That would fill the same niche, assuming everyone's not in a Lovecraft-esque state of terror seeing you.
Also Guzzlord just always operating on 5/100 Belly.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
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Also Guzzlord just always operating on 5/100 Belly.
omg Poipole's Mystery Dungeon Adventure
I too enjoy eating donuts in erratic zigzag patterns.
Let's be real, a JRPG like Pokémon isn't exactly the most conducive to open-world gameplay. Well, maybe they are, but Game Freak certainly isn't the company for the job. A simple route split got Johto in shambles.
And of course, RBY Kanto was mentioned, and how open it was. Indeed, you could do a lot with that. A lot of mons benefitted from it when it came to availability. Do y'all know what was the problem with it?
There was no freaking point besides that because there was no kind of level scaling.
For example, skipping Lt. Surge was all but trivial. His badge only locked Fly. You could very well leave him as the 7th Gym. For what? Just to roflstomp him out of spite? There was no benefit to the player besides trivializing difficulty, which the improved mon availability already helps with.
Lo and behold, many decades later, what do we see? Game Freak making the exact same mistake.
If one does not figure out the obscure progression of Paldea and acts accordingly, all that they'll get for their efforts is a game where you simply run from point A to point B to one-shot a boss and move on to the next one with even less of a challenge than usual because they're beyond over-leveled.
Now, there are several ways of doing scaling difficulty. Matching levels is NOT what I'm proposing here.
Let's take SwSh's Klara as an example.
There are two entries in the game data for her initial battle. One after the Darkest Day, which I'm sure you'll be familiar with as she has a Lv. 58 Venipede and a Lv. 60 Slowpoke. Said Venipede ONLY has Poison Tail as an attack. It is as pathetic as it sounds.
What you may not be aware of is that this exact same team is her pre-Darkest Day team, but at levels 10 and 12 respectively. Now it all makes sense. That is adequate considering that you can battle her as early as you can access the Wild Area.
So, why in blazes is her Post-DD team the exact same with inflated levels? I couldn't possibly tell. But what it shows is that matching levels are pointless. A Lv. 58 Venipede is NOT handling anything that's on a similar level but fully evolved. It simply lacks the base stats to do so. (And moves, but that's another issue entirely.)
Therefore...
You're a beautiful, articulate person who deserves a natural shiny on your next run.Or, something I forgot to suggest in my post: Level-scaling.
"What? You expect them to make 18 different teams/movepools for each boss?"
If GF is going to make a truly open world game with the mechanics of the core Pokemon games, they should have to put in the work needed for such a system to work. They're a long-standing, fully staffed, reputable game developer connected to Nintendo who make one of the most popular games in the world, so popular they own part of a company dedicated to selling merch of that series which makes millions if not billions of dollars each year; YES, I am expecting them to put in the work that I could do in a couple of hours! Heck, they don't even need to make 18 different teams/movesets, they just need to make like 4 or 5 and then have the Levels & Stats adjust. I'm tempted to do it myself, maybe later when I have the time...
Seriously, there's no point in doing things halfway. Either commit to the open-world design and do what it needs to be done for it to work, or don't. Linear games are still good.
Also, this is off-topic, but the Zelda slander I've seen in the last couple pages is disgusting.
TotK probably deserves it tho.
Literally every bad open world game I've played has level scaling. And almost all of the ones I've played that are good have no level scaling.
Fuck. Level scaling.
So there is no bad faith "hurr durr causation", I'm saying I directly dislike it as a mechanic and it actively hinders my experience.
Fuck. Level scaling.
So there is no bad faith "hurr durr causation", I'm saying I directly dislike it as a mechanic and it actively hinders my experience.
Level scaling is sadly a bait.
It sounds good on paper: the world progresses with you, so you always have a challenge.
And that's the catch: since the world progresses with you, there's no sense of progression. The feeling of going through a lower level area and murdering (or ignoring) enemies that arent a challenge anymore is pretty important in RPG to give the player the sensation that "they're getting stronger".
I think it was Oblivion where people memed how rats are the deadliest enemies of the game, due to them leveling with you as well so you having to eventually deal with insanely high lvl rats that somehow manage to be as strong as bandits or undeads.
It's also very hard to even balance this "scaling", due to the fact that the player (expecially in RPGs where you don't just have combat stats) may be leveling non-combat related resources, meaning they may be getting overwhelmed and get stuck, or other way around, focusing everything in their combat and facerolling the enemies whose balance assumed a even split of combat and social stats.
My favourite type of "working" level scaling is partial + story related one.
For example, in Dragon Quest XI, the overworld enemies change depending on which act you're on. However, they are not related to the player level per se, just to the point of the story, progressively getting harder but still staying at the level they are at the start of a given act.
