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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
What exactly do you mean?
i meant to say discarded idk why i wrote that maybe i'm playing showdown too much.
VGC is never gonna be Singles because of Wobbufett
Not really, Shadow Tag does not affect Ghost-types, and Shed Shell exists. Woubufett is also complete Taunt Fodder. If VGC is ever going to be Singles, it will BSS, not Smogon, the former is 3v3, which makes battles more fast paced.
Speaking of Wolfe and VGC, I put a critique of why I disagreed on his super mechanic review on his comments. Here is a read:
Wolfe, as someone who plays VGC, Smogon Singles, and Battle Stadium Singles, I find this " tier list " grossly simplified without looking into the applications of other formats. For starters, the majority of complaints about Z-Moves apply to Dynamax as well, mainly the unpredictability and increased power also apply to Dynamax. I find it much more powerful for three reasons: 1. Unlike Z-Moves, which were linked to an item, Dynamax could be used literally at any point. Having an item slot is an opportunity cost for Z-Moves, since you lose consistently lose a power increase over LO or a Choice B/Specs. Its also significantly easier to predict whether a Z-Move is on a Pokemon based on evalaution like LO recoil, increased damage output, or things like Leftovers activating every turn. These are indicators that a Pokemon are very likely to have an item other than Z-Move. And also once a Z-Move is used, the item slot is effectively useless, and in a BO3, you know well advance who has the Z-Move making it easier to plan in advance. 2. It is true on average, Z-Moves are weaker than Dynamax. But Dynamax can be used for three turns and assuming of you get to use each Max Move once, that three times the damage, and that's not taking in consideration the secondary effects, which protecting from is not a viable option, since Max Moves go through protect. It severely punishes players who are playing defensively or simply do not have a very viable Dynamax Option currently at the field. One could try to stall out playing defensively with Max Guard, but playing Dynamax Defensively is heavily in favor of the offensive player, who if Dynamaxing first, will often have stat boosts in contrast to players Dynamaxing second. So in conclusion, Dynamax is significantly stronger than Z-Moves, despite being completely different mechanics. 3. Dynamax is purely offensive mechanic. Stall or Defensive mons cannot take advantage of Dynamax at all, other than Max Guarding to block opposing attacks or trying to stop an emergency Sweeper. On the contrast, Z-Moves can be used defensively, like Toxapex and Tapu Fini using Z-Haze for a one time heal, and there is of course Z-Trick Room for Hypnosis and ignoring Taunt. Your anaylsis on Megas is also very narrow minded. You argue how terrible Mega Blaziken is arguing than it is nothing more than a LO Blaziken, but that is a gross simplification of how strong it is, hence why its top tier in Battle Spot Singles and Ubers. The 20 point increase is huge, as it allows Blaziken to outspeed Tapu Koko and Pheromosa after one Speed Boost, the former requires a Positve Speed nature, while the latter is impossible to outspeed at +1 even with a Speed nature. These are marks huge to the point that you would invest the Mega Slot into Blaziken despite being similar to the Life Orb Blaziken. Mega Gallade in a similar boat- despite not being a VGC staple, Mega Gallade was excellent on Mono-Fighting and Psychic teams for its ability to tear Poison types for the former, while being able dispatch of Dark and Steel for the latter. On Psychic, compared to Mega Gardevoir, Mega Gallade was the better the choice in 90% of scenarios thanks to better speed tier, and the fact Fighting was better for Psychic compared to Fairy due to its ability to maul Steel in addition to Dark, which the former Gardevoir struggled against. In fact, Mega Gardevoir was completely unviable in OU thanks to Tapu Lele and Mega Alakazam, the former had the same typing, better ability, but did not take up your Mega slot; the latter was stronger thanks to higher Speed and Sp.Atk. In the end, I find it hard to enjoy your content, because a lot of your desires and beliefs are solely based on VGC without any regard to Singles or really any other, and the way you discuss it makes it feel objective, like calling someone " dumb " for using Mega Altaria, despite it being a very solid Pokemon for 1v1 and OU. That's why I can't see myself subscribed. I'd enjoy your content a lot more if you'd at least acknowledge how mechanics benefit and harm other formats, not just VGC.
