Tip of the iceberg, to be frank. She had a lot of really odd ideas about things.
There is no way on this earth I'm the first one to do it. Absolutely no chance, I guarantee it.
Anyway Smeargle is Hitler I stand by what I said
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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
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Tip of the iceberg, to be frank. She had a lot of really odd ideas about things.
There is no way on this earth I'm the first one to do it. Absolutely no chance, I guarantee it.
Anyway Smeargle is Hitler I stand by what I said
I feel like that would be a really big nerf. It would basically be like using Flame Orb Guts before burn damage got nerfed and when Toxic Orb was still the preferred status orb. Halving poison's and bad poison's damage would take it back to the days when it took three turns for Toxic Orb to overtake Flame Orb in self damage, and if this was how it worked back in Gen 5 when burn still dealt 1/8, it would have taken 7 turns to overtake Flame Orb in damage, at which point both orbs will kill you next turn so which one deals more damage is irrelevant.
Okay but the German leader wasn't historically known for putting his opponents to sleep with Dark Void.
Does the beta gender differences count as beta Pokémon or beta designs?
And while I'm talking about gender differences, am I the only one who noticed subtle sexual dimorphism is absent on Pokémon introduced after Generation V? Seriously:
- Gen V has Unfezant and the Frillish line;
- Gen VI has Pyroar and Meowstic;
- Gen VII has Partner Eevee;
- Gen VIII has Indeedee and Basculegion.
Edit: TIL Hisuian Sneasel also has a gender difference, much like the standard one.
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So, first, let me preface this macabre joke by pointing out I'm Jewish, so this is my people's history we're talking about.
*Concentration Camp Gas Chambers*
I think it's best we move one from the subject of Godwin's Law and Pokemon.
Does Hisuian Sneasel count as a new Pokémon? Whatever the case, it's a shame gender differences largely left as soon as they came.
This is true for all regional varieties so far.
Compare Rattata with Alolan Rattata for example.
This is also true for Mega Evolution, e.g., Venusaur.
Tbh I can guarantee you that if they were gen 7+ pokemon, they'd have just both had signature abilities & moves.
The only reason for which Seviper doesnt have a signature ability is cause they hadnt started giving one to every other new pokemon yet
I meant, Hisuian Sneasel has a gender difference, unlike the other variants.
They do actually have signature moves, as do a surprising number of Gen 3 mons. It's just that those moves are Poison Tail and Crush Claw.Tbh I can guarantee you that if they were gen 7+ pokemon, they'd have just both had signature abilities & moves.
The only reason for which Seviper doesnt have a signature ability is cause they hadnt started giving one to every other new pokemon yet
Oh I guess they're just in that bit of moves that were eventually distributed to other mons so I (and others) never connected them to "signature"...
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Crush_Claw_(move)
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Poison_Tail_(move)
I'm still unsure of what to think of this btw. On one side I like that previously unique moves get given to others, expecially as some of these are actually solid (like Flame Lash or First Impression) and were wasted on a low tier or sometimes actual trashmon.
On the other hand, it kinda reduces the uniqueness of older pokemon even more making them "just another X".
Yeah, most signature moves from the first three generations got wider distribution as the generations went on, particularly around Gens 4 and 5 (not a lot of Pokemon introduced in those generations had signature moves either, so it feels like it was something they were trying to move away from altogether). It wasn't really until Gen 7 that Game Freak pivoted hard in the opposite direction.
Also despite what the blurb at the top of the page claims, if you look at the Egg Move section for Crush Claw you'll see it was never actually a Zangoose exclusive move.
True, but signature move and exclusive move are two different concepts in my mind. Octozooka has also always been learnable by multiple Pokemon via breeding, and Sword and Shield even gave us a new level-up learner, but I don't think anyone can in good faith say that the move whose Japanese name is literally "Octillery Cannon" isn't the signature move of Octillery.
Side note The full pivot may have been gen 7 (where the ratio is FAR more in sig move favor) but I think gen 6 was the part where they just started their turning animation.
