Pokémon Movepool Oddities & Explanations

[Castersvarog]

I'm reminded of some of the nonsensical TMs in SWSH.

There's a Razor Shell TM! Ok, cool, that's an interesting move to have especially if you could get it maybe around mid game but
1. They put it in the The Battle Tower.
2. The learners at launch were exclusively Pokemon that already learned the move, Escavalier and Mew
3. The DLC learners were solely Slowbro, Slowking, Kabutops & Carracosta
4. Not to belabor the point too much but all the Pokemon that learned it naturally learn it in their 30s or by Move Reminder

Why even bother making it a TM at this point. Could have just put it as an Egg Move if you wanted to spread it around...

Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if it was done just to place more emphasis on using TRs as the source of a majority of the actually good moves, and when they got to that point they didn’t really care much about the TMs and where to place them relative to the gameplay so you end up with a lot of pretty much useless TMs for the first and last 40% of the game

 

[Karxrida]

i think TMs being one use but easily accessible post-game is the happiest medium. and by easily i mean more like BDSP did it than SV lol.

I agree with this tbh. I think it's more interesting from a game design standpoint when the player has to make choices and can't just have everything. Last couple times I played Gen 5 (or maybe it was ORAS idk) I remember slapping Earthquake on half my team in the endgame and being all "huh this is kind of homogenizing and boring."

But TMs should definitely all be easy access and renewable in the postgame. Maybe you do a sidequest that turns them into infinite use or something.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

But TMs should definitely all be easy access and renewable in the postgame. Maybe you do a sidequest that turns them into infinite use or something.

BDSP basically did exactly that with the Move Relearner. (Starts out by charging 1 Heart Scale per use as in DPPt, then becomes free-of-charge after 10 uses.) I think that's a pretty good way to tackle it. Forces you to engage with the process long enough to get the point across, then drops the tedium for the dedicated players.

 

[Bakugames]

I will never agree with any suggestion that turns TMs back to being one use (and I think TRs are dumb, and SVs are worse. I hate crafting mechanics I hate crafting mechanics I haaaaate crafting mechanics), no matter how accessible or easy to get they are. TMs should be infinite use, just make distributions of insane moves less broad or place them in better areas

 

[CPU]

In addition to being a mid-ground between single-use and infinite TMs, crafting TMs is a way to make players engage with the world more. It's not my favorite thing but it serves its purpose. It would be a lot worse if autobattling didn't exist. My main gripe with it is actually the absurd numbers of unique items that the current system forces Game Freak to implement. They may be hardly more than bits of data with slightly amusing naming (I do kind of enjoy seeing what gets harvested off of various Pokémon), but it could be streamlined.

I think crafting is fun but it's more fun when you get to--no, have to experiment to find cooler and more useful items. The system in SV doesn't have that at all, which is pretty lame.

I'm personally a fan of the "have a postgame method to turn TMs infinite" that Karxrida mentioned, but that would also necessitate a means to acquire TMs multiple times. My personal thought on this is something like the unbreakable charm upgrades in Hollow Knight could be good.

 

[Hugin]

So, TMs/TRs. Let's break down what they do so it's easier to discuss what we want them to do. This also applies to Move Tutors, but no need to get into that. First, the pre-Gen 5 mechanics(referred to as TRs for clarity):

Spoiler

TRs provide a way to power up your team. This powerup is intentionally limited with a 1-time item, forcing you to choose a team member to benefit, and can justify weak TRs by letting them be an early reward when Water Gun or Bubblebeam are good.
TRs reward player exploration(dig deeper in a cave, even when low on health/pp, and you could find something useful).
TRs reward achieving in-game milestones and beating challenges(Gym Leaders, Game Corners, Bike Racing).
TRs expand movepools, justifying odd moveset options that don't seem quite natural but the devs want you to have (Ice Beam Nidoking etc).
TRs can be used as a resource sink for lategame when the normal $ economy breaks down.

