Pokemon X and Pokemon Y

[fantanoice]

I do find it interesting that breeding mechanics actually work off the real-world idea of evolution, where the IVs of the Pokemon get passed down in essentially the same fashion that DNA gets passed from the parent to the offspring. Honestly I can't think of any other video game that does that.

Sorrynotsorry creationists

And having IVs now is unfair for those who can't dedicate a possible 10+ hours to breeding a Pokemon with perfect IVs.

This is kind of a cop-out. That's like saying everybody in WoW should be level 60 because you don't have the hours to reach level 60, effectively making the effort all those other people put in moot. Or alternatively, that every player should have the same skill level in a game regardless of whether they've played it for 1 minute or 100 hours (though this can work for some games, such as Mario Party). Considering this is now a competitive game, there are going to be people of different skill levels playing, which means there is a hierarchy of players, with the top ones being the people who can use the mechanics to their advantage the best. This also includes understanding how a Pokemon's behind-the-scenes characteristics play a part of the game, in addition to working out what Pokemon works in your team and what moves it should use. If you only focus on building the team or the moves, then you're going to be worse off than the people who bother looking into the characteristics as well.

In all, if you want the perfect Pokemon and the perfect team, put in the effort to design it from every angle you can. If you don't have the time to invest in it then either deal with the fact that other people do, or get somebody to help you (so many perfect IV breeders out there). Nobody said being the very best (like no one ever was) was going to be easy. :P

Not to mention people have been doing this for years and these changes have made it easier for people to control because of feedback like this, and also because it was previously too much a time investment that people just resorted to hacking instead. Theoretically this should make it easier enough for people to not bother with hacking.

Nice idea, but they could easily leave IV's in for hidden power on a simplified system, and simply disassociate them from stats. Ofc they cant do it this generation, the games are already out. But it would be simple coding to remove it in the next generation. They've already nerfed hidden power, so there is really no reason to maintain such a complex IV system, when they could use that memory space for something that didnt add a pointless game mechanic.

also, the reason they MADE iv's in the first place was to artificially increase playing time. they introduced it so that people will spend hours trying to get the perfect iv pokemon, boosting pokemon interest, so that people will still be playing pokemon and buying pokemon products all the way into the next generation.

Sure they can redesign the entire game from scratch but that also means they won't be able to support Pokemon traded up from earlier generations, which would make systems like Pokemon Bank pretty useless and would peeve off a lot of people who paid money to subscribe to the service. It would also mean unnecessarily going to the effort of re-designing an entire system that has been around and refined and developed for the past 15 years, despite the fact that it works fine as it is.

After all, IVs have, in some form, been in the game since the original generations. They were originally used to give Pokemon unique characteristics (ie: 'two Pokemon of the same level caught may have different stats.') They were kept in Generation 2 as a way to keep backwards compatibility with the older games, so new things like gender and shininess were determined by IVs so that they could still be traded to and from the older games (also, fun fact, female Pokemon in Gen 2 are weaker than male because of IVs). They were not created 'as a means to increase playing time,' that was just a result of a mechanic working behind-the-scenes that people managed to work out for themselves and exploit to get better at the game. Really, they've never even discussed EVs/IVs in the game until this generation (except for, like, one guy in Gen V who said, "This Pokemon excels at x"), this is a result of the Pokemon community looking deeper into the game to try and build the best teams possible.

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

This is kind of a cop-out. That's like saying everybody in WoW should be level 60 because you don't have the hours to reach level 60, effectively making the effort all those other people put in moot. Or alternatively, that every player should have the same skill level in a game regardless of whether they've played it for 1 minute or 100 hours (though this can work for some games, such as Mario Party). Considering this is now a competitive game, there are going to be people of different skill levels playing, which means there is a hierarchy of players, with the top ones being the people who can use the mechanics to their advantage the best. This also includes understanding how a Pokemon's behind-the-scenes characteristics play a part of the game, in addition to working out what Pokemon works in your team and what moves it should use. If you only focus on building the team or the moves, then you're going to be worse off than the people who bother looking into the characteristics as well.

