Another pokemon world dynamics discussion (currently featuring Nidos)

[Lady Vulpix]

This came up during an IM conversation I had with Karin.

(20:26:06) GuardianLune: actually, Nidoking can breed.
(20:26:12) GuardianLune: only Nidorina and Nidoqueen can't.
(20:26:24) Lady Vulpix G: Really? That's odd. Why would they do that?
(20:26:54) GuardianLune: I really have no idea. It has something to do with the fact that a female Nidoran can generate both female and male babies.
(20:27:27) Lady Vulpix G: That's what Iwas thinking, maybe the coding was easier that way.
(20:27:28) GuardianLune: Nidoking can fertilize other pokémon... And it can breed with Ditto if you only want male nidorans.
(20:27:32) GuardianLune: Probably.
(20:28:02) Lady Vulpix G: I don't think it makes sense, though.
(20:28:06) GuardianLune: Since nidoking has really no say in gender of the nidoran that comes out, the female would be the only one that matters.
(20:28:16) GuardianLune: it was probably a coding decision.
(20:28:21) GuardianLune: It doesn't seem logical...
(20:28:22) Lady Vulpix G: But that sounds like a good topic to discuss on GD.

So, what do you all think? Why can Nidorino/Nidoking breed but not Nidorina/Nidoqueen? Why can't male Nidos who breed with Dittos have female children? Does this make sense to you, or do you think it should be different?

[mr_pikachu]

I knew that the advanced stages of the female Nido couldn't breed, but I wasn't aware about the "only male babies" thing with the Nidoking. That does seem odd and illogical. My guess is that they made some mistake with the coding where a random number within a certain range was supposed to be generated (thus determining the gender of the baby) and they accidentally set the formula up to always generate male babies. That or it's supposed to be a fun little secret that only people who play the game like crazy know about.

Is that true for both GSC and RSE (and I suppose FrLg as well)? It'd be interesting to test that out.

And the upper stages of female Nidos not being able to breed never made sense to me. I just don't get that. That little factoid, however, was about the only useful piece of info I got from a GS guide I bought way back when. It had discrepancies, incomplete info, and it stopped at the Bug Catching Contest. Yeah, that's right. It never continued to Ecruteak City. I'm pretty sure it didn't even get to the Sudowoodo problem.

Moral of the story: Check your guides for completeness before you buy them. Or use GameFAQs or something. Don't get suckered into a [expletive] guide.

[Jeff]

I do believe the thing with Ditto breeding is that the baby will ALWAYS be the lowest evolution (not counting item prevos) of the non-Ditto pokemon, so that's probably why, of course if you can breed a female Nido with Ditto and get a baby male Nido then I guess that's probably not why. I'm pretty sure it's the same thing with Volbeat/Illumise.

Anyway, I was never sure why Nidorina and Nidoqueen can't breed, I did read in another thread though that you could get them to do it in GS, even though all the guides said you couldn't.