Pokémon: How meta are you?

[Auron225]

I heard about it once and took the time to educate myself on it for about 30 mins or so. From what I could gather, it meant considering every Pokemon ever for your team, getting a truckload of each of the 6 on your team to see who has the better nature/stats to begin with (which could also mean hatching lots of eggs and breeding in general) and running around grinding in the grass until it got to Lv 100 killing very specific enemies.

I just thought "Wow, what a fantastic way to make this game a very tedious chore that I don't even get paid for".

How about I have a Golduck in my team because I like Golduck? He doesn't have the best stats but he can learn ice and psychic moves and he looks cool. That's about as complex as it gets for me - I may look to see what natural abilities they can get and get "the other one" if the one I get first time around is very sucky in comparison but that's it.

 

[Spambot 3000]

I don't play the game for catchies. Battling, stats, numbers and data is all that it ever will be to me.

 

[The Inquisitive Mug]

Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't the constraints of the game make it so your EV and such training only goes so far? Like that Oshawatt of yours could only go so far stat wise. So it would seem to me that official tournaments would come down to the same generic set up of maxed Pokemon for everybody. Like I said it could be wrong but still.

You're correct. Your 'mon can have 508 EVs, max 252 per stat. IV's have a limit to how high a 'mon can have, but the number they are born with varries with each 'mon , even among the same species. You basically have to breed until you have a metric shit-ton of the same 'mons with the same nature, train them all with the same EVs, and use some sort of calculator (or if you're the shit, the massive formula) to figure out which 'mons would just be a massive waste of time to EV train. It's tedium.

 

[IndomitableSam]

Is it cute/awesome looking? Is it an element I don't have a favourite/requisite pokemon for? Then I'll catch it. I don't even try to catch 'em all, just the ones I want to use.

 

[clippen05]

I'm sick of the people who obsess over this kind of stuff when they play. It ruins the fun I find. I don't really bother with it myself though I do understand how it all works.

I think gamefreak should remove the system entirely or change it drastically just to mess with the people who abuse it. Make their be no real way to play with the stats other than EVs.

Why should Gamefreak change it because you don't like the metagame? You aren't forced to use it, so why discriminate against the people who do; people can play a game as serious or not serious as they want.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

How about this:

Just like Pokemon, people have different views on what is and isn't fun. Some people like the meta game and some don't. Personally, I'm of the opinion that if you're having fun, then you're doing it right. Doesn't matter what you're doing or how you go about doing it; are you having fun? If yes, keep doing it, if it so pleases you.

I just like Dragon types. Now, with the official inclusion of the Fairy type, I'm going to see if I can collect my first Dragon/Fairy dual type or if I'm stuck waiting for that particular combination in the next gen of Pokemon.

 

[wooty]

I've never even heard of EVs, IVs and tiers in the world of pokemon. Last time I checked and played pokemon; all that was needed was "Go Jolteon. Jolteon used thunderbolt". Simpler times, simpler pleasures.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I don't even know what you're talking about so what does that tell you. Of course it's been several years since I've even played a Pokemon game.

 

[Longstreet]

Bwahahaha, no.

That stuff can dig itself a hole. When i play i pokemon game i bother myself with two things, catching a bunch of critters (only the ones i like) and beating people. Thats it.

I also never bother with battle items or used / kept any non beat-the-hp-out-of-him attack. My philosophy always was; "while my opponent is busy getting his attack up, i'll be busy with getting his hp down."

Just get your pokemon a certain level above the rest, and you can one shot most of the elite 4.

 

[Alssadar]

When I did care about playing the pokemans, I didn't care about the stats.
It was all about having a team of fun looking animals that fit the type spectrum that allowed me to combat any animal, whilst the animals looked cool. Kinda like the anime, where Ash just had fun exploring the world.
I could never give a rat's ass about power leveling as the years went by and it was "oh, look, more pokemons have been made," and I eventually lost interest in the game as a whole, as I had begun to dislike the turn-based rpg genre, as well as losing my sense of adventure--I was simply playing pokemon to get the badges and complete the game. That's what it eventually boiled down to, and I didn't like it. For such reasoning, I quit, and, though I dislike it personally, I still think pokemon is a good game, but the meta simply takes the fun out of it.

 

[Fractral]

Snip Because long and rambley

See, I was going to respond with a very long post, but the fact is is that I don't care. I really don't. Your opinion? To me it's meaningless. And my opinion should be that to you.

Well, don't post blanket statements that infer your opinion is the undisputed truth, and all is k.



Also, EVs are absolutely nothing to train compared to other games, considering it only takes less then a mere 50-70 short battles to max out a mon if you're doing it right. and IVs and natures can be manipulated via predicting software easily.

It really isn't as hard or as tedious as you would think.

Hey, if he doesn't care, he doesn't care. It's not worth it. I personally do metagame, a lot. I have about 30, maybe 40 EV trained pokemon, over about 800 hours of gameplay. I love it- it's got a depth and complexity few RPG's manage, with the possible exception of some of the SMT games, and it's multiplayer to boot! It's certainly not for everyone- one of the group I used to play with couldn't spare the time and stopped playing with us because we were all beating him with our teams.
But still, (to the guy you quoted) saying that someone else shouldn't play in a certain way is ridiculous. It doesn't affect you in the slightest, so don't go around complaining because of it.

