Aeg should not have been banned
Can't think of much more rn
Can't think of much more rn
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
Yeah, or it’ll just railroad players into using a narrow selection of Pokémon that make the specific hard matchups easier, stifling the potential for teambuilding variety most people look for in a Pokémon game
I don't know about that. I feel like smarter AI alone could fix a lot of problems in this regard.
Not really. I think that's a misconception on what "challenging" means. Better movesets and a stronger AI by default (instead of keeping it for Battle facilities), and not higher levels, are what increases difficulty. USUM shows it pretty well with the Totem Pokemon - many have the same boosts and levels as in SM, yet they are considerably more annoying because of a better-thought moveset and partner choice. Or how Platinum is harder than Diamond and Pearl despite lacking the massive level jump between Volkner and the Elite Four.
There's a bunch of ROM Hacks that show what difficulty without the need of grinding is pretty well. I've even seen one that prevents Pokémon from gaining experience past a certain level for each gym.
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The Pokemon fanbase’s general obsession with “jerk rivals” never ceases to baffle me. In fact, I personally believe that they tend to be far weaker than the “friendlier” rivals, since they have no bite that matches up to their bark. Maybe it’s due to how RBY was not my first game, nor did I first play it as a kid, but my reaction to Blue being Champion was not this amazing moment it seemed to be for so many other people, it felt more like “Oh, I have to kick his ass again.” It’s hard to feel threatened or insulted by someone who you constantly beat; and since you *have* to beat the rivals in most cases in order to progress through the game (sans optional battles), it’s not like you can make up for being defeated either.
With that said, I also find the likes of Trip and the Gen 6 characters (I use that word very loosely) to be weak, too. Hau is borderline. There’s a line to be drawn between being nice and too nice; I believe that rivals should be competitive, and working towards the same goal; not brooding and overly rude, but also not giving me Max Revives and Z-Crystals whenever they feel like it.
If you ask me, that’s why Cheren is the perfect rival; not quite mean same way that Blue is, but he just reeks of overconfidence and needs to be brought down a notch, especially early-game, and he’s competing with you for a common goal: being the Champion. He gives you some stuff sometimes and gives advice, but the two of you are friends, and the advice is fairly limited in scale. He also has great character development, but that’s for another thread, another day. A balance between the two is the best way to go about a rival in my opinion and I feel it’s a shame that people lean so hard into nostalgia with Blue (and to a lesser extent, Silver) without considering their faults as characters as well.
With that said, I also find the likes of Trip and the Gen 6 characters (I use that word very loosely) to be weak, too. Hau is borderline. There’s a line to be drawn between being nice and too nice; I believe that rivals should be competitive, and working towards the same goal; not brooding and overly rude, but also not giving me Max Revives and Z-Crystals whenever they feel like it.
If you ask me, that’s why Cheren is the perfect rival; not quite mean same way that Blue is, but he just reeks of overconfidence and needs to be brought down a notch, especially early-game, and he’s competing with you for a common goal: being the Champion. He gives you some stuff sometimes and gives advice, but the two of you are friends, and the advice is fairly limited in scale. He also has great character development, but that’s for another thread, another day. A balance between the two is the best way to go about a rival in my opinion and I feel it’s a shame that people lean so hard into nostalgia with Blue (and to a lesser extent, Silver) without considering their faults as characters as well.
I agree in that the jerk rival ends up more like an annoyance you want to stop coming across with and less like someone you want to beat.
IMO Barry is the best rival, with Cheren and USUM Hau being close. Competitive as he was supposed to be, and friendly through the entire game, although I guess there can be some unlikable traits.
(BTW, Trip is anime-only. Perhaps you meant Bianca or Hugh? Or Wally?)
I meant that guy from Let’s GO. Don’t have the game, so I don’t remember his name; all I remember is how /r/pokemon (which I used to frequent; mistake) completely freaked out about his very existence.
Not sure why Trip came to mind, since I’ve only ever watched the anime in passing. I think Bianca and Wally are great characters as well, but lesser rivals for their own reasons. Bianca is a little too nice, but then again Cheren and N are the real rivals. Wally you only fight twice, but he does get ahead of you in Victory Road, which is a really cool moment. I’ll be honest and say I can’t stand Qwilfish man, but he functions just fine as a rival.
I'd say the only downside for Hugh (Qwilfish man) is his random rage outbursts which seem more exaggarated than anything, but otherwise I liked the gimmick where he partners you multiple times and is more of a supportive, but competitive character.
