(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

actually this might be better in "little things you like about Pokémon" but it's actually relevant here so
I think a lot of people are overlooking how many factors tend to be at work here. You can't just "balance" the type chart by making it so, say, every type has three weaknesses and four resistances, and every type hits three things super effectively and four not-very-effectively - type matchups aren't all there is to the type as a whole! The Pokémon of those types might be exceptionally strong and rely on the type itself being suboptimal, or the moves of those types might be exceptionally weak and rely on the type being good. And some archetypes of Pokémon care more about super effective coverage, while others care about neutral coverage; frailer Pokémon care about having as many resistances as possible, but bulkier Pokémon can get by with just fewer weaknesses. And then there's the issue of how frequently types are paired together - even in this hypothetical where every type has equivalent numbers of advantages and disadvantages and similarly powered moves and Pokémon, you'd still see types like Ice becoming much more offensively solid because the types they do beat are so often paired together. (That's why you see Hidden Power Ice so often: sometimes it's just to round out super effective coverage, like on Electric-types, but often it's to target specific powerful threats with double Ice weaknesses.)
Currently, most types operate in a sort of "perfect imbalance" - there are ways for them all to be good, but all of them are good for different reasons. Some types are good because most of their Pokémon have high stats, but they're balanced because their actual type matchups are below average; some Pokémon, in turn, have what would look like mediocre or bad stats in isolation, but they're carried by how good their types are (see Clefable).

Ghost being so hard to resist is exactly why it has such low-powered moves - but just look how many Ghost-types end up strong anyway! Ghost has the niche of being the only type that can achieve perfect neutral coverage with only a single coverage type, and I actually think it's really, really cool that we have exactly one type like that, while the type is inherently balanced in other ways (excellent neutral coverage, bad super effective coverage; very spammable moves, but they have low power). Giving Ghost better moves or buffing its super effective coverage would make some Ghost-types too strong, but giving it better moves and balancing those moves out with more resists would just make it the same as every other type - I'm actually really happy that it exists the way it is instead, even if it means some Ghost-types are a bit weaker! (And I mean... there are strong Pokémon and weak Pokémon of every type - buffing the type as a whole isn't going to close that gap, is it?)
And then there are cases of Pokémon playing against their type's usual standards, and that alone gives them a cool niche... like, what would you guess is the strongest Ghost-type move? Multi-Attack. And that alone gives Silvally-Ghost a niche in OU! Now imagine if every Ghost-type had stronger Ghost moves, even if their stats were a bit lower to compensate... how much less relevant would Silvally be?)
Edit: it's not really a big thing or anything - I guess I saw these when they were posted and assumed more people were talking about it - but Silvally does have a small niche in OU and was discussed specifically for its high-powered Ghost STAB
and yeah but Giratina and Marshadow are Uber they don't count (the main thing is that Silvally outdamages everything as far as base 128 Attack with a Life Orb using Shadow Claw... so actually Aegislash also hits slightly harder, but do you see my point with respect to the relevance of base power?)

I think you could say something good and something bad about almost each type as a generalization that sets it apart from every other type - not just explicit mechanics like "Fairy has an immunity to Dragon" or "Electric-types can't be paralyzed" but really pervasive design choices that affect the Pokémon and moves of the type - and I think that's fantastic. I love not having a completely balanced type chart or strong moves of every type!
Except Fighting. Fighting is just meh. Please someone say something that will make me actually like Fighting as a type because I really struggle with that.
 
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Hematite said:
actually this might be better in "little things you like about Pokémon" but it's actually relevant here so
I think a lot of people are overlooking how many factors tend to be at work here. Currently, most types operate in a sort of "perfect imbalance" - there are ways for them all to be good, but all of them are good for different reasons. Some types are good because most of their Pokémon have high stats, but they're balanced because their actual type matchups are below average; some Pokémon, in turn, have what would look like mediocre or bad stats in isolation, but they're carried by how good their types are (see Clefable).

