It kind of is harder. But anyways, I find it more balanced I guess to have the Legends have low catch rates. Stops you from getting a powerful Mon too easily (Master Balls are a thing, but they're rare anyways). And they're, well, Legendary. I don't find it fun or exciting to chuck balls at a Legendary, but I accept it as a balancing factor and as flavor. I tend to lower the catch rates of all Legends in my ROM hacks to 3 regardless. It'd be one reason I tend to avoid Legends, but they tend to break the game anyways.
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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
The key is that Legendary fights should be hard, in that they require planning, item use, type advantage, use of status, etc, but currently they’re hard in that they require spamming a bunch of Dusk Balls until either you get lucky, it kills your Sleep Powder mon, or you burn too much money and reset. That is the opposite of fun.
I sort of feel like the catch rate formula needs a rework to eliminate RNG completely. Picture the following: Each mon requires a certain number of “advantages” to be captured. Below that number, the chance is 0, above it the capture is guaranteed. Early route derps require 1 advantage, most good lategame mons need 3, Legends need 4. Battle starts at 0 adv. Ultra Balls* are +1. Yellow health is +1, red is +2 total. Status is +1. Maybe give certain moves +1, to give players a bit more flexibility.
Now the battle isn’t an endurance contest, it’s about managing to bring every factor into play at once while weathering the storm of Legendary offenses and possible healing moves. And meanwhile GF can up the difficulty because you no longer need to survive 30 turns, so the Legend can have coverage moves, excessive leveling, etc.
*Also Dusk/Quick/Dive/etc balls when they get their benefit. These balls cost half what Ultra Balls do, but all balls cost more in general.
I sort of feel like the catch rate formula needs a rework to eliminate RNG completely. Picture the following: Each mon requires a certain number of “advantages” to be captured. Below that number, the chance is 0, above it the capture is guaranteed. Early route derps require 1 advantage, most good lategame mons need 3, Legends need 4. Battle starts at 0 adv. Ultra Balls* are +1. Yellow health is +1, red is +2 total. Status is +1. Maybe give certain moves +1, to give players a bit more flexibility.
Now the battle isn’t an endurance contest, it’s about managing to bring every factor into play at once while weathering the storm of Legendary offenses and possible healing moves. And meanwhile GF can up the difficulty because you no longer need to survive 30 turns, so the Legend can have coverage moves, excessive leveling, etc.
*Also Dusk/Quick/Dive/etc balls when they get their benefit. These balls cost half what Ultra Balls do, but all balls cost more in general.
It doesn't really matter when they're usually found extremely late anyway, (save for the roaming Johto beasts, but even if you run into one you almost certainly can't even touch it let alone catch it before it flees early on) so balance doesn't really matter.
And as the in-game tier lists often show, some of the most game-breaking Pokemon aren't even necessarily all that rare. BW2 Magnemite and USUM Hawlucha come to mind.
There may have been a time where I was willing to consider a legendary Pokemon's flavor as being important, but since they get tossed in with minimal consideration for their lore and whatnot lately I personally care little for maintaining the "flavor" of being legendary through being super tedious to catch.
However, I'm willing to be civil and just agree to disagree on the matter.
Piggybacking off of that, it really annoys me that legendary Pokemon from research breakthrough still have that low catch rate, even though they don't escape. There's no sense in making me potentially waste 10 Poke Balls on great/excellent throws when it should really be a guaranteed capture.
Thinking about it, isn't that pretty close to what they did with Necrozma in USUM? First you had to battle it without being able to catch it ("barrier bar") and then in the second encounter you could catch it ("HP bar"). Also, in its Ultra form it had the totem boost, which it lost when you fought it on Mount Lanakila if I recall correctly. Sure, it wasn't the same encounter, but mechanically there are a lot of similarities.
If we're talking about main story encounters here, I think this might be oversimplifying it a bit. Sure, you can give them a bunch of coverage, amp up their levels and maybe modify the catch rate some, but that's only half the picture. You need to provide the player with context of what to plan against as well. I hope we can agree that planning doesn't mean getting swept to figure out the legendary's types and moves, then going back three areas, replacing half your team to deal with this one threat, training up your new additions to a suitable level and then trying again. For a post game or optional encounter, it would probably be more forgivable, but even then you may want to leave hints along the way that allow the player to prepare, otherwise you're more shifting the tedium than replacing it.
There are certainly ways to do that, though. You could place more NPCs along the way that tell you about the legendaries of the region or you could see them ways before you actually get to fight them, showing off their element(s). Another elegant solution might be to treat the legendary as a rival of sorts, fight them multiple times throughout the story, with them growing throughout your journey or showing off more and more of their abilities until you get a chance to capture them near the end.
