(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

So I recently found a copy of LeafGreen at a thrift store. Maybe I'll get used to it, but the fact that the music cuts out halfway through saving keeps making me think something is about to go horribly wrong.
Yup, I've had that on KO Gen 3 carts before -- I can tell you right now it's not supposed to happen. The music also subtly changes a bit after, right? Just enough to be weird?

Still, I've had these problems and the carts have otherwise worked just fine. You can even trade and transfer so you're good to keep going with it, just know it's not legit.
 
This is both a small annoyance and a small amusement: you can fly to Poke Pelago from anywhere. Literally anywhere. I could be in the middle of challenging the Elite Four, but I can just hail a charizard and fly to a tropical island and hang for as long as I want. Not sure if it's an oversight or if it's by design. I'm also annoyed by the charizard animation - it takes so unnecessarily long.
 
This is both a small annoyance and a small amusement: you can fly to Poke Pelago from anywhere. Literally anywhere. I could be in the middle of challenging the Elite Four, but I can just hail a charizard and fly to a tropical island and hang for as long as I want. Not sure if it's an oversight or if it's by design. I'm also annoyed by the charizard animation - it takes so unnecessarily long.
The weird thing is that Mohn is taking care of the place, so it would make more sense that the PC just interacted with him over PokeSkype rather than taking a Charizard ride from 3000 lightyears away

Okay, the PokeSkype call at that distance would also be weird, but you get what I mean.
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
Why the hell is Onix such a fucking weakling?
1568566532086.png

Look at this guy! He's MASSIVE! Very few Pokemon surpass his sheer size, not even stuff like Rayquaza and Milotic! And yet, he has a laughably bad 45 base Attack stat. That's the same as PIDGEY and WURMPLE. A gigantic rock snake that can tunnel through earth at incredible speed is weaker than VANILLITE. And remember: This guy was originally designed as a one-stager, Steelix didn't come until later. And it's not like he resolved the issue that well: 85 is OK, much better than this garbage, but still nothing to write home about even compared to other Pokemon at the time (Gyarados, Tyranitar, Snorlax, etc.).
 
Why the hell is Onix such a fucking weakling?
View attachment 194983
Look at this guy! He's MASSIVE! Very few Pokemon surpass his sheer size, not even stuff like Rayquaza and Milotic! And yet, he has a laughably bad 45 base Attack stat. That's the same as PIDGEY and WURMPLE. A gigantic rock snake that can tunnel through earth at incredible speed is weaker than VANILLITE. And remember: This guy was originally designed as a one-stager, Steelix didn't come until later. And it's not like he resolved the issue that well: 85 is OK, much better than this garbage, but still nothing to write home about even compared to other Pokemon at the time (Gyarados, Tyranitar, Snorlax, etc.).
That probably stems from Onix being Brock's ace (the first gym leader), thus they probably felt they needed to handicap it at the time so it wouldn't sweep the player's team too quickly. (which I guess they got over it by gen 4 considering Roark's ace is Cranidos)
 
Why the hell is Onix such a fucking weakling?
View attachment 194983
Look at this guy! He's MASSIVE! Very few Pokemon surpass his sheer size, not even stuff like Rayquaza and Milotic! And yet, he has a laughably bad 45 base Attack stat. That's the same as PIDGEY and WURMPLE. A gigantic rock snake that can tunnel through earth at incredible speed is weaker than VANILLITE. And remember: This guy was originally designed as a one-stager, Steelix didn't come until later. And it's not like he resolved the issue that well: 85 is OK, much better than this garbage, but still nothing to write home about even compared to other Pokemon at the time (Gyarados, Tyranitar, Snorlax, etc.).
I would say that it was to have an awesome-looking first boss, but it honestly doesn't look very big in the original sprites.
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
Why the hell is Onix such a fucking weakling?
A post of mine from Page 180 of this very thread:

Actually I'm just going to summarize what the whole post says:

Onix stats were probably higher originally.

However to make the first battle with Brock more awe-striking they decided to give him Onix but because of that needed to weaken it.

Onix stats probably resembled Steelixe's originally. High defense, decent HP and Attack, and low Special and Speed. Maybe instead of 35/45/160/30/70//340 was 70/70/140/30/30//340. (Remember in Gen I the Special Attack and Special Defense stat was all one "Special" stat).

