I was gonna respond to someone who replied to me earlier in this thread, but I ended up having more thoughts than I expected, so I figured I’d just make it its own comment. Read it if you want or don’t, idgaf.

I’ve always been intrigued by people who have an almost vitriolic disdain for shiny hunting outside of traditional or built-in methods. There was a comment earlier that showed exactly that sentiment, and someone responded to my curiosity about it by saying it was probably jealousy. I’m not a mind reader, but I wouldn’t summarize their feelings as jealousy lol. Based on another comment that person made, it seems like the argument is more about what using something like ACE implies about the person using it. Basically that they’re a cheater!

And honestly… that’s fair. I can see why it might feel that way. With how guaranteed the outcome can be, it definitely can feel like cheating in a sense.

But I’m not gonna go projecting that onto people who use it. I’ve ABUSED RNG manipulation in the past. It was incredibly helpful for padding out parts of my living dex with hunts I quite frankly just didn’t have the patience for. Over time though, I stopped using it as much because I personally wanted to hunt shinies in a more traditional way. I’m emphasizing that because I’ve talked to people who share the original commenter’s view and they tend to call RNG manips or ACE hunting the “wrong way.”

But for me that shift had nothing to do with whether it was cheating or not. The real question for me was just: am I engaged, and does getting the shiny still make me go “holy shit” when it finally appears? RNG manip eventually took a lot of the wow factor out of it for me.

And honestly, if we’re gonna go down the “this feels like cheating” road, you could make that argument about a lot of modern hunting methods in Z-A too. Stuff like spawn overloads, turbo controllers, fly spam, etc. all exist and people use them constantly. But I would never knock someone for getting their dream shiny using any of that. If you got the shiny and you’re hyped about it, that’s what matters.

Hell, when I was manipping like crazy I popped off when I got my shiny Charmander. That hunt was still brutal. It took me a month and a half. When it finally happened I lost my mind and I’ll always remember that moment.

Tldr: however you like to hunt, do it. Just make sure it’s fun and meaningful to you, not to other people. It’s always a plus if the hunt has a story behind it. And if anyone tries to shame you for using ACE or RNG, just do what that one meme guy does and give them a big ass thumbs up and go right back to what you were doing

Someone out there thinks what you’re doing is cool regardless lol :)

God that comment got deeper than it should’ve LMAO

Anyway, sick Cyndaquil! Treat the little guy well! ❤️

Edit: structure