As somebody whose favoruite gen 9 mons are under no illusion of being available early, levels aren't the only issue with trying to get nonlinear scaling working. Evolutions, or lack thereof, can seriously mess up the power curve as well. This hasn't been something the linear games have done perfectly, as the multi-game prominence of the Speedrunner's Hawlucha shows, but it gets amplified by an attempt to have as much as possible as early as possible. Either the first few setpieces let the player casually show up with some single-stage or item evolution mon and stomp their LC-grade opponents or the NPCs use those tricks as well and the player's own starter is a disappointment. I love the customization aspect of Pokemon, but it only really works under the assumption that everything is fully evolved. That aspect doesn't need an open-world main story, it needs a battle frontier.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
Okay possibly a popular unpopular opinion
But
We really need gen 10 to have a battle frontier that is not just linking to Pokémon champions
Some of us are not so sociable in the world
But
We really need gen 10 to have a battle frontier that is not just linking to Pokémon champions
Some of us are not so sociable in the world
Oh yeah, here's a controversial take. The Battle Frontier was mainly a bunch of gimmicks, and most of them were just garbage. The garbage runs from hoping your mon picks the right moves and not just screws you with RNG, to getting half your team put to sleep because you picked the wrong door, to getting half your team put to sleep because SPIN THE WHEEL!!!!! Maybe half of them are decent, as long as you don't get stuck against the opponent who has double team and Bright Powder on all their mons, but that's just something that happens in all the Battle Towers regardless.
I always enjoyed that tbh! Games were meant to be hard in the good old days…!
My guess is Pokemon Champions has/is a battle frontier and they just update that regularly going forward. Which I'm fine with as long as it's a good one and they have a reasonable way to get mons and make transfers easy.
Okay question for everyone. When someone says "I want the Battle Frontier back", do you think they mean(or do you mean) they want the specific 7 Battle Facilities from Emerald, or do you take it as "I want a postgame battle facility with a variety of formats including changes from base mechanics in some of them"? Because I've been assuming the latter(people upset with Battle Tree being boring), but maybe there's a bunch of fans who really want Battle Pike specifically to come back?
I actually would prefer stadiums/coliseums like in the Gamecube games to come back tbh, with a greater range of teams and pokes and rules to play around with. I really enjoyed Pyrite Stadium and the Under tbh.
I think they literally just want the name "Battle Frontier"
Game Freak could give Gen 10 every battle facility that's ever existed plus brand new ones, call it "Battle City", and people would still be saying they want the Battle Frontier to return.
Pokemon is the franchise where, literally no matter what preventative steps you take, you're going to eventually be done in by that 95% accurate move finally failing you at the worst possible time.
Every flavor of bullshit in the Battle Frontier is a different vector toward teaching the player to come to terms with the things in life that he or she cannot control, and they all have their place.
Having the Frontier in ORAS would benefit inmensely because getting and training a Battle Ready Pokemon is still nowhere near as painful nor intricate (compared to breeding at least, I still don't get how RNG manip works lol) as in Emerald. But even if you don't agree if keeping postgame content ppl liked on the remake of said game is worth it, I dunno, copypasting XY's Battle Maison and just slapping it in the Hoenn game is not a good look. And I'm not even going to bring up the whole "Frontier project has started" fiasco lol.
I literally know people irl that have never touched Emerald and only like the *concept* of the Frontier and threw a tantrum about how ORAS was the worst thing ever for not having it, arguing that even HGSS did (even trough it was a copypaste of Platinum). One of them still argues ORAS is worse than BDSP because of it.
That being said, I don't think Game Freak handled it well either. The excuse they gave was genuinely stupid and the game kind of rubs it in your face with it being "under construction" which obviously never led anywhere. Then SM keeps alluding with Anabelle that there is a world with the Frontier in Hoenn...
Personally, I had hype for it...when Emerald was my first ever third version. Playing trough it was painful as a child, and boring as an adult oncd I needed to get the Ribbon Master done. The novelty in most of them quickly wears off excluding Factory, and you always get screwed in all of them by luck anyways. I prefer BW2's postgame by a mile, trough still respect the Frontier for what they are and still think Battle Factories should always been a thing (looking at you SV, how could LA have one but not you when your second DLC is literally about battling)
That being said, I don't think Game Freak handled it well either. The excuse they gave was genuinely stupid and the game kind of rubs it in your face with it being "under construction" which obviously never led anywhere. Then SM keeps alluding with Anabelle that there is a world with the Frontier in Hoenn...