Ghost being so hard to resist is exactly why it has such low-powered moves - but just look how many Ghost-types end up strong anyway! Ghost has the niche of being the only type that can achieve perfect neutral coverage with only a single coverage type, and I actually think it's really, really cool that we have exactly one type like that, while the type is inherently balanced in other ways (excellent neutral coverage, bad super effective coverage; very spammable moves, but they have low power). Giving Ghost better moves or buffing its super effective coverage would make some Ghost-types too strong, but giving it better moves and balancing those moves out with more resists would just make it the same as every other type - I'm actually really happy that it exists the way it is instead, even if it means some Ghost-types are a bit weaker! (And I mean... there are strong Pokémon and weak Pokémon of every type - buffing the type as a whole isn't going to close that gap, is it?)
And then there are cases of Pokémon playing against their type's usual standards, and that alone gives them a cool niche... like, what would you guess is the strongest Ghost-type move? Multi-Attack. And that alone gives Silvally-Ghost a niche in OU! Now imagine if every Ghost-type had stronger Ghost moves, even if their stats were a bit lower to compensate... how much less relevant would Silvally be?)

I think you could say something good and something bad about almost each type as a generalization that sets it apart from every other type - not just explicit mechanics like "Fairy has an immunity to Dragon" or "Electric-types can't be paralyzed" but really pervasive design choices that affect the Pokémon and moves of the type - and I think that's fantastic. I love not having a completely balanced type chart or strong moves of every type!
Except Fighting. Fighting is just meh. Please someone say something that will make me actually like Fighting as a type because I really struggle with that.
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Fighting Type has a resistance to Rock, which is valuable considering Stealth Rock and how good Rock is considered as an attacking type. To be technically fair, Shadow Force from Giratina-O is the most powerful Ghost Type move, as Giratina O has higher attack and the Griseous Orb, which makes it 144 BP. And the last time I checked, few had any thoughts of Silvally-Ghost in OU, simply because other Ghost types like Aegislash, Chandelure, Dragapault, and Gengar have more useful typings, stats, moves, and abilities to compensate for a lack of a high BP STAB.

Anyway, I’m not suggesting that we increase the BP of Ghost type moves without another type that can offensively and threaten Ghost types like the Dark type.
 
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Volt-Ikazuchi said:
In all seriousness though, I dunno how exactly one would do this, but Ghost and Dark really need more stuff to differentiate themselves as types.
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One would do that like this, I think! That and their directly opposite resistances (hence Spiritomb and Sableye having no weakness until Fairy).
In general, when I add a Dark-type to my team, it's pretty much always for a completely different reason than what I have in mind when I add a Ghost-type to my team. Unless both of them are the same Pokémon. I freaking love Sableye.

Honestly, I also kind of think Ghost and Dark being so similar is a layer of nuance in itself - Ghost has its neutral coverage, and Dark-types have all of these excellent utility moves, including perhaps the single most spammable move in the entire series... and these are mutually exclusive - assuming they don't get STAB on both (and even then only if each move has a different important utility), few Pokémon would ever run Ghost moves and Dark moves on the same set because they're so redundant... maybe save for priority in Sucker Punch, but even that is riskier and not much stronger than STAB Shadow Sneak if the latter is an option at all.
Ghost-types will always prefer their Ghost STAB because STAB neutral coverage is what's so good about the type, while Dark-types will always prefer their Dark STAB because without STAB, the impressive neutrality of Ghost becomes a lot less useful. On some level, the apparent redundancy between the two types is what makes each of them stand out - Dark-types don't want to use Ghost-type moves at all, and it's broadly suboptimal for Ghost-types to use Dark-type moves despite the excellent utility they offer.
In fact... on some level, is it possible that - before Fairy came along - this was meant specifically to nerf the type combination of Ghost/Dark? It was a literal perfect defensive pairing - of course they would nerf its offensive synergy in return!

Maybe this is a weird perspective to have? But yeah, even that is something I honestly support!
 
