And when it does learn a poison attack its not super good...poison fang...
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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
That's why crobat is not a good parther for the adventure.
Event for 2018 =>To be honnest, when I check the list of events for 2018, I see any hidden abilities. A good point, Zygarde is no more a shiny lock!
And of course Japan gets more even than the rest of world ._.
what they were going for with the wormhole minigame was to make it so you could judge where to stop based on your current speed so you wouldn't get pulled into a bad wormhole.
this is a decent idea in theory, but it was executed so poorly in practice. most of the time, you're only looking for 3 and 4 ring holes, and sometimes you need a specific color. there's no benefit to stopping anywhere else outside of slightly higher shiny chances.
let's also not forget that the game rewards you for going further with increased shiny chances, so you're encouraged to take risks that will more than likely waste a couple minutes of your time and force you to reset.
the thing i personally don't like about it is that there's an upper limit on how far you can go because of your speed constantly decreasing and the boosts eventually getting phased out altogether. it would've been really cool if you could get a guaranteed shiny by getting far enough, kind of like poke radar but without the rng.
this is a decent idea in theory, but it was executed so poorly in practice. most of the time, you're only looking for 3 and 4 ring holes, and sometimes you need a specific color. there's no benefit to stopping anywhere else outside of slightly higher shiny chances.
let's also not forget that the game rewards you for going further with increased shiny chances, so you're encouraged to take risks that will more than likely waste a couple minutes of your time and force you to reset.
the thing i personally don't like about it is that there's an upper limit on how far you can go because of your speed constantly decreasing and the boosts eventually getting phased out altogether. it would've been really cool if you could get a guaranteed shiny by getting far enough, kind of like poke radar but without the rng.
I just got Ultra Moon after playing only on Sun. Having the Y key to save is going to take some getting used to.
More likely you'll have to get used to it not being there whenever you go back to Sun for whatever reason. It's not as convenient as having the full menu options available on the touch screen at all times like in gen 6 and HG/SS, but it's still helpful.
Granted, nearly all of the evolution items available for BP are too pricey for what they really do. Why charge 32 BP for Dubious Disc or Magmarizer when they literally do nothing beyond letting Porygon2 and Magmar respectfully evolve when traded? It's not such a huge deal in USUM with Mantine Surf providing so many BP per trip, but they really shouldn't cost more than 8 BP.
And why aren't Razor Claw and Razor Fang also available? The latter is especially bothersome because it's a 5% chance... on Bruxish. They don't even provide a freebie in case you obtain a Gligar and want to evolve it.
The confusion and annoyances go further than that: The game tells you that Gligar and Sneasel have evolutions, but not how to obtain them. Heck, imagine you're a newbie who's just seen Gladion use Weavile in his last fight in SM. You decide you want a Weavile for yourself. Where do you even begin?
Identifying Sneasel as the pre-evo, and then finding it, is easy enough. It's pretty common in Mount Lanakila, a place you'll be heading to straight after the Gladion battle anyway. But evolving it? Why, you have to get an item the game doesn't tell you about, by using a not-very-effective move on a rare Pokémon appearing on the other side of the map, and it will only work 5 % of the time so good luck finding out about that in the first place. Then you have to deduce that Sneasel is meant to hold this obscure item, without any help from the item description since it only mentions Critical Hit rate, and level up at night with it. "Non-intuitive" doesn't even begin to cover how absurd this is.
So of course, you go online. The Pokémon games are, probably unintentionally, pretty well-designed to build online communities dedicated to them. The games have so much content, and much of it is very explicitly shown to you but not explained in detail. The prime example being trainers who use rare Pokémon you can't readily find out how to obtain. This drives the need for websites containing this information, which again foster discussion communities. Minecraft also used this to great effect, pulling people online for more information, and then providing a wiki and official discussion forums to welcome the eager newbies.
However, and here's the big annoyance: Pokémon only provided the part about pulling people online, but didn't provide a place to compile information. Fans did. Huge fan communities, like Serebii and Bulbapedia, bloom because they have the information Game Freak didn't provide yet still made you reliant on.