In all, if you want the perfect Pokemon and the perfect team, put in the effort to design it from every angle you can. If you don't have the time to invest in it then either deal with the fact that other people do, or get somebody to help you (so many perfect IV breeders out there). Nobody said being the very best (like no one ever was) was going to be easy. :P

The key point is that I said a "possible" 10+ hours. IVs are essentially random numbers, so you can spend ANY amount of time investing in perfect IVs. You can spend from a few hours to months; it all depends on how the game feels. There's a difference between working many of hours and earning lots of money and spending many hours at a slot machine and earning lots of money because you are exceptionally lucky. Getting IVs takes no effort or hard work; it takes just patience, persistence, and endurance, depending on the results.

Not to mention people have been doing this for years and these changes have made it easier for people to control because of feedback like this, and also because it was previously too much a time investment that people just resorted to hacking instead. Theoretically this should make it easier enough for people to not bother with hacking.

This is a good thing, no doubt about it. IVs encourage people to hack because it's the only feasible and reliable way to do it without wasting your life on IVs. I'm all for hacking to get the perfect IVs or the desired ones for a hidden power because nobody should spend ANY amount of time gambling for a perfect IV Pokemon.

Sure they can redesign the entire game from scratch but that also means they won't be able to support Pokemon traded up from earlier generations, which would make systems like Pokemon Bank pretty useless and would peeve off a lot of people who paid money to subscribe to the service. It would also mean unnecessarily going to the effort of re-designing an entire system that has been around and refined and developed for the past 15 years, despite the fact that it works fine as it is.

After all, IVs have, in some form, been in the game since the original generations. They were originally used to give Pokemon unique characteristics (ie: 'two Pokemon of the same level caught may have different stats.') They were kept in Generation 2 as a way to keep backwards compatibility with the older games, so new things like gender and shininess were determined by IVs so that they could still be traded to and from the older games (also, fun fact, female Pokemon in Gen 2 are weaker than male because of IVs). They were not created 'as a means to increase playing time,' that was just a result of a mechanic working behind-the-scenes that people managed to work out for themselves and exploit to get better at the game. Really, they've never even discussed EVs/IVs in the game until this generation (except for, like, one guy in Gen V who said, "This Pokemon excels at x").

This is exactly what happened with Ruby and Sapphire when some foundation changes were made. People are mad that they weren't able to trade their GRB/GSC Pokemon to Ruby and Sapphire. Just because they are a tradition doesn't justify their severe flaws. IVs may work the way it should, but it is an ugly game mechanic that needlessly complicates a game. Even if there is some great reason for IVs to be in, 31 values is way too much and should be at least toned down.

I'd like to see some sort of change in this system, but Pokemon has set itself up into a dead-end over the years, where needed changes in the core can break it.

I do appreciate the changes made to give us more control over IVs, but ideally, IVs should be exterminated.

By the way, in evolution, later species don't become "better"; they're just better adapted to their environment. And besides, this whole "perfect" thing doesn't coincide with evolution's points at all.

 

[Brock]

They've done it before, they could clearly make pokemon transferable to the new games, even if they got rid of iv's, that part is just a cop out. Also, IV's have been a thing since gen I dont kid yourself. The system we know of as IV wasnt overhauled until gen III because the original system in gen I and II was flawed, not because it didnt exist. And they werent called IV's until gen III, because they were meant as an easter egg in the original gens, but in gen III the system was overhauled to allow them to do fancy stuff with them like hidden powers and increase people playing time as they tried to get the perfect hidden power or the perfect stats.


they've overhauled the stats before. they've allowed you to transfer pokemon between gens before, between gen I and II, and between gen III and gen IV despite different gaming platforms. And between gen IV and gen V...and gen V and gen VI... They just wouldnt be able to be traded back to gen VI once the game reformatted their stats to the new system, which... they probably wouldnt be able to be traded back anyways!!!

You havent been able to move your pokemon back and forth between gens since gen I and II's time capsule, so I dont see how this could possibly be an issue. And with everything trading being online now days, that would just make the recoding that much easier now than it was back in gen II or gen IV.

 

[MnSG]

So yes, Hidden Power is nerfed now, so there's less incentive to use it.

I'm rather disturbed that Aura Sphere and Dragon Pulse got weakened to a base power that's below 90. They were some of the best special attacks in the 5th generation, especially Aura Sphere.

 

[Purple Yoshi]

Egh, of course, Crash's third Pokemon in his Friend Safari has to be Smeargle. I could have gotten Eevee, Chansey, or Ditto, but he had to have Smeargle.

