>>16934510Fair enough.
Let's say you breed a few boxes of Pokemon.
Let's say you compare their stats. You discover that they have different stats.
Let's say you train them to a much higher level to fully see the differences in their stats.
Let's also pretend you either know about EVs already or otherwise avoid acquiring any so your Pokemon's stats are only affected by their IVs and natures.
Let's say you figure out how natures work. Which stats they increase and decrease should be easy, but calculating that they alter them by 10% - without fully understaning IVs - might be a little tricky.
You now know that Pokemon have some sort of inherent hidden parameter that affects their stats.
But how do you know by how much? How do you figure out that IVs give higher bonuses at higher levels? How do you figure out that 31 is their maximum and 0 their minimum? How do you figure out that items like Power Weight can be used to pass down specific IVs?
And that's assuming you already knew about EVs and base stats to begin with. If you start from the ground up you are trying to solve an equation with 4 variables without knowing how either of them behaves or anything at all, really.
Are you honestly convinced players would've been able to figure this out without ever looking at the underlying mechanics?