Another unpopular opinion I have is that Gen 7 is the worst one. Idk, I just never enjoyed it as much. My ranking of the gens is 4,1,3,2,5,6,7
I see what you mean. If you run into "that one trainer" (worst if its a Gym Leader) you may end of losing quite a bit of money. Obviously grinding your Pokemon or catching and training a Pokemon with a Type advantage is usually the answer but that does take up time and feels like you're admitting a sort of defeat. I can maybe think of a few ways around this and works with this:
1. Allowance/Interest: Set up the PC having a bank account where everyday the player gets money. Like everyday they get 100 or 200 (or whatever a cost of a Poke Ball is) in "interest" and then on say Friday their mother/father/parental guardian gives them an extra 1000. That way, while it's slow building, the player does have some money coming in so they didn't entirely hit a wall and lose all their money. Also, letting the player deposit money that won't get taken even if they have no on-hand money may further help those players who prepared ahead of time (maybe even do the Gen II thing where half your winnings automatically go to the bank).
2. Don't Work For Free: Hey, Professor, since I'm running around filling this Pokedex, how about some compensation? Would be neat if the Professor actually gave you some money (probably deposit it into the bank account) for filling out the Pokedex. Like you get an extra 100 for every Pokemon seen and obtained (catching the first species of a Pokemon you've encountered or evolving a Pokemon to one you haven't seen yet would get you 200). That right away would give you some quick money to start out with.
3. Don't Lose Money In Gyms & Pokemon League: I think they should do a revamp to Gyms and the Pokemon League in one way (well, more than one way, but that's for another topic): while going through them you don't earn any money or experience. In exchange, you don't lose any money if you lose. And once you beat the Gym or Pokemon League you and your Pokemon will be reward the experience and money you would have earned. This will prevent that "one trainer" being a Gym Leader or an Elite Four/Champion who is tougher than your average on the road trainer in levels, moves, and number of Pokemon.
Honestly I don't think it's players want a jerk rival specifically but we want something other than a friendly rival. EVERY rival since Gen III has either been your friend or wants to be your friend. And not just a casual friend but one of your best buddies. We can't have a rival who is just another kid you bump into occasionally? Or at least give them a wider range of character quirks or interests (and actually develop them).
Like I think the Green they had in Let's Go would have made for a fun and quirky rival. At first she just seems like a normal trainer who was looking for Mewtwo, but after you defeat her in battle she starts acting weird. She says she wants YOU to be one of her Pokemon and starts chucking Poke Balls at you before running off laughing. Certainly a very strange encounter, but at the same time it's so out there I kind of want a rival who's random like that just to see what they'd do throughout the journey.
Not judging, but you have very interesting tastes compared to many others.
I think there should definitely be more rewards for filling out a Pokedex other than some triggerish ''Congratulations, you just completed the Pokedex, you have no life and no rewards!'' and shiny charm (I think shiny charm is not enough to make me want to fill up a long Pokedex as hell). Maybe make filling Pokedex a mandatory part of gameplay (like cannot pass without having seen [X] and having registered [X])
I wish they kept the DexNav idea from ORAS. Not only did it make filling out the dex in that area fun as you see the Pokemon fill the bottom picture, but also you could look for specific Pokemon and with the PokeNav Plus features may be able to grind for a Pokemon with better IVs, Abiltiy, or Egg Move.
Absolutely! I liked the Habitat List from B2W2 (which most other people seemed to dislike), but then the DexNav came along and perfected it, in my mind at least. Completing the Pokédex is such a daunting task these days, so having a feature like that really helped divide it up into manageable chunks without making it completely handhold-y, since you still have to evolve a bunch of stuff and catch legendaries etc. to actually get close to completing the Dex.
I'm probably going to get some backlash here, but I don't like the ideas of multiple versions or at least the way its presented right now .
Prior to GTS, it was fine with version exclusives being the only difference, since that alone was a challenge. But now GTS exists, I feel that the challenge is now gone. Its so easy to be obtain version exclusives: just put another online, and very soon, another will come flying through. If anything its an inconvenience for because you rely on another for a certain Pokemon.
How would I fix it? I would tie it more to the story. Or potentially difficulty. And no, I don't mean just make some minor changes like in BW with one being old and the other being modern or time being set 12 hours ahead.. I would rather have it a totally completely story- both which feature the same characters but different sides in each version. I guess the only problem is that it might compel you to play the other version to get the full story, which kinda ruins the main draw of Pokemon.
