>generations ago IVs were nearly impossible to perfect
>factoring out cheating devices you could get close with a ton of hours and a lot of patience
>Pokemon with lower BST were generally easier to hatch, therefore giving you more rolls to get better individual stats via breeding and more chances to breed egg moves onto a Pokemon
>conversely, Pokemon with higher BSTs or generally more powerful/rare Pokemon had longer egg cycles
>most if not all legendaries were a one time catch type of deal where you had one shot to get them and no way to breed, making getting perfect/outstanding potential legendaries extremely difficult BUT you then have a legendary Pokemon which is generally stronger anyways

>current generations
>Pokemon can be caught in the wild fairly easily with 3 perfect IVs at most and 5 perfect IVs at least in raids
>items exist to change natures, max IVs, and EV train easier
>most if not everyone online will do this, so you better too

Was battling and playing through the games really meant to do offline with a bunch of other people without cheats? Was the balance the entire time in the training aspect of the game and knowing who you would be going against roughly? This is something I've thought about for a bit now. If injecting/cheating wasn't as simple as launching one single program, do you all think that the current state of online would be any different? It seems that GameFreak both acknowledged and understood that people cheat anyways in online competition, so they just decided to include what you can do with PkHex anyways in the main games.