Tuesday Tip: Let's talk about pokémon!

[inkstone]

I thought it'd be useful to have a catch-all post for all things pokémon. They are what you're trying to catch in this game, right? And with the release of the in-game appraisal system, I figure some people might have some questions.

Here are the basics:

• Each pokémon is unique. It has visible values for CP and HP, in addition to movesets that can vary from mon to mon within a species.


• Every pokémon also has hidden stats called individual values (IVs) for attack, defense, and stamina. The CP & HP values are visible renderings of these IVs. The new in-game appraisal system gives you the range for these hidden values.


• When you level up as a trainer, you will start seeing pokémon with higher CP but to only a certain extent. The CP of pokémon hatched from eggs stop scaling at level 20 and the CP of pokémon caught in the wild stop scaling at level 30.


• The trainer level cap, though, is level 40. So you can keep powering up your pokémon with stardust and candy past level 30 until you hit the cap.

There are other nuances to be found here, but I find they vary from trainer to trainer. Some people start powering up their pokémon right away. Others wait until they hit level 30. Some people are torn. I thought that in addition to sharing general tips about pokémon, we could also use the comments to ask advice about our mon.

So let's have it!

Comments

[malnpudl]

I have a question and I don't know if it should go here or in its own post.

As I'm entirely new to the Poke-universe -- and 58 years old and childless -- this game is my very first exposure to everything except Pikachu.

I'm stumbling over pronunciations. Is there a definitive guide? I found this webpage but I'm having a very hard time believing that some of these are correct.

Gyrados is my biggest puzzler. My brain wants to make it jer-RAH-dose or JYE-rah-dose or JEER-uh-dose. But the above linked web page says it's GAR-i-dose and that flat out makes my brain hurt.

And Ponyta is supposed to be poh-NEE-tah? Seriously? *blinks*

Anyone else have trouble with this? Input? Opinions? Rants?

[monanotlisa]

Oh, that's interesting; I instinctively pronounced it poh-NEE-tah...but man, not in a thousand years had I guessed it's GAR-i-dose.

Frankly, I'm the worst person in the world to ask for pronunciation (foreigner with good grammar but limited auditive and replicative skills), but since there doesn't seem to be consensus among the new-gen Pokémon GO players, I wouldn't worry -- until some old-skool Trainer comes along to correct you. :)

[inkstone]

I wouldn't worry too much about pronunciation. Most players I've encountered -- even ones who grew up with the anime or have played the games since gen 1 -- are pretty chill about pronunciation. And if they're not? Eh, that says something about their character, imo.

[tyger]

When it first came out, we always pronounced it as gi-a-ra-dos; wasn't until one showed up in the anime any of us knew that wasn't the official pronunciation. (Ponyta, it helps if you think of it as Pony-ta, it's pretty much just a suffix because... they could. Or possibly it's a pun in Japanese, that happens.)

Anyway, pokémon pronunciation is COMPLICATED at best, because some of the names are taken directly from the Japanese names, and others are changed entirely - usually to puns, but sometimes for no apparent reason. And IIRC some are half of one, half of the other, though I can't think of any examples off the top of my head.

And that's not including the usual problems you get when translating - the further you go back, the worse translation standards were, and I wouldn't exactly call them great today, particularly in the US where you don't actually have to have any sort of qualification to work as a translator. Pokémon was always big-budget, which helps, but it's never been perfect. (It is, however, absolute strides above FFVII, which was released a year or two before. A bunch of the early game stuff is notoriously incoherent.)

So pronunciation vs spelling vs general common sense is pretty much a crapshoot! If it's important to you, you can definitely look it up, but anyone who isn't an asshole won't care if you pronounce something in a non-standard way!

[dickgrayson]

I watched as a kid and still have trouble...I would like a guide too.