Pokemon Go is a surprisingly complex strategy game designed as an easy to learn phone game. There are more fine details scattered through the game and small adjustments that impact the way the Pokemon work in both the process of catching and battles. Most players are unaware of the detailed calculations and strategies within their game.
Individual Values are of the most commonly misunderstood aspects to a Pokemon’s stat block. The newest update for the game has changed the way that players can view these aspects. Originally when you hit the appraise button, the leader of your favorite team would describe the Pokemon in vague terms. These phrases were the key to understanding a Pokemon’s Individual Value.
The Individual Value was a semi-hidden base stat that limited your Pokemon’s potential. The better a Pokemon’s Individual Value was, the higher the CP and Stamina would be at the maxed out level. The value only covers three stats: Attack, Defence, and Stamina. These each max out at 15 but the game did not directly tell you what base stats each Pokemon has.
Each team leader had a phrase that would tell you the Individual Value of each Pokemon. Although the game did not give you a direct numerical answer, it did allow each leader to express some level of text-based excitement about your Pokemon. After giving you a brief statement, it would tell you which stat was the highest or tied for highest on your Pokemon, giving you a general idea of where they stood.
If players wanted a more specific idea of where their Pokemon stood in the way of stats, there was an Individual Value checker on The Silph Road’s main website. It would break down the exact numbers of each Pokemon’s stats and give you a direct answer.
If you wanted to check Individual Value’s on the go players could use Poke Genie, an app for iOS and Android. The iOS version required you to take screenshots of your Pokemon and upload it while the Android version worked from within the app. Both were simple to install and use.
All of this is changing with the new system. The new appraisal system shows actual bars indicating the Attack, Stamina, and Defense of your chosen Pokemon. Before this players would have to check each Individual Value at a time slowly but with the update, you can scroll past each Pokemon getting quick and easy to read answers.
The new appraisal system will be included in version 0.149.0, which is currently available for Android users. It will take some time for all platforms to receive the update, but it will come eventually.