Now Bulbasaur and Squirtle have no problem getting past Onix but Charmander is. So how about lowering is HP and Attack so it's not that long of a time for Charmander to whittle down its HP while taking not that much damage that can't be healed every so often with a Potion. However there needs to be some challenge so let's just make it faster. Also made Defense a bit higher so teach the player that its sometimes better to focus on attacking with a different category if one category isn't doing a lot of damage. While Ember is resisted, Onix's low Special stat means it would be doing more damage with it anyway than with any Physical attacks Charmander would know like Scratch.
 
A post of mine from Page 180 of this very thread:

Actually I'm just going to summarize what the whole post says:

Onix stats were probably higher originally.

However to make the first battle with Brock more awe-striking they decided to give him Onix but because of that needed to weaken it.

Onix stats probably resembled Steelixe's originally. High defense, decent HP and Attack, and low Special and Speed. Maybe instead of 35/45/160/30/70//340 was 70/70/140/30/30//340. (Remember in Gen I the Special Attack and Special Defense stat was all one "Special" stat).

Now Bulbasaur and Squirtle have no problem getting past Onix but Charmander is. So how about lowering is HP and Attack so it's not that long of a time for Charmander to whittle down its HP while taking not that much damage that can't be healed every so often with a Potion. However there needs to be some challenge so let's just make it faster. Also made Defense a bit higher so teach the player that its sometimes better to focus on attacking with a different category if one category isn't doing a lot of damage. While Ember is resisted, Onix's low Special stat means it would be doing more damage with it anyway than with any Physical attacks Charmander would know like Scratch.
Meanwhile, pretty much every boss after allows you to catch or trade for a Pokemon with a distinct type advantage close by. Like you can catch a couple of Grass type Pokemon near Cerulean such as Paras and Oddish/Bellsprout. (not to mention a chance to catch Pikachu in Viridian forest well ahead of Cerulean and Misty)
 
Why the hell is Onix such a fucking weakling?

Look at this guy! He's MASSIVE! Very few Pokemon surpass his sheer size, not even stuff like Rayquaza and Milotic! And yet, he has a laughably bad 45 base Attack stat. That's the same as PIDGEY and WURMPLE. A gigantic rock snake that can tunnel through earth at incredible speed is weaker than VANILLITE. And remember: This guy was originally designed as a one-stager, Steelix didn't come until later. And it's not like he resolved the issue that well: 85 is OK, much better than this garbage, but still nothing to write home about even compared to other Pokemon at the time (Gyarados, Tyranitar, Snorlax, etc.).
Apparently Onix weighs 33 stone (around 210 kg), making it - a giant snake made of boulders - one third of the weight of the heaviest recorded human.

Still, rocks are hard, and it isn't incredibly light, so if it took the least amount of effort and just fell on someone, you'd expect it to be at least slightly damaging? More than a 3 kilo worm made of meat, at least? That's ignoring that if it were attacking it would likely have a bit of force behind it too, what with it trying to damage you this time.

So yeah, no, this doesn't make sense. Thanks for ruining Pokémon for me. :(
 
Apparently Onix weighs 33 stone (around 210 kg), making it - a giant snake made of boulders - one third of the weight of the heaviest recorded human.

Still, rocks are hard, and it isn't incredibly light, so if it took the least amount of effort and just fell on someone, you'd expect it to be at least slightly damaging? More than a 3 kilo worm made of meat, at least? That's ignoring that if it were attacking it would likely have a bit of force behind it too, what with it trying to damage you this time.

So yeah, no, this doesn't make sense. Thanks for ruining Pokémon for me. :(
Pokemon metrics, especially from the first few generations, make absolutely no sense and are rarely called upon in game anyway. Excadrill is only 2 feet tall but you'd never get the sense it's smaller than, say, Wartotle from sprites or models. It's best not to think too deeply about them.
 
Last edited:
Pokemon metrics, especially from the first few generations, make absolutely no sense and are rarely called upon in game anyway. Excadrill is only 2 feet tall but you'd never get the sense its smaller than, say, Wartotle from sprites or models. It's best not to think too deeply about them.
I had that kind of feeling with Torkoal in Gen III. The sprite made it look much bigger than it actually was.
 