Personally, I had hype for it...when Emerald was my first ever third version. Playing trough it was painful as a child, and boring as an adult oncd I needed to get the Ribbon Master done. The novelty in most of them quickly wears off excluding Factory, and you always get screwed in all of them by luck anyways. I prefer BW2's postgame by a mile, trough still respect the Frontier for what they are and still think Battle Factories should always been a thing (looking at you SV, how could LA have one but not you when your second DLC is literally about battling)
The wild thing is that in Japanese, the Battle Chatelaines' dialogue uses a dialect from Kyushu, Hoenn's IRL inspiration. Couple that with the utter lack of any unused Battle Frontier materials in the Teraleak (say, unused concept art for Frontier Brain redesigns) and it truly does seem like porting the Chateau over to ORAS was the plan from the start.
Just makes that one infamous interview untold leagues more baffling. It wasn't a sloppy bit of improv because they couldn't admit they ran out of time, so what the heck...?
For real tho, I get that everyone hates the Palace and that's perfectly fair. Look at the broader picture tho.
Battle Tower - Absolute CLASSIC. BDSP had a great one with the Gym Leaders showing up, and SwSh's was bashed for being worse than the standard. Hasn't really been missing in most 3D games, so it hardly counts.
Battle Factory - Another classic, great gateway for the rest, and just a ton of fun with crazy variance to keep anyone on their toes.
Battle Dome - Underrated gem, I really wish it was closer to VGC/Stadium settings instead of Take 3, Pick 2 in Singles and whatever in Doubles, I'm going off memory here. Apparently, it was one of the easiest, but I'd guess it's because you had so much information. Fair enough, I guess. Still really fun and it was interesting to see the other brackets. My personal favorite tied with the Factory.
Battle Pyramid - Very unique facility, great idea, and I'd really wish to see it back in an expanded, more interesting format.
Battle Pike - Also underrated, but it was great. I'm still mad they had wild Milotic, but I couldn't catch one.
Battle Arena - An interesting facility because it requires a different team composition, but it only really shines at higher streaks. Early streaks kind of break the gimmick because you can easily 2~3HKO a Jigglypuff lmao.
Battle Palace - I think everyone agrees this place is a hellhole, designed by the same people that made DP's Great Marsh. Probably programmed by Masuda himself. Fuck this place with a rusty rake.
Gen 4's Frontier was aggressively mid, but the Castle was really fun, the Hall was boring, but not that bad, and the Arcade might as well be russian roulette, but your opponent gets the first 4 shots.
And it says a lot I remember all of these without checking Bulbapedia for how they work. (I barely remember the Hall tho, I only remember it's 1v1 and there were ranks based on types)
I really, honestly just think they'll say anything in interviews to get them through the next 5 minutes
I've mentioned this before, but my ultimate wishlist item for a future mainline game is to just merge the Pokemon League and the Battle Frontier into a singular concept.
- Gyms are based around different gameplay styles instead of different elemental types. One functions like the Pyramid, another functions like the Hall, etc. Also come up with some new styles to fill out 8 different, unique gyms.
- On the first playthrough, they all function under normal in-game rules: items allowed, levels are preset and stay intact for the player, Shift/Set options work as normal. In the post-game, they convert over to traditional Frontier rules: level 50, no items, focus on streak/rank, etc.
- The Elite Four gets replaced by the modern equivalent of the Dome, which functions more or less as VGC Tournament Simulator in post-game rematches (either bring 6 pick 3 for singles or bring 6 pick 4 for doubles), and with the first run through of it in the story being a culmination tournament that features some important NPCs you've met over the course of the game.
I remember my first playthrough of the Frontier feeling like it was kind of structurally redundant in the first place, going off to beat a new set ofgym leaders frontier brains to collect a new set of badges medals. Really think that you could kill two birds with one stone here, and it'd actually come off as kind of a fresh take on the formula despite also literally being just another rehash of existing concepts lol.
- Gyms are based around different gameplay styles instead of different elemental types. One functions like the Pyramid, another functions like the Hall, etc. Also come up with some new styles to fill out 8 different, unique gyms.