Of the 58 moves introduced in XY they break down like this:
-27 of them are signature moves, with only a handful getting an upgrade of one or two extra pokemon that get them
-5 of them are event moves, several of which do nothing
-9 of them have such limited distribution that they may as well be signature and I think if they had been conceived in gen 7 they would have just been made signature moves.
And a lot of these moves, in general, are just weird and eclectic and its not a surprise to see several of them get the cut in SWSH.
I think gen 6 is more or less where they felt "fine" with moves* and started doing weirder shit while giving out more "exclusive"/signature moves, and they like that philosophy enough to follow through with it into gen 7 & 8 and most likely 9.
Even the Island of Armor tutors, which hypothetically were probably designed to see more play since it was a selling point, are often eclectic even if by design they see more distribution.
*Yes yes even with the "gaps" in certain typings power ranges or phys/spec split we're all aware, but I'm calling them as I see gamefreak seeing them
Do you think it’s safe to call this “quantity over quality” in terms of signatures when it comes to Abilities and Moves? Because we are reaching a point when even having a signature Ability / Move alone isn’t going to spark interest on a new Pokémon anymore, with the only exception is something that managed to help the Pokémon aplenty. I dunno, it feels like a forced crutch.
Like I don’t mind if every boxart Legendary Pokémon from Gen 5 onward got both a signature Move and Ability, giving them further a sense of mythic and stand out more from regular Pokémon than ever. But if about 50% of the new Pokémon gets a signature, then it won’t feel really ”special” anymore and comes off as artificial and desperate.
Even fangames featuring Fakémon (either alongside canon Pokémon or exclusively Fakémon) tend to go overboard with signatures.
I don't think signature moves/abilities innately, in aggregate, have really gotten people interested like that before. I think they just like doing it because its fun to give extra flavor and they want to keep making moves but don't feel the need to put out more "bread & butter" stuff. Sometimes the extra flavor is really cool or really important like certain legendary skills or Disguise and people get interested because of it, some times its Sinistea Tea Time where its just "oh huh, cute" and move on.
"Specialness" is subjective, anyway. I certainly don't see it as desperate, even if you do. To me, they simply "are". Wouldn't surprise me if that was there for a lot of people, for a lot of moves in general, signature or otherwise.
While I agree with a lot of this post, I also think it's inevitable and not only will continue but sort of has to continue, for two reasons: gameplay, and personality.
Personality is what sparked this discussion in terms of Toxic Boost. Yes, Toxic Boost is a worse Guts. It's also cooler than Guts because it's very personal to the Pokémon it's signature on. Flare Boost is another example, where it's a pretty bad ability (the power of Choice Specs but you can switch moves at the cost of holding a Flame Orb and getting burned) but it's also just, fun and cool. The more unobtrusive personality signature abilities I rarely see actually complained about. I think the more in-your-face ones are what catch some fans' ire, which doesn't make much sense to me because they're even more creative. Cramorant is at this point a like top 30 Pokémon for me because Gulp Missile is hilarious (and cool gameplay-wise but mainly hilarious), but it's an example of what some fans don't like: a Pokémon being defined by a single trait.
But here's why a Pokémon has to be defined by a single trait most of the time at this point. There are only so many combinations of stat spreads, typings, movepools, existent abilities to actually make a Pokémon feel fresh and not like a reboot of an older Pokémon. I've done this type of analysis before with the Water/Rock type, because I think it demonstrates the point well. We got 2 of them in RBY, Kabutops and Omastar, one is a physical attacker and a bit faster and the other is a bit slower, tankier, and a special attacker. In Gen 2 we get a totally defensive version in Corsola. In Gen 3 we then get essentially a physical version of Omastar, being bulky and slow, in Relicanth. They all still fulfil different roles to one another and it's all good. But then we get Carracosta and Barbaracle, who are not only very similar to one another, but also to Relicanth. Carracosta had more ability to go mixed and Shell Smash, so at the time it was different to the others enough, but then Barbaracle was introduced and also has Shell Smash and is mainly physical, and THEN we get Drednaw who's basically a slightly more minmaxed Kabutops being a bit faster than Barbaracle (but slower than Kabutops) and in return gets more HP, but they play very similarly. Kabutops still sets itself apart with Swords Dance whereas Drednaw gets like, Megahorn to make up for it but those changes are really not enough to make them truly feel like they play differently enough. It's part of why Barbaracle and Drednaw are either fairly unpopular or generally overlooked, because people have basically used them before, so why would they use the reskin and bond with the design at this point.