Does anyone have anything good in their Friend Safaris? I know mine is Dark, but I don't know what Pokemon are in it.

 

[Master Crash]

hey

don't hate on smeargles

 

[Tyrell Badd]

Does anyone have anything good in their Friend Safaris? I know mine is Dark, but I don't know what Pokemon are in it.

I have Dragon with Sliggoos, Fraxures, and Noibats.

FC: 2578-3240-7703

 

[Smg2daisy]

My fc
3024-5698-2812

I am playing now, so I can check for you.

 

[Purple Yoshi]

My FC is 4554-0064-1228

 

[Master Crash]

I know mine is Dark, but I don't know what Pokemon are in it.

bisharp, cacturne, and sableye

 

[Purple Yoshi]

hey

don't hate on smeargles

It's not your fault, though.

And thanks. Ooh, sableye. Doesn't it get Prankster? Not that it matters, really.

 

[Smg2daisy]

What about mine

 

[Master Crash]

it does, yep.

i think smeargles are cool anyway, but i don't have any smeargle friend safaris available despite having about 94 registered friends lol

 

[Anton]

Delibird, Bergmite, Piloswine

1118-0659-8255

 

[Purple Yoshi]

What about mine

Munna, Espurr and Girafarig.

 

[fantanoice]

By the way, in evolution, later species don't become "better"; they're just better adapted to their environment. And besides, this whole "perfect" thing doesn't coincide with evolution's points at all.

Well, that's not exactly right, and I didn't mean to suggest that either. The idea of natural selection is that the species intends to procreate with the best mate to produce better offspring but that doesn't necessarily mean they will, or that the offspring will grab the bits of DNA that made the partners a strong fit in the first place. However, in Pokemon it isn't the Pokemon looking for partners, it's the trainer leaving them at the day car centre because they have 'determined' that these two Pokemon are the parents for producing the best offspring. But yeah, that's a whole other can of worms.

Where I was getting at, though, is that if you consider a piece of DNA as being, like, the IVs for a stat in Pokemon, then they can passed down to the offspring essentially at random (unless controlled with an item or something but lets not worry too much about that), which is akin to how DNA is actually passed down. I know that's really simplified but that's the general idea.

This is kind of a cop-out. That's like saying everybody in WoW should be level 60 because you don't have the hours to reach level 60, effectively making the effort all those other people put in moot. Or alternatively, that every player should have the same skill level in a game regardless of whether they've played it for 1 minute or 100 hours (though this can work for some games, such as Mario Party). Considering this is now a competitive game, there are going to be people of different skill levels playing, which means there is a hierarchy of players, with the top ones being the people who can use the mechanics to their advantage the best. This also includes understanding how a Pokemon's behind-the-scenes characteristics play a part of the game, in addition to working out what Pokemon works in your team and what moves it should use. If you only focus on building the team or the moves, then you're going to be worse off than the people who bother looking into the characteristics as well.

In all, if you want the perfect Pokemon and the perfect team, put in the effort to design it from every angle you can. If you don't have the time to invest in it then either deal with the fact that other people do, or get somebody to help you (so many perfect IV breeders out there). Nobody said being the very best (like no one ever was) was going to be easy. :P

The key point is that I said a "possible" 10+ hours. IVs are essentially random numbers, so you can spend ANY amount of time investing in perfect IVs. You can spend from a few hours to months; it all depends on how the game feels. There's a difference between working many of hours and earning lots of money and spending many hours at a slot machine and earning lots of money because you are exceptionally lucky. Getting IVs takes no effort or hard work; it takes just patience, persistence, and endurance, depending on the results.

Well, they've now made it so you're guaranteed a few 31 IV spreads on Pokemon from the Friend Safari to get you started, but yeah, pretty much what you said.

The key point is that I said a "possible" 10+ hours. IVs are essentially random numbers, so you can spend ANY amount of time investing in perfect IVs. You can spend from a few hours to months; it all depends on how the game feels. There's a difference between working many of hours and earning lots of money and spending many hours at a slot machine and earning lots of money because you are exceptionally lucky. Getting IVs takes no effort or hard work; it takes just patience, persistence, and endurance, depending on the results.