On topic of VGC accessibility, this an article from Upcomer explaining why VGC is below bottom tier when it comes to Esports. According to Cybertron, the biggest reasons are the fact that the Casual game and Competitve game are completely different, and the whole IV and EV system makes an insanely higher barrier for entry. To me the latter is the biggest problem on why Pokemon struggles as an esport. If people have to spend hours either breeding or soft-resetting to get the IVs they want, no one will have the interest on playing on cartridge, regardless of how balanced or what kind of super mechanic is implemented. At the very least, IVs need to go. The EV system can stay, since unlike IVs, EVs don't take nearly as long to apply, and different EV spreads can result in different calculations. The other issue that Cybertron points out is that VGC isn't as big of a money maker for TPC hence the lack of a big push, AKA known how Capitalism ruins innovation.
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I’d add that casual players will also be woefully unprepared for competitive scenes, period.
Between the lack of genuine challenge at late-game such as lategame teams insising on crappy movepools, overreliance on luck-widening mechanic like Double Team, the excessive handholding to the player, the Affection mechanics not applied to competitive, etc, all of which are found in a casual playthrough, casual players are only get more and more likely to get allienated from competitive due to these issues making them thinking that competitive like VGC will be a cakewalk, only for looking impossible for them due to top tier teams sweeping them.
Despite GF’s efforts, there isn’t enough focus and tried to balance between casual and competitive without even figuring the issues found on BOTH sides.
My own take is that gimmicks were a mistake, theyre all just different levels of bullshit depending on what you're playing. Its not like the battles themselves have been perfected to warrant so much experimentation imo
The gap between vgc and casual is weird to fix. I think something like monster hunter stories, where the "rider and monstie vs eide and monstie" pvp format is featured early in on the series, and you get side content just for that, both in multiplayer and in PvE.
Maybe dedicated facilities for doubles, kinda like contests, but that are designed for the level youre in instead of post game stuff
The gap between vgc and casual is weird to fix. I think something like monster hunter stories, where the "rider and monstie vs eide and monstie" pvp format is featured early in on the series, and you get side content just for that, both in multiplayer and in PvE.
Maybe dedicated facilities for doubles, kinda like contests, but that are designed for the level youre in instead of post game stuff
Casual players getting ego checked when they first start playing competitively is a thing in literally every game with PvP in it ever. There are only two things you can do that might remotely put a dent in this problem; one is to make resources abundantly available for the player to improve. This means making information about how mechanics like EVs/IVs work more readily available, as well as making it easier to obtain competitive Pokemon for your team. The other thing is a skill-based matchmaking system, and there are numerous problems with that as well.
No amount of game design will let you balance a disparity in skill or game knowledge, and any attempt to do so only ever harms the game.
But... He's a vgc player? His whole channel is just his personal experiences and knowledge, why does he gotta give disclaimers and talk about the singles experience that he doesnt seem to have much of, especially of niche formats like 1v1 singles lol. Just watch a youtuber like aim or freezai.
This right here is what you call potential.
Sword and Shield would have been better off if Eternatus, its lore, and its entire concept never existed. Perhaps Gamefreak would have also never made Zacian so broken if having it defeat Eternamax was never a factor. There would be no excuse for the Dynamax mechanic either, as it hopefully would not have been a thing. Having no mechanic or having just Mega Evolution back would have been a great improvement over Dynamax, Gigantamax, and Eternamax.
The talk of Comp entry being incredibly hard of a barrier compared to main game reminds me of difficulty in Mario and Kirby
The difficulty curve is pretty low for the base game. Extra difficulty is such a high level, that due to never getting prepared in main game, a lot of casual players just...never finish it
It's poor game dev practice in that hyper casual focus has meant less and less to get into extra modes, because the difficulty diff is incredibly high
The difficulty curve is pretty low for the base game. Extra difficulty is such a high level, that due to never getting prepared in main game, a lot of casual players just...never finish it
It's poor game dev practice in that hyper casual focus has meant less and less to get into extra modes, because the difficulty diff is incredibly high
I feel SO vindicated rn.
