[Implemented] Gender Selection

[semjon]

Please let us choose the gender of an egg..

It sucks if the process of comps breeding is ruined by the wrong gender. So I have to start all over again, and have to hope for the right gender next time. And if not, then the whole process repeats AGAIN...

With that shit options in making money, its absolute shit imo. The breeding system is okay, but THIS point is its biggest failure, in my opinion.

 

An example:

The pokemon I want to breed is Altaria, so 50/50% for a female.

I wasted a good ditto to make a female, so my breeding process can move forward, but then, again the little fu*ker was a male, so I had to waste another good ditto. And you might guess, which gender the baby is. Correct, its male AGAIN... How can I ever make a good comp, when the RNG makes it shit everytime?

 

 

Edit: Sorry, if there a thread like this already exists.

Edited January 19, 2015 by semjon

[meLANcholy]

Condolence to all those good dittos

Edited January 17, 2015 by viigiLANt

[flavajabari]

we definitly need this, you guys gave us ability pill which is amazing, and then you take out gender selection which just fucks it up again.

[ThinkNice]

Lot of staff members I spoke too want this back too. But if we have to wait till the next update (rip) or they give us one last amazing hotfix? That is the question I think.

[Munya]

Always breeding females would be worse than random gender selection, picking genders at a fee is the best option.

[flavajabari]

even munya agrees!

 

that proves how much we need this

[Munya]

Lot of staff members I spoke too want this back too. But if we have to wait till the next update (rip) or they give us one last amazing hotfix? That is the question I think.

They are already going to need to do a fix for geodudes so they hold everstone so i mean, maybe?

[bl0nde]

The foundation of the breeding system is #1 IV's are derived from wild pokemon catches and #2 the parents are being absorbed (preventing massive replication of nice IV's). These are the two important things that create the base for the system and keep it from being another repeat of what we had before.

 

The other things: cost of materials, odds of getting the correct gender, odds of finding everstones, etc: for the most part those things just determine how much or little grinding is required. Regardless of the amount of grinding present, the destination (set by the foundation) is still the same. The same pokemon will eventually show their faces on the market after the community really starts figuring this breeding system out. It's inevitable.

 

It can be argued that turning off gender selection does create an incentive to trade, increases "rarity", and helps the economy; however, it is clear that there are costs to this for comp players and breeders. One cost is it eliminates chain breeding (more than 1 or 2 fusions) from the game, as it is not a worthwhile investment. A secondary cost is just simple frustration when breeding plans (more than 1 step fusions) don't work out - and that shouldn't be taken lightly because A LOT of hours are put into these breeding efforts by our player base.

 

Turning on gender selection does have costs as well, one of them being less rarity for individual pokemons - however, in my opinion this loss of some rarity is not to the extent that it would be harmful. In fact, I think it would balance things quite nicely in the competitive scene. Even if you disagree with this statement, remember (from paragraph one of this post) that we can influence the amount of grinding we have to do, but the foundation of the system is staying. Increasing grinding is making the journey harder, but the end result is the same. Considering everything, it is my opinion that the benefits of turning gender selection on far outweigh the cost. 

 

For example, one benefit no one has mentioned for turning gender selection on is that it makes 1x30-31 viable sells in the market, thus increasing trade occurrence. You would see a lot of bad/semi-bad (but useable) pokemon being sold for low prices. Right now people don't really want to risk chain breeding, so this is not nearly as present in the market. You do see a 1x here and there, but for the most part, people are more selectively trading by trying to sell overall high IV's for one step fusions - that is what is marketable. It's very possible that turning gender selection on will increase the total number of trades taking place for the reasons mentioned above.

 

On a final note, I spend too much time in this game writing out my mostly irrelevant opinions. What am I doing with my life.

Edited January 18, 2015 by bl0nde

[PandaJJ]

Please let us choose the gender of an egg, or always breed females...

 

Please don't suggest to make it more of a nightmare than it already is...

 

The foundation of the breeding system is #1 IV's are derived from wild pokemon catches and #2 the parents are being absorbed (preventing massive replication of nice IV's). These are the two important things that create the base for the system and keep it from being another repeat of what we had before.

 

The other things: cost of materials, odds of getting the correct gender, odds of finding everstones, etc: for the most part those things just determine how much or little grinding is required. Regardless of the amount of grinding present, the destination (set by the foundation) is still the same. The same pokemon will eventually show their faces on the market after the community really starts figuring this breeding system out. It's inevitable.

