Unpopular opinions

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Ampharos (no half-hearted snarky commentary, good pick imo)

I still remember having to use TWave + Electro Ball just to have stronger STAB than Thundershock before Clemont.

XY Ampharos takes forever to get going and it genuinely feels bad to use Thundershock on a mon that's over Lv. 30.

For me the difficulty issue in XY has ripple effects that taint the rest of the game experience.

Including exploration.

Later games almost punish you from going around capturing mons because they give exp on capture now. Which should be good, but not when there are so many level curve issues.

This is more obvious in SV. Exploring South Province Area 1 is fun, you get a LOT of mons, TMs, items... Good stuff right?

Nemona caps out at Lv. 9 on her second battle outside of Mesagoza's gates.

There are 12 trainers available in that area alone, let alone the experience you'll get just by basic teambuilding. And you get TMs too.

A lot of things are optional in Paldea, but going out of my way to NOT explore so I don't steamroll the game even harder is just ridiculous.

 

[AztecCroc]

I still remember having to use TWave + Electro Ball just to have stronger STAB than Thundershock before Clemont.

XY Ampharos takes forever to get going and it genuinely feels bad to use Thundershock on a mon that's over Lv. 30.


Including exploration.

Later games almost punish you from going around capturing mons because they give exp on capture now. Which should be good, but not when there are so many level curve issues.

This is more obvious in SV. Exploring South Province Area 1 is fun, you get a LOT of mons, TMs, items... Good stuff right?

Nemona caps out at Lv. 9 on her second battle outside of Mesagoza's gates.

There are 12 trainers available in that area alone, let alone the experience you'll get just by basic teambuilding. And you get TMs too.

A lot of things are optional in Paldea, but going out of my way to NOT explore so I don't steamroll the game even harder is just ridiculous.

Yeah, don't try to level match Nemona, she's usually weaker than some of the wild Pokémon in areas where you fight her. The level curve is mostly fine until the last couple gyms if you're only trying to match the bosses.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Nemona's whole shtick is that she's sandbagging on purpose and patronizing you like you're some dumb baby anyway, so steamrolling her seems appropriate regardless.

 

[AztecCroc]

Fun Fact: That level 9 Nemona fight? There is a Black Belt in the area you're confined to before fighting her that has 2 level 11s and a level 12. And most of the wild Pokémon can potentially be up to level 8.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Fun Fact: That level 9 Nemona fight? There is a Black Belt in the area you're confined to before fighting her that has 2 level 11s and a level 12. And most of the wild Pokémon can potentially be up to level 8.

And that's why it's poor design. The level curve is just... bad. Plain and simple.

The obvious issue Pokémon has been running into with open-ended gameplay is that they're trying too hard to accommodate players that want to rush past the game going from point A to point B.

To be quite frank, fuck em.

It doesn't make sense to invest copious amounts of money and work into making a large expansive world in a game whose theme is all about exploring and then designing the level curve around people who are just going to ignore all that and go to the next checkpoint like they're playing a Call of Duty story mission.

 

[Ironmage]

And that's why it's poor design. The level curve is just... bad. Plain and simple.

The obvious issue Pokémon has been running into with open-ended gameplay is that they're trying too hard to accommodate players that want to rush past the game going from point A to point B.

To be quite frank, fuck em.

It doesn't make sense to invest copious amounts of money and work into making a large expansive world in a game whose theme is all about exploring and then designing the level curve around people who are just going to ignore all that and go to the next checkpoint like they're playing a Call of Duty story mission.

Well, I suppose this is the unpopular opinions thread so:

Is the world actually built for exploration, though? Are there significant reasons to go off the straightforward path beyond the bare minimum to fill out a team? Traversal isn't engaging on its own without challenges and growth, and this is no metroidvania. Seems to me like the issue is putting all those resources into an ultimately unimportant section in the first place.

 

[AztecCroc]

Well, I suppose this is the unpopular opinions thread so:

Is the world actually built for exploration, though? Are there significant reasons to go off the straightforward path beyond the bare minimum to fill out a team? Traversal isn't engaging on its own without challenges and growth, and this is no metroidvania. Seems to me like the issue is putting all those resources into an ultimately unimportant section in the first place.

I mean level curve aside you can technically do everything in whatever order you want, barring the Titan Dondozo/Tatsugiri. If they'd actually gone all the way with it and given the Gym Leaders and Star Bosses multiple different teams based on the order you fought them, the level of exploration would make complete sense.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Well, I suppose this is the unpopular opinions thread so:

Is the world actually built for exploration, though? Are there significant reasons to go off the straightforward path beyond the bare minimum to fill out a team? Traversal isn't engaging on its own without challenges and growth, and this is no metroidvania. Seems to me like the issue is putting all those resources into an ultimately unimportant section in the first place.