And here's the even bigger annoyance: Somehow, Game Freak manages to act like they don't know these fan sites exist. They manage to tailor conditions so that people would need to band together online to find information about the games, yet market the games as if they have no fans above the age of ten. It's not like the Internet is a new phenomenon, but up until 2012 they thought they could do all their marketing exclusively in Japan for half a year before revealing the games in the West, and they still seem to cling on to the idea that they can give exclusive news on Japanese kids' shows or magazines without their international fans noticing.
I'm willing to bet that over 99 % of all English-language Pokémon gamers have used information found on Serebii, Bulbapedia, or other big fan portals. Perhaps not by themselves, but by asking an older friend or sibling who found the information online. The communities provide the de facto source for in-depth information about the Pokémon games. Yet Game Freak seems completely oblivious to their existence, or at least they did for embarrassingly long (somebody snuck in Serebii's Pokéarth graphic on a poster in ORAS, around the time they started dropping news on YouTube instead of CoroCoro). It's really confusing how a company can foster such great communities devoted to their games, yet still act all ignorant about their existence.
Well Gamefreak cluelessness about how the internet even works is not exclusive to them
It's an old article but here we can see that Japan was (is?) very reluctant to adopt online services as a whole
highlights include a government official in charge of internet infrastructure not knowing about "free" Wi-Fi in hotels and business and no one in japan even knowing what a Google was as late as 2009
It's an old article but here we can see that Japan was (is?) very reluctant to adopt online services as a whole
highlights include a government official in charge of internet infrastructure not knowing about "free" Wi-Fi in hotels and business and no one in japan even knowing what a Google was as late as 2009
The internet problem has plagued the series since inception. The games were made to capitalize on exploration and discovery, which is all ruined thanks to the internet.
In their defense it is damned if you do, damned if you don't as outsourcing information to fan sites and outside sources means that 1% without a stable internet connection is left to suffer. I didn't think these people existed in 2018, but then I had to jump through a dozen hoops to get a decent internet signal when I moved last year to a desert town. There's also the economic problems of going all online, as the many people moaning the loss of the virtual console on Switch in favor of what looks like a streaming service and Nintendo finally giving in to paid online services. So it isn't a move without sacrifices.
But at the same time if Gamefreak really didn't want people to depend on the internet for pokemon games, then they really need to stop being so dang stingy with basic game mechanics. Sure they give you enough to beat the game, but for the competitive side or even post-game content like the Battle Towers they demand a much higher level of knowledge than they actually give.
Some people try to defend Gamefreak being light on details, but my counter argument is usually "using only in-game clues and info, how would you discover that Eevee can learn wish?" Wish being a highly competitive move for the Eevee line that requires not only the discovery of egg moves but chain breeding egg moves (Togepi to Pikachu to Eevee).
I always think back to playing chess with a friend in the 5th grade where he used castling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castling) and I got super angry because I thought he was cheating and making it up, so I flipped the board over and pouted. That's what competitive pokemon with no internet help feels like.
In their defense it is damned if you do, damned if you don't as outsourcing information to fan sites and outside sources means that 1% without a stable internet connection is left to suffer. I didn't think these people existed in 2018, but then I had to jump through a dozen hoops to get a decent internet signal when I moved last year to a desert town. There's also the economic problems of going all online, as the many people moaning the loss of the virtual console on Switch in favor of what looks like a streaming service and Nintendo finally giving in to paid online services. So it isn't a move without sacrifices.
But at the same time if Gamefreak really didn't want people to depend on the internet for pokemon games, then they really need to stop being so dang stingy with basic game mechanics. Sure they give you enough to beat the game, but for the competitive side or even post-game content like the Battle Towers they demand a much higher level of knowledge than they actually give.
Some people try to defend Gamefreak being light on details, but my counter argument is usually "using only in-game clues and info, how would you discover that Eevee can learn wish?" Wish being a highly competitive move for the Eevee line that requires not only the discovery of egg moves but chain breeding egg moves (Togepi to Pikachu to Eevee).
I always think back to playing chess with a friend in the 5th grade where he used castling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castling) and I got super angry because I thought he was cheating and making it up, so I flipped the board over and pouted. That's what competitive pokemon with no internet help feels like.
