Hello Trainers!
Some potentially exciting news has come out of the most recent data mine. Dataminers have discovered some new entries into the code that suggest we might be getting a way to add bonus points to a Pokémon’s IVs! Bottle caps anyone?
💡 Disclaimer – Everything in this article is data mined, and therefore subject to change, or not even being released at all. Information referenced in this article is made publicly available by a group of data miners called PokéMiners. Our article includes some of our own commentary from experience. Data mining is, and never will be, something Niantic or the Pokémon Company endorses.
What are Bottle Caps?
| Regular Bottle Cap | Gold Bottle Cap |
 |
 |
I know that some Trainers out there don’t have a lot of experience with the Core Pokémon games so let’s back up and take a minute to talk about what bottle caps are, and how they work in the core series of games.
There are two types of Bottle caps, regular Bottle caps, and Gold Bottle caps. These are used for something called Hyper Training which allows you to max out a single IV, or all of the IVs of a Pokémon depending on which Bottle Cap you use. Regular Bottle caps allow a Trainer to max out a single IV of a Pokémon, and Gold Bottle Caps allow you to max out all of the IVs of a Pokémon. These changes are permanent and will remain with the Pokémon even if it is transferred between games.
The level requirement for Hyper-training is level 100 in most games, except Scarlet and Violet where the requirement is level 50. You also need to have become Champion, but that’s likely irrelevant to Pokémon GO.
The Datamine
bonusIndividualAttack_ bonusIndividualDefense_ bonusIndividualStamina_ SINGLE_STAT_INCREASE TRIPLE_STAT_INCREASE
Five lines of glorious code that have led many people to believe that Bottle Caps are coming. With lines for single stat increase, and triple stat increase this sounds a lot like how Bottle Caps work in the Core games. Couple that with the bonusIndividual lines this looks a lot like we’re getting a way to increase the stats of our Pokémon.
Errors
ErrorItemNotInInventory ErrorInvalidItemType ErrorCannotBeUsedOnPokemon ErrorInvalidPokemon ErrorMaxStatLevel ErrorInvalidStat ErrorSurpassedLimitOfStatsToTrain
Some errors that can be seen while attempting to use the new, yet unnamed, item. Interestingly there is a ErrorCannotBeUsedOnPokemon error. This could mean that certain Pokémon will not be eligible to have bottle caps used on them?
How This Might Work
Temporary vs Permanent
I think we can speculate on how Bottle Caps might function in Pokémon GO based on how Max Mushrooms were recently introduced. You can use Max Mushrooms in the Core games to make Max Soup, which when fed to an eligible Pokémon can give them the ability to Gigantamax. In Pokémon GO they temporarily double the damage of a trainers Dynamax or Gigantamax Pokémon’s attacks in Max Battles. It is likely that Bottle Caps function in a similar way, temporarily maxing out the IV or IVs of a Pokémon GO for Raid battles.
Level Requirement
I think we’ll also see a certain level requirement for this, it will likely only being available to Pokémon that have been leveled up to a certain level. Perhaps 40 or even 50.
PvP blocked
Will they block any Pokémon who have had a bottle cap used on them from participating in PvP? I personally think that they shouldn’t, as getting perfect PvP IV Pokémon can be a challenge sometimes so allowing something that’s been hyper trained in might help level the playing field a little bit.
Excluded Pokémon
We could also see certain Pokémon excluded from this, perhaps Legendaries or Mythicals get excluded. The hunt for a hundo Legendary in raids can be exhaustive sometimes, and allowing someone to just hyper train one to 15/15/15 might discourage some Trainers from partaking in that grind so they might now allow Legendary Pokémon to be hyper trained.
Parting Thoughts
Trainers have been clamouring for Bottle caps to be introduced into Pokémon GO since the came launched way back in 2016 but I’m not sure everyone is going to be happy with the way that they might get introduced.
What do you think? Are they coming? Will they be temporary like max mushrooms, or permanent like the Core games?