 

[The White Hunter]

I'm sick of the people who obsess over this kind of stuff when they play. It ruins the fun I find. I don't really bother with it myself though I do understand how it all works.

I think gamefreak should remove the system entirely or change it drastically just to mess with the people who abuse it. Make their be no real way to play with the stats other than EVs.

I feel IV's ruined the game however move sets and EVs are fine on their own. I think it has alot to do with people obsessing over 31 across the board on their pokemon's IVs.

Stupid smogon, ruining everything. I usually teach them a lesson or two about what pokemon are OU in Pokemon Showdown.

IV's are really annoying to me. And smogon really does mess the place up with it's tiering, yeah it isn't fair to use a full team of legendaries against a more balanced team but other than that it's just idiotic to only subscribe to their rules.

Not to mention that "sleep clause" bullshit. Can't handle my Darkrai pwning your ***** ass? Can't think of a way to use a pokemon with insomnia/vital spirit and a priority attack to wreck the fragile thing? That's your problem > >

Anway, fairly meta, I EV train to play with friends sometimes because I find that it really doesn't take too long with power items and vitamins (I fully trained my milotic from caught through EV's in about 27 minutes, the real grind is XP) and it's nice to have a well thought out team. I do however mostly try to balance my types and just use things I like. Hence my team is rather jumbled and nobody who has a hardon for smogon will play me because Mixed wall Milotic + Dream eating Darkrai is broken apparently...

 

[Crazie_Guy]

I was all over the 4th gen battling scene.


What you're talking about isn't really metagame; Doing some EV training to get better stats in single player, that's just taking advantage of one of the more obscure mechanics for the sake of your single player. Throwing in random EVs just to get higher stats with no goal for the sake of battling friends casually, that's kind of on the line I suppose.


Metagaming is looking at the usage rates of popular pokemon in your battling tier, identifying the key threats to your current team composition, and maybe adding a calculated 4 speed EVs somewhere to outspeed one specific threat by exactly 1 speed, giving you a new soft counter.

 

[Terminate421]

snip.

Actually the Sleep clause is understandable.

Sleep is the worst status condition to get, besides being frozen of course. But with sleep, a team of 4 pokemon is lost, Dark Void = WAY to OP of a move, 90% hit rate and hits all pokemon for sleep. Far too powerful. I have counters to it, Insomnia on a Honchkrow and Magic Bounce on a Xatu, but Dark Void can crush all teams, making it way to OP.

 

[Wolf In A Bear Suit]

I love Pokemon, but I can't be bothered to do that. After all I don't play online, and it can only hold my attention for a few weeks. I just pick the ones that look cool and take it from there.

 

[The White Hunter]

snip.

Actually the Sleep clause is understandable.

Sleep is the worst status condition to get, besides being frozen of course. But with sleep, a team of 4 pokemon is lost, Dark Void = WAY to OP of a move, 90% hit rate and hits all pokemon for sleep. Far too powerful. I have counters to it, Insomnia on a Honchkrow and Magic Bounce on a Xatu, but Dark Void can crush all teams, making it way to OP.

Even once countered Darkrai's dark pulse is a very painful thing to take for most creatures.

I can understand how it's horrifying under Gen 5 sleep mechanics, under gen 4 it was much more managable. I will agree that Darkrai can get way out of hand, it's fast as hell, great attacking stats, it can boost the hell out them, sleep, damage while sleeping with it's ability to break focus sashes/sturdy and then wreak havoc with powerful stab and coverage options.

Also spore is much worse. At least Dark Void can miss. I mostly play singles and rotation so spore is the big difficulty for me. God damn Breloom leaves many a team at it's feet once those rules are taken away..

 

[nvzboy]

The most extreme thing I did in meta was make sure my latios and latias had some more special attack and my aggron as much defence as it could. I found out about EV's and IV's pretty late in the game and wasn't about to restart my ruby/leafgreen playthroughs just because some numbers were not 101 but 100. Still I put in some effort to make the most of what Ev's i had left to influence.
It did feel like a bit of a grind and when I was done I felt a little bad for treating my two favorite pokemon of all time as numbers. So no more IV/EV's for me.

 

[DRTJR]

I mainly have a few pokemon meant for either a sun or rain team depending on which of my friends is willing to get crushed, also if your going for a shiny pokemon you might as well turn it into an ubermon.

 

[CriticalMiss]

I don't play Pokémon to do number crunching, I do it to enslave wild animals and force them to do my bidding. I mean friendship...

I never really cared about beating other people at the game, I mostly traded with other people to get all 150 and left it at that. Beating the Elite Four was pretty much the ultimate goal. And that ended up being achieved by maxing out the levels of my favourite 'mons then spamming attacks. There might have been a more eligant way but it would have required scouring the lands for pokémons with slightly higher stats then training them in specific ways for a certain about of time. Which is kind of dull. I'd rather conflagrate Magikarp.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I've played two Pokemon gens. and I didn't know this was a thing. Seems boring as hell.