Does love actually play a factor?

[Zalde]

If it were Pokémon like in the anime, then yes.

The games are just zeros and ones. Love plays no factor.

Which is too bad.

 

[Blaze64]

I have a Houndoom named Victor and an Espeon named Chloe. They are mates.

I have a Scizor named Jason and a Flygon named Kimber. They are mates.

I have a Lucario named Corin and a Kirikizan named Allison. They are mates.

I love my pokemon, my favorite pokemon (okay, my main six) so much, that I find life mates for them to love.

And do I win? Well... Yes. And no. I'm not competitive so I jsut battle for fun.

I did the same with my Blaziken glad to know I'm not alone

As for the question I don't think so but I don't care because I grow attached to those sprites and I just battle for fun not competitively.

 

[EpicScizor]

I play with my favorites and the ones I like. I love them and nickname them all the time. Somehow, the team always seems to work well at the end. I think that even if they are numbers, why shouldn't you get attached to them?

 

[Ground Control]

I EV train my Pokemon and give them the right natures because I love them. I want them to do the best they possibly can and I treat them like my children. Striving for almost perfect Pokemon is natural to me, and it still makes me a loving father to them. I only use which Pokemon feel natural to me. If it's an OU Pokemon, coincidence. If it's a NU? Cool.

 

[Singing in the Rain]

You guys need to see how well my so-called "Never Used" Pokemon battle when I add love to my strategy. My Politoed is one of my most prized sweepers, despite it's moves being BubbleBeam, Perish Song, Hypnosis, and DoubleSlap. I was battling on PBR, and it destroyed the opposing team with flying colors.

And one time, back in FRLG, my Ch'ding (Farfech'd) took on my friend's Salamence. The Uber Pokemon used Fire Blast and knocked Ch'ding into the red. I used Slash, and it only took away a third. But I belived in my Pokemon, and the Salamence missed the next attack. Then she used Slash again. Took away another third. I could see the desperation on my friend's face. He used Toxic. I use Slash again, and he barley survives it. The Poison leaves my poor wild duck with two HP. But I could feel my trust and friendship with my Pokemon. I was able to see that my friend was determined to take down my duck while he had an Uber Dragonon his team. As such, he used Iron Tail. But it missed! Ch'ding destroyed the Mence with a Cut the next turn, downing his best pokemon.

In short, I also follow Karenism. But I'm not saying that competitive battling is wrong. If you can see your team as more than cold hard numbers and truly, from the bottom of your heart, believe in them, you can draw the full potential out of your Pokemon. And even if you guys still don't see it, then I beg you, to fully enjoy the game, please don't just see them as cold hard calculations!

I EV train my Pokemon and give them the right natures because I love them. I want them to do the best they possibly can and I treat them like my children. Striving for almost perfect Pokemon is natural to me, and it still makes me a loving father to them. I only use which Pokemon feel natural to me. If it's an OU Pokemon, coincidence. If it's a NU? Cool.

Yeah, this is a trainer who truly knows how to harness the power of their Pokemon. Again, as much as I hate it, I'm not trying to break you guys from competitive battling.

 

[Zekurom]

But see, this is incorrect. While caring about your Pokémon may make you more likely to care about the Pokémon's progress, it doesn't influence your ability to be able to consider the numbers.

It might make you more willing to actually work toward that goal, though, instead of just hacking your way through a game.

For example, I do hack runs of DPPt, but the Pokémon I introduce always start out at Level 2. It's because I want to actually train them, instead of just going for the end result. It helps with my fanfic too.

 

[Rayne]

See, I follow Karenism.

"Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled Trainers should try to win with the Pokémon they love best."

And I have favorites I tried to give personalities to.

I agree with Ryuu, I also subscribe to Karenism, playing mostly with my favorites. I still train them the best I possibly can within their limit caps, but I'm realistic and I don't expect to pull every match. I can't put 'love' and 'friendship' on the scale of a computer program and hope that will pull me through.

Though I'll admit there are times I'm hoping for my pokemon to pull through an attack and they'll surprise me and my opponent in a way I know the program is lying. Like my Ninetales taking two earthquake hits or my Togekiss taking a Critical hit super effective Thunder from a level 100 legend (Togekiss was in the 60s). I honestly still don't know how those happened.

 

[city]

You know, If I raise a team of Pokemon from the beginning, I always use that team to the end, I feel guilty If I change them around and I never EVER box my starter, no matter how much I feel they don't belong on the team, I'll work around it!
Of course I love my Pokemon, I wouldn't be here otherwise!

 

[MightyFalcon]

"Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled Trainers should try to win with the Pokémon they love best."

This

 

[Lyorias]

I'm glad to see that a decent proportion of people agree with me. And Karenism is certainly a good way of putting it.

I accept that number-crunching logically should provide a better team. Anectdotal evidence suggests otherwise. Perhaps it is a purely psychological phenomenon, but as far as I can see caring for your pokemon is teh bomb.

 

[Yabukuron]

I'm glad to see that a decent proportion of people agree with me. And Karenism is certainly a good way of putting it.

I accept that number-crunching logically should provide a better team. Anectdotal evidence suggests otherwise. Perhaps it is a purely psychological phenomenon, but as far as I can see caring for your pokemon is teh bomb.

It is mostly psychological. Which is what sets apart a human from a computer.

