Un-Needed Aspects of Pokémon

[Age of Kings]

where it's even specifically stated that you should try to win with your favourites as opposed to simply what's good, and trainers that only base their teams on power are often disparaged or considered bad trainers.

tbh I interpret that as more "try things outside your comfort zone" as opposed to using the same staples all the time. There are 720 Pokemon, there is no way to balance even just the fully evolved ones so that everything is viable - even if base stats were the same, you still have to take movepools, abilities, and typing into account. Fuck, Blizzard can't balance 11 classes in WoW for shit and Riot has trouble keeping tabs on 100-something champions (miracle that LoL is as balanced as it is), what chance does Gamefreak have with so many variables they made? Better to focus on merchandising than staying true to in-game dialogue.

Your storyline Pokemon are still more than likely not going to be any good even with the IVs and training factors removed because of the lack of egg moves, probably suboptimal nature, and arbitrary distribution of Pokemon (mons that appear early-mid game are more likely to be picked than something like Noibat that first appears in Victory Road).

That being said, I'm in the precarious position that my favorite Pokemon (seen left) is banned in all Nintendo tiers and little kids cry about legendary Pokemon being "cheap" even if you use them when they're allowed so in some ways bullshit people say in-game can be fairly hypocritical :|

 

[Shiruba]

Oh, no, I'm not saying every Pokemon should be balanced BST-wise; after all, does it make sense that some first-route bug that hits its final evolved form at level 10 is as strong as a unique legendary that [at least can be] very hard to catch and is found after the game is already over? Not remotely, I was more referring the the part about eugenics and those implications of IVs, not the BSTs themselves.
[though I would say that Beedrill and some of those other would-be-shit-even-in-PU 'mons do need [another] buff or two, because they're just /that/ awful]

I'd say that most Pokemon don't even require Egg Moves, especially with the advent of tutors. There are definitely individuals that rely on them, to be sure - Azumarill comes to mind - but I'd say at least a good portion of them are affected comparatively little by this lack. If anything, I'd say the lack of BW2 tutors is way more restricting than egg moves.

Nah, being a legendary fan myself, I wouldn't remotely say that balancing them so they're around equal should happen, rather that the potential of the species within itself shouldn't be restricted based on something arbitrary, especially when EVs, natures, and even genders [aside from changeable things like moveset and name] already exist to differentiate Pokemon so they're unlikely to be identical regardless of whether IVs are present or not.
That said, I think there are /occasionally/ official tourneys where Ubers are allowed, no?

Gamefreak plz give my Lati twins back their borkstone I will be sad if you replace it with those godawful megas.

 

[Detective Barricade]

That said, I think there are /occasionally/ official tourneys where Ubers are allowed, no?

Gamefreak plz give my Lati twins back their borkstone I will be sad if you replace it with those godawful megas.

Sometimes, but these days only if it's Kalos native. (goes for everything you might want to use) They'll probably extend it to include stuff native to the Hoenn of ORAS when those come out.

 

[Karxrida]

I fucking hate how event legends are banned from VGC when not a single one is even close to broken in the format. The closest to broken is Darkrai and they already have a rule where Dark Void is banned so it doesn't matter anyway.

 

[noobcubed]

I fucking hate how event legends are banned from VGC when not a single one is even close to broken in the format. The closest to broken is Darkrai and they already have a rule where Dark Void is banned so it doesn't matter anyway.

I can understand that event legendaries might be banned just because they are too difficult to obtain. But there's no consistency because event moves are entirely legal, and they are just as hard to get hold of.

 

[Karxrida]

I can understand that event legendaries might be banned just because they are too difficult to obtain. But there's no consistency because event moves are entirely legal, and they are just as hard to get hold of.

The only reason they're hard to obtain is because they're made that way, which is also stupid. Even then they're banned solely based off of flavor, which is really irritating for Keldeo or even fucking Phione bcause they have lower BSTs than the rest.