 

It can be argued that turning off gender selection does create an incentive to trade, increases "rarity", and helps the economy; however, it is clear that there are costs to this for comp players and breeders. One cost is it eliminates chain breeding (more than 1 or 2 fusions) from the game, as it is not a worthwhile investment. A secondary cost is just simple frustration when breeding plans (more than 1 step fusions) don't work out - and that shouldn't be taken lightly because A LOT of hours are put into these breeding efforts by our player base.

 

Turning on gender selection does have costs as well, one of them being less rarity for individual pokemons - however, in my opinion this loss of some rarity is not to the extent that it would be harmful. In fact, I think it would balance things quite nicely in the competitive scene. Even if you disagree with this statement, remember (from paragraph one of this post) that we can influence the amount of grinding we have to do, but the foundation of the system is staying. Increasing grinding is making the journey harder, but the end result is the same. Considering everything, it is my opinion that the benefits of turning gender selection on far outweigh the cost. 

 

For example, one benefit no one has mentioned for turning gender selection on is that it makes 1x30-31 viable sells in the market, thus increasing trade occurrence. You would see a lot of bad/semi-bad (but useable) pokemon being sold for low prices. Right now people don't really want to risk chain breeding, so this is not nearly as present in the market. You do see a 1x here and there, but for the most part, people are more selectively trading by trying to sell overall high IV's for one step fusions - that is what is marketable. It's very possible that turning gender selection on will increase the total number of trades taking place for the reasons mentioned above.

 

On a final note, I spend too much time in this game writing out my mostly irrelevant opinions. What am I doing with my life.

 

I was about to make a new thread, since almost all other threads on this topic are poorly written (like the OP) or argues at the wrong point, so thank you for taking your time to write this. I really hope the devs will read your comment.

 

Now, to elaborate; the new foundations of the breeding system (losing parents + having to catch wild pokemon) makes it such that the game will never reach the state it once was in, i.e. it will not overflow with godlies, because it is no longer possible to make an army of godlies from a single one. This is a good thing. But because of this, the breeding system should make it easier, and most importiantly, consistent, to breed good pokemon. The first and absolutely most crucial way of accomplishing this is making gender selection available. As of now, chain breeding is not only inconsistent, but absolutely pointless. Without chain breeding, the effort needed to breed a good pokemon is almost the same as catching one, which is a step in the wrong direction. Whether you make it possible to rebreed a pokemon (give back a newly hatched pokemon for a new egg from the same parents), or make gender selection available for a fee, there has to be a way of manipluting the gender. When implementing a "refinement" system that takes so much time and effort, you can not afford the players to get inconsistent results for their hard work.

[DrCraig]

We need Estrogen Pills

[bl0nde]

That one argument is that having gender selection off supposedly increases trade, but the reason for that is because you are more often forced into the situation rather than having a choice. I really can't judge any upper level staff on what their experiences are in the game, but here's mine:

[spoiler][/spoiler]

I tried to sell something desirable about 30 minutes ago and went 3 for 3 on scammers. One guy tried to make a 500k cut on me (nice guy right, it's just 500k). Another guy couldn't find his money and just wanted me to give him my stuff. blah blah *tears*, who cares right? Sometimes trading is good, sometimes it's bad. I also should have just said nothing to the guy. That is irrelevent though. 

 

My point is, if I am trying to do a breeding chain and it doesn't work out, I can potentially be forced into this environment. Here, I would #1 have to wade through this bullshoot and try to get a fair market return on my baby (risk #1), then #2 try to find an equivalent of the opposite gender to continue my chain at again* a fair market price (risk #2) or #3 salute o7 to the rng gods and just start over.

 

If, however, my gender selection is on, I can enter the market at my discretion. Just knowing you can progress in the game with different options elimates nearly all of the frustration because if you are getting screwed, you have alternatives. I know this scenerio could likely be irrelevent to developers, but from my perspective as a single player it is relevent to me. It has a direct impact on my gaming experience and is why I have been playing my other game a lot more (lawl). Anyway, this is a much less irrelevent post to the topic, but it has still been a passing thought in my mind about this current set up.

 

As always, if anyone can type to me and portray this in a positive light, I always welcome an opportunity to see the "glass half full". I'm merely expressing my thoughts in a collaborative discussion, I'm not trying to present the appearence that I'm writing a persuasive essay.

