Unpopular opinions

[Leif98]

I started using hacked Rare Candies and Vitamins in the later parts of my nuzlockes some time ago. It simply saves tons of time when a member dies, as most games were not designed for randomly taking a LV4 Mon from Route 1 and getting him up to like LV30.
Time is on short supply so it is just convenient, but I can understand people not wanting too do that

It can make stuff too easy if you use it to swap to the perfect team each major battle, but I try to avoid that.

As for Set-Up it is usually a context issue. I mostly avoid trying to Set-Up Sweep but sometimes Cheese is your only option (for example, Gen 3 Walter is just stupid without Marshtomp or Geodude, and I don't pick Mudkip because it's so good)

The good thing about nuzlockes is how customizable the ruleset is, simply play how you like

 

[Sixfortyfive]

People that set up to +6 in a Nuzlocke, especially with things like Double Team or Curse, might as well not bother doing those. What's the point if you're taking the risk element out of it?

Whole reason why I don't bother with Nuzlockes is that the concept strikes me as tedious, not challenging.

So, agreed.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

I feel this way about people that hack in Rare Candies for Nuzlockes

Ain't no way people are out there doing this, right?

I started using hacked Rare Candies and Vitamins in the later parts of my nuzlockes some time ago. It simply saves tons of time when a member dies, as most games were not designed for randomly taking a LV4 Mon from Route 1 and getting him up to like LV30.
Time is on short supply so it is just convenient, but I can understand people not wanting too do that

It can make stuff too easy if you use it to swap to the perfect team each major battle, but I try to avoid that.

As for Set-Up it is usually a context issue. I mostly avoid trying to Set-Up Sweep but sometimes Cheese is your only option (for example, Gen 3 Walter is just stupid without Marshtomp or Geodude, and I don't pick Mudkip because it's so good)

The good thing about nuzlockes is how customizable the ruleset is, simply play how you like

Just have the mon hold an Exp. Share for a minute and keep playing. It's literally that easy.

I'm pretty sure both of our annoyances are focused more on Nuzlockes of difficulty hacks (some of which remove EVs as a factor when raising Pokémon)

Nope, people actually do this on the mainline games. I kid you not. Hell, I've seen people do this in IGTL threads to prop up some mons.

 

[Leif98]

in normal gameplay exp share does its part... but if you are deep into the game and want to use your LV10 mon its not gonna cut it and slow you down, and grinding sessions take too long. I used to just grind up stuff, but even in XY where you can use the cafes it just takes ages...
to clarify: I dont use them to overlevel or prop up mons to be stronger than they usually are, just to get them up to where the team was. Maybe i didn't explain myself properly
I use level caps, Item restrictions like most other people (I also ban Gyarados because DDDos () can easily sweep stuff)

 

[lemonademaker]

Might be the only one here to think this, but Rumble is my favorite spin off series. And this isn't just nostalgia cause i replayed the first one last year and have been playing World on and off for like the past 6 months. Granted this isn't the fairest thing for me to say cause I haven't played much of the other spin off games. I haven't touched any ranger games or the 1st snap game, have minimal time in conquest and Pokken, haven't played GO consistently since 2019 and the only PMD games I have a lot of time in are DX and GTI (maybe my opinion would change if I ever finished EOS tho).

I really like the sub genre of action games that have hundreds of diverse moves and/or weapons (like dead cells, wizard of legends, etc.) and Rumble is one of these kinds of games. Combine that with a franchise I am borderline addicted to, and it shouldn't be a surprise that I really like the rumble games. And also the way it combines this form of gameplay with Pokémon is pretty much perfect imo. I've played them all and like them all pretty well (except for rush, that one sucked lol). I see why a lot of people don't care for the series, but I really like it.

 

[Celever]

Might be the only one here to think this, but Rumble is my favorite spin off series. And this isn't just nostalgia cause i replayed the first one last year and have been playing World on and off for like the past 6 months. Granted this isn't the fairest thing for me to say cause I haven't played much of the other spin off games. I haven't touched any ranger games or the 1st snap game, have minimal time in conquest and Pokken, haven't played GO consistently since 2019 and the only PMD games I have a lot of time in are DX and GTI (maybe my opinion would change if I ever finished EOS tho).

