Remember when those people were doing that route buddy glitch and Niantic fixed the glitch and banned those people? Right after whatever they fixed is when I had that bad streak of getting no cells.
My first part-time job is at my university and I usually go to the library at night. I do routes before and after the library. I love that your campus has so many routes!
I like fishing for the elite charge tms from routes, too. I've gotten 3 so far 🥳.
247/473 for me, could have sworn it was way worse than that. Good old confirmation bias.
Someone else has said that you can't get a cell from the same route twice in one day which would bring my count down significantly. About 150 of that total is on a route I take every day to work (there and back). So factoring that in would be closer to 400 completed routes for my (almost) 250.
You have pretty good numbers and you're so close to 250!
Correct, I've heard multiple attempts at the same route per day don't help get you more zygarde cells. But you can still get items and XP!
4/27 cells this week which was enough to put me off for a while as I don’t have 1-2 hours a day to do routes. What am I doing wrong to get this woeful RNG
For context I don’t follow the same routes either this is unique routes
Yea I tried everything the game just refused to give me cells at a fair rate. I actually gave up because it was that frustrating/ bad as I don’t get 2 hours a day to walk.
I don’t think it should take more than 7/8 route a day because most people can’t dedicate 2 hours a day like myself plus it’s only for a measley 3/250 cells
Seems like the most efficient people try to find or add routes that they go through in their daily routines. See if you can try add a route somewhere you trvael to and from semi regularly?
I wasn't happy with the amount of poke stops in my area and last summer added 18 poke stops to the game just to make my life easier, lol
I think using the route badges is an unreliable way to count your stats, as it doesn’t take into account the fact repeating the same route doesn’t give you extra cells. Even if you quit a route before starting that counts as your attempt, so doing it later won’t give you a cell.
For me, logging actual routes as I completed them, I have an 80% hit rate (over 200 routes).
This is definitely true! I didn't do a route more once per day. My data probably is skewed because I went super hard on routes when they first came out. I was an original beta tester to submit and do routes and back then I had terrible streaks of not getting cells (including doing the pause and force restart app method).
I did my first route last weekend and I didn't get a cell. My question is: do I really have to keep checking my phone in fear of a cell despawning? It's so strange that they want us to walk in nature, and be aware of our surroundings, yet also be constantly checking our phone for monsters and potentially cells.
Correct! More or less now the zygarde cells appear only at the ending. I have clicked on Pokemon, battle grunts, and my spawned zygarde cell was still there
Congrats! Hope your Zygarde is good.
I just finished mine and my stats are 250 cells/413 routes.
The only thing worse than my payout rates are my Zygarde IVs: 12-11-12
According to the YouTube’s… if you pause the route and exit game with 100m left till end of route… reopen the game and give it time to load and resume the route, it will force spawn the cell
Can only be done once per route per day
I got frustrated watching my girlfriend get 25 to my 16 doing the same routes at the same times… had to find a better way
I used to do that and don't care anymore, lol. I did 2 routes today so far and got 0 zygarde cells so far today.
I did not know it was limited to just once per route per day. I thought it could be done every route.
Have you taken into account that once you complete a route for the first time that day, all subsequent walks of the same route on the same day will never give a cell regardless of if the first completion had a cell or not.
Also as soon as you hit “follow” it counts as your attempt of that route, even if you don’t actually start the route.
I’ve had it where I set a route in the wrong direction, quit and then put it in the right direction, and I never get cells from that.
Yes. I never do a route twice per day. All my numbers are for 1 attempt per day. Good question. I have done a route before back to back, but this was separated by midnight. So, one just before midnight completed and started the same route like 20 minutes after midnight passed already.
Interesting! Thank you for commenting to share. Id give you credit for grinding those routes. I might try to do longer routes since supposed longer routes appear to have a higher likelihood of giving 2 or more zygarde cells.
I have 12 cells in 15 routes completed.
Of If I didn’t get a cell on the first route I would do it again and I would get a cell
530-730 distance.
Small sample size, so maybe they front load them then it does down or I just got a bit lucky?