- On the first playthrough, they all function under normal in-game rules: items allowed, levels are preset and stay intact for the player, Shift/Set options work as normal. In the post-game, they convert over to traditional Frontier rules: level 50, no items, focus on streak/rank, etc.
- The Elite Four gets replaced by the modern equivalent of the Dome, which functions more or less as VGC Tournament Simulator in post-game rematches (either bring 6 pick 3 for singles or bring 6 pick 4 for doubles), and with the first run through of it in the story being a culmination tournament that features some important NPCs you've met over the course of the game.
I remember my first playthrough of the Frontier feeling like it was kind of structurally redundant in the first place, going off to beat a new set of
I was actually thinking something similar to this the other day.
The Dome-style elimination tree is used in the Indigo League anime and I've always wanted to see something similar. It'd feel much more "live" to have a roster of elite trainers you face more or less at random.
That said, I think the Frontier being separate from the League works in the games it's in. It's explicitly a much harder format and is the endgame challenge - when Emerald was still in development I remember a leak calling the Frontier "a new set of gyms with two ranks of badges" and that's how I often think of it still.
What would be neat is having something like the Battle Tents again. They were a lot of fun in Emerald and felt very unlike anything that'd come before - later games have some roadside facilities like Inverse Battles but I found it really cool that they had "practice modes" for the Palace, Arena, and Factory.
A lot of people like to ding the Frontier by saying "half of the facilities were gimmicky wastes of time," but even if I were to accept that as true: (1) even most of those "gimmicks" were enjoyable enough to warrant one gold medal / gold print playthrough, which is a pretty substantial amount of "content" in and of itself, and (2) that leaves the other half of the facilities being pretty well thought out activities with a lot of replay value.
For real tho, I get that everyone hates the Palace and that's perfectly fair. Look at the broader picture tho.
Battle Tower - Absolute CLASSIC. BDSP had a great one with the Gym Leaders showing up, and SwSh's was bashed for being worse than the standard. Hasn't really been missing in most 3D games, so it hardly counts.
Battle Factory - Another classic, great gateway for the rest, and just a ton of fun with crazy variance to keep anyone on their toes.
Battle Dome - Underrated gem, I really wish it was closer to VGC/Stadium settings instead of Take 3, Pick 2 in Singles and whatever in Doubles, I'm going off memory here. Apparently, it was one of the easiest, but I'd guess it's because you had so much information. Fair enough, I guess. Still really fun and it was interesting to see the other brackets. My personal favorite tied with the Factory.
Battle Pyramid - Very unique facility, great idea, and I'd really wish to see it back in an expanded, more interesting format.
Battle Pike - Also underrated, but it was great. I'm still mad they had wild Milotic, but I couldn't catch one.
Battle Arena - An interesting facility because it requires a different team composition, but it only really shines at higher streaks. Early streaks kind of break the gimmick because you can easily 2~3HKO a Jigglypuff lmao.
Battle Palace - I think everyone agrees this place is a hellhole, designed by the same people that made DP's Great Marsh. Probably programmed by Masuda himself. Fuck this place with a rusty rake.
Gen 4's Frontier was aggressively mid, but the Castle was really fun, the Hall was boring, but not that bad, and the Arcade might as well be russian roulette, but your opponent gets the first 4 shots.
And it says a lot I remember all of these without checking Bulbapedia for how they work. (I barely remember the Hall tho, I only remember it's 1v1 and there were ranks based on types)
Even for the parts that were rather lacking in depth, like the Battle Hall, I found it somewhat amusing just to dick around with by seeing how many wins I could rack up with a Magikarp or some crap.
I've let my NSO subscription lapse, so I'm not really playing SV at all at the moment. Would be nice to have some more substantial single-player content again.
The Battle Pike has a degree of similarity with Roguelikes with being a harsh challenge that involves a lot of luck but still requires player input and legit skill to beat as to not be completely unfair. I can see people liking it for that.
Eternal Reverie the Battle Palace, pretty much. You have to manage a currency in order to keep your streak. Cool addition, although I don't like when the game launches multiple opponents at you, not with this battle system.
Yeah same, and it's possible to find them shiny too...Ironically, the hall of wild Pokemon is a good pick since you can just run away and it's a free room clear.
