Unpopular opinions

[Bakugames]

Leveling groups aren't necessary for scaling when we already have level up requirements. Even if something like a zigzagoon and a gible evolved at the same rate, zigs would still be more useful for 20-30 levels until you get a chomp or your gabite is decent enough.

Not only that but the placement and rarity of pokemon are influences already. There's plenty of ways to make weaker mons useful with good game design.

For my opinion: if they're going to make exp a forced thing, they should account for levels and exp groups. Have it so if you're a lower level or a slower group, you get more exp.

Something like: you got 200 exp from a fight, and the pokemon fighting gets the full 200 exp. Now the party divides the 200 exp for themselves.
You have 5 mons in the back, one is 10 levels below your team, another is on the slow group. These guys get 55 exp
The other 3 mons are properly leveled and/or on fast leveling groups. They get 30 exp each.

Something like that would make it easier for low level mons to catch up I feel

 

[Coronis]

While it can be fun to have your poke arbitrarly survive a hit or heal a status and turn a fight, it's not fun to have the exact opposite happen to you, where you were going to win and suddently the enemy poke has an affection proc and sweeps your team.

Now you know how the NPCs feel. Not good, is it?

 

[Worldie]

Now you know how the NPCs feel. Not good, is it?

Good things NPCs don't actually have feelings right?

 

[pika pal]

Now you know how the NPCs feel. Not good, is it?

Not my fault they don't have any friends

 

[Coronis]

Good things NPCs don't actually have feelings right?

Don’t you dare break the illusion.

 

[Ironmage]

Don’t you dare break the illusion.

I mean, the NPCs that have an Illusion in the first place are what, N and Gladion? Zoroark isn't exactly common.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Slow/fast leveling groups should be removed. There's already scaling there with the level mons evolve. I have no idea what these levelling groups are even worth for

...

Who's a good boy? You're a good boy!

I agree with IVs, but levelling group is important (even if it needs adjustments) since, in theory, allows early route weaker Pokémon to catch up with stronger one by allowing themselves to level up faster. The fact that weak Pokémon with slow experience groups exists is embarrasing to say the least though.

Could you at least tell the other stupid remnants so we can see if we can agree on removing them or not?

That's why we got scaling exp based on levels since Gen 5.

It's almost like they implemented a now-unskippable affection mechanic that, among other things, boosts the amount of experience you get...

So that could easily replace the level groups, as stronger Pokémon often have less time to build up affection.

The problem with that is that the affection mechanics are also atrociously terrible.


As someone who has modded all mons to be in the med-slow exp. group in pretty much every game in this franchise, I can guarantee that the gameplay ends up like this:

Spoiler

 

[Sonikku A]

I'm not making another Smogon meme, don't tempt me Volt!
...
For now...

 

[KalosianPorygon]

Humans in the Pokémon lay eggs.
Change my freaking mind.

 

[Eeveeto]

Humans in the Pokémon lay eggs.
Change my freaking mind.

Can,t be true. Since protein and meat are hard to obtain in the Pokemon world (you need to hunt wild Mons), humans would be making omelettes of their own eggs, so no more humans would be born.

 

[Ransei]

Legends Arceus is less unique than we think . These games were built off using Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon as the blueprint.

To explain...
1) Wardens act like Trial Captains and even share the same name of "Captain" in Japanese titles.
2) Ride Pokemon have almost all the same functions. Tauros = Wyrdeer, Stoutland = Ursaluna, Sharpedo = Basculegion, Charizard = Hisuian Braviary, Machamp and Sneasler do somewhat different things but they both involve physically carrying a player with their arms through rough terrain, whether that'd be climbing mountains or pushing boulders. Gen 7 has two extra ride Pokemon.
3) There is a flute you have to play to summon the games' mascot. Sun/Moon Flute = Solgaleo/Lunala, Azure Flute = Arceus.
4) The story utilizes space/time shenanigans and tries to have it justify bringing over random battle facility heads from the past. Anabel = Ultra Wormhole, Ingo = Space/Time rift.
5) Legends Arceus has you collecting all the plates of each type similar to how USUM has you do this for Z-Crystals.
6) Both Hisui and Alola are the only regions where wild Pokemon are "extra". Hisui has alphas who can increase their stats especially when aggravated, Alola has wild Pokemon summon a partner vs S.O.S when they're aggravated.
7) Nobles are Pokemon boss fights, similar to how Totems are. We fight Pokemon instead of trainers with Pokemon.
8) Volo carries an omniboosted legendary dragon Pokemon in your final fight against him! Wait where have we seen this before??

