Pokémon Scarlet and Violet has another big glitch, and it’s threatening the game’s competitive future

There is still an extended period where competitive Pokémon battles will be held in Pokémon Sword and Shield as players begin experimenting and training new teams for the eventual shift to Scarlet and Violet in early 2023. And, while an official date for that swap has yet to be announced, The Pokémon Company and Game Freak have some work to do ahead of it as a new glitch has made specific online battles unplayable. 

Scarlet and Violet have localized all of its online battle modes into the new Battle Stadium, where players can take part in Casual and Ranked Battles, compete in online competitions, or browse Rental Teams from other online players to use in any event that allows them. But as some players begin jumping into online battles after finishing Gen IX’s story, there is clearly something wrong with the Battle Stadium. 

According to multiple users who have been testing the online modes, all instances of the Battle Stadium for any player who hops into a game are using the exact same RNG seed for every battle. 

An RNG seed is typically supposed to reset at the beginning of any battle or encounter to ensure results can’t be replicated with 100 percent certainty or manipulated in any way. However, with this broken seed players now know exactly how it works and can set up for exact situations every time without fail if the other player is unaware of the glitch. 

As of now, it appears that the main thing players are confirming is that moves under a certain accuracy threshold will always miss their first accuracy check value. Multiple examples of missed Play Rough, Heat Wave, and other moves with under 91 percent accuracy missing consistently when first used—one Reddit user even tested Frost Breath 14 times and ended up missing 14 times in a row when using it as the first move in a match. 

Anubis, someone well-known for breaking down data and situations in Pokémon games, has shown footage of setting up a guaranteed OHKO (One-Hit KO) combo using Iron Bundle along with several other instances of how this lack of actual RNG can be abused. 

With the testing available to Anubis and the community, this appears to only be impacting Double Battles and perhaps not the entire Battle Stadium. This also has no impact on offline play for things like wild or trainer battles—there could be some specific scripted instances like boss battles impacted, though that would require individual testing and isn’t likely.

For now, players can toss this onto the list of abysmal performance and polish that Scarlet and Violet have rapidly become known for post-launch. This will absolutely be addressed in a future patch, especially considering Gen IX will be featured as the premier game on the Pokémon World Championship circuit starting next year, but until then it best to steer clear of even casual online matches unless it is with friends.