The Pyramid has more similarities with Roguelikes imo, having to explore randomized layouts with a randomized itempool as your only resource to clear the floors. You could get lucky and get sth like a Choice Band, or sth unreliable like Brightpowder. It's surprisingly generous that it lets you keep your items in between runs, but then again, starting with an empty bag every 10 floors would make this too brutal for my tastes...
It is pretty bullshit the first time you don't know what each "title" leads to because suddenly you are can get thrown two or three cover legendaries without any kind of warning or build up. But it's just very fun and I can't srgue against that. I have literally seen people that would never touch competitive or other battle factories with a stick enjoy it. Probably because the game allows you to use dumb stuff like maxed Legend Plate Arceus and it still doesn't guarantee you victory.
LA's battle system is definetly not made for it yet they still went the extra step to add it in a free update. It just makes it more baffling to me The Indigo Disk didn't get anything, after finally getting some genuinely fun and interesting double battles in-game. It's just odd to have the setting of a literal academy focused on battling specifically and somehow try to cater for people who want more challenguing in-game trainers but then don't do the obvious thong of giving these players a battle factory. Sure, I still keep playing Scarlet because of the raids but we can have both, just look at SWSH.
I do still believe that when most people ask for the Frontier they are just asking for more actual postgame which is fair but it's also true many think the 'Frontier' label has more weight than it actually does.
I'm convinced by now Masuda either used to make up shit on interviews for no real reason or in some weird logic he tried to do "damage control" but ended up making things worse. Like when talking about Dexit. Maybe on his head it sounded better, maybe he thought admitting they never planned to add the Frontier to begin with would be worse received? I have no idea. But it's impossible there was not someone reading/watching these interviews and not facepalming. Imagine working on the remake of a game you love and when asked about the lack of a fan loved feature a higher up just makes up some bullshit that gets fans mad. Seriously, what is wrong with some vague statement of "it didn't make the cut/we decided against it" and call it a day?
There's also the issue of consumers being insufferable about reading into things that were never said.
Like, if you saw the "under construction" Battle Frontier display piece in ORAS and immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was a DLC tease and not just a little reference for in-universe lore... then that's on you. The developers didn't "trick" or "troll" you; you read into something that was never there in the first place. And if you ever hassled a developer or community manager about it, then you should be given a shock collar and administered a jolt of electricity every single time you do something like that until that unhinged behavior is trained out of you.
It's actually kind of wild how entitled some people can be. I have seen instances when, for example, during the run up to an event like E3 or a Nintendo Direct, a publisher will make an announcement ahead of time about certain franchises that will not be featured, and the reason why they do this is because there is an extremely unhinged vocal minority of "fans" who will whip themselves into a frenzy ahead of time with expectations of announcements that have no basis in reality, only for that fantasy to be exposed as ungrounded once the event comes and goes, but those fans will just stir up a social media shitstorm about it anyway because they think it's the publisher's fault that they didn't deliver on promises that were never made in the first place.
On a broader tangent, I don't know why any developer even conducts making-of interviews in this day and age tbh. You get way more people with axes to grind about what was "stolen" from the audience than those who are generally curious about the development process. If you've ever followed communities who get really into digging through development builds of old games you'll notice a subset of those fans who get feral about how things were originally "intended" to be and who set out to "restore the original vision" through romhacks or whatever, never pausing for a moment to consider that sometimes things get changed or cut for a reason.
Conversation is a two-way street. A speaker can only be held responsible for what they say. They should not also be held responsible for what you fail to understand.
Like, if you saw the "under construction" Battle Frontier display piece in ORAS and immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was a DLC tease and not just a little reference for in-universe lore... then that's on you. The developers didn't "trick" or "troll" you; you read into something that was never there in the first place. And if you ever hassled a developer or community manager about it, then you should be given a shock collar and administered a jolt of electricity every single time you do something like that until that unhinged behavior is trained out of you.
It's actually kind of wild how entitled some people can be. I have seen instances when, for example, during the run up to an event like E3 or a Nintendo Direct, a publisher will make an announcement ahead of time about certain franchises that will not be featured, and the reason why they do this is because there is an extremely unhinged vocal minority of "fans" who will whip themselves into a frenzy ahead of time with expectations of announcements that have no basis in reality, only for that fantasy to be exposed as ungrounded once the event comes and goes, but those fans will just stir up a social media shitstorm about it anyway because they think it's the publisher's fault that they didn't deliver on promises that were never made in the first place.