Hematite said:
One would do that like this, I think! That and their directly opposite resistances (hence Spiritomb and Sableye having no weakness until Fairy).
In general, when I add a Dark-type to my team, it's pretty much always for a completely different reason than what I have in mind when I add a Ghost-type to my team.

Honestly, I also kind of think Ghost and Dark being so similar is a layer of nuance in itself - Ghost has its neutral coverage, and Dark-types have all of these excellent utility moves, including perhaps the single most spammable move in the entire series... and these are mutually exclusive - assuming they don't get STAB on both (and even then only if each move has a different important utility), few Pokémon would ever run Ghost moves and Dark moves on the same set because they're so redundant... maybe save for priority in Sucker Punch, but even that is riskier and not much stronger than STAB Shadow Sneak if the latter is an option at all.
Ghost-types will always prefer their Ghost STAB because STAB neutral coverage is what's so good about the type, while Dark-types will always prefer their Dark STAB because without STAB, the impressive neutrality of Ghost becomes a lot less useful. On some level, the apparent redundancy between the two types is what makes each of them stand out - Dark-types don't want to use Ghost-type moves at all, and it's broadly suboptimal for Ghost-types to use Dark-type moves despite the excellent utility they offer.
In fact... on some level, is it possible that - before Fairy came along - this was meant specifically to nerf the type combination of Ghost/Dark? It was a literal perfect defensive pairing - of course they would nerf its offensive synergy in return!

Maybe this is a weird perspective to have? But yeah, even that is something I honestly support!
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Huh, I suppose you have a point.

I'm just too traumatized from having to calculate whether or not Shadow Ball is a better deal than Bite on Mightyena before Gen 4.

And some... awkward choices for in-game trainers. (I've seen Shadow Ball Houndoom and Yveltal. It changes a man.)
 
The Switch is very weird about having a touchscreen in general. It exists, it's just as usable as the one on the DS, 3DS and Wii U, but... but it's like they don't want you to know it's there unless absolutely unnecessary? It's used for things like Mario Maker and Smash's Stage Builder but it rarely gets use at all. It feels like Nintendo's very tight on its usage, and if you want to have it be an element you have to suggest a strong case for its usage. I often forget it actually has a touch screen because of just how rarely it gets used -- aside from those I've mentioned, I think the only other thing I have that it's used for (and I have a fair few games on this thing) is the home menu.

Which to some degree I kind of get it. Unlike those aforementioned systems, the Touch Screen isn't exactly ever present -- after all, the Switch is a console that can also be played on the TV; and hence that touch screen won't be available and it would just be very inconvenient to force you to take it out to use touch screen controls in certain sections. But I think it'd be more than fair to allow things like suggested above; just being able to click on something you can just as easily click with a button for an alternate option.
 
Kurona said:
The Switch is very weird about having a touchscreen in general. It exists, it's just as usable as the one on the DS, 3DS and Wii U, but... but it's like they don't want you to know it's there unless absolutely unnecessary? It's used for things like Mario Maker and Smash's Stage Builder but it rarely gets use at all. It feels like Nintendo's very tight on its usage, and if you want to have it be an element you have to suggest a strong case for its usage. I often forget it actually has a touch screen because of just how rarely it gets used -- aside from those I've mentioned, I think the only other thing I have that it's used for (and I have a fair few games on this thing) is the home menu.

Which to some degree I kind of get it. Unlike those aforementioned systems, the Touch Screen isn't exactly ever present -- after all, the Switch is a console that can also be played on the TV; and hence that touch screen won't be available and it would just be very inconvenient to force you to take it out to use touch screen controls in certain sections. But I think it'd be more than fair to allow things like suggested above; just being able to click on something you can just as easily click with a button for an alternate option.
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I bet it's more "developer" than Nintendo enforcing things.
Wii U honestly wasn't much better and 90% of games had a giant tablet in front of you.

