General Discussion

Hey guys! I have a paper I need to write using primary research on a topic of my choice, and I chose attitudes towards the competitive field of Pokémon battling! Below is my main question, but please, I would love to hear about how you feel in general about battling and experiences you've had.

As a Pokémon fan, I'm sure we can agree that the series is based around messages of love and friendship, and the pure experience of raising a Pokémon.
However, in the competitive field of battling, sometimes your partner Pokémon that you raised isn't really suitable. to get a Pokémon suitable for competitive play often requires intensive and selective breeding to get the right one. And the pool of "good" Pokémon can be kinda limited.
Do you think that the mechanics necessary to get a "perfect" Pokémon take away from the themes of friendship?
There's no right or wrong answers here.

@davespriteegg
The mechanics necessary to get a 'perfect' pokemon certainly take away from pokemons themes of friendship and partnership.
How I am imagining that is... Well like the online stuff. Anyone just casually playing the game cannot expect to stand a chance battling strangers online. I think a lot of effort is put into breeding pokemon and trading, its almost like a website called Marapets. Everyone is very obsessed with what they have and look down on those who have less.

Does that help at all???
Good luck with your paper.

I believe that the goal to get a "perfectly balanced mechanically" team takes a lot of the fun and interest out of the whole Pokemon team building aspect, and heck, even the friendship.

For example, in my Pokemon White save file I have quite a few Pokemon that aren't exactly considered good to play with competitively. My Sigilyph has an Attack-raising nature, and my Seismitoad and Scolipede have the subpar abilities of their species. But do I care? Absolutely not.

I caught those Pokemon myself and raised them through hard work and effort. My Seismitoad was a level 14 or something Tympole when I caught him and he's now level 45 and has held his own in many of the gyms, my Scolipede has been a real powerhouse throughout all the game because of the time I took to level her up and teach her moves, and I wanted a Sigilyph so badly and Hecate (my Sigilyph) was one of the first ones I successfully caught.

But with the focus on competitive battling, it pushes aside friendship and fun for technical mechanics. It almost feels like you're sucking the emotion out of the game and instead streamlining everything into super-efficient robot soldiers. Every Excadrill should be built this way, every Serperior should use this moveset and have this nature, bla bla bla. It creates too much sameness and your Pokemon lose their individuality.

It almost makes Pokemon sound like one of those dystopian books where "everyone must wear grey jumpsuits, everyone must be honest, everyone must do this exactly like I say it" is the norm for society. Every Excadrill having to be Adamant nature with Sand Rush and Earthquake/Iron Head/I don't even know how you run an Excadrill competitively makes Pokemon - at least on the competitive level - seem like one of those dystopian novels.

I don't care that my Seismitoad's moveset, nature, and ability aren't the exact standard for what every competitive Seismitoad should play like. I don't care that my Scolipede has two Bug moves and two Poison moves, which "stink for coverage". I don't want my Pokemon to be raised exactly like every other Pokemon of their type in the battling field. I want them to feel unique, more like best friends than gladiatorial slaves.

Guess I'ma be on the other side here and say that competitive battling doesn't necessarily take away all of the fun, at least not for me. I've personally made numerous friends through battling and we've stayed in contact. Part of the fun for me is working out how to make that perfect team and the feeling I get when it's finally done is totally worth it.

@davespriteegg
I think getting a "perfect" pokemon does not take away from the theme of friendship. I have to say this because, no matter what pokemon you where to have, the relationship between you and your pokemon is what teaches about friendship. In pokemon X and Y and even the new version of Alpha Sapphire, show this by how they have the pokemon amie feature. You form a relationship with your pokemon and them in battle they can say things to you. Like how they want to know whats in your bag, or how they want to play with you.... Yes, it is true that people tend to ignore the lesser pokemon like caterpie, or magicarp, but if all pokemon where perfect, where would be the fun in finding a good pokemon? Everything would be to perfect.

