(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[Hugin]

So went checking into Meowstic's moveset and the Rivals from XY and yeah, there's no excuse. They had to manually edit the moveset, including adding TMs(Shadow Ball for Calem) and early moves(Psychic at 35). But they left it with a 40 BP move even in the post-game Rematches, and the moveset receives basically no updates throughout the game*. The fact that they both use the exact same moveset may be a technical limitation, but if not then there's no reason Serena couldn't have Signal Beam instead. And there's no reason not to upgrade to Dazzling Gleam for both of them.

Honestly, this was a really missed opportunity. You see this mon a LOT, and always at the start of fights. Give Calem Fake Out/STAB/Dual Screens, Serena gets the ridic coverage moves. That would feel different when you faced each of them on repeat playthroughs, but more importantly it would feel VERY different when you team up with them for Double Battles. Plus, a partner who Fake Outs and then sets up screens would be a really interesting and helpful thing for casual playthroughs, and would help teach kids playing how useful the non-damage moves can be.

*After evolution(lvl 28), it's Psybeam/Disarming Voice/Fake Out/Light Screen, and lvl 44 through post-game it's Psychic/Disarming Voice/Fake Out/Shadow Ball. They don't even give it Extrasensory when it learns that at 35, just skip right to the illegal early Psychic.

 

[Yung Dramps]

Honestly, this was a really missed opportunity. You see this mon a LOT, and always at the start of fights. Give Calem Fake Out/STAB/Dual Screens, Serena gets the ridic coverage moves. That would feel different when you faced each of them on repeat playthroughs, but more importantly it would feel VERY different when you team up with them for Double Battles. Plus, a partner who Fake Outs and then sets up screens would be a really interesting and helpful thing for casual playthroughs, and would help teach kids playing how useful the non-damage moves can be.

>xy
>good boss design

pick one

 

[R_N]

"A move that always hits is novel, isn't it? And it learns it naturally! Let's keep it in there, plus its a fairy move to handle dark types! : ) " - gamefreak, probably

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

>xy
>good boss design

pick one

I know XY's already been mocked endlessly for how poorly designed its boss battles are, but it truly stuns me every time I play through it, especially when compared with the difficulty of random route trainers like the infamous Furfrou double.

Sure, let's introduce Sky Battles where more than a third of the opposing trainers have ways to specifically counter the one Flying-type most players are likely to have on their team. Oh and also Inverse Battles as a one-off gimmick, where Psychic Inver can obliterate pretty much any team the first time you face him when your muscle memory kicks in and you pick the wrong move. But Korrina? She should fold to a single Ghost Pokemon and generally be a less threatening Fighting-type specialist than the Battle Girl you already faced half an hour ago in the Reflection Cave. Team Flare? Fight the leader 3 times within like an hour of gameplay! Only two members besides Lysandre ever use more than two Pokemon and they're both Grunts!

There was that really interesting pimanrules YouTube video a while back pitting all the RB trainers against each other to rank them by ELO and when he ordered the trainers by how early you could face them there was a very clear upward trajectory with spikes at each leader/rival battle/etc. (second-to-last chapter of the video). If you did the same thing in XY I think you'd struggle to distinguish a lot of the major fights post-Grant from the overall trend.

XY did so much right that this issue really sticks out for me.

 

[Wukong]

Another HGSS criticism (not GSC): Red's Pokemon's move sets seem considerably downgraded compared to the originals. You could argue his Espeon and Lapras go even I guess. As well as his Pikachu's, though HGSS's version is obviously better due to Light Ball. But everything else seems worse.

Criticize GSC all you want but at least all three starters showcased their most powerful (and consistent) elemental moves with Venusaur, Charizard and Blastoise using Sunny Day/Solarbeam, Flamethrower and Surf, respectively, as their primary moves. None of HGSS's trio did this. This coupled with the Gen 4 programming logic that basically prevented any mon from using a recharge move no matter the circumstance, and you end up with Red's Venusaur's strongest Grass STAB being the 60 BP Giga Drain, Charizard ramming itself into a wall with Flare Blitz instead of using the objectively superior Flamethrower, and Blastoise hilariously operating as if it doesn't have a STAB move.

And lastly, Snorlax. Yes Earthquake would've been great but at least in the original it showcased its devastating Body Slam. In HGSS it randomly has Shadow Ball which is redundant and pretty much completely inferior to Crunch. And of course Giga Impact which it will almost never use due to aforementioned programming; again, operating as if it doesn't have a STAB.