I really like the sub genre of action games that have hundreds of diverse moves and/or weapons (like dead cells, wizard of legends, etc.) and Rumble is one of these kinds of games. Combine that with a franchise I am borderline addicted to, and it shouldn't be a surprise that I really like the rumble games. And also the way it combines this form of gameplay with Pokémon is pretty much perfect imo. I've played them all and like them all pretty well (except for rush, that one sucked lol). I see why a lot of people don't care for the series, but I really like it.

Pokémon Rumble holds a special place in my heart, because the first game came at a time where my Dad wanted to play video games with me, but also stopped caring about video games to be able to properly learn and play them (but also got annoyed when my kid ass self consistently beat him LOL). He was fine with Mario Kart Wii, we could have fun with it, but a father-son relationship can’t be forged solely through the fires of Mario Kart, and no other game appealed to both of us. Games that had fine gameplay for both of us also lasted for a long time, either between sensible checkpoints or just legitimately long levels.

Enter Pokémon Rumble, a game which perfectly captures being simple enough for a retirement home and complex enough for a gamer. It was also nice that the 2-player mode was a shared campaign rather than being against one another. He could have fun because he could contribute without thinking deeply, and I could have fun because even though I was carrying, he was contributing just enough that it felt like bonding and we really had to communicate. The levels were also pretty short, so when he felt he’d paid his dues in fostering a relationship he could easily say “one more level and then I’m off”, and it was satisfying enough.

Pokémon Rumble is the only game we entirely beat together during the Wii era — during the GameCube era he was more interested in video games. We came close with the Donkey Kong Country Returns games (I inherited my ADHD from him, I don’t blame him for not finishing the project lol especially when it progressed to past his skill level) and they also hold a special place in my heart because of it. Tropical Freeze was wayyy after Pokémon Rumble and it’s just such a legitimately good game that he really liked it and wanted to play it.

But yeah, there’s this weird special quality to Pokémon Rumble where it’s just this basic, pure fun mixed with a complexity that can appeal to all crowds, you hit the nail on the head.

 

[lemonademaker]

Pokémon Rumble holds a special place in my heart, because the first game came at a time where my Dad wanted to play video games, but also stopped caring about video games to be able to properly learn and play them (but also got annoyed when my kid ass self consistently beat him LOL). He was fine with Mario Kart Wii, we could have fun with it, but a father-son relationship can’t be forged solely through the fires of Mario Kart, and no other game appealed to both of us. Games that had fine gameplay for both of us also lasted for a long time, either between sensible checkpoints or just legitimately long levels.

Enter Pokémon Rumble, a game which perfectly captures being simple enough for a retirement home and complex enough for a gamer. It was also nice that the 2-player mode was a shared campaign rather than being against one another. He could have fun because he could contribute without thinking deeply, and I could have fun because even though I was carrying, he was contributing just enough that it felt like bonding and we really had to communicate. The levels were also pretty short, so when he felt he’d paid his dues in fostering a relationship he could easily say “one more level and then I’m off”, and it was satisfying enough.

Pokémon Rumble is the only game we entirely beat together during the Wii era — during the GameCube era he was more interested in video games. We came close with the Donkey Kong Country Returns games (I inherited my ADHD from him, I don’t blame him for not finishing the project lol especially when it progressed to past his skill level) and they also hold a special place in my heart because of it. Tropical Freeze was wayyy after Pokémon Rumble and it’s just such a legitimately good game that he really liked it and wanted to play it.

But yeah, there’s this weird special quality to Pokémon Rumble where it’s just this basic, pure fun mixed with a complexity that can appeal to all crowds, you hit the nail on the head.

100% agree. Co-op multiplayer is a gigantic part of the 1st game. I doubt that my memory of the game today would be as positive if I never played it with all my childhood friends back in the day and also with some adult friends relatively recently. And it really does have a good "easy to pick up but still complex" nature to it

 

[saberslasher11]

delete the move earthquake out of existence, that's all I ask. reasoning: main cause of blaziken dying

 

[Yung Dramps]

delete the move earthquake out of existence, that's all I ask. reasoning: main cause of blaziken dying

boy have i got the game for you

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

boy have i got the game for you

Blaziken can't die if it's not even in the game :0

 

[Toxtection]

Ain't no way people are out there doing this, right?




Just have the mon hold an Exp. Share for a minute and keep playing. It's literally that easy.


Nope, people actually do this on the mainline games. I kid you not. Hell, I've seen people do this in IGTL threads to prop up some mons.

