And I mean that it was probably added for the sake of new physical toys beacuse Nintendo forced them to, beacuse it's easier to market a new toy than to build on an existing one.
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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
Maybe. The Z-Ring does give off a vibe of being a response to the Yo-Kai Watch's Watch. Then again they could have easily done something similar with the Mega Ring/Bangle and the Mega Stones.
Still, at most if Nintendo made any suggestions it would be encouraging GF to introduce a new mechanic that could be advertised like they did with Mega Evolution. But still I don't think Nintendo would make a demand that GF has to do it. Pokemon is hugely successful franchise, why would they mess with the game's development and risk effecting the end product negatively from doing so?
In short, because the brand is powerful enough that changes to development would have little negative effect on sales. Pokémon fans be Pokémon fans, we'd buy the games despite changes we think are dumb. But if small changes can allow the producers to churn out more peripherals and merchandise, all the more money can be earned. See for instance Star Wars, which always has been fond of tweaking the franchise to produce more toys. If Z-moves are more toyetic than adding more Mega Evolutions, the executives will bin Megas. It all boils down to the same reason why George Lucas refused Harrison Ford's request to let his character die in Episode V, despite this arguably being a better move story-wise: "Dead Han doesn't sell toys."
To be fair, Game Freak gave us a lot of single-evo pokes for Alola. Sure, some are just gimmick pokes, such as Oricorio, Comfey, and Wishiwashi, and some will probably never get evos like Pyukumuku and Minior, but many more, at least more than X and Y, look like they should get evos, such as the aforementioned Passimian and Oranguru, but also Komala and Drampa. There's also many more that are only single evos in Alola. Whether they'll get more evos in Gen 8 is unknown, but that hasn't happened since Gen 4, so don't get your hopes up.
Edit: With the exception of Zygarde, my bad, but that's more of a form change and a relic of a potential PK Z, sadly.
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Eh, by now I think it's too late for a baby Kangaskhan. The baby which a mother Kangaskhan carries is essentially a part of it now, especially with it's Mega Evolution going to the baby (giving the baby a small and temporary development boost). If Kangaskhan was going be be given a Baby, it would have been either Gen II when Baby Pokemon were introduced or Gen III when the generation cut happened.
As for baby for Thoh and Sawk, eh, would that maybe be too much like Tyrogue?
But let's pull back from specific examples and just focus on the topic of Baby Pokemon and them possibly making more. Baby Pokemon I feel have potential in two ways which GF had done to an extent:
1. Early access to certain species of Pokemon. While the initial intent is to breed for these Pokemon, Baby Pokemon are also a good chance to give players access to its evolution line earlier than it normally would. GF has done this, a few Baby Pokemon were available early in BW2 such as Riolu, Elekid, and Magby; Pichu, Munchlax, Happiney, Cleffa, and Bonsly in Sun & Moon.
2. Learning Moves their evolution can't. Baby Pokemon would also be a good excuse to give certain Pokemon moves they can't normally learn (and I don't mean as Egg Moves, I mean as level-up). Once again this has been done to an extent though I don't feel any of those moves have been good enough to make the wait to evolve/hatch a Baby Pokemon worth it.
Baby Pokemon have potential but I don't think GF had fully taken advantage of that potential. A Baby Pokemon should be made to serve a purpose, be it making that evolution family early to get or give that species a special move, instead of made on a whim and found some place to fit in.
While indeed very under explored, I think this example has at least one notable (at the time) instance with Wynaut getting Encore.
I think the hard thing to balance is that GF wants to make Pokemon that people think look really cool in main game, which values things very differently from lategame. In main game, Baby Pokemon are quite frankly a load to carry until they evolve in terms of in game performance, which often takes a while because of either a high level in the case Elekid and Magby, friendship which takes a while to grind, or just very particular gates like Happiny's Oval Stone. The nature of Baby Pokemon also makes it a tricky thing to keep them in theme (feeble early stage much like real babies) while giving them a move their later stages would not learn normally. Being weaker means they have no real options for outright offense moves outside of maybe Play Rough I guess, and most of the utility moves they could fit are not of particular use to in game or competitive either. Best way i could think to circumvent this is if they gave baby mons "Evolution" moves, akin to how the Starters learn their signature move when they fully evolve rather than in relation to a level.
Something that still leaves me puzzled is moves and abilities that should have an effect in trainer battles, but for some reason don't.
Two examples:
- Run Away: Allows the Pokemon to always flee in Wild battles, and ignores every trapping effect. In short, it gives the user the same no-fleeing immunity Ghost-types have. So what does it do in Trainer battles? Literally nothing, even though its Wild Battle effect would actually be pretty good competitively, being a free Shed Shell (even if its users would like to have a different ability, or are too weak to take advantage of it).
- Teleport: The user flees in a Wild battle, but it cannot be used while trapped. Why doesn't it do anything on Trainer battles, then? It could have an effect similar for what Drypassing is used for. But it doesn't. Extra points for Roar and Whirlwind having the same issue in Gen I but being immediately corrected in Gen II.