9) Both games being very cutscene focused for Pokemon, unlike anything else in gens 1-6 or gen 8
10) Best of all, the guy who directed Legends Arceus was the same guy who directed Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon; Kazumasa Iwao. These are the only two games they have directed, and before then, they were a Game Battle System Design Director for ORAS and SM.

Edit: Extra and for SM instead of USUM but the Spiritomb side quest sharply resembles the Zygarde quest from Legends Arceus.

Some of these may or may not be enough by themselves but when combined it all connects.

How do I feel about all of this? I'm just stoked that the same guy responsible for Volo's final battle was also responsible for the Ultra Necrozma battle. Kazumasa Iwao is on to something!

 

[Mova]

at least iwao has a better idea of a writing style than ohmori

 

[Siggu]

It just baffles me how Iwao could start with the best of the 3D mainline games in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, but then crash so badly with Legends...

 

[DrPumpkinz]

It just baffles me how Iwao could start with the best of the 3D mainline games in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, but then crash so badly with Legends...

 

[pika pal]

Interesting to say they crashed when BOTW's problem is being huge and empty compared to its site density. I have found a contradiction in this random internet comment!

Here's an anime one: Ditching Ash wouldn't inherently fix most of the anime complaints, because several of them are writing or marketing shortcomings that could just as easily occur with a new character as with the pre-existing one. Ash is more or less a scapegoat at this point for writing tropes or points the anime employs that the fanbase dislikes, being the carrier for them more than the root cause in the most egregious instances.

 

[Siggu]

View attachment 459470

I'll unironically steal this.

 

[Mova]

i like legends but i realize it won't take platinum's spot in my holy 4: emerald, platinum, bw2, hgss

 

[Sonikku A]

Interesting to say they crashed when BOTW's problem is being huge and empty compared to its site density. I have found a contradiction in this random internet comment!

Here's an anime one: Ditching Ash wouldn't inherently fix most of the anime complaints, because several of them are writing or marketing shortcomings that could just as easily occur with a new character as with the pre-existing one. Ash is more or less a scapegoat at this point for writing tropes or points the anime employs that the fanbase dislikes, being the carrier for them more than the root cause in the most egregious instances.

Fax
Goh would've just been Ash 2.0, as much as I feel Ash really should've retired by that point
The biggest issue was once the series made bank and the Gen 1/2 writer left, the Pokemon had full priority over characters. Ash's character effectively ended (outside Dub sass still staying until mid Gen 3), but his growth was already complete late 2 for skills and maturity
Gym leaders progressively got more and more in the background, bar the Brock replacment
Towns gradually lessened on cultural identity

It's funny, normally the protag would be the ultimate winner in the end. Ash losing Gen 1 was actually a reverse of this trope, further compounded by the fact that most gym battles Gen 1 were a farce for victory, and just dealing with TR earlier. But then the anime staff legit got less and less capable of continuing to do losses legitimately (Gen 4 freaking piling on Legendary spam)

It's why Gen 5 Ash haphazardly rebooted. They couldn't keep doing that well enough. Even Gen 6 brought a large amount of complaints for Ash losing

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

BOTW's problem is being huge and empty compared to its site density.

You can't run 10 feet in BotW without tripping into some loot or enemy, wtf?

Legends Arceus is less unique than we think . These games were built off using Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon as the blueprint.

