The issues surrounding Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are largely performance-based; low framerate, extreme pop in, and camera clipping are just a few examples. But now Pokémon fans have seemingly discovered a new issue in Scarlet and Violet that is having a big impact on the competitive battling scene.
As posted to Twitter by Anubis, fans believe Scarlet and Violet’s Battle Stadium is currently using the same RNG (random number generator) seed for every single battle. Basically, this means players can figure out what moves will hit and what moves will miss every single time depending on which turn of the battle it is. For example, apparently movies with less than 91% accuracy always miss on the first turn of a Battle Stadium fight.
Uh oh.
Pokémon Scarlet/Violet Battle Stadium currently is using the same RNG seed for every battle.
This allows us to choose moves to ensure that OHKO moves such as Sheer Cold always hit! pic.twitter.com/lSlBJr1AF6
— Anubis (@Sibuna_Switch) November 27, 2022
Reddit user Lord-Trolldemort first discovered this issue, when Frost Breath (a move with 90% accuracy) missed the opening attack of a battle 14 times in a row. If the RNG was working correctly, missing a 90%-accuracy move that many times in a row is a one in 100 trillion chance. As seen in the video above, players have also discovered the window where one-hit KO moves work every time without fail, essentially breaking the Battle Stadium in its current state. Players have also pointed out that this isn’t an issue in other types of battles, like wild Pokémon, trainer, or gym battles.
The Battle Stadium is designed to let players take on other trainers from around the world. It includes Scarlet and Violet’s Ranked Battles, which means this issue is particularly pressing for the most hardcore segment of the competitive Pokémon scene. For online ranked battles to be viable, this is something that needs to be fixed quickly.
The new revelations surrounding Scarlet and Violet’s Battle Stadium is far from the only issue in the games. Since launch, fans have discovered glitches and issues that include cloning shiny Pokémon, running at double speed, and dozens of other bugs that range from funny visual glitches to serious performance problems.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s technical issues and oversights are the main problems holding the latest generation of Pokémon back from being great. In our Scarlet and Violet review, we said “discovering and catching all these charming monsters across an enormous open world with an actually good story is really fun… it just comes with far, far too many asterisks.”
Despite all of the drama surrounding Pokémon, Scarlet and Violet have already sold over 10 million units en route to the fastest Nintendo launch of all time. For more, check out our picks for the top ten best Pokemon games.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.