This may sound like an extremely specific question, and it certainly is- and definitely one that's probably not that big of a deal. But even though I'll admit there's probably no need for a thread for something this specific, I'd still at least like to show you something.
These are the fully evolved forms of the Galar region's so-called "starter Pokémon". By this point we all know what that term is referring to, but I'm using these three as an example because A. they're more recent than other regions that have this, and B. the thing I wanted to share was about their base stats. In Pokémon games, your Pokémon's stats are determined in part due to numbers called your Pokémon's base stat values; technically these numbers can be anywhere from 0 to 255 in the games' internal data, but for obvious reasons we will likely never see a Pokémon with a base stat value of 0 in any of the six stat categories. As you might expect, the closest we've ever gotten to this is Shedinja, who always has 1 HP naturally and is still displayed as having a base HP stat value of 1 despite the usual base stat formula. In any case, nothing seems wrong with their base stats at first, and that's what I thought too, until I noticed something about Cinderace that I've never been able to unsee.
These are Cinderace's base stats, starting in Pokémon Sword & Shield (assuming these would ever be changed in the future, that is). Can you find what's wrong with this picture? If you said that Cinderace's Attack and Speed stats are "incorrect", you'd be absolutely right. Across all three of these Pokémon, with six different base stat values each, that's a total of 18 different base stat values to look at, and out of those 18, these are the only two that aren't a multiple of five. Making matters even more annoying, both of those base stat values are only one point away from being corrected- Attack being one too high and Speed being one too low. Yeah, yeah, you can say Inteleon outspeeding Cinderace by exactly one base Speed point may have been intentional on the developer's part, but we've had plenty of Water-Type starters who are slower than their Fire-Type counterparts and that hasn't changed the dynamic of their one-on-one matchup against each other.
I was originally content to just let this go as something that's little more than a nitpick, but the more I looked into this, the more I started to find and get curious about. With possible values ranging from 0 to 255 regardless, it makes enough sense that the large majority of Pokémon base stat values over the generations have been a multiple of five. For the purposes of easy math, that refers to any number that ends in either a 0 or a 5. The problem I have starts to show up when you have Pokémon like Cinderace, who have base stats that aren't multiples of five and could theoretically be made as such for the purpose of more balanced and overall more consistent gameplay. For a better explanation as to why this is a problem, let's take a brief look at two more Pokémon, this time from Sinnoh;
Garchomp and its base 102 Speed stat have been a major factor in its success in both single player and multiplayer for over 17 years at this point. (Feel old yet?) This is, of course, because Speed determines if your Pokémon is able to use moves before or after other Pokémon on the field- a mechanic that I would argue becomes a little too unhealthy for types like Ghost and, of course, Dragon that can use moves of their own Type to hit other Pokémon of that same Type for super-effective damage. What was designed to be a case of "Dragons/Ghosts beat Dragons/Ghosts" suddenly becomes "the faster Dragons/Ghosts have an unfair advantage against the slower Dragons/Ghosts". Look no further than Palkia and its base 100 Speed, shared with several other Pokémon that Garchomp also has the pleasure of outspeeding. By now, you may have put the dots together- if Garchomp's base Speed stat was rounded down to a flat 100- the same as fellow Ground & Dragon-Type Flygon, mind you- than all of a sudden, the balance of viability between Garchomp and the other base 100s suddenly becomes much more even, while still allowing wiggle room for faster Pokémon, preferably base 105 Speed or higher, to maintain their niché of outspeeding the base 100 crowd.
I'm interested to see what other weird balance quirks exist because of this decision for not every base stat to be a multiple of five. I can think of many off of the top of my head, mostly in regards to the surprisingly over-tuned Speed stat, but there's so many Pokémon at this point that I can't help but wonder- have any of your favorite Pokémon been affected by this? Before I finishing typing, I'd like to provide a brief description of what it means to round something to the nearest multiple of five, just in case numbers are a tricky subject for you and because it's not as immediately simple as rounding up or down. The basic idea is that any numbers ending in 8, 9, 0, 1, or 2 could be rounded towards zero (0), while any numbers ending in 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 could be rounded towards five (5). This is why Garchomp's base 102 Speed would be rounded down two points to 100, while something with a hypothetical base Speed value of, say, 98 for example would have that value rounded up two points instead.
