Pokémon Scarlet and Violet players have been sharing their frustration with the RNG system not working as it intended—calling it ‘rigged.’
The Pokémon Battle Stadium mode in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet was intended to be an online ranked game mode that allowed players to face each other from around the world, using a certain RNG-based system. According to Twitter user Sibuna_Switch and others, the RNG seed was the same for each battle, which meant that the randomly-generated move accuracy was the same every time. This was not RNG if it could be predictable every time.
Reddit user Lord-Trolldemort was also one of the first to notice how certain moves were rigged. The disappointing aspect of this was that wins could be easily predicted and even powerful one-hit kill moves with low accuracy could be perfectly executed at the right time for a free win. The same Reddit user also found that Frost Breath, a move with 90% to 91% accuracy, would always miss if it was the first accuracy check of a match.
Lord-Trolldemort explained, “I’ve played 14 battles where frost breath was the first accuracy check since I started recording, and frost breath has missed 14 times. For those doing the math, that would be a one in 100 trillion chance if the RNG were working correctly.” A Twitch video by hopcatsmash also described how the RNG system was predictable 100% of the time.
They commented more on Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s predictable moves, “If you use Fake Out and then straight away use Sheer Cold, a move that only usually has a 30% chance to hit and always one-shots your opponent [knocks them out in one hit], it’s guaranteed to hit. Not making a new RNG seed is like if you played cards, but you just used the same deck and never shuffling it. You just know what’s coming next, it’s stupid, it doesn’t make any sense. This basically makes PvP unplayable until they fix that.”
So, it seemed like this was another technical misstep for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. Nintendo has not commented on this identified issue, but it could mean that the RNG system could be overhauled by Game Freak in a future update. Nintendo announced how the game had achieved “the highest global sales level for any software on any Nintendo platform within the first three days”, with 10 million units sold in its first 72 hours worldwide.
The UK physical games sales chart from the marketing firm, GfK noted how the two Pokémon games had still seen a slight rise in sales week-to-week since its release. CGMagazine’s review stated how “Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is a mess. And yet, despite all the above, this is the most fun I’ve had with a mainline Pokémon game in years.”