 

Edit: if you guys want to hit a middle ground on the issue, you could put in gender selection but make it for a fee or require an item - my suggestion would be 10-15k (something reasonable). Implementing an item would also increase trade similar to our current everstones. So that lets you keep some of the rarity you want, but it lets us do our breeding chains for us die hards.

Edited January 18, 2015 by bl0nde

[Gilan]

it will not overflow with godlies

long term this will still happen. Until they introduce a mechanic that actually kills pokemon in our boxes/parties at the same rate that the godlies/player ratio is skewing, then it is inevitable (though it will still take a long time, but I'm assuming that this game strives to live forever).

 

Anyways, I'm more in support of letting us choose the species of the offspring rather than the gender, unless if the devs really just want us to pay a ton for fossil/starter pokemon in comparison to regular pokemon... And species selection isn't as broken as gender selection. With gender selection, as long as you have the money, it is a piece of cake to follow the pattern to a 6x31 natured pokemon. With species selection it isn't as easy. And imo, species selection would promote more varied trading.

[OldKeith]

long term this will still happen. Until they introduce a mechanic that actually kills pokemon in our boxes/parties at the same rate that the godlies/player ratio is skewing, then it is inevitable (though it will still take a long time, but I'm assuming that this game strives to live forever).

 

Normally it would but people just... quit. That is another way comps die. Most people who quit prefer to keep all their comps in case they ever play again.

[Jate]

Old guy: Hi, your pokemon had two eggs, but sadly you can only keep one due to the pokemon trainer rules. Would you like the pink (female) or blue (male) egg? We will take care of the other one

 

Bang. do it

[Gilan]

Normally it would but people just... quit. That is another way comps die. Most people who quit prefer to keep all their comps in case they ever play again.

I think more comps are made than what get taken out by quitters. Also, Czard/CZD definitely didn't keep his comps/uts/shinies when he quit (more like a break).

Old guy: Hi, your pokemon had two eggs, but sadly you can only keep one due to the pokemon trainer rules. Would you like the pink (female) or blue (male) egg? We will take care of the other one

Bang. do it

Green for the genderless.

[PandaJJ]

That one argument is that having gender selection off supposedly increases trade, but the reason for that is because you are more often forced into the situation rather than having a choice.

 

Yes, I also read this. The fact is that by having gender selection switched off, all you are doing is discouraging breeding, hence dscouraging trading. Not only is it unconfortable to be forced into a trade situations, given the amount of scammers, but finding somebody to trade with when nobody is breeding is also not going to happen. Suppose you are in the middle of chain breeding, and you just breed two 3x31s with two overlapping 31s, but they happen to be the same gender. Now all you have to do is to find a guy who is in the same situation (with the opposite gender) and trade with him, right? Unfortunately, the way chain breeding works, that guy might not even have the same 3 IVs on his pokemon, because it depends on what kind of pokemon you catch.

 

A better way of encouraging trading is by making it easier to breed the same spieces of pokemon over and over. For instance, say that if you breed 50 eevee, then you "unlock" gender selection for eevee. This makes favorable to breed only a single (or a few) spieces of pokemon, which encourages trading. However, most importantly, this kind of trading is your own choice, and forced upon you by luck.

 

long term this will still happen. Until they introduce a mechanic that actually kills pokemon in our boxes/parties at the same rate that the godlies/player ratio is skewing, then it is inevitable (though it will still take a long time, but I'm assuming that this game strives to live forever).

 

Anyways, I'm more in support of letting us choose the species of the offspring rather than the gender, unless if the devs really just want us to pay a ton for fossil/starter pokemon in comparison to regular pokemon... And species selection isn't as broken as gender selection. With gender selection, as long as you have the money, it is a piece of cake to follow the pattern to a 6x31 natured pokemon. With species selection it isn't as easy. And imo, species selection would promote more varied trading.

I can not agree with this assertion. If you assume that there is a maximum amount of needed comp pokemon per player, then yes, the market will overflow. However, in the current situation, I see no reason to assume this. It is more fair to say that due to mechanic changes (this might not happen many more times, but there are still NYI pokemon and moves, like milotic and trick), or simply meta or tier changes, players will always want new comps. I think it is safe to say that the meta will change regularly, i.e. linearly with respect to time. The new breeding system also works this way, though, since the amount of comp pokemon you currently have does not affect how fast you can produce a new one. Therefore, if the breeding systemis too slow, nobody will ever be able to catch up to the meta before it changes.

