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Pokémon breeding; I hate it
Topic Started: Nov 13 2007, 08:10 PM (169 Views)
Nag Ehgoeg
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The Devil's Advocate

Ok... so I'm a geek.

I love pokemon. I have a reasonably good level 100 team that has good moves choosen because of my 'mons stats and type(s). But Battle Revolution is coming out, and with it comes the rarity (for a European) of finding worthy opponants.

So I've decided on a pokemon team that I'd like to play with from now until the next generation of incompatiable games and I've decided that if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it right.

And thus, I've deleved from the world of the fun kids game to a mathmatical laborinth of IVs, DVs, EVs (not to be confused with Evees), Natures and SVs. Which I can deal with, and heck, even find fun.

But what bothers me is how much these more or less hidden mechanics influence the game - and how important they are for competitive gameplay and how trivial they are in the single player.

But what's driven me to thread madness is the role of the Random Number Generator.

9.31322575 × 10^-8

The number that is driving me insane. On encountering a pokemon, that's the probability (as a percentage - in more familiar terms the likelyhood is one in one thousand and seventy three million, seven hundred and forty one thousand, eight hundred and twenty four) that it'll be perfect. Now I don't need perfection. And there are shortcuts. But trying to breed the pokemon I want... is frustrating.
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Quaon
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A Prince Amoung Men-Shoot First and Ask Questions Later
WTF are you talking about?
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Nag Ehgoeg
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The Devil's Advocate

Quaon
Nov 13 2007, 08:22 PM
WTF are you talking about?

I really shouldn't make topics at one am right?

In the game pokemon, pokemon have six stats (called IVs) which are rolled randomly when you encounter htem. These IVs are between 0 and 31 - and higher numbers are better.

I'm aiming to breed pokemon to get four pokemon which have very high IVs so I can play pokemon competatively.

It's frustrating.
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Rhadamanthus
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Legitimist

Nag Ehgoeg
Nov 13 2007, 07:10 PM
But what's driven me to thread madness is the role of the Random Number Generator.

9.31322575 × 10^-8

The number that is driving me insane. On encountering a pokemon, that's the probability (as a percentage - in more familiar terms the likelyhood is one in one thousand and seventy three million, seven hundred and forty one thousand, eight hundred and twenty four) that it'll be perfect. Now I don't need perfection. And there are shortcuts. But trying to breed the pokemon I want... is frustrating.

Oh god. That's a hellish number; I'd probably murder myself if I got too into Pokemon, because that would really get to me.
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Kiensland
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Apathetic Lizardman
 *  *  *  *  *
Yeah. If I ever played Pokémon competitively, I'd get crushed by probably everyone. Since I tend to pick a sort-of balanced team made of Pokémon that I like, rather than Pokémon that are especially strong. And I hate anything not of Generation 1, with the possible exception of a few of Generation 3.

Not like I can play against anyone, anyway.
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Nag Ehgoeg
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The Devil's Advocate

With Gen IV (Diamond or Pearl) you can play me, Malkav and Bob on teh interwebs!!11!!!

And while I have a balanced and fun team of level 100s... the team I'm breeding is actually a themed team where two thirds of the team have a x4 weakness to ice. Which is why I'm concerned about IVs and EVs (especially in Speed).

And RD: the chance of the pokemon I actually want (perfect would be ideal, but would also be overkill) occuring randomly is somewhere in the ballpark of 5.56627762 × 10^-6 %. Which is a little better than 9.31322575 × 10^-8. The chances are actually significantly higher than that thanks to the way pokemon can "inherit" three random IVs from their parents. And because I have good breeding stock, all I need is to inherit the two stats which skew those odds so high and to get good random rolls on the the other stats. Which means thanks to breeding, there's about a 1 in 1,152 chance of me getting a pokemon that would be "acceptable".

1 in 1,152... that's not two bad... right? Right?
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Rhadamanthus
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Legitimist

1 in 1152 is pretty good I think. It would be a bit much for the casual player, but it is enough for the enthusiast like you, so yeah, that's not too bad.

