Abolishing IVs: your thoughts

[Fox P McCloud]

This is one thing I've never understood about Poke'mon; in RBY there was really no point to having them, at all, and in GSC (and onward) their only point is for changing hidden power's strength and type.

What would you guys think of doing away with IVs all together? EVs (max of 510, of course), natures, and differing traits would stay, but why do we really need IVs? When it comes to Hidden Power, it could just let you pick the strength of it (for the few out there who would want base 60 hidden power for technician) and the typing.

I guess my biggest problem is that IVs ultimately gives an advantage to those who have more time to piss away than those who do not; after all, the bulk of the competitive Poke'mon community revolves around a number of simulators, all of which allow you to fully customize IVs without any work at all.

I can understand having work involved for EVs, natures, and abilities, but IVs are just too out there; as it stands the chance of getting the IVs you want for a Poke'mon is 1 in 1 billion; up that to 1 in 26 billion to get the IVs you want and the right nature, and 1 in 53 Billion to get max IVs, the right nature, and the right ability (for those with 2 abilities) .

So again, I ask, what's really the point of having IVs at all anymore, and what are your thoughts on this subject, as well?

 

[Terywj [태리]]

I understood the process behind them, but never bothered with them in in-game training of Pokemon.

To me, if my Diamond has a UU team of 6 Pokemon with the right nature and EV spread, I'm happy.

-Terywj

 

[Fox P McCloud]

I understood the process behind them, but never bothered with them in in-game training of Pokemon.

To me, if my Diamond has a UU team of 6 Pokemon with the right nature and EV spread, I'm happy.

-Terywj

the thing here though, is that if you have a Poke'mon with a beneficial nature in, say speed, and you max out the EVs there too, if it has bad IVs for speed, it can end up being lower than a pokemon who has decent or max IVs in speed and max EVs for speed as well, effectively meaning that, again, those who have tons of time to waste will have a decent advantage over those who do not or those who are in your same shoes.

 

[Terywj [태리]]

Of course.

Good thing all my friends who EV train also don't care about IVs.

-Terywj

 

[Mewter]

That's the whole point of Pokemon. Collect them and hope you're lucky or waste your time RNG abusing the poor game. It adds a degree of randomness.

Personally, I just go for the EVs and forget the IVs.

 

[Fox P McCloud]

That's the whole point of Pokemon. Collect them and hope you're lucky or waste your time RNG abusing the poor game. It adds a degree of randomness.

Personally, I just go for the EVs and forget the IVs.

the thing is though, in most competitive environments, randomness is not a good, fair, or desirable thing....note how "hax" items/moves/etc. are banned in competitive rounds themselves because of this fact.

 

[Terywj [태리]]

That's the whole point of Pokemon. Collect them and hope you're lucky or waste your time RNG abusing the poor game. It adds a degree of randomness.

Personally, I just go for the EVs and forget the IVs.

Most people with cartridges tend to go this way unless they are hax0rs or can RNG.

-Terywj

 

[SilentVerse]

The thing is, I'm pretty sure Game Freak has IVs on Pokemon because to those little kids who enjoy playing Pokemon, it makes each Pokemon different, instead of each one being blandly the same. Yes, it would be so much easier to competitively battle on the cartridges, but it would be boring for those little kids to have each of those Buizel that they caught with the same nature have the exact same stats. Younger kids I'm pretty sure are the target audience for Pokemon anyways, and usually, most kids don't care about IV's.

Also, theoretically, you can IV breed, to take less time, but that also takes more time than you would want to waste on one Pokemon. But I'd rather IV breed than just randomly breed something and hope it has perfect and ideal IV's.

 

[xLeafybug =D]

I think that IVs are a good thing. People who have the time to waste by getting good IVs for their Pokemon deserve to do better than those who didn't, doesn't that seem fair to you?

 

[Firus]

The thing is, I'm pretty sure Game Freak has IVs on Pokemon because to those little kids who enjoy playing Pokemon, it makes each Pokemon different, instead of each one being blandly the same. Yes, it would be so much easier to competitively battle on the cartridges, but it would be boring for those little kids to have each of those Buizel that they caught with the same nature have the exact same stats.

This.

Seriously, people; you can't expect Nintendo to abolish IVs, EVs, and the like. They weren't made so that you have to work hard to have the most perfect Pokémon ever, they were made to make Pokémon diverse.

I would never be able to stand IV breeding (and don't have the patience to learn about RNG-abuse), but I don't expect them to abolish IVs just because it's time-consuming to get the best Pokémon.

Also, in response to your "People who have lots of time to waste will be better off in competition" argument, you can say the same thing in Smash Bros. Those who have time to practice ATs will ultimately be able to do better in competition. When you're competing, it generally tends to be more time-consuming if you want to do better.