There are some abilities or moves that I simply can't think of a Trainer battle effect for, such as Illuminate, but some abilities or moves do have effects that can be easily made usable there... but they don't work.
Two examples:
- Run Away: Allows the Pokemon to always flee in Wild battles, and ignores every trapping effect. In short, it gives the user the same no-fleeing immunity Ghost-types have. So what does it do in Trainer battles? Literally nothing, even though its Wild Battle effect would actually be pretty good competitively, being a free Shed Shell (even if its users would like to have a different ability, or are too weak to take advantage of it).
- Teleport: The user flees in a Wild battle, but it cannot be used while trapped. Why doesn't it do anything on Trainer battles, then? It could have an effect similar for what Drypassing is used for. But it doesn't. Extra points for Roar and Whirlwind having the same issue in Gen I but being immediately corrected in Gen II.
There are some abilities or moves that I simply can't think of a Trainer battle effect for, such as Illuminate, but some abilities or moves do have effects that can be easily made usable there... but they don't work.
Run Away: Agree, I don't know why it doesn't let the Pokemon run away from trapping moves.
Illuminate: Make it an Intimidate clone except with Accuracy instead of the Attack stat.
Honey Gather: Could do something with the Pokemon holding the "Honey" item, like it can consume the Honey which acts like a Full Restore under certain conditions.
Teleport: I agree though I think it should do something else in addition to switching out. Like maybe make it a sort of "Protect switch", give it increases priority and when used the user vanishes causing any opponents who targeted the user to miss. Than at the end of the turn you send out another Pokemon.
Teleport I think would be fine as simply a dry pass alternative. Priority switching comes with issues of having to make it such for wild battles unless they implement outright two different functions, and priority doesn't add much since it doesn't address the main uses most Psychics would have for Teleport, which is pivoting on enemy hard switches and escaping Pursuit (last I checked, they only avoid Double Damage if Baton Pass happens after Pursuit before priority consideration), so they'd always take the 80 BP version and have no real to use it as such. Honestly, any Psychic type fast enough to want a fast Drypass is probably fast enough without Priority, and bulky ones would probably want it slower.
Does anyone else HATE the supersonic skystrike animation? They just shoot up still in the standing position, tremble a little, and then zip down to shake the earths tectonic plates.
It is staggeringly hilarious, yes. It's great because even flying pokemon do it, even though many of even the landed birds have actual airborne animations they could use.
Has anyone seen kangaskaun use breakneck blitz? She like, charges belly first and slams stuff with her poor child
The HP checker still tells me that Ditto can't learn hidden power. I don't give a carp, just tell me what type it would be if it could learn it. Sure, this was discussed around page 50, but GF still has inconvenienced us in S/M.
So, I just now found out that once you beat Red/Blue in the super lines in the Battle Tree, when you battle the special trainers every other 10 battles, their original battle themes will play for the match.
Why did I just now find this out? Because apparently the themes won't play unless you have the boring default trainer battle theme set for the Tree battles, meaning if you want the theme to play and you have a different battle theme set, you have to stop and go change it prior to the battle (and switch it back right after).
Unless you really like having the basic trainer theme playing, it really kills momentum if you want the original themes to play during your Tree run.
Why did I just now find this out? Because apparently the themes won't play unless you have the boring default trainer battle theme set for the Tree battles, meaning if you want the theme to play and you have a different battle theme set, you have to stop and go change it prior to the battle (and switch it back right after).
Unless you really like having the basic trainer theme playing, it really kills momentum if you want the original themes to play during your Tree run.
I am so used to leveling my Pokemon within a single day in ORAS that I can't bare the grinding in SM. I went into the Pokemon League with a level 51 Dragonair... I beat it and Dragonair only leveled up to 54...
Tis life, we can't use loopholes if GF closes them. However, there's the Feb 1st Glitch with Pelego which I don't think has been patched yet, which I don't recommend using (it locks you out of Wifi stuff, and the 3DS does track time changes unless you homebrew your 3DS and remove several internal software sets, so it is easily trackable if you're abusing this glitch). However, that method can easily level up your pokes/EV train them if you need.
I recommend you get your hands on a few lucky eggs, brings pokes that can sweep everything like Lunala (or Tapu Lele, Starmie, etc.), and just do something else while you grind. It might be painful, but it will be worth it in the end!
You get more exp battling wild Bewear at Poni Wilds than at the league. Plus if you have two 5* Rare Kitchens in the plaza and the FC to spare, you can insta-level to 100 once you get the mon to lv 66.
The Pelago glitch that BlizzardHero mentioned still works as well. It's slower and more passive than Bewear + Kitchens, but doesn't require as much setup.
But yeah, leveling is bad in this game, especially after being spoiled by Restaurant Le Wow and Blissey bases last gen.
^This. Mind blown. It's so perfect, so annoyed that it's not a thing now haha.
