Jul -- Gaming: Let's talk pokémon!

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Posted on 10-30-13 10:47:51 AM

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Originally posted by GuyPerfect
"You played with Drifblim a lot! You found a Deadly Poison Object!"

I imagine discussions in the Game Freak office probably went like this:
"So what did you do today, Stan-san?"
"I was in a group thinking up ways to make Hydreigon and Cryogonal look cute and happy when you pet them."

I don't... pet my Pangoro anymore. He looks at me so...

"Today, human, you shall live. Continue scrubbing my lower stomach."

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GuyPerfect
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Posted on 10-31-13 03:02:33 AM

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Before I forget, I saw some names on the GTS that Bulbapedia doesn't know about. Anyone ever hear of Diancie, Volcanion or Hoopa?

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Posted on 10-31-13 04:50:47 PM

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Yeah, we've been talking about those names in the NIWA public chat on the 22nd, of which the staff of Bulbapedia are part of. :3 Nothing is known about those pokemon though, so it'd be difficult to fill an article for them

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Xenesis

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Posted on 10-31-13 10:06:10 PM (last edited by Xenesis at 10-31-13 10:16:40 PM)

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A hacker cracked the Wonder Trade/Encounter data:
Spoilers: http://i.imgur.com/75rjSLG.jpg

GuyPerfect
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Posted on 11-01-13 01:07:08 AM

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For those not in the know, the Super Training feature exposes the "effort values" of a Pokémon to the player, allowing the player to increase each stat individually, or wipe them all clean using something called a Reset Bag. What's not obvious is that high-level Pokémon can use a Reset Bag to show its base stats sans-effort-points, which can then be used in reverse to determine the "individual values" for each stat. These are kinda wonky terms, but it basically means this:

• Every Pokémon species has a pre-determined set of "base stats" for each of the six combat stats: HP, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense and Speed.
• Individual Pokémon have "individual values" (IVs) determined at time of creation, which are wholly random numbers between 0 and 31 that never change. A higher IV in a stat will yield slightly higher values in that stat than lower numbers.
• Each opposing Pokémon that you defeat in battle has what people call an "EV yield", which is from 1 to 3 "effort points" (EVs) for pre-determined stats. Multiple effort points can be awarded to the same stat by a single defeated Pokémon.
• The higher the EV for a particular stat, the higher the value for that stat. So as you battle with your Pokémon, its stats will increase even if it doesn't level up.
• A Pokémon can have 510 effort points total, in which case it is considered "fully-trained". Individual stats cannot exceed 252 effort points (previously 255, but anything over 252 didn't have an effect at level 100).

Super Training is all about the effort points. The Reset Bag shows you what the value was prior to deletion, which you can restore by restarting the game without saving... The implication here is that you can plug the stat numbers and EVs into a reverse formula to resolve the hidden IVs for your Pokémon.

I did some experimentation with this today and had much success. The Drifblim I mentioned earlier came off of the GTS, since I wanted the Exp. boost. Turns out it had a Bold nature, which is the absolute best for what I want to do: use it as an evasiveness tank (Minimize + Baton Pass). Bold makes the Defense stat 10% higher, but it also makes the Attack stat 10% lower. That's great, because Drifblim's base Defense is lower than its Base Special Defense, and its base Special Attack is higher than its Base Attack.

By doing some algorithmic voodoo, I ran a routine to crunch the numbers to make the Drifblim as robust as it could be in a general sense, using the following two parameters: 1) the final Defense and Special Defense stats should be the same to protect from any kind of attack, and 2) using the Defenses and HP stats, find the combination that will result in the least percentage of total HP lost by any given attack. That is to say, the combination where incoming attacks will hurt the least relative to the full HP bar. My program spat out the calculated EVs and the expected stat totals, and after Super Training was complete, it was spot on, save for HP, which turned out to be 1 higher in the game (meaning I probably got the wrong IV for that stat due to a rounding error).

I then did the same thing with a Shuckle. Gadzooks, Shuckle is a pain to train up using Super Training. But I got it to the point where it's as sturdy as it can get, and holy cow is that thing survivable. It was curious to see how the stat distributions wound up different from the Drifblim, due to a combination of base stat differences and a really pitiful roll of IVs on the Shuckle. Where the Drifblim didn't train its HP much at all (it needed 28 effort points in the stat), the Shuckle had to max it out with 252. And where the Drifblim trained both of its Defense stats most of the way up, the Shuckle has all of 6 effort points in Special Defense, with Defense at 252, and the final stats are the same. Just goes to show, there's variance between Pokémon!

In any case, it's a blast having access to all the numbers at long last, and I find myself "EV training" for the first time. Ever.