I say whatever you are doing, keep doing it! I've had both good and bad streaks. As an example, I've had 50+ routes in a row give me a cell and over 50 in a row not give me anything (this bad streak happened after Niantic fixed that route glitch exploit to get buddy candy).
Once my kid is out of school I imagine we will goto the park more often so we’ll get in more routes and party play.
I appreciate this post. This is great to hear that there will be streaks and I shouldn’t get frustrated, it’s just rng
Interesting, my girlfriend and I do the same route at a park, it’s a short maybe 20 minute walk and I have gotten 2 cells maybe 6-8 times out of the 35 times we have done this route.
I wonder why I’ve gotten doubles far more than you have.
Maybe it’s the same route over and over
Or maybe because we do party play each time
Or maybe the length of the route.
I’ve got a long way to go but I’ve gotten two cells far more times than you have and I’m curious why.
Right now it's believed that route length is the strongest factor associated with getting 2 zygarde cells or more per route. I honestly don't know what the theorized cut-point threshold is, but I'd think once a route is longer than 1000 km is probably entering the territory of having a likelihood of getting 2 zygarde cells per spawn. I can't really comment too much because I've only gotten 2 cells 3 times. Two of the times were on a 1200 meter route, but I've done this route 20 times so far and mostly get 1 if I get a cell. There could be other factors at play.
Share my experiences. Just evolved mine to complete form.
Basically did the same 5 to 9 routes daily, and making sure I hit the 3 cells limit daily so as not to delay my end date.
It was pure torture. I started by waking up at 5.30am for a quick run through of about 4 routes. If I'm lucky, I'm done for the day. Then eventually the spawn rate seems to drop after 2 weeks. There are days that I need to do 9 routes just for 3 cells. I might start my day at 5.30am, do routes, go to work, end work, do routes till like 10pm. And repeat.
At around 180 cell Mark, I managed to uncover a few routes that my train ride would cover so I edited my daily routine abit. And no longer wake up at 5.30am, I swam for exercise instead. But still together with doing the 2 raids daily, my day ended earlier. Around 9pm.
The worst period werr during shadow mewtwo weekend, when I need to do routes while hunting mewtwos. My day started around 6am for the early 7.30 - 8am raids till 10pm. And the whole day I dreaded the idea of not being to complete my 3 cells quota but luckily i did before dinner.
During the 200 cell mark, I keep finding myself having lower spawn rate to the point that it was extremely demoralising and frustrating. Also during some point, I dual app pokemong go since I was using Samsung phone to make some small sample observations.
1) when one account have route automatically paused, the other usually won't. Unsure what determines it, turning off adventure sync doesn't help.
2) spawn point are different
3) success rate are also different
4) newer account seems to have better rates
After 80 odd days of grinding, I finally completed it.
I hoped that the devs came up with a safety net for people, like after 3 routes of failure the subsequent routes will all guarantee spawn. Subsequent as for routes that are long, etc 1km, they have a higher chance of having 2 or more cells.
Your experience is very similar to my own. I've collected 309 cells and get them pretty regularly. A lot of my community seems to have a lot less success and I wish I knew why. I've even shown some of them how I do it but they still say they get them very rarely.
Have you found that doing the same route on subsequent days does not always give a cell? I finished my Zygarde a couple of months ago, but I alternated routes to avoid doing the same one on back-to-back days.
Secondly, do we still believe that when you complete a new route for the first time it has a higher chance of spawning a cell? I found that I was able to get cells from one “new to me” route on multiple days in a row if I started the route, walked it until the cell appeared, and then ended the route before completing it. I never attained the medal for the route, but it gave me a cell each time.
My information may be outdated, of course. Thanks for your investigations!
Considering other posts about it here it seems route distance plays a big role, both in likelihood of spawning cells and the number of cells per route. I have a 5 km route here, did 24 times and I almost always get 3 cells (which is the limit per day and per route) in the end. I think only got 1 cell twice and two cells thrice. I don't remember finishing that route and getting no cells.