So in the same area you'd have (invented names/levels) lvl 3 Wolves, then at start of act 2 you'd find level 20 Dire Wolves, and in act 3 you'd find level 40 Undead Werewolves.
This does make sense as the story progresses, and you keep the feeling of the progressive danger on the world, but at same time, you do keep the feeling of progression, as this is both 1) limited to overworld enemies, 2) makes sense plotwise, and 3) still static, the Undead Werewolves will stay level 40 no matter if you're lvl 40 or 100.
Honestly level scaling and open worlds are some of the modern fotm/plagues I wish games would stop trying to force into them.
They're both not necessary and very hard to execute properly, as well as requiring significantly more development effort and QA which as we know, publishers aren't exactly keen on giving to the developers nowadays.
Well said.
Imo, the best idea for SV in particular would be to treat all of their 18 main "bosses" as caps.
So instead of having to follow an order like "Kate -> Titan Klawf -> Brassius", I'd rather have the game be "Lv. 15 -> Lv. 16 -> Lv. 17" (the same levels as the aforementioned Leaders and Titan) and I get to pick who I'm stomping first.
But I have an unpopular opinion of my own to spice things further.
Game Freak does not have the time and brains to fully realize an open-world game and I'd rather have a tight, polished experience instead.
Between SV's level blunders, Dexit forcing those enormously bloated regional dexes that make teambuilding a chore, and TotK being an enormous disappointment, I'm growing tired of those grandiose games with no depth.
The dex bloat is one of the worst things to come out of Dexit in my opinion. It pairs up well with another sickening mechanic that the Switch Era has brought. Forced Exp. All.
I just can't be bothered rotating 18-mon deep squads. It makes the whole game lose its identity to me.
Could you elaborate on this? I tend to agree that regional dexes have gotten too big over time, but I don't see the connection with Dexit specifically. Imo the worst offender is XY and that came out a decade ago.
Just feel like stirring the pot by mentioning that BotW and TotK do level scale. Most enemy encounters will have at least one of their mobs change colour/difficulty based on progress, with standard weapon drops scaling off the same measurement.
yeah I always hated it there, I've talked about this before
And I'm sure you'd have no problem backing this up with some arguments. Or maybe you did and I missed it.
Of course!
You see, XY did have similar issues, but for slightly different reasons. The goofs tried to cram 3 regional dexes in one game. XY tried to do a lot and time ran out before they could really nail things.
Now, I'm pinning the bloated dexes on Dexit for a single reason. Only the mons that get into a region get to be usable.
That means they're not doing 250ish-sized dexes because if they go for a small dex, it'll be even worse. So every game needs to have 400-500 mons on it now and that's not working well for the cohesiveness of the regions. It also makes team building a pain because you have a lot of options packed together. And it also drowns out the newer mons because they're naturally making less of them.
It's all a mire of bad decisions poisoning the franchise.
I don't need to justify my opinion on a videogame
I think this is assuming a causal relationship rather than GF simply deciding to make bigger regional dexes to the game's detriment (in your and I imagine many's opinion). The fact that home-only Transfer mons exist in post-Dexit games before we get to the DLC means they have a viable way to allow Mons to be useable without them having to appear as part of the Regional Dex (indeed I don't think the various Starters and Legendaries have Paldean Dex entries), they simply don't choose to go this route and instead try to put everything into the game as an encounter of some form.
Yeah, you could say my gripe is that they cram 400ish mons on a single regional dex instead of making them Home available.
Re: SV openworld.
I do agree it's not done poorly.
Let's put aside the obvious elephant in the room, the performance. We all knew that one sucked on release and is still somewhat mediocre even now.
The world of SV is solid. It's wide enough to give a sense of distance, but not "wide for the sake of wideness".
There are significant enough variations in the biomes to not feel repetitive.
The entire map is accessible right away (post tutorial) yet several sideways open up as you unlock more of the raidon abilities.
There is plenty of vertical feel! The world isn't "2d with stairs", verticality not only has a sense, it's relatively on scale, and elevated areas very often have caves or nooks that you can explore and find things in them.
The world feels alive! Regardless of dexit, you are always surrounded by pokemon going on their own thing, some curious, some aggressive (fuck you Tauros hordes btw).
The few big cities do feel like actual cities. They are big, full of npcs, and with many facilities.
There are NO LOADING ZONES aside Meszagoza and Area 0. Big plus, even though the game suffers performance wise.
And outside of like... maybe 2 places, "if you can see it, you can reach it". Big positive in feeling that the world is "real" and not just a selection of places cut off from you.
Ofc it is not perfect, it has issues (some areas are still bland, trainers sometimes dont make sense, small cities arent really believable compared to the bigger ones, and ofc outside of the actual gym/titan/star camps everything is basically same level), but honestly? Still one of the better executed open world of the decade imo.