On a broader tangent, I don't know why any developer even conducts making-of interviews in this day and age tbh. You get way more people with axes to grind about what was "stolen" from the audience than those who are generally curious about the development process. If you've ever followed communities who get really into digging through development builds of old games you'll notice a subset of those fans who get feral about how things were originally "intended" to be and who set out to "restore the original vision" through romhacks or whatever, never pausing for a moment to consider that sometimes things get changed or cut for a reason.
Conversation is a two-way street. A speaker can only be held responsible for what they say. They should not also be held responsible for what you fail to understand.
One of the things I'm most bitter about post-SWSH meltdown is how developer press tours for mainline Pokemon have absolutely ground to a screeching halt. Other than thankful remarks when the games are featured in yearly Famitsu polls you basically hear nothing from the people behind them anymore. Look at BW prerelease where you had Masuda and co. sharing concept art & funny anecdotes like how Frillish's designer was upset it was retyped to Ghost. Now we can't even get a Legends Z-A demonstration at the Switch 2 games treehouse.
It was a necessary change for all the reasons you said. Doesn't mean I can't be grumpy about it.
Battle Frontier topic: I'm actually happy it's never returned, I was one of those salty girls when it came to ORAS but it's subsided as we've moved forward.
The PWT, however, is absolutely the best "facility" they've done. Alongside the BDSP battle tower. This is what they need to replicate going forward IMO (but they won't lol)
The PWT gives the opportunity to showcase returning trainers and allows the actual game to focus on new content with the PWT allowing a throwback element, as well as being able to see upgraded designs / teams for older characters (and allows them to market the DLC with something like.. woah Cynthia is returning!)
But at a base level, a game should have a battle tower that encompasses the content within the game. SV having the Ace Tourney was a nice change, because rematching bosses is a selling point, but there being no way to cycle through doubles (or even practice for VGC) was a huge miss for SV.
The PWT, however, is absolutely the best "facility" they've done. Alongside the BDSP battle tower. This is what they need to replicate going forward IMO (but they won't lol)
The PWT gives the opportunity to showcase returning trainers and allows the actual game to focus on new content with the PWT allowing a throwback element, as well as being able to see upgraded designs / teams for older characters (and allows them to market the DLC with something like.. woah Cynthia is returning!)
But at a base level, a game should have a battle tower that encompasses the content within the game. SV having the Ace Tourney was a nice change, because rematching bosses is a selling point, but there being no way to cycle through doubles (or even practice for VGC) was a huge miss for SV.
Happy? Ain't no way bruh
*Checks thread title*
I'mma keep it a stack with you, the PWT was MID.
Plain 3v3 is just too short for me. I like the concept, but the execution needed some spice. As it stands, it's a telegraphed Battle Tower with actual characters. I'd like to see them interact more, maybe use an improved version of the Battle Dome tournament style so we see the leaders duking it out too.
I think the simplest answer is that VGC is intended to be the post-game. There's no way to cycle through doubles or practice for VGC because VGC itself is meant to be the practice. This is the real reason that the Battle Frontier has never returned, I think - with VGC, all of the competitive post-game content is maintained via online features, and doesn't require additional development time beyond basic implementation of online. By contrast, the Battle Frontier requires a lot more work - designing/implementing assets, making/balancing enemy teams, coming up with gimmick concepts - whereas VGC is largely self-sustaining other than Regulation changes. Even if you're not interested in VGC, there's also Raids for co-op play. Unlike VGC, this isn't really self-sustaining since 7* raids are custom made to keep interest around, but there's certainly a lot less work put into them than with even a Battle Tower equivalent.
Frankly, I don't expect even the Battle Tower to ever return. VGC (and I guess Battle Spot? That's still around, right?) are meant to fill that post-game battling void, with Raids either supplementing VGC with the resources they provide or substituting it as post-game content for people who aren't interested in Raids. I'm not a fan for a number of reasons - I hate Raids, and the Battle Frontier has survived past the DS's servers going online whereas VGC won't - but I can see the merit in allocating that development time and effort elsewhere.