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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
mons focused on bulk AND speed with offense specifically being the weak spot are much less common than other kinds of spreads and scream tail commits to it with the possibility to increase one of its defenses or speed with protosynthesis. the usefulness of such a role hasn't been huge in a generation so tailored to offense, but it's still a very interesting approach
Considering that Iron Hands managed to be a truly viable powerhouse in VGC for at least a while despite effectively No Ability (until Miraidon arrives, that is), I feel like it’s for the best that Iron Hands is the Paradox Pokémon.
Because if the moment Hariyama got a standard Evolution arrive, then it will be the moment people have to deal with two bulky and powerful Sumo Pokémon instead of just Iron Hands, since Hariyama could now use Eviolite to make it just as bulky as Iron Hands holding Assault Vest on the special side (and perhaps physical) while the Hariyama evolution actually have an Ability at all time like it’s pre-evo, either Guts or Thick Fat depending on it’s secondary Ability, and having more natural bulk so it can run any other item.
It’s not like Duraludon + Archaludon since both shares weaknesses by virtue of same type, and Duraludon doesn’t offer any sort of support making Eviolite a noob trap at worst, though it can be a niche backup with Stalwart if used well.
I was curious to see how fast someone could do the beginning slog of aLOLa, so I did a quick check...
It took the current world record speedrun 47 minutes to get out of Hau'oli City in USUM. And that's not counting the cutscenes before the player even gets to move.
As for another thing that makes me throw up... The Rock type's identity is that most of its moves range from imperfect to bad accuracy. Gee, thanks Game Freak.
It took the current world record speedrun 47 minutes to get out of Hau'oli City in USUM. And that's not counting the cutscenes before the player even gets to move.
As for another thing that makes me throw up... The Rock type's identity is that most of its moves range from imperfect to bad accuracy. Gee, thanks Game Freak.
i agree and if i were in charge i would make a rock-type variation of aerial ace as a new TM just to disown that identity
anyway, little thing that annoys me: i miss the concept of the national pokédex in the sense that only a select amount mons are available in the main game but you can obtain more after the hall of fame.
however, the national mode moniker itself always felt kinda dumb because... you aren't leaving your region to catch them...? it's specially egregious in the original unova dex where they exist literally in the routes right next to cities you are visiting in the main game, but in sinnoh it's pretty silly too. i know it's just semantics, but surely there were better words available..
anyway, little thing that annoys me: i miss the concept of the national pokédex in the sense that only a select amount mons are available in the main game but you can obtain more after the hall of fame.
however, the national mode moniker itself always felt kinda dumb because... you aren't leaving your region to catch them...? it's specially egregious in the original unova dex where they exist literally in the routes right next to cities you are visiting in the main game, but in sinnoh it's pretty silly too. i know it's just semantics, but surely there were better words available..
i agree and if i were in charge i would make a rock-type variation of aerial ace as a new TM just to disown that identity
anyway, little thing that annoys me: i miss the concept of the national pokédex in the sense that only a select amount mons are available in the main game but you can obtain more after the hall of fame.
however, the national mode moniker itself always felt kinda dumb because... you aren't leaving your region to catch them...? it's specially egregious in the original unova dex where they exist literally in the routes right next to cities you are visiting in the main game, but in sinnoh it's pretty silly too. i know it's just semantics, but surely there were better words available..
I mean in Galar (iirc) and Paldea there aren’t postgame areas (due to DLC covering that and thus bringing its own dex) so it makes perfect sense to me. It’d feel forced and off to just have new Pokemon start appearing in old places after you complete the story, to me at least.
oh, i agree because that's exactly what happens in sinnoh and it feels silly to need a "national" pokedex mode to register mons that are very much living in sinnoh, but i do miss postgame areas not associated to a DLC. original BW has a great postgame, even if it becomes the biggest example of "national mode" being nonsense wording because of it
Just learned the official pronunciation of Z-A is "Z to A" and not simply the two letters...just sounds really awkward compared to what I would have normally read it as.
It's better than the "Z minus Upside-down V" that I originally read it as.
Out of curiosity, where is this stated?
The only thing close to implying an official pronunciation thus far is the Japanese website transliterating the text to "zetto-ei", but Z in Japan is pronounced "Zetto", seeing as how Z-Moves in Japan are called "Zetto-Waza". The "Zetto" is closer to the original greek letter Zeta that Z originates from, which is still evident in how non-US countries, especially Europe, pronounce Z, as they call it "Zed", not "Zee" like the US does.
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Wasn't aware of this and was initially thinking it was not always correct on the basis of Rockman ZX being pronounced "Zex" (as opposed to Zetto-Ex or Zee-Ex), but further looking into it indicates that's just the game title being "unique" and every instance of a standalone Z within the Rockman series is also pronounced as "Zetto". Really inelegant pronunciation (like, "Zetto Waza" instead of "Zee Waza", really?), but not as much as "zed". The fact that - can be read as "to" in the context of Z-A resulted in a really awkward misunderstanding on my part.
