Talk:Individual values

Gen3 bit weights may be wrong

In the process of my hacking, I believe I've found that the bit weights in Gen3 listed on this page are partially wrong, namely the isEgg and isNicknamed flags. I'm going to edit them to what I believe are the correct values, but if anyone knows differently, feel free to change them back. -Aerolite

UPDATE: Further hacking has revealed something that I didn't expect - the most significant bit in the IVs actually controls the ability a Pokemon has. If clear, the Pokemon will have its first ability. If set, the Pokemon will have its second. If the Pokemon doesn't have a second ability, when the IVs are generated, this bit is forced clear. If it is artificially set on a Pokemon with only one ability, then said Pokemon will have no ability. --Aerolite 03:40, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

31 In Everything

is it possible without hacking? I don't know the answer, but i think whoever can should put it on the page.GreenAiden555 05:25, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Possible, not probable. Keep hatching and catching Pokémon, you'll eventually get two with the same IVs, too. Of course, now with the personality value... TTEchidna 10:53, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

DV?

What does it stand for? Optimus35^{Talk | DP} 10:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Difference Value? TESH^TALKSAND 19:57, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Determinant value. TTEchidna 09:11, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Ohhhhhhhhhhh...Agent #448 ^{☆ | ♥} 10:59, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Determining IVs

• How do you determine what a pokemon's IV are so that you can calculate it?

Veekun's got a calculator that determines them from the Pokémon's stats. There's a link to it at the bottom of the page. TTEchidna^G_SDS! 04:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

• Thanx a lot TTE. How do you know everything that goes on on this website? <I don't mean to start a long conversation about this, just wondering.../>

Recent changes. TTEchidna^G_SDS! 22:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

• I have captured a Linoone (Docile) in Ruby at LV26 with SP.DEF 42. The Calcalator now tells me, that this isnt possible (39 would be possible), so does some Pokemon already have some EVs (must minimum have 36), when you capture them? I have never entered a battle with this Pokemon so fare. ----Blablubbb 11:25, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I did the math by hand and got a range from 20-24. I also just did it on Veekun and got about the same thing. Either you typed it in wrong or the IV calculator you're using is off. The Professor 03:00, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

1 IV = How many points?

How many stat points does 1 IV give? Is it like, 1, or 2, or 5? What is it? Sidnoea 21:08, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Each IV gives one stat point at lvl 100 Prof. Pine 20:49, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

which is...

which is the maximum number of iv for a pokemon? is possible to get 31 for each statistic without hacking? --Marcat 12:59, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

The maximum is 31 in each, though it's extremely rare to get one with perfect IVs. UltimateSephiroth ^{(about me · chat · edits)} 13:37, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Eggs and IV

Are the IVs calculated when you receive the egg or when the egg hatches? Idiot 12:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

The Pokémon is completely determined when received as an egg, not hatched, always. WeavilePwns 02:31, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Unown's Letter in Generation II

After doing a bit of a search on the net, it looked as if nobody knew how to calculate this, and I'm not sure if it's needed/wanted since we are well and truly past Generation II, but for the sake of completeness and out of my own curiosity I thought I'd give it a crack. Anyway I figured out how the letter is calculated, so I'm pretty pleased :D It's all my own work so if you have any questions feel free to ask. Also, this is my first contribution so hopefully it is to the correct standard, I just felt like I should create an account to share my findings! GreatUnown 12:35, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

So, you say an Unown's form is determined by its IVs? q~Bisumito Is Snazzy~p (Talk~) 13:41, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Gen V IV Calculation

I'm not really one for worrying about IVs, really, but I've been trying to figure out the IVs of some fresh pokémon of mine and the calculations have come up weird when I check them myself using the formula given under the "Generation III" section. All the Generation V section talks about is the guy in the Battle Subway Gear Hub (I think it's called). Could someone maybe add some more detail, or at least confirm that the calculation is the same? (Which means I'm just too stupid or something.) FerreTrip 21:09, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Have you checked your results against those given by online IV calculators (e.g., this one)? —Minimiscience 21:19, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Pokémon Emerald messages

Pokémon judging.

"This one, overall, [...]"