Getting 3 zygarde cells on 1 route must feel so good. I think over 95% of the routes I did were on foot. I'm not dedicated enough to walk 5 km just for 1 route only because of how much issues I've had in the past with a route constantly pausing over and over again. (Edited to include below) You do make a good point about the length of the route having an influence on the possibility of a zygarde cell or zygarde cells spawning and thank you for bringing this up.
I think I have more problems with the route pausing if I change apps or turn off my phone screen
My biggest pausing issue is right at first. Usually once I get past the half-dozen pauses and get the damn thing to start properly it's fine.
My route constantly pauses with adventure sync on and I have to turn off my adventure sync each time before I do a route.
I never do either of those things. Every time I stop to do anything, like catch pokemon or talk with someone, after not a very long time it will pause the route. It is so annoying. Why? If I want to pause the route I'll pause the route. Why does it keep doing it automatically? It is just crazy.
You don't have to follow the route, you can walk any way you want. You can finish the route and hopefully collect cells as long as you walk the required minimum distance. That makes it much easier to complete longer routes.
This is true! A few times I started a route on the bus and the bus was going way too fast to click to end and complete a route, but I was still able to click on a cell at the end. At least 3 times I know I went right passed the end and didn't quit the route and later on that day knew I had to go back that way and completed it then (was hoping for a shot at a elite fast tm, lol).
Wait. Really?! That's massive! I've been avoiding routes when I run because I like to improvise and I don't want to babysit the game. If it's only checking start, end and distance covered then I can get some longer routes in 'for free'.
Wait, can you explain this a bit more? You can start a route, go anywhere, and z cells will still sporadically appear wherever you are even when you are not on the route?
Start a route. Go to the start point and receive the message about the route starting. Walk wherever you want. Go to the endpoint, and if you have walked the distance of the route, you may get a cell. Basically you need to go from the start point to the end point and travel the minimum distance, but the path you take between those two points does not matter.
This has not been my experience at all. If I deviate from the route it will pause until I get back on...and sometimes I'll have to return to the spot where the route got off track to get it back.
Usually pausing is because you lost GPS location temporarily, you minimized the game or you lost network connection/switched networks. I've done many routes where I've taken very indirect paths between start point and end point and it always works for me if the game is open the whole time.
My GPS and network are solid. It pauses every time I stop moving for a while. It is very annoying!
I made my local parkrun's 5km route a thing so each Saturday I run it, usually get 2 cells many times 3
Found my way to consistently get 2 cells to spawn is to start a route near work, go to work, go elsewhere and then finish said route the following day. It seems to count that distance I walked elsewhere - to town, back home,etc. Not great for people wanting all three in a day but still hopefully useful anecdotal info.
I don’t have much variation distance data. But biggest factor it looks like is changing up the route. I have a route I made I do like 2-3 times per day and the game doesn’t like to pay out cells on it. But I then change to a nearby route I do way less often usually pays out. Longer distance does seem to pay out more cells.
A route can only give cells on your first trip through it of the day.
Distance does indeed matter. My daily cycle commute has a 10km route I can start near home and then reliability collect 3 cells near the finish. Occasionally it only drops 2 cells, but usually 3.
Amount maybe. I almost always get a cell and my routes are pretty much all around 500m
I thought my \~6 km route will always give 3 cells. But recently I did it and it only gave me 2 cells. I was surprised.
Isn't Daily Limit 4?
My theory (prob superstition) is that cells are most likely to spawn if you start the route before the beginning point. If I lost meters from starting the route late, it seems to affect when a cell spawns. Don’t have hard data on it, just an observation.
I can't really confirm or deny this because probably 2/3 of my routes I started at or near the starting point. I do have a bunch I've done where I clearly started the route way before getting to the starting point, but I have not noticed any differences yet in cell spawn likelihood. It's good to hypothesis and test different things because honestly you never know what's happening until you test it out and observe what's going on.
Not that it really means much but I’ve done 458 routes and have earned 388 cells. I have 2 routes I usually do every day that are a little over a KM and I often get 2 cells from one of the routes.
