If I have fewer than 6 Pokemon in the party, does each gain more EXP

pokemon-sword-shield

I have a few weak Pokemon that I'm trying to level quickly. I'm wondering if it helps to keep less than 6 Pokemon in my party.

Does that divide the total EXP gained by fewer Pokemon? Or does each Pokemon gain a set amount and it's better just to have a full party?

Best Answer

No!

tl;dr Always have 6 Pokemon in your party

Contrary to how previous generations work, it doesn't matter how many Pokemon you have in your party!

It does matter whether the Pokemon had actively participated in the battle.

Background

In the beginning of the game, as I was catching Pokemon to fill my party, I noticed that the XP share didn't seem to change much with each new Pokemon. This gave me a hunch that XP share was somehow different in Sword & Shield.

Experiment Methodology

Part 1

Loaded up my party with 6 Pokemon
Found a wild Pokemon (in this case, a Lv. 30 Machoke)
Used 1 Pokemon to defeat the wild Pokemon (in this case, a Lv. 35 Corvisquire)
Recorded how much XP each member of the party gained, especially the Pokemon that battled

Part 2

Put every Pokemon into the box, except the 1 used in the last battle (Corvisquire)
Found the same wild Pokemon at the same level (another Lv. 30 Machoke)
Used the same 1 Pokemon to defeat the wild Pokemon (still Lv. 35 Corviqsuire)
Recorded how much XP Corvisquire gained

As you can see below, it didn't matter if there were 5 other Pokemon in my party, or if there was only 1, Corvisquire gained around 700+ XP.

(Corvisquire is Lv. 36 in the last screenshot because it had just leveled up from the fight.)

Not pictured below, but I also tried this with 2 Pokemon in the party and 3 Pokemon in the party. In both cases, the number of Pokemon didn't change the approximate amount of XP gained by each Pokemon.

Note: I'm open to other players doing more experiments to show a different conclusion.

Also, this actually raises a lot of new questions about the XP share algorithm:

Why did Corvisquire gain less XP in the second battle? Or why did it gain extra in the first battle?
- Was that related to the number of Pokemon in the party? Was it related to amount of XP it already had?
- Was it related to the stats of the Machoke?
- Was it related to the moves I used?
Is it possible to cycle through all my Pokemon during a battle and have them all gain almost double XP?

Related Solutions

Which attack stat does each starter Pokemon favour in Pokemon Sword and Shield

Grookey and Scorbunny are physical attackers, while Sobble is a special attacker.

Their final evolutions' Attack, Special Attack, and Speed are:

Grookey: 125/60/85
Scorbunny: 116/65/119
Sobble: 85/125/120

How to EV train in Pokemon Sword and Shield

From what I have found, each party member will gain EVs even if they did not participate in battle,
If you don't want to be constantly updating your party, this leads two effective strategies to be:

Farming money to buy Vitamins.
Vitamins are items that increase EVs all the way up to the max amount.
But they do cost quite a bit, so you will need to farm up some money in game to buy them all.
Sending Pokemon on seminars from the Job Board in Pokemon Centers.
This allows you to train up to 10 Pokemon per stat at once, but it takes real world time to do.

More detailed information can be found in my source, but I have also now tried all of this myself to confirm.

So the most effective way mostly depends on your play-style:

With lots of play time you can just farm up money with an Amulet Coin (found behind the Motostoke outskirts sign) and buy all the vitamins,
you can also play the Battle Tower and buy vitamins with BP.
Vitamins purchased can instantly fully EV train a Pokemon, you would need 25 for your two stats, bringing them to 250 each, then either a 26th vitamin or one hour with the below method to hit the 252 max.

Or you can log in daily and send up to 10 Pokemon off on a seminar, then return the next day and do it again. From my experience sending a Pokemon off for a whole day rewards 96 EVs. There are however mulitple time options to suit your playstyle, all awarding 4 EVs per hour:

Timeframe Text  Actual Time   EVs Obtained   With PowerItem
Whole Day       24 hours      96             288
Half Day        12 hours      48             144
Very Long       8 hours       32             96
Long            4 hours       16             48
Short           3 hours       12             36
Very Short      2 hours       8              24
Just a little   1 hours       4              12

As noted on Serebii, having your Pokemon hold one of the Power Items will also increase the EVs obtained from the jobs.
Buying these power items is a great investment, each adds +8 EVs per hour to the Pokemon holding it, effectively tripling the amount of EVs gained per hour!
It will not take much game time, but this method could be more real world time as it will take several days to fully train a Pokemon, unless you have the power items, then it can take just over two days (one full 24 hours for each of the two stats, then you use another hour for the remaining third stat for 4 EVs).