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When you're catching a Pokémon, there is a coloured circle inside the white circle. This circle goes from green to yellow to red. I'm guessing this colour represents the difficulty of capturing that Pokémon because yellow-red Pokémon seem to break free a lot.

However that circle varies in size and goes from being overlaid over the white circle all the way down to tiny little circle I can barely see.

Green Circle Overlay Here the green circle is at max size.

What does this size actually mean? Is it distance that your Pokéball was from the Pokémon or something else?

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    If you press and hold the Pokeball, that circle goes from small to big then resets back to small again, I believe it's possibly used for targeting or chance to capture.
    – Michael Frank
    Commented Jul 8, 2016 at 2:19
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    See, this is my biggest problem with Niantic. They put game mechanics into their games and then don't tell anyone about how they actually work. It was glyph hacking in Ingress, and its this now
    – JamesENL
    Commented Jul 8, 2016 at 2:22
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    Yea, it's really poorly documented. The game feels like something that they threw together and released because they knew people would play then pay for consumables.
    – Michael Frank
    Commented Jul 8, 2016 at 2:22
  • Ingress was the same, but that was before they actually put in the ability to pay real world money for it
    – JamesENL
    Commented Jul 8, 2016 at 2:24

4 Answers 4

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The ring and its colours are detailed in the official FAQ for Finding and Catching wild Pokémon.

The colour of the ring represents the catching difficulty of the pokémon.

A green ring indicates the capture is low difficulty, orange indicates intermediate difficulty, and red indicates extreme difficulty.

The size of the ring represents your increased chance of catching the pokémon.

You have the greatest chance of capturing the Pokémon while the colored ring is at its smallest diameter. At the opportune moment, fling the Poké Ball toward the Pokémon.

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    Me and my big mouth
    – JamesENL
    Commented Jul 8, 2016 at 2:28
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    You know, I have really had issues with this, because I've experienced the opposite, having the circle at it's largest is when I get the bonus (but only about 50% of the time) and I have got the bonus when it was at it's smallest like once. :/
    – Ben
    Commented Jul 8, 2016 at 4:15
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    @Ben, I have noticed the same in regards to catch bonuses. I am told it is still buggy
    – user106385
    Commented Jul 8, 2016 at 4:19
  • @Ben getting the bonus isn't the same thing as catching the pokemon.
    – MST
    Commented Jul 11, 2016 at 2:06
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    @Ben, the catch bonuses themselves do not impart better chances. Throwing the ball with a smaller circle than required, but not recieving the bonus, gives you a better chance.
    – user106385
    Commented Jul 11, 2016 at 4:55
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The smaller the ring, the better chance of catching the Pokémon.

Larger ring = nice throw (10xp)

Medium ring = great throw (50xp)

Smallest ring = excellent throw (100xp)

Curve ball = 10xp

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  • great is 50xp, Ive been told curve ball is only 10.
    – user106385
    Commented Jul 8, 2016 at 9:26
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    Curve ball is only 10. Most of my shots seem to be curve balls, but I don't know how I'm doing it.
    – KizTrap
    Commented Jul 11, 2016 at 15:26
  • @KizTrap: The FAQ says: "Tip: Drag and rapidly spin the Poké Ball in a circular motion before you release it for a chance to receive a curveball bonus."
    – Markus Weninger
    Commented Jul 13, 2016 at 14:38
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-A target ring will appear around the Pokémon. The ring’s color indicates the difficulty level of capturing the Pokémon. A green ring indicates the capture is low difficulty, orange indicates intermediate difficulty, and red indicates extreme difficulty.

-You have the greatest chance of capturing the Pokémon while the colored ring is at its smallest diameter. At the opportune moment, fling the Poké Ball toward the Pokémon. Source

  • In regards to the bonus; you receive a bonus if you throw the ball inside the ring.
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    Hi welcome to the community. In future please try not to be offensive in your answers and do try to keep your answer well structured whilst ensuring that it adds something that previous answers do not cover
    – nickson104
    Commented Jul 8, 2016 at 8:44
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The color of the ring is the difficulty of the catch...Green being easiest followed by Orange then Red being the Hardest. Hitting inside the colored ring as it shrinks will give you bonus Exp as well as a higher chance of catching the pokemon on that cast. Hope this helped :)

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    welcome to arqade! while your correct, your not adding any additional information. We tend to vote negativley on duplicate andwers. If you wish to congirm an existing a swer, simply click on the up arrow to the left, to upvote it.
    – user106385
    Commented Jul 13, 2016 at 0:24

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