I hate IVs personally, but there really is no reason they should be abolished.

 

[Circa]

Note how those who have the time to "piss away" at IV training are probably also the ones who play competitively. Or if they don't have the time, they find the time or abuse something to cut down the time.

My only problem with IVs really is finding a good Hidden Power. Past that though, I just breed or catch until I get an IV in a specific stat (and nature) I want and am happy with. Usually this just applies to Speed so I can do less predicting and hoping, but that's about all. I would agree that it would probably be easier without it; albeit less rewarding for good time spent.

 

[Firus]

the thing is though, in most competitive environments, randomness is not a good, fair, or desirable thing....note how "hax" items/moves/etc. are banned in competitive rounds themselves because of this fact.

IVs are not the same kind of randomness as "hax" items/moves/etc.

You will know before you enter a tournament what your Pokémon's IVs are. If you knowingly go into battle with your IVs a certain way, that isn't randomness.

Seriously, I don't like IVs myself and would never bother with them, but logic is on their side.

 

[UltiMario]

IVs = Compatability.

If IVs were suddenly abolished, then 4th Gen would be incompatable with 5th. Its the same reason why there is no way to make RBYGSC compatable with RSEFRLG

 

[Fox P McCloud]

Also, in response to your "People who have lots of time to waste will be better off in competition" argument, you can say the same thing in Smash Bros. Those who have time to practice ATs will ultimately be able to do better in competition. When you're competing, it generally tends to be more time-consuming if you want to do better.

I hate IVs personally, but there really is no reason they should be abolished.

the primary difference here is that with brawl and the likes, it's something you can gain progress towards and will always slowly gain progress towards, even if it's by a tiny percentage.

With IVs, this isn't the case; there's always a random factor that has to be contended with, meaning, you could spend countless hours aiming for what you want and still not get it, and this is the point that I'm attempting to make here. Breeding can help reduce the randomness by a certain amount, but even then, you're going to end up with a minimum of 3 stats that are picked at total random (and there's a high probability you'll become unlucky and inherit the same stat from both parents).


I also disagree that because you know your IVs before going into battle that it's no longer "random"; you may know yours, but unless your opponent tells you his (unwise on his behalf) it is random; if you send out your standard Gengar (speed improving personality+252 EVs in speed, no choice scarf) and your opponent sends out a typical Froslass (speed improving personality+252 EVs in speed, no choice scarf) then both of you really have no idea who's going to strike first; I realize that on the comp level there's always some degree of randomness and prediction involved, but this is one that has nothing to do with strategy in the least bit.


In any event, lastly, I don't see how abolishing IVs would really be a problem; an interim solution would be merely to force all IVs to 32 when traded to the "IV-less" game, or simply have the stats be based upon the base stats and the EVs of the Poke'mon and just ignore IVs completely. It'd have the problem of "no trade-backs" however (or any Poke'mon traded back would end up with max IVs).

 

[Firus]

the primary difference here is that with brawl and the likes, it's something you can gain progress towards and will always slowly gain progress towards, even if it's by a tiny percentage.

With IVs, this isn't the case; there's always a random factor that has to be contended with, meaning, you could spend countless hours aiming for what you want and still not get it, and this is the point that I'm attempting to make here. Breeding can help reduce the randomness by a certain amount, but even then, you're going to end up with a minimum of 3 stats that are picked at total random (and there's a high probability you'll become unlucky and inherit the same stat from both parents).

The same thing could happen with ATs, too...especially some of the Melee ones, which are pretty hard to learn and master.

There is still a difference to a degree, but not to the extent that removing IVs makes it more competitive when removing ATs would make it less competitive.

I also disagree that because you know your IVs before going into battle that it's no longer "random"; you may know yours, but unless your opponent tells you his (unwise on his behalf) it is random; if you send out your standard Gengar (speed improving personality+252 EVs in speed, no choice scarf) and your opponent sends out a typical Froslass (speed improving personality+252 EVs in speed, no choice scarf) then both of you really have no idea who's going to strike first; I realize that on the comp level there's always some degree of randomness and prediction involved, but this is one that has nothing to do with strategy in the least bit.

...Neither of you would know anything about the other player's Pokémon at all before either of you strike. You wouldn't know if it were typical Gengar/Froslass, you wouldn't even know their EVs or nature, I'm not sure why IVs even become an issue here.

Besides, I actually think that's half the thing about Pokémon, being able to predict what your opponent might do and do something that fits as many scenarios as possible. Why is it unfair that you don't know your opponent's IVs if you don't know their EVs either? I'm really not following your logic here...

In any event, lastly, I don't see how abolishing IVs would really be a problem; an interim solution would be merely to force all IVs to 32

You mean 31.

 

[Mewter]

It's like the Chao in Sonic Adventure 2.