For me though, I tend to obsess over perfection in games, and I usually end up getting lazy and quitting before I'm willing to give up on perfection. For example, I never finished Metroid Prime though I got right up to the end, because I was not willing to finish the game without finding and collecting every last missile pack... :cry:
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Ignatius
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2nd Lieutenant
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Mmm.. I used to be very deep into the whole Pokemon thing back when the craze was still in the States, but once we got over 150, I stopped caring..
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Nag Ehgoeg
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The Devil's Advocate

The Resplendent Dawn
Nov 14 2007, 11:39 AM
For me though, I tend to obsess over perfection in games, and I usually end up getting lazy and quitting before I'm willing to give up on perfection. For example, I never finished Metroid Prime though I got right up to the end, because I was not willing to finish the game without finding and collecting every last missile pack... :cry:

Preach it brother. *Obesses over unfinished Metroid Prime and unplayed Prime 2 and the impending release of Prime 3.*
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Holy Catholic Imperium
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Turd Burgalur
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Ignatius
Nov 14 2007, 09:44 PM
Mmm.. I used to be very deep into the whole Pokemon thing back when the craze was still in the States, but once we got over 150, I stopped caring..

Same,

Pokemon is sooo 1999.
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Nag Ehgoeg
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The Devil's Advocate

Ok...

Pokemon are born with stats called IVs which help determine how strong they are. IVs are rated from zero to thirty one for the six stats of: Hit Points; Attack; Defence; Special Attack; Special Defence; and Speed.

When breeding (in simple terms) three IVs are generated randomly from thin air and three are (randomly choosen to be) inherited from the parents.

I want a pokemon with: at least 29/31 for Attack and Speed; at least 26/31 for Special Attack; and about 20/31 in those three stats.

Pokemon also have natures. There are 24 natures, of which seven are benefical to me - of the others, some would be "neutral" others harmful, but natures have such a huge effect that no (pratical) IV stats would make up for not capitalising on a good nature.

What I have after hours/days of effort, every bit of spare time I've had on my gameboy (i.e. whenever I couldn't work on an essay or wasn't seeing the woman)...

A pokemon with 30 attack, speed and special attack... but it has crappy defence, HP and special defence. I'd be willing to settle for this... if it had a good nature. It doesn't.

A pokemon with: 29 HP and speed; 30 attack and special defence; and a great nature... but it has a terrible defence and (most importantly) only 18 special attack.

A pokemon with: 30 attack, defence and special defence; 31 special attack; a fantastic nature; but only 11 speed.

Now this wouldn't be a problem if they were a mix of male and female pokemon. I'd just breed them together and have a great inherited stat pool.

But they're all female.

Every pokemon that comes close to what I want... is female.

And two female pokemon can't breed (god damn it)!

Which means I have 28 complete rejects, 3 close-but-no-cigar chicks and 10 others whom I'm using to struggle closer to my goal.

42 down... 1,110 to go...

:cry:

Ok, bed time for me.
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Kiensland
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Apathetic Lizardman
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Get a Ditto with nice IVs and let it bang yer female with nice stats?

Mmm, gelatinous Pokémon sex.
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Catholic Europe
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Kiensland
Nov 19 2007, 04:51 AM
Mmm, gelatinous Pokémon sex.

You need to get out more.
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Nag Ehgoeg
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The Devil's Advocate

Kiensland
Nov 19 2007, 04:51 AM
Get a Ditto with nice IVs and let it bang yer female with nice stats?

Mmm, gelatinous Pokémon sex.

Another brilliant idea from the think tank. Why not get a ditto, have it breed itself.

The problem with this is ditto only appears rarely in diamond when using the pokeradar. Pokeradar, rare and needs to have good IVs. That'll take ages and ages to get. (Probably would be worth it in the long run though.)

I own both firered and pokemon emerald (and ruby but you can't catch ditto from there) but I wiped both games when I uploaded all my old pokemon onto Diamond. I'm slowly playing through emerald again and have one gym badge. I'll need to beat the elite four before I can catch ditto. And that's a long way off.

I could hit up the WiFi trade then I'd get a ditto that had probably fought in battles, giving me no way of finding the IVs and no-one who knows what they're doing is going to trade a strong breeding pokemon.

I don't own a cheating device, nor would I want to buy one or intentionally get a cheat pokemon for breeding (though, of course, if I got one accidently through the WiFi or some such I wouldn't not use it).

So... unless your missing some way I could get a nice ditto (or unless you have a nice ditto for trading) then I'm gonna have to turn down your ditto idea.

Now get up here, I got just enough time to paint the bulls-eye on your back.
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