I still don't like the name, just for a different reason now.
Late kind of but adding to this, Scream Tail's stat spread isn't just unique among Fairies, it's unique among everything.
There are some things that have comparable spreads such but it's significantly different from all of them.
- It's incredibly fast relative to the similarly bulky spreads. At 115 speed, it blazes past Umbreon, (60) Claydol, (70) Mandibuzz, (80) Cresselia and Suicune, (85) Deoxys-D and Orbeetle, (90) and Uxie (95)
- It's incredibly bulky relative to the similarly fast spreads. 115/99/115 bulk is far beyond Serperior, (75/95/95) Crobat/Noivern, (85/80/80) and even Latias's bulk (80/90/130)
- Unlike lots of super high BST pokemon that hit similar stat thresholds, neither of its attacking stats are high whatsoever, with both being even lower than Deoxys-D's 70/70 and Uxie's 75/75. (and unlike Deoxys-D, it can't supplement that low SpAtk with a 140 BP STAB move)
The closest I can think of is Lugia, who has a similar "all high" bulk spread and a near identical speed stat. All its defensive stats are higher than Scream Tail's at a slightly lower HP, but proportionally there's a similar offense/defense gap, just bigger since Lugia has an Uber BST instead of a "minor Legendary" one.
Also, due to their movepool differences, Lugia plays like a traditional wall (or maybe it's a CM sweeper nowadays I dunno) while Scream Tail is more of a disrupter with stuff like Encore and Disable.
This stands out a ton especially in the older games where bag space is limited. Like I'm playing RSE right now and one thought that occasionally crops up is "why do any of the items in this class except Max Elixers even exist in the first place?" I try to make it a point to be more cavalier with the lower tier versions of these now since it just doesn't make sense to hoard them for multiple reasons.
The relationship between Revive and Max Revive sort of makes sense. Revives are easily available for purchase past a certain point but are a little on the pricey side, while Max Revives tend to be rare and not easily obtainable at all. This at least dilutes the tactic of using meat shields and HM mules to revive/heal the "real" party members a little bit; being stuck with only the lesser Revive means that you're going to have to use twice as many turns to bring another party member back up to 100%, and that can actually make a difference in important battles. So, conserving Max Revives for the bigger obstacles makes sense, and there tend to be just enough of those scattered throughout the game to make resource management for them mostly sensible.
Meanwhile, Ethers are in this weird place where a Max Ether is way more valuable to the player who needs to replenish his Squirtle's Water Gun in the early game where he's still over-reliant on his starter and would actually be in a position to want to replenish a whole 25PP, than it is for the one who would need to replenish his Blastoise's Hydro Pump in the late game where he's got a whole team to juggle and an Ether and Max Ether are functionally the same thing for a powerful 5PP move.
The hidden ability system in general. A lot of pokemon have such cool hidden abilities that basically define them and I'd really love to use them in the main story of the games. For example, Swoobat would be so much more useful if it got Simple, which would encourage people to use this frail, weak psychic a bit more past like the first gym. It'd at least be a way to reward using setup moves instead of just clicking your strongest supereffective attacks over and over, which is a problem pokemon has always struggled with. But unfortunately these abilities are locked behind this random postgame barrier. Thanks GameFreak :(.
edit: especially when gamefreak decides to make EXCLUSIVE abiltiies hidden. What did grass pelt gogoat ever do to you?
edit: especially when gamefreak decides to make EXCLUSIVE abiltiies hidden. What did grass pelt gogoat ever do to you?
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It would be nice to simply move from HA to second or third option for ability.
I'm fine with HAs being this special "other" thing provided the option to obtain it is decent. Like being this extra thing you can grab, that's fine in concept to me.
Gen 5? Dream World was actually great for it, and it was easy for anyone to do during its hayday. The only issue was that until BW2 it was just for gen 1-4 and even after BW2 the options were pretty scattershot.
XY? Significantly less great. Hordes could sometimes have them but that's a pretty limited set of Pokemon. The only other option is the post-game Friend Safari which also needed a stable of Friends with the mons in question (and you two needed to be online at least once together to get the HA to show up)
ORAS? The Dex Nav was a good compromise. There were some hiccups but you could get quite a number of Pokemon's HAs without too much trouble throughout the story iirc.
Gen 7? SOS Battles were pretty much always available, the problem is it sure felt like more of a slog and unless you had stuff to check abilities mid-battle (or they had an ability that would go off on its own) you'd have to get the chain up, kill the other thing, catch and see. But! It is an option you can do at most any time, and Ultra's SOS changes do make it slightly more managable.
SWSH? Max Raid Battles were already not great, but iirc it also had to be specific kind of raid dens and I'm not sure the ones that spawn HA Pokemon were (1) common and (2) really available before post-game. Dynamax Adventures had some presets with HAs you could get which was nice, and you didnt HAVE to beat the game to get them, but also its a specific selection of Pokemon and they're very high level. Ability Patches are kinda expensive for the Ore cost, but also are there I guess.
