EVs and IVs have been a problematic mechanic in Pokemon for a long time. IVs were something that were absolutely required to max for comp - used to have to breed autistically to get perfect IVs or else your Pokemon was unusable. This problem has been "solved" with Hyper Training, which cancels out the mechanic entirely. EVs are also a huge problem, because as designed, you obtain them through an obtuse method that used to totally ruin your Pokemon unless you had a plan ahead of time.
Both mechanics are easier to manage nowadays, but these solutions seem to just be a bandage on mechanics that are flawed at their core. IVs, for instance, push Pokemon to minmax and discourage mixed attackers.
I'm sure people will defend these mechanics as people will defend anything Gamefreak does, but with this in mind, what possible alternatives could exist for this system?
For me, I would say some characteristics for a good system would be
>Transparent and easily viewed in game
>Does not encourage overinvestment in certain stats
>Does not require permanent investment and permits simple reinvestment
What do you think could be done to alter these systems?
Remove IVs.
I agree. I get what they're going for but the mechanic is just tedious.
Removing IVs is a terrible idea only endorsed by wannabe comptroons. What you should do to satisfy the comptroons is make all IVs set to 31 in PvP, same way all levels are set to 50
if the mechanic has to be cancelled out to be made tolerable, why does the mechanic need to exist?
both ivs and evs should be removed
Remove IVs, they are a worthless mechanic whose whole justification for existence was Hidden power which has been removed
EVs are better off not existing in PvE as it just buffs the grindy player with no positives for the AI without punishing the normal player, however I can see it's positives for comp.
I would make so after you finish the story, you'd get a item that allows you to edit EVs whenever you want outside of battle, this way you are more free to change up your creature stats without any of the boring grind. These EVs would only take effect in PvP battles but not anywhere else.
Something id also like to see is making so the more EVs you put into a stat, the less impactful it becomes, this should also encourage more spread out EVs rather than the common yet boring 252/252/4. Oh also buff the max EV cap by 2.
I generally like the idea of some kind of trainable customizable stat spread but maybe it's just completely unworkable
remove IVs entirely
make EVs only increasable via vitamins and only decreasable via vitamins
also possibly some super training-esque minigame
Are IVs completely unsalvagable?
yes
it should honestly be studied how game freak fricked up so bad they made eugenics unfun
NOOOOOOO YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, THERE HAS TO BE A LOT OF HOLDING THE MOVE STICK IN ONE DIRECTION WHILE PRESSING BUTTONS EVERY NOW AND THEN JUST TO GET ANOTHER ROLL FOR INVISIBLE VALUES THAT YOU BARELY GET TO KNOW INGAME, IN THE HOPES OF GETTING ONE OF THE FEW VIABLE IV SPREADS FOR A SINGLE MON WHEN THERE'S OVER A BILLION POSSIBLE ROLLS
BECAUSE... THERE JUST HAS TO BE THEM, OKAY?
Absolutely. IVs, and DVs by extension, are a decent concept in theory, but terrible in execution.
Gen 2 was the only time where they had some worthwile impact since they also determined genders, shininess, Unown's forms, Hidden Power, and breeding compatibility. In Gen 3 onwards, it was only Hidden Power as the rest became determined by other hidden stats.
Natures should have replaced IVs outright as a stat that alters battle stats and give Pokémon some individual flavor while making it much more manageable for players to obtain their desired builds. Hidden Power could've relied on other stats or had its effect changed.
what's the "1 reel with 3 results"
i know the "1 reel with 25 results" is natures, and i know the "6 reels, each with 32 results" is IVs
Ability, 2 results if regular, 3 if hidden abilities are involved.
Pokemon is a monster raising game, not a fighting game.
Pokemon is also not a eugenics simulator, but it certainly is a rambling, gambling simulator.
Yes. I dont care if some mon needs 0 speed IVs or something needs some specific number. Just treat everything as being 31 and if something needed to rely on some overly specific IV setup, tough.
>Just treat everything as being 31
Wouldn't it make more sense to treat everything as 0 if IVs were removed?
31 instead of zero narrows the gap (slightly) between high stats and low stats. If all EVs were able to be maxed out to 252, the gap between high stats and low stats would be narrowed even further.
If the gap between stats really needs to be narrowed, how about remove IVs, treat that void as 0, and boost the EV totals to compensate?
Having played a lot of Gen 1/2 lately, I honestly think I prefer stat exp. system over the EV system we have now. I don't know if being allowed to max all 6 stats is the right call, but I'd be fine with increases the cap from 510 EV's to 762 so Pokemon could max out three stats. If anything should be removed, it's natures. Most Pokemon only have, at best, two natures they care about so I feel like natures could be removed entirely causing any harm. Just treat every Pokemon as neutral.
Remove IVs. Keep Natures and EVs, but let the player manually allocate EVs upon level up. E.g. kill 2 Pidgeys and 2 Rattatas, you can add 1 Spd EV. This gives lets you opt out of auto investing in unhelpful stats and a GUI for how many values you've invested and how many you have remaining (can have a legacy auto-invest setting for casual players or even set as default idc). Can introduce an item or tutor to edit EV spreads later in the game assuming you've accumulated the necessary values. This keeps the spirit of EV training and your Pokemon improving based on which targets it faces, while making it more transparent and configurable.
Also, like other anons said, increase max EVs total by 2.