1.- "[...] I would describe it as being of average ability." 2.- "[...] I would describe as having better-than-average ability." 3.- "[...] I would say is quite impressive in ability!"

Best Stat

"Incidentally, the best aspect of it, I would say is its XXX..."

1.- "That stat is relatively good." 2.- "That stat is quite impressive." 3.- "That stat is outstanding!" 4.- "It's flawless! A thing of perfection!"

"... Hm... That's how I call it."

Those where all the messages I got, sadly I have no way to know the amount of points on each, thought the last one it's obviously 31. LurKasumi 17:05, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Stuck in a loop...

I seem to be stuck in a loop. I messed up and didn't keep track of my EV's while training, and I didn't find the IV's after hatching. Somebody suggested to calculate the IV's, but I can't seem to do that without the EV's. And I can't figure out how many EV's i've accumulated without knowing the IV's. Sombody please tell me im missing something here! Much appreciated.--XWaffle117x (talk) 17:21, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

The only way to do that now would be to drop all your EVs to zero with the EV-reducing Berries, then calculate your IVs, then reset (not restart the whole game, just reset it) and calculate your EVs using your IVs. In future however, please not that Bulbapedia talk pages are for the discussion of the article itself, not the topic of the article; please use the forums for these kind of questions instead. --SnorlaxMonster 17:35, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Oh shoot, my bad. I will try to remember in the future. Sorry!--XWaffle117x (talk) 05:12, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Individual strengths

I'm loathe to start yet another debate on nomenclature but, as proven by SnorlaxMonster's scan of the official guidebook [1] , IVs are called individual strengths multiple times, as well as being referred to as "the strengths of the individual" elsewhere. I feel as if all I'm doing lately is arguing in favour of changing everything on the wiki against the will of the staff, though I believe the possibility of a move is something that should be at least discussed. - Blazios _talk 15:29, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe the guidebook is necessarily establishing a term here (note that the phrase "individual strengths" occurs exactly twice before it segues into a discussion of Super Training -- not enough to establish a good pattern). Making the matters more confusing is that we do have one in-game phrase for it already: Three generations feature an NPC offering to judge the "intriguing potential" of your Pokemon, however he himself only uses the term once and also refers to individual IV's as "stats" for short. --Stratelier 23:17, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

As I stated, they are referred to as "the strengths of the individual" elsewhere in the guidebook [2], which may as well be the same thing (it's in the same diagram that lists base stats and the strengths of the species as names). Does the fact that it's also the title of the paragraph specifically defining and explaining IVs not also somewhat give credence to it as a name? - Blazios _talk 23:37, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to have to agree with Stratelier. While "Individual strengths" does sound nicer than "Individual values", everyone who understands the concept is used to the term and understands it well enough that changing it now will simply create an unnecessary headache. Mentions in guidebooks, which the vast majority of players don't bother with, shouldn't be relied on too heavily. Nokota (talk) 12:01, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

That's not really the most relevant of points, given that Bulbapedia's policy is to use the official names for articles (the only reason that the Effort values article hasn't been moved to Base stats is that it's not been decided what name to move the old base stats page to). If someone wants to argue against it actually being the official name, then that's another story. - Blazios _talk 12:34, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, how is the subject addressed in previous generations' official guidebooks? Consider that "base stats" (as the name for effort values) has been used in-game (mostly as "base [stat]") since Gen 1 (Vitamins), Gen 3 (EV Berries), and Gen 5 (Wing items) -- the case for that being an official term is stronger. --Stratelier 00:50, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

In-game it is called "potiential" by the judge. Pikachu Bros. (talk) 13:46, 18 March 2014 (UTC), edited 13:47, 18 March 2014 (UTC) to change the link from a disambiguation page

male/female attack iv

Well,I was wondering about the statement that says female pokemon have lower attack iv than male. This is how I interpret what the page says,and I hope I'm doing it right. There is a standard which if the pokemon's attack iv is higher than it,it's a male pokemon,and if it's lower,It's a female. Please correct me if I'm wrong,but if I'm right,I actually caught a female gabite from friend safari,and checked it's iv with the judge,and it says that its attack iv is "cannot be beat" which is the highest.. And even after I bred it,its female offspring has max attack iv. Can someone elaborate please? - unsigned comment from Fiky f (talk • contribs)