Not to mention people have been doing this for years and these changes have made it easier for people to control because of feedback like this, and also because it was previously too much a time investment that people just resorted to hacking instead. Theoretically this should make it easier enough for people to not bother with hacking.

This is a good thing, no doubt about it. IVs encourage people to hack because it's the only feasible and reliable way to do it without wasting your life on IVs. I'm all for hacking to get the perfect IVs or the desired ones for a hidden power because nobody should spend ANY amount of time gambling for a perfect IV Pokemon.

I agree with you in the sense that gambling for perfect IVs is a ridiculous investment of time and for Gen 3-5 I would have been totally with you with hacking. However, I like how they have given you a head start this gen with the Friend Safari and it kinda makes me want to dip my feet into it, you know?

Regardless, it is always fun to understand how the mechanics work under the hood, even if it is, in a lot of the cases, luck of the draw -or at least it is for me. :3

Sure they can redesign the entire game from scratch but that also means they won't be able to support Pokemon traded up from earlier generations, which would make systems like Pokemon Bank pretty useless and would peeve off a lot of people who paid money to subscribe to the service. It would also mean unnecessarily going to the effort of re-designing an entire system that has been around and refined and developed for the past 15 years, despite the fact that it works fine as it is.

After all, IVs have, in some form, been in the game since the original generations. They were originally used to give Pokemon unique characteristics (ie: 'two Pokemon of the same level caught may have different stats.') They were kept in Generation 2 as a way to keep backwards compatibility with the older games, so new things like gender and shininess were determined by IVs so that they could still be traded to and from the older games (also, fun fact, female Pokemon in Gen 2 are weaker than male because of IVs). They were not created 'as a means to increase playing time,' that was just a result of a mechanic working behind-the-scenes that people managed to work out for themselves and exploit to get better at the game. Really, they've never even discussed EVs/IVs in the game until this generation (except for, like, one guy in Gen V who said, "This Pokemon excels at x").

This is exactly what happened with Ruby and Sapphire when some foundation changes were made. People are mad that they weren't able to trade their GRB/GSC Pokemon to Ruby and Sapphire. Just because they are a tradition doesn't justify their severe flaws. IVs may work the way it should, but it is an ugly game mechanic that needlessly complicates a game. Even if there is some great reason for IVs to be in, 31 values is way too much and should be at least toned down.

I'd like to see some sort of change in this system, but Pokemon has set itself up into a dead-end over the years, where needed changes in the core can break it.

I do appreciate the changes made to give us more control over IVs, but ideally, IVs should be exterminated.

The thing is, IVs were a mechanic that people were never meant to know about. People were meant to know that Pokemon are unique but not the 'magic' behind that made it so. On the surface, it might be a complicated system but it never gets in the way of the player unless they have dug deeper to learn more about the game.

I guess its possible for them to completely remove them completely (or just default them all to one value to keep backwards compatibility) and use PVs to determine Hidden Power. That basically means that every Pokemon of the species is equal (+-EVs), which I guess sounds okay but then you lose the, "Every Pokemon is unique," thing that they have pushed since forever. I don't really mind either way, but it is something to toss between.

I do, however, wish you could control IVs, EVs and PVs after they have been determined though, especially in the case of Pokemon you can only catch once like legendaries. Get the wrong nature? Too bad. Battle against the wrong Pokemon (and you're not playing Emerald)? Too bad. Crappy genetics? Oh you better believe that to be too bad.

Iunno.

They've done it before, they could clearly make pokemon transferable to the new games, even if they got rid of iv's, that part is just a cop out. Also, IV's have been a thing since gen I dont kid yourself. The system we know of as IV wasnt overhauled until gen III because the original system in gen I and II was flawed, not because it didnt exist. And they werent called IV's until gen III, because they were meant as an easter egg in the original gens, but in gen III the system was overhauled to allow them to do fancy stuff with them like hidden powers and increase people playing time as they tried to get the perfect hidden power or the perfect stats.

Firstly, IVs, DVs, whatever they were called in the generation is the same concept at the core, not to mention they're likely just slang names given to them by hackers. I don't remember reading anything official from Nintendo saying, "Oh, this mechanic you should never know about was called x in Generation I and II and y onwards." So yes, they have existed since the start. I already said that:

After all, IVs have, in some form, been in the game since the original generations.

