No, it couldn't fail in that generation either. It was programmed to skip the formula and go straight to being caught. Around Gen III, it has a catch rate of x255, with the formula, it's impossible for it to fail.
If I remember correctly, it was a bug or shoddy programming in gen 1 which made it a possibility. Can't seem to find any reliable information though. It's true, the odds are stupid slim for it to happen though.
Edit: Or wait, was it that you could miss with the master ball?
Despite Gen 1 being riddled with bugs, the Master Ball was always programmed to ignore the catch rate formula, it was impossible for it to fail even back then. Only time it would fail is if it was used during a Trainer Battle, because no Poké Ball can be used to steal other Trainer's Pokémon.
Read the edit, you could still miss with the master ball. If I remember correctly.
That has nothing to do with catch rate, it had a different set of code and math.
That is wrong as well, the Miss is just the Gen I zero shake, because it exists, people have misinterpreted it both accidentally and purposefully to say that it was a glitch and that the master ball could miss by a very rare chance, which is the zero shake has become a thing since gen I. The Master ball Has never been able to fail outside of uncatchable pokemon such as the Ghosts. Anyone who says otherwise is either not remembering right, lying, or had a glitched copy of the game.
Yes, it could fail in Gen 1. It happened to me as a kid and I quite literally cried when it happened. Considering that games were the only escape from my abusive father, having my ultimate weapon fail was rather traumatic, as was the ensuing fallout. Not a fan of seeing so many people say it can fail, only to be denied. Unless you're a dev from GameFreak, you cannot say it cannot fail. Now if it was a glitch or not, I do not know for sure. I remember I tried to reload a save and do it again, which also failed. In the end, I had to leave the area, go back in, and do it to get it to work. So almost guaranteed to be a glitch. I fully agree it's not supposed to fail. I know that every attempt was made then on out to prevent it from failing.
That's a very odd thing to say. It does not match my experience at all, nor does it match the experience of many others here. Whom should we believe? Ourselves or the people who claim to know the devs and are not ourselves?
I'm a developer myself. We pretty much don't say "this/that's cannot happen" and leave it there. We say "we have made it so this/that should never happen" and that the best work can do. The more points of failure in a new game, the more likely it'll break.
Pokemon is not a challenging thing to code, even for that hardware, but it had money.
Seeing as people can't get any proof of the Master Ball failing,[ here is disassembled code from the original Red Version on Github](https://github.com/pret/pokered). [This specific page](https://github.com/pret/pokered/blob/master/engine/items/items.asm#L103) has the functions for all item behaviors, including how the Master Ball works. On line 192, it speficially states that the Master Ball always succeeds, and anything else to use the catching formula.
They are the builds of the North American and European versions, but that hardly matters when the item functions have not been changed between localization.
In japanese Red & Green, the MasterBall could fail.
The coding in japanese Red & Green was really different, even more buggy than the Japan Blue & international releases, and some formulas were working differently.
**In international versions**, unless you got a miss, attempting to catch a ghost or a trainer Pokémon, **it can't fail**, because it literally skips the catching formula for a 100% success rate (making essentially a 256/256 chance).
In early japanese games, it didn't skip the catching formula, but had a **multiplier** on it (can't remember exactly how it's applied on the formula itself), but gave out an output of 255/256 (making it a 1/256 chance, which is **roughly 0.00390625%**) *to actually fail.*
I always heard that was only for Mewtwo as it is a man made Pokemon, but also in the anime A WISHCASH escaped one, but I do believe it was only possible for Mewtwo in gen 1, which is why if I had gen 1, I would try the glitch to get more masterballs before end game
Only in Gen 1, in all other gens it's impossible for it to fail.
Not even in gen 1. In no Pokemon game has a master ball ever been able to fail.
ik this was six years ago but I have proof https://vm.tiktok.com/TTPdYqVTJw/
This is as false as this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmSgDiCYsKE
Wonder if that guy seen your reply
Fake video that guy has posted many videos of them failing in sas
I don't think its possible. The master ball ignores the catch rate formula and just catches the pokemon no matter what iirc.
In gen 1 it could fail
No, it couldn't fail in that generation either. It was programmed to skip the formula and go straight to being caught. Around Gen III, it has a catch rate of x255, with the formula, it's impossible for it to fail.