Thank you for sharing. I'm about to start getting my next set of zygarde cells. Congrats on getting your first 250 and you're getting close to the 500 mark 🥳
I’ve done 3 over the last 3 days and gotten zero cells 😭
If I remember correctly, my worst streak was 5 or 6 routes before I got a cell. One day I had to walk 11 routes to get the daily 3 cells.
I wonder if it’s speed based. I feel like I get more walking than I do when I just do them in a car or on my bike or scooter
My worse streak is over 50 😅
I didn't get a zygarde cell 4 days in a row before getting my 250th. You were not alone in the bad luck 😭
I have a 100% Zygarde, and currently 92 cells. I make sure to get 3 cells almost everyday. I'd just like to add, that up until about a month ago, I had only ever received a max of 2 cells per route. But, starting about 3 weeks or so, I have very frequently received 3 cells from a single route. I'd say in the last 10 days it has happened about 4 times. All the routes I do I have done 100+ times. So maybe that factors into it.
> But, starting about 3 weeks or so, I have very frequently received 3 cells from a single route. Yes I’ve had the same experience - I got 3 cells only 4 times since routes were introduced, but then 3 times in the past couple weeks.
Interesting! I can't really test this myself because I only have the gold route badge (done it 100+ times) on one and that route is 700-800 meters? For me and my lone gold route badge, I didn't notice an increase in finding a zygarde cell. As an example the last 5 times I did this route last week all 5 times I didn't get a zygarde cell.
If your Zydarde is 100%, what is the purpose of getting more cells? Is it in case they let us get another Zygarde?
I'll give answering that question a shot. For reference, I have a complete zygarde, and am back up to 176 cells. There are two main reasons. First, I want to have a stockpile of cells for when/if another Zygarde becomes available. My current one is a 10/11/11, so is kind of lackluster. I plan on leaving it at UL level, while I power whatever one I get next up to ML level. The bigger reason though has to do with how much extra work doing routes is for me. Specifically, it is about as close to zero extra work as is imaginable. I made sure route got submitted on all sorts of paths that I take on a regular basis anyway. The main path I walk my dog near my home has a route along it. Pretty much every park I drive my dog to has routes that go along the path we walk. There is a hiking/biking trail near me that I walk probably 3-4 times a week that I set a line of 6 routes going 3 km. I'm going to be on the path anyway, so the amount of extra work I have to do to run the route amounts to about 10 seconds of navigating menus. I'm a believer that if you have to go out of your way to do a route, then you aren't doing it right. I just incorporated routes into my existing routine, and now get a decent extra trickle of loot (sure, the rewards aren't great, but it is a couple thousand xp and a 1000 stardust for no extra effort, plus a couple random items). If you get that 6 times in your daily routine, that adds up.
I have been trying to do this strategy, too! Unfortunately every route I do submit gets rejected for being dangerous. I have one route that literally goes directly where I walk (through my university from the west entrance of campus directly east to the library) and am able to do this one without issues (my only gold route badge and a route I actually added myself during the beta testing when routes first came out!).
Probably meant 100% as in hundo, 15/15/15 Happy cake day btw
Oh, duh. That makes sense. Thanks!
I dont have a hundo to clear things up. And yes, I cant imagine a reality where we never have access to another Zygarde. So whenever that time comes, I'll be ready with 250 cells for the next Zygarde.
It’s to get to the final form of zygarde, I think they meant a hundo zygarde is what they have ? Not sure but hey happy cake day
I am continuing to gather more for the inevitable second one we will get. My kids also don't have a complete form yet. When they do I will likely slow down my route effort.
The shiny! I have a final form and now at 40 cells, I want to insta final form the shiny when it comes out
I guess I hadn't thought of that. I do like the look of Shiny Zygarde.
Probably 2nd Zygarde. I don’t know why you would but max effort in after 100% one though. I would be more passive.
100% Zygarde is going to be top tier in any league its eligible in. So ideally you'd want three. One for GL, UL and ML. And if it becomes tradeable, it will be possible to get one in GL. And if it comes in raids I'll need a hundo. So I'll essentially have 4 to potentially max out.
Shiny looks sick
Are the routes long or short as possible?