FieryIce

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Posted on 11-01-13 04:20:17 AM

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I'd like to add that you could do the same thing before by putting a newborn in the daycare, run around for 15-20 minutes to get it to about level 20 and use one of the online calculators. Sometimes it won't get you the exact value unless you enter the stats for 2-3 levels but no big deal and usually any Pokemon can be guessed by level 20-25.

Though it's nice to be able to do it for Pokemon you blindly trained and no longer know the EVs for, I guess.

Xenesis

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Posted on 11-01-13 11:34:10 AM

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There's a RNG quirk with daycaring that allows you to predict which IVs get passed by the destiny knot.

Full thread Link.

Steps:
1. Start with two parents who have 3/6 perfect IVs in different stats. Have one of them hold a Destiny Knot.
>>>FindmeElseweyr notes that using Magikarps will reduce the amount of time needed to hatch the first egg.
2. Deposit them at the daycare.
3. Save your game before an egg is produced. This means before the guy standing outside the daycare turns around, not when he gives you the egg.
4. Run around until the daycare man gives you an egg
5. Hatch the egg.
6. Determine which IVs were inherited from which parent. You can check this easily by talking to the purple-haired man inside the PokéCenter in Kiloude City.
>>>Example: Hyper Inferno's post shows the male passing on HP, SpD, and Spe IVs to the offspring.
7. Soft reset your game and load your save file.
8. Swap the parents for Pokémon with the right sexes and IVs to get the combination of stats that you want them to inherit.
>>>For the example above you would want a Male Pokémon with 31 HP, SpD, and Spe and a female with Atk and Def.
9. Repeat until you get 5/6!

Essentially, this allows you to get around the randomness of the inheritance system and pick parents that'll guarantee you a 5IV 31 egg.

Lunaria

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Posted on 11-01-13 11:46:25 AM

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They should just have killed the IV system off entirely as far as I'm concerned, according to me it's the cancer that is killing pokemon. :x

All it really does is bring forth the: "they have this advantage so I must as well" approach within any form of competition higher than casual. Which to be frank is the reason we all these RNG approaches, arguably this one is at least more manageable than the setting of system time in the previous gens but it's still problematic according to me due to the RNG being a part in general.

Maybe I'm just idealistic? I'd just prefer competition centred around skill rather than a deconstruction of random number generators.

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Xenesis

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Posted on 11-01-13 11:54:00 AM

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I can't disagree.

The IV system is a cancerous holdback for Pokemon.

Peardian

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Posted on 11-01-13 01:09:24 PM

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But isn't the competition ultimately based on your decisions as a trainer? Wouldn't the Pokemon, moves, strategy, and training approach you choose be what helps you to win in the end, rather than "my Charizard was born with three more defense points than your Charizard"? Wouldn't it say more about your skill if you were able to overcome an opponent despite a slight statistical disadvantage? Or maybe I'm the one that is being idealistic, and am underestimating the lengths people will go to feel superior to others.

I personally like the IV system, because it ensures that no two Pokemon are exactly alike. They're no longer cookie-cutter copies of each other, they're unique to you and you alone.

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Lunaria

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Posted on 11-01-13 02:34:08 PM

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Originally posted by Peardian
I personally like the IV system, because it ensures that no two Pokemon are exactly alike. They're no longer cookie-cutter copies of each other, they're unique to you and you alone.

This is the part of the IV system I like, the problem is that it's not unknown how it functions and you can manipulate it. (Heck the later games have thrown in items and stuff you help you with this.)

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GuyPerfect
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Posted on 11-01-13 03:28:02 PM

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I'm in favor of IVs, personally. On the one hand, two brute-force offensive Pokémon fighting might have a predestined outcome, but on the other hand, the benefits of IVs are small enough that more often than not it's the person who winds up moving first who has the advantage.

There's more to combat than stats. You can defeat your opponent without attacking them. Heck, I have a Shuckle and a friggin' Magikarp on my team and I'm having a blast pulling things out of my jester-tricks bag. IVs don't have to play a big role in Pokémon battles. If they did, then you wouldn't see a Magikarp one-shotting a Mega Mewtwo Y.

Food for thought:

• You can scramble the order of stats with moves like Trick Room and Power Split, totally turning the IV system on its head during battle.
• Defensive stalling can deplete enemy PP, giving you a chance to take them out without fear of retaliation.
• Status ailments can be beneficial. For instance, Breloom can benefit from Poison Heal while being immune to other status effects in the process.
• Baton Pass is the holy grail of character buffs.
• Careful selection of moves on a Smeargle can make for some epic situations.
• Roar and Whirlwind are infuriating ways to reset the enemy's stat changes.
• Abilities can turn the tide in multi battles.