I'll twist the knife even further.
A LOT of major battles, especially the Gym Leaders do not employ a shred of strategy whatsoever. There is zero synergy, just a bunch of mons of the same type stacked on a team pretending they won't get folded by anyone who knows their type matchups.
And don't get me wrong, this isn't recent, this has been an issue since day 1.
Just to clarify, I'll show some good and bad examples:
The good:
Kabu isn't really the roadblock he's portrayed to be in-game, but you can tell there's a theme here, mainly physical debuffs with WoW and Arcanine's Intimidate. Of course, it is SwSh, so you can just D-Max and steamroll through his efforts before he can set anything up, but there are more impressive examples.
But the crown jewel for the best-designed Leader battle in a strategic sense goes to Hoenn.
This battle is AMAZING.
We're looking at 4 shitmons, make no mistake, but that only make this more impressive.
Synergy is the name of the game here. Claydol gets to fire off EQs because everyone else on their team is immune to it, Light Screen and Sunny Day turn Surf into a complete non-factor. Xatu's Sun also allows Solrock to come in ready to smack unsuspecting Water-types with Solarbeam. Confuse Ray and Hypnosis allows Xatu and Lunatone to either set up with CM or use their support moves again.
The result is a frankly fun battle despite the power level being so low on Tate and Liza's side.
THIS should be the standard. Have a theme and stick to a strategy, you don't need to go full romhack with top tier mons with optimized stats, just have something to make the battle memorable.
The Bad
The problem is that most battles look like this:
Now, can you tell me one memorable thing about Platinum Maylene?
Most of her mons run her signature TM, some coverage and either a basic secondary STAB or some unremarkable move. There's nothing to set it apart from any other battle in the game. There's no need to prepare, just pick the mons on your team that have appropriate super-effective moves and that's all you need.
How are Leaders of this caliber supposed to even make one imagine there's a strategic depth to this game, let alone bridge the main game to the post-game/comp?
A) Tough Claws didn't exist in Gen 4 when it was released, or Gen 5 when Hidden Abilities were released.
B) Tough Claws Weavile would be pretty damn broken.
C) Um... no? It's based on a weasel/mustelid and a bandit, as well as possibly some sort of evil Japanese spirit called a Kamaitachi, at least according to Bulbapedia.
GF should do a revamp of older mons, give them better abilities,, buff their bst and widen their move pool.
It would just go from another OU mon to top tier OU mon. Nothing like Darm or even Dracovish
And if Weavile got broken then Lando might fall to UUBL which i'm most plyers would like.
Yeah my bad. It is still a sharp claw pokemon so tough claws make prfect sense on it. Atleast give it to Sneasler
I don't know why Weavile, which is stronger than the vast majority of Pokemon, is your prime example for this.
It's already a top tier OU Pokemon; giving a 30% boost to its strongest STABs will definitely push it to Ubers.
First of all, this fundamentally misunderstands how the presence of one Pokemon that threatens another affects usage. There have always been many Pokemon able to threaten Landorus-T with an OHKO. The 30% damage boost would not change much about how Weavile interacts with Landorus-T.
Second of all, there is not a general consensus from competitive players that the presence of Landorus-T is a bad thing. It is far from the most pressing balance concern in Gens 5-8. If anything, there is an argument that its presence is beneficial, because the ability to compress roles eases teambuilding pressures.
Claws are a prominent design element on many Pokemon. The distribution of the ability has to be relatively limited, there's no reason to give it to something just because it can be justified. Similarly, many Steel-types based on inanimate objects are shown to be levitating, but there's a good reason that only a few should have Levitate.
This is however where market comes into play.
Gimmicks are necessary.
When it comes to extremely long running series, eventually you need to add something to keep the game interesting. Just adding "more pokemon" would eventually just cause the game to become stale because it'd be just always the same with different faces.
This isn't strictly limited to Pokemon, in fact it's not limited to that kind of games either.