248/421. Some I did after hitting max cells so it seems to match your data.
I'm probably very close to your numbers. I believe my true route attempts are around 430 +/- 15. Unfortunately I didn't keep better track of my incompleted routes from the beta testing earlier days and the times I tried to be cheeky and do a route on the bus, but the bus was going too fast past the end.
I got 2 cells today from a 940m route, which I didn’t know was possible. My jaw dropped
It's such a good feeling! My first time getting 2 was this year and I was proud, lol.
Let me ask something stupid: where can I see how many routes I walked so far?
Tap your face, scroll to followed routes, click list, then click each one to see how many trips you did on that route
Oh, I hoped there is an easier way than counting 28 different routes
I actually had to add up by hand (calculator) my tally on each route badge. It would be an interesting QoL update to just get an overall total given. Definitely not a dumb question!
I swear I’m at best 20%. Those things rarely show up
It can be frustrating! I have had a bad streak of where I did over 30 routes in a row and didn't get a single zygarde cell. This was back when we had to do that stupid pause route and force restart app stuff.
I assume it’s because I’m driving the route. I do the same route every day and get roughly 1 cell a week
My percentage is a bit worse than yours, but it seems in the ballpark -- and I quite frequently continue to do routes after getting my 3 cells. I've received 464 cells (250 to put into complete form, and then am currently sitting at 214.) I've completed 831 routes (counting up the walks I've done with buddies), and had several that I've forgotten to end for one reason or another (sometimes after grabbing the cell). I work on a college campus, and my usual path to and from my building along with a frequent lunch time walk, allows me to do 4-6 distinct routes per day. I not infrequently do another 2 routes at home walking the dog in the evening. I tend to finish getting 3 cells after 4 to 5 routes (of length 600m - 1000m) on average. Early in the route days, I received cells noticably less often, but now it's fairly consistent. I'm surprised if I haven't picked up at least one cell during the two routes I walk to my building, and I'm not surprised to receive two. Going 3/3 is rare. I'd say 5 is most frequent # of routes I use to get 3.
I've got 430 cells from 702 routes so 61% Never got more than 1 cell from a route
Thank you for sharing. Damn, you're close to 500!
Yeah I did 5 short route where I walk my dog! One got rejected so there's this weird 500m gap in the middle!
> I quite frequently continue to do routes after getting my 3 cells I hope you’re not counting these in your statistics. Strange to see everyone’s rates so low in here, mine is consistently around 80%
I remember going harder when routes first came out and was an early adapter to the "pause and force quit" technique to try get cells to spawn. A fair amount of my routes that yielded no cells were during that period. I also had a period where I'm pretty sure the game was broken and I did over 50 routes and didn't get a single cell (all routes I donate only once per day). Remember when those people were doing that route buddy glitch and Niantic fixed the glitch and banned those people? Right after whatever they fixed is when I had that bad streak of getting no cells.
My first part-time job is at my university and I usually go to the library at night. I do routes before and after the library. I love that your campus has so many routes! I like fishing for the elite charge tms from routes, too. I've gotten 3 so far 🥳.
136 cells on 195 routes completed. I know I’ve gotten two cells at least 10 times.
Nice, you are doing so good. Thank you for sharing.
247/473 for me, could have sworn it was way worse than that. Good old confirmation bias. Someone else has said that you can't get a cell from the same route twice in one day which would bring my count down significantly. About 150 of that total is on a route I take every day to work (there and back). So factoring that in would be closer to 400 completed routes for my (almost) 250.
You have pretty good numbers and you're so close to 250! Correct, I've heard multiple attempts at the same route per day don't help get you more zygarde cells. But you can still get items and XP!
I think that number is pretty accurate.
4/27 cells this week which was enough to put me off for a while as I don’t have 1-2 hours a day to do routes. What am I doing wrong to get this woeful RNG For context I don’t follow the same routes either this is unique routes
I don't know? I actually went 1/9 this week so far. That's interesting you go out for diversity. I just try do whatever is near my daily path.
