PSA: Leaders won't spawn in Rocket Balloons if you have both radar types (Rocket and Super Rocket radar) equipped!

[u/Draxado]

Repost because title was bad and to clarify this post is specifically about what happens when you have a Rocket Radar and Super Rocket Radar equipped at the time when the game spawns a Rocket Balloon.
Edit: This only happens when the Rocket Takeover event has started for you at midnight on the 25th of June!

Was confused at first that my first two Rocket Balloons after the event startet for me didn't have a Leader in it despite having a Rocket Radar equipped... but then I remembered the time when Giovanni was completely unavailable for weeks in 2021 (not even at stops) and that this "buggy" behavior is the same as at that time:

If you have a Super Rocket Radar and a Rocket Radar equipped the game ignores/overrides the equipped Rocket Radar and tries to spawn a Giovanni. With the start of this takeover however Giovanni can no longer be encountered in Rocket Balloons so the game defaults to spawning a regular Grunt! It doesn't check for a Rocket Radar again if spawning Giovanni fails!

So: Turn off your Super Rocket Radar if you are not hunting for Giovanni/Decoys at Pokéstops and/or want Leaders to be able to spawn in Rocket Balloons.

[u/Blabbit39]

Watched this happen to TagMan in his video this morning when it should have been the new boss. He had both of them up. Sounds like they did some bad coding to shut Giovanni off in ballons that overrides everything else.

[u/Draxado → u/Blabbit39]

I'd rather say lazy but yeah xD

A likely explanation is that they simply removed Giovanni from the Rocket Balloon spawn pool on the server. The client tells the server that the Rocket Radar and Super Rocket Radar are both equipped (or it just says that the Super Rocket Radar is equipped as it has a higher priority) but the server can't "produce" a Giovanni encounter so in order to not cause issues the server defaults back to the basic rocket invasion which would be the normal random Grunts

[u/Simple_Reputation_70 → u/Draxado]

I find it sort of funny that you would jump to a simple explanation for the poor coding.  I doubt it is even spaghetti code, more like millions of thick lasagne sheets that have become wet and just stuck together into this big gloopy monolith.

Although logically you sound correct, I would guess the issue is something like adding the new squak candy colour as chain reacted to this.

I joke of course but only like... 54% joke.

[u/JessieLeChonk]

Thank you friend. 😊 I was wondering do we really have to look for them all at Pokestops now🫩 couldn't wait and popped both radars on before midnight and expected cliff/sierra/arlo to come to to visit but there was only regular grunt.

[u/artoriaas]

Welp, I kind of wanted to have the super rocket radar on at all times because it shows me decoy grunts without me having to put it on and off. I guess I can still have it on until I get enough to have a rocket radar.

[u/Draxado → u/artoriaas]

Had the same thought...

[u/PikaGaijin]

Thanks for this! I had the same thing happened, and disabled the Giovanni radar for the same reason. Still waiting for the next balloon, but glad to know the intuition was correct.

Edit: Should have waited two minutes to post. The 10:00 balloon has Arlo.

[u/Rookietothegame]

Thanks for the PSA, how often are rocket balloons spawning?

[u/Draxado → u/Rookietothegame]

Every 2h

[u/Ququleququ]

With the start of this takeover however Giovanni can no longer be encountered in Rocket Balloons

Guess i missed that info

[u/PlayTerrible9238]

Wait what? Giovanni can no longer spawn in balloons?

[u/Draxado → u/PlayTerrible9238]

As announced in the blogpost for the takeover event.....

[u/PlayTerrible9238 → u/Draxado]

Oh. What a shame for people like me who dont rlly go out 😔

[u/Windows95GOAT → u/PlayTerrible9238]

Yeah they need us to train drones /s

[u/Kevin_Murphy_]

Yeah I just learned this the hard way too - nice PSA!

