I Had a Random Thought (About Video Games)

[tegan]

 

 

I'm actually breeding another one now, because this one is sadly terrible. It has perfect stats except for its Special Defense, which is as bad as it could possibly be.

[Dewar]

What else would you expect from a feeble bass?

[tegan]

What else would you expect from a feeble bass?

 

Feebas is cool though! It's like Magikarp, except instead of evolving into a physical attack-focused super masculine water serpent, it evolves into a special defense-focused super feminine water serpent!

[Stuart]

I've started a critical analysis playthrough stream of System Shock 2! I was going to post it in the Plug Your Shit thread, but I'm not really showcasing any talent here, but rather my thoughts on the game. Any feedback would be appreciated. 

 

http://www.twitch.tv/thecineaste03/b/554603187

[clyde]

I just saw this and thought it was cool.

 

 

[tegan]

I hatched a second shiny Feebas!

 

 

This one has a 0 in Special Attack!

 

 

Why does Junichi Masuda hate me?

[clyde]

I just had a really cool thought about video games. I was imagining making a Legend of Zelda style game (top-down with screen-scrolls when you hit the borders of the screen) to depict one of the places I used to live. It was a duplex that was near a train-track. We used to walk down a street to get to downtown. The interesting part is that my mind has a specific way it wants the landscape to be orientated. The front door of the duplex should be facing downward and to go downtown, the player would walk downward.

I started thinking about other places I've been and they all have different orientations that I just assume. I can't easily change the orientations I have in my mind. I don't think that they have any correalation to the compass-rose. Try it out. Think of a place you used to live in Legend of Zelda terms and see which direction your commute would go. That's so weird, I wonder why my brain has an opinion like that.

[tegan]

Forget the Wii U Gamecube adapter, this guy built a 2DS Gamecube adapter:

 

 

You can't tell in the video, but it's basically just a circuit board hanging out of the back with a Gamecube controller socket attached.

[tegan]

Update: After another 1000+ eggs, I FINALLY hatched a good Shiny Feebas. It has 31 in every stat except Speed, which is still fairly high. To give you an impression of just how long I was breeding one single Feebas...

 

[JonCole]

How do you do that and not hate the game? I remember trying to farm good IVs on a Zubat and I ended up making like 200 of them before I got tired of it and settled with like 3 30s and the rest 25-29s.

[tegan]

How do you do that and not hate the game? I remember trying to farm good IVs on a Zubat and I ended up making like 200 of them before I got tired of it and settled with like 3 30s and the rest 25-29s.

 

You can pass down 5 out of 6 IVs using the Destiny Knot, and I have a 6IV Japanese Ditto. By swapping the other parent out as I get kids who have inherited more of the Dittos IVs, I can eventually get a 6IV parent to breed with (I get it to hold the an Everstone once I have the Nature I want). After that any babies I hatch will have a 1/32 chance of having perfect IVs, so I just keep going until I get a shiny. The Feebas definitely pushed me, but I've had good luck with the time it took to hatch my other shinies since I have the Oval and Shiny Charms, I'm using the Masuda Method, etc. I basically have everything running as efficiently as possible and play on autopilot while I do other things.

[dibs]

A poke-puppy farm? You monster.

[tegan]

Going for Scolipede now, which is a multi-step process.

 

1) breed perfect male Beedrill, raise it and teach it Toxic Spikes (check)

2) breed perfect Jolly female Venipede with Speed Boost (nearly there)

3) breed Beedrill and Venipede to get perfect Jolly female Venipede with Speed Boost and Toxic Spikes (hoo boy)

4) breed Ditto with Venipede; pray that the eventual shiny offspring gets Speed Boost and good IVs

 

I'm gonna be playing this one safe by levelling up that last Venipede a bunch to make absolutely certain that Toxic Spikes doesn't get overwritten with something else while it's in the Day Care, because I just know I would totally do that by accident.

[N1njaSquirrel]

I'm kinda in two minds about IV breeding. On one hand, I think that the complexity and RND of creating the perfect pokebaby points to the creators wanting to make more exciting and interesting battles.