As for downsides, TRs mostly discourage experimenting with movesets in-game(if you use a good one on a mon that turns out to have 4MSS, you're in trouble), and make postgame team building more annoying(buy a second game, farm it for EQ from the 8th gym, trade caterpies holding TRs to your main file).

And the Gen V-VIII TMs:

Spoiler

TMs provide a way to power up your team. This powerup is applied to every mon on your team that can learn it, and can justify weak TMs by letting them be an early reward when Thief or Bulldoze are good.
TMs reward player exploration(dig deeper in a cave, even when low on health/pp, and you could find something useful).
TMs reward achieving in-game milestones and beating challenges(Gym Leaders, Game Corners, Mantine Surf).
TMs expand movepools, justifying odd moveset options that don't seem quite natural but the devs want you to have (Ice Beam Nidoking etc).
TMs can be used as a resource resource management decision in early/midgame when cash is limited.

As for downsides, TMs make getting access to a good one a much higher power spike, since that move can be instantly applied to most of your team, and then deleted with no lost resources later, while decreasing your team variety(Kalos and early Bulldoze/Rock Tomb is a notable example). This makes balancing them much harder, especially with high power moves. It also discourages Gamefreak making them available too early/readily, which can ironically decrease the availability of good TMs in games where they're the primary option.

You'll notice that most of the benefits between the two are roughly the same, which is why I think the core concept of TMs/TRs/Move Tutors has never changed. They're a good bit of game design overall. The key is mostly how much of a benefit they are to your team, which also determines how difficult/annoying GF will make them to get.

Personally, I'd rather have more TMs available early, which means I want them 1 time use(even if I hoard 1-time items). That makes the player have to think about using them, and makes GF less gunshy about handing out good ones by Gym 5.

I like the suggestion above of making them infinite use post-game, since that makes it easier on competitive players. Or limited, but only nominally(like post-game Move Tutors are). Make all TMs, including Gym Leader rewards etc, available for purchase in the pre-League Center if you have discovered it in-game.

Thoughts, arguments?

 

[R_N]

My thought on this is it all goes out the window if they just randomly pepper the TMs with seemingly little thought about their placement relative to their power. Scald's one that comes to mind, going through this in both SM & Let's Go, but you also have the inverse like Water Pulse being Wallace's TM in RS

and also

things like "i just gave earthquake to everyone" are very team dependent. Quite a number of Pokemon probably can't or don't want to bother learning it (it in this case can be any high tier move) because they're self-sufficient, or have equivalent moves as it is. And depending on the move and game in question, the Good Move might be in big supply anyway.*

and finally

if they keep shoving a bunch of bad ones at you with or without infinite use i'm not using them anyway



I do think, mechanically, making the "lesser" moves in more plentiful supply and the "better" moves something you gotta seek out isn't....horrendous I guess. But in pracitce I'm just annoyed (SWSH, primarily). But if they could refine that and then earn the infinite ability later for them could work. Like Dark Pulse is a pain in the ass to make in SV (see again: little consideration relative to its peers). If you could make ita few times and then earn a "golden" version of it I'd be fine with that. Something to work for even, that could be fun.




*For the inverse of this shoutouts to my runs of SWSH & SV where I kept finding myself "ah, i need a moveset upgrade" only to look at the TMs I had and realize wait I don't have anything people can learn and would want somehow.

 

[Bakugames]

I forgot to reply but my take on the "tms overtaking a pokemons personality/uniqueness" is that you are comparing two completely different game design philosophies tbh. modern pokemon design is about making everything somewhat viable and this often means a lot of mons have deep pools and already get the really good moves they need, tms spice things up but tbh for a casual player perspective you can roll with the moveset itself and it'll feel cracked compared to old gens and their 2 stab options. personality doesnt come from movepool niches, but abilities and signature/special moves that also try to be really good viable moves so you keep them around. powerful tms early arent big issues because like 80% of the dex is built to be somewhat powerful, unless it has a very specific niche/gimmick. theres still some stinkers ofc but those are more of fails than intentional