When it comes to Pokémon sizes (height/weight) tbh I feel like, and I hate to say this but... the anime is much more representative of what I would imagine most of the Pokémon to actually be size-wise. Many of the Pokédex entries of metrics are just beyond absurd. I refuse to accept lucario is 3’11” and many many more such claims.
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
When it comes to Pokémon sizes (height/weight) tbh I feel like, and I hate to say this but... the anime is much more representative of what I would imagine most of the Pokémon to actually be size-wise. Many of the Pokédex entries of metrics are just beyond absurd. I refuse to accept lucario is 3’11” and many many more such claims.
Yeah, they really need to redo at least Height. For one thing they need to split it up into Height (for Pokemon which stand up), Length (for Pokemon that are longer horizontal), and in some cases Wing Span as I swear some winged Pokemon are going by that. No mechanics use Height so nothing would be affected and once they get a more logical Height system they could maybe do something with it.

As for Weight, that's a bit tricky. For one thing several animals weigh a tons... and the heaviest a Pokemon can be at the moment is 999.9 kilograms (oddly Pokemon can be made heavier in English versions as we have 4 digits. But even then, 9999.9 pounds is only 4 tons and plenty big animals weigh over that). Second several Moves and Abilities does use and affect weight. I think for Weight, maybe Pokemon should make up its own system. For Height you need the real world system to know what you should be seeing, but with weight I think our imagination is more forgiving. They just need to say how heavy a person is, explain that the Pokemon weight system was accumulative (meaning if something was 10 Poketics it wasn't twice as heavy as 5 Poketics but heavier and the amount by how much heavier increased as the numbers did), and we can imagine the rest.
 
Pokemon sizes are so inconsistent even the official pokemon models are off base,
compare Venusaur's stated size and its Let's Go model

I say they should measure pokemon using Gomu Gomus :<
 
Last edited:
Yeah, they really need to redo at least Height. For one thing they need to split it up into Height (for Pokemon which stand up), Length (for Pokemon that are longer horizontal), and in some cases Wing Span as I swear some winged Pokemon are going by that. No mechanics use Height so nothing would be affected and once they get a more logical Height system they could maybe do something with it.

As for Weight, that's a bit tricky. For one thing several animals weigh a tons... and the heaviest a Pokemon can be at the moment is 999.9 kilograms (oddly Pokemon can be made heavier in English versions as we have 4 digits. But even then, 9999.9 pounds is only 4 tons and plenty big animals weigh over that). Second several Moves and Abilities does use and affect weight. I think for Weight, maybe Pokemon should make up its own system. For Height you need the real world system to know what you should be seeing, but with weight I think our imagination is more forgiving. They just need to say how heavy a person is, explain that the Pokemon weight system was accumulative (meaning if something was 10 Poketics it wasn't twice as heavy as 5 Poketics but heavier and the amount by how much heavier increased as the numbers did), and we can imagine the rest.
I think it would be easier if they just introduced weight classes. The actual absolute values are only used for moves like Heavy Slam iirc, so they're mostly useless.

Ultra Light (0.1 - 9.9 kg)
Very Light (10 - 24.9 kg)
Light (25 - 49.9 kg)
Moderate (50 - 99.9 kg)
Heavy (100 - 199.9 kg)
Very Heavy (200+ kg)

That's based on the ranges used for moves like Grass Knot and Low Kick. Get rid of the actual value and sort each Pokemon into a group.
- Heavy Slam would have it's damage based on the relative classes between the mons (chart style).
- Light Metal Heavy Metal, Float Stone, etc would just re-classify a Pokemon during battle (ie, to Light or Heavy).
- Autotomize would decrease the weight class each time it succeeds

Heavy Ball and Grass Knot/Low Kick cap out anyway, so weights beyond a certain value on the upper end are irrelevant.
 
Last edited:

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
I think it would be easier if they just introduced weight classes. The actual absolute values are only used for moves like Heavy Slam iirc, so they're mostly useless.