I'm guessing most developers just don't see the point in it for the second reason you list: it's not always available, a lot of people probably only play it as a "console" and just go into handheld ot continue a session or bring it somewhere. Why bother spending resources on it
 
Sonikku A said:
You guys think we can evolve Inkay on later systems legitimately? Cuz if devs really ignore the gyro, that might be an issue
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As long as the game(s) remain on portable devices, that's likely staying. So far the only evolution methods that got retconned have been to either non-availability of the mechanic (Feebas' beauty index), or the mechanic not being affordable/easy to be ported anymore (location based evolutions replaces with elemental stones in SwSh).

On side note, at this point once full dex returns I do expect other location based evolutions to also be retconned (namely Magneton, Nosepass, Crabrawler, + anything I'm forgetting, as well as potentially Runegrigius evo method changed in future games)
 
DrPumpkinz said:
Inkay already has a second evolution requirement: it must be at least level 30. They could always just remove the (admittedly very cool) gyro gimmick and just have Inkay evolve at level 30 like a normal Pokemon.
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Sine turning over is such a distinct part of Inkay I would be shocked if it was just level 30. They'll probably slap an item on it or at least require knowing TopsyTurvy

greentyphlosion said:
They'll just give it a new evolution method, it's been done plenty of times before.
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Yeah we got new Feebas (Trade Item), Sylveon (Affection w/ Fairy -> Happiness w/ Fairy), Vikavolt/Leafeon/Glaceon (Location -> Stone)
 
R_N said:
Sine turning over is such a distinct part of Inkay I would be shocked if it was just level 30. They'll probably slap an item on it or at least require knowing TopsyTurvy
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Very true. I was just saying that this doesn't need to happen. It isn't like Feebas where if you remove contests, you need to come up with an entirely new evolution method.
 
R_N said:
Had to, Affection is gone and just rolled into an extended happiness system.
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Uh oh. Let me look this up real quick, Affection was hella busted, so I'm curious about how it works now.

Edit: Good changes, also explains why Return got axed. Nice QoL change too because you can just grind happiness with Camp for evolutions and Happiness-based Evos evolve much quicker now. It ain't busted because there is a hard cap that only Camp can break for the Amie buffs.

Really like those, SwSh did a lot of great QoL changes.
 
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Volt-Ikazuchi said:
Uh oh. Let me look this up real quick, Affection was hella busted, so I'm curious about how it works now.

Edit: Good changes, also explains why Return got axed. Nice QoL change too because you can just grind happiness with Camp for evolutions and Happiness-based Evos evolve much quicker now. It ain't busted because there is a hard cap that only Camp can break for the Amie buffs.

Really like those, SwSh did a lot of great QoL changes.
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Return getting axed for this actually wouldn't make sense. All they need to do is tweak the power formula such that it reaches max power at the new soft-cap that friendship reaches before getting into affection.
 
Volt-Ikazuchi and R_N - it's been speculated that the actual reason Return was cut is because of the rental team feature. While Return is an optimal move on some Pokémon, so a lot of people who made teams would have preferred it over any other Normal-type move, it created issues in Generation VII because friendship wasn't saved for rental teams - I think this would have ended up making Return's power only 28 and Frustration's power 74, while their sets were designed for 102. Generation VIII still has rental teams, so that's probably the main reason why.
I've also seen people suggest "barrier to entry," which I think is a perfectly sensible reason (particularly for Frustration, which is relevant for beating Ditto but takes a lot of in-game resources). On the other hand, I've also seen people say it was just "balance," but I think that's probably wrong - the high power and lack of drawback for these two was presumably balanced around what a bad attacking type Normal was, while -ate Abilities were already nerfed once and I'm pretty sure also weren't on any physical attackers in SwSh.
 
