question about auto-level down to level 50 in pokemon

[geozeldadude]

i posted this on another forum, but it didn't seem like anyone knew, so i'm trying here.

i was reading about tier lists, and i read that in heart gold/soul silver if you do a wi-fi battle with the level 50 restriction that a higher-level pokemon will be levelled down. but i was wondering how they actually do that since stat increases are different at each level depending on what that pokemon has battled against. does the game actually roll you back down to what stats you had at level 50? that seems really surprising to me b/c then it means that the game has to keep track of the stats for every pokemon at level 50 that you ever use , and even all the ones you've traded in, etc. just curious.

[Furby]

It's a formula. It doesn't remember who you have battled, but it keeps track of the EP you've accumulated.

I would imagine that a pokemon leveled down would be stronger then one who was actually at level 50, because of this. Might not amount to much more then a few more points here and there, but.

[Tables]

Yeah, it's based soley on your IVs and EVs. But you get EV's quickly enough that unless you use stat lowering berries to lower them at some point, or caught the pokemon at level 25+, you'll have exactly the same stats or be only a few points off.

[geozeldadude]

it seems pretty imprecise, though. the reason i was thinking about it was b/c i was reading about pokemon competitions, and it seems like this de-levelling would give some people a small advantage over others depending on how they trained their pokemon.

[Tables]

Well, duh. But at the metagame that's what it's about, isn't it? The 252/252/6 EV spread?

[dondon151]

it seems pretty imprecise, though.

It's not "imprecise" when the stats are explicitly dictated by formulas.

[geozeldadude]

It's not "imprecise" when the stats are explicitly dictated by formulas.

it's imprecise in the sense that it's not actually the stats that the pokemon was at level 50, just an approximation that uses a lot of assumptions, right?

[VincentASM]

it's imprecise in the sense that it's not actually the stats that the pokemon was at level 50, just an approximation that uses a lot of assumptions, right?

No, it is the Pokemon as if they were at Level 50. Pokemon don't really gain stats when they level up, they just get scaled higher in level, with EVs (Effort Points) added on (which is why you can get stuff like +10 in a stat after just 1 level up, when EV training).

Edited September 19, 2010 by VincentASM

[geozeldadude]

No, it is the Pokemon as if they were at Level 50. Pokemon don't really gain stats when they level up, they just get scaled higher in level, with extra EVs (Effort Points) added on (which is why you can get stuff like +10 in a stat after just 1 level up, when EV training).

but what i'm saying is that you could definitely screw up the down-levelling so that it doesn't give you the stats you actually had at level 50. it's quite possible that i'm not understanding how EVs work, though. but for example, if you grew your pokemon from when you first captured it to level 50 with the absolute minimal amount of EV points accrued, then from levels 50 to 100 your EVs could really affect your pokemon. or even as a less extreme example, if you only focused your EVs in one stat until level 50 and then built up your other stats then that would also have an effect on your pokemon being down-levelled. or not?

[VincentASM]

I haven't checked it, but logically I'd think the scaling doesn't take EVs into account, it just uses the EVs that you currently have (I'm guessing it would be way too troublesome for the game to approximate how many EVs you had back then). So if you want your actual Level 50 to stand an equal chance against Pokemon auto-leveled from Level 100, you need to EV train more intensely.

Although, as somebody mentioned, if the Pokemon was caught at an early level, you'd have sufficient EV anyway.

Apologies if I didn't completely answer your question, I'm kind of in a hurry ^^;;;

Edited September 19, 2010 by VincentASM