Two more things, not directed at you specifically:
- I feel like people might muddy the waters a bit when talking about plans and challenges. It's worth remembering that these are different concepts that interact with each other rather than the same thing. In fact, a challenge might stop being challenging once you have a plan for dealing with it. In the same vein, even something easy can become challenging if you have no plan. Gym leaders are actually pretty good examples of that most of the time. If you've trained up team members that have an advantage over the gym's type, you're off to a decent start. If you haven't, chances are the leader's ace will give you quite a bit of trouble at the latest.
Other games are more flexible in this regard in that you can adapt during the battle and turn the tides, but with Pokemon that doesn't really work. Your team cannot become stronger mid-fight (which could give you new options) and battles are generally too short to change strategies on the fly.
Finally, it's easier to create challenging environments when you know what options players have at their disposal, but that's not so simple in Pokemon either. As Codraroll pointed out recently, there's tons of different combinations players could choose to go through the game with. Not only does this mean players won't reasonably experience all the content the games have to offer, it also makes it more difficult for the game designers. Two players could arrive at a challenge with vastly different teams, but it should still be reasonable for both of them to overcome that challenge without having to default to the same option in the end. - While it's true that legendaries have low catch rates, that's once again not the whole picture. After all, catch rate is only part of the randomness that goes into catching a Pokemon. The encounter rate plays into it as well, and, when looking at it in terms of randomness, most legendaries are exceedingly easy to encounter - they hang around somewhere in the overworld and you talk to them: works 100% of the time. I understand the issue is not usually perceived this way, but wouldn't be surprised if it was part of the puzzle.
Unless the game flat out disallows it - in which case we'd be back at some sort of two fights or HP bar solution - why wouldn't you? And as long as the player is supposed to catch the Pokemon instead of simply defeating it, increasing maximum HP or healing while leaving everything else the same seem like incentives to just throw balls straight away instead of bothering with trying to weaken the enemy.
The problem with making catching legendaries more interesting is that while exciting gameplay mechanics like barrier bars and boss fights make fighting two or three of them exciting, we have 50+ legendaries/mythical pokemon and the average game has at least 12 to capture.
I for one would not like every single legendary fight to become a 4 minute+ affair, especially if I also have to balance random elements like getting the right nature or IV's. It's for this reason that modern legendaries tend to have very forgiving catch rates (so quick-ball spam is viable), there's just too many to have a drawn out fight with without it becoming tedious.
Sorry guys but the over-proliferation of legendary pokemon means that easier catch rates is the only viable solution. At least without an entire system overhaul.
Now, if you want just one fight with the cover legendary or something I'd be slightly more understanding, but I'm not totally convinced the pokemon battle formula is conductive with single target mega-bosses.
I for one would not like every single legendary fight to become a 4 minute+ affair, especially if I also have to balance random elements like getting the right nature or IV's. It's for this reason that modern legendaries tend to have very forgiving catch rates (so quick-ball spam is viable), there's just too many to have a drawn out fight with without it becoming tedious.
Sorry guys but the over-proliferation of legendary pokemon means that easier catch rates is the only viable solution. At least without an entire system overhaul.
Now, if you want just one fight with the cover legendary or something I'd be slightly more understanding, but I'm not totally convinced the pokemon battle formula is conductive with single target mega-bosses.
Well, to me that more sounds like they should just make the Legendary "battle ready" when you catch it. Which goes back to a separate but similar issue of GF making getting the right Pokemon a more difficult process then it should be at this point. They got the right idea with Hyper Training but it's too limited at the moment. Hyper Training should:
1. Lower the Level limit to 50.
2. Make getting Bottle Caps easier to get. 10 Shards of each color just to get a single Silver Bottle Cap is a bit ridiculous even if Poke Pelago provides a (slow) way to grind for Shards. Maybe add in a Bottle Cap for each stat color (red for HP, orange for Attack, yellow for Defense, etc.) which can only be used to raise that stat and make it easier or get those.
3. Let you change a Pokemon's Nature.
4. Give you the option to reduce a stat's IV (specifically Attack and Speed) to 0.
Also Hidden Power's type should be selectable. Not sure if this would be part of Hyper Training, sounds like maybe something the person who would tell you what Hidden Power's Type is should be allowed to do.
Would still need to Breed for Egg Moves & Shiny.
From my understanding, the Gen 4 evos and prevos are somewhat controversial. I personally generally don't like them, for one big reason. It's not that the designs are bad, but rather that the designs don't mesh well with their pre-existing family members.
The clearest example to demonstrate this is Mamoswine.
Mamoswine's fur is a different shade of brown, its eyes and legs are visible at all times, and its nose is a different shade of pink and is triangular instead of circular.
There are other offenders, too. Roserade's roses are blobs while Roselia's roses are detailed. Mime Jr. and Chingling have very different color schemes than Mr. Mime and Chimecho. Rhyperior is also a very different color than Rhydon and Rhyhorn, but that's sort of justified in-universe by it bonding with the Protector.
To be clear, I like most of the designs in isolation (Roserade in particular is super cool looking), but when placed next to their family members, it becomes VERY apparent that these Pokemon were not designed at the same time.