 

I consider comp pokemon like pieces of a chess game - it doesn't matter if I'm better than you at chess, if I have to play without all the pieces. Having access to comps within a reasonable amount of time is crucial to the game, and there should be other, non-crucial items (such as shinies) that should depend on luck.

It is not a piece of cake to breed for the required comps just because it is trivial to find out how to do so. As of now, many players can be considered "new" players, due to the huge mechanics changes that makes a lot of comps near useless. I, for instance, has to do everything from scratch, and it is clearly unmanagable.

Also, if you can choose the spieces of the baby, then why not just breed dittos? That is even more powerful than gender selection.

[Gilan]

I can not agree with this assertion. If you assume that there is a maximum amount of needed comp pokemon per player, then yes, the market will overflow. However, in the current situation, I see no reason to assume this. It is more fair to say that due to mechanic changes (this might not happen many more times, but there are still NYI pokemon and moves, like milotic and trick), or simply meta or tier changes, players will always want new comps. I think it is safe to say that the meta will change regularly, i.e. linearly with respect to time. The new breeding system also works this way, though, since the amount of comp pokemon you currently have does not affect how fast you can produce a new one. Therefore, if the breeding systemis too slow, nobody will ever be able to catch up to the meta before it changes.

Well, let's look at the variables. Each Pokemon has a limited number of useful natures and moves and abilities and IVs. If people continue to make viable competitive pokemon then eventually there will be an overflow of pokemon. The meta changing does not affect this in the way that you think. Yes some pokemon will become obselete, some will become more influential, others won't be affected. And then when the meta changes again some of those "obseletes" will become viable again, and vice versa. Since there is a finite amount of combinations that you can have with any and all pokemon, it is safe to assume that eventually the market of this kind of game will be flooded. Now, do note that I explicitly stated:

(though it will still take a long time, but I'm assuming that this game strives to live forever).

I said this, because I concede to the point that in the short run there won't be any indication of comps flooding the market, but in the long run, as one should always consider, there will be such an indication.

 

 

I consider comp pokemon like pieces of a chess game - it doesn't matter if I'm better than you at chess, if I have to play without all the pieces. Having access to comps within a reasonable amount of time is crucial to the game, and there should be other, non-crucial items (such as shinies) that should depend on luck.

I consider comp pokemon in the same way. However, it is up to the developers to decide how much of this game should be traditional competition oriented. (i.e. Should everyone be able to play competitively in a short amount of time, similarly to showdown, or should there be people who simply have better resources than others and dominate the game until someone else devotes a lot more time to overcome that person).

 

 

It is not a piece of cake to breed for the required comps just because it is trivial to find out how to do so. As of now, many players can be considered "new" players, due to the huge mechanics changes that makes a lot of comps near useless. I, for instance, has to do everything from scratch, and it is clearly unmanagable.

Considering my wild catch history and other people's recent wild catches, I do consider the road to a natured 6x31 to be a piece of cake should gender selection be implemented.

 

 

Also, if you can choose the spieces of the baby, then why not just breed dittos? That is even more powerful than gender selection.

The difference between choosing species and ditto breeding is that you cannot breed dittos with other dittos. Let's say you want to breed a nice charmander. Let's say you have a male 25/25/25/25/25/25. Now let's consider catching dittos. Let's say you catch two dittos with the IVs 31/0/27/18/13/27 and 24/27/23/29/13/25. By breeding the charmander twice with these two dittos, the best you could do is: (first breed, with second ditto) 24/26/24/29/25/25 , (then breed with first ditto) 27/26/25/23/19/27 (there might be a better option depending on what you really want, but for the sake of the argument take it for what it is). The sum of those IVs is 147 (compared to charmanders starting IV sum of 150, so you would be better off not breeding with the ditto, unless you value certain IVs more than others, but we are going to value them all equally).

Now, Let's say, instead you caught two rattatas (much easier to catch than dittos), male and female, with the same exact IVs as the dittos. With these two, you breed them together first which gives a rattata with 31/27/25/23/13/26. then when you breed with the charmander, you get: 31/26/25/24/25/25. The sum of those IVs is 156, which is +6 to the original 150. Granted, you would have to get lucky with the gender of the offspring, but rattatas aren't expensive to catch.