In terms of quality, many things can be argued about regarding both SwSh and SV.

In terms of intent, it's very clear they wanted the "open-world features" to be a defining part of both regions. From the region design to gameplay mechanics to the marketing of both games, they made sure to really drive this point across.

 

[Miss Alexis]

Coming back here to share an eighth opinion I just remembered: Very few Shiny Pokemon actually look better than the original colors. There are exceptions, mostly the black and red ones (and I like the orange and gold ones too) but for the most part I could take it or leave it with a lot of them, and in many cases I prefer the normal palette. It's a shame because I love Shinies conceptually and I consider myself an experienced Shiny hunter, but some of them just aren't worth the effort.

 

[Bakugames]

im super late but i think you can fix exp all very easily by just having exp groups/levels weighted. if your team is lv 50, 60, 30, 40 and 6, the level 6 gets idk 70%, lv 30 gets 15%, lv 50 gets 10% and lv 60 gets 5%. random numbers but you get the idea.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

im super late but i think you can fix exp all very easily by just having exp groups/levels weighted. if your team is lv 50, 60, 30, 40 and 6, the level 6 gets idk 70%, lv 30 gets 15%, lv 50 gets 10% and lv 60 gets 5%. random numbers but you get the idea.

Literally just turn all Exp. Groups into Med. Slow, and add back the old Exp. Share along with the Exp. All as a held item that also doubles as a mini-Lucky Egg (x1.2 exp) so it's always useful but never broken.

 

[Wukong]

Experience and stats feel like two numerical systems within Pokemon that are flawed due to their overall saturated execution.

Experience doesn't need separate groups to denote a Pokemon's "legendaryness" or lack there of. This can, and already is, handled through other ways like late evolution levels or scarce availability. Putting a legendary or pseudo-legendary Pokemon into a Slow experience group just adds insult to injury. It's not like people choose to not use these Pokemon due to their experience group. It's usually due to other factors like late availability/evolution levels or wanting to fulfill the need to challenge themselves. And the other experience groups make even less sense.

Stats-wise, again, variation in stat spread can already be handled through EV allocation; this adds a level of uniqueness to a Pokemon on top of their inherent base stat values. Adding IVs on top of that again just adds insult to injury. Why institute this arbitrary mechanism to differentiate the stats of a Pokemon, when the player themself can control this through their own custom approach towards EV allocation in the course of a play through?

Just two examples of not particularly logical or streamlined numerical systems that I wish were never in the games to begin with.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

I think the different experience growth rates are more than justified. It makes a certain amount of sense for Pokemon with higher stats to require more experience to level-up. Greater effort, greater reward.

I do find the existence of the Erratic and Fluctuating groups specifically to be kind of amusing, though. Their formulas are pretty out of the norm and obtuse compared to the other groups, and they're both rarely applied to any species introduced after gen III. (Literally every single species in the Fluctuating group except the Drifloon line is a gen III Pokemon.) A very obvious case of "we'd cut this if we could but we're keeping it around for legacy/compatibility reasons."

 

[Mex]

Zoey vs Nando in the grand festival is the peak of the pokemon anime, or at least contest battling in DP

Quite a lot of the focus in the DP anime was Dawn trying to create combination moves, and while that's interesting some of the time (and is even used in this specific battle with Zoey combining Thunder Wave and Energy Ball), it does kinda lose something in the way of trying to make truly appealing looking fights. Dawn's Flame Ice and Ice Chandelier are cool and all, but sometimes I just like to go back to basics, which this fight does quite well

I haven't watched ADV in quite some time so i'm not gonna say definitively that it's the best contest battle overall, but it's among my favorite parts of the DP anime from having watched it over the past couple weeks.

 

[AztecCroc]

I think the different experience growth rates are more than justified. It makes a certain amount of sense for Pokemon with higher stats to require more experience to level-up. Greater effort, greater reward.

I do find the existence of the Erratic and Fluctuating groups specifically to be kind of amusing, though. Their formulas are pretty out of the norm and obtuse compared to the other groups, and they're both rarely applied to any species introduced after gen III. (Literally every single species in the Fluctuating group except the Drifloon line is a gen III Pokemon.) A very obvious case of "we'd cut this if we could but we're keeping it around for legacy/compatibility reasons."

I think they just forgot the Gen 3 Exp groups existed for a while considering Fluctuating contains Pokémon from gens 3, 4, 8, and 9. Then just never bothered adding more Erratic group Pokémon.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Experience doesn't need separate groups to denote a Pokemon's "legendaryness" or lack there of. This can, and already is, handled through other ways like late evolution levels or scarce availability.