More reasons why I think Red is a pretty overrated final boss (from a gameplay perspective) and was already surpassed by other final bosses like Platinum Cynthia, Emerald Steven, B2W2 Iris, FRLG rematch Blue, just to name a few. After the number BDSP did for Cynthia, the gap between her and Red as far as their in-game portrayals isn't even remotely close.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

Another HGSS criticism (not GSC): Red's Pokemon's move sets seem considerably downgraded compared to the originals. You could argue his Espeon and Lapras go even I guess. As well as his Pikachu's, though HGSS's version is obviously better due to Light Ball. But everything else seems worse.

Criticize GSC all you want but at least all three starters showcased their most powerful (and consistent) elemental moves with Venusaur, Charizard and Blastoise using Sunny Day/Solarbeam, Flamethrower and Surf, respectively, as their primary moves. None of HGSS's trio did this. This coupled with the Gen 4 programming logic that basically prevented any mon from using a recharge move no matter the circumstance, and you end up with Red's Venusaur's strongest Grass STAB being the 60 BP Giga Drain, Charizard ramming itself into a wall with Flare Blitz instead of using the objectively superior Flamethrower, and Blastoise hilariously operating as if it doesn't have a STAB move.

And lastly, Snorlax. Yes Earthquake would've been great but at least in the original it showcased its devastating Body Slam. In HGSS it randomly has Shadow Ball which is redundant and pretty much completely inferior to Crunch. And of course Giga Impact which it will almost never use due to aforementioned programming; again, operating as if it doesn't have a STAB.

More reasons why I think Red is a pretty overrated final boss (from a gameplay perspective) and was already surpassed by other final bosses like Platinum Cynthia, Emerald Steven, B2W2 Iris, FRLG rematch Blue, just to name a few. After the number BDSP did for Cynthia, the gap between her and Red as far as their in-game portrayals isn't even remotely close.

HGSS Red kinda feels like a big sendoff for the early-gen concept of the overlevelled boss that you can still beat because of limited AI/movesets/etc. It offers a sense of triumph over adversity if you're a little kid, but becomes progressively less satisfying the older you get and the more you know about game mechanics and teambuilding.

 

[AztecCroc]

Another HGSS criticism (not GSC): Red's Pokemon's move sets seem considerably downgraded compared to the originals. You could argue his Espeon and Lapras go even I guess. As well as his Pikachu's, though HGSS's version is obviously better due to Light Ball. But everything else seems worse.

Criticize GSC all you want but at least all three starters showcased their most powerful (and consistent) elemental moves with Venusaur, Charizard and Blastoise using Sunny Day/Solarbeam, Flamethrower and Surf, respectively, as their primary moves. None of HGSS's trio did this. This coupled with the Gen 4 programming logic that basically prevented any mon from using a recharge move no matter the circumstance, and you end up with Red's Venusaur's strongest Grass STAB being the 60 BP Giga Drain, Charizard ramming itself into a wall with Flare Blitz instead of using the objectively superior Flamethrower, and Blastoise hilariously operating as if it doesn't have a STAB move.

And lastly, Snorlax. Yes Earthquake would've been great but at least in the original it showcased its devastating Body Slam. In HGSS it randomly has Shadow Ball which is redundant and pretty much completely inferior to Crunch. And of course Giga Impact which it will almost never use due to aforementioned programming; again, operating as if it doesn't have a STAB.

More reasons why I think Red is a pretty overrated final boss (from a gameplay perspective) and was already surpassed by other final bosses like Platinum Cynthia, Emerald Steven, B2W2 Iris, FRLG rematch Blue, just to name a few. After the number BDSP did for Cynthia, the gap between her and Red as far as their in-game portrayals isn't even remotely close.

I can safely say that Red absolutely will use the recharge moves sometimes, albeit only with Blastoise. If you put a Fire type that resists Focus Blast in front of it, Blastoise will use Hydro Cannon.

 

[Wukong]

I can safely say that Red absolutely will use the recharge moves sometimes, albeit only with Blastoise. If you put a Fire type that resists Focus Blast in front of it, Blastoise will use Hydro Cannon.

It's weirdly programmed though. Normally the Platinum and HGSS AI will just choose the move that does the most damage, unless your Pokémon has very little health left. It takes a weirdly specific set of circumstances for them to use a recharge move. Which is in and of itself something (little) that annoys me.

So while it's not that they won't *ever* use a recharge move, it's pretty suboptimal how it's been programmed in Platinum and HGSS compared to other AI decisions.

 

[pika pal]

I feel the above mentioned problem with Red's team just kind of underscores an issue Pokemon has kind of had pop up sporadically for a while, in that the people designing the in-game encounter teams don't seem to understand the systems very well, or at least don't consult very much with the team in charge of designing/balancing the overall systems vs the individual encounters and maps.