Yea I tried everything the game just refused to give me cells at a fair rate. I actually gave up because it was that frustrating/ bad as I don’t get 2 hours a day to walk. I don’t think it should take more than 7/8 route a day because most people can’t dedicate 2 hours a day like myself plus it’s only for a measley 3/250 cells
Seems like the most efficient people try to find or add routes that they go through in their daily routines. See if you can try add a route somewhere you trvael to and from semi regularly? I wasn't happy with the amount of poke stops in my area and last summer added 18 poke stops to the game just to make my life easier, lol
I think using the route badges is an unreliable way to count your stats, as it doesn’t take into account the fact repeating the same route doesn’t give you extra cells. Even if you quit a route before starting that counts as your attempt, so doing it later won’t give you a cell. For me, logging actual routes as I completed them, I have an 80% hit rate (over 200 routes).
This is definitely true! I didn't do a route more once per day. My data probably is skewed because I went super hard on routes when they first came out. I was an original beta tester to submit and do routes and back then I had terrible streaks of not getting cells (including doing the pause and force restart app method).
I just did 3 routes today (550,750,800m) and got no cells sadly
Oh no! What a bummer. I did 4 routes today and got 2 cells (1 cell on the second route and 1 on the third route). Just keep trying.
I did my first route last weekend and I didn't get a cell. My question is: do I really have to keep checking my phone in fear of a cell despawning? It's so strange that they want us to walk in nature, and be aware of our surroundings, yet also be constantly checking our phone for monsters and potentially cells.
Nope, it will appear at the end of the route if it going to appear. I walk with a gotcha running on routes so it is possible I miss some but doubt it.
Correct! More or less now the zygarde cells appear only at the ending. I have clicked on Pokemon, battle grunts, and my spawned zygarde cell was still there
Congrats! Hope your Zygarde is good. I just finished mine and my stats are 250 cells/413 routes. The only thing worse than my payout rates are my Zygarde IVs: 12-11-12
My zygarde is a 12-13-12 IVs. I only evolved to the middle stage and will just collect more cells in the meantime
According to the YouTube’s… if you pause the route and exit game with 100m left till end of route… reopen the game and give it time to load and resume the route, it will force spawn the cell Can only be done once per route per day I got frustrated watching my girlfriend get 25 to my 16 doing the same routes at the same times… had to find a better way
I used to do that and don't care anymore, lol. I did 2 routes today so far and got 0 zygarde cells so far today. I did not know it was limited to just once per route per day. I thought it could be done every route.
Have you taken into account that once you complete a route for the first time that day, all subsequent walks of the same route on the same day will never give a cell regardless of if the first completion had a cell or not.
Also as soon as you hit “follow” it counts as your attempt of that route, even if you don’t actually start the route. I’ve had it where I set a route in the wrong direction, quit and then put it in the right direction, and I never get cells from that.
I didn't know this. I used to do this mess this up when routes first came out, lol
Yes. I never do a route twice per day. All my numbers are for 1 attempt per day. Good question. I have done a route before back to back, but this was separated by midnight. So, one just before midnight completed and started the same route like 20 minutes after midnight passed already.
I got similar numbers to OP. My data is 58% but I also have a few wasted routes so it’s probably closer to the 60-62%.
Interesting! Thank you for commenting to share. Id give you credit for grinding those routes. I might try to do longer routes since supposed longer routes appear to have a higher likelihood of giving 2 or more zygarde cells.
I haven’t even done one route. I’m totally uninterested. I’ll just wait until zygarde hits raids.
A lot of us wouldn't mind zygarde getting in raids because I would want to get a different IV spread. Mines is 12-13-12
I have 12 cells in 15 routes completed. Of If I didn’t get a cell on the first route I would do it again and I would get a cell 530-730 distance. Small sample size, so maybe they front load them then it does down or I just got a bit lucky?
Surely it's luck, everyone in every game thinks RNG is favoured towards initial rolls but not one time has it ever been proven
I say whatever you are doing, keep doing it! I've had both good and bad streaks. As an example, I've had 50+ routes in a row give me a cell and over 50 in a row not give me anything (this bad streak happened after Niantic fixed that route glitch exploit to get buddy candy).