Pretty much.

Pseudos are usually caught late and under-leveled. They have severely underpowered pre-evos, and they take a LONG time to evolve, usually with the base form evolving at Lv. 30, and then into the real deal at Lv. 55.

You're already essentially carrying a deadweight until Lv. 55. It doesn't need to take twice as much Exp to get there.

I'd make a case for an even worse group though...

Medium "Allegedly" Fast
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Experience#Experience_at_each_level

It takes up to Level 68 for those mons to have less total Exp than the Medium Slow group (That's the starter group), and up to Level 45 before it takes them to need less Exp. per level up than Medium Slow.

Do you want to see an example of a Medium Fast mon?

IT TAKES ALMOST TWICE AS LONG FOR THIS LITTLE SHIT TO GET TO LEVEL 10 COMPARED TO A STARTER!!!

 

[AztecCroc]

Pretty much.

Pseudos are usually caught late and under-leveled. They have severely underpowered pre-evos, and they take a LONG time to evolve, usually with the base form evolving at Lv. 30, and then into the real deal at Lv. 55.

You're already essentially carrying a deadweight until Lv. 55. It doesn't need to take twice as much Exp to get there.

I'd make a case for an even worse group though...

Medium "Allegedly" Fast
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Experience#Experience_at_each_level

It takes up to Level 68 for those mons to have less total Exp than the Medium Slow group (That's the starter group), and up to Level 45 before it takes them to need less Exp. per level up than Medium Slow.

Do you want to see an example of a Medium Fast mon?

View attachment 643367

IT TAKES ALMOST TWICE AS LONG FOR THIS LITTLE SHIT TO GET TO LEVEL 10 COMPARED TO A STARTER!!!

No? You're just reading the table wrong, Medium Slow takes 1,059,860 total exp to get to level 100, Medium Fast takes 1,000,000.
You seem to be reading the total exp columns as the "to next level" columns, the only groups that take longer than Medium Slow to reach 100 are Slow (1,250,000 exp) and Fluctuating (1,640,000 exp).

 

[Sixfortyfive]

No? You're just reading the table wrong, Medium Slow takes 1,059,860 total exp to get to level 100, Medium Fast takes 1,000,000.
You seem to be reading the total exp columns as the "to next level" columns, the only groups that take longer than Medium Slow to reach 100 are Slow (1,250,000 exp) and Fluctuating (1,640,000 exp).

His point is that Medium Fast isn't actually "faster" than Medium Slow until level 68, the point at which any of this barely matters anyway because you're almost assuredly well into the post-game material by then.

To the specific example, it really is silly that a Pokemon like Caterpie requires much more Exp than the average early-game Pokemon to level-up for the entire stretch of the game that it's meant to be relevant.

 

[AztecCroc]

His point is that Medium Fast isn't actually "faster" than Medium Slow until level 68, the point at which any of this barely matters anyway because you're almost assuredly well into the post-game material by then.

To the specific example, it really is silly that a Pokemon like Caterpie requires much more Exp than the average early-game Pokemon to level-up for the entire stretch of the game that it's meant to be relevant.

Not by an amount that's gonna be noticeable in game especially in games with the unscaled exp yields that the groups were initially designed for.

 

[Hugin]

Not by an amount that's gonna be noticeable in game especially in games with the unscaled exp yields that the groups were initially designed for.

I think 2x as many battles to go from lvl 5 to lvl 10 is going to be pretty noticeable, especially when talking about mons that are supposed to be used at early levels because they're intentionally weak.

And fundamentally, either XP groups are mostly irrelevant, in which case they should be eliminated as pointless, or they're relevant enough to matter, in which case they should still be eliminated and replaced with a reexamination of early movepools/evo levels/etc.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Medium "Allegedly" Fast

It takes up to Level 68 for those mons to have less total Exp than the Medium Slow group (That's the starter group), and up to Level 45 before it takes them to need less Exp. per level up than Medium Slow.

No? You're just reading the table wrong, Medium Slow takes 1,059,860 total exp to get to level 100, Medium Fast takes 1,000,000.

Unless you're playing a romhack, Levels 70-100 literally do not matter in-game.

Not by an amount that's gonna be noticeable in game especially in games with the unscaled exp yields that the groups were initially designed for.

Unserious post.

It's very noticeable as early as the first route depending on the game you're playing. We've knocked down Slow Exp. mons in IGTL threads because using them feels awful. It's the same principle.

 

[Leif98]

Gen 3 Swablu was enough to make me hate EXP groups, or at least the more weird ones and how they are distributed . A weak Mon with a bad movepool that needs ton of EXP to turn into something that isn't even that good.

Unless you're playing a romhack, Levels 70-100 literally do not matter in-game.