Game Freak not acting like any fan-site exists is also strange for other reasons too. If you want to keep away from stuff like Smogon - sites which are specifically characterised by an interest in a battle system and style of play you do not want to promote or associate with - then that makes sense. But then you've got stuff like Serebii, Bulbapedia or Marilland -- stuff which is specifically for news, compilation of information and/or fan communities.
I bring this up because strange an idea as it might be for the uninitiated, there are companies who not only recognise fan-sites; but actually affiliate with them. I was on a Transformers fan-site for a while as part of the news staff, and during that time, Hasbro would send upcoming news of some big toy reveals for us to post, would keep in touch to tell us if something is fake or not, and in specific reference to comic books - though this is more on the part of IDW - would send us review copies of each issue a week before they came out so we could publish reviews the morning those comics came out. It's an astonishing level of fan connection and recognition that got us a lot more traffic than we would, and provides much better up-to-date advertisement for these toys and comics on Hasbro's behalf.
That symbolises my confusion with just how much Game Freak tries to pretend as much as possible that these communities don't exist, and that they're the only ones who could give you news. I don't exactly expect a huge commitment to the idea, but it's been a tried and tested method that keeping in touch with your fanbases and providing them with stuff is a mutually beneficial situation. I don't know if it's just a big difference in how companies are run, but it just seems extremely out of touch and archaic to me.
I bring this up because strange an idea as it might be for the uninitiated, there are companies who not only recognise fan-sites; but actually affiliate with them. I was on a Transformers fan-site for a while as part of the news staff, and during that time, Hasbro would send upcoming news of some big toy reveals for us to post, would keep in touch to tell us if something is fake or not, and in specific reference to comic books - though this is more on the part of IDW - would send us review copies of each issue a week before they came out so we could publish reviews the morning those comics came out. It's an astonishing level of fan connection and recognition that got us a lot more traffic than we would, and provides much better up-to-date advertisement for these toys and comics on Hasbro's behalf.
That symbolises my confusion with just how much Game Freak tries to pretend as much as possible that these communities don't exist, and that they're the only ones who could give you news. I don't exactly expect a huge commitment to the idea, but it's been a tried and tested method that keeping in touch with your fanbases and providing them with stuff is a mutually beneficial situation. I don't know if it's just a big difference in how companies are run, but it just seems extremely out of touch and archaic to me.
Don't forget Wurmple. Don't forget the Pokemon you have NO WAY to know what it will evolve into until you see it evolve.
Before then, even. Because I owned a Pokémon Handbook, I was pretty well-versed in the basic of Gen I's mechanics, or at least how to obtain and evolve all Pokémon in Gen I (well, apart from Mew, but you know). So when Gen II arrived, I thought myself quite familiar with how the series worked. You caught base stage Pokémon, then evolved them by leveling up, trading, or using evolution stones. That was the deal for all of Gen I, and most of Gen II followed suit.
... except for that new, awesome evolution of Onix. I levelled Onix up to level 65. No Steelix. I traded it back and forth. No Steelix. I maxed out Friendship. No Steelix. Used it in the Battle Tower (and lost miserably, but hey, I used it). Tried all the evolution stones. Talked to every NPC. No Steelix. One day I was able to accompany my mother to work, and was able to try a computer with Internet access. There I came across some old website explaining the process of evolving Onix.
Why, it turned out that one (and only one) of the 17 type-boosting items, that you find one of each scattered across the map, had a secondary effect nobody told you about. Your Onix had to hold that item it had no other use for (Onix doesn't learn Steel moves in Gen II apart from Iron Tail by one-off TM), and then you had to trade it. How the heck could you figure that one out without outside help? I later learned that Scyther had an evolution too (not as prominent as Steelix, as I believe no NPC uses Scizor in Gen II while Steelix is the ace of the sixth Gym Leader and therefore a mandatory encounter), which you obtained through the exact same method. Oh, but there was only one Metal Coat. Tears were shed in frustration. It turned out later that wild Magnemite could give you more of them, but how the heck was I supposed to know that?!? It's not like you ever catch more than one Magnemite, and if you aren't lucky with the 8 % hold rate, then you're on your own.