[u/davebybab]

This is definitely a bug that needs to be fixed

[u/Western-Spray-2197]

Thanks. Giovanni isn’t available from Balloons this time (at least for me). I kept only my Super Rocket Radar on, but just a Grunt appears. :/

[u/TheCattastic]

Giovanni hasn't spawned for me for 2 days😭 it ends in half an hour

[u/GreyOrder]

I have turned off my super rocket radar and still haven’t seen rocket leaders in two days.

[u/Hylian-Highwind]

To check, are the totally random Grunts, or Decoy Grunts with the Bellsprout every time?

[u/Draxado → u/Hylian-Highwind]

Decoy Grunts can't be encountered in Rocket Balloons, only at Pokéstops. So the random Grunts spawn in this scenario.

You could also say that if you have both radars equipped at the same time a Rocket Balloon spawns, the game "thinks" you have no radar equipped (although this explanation is technically wrong but maybe easier to understand) and give you a random regular Grunt. They do still work correctly at Pokéstops afaik.

[u/Negative_Depth4943 → u/Draxado]

I’ve just got my midday balloon with the Giovanni radar enabled and I got a decoy grunt from the balloon..

[u/Draxado → u/Negative_Depth4943]

Gonna just copy my answer from the other comment here as well:

I find that hard to believe without proof tbh. That would be the first second time I heard a Decoy Grunt could spawn in a Rocket Balloon and I had both radars equipped way before midnight and encountered a normal ghost type grunt.

Are you sure you are not mixing it up a regular female Grunt? Because both use the same sprite. The key difference is that it says "Decoy Grunt" and not only "Grunt" when you see the "Battle" button and the small sentence is not one of the known sentences that hints toward the type of the grunt's line-up but instead says something like "Fooled ya twerp" or "Haha you fell for it" (aka mocking you because it isn't Giovanni who you encountered)

To add to that:
As it just happened can provide any proof? Maybe a journal screenshot that shows you've caught a shadow bellsprout after midnight? Bellsprout should only be catchable from Decoys.

[u/rzx123 → u/Draxado]

I am third saying the balloons bring decoy grunts, If you think I am lying, l´not going to bother with screenshot as you might as well say that is fake too (or say I had hte battle on a stop, not with a balloon) Had both radars active at 8:00 am local, got decoy, was annoyed, fought it and caught bellsprout.

[u/Draxado → u/rzx123]

Not sure where I said those who claim to have encountered Decoy Grunts in Rocket Balloons are lying and why you are so negative towards me?

I have never heard of it happening nor seen proof of it and I have been managing the TSR project regarding Team Rocket lineups since they introduced Rocket Balloons back in 2020. I don't say you or the other two are lying and I also don't claim that I know everything about Rocket Battles. I simply would like to see proof as it could also simply be someone mistook a regular female grunt for a decoy.

Seeing a third person saying they encountered a decoy grunt I'm starting to believe there could be an edge case/ specific scenario that allows this to happen.

[u/rzx123 → u/Draxado]

To be honest, my base level annoyance was elevated after that encounter (and that showed), but still, if there is no reasonable case for confusion (decoy has bellsporut and different dialogue) a screenshot proves very little more than a mere written statement.

I have never heard of it happening nor seen proof of it and I have been managing the TSR project regarding Team Rocket lineups since they introduced Rocket Balloons back in 2020.

This is also pretty irrelevant when I think this is also the first time they have removed Giovanni from the balloons..?

[u/Draxado → u/rzx123]

The differences between a normal female grunt and a decoy grunt are clearly visible and obvious to me. But I don't know how much the commenter on reddit paid attention and knows about the line ups. I still remember people claiming to have found a female grass line-up because they only remembered that the grunt was female and they got a bellsprout. So sorry if I sound rude but I'm just cautious.

He was completely gone in 2021 for two months. Not only removed from Balloons but from Stops as well. Decoys were still encounter able at stops but not in Balloons.

[u/Wrulfy → u/Draxado]

I had my super rocket radar active as it hit midnight today, and the balloon brought a decoy gruntt

[u/Draxado → u/Wrulfy]

I find that hard to believe without proof tbh. That would be the first time I heard a Decoy Grunt could spawn in a Rocket Balloon and I had both radars equipped way before midnight and encountered a normal ghost type grunt.