 

[Kurona]

I fucking hate how event legends are banned from VGC when not a single one is even close to broken in the format. The closest to broken is Darkrai and they already have a rule where Dark Void is banned so it doesn't matter anyway.

... Arceus? Deoxys? Genesect?

 

[KingHeracrossTheBug]

I fail to see how it'd create incompatibility between older gens and such; that's like saying that faerie type does the same thing. They could have all transferred Pokemon have their IVs convert from whatever they were to the equivalent 0, 31, or whatever fixed number they'd pick as the "standard" after removing them - Hidden Power could be changed via NPC, perhaps, or flat-out randomized. Doesn't sound difficult to me, and meanwhile, it makes competitive Pokemon that much more accessible for someone to just hop into on the fly. It also means I get to potentially use the guys that I beat the storyline with in competitive that I may or may not have an emotional connection with, which is a nice bonus considering those guys are often more or less "useless," which is honestly rather sad in my opinion. I get that some people are just better than others and no matter how much some people train and want to get better they will simply never match the talents of others, but in all honesty, I fail to see why that should be implemented in a video game like Pokemon, where it's even specifically stated that you should try to win with your favourites as opposed to simply what's good, and trainers that only base their teams on power are often disparaged or considered bad trainers. It'd also mean I wouldn't have to play Biking Simulator 2013, for which I personally would be very thankful.

I don't understand your last point. Are you saying that there'd be too many Pokemon, so the old gens wouldn't be transferrable upwards? If so, what's the problem of changing the mechanics if transfer will be blocked regardless?

In order to make it compatible, you'll have to make some weird app that transforms Pokémon based on basic PID data. Not only would that be difficult, but they could charge for it, just like PokeBank.

 

[Karxrida]

... Arceus? Deoxys? Genesect?

Forgot about Arceus, but the other 2 are legal in our Doubles format if that's any indication of their power (they lack spread moves for one thing).

 

[Lady Vader]

I honestly don't see the point in complaining about IVs anymore. With the improvement of Destiny Knot combined with Friend Safari, it's easy for anyone who cares to IV breed. Plus, the IV (and EV) system really was more about having individual Pokémon being different from others of even the same species. It's more of a world building element. Does it matter in competitive? To an extent, yes. But at the same time, I've seen teams of Pokémon with terrible IVs still stand up and defeat well made teams of perfect Pokémon. IVs really are that last little bit to max out your chance for success. And if you want them, you can get them without needing to hack or learn RNG manipulation and it takes as much time as breeding for everything but IVs did in HGSS and B1W1. If you don't care, then it doesn't matter.

Also, I don't mind some hard work when it comes to making my teams. It makes those Pokémon more special and gives me a great sense of satisfaction whenever I look at the final result.

 

[Karxrida]

I honestly don't see the point in complaining about IVs anymore. With the improvement of Destiny Knot combined with Friend Safari, it's easy for anyone who cares to IV breed. Plus, the IV (and EV) system really was more about having individual Pokémon being different from others of even the same species. It's more of a world building element. Does it matter in competitive? To an extent, yes. But at the same time, I've seen teams of Pokémon with terrible IVs still stand up and defeat well made teams of perfect Pokémon. IVs really are that last little bit to max out your chance for success. And if you want them, you can get them without needing to hack or learn RNG manipulation and it takes as much time as breeding for everything but IVs did in HGSS and B1W1. If you don't care, then it doesn't matter.

Also, I don't mind some hard work when it comes to making my teams. It makes those Pokémon more special and gives me a great sense of satisfaction whenever I look at the final result.

It took me over a week to breed a 5IV Cleffa using 2 parents with 4IVs each, and anything genderless forces you to breed with Dittos that have 2IVs more often than not.

Fuck the system and give us a direct way to change them without relying on the RNG.

 

[Lady Vader]

It took me over a week to breed a 5IV Cleffa using 2 parents with 4IVs each, and anything genderless forces you to breed with Dittos that have 2IVs more often than not.

Fuck the system and give us a direct way to change them without relying on the RNG.