Signature moves and abilities, especially in-your-face ones that define how the Pokémon plays, avoid this problem. While there's designspace for, say, a proper glass cannon Water/Rock mon that wouldn't need a signature like this, that's the only real archetype left for a Water/Rock type that would feel fresh enough to be exciting. So Game Freak needs to do something to make it actually play in a cool or unique way, simply having a neat flavour signature isn't enough. Salazzle is notable and popular in no small part because it broke a glass ceiling, letting Poison-Type Pokémon be poisoned for the first time ever. Sandaconda is neither notable nor popular because it just had a cool flavour ability in Sand Spit, which is a strictly inferior Sand Stream. The cool flavour signatures tend to be most effective when they're added to existent Pokémon later. That's part of why Hidden Abilities were so cool, because they gave oldmons a second wind of flavour, and part of why the 5-8 crowd maybe fall into the herd a bit more for the most part because there hasn't been that kind of reboot for them (though regional variants are opening the door for that a bit now).
So I really don't think it's quantity over quality, I think the quantity is both inevitable and largely a good thing. On the flip side, there's no doubt these signatures vary in quality a lot. Drednaw itself is a great example of that -- Jaw Lock, really GF? -- but when signatures are bad it doesn't harm the Pokémon it's assigned to, it just doesn't benefit it. No one doesn't like Drednaw because Jaw Lock exists, people just overlook it because Jaw Lock isn't relevant or good. And Jaw Lock isn't a bad move because they made so many other signatures in that generation, it's just bad because GF sucks at understanding their own game's gameplay sometimes.
I’ll be honest right now, I had no idea Jaw Lock existed up until now, since I didn’t use Drednaw in any of my playthroughs. I like the Japanese names of these though.
Bite
Crunch
SEIZE WITH TEETH
Don't know whether I should be glad, disappointed, or angry that the GameStop near me isn't the only one having this issue.
So, update from my local GameStop about the Genesect & Volcanion codes: They're never getting them.
Apparently they got lost in transit, they contacted the main office and were told they weren't sending anymore, and that's the end of that!
Aren't Code Cards you gotta go to stores to get great! If scalpers aren't grabbing all of them on the first day, sometimes they never show up at all! Man, I can't wait to see how Target handles this disaster of a distribution event!
Okay, I'm out of sarcastic happy smilies. It's a long shot, as in trying to make a basketball free throw from across a basketball, soccer, and American football fields lined up lengthwise, but I'll see if maybe sending a complaint to Pokemon.com support at the very least nudges a response more than "sorry, not our problem".
Hisuian Sneasel does not count as a new Pokemon but as a new form. Sneasler counts as a new Pokemon.
Hm, I wouldn't say that simple do to the other perks Legendaries get in both terms of media treatment and in-game stuff such as high stats. Also a lot of the time the Abilities and Moves Legendaries get are quite powerful and have an air of it being a special power, while Sig Moves & Abilities com mons get feel like it's just a natural physical trait of the Pokemon that's been given game mechanic use. Legendary Moves & Abilities aren't usually given out on sheer principle, com mon's Moves & Abilities aren't given out as they had to make them so specific to that Pokemon its hard to see some other Pokemon have it unless they just so happen to have similar body traits.
Same can be said with G-Stunfisk which got both a shiny new Sig Move & Ability, if not worse.