♦ I understand the combination of Drizzle and Swift Swim has been banned from some tournaments (for example, Relicanth is a beast in this situation).
♦ Truant can be Skill Swapped off of a Slaking for something a little more practical, like Early Bird (Natu).
♦ Moves like Lava Plume can power up allies with Abilities like Flash Fire. See also: Discharge/Volt Absorb, Petal Blizzard/Sap Sipper and Surf/Water Absorb.

2Tie

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Posted on 11-01-13 04:37:22 PM

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You mentioning Baton Pass reminds me of an older strategy I used to use quite often for B/W Trains, and I guess might be applicable in this IV discussion... I originally heard of this pair from a friend of mine, who used to play Diamond/Pearl somewhat competitively. Take a standard Swords Dance Ninjask, and have it pass its buffs to a Rampardos, and it pretty much wrecks everything regardless of IVs, given a good-coverage moveset.

So yeah, while I agree that the differences in IVs can sometimes determine matches online, I find that there's enough tricks and strategies that can nullify or utilize "normal/average" IVs that I usually don't worry about them. :3

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GuyPerfect
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Posted on 11-02-13 03:17:04 PM

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City of Heroes was shut down almost a year ago. Most people were quick to go all rageface at the parent company for pulling the plug, but as far as I'm concerned considering the way studio management was handling the project, it was a mercy killing. In any case, it has a fairly simple combat system, not based around "stats" like Pokémon, but around "attributes", which are typically neutral at zero, but can be increased or decreased temporarily.

So-called "toggle powers" gave you boosts to combat attributes as long as they were turned on, which was a form of persistent buff. One such class of attributes was called Defense, and for some slack-jawed idiotic reason, they chose the word to describe not the reduction of incoming damage, but rather the reduction of likeliness to get hit. Resistance to damage was called Damage Resistance. Evasiveness, as we with Pokémon know it, was what they called Defense...

Anyhoo, the hit chance calculation in City of Heroes was clamped to the range of 5%-95%. Enemies would never have less than a 5% chance of hitting you, and you would never have more than a 95% chance of hitting them. Most NPC enemies had a base "to-hit" of 50%, meaning out of the box they'd miss half the time. And even if your "Defense" was high enough to force their hit chance to 5% constantly, they still, in practice, hit you far too frequently. Because if you had Defense, you didn't have Damage Resistance. If you got hit with Defense, you dead.

It didn't take me much experimentation to spurn Defense and never go back. "Defense sucks," I would tout, roaming around with my newfound reliable survivability in the form of Damage Resistance. I was so happy then, having forgotten about the blasted hit rolls entirely.

Somehow or other, I forgot that lesson and tried to rely on Evasiveness in Pokémon. The lesson has been re-learned. Evasiveness sucks.

If it's maxed out, I wouldn't expect to be getting hit with moves like Toxic, Leech Seed and Will-O-Wisp consecutively. And if I can describe my so-called "protection" using the phrase "takes at least three turns to max out, at which point it does jack squat", then it's time to go for something more dependable, like counting on Critical Hits to land before the enemy can defeat me.

Peardian

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Posted on 11-02-13 04:49:42 PM

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Originally posted by Lunaria
This is the part of the IV system I like, the problem is that it's not unknown how it functions and you can manipulate it. (Heck the later games have thrown in items and stuff you help you with this.)

It's not exactly GameFreak's fault. If there is a system, no matter how mysterious, people will tear it apart trying to figure out how it works and how to exploit it. The items and features added in later games are probably a response to seeing how much the community used the feature. You can thank the competitive community for taking all the wonder out of it.

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Posted on 11-02-13 08:41:48 PM (last edited by Rena at 11-03-13 01:33:16 AM)

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Post #5139 · Sat 131102 164148

Originally posted by GuyPerfect
Most NPC enemies had a base "to-hit" of 50%

Wow, that sounds like a game I wouldn't play for more than a couple minutes.

I felt as if accuracy debuffs got weakened a bit in Black/White, but still two or three of them makes you unable to hit the broad side of a barn from a foot away. It's pretty goddamn annoying. See also confusion.

[edit] So I just tossed my last Net Ball at a particularly stubborn bastard, and it played some kind of chime, and only shook once before securing. What's that about?

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FieryIce

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Posted on 11-03-13 01:50:37 AM

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Originally posted by Rena

[edit] So I just tossed my last Net Ball at a particularly stubborn bastard, and it played some kind of chime, and only shook once before securing. What's that about?

This has happened to me on X quite a few times; I have no idea what it's about, I guess you just get lucky?

Peardian

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Posted on 11-03-13 02:09:04 AM (last edited by Peardian at 11-03-13 02:09:17 AM)

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It's a Critical Capture, something they introduced in Black/White. The chances of it happening increase with the number of Pokemon you've captured.

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GuyPerfect
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Posted on 11-03-13 10:54:06 PM

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