You see this a lot with some bosses having moves they can't use or NFE Pokemon at points in the game where there seems to be little reason for it. In Red's case it goes beyond just the Elemental Recharge moves being soft-locked on his Starters.

• Charizard has Flare Blitz despite an otherwise SpA based moveset that suits its stats better. I assume they just thought this looked cooler given it similarly uses the move in stuff like Smash Bros., but it's a problem here since even if it's strong enough for Zard, it's probably weaker than an equivalent Fire Blast (not sure about Flamethrower) and adds Recoil on top of Passive Hail damage if it wants to use its strongest option, at which point the result is almost the same as a Recharge since it gives you a free Knockdown on Zard if you survive or otherwise don't mind the Strong hit.
• Giga Drain on Venusaur I sort of see the idea, keeping a recovery move since they removed the Sunny Day set from it, but then to make its main damage move Sludge Bomb when it's already double Resistant to the Grass types it would hit is a massive power drop. Energy Ball was available and recognizable, if they didn't want to keep the Sunny Day set up anyway (which subjectively I think would have a cool factor to fight with inherent Weather and then have an opponent that changes it to suit the battle, like his old Blastoise had Rain Dance)
• Blastoise in theory got it the easiest thanks to its Special Movepool and the Hail favoring Blizzard as counterplay to Grass types. That said the fact that it elected for Flash Cannon and Focus Blast is odd since they're strong but don't really help in-tandem with anything that it wouldn't just want Surf for in Gen 4.
• Bonus: Snorlax is half-Physical and half-Special despite its lackluster Special options, and Shadow Ball as mentioned being completely redundant with Crunch. It doesn't even have a recovery option like the original's Rest.

Stuff like this makes me curious how segmented the Pokemon dev team is in terms of aspects covered: Do the Pokemon themselves, the trainer AI, and the Region/Trainer designs all get handled by different parts that don't have to be in frequent/constant communication on at least major changes or aspects that could affect situations like this?

 

[R_N]

I'm going with the flip side of "they probably were aware of coverage and stats but actively went for a variety that would catch players off guard while also going "hey this is a neat strong move for them to use""

Flare Blitz might be a worse move than Flamethrower....but it's a physical move and looks cool and wow cool smash bros!
Shadow Ball is redundant coverage...but it's a special move you're not expecting!!! And it could lower your special defense, look out!
Giga Drain might be weaker....but it heals! Wow!

How aware the teams were of AI flubs is a better question because even these days there's still weird oddities that they've seemingly never thought to change. Things like the ai still wont use variable moves because internally they're a power of 1, much less the minutia of "will the AI even, in most situations, use this move"

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Reminds me of how in Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon, allies' status moves are switched off by default. Towards the end of the game, there's a really hard dungeon where your guest allies include Celebi with Heal Bell and Jirachi with Wish. These are both really nice to have, but they're mutually exclusive; you can only enable the status moves of the one you made part of your active team. I think they did this to avoid situations like in Rescue Team where escorts had no IQ and would spam healing moves constantly if they knew them, but wouldn't a better solution be to program better AI?

 

[Worldie]

I think they did this to avoid situations like in Rescue Team where escorts had no IQ and would spam healing moves constantly if they knew them, but wouldn't a better solution be to program better AI?

Unfortunately, "program a better AI" isnt often a valid solution. In fact, very rarely is.

A wild guess on why they opted to not do so can be that due to the way MD works, a more powerful AI would apply at same time to all entities currently active on a given floor, which could easily result in taking too much toll on the processor.

A similar comparison a lot of people do is, say, pawns and traffic in GTA or Cyberpunk, who are complete idiots who don't move out of the way and often just either run aimlessly or cower despite you're literally trying to run them over.
Implementing proper and more complex decision making on games that may feature dozens of actors active at same time can result in heavy toll on the game, expecially if the game is already intensive for other reasons, and just result in game lag or even crashes.

(Obviously, this is my supposition, I'm unsure of how complex SMD AI is, but off my memory a floor could easily have 20ish pokemon active at a given time so I consider the issue realistic)

 

[R_N]

Meanwhile I see it on the other end of the spectrum: development cost.
Depends a lot on the time allotted during development and what's going on elsewhere. Cases like those might have been noticed but deemed more edgecases that wouldn't warrant further iterations on the AI. If the SMD AI was built ground up in particular, the likely had bigger routines to be concerned about (& if they ported the bulk of the AI over, then edgecases like this would be even less of a priority.