The clearest example to demonstrate this is Mamoswine.
Mamoswine's fur is a different shade of brown, its eyes and legs are visible at all times, and its nose is a different shade of pink and is triangular instead of circular.
There are other offenders, too. Roserade's roses are blobs while Roselia's roses are detailed. Mime Jr. and Chingling have very different color schemes than Mr. Mime and Chimecho. Rhyperior is also a very different color than Rhydon and Rhyhorn, but that's sort of justified in-universe by it bonding with the Protector.
To be clear, I like most of the designs in isolation (Roserade in particular is super cool looking), but when placed next to their family members, it becomes VERY apparent that these Pokemon were not designed at the same time.
I have to admit I'm not really sure what you're trying to say and how it relates to my statement, heh. Would you mind elaborating?
While I agree there's something about the Gen IV's cross gen evolutions that feels more "off" than usual, this isn't exactly a new issue with cross gen evolutions. Many of them have the Pokemon taking a design change, some more drastic then others.
I forgot how weird Crobat, Bellossom, and Politoed were.
Roserade has entire bouquets on its arms rather than just single roses. But still, none of these really compare to the jarring change that is Remoraid to Octillery - and that family was entirely in gen 2.From my understanding, the Gen 4 evos and prevos are somewhat controversial. I personally generally don't like them, for one big reason. It's not that the designs are bad, but rather that the designs don't mesh well with their pre-existing family members.
The clearest example to demonstrate this is Mamoswine.
Mamoswine's fur is a different shade of brown, its eyes and legs are visible at all times, and its nose is a different shade of pink and is triangular instead of circular.
There are other offenders, too. Roserade's roses are blobs while Roselia's roses are detailed. Mime Jr. and Chingling have very different color schemes than Mr. Mime and Chimecho. Rhyperior is also a very different color than Rhydon and Rhyhorn, but that's sort of justified in-universe by it bonding with the Protector.
To be clear, I like most of the designs in isolation (Roserade in particular is super cool looking), but when placed next to their family members, it becomes VERY apparent that these Pokemon were not designed at the same time.
Not really. I've known for quite some time what the line was based on, but it's still going from a mostly grey fish (gun) to a red octopus. (tank) Still more jarring than many of the gen 4 evolutions to previous generation Pokemon. Those still look reasonably like they belong with the family they're added to.It made more sense in the Spaceworld Demo
Pokemon can be very weird and wonderful at times. But perhaps I'm a bit biased in favor of Roserade and Mamoswine in particular, as they make me like their evolution families. I was pleasantly surprised when Budew evolved into Roselia, a gen 3 Pokemon I wrote off as being uninteresting, and then evolve further into the little monster that was Roserade. I found Piloswine to be rather underwhelming, but Mamoswine was an absolute beast.
Anyway, back to making admittedly petty complaints about the franchise we love. Like, say, how it bugs me to see Roserade on a computer opponent's team carrying a physical move. (you could have afforded to give Wally's Roserade Sludge Bomb, Game Freak. It's not like his would ever be packing HP Fire)
Not being able to catch a mon in a double battle until you faint the other one. Which wouldn’t be so bad except that a battle can start off as a single and turn into a double. Which leads to a 1HP enemy spamming Flail while I try desperately to faint the other one despite its truly annoying coverage.
Wild Pokemon no longer call for help if they're inflicted with a status such as sleep.
Not really annoys me per se, but I've always been bothered by this:
Its been 4 generations, and there's yet to be a special variation of Intimidate, let alone, a status condition that affects Special Attackers. Found it weird, since both are very common in VGC, and since, Special Attackers have always been favored, you'd think they try to nerf them a bit more, but I guess GF just hates Physical Attackers.
Its been 4 generations, and there's yet to be a special variation of Intimidate, let alone, a status condition that affects Special Attackers. Found it weird, since both are very common in VGC, and since, Special Attackers have always been favored, you'd think they try to nerf them a bit more, but I guess GF just hates Physical Attackers.
My guess is that Game Freak figured it's balanced since there really isn't any physical equivalent to Chansey and Blissey. Though to my knowledge, they aren't super popular in VGC, so I don't know.
You know I've always wondered the reason why VGC is always doubles instead of Singles despite 3v3 being very fast paced is because GF is legitimately concerned of someone stalling with Chansey and Blissey since both are viable in Battle Spot Singles. But then again, a timer could easily fix this issue, so maybe not.
SkarmBliss would only be a problem if timer wasn't enforced. Parts of FEAR, the focus sash and Endeavor is sometimes used as well, so I don't think that's the issue.
VGC is such a offensive, fast-paced format that outside of deliberately slowing the game down (Minimize), Chansey's complete inability to do anything hinders its effectiveness. Not to mention the mon next to it--sure you wall Kyogre or Xerneas, but good luck with the Incineroar next to it.