Ultra Light (0.1 - 9.9 kg)
Very Light (10 - 24.9 kg)
Light (25 - 49.9 kg)
Moderate (50 - 99.9 kg)
Heavy (100 - 199.9 kg)
Very Heavy (200+ kg)

That's based on the ranges used for moves like Grass Knot and Low Kick. Get rid of the actual value and sort each Pokemon into a group.
- Heavy Slam would have it's damaged based on the relative classes between the mons (chart style).
- Light Metal Heavy Metal, Float Stone, etc would just re-classify a Pokemon during battle (to Light or Heavy).
- Automomize would decrease the weight class each time it succeeds

Heavy Ball and Grass Knot/Low Kick cap out anyway, so weights beyond a certain value on the upper end are irrelevant.
I have two hesitance to doing that:
1. Individuality: One way they could make individual Pokemon different from another of the same species is by having slight variations in their weight (and height) if they ever decide to do so. If they completely removed the numbers they either won't be able to do this or, if they do, they'd have to make a new mechanic to add in weight values.
2 Comparison: Also, while we'd know how their weight would affect Moves & Abilities, people would be curious how one heavy Pokemon weighs against another. Who's the heaviest Pokemon, who's the lightest Pokemon. It would remove a bit of flavor that gives some realism to the Pokemon.
 

earl

(EVIOLITE COMPATIBLE)
is a Community Contributor
I have two hesitance to doing that:
1. Individuality: One way they could make individual Pokemon different from another of the same species is by having slight variations in their weight (and height) if they ever decide to do so. If they completely removed the numbers they either won't be able to do this or, if they do, they'd have to make a new mechanic to add in weight values.
2 Comparison: Also, while we'd know how their weight would affect Moves & Abilities, people would be curious how one heavy Pokemon weighs against another. Who's the heaviest Pokemon, who's the lightest Pokemon. It would remove a bit of flavor that gives some realism to the Pokemon.
I may be wrong, but didn’t let’s go (and I know GO did for sure) have variable heights and weights?
 
Pokemon that learn Surf but not Dive in Gen 3 since the HMs are basically linked as you need to Surf to use Dive. An admittedly very small pool of Pokemon (only relevant Pokemon that fall into this are Linoone, Hariyama and Pelipper, the latter of which is a water type itself), but that's what makes it a little thing. It really sucks for HM compression.
 
There are a lot of complaints to be made about how HMs were done during their height of annoyance (Gen3 or Gen4, take your pick) but the overloading of water moves was pretty bad.

Surf has a pretty wide distribution with quite a few non-water types, but Whirlpool, Waterfall, and Dive are pretty much water-type exclusives. And as mentioned above, you have to be surfing already to use any of them so it necessitates having an HM slave where 3/4 of its movepool is all water. And then even some water-types can't learn all 3 moves!

Many of you feel bad for these HMs. That is because you crazy, they have no feelings, and the new system is much better.

 
Last edited:
Personally, I think the following system should be used for HM-like things:

Simply give each Pokemon an extra flag for field techniques.

How it would work is each pokemon has an extra slot for one of these techniques to learn, each technique would still have a list of things that could learn it, and you would teach it through special items. Each individual pokemon could only know one at a time, and forgetting one would require a special person to do so. Confused?

In this example, a trainer goes through Kanto with a Sandshrew. After getting the "Tree Chop" (or Cut) Skill, it gets taught to Sandshrew as it is the only mon on their team who could use it at the time. Later on, this trainer decides they want to teach Sandslash (from the sandshrew) "Boulder Smash" (or Rock Smash) to get through some rocks. He can't immediately do that because Sandslash already knows Tree Chop. He decides to wait untill he reaches the special person who can make mons forget these skills due to this, and does the necesary things to do so.

I hope this idea was easily understandable, but I think that not only would this continue to let your own captured Pokemon do the transportation, it also would get rid of not having to keep weak moves in the movesets. This could easily become a wishlist, so I prefer to leave this as it is.
 
Personally, I think the following system should be used for HM-like things:

Simply give each Pokemon an extra flag for field techniques.

How it would work is each pokemon has an extra slot for one of these techniques to learn, each technique would still have a list of things that could learn it, and you would teach it through special items. Each individual pokemon could only know one at a time, and forgetting one would require a special person to do so. Confused?

In this example, a trainer goes through Kanto with a Sandshrew. After getting the "Tree Chop" (or Cut) Skill, it gets taught to Sandshrew as it is the only mon on their team who could use it at the time. Later on, this trainer decides they want to teach Sandslash (from the sandshrew) "Boulder Smash" (or Rock Smash) to get through some rocks. He can't immediately do that because Sandslash already knows Tree Chop. He decides to wait untill he reaches the special person who can make mons forget these skills due to this, and does the necesary things to do so.