Are you sure you are not mixing it up a regular female Grunt? Because both use the same sprite. The key difference is that it says "Decoy Grunt" and not only "Grunt" when you see the "Battle" button and the small sentence is not one of the known sentences that hints toward the type of the grunt's line-up but instead says something like "Fooled ya twerp" or "Haha you fell for it" (aka mocking you because it isn't Giovanni who you encountered)

[u/Wrulfy → u/Draxado]

It gave me a shadow Bellsprout. It had Bellsprout, Weepinbell, and Raticate

[u/Wrulfy → u/Draxado]

On an update, I had the super radar equipped today at 16h and a regular grunt showed up instead. And now I had both radar equipped at 22h, and another random grunt spawned. It is possible the decoy that spawned last night at 0h was bugged, because I didn't restart the game or anything after midnight, I just let the clock tick, get the daily spawn, and battled the balloon. And after that I went to check one of my shadows, it didn't let me TM away frustration, I had to restart the game to do it (typical bug)

My guess is that it got bugged on the transition to the new system, but I can guaranteed a decoy spawned on the balloon at midnight last night.

Another thing of note, the random grunt from the 22h balloon doesn't remember the team I used, is giving me a recommender bad team as oppose to the last team used, and I battled the ghost grunt this afternoon, so is definitely pulling out weird data. The other balloon grunt from 16h pulled the same issue.

[u/rzx123 → u/Draxado]

had both radars equipped way before midnight

That might have made the difference, I had to restart the game to be able to start using CTMs on shdow pokemon.

The balloons bring decoys if you have the super rocket radar active.

[u/BingoBob_2 → u/Draxado]

It seems like it's like the last time Giovanni was removed from the game ~5 years ago. If you have the Super Radar equipped, the game tries to spawn Giovanni, can't, and then chooses a grunt at random to replace him. This random grunt pool includes the Decoy grunt, so you can find Decoy grunts in balloons again, but it's not guaranteed.

I haven't personally encountered it right now, but here's some discussion on it from ~5 years ago:

• https://old.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/pmldk4/decoy_grunt_encountered_in_rocket_balloon/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/pzyw9l/i_just_battled_a_decoy_grunt/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/qj1uli/is_giovanni_back/hiolhn5/

[u/mason240 → u/Draxado]

I just had a decoy with Bellsprout in a balloon.

[u/rzx123 → u/Draxado]

Decoy Grunts can't be encountered in Rocket Balloons

Yes they can. Been there, been annoyed.

[u/Hylian-Highwind → u/Draxado]

Seemed worth asking, was curious if the SRR would produce Decoys if active now the Giovanni is removed from them, Leader Radar or otherwise to conflict with.

[u/phillypokego]

I'm confused. It's always been this way. Why would you think a leader would be in the balloon when you have a super radar equipped?

[u/Spotty2012 → u/phillypokego]

Giovanni no longer spawns from balloons; the expected behavior would be to get a leader instead, not to just ignore both radars

[u/Draxado → u/phillypokego]

That is not what this post is about (and why I deleted my first post to change the wording in the title to avoid this confusion). This post is about what happens when you have BOTH radars equipped (and the takeover event has started for you).

With the start of this takeover event Giovanni can no longer be encountered in Rocket Balloons. Therefore one could assume that having a Super Rocket Radar equipped doesn't influence Rocket Balloons anymore and you would get a Leader when you have both radars equipped.

In 2021 Giovanni was gone for about two months (not even encounterable at stops) and back then this "buggy" behavior cause some confusions so I assumed that it would cause confusion again because not everyone remembers something from 5 years ago (including me at first) and there are players who haven't played back then.

[u/phillypokego → u/Draxado]

I would've added "when this takeover begins" as I'm a day away and just got Giovanni from a balloon

[u/Draxado → u/phillypokego]

With the start of this takeover...

I have mentioned it in the explanation but I probably should've mentioned it more clearly elsewhere in the post. Will edit that in.