 

And then your last statement "That is even more powerful than gender selection", due to the context, I assume you mean that ditto breeding is more powerful than gender selection? If so, then you are horribly mistaken. Gender selection makes the whole process much, much easier.

If you meant that species selection is more powerful than gender selection, then I would have to disagree due to: "Granted, you would have to get lucky with the gender of the offspring". Which means you couldn't simply follow the simple steps to a 6x31. Whereas in gender selection you can.

[PandaJJ]

First off I just want to say that I agree to most of what you say, Gilan. I picked up a few things that I disagree with, though.

 

Well, let's look at the variables. Each Pokemon has a limited number of useful natures and moves and abilities and IVs. If people continue to make viable competitive pokemon then eventually there will be an overflow of pokemon. The meta changing does not affect this in the way that you think. Yes some pokemon will become obselete, some will become more influential, others won't be affected. And then when the meta changes again some of those "obseletes" will become viable again, and vice versa. Since there is a finite amount of combinations that you can have with any and all pokemon, it is safe to assume that eventually the market of this kind of game will be flooded. Now, do note that I explicitly stated:

I said this, because I concede to the point that in the short run there won't be any indication of comps flooding the market, but in the long run, as one should always consider, there will be such an indication.

 

In practice, you are probably right. However, imagine for the sake of the argument that they are going to update the meta to sixth gen mechanics and pokemon, a small step at a time. In this case, the market will not necessarily be overflown between every time the meta changes - and these changes are big enough to reset a big amount of work, in terms of breeding.

 

The argument of finiteness of usable comps is interesting. I was about to say that you can only store a finite amount of pokemon, but then I realized that you can of course make as many alts as you want to store more pokemon there.

 

Considering my wild catch history and other people's recent wild catches, I do consider the road to a natured 6x31 to be a piece of cake should gender selection be implemented.

 

Gender selection only affects pokemon with two genders - genderless and mono-gendered pokemon will still be a pain. Moreover, it will remain very expensive and time consuming to breed your way to a perfect natured 6x31, because of things such as item costs, encounter rates and skewed gender rates. If you start from zero pokedollar and no pokemon and wish to make a perfect swampert, this will still be a nightmare even with gender selection. And what have you achieved by making a perfect swampert? Absolutely nothing in terms of resources for breeding new pokemon, hence the next pokemon of the same difficulty will take just as much effort to make. I think your "piece of cake" feeling stems from the fact that you already have resources that make it easier for you, and do not feel the desperation of not even having a fully competetive team.

 

The difference between choosing species and ditto breeding is that you cannot breed dittos with other dittos. Let's say you want to breed a nice charmander. Let's say you have a male 25/25/25/25/25/25. Now let's consider catching dittos. Let's say you catch two dittos with the IVs 31/0/27/18/13/27 and 24/27/23/29/13/25. By breeding the charmander twice with these two dittos, the best you could do is: (first breed, with second ditto) 24/26/24/29/25/25 , (then breed with first ditto) 27/26/25/23/19/27 (there might be a better option depending on what you really want, but for the sake of the argument take it for what it is). The sum of those IVs is 147 (compared to charmanders starting IV sum of 150, so you would be better off not breeding with the ditto, unless you value certain IVs more than others, but we are going to value them all equally).

Now, Let's say, instead you caught two rattatas (much easier to catch than dittos), male and female, with the same exact IVs as the dittos. With these two, you breed them together first which gives a rattata with 31/27/25/23/13/26. then when you breed with the charmander, you get: 31/26/25/24/25/25. The sum of those IVs is 156, which is +6 to the original 150. Granted, you would have to get lucky with the gender of the offspring, but rattatas aren't expensive to catch.

 

And then your last statement "That is even more powerful than gender selection", due to the context, I assume you mean that ditto breeding is more powerful than gender selection? If so, then you are horribly mistaken. Gender selection makes the whole process much, much easier.

If you meant that species selection is more powerful than gender selection, then I would have to disagree due to: "Granted, you would have to get lucky with the gender of the offspring". Which means you couldn't simply follow the simple steps to a 6x31. Whereas in gender selection you can.

 

I was refering to chain breeding when I said that spieces selection that allows ditto eggs is more powerful than gender selection. In your example, you are clearly not breeding for 31s (although I agree that this is not strictly necessary), since it is statistically unreasonable to expect that you can catch pokemon with several 31s. The reason why I said it is more powerful is that it works like gender selection for pokemon with genders, but it also affects genderless breeding. If you have gender selection, you can breed one male and one female and then breed them together. If you have ditto breeding, you can breed one pokemon with any gender and one ditto in every step and then breed them together. Ditto breeding has a slight edge, as the initial pokemon for your breeding chain are easier to breed since you can now use ditto.