Hacking rare candies is commonplace for Nuzlocke content, mainly because streamers realized that nobody wants to watch them run back and forth grinding a mon from level 42 to level 100

There are cases where you can't use an Exp. Share because that means something else is getting xp too, potentially enough to overlevel

Other people hack in other things too like vitamins, berries, money and sometimes even battle items. The general rule seems to be that if you can prove that you can obtain a resource in a way that is guaranteed to not cost you any other resources (technically could be expanded to only unrenewable resources but then you'd have to show there's no dependency loops either), then you get to hack in as many of that resource as you want

A great example of hacking things in nuzlockes was half level cap Platinum. Berries were hacked in from the start because they're renewable and cost nothing to regrow, but at one point they wanted to hack in a Metal Coat, on the basis that it could be Thief'd from wild Bronzor.

I believe it was decided against because if they got crit vs a specific mon they'd be forced to Potion and Potions were unrenewable at that point because money was unrenewable. I believe they ended up getting the Metal Coat legit and used it to evolve PKHeX Onix into Steelix. Half cap Platinum was canceled for being too boring (stalling with hacked berries for 20 min to KO a Zubat-level boring)

Finally, some ROM hacks actually start you off with infinite rare candies, meaning the concept is technically fully legitimate in those

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

Berries were hacked in from the start because they're renewable and cost nothing to regrow

I thought you could only get a maximum of one berry in Platinum (an Oran from the Kazza trade) before getting to the first patches of soft soil in Floaroma Town?

Regardless, I agree about hacking in those kinds of items generally. I used to be a purist until I started doing properly difficult challenge runs (no, standard Nuzlockes don't count) and realised that hours of risk-free grinding for resources or experience wasn't actually satisfying to me and didn't feel any more 'legitimate' than fast-forwarding to the interesting parts of the run.

 

[Bakugames]

my unpopular opinion which is more about the community stuff is that i dont think every challenge also needs to be a nuzlocke. if its something like monotype then sure but anything that forces you to run 6 or less pokemon just... why are you adding nuzlocke rules lol thats kinda silly. that or where you have more than 6 options but theyre all dogshit or something. idk thats already an interesting challenge on itself, you dont also need to make it a ticking bomb with nuzlocke rules (and it also makes you lose quite a few strategies imo!)

i also dont see the fun in kaizo nuzlockes and kaizo ironmon. sure, kaizo is a trolly and rage inducing genre of fancontent but the best kaizo is consistent. Kaizo mario levels are good because their structure is set, you just have to figure out how to beat it. kaizo nuzlockes are prone to rng to get encounters that actually allow you to beat the game, ranges that allow you to survive etc. They at least show some strategizing so i understand the appeal, but kaizo ironmon throws everything out of the way and just makes it so arbritrary it loses meaning. its a luck game, get a mon that rolled good stats and good movepools and hope that your opponents dont have strong mons and you win. The only strategizing is rare pivoting moments that only happen early game (because its a challenge that makes grinding awful so at a certain point youre stuck with your mon) and you get stomped 9/10 anyway.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

my unpopular opinion which is more about the community stuff is that i dont think every challenge also needs to be a nuzlocke. if its something like monotype then sure but anything that forces you to run 6 or less pokemon just... why are you adding nuzlocke rules lol thats kinda silly. that or where you have more than 6 options but theyre all dogshit or something. idk thats already an interesting challenge on itself, you dont also need to make it a ticking bomb with nuzlocke rules (and it also makes you lose quite a few strategies imo!)

i also dont see the fun in kaizo nuzlockes and kaizo ironmon. sure, kaizo is a trolly and rage inducing genre of fancontent but the best kaizo is consistent. Kaizo mario levels are good because their structure is set, you just have to figure out how to beat it. kaizo nuzlockes are prone to rng to get encounters that actually allow you to beat the game, ranges that allow you to survive etc. They at least show some strategizing so i understand the appeal, but kaizo ironmon throws everything out of the way and just makes it so arbritrary it loses meaning. its a luck game, get a mon that rolled good stats and good movepools and hope that your opponents dont have strong mons and you win. The only strategizing is rare pivoting moments that only happen early game (because its a challenge that makes grinding awful so at a certain point youre stuck with your mon) and you get stomped 9/10 anyway.

Yeah I think you can achieve the purpose of Nuzlocke rules (creating a fail state, streamlining the gameplay by preventing you from optimising for nature/IVs) without implementing them exactly. I tend to get demotivated when I lose a battle in a challenge run anyway, so making it an automatic reset isn't too big a loss, but making every individual KO a 'death' mostly adds tedium while undermining any sense of immersion or roleplay (i.e. why are the rules different for you than anyone else in the world of the game?)