 

[CPU]

I forgot to reply but my take on the "tms overtaking a pokemons personality/uniqueness" is that you are comparing two completely different game design philosophies tbh. modern pokemon design is about making everything somewhat viable and this often means a lot of mons have deep pools and already get the really good moves they need, tms spice things up but tbh for a casual player perspective you can roll with the moveset itself and it'll feel cracked compared to old gens and their 2 stab options. personality doesnt come from movepool niches, but abilities and signature/special moves that also try to be really good viable moves so you keep them around. powerful tms early arent big issues because like 80% of the dex is built to be somewhat powerful, unless it has a very specific niche/gimmick. theres still some stinkers ofc but those are more of fails than intentional

If it wasn't for the push to make raising Pokémon for VGC/other competitive formats more accessible, I'd be way more on-board with limited TMs again. I think that's the main reason why we even get the ability to get infinite TMs (or why they were even made infinite in the first place).

I guess that's kind of a different consideration than a bunch of Pokémon being able to learn the same strong TMs, making fights feel same-y and possibly too easy. That said, issues like that can be addressed by game design/being wise about when and how TMs can be accessed in the main campaign.

A good TM list should have some combination of options for technique/strategy, power, and coverage for each type. Some of the weaker options in Gens 8 and 9 aren't particularly good in the late-game because the Pokémon that can learn them generally get the more powerful machine move later on.

A few examples of new TMs that I personally really like as options are Draining Kiss (useful for strategy/coverage, despite low BP), Power Whip (power/coverage, has a grab bag of learners that isn't particularly focused on its type), Stomping Tantrum (strategy/coverage, though I'm not sure how often its effect comes up), Triple Axel (power/coverage), and Dragon Cheer (strategy/power; it helps that it's a rare effect and that it has expanded use in raids, something else I enjoy seeing). The choice to include/add debuffing moves as TMs (both the various -2 status attacks as well as moves like Chilling Water and Acid Spray) are great, too.

 

[pika pal]

I agree with this tbh. I think it's more interesting from a game design standpoint when the player has to make choices and can't just have everything. Last couple times I played Gen 5 (or maybe it was ORAS idk) I remember slapping Earthquake on half my team in the endgame and being all "huh this is kind of homogenizing and boring."

But TMs should definitely all be easy access and renewable in the postgame. Maybe you do a sidequest that turns them into infinite use or something.

In addition to being a mid-ground between single-use and infinite TMs, crafting TMs is a way to make players engage with the world more. It's not my favorite thing but it serves its purpose. It would be a lot worse if autobattling didn't exist. My main gripe with it is actually the absurd numbers of unique items that the current system forces Game Freak to implement. They may be hardly more than bits of data with slightly amusing naming (I do kind of enjoy seeing what gets harvested off of various Pokémon), but it could be streamlined.

I think crafting is fun but it's more fun when you get to--no, have to experiment to find cooler and more useful items. The system in SV doesn't have that at all, which is pretty lame.

I'm personally a fan of the "have a postgame method to turn TMs infinite" that Karxrida mentioned, but that would also necessitate a means to acquire TMs multiple times. My personal thought on this is something like the unbreakable charm upgrades in Hollow Knight could be good.

Here's my take on the the TM System: They have a solution already via spin-offs. In the older Pokemon MD games, when you used up a TM, it became a "Used TM" that you could restore with the move Recycle. Say SV has TMs become "used up" and unusable until you renew them with some resource like Tera Energy, Pokemon Mats, or just paying Money to have them restored, with the more "valuable" TM's requiring more to do so. Main game this makes it lower maintenance but not necessarily less time intensive to "grind" to use a TM again, and post-game this can be alleviated by reducing the cost on TM Restoration or making the resource used very abundant (like ID areas having a lot of Tera Shards and such via the Item Printer). Or just go with something like the Tera Orb where in "true" Post Game it simply never needs to be renewed.