I've also have had some difficulty and have had it take me days to breed one Pokémon, but that can happen even with the best of odds. Once, it took me a week to hatch a Gligar with Immunity and that's a 60% chance to pass on!
Sometimes, we just have shitty luck.

 

[noobcubed]

The thing is, there's a reason why breeding competitive Pokemon (don't even get me started on trying to obtain a flawless-IV legendary) is so awkward: Nintendo in general has never liked competitive gaming. By this I don't mean that they don't want people to play against each other - in fact I have always admired their dedication to local multiplayer, which seems to have been largely abandoned by the other consoles and was never really possible on PC at all. But what they do not like is the sort of game whereby a skilled player can beat a scrub every time. They want to have the sort of game where a kid who has never played a game before can visit his friend who has played it for months, and they can play it and still have a good time together despite the skill gap. Hence we have stuff like Mario Party/Wii Party (pretty much the same game) where you can win every single minigame and still lose the game thanks to events beyond your control. We have the crazy rubber-band mechanics of Mario Kart Wii where it is possible to win a race from stone-cold last by getting three bullets in succession. And this is why wavedashing and L-cancelling were removed from Super Smash Bros Brawl. Needless to say these ideas directly contradict Smogon's philosophy.

With all this history, should anyone be surprised that Nintendo (and I now they don't make the games personally but I sure they have a lot of influence) would go out of their way to make it easy to breed perfect-IV Pokemon when plenty of Wi-Fi players have never even heard of IVs?

 

[Climate Change]

I remember back when I used to play Magic, the designers would talk about "complexity creep" and why it was dangerous for the game.

I can see something similar happening here. Since the original games, we've added: three new types, physical/special split, various forms of group battles, mega evolutions, natures, abilities, genders, weather, quasi-status effects, happiness, day/night, breeding, held items, forms, new evolution methods, and of course many many new pokes and attacks. If pokemon really does last indefinitely with a new generation every few years introducing new mechanics, I bet that at some point far in the future, they're going to choose to simplify things somewhere to keep the game from spiraling in complexity.

Getting rid of IVs as discussed here could be one way to go. And although EVs and Natures are very different in flavor and game mechanics, from a competitive standpoint they have a lot of overlap in spirit (choose one or two stats to increase... the negative part of natures don't matter for, what, 90% of cases?). The truth is - and I'm not suggesting they'll do this, and I know it'd be an unpopular idea here - Nintendo could completely abandon the concept of making pokemon of the same species different and get rid of ALL THREE and the game would still be rich and popular and complex.

 

[Codraroll]

To be honest, I think the first aspect to go will be Abilities. Either, they will have to stop making new abilities, and only rely on the old ones, or newly added abilities will exclusively be given to newly added Pokémon, or old Pokémon will keep getting more and more abilties available to them. At some point down the line, the current system of making new abilities every generation, and distribute them across all available Pokémon, will stop being sustainable. At any given time, a Pokémon can only have one ability, and if said ability is crucial to the design of said Pokémon, it will keep having only the one, and thus being "out-abilitied" by other Pokémon. How long can Shedinja, Flygon or Aegislash stick around with one ability, where other Pokémon get new ones handed to them every other generation? At some point, I think the system will be reformed.

 

[greengrappler]

Jynx, Mr. Mime, Garbodor, Vaniluxe, Phione, Braixen, need I go on?

 

[Detective Barricade]

Jynx, Mr. Mime, Garbodor, Vaniluxe, Phione, Braixen, need I go on?

I'm only going to agree on Phione. The others may not necessarily be liked, but only Phione stands out as unneeded. The whole legendary that can breed gimmick is stupid and Manaphy didn't need it whatsoever.

 

[Nuclear disaster]

Jynx, Mr. Mime, Garbodor, Vaniluxe, Phione, Braixen, need I go on?

You're wrong about everything except Phione. There's really no reason for it to exist (why not have it as a Manaphy pre-evo?)

 

[Detective Barricade]

You're wrong about everything except Phione. There's really no reason for it to exist (why not have it as a Manaphy pre-evo?)

