1st Gen Viridian Forest

[LeedsUnitedForLife]

Ok guys this may sound odd but I walked through the forest 10 times and 6 of those times I didn't encounter one wild pokemon??

Is it broken or? i mean as a kid i can remeber getting every step a bug over and over

 

[Smiffy01]

It varies, it is not broken, I've found myself able to get from one side of the forest to the other and only have 3 encounters, so don't worry too much about it!

 

[Guest123_x1]

I've had times off and on where I'd walk through Viridian Forest and only get two or three encounters the entire walk-through trip. On many others, I get wild Pokémon battles once every five steps or so.

 

[Wizardling]

It can vary a great deal. I've had times when every few steps I stumble into another pokemon. Whereas just last Monday I think I made it through a complete walk of every grassy patch with only two encounters. None is impressive, though :-D

 

[chrisluketaylor]

As a kid I remember encounter rates in viridian to be annoyingly frequent, but I spent an hour there the other day in blue and I could take 40 steps on average before encountering a wild pokemon.

 

[splight86]

haven't had any issues. If you walk in zig zags through the grass you will get more encounters because you are covering more grass. You can do straight runs through and encounter very few. But last night I had done some low level training of Pokemon and in that hour I had raised 4-5 Pokemon from level 3-4 up to level 9

 

[Banz]

Ok guys this may sound odd but I walked through the forest 10 times and 6 of those times I didn't encounter one wild pokemon??

Is it broken or? i mean as a kid i can remeber getting every step a bug over and over

That's a good thing. Unless you want a Butterfree (or Pikachu), there is no reason to catch or fight a Pokémon there. The bugs are really annoying and Weedle will poison your Pokémon. It's like saying you went through a cave and didn't encounter a Zubat.

 

[Imperator161]

Actually, the trick is that some of the tiles are programmed not to have encounters on them. The grass on them looks a little different (they have these flower-shaped bits of grass). If you take the right path, you'll run into very few encounters, whereas if you go onto other tiles or walk up and down a lot near the exit from the forest, you'll end up in more battles. See explanation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ5SCIikzgo (with accompanying diagrams).

 

[I'm so HM02]

All I ran into was freaking Metapods!!! Harden, harden, harden, I hate those things..... -_-

 

[Guest123_x1]

All I ran into was freaking Metapods!!! Harden, harden, harden, I hate those things..... -_-

I've had times like that in Blue where I'd run into more Metapod than Caterpie, especially recently when I first made it to Viridian Forest on my Virtual Console playthrough. The advertised encounter rates found on various fan sites and gaming magazines are kind of a joke, and based more on optimism than reality.
I've also had times in other places where I'd not encounter Pokémon listed with an encounter rate of at least 10% for nearly 100 battles in a row.

But hey, at least dealing with Harden and using tons of your Tackle and Gust PPs is better than Caterpie slowing your Pokémon to a crawl with one instance of String Shot.