Poke-Habits

[Max. Optimizer]

Here's a list of recurrent habits that I've noticed:

• I always talk to every single person in the game. Whenever I reach a new town or city I want to explore every accessible corner and see if any of the persons have any TMs, items, berries or just funny dialogues.
• I always pick up every single Pokéball from the ground. It just feels more complete that way, even if it's just a regular potion for example.
• I always collect every single TM and order them by name.
• I always order all of the items in my bag by name and I also always try to get every item or berry in the game.
• I always try to level up my playthrough team by exactly 10 levels in between Gym Leaders. I remember reading that advice in a guide for Pokémon Gold&Silver back in the day and for some reason I kept that habit until today.
• While I do give nicknames to my competitive Pokémon, I never nickname any of the Pokémon from my playthrough team.
• When entering a new route, I always make sure I defeated every single trainer, collected all the items, berries and the invisible hidden items.
• When entering a Gym I always defeat all the of surrounding trainers before heading toward the Gym Leader.
• While I do collect every single Rare Candy, I never use a single one.

 

[Mova]

Not sure about anyone else, but I've always preferred using the three regular types of Poké Balls to catch Pokémon. It's fun to use balls that can fail, unless it's a Master Ball on a Legendary in VC Red or Blue. because Missingno.

I often prefer to have the following types on my team, probably for balancing reasons:
1. Fire
2. Water
3. Electric or Grass
4. Flying
5. Rock, Ground, or Steel
6. Fighting, Psychic, Dark, or something else

There are times that I prefer to rotate a final team of eight or nine. I haven't actually done this yet, though.

 

[Lady Vader]

• I always collect every single TM and order them by name.
• I always try to level up my playthrough team by exactly 10 levels in between Gym Leaders. I remember reading that advice in a guide for Pokémon Gold&Silver back in the day and for some reason I kept that habit until today.
• While I do collect every single Rare Candy, I never use a single one.

1) I just can't imagine organizing them by name.
2) That's insane advice for Gold and Silver! I mean, by Clair's strongest Pokémon is level 40* and you'll be well into the 80s! Even for X and Y (which has the highest level Champion at a range of 64-68), you would be severely overleveled!
3) I think the last time I used a Rare Candy was when I used a batch of seven I had to finish leveling up my Rotom-Wash to level 100 since I just wanted to be done at the time.

*41 in HGSS

 

[hypno28]

4. I often use Poke Balls related to the "theme" of the Pokemon. For example, I use Fast Ball and Quick Ball to catch fast Pokemon, regardless of the turns spent.

Same, but the Quick Ball has nothing to do with the speed of the Pokemon; the name just makes it sound like it would.

 

[Max. Optimizer]

1) I just can't imagine organizing them by name.

To each their own I guess. How do you organize your items if I may ask? I find it really interesting to compare these kinds of personal habits.

2) That's insane advice for Gold and Silver! I mean, by Clair's strongest Pokémon is level 40* and you'll be well into the 80s! Even for X and Y (which has the highest level Champion at a range of 64-68), you would be severely overleveled

Yes, in hindsight, I definitely agree. But then again, contrary to nowadays standards where we have access to a vast plethora of information on the internet, these guides and booklets were basically all we had. I should also mention that it wasn't an official guide, it was rather a special edition of a German Videogame Magazine in which the authors described their playthroughs step by step before the games were even out back then. Many of the often blurry screenshots even showed footage of the first prototypes of the games. I was so excited for these games to be released to the point where I internalized every "advice" or "strategy" and turned them into a reality during my own playthrough. It's needless to say that it took me ages to grind the levels, but since I had no other games nor consoles to play with, I invested a lot of time into them.

 

[Lady Vader]

Welp, to each their own I guess. How do you organize your items if I may ask? I find it really interesting to compare these kinds of personal habits.

The TMs I just do by number, especially since when I am working on a team, I write down how each Pokémon learns the move I plan on teaching it. When it is by TM, I write down the TM number since it takes up less space and is what I would have to look for to find it's location on Bulbapedia and it makes it faster for me to see what I have and what I don't. The main pocket is somewhat organized by type, with items I use a lot (Power items, Everstones, Destiny Knot, etc.) towards the bottom since it would be a pain to constantly reorganize and then have to search them out. The medicine is organized by type, the berries by number, and the key items are mostly just in the order I receive them in with the exception of items that are more useful (bike, watering can, rods, etc.) so I can quickly reassign the Y key.