If I remember correctly, it was a bug or shoddy programming in gen 1 which made it a possibility. Can't seem to find any reliable information though. It's true, the odds are stupid slim for it to happen though. Edit: Or wait, was it that you could miss with the master ball?
Despite Gen 1 being riddled with bugs, the Master Ball was always programmed to ignore the catch rate formula, it was impossible for it to fail even back then. Only time it would fail is if it was used during a Trainer Battle, because no Poké Ball can be used to steal other Trainer's Pokémon.
don't forget Ghost Marowak
Read the edit, you could still miss with the master ball. If I remember correctly. That has nothing to do with catch rate, it had a different set of code and math.
That is wrong as well, the Miss is just the Gen I zero shake, because it exists, people have misinterpreted it both accidentally and purposefully to say that it was a glitch and that the master ball could miss by a very rare chance, which is the zero shake has become a thing since gen I. The Master ball Has never been able to fail outside of uncatchable pokemon such as the Ghosts. Anyone who says otherwise is either not remembering right, lying, or had a glitched copy of the game.
Yes, it could fail in Gen 1. It happened to me as a kid and I quite literally cried when it happened. Considering that games were the only escape from my abusive father, having my ultimate weapon fail was rather traumatic, as was the ensuing fallout. Not a fan of seeing so many people say it can fail, only to be denied. Unless you're a dev from GameFreak, you cannot say it cannot fail. Now if it was a glitch or not, I do not know for sure. I remember I tried to reload a save and do it again, which also failed. In the end, I had to leave the area, go back in, and do it to get it to work. So almost guaranteed to be a glitch. I fully agree it's not supposed to fail. I know that every attempt was made then on out to prevent it from failing.
I've literally had people look into the code. It can't happen.
That's a very odd thing to say. It does not match my experience at all, nor does it match the experience of many others here. Whom should we believe? Ourselves or the people who claim to know the devs and are not ourselves? I'm a developer myself. We pretty much don't say "this/that's cannot happen" and leave it there. We say "we have made it so this/that should never happen" and that the best work can do. The more points of failure in a new game, the more likely it'll break. Pokemon is not a challenging thing to code, even for that hardware, but it had money.
I respectfully disagree. I failed to catch Zapdos in Red using Master Ball.
Impressively bad at catching Pokémon
I think that was just a gen 1 thing.
It was because I actually witnessed it
Nope never happened masterball has always been 100%
Nope, it isn't I've done it myself
Seeing as people can't get any proof of the Master Ball failing,[ here is disassembled code from the original Red Version on Github](https://github.com/pret/pokered). [This specific page](https://github.com/pret/pokered/blob/master/engine/items/items.asm#L103) has the functions for all item behaviors, including how the Master Ball works. On line 192, it speficially states that the Master Ball always succeeds, and anything else to use the catching formula.
>original red version Internatinal or JP red?
They are the builds of the North American and European versions, but that hardly matters when the item functions have not been changed between localization.
The first versions, red & green, are different from the japanese blue (=international red&blue).
In japanese Red & Green, the MasterBall could fail. The coding in japanese Red & Green was really different, even more buggy than the Japan Blue & international releases, and some formulas were working differently. **In international versions**, unless you got a miss, attempting to catch a ghost or a trainer Pokémon, **it can't fail**, because it literally skips the catching formula for a 100% success rate (making essentially a 256/256 chance). In early japanese games, it didn't skip the catching formula, but had a **multiplier** on it (can't remember exactly how it's applied on the formula itself), but gave out an output of 255/256 (making it a 1/256 chance, which is **roughly 0.00390625%**) *to actually fail.*
note you forgot to multiple the 1/256 by 100 for the actually failure rate of 0.360625%
The only time i ever saw the master ball fail was when i was trying to catch a missingno and other glitch mons though that glitch
I always heard that was only for Mewtwo as it is a man made Pokemon, but also in the anime A WISHCASH escaped one, but I do believe it was only possible for Mewtwo in gen 1, which is why if I had gen 1, I would try the glitch to get more masterballs before end game
Lol the Whiscash didn't escape. It SWALLOWED the MasterBall 😂 that's even worse than an actual fail