To elaborate: what you're referring to is only applicable to Gen II games only. From Gen III onward, gender is no longer determined by IVs, so you can have a female Gabite with a perfect Att IV no problem. And please remember to sign your comments with ~~~~, but if you forget and someone uses the {{unsigned}} template, we ask you don't resign. Kai * the Arc Toraph 16:27, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh,I see,thanks.. I feel really stupid now for jumping to conclusions after reading the gender title,not noticing it's under generation 2 part..Fiky f (talk) 16:54, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Individual Strengths II

I can't continue the first one, as it is over six months old now. So I created another one. Here is my opinion:

I disagree with this idea. Because Individual values are numbers, and values are numbers, but strength, I think it is a word. Also, all of us have called this Individual values, so I think we must not confuse those who are new to Pokémon. So that is my opinion. Are there any other opinions? Pokéfan95 (talk) 02:53, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

We kind of went over this when we didn't move the effort values article at the XY launch. Moving IVs but not EVs would be a bit confusing, would it not? Bwburke94 (talk) 04:56, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I have no intention of starting another argument on moving the page, though another article's appeared which clearly and repeatedly refers to IVs as individual strengths. The term potential also appears, though mostly in the context of the DexNav (it seems to be a more general term, while individual strengths is more specific). - Blazios _talk 12:10, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

So the question becomes, can the EVs/base stats situation be used as precedent to not move the page? This is virtually the same situation, but without any title conflicts. Bwburke94 (talk) 15:53, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it's really that close to the "same situation". The title conflict/confusion with established (and/or sensible) terminology was a huge part of the EVs vs base stats question. I don't know whether it might be confusing or not to only move IVs, but considered all by itself, I'd say it would be fair to move this to "Individual strengths". Tiddlywinks (talk) 16:15, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

After thinking it over, the official usage of "individual strengths" does not match this wiki's usage of "individual values". There is no such thing as an "individual strength of 31/31", as the official usage is relative, not exact. Bwburke94 (talk) 18:59, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Correct stat calculation in Gen I

E = floor(min(255, floor(√(max(0, StatExperience - 1)) + 1)) / 4)
HP_stat = (((Base + IV) * 2 + E) * Level) / 100 + Level + 10
Other_stat = (((Base + IV) * 2 + E) * Level) / 100 + 5
I'm crap at using Extension:Math, so feel free to make the change if you want. --Froggy25 (talk) 11:43, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Individual Strengths III

From the official site: "Pokémon grow stronger by raising their levels and increasing their base stats. However, their power is still affected by the individual strengths innate to each Pokémon. Now, with Hyper Training, Pokémon that have grown to Lv. 100 will be able to increase their individual strengths, which has never been possible before. With Hyper Training, you can increase the strength of the Lv. 100 Pokémon you’ve been adventuring with!"

As with what happened a generation ago, there is sufficient ambiguity to hold off on a page move until the games are released, but a move should be discussed regardless. I'm again part of the anti-move side, though with a different argument this time: "individual strengths" did not refer to the 0-31 scale in Generation VI, and there is no concrete evidence that the usage of the term has changed in Generation VII. Bwburke94 (talk) 23:04, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you think it refers to if not a specific value. This article makes it clear that each stat has an associated individual strength, and that they can range from "no individual strength" to "maximum individual strength" (i.e. 0-31).

I would still advise against moving this page unless we also move the effort values page, but your argument doesn't make sense. --SnorlaxMonster 02:28, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

My argument is that if each "individual strength" is a value on the 0-31 scale, the proper term would be "a high individual strength" when referring to a specific stat. The article you linked consistently uses "high individual strength" for such purposes. Bwburke94 (talk) 22:19, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Change name to "Potential"

In Gens 5-7, in-game characters that Judge IVs always refer to it as "Potential." I think this is a more fitting and canonical name for the mechanic and propose we change the page name to this.