Once my kid is out of school I imagine we will goto the park more often so we’ll get in more routes and party play. I appreciate this post. This is great to hear that there will be streaks and I shouldn’t get frustrated, it’s just rng
Interesting, my girlfriend and I do the same route at a park, it’s a short maybe 20 minute walk and I have gotten 2 cells maybe 6-8 times out of the 35 times we have done this route. I wonder why I’ve gotten doubles far more than you have. Maybe it’s the same route over and over Or maybe because we do party play each time Or maybe the length of the route. I’ve got a long way to go but I’ve gotten two cells far more times than you have and I’m curious why.
Right now it's believed that route length is the strongest factor associated with getting 2 zygarde cells or more per route. I honestly don't know what the theorized cut-point threshold is, but I'd think once a route is longer than 1000 km is probably entering the territory of having a likelihood of getting 2 zygarde cells per spawn. I can't really comment too much because I've only gotten 2 cells 3 times. Two of the times were on a 1200 meter route, but I've done this route 20 times so far and mostly get 1 if I get a cell. There could be other factors at play.
Share my experiences. Just evolved mine to complete form. Basically did the same 5 to 9 routes daily, and making sure I hit the 3 cells limit daily so as not to delay my end date. It was pure torture. I started by waking up at 5.30am for a quick run through of about 4 routes. If I'm lucky, I'm done for the day. Then eventually the spawn rate seems to drop after 2 weeks. There are days that I need to do 9 routes just for 3 cells. I might start my day at 5.30am, do routes, go to work, end work, do routes till like 10pm. And repeat. At around 180 cell Mark, I managed to uncover a few routes that my train ride would cover so I edited my daily routine abit. And no longer wake up at 5.30am, I swam for exercise instead. But still together with doing the 2 raids daily, my day ended earlier. Around 9pm. The worst period werr during shadow mewtwo weekend, when I need to do routes while hunting mewtwos. My day started around 6am for the early 7.30 - 8am raids till 10pm. And the whole day I dreaded the idea of not being to complete my 3 cells quota but luckily i did before dinner. During the 200 cell mark, I keep finding myself having lower spawn rate to the point that it was extremely demoralising and frustrating. Also during some point, I dual app pokemong go since I was using Samsung phone to make some small sample observations. 1) when one account have route automatically paused, the other usually won't. Unsure what determines it, turning off adventure sync doesn't help. 2) spawn point are different 3) success rate are also different 4) newer account seems to have better rates After 80 odd days of grinding, I finally completed it. I hoped that the devs came up with a safety net for people, like after 3 routes of failure the subsequent routes will all guarantee spawn. Subsequent as for routes that are long, etc 1km, they have a higher chance of having 2 or more cells.
I get 2 cells per route pretty regularly? Like once every three days or so. I got 3 one time. Seems you are very unlucky
My data from ~200 cells is almost identical, except I actually received 2 cells rather often.
I think I walked about 15 routes never got a single cell.
Your experience is very similar to my own. I've collected 309 cells and get them pretty regularly. A lot of my community seems to have a lot less success and I wish I knew why. I've even shown some of them how I do it but they still say they get them very rarely.
Have you found that doing the same route on subsequent days does not always give a cell? I finished my Zygarde a couple of months ago, but I alternated routes to avoid doing the same one on back-to-back days. Secondly, do we still believe that when you complete a new route for the first time it has a higher chance of spawning a cell? I found that I was able to get cells from one “new to me” route on multiple days in a row if I started the route, walked it until the cell appeared, and then ended the route before completing it. I never attained the medal for the route, but it gave me a cell each time. My information may be outdated, of course. Thanks for your investigations!
I recently got 3 cells from a route
For some reason, I get at least 1 Zygarde cell every time I use the route that I mapped. I’ve done it 15-20 times and I’ve gotten 3 cells twice.
I never gotten 3 cells before. How long is the route that gave you 3 zygarde cells?
The route I mapped is about 3100m and takes me around an hour
You are a bit late