Because then it'd be a baby Pokemon, and while heart meltingly adorable, are generally agreed upon as being utterly unneeded.

Here's something that I think is unneeded. Volt Tackle. More specifically, it not being able to be passed down to the Pichu offspring if the Pikachu/Raichu parent already knows it. You have to have Pikachu/Raichu hold the Light Ball in order to get the move on Pichu regardless if the parent currently knows it. So either you give up the Destiny Knot and be unable to pass the parents IV's down, or give up the Everstone and have to hope for a good Nature. The first time is fine, but needing that Light Ball every time is stupidly unneeded. Really, that move and Nasty Plot are about the most use Pichu has... And it doesn't help that Pikachu only has a 5% chance of holding the damn thing.

Then there's the really weird gender ratios. Why the hell is having Eevee and the Eeveeultions, the starters, Combee, and the fossil Pokemon with a 87.5% male to female ratio needed at all? About the only Pokemon I think has a higher female to male ratio is Litleo/Pyroar. Why can't it be 50/50 for all Pokemon that can be either gender? I don't think most casual players playing are going to particularly notice the gender icon next to their Pokemon's name, much less care...

 

[Lady Vader]

Then there's the really weird gender ratios. Why the hell is having Eevee and the Eeveeultions, the starters, Combee, and the fossil Pokemon with a 87.5% male to female ratio needed at all? About the only Pokemon I think has a higher female to male ratio is Litleo/Pyroar. Why can't it be 50/50 for all Pokemon that can be either gender? I don't think most casual players playing are going to particularly notice the gender icon next to their Pokemon's name, much less care...

The most likely reason is to make Eevee and the Starters (which have been historically limited to one per game, with us not seeing normal wild Eevees until X and Y) is to make them harder to breed. This is odd seeing as Ditto are available in every game, rendering the basic point mute.

 

[Kurona]

The most likely reason is to make Eevee and the Starters (which have been historically limited to one per game, with us not seeing normal wild Eevees until X and Y) is to make them harder to breed. This is odd seeing as Ditto are available in every game, rendering the basic point mute.

True, but you can't get Ditto until the aftergame of Emerald, DPPt and BW/2 - and in RS it's missing altogether.

 

[Lady Vader]

True, but you can't get Ditto until the aftergame of Emerald, DPPt and BW/2 - and in RS it's missing altogether.

I didn't know Ditto wasn't in RS at all. Huh. Well, you don't really need a Ditto until post-game anyway unless your heart is real set on having one on your playthrough team. Also, the gender ratios of Eevee and the starters were decided on in Gen II and you can get a Ditto in those games right outside Goldenrod City (appropriately right next to the Day Care).

 

[greengrappler]

You're wrong about everything except Phione. There's really no reason for it to exist (why not have it as a Manaphy pre-evo?)

OK, maybe you have a point, but Jynx is kinda suspicious looking and Mime is just... brrrr.

 

[Age of Kings]

Give us a fucking option to disable move "gains" in the daycare. It's annoying as fuck. If things can't evolve in the daycare via level-up, then why should the Pokemon forget moves without my input?

It's bad enough Wi-Fi traders want a million useless egg moves on things, I have to spend a bunch of time and Heart Scales relearning all the egg moves every single time I want to breed something. At least they gave you the option to relearn egg moves this gen, I'm thankful for that.

 

[lucariomaster2]

Give us a fucking option to disable move "gains" in the daycare. It's annoying as fuck. If things can't evolve in the daycare via level-up, then why should the Pokemon forget moves without my input?

It's bad enough Wi-Fi traders want a million useless egg moves on things, I have to spend a bunch of time and Heart Scales relearning all the egg moves every single time I want to breed something. At least they gave you the option to relearn egg moves this gen, I'm thankful for that.

It's even worse when a mon you left in the daycare forgets a pre-evo or transfer only move - my Special Lucario is now stuck with Calm Mind instead of Nasty Plot. :(