I do agree it's not done poorly.
Let's put aside the obvious elephant in the room, the performance. We all knew that one sucked on release and is still somewhat mediocre even now.
The world of SV is solid. It's wide enough to give a sense of distance, but not "wide for the sake of wideness".
There are significant enough variations in the biomes to not feel repetitive.
The entire map is accessible right away (post tutorial) yet several sideways open up as you unlock more of the raidon abilities.
There is plenty of vertical feel! The world isn't "2d with stairs", verticality not only has a sense, it's relatively on scale, and elevated areas very often have caves or nooks that you can explore and find things in them.
The world feels alive! Regardless of dexit, you are always surrounded by pokemon going on their own thing, some curious, some aggressive (fuck you Tauros hordes btw).
The few big cities do feel like actual cities. They are big, full of npcs, and with many facilities.
There are NO LOADING ZONES aside Meszagoza and Area 0. Big plus, even though the game suffers performance wise.
And outside of like... maybe 2 places, "if you can see it, you can reach it". Big positive in feeling that the world is "real" and not just a selection of places cut off from you.
Ofc it is not perfect, it has issues (some areas are still bland, trainers sometimes dont make sense, small cities arent really believable compared to the bigger ones, and ofc outside of the actual gym/titan/star camps everything is basically same level), but honestly? Still one of the better executed open world of the decade imo.
I also think regardless of how you feel about SV's structure with respect to leveling and whatnot, that it's a remarkably ambitious game despite its technical lack of polish and still having some faults.
Even if you were to put the "open world" aspect aside, I think SV is the first mainline Pokemon game on the Switch that truly feels like a proper "console scale" Pokemon game. Paldea is a vast region, large in scope and the big areas offer tons of exploration and things to find no matter where you go. You're not railroaded into any one place and it's tons of fun to figure things out around Paldea while discovering its many twists and turns, having tons of biomes and fitting Pokemon in them, and in general just really trusts you to explore the region and it's so much fun to truly do so. It's a really cool experience getting to experience such a large and vast region on my big TV screen (which mind you, is the draw of the Switch that Pokemon should be trying to aim for especially from here on). For me, one of the things I love about playing Pokemon is exploring a world and discovering a region's many secrets, and Paldea has really delivered on that in a scope that is fitting for a game that I'm playing on the big TV screen.
I'd also like to remark that the final area, Area Zero, is also stunning despite the games' faults.
A big problem I had with SwSh before its DLC was how comically underwhelming in scope it was for the platform it was on. Like I don't hate SwSh as much as everyone else but it was so boring when it all came down to it. Galar was just incredibly half baked for a console Pokemon mainline game's region, and I was left feeling dissatisfied afterward. A relatively boring Wild Area that was very homogenous and repetitive, with wild encounters being determined entirely by daily weather, and for the campaign all you had was hallway-scope routes that were so small and had little to offer that they were inferior to routes from the DS and 3DS games, which was embarrassing to say the least, and followed an aggressively linear and railroaded progression that ended up making a remarkably boring experience. Needless to say, I was definitely underwhelmed with it all because of how half-baked it was on both ends: the linear routes were small and worse than even DS/3DS era Pokemon games' routes, and the big Wild Area was underwhelming in scope and in variety.
The DLC helped a lot, and the Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra were much more like what I thought the Wild Area should have been, with a wider variety of biomes and secrets to explore like legendary ruins and whatnot, feeling more alive than mainland Galar. But that didn't change how boring mainland Galar itself was.
For SV, it really nails that feel of a proper mainline console game from the get go. The DLC is coming soon, and I think Kitakami and the Blueberry Terrarium show great potential to deliver even better areas than Paldea has. But as a whole, even with Paldea itself, SV really takes a lot of steps forward and feels like a genuine console-scale Pokemon experience and is much closer to the kind of Pokemon game I dreamed of when I was a kid in the 2000s with the DS games (and GBA games), the kind that seemed like only a distant dream back then. There's room for improvement, which I hope future generations build upon, but SV itself has shown great promise and lots of steps towards that.
Even if you were to put the "open world" aspect aside, I think SV is the first mainline Pokemon game on the Switch that truly feels like a proper "console scale" Pokemon game. Paldea is a vast region, large in scope and the big areas offer tons of exploration and things to find no matter where you go. You're not railroaded into any one place and it's tons of fun to figure things out around Paldea while discovering its many twists and turns, having tons of biomes and fitting Pokemon in them, and in general just really trusts you to explore the region and it's so much fun to truly do so. It's a really cool experience getting to experience such a large and vast region on my big TV screen (which mind you, is the draw of the Switch that Pokemon should be trying to aim for especially from here on). For me, one of the things I love about playing Pokemon is exploring a world and discovering a region's many secrets, and Paldea has really delivered on that in a scope that is fitting for a game that I'm playing on the big TV screen.