Card games, like for example YuGiOh, have had to keep adding new summoning mechanics and progressively more complicated archetypes to keep the game interesting.
MOBAs have to come up with champions and map mechanics that get progressively more complicate and more "unique" (someone said Yuumi?) because otherwise every new release becomes "better X" or "worse Y" and the meta doesn't change.
Fighting games each have to add their own twist to the genre to not be all identical, and the ones that get long running series like Street Fighter, Tekken, Smash, need to keep adding flashier and more complicate heroes to play or new super moves to keep each new entry compelling to be bought.
Even MMOs like WoW or FF14 have to keep adding new mechanics to the classes that aren't just "a new spell" or change them around enough that they play completely differently as well as add new more complicate mechanics to their raids in order to keep the gameplay fresh and keep old players returning.
You can see a clear example of why this is a necessity for long running series in the disaster that last entries of FIFA and Madden have been. Without mentioning the scummy practices EA does and the games being glorified gachas, lot of the criticism for last 3 entries is that "it's the same game as last year with a different name". (Also because it actually is)
Note that this can also add to a lot of long running single player series that keep the same formula, like Yakuza, ESO, GTA, YS, Atelier, or Persona, or <insert very long list>. Every new entry they need to add new twists to their combat system or <insert main mechanic>, otherwise the game will just feel "the same as the previous one".
No matter what, when you have a long running game/series that follows the same formula, after a few releases/updates you need to start either reinventing the wheel or adding more wheels, because it doesn't matter how good the entry is if the gameplay gets stale. Pokemon being at their 9th main entry definitely qualifies for this as well.
I know it'd happen at some point, but I guess I just feel like we still had things to do with the existing system that could have fit to both make the battles better and also make it something newer and flashier before turning into gimmicks, if that makes sense
What's really weird is that Weavile only has one main ability slot when Sneasel has two.
Well it's a inevitable aspect.
Not saying they couldn't spice up the gameplay of the single player bit without it, BDSP shown already how all it takes is actually having some competent movesets on the "bosses" to already up the difficulty and challenge level notably, but when it comes to keeping the competitive scene fresh, I don't think there's any other option than either start resorting to alternating gimmicks or completely change the format.
Hey, where did you find this quote? Is it official?
As for Gimmicks, it's funny how contentious they are in the video games, but in the TCG, no-one seem to have issues with format-specific special Pokémon like Pokémon-EX. At worst, they would say Crystal Pokémon from Aquapolia and Skyridge are competitively unviable, and even then, there are fans of the concept, also they fetch for decent prices online.
And speaking of cards, Pokémon-GX are overall my favorite special Pokémon card group, they are both strong and interesting, I loved how the Z-Move mechanic was adapted to this different medium. I don't like when special Pokémon cards are just "stronger than usual, if it faints your opponent draw two prize cards".
Because it's a cool mon.
If you wanna buff some mon u should buff someone that would catch public eye? Will anybody care if Kricketune was buffed?
But yeah mons like Electivire and Starmie need buffs before Weavile.
Not when it gets OHKOed by mach punch or even a technician Scizor. Yeah it will have some niche in Ubers but it still would have plenty of checks and counters in OU. It will not even be close to broken. Something like hail Arctozolt or rain Barraskewda is way more broken than tough claws weavile would ever be.
Yeah i concede the first point but tough claws weavile would dethrone Lando from the no.1 spot.
As for the second most competitive players says that Lando is too OP and should be banned from OU.
It is not just design, claws are it's identity. It is a claw pokemon. It needs Razor claw to evolve. Unlike the steels types who are just shown to levitate because of lazy designing.
Also most mons with tough claws can't even be justified. Why give Zard Y, Lycarock or Mega MGross tough claws.
https://www.smogon.com/dex/ss/pokemon/pheromosa/
Hot takes aside, I think you underestimate how scary glass cannon pokemon can be in this game :P
I mean Pheromosa is an extreme example with huge offensive stats and one of the best Speed stats. Not everyone can OHKO popular walls before their target.
Imagine pheromosa but with actually good offensive typing.
That's weavile if you actually gave it more damage :v