I just ran an incense and literally half the spawns are starters (37 out of 73-74)

Cloudy weather (none of the starters were boosted), urban biome

Needless to say, this is very disappointing and I won't be using any more incense during Sinnoh throwback.

I am interested to see how everyone's experience has been. If the majority of responses are like "it's just you, I got 10-20 starters per incense", then I'll be openminded and admit it's just my bad luck or perhaps biome.

For reference, here are the total number of wild spawn species during each throwback event (per megathread, regardless of rarity):

Kanto: 22

Johto: 20

Hoenn: 19

Sinnoh: 13

So yes, fewer available species this time around, but the percentage of starters (if indeed around 50%) is still a very disproportional overweight: 3/13 species account for half of incense spawns, while the rest (10/13) account for the other half, not counting the once-in-a-blue-moon regional or non-event spawn.

During Hoenn throwback for instance, my incenses average out to around 10 starters out of 73-75, with some minor variation from one incense to another. That to me is a much more reasonable distribution.

I personally disagree with having incense spawns tilt so heavily towards starters for these reasons:

1. Spawning more starters during gen 1-3 throwbacks makes sense, because many newer players were not yet playing during those CD's. But Sinnoh starter CD's weren't that long ago.

2. For players who play for meta pokemon, Sinnoh starters are much less meta-relevant than earlier gen starters.

3. for players who shiny hunt, having such an overwhelming percentage of starters makes for a very sub-par shiny hunting experience.

I would be very interested in knowing if the same pattern holds up for regular wild spawns, but alas, I'm afraid this is impractical without resorting to disallowed methods (maps).

Disclaimer: playing in locked down city. My entire playing experience is based on incense.

EDIT: I understand more data is needed. Which is why I made this post so that people can chime in with their experiences