 

[Max. Optimizer]

snip

I personally find this thread very interesting, since it's in my opinion also safe to assume that these Pokémon habits, like a specific modus operandi during playthroughs or the organization of items in the bag, also tell us a lot about the trainers actual personality. I guess since I'm a language student currently speaking 5 languages and having hence worked with many dictionaries in the past, I might have subconsciously adapted that alphabetical order to the organization of my items as well.

I really like this thread since it doesn't only allow us to shed light on our own Pokémon habits, but it might also serve as some food for thought for other fellow trainers to reflect on the possible reasons behind theirs as well.
Either that, or I'm just reading way too deep into it.

Either way, thank you for sharing your habits with me.

 

[CTNC]

I organize my Pokemon's moves from most used attack to least used then most used status move to least move, but what make my habit interesting is the order I organize them. The order I use is 1, 3, 2, 4. For me, with the way the moves are shown in battle, it feels like move two should be below the first one instead of beside so I sort them in a way that makes that happen.

With items, I put the most used items at the top and have an extra of them so they don't automatically go to the bottom when I take the last one and put mega stones on their Pokemon if I have them so they don't take up extra bag space. I sort my TMs by number, but consider changing to competitively viable moves on top and unviable on the bottom, sorting both categories by number.

 

[Karxrida]

I organize my moves based on text length, with the shortest at the top and longest at the bottom. However, I never put a status move in the first slot, always a damaging move.

So a Stallbreaker Gengar would have its attacks listed like this:

Shadow Ball
Taunt
Substitute
Will-O-Wisp

 

[calvinball]

I double, even triple-save a lot. I think it might be because my dad's a computer programmer, and he drilled the idea of saving files and work into my family's head.

I always try to talk to everyone, and I typically at least make a minimal effort to try out the mini-games, like contests (which I never understood as a kid since they didn't match what I'd seen in the anime) and the Pokeathlon (which went a bit better).

I was always such a cheapskate - I'd buy minimal numbers of Pokeballs, a few potions, and almost zero healing items during my first games as a kid. Now I'm trying to break that habit (especially since I'm in the middle of a Nuzlocke run on X, and not having healing items could be disastrous), but I did that for a long time, for some reason thinking my money was precious. It made the game a lot harder, especially in Leaf Green's Mt. Moon... why is that cave so long...?!

I like to keep most of my Pokemon at about the same level, though I've started to give up on that with the Exp. Share training everyone simultaneously.

I catch very few legendaries. I remember getting Moltres in Leaf Green, but I usually just run from legendary battles. I just don't want to battle with them, and I'm not a collector, so I have no use for them.

 

[Taistelu]

I double, even triple-save a lot. I think it might be because my dad's a computer programmer, and he drilled the idea of saving files and work into my family's head.

When you said that I suddenly realised I do this all the time and had never noticed.

I always tend to buy to many repels, like, I usually have like 70 Max Repels by the end of the game.

 

[Oddish.]

I always use the master ball on the box legendary.

I always make sure that all my pokemon are the same level. I don't even like having one of my pokemon only be a level behind every other pokemon on my team.

I use three males and three females on my team. I haven't used a genderless pokemon yet, but if I did...I'll cross that bridge when I get there. I'll probably just assign it a gender based on nickname. I nickname all my pokemon.

Unless I'm training a specific pokemon, the order that I put my team into is based on when I got them. So it'd be starter in the first slot, the first wild pokemon I caught in the next, the second one I caught, and on.

I catch every pokemon, aside from box legendary, of course, in regular pokeballs. Maybe unless I were to get really, really desperate. But I haven't gotten there yet.

My set item is always either the bike or the itemfinder. I have to find the hidden items.

 

[Wrave]

Water starter always in my first run of the games. Started with Totodile in Gen 2.

I always try to keep my team as even as I could in my early days but now as long as they are within five we are good.

I try and not repeat types if I can.

I use whatever Pokemon is given to me in in-game events like Togepi and Lati@s.

The bike is always registered. Probably the most used key item in the game.

 

[Lady Vader]

Water starter always in my first run of the games. Started with Totodile in Gen 2.

I always try to keep my team as even as I could in my early days but now as long as they are within five we are good.

I try and not repeat types if I can.

I use whatever Pokemon is given to me in in-game events like Togepi and Lati@s.

The bike is always registered. Probably the most used key item in the game.

Who doesn't keep the bike registered 90-95% of the time (not 100% since you might be registering something like the Fishing Rods if you are heavily using it at a specific moment)?

 

[MylittlePlusle]

Ever since Diamond I've only ever used female Pokemon unless the Pokemon is male only...

 

[sneaky.]

