‘Pokémon Go’ Breeding: Appraisal Feature Is A Great First Step

Pokémon Go has had some big updates lately but if you want to take into battle your strongest Pokémon, the Appraisal feature was right up your alley.

The Appraisal feature for Pokémon Go allows your Team Leader to inspect your Pokémon and let you know how well it did in battle. There’s an entire system on how to determine which stats your Pokémon excels at. However, while this is a nice little feature, what IVs are maxed out is totally random.

Niantic has never exactly given Pokémon Go players a guide on how to use anything in its game but some avid Pokémon Go players have done their own tests and come up with a way to calculate a Pokémon’s IVs, or Individual Values.

A Pokémon IVs indicate which stats it excels at, and it’s determined by the Pokémon’s DNA. Each Pokémon is different even if they are of the same species, but in the handheld Pokémon games, these IVs can be passed down by breeding to get the desired IVs you want for a particular Pokémon.

Unfortunately, Pokémon Go isn’t there yet and that’s because a Breeding feature hasn’t been implemented. Niantic has mentioned Breeding as a feature that they are considering adding to Pokémon Go and the Appraisal feature is a great foundation and example of why Breeding can work in the game.

Breeding is the only way to get the IVs you desire outside of random encounters. And while Pokémon Go players can catch a thousand Pidgeys until they get perfect IVs, Breeding will make the process easier and quicker.

All Niantic will have to do is add features that are already present in the main Pokémon games.

The first will have to be adding genders to Pokémon and then a Daycare. This is so trainers can breed a male and female Pokémon.

While the main Pokémon games need the Pokémon to hold particular items to guarantee natures and IVs are passed to the kids, Pokémon Go can keep it simple considering not every stat from the main games are included.

For example, a male Bulbasaur with perfect Attack IVs and a female Bulbasaur with perfect Stamina IVs can have a child with perfect Attack and Stamina IVs. You can then breed the child with another Bulbasaur with perfect Defense IVs to try and pass those down as well.

The science and execution behind Breeding in Pokémon Go will definitely need some ironing out on the part of Niantic, but the mobile game is already a very simplified version of the console Pokémon games in the way Pokémon are caught and battled in Gyms; breeding can be simple as well.

The Appraisal feature allows for trainers to determine which Pokémon to train up and use in battle, adding Breeding will just give players more incentive to play and put time into training their perfect team.

And maybe with this feature, battling in Gyms won’t be such a drag.