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Dumpshock Forums _ General Gaming _ Pokémon
Posted by: Lionhearted Jan 24 2013, 10:26 PM
I'd imagine that the interest for the little critters would be rather low on this forum, but I felt like doing a quick write up on how pokémon works... out of boredom mostly.
A little background.
With the release of Pokémon Diamond/Pearl and Platinum (Often refered to as generation 4, we're currently in gen 5 with gen 6 scheduled for October), the pokémon franchise received an unexpected surge of new interest as a new kind of pokémon player emerged; The competitive player.
A lot of gamers that normally wouldn't bat an eyelash towards the franchise was drawn in by the advanced mechanics and rewarding strategic gameplay that had developed since the franchise inception.
With the growing presence of online features and the internet maturing into the beast it is today communities focused on breeding, battling and competing started to emerge. Which puts us where we are today.
Part 1: The Pokémon.
A pokémon got a number of unique characteristics that determine the effectiveness it will have in battle, some of it is determined by the species (not all pokémon is created equal, I'll cover that later), some of it is determined of the pokémons "genes" and some of it by it's training, I'll go into each of these seperately.
Species: Currently there is around 650 different species of Pokémon (compared to the original 151) Each with unique characteristics. A pokémons specie determine it's type, ability and base stats.
Type: The type of a pokémon determines what weaknesses and resistances it possesses aswell as it's STAB (Same Type Attack Bonus) It's possible to have a pokémon with dual typing, giving it access to all of the resistances and weaknesses of both types aswell as double stab.
[ Spoiler ]
An attack from a resisted type attack have it's base power halved.
An attack from a weakness type attack have it's base power doubled.
An attack of the same type as the pokémon using it has it's base power multiplied by 1.5
There's currently no dual-type moves.
Base power is the term used to describe the damage of an attack before stat bonuses are applied.
Stats: Each pokémon possesses, 6 stats determined by three variables, stats determines the effectiveness of a Pokémon in Battle.
These Variables are refered to as
Base stats, IV's (Individual Values) and EV's (Effort Values)
Base stat:
[ Spoiler ]
The base stat is determined solely on the pokémons species and is always static, they cannot be influenced in any way, shape or form. This naturally means that some Species are weaker then other species
IV's
[ Spoiler ]
These are the pokémons "genes" and are determined randomly among wild pokémon. Each value range from 1 to 31 and each point provides 1 extra point in that stat at level 100. It's Possible to affect this value through breeding as your pokémon inherent three random stats total from either of it's parents, certain items makes this passing down garantueed.
EV's
[ Spoiler ]
This represents your pokémons training and is aquired by fighting, newborn and wild pokémon starts with 0 EV's.
For every 4 EV's your pokémon gains 1 extra point in that specific stat at lvl 100, you may have up to 252 EV's in a single stat up to a total of 510.
EV's are aquired at a static rate depending on the species of the pokémon you defeat, each time you gain XP from defeating an opponent pokémon (wild or trained) you gain 1 to 2 EV points depending on the specie defeated (there's charts that can tell you what specie gives what, general rule of thumb. If a pokémon excels in an area it gives that stat)
Certain items, drugs and virae (yes really) can speed up this process
Natures
[ Spoiler ]
Each pokémon possesses a nature that influences it's total stats after Base stats, IV's and EV's are added together. Each nature gives a 10% bonus to one stat and a 10% penalty to another, there's 25 natures in total one for each combination and five neutral ones.
Nature is determined randomly but can be influenced to reflect a parents nature if the parent is holding a certain item during breeding.
As you can imagine nature can mean a world of difference.
The Stats are as follow
[ Spoiler ]
Health points (HP)
Determines the total hp of your pokémon.
Attack (Att)
Added together with other modifiers to determine the total damage of physical attacks
Defense (Def)
Detracts from the power of physical attacks
Special attack (SpA)
Same as attack but for special attacks
Special defense (SpD)
Same as defense but for special attacks
Speed (Sp)
Determines which pokémon goes first in a turn, the pokémon with the highest speed stat always go first, unless a priority move is used.
Character limit already? I haven't even covered all of what makes a poké tick yet... I'll continue this later.