Imo Kaizo Ironmon only really works as a parasocial streaming thing where viewers are constantly on edge about the risk of a random Destiny Bond/Counter/Imposter mon/whatever. The best thing you can say about it is that it occasionally rewards really deep mechanical knowledge, but as you say it's mostly about being lucky enough to get a mon with an absurd movepool+stat distribution and, crucially, the better the mon is the less you have to think and strategise, which is pretty boring.

Ultimately, Pokemon's battle system doesn't lend itself super well to challenge runs, because if you have perfect knowledge of each AI trainer's team and behaviour while restricting yourself in terms of level, item use, and/or strategic options to a point where you're actually at risk of losing, then most battles just end up being a sequence of pre-planned actions where you're hoping none of the Bad Things happen.

 

[ant4456]

People that set up to +6 in a Nuzlocke, especially with things like Double Team or Curse, might as well not bother doing those. What's the point if you're taking the risk element out of it?

 

[Bakugames]

Ultimately, Pokemon's battle system doesn't lend itself super well to challenge runs, because if you have perfect knowledge of each AI trainer's team and behaviour while restricting yourself in terms of level, item use, and/or strategic options to a point where you're actually at risk of losing, then most battles just end up being a sequence of pre-planned actions where you're hoping none of the Bad Things happen.

I think this is true, but rather that it means challenges are more interesting on the "how [x]" than "can i beat this?". how fast, how much strategy, how much time, how much grinding, etc etc.

for example, jrose11 is doing all 151 solo run challenges and the point isnt really "can x beat this?" because the answer is yes unless youre something like magikarp or the coccoons/bugs. the point is to ask 1. how long does it take and 2. how many levels does it take.

This brings more concepts like: does this pokemon have bottlenecks where it just loses time, whether it be on brock because it only has something like weak normal moves or one of the elite fours like lance, and does that lead into rare candy usage or extra grinding? how much is a shallow movepool or stats affecting perfomance? can it make use of the badge boost glitch? does its level up group make it really struggle or gives it an easy ride etc.
I think this is a more entertaining type of challenge because its not asking you an obvious question which leads to very generic optimizations, its ranking pokemon perfomance! That's fun!

He also does impossible challenges, aka pokemon he genuinely thinks might just take the L. Its reserved for stuff like caterpie/weedle/the coccoons, magikarp, beldum, pichu, very bad pokemon that are separate from just a ranking system because they need extreme strategies and arent always going to win ( i think hes had like 2, 3 fails rn?).

 

[ant4456]

My only opinion on this full convo is that the "nuzlocke isn't worth doing if you do setup moves" is weird imo, especially with crits, and that matters because like.

The point of a Nuzlocke never was supposed to be about just making the hardest challenge. It was about making stories, and forcing the player to adapt.

If anything, my unpopular opinion is that most Pokemon challenge runs are not worth doing if you are not a content creator, or do not have friends that actually care to hear about your Nuzlocke. It is primarily a storytelling game mode at its heart, and even if you do go for full challenge, most people still will not actually care about your achievement unless you are a Youtuber.

 

[R_N]

I think this is true, but rather that it means challenges are more interesting on the "how [x]" than "can i beat this?". how fast, how much strategy, how much time, how much grinding, etc etc.

for example, jrose11 is doing all 151 solo run challenges and the point isnt really "can x beat this?" because the answer is yes unless youre something like magikarp or the coccoons/bugs. the point is to ask 1. how long does it take and 2. how many levels does it take.

This brings more concepts like: does this pokemon have bottlenecks where it just loses time, whether it be on brock because it only has something like weak normal moves or one of the elite fours like lance, and does that lead into rare candy usage or extra grinding? how much is a shallow movepool or stats affecting perfomance? can it make use of the badge boost glitch? does its level up group make it really struggle or gives it an easy ride etc.
I think this is a more entertaining type of challenge because its not asking you an obvious question which leads to very generic optimizations, its ranking pokemon perfomance! That's fun!