 

As for spieces selection (without the ability to breed ditto), it is clearly inferior to gender selection, as you rightly stated. However, species selection still has the same bad taste as the current system, considering that you need to breed one male and one female to breed them together, and this is decided at random. You can use spieces with skewed gender ratio to somehow remedy this, though.

[Gilan]

Gender selection only affects pokemon with two genders - genderless and mono-gendered pokemon will still be a pain. Moreover, it will remain very expensive and time consuming to breed your way to a perfect natured 6x31, because of things such as item costs, encounter rates and skewed gender rates. If you start from zero pokedollar and no pokemon and wish to make a perfect swampert, this will still be a nightmare even with gender selection. And what have you achieved by making a perfect swampert? Absolutely nothing in terms of resources for breeding new pokemon, hence the next pokemon of the same difficulty will take just as much effort to make. I think your "piece of cake" feeling stems from the fact that you already have resources that make it easier for you, and do not feel the desperation of not even having a fully competetive team.

 

 

I was refering to chain breeding when I said that spieces selection that allows ditto eggs is more powerful than gender selection. In your example, you are clearly not breeding for 31s (although I agree that this is not strictly necessary), since it is statistically unreasonable to expect that you can catch pokemon with several 31s. The reason why I said it is more powerful is that it works like gender selection for pokemon with genders, but it also affects genderless breeding. If you have gender selection, you can breed one male and one female and then breed them together. If you have ditto breeding, you can breed one pokemon with any gender and one ditto in every step and then breed them together. Ditto breeding has a slight edge, as the initial pokemon for your breeding chain are easier to breed since you can now use ditto.

 

As for spieces selection (without the ability to breed ditto), it is clearly inferior to gender selection, as you rightly stated. However, species selection still has the same bad taste as the current system, considering that you need to breed one male and one female to breed them together, and this is decided at random. You can use spieces with skewed gender ratio to somehow remedy this, though.

3mil for one perfect pokemon is actually pretty cheap imo... So yeah, I still think it is a piece of cake.

 

and when I talk about species selection I never meant that you could breed dittos (or choose a ditto egg). Sorry for the confusion. The point of my suggestion is to offer a compromise to a touted "impossible" system and a fairly "easy" system.

[Robofiend]

3mil for one perfect pokemon is actually pretty cheap imo... 

 

wut. how can you say that when completing the storyline doesn't give you anything close to that? Imo it'd be wise to set up the system so that you could buy a few good comps and start playing competitively after beating the storyline (as opposed to the old system, where you could buy two nearly perfect breeders and then get a whole team of amazing comps with a little effort).

 

As for gender selection broadly: I think it has a lot of potential.

 

If the new system is supposed to mimic "enchantment" type mechanics seen in other games, this system is akin to bringing your sword to a wizard and then having him change it into a nice enchanted staff half of the time. Sure, the staff is good, but you wanted a sword, dammit! And that's not to mention that some classes might not be able to use a staff, so then it's practically useless until you get the supplies needed to re-enchant it and hope that you get a sword again.. Ok, I digress.

 

Nonetheless, it's pretty obvious why gender is too important for breeding to leave it up to RNG to decide - if you're going to have a system that rewards careful planning and catching comps, it's kinda ridiculous to set up the system so half of the time you're not getting what you want. The only foreseeable pitfall is that some comps are supposed to be rarer than others, and you could work around the impossibility of catching a female Torchic by getting a male, ditto-ing it and then going full speed ahead. Or, maybe worse, you could always make the "end result" of a breed female so that you could improve it later: which would mess with the economics of the comp trade. It could also really mess up the shiny market: there'd be almost no reason to breed a male rare shiny.

 

The only side suggestion I have for this is:

 

Gender brace: now you have to choose whether nature or ivs or gender are more important. This would be nice for early stage breeding because you could get a good foundation but it would keep people from getting comps that can be infinitely rebred to be better (you'd have to choose at some point whether having a female or a 31 speed IV or Adamant nature was more important). The downside here, of course, is that it's already hard enough to get ivs/nature you want; even if gender were up to me, I'd have trouble finding two wild Trapinches that could breed to become one better pokemon.