The reason the system was hidden was because they wanted you to be a kid and love your Pokemon regardless of how weak it was. Its tediousness and difficulty are part and parcel of the game and without it, youre pulling a "shared exp share" sort of change where its forced onto the user to have the game be easy and simple. No need for that shit. Its difficult and convoluted because thats how it is. Thats what makes it Pokemon.
yeah suuuuure
because every kid knows about IVs existing despite the games not even hinting at such a thing outside of battle facilities, and by the time their pokemon would have a high enough level for IV stat variance to start being meaningful, they wouldn't be able to actually tell because of EVs, another mechanic that's been invisible until gen 6
Yeah that's what makes it Pokemon. It wouldn't be as fun if it weren't as autistic. Notice how Pokemon attracts autists and troons like dogshit attracts flies? That's because There's an glory in the convolutedness. I am just glad that I am able to say YES you are all wrong. Yes troons are moronic worthless people. Yes all hacks and newer games which baby you through making the strongest possible mons are gay. And last but not least yes you are a Black person ape if you disagree
Lots of people are saying remove IVs but at the end of the day it's something you can just bottle cap. Keeping IVs has various small nuances like trick room. Have min IVs for certain ultra beasts would also give you beast boost in the desired stat like Stakataka. I think they're worth seeing around for their original purpose of making Pokemon look different on a surface level for flavor.
>it's something you can just bottle cap
As OP said, it cancels out the mechanic.
>Keeping IVs has various small nuances like trick room.
EVs and Natures.
>Have min IVs would also give you beast boost in the desired stat
EVs, Natures, or just accept the change nerfing a dozen Pokémon to benefit the gameplay loop as a whole.
>I think they're worth seeing around for their original purpose of making Pokemon look different on a surface level for flavor.
Natures.
>Lots of people are saying remove IVs but at the end of the day it's something you can just bottle cap.
If you can cancel out the mechanic why does it exist at all?
EVs and IVs should be freely and instantly adjustable if they ever want Pokemon to really blossom as a competitive esport. the burden of knowledge in the terms of obscure mechanics and interactions and movepools and BSTs and stat distributions and damage calcs is actually fricking absurd coming from someone who used to play a lot of RTS games pretty seriously and tacking on a bunch of tedious busy work that costs in-game resources related to these mechanics is just fricking asinine, EVs and IVs are basically meaningless for in-game playthroughs and keeping a tally of how many tauros you have KOed isnt intellectually challenging or a testament to skill, its just fricking tiresome
The original intent was to obscure these systems from the player practically completely. GF has softened up on that, and gradually introduced more and more ways to view and influence the hidden stats. It's still sort of an "if you know, you know" thing, though -- there's little or no handholding on any of the stat changing items IIRC, so the player has to learn about them outside of the game (or experiment extensively on their own, I guess) in order to properly understand them. I suspect the intention there is to keep the target audience (babies and super casuals) from getting confused and alienated. To those people, the systems are still more or less unknown, and GF wants to keep it that way. With that in mind, I think that, realistically, whatever replaced EVs and IVs either would be as obscure as those, or would be so dumbed down that it couldn't confuse anyone (like Pokemon GO IVs).
Anyway, something I think would be interesting is a trade-off between stats and moves. Maybe (A) a mon's move set directly influences its stats. Alternatively, maybe (B) moves become available to a mon at certain thresholds of investment (which can be unique to each species) through an EV-like system.
Example of A:
>My Infernape learns Close Combat, which adds to its Attack and subtracts from its HP. If it forgets Close Combat, those stat changes are reversed. If my Infernape learns Superpower instead, it gains Attack, but it loses Defense.
Example of B
>I invested 100 points into my Infernape's Attack stat, so now it can use Close Combat. If I take the investment down to 95, my Infernape forgets Close Combat.
Could just set all the IVs to 31 in PvP, same way everything is set to level 50.
>IVs, for instance, push Pokemon to minmax and discourage mixed attackers.
You mean EVs. You'd have to return to the gen 1-2 EV system to accomplish what you want
Then why don't we?
Revert the Gen4 phys/spec split
Phys spec split is overrated. Most of the best physical moves are still physical either way, most of the best special moves are still special either way.
EVs just need a streamlined system where you can customize them on the menu at any time, provided you've actually trained that EV. So once you cap a stat at 252, you can freely edit it to whatever you want without the need for items. Alternatively, scrap the EV "training" system entirely and just do what other RPGs do and let you choose stats to improve after you level up.
IVs are fine, we just need a bottle cap for 0IV. Removing IVs would be soulless because they're essentially a Pokemon's genetics.
>I'm sure people will defend these mechanics as people will defend anything Gamefreak does
OP has been proven right.
Having opinions of a game mechanic doesn't mean you're defending the developer, you know
Alright, you incels clearly didn't get the MEMO
There are NO SUCH THINGS as """EVs"""" or """IVs""""
That is literally just your shitty fanfic; they're called Base Points and Individual Strengths
ignorant
Just use bottle caps
See
To make it worthwhile to earn those items
Bottle caps are for collecting.
James is an idiot
Make IVs more important.
I want them to actually change how any given monster is used in a practical sense.
Where you'd actually notice that your Tepig had more defense than normal in play, and be able to account for that.
EVs should just be based on the types of attacks the player uses, rather than the current method.
Defensive moves grant defensive EVs, physical attacks give physical EVs, speed boosting and priority attacks give speed EVs.
How though?
Increase their effect more.
Right now, 0 vs 31 IVs is just 31 stat points, which is only noticeable in competitive as a way of maxing out every percentage or damage or for gimmicks like Trick Room, minimizing speed.
It is almost an irrelevant number in most play because the difference is so slight.
It should have significant effects.
Maybe even upwards of a 10-15% variance in a stat between the lowest end and the highest end.