 

IV training kinda feels like people have broken the game in that regards in order to breed the best pokemon. On the other hand, it could be looked at that the fan's love, time and dedication to this game means that they have worked out how to create the best poke-spouse.

 

Of course I know that the perfect IV pokemon doesn't guarantee the best stats, as there are loads of other systems going on with leveling, but it's a leg up.

 

The same complaint could be leveled towards Speed Runners as well, but I feel that it's different because even though there's super competitive scene when it comes to speed runners, it's not as PvP as pokemon is. Idk. I'm awaiting Tegan to destroy my argument now.

[Twig]

I think it's all dumb because it's a barrier for me participating in competitive Pokiemans. It's something I'd like to do if all this IV shit didn't exist. I'm much more tolerant of EVs and happiness and that kind of thing because it's part of raising your little friends, and it's a very controlled process. Spending hours and hours breeding the perfect creature is so incredibly off-putting that it's doing more to kill the game for me at this point than the stale monotony of the series from game to game. And that's all not even accounting for the fact that tegan is specifically looking for near-perfect shiny pokemon.

 

But at the same time I enjoy watching tegan do it so maybe I'm just jealous of other people's patience and passion.

[tegan]

I think it's safe to assume that IVs and EVs started off as a way to give any given Pokémon a unique flair, but that Game Freak has grown to accept the fact that players intentionally manipulate them. IV breeding got easier than ever in Gen VI and EV training is more or less completely transparent now. It's not like Game Freak hasn't encouraged customizing Pokémon since breeding was first introduced, what with Egg Moves being there from the start.

 

It's worth noting too that you can't actually check IVs until after you've beaten the Elite Four, which seems like the way to do it. Just play the game for fun and worry about the competitive stuff later.

[Jutranjo]

Has no one figured out how to just hack the save game to just edit your grinded out party members in the game?

[Merus]

Has no one figured out how to just hack the save game to just edit your grinded out party members in the game?

 

Yes. Yes they have.

[tegan]

That Feebas I hatched yesterday is a level 100 EV-trained Milotic now. I'm pretty pleased.

 

 

EDIT: it's beautiful.    

 

[tegan]

So I've been taking a break from the shiny hunt to raise the shinies that I already have (and finally become Grand Duchess of the Battle Chateau in the process), but after Scolipede I'm thinking of trying to breed a shiny female Combee.

 

 

 

 

Please talk me down from the brink of insanity.

[Twig]

You can do it!

[N1njaSquirrel]

My first ever shiny was a combee. I was devastated when I learnt it didn't evolve. It was like the pokegods slapping me for my good fortune.

 

Oh! You should get a shiny eevee family!

 

badass.

 

blueass.

[Ucantalas]

All of this Pokemon talk has gotten me thinking... if these games used either people or real animals, they would be the most disgusting, disturbing things ever.

 

Just imagine, you have a small army of people you keep locked away, taking a small crew of them with you when you travel. Then you make them fight to the point of utter exhaustion, bringing them to a hospital when you need to. Then, because some of them are genetically inferior, you bring them to a little farm area and force them to breed until they have an offspring you consider strong enough to train to fight for you. THEN you keep breeding that one to get one with even better genetics, all while secretly hoping the baby is an albino. It's madness. 

 

Or just replace "people" or "Pokemon" with dogs and its pretty obvious how terrible this is. And yet we're all okay with it because they're cute little animals that don't show any actual signs of being hurt and never very rarely die.

 

...I don't care though, I gotta catch em all!

[SuperBiasedMan]

I think if people really thought about it, they'd see Pokémon as worse than regular animals because Pokémon are intelligent sentient creatures and people use them as tools, playthings and cook fighting slaves. Those all occur in real life but the first two are considered generally ok because animals don't think like humans do, however Pokémon totally do.

[JonCole]

When you're not using them they're hanging out at Professor Oak's lab running around with other Pokemon of their species and having the time of their lives. :-(((((

 

Also Pokemon are your best friends so they're happy to fight for you. :-((((((((((