I am a smidge less lenient on the Pokemon AIs just because it's such an iterative franchise that clearly does make changes game to game, year over year, on the AI so like maybe with recurring problems they could just....just dedicate just a smidge of dev time to fixing the variable damage move priority....just a little.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Stuff like this makes me curious how segmented the Pokemon dev team is in terms of aspects covered: Do the Pokemon themselves, the trainer AI, and the Region/Trainer designs all get handled by different parts that don't have to be in frequent/constant communication on at least major changes or aspects that could affect situations like this?

I've wondered about this a lot too. It's particularly apparent with the trainers at the PWT in B2W2 because the difference between them can be pretty stark; sometimes they're great, other times they're not.

There's stuff like this:

Like, in terms of utility Choice Band Slaking is probably the best option overall, but Eject Button Slaking is a novel concept and shows some thought put in. The moves are otherwise great and the rest of the team is pretty decent overall too.

And then there's stuff like this:

That Electrode is awful, as is the Luxray, and the Jolteon and Rotom aren't brilliant either. Kind of feels like they were going for something unconventional here, but it's hardly top-tier stuff.

Looking at this and some of the other teams, part of me just thinks that the uniformly "good" trainers just slipped through due to the law of averages.

 

[Ironmage]

I've wondered about this a lot too. It's particularly apparent with the trainers at the PWT in B2W2 because the difference between them can be pretty stark; sometimes they're great, other times they're not.

There's stuff like this:

View attachment 426558

Like, in terms of utility Choice Band Slaking is probably the best option overall, but Eject Button Slaking is a novel concept and shows some thought put in. The moves are otherwise great and the rest of the team is pretty decent overall too.

And then there's stuff like this:

View attachment 426560
That Electrode is awful, as is the Luxray, and the Jolteon and Rotom aren't brilliant either. Kind of feels like they were going for something unconventional here, but it's hardly top-tier stuff.

Looking at this and some of the other teams, part of me just thinks that the uniformly "good" trainers just slipped through due to the law of averages.

Honestly, it feels like Volkner just didn't have much to work with. Jolteon and Electrode have nearly no coverage (signal beam was literally the only non-normal or Hidden Power special coverage electrode had) and Luxray can't run a guts/flame orb set because there can't be a guarantee it even has Guts. Sure, they could have theoretically run with Volt Switch spam, if that wasn't already Elesa's gimmick.

Side note: Norman's Slaking probably isn't using a choice band because Staraptor is instead, I don't think the AI ever breaks item clause.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Honestly, it feels like Volkner just didn't have much to work with. Jolteon and Electrode have nearly no coverage (signal beam was literally the only non-normal or Hidden Power special coverage electrode had) and Luxray can't run a guts/flame orb set because there can't be a guarantee it even has Guts. Sure, they could have theoretically run with Volt Switch spam, if that wasn't already Elesa's gimmick.

I'm not convinced that redundancy would be reason enough to nerf sets. There are multiple Gym Leaders of each type, there's going to be overlap. Blaine, Flannery, and Chili all use Overheat for instance.

What makes that particular Luxray crap is the Liechi Berry combined with Superpower. It doesn't activate automatically like a White Herb would and if it uses Superpower once, all that happens when it goes below 25% is that that the Attack level goes back to 0, not +1. Even a Fighting Gem would have been a better item.

In Electrode's case, Thunder without Rain Dance isn't ideal and Taunt as well as Torment feels odd, particularly when it holds an offensive item.

Side note: Norman's Slaking probably isn't using a choice band because Staraptor is instead, I don't think the AI ever breaks item clause.

Well yes, but... my thinking was that if Slaking gets a Choice Band, Staraptor gets a different item. I thought that was implicit from what I wrote but maybe not.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

then to make its main damage move Sludge Bomb when it's already double Resistant to the Grass types it would hit is a massive power drop

I agree with the overall point, but this part is confusing to me because Sludge Bomb is a perfectly serviceable STAB move even if it only hits opposing Grass mons super-effectively. In fact, it's Venusaur's strongest neutral attack without any drawbacks (beating out Energy Ball prior to Gen VI's power boost) and it hits more types for neutral damage than a Grass attack would (albeit with one immunity). Super-effective coverage is important, but it's not everything. I certainly wouldn't characterise this as a mistake or oversight on the parts of the devs.

EDIT: also tbh I'd probably make Sludge Bomb Venusaur's main attacking move if I were designing this battle for maximum difficulty because it does an excellent job of covering the only type immune to Leech Seed, which I'd consider an auto-include alongside Sleep Powder.