Most niggling of niggles, but I just got burned by Alolan Meowth having a different evolution method. I like to try to fill out the Pokedex in a regular playthrough - definitely slows me down but just makes me feel like I'm engaging with the full game experience a little more. As a result, if I find a pre-evo in the wild and it's near evolution level, often I'll catch it, grind out (or just Rare Candy) the few remaining levels and get its evolution.
In Malie Park, you can get wild Meowth around level 24-26. I knew Meowth evolved at level 28, so caught one and stuffed a couple of RCs into it until level 28 - only to have it grin back at me smugly and do precisely no evolving whatsoever.
Turns out Alolan Meowth needs 2 b ur fraand to evolve.
Not impressed/10.
Where do I apply to get my RCs back.
I shouldn't really complain though - this is more than offset by the number of Stone evolutions in the Alolan Dex and the easy availability of the Stones through Poke Pelago!
Not from a regular Pokémon game, but wish Shuffle let you register various teams and switch between them easily; would make changing my current regular Meowth grinding team to the Weekend Meowth moneymaking team and back far simpler.
One major thing that has been bothering me is the fact that Game Freak introduces useful features and mechanics that significantly facilitate the process of breeding, training and leveling your Pokémon in order to be able to participate during tournaments in one generation, apparently just so they can replace them or fully remove them again in the next generation. Some of their decisions honestly don't make any sense to me.
It's an undeniable fact that Pokémon has gained a considerable competitive status over the last couple of years and the introduction of some of the new breeding mechanics (Destiny Knots, Everstones, Egg Pin etc.) has lead me to believe that Game Freak intentionally facilitated breeding in order to place great emphasis on the competitive aspect of Pokémon and in order to attract more people towards the competitive scene. They combined all of these aforementioned elements in ORAS for example and made breeding easier than ever. Despite the fact that one was only able to challenge the restaurant in Mauville City once per day, as opposed to being able to challenge the Lumiose City restaurants multiple times in X&Y for example, it still didn't bother me too much since the Blissey Secret Bases existed. In addition to this, you were also able to use O-Powers and farm Lucky Eggs by using Thief on wild Pelippers, which significantly sped up the process of gaining Exp. points for your Pokémon even more.
But then Game Freak seemingly decided to remove some of these features again for no apparent reason. I mean, why bother facilitating the time-consuming processes of breeding and leveling if you're going to slow it down again in the next games?
I can fully understand that Secret Bases are meant to be an iconic trademark of the Hoenn region, but why can we still only challenge the restaurant in Hau'oli City only once a day?
Why do we only get one Lucky Egg in Sun&Moon?
I mean, they even went a step further and introduced SOS-chaining in order to speed up EV training and they also introduced Hyper Training with Bottle Caps, which allows us to get competitive Legendary Pokémon much easier.
Why is there such an inconsistency with these features and mechanics? Why make certain things easier and faster while you're simultaneously making other ones more difficult and time-consuming again?
Wouldn't it be in Game Freak's best interest to further improve these elements, as opposed to ruining the great additions we had during X&Y and ORAS? Isn't that rather counterproductive?
It's an undeniable fact that Pokémon has gained a considerable competitive status over the last couple of years and the introduction of some of the new breeding mechanics (Destiny Knots, Everstones, Egg Pin etc.) has lead me to believe that Game Freak intentionally facilitated breeding in order to place great emphasis on the competitive aspect of Pokémon and in order to attract more people towards the competitive scene. They combined all of these aforementioned elements in ORAS for example and made breeding easier than ever. Despite the fact that one was only able to challenge the restaurant in Mauville City once per day, as opposed to being able to challenge the Lumiose City restaurants multiple times in X&Y for example, it still didn't bother me too much since the Blissey Secret Bases existed. In addition to this, you were also able to use O-Powers and farm Lucky Eggs by using Thief on wild Pelippers, which significantly sped up the process of gaining Exp. points for your Pokémon even more.
But then Game Freak seemingly decided to remove some of these features again for no apparent reason. I mean, why bother facilitating the time-consuming processes of breeding and leveling if you're going to slow it down again in the next games?
I can fully understand that Secret Bases are meant to be an iconic trademark of the Hoenn region, but why can we still only challenge the restaurant in Hau'oli City only once a day?
Why do we only get one Lucky Egg in Sun&Moon?
I mean, they even went a step further and introduced SOS-chaining in order to speed up EV training and they also introduced Hyper Training with Bottle Caps, which allows us to get competitive Legendary Pokémon much easier.
Why is there such an inconsistency with these features and mechanics? Why make certain things easier and faster while you're simultaneously making other ones more difficult and time-consuming again?
Wouldn't it be in Game Freak's best interest to further improve these elements, as opposed to ruining the great additions we had during X&Y and ORAS? Isn't that rather counterproductive?
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Maybe, but they also know practically everyone will buy them anyway and happily suffer the downgrades. Many of their consumer base is likely to not really even know or care that things have changed from the previous games.