To explain...
1) Wardens act like Trial Captains and even share the same name of "Captain" in Japanese titles.
2) Ride Pokemon have almost all the same functions. Tauros = Wyrdeer, Stoutland = Ursaluna, Sharpedo = Basculegion, Charizard = Hisuian Braviary, Machamp and Sneasler do somewhat different things but they both involve physically carrying a player with their arms through rough terrain, whether that'd be climbing mountains or pushing boulders. Gen 7 has two extra ride Pokemon.
3) There is a flute you have to play to summon the games' mascot. Sun/Moon Flute = Solgaleo/Lunala, Azure Flute = Arceus.
4) The story utilizes space/time shenanigans and tries to have it justify bringing over random battle facility heads from the past. Anabel = Ultra Wormhole, Ingo = Space/Time rift.
5) Legends Arceus has you collecting all the plates of each type similar to how USUM has you do this for Z-Crystals.
6) Both Hisui and Alola are the only regions where wild Pokemon are "extra". Hisui has alphas who can increase their stats especially when aggravated, Alola has wild Pokemon summon a partner vs S.O.S when they're aggravated.
7) Nobles are Pokemon boss fights, similar to how Totems are. We fight Pokemon instead of trainers with Pokemon.
8) Volo carries an omniboosted legendary dragon Pokemon in your final fight against him! Wait where have we seen this before??

9) Both games being very cutscene focused for Pokemon, unlike anything else in gens 1-6 or gen 8
10) Best of all, the guy who directed Legends Arceus was the same guy who directed Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon; Kazumasa Iwao. These are the only two games they have directed, and before then, they were a Game Battle System Design Director for ORAS and SM.

Some of these may or may not be enough by themselves but when combined it all connects.

How do I feel about all of this? I'm just stoked that the same guy responsible for Volo's final battle was also responsible for the Ultra Necrozma battle. Kazumasa Iwao is on to something!

Makes sense...

Until one plays both games and figures that they play nothing alike.

 

[Ironmage]

You can't run 10 feet in BotW without tripping into some loot or enemy, wtf?

I found that generally loot and enemies in BotW were not interesting enough to be worth the time interacting with them (especially since interacting with enemies usually involves depleting a sometimes annoying to recover resource). Shrines were decent, but I wouldn't call them high enough density to carry the entire world.

 

[RocketSurgery]

Interesting to say they crashed when BOTW's problem is being huge and empty compared to its site density. I have found a contradiction in this random internet comment!

My problem with BOTW was that it felt like I spent 50% of the first third of the game in the game over screen. If you're going to kill me repeatedly you have to get those load times down. If this hadn't been Zelda I would have just not finished the game.

I think the environment in botw looks better than PLA and what we've seen of SV so far, but at least I am not expecting to be getting KO'd every five steps...!

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

My problem with BOTW was that it felt like I spent 50% of the first third of the game in the game over screen.

No comment.

I found that generally loot and enemies in BotW were not interesting enough to be worth the time interacting with them (especially since interacting with enemies usually involves depleting a sometimes annoying to recover resource). Shrines were decent, but I wouldn't call them high enough density to carry the entire world.

Tbh, my biggest problem with BotW, and mind you that's my favorite game, is that there were too many appetizers but no main dish.

Without legit major dungeons, I can see why you'd feel like that. The Beasts just weren't enough.

 

[Sonikku A]

BoTW combat heavily encourages running away with the garbage weapon breaking system. It doesn't help that even with the 300 ways you can kill enemies, most barely have 2 attacks, or rewards to justify wasting resources
Bosses similarly are not counter to your moves

Personally I have more beef with story. The games a fantasy dystopia, but Ganon has little to no presence. While Zelda is freaking out, literally the rest of NPCs live their lives with no worry. They don't even have gates at entrances cuz enemies don't invade for some reason
The memory pockets barely do much, and Age of Calamity blatantly retcons the events anyway, so much for providing better context. Link just ends up without much motive, personality, or char interaction. Something that oddly is not much of an issue in WW, TP, and SS, so I can't excuse it on "typical Zelda is light on story"

Seriously, the most you get is Sidon cuz of shipping fanart, that one meme of Zelda's butt, and Link wearing the Gerudo dress for story retention amongst fans

But then this generally is an issue with Open World games: can't have too much story

 

[Celever]

Legends Arceus avoids the primary issue that BotW has (which to me is game-breaking), which was mentioned on this page of the forum, which is that in BotW you have absolutely no reason to do... anything.