Posted by: Lionhearted Jan 24 2013, 11:24 PM
Continued:
Abilities
[ Spoiler ]
Each pokémon possesses a passive trait known as an ability, it's determined by the species and can produce a number of effects, some positive other negative, some are double-edged swords. If a specie possesses several abilities it's equally likely to have either, with the exception of hidden abilities that can only be found in the dream world.
Abilities can include everything from summoning sandstorms on the battlefield, getting stat boosts when a certain condition is met or lowering your stats when a condition is met.
Abilities can make or break a pokémon, even more so then base stats
Moves:
Each pokémon possess up to 4 attacks with various effect that are learnt through leveling up, breeding (known as egg moves) or special items known as TMs(technical machines) or HMs (Hidden machines) there's currently close to 900 moves within including effects such as:
[ Spoiler ]
Every move possess a base power (except non-attacking moves such as stat boosts or status inflicters) a type, accuracy and is either physical or special.
Base power: This determines the damage of an attack before modified by stats, items, abilities or STAB.
Type: this determines element associated with the move, determining how it interacts with weaknesses, resistances and STAB.
Accuracy: determines the chance to hit your opponent even 100% accurate moves have a 1 in a 255 chance to miss (an old glitch that was never rectified)*
Physical or Special: This simply determine whether the move is modified by your Attack stat or Special Attack stat.
*Accuracy can be affected by accuracy or evasion moves. Evasion moves are illegal in competitive play.
Some moves provide secondary effects such as but not limited to
Status inflictions:
Affects the opponent with one of the following effects.
NOTE: A pokémon can only be affected by one status at a time
Poison: deals 1/16th of the opponents total health at the end of each turn, badly poisoning deals exponentially more damage with each turn.
(poison and steel types can't be poisoned)
Burn: Deal 1/16th of the opponents health at the each turn and halves the opponents attack stat. (Fire types can't be burnt)
Paralysis: Cut the opponents opponents speed down to 1/4 and gives a 25% chance to prevent the opponent from acting that turn (ground and electric types can't be paralyzed by most effects)
Freeze: Opponent can't act until thawed out by random chance or using a fire attack
Sleep: sleeping pokémon can't act with the exception of some moves designed to be used only when sleeping, a sleeping pokémon wakes up after 2-5 turns.
Secondary status:
NOTE: A pokémon can be affected by several secondary statuses at a time.
All these effects can be cured by switching out.
Confusion: gives the opponent a 25% chance of attacking himself instead of the opponent
Flinching: prevents the opponent from acting that turn, only effective vs slower opponents
Charm: Gives an opposite gender pokémon a 25% chance to not be able to act that turn
Leech seed: Drains 1/16th of the opponents health and give to yourself at the end of each turn
Taunt: Prevents the opponent from using non-attacking moves
Curse: deals 1/4 of the opponents health at the end of each turn
Hazards: these are semi permanent effects that damages or statuses a pokémon entering the field.
Priority moves:
These moves either act before or after an opponent regardless of speed, the exception being if the opponent also uses a priority move. Some priority moves requires certain conditions to be met, like being the first turn the pokémon is on the field or the opponent must use a attacking move.
Stat changers.
These moves increase or decrease one or more stats of a pokémon by 1 to 3 stages.
1 stage is x1.5 for positive boosts and x0.75 for negative ones.
Each stat can be increases up to 6 stages or reduced to 6 negative stages.
Weather inducers:
These moves sets the weather on the stage for 5 turns, providing benefits or penalties to certain types and moves.
Recovery moves.
These moves heals the pokémon or an ally from damage or statuses.
Critical hits: Critical hits, deal double damage and ignores any modifiers to defense, some moves have a high crit chance
There's plenty of other modifiers to moves such as damaging recoil or charge up turns but these are some of the major ones
Items:
Each pokémon can hold one item, providing them with a range of effects.
Everything from healing slightly, to increasing a stat at the expense of something else to inflincting a status on the wielder (this is useful with certain abilities)
Items is a major consideration for a pokémon to forfill it's role.
End of part 1, Part 2: The metagame.
Which I'll do tomorrow as I need to sleep.
I'm not going into breeding, because that's just... where shit gets really complex.
