I play Pikmin Bloom regularly with a group of friends. The game can be best described as “Pokémon Go, but walking”. One of the main goals of the game is to collect “decor Pikmin” which can come from the environment, landmarks, and businesses that you walk by. Recently there's been a change to the game that makes completing sets of decor Pikmin significantly more difficult, this post explores the new difficulty increase.
Every month there are special decor Pikmin which are earned by completing challenges like walking, growing Pikmin, or planting flowers. The type of Pikmin you receive is randomized between the available types, and you can only complete the set by collecting one of each available Pikmin type. You can only receive these special decors during the specific month, after the month is over you have to wait a calendar year before you can continue collecting seedlings.
Just a few days ago there were 7 Pikmin types corresponding to the first three mainline Pikmin games: Red, Yellow, Blue, White, Purple, Rock, and Wing Pikmin. With the most recent update another Pikmin type has been added: Ice Pikmin from Pikmin 4. This means that going forward there will be 8 Pikmin types per event decor set instead of only 7.
So, what does that mean for the difficulty of the game? I could probably do some math here, but it'd be much easier to simulate how many event Pikmin you'd need to receive before completing the set depending on if there are 7 or 8 total Pikmin types.
Running this Python simulation script creates the below table which shows the difference in cumulative probability for completing a decor set after receiving a number of Pikmin seedlings. For example, if you have grown 10 seedlings you'd have a 10.5% chance of completing the decor set before Ice Pikmin and only a 2.8% chance of completing the decor set after Ice Pikmin.
| # Seedlings | Before | After | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | 0.6% | 0.0% | -0.6% |
| 8 | 2.5% | 0.2% | -2.2% |
| 9 | 5.8% | 1.1% | -4.7% |
| 10 | 10.5% | 2.8% | -7.7% |
| 11 | 16.3% | 5.6% | -10.7% |
| 12 | 22.8% | 9.3% | -13.5% |
| 13 | 29.7% | 13.9% | -15.8% |
| 14 | 36.6% | 19.2% | -17.4% |
| 15 | 43.3% | 24.8% | -18.5% |
| 16 | 49.7% | 30.6% | -19.1% |
| 17 | 55.6% | 36.5% | -19.1% |
| 18 | 61.0% | 42.3% | -18.7% |
| 19 | 65.9% | 47.8% | -18.1% |
| 20 | 70.3% | 53.1% | -17.2% |
| 21 | 74.2% | 58.0% | -16.3% |
| 22 | 77.7% | 62.4% | -15.3% |
| 23 | 80.7% | 66.5% | -14.1% |
| 24 | 83.3% | 70.3% | -13.1% |
| 25 | 85.6% | 73.7% | -12.0% |
| 26 | 87.6% | 76.7% | -10.9% |
| 27 | 89.3% | 79.4% | -9.9% |
| 28 | 90.8% | 81.9% | -9.0% |
| 29 | 92.1% | 84.0% | -8.1% |
| 30 | 93.2% | 86.0% | -7.3% |
| 31 | 94.2% | 87.7% | -6.5% |
| 32 | 95.0% | 89.2% | -5.8% |
| 33 | 95.7% | 90.5% | -5.2% |
| 34 | 96.3% | 91.6% | -4.7% |
| 35 | 96.8% | 92.7% | -4.2% |
| 36 | 97.3% | 93.6% | -3.7% |
| 37 | 97.7% | 94.4% | -3.3% |
| 38 | 98.0% | 95.1% | -3.0% |
| 39 | 98.3% | 95.7% | -2.6% |
| 40 | 98.6% | 96.2% | -2.3% |
| 41 | 98.8% | 96.7% | -2.1% |
| 42 | 98.9% | 97.1% | -1.8% |
| 43 | 99.1% | 97.5% | -1.6% |
| 44 | 99.2% | 97.8% | -1.4% |
| 45 | 99.3% | 98.0% | -1.3% |
| 46 | 99.4% | 98.3% | -1.1% |
| 47 | 99.5% | 98.5% | -1.0% |
| 48 | 99.6% | 98.7% | -0.9% |
| 49 | 99.6% | 98.9% | -0.8% |
| 50 | 99.7% | 99.0% | -0.7% |
For mid-range numbers of Pikmin seedlings (13-22) you'll be at least 15% less likely to have completed the Pikmin decor set for that number of seedlings. To have a 95% chance of completing a decor set you'd need to gather 32 seedlings prior to Ice Pikmin, with Ice Pikmin you'd need to collect 38 seedlings.
I don't know how many event Pikmin seedlings I receive in a typical month, I'll be watching that number and see if I'm able to complete the set. Good luck out there, Pikmin players! 😬
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