Followers of Karenism, go here http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/group.php?groupid=1736

 

[Snoozle]

Um, why are so many people voting in the affirmative? The game doesn't care how you feel; it's a machine and numbers are the only thing that matters. Some, like Ryu Shoji, take a more logical route by saying that if you don't love Pokémon in general then you have no motivation to try hard at the game. However, even this is false. You could just be playing to make money at those Nintendo tournaments, and as long as you play smart and use good Pokémon with good team synergy, you can win. Sure, liking the game is likely to be a more motivating factor than money for probably almost everyone who plays, but it's still not necessary.

Karen is wrong. There's a tier list for a reason. Do you really believe that an Unknown can be as strong as an Arceus? Simply put, some Pokémon are stronger than others, and to propose that all Pokémon are equal is just ignorant. As for the second part of her quote, while skilled trainers can try to win with the Pokémon they love, equally skilled trainers who use Pokémon based on their strength will see better results (assuming Pokémon you love and strong Pokémon are mutually exclusive for you). And just because you use weak Pokémon because you love them does not make you "truly skilled", it makes you inefficient. Admirable maybe, but inefficient nonetheless.

Note that there isn't anything wrong with loving your bits of data. I love my cute lil' Heatran. However, it just doesn't effect the game mechanics in anyway. It doesn't make your Pokémon stronger, nor does it make you luckier. It may give you good motivation to do well, but it's not required (and I don't think that's what the OP really meant by his question anyway).

+1

If there became possible a method of statistically calculating the amount of "love" you showed for your Pokémon and this directly affected their performance in the game then it would be applicable.

As of right now, whether you spend 1 minute using a program, or 300 hours breeding, resetting and training to obtain the same result makes no difference.

 

[~ Z ~]

love mine...And allways lose...
Though..I guess it's not that great idea to use Teddiursa against Blaziken is it?

 

[Buizelfan!]

Of course, having a bond with your pokemon always help. Just look at Ash...

 

[Ghost]

I don't think that love plays much of a factor. Loving them doesn't make them any stronger, while extensive training does.

 

[SharKing]

R136a1 totally won this thread. The post is entirely correct: while we feel this mysterious form of love and sentimentality with these bits of data, that's all they really are: data. Love does not play a factor in the mechanics of the game, though it does offer strong motivation for the person playing the game.

 

[Gigatron]

Thing is, those concepts aren't mutually exclusive. I've always played Pokémon with my favorites in mind, but I still care to make them as efficient as possible without going into intricate strategies. Only what I feel works. I even think that making such efforts shows deeper care for them.

...

I'd say love plays a part, in that you're actually interested in those Pokémon and want them to do their best, so you invest even more time perfecting them. So yeah, it's not mutually exclusive to train them "properly" and loving them. I know I do both, so...

I agree completely. Don't get me wrong, though I prefer to stick with my favourites, I do also believe in training them well to prefect them as much as possible. What I had meant was more along the lines of "I prefer to use and perfect the Pokémon I like the best, rather than adhere to what Pokémon I 'should' be using, as dictated by a strategy list".

For example, I have what some might call a "broken" team, with imbalanced typings, no attention to natures, and whatnot. I can still generally sweep through the game (with exceptions, naturally) because I've taken the time to train them up well. I really like my team and so I take the effort to train them all evenly, teach them good moves, etc. Like you, I don't go into the intricate strategies, but I do my best to ensure they're all as strong as possible for my style of play. It helps to "immerse" me into the game experience and makes it more fun to play.

Mind you, this doesn't apply to competitive play, as I don't go into that, but as far as the game goes, it always works for me.

 

[R136a1]

It might make you more willing to actually work toward that goal, though, instead of just hacking your way through a game.

For example, I do hack runs of DPPt, but the Pokémon I introduce always start out at Level 2. It's because I want to actually train them, instead of just going for the end result. It helps with my fanfic too.

I'm sure it's true that enjoying Pokémon is probably the most likely factor that causes people to put effort into winning. I was just saying that this doesn't have to be the case, and not enjoying Pokémon doesn't mean you can't be the best at it. I think we can agree on that.

I'd like to say thanks for the people who agreed with me. For those of you bringing up and supporting "Karenism", I won't go too far into it because it's not the topic of the thread, but suggesting that no poke is stronger than the other is just nonsense. How is an Unknown equal in strength to Arceus? If you want to use Pokémon you like than that's fine, but there's definitely a difference in strength between every Pokémon, with some being near worthless and others being incredibly strong.

 

[raychuu]

I'd like to say thanks for the people who agreed with me. For those of you bringing up and supporting "Karenism", I won't go too far into it because it's not the topic of the thread, but suggesting that no poke is stronger than the other is just nonsense. How is an Unknown equal in strength to Arceus? If you want to use Pokémon you like than that's fine, but there's definitely a difference in strength between every Pokémon, with some being near worthless and others being incredibly strong.

I think you didn't understand the sense of the quote. It's quite metaphorical, not really a statement per se. In those sentences, she never defends there are no strong Pokémon or weak Pokémon, she simply believes people should stop being selfish and use a Pokémon just because it is strong, leading to the next part of her quote, where Karen says we should not use the strong ones, but the ones we like.

 

[R136a1]

Oh, I see. I don't think there's anything wrong with being selfish, but I can understand how others may feel differently. Thanks for the clarification.