I also have a story to tell you that you might find amusing... My sister is also a pokemon fan, and she has a level 100 shiny ninetales. She has done several online battles with other players, and she tends to defeat them all. But the only person she has never defeated, was a player with a level 100 magicarp who had only one move, hyper beam. My sister had to sit there at her nintendo in horror as this floppy thought to be useless, pokemon defeats her ninetales. THAT is enough for me to know that any pokemon can be perfect, you just have to put some work (or a lot of work) into it and form a friendship with the pokemon.

Also, in the pokemon series, the only pokemon who really got rejected where the enemy pokemon. Well, most of the enemy pokemon. But everyone else treated them like friends, or pets. I don't even know how many people in pokemon have had pet ratatas and other basic pokemon... And in the game, lots of trainers had pokemon like tentacool or bellsprout, and some of them could really kick your butt.... And even good pokemon like noiverns can be easy to defeat.

Sorry if I went of topic a bit, but I got a little carried away :P

@davespriteegg Hmmm, maybe a little bit? But I've always felt that the themes of friendship apply to the story of the games, not necessarily to competitive battling outside of the story. I'm not a competitive battler just because my favorites aren't really the strongest, I like a lot of unevolved Pokemon, and I never really mastered IVs and EVs so I don't stand much of a chance. I have much more fun raising Pokemon that I love without really worrying about how well they'd do competitively.

Well, at least the way I've played the games' storylines and competitive battling... I just always go with my favorites! I think that's a fairly common theme in the games - to win with your favorites, regardless of whether or not they're "strong" by competitive standards. Then there was also the message in the games that there aren't just "Strong" pokemon and "Weak" pokemon - just pokemon raised differently by different trainers.

Like, on one hand, you could have a pokemon that's not typically seen in competitive battles - my Lumineon. But you know what? She's a trooper! I raised her to be very tanky and she does the job well. And then, you could have an OU-tier pokemon that wasn't raised competitively - like Milotic. You know what I did with my Milotic? Contests. Any pokemon, regardless of what they're "programmed for" by competitive battling standards, can be anything. Whether you have fun with your Pokemon while doing whatever it is you do with your pokemon is completely up to you.

Now personally, as I've said, I like to use my favorites. I don't look at what pokemon are "good" by competitive standards when picking my team. Sure, there may be some overlaps - I love Infernape and he's a pretty strong contender in competitive battles - but the reason I love him isn't because of his battle prowess but because he was my starter in Diamond, which is my favorite game! Even though I've been playing since Yellow. I actually brought my team up from diamond to XY and beat quite a few competitively-raised teams with them! My team was Infernape, Luxray, Roserade, Altaria, Swampert, and Azelf. All of them I raised in my Diamond version because I like them! I took down a lot of competitive teams, despite my Luxray having special attacks when he had higher base attack and conflicting nature, or vise versa with my Azelf.

Anyway, guess my point is, sure there are some pokemon "built" for competitive battles - we often see pokemons like Blaziken, Charizard, and Mewtwo on competitive teams - but you don't HAVE to use those pokemon to be good at competitive battling. It's still totally possible to win with your favorites! I remember even seeing a really great strategy someone had where they took down a full team of hacked legendaries with their Magikarp and one other pokemon. Whether or not your pokemon is "strong" enough for competitive battles is completely up to you and how you raise them. With my old Diamond team, I had them for so long that I knew them inside and out and was able to finish battles decisively with the right pokemon in the right situation - a strategy some competitive battlers might not have because they just EV/IV trained or hacked in the "strongest" pokemon for their team.

One day I hope to have a team of pokemon that people consider "weak" and not suited for competitive battling and take on some tough trainers! I even have my shiny Sunflora, my second ever shiny catch, ready to go on my X version! Does he have the best stats? Probably not. But you know what? With enough time, training, and learning, I could probably take on OU-tier pokemon with him, even though Sunflora is considered to be one of the weakest pokemon on the roster!

@davespriteegg
I don't consider post-game IV/EV breeding to be part of the story, so, no, it wouldn't take away from the theme of love/friendship in my opinion.