You can breed it to perfection, or you can keep it and train it to the best of its ability even with mediocre stats. The IV inheritance is there for the older players and the competitive scene. Little kids don't care. If you want perfect IV's, you have to work for them.

 

[Fox P McCloud]

The same thing could happen with ATs, too...especially some of the Melee ones, which are pretty hard to learn and master.

There is still a difference to a degree, but not to the extent that removing IVs makes it more competitive when removing ATs would make it less competitive.

still not sure if you're grasping the point I'm attempting to make here; with smash it's something that's skill-related (and yes, I recognize some people won't be able to attain that still), but that's the the crux of my whole argument; IVs are in no way skill based and are almost entirely randomly attained, which, on the competitive scene is not something desirable.



[qoute]...Neither of you would know anything about the other player's Pokémon at all before either of you strike. You wouldn't know if it were typical Gengar/Froslass, you wouldn't even know their EVs or nature, I'm not sure why IVs even become an issue here.

Besides, I actually think that's half the thing about Pokémon, being able to predict what your opponent might do and do something that fits as many scenarios as possible. Why is it unfair that you don't know your opponent's IVs if you don't know their EVs either? I'm really not following your logic here...[/quote]

'course you won't know 100%, but in the OU competitive environment, you'll generally have a pretty good idea, particularly with a number of Poke'mon; therefore you'll have a pretty decent grasp of what EVs he likely has as well as the nature...that said, due to the randomness of IVs, unless you're totally maxed out in, say, speed, you really won't know who will go first with 100% certainty.

You mean 31.

sorry, I was thinking in terms of effects; there's a 32-point variance introduced with IVs...but yeah, you're right, the max is 31.

The IV inheritance is there for the older players and the competitive scene. Little kids don't care. If you want perfect IV's, you have to work for them.

But it's not a goal you can actively work towards; the max number of IVs you can receive from the parents is 3; the other 3 are randomly generated, and even then, the first 3 that are passed on are not guaranteed to be passed on, so you have no control over if the first 3 will be the IVs you want or not. Factoring all this in, there's only a 1 in *6,434,856 chance that you're going to get the proper IVs for the Poke'mon you like, so it's not something you can "work towards".

Now, supposedly in HG and SS you can use the "power" items (that give +4 effort points) force the parent to pass on the corresponding IVs. If this is true, it'll make things a little better with the chances reduced to 1 in *178,746. That said you'd have to multiply each of these chances by 25 once you factor in natures, and by 2 if the Poke'mon has multiple abilities, which brings that 1 in 178,746 clear up to 1 in 4,468,650 (nearly 9 million if the poke'mon has 2 abilities), which is, again, in the realm of near impossibility. There's little to no incentive to work towards this goal, as it'd be far more profitable to learn how to exploit the RNG system to get the precise IVs/natures/abilities/etc. that you want.


*these numbers are the chances of IVs alone and do not include the chance to get the right nature and/or ability.

 

[IC3R]

I love my Action Replay. Makes things simple >__>

But as it was stated before, the IVs were introduced to give the Pokemon variety, so it seemed no two Pokemon of the same level and species were exactly the same. As you said, aiming for a Pokemon with certain IVs is nearly impossible, so it would be nearly impossible to find two Pokemon with the exact same stats.

Pokemon is aimed towards kids. Smash was intended for kids.

Older kids/adults make a competitive scene on it. They (We) are the only ones who care about this kind of thing.


There IS an incentive for breeding for the IVs you want: it develops a sense of pride in your Pokemon. You can say "I worked hard for this ****, and it hasn't let me down yet!" Why would you want to take that away from the people who work hard for it? You saw how pissed the hardcore Melee players were when all of their AT's were missing in Brawl.

Sure, people like me have little time or patience towards such a tedious task, so we just hack for it. As long as the IVs appear legit, who can tell the difference?

 

[Oracle]

The thing is, I'm pretty sure Game Freak has IVs on Pokemon because to those little kids who enjoy playing Pokemon, it makes each Pokemon different, instead of each one being blandly the same. Yes, it would be so much easier to competitively battle on the cartridges, but it would be boring for those little kids to have each of those Buizel that they caught with the same nature have the exact same stats. Younger kids I'm pretty sure are the target audience for Pokemon anyways, and usually, most kids don't care about IV's.

Also, theoretically, you can IV breed, to take less time, but that also takes more time than you would want to waste on one Pokemon. But I'd rather IV breed than just randomly breed something and hope it has perfect and ideal IV's.

The little kids will train against random opponents, so their EV's are essentially randomly distributed. Besides, they probably wouldn't notice anyways.

 

[CRASHiC]

We aren't talking about EVs, we are talking about IVs.