 

[pika pal]

I agree with the overall point, but this part is confusing to me because Sludge Bomb is a perfectly serviceable STAB move even if it only hits opposing Grass mons super-effectively. In fact, it's Venusaur's strongest neutral attack without any drawbacks (beating out Energy Ball prior to Gen VI's power boost) and it hits more types for neutral damage than a Grass attack would (albeit with one immunity). Super-effective coverage is important, but it's not everything. I certainly wouldn't characterise this as a mistake or oversight on the parts of the devs.

EDIT: also tbh I'd probably make Sludge Bomb Venusaur's main attacking move if I were designing this battle for maximum difficulty because it does an excellent job of covering the only type immune to Leech Seed, which I'd consider an auto-include alongside Sleep Powder.

That's a fair counterpoint, Venusaur just seems confused to me on what its part in the team is supposed to be. Sludge Bomb is a stronger move than Giga Drain, but if Sleep Powder is there it feels like it's supposed to be disruptive, and thus would want to use the Heal more often even at a slight power loss. That felt like it covered its spamming move (low PP not likely to last long enough to be a concern for an in-game battle, even as a Superboss), and then it didn't seem to have stuff like the missing Leech Seed to further play a long term bulky role. If we're changing up Red's team anyway, I might have gone with some items for more mons and thrown something like Leaf Storm/White Herb on what looks like an offensive Venusaur, though Leech Seed or something like Poison Powder does seem more useful for it in this scenario as a Status combo to throw around that works on both Offensive and Defensive opponents.

Sludge Bomb just feels out of place because the set feels awkwardly halfway between a defensive and offensive set, both of which could use SB but would want something else to go with it like a 3rd Coverage move (Earthquake?) or the already discussed support moves.

 

[AztecCroc]

Why are people saying Red's Charizard has Flare Blitz because of Smash? Charizard doesn't have Flare Blitz in Brawl and Smash 4 didn't come out til after X and Y.

Also Leaf Storm's an Egg move for Venusaur in gen 4 and wouldn't make sense on what's meant to be the gift Bulbasaur.

 

[Siggu]

Also Leaf Storm's an Egg move for Venusaur in gen 4 and wouldn't make sense on what's meant to be the gift Bulbasaur.

Perhaps Red had access to Egg Move teaching four generations early.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Why are people saying Red's Charizard has Flare Blitz because of Smash? Charizard doesn't have Flare Blitz in Brawl and Smash 4 didn't come out til after X and Y.

Also Leaf Storm's an Egg move for Venusaur in gen 4 and wouldn't make sense on what's meant to be the gift Bulbasaur.

That sort of thinking largely gets ignored on NPC Pokemon. Lots of NPCs pre-Gen VI have illegal combinations of moves and occasionally moves that cannot be learned by that species at all. I've just always rationalised it that those NPCs know all sorts of breeding and tutoring tricks the player doesn't yet and maybe caught their Pokemon in areas the player hasn't yet discovered.

 

[pika pal]

Why are people saying Red's Charizard has Flare Blitz because of Smash? Charizard doesn't have Flare Blitz in Brawl and Smash 4 didn't come out til after X and Y.

Also Leaf Storm's an Egg move for Venusaur in gen 4 and wouldn't make sense on what's meant to be the gift Bulbasaur.

When I brought it up at least I meant it less as "he has it because of Smash" than "Flare Blitz is a 'cool' move on Charizard, Smash is another example of it being used for that"

 

[SlowAriados]

Probably been said before, but status conditions. Especially confusion! I always carry plenty of healing items to not deal with this

 

[Worldie]

Probably been said before, but status conditions. Especially confusion! I always carry plenty of healing items to not deal with this

Every...single...electric...enemy....Static....

 

[A_Wild_Noob_Appeared!]

Why is Sandstorm a Rock-type move? Literally every other sand-based move is Ground-type, and Sand Attack was changed from Normal to Ground in the exact same generation that it was introduced. The only reasoning would be because it increases the Special Defense of Rock-types, but they could have just as easily made the effect apply to Ground-types instead.

I don't even necessarily mind that the SpD boost applies to Rock-types instead of Ground-types, since it allows a type that's ordinarily not super great defensively to become specially-defensive behemoths when paired with Sand Stream, but I think the base weather-setting move pretty clearly makes more sense as a Ground-type move. (It could be made more coherent by having the SpD boost apply to Rock, Ground, and Steel types, to match the types that are immune to sandstorm damage and boosted by Sand Force. That being said, it's probably best not to give Hippowdon and Excadrill an extra 1.5x to SpD.)