Barring that if it's easier to make them still disposable resources, could just do the SV DLC method where Blueberry Academy sells everything including a lot of TMs, just with a currency you can only really amass in post-game (mostly about the method, I haven't played enough to judge the price efficiency)

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

Of the options people have presented, my favourite is having TMs be unique items that break after a single use, but stay in your inventory and only become repairable in postgame (or maaaybe endgame). For me, it's the only option that would make open-world exploration feel satisfying without being broken.

I don't want to have a system where I could optimise my in-game team during the main story by accumulating resources to restore a used TM, because accumulating resources in mainline Pokemon games kinda sucks! It's usually either a tedious departure from the gameplay elements you actually enjoy or an activity that risks overlevelling your party, if not both. SV doesn't really have this problem, but only because there are (imo) way too many TMs and most of them are underwhelming.

By having TMs be unique items that are single-use, but only during the main story, you combine all the things that have made them a fun game mechanic over the years.

1. It forces the player to make more strategic decisions outside of battle and adds to the uniqueness of each playthrough
   
   Adding on to other examples people have given, Lenora's Retaliate TM in BW usually ends up on half my team members because it's the strongest 100%-accurate Normal move most mons have access to for a while. In general, it's less fun when your team's movesets don't feel unique, especially when it feels like there are obvious 'correct' choices to make with zero opportunity cost (besides the tedium of clearing routes and dungeons with a 5 PP move blegh).
   
   
2. It makes TMs a proper collectible again
   
   Collectibles work best when the player can make permanent progress towards a clear end goal. Finding each new TM in SV does unlock it in the crafting menu, but that doesn't quite hit the same for me because the TMs themselves disappear and demand busywork to craft.
   
   
3. It relaxes some of the restrictions about which TMs might be considered too strong for earlier parts of the game, which in turn removes some of the need for weaker TMs that clog up the Bag menu
   
   Give me one or two busted moves early on! Balance them around the available Pokemon and upcoming challenges! Please!!

Of course, fully reusable TMs are a requirement for postgame. Even setting aside competitive play, we have raids now. If you're going to present imposing challenges with specific strengths and weaknesses to encourage player creativity, you've gotta make it easy to experiment.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

I've been playing 3rd gen games a bunch lately and sometimes it's amusing to look at the TM distribution there through a balancing lens and try to determine why things are the way that they are.

Regardless of which 3rd gen main game you're playing, the Toxic TM is a true one-off. You've got either the one on Fiery Path (RSE) or the one as the prize for beating Koga (FRLG), and that's it (unless you've got access to specific Japanese e-reader cards for Trainer Hill, anyway). Can't buy it anywhere. Can't farm BP for it. Can't get it through Pickup. The move isn't taught via tutor. The Pokemon who learn the move naturally can be counted on one hand, and it can't be distributed to a wider range of Pokemon through breeding. Yet, the TM itself can be taught to pretty much everything under the sun.

The developer logic here seems pretty straightforward: offer a really powerful and unique attack to the player, grant them the freedom to teach it to whatever they want to, but restrict its distribution to a single party member. It honestly kind of makes sense for only the single-player RPG portion of the game, as it serves as a notable point of customization, utility, and resource management.

It's only when you start factoring in the competitive PvP side of the game that this developer choice starts to fall apart, with dedicated players determined to see that the move be placed on any heavily defensive Pokemon who can make good use of it, regardless of the work required to acquire additional TMs or how thematically unfitting it may be for the specific Pokemon in question to have it.

The previous in-game quest logic for Toxic's distribution also gets a little more murky once you get to infinite-use TMs in later generations for the same reason that applies to any powerful TM move. Can't hand out the really good TMs too early in the quest or else they start to monopolize everyone's movesets and make everything play samey. So Toxic gets the same treatment as stuff like Earthquake and Ice Beam, being gated behind a whole lot more in-game progress or work to acquire. And now Toxic is in a weird place where it's not readily available for most of the quest but can instead be put on virtually anything for competitive use, infinitely, no matter how little sense it makes.

