Unpopular opinions

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.
 
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?

375px-0010Caterpie.png


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:tymp::row::puff: IT TAKES ALMOST TWICE AS LONG FOR THIS LITTLE SHIT TO GET TO LEVEL 10 COMPARED TO A STARTER!!!:changry::trode::facepalm:
 
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?

375px-0010Caterpie.png


View attachment 643367

:tymp::row::puff: IT TAKES ALMOST TWICE AS LONG FOR THIS LITTLE SHIT TO GET TO LEVEL 10 COMPARED TO A STARTER!!!:changry::trode::facepalm:
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).
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.

1719335036293079.jpg


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. :mehowth:

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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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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).
 
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.
 
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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.
Counterpoint: it makes him looks like Toothless therefore it's a 10/10 shiny.
 
diamond/pearl cynthia was just badly designed

platinum rightfully nerfed her considerably, a level 66 garchomp isn't even an interesting challenge it's just overleveled

i compare it to frlg champion because generally i find that going into the gen 4 elite 4, rival champion is level 63 capped and lance as the 4th e4 member is level 56 to 60

dp is lucian 59 to 64 and cynthia 61 to 66 (chomp)
plat nerfs it to lucian 53 to 59 and cynthia 58 to 62
 

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diamond/pearl cynthia was just badly designed

platinum rightfully nerfed her considerably, a level 66 garchomp isn't even an interesting challenge it's just overleveled
i agree. in exchange for just a jump in levels, cynthia’s real challenge comes from platinum’s actually competent AI and better coverage on her mons, especially garchomp. i remember stonewalling it with my torterra in d/p. flamethrower just throws that strat down the drain.
 
I hate all the Time Travel/Alternate Dimension nonsense that we've been exposed to in these past 10 years
why haven't we seen more of the literal alien civilizations that exist in the games?
Zossie was cool (in concept), why can't we explore more of the actually interesting interdimensional civilizations in the setting instead of literal rehashes of the same world?
I wanna be a blue skinned alien training pokemon in an alien planet :<
 
The answer: Dev time and broad appeal.

Ultra Beasts are well-liked (I think?) by the generally engaged Pokemon fanbase, but most outsiders seem them and just say "Wow that looks stupid," the concept was really started to be pushed in a game where it had a small dev team that was just trying to add on top of the game with 1 year dev time.

Then there's just the logistics of such an idea. Making something like that work and feel good has conceptual problems. For instance, the fact that humans exist in the Ultra Wormholes worlds we've seen as is is imo kinda boring, and I have a feeling (and I think the Game Freak artistic side thinks too) that actually expanding the concept would be a big struggle to make work. How much material can there be when they already had to kinda say "well these worlds are basically still just Pokemon but a bit whacky," when that whackiness already alienated some casual conceptually players as is.

And it kinda has to be a big part of the game since it's gonna be a lot of assets, especially as we go into full 3D environments.
 
I have some takes…

PLA’s sprite style looks better than SV’s. I like the classic Pokemon stylization + cell shading much better. Kinda sells the “BotW of Pokemon” effect.

I think Hisuian Samurott is the best Hisuian starter evolution (designwise).

I think all 3D mainline games are terrible compared to the spinoffs (cmon, Mystery Dungeons and Legends?? way better than freaking SwSh) PLA is not a spinoff…

PMD games are better than mainline Pokemon games, excluding the Legends series.

SM is better than SV
 
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I have some takes…

PLA’s sprite style looks better than SV’s. I like the classic Pokemon stylization + cell shading much better. Kinda sells the “BotW of Pokemon” effect.

I think Hisuian Samurott is the best Hisuian starter evolution (designwise).

I think all 3D mainlin games are terrible compared to the spinoffs (cmon, Mystery Dungeons and Legends?? way better than freaking SwSh)

Pokemon Sun and Moon are the best 3D mainline games.
legends arceus is a mainline game
sun and moon are better than all of the games you listed
mystery dungeon is a bit overrated as a furry that played all of the games when I was 14

gti is bad, brt is ok, rtdx is my least favorite game of all-time, PSMD and EOS are the good ones and even then have flaws
 
an actual unpopular opinion is that i think eos story is mid at best and very boring at worst and I actually like the game more for its gameplay. but the game in general is just a pretty nice 6/10
 
SwSh's story is better than most of SV's routes, especially the gym one.

Nemona hard-carries Victory Road, Team Star is straight up wack, and Arven's... Honestly, it's a sob story designed to pull at people's hearts, but it goes straight into the uncanny valley for me. I can't really fault it on a technical scale, but it certainly did not hit the mark with me. I found it distasteful.

The DLC kind of relies on a lot of people being too stupid. Par for the course, but it is what it is.

Now SwSh? As ridiculous as Rose's deal was, the premise was just right. Making the Gyms have the pomp and circumstance they deserve was easily the best thing that game could've done.

It's rough to come back to the classic "back of some random building" style after that, especially since Paldea takes a dump on every single gym by essentially making them side-hustles.
 
legends arceus is a mainline game
sun and moon are better than all of the games you listed
mystery dungeon is a bit overrated as a furry that played all of the games when I was 14

gti is bad, brt is ok, rtdx is my least favorite game of all-time, PSMD and EOS are the good ones and even then have flaws

Oops, you’re right. Lemme fix that-
 
an actual unpopular opinion is that i think eos story is mid at best and very boring at worst and I actually like the game more for its gameplay. but the game in general is just a pretty nice 6/10
idk the story did its job, it had some good moments that captivated me when I played it, and is very good fanfic material

Super has a deeper story but only really when you play it a second time because it really comes to life if you do

EoS story isn't that deep but it is rarely flawed, after so many years of being a PMD fan I've only really come up with two criticisms for the story
(1. The partner's arc is weird, feels like the partner did not learn much except to be dependent on the isekai'd protag and 2. How Darkrai got to Temporal Tower is never explained [plot hole])
 
idk the story did its job, it had some good moments that captivated me when I played it, and is very good fanfic material

I think my main issue with it was that I didn't care about the characters, which harms how much the story can shine. i think some of it is just my preferences, but I feel like the partner and most of the guild is pretty forgettable or annoying. I enjoyed the dusknoir twist, but i think the whole "there's no way dusknoir would lie about that!" setup is a bit shallow. you don't interact with dusknoir that much, theres not a lot of time to build trust with him and the fact hes already renowned and 100% a trustworthy authority figure without much buildup is a bit lame. plus the player already gets hints to suspect him pretty fast which all leads to how the partner and guild reacts less believable. If we spent more time with dusknoir i think it'd make sense.

I also think we should have spent more time with grovyle, and learn more about dusknoir, celebi and his trios dynamic and the lore of this world in the main story itself. I know the special episodes exist, but i think that placing this part of the story there was a mistake. It makes sense for side characters backgrounds like bidoofs wish, but the omission of the future trio content in the main game hurts the overall story.

also the post game stories are kinda ass
 
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