I hope this idea was easily understandable, but I think that not only would this continue to let your own captured Pokemon do the transportation, it also would get rid of not having to keep weak moves in the movesets. This could easily become a wishlist, so I prefer to leave this as it is.
So if I understand you correctly, each pokemon has a single "field move" slot that isn't one of their 4 battle moves. Is that right?

The immediate obvious problem is you've now limited yourself to 6 field effects at max, one for each of your party pokemon. And these games have had up to 10ish HM moves (depending on if you count Flash and Rock Smash becoming TMs but still having field uses).

The second problem is if you could swap your field move on the fly using an item, then that defeats the purpose of having one slot as you effectively have as many field moves as the pokemon could learn (you just have to take time to swap them out). Requiring some other party like a forgetful old man to forget a field move is just adding tedium and not a true limitation.

But the real problem is it fails to address the biggest issues with HMs: it turns your pokemon into glorified key rings.
1569176197914.png

Okay, not literally. But HMs stripped of context are basically keys to unlock "doors" on the map, if you imagine a small bush as a locked door and Cut as it's "key." They really don't add much interesting gameplay, the only thing they bring is immersion into the setting (because riding on your own bird pokemon is cooler than just fast-travelling). Which due to their past implementation, the immersion came at way too high a cost for me (clogging up your movepools, forcing you to have a water-type pokemon every single time, etc).

The only one that was used for something more was Strength for the occasional rock moving puzzle, and I'd hardly say those were ever engaging challenges.

Our new format of ride pokemon or what seems to be a do-it-all bicycle is better in every way. I can get my immersion in other ways than poke-keys.

1569176797202.png
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
Personally, I think the following system should be used for HM-like things:

Simply give each Pokemon an extra flag for field techniques.
I think an easier way to do this would be, still have the HMs, but instead of needing the Pokemon to learn the HM to use it:

  1. If you interact with an object that requires an HM to cut/move/surf/climb up/etc. on it and you have the HM for it but don't have a Pokemon which knows it, asks if you want to use the HM. If you do, it'll ask which Pokemon you would like to temporarily use the HM. After selecting the Pokemon that Pokemon will use the HM (without needing to learn it first) and you continue on without needing to change anything about your team (no wasted move slot, no HM slave taking up a party slot).

  2. If its a TM which requires you to activate it like Flash or Defog you should just go into your TM/HM bag, select the button that'll use it as a field technique, choose the Pokemon which will do it, and the Pokemon will use the HM move without needing to learn it.

Another easy idea is just giving us items instead of specific moves. I've made-up my own set of items but they're kind of out there in design so edges on wishlisting (though I think I posted them before somewhere).

That said the HM replacement ideas they've done so far haven't been bad, just either not fully thought out or had some choices.
Poke Rides were neat though removed the bike without really giving a Poke Ride which equivalent replaced it (Tauros you had to make charge to get to bike speed (and felt like you were guiding a bulky bull) but slow otherwise while Stoutland had better controls but didn't run as fast). Mudsdale also felt a bit pointless. Finally would have been neat as some point you could assign one of your Pokemon to be a personal Poke Ride.
Secret Techniques were like the idea you suggested though only your partner Pokemon could do them and they handwave it by saying there special techniques humans do but your partners closeness with you allows them to use them in your stead.
And now it looks like the Rotom Phone is going to be the thing to expand your progression ability like turning your bike into a water bike that rides on the water.
 
Rare encounters on routes (like Pichu and Eevee on Alola Routes 1 and 4/6, respectively) are SUPER annoying. Trying to find one with non-shitty stats is damn near impossible for me (EVERY SINGLE PICHU I have ever caught on Route 1 was Adamant which is a HUGE hindrance) and to make matters worse, these rare 'mons are usually the species I'm looking for to Hidden Ability hunt (I also tried hunting for a Shiny Eevee once but I gave up after a while because let's face it, that Shiny Eevee was only an excuse to get me to keep a save file I really wanted to get rid of) which means I have to spend time I could be spending hunting for cool Pokemon TRYING TO FUCKING FIND THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Sorry if I got a bit too angry there. I'm also sorry if you were upset by my use of swear words (I don't think swearing is an offence on here though, I've seen swearing in other people's posts and they're fine and there was nothing about it in the rules so I think the occasional swear word is okay????).
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 6, Guests: 11)

Top