Constantly looking up things during my pokemon playthroughs. I'm always looking up base stats, when a mon learns a move, when it evolves, what to do when stuck etc and I hate it. I grew up without the internet so my playthroughs with videos games in general were so carefree and I actually had to figure things out. These days if i'm stuck on something for more than 5 minutes, I just whip out my phone and look it up, just because it's so easy. It's like a disease.

I'm gonna make an effort to not look shit up in Sun and Moon and let the game pleasantly surprise me when a pokemon evolves or learns a move instead of always knowing beforehand. It'll probably make my experience MUCH better.

 

[MegaFlareon]

I always save the game after healing at the Pokémon Center. Really time consuming but it has been like reflex to me.

The sixth slot of my Pokémon team is always reserved for my Pickup Pokémon.

I usually try to raise my Pokémon up to level 15 so that it will evolve after the gym battle.

I always evolve my stone-based evolution Pokémon in front of an NPC just so I feel like that person has witnessed my Pokémon evolve.

My in-game Pokémon's move set are usually ordered in this way:
-Powerful STAB move
-Coverage move
-Coverage move / HM / status move
-Reliable STAB move

 

[Johta]

The sixth slot of my Pokémon team is always reserved for my Pickup Pokémon.

That's clever, I might actually just start doing that myself!

I usually try to raise my Pokémon up to level 15 so that it will evolve after the gym battle.

I just realised that I do the exact same thing. Heck, now that I think about I always try to have my pokemon evolve right after a battle against important people such Gym Leaders, your Rival, Final Bosses and etc.

 

[Pilo]

Whenever I need to exit through a 3 space door I always take the middle space, leaving through the left or rightmost part of the door just bugs me.

I've never met anyone else who intentionally does this but there probably exist people who do, who can really say for sure?

 

[Pikachu315111]

Whenever I need to exit through a 3 space door I always take the middle space, leaving through the left or rightmost part of the door just bugs me.

I've never met anyone else who intentionally does this but there probably exist people who do, who can really say for sure?

While I don't do this, I have a similar habit when saving in the Pokemon Center I try to position myself on the button of the Poke Ball pattern designed on the floor.

 

[ItchyPlatypus]

As soon as one pokemon is nearly fainted I always heal at the pokemon center, why use potions outside of battle? Just go to the pokecenter and get the healing for free.

I always have a Grass, Fire, Water and Psychic pokemon in my team for the main game.

I battle every trainer I can except for ones on the water routes where I try to avoid them all at all costs (I don't know why I do this)

I organise my pokemon by type in the box unless I plan on doing something else with my boxes like breeding or creating a living dex.

I save up all my rare candies and then use them right before the champion battle so I can feel powerful and kick their butt.

 

[yourDeadGrandad]

I battle every trainer I can except for ones on the water routes where I try to avoid them all at all costs (I don't know why I do this).

I do this too. I think it's because they all have boring Water-types, and then there are those fishermen with 6 underlevelled Magikarp or 6 Tentacool or whatever, and I don't know, it's all just so tedious.

 

[calvinball]

I noticed that I tend to try to only use rare candies just after a Pokemon has leveled up, since otherwise the experience that was already accumulated is lost. I just... don't want to waste the experience that's already been gained.

 

[Durant]

- I only use potions when fighting gym leaders, evil bosses and the like. If one of my Pokemon faints I just go back to the Pokemon center. I also never buy healing items in game. That is, unless I'm fighting the elite 4 and the champion, In which case I tend to stock up way more items than I needed.

- Whenever I unlock a new minigame in the game, like Pokemon contests or the Pokéathlon, I always play that minigame for at least a little while before continuing with the main story.

- I always reset my game whenever I lose a battle and black out. I think I obtained this habit back in Pokemon Silver, where I wasn't able to defeat the elite 4 with my team, so I just repeatedly battled the elite 4 to gain experience. When I was ready to fight the elite 4 I had no money to buy any healing items. Ever since then I've been stuck on that save file.

- As for buying Pokemon games. I usually buy the first version of a game and make that my main save file. Then I wait for the third game to arrive and use that for resetting, playthroughs etc.

- I catch every wild Pokemon that you encounter in the overworld. For example: I catch a Rotom in every Platinum playthrough I do, the hidden grotto Mincinno in gen 5 and both Snorlaxes in Kanto.

 

[Kurona]

Whenever I need to exit through a 3 space door I always take the middle space, leaving through the left or rightmost part of the door just bugs me.

I've never met anyone else who intentionally does this but there probably exist people who do, who can really say for sure?

I thought I was the only one :')