Sometimes it strikes me as odd that it took as long as it did for that move's learnset distribution to be cut down so drastically.

 

[AztecCroc]

Water Pulse being Wallace's TM in RS

I mean, what else would he give? The only other Water moves in gen 3 are Water Gun, Bubble, Whirlpool, the HMs, Bubblebeam, Crabhammer (Krabby and Corphish lines only), and Muddy Water (which was Swampert exclusive at the time). Water Pulse was literally made because they needed a Water TM.

and it can't be distributed to a wider range of Pokemon through breeding. Yet, the TM itself can be taught to pretty much everything under the sun.

You could pass TM moves via breeding prior to gen 6.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I mean, what else would he give? The only other Water moves in gen 3 are Water Gun, Bubble, Whirlpool, the HMs, Bubblebeam, Crabhammer (Krabby and Corphish lines only), and Muddy Water (which was Swampert exclusive at the time). Water Pulse was literally made because they needed a Water TM.

Ice Beam. His gym is basically part Ice anyway, and there's a precedent for Gym Leaders to give out moves not of their stated types. Otherwise ORAS did the logical thing in having him give you Waterfall, even though it's an HM.

 

[AztecCroc]

Ice Beam. His gym is basically part Ice anyway, and there's a precedent for Gym Leaders to give out moves not of their stated types. Otherwise ORAS did the logical thing in having him give you Waterfall, even though it's an HM.

Pretty sure they did that cause the only Water TMs on the Gen 6 list are Rain Dance and Scald.

 

[Ironmage]

I've been playing 3rd gen games a bunch lately and sometimes it's amusing to look at the TM distribution there through a balancing lens and try to determine why things are the way that they are.

Regardless of which 3rd gen main game you're playing, the Toxic TM is a true one-off. You've got either the one on Fiery Path (RSE) or the one as the prize for beating Koga (FRLG), and that's it (unless you've got access to specific Japanese e-reader cards for Trainer Hill, anyway). Can't buy it anywhere. Can't farm BP for it. Can't get it through Pickup. The move isn't taught via tutor. The Pokemon who learn the move naturally can be counted on one hand, and it can't be distributed to a wider range of Pokemon through breeding. Yet, the TM itself can be taught to pretty much everything under the sun.

The developer logic here seems pretty straightforward: offer a really powerful and unique attack to the player, grant them the freedom to teach it to whatever they want to, but restrict its distribution to a single party member. It honestly kind of makes sense for only the single-player RPG portion of the game, as it serves as a notable point of customization, utility, and resource management.

It's only when you start factoring in the competitive PvP side of the game that this developer choice starts to fall apart, with dedicated players determined to see that the move be placed on any heavily defensive Pokemon who can make good use of it, regardless of the work required to acquire additional TMs or how thematically unfitting it may be for the specific Pokemon in question to have it.

The previous in-game quest logic for Toxic's distribution also gets a little more murky once you get to infinite-use TMs in later generations for the same reason that applies to any powerful TM move. Can't hand out the really good TMs too early in the quest or else they start to monopolize everyone's movesets and make everything play samey. So Toxic gets the same treatment as stuff like Earthquake and Ice Beam, being gated behind a whole lot more in-game progress or work to acquire. And now Toxic is in a weird place where it's not readily available for most of the quest but can instead be put on virtually anything for competitive use, infinitely, no matter how little sense it makes.

Sometimes it strikes me as odd that it took as long as it did for that move's learnset distribution to be cut down so drastically.