I mean, I get that the games can't explain every mechanic in-depth. Filling out the Pokédex should be a bit of a challenge. But there's a difference between that and making the way to obtain a prominently displayed Pokémon so ridiculously contrived and unexplained as the example of Steelix. The designers had to see that this way of doing things would cause players to look up information. There can't possibly have been more than a dozen instances of somebody managing to evolve Onix by trial and error, ever. The only explanation I could see was that they wanted to sell strategy guides, and were unaware of the Internet. But as the games started to come with online capabilities, some bells ought to have begun ringing somewhere.
I wouldn't call that a relevant example in this situation. You need to really know your Google-fu to find a way to determine what Wurmple will evolve into, and no strategy guide could possibly get you anywhere closer to figuring out. At least Wurmple's split evolution method is somewhat intuitive to grasp and you could feasibly be lucky and get what you wanted on your first try. But, say, figuring out how to get Azurill, on the other hand...
Codraroll it's even worse for Gliscor in gen 7 since it's not in the Pokedex at all, so a new player that just happens to get a Gligar off of WT/GTS will have no clue about its evolution or how to get it. (granted, (Ultra) Moon players have both Gliscor and Weavile a little easier since it's night time during when they're most likely awake to play)
Also, with Wurmple, you can always just catch the _coon your Wurmple didn't evolve into to complete both branches of its evolution family in Petalburg Woods, likely while you attempt to find that Shroomish the hapless Devon Corp employee said could be found here. (though who would think to hold off on evolving it and missing Mach Punch for Spore, still the best sleep-inducing move in the game?)
Codraroll I'm again reminded of the boneheaded reason why Azure Flute was never released. But seeing as Game Freak is basically part of Nintendo, I guess they're destined to slowly stumble around this new-fangled internet thing. For every genuinely awesome thing, there's another that just leaves you banging your head on a desk asking "why?"
Also, with Wurmple, you can always just catch the _coon your Wurmple didn't evolve into to complete both branches of its evolution family in Petalburg Woods, likely while you attempt to find that Shroomish the hapless Devon Corp employee said could be found here. (though who would think to hold off on evolving it and missing Mach Punch for Spore, still the best sleep-inducing move in the game?)
Codraroll I'm again reminded of the boneheaded reason why Azure Flute was never released. But seeing as Game Freak is basically part of Nintendo, I guess they're destined to slowly stumble around this new-fangled internet thing. For every genuinely awesome thing, there's another that just leaves you banging your head on a desk asking "why?"
For Onyx / Steelix, isn't a NPC in the boat between Johto/Kanto gives you Metal Coat and explains how to evolve Onyx ?
He gives you a Metal Coat - the only one in the game aside from wild Magnemite - but doesn't even give a hint as to it being an evolution item.
I guess that's a matter of opinion. What's worse, having a Pokémon with no indication of the existence of its evolution or how to get it, or having a Pokémon with its evolution displayed prominently, but no sign of how to get it? At least you can't get Gligar in Gen VII without having access to the Internet, so the problem doesn't come packed with the game. Back in the days of GSC, the game clearly showed you what was obviously an Onix evolution, without explaining how to obtain it, and as stated you were extremely unlikely to find out on your own. I suspect this was done to make players reliant on strategy guides, which would add a neat bit of income to Nintendo's coffers.
Other Examples:
At the very least have a trainer like in the Trainer School (I'm beginning to see how under-utilized that area is) tell you how a Pokemon evolves by presenting it to them.
- Having to know you need to use the Move Reminder to re-teach Piloswine the move Ancient Power (a Special move that Piloswine has no reason having) to evolve. Not to mention letting Tangela keep Ancient Power too (though it's two offense stats are so close you' probably learn it for coverage... if you ever use a Tangela...). On that same note, while Poipole certainly can use Dragon Pulse if you didn't know you needed it to evolve it you'd need another reason to teach it to Poipole (I question if the Ultra Recon Squad even know it evolves).