It's very noticeable as early as the first route depending on the game you're playing. We've knocked down Slow Exp. mons in IGTL threads because using them feels awful. It's the same principle.

This. Slow-Leveling mons can feel absolutely awful to use, and most mons in those bad groups are not worth it.

 

[Ransei]

Thinking about it, Ultra Megaopolis is fine. I'm not sure how expanding areas the player could move around in the city would've benefitted the game.

Firstly, it's in a world full of complete darkness from after Necrozma absorbed all of its light, meaning the player would realistically not be able to see anything much further away from the corridor. It's almost the equivalent of the world you find Guzzlord in terms of how infeasible the exploration is given the state of its locale.

Second, I'm not entirely sure what the player could've been given from that world beyond what was given to us. The Ultra Recon Squad by themselves already give us almost every single piece of lore that could've possibly been given regarding Necrozma's history in that city and how it turned out to not only affect them but the Alola region. The Malie City Library covers up a small bit, but it was the rest that could serve as useful information for the Ultra games. Combined, Necrozma makes for the most fleshed out legendary mascot in the entire series from a lore standpoint. In addition, because Ultra Megaopolis is part of an Ultra Beast world, the only natural species of Pokemon that were gonna be found there were the Poipole line. The Ultra Recon Squad give you a Poipole after defeating Ultra Necrozma.

Not just that, the world of Ultra Megaopolis never even had trainers to begin with. The Ultra Recon Squad arrived to Alola in part to start off as trainers who could resolve the issue regarding Necrozma. Those four characters were a full reflection of how Ultra Megaopolis and its people were as well as what they had to offer.

Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon already gives you all the lore you need of Ultra Megaopolis as well as all the Pokémon that are there, in a world filled almost entirely in complete darkness. Thematically, it makes great sense for the place to not be able to get explored very well and it was in a state where it literally could not have been. The most lit up place in their entire world was the Megalo Tower itself.

If anything, considering Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon took up more data than almost any other video game on the 3DS, if this meant Gamefreak was able to add in the rest of the Ultra Beast worlds as well, I'm thankful they did not make Ultra Megaopolis more than what was necessary. Personally, I like the Megalo Tower, since it set stage for one of the biggest precedents in the history of mainline Pokémon games that future games should keep following. It gave us a real, powerful boss fight against the legendary Pokémon running the game. You were unable to catch it there; it wasn't in a weakened state. It was a full force battle against the legendary while it served as the game's main antagonist and focus.

I also like to use my imagination in this place. I regularly went back to Megalo Tower as a quiet spot where I could fight epic battles from the Vs. Recorder, treating it as if I'm battling someone from an alternate timeline. I find it fitting since the tower was Necrozma's place for 500 years, and it as a Pokémon is known to create transportation access across timelines more than nearly any other in the series. Megalo Tower is where I go to in order to fight many of the most epic trainer battles I could ever come up with, thanks to the empty dome-like state of the location and the Vs. Recorder feature.

 

[DrrT]

The talk about shinies in the other thread reminded me of much I love the Charcadet line and how I wish they had a shiny worth trying to hunt.

But, despite the general consensus and my own first impressions, I actually like Armarouge more than Ceruledge design-wise. Using it in Scarlet made me appreciate not only how "smooth" and somehow satisfying its armor looks, but I also love how it turns into a cannon. The colors also look great. It just grew in me a lot.

Maybe I'm getting old, cause Ceruledge would have been perfect for my edgy teen self and my favourite of the duo by far but really, even if they swapped colors, I find Armarouge more interesting. Of course I understand Ceruledge being a lot more popular (trough weirdly the TCG has given a lot more love to Armarouge until recently).

 

[Fusion Flare]

All the Past Paradoxes stick with their descendants’ colors. Brute Bonnet has its blue top and yellowish hue skin from Amoonguss. Slither Wing’s glorious yellow wings and horns come from Volcarona. Even Flutter Mane and Great Tusk’s eye-twitching shades of green find their origins in Misdreavus and Donphan.

Y’know who doesn’t follow this theme? Koraidon. Koraidon’s descendant, Cyclizar, rocks a solid brown and beige coloring, whereas it sports a black shiny with red and yellow colors. It strayed from a theming just so it could have a cool shiny. Effectively using its boxart legendary privileges to slip past its original shiny colors and get backstage where they keep the black shinies.

In contrast, Miraidon, unlike SOME HOOLIGANS, has the dignity to retain its theming with the other future paradoxes and still pulls off the chrome coloring just fine, because it didn’t need to choose the overdone black shiny coloring.

TLDR: Koraidon’s shiny kinda sucks, and not in the sense that it looks bad. More in the sense that it has that shiny for a likely stupid reason.