Part 81: Side Note #02: How Pokemon Tick This Time (Stats, DVs and New Additions)

Side Notes 2: How Pokemon Tick This Time (Stats, DVs and New Additions)



Compared to last generation, there's a lot of very similar, yet brand new info we can get from our Pokemon. A lot of this is usually inaccessible, since when you're just going through the main story, none of this mix-max stuff matters in the slightest, yet there is still quite the competitive aspect behind it all. And for whatever reason, some of the info from Gen 1 isn't displayed, but that's just because of the program, pikasav. But anyway, strap in and let's take a look.

Again, we can change not only what our Pokemon is but also how it's displayed, I am but still a God when it comes to these things. But now we can also change its held item, there are definitely some interesting ones we could choose if we wanted to, but for now a Berry will suffice. And of course we can change its nickname at any time, but it's fine as it is. For whatever reason, its typing isn't displayed, but it'd still be Grass/Grass for the purposes of how the game displays it.

We also have the OT, Secret IDs are something that come into the game from the 3rd gen onwards, so it's again pretty easy to find two Pokemon from different trainers with the same ID, since there are a lot less combinations. Then we have level and experience, same as before, but now we have the caught zone, level and time. While I'm not 100% on what all the numbers mean (beside the obvious), due to it showing up on a Gen 2 Pokemon instead of Gen 1 means that these games do track where and when you caught a Pokemon. It can't display the actual time, this is only the Gameboy after all, but it splits it with 1 being morning, 2 being afternoon and 3 being night. There's also 0 for Pokemon you obtain whenever, such as trades and that.

Then, we have Pokerus. We'll be talking about this later, but right now, it would be very surprising if you ever found this. I believe I've only ever come across it once, naturally, in a Gen 4 game. The chance of a Pokemon you encounter or hatch that has Pokerus, is a 3 in 65,536 chance, or approximately 1 in 21,845 chance. Now compare this to the 3 in 24,576 chance, or 1 in 8,192 chance of a Pokemon being shiny and you'll see why you'll probably never find a Pokemon that's infected. Not only that, in order to get it from a wild Pokemon, you need to either defeat them in battle, or capture them, so you may have ran away from an infected Pokemon, you never know. What it basically does is double the Stat Exp you obtain from defeating wild Pokemon, so it makes life a lot easier when you want to max those out. Again, we'll talk about all this stuff later, so don't you worry your pretty little head about it.

Moving on, current HP and the statuses it can have, still missing Burn for whatever reason and of course, Confusion. Then, instead of catch rate (for whatever reason), we have Happiness. This was a feature for our Pikachu last generation, but has now been expanded to every single Pokemon you can obtain. Again, we'll go more into it later, but for now, it's something you can increase or decrease slowly with general every day actions, in a similar way to how it was for our Pikachu. I do realize it's something I never really went into, but it's a simple enough system that we'll be using a lot of to complete our Pokedex.

Then we have the various moves it can learn, though we could change it to any move in the game, as well as the PP of the move and how many PP Ups we can use. The max is still 3, for a 20% increase each time, so it's relatively simple. A lot of the systems for a Pokemon is very similar to Gen 1 to keep compatibility.

Finally, we have the Individual Values (or in the first two gens, Determinent Values, DVs), Effort Values (or in the first two gens, Stat Exp) and what the values are now. The DVs are set whenever you catch a Pokemon and range from 0-15. And again, they determine the HP DV, which we can get from the small message as 7. DVs also determine whether or not a Pokemon is Shiny, literally. If a Pokemon's Speed, Defense, and Special DVs are all 10, and its Attack DV is 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14 or 15, it will be Shiny. So in this way a Shiny Pokemon's HP DV can only be either 0, or 8. And due to DVs being passed down via Breeding (more on that later), the chance of the offspring being shiny is 1/64. In this way, some specific combinations of Pokemon cannot be Shiny, since gender is determined using the Attack IV, so female Pokemon of a species that have a gender ratio of seven males to one female, can never be shiny, due to females being determined using the lower half of the DV range. It's a big, weird clusterfuck that, like I've said like ten times cause there's so much to go over, we'll go over later. Phew.

Stat Exp is what you obtain after defeating a Pokemon. This is determined by the base stats of the Pokemon and is added onto the Stat Exp when you defeat it, with Pokerus doubling its effects. It caps out at 65535 for every single stat, giving a huge boost if you take the long, long time to max it out. Note that this applies the same for Special Attack and Special Defense. To maintain compatibility, they use the same DV, but also the same Stat Exp, basing it off Special Attack. It's the base stats that allow the two end values to be different, but that's the only factor when calculating Special Defense. It's unfortunate, but hey, two for the price of one, grandma!

And then in the last little tidbit, is how Hidden Power is calculated. The DVs of a Pokemon determine not only the type of Hidden Power (since it can be any type except Normal and even receive STAB) but also its power (ranging from 30 to 70). Preferably you'd want it to be a specific type for coverage, as well as the max power of 70 so it actually has some kick to it, but that involves messing around with the DVs. In any case, that's everything in its basic explanation. We've got plenty of time to go into further detail at a later point, but right now, I need to lie down...