[Barrage]

Gender brace: now you have to choose whether nature or ivs or gender are more important. This would be nice for early stage breeding because you could get a good foundation but it would keep people from getting comps that can be infinitely rebred to be better (you'd have to choose at some point whether having a female or a 31 speed IV or Adamant nature was more important). The downside here, of course, is that it's already hard enough to get ivs/nature you want; even if gender were up to me, I'd have trouble finding two wild Trapinches that could breed to become one better pokemon.

I think this is way too big of a tradeoff. I'd honestly never use the "gender brace" -- I would continue to take my luck with RNG, because as you said, an integral part of the "refinement" process is being able to pick and choose which ivs you want to carry over.

[Shaniqualela]

wut. how can you say that when completing the storyline doesn't give you anything close to that? Imo it'd be wise to set up the system so that you could buy a few good comps and start playing competitively after beating the storyline (as opposed to the old system, where you could buy two nearly perfect breeders and then get a whole team of amazing comps with a little effort).

 

As for gender selection broadly: I think it has a lot of potential.

 

If the new system is supposed to mimic "enchantment" type mechanics seen in other games, this system is akin to bringing your sword to a wizard and then having him change it into a nice enchanted staff half of the time. Sure, the staff is good, but you wanted a sword, dammit! And that's not to mention that some classes might not be able to use a staff, so then it's practically useless until you get the supplies needed to re-enchant it and hope that you get a sword again.. Ok, I digress.

 

Nonetheless, it's pretty obvious why gender is too important for breeding to leave it up to RNG to decide - if you're going to have a system that rewards careful planning and catching comps, it's kinda ridiculous to set up the system so half of the time you're not getting what you want. The only foreseeable pitfall is that some comps are supposed to be rarer than others, and you could work around the impossibility of catching a female Torchic by getting a male, ditto-ing it and then going full speed ahead. Or, maybe worse, you could always make the "end result" of a breed female so that you could improve it later: which would mess with the economics of the comp trade. It could also really mess up the shiny market: there'd be almost no reason to breed a male rare shiny.

 

The only side suggestion I have for this is:

 

Gender brace: now you have to choose whether nature or ivs or gender are more important. This would be nice for early stage breeding because you could get a good foundation but it would keep people from getting comps that can be infinitely rebred to be better (you'd have to choose at some point whether having a female or a 31 speed IV or Adamant nature was more important). The downside here, of course, is that it's already hard enough to get ivs/nature you want; even if gender were up to me, I'd have trouble finding two wild Trapinches that could breed to become one better pokemon.

i liked then unliked when i saw gender brace

[Gilan]

wut. how can you say that when completing the storyline doesn't give you anything close to that? Imo it'd be wise to set up the system so that you could buy a few good comps and start playing competitively after beating the storyline (as opposed to the old system, where you could buy two nearly perfect breeders and then get a whole team of amazing comps with a little effort).

I'm talking about a natured 6x31 pokemon, hence "perfect". If you think a perfect pokemon like that should be obtainable with the money that you get from one play-through of the game, then I guess you are entitled to your opinion.

 

There is a huge money gap between a perfect pokemon and a good, comp viable pokemon in this breeding system.

[Robofiend]

I think this is way too big of a tradeoff. I'd honestly never use the "gender brace" -- I would continue to take my luck with RNG, because as you said, an integral part of the "refinement" process is being able to pick and choose which ivs you want to carry over.

 

I've had a couple times where i'm breeding and I'm like.. wow I could totally give up an IV to ensure that I get a female out of this breed.

 

I'm talking about a natured 6x31 pokemon, hence "perfect".

 

It's statistically impossible that you could even get one with these mechanics so it's not really worth debating imo. I took perfect to mean "very very very good comp". Regardless, any thoughts on Gender brace? 

[Gilan]

It's statistically impossible that you could even get one with these mechanics so it's not really worth debating imo. I took perfect to mean "very very very good comp". Regardless, any thoughts on Gender brace? 

 

It is very possible to obtain in a gender selection environment, which was the context in which I mentioned the perfect pokemon.

Considering my wild catch history and other people's recent wild catches, I do consider the road to a natured 6x31 to be a piece of cake should gender selection be implemented.

 

 

 

As for the "gender brace" idea, my initial reaction is: "no". But, as with all things regarding this new breeding system, let me have time to think about it (apprx. one sleepless night).

Edited January 21, 2015 by Gilan