They're workings have changed but the core idea of them was that they were the genetics / characterists of the Pokemon that they were born with and would never change.

they've overhauled the stats before. they've allowed you to transfer pokemon between gens before, between gen I and II, and between gen III and gen IV despite different gaming platforms. And between gen IV and gen V...and gen V and gen VI... They just wouldnt be able to be traded back to gen VI once the game reformatted their stats to the new system, which... they probably wouldnt be able to be traded back anyways!!!

I don't know how many data migration systems you've worked on, but if the number is 0 then you'll have to trust me when I say they are a hell of a lot of work and a complete pain in the butt to implement. To make sure every data field from the original game matches up perfectly to the changes in the second is a very finicky and one mistake basically means lost data, and potentially lost Pokemon.

You havent been able to move your pokemon back and forth between gens since gen I and II's time capsule, so I dont see how this could possibly be an issue.

I'm fairly certain this is because they had a lot of trouble moving Pokemon back and forth between Gen I and II that they simply didn't bother with sending Pokemon back for later generations, which is saddening to people like me who might want to use that Pokemon in its original game again.

Also I'm still hoping that one day I'll be able to use my Pokemon Yellow Mewtwo in the latest Pokemon game, and then put him back into Yellow. Rip TWOMEW, the greatest Mewtwo ever.

And with everything trading being online now days, that would just make the recoding that much easier now than it was back in gen II or gen IV.

What do you mean by this?

Trading is basically exchanging data between two game cards that have been connected through some sort of network. The games were originally networked by a link cable, but now they use a wireless connection (Infrared or Bluetooth for local, Internet for not-local). Trading over an Internet connection should have no effect whatsoever on the effort needed to completely design the IV system because they are totally unrelated.

Unless you mean Pokemon Bank, but I'm guessing that will just trick the game card into thinking it's sending data to another game card. It still isn't going to change the fact that to redesign the IV system and allow you to keep your Pokemon from the earlier games then they're going to need to map all the things that relied on it to some other data scheme.

 

[Pokemon DP]

@purple_yoshi, I have lampent, pumpkaboo, and drifblim.

0989-2630-4065

 

[Turboo]

farfetch'd/hoothoot/rufflet

4570-6717-0160

 

[MnSG]

If anyone has my friend code, I'd like to know what Pokemon are in my Friend Safari.

5327-1637-5096

 

[Purple Yoshi]

@purple_yoshi, I have lampent, pumpkaboo, and drifblim.

0989-2630-4065

OK, thanks! Even if it is the exact same friend safari as my cousin.

I just won a random match. I just decided to do one when someone challenged me because screw it, but for some reason she only picked 3 Pokemon when I had 6. I don't know if that was intentional or not.

I felt pretty happy, though, because she had a Vaporeon with Wish+Protect, so I kept predicting her Protect and getting a free switch.

 

[Smg2daisy]

Me: Munna, Espurr, Girafarig
Lily: Snorunt, Sneasel,
Turb: Farfetch'd, Hoothoot, Rufflet
Darling: Sawk, Meditite, Hariyama
Anton: Delibird, Piloswine, Bergmite
M4E: Magcargo, Dwebble, Shuckle

I wonder how you all managed to find the third one. It doesn't appear when I am in Friend Safari.
I guess I just list them all as I playing it.

 

[Purple Yoshi]

It says on Serebii the third one only appears on games where you've beaten the elite four, but you may just be unlucky in not seeing it. If there's a pokeball icon on the third slot it means there's an avaliable third Pokemon.

 

[Master Crash]

i believe you and the person with the friend safari need to be online at the same time to unlock the third pokemon and hidden ability

 

[Smg2daisy]

i believe you and the person with the friend safari need to be online at the same time to unlock the third pokemon and hidden ability

Nope
Just now I found the third one from my darling's safari

 

[fantanoice]

Me: Munna, Espurr, Girafarig
Lily: Snorunt, Sneasel,
Turb: Farfetch'd, Hoothoot, Rufflet
Darling: Sawk, Meditite, Hariyama

I wonder how you all managed to find the third one. It doesn't appear when I am in Friend Safari.

To get the third Pokemon, you and your friend need to be online at the same time after you have both beaten the Elite 4.

My friend says I'm currently Psychic with Abra and Esperr but I haven't beaten the Elite yet so I dunno what the last one is.