Passive Growth

[Devalue]

Have you ever used the features in games specifically to accumulate experience or effort values on Pokemon while doing other things?
______

Remembers sticking a Pokemon in the daycare in Red. Perhaps a Paras? Figured it might come in handy later. Continued on with the adventure. Forgot about it for a long time. Ran across the daycare again one day. Gained something like 40 levels.

Stored a possible team member in a slightly later game (Gold, probably). Earned a few levels. Messed up their moves, though. Stopped using the daycare that way from then on.

Ignored the passive method of punching bags for Super Training in Generation 6. Always tapped those out.

Returned to automatic gains with Generation 7's Isle Evelup. Bred a lot of the same Pokemon for Wonder Trading. Wanted effort values. Balked at grinding out several boxes worth of Pokemon. Stuck them in Isle Evelup instead. Maxed out a stat for 18 Pokemon in 63 sessions (about 16 hours when expedited). Saved so much active grinding.

Used Poke Jobs a fair amount in Sword/Shield. Trained all those Dynamax Adventures legendaries for effort values and level 100 there. Proves quite decent for mass leveling. Turned to them in a recent challenge too. Disregarded the experience gain for early Poke Jobs. Pulled in a solid 21000 under good conditions (more with better circumstances) for Poke Jobs after the sixth gym. Found the effort value training time quite tolerable with Macho Braces from the Isle of Armor also. (Takes about three days: two 24-hour sessions and two 8-hour sessions.)

 

[Duck]

Only Daycare I think, I usually go for the more active methods like Exp Candy / Rare Candies.

 

[Corveone]

I used Poké Pelago in Gen 7 and the mini-games in Gen 6 for EV training. Never liked Daycare levelling though, so I think removing the levelling mechanic there was a good decision to prevent wasting money while breeding. Gaining levels is already super easy in modern Pokémon games so no need for that.

 

[ReKoil]

I used Poke Jobs once and then ignored it.
I used Poke Pelago a couple times, because iirc there was something I needed from it. Ignored it after that.
As for the Super Training in Gen 6... only to get the evo stones and then I ignored that rubbish xD

The problem with Daycares in the earlier gens for me was simply that kid me would just completely forget there were mons in them at all xD
And I also didn't really do anything with the games after beating the league so.... they are probably still stuck in purgatory xD

 

[Fairy]

I never really used them for training on purpose - besides any EV training. But I for sure forgot many a Pokémon in a daycare back in my first gens. I distinctly remember a Raticate and a Voltorb that ended up being like lv. 70 when I returned for them.

 

[Zeostar]

If it goes in the daycare there's a 95% chance I will forget about it.

Other no, I even sell most of my rare candies.

 

[Sheep]

Very rarely! I like leveling my Pokémon up myself and not worrying about their moves getting messed up and then needing to relearn things. The Day Care did this to me often, and relearning moves was not as quick/cheap back then. I'm glad they changed it to not give experience anymore - that way my Pokémon breeding/egg moves don't get messed up!

EV training minigames is about the most I made use of this, I think. They were really nice, especially in XY.

 

[Megan]

I have dropped off Pokemon in the day care, especially in the earlier generation. I often forgot about them until way later. But I've also done it intentionally. Not for the levels, but because I fell for some of the stupid ways how to get stuff like "Pokegods" and whatnot.

I honestly don't mind these options but haven't really made use of them in recent years. I made use of Super Training back in X. But even that fell off at some point. Hordes were just better because faster at the end of the day.

I do like them for what they offer outside of the game play, though. The people who own the day care are some of the few NPCs who actually have something that resembles a sort of vocation. As opposed to those NPCs who just end up standing around seemingly unemployed or what have you...