I still maintain that there should be a universal damage-over-time move, because passive damage is an important part of the battle system in both PVE and PVP contexts (so every team should be capable of interacting with it). This doesn't need to be Toxic itself, but the move has been changed to something designed to be used by multiple types (i.e. much broader than the current distribution). What am I talking about? That, as of Gen 6 (when reusable TMS were in full swing), it gives perfect accuracy when used by a Poison type. At first, that seems like they're going for it being more commonly seen against one type, but the distinction only ever shows up in comparison. There needs to be enough non-Poison Toxic users for the 10% misses to be noticeable for the Poison users accuracy to be appreciated, otherwise they could have just put the accuracy at 100 when the distribution fell off a cliff.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Pretty sure they did that cause the only Water TMs on the Gen 6 list are Rain Dance and Scald.

Well exactly. Scald would have been fine but it's not really his flavour, and by then Waterfall was a physical move so wasn't just a weaker Surf.

But the TM list never seems to be made with a game's Gym Leaders in mind. If it were, there'd have been a Flying-type TM in Gen II, or a Rock-type TM in Gen I. They just use what's there, hence Wallace getting Water Pulse in RSE. Ice Beam would have been a fit, but I suppose they like to use new moves if it's possible to do so.

 

[LonelyGaruga]

Gen I did have Rock Slide as a TM...and one of the only two Rock moves in the whole game, at that.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Gen I did have Rock Slide as a TM...and one of the only two Rock moves in the whole game, at that.

I should clarify, "a move suited to the Gym Leader who gives it out and which wasn't so powerful it'd have made the Pokemon which learned it horrendously overpowered"

 

[Axiemeister]

i like the idea of MD-esque TM restoration, and the mechanic could be introduced before the post-game for the weaker TMs since it would have to be tied to some form of resource (items, money, BP, etc). as i posted before i am a big advocate of weaker moves being early TMs (once again i say shock wave is the ideal example in basically any game it shows up) and they could be available for this mechanic before the post-game. i guess it wouldn't be much different from the TM machine of SV, but.. better.


speaking of shock wave, a movepool oddity eith the original eeveelutions: you obtain the celadon mansion eevee at level 25. in RB that's fine because the evolutions' STAB is learned later. however, in Y it was moved to a level earlier than 25, presumably because of the rival, but this means the evolutions go STAB-less for a while without TMs. thankfully, misty and surge give out bubblebeam and thunderbolt, so vaporeon and jolteon can evolve and be good immediately anyway. flareon, though? the only fire TM is fire blast, won after the usually 7th gym. it does have 130 atk for normal attacks, but that's clearly a worse trade-off.
come gen 3, and things actually carried on from Y in every way for FRLG - initial STAB locked behind the level you actually obtain the eevee, vaporeon and jolteon saved by the misty/surge TMs, flareon has to make do with normal attacks or you spend 80k to give it flamethrower.
this issue is less relevant in platinum because of the blizzard/thunder/fire blast TMs being purchaseable basically right after you get the eevee, and finally flareon did get the last laugh in B2W2/XY, with fire fang showing up in only a few level ups, while jolteon has to make do with thunder fang and volt switch for a while and, as some sort of sick joke, vaporeon has water pulse in its level up moves right Before the level of a wild eevee (in both generations!!), and then nothing but aurora beam until surf.
and then after only 7 generations they finally realised that hey, some mons need to learn moves right when they evolve. it only took them 20 years!

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

But the TM list never seems to be made with a game's Gym Leaders in mind. If it were, there'd have been a Flying-type TM in Gen II, or a Rock-type TM in Gen I. They just use what's there, hence Wallace getting Water Pulse in RSE. Ice Beam would have been a fit, but I suppose they like to use new moves if it's possible to do so.

I agree that they've probably always assigned Gym TMs after designing the list, not based on Brock and Falkner's off-type TMs, but rather because the threat level of different Gym Leaders is all over the place, depending on whether they get lucky with their signature move.