Posted by: X-Kalibur Jan 25 2013, 12:41 AM
And this shows exactly why competitive Pokemon battling is effed up (and why netbattle was so popular). IVs and EVs being normalized or removed make way more sense for competitive gameplay, then focusing more on the individual pokemon and movesets rather than the annoyance of perfect raising.
Posted by: _Pax._ Jan 25 2013, 01:34 AM
.... just to tie this back into Shadowrun a wee bit: I can see a Pokemon-like AR game being popular in the Sixth World, especially among tweens and younger. You could even have the game looking at where you are, and assigning buffs/debuffs to various Types of critters/pets/whatever (using GPS mapping). 
Posted by: CanRay Jan 25 2013, 03:05 AM
QUOTE (_Pax._ @ Jan 24 2013, 09:34 PM)
.... just to tie this back into Shadowrun a wee bit: I can see a Pokemon-like AR game being popular in the Sixth World, especially among tweens and younger. You could even have the game looking at where you are, and assigning buffs/debuffs to various Types of critters/pets/whatever (using GPS mapping).
Bah, they've all gone to MiracleShooter™.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/110018/Shadowrun%3A-The-Way-of-the-Samurai
Posted by: _Pax._ Jan 25 2013, 03:36 AM
Just like WoW was never the only MMO, I'm pretty sure MiracleShooter is nto the only AR Matrix game.
Posted by: Lionhearted Jan 25 2013, 02:47 PM
QUOTE (X-Kalibur @ Jan 25 2013, 01:41 AM)
And this shows exactly why competitive Pokemon battling is effed up (and why netbattle was so popular). IVs and EVs being normalized or removed make way more sense for competitive gameplay, then focusing more on the individual pokemon and movesets rather than the annoyance of perfect raising.
Yes IV's can be a bit of a pain, if they reduced the numbers from 1-31, to say... 1-10 getting good pokémon wouldn't be a statistical nightmare. I'm fine with EV's should be easier ways to track them and a way to reset them although.
For reference my 30/31/31/31/31/31 Ninetales with drought and modest nature took 28 generations of 10 eggs a piece to breed... and I got lucky.
Legendaries should come prepacked with perfect IV's although.
QUOTE (_Pax._ @ Jan 25 2013, 02:34 AM)
.... just to tie this back into Shadowrun a wee bit: I can see a Pokemon-like AR game being popular in the Sixth World, especially among tweens and younger. You could even have the game looking at where you are, and assigning buffs/debuffs to various Types of critters/pets/whatever (using GPS mapping).
They're already doing this, there's talks about expanding the use of the DS streetpass feature... Knowing big N it won't be long before we take literal walks with pokémons having real world random events/encounters/battle challenges... If you live in Japan where people actually carry DSes on the street.
Posted by: X-Kalibur Jan 25 2013, 06:07 PM
What I'd really like to see is certain types getting a set IV value and being lessend (halved, most likely) when on a dual type. In this way the IV is determined by your type combination instead of "I need to farm only rattatas to get the fastest pokemon X I can". EVs are the same really, give them a set value based on breed. Then the metagame isn't about breeding your pokemon for 10 generations and hoping you get lucky just so you get 1 potentially perfect pokemon. Now do it for all of them and level them all to 99 and you're ready for real competitive fights!...
Yawn. I'd rather go farm raids in WoW... and I can't stand doing that.
Posted by: Lionhearted Jan 25 2013, 06:35 PM
IV's: Genes
That would make every pokémon exactly the same genetically, good for competitive play, but a loss for the diversity and the fun of the lottery that is breeding, a lot of average players enjoys that aspect. (most serious traders uses RNG abuses to produce desired stats)
EV's : Training.
No, no, no. Even if EV training is obscure and tedious EV's exist for a very good reason, they allow you specialise!
Here's two Gliscors, both have exactly the same IV's.
One is Adamant nature (+Att, -SpA) with 252 EV's in attack and speed and 4 EV's in HP.
The other is a Impish nature (+Def, -SpA) with 252 EV's in HP and Defense and 4 in either speed or SpD
What's the difference?
Both are completely viable builds, but one is a fast attacker and one is either a bulky set-up attacker, a staller or a physical wall.
With static EV's you'd make that variety impossible, and it's more like 30 rattatas with a power anklet, 15 with pokérus.
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