MeNowDealWithIt (talk) 02:19, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Potential seems to be used as a vague sense of all of its IVs combined; see for example the way DexNav uses it. When referring to IVs in each stat, the official term is "individual strengths". --SnorlaxMonster 03:27, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

As noted in previous discussions, "individual strengths" is also vague. The 0-31 values do not have an official name. Bwburke94 (talk) 08:54, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Changing IVs

Is it true that a Pokemon's IVs can never be changed after the Pokemon is generated, and a Pokemon's effective IVs can only be changed by hyper training? If so, can I add this information to the article? sumwun (talk) 19:20, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Gender calculation

I'm pretty confident it's bug-free this time. What I read here (Crystal):

1. Generate a value b from Atk and Spd IVs/DVs (AtkIV*16+SpdIV)
2. Read the threshold (0, 31, 63, 127, 191, 254, or 255)
3. Handle special thresholds: 255->genderless; 0->male; 254->female
4. (Else) if (threshold < b) then male else female

For Bulbsaur, b values of [0,31] (out of [0,255]) should make if female, the rest male, i.e. 32/256. (And conveniently, as all relevant thresholds are 15 mod 16, the Spd IVs shouldn't matter.) Nescientist (talk) 10:45, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

That seems reasonable, but based on the page as it currently is, for 1:1, 9/16 Attack IVs correspond to male while 7/16 Attack IVs correspond to female. If as you describe the game properly implements gender ratios, this should not be the case. Did you interpret the code incorrectly, or is the page incorrect? --SnorlaxMonster 12:48, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I just copied the table from a previous revision. You actually added these values; I don't know what made you add them (nor the prose I removed), but I'm fairly certain there's nothing skewed by a sixteenth (at least not in that Crystal code). I corrected the values and also reinstalled the nominal ratio column. Nescientist (talk) 15:18, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Oh, that's interesting. I don't remember specifically, but I probably got them from this article. Anyway, since the disassembly supports your edit, I'm going to assume that article is wrong. --SnorlaxMonster 16:34, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

I assume whoever copied the data down for the Smogon article made an error. bwburke94 (talk) 11:25, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Roaming Pokemon

When are IVs determined for roaming Pokemon? Does this vary between generations? Do they get re-determined after defeating the champion? sumwun (talk) 04:44, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Move to Individual strengths

To consolidate this discussion, please discuss the move from "Individual values" to "Individual strengths." at the base stats talk page. 4iamking 01:06, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Changing name to "DV" in the sections for Gen I and II

The mentions of "IVs" in the sections for Gen I and II should be changed to "DVs" with a mention of what they are equivalent to in Gen III and onward. This is because the DV system is so drastically different from the IV system, and using the same name creates false equivalencies. For example, stating that 15 and 30 are the maximum IVs depending on the generation is a lot more messy than saying that 15 is the max DV and 31 is the max IV. DVs determine shininess, but IVs do not. The HP DV is dependent on the DVs of other stats, but the HP IV is not. The two categories are just so drastically different that calling them the same thing simply leads to the misconception that the two systems are similar. The naming conventions of generations should be preserved throughout Bulbapedia in my opinion, and this is one way to communicate just how large of an overhaul Gen III really was. I have created this change on the Shiny Pokémon page under the Generation II section as a small trial run, and I urge anybody considering this change to see how it looks over there. I personally feel that it does a far better job indicating just how different the systems are, and it is especially important on the shiny page as the calculations make a lot more sense when viewed from the reference as the DV range being 0-15. Please let me know what you think of this proposal, and I will make the change if I receive positive support for it. Cinder24 (talk) 05:54, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I have no opinion either way, but here are some considerations:

Using only IVs:

 • Pro: Keeps the term consistent. The stats the term "Individual Values" represent may have been reworked for GBA, but it still represents the same thing.

Using DVs and IVs:

 • Pro: Gives a clear separation when referring to how stats worked pre-GBA versus GBA+.

 • Pro: Although the term Individual Value dates back to early 2001, the DV term was most widely used prior to GBA.

 • Con: Opens the door to whether to replace Effort Values with Stat EXP when referring to pre-GBA titles. (The EV system went through drastic changes as well!) Edit: Looks like it's already this way!

 • Con: Requires changes on multiple pages to maintain consistency.

--ChristopherFritz (talk) 04:21, 1 July 2024 (UTC)