As for difficulty, I remeber FE Fates Birthright and Conquest was split into 2 major gameplay switchers: Birthright was for newbies, while Conquest was for veterans who prefer a challenge. Since Pokemon has a stark contrast between competetive and casual, this would be a great divide, since Pokemon "aims" to appeal for everyone: One version for newbies, while the other is for those and veterans looking for a challenge.
My main point is that I don't think there's enough differences to justify two versions.
Just an idea that probably will never face a reality.
Prior to GTS, it was fine with version exclusives being the only difference, since that alone was a challenge. But now GTS exists, I feel that the challenge is now gone. Its so easy to be obtain version exclusives: just put another online, and very soon, another will come flying through. If anything its an inconvenience for because you rely on another for a certain Pokemon.
How would I fix it? I would tie it more to the story. Or potentially difficulty. And no, I don't mean just make some minor changes like in BW with one being old and the other being modern or time being set 12 hours ahead.. I would rather have it a totally completely story- both which feature the same characters but different sides in each version. I guess the only problem is that it might compel you to play the other version to get the full story, which kinda ruins the main draw of Pokemon.
As for difficulty, I remeber FE Fates Birthright and Conquest was split into 2 major gameplay switchers: Birthright was for newbies, while Conquest was for veterans who prefer a challenge. Since Pokemon has a stark contrast between competetive and casual, this would be a great divide, since Pokemon "aims" to appeal for everyone: One version for newbies, while the other is for those and veterans looking for a challenge.
My main point is that I don't think there's enough differences to justify two versions.
Just an idea that probably will never face a reality.
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Sadly they can't really do that as they'd have to REALLY advertise that one version is meant for newer players while the other version is meant for veteran players. But then you get into the problem of players liking one version exclusives over the other yet its in the version not meant for them. Fire Emblem can do it because they're isolated stories that I've never heard of having competitive components (I don't know, I never played a Fire Emblem game, I know the games have continuity with each other but can you connect to another game in any significant way like Pokemon?).
Actually I'd be completely down for this idea! Infact I thought if they ever went back to the Kanto region *glares are LGPE* they should also do a Johto game and have what version you play determine what region you do first (thus drastically changing the playing experience). Pokemon Kanto would first start out in Kanto where a new problem has taken hold in Kanto and throughout the game the player resolves it, the post game Johto opening up where you chase retreating remnants of the problem and put a final stop to it from spreading once and for all. Pokemon Johto would start in Johto where the new problem is slowly making its way through Johto and the player helps to push it back, post game the player then going to Kanto in order to find the source of the problem in the remnants. The new problem could be a new villain team, an antagonistic Pokemon force, a natural disaster, whatever; the point is something bad is going down in Kanto which is starting to leak into Johto and its up to two heroes from both sides to deal with their end of the problem and do some clean-up in the other region. Of course maybe at some point have you able to quickly visit the other region (we do have that magnet train between Goldenrod and Saffron), but that would just be a taste of what's waiting for you in the post game.
I suppose this idea could be done with a new generation, introduce two regions which has close ties with one another that they share a Pokemon League but have their own set of Gyms (or they at least have some Gyms exclusive to them and have a middle section where they share some cities and Gyms). What would work out math wise (if no new types are introduced) would be if each region has six exclusive Gyms (12), two Gyms they share (2), and then the Elite Four (4) which would cover all 18 Types with the Champion not specializing in any Type.
In Fates and Awakening, you could do PvP battles with your armies- and there is some degree of customization: Characters can have up to 5 skills ( Abillities ) and weapons that you can change and adjust. Not to mention that the Avatar and children characters have different stats depending on what you set during the beginning or who the parents are. Even Echoes has scoreboard which shows the highest ratings despite not having PvP.
As for exclusives, each story has a characters who will only join you on that route, but will be your enemy on the other route. You can buy a einhiejar " clone " character from the other version, but its silent and is not the same character. So there is that question of, " Should I choose between characters or difficulty?" As I mentioned earlier, I don't think getting the version exclusives will be to say no to different stories = different difficulties since you can use GTS as long as you have Wifi.
FE Heroes is what comes to mind when it comes to multiplayer- the game has modes that puts armies of different players against one another alongside everything mentioned in the last paragraph. (Granted that these are CPU controlled but its still a sense of multiplayer. ) Heroes itself has sites where people rate units, put them in tiers, produces and articles on how to build units and anaylsis on them, similar to Smogon.