I think that's a pretty good place to wrap up this OP. Once again, I understand this might be a very specific thing to talk about, so I completely understand if this thread doesn't need to be here, and/or if this thread stays up but doesn't see very many posts. As always, I give the moderators full permission to do whatever they'd like with my threads (not like they need to ask, of course) and with all of this wrapped up smoothly, happy posting, everyone, and I'll see you all later. Have a great rest of your day :)
These are the fully evolved forms of the Galar region's so-called "starter Pokémon". By this point we all know what that term is referring to, but I'm using these three as an example because A. they're more recent than other regions that have this, and B. the thing I wanted to share was about their base stats. In Pokémon games, your Pokémon's stats are determined in part due to numbers called your Pokémon's base stat values; technically these numbers can be anywhere from 0 to 255 in the games' internal data, but for obvious reasons we will likely never see a Pokémon with a base stat value of 0 in any of the six stat categories. As you might expect, the closest we've ever gotten to this is Shedinja, who always has 1 HP naturally and is still displayed as having a base HP stat value of 1 despite the usual base stat formula. In any case, nothing seems wrong with their base stats at first, and that's what I thought too, until I noticed something about Cinderace that I've never been able to unsee.
These are Cinderace's base stats, starting in Pokémon Sword & Shield (assuming these would ever be changed in the future, that is). Can you find what's wrong with this picture? If you said that Cinderace's Attack and Speed stats are "incorrect", you'd be absolutely right. Across all three of these Pokémon, with six different base stat values each, that's a total of 18 different base stat values to look at, and out of those 18, these are the only two that aren't a multiple of five. Making matters even more annoying, both of those base stat values are only one point away from being corrected- Attack being one too high and Speed being one too low. Yeah, yeah, you can say Inteleon outspeeding Cinderace by exactly one base Speed point may have been intentional on the developer's part, but we've had plenty of Water-Type starters who are slower than their Fire-Type counterparts and that hasn't changed the dynamic of their one-on-one matchup against each other.
I was originally content to just let this go as something that's little more than a nitpick, but the more I looked into this, the more I started to find and get curious about. With possible values ranging from 0 to 255 regardless, it makes enough sense that the large majority of Pokémon base stat values over the generations have been a multiple of five. For the purposes of easy math, that refers to any number that ends in either a 0 or a 5. The problem I have starts to show up when you have Pokémon like Cinderace, who have base stats that aren't multiples of five and could theoretically be made as such for the purpose of more balanced and overall more consistent gameplay. For a better explanation as to why this is a problem, let's take a brief look at two more Pokémon, this time from Sinnoh;
Garchomp and its base 102 Speed stat have been a major factor in its success in both single player and multiplayer for over 17 years at this point. (Feel old yet?) This is, of course, because Speed determines if your Pokémon is able to use moves before or after other Pokémon on the field- a mechanic that I would argue becomes a little too unhealthy for types like Ghost and, of course, Dragon that can use moves of their own Type to hit other Pokémon of that same Type for super-effective damage. What was designed to be a case of "Dragons/Ghosts beat Dragons/Ghosts" suddenly becomes "the faster Dragons/Ghosts have an unfair advantage against the slower Dragons/Ghosts". Look no further than Palkia and its base 100 Speed, shared with several other Pokémon that Garchomp also has the pleasure of outspeeding. By now, you may have put the dots together- if Garchomp's base Speed stat was rounded down to a flat 100- the same as fellow Ground & Dragon-Type Flygon, mind you- than all of a sudden, the balance of viability between Garchomp and the other base 100s suddenly becomes much more even, while still allowing wiggle room for faster Pokémon, preferably base 105 Speed or higher, to maintain their niché of outspeeding the base 100 crowd.
I'm interested to see what other weird balance quirks exist because of this decision for not every base stat to be a multiple of five. I can think of many off of the top of my head, mostly in regards to the surprisingly over-tuned Speed stat, but there's so many Pokémon at this point that I can't help but wonder- have any of your favorite Pokémon been affected by this? Before I finishing typing, I'd like to provide a brief description of what it means to round something to the nearest multiple of five, just in case numbers are a tricky subject for you and because it's not as immediately simple as rounding up or down. The basic idea is that any numbers ending in 8, 9, 0, 1, or 2 could be rounded towards zero (0), while any numbers ending in 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 could be rounded towards five (5). This is why Garchomp's base 102 Speed would be rounded down two points to 100, while something with a hypothetical base Speed value of, say, 98 for example would have that value rounded up two points instead.
I think that's a pretty good place to wrap up this OP. Once again, I understand this might be a very specific thing to talk about, so I completely understand if this thread doesn't need to be here, and/or if this thread stays up but doesn't see very many posts. As always, I give the moderators full permission to do whatever they'd like with my threads (not like they need to ask, of course) and with all of this wrapped up smoothly, happy posting, everyone, and I'll see you all later. Have a great rest of your day :)
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