After all thats MMO. GTL is a huge thing and even if you don't know how to breed you can still buy pokes from other people since it's not that expensive. If someone don't want to do so he is simply making his game harder but thats his choice. I was one of the fastest people who finished storyline and i was running with starmie and later salamence. Storyline gives u huge amounts of healing items and even if u run with non comp team it's possible. One of the reason that i see for newbies leaving the game after storyline is huge gap between storyline and competive play. Right now it's more balanced.