I'm actually surprised that people don't use IVs on Shoddy. It can give you a slight edge against your opponent for pokemon with the same base stats. Just change your hidden power and when your opponent thinks you are the same speed, BAM! out speed em. Its a tiny, tiny advantage, but every bit counts, especially when using a very common pokemon who may or may not face off against himself. Two lead Azelfs, one with speed IVs one without. Who do you think will win?

 

[Circa]

IVs are automatically set to 31 on Shoddy. The only reason why they're ever set to something else is if it's a legendary or you need a specific hidden power. Obviously though, at least in the case of legendaries, you'll change the IV that matters the least. In the case of Hidden Powers you usually only take one that you need if it's entirely necessary for coverage, or if it doesn't hinder you.

EDIT: Oh yeah, IVs are also adjusted for things like Gyro Ball or Trick Room too. Kinda forgot those existed.

 

[supermarth64]

Well you have to manually adjust the ones for Gyro Ball/Trick Room. Also, some people like myself use 0 IVs in Attack to reduce confusion damage on special attackers, which is a lot more common than getting PP stalled.

 

[Wave⁂]

Oh snap.

 

[Terywj [태리]]

Also, some people like myself use 0 IVs in Attack to reduce confusion damage on special attackers, which is a lot more common than getting PP stalled.

That has never occured to me. Although I typically don't see confusion anyways in the lower tiers. Except Regigigas, but nobody uses that.

-Terywj

 

[Circa]

Yeah, I knew you had to manually change them for stuff like Trick Room and Gyro Ball. I just figured it wasn't worth including that tidbit.

I never thought to do the 0 Attack IV thing though. I like that idea.

 

[Terywj [태리]]

I would assume it's for them DynamicPunching Machamps in OU?

Other than that I don't see much use for it. Very interesting, though.

-Terywj

 

[IC3R]

Yeah, I knew you had to manually change them for stuff like Trick Room and Gyro Ball. I just figured it wasn't worth including that tidbit.

I never thought to do the 0 Attack IV thing though. I like that idea.

I was doing this before I even knew about EVs ad IVs xD

Find whatever ways I can to minimize the Attack stat on Specialers...

 

[Chill]

We aren't talking about EVs, we are talking about IVs.

I'm actually surprised that people don't use IVs on Shoddy. It can give you a slight edge against your opponent for pokemon with the same base stats. Just change your hidden power and when your opponent thinks you are the same speed, BAM! out speed em. Its a tiny, tiny advantage, but every bit counts, especially when using a very common pokemon who may or may not face off against himself. Two lead Azelfs, one with speed IVs one without. Who do you think will win?

...

What?

 

[Terywj [태리]]

...

What?

Um...yeah. I'm kinda lost on CRASH!C's post as well.

-Terywj

 

[Deleted member]

remove IVs?

take that, game depth.

terrible idea.

 

[Krypt222]

I love my Action Replay. Makes things simple >__>

AHEM! MY action replay. Every cent that went into purchasing that came out of MY butt! So put that in your juice box and SUCK IT!!!

I honestly think abolishing the initial value in pokemon would ease up things a bit on picky trainers but where would that leave poor Hidden Power? Would it be set to random or would it be determined by something like... the weakness to my weakness or something? Idk just my 2 cents really. I could care less about IVs.

 

[Espy Rose]

That's the whole point of Pokemon. Collect them and hope you're lucky or waste your time RNG abusing the poor game. It adds a degree of randomness.

Personally, I just go for the EVs and forget the IVs.

I always thought the point of Pokemon was to catch them all...
It's the reason you're given a Pokedex, right? [/sarcasm]

 

[Krypt222]

You mean something like this Espy?

 

[Mewter]

Anyone competitive that owns a Pokemon game probably knows how to RNG abuse or use an Action Replay, so they

could care less about IVs.

 

[Espy Rose]

Anyone competitive that owns a Pokemon game probably knows how to RNG abuse or use an Action Replay, so they

Thank you, Mewter.

I just AR my Pokemon. Saves time.

 

[Krypt222]

Exactly my point. If using an AR gets you EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT then theres really no point in having the IVs now is there?

 

[PsychoIncarnate]

If all for abolishing IV's.

I think it's time for a new, more advanced system for pokemon's stats to be distributed through training.

For IV's I just end up killing off low level pokemon over and over, it's more tedious...

...and as people say, I just AR pokemon now rather than going through that annoying trouble.

Maybe player distriputed stats? ...there has to be something that can replace IV's without their tediousness

 

[WouW]

That's EVs you're talking about. IVs are something different.

 

[Frolossus]

Didnt IVs first appear in g/s/c though? they were used for shinies

 

[Espy Rose]

Theoretically speaking, how would you guys think it would be like if the IV system was wiped, and the EV system was fleshed out to compliment the lack of IVs?

I'm just curious, not trying to assert anything or whatever. This room just needed more discussion.