He also does impossible challenges, aka pokemon he genuinely thinks might just take the L. Its reserved for stuff like caterpie/weedle/the coccoons, magikarp, beldum, pichu, very bad pokemon that are separate from just a ranking system because they need extreme strategies and arent always going to win ( i think hes had like 2, 3 fails rn?).

scotthoughts is also a good example of this to the point where he successfully rebranded away from "can x beat this" to "x solo run" and has refined his process a lot and keeps trying to find ways to best optimize a Pokemon while talking about its shortcomings and how to best overcome them or the trials & tribulations with unfortunately having to work with what you have or how certain pokemon can surprsie you, all while he gathers more interesting statistics and measures

and then inevitably doing another 5 runs for a single Pokemon because surely he can get the god run he's so close its right there just a little more refinement they can move up a whole speedrun tier and then the entire audience goes "scott........."

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

View attachment 619631

People who set up to +6 don't leave themselves open to losing a mon to a single crit, and if something takes multiple crits without healing, we can only call it "Skill Issue".

My only opinion on this full convo is that the "nuzlocke isn't worth doing if you do setup moves" is weird imo, especially with crits, and that matters because like.

The point of a Nuzlocke never was supposed to be about just making the hardest challenge. It was about making stories, and forcing the player to adapt.

And isn't defaulting to the most risk-averse route possible the antithesis of adapting?

Even as entertainment, this is straight-up boring to watch/read, so it also fails on that front.

 

[Sonikku A]

My only opinion on this full convo is that the "nuzlocke isn't worth doing if you do setup moves" is weird imo, especially with crits, and that matters because like.

The point of a Nuzlocke never was supposed to be about just making the hardest challenge. It was about making stories, and forcing the player to adapt.

If anything, my unpopular opinion is that most Pokemon challenge runs are not worth doing if you are not a content creator, or do not have friends that actually care to hear about your Nuzlocke. It is primarily a storytelling game mode at its heart, and even if you do go for full challenge, most people still will not actually care about your achievement unless you are a Youtuber.

You know what, I agree with this
I still love the TFS HGSS Nuzlocke and seeing them go from talking shit of Chikorita, to it being the most significant and adored team member. The fanart and skits/events for the other mons was way more interesting than the challenge itself

Though then again by that point you can just not play and simply make fanfics :V

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Hacking rare candies is commonplace for Nuzlocke content, mainly because streamers realized that nobody wants to watch them run back and forth grinding a mon from level 42 to level 100

There are cases where you can't use an Exp. Share because that means something else is getting xp too, potentially enough to overlevel

Other people hack in other things too like vitamins, berries, money and sometimes even battle items. The general rule seems to be that if you can prove that you can obtain a resource in a way that is guaranteed to not cost you any other resources (technically could be expanded to only unrenewable resources but then you'd have to show there's no dependency loops either), then you get to hack in as many of that resource as you want

A great example of hacking things in nuzlockes was half level cap Platinum. Berries were hacked in from the start because they're renewable and cost nothing to regrow, but at one point they wanted to hack in a Metal Coat, on the basis that it could be Thief'd from wild Bronzor.

I believe it was decided against because if they got crit vs a specific mon they'd be forced to Potion and Potions were unrenewable at that point because money was unrenewable. I believe they ended up getting the Metal Coat legit and used it to evolve PKHeX Onix into Steelix. Half cap Platinum was canceled for being too boring (stalling with hacked berries for 20 min to KO a Zubat-level boring)

Finally, some ROM hacks actually start you off with infinite rare candies, meaning the concept is technically fully legitimate in those

When I read stuff like this I'm left to wonder why people don't just play the Battle Frontier instead of inventing a difficult game of house rules and hacks from whole cloth.

 

[Blue glass]

My take on the Nuzlocke talk is that people play how they want to play and are comfortable with and if that bothers you go watch someone else play. I rarely watch kaizo ironmon challenges because watching someone try and fail to beat a game for three hours is boring to me.

 

[Ironmage]

When I read stuff like this I'm left to wonder why people don't just play the Battle Frontier instead of inventing a difficult game of house rules and hacks from whole cloth.

In fairness to the playerbase, the state of Battle Facilities has some noticeable gaps in most games that are likely harder to patch over than editing the inventory. Much as I love the Frontier, it not allowing a full team of 6 is something I put up with that I could see as a turnoff for people who want something close to the maingame experience. Then of course there's the new games where you would basically need to build a Tower from scratch...

 

[ant4456]

Idgaf about the Battle Frontier that is why I don't play it instead of Nuzlockes

 

[pokemon4eva]

A Battle Frontier run is like a mini nuzlocke tbh: one loss, no matter how bs the hax was, makes you restart from square one.

Except in nuzlockes you have to restart the whole game. Did one and I wasn't a fan of how super safe I had to play all the time.