Hello everybody!
After much thought and analysis, I have come to create a proposal for solving the (supposed) problem that IV's create in allowing for an equal playing ground in competitive play. These solutions, I feel, would solve the current problem of casuals being unable (or feeling unable) to enter the competitive world of Pokemon after learning about IV's:
1.) During Random Matchup, all Pokemon's IV's are set to 31 across the board. Hidden Power's type would remain uneffected, but the base damage would be set to (insert number here(eg.70))
- This ensures that everyone is on a level playing field, and this means that Pokemon can retain their uniqueness (as the only time the IV's are normalized is during online random matchup). It also leaves some work to be done in order to achieve a certain type of Hidden Power.
- This means that, when getting a team together, players can completely ignore having to get 31 IV's in all the stats they need to, and only concentrate on natures, abilities, genders, EV's, egg moves and Hidden Powers (if needed).
2.) During battles with friends, you can choose an option to have the IV's of both players' Pokemon normalized all to 31, or keep them the way they are (for people who enjoy more complexity/uniqueness).
- This enables players to have a choice in whether they want there Pokemon's stats to be changed when playing in matches against their friends.
In actuality, the normalization of all Pokemon's IV's during online matches is the same as completely removing IV's altogether, as all IV's do in calculating the stats of a Pokemon is offset the numbers by 31 points, and thus if all Pokemon have the same IV's during online play, the only factors that are taken into consideration when calculating a Pokemon's stats (that actually create a difference between Pokemon) are Base Stats, Natures, and EV's.
A common counter argument to this solution is that of the effect it would have on Trick Room teams (whom usually need the Pokemon on their teams to have 0 IV's in the speed stat).
- The reason this counter argument does not apply is due to the fact that, if all Pokemon had the same IV's, then two players who have the same Pokemon, with Speed-hindering natures and 0 EV's/IV's in Speed, would tie for speed the same way they would if they had 31 IV's in Speed. The only thing the change in IV's would do is offset the numbers, but the result would be the same. Whether they have 0 IV's or 31 IV's in speed is trivial to the end result, which is that they will still be slower than other Pokemon that naturally have higher speed than them.
Although it is true that 0 IV's in Speed with a Speed-hindering nature would allow the Pokemon in question to be slower than a couple more Pokemon with a lower Speed Base Stat but 31 IV's in Speed, this is an unavoidable opportunity cost/trade-off of normalizing IV's, one which (in my opinion) is worth it.