#but the battle subway was like fuck that. do you have a pokemon? you're golden hop on board

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

Do you think in-universe that there's actual pokemon levels? If so, how do they measure it? And if not, how do they keep things like the battle facilities level-capped? I remember you mentioning before that you think battles are largely for show, and that in gym battles the leaders/trainers will basically "fight down" to whatever predetermined strength level they've trained their pokemon to fight at depending on how many badges a person has. And that basically they're not actually "fainting" from some kid's baby pokemon, they just have a set amount of damage they can take before they concede the win. Assuming I'm remembering correctly anyway.

But like... are those standards just arbitrary? I assume the various Leagues have rules about that kinda thing, so their gym leaders and Elite Four/Champions are trained rigorously (gym leaders more so, I think, because they'd have to learn eight different levels of difficulty by heart, whereas the Four and Champion only need to abide by one difficulty level). But in a battle facility or tournament, you're not just limiting what your pokemon are allowed to do, you're also somehow making sure that your opponents are doing the same, at the exact same difficulty level. If there were actual levels I think that'd be easier (although I'm still not sure of the actual mechanics of how it'd force them down to level 50 or whatever), but if there's no levels and it's all arbitrary, then literally how would they even tell or enforce it?

Or is this the kinda thing that's just me entirely overthinking video game mechanics that have no logical or reasonable in-universe explanation. Because maybe it's just because it's really late here, but I'm drawing a blank. Although, I guess the pokemon universe does have some mind-bogglingly advanced tech that would in no way work in ours, like Bill's machine that turned him into a clefairy or a functional doomsday device 4,000 years before the modern era or even just the PC system as a whole, so I guess if there are levels it'd make sense that there was some kind of tech that could measure and suppress them?

oooh, really tough question.

so your first paragraph summary is basically right lol—what makes most sense to me is if pokemon battles are like, for show, or honor duel type things, where they're—generally speaking—stopped long before the point where either party would do lasting harm to the other. (there are exceptions, like in the case of frenzied alphas or other certain wild battles, but usually if it's not a scenario that is legitimately life or death, they're not gonna fight like it is.) it's just a matter of demonstrating that one is stronger, and their opponent conceding. & yeah, the corollary that goes along with that is that gym leaders and other high level fighters really are, as they rightly should be, much more powerful at a baseline than you are when you fight them—but to make the fight fairer, they'll try to match strengths with you.

levels though. yeah, it's kind of a toughie. even if you don't assume the above, levels are kind of tough to make coherent in-universe. this might just be one of those situations where game mechanics sort of run up against inworld depiction, yeah, like when an npc tells you to press the B button to run? or the apparent metaphysical law of reality preventing anyone from having more than 6 pokemon on their team at once. it might be that in reality, "strength levels" (inc. not just xp levels but also EVs/IVs and that kind of thing, since some trainers (ingo again) have also shown that they can modulate those) are just sort of a thing a high-level trainer and their team gets a general feel for as they advance, and then maybe they have to do some extra training to actually do the moderation, but the general sense for different strength levels is already there. like, maybe it's not as granular as "okay, now be level 37," it's just "yeah put in like... 40% of your normal effort. great."

but then yeah, the idea that there's no hard and fast rule for it makes stuff like the battle subway kind of hard to explain. since like, there's no way to actually stop someone from cheating and going over 50, and if they do there's no actual Numbers for them to point to and say "no, you've gotta take it back a bit." they can only rely on vibes to determine whether someone isn't strength scaling appropriately? that seems like they wouldn't be a fan of that.

on the other hand i do love the idea that modern day pokemon people have invented some kind of machine that can just scan your pokemon and output a bunch of numerical summaries of their general stats. ooh, maybe that's one of the things a pokemon center machine is doing when you heal, it's giving them a lil blip and updating their info chip in the pokeball-or-however-it-works with their latest info. if it was anything that was actually enforcing a level standard i think it would have to be based around that, since modern pokemon are at least partially data based and i think it would make some kind of sense to be able to sort of. put checks on that data.

alternately, there's no actual physical limitations, it's just that if you try that you will be kicked out of whatever you're participating in. and there would probably be like, sports news drama about it, depending on whether you were participating in some kind of tournament. so people generally don't bc the payoffs of winning once aren't worth it when it's so immediately obvious to everyone that they're breaking the rules. (there could even be some kind of like, known scammer's/cheater's art of trying to just barely toe the line of "rule-breakingly strong" without anyone being able to strictly prove it and punish them for it. but for the most part that's more investment than people want to do for not a lot of gain, it's easier to just fight normally)

...but then the thing you always circle back around to when talking abt this is like. from the battle subway forwards, you're not just going down to 50, they can make you go up to 50 too. which is like, how the fuck, even. how are they juicing the fuck out of my level 20 starter to make them match with everyone else. which is why i feel like there might not be any physical in-world numbers about it, and it's just a matter of it being accepted that both opponents should play down to whatever the weakest party member is, and 50 happens to be the standard level the games represent that as for ease of calculation.

-ok wait a second i just went to check and according to bulba in post-bw games, like in the battle maison and further, they stop doing that scale-up-to-50 thing. it's just the fucking battle subway that does that?? hi?? hello?? out of universe i guess this makes sense from a gameplay perspective, since they're a much earlier-game and generally more accessible facility than other regions, so it's actually unlikely that a player would have a level 50 team when first boarding. in-universe, though?? what the hell are you guys doing over there???