Chances are a good number of you probably struggle with this. Who knows, though?

I can't take it. Time and time again I spend forever organizing a full Pokemon team of six on paper (movesets, EVs, everything), double-checking it for team-wide "flaws" (such as lack of coverage against certain types, lack of counters for certain situations, etc.), manage to find one or more flaws no matter WHAT, then get completely fed-up with my painstaking research and planning and scrap the entire party.

Take my latest issue for example. I just finished EV-training an Absol for physical sweeping... in fact, it's perfect, except for I still need to Tutor one move onto it, and buy the Scope Lens from the Frontier. Then I got the bright idea to calculate its IVs (since it's Level 71 and I have its EVs memorized). What I discovered was that, while most of its IVs are very high, its Defense and Sp.Def are practically zero. This made me inexplainably furious and suddenly I feel like the hard work in raising my wonderful Absol was worthless.

It's really upsetting me how hard this hits me. Why am I so incapable of simply [i]enjoying the game?[/i] It's like, I want to battle with my Pokemon online, yet I only want to use my favorites instead of "conform", yet my favorites seem to be always changing, yet their movesets and offensive/defensive coverage have to be completely balanced and foolproof yet varied enough to look and feel cool and UGH. Ugh, I tell you. Every single time I "re-discover" Pokemon my mind instantly makes it into this huge epic big deal where even the tiniest details have to be perfect or else I don't deserve to be playing this game. (There's no such thing as a "perfect" team, either, is there? There's no such thing as a team that has a counter/style for EVERYTHING, right? Rationally that has to be the case but half of me is always shouting NO THERE HAS TO BE A WAY. You can probably guess that for me this applies to a lot more than just Pokemon, too. X_x)

I don't even understand what I'm posting or asking about, to be honest. This just frustrates me. I guess I'm asking, how can I play the Pokemon metagame and still casually enjoy it? I don't want to play with just the strongest/best Pokemon... I just want to play with Pokemon I like. But I also want to be able to look people in the eye and tell them I don't care about winning or losing... when in reality, I think I would break down and cry at night if somebody ridiculed me for having a vastly disproportionate Lose-to-Win ratio in my Trainer Info. The internal conflicts are ripping my mind apart fiber-by-fiber, at an exponential rate as if I were holding a Toxic Orb underneath my consciousness. >_<

I would like to hear what people have to say on topics like these, if any. *breathes and crosses fingers*

Haven't posted in a while. Haven't even read the forums in a while either. That's cuz I don't play Pokemon. But I seem to switch in and out of playing Pokemon. And right now I was reading around the forums basically cos I was thinking about playing Pokemon lately. And this really caught my eye. Since the reason why I periodically stop playing Pokemon is that I feel the need for my team to be perfect in every way. And that's not quite possible. At least not with my definition of "perfect". And in the end, I don't even enjoy the game. And that happens in other games for me too. And not only in games, in everyday life too. So what I'm saying is that there really are people who feel the same way. But anyway. It seems to me, that you should chill out. Especially, if you are at the point where you might start crying over a game. I mean, crying is natural for a human being, but not over a game. Those are for fun.

Actually, I was thinking about a game that would not cause such things as "struggling with high-density perfectionism". A game where no monster/character would be overpowered, where everything would rely on the diversity. The thing is such a system is hard to create. It would require a lot of tweaking. One should concentrate primarily on balancing the system first, and only then on expanding it. Yet, I who am I to say, that Pokemon is unbalanced.

As for your problem, I say... Maybe you could try playing red/blue/yellow, where game mechanics are simpler. I know, you can't play online in RBY. But maybe that's a good thing to try for a while if you don't want to quit Pokemon or continue struggling with the perfectionism. Anyway, it's up to you. I may be misunderstanding your problem.