So upon becoming a Ground/Steel-type based on a foothold trap, it gets a Sig Move which makes sense for it: Snap Trap... except for some reason they made it Grass-type! Why? What was wrong with Steel-type? "Oh, well it also sounds like something Carnivine could also get". Okay, so when is Carnivine gonna get it, cause it doesn't have it now (plus there's no reason Carnivine couldn't have gotten it even if it was Steel-type). "Wait, being Grass-type it'll help it against Water & Ground Types its weak again"! Not with 35 Power it ain't.
Oh, but let's not forget the Ability: Mimicry. Alright, would make sense for something a foothold trap be made to do to catch unsuspecting pray, what does it do? It changes G-Stunfisk's Type to correspond with an active Terrain; a Terrain version of Forecast pretty much. But, unlike Forecast which was made for Castform and goes along with its gimmick of changing forms in Weather (and having Weather Ball), G-Stunfisk does not have different forms nor did it come with a Terrain version of Weather Ball. Yes, Terrain Pulse would eventually be made and G-Stunfisk one of the Pokemon that can learn it... but its a Special Move while G-Stunfisk leans Physical! There is NO reason for G-Stunfisk of all Pokemon to have Mimicry, it's a waste on it when they could have just made a new Pokemon that was a Terrain version of Castform. And yes, they still can, but that's not the point, if anything it would remove some specialty of that Pokemon cause now, it's not only a Terrain version of Castform, but it's gimmick didn't originate with it so feels like GF would be plating catch-up with their own blunder.
If you like those look out for the next upcoming set of Dark-type biting moves:
- Laceration
- Masticate
- Ruminate
- Taste Test
- Dental Mark
- Get a Mouthful
- A Little Nibble
- Grab A Snack
- Chow Down
- NOM NOM NOM
- Bitey Bite
- Bitey Mcbiteface
I can see where are you coming from, but you can only add so much Physical detrimenting mechanics before physical moves are becoming inherently much less valuable than special moves, while there’s nothing stopping GF from making potentially broken Special moves with no consistent countermeasures other than Blissey or Assault Vest.
It’s not just that physical moves are inherently stronger, it’s also because the power creep on the physical side is also significantly stronger than on the special side. But knowing Game Freak, there could be a slippery slope that we would end up with getting more and more Special-oriented Pokémon being too powerful for their own good with far less countermeasure than how would a physical threat will be dealt with.
Part of why Magearna, Naganandel and Spectrier are banned from OU is because they can snowball at all for their Special Side, with no possible countermeasure other than Blissey. Had they have no snowballing effect (Naganandel won’t have anything than Beast Boost, obviously), they might be more bearable to deal with. And remember how Special back in Gen 1 was a single stat that encompass both damage and resistance to it, giving an unfair advantage for those with naturally high Special.
Physical countermeasures also won’t mean much if you’re confronting broken physical Pokémon, either. Stuff like Galarian Darmanitan, Marshadow, Cinderace, Gen 5-7 Blaziken, Mega Metagross, Mega Salamence, Garchomp back in Gen 4, Salamence back in Gen 3, and even both Zacian forms banned from Ubers should tell you a clue.
I, for one, wouldn’t mind at least just one or two Special-detrimenting stuff if it means giving the players option to deal with top tier Special Attacking Pokémon, as well as making Psyspam or Calm Mind / Quiver Dance easier to deal with. What I said would as well be an unpopular oponion, though,
And got a reply:
How did I know they were going to pass the buck to GameStop? Well, counter-response:
I always rationalise that the various NPCs found in Victory Road are those who've simply not yet found their way out and reached the Pokemon League yet; they're struggling to get through the gauntlet and have stopped in the area you've found them to rest and regroup.
However, I just can't suspend disbelief for those trainers literally ten steps away from the exit of the cave...
However, I just can't suspend disbelief for those trainers literally ten steps away from the exit of the cave...
They could also be training in Victory Road, either preparing to challenge the League their first time or had lost and now prepping for another try.