- Crabrawler needing to be at the highest point in SM to evolve... which is the Pokemon League you don't visit until the very end of the game (in USUM they made it so you can at least access the base of the mountain which is enough... though also doesn't make sense at the same time. Why not let it evolve near the Observatory which is also on a mountain?).
- Pokemon who evolve during certain times of day could be annoying if you play around a certain time of day and it's not the time of day needed to evolve it. And this one often gets combined with ANOTHER method like high Friendship or holding a certain item (the previous discussed Sneasel and Gligar need it to be night to evolve).
- Better keep your eye on the gender of Combee and Salandit you plan on training.
- Want a Midday Lycanroc? Hope you got Pokemon Sun (at least Vast Poni Canyon has both formes... depending on the time of day playing).
- With Nincada evolving at level 20 it makes perfect sense you'd still have room in your party as well as kept at least one normal Poke Ball without knowing you need to do that to get Shedinja.
- Okay, without being told, who's going to hold their DS UPSIDE DOWN? Were they thinking the only people who were going to get Malamar were bored kids playing the game while hanging upside down from their beds?
- With Goodra being a psuedo legendary of course it'll take a long time to evolve, who would think there was an additional requirement that relied on the games deciding to have a certain overworld weather condition going on.
- What Hitmon that Tyrogue will evolve into requires you to pay attention to its stats, and Hitmontop making sure two stats remain the same.
- Eevee. Eevee, eevee, eevee. First needed evolution stones, then high friendship during time of day, then a specific location, and now knowing a certain move type with high Affection.
At the very least have a trainer like in the Trainer School (I'm beginning to see how under-utilized that area is) tell you how a Pokemon evolves by presenting it to them.
Didn't they do something like that in BW2? You being able to call Bianca to get a tip on how a Pokemon evolves?
Speaking of tips, they probably should bring Teachy TV or something similar back so you can have tutorials whilst making them optional unlike how recent Pokemon games did tutorials. Possibly with a few extra tips, including evolution methods.
Hand-holding IS a pet-peeve of mine in the Gen 7 games (and I guess Gen 6 too but I haven't played X and Y for a long ass time), but some shit shouldn't require a damn strategy guide to figure out.
Hand-holding IS a pet-peeve of mine in the Gen 7 games (and I guess Gen 6 too but I haven't played X and Y for a long ass time), but some shit shouldn't require a damn strategy guide to figure out.
Hitmontop and Malamar honestly annoy me the most because even when you know their evolution methods and fulfill them, they're difficult to pull off. The 3DS' Gyroscope really is not perfect and I've had to reset the game multiple times when evolving an Inkay because it just didn't register the turn and the game gives you no indication of if you've done so, while Hitmontop I've also had to reset once or twice because holy heck keeping two stats exactly the same. That's especially painful for kids who don't know a jot about EVs or anything else and so would naturally get stumped when, after keeping their attack and defence stats equal at level 19; suddenly the attack stat jumps 2 points while defence jumps 1 for no apparent reason.
Along with many Gen 5 Evolution levels, these are among the evolution methods I'd like to see retconned and changed. Thematically they make sense, but in execution the games' mechanics are either too obscure or too unpolished to pull it off cleanly.
Along with many Gen 5 Evolution levels, these are among the evolution methods I'd like to see retconned and changed. Thematically they make sense, but in execution the games' mechanics are either too obscure or too unpolished to pull it off cleanly.
I've been lucky in the myriad of times I've wanted to obtain all three in that I've been able to get a Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan, and Hitmontop without really trying beyond knowing how the stats have to roughly be at the time of evolution from Tyrogue - and not really understanding what EV's, Nature, IV's, etc. are. But I haven't done it since Fire Red, and really don't want to go through that headache.
I've had success in the few times I've evolved Inkay, but then I pretty much had the 3DS upside-down for the entire battle it would gain enough EXP to level up. And yet I curse the gyroscope's existence in Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon when I'm being asked to cross a narrow plank as Luigi seems to love losing his balance and falling off at least 55% of the time... (though this does make me curious how this will be handled for the Switch games... and worry what methods they'll come up with that weren't possible with the 3DS)