What games are you currently playing?

[cidbahamut]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Lv50 Level Cap in X/Y online play, so IVs are nowhere near as vital as they are at Lv100.

Doesn't matter, they're still there and in competitive play any edge is essential.

Seriously though, finding out about IVs and EVs basically ruined Pokemon for me.

[Armando]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Doesn't matter, they're still there and in competitive play any edge is essential.

Seriously though, finding out about IVs and EVs basically ruined Pokemon for me.

EVs are a great concept - you can customize a Pokemon and have several viable builds.

Fuck IVs.

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Don't have the sweetest tit of a clue what ya'll are on about.

[Armando]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Don't have the sweetest tit of a clue what ya'll are on about.

In layman's terms, IVs ("Individual Values") are a Pokemon's "genes" - a random value added to their stats. EVs ("Effort Values") are kind of like merit points - you can invest heavily into two particular stats (or divide them over more than two).

The thing about IVs and EVs is that they're never explicitly mentioned in-game*, so most people aren't even aware these things exist and that puts them at a horrible disadvantage for competitive play. The other thing is that IVs suck because they're random, and if you want good ones you have to breed for them, which is just a tedious bullshit timesink. Giving Pokemon "genes" is kind of neat in theory but awful from a competitive play standpoint for obvious reasons.

*Up until Pokemon X/Y, in which they finally properly introduced EVs as a game mechanic.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Giving Pokemon "genes" is kind of neat in theory but awful from a competitive play standpoint for obvious reasons.

Pretty awful from a Darwinistic standpoint, as well.

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

So basically, two people can have the exact same pokemon with the exact same skill set, but 1 of them might be inherently better because of the RNG?

That's some epic bullshit.

[cidbahamut]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Yeah, but if you don't know that it doesn't bother you. As soon as I found out about it the games became harder to play.

[Ketaru]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

So basically, two people can have the exact same pokemon with the exact same skill set, but 1 of them might be inherently better because of the RNG?

That's some epic bullshit.

Pretty much yeah. Finding out about it nearly killed my desire to play the game. Gen VI has been much friendlier about EVs and somewhat about IVs. It's far easier to customize your EVs now.

Feels kind of crappy to halfass it though. I don't do competitive tournaments ala Smogon, yet I do try to optimize things like nature and EVs. So I have an edge against most random matches, but get thrashed by people who really know the metagame. I go there for ideas, and so I have a Blastoise with Rapid Spin for those entry hazards I still have not yet encountered.

You can really tell to what degree other trainers take this as well. Just went up against somebody with Greninja. Against most Greninjas so far, my Mienshao has outsped them. But this one time, Greninja was faster than Mienshao. Just based on my online experiences alone, I had no idea Greninja's base speed was faster than Mienshao's until now. I wonder if Greninja can learn U-Turn...oh my, just looked it up, Greninja can learn U-Turn. Mienshao may have higher Attack, but I think Protean will give Greninja the edge without STAB. Might convert to him for scouting!

Because he has Protean, I'm also guessing the fact he's Water/Dark is mostly irrelevant if I'm worried it will conflict with my Umbreon? I'm thinking Spe/SpA EVs with U-Turn/Surf/Exrasensory/IceBeam?

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

So much jargon... ><

I've not touched PKMN in years.

[Armando]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Mienshao may have higher Attack, but I think Protean will give Greninja the edge without STAB. Might convert to him for scouting!

Assuming Greninja has no Attack EVs and Mienshao has max Attack, Mienshao still wins by a small margin even without a +Attack nature. Of course, there's no reason you can't have both.

Did they take back the ability to see the enemy's team?

I've not touched PKMN in years.

There's been a definite improvement in game mechanics overall but in terms of story you haven't missed much of anything. The connections between games are fairly loose and it's still the same formula of 8 gyms + taking care of Team Whatever + Elite Four. In a strange sense it's a bit like buying the latest iteration of your favorite fighting game.

[Firewind]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

IVs can make up to 10% to over 25% of your stat total depending on the Pokemon's base stat and whether you've invested EVs. For high stats with full EVs, the difference is small; for low stats with no EVs, the difference between min and max IVs can be crippling. Speed in particular is a dealbreaker because it's all-or-nothing; losing even 1 point of Speed can put you at a disadvantage.

The 1 point of speed making all the difference thing is a not always a 100% thing when you consider the concept of speed tiers, and tailoring Speed EVs and IVs to outspeed specific threats. Then there are also the mechanics of Gyro Ball and Trick Room where lower speed is better. Plus there's plenty of slow pokemon with priority moves (Scizor), or are tanky enough to make Speed a non-issue (Scizor, Hippowdon, Celebi, Blissey, Skarmory etc)

[Armando]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

The 1 point of speed making all the difference thing is a not always a 100% thing when you consider the concept of speed tiers, and tailoring Speed EVs and IVs to outspeed specific threats.

Certainly I'm not saying Speed is crucial to every Pokemon, but for any pair of Pokemon with the same base Speed, the difference will probably come down to the IVs, and a sucky enough IV can make you slower than a Pokemon with up to 15 less base Speed (e.g. a 0 Speed IV 'mon with 100 Base Speed is slower than an 85 Base Speed 'mon with 31 IV all else being equal). I'm not even talking about sweepers specifically - going first means you always get 1 more turn than you would've otherwise.

The point was that anything less than perfect speed can totally change certain match-ups, something that almost never happens with the other 5 stats. You could get away with having 30 Attack IVs (or less) instead of 31 and no one would ever tell the difference. Plus, now for every Pokemon in your team with imperfect speed you have to remember a custom list of things you can/can't outspeed.

[Ketaru]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Assuming Greninja has no Attack EVs and Mienshao has max Attack, Mienshao still wins by a small margin even without a +Attack nature. Of course, there's no reason you can't have both.

Did they take back the ability to see the enemy's team?

No, you can still see your opponent's team.

[Carter]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Got bored with pokemon Y, still playing FFXIV:ARR on and off, bought the new zelda game for 3DS...it's good so far!

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

What Pokemon X/Y lacked in story, it really made up for in terms of location and even made interesting use of French folklore. Its probably the best Game Freak has done with setting and theme thus far.

All professors will also have a hard time following up Professor Sycamore, largely because he has more personality than any of the others.