Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s Battle Stadium has one fundamental issue

scarlet and violet pokemon It has a lot of problems, mainly in the realm of performance. We’ve seen Pokemon fall through the ground in battle, NPCs running at around 5FPS, and a host of other fun glitches and bugs.

It’s not great, but given that Scarlet and Violet’s gameplay is among the best we’ve seen in recent years, these performance issues are easy enough to ignore when you’re having fun.

Which of the adorable Paldean starters did you choose?That being said, players who have spent time building powerful Pokemon teams and have progressed past the endgame can spend more and more time on Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Battle Stadium. This online game mode allows players to compete against each other, except there’s one fundamental problem with it; the RNG seed seems to be the same for every battle, which is not correct.

An RNG seed in Pokemon is essentially a calculation done in the background by a random number generator that will determine the accuracy of a Pokemon’s moves in battle. While the number generated is supposed to be entirely incidental, in the case of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s Battle Stadium, it is not, which means that the result of certain moves may be constant.

A player led to the Pokémon VGC subreddit after running some in-game accuracy checks. u/Lord-Trolldemort noted that the move Frost Breath, which has 90% accuracy, was severely lacking. As a result, the user started recording the outcome of each battle and started noticing that Frost Breath always failed if it was the first move in battle.

In 14 battles, Frost Breath missed 14 times. “That would be a one in 100 trillion chance if the RNG worked properly,” clarifies u/Lord-Trolldemort. “My best guess is that the RNG is being seeded with the same number each battle, though I have no idea how they generate the RNG seed.”

u/Lord-Trolldemort then shared some recordings as proof that this was happening. While this Reddit user noted the issue and how it would affect less than 100% accurate moves in battle, others ⁠, like the player below ⁠, have found ways to exploit it while they can.

The problem was also shared on Twitter by a player known as Anubis, where he gained even more popularity, but instead of testing the accuracy of his movements, they found a way to take full advantage of the problem.

The player said that “Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Battle Stadium currently use the same RNG seed for each battle.” Along with a clip of them launching a devastating attack at their opponent, they continue: “This allows us to pick moves to make sure OHKO moves like Sheer Cold always hit!”

OKHO moves are anything that can perform a one-punch knockout in a Pokemon battle; Sheer Cold is one of the few, including Fissure, Guillotine, and Horn Drill.

Similar sentiments are echoed in the comments on u/Lord-Trolldemort’s Reddit post, with u/Rain_Moon replying that, “In fact, it is a case of fixed RNG. We can abuse it by having Sheer Cold (or other OHKO moves) guarantee to hit when used at the right time! Air Slash and Sheer Cold seem to work as long as the opponent doesn’t move in front of you.”

As of now, ranked play is not available in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s Battle Stadium. So, I hope the issue with RNG is fixed before ranked play is implemented. In the meantime, I think I’ll avoid Battle Stadium and keep exploring Paldea! What do you think of this small, but fundamental issue with Battle Stadium right now?

For more on Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, we’ve got a comprehensive guide on how multiplayer works and how to breed your Pokemon so you can form the perfect party for competitive battles.