One last thing. One of my interests is the Unix-like operating systems. Not many know, that throughout the year's of Unix, a certain philosophy has emerged. It is a set of principles which I feel can be met everywhere in life. One of them says "there is no one true way". A perfectionist should always keep that in mind. ; )

The link won't let me lie. http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch01s06.html

I know the feeling all to well, even if you do hit "perfect"(which is nigh impossible due to the sheer number of combos/pokes) Luck can still knock you flat on your face easily. I find it best to have mix of perfection, strategy and personal preference. Find a strategy you like using (sandstream, balance, trickroom, batonpass etc.) throw 2-3 pokes on the team that you like and fit your strategy (regarldless of OU/BL/UU NU may be up to question) and make the rest of the team to be as "perfect" as you can and assemble their movesets. For me this makes the game both fun and challenging. Losing an occasional battle is expected and it's best to take it in stride and try again, if a certain poke constantly sweeps you you may need to adjust your strategy. I found PBR's random 3v3 battle very helpful for this (Until I put Registeel on my team, seems it and heatran are banned O_o)


I may add more later, but I'm half asleep atm. -_-

I know the feeling. To balence out my desire for perfectionism with my desire for fun, I plan the Pokemon, moveset, ability, and nature while screwing EV's. As long as the EV's are maxed out, it doesn't matter which stats they are allocated too, since you can't predict what situation your team will be in. For example, my Kingdra has much higher Defence than Special Defence, although I would prefer it to be balenced. However, If i'm battleing something like the Attack-oriented Absol you have, it works out. Heck, some trainers WIN on unpredictability.

If you're training pokemon in-game, you can't get a perfect pokemon without endless breeding. The best you can do is choose a level of acceptability. I breed for natures, EV train, and tutor moves - but I don't breed for IVs. Most other people won't have really high IVs in every stat, only the ones that matter for the pokemon.

Aaahh... You guys are wonderful! Thanks so much for the insight. Each one of you gave me a totally unique perspective to see from and it really means something to me.

I think I know what I need to do. I need to stop thinking. I need to just pick up the game again and wing it. That's the only way I've ever been able to live in RL... I'm not sure where I let Pokemon drift off into its seperate universe with seperate physics in my mind, but that's what's screwed me up.

Now I feel so refreshed!

(Incidentally, I probably shouldn't have messed with Hidden Power so much, as that's where I started to fret about IVs in the first place. I mean as cool as a Venomoth would be with a Fighting-type attack it can pull outta nowhere, it's just not worth the struggle, as I've discovered. ^^)

@sixyearold: I should point out that I meant "crying" figuratively, not literally. :XD: Also, got enough of those commas? Mind if I have some? Commas are a tasty snack this time of night.

I'm not sure if you should just wing it, but a mix of that and perfectionism should set you well.


I've breed for Hidden power twice, never again. Just not worth the time.

Hey, glad to hear everything's fine. And.. I'm not sure what are you talking about commas. If it's about me placing them oddly in the text, than it's probably because of my native language influence on my English.

Anyway, I too was happy to see everyone's responses. I played Pokemon before reading these posts and enjoyed it, but this, I think, will make me enjoy the game even more.

Shinashu I second that. I only bred for Hidden Power once and it was terrible.

Ahh, so I'm not the only one who's needed to draw the line, it looks like. Thinking back, my sensitivity over the quality of my team progressed in steps over the years, almost like an infection. At first I just enjoyed the game... Then I realized how Natures and EVs worked, so I started paying attention to those.. then I found out about the Synchronize and Everstone tricks, which reinforced my "need" to get Natures just right... then I discover IVs and they become a small deal, and then I come across sites like Smogon and various forum discussions which seem to highlight how vital it is to get these right, and by now my mind is going "Ahhh, I won't have a chance unless I compete at the same intensity as this! I'll just be laughed at otherwise." At this point, my "team" is useless no matter how excellent I can get it, even before I've even done the WiFi stuff at all.

I think I shouldn't read so much into it. It's hard not to, though (for anything). ^^;;

Also, yes, I think we could all use an occasional review on what it means to enjoy something fun, and why our heart is in it. Especially for the kind of audience that's involved with Pokemon; I think we're a lot more susceptible to that trap than most "typical gamers". It might be something we ought to all work to ongoingly support each-other with!