King of the Sandbox said:
WorriedSandwich said:
I already do. Pokemon games hide pretty much all important stats from the player, and only shows you the end result.
...are you serious?
Like... for reals? Because I'm pretty sure you're given a laundry list of stats and their improvements when they level up, not to mention all the info in the Pokedex. Trust me, even the Pokemon wiki's get pretty deep into stats and min/maxing in Pokemanz.
Well, I play pokemon competitively (don't judge), so I'm familiar with all the ins and outs of the pokemon stat system. Let me try to explain:
First are the base stats. Base stats are the same for every pokemon in a species, and there is a different base stat for every stat (like hp, attack, special defense, etc.). For example, every Electrode has a blazing fast speed base stat of 140, while every Slowbro crawls around with a base stat of 30. This is why a Slowbro will never be faster than an Electrode of the same level.
Then there are the Individual Values, or IV's for short. They are, like the name suggests, individual for every seperate pokemon, and seperate for every stat. They can range between 0 (worst) and 31 (best). For example, a Pikachu with a speed IV of 28 will have a higher speed stat than a Pikachu with a speed IV of 11, provided they are the same level, have the same nature and have been trained in the same way (I'll get back on that). IV's are generated randomly when you catch a wild pokemon, but can be manipulated through breeding.
Next up, there are the Effort Values, or EV's. Unlike the IV's or base stats, they are not set, but start at 0 and increase during training. Whenever you defeat a pokemon, your pokemon recieves EV's in the stat the pokemon you defeated was specialized in. For example, defeating an Electrode will give your pokemon 2 speed EV's. The more speed EV's your pokemon has, the better it's speed stat will be (at level 100, 4 EV's = 1 stat point). However, a pokemon can only have 252 EV's in a single stat, and 510 EV's overall.
Lastly, there are natures. While the nature itself is visible, it's effect isn't really made clear. Basically, a nature raises one stat by 10% and lowers another with 10%, or does nothing. I.E. A modest nature increases special attack and lowers attack, while a gentle nature changes nothing (technically, it raises and lowers the same stat).
The stats your pokemon has are the conclusion of a difficult equation involving all these factors.
Phew, that ended up much longer than I expected. If you want some more info, you can look at gamefaqs.com or smogon.com (pretty much the site for competitive pokemon). Hope I could help!
EDIT: also, there is happiness, which dictates the power of the moves Return and Frustration.