My issue with making Ice Beam the Sootopolis Gym TM is that it would have created conflict with at least one of two other patterns:
1) starting in Crystal, the 'elemental beams' became repeatedly purchasable moves (albeit at a very high price) in every game until Gen V's infinite-use TMs. Of course, this was hardly an established pattern when RS released, but it carried on long afterwards.
2) single-use Gym Leader TMs were never reobtainable within their respective games until SV's TM crafting system, presumably to make them feel more special

It seems likely that Ice Beam (perhaps along with Flamethrower and Thunderbolt) would not have been available in the Mauville Game Corner if it had been made a Gym TM, based on how Fire Blast/Thunder/Blizzard were treated in FRLG compared with every other game from GS to HGSS.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I agree that they've probably always assigned Gym TMs after designing the list, not based on Brock and Falkner's off-type TMs, but rather because the threat level of different Gym Leaders is all over the place, depending on whether they get lucky with their signature move.

My issue with making Ice Beam the Sootopolis Gym TM is that it would have created conflict with at least one of two other patterns:
1) starting in Crystal, the 'elemental beams' became repeatedly purchasable moves (albeit at a very high price) in every game until Gen V's infinite-use TMs. Of course, this was hardly an established pattern when RS released, but it carried on long afterwards.
2) single-use Gym Leader TMs were never reobtainable within their respective games until SV's TM crafting system, presumably to make them feel more special

It seems likely that Ice Beam (perhaps along with Flamethrower and Thunderbolt) would not have been available in the Mauville Game Corner if it had been made a Gym TM, based on how Fire Blast/Thunder/Blizzard were treated in FRLG compared with every other game from GS to HGSS.

Both fair points but a slight correction on the second: in HGSS U-Turn, Attract, Shadow Ball, and Dragon Pulse are all purchaseable from the Battle Frontier.

But yeah, that's a reason against Ice Beam. Wallace does at least make good use of Water Pulse I suppose - it's one thing for a gym leader to give out a slightly janky move but when they themselves don't use it it feels really hollow, like Sabrina giving out Psywave in Gen I (only her Alakazam knows the move) or Janine giving out Poison Jab in Gen IV (her Ariados both know it, but Toxic is literally her family's signature technique!)

 

[Axiemeister]

maybe unpopular but gym leaders giving out TMs feels anachronic ever since alola went without gym leaders at all and TMs were still distributed well (other than the scald-phant in the SM room). isn't a badge supposed to be a Big Deal? they don't need to give out a TM too. that's an extra worry in creating a list of TMs that is frankly unnecessary

 

[QuentinQuonce]

maybe unpopular but gym leaders giving out TMs feels anachronic ever since alola went without gym leaders at all and TMs were still distributed well (other than the scald-phant in the SM room). isn't a badge supposed to be a Big Deal? they don't need to give out a TM too. that's an extra worry in creating a list of TMs that is frankly unnecessary

Sure they don't need to give out a TM but it's a good tradition IMO. I actually think a badge on its own is slightly underwhelming and it makes the occasion more special/memorable. Plus if it's a move associated with the character in question there's a sense of accomplishment in getting to use it - Overheat for Flannery is a good example of this.

it's also a fun way to characterise the gym leaders. In the earlier games, it was more like each gym leader had a secret technique they were sharing with you since you were good enough to beat them, which usually were genuinely exclusive to that TM and sometimes explicitly created by the character in question. Which makes it a privilege to get the TM. But even in the earlier games I always took it as a mark of respect rather than a mandatory thing they have to do: in GSC most of the Kanto leaders don't give out a TM after being defeated, which I always took to be because they know that you're experienced enough not to need the help. They're doing it off their own initiative as a helpful favour to you, but you've already defeated the Elite Four at that point after all.

 

[Axiemeister]

I actually think a badge on its own is slightly underwhelming and it makes the occasion more special/memorable.

i think so many of my opinions on discussions this sub-forum had recently (level scaling, HMs/field moves, TMs etc) warp back to me wishing the badges were as relevant mechanically as they are in lore. like, they Should be doing something beyond being glorified checkpoints (which they do in the pre-alola games by unlocking field moves!)

alola found a way to make trials and grand trials feel important and you just get z-crystals you don't always use, so gym badges can definitely feel that way too, and even better since you can avoid the literal checkpoints alola had.