BDSP? I had to look it up, it's PokeRadar only and it's a bout a 3% chance to spawn one. Rough stuff. Ability Patches are 200 BP and post-game too
SV? I actually thought for sure raids around mid-game could have Hidden Abilities but I guess it's just 6* (& 7* but those dont count)? Bummer. At least Titan Bombirdier has Rocky Payload? Ability patches are also effectively post game (though I suppose with DLC you stil lget access to the club room before beating the game, so you could go hard on the item printer...)
Really just feels like they can't make up their mind how accessible they want them to be.
Gen 5? Dream World was actually great for it, and it was easy for anyone to do during its hayday. The only issue was that until BW2 it was just for gen 1-4 and even after BW2 the options were pretty scattershot.
XY? Significantly less great. Hordes could sometimes have them but that's a pretty limited set of Pokemon. The only other option is the post-game Friend Safari which also needed a stable of Friends with the mons in question (and you two needed to be online at least once together to get the HA to show up)
ORAS? The Dex Nav was a good compromise. There were some hiccups but you could get quite a number of Pokemon's HAs without too much trouble throughout the story iirc.
Gen 7? SOS Battles were pretty much always available, the problem is it sure felt like more of a slog and unless you had stuff to check abilities mid-battle (or they had an ability that would go off on its own) you'd have to get the chain up, kill the other thing, catch and see. But! It is an option you can do at most any time, and Ultra's SOS changes do make it slightly more managable.
SWSH? Max Raid Battles were already not great, but iirc it also had to be specific kind of raid dens and I'm not sure the ones that spawn HA Pokemon were (1) common and (2) really available before post-game. Dynamax Adventures had some presets with HAs you could get which was nice, and you didnt HAVE to beat the game to get them, but also its a specific selection of Pokemon and they're very high level. Ability Patches are kinda expensive for the Ore cost, but also are there I guess.
BDSP? I had to look it up, it's PokeRadar only and it's a bout a 3% chance to spawn one. Rough stuff. Ability Patches are 200 BP and post-game too
SV? I actually thought for sure raids around mid-game could have Hidden Abilities but I guess it's just 6* (& 7* but those dont count)? Bummer. At least Titan Bombirdier has Rocky Payload? Ability patches are also effectively post game (though I suppose with DLC you stil lget access to the club room before beating the game, so you could go hard on the item printer...)
Really just feels like they can't make up their mind how accessible they want them to be.
Any raid above 3* can have hidden abilities with a random chance between all the options. When Serebii says "Hidden Possible" on the 6 stars, that actually means it's fixed to be the hidden ability, which data dumps show like https://gist.github.com/sora10pls/8ab6212b85ef1fec014cf0f77ca7fe9d for Indigo Disk or https://stevecooktu.github.io/sv_raid_lookup/ in general.
Before postgame playing Indigo Disk you get to unlock the BP missions, but not the clubroom itself since you don't get to meet Carmine and progress the story past that point.
Serebii I'm glad you're around but sometimes you really have to format your data better.
Anyway that elevates SV for me, doing Tera Raids is a lot more fun/possible and they feel way easier to do a bunch of. Getting access to them around a quarter/mid into the game is fine
Well at least you get to use the blueberry school store, but kind of a bummer anyway.
Hidden Abilities are a bad feeling mechanic because what they actually do varies wildly but how they're accessed tends to be universal. This means that while they're often very fun in abstract, they have a tendency to create a lot of non-choices when actually applied to structured play while still being a pain to grind for in the RPGs themselves
I get that a lot of early movepools are poorly optimized and not well thought out, but who signed off on Flareon getting Smog at level 57?
Smog Flareon is really something because
1. It wasn't even in its movepool originally, so you can't fully go "oh, well, you know how janky and long RB's development was!", it was added in Yellow! Specifically at level 42! To replace leer (which was now 47 so really it replaced Rage I guess)
2. This was kept through Gen 2 & 3 unchanged, as they largely just copy pasted movepools forward for a lot of Pokemon
3. Then gen 4 happened where all the eeveelution movepools got expanded but also all somehow terrible in different ways they decided to not touch Smog beyond bumping it up to level the previously mentioned 57 due to earlier additions. But it's not like they're opposed to tweaking becfause Leer became Scary Face
4. They FINALLY lowered the level in BW2, because they lowered the levels of everything, but only to level 33 which is better but still you know. bad. Because it's Smog, the move no one wants to use in gen 1 much less 5
5. Then this stayed through all of Gen 6 and 7 despite other tweaks to the moveset going on....onyl to finally change in Gen 8 where the way they restructed most movesets by power finally landed it where it is much more natural: level 20
Which is frankly still too far deep for Smog, a move learned by every other Pokemon at sub-20 levels (most of them level like 1....) aside from Gen 1 Magmar (Level 52 but that IS because of specific design jank) and the Tepig line (which get it at level 19/20) because it's bad.
And frankly the tepig line probably shouldn't learn it at level 20 either!