Maybe it didn't start like Pokemon, but FE has... not nesscarily a competeitive... but hardcore side to it to like Pokemon.
For advertisement, they could just have two people discuss how different the versions are while playing on like a stream like at E3. As for commercials, they can say, " Do you choose the easy path? Or the hard one?", and show which version is easy and hard alongside those lines.
Eh, I wouldn't use the term "easy" and "hard" as it makes it sound demeaning for players who would rather the "easy" game. Maybe better terms would be "Direct" and "Strategic".
"Will you take the direct path and power on through all that try to stop you? Or will you take the strategic path and use your wit to overcome all obstacles in your way?"
I'm not sure about the altered difficulty. Fates' multiple paths was done as a response to the two different gameplay preferences within the community (open world grinding vs more strategic linear progression) rather than just difficulty and "worked" because Fire Emblem had never really done anything like that up till that point and had a variety of difficulty options that let even the most novice of player beat both versions easily if they wanted to. The only thing the Pokemon community is really split on difficulty-wise is the exp share, which is an item that can be freely toggled on and off, and I feel that, even with heavy promotion, most of the casual playerbase who doesn't really pay attention to the marketing (aside from TV ads and such) wouldn't understand the differences between the two versions just based on how the rest of the series was.
Having different story paths that start players out on different sides of the region with different Pokemon distributions would be an interesting idea, however. Both versions would get access to the same Pokemon, but at different times, which would be an interesting twist and incentive hardcore players to try out both versions. Additionally, it would allow for the player to manipulate the gym leader order while also keeping the games linear and allowing both to maintain a balanced difficulty curve.
While I'm not going to pretend that I liked the finite amount TM system of Gens 1-4, I don't think the way Gen 5 addressed it was the best way either. Having infinite use TMs does make them more rewarding to find them yes, but I feel like it's too easy. Also, it encourages you always use the TMs that are advantageous to your Pokemon immediately without a care in the world. There's no resource management, no ability to give you a taste of power that you can acquire early but only once (at that moment), no thought put into what TMs you will place on your Pokemon this moment, etc. I would have preferred the games kept the Gen 1-4 system, but have all the TMs reasonably infinitely reobtainable in the postgame. That way the things I complained about above would be allowed to exist, but you wouldn't be permanently fucked over for using a certain TM that might have been once per game.
Before Gen V went with TMs being infinite I always thought they should have TMs be "chargable". You'll always have the TM, but whether you can use it or not depends if it was charged. If a TM wasn't charged you couldn't use it and had to find someone who would recharge it so you could use it again (but for a fee). That way they could keep the ways they did TMs in Gen I-IV (including providing some good TMs early) but you never had to consider if you used your Earthquake TM on your in-game team you won't be able to use it on a Pokemon you make for competitive. Would also give a use for money.
Not that it matters anymore, infinite TMs are here to stay. Now to be fair, if you replace a move that has less PP than the move being learned by TM you keep the same amount of PP until you either restore it with an item or heal at a Pokemon Center/rest spot, so you can't exactly "abuse" the infinite TMs as they don't have infinite PP.
Anyway, I personally don't mind it. It does mean they more carefully plan out TMs you get so you don't get anything too powerful early which kind of stinks, though then again it's nice not having the "save it for later" mindset if I have a Pokemon that doesn't have that great moveset at the moment though there are some TMs which could help it along.
What they should have done was have two versions of each TM: One that is "single-use" that you can find in various spots, buy from the department store, or is given by gym leaders, and is typically available early on. The other should be infinitely reusable and exclusive to post-game (Say, buy it from the Battle Frontier or get it from gym leader rematches)
Alternatively, pull a Mystery Dungeon and have the TM change to "used" with some NPC or mechanic that can renew the TM.
Alternatively, pull a Mystery Dungeon and have the TM change to "used" with some NPC or mechanic that can renew the TM.
Something else they could do is increase the number of times you can use a TM per gym badge you acquire. At one gym badge, you can only use TMs once, but as you acquire more and more gym badges, you gain access to more TM uses. At 8 gym badges, you can then infinitely use TMs. Seems like a good way to make TMs not completely overpowered during the main game while also making it convenient for competitive players to use in the post-game.
On all fights that ik are hard/important i spammed xitems so imo the unecro fight was so easy