>>16249424FAQ:
>What are shiny pokemon?
Glad you asked! They're extremely rare variations of pokemon with different color pallets. There's a 1/8192 chance of encountering them in the wild in games prior to X/Y, and 1/4096 chance in gen 6 games without any manipulation or methods that increase your chance of encountering one, so it isn't uncommon for some players to have never seen one before despite having played one or more games.
>Those rates are too high! How do I get one easily?
The most common methods are the Masuda Method, Shiny Fishing, and PokeRadar Chaining, however there seems to be a higher chance of finding shinies in the Friend Safari as well. The three aforementioned methods are covered in the guides section in OP.
>What's the Masuda Method?
Named after Junichi Masuda, one of Diamond/Pearl's developers, programmed a little something special into the games that increases the shiny rate when breeding under certain conditions. Simply, a pokemon traded from a foreign country should be breeded with a pokemon from your cartridge. This increases the rate of an egg containing a shiny by 4x in DPPt (1/2048), 5x in HGSS, BW and B2W2 (1/1638), and an unknown multiplier in X/Y. See the guide in OP for more details.
>Can I just soft reset on my eggs if they don't yield any shinies?
Unfortunately, no. When the daycare man from daycare land gives you an egg, a pokemon and it's stats are tied permanently to that egg upon receiving it, including shininess. If you hatch the same egg over and over again by soft resetting, it will yield the same pokemon it did that last time. You can, if you still want to save box space, save before you get any eggs and soft reset if your newly collected haul doesn't yield anything. You'll only have to recollect the eggs again after soft resetting.
>What's a shiny charm?
A key item in Gen V that increases your chances of finding a shiny. 1/2730 in the wild, and 1/1024 when using the Masuda Method. It cannot be traded through games.
