{"id":168966,"date":"2022-12-26T17:27:02","date_gmt":"2022-12-26T17:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/pokemon-games-are-getting-less-weird\/"},"modified":"2022-12-26T17:27:02","modified_gmt":"2022-12-26T17:27:02","slug":"pokemon-games-are-getting-less-weird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/pokemon-games-are-getting-less-weird\/","title":{"rendered":"Pok\u00e9mon games are getting less weird"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It was a data miner who discovered that the Pok\u00e9rus isn’t present in Pok\u00e9mon Scarlet<\/em> and violet<\/em>. On its own, it’s a small detail. But it’s part of a trend in Pok\u00e9mon <\/em>games overall: as time goes on, they’re simply getting less weird.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The bizarre virus takes some explaining. Introduced back in Generation II, the Pok\u00e9rus had less than a one in 20,000 chance of infecting a pok\u00e9mon. (By comparison, shiny pok\u00e9mon, which are specifically famous for being rare, have a base one in 4,000 chance of appearing.) And despite being presented as an infection, the Pok\u00e9rus was actually beneficial.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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To understand how, though, you also need to understand effort values, or EVs. Defeating an opponent in battle rewards between one and three EVs in a specific stat. But EVs are never properly explained in-game and rarely referred to at all. That’s because they don’t really have an impact on the casual player. Battle a variety of pok\u00e9mon and your own will grow in a balanced, if slightly arcane, way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When things get competitive, though, EVs become a useful tool. For instance, all pok\u00e9mon have both a physical and a special attack stat. But their moves can only fall into one of those categories, and individual pok\u00e9mon usually have a natural affinity for one or the other. A pok\u00e9mon can’t max their EVs in every stat, so competitive trainers will focus on gaining EVs in just one form of attack to avoid splitting them unnecessarily. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When it first came out, Pok\u00e9mon<\/em> was a weird and mysterious thing<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A pok\u00e9mon infected with Pok\u00e9rus used to gain double EVs, speeding up the process significantly. Players who wanted to legitimately obtain the strongest possible pok\u00e9mon would deliberately infect their battle buddies with the Pok\u00e9rus before training them. Far from being a wildly rare occurrence, trading, sharing, and spreading the Pok\u00e9rus between players became a part of the grind.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Its removal doesn’t really have much of a material impact on the game. The Pok\u00e9rus was a niche mechanic that affected a niche group of players. The casual player would likely never run into it, and even if they hit that one in 20,000 chance, they probably wouldn’t notice any benefit. But for competitive players, the games have steadily introduced more and more ways to get powerful teams, including easier EV training. And players who want top-end battles don’t even necessarily need to go through the time and effort of breeding and training powerful monsters in the first place: many use tools like Pok\u00e9mon Showdown to simply simulate things.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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