• In BotW you are disincentivised to interact with enemies, besides perhaps bosses since you might get a good weapon, because it's a net negative to do so thanks to its imbalanced resource management. In Legends Arceus, interacting with the Pokémon in the overworld helps you fill out your PokéDex, which in turn becomes a net positive for resource management if you use your resources well. This gives the player that ability to mess around a bit and have fun, instead of constantly having to think about how many arrows you have if you need a certain type of arrow to solve a puzzle, which isn't very fun.
• In BotW, quests are just, not interesting. Each character in the game will give you one quest max, maybe two quests, meaning there are no character interactions over time that make you care about the characters at all. What you have to actually do in the quests is also generally not interesting at all. In PLA, the number of characters in the cast is way smaller so you're involved in the same few quests over the game. You're also connected to the people giving you quests, meaning you're on the same team so to speak and if you're really immersed that makes you want to help just because of your role in the story (which was the bulky of my playtime in the game). The quests are generally also just, more fun, teach you cool things about the game, have unique cutscenes and other cool stuff.
• In BotW the gameplay loop is essentially shrine -> shrine -> shrine -> shrine -> shrine -> quest! -> shrine -> shrine -> shrine -> a Lynel or something -> shrine -> shrine -> shrine etc.. This becomes incredible boring and monotonous phenomenally quickly, not least because the shrines vary so much in quality but also because they don't vary at all in terms of aesthetic and design (it's gonna be a puzzle, a test of strength, or an agility / platforming test). PLA doesn't have a shrine equivalent and is better off for it -- instead, the overworld and quests have the puzzles, the overworld has the tests of strength, the overworld even has agility and platforming elements with the Ride Pokémon, particularly the Wyrdeer races, for example. Segregating the "interesting gameplay" parts of the game away from what you will spend most of your time doing in the game is one of BotW's biggest flaws, so the better integration of shrine-type tasks into general gameplay makes PLA much less monotonous.
• From a gameplay perspective, PLA has a story and BotW does not. A story's use in video games is to motivate the player to keep playing in order to resolve the cliffhanger, as well as to make the player care about the characters and purpose behind the work and effort they're putting into the game. BotW literally doesn't have a story that does that, you have to try and find it through flashbacks or whatever and what story there is to be had there is very shallow unless you're putting more effort into working out the story and looking for clues than satisfaction 99% of people would get out of that effort.

I'm sure there's more that I might be able to think of, but this is a strong list for now. I'm not even a huge PLA fan, it's a like 7 out of 10 for me (I honestly prefer SwSh lmao), but to see it compared with BotW in terms of being a successful open world game is bizarre. PLA is absolutely a better game than BotW, it's designed much more tightly and the gameplay is both more varied and better integrated. PLA hits a middle-ground between being open world and still being a linear game, which is always going to be better than the pure open worldedness of something like BotW because linearity is very useful and important in game design, and not having linearity at all is largely just a gimmick. I'd say PLA falls too close to the linear side, like Xenoblade Chronicles 1 is basically the sweetspot of that linear vs open world spectrum to this day, but it's better to stray too close to linearity because it means the game will still hold up when the open world fad falls out of fashion (which will be soon).

FTR PLA's primary issue is that it has bad pacing. You basically transition between periods of absolute freedom and absolute story, with hardly any time spent chipping away at both the story and at your side tasks at the same time. Especially with how the world changes during various points of the game. The part where you're thrown out of the village was just, not that fun for me because I was enjoying sidequesting, started running low on resources so I headed back to the village to turn those sidequests in, and then was forced into that story segment with few resources when it wasn't even what I wanted to be doing. The boss fights also suck.

 

[Magcargo]

Surprised most people here consider PLA to be an open world game like BOTW. I considered it to be more akin to Mario Odyssey or 64 where you are exploring large open sandboxes and can do stuff in those sandboxes non-linearly. Considering that the game is separated into distinct areas with a hub area, I assumed this was the intention.

I like PLA and think it addressed alot of my complaints about Sword and Shield, but there is something about it that feels missing or lacking and I'm not sure I can put my finger on it exactly (and no I'm not talking about the graphics). It has more effort put in almost every area compared to SwSh, LGPE, and BDSP, from the main character having little grunts, better animations, and more moves at their disposal, to a plethora of side content and quest that offer a lot of insight towards the different characters and world of the game, to a much more interesting setting than past Pokemon entries, and yet, I can't help but feel that I enjoyed playing through the other switch Pokemon entries much more (apart from the jarring transition between overworld to battling in the other games). I'm guessing its the shift in focus from battling to mainly just catching the wild Pokemon, but I'm not sure exactly.