Hematite said:
Volt-Ikazuchi and R_N - it's been speculated that the actual reason Return was cut is because of the rental team feature. While Return is an optimal move on some Pokémon, so a lot of people who made teams would have preferred it over any other Normal-type move, it created issues in Generation VII because friendship wasn't saved for rental teams - I think this would have ended up making Return's power only 28 and Frustration's power 74, while their sets were designed for 102. Generation VIII still has rental teams, so that's probably the main reason why.
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See in gen 7 that just seems like an oversight that would, hypothetically, get solved by saving the friendship value alongside everything else in gen 8.

but gamefreak gonna gamefreak, i suppose
 
R_N said:
See in gen 7 that just seems like an oversight that would, hypothetically, get solved by saving the friendship value alongside everything else in gen 8.

but gamefreak gonna gamefreak, i suppose
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It's possible that tracking friendship values relied so heavily on what trainer was currently using it that getting it to work with rental teams seemed like too big a hassle.

And honestly, even if it wasn't a hassle, I'm actually kinda glad that Return and Frustration are gone. There are a ton of interesting physical Normal moves (Double-Edge, Facade, Body Slam, Mega Kick, Crush Claw, Retaliate, Thrash) and it was boring to have practically all of them be ignored in favor of a spiceless move that literally everything can learn.
 
DrPumpkinz said:
It's possible that tracking friendship values relied so heavily on what trainer was currently using it that getting it to work with rental teams seemed like too big a hassle.

And honestly, even if it wasn't a hassle, I'm actually kinda glad that Return and Frustration are gone. There are a ton of interesting physical Normal moves (Double-Edge, Facade, Body Slam, Mega Kick, Crush Claw, Retaliate, Thrash) and it was boring to have practically all of them be ignored in favor of a spiceless move that literally everything can learn.
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On the other hand, Normal-types losing Return was a heavy blow to their viability since they lost their strongest drawback-free physical STAB move. All of the moves you mentioned are either gimmicky, have drawbacks, or are just weaker on average.

This is already a type that already struggles a bit offensively for not having any super-effective interactions. It's a big nerf and honestly kind of puzzling.
 
Also really hard to care that much when Ground type is over there still enjoying its 100 BP, 100% accurate quite-wide-coverage move it's had since gen 1.

Return was typically just used on Normal types as their best option, which I think is fair since as we have talked about at length, Normal is operating a deficit. It was on everyone sure, but how many pokemon actually used it unless they needed to?
 
R_N said:
Also really hard to care that much when Ground type is over there still enjoying its 100 BP, 100% accurate quite-wide-coverage move it's had since gen 1.

Return was typically just used on Normal types as their best option, which I think is fair since as we have talked about at length, Normal is operating a deficit. It was on everyone sure, but how many pokemon actually used it unless they needed to?
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I can think of a few games where "slap Return on everything, it just works" was viable.

Only for in-game purposes though. Shoutouts to BW2.
 
Volt-Ikazuchi said:
On the other hand, Normal-types losing Return was a heavy blow to their viability since they lost their strongest drawback-free physical STAB move. All of the moves you mentioned are either gimmicky, have drawbacks, or are just weaker on average.

This is already a type that already struggles a bit offensively for not having any super-effective interactions. It's a big nerf and honestly kind of puzzling.
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:blobshrug:
I'll gladly take an offensive nerf to an already-struggling offensive type if it means that the Pokemon and the people that use them can both express themselves through their pool of STAB moves and the ones they choose, respectively. It's far more interesting than what used to happen:
Code: 
if Ability = Guts or Toxic Boost
    move = Facade;
    else if hasGoodSignatureMove? = true
        move = SignatureMove;
        else if hasDoubleEdge? and wantMorePower? = true
            move = Double-Edge;
            else if worriedAboutDitto? = true
                move = Frustration;
                else move = Return;

R_N said:
Also really hard to care that much when Ground type is over there still enjoying its 100 BP, 100% accurate quite-wide-coverage move it's had since gen 1.
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The difference is that the Ground moves that get passed over in favor of Earthquake are both small in number and not interesting, at least not in singles.

Drill Run
High Horsepower
Stomping Tantrum

All the other physical Ground moves are either signature / rare as hell, geared toward support (Bulldoze and Sand Tomb), or just bad.
 
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