I'd also like to remark that the final area, Area Zero, is also stunning despite the games' faults.
A big problem I had with SwSh before its DLC was how comically underwhelming in scope it was for the platform it was on. Like I don't hate SwSh as much as everyone else but it was so boring when it all came down to it. Galar was just incredibly half baked for a console Pokemon mainline game's region, and I was left feeling dissatisfied afterward. A relatively boring Wild Area that was very homogenous and repetitive, with wild encounters being determined entirely by daily weather, and for the campaign all you had was hallway-scope routes that were so small and had little to offer that they were inferior to routes from the DS and 3DS games, which was embarrassing to say the least, and followed an aggressively linear and railroaded progression that ended up making a remarkably boring experience. Needless to say, I was definitely underwhelmed with it all because of how half-baked it was on both ends: the linear routes were small and worse than even DS/3DS era Pokemon games' routes, and the big Wild Area was underwhelming in scope and in variety.
The DLC helped a lot, and the Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra were much more like what I thought the Wild Area should have been, with a wider variety of biomes and secrets to explore like legendary ruins and whatnot, feeling more alive than mainland Galar. But that didn't change how boring mainland Galar itself was.
For SV, it really nails that feel of a proper mainline console game from the get go. The DLC is coming soon, and I think Kitakami and the Blueberry Terrarium show great potential to deliver even better areas than Paldea has. But as a whole, even with Paldea itself, SV really takes a lot of steps forward and feels like a genuine console-scale Pokemon experience and is much closer to the kind of Pokemon game I dreamed of when I was a kid in the 2000s with the DS games (and GBA games), the kind that seemed like only a distant dream back then. There's room for improvement, which I hope future generations build upon, but SV itself has shown great promise and lots of steps towards that.
for what it's worth there are still far more players playing primarily handeld with their Switch than on console play, so I don't agree
the main draw of the Switch is "console level games on the go"
this is pedantic since I also think it achieves that in terms of scope, but the Switch is much more a handheld with an HDMI cord than a console with the ability to be a handheld, via usage surveys by Nintendo or just marketing / components (the dock doesn't actually have any power, any increase to power is simply from the charging port being on rather than the dock providing anything)
I'm generally not a fan of open worlds in the vein of Paldea/BotW/whatever in general, but like, if level scaling were to get introduced in a game I always just thought it'd make sense to lock the levels of areas to whenever you beat whatever boss or objective in the relative place; does still require basically making ~20 different encounter pools and trainer teams per area but like, locking them to whatever area you "beat" them at (potentially until postgame where everything jumps up to whatever postgame levels are) makes sense to me to let there be a relatively smooth level curve while also still actually having a sense of progression. Besides like, if you want certain fights to be harder than others as well there's other ways than just levels to tune difficulty;
As is said here, (the same thing is also done in Pt's League/Rival rematches as well for the record) just making movesets absolutely pathetic or whatever can let like, Katy still fit her role of being supposed to be a pushover while not really looking the part purely visually through their levels.
True. Despite all its flaws, it definitely felt like a step in the right direction.
I'll also add that the glitches made it a lot more fun than I'd think otherwise. Throwing balls at wild mons over ledges to essentially hookshot your way across and get stuff is great.
Considering how much production costs have increased in recent years, if 2.5x is the benchmark, I don't know how anything "high quality/triple A" has been profitable as of late.
Well, if that's the case, and post game we see they too have stronger teams, why aren't all the Star Bosses as strong as Eri or at least Ortega? They have no reason to be holding back, they see the player as an invader. Only way it would make narrative sense is if you did them in "order" at which point you could say Giacomo and Mela weren't taking the player seriously; but like with Katy & Brassius, if you skip them to battle last you'll bulldoze them despite them being alerted the player have defeated the Atticus, Ortega, and Eri.
(The Titans at least have the excuse of being Wild Pokemon so they just reflect the levels of the surrounding Pokemon).
Here's a Unpopular Opinion: I don't like people saying Nemona is a psychopath or other negative cognitive terms. Yes, she had that "yandere" moment at the start of the game where she says the player doesn't need to battle anyone else but her (and I guess after becoming Champion you keep selecting the "joke" option you didn't win and she doesn't let you continue until you say that you did). But she shows know ill-will or extreme selfishness. She's definitely hyperfixated & impulsive (if you want you can say she has ADD/ADHD but I'm not a psychoanalysis so not going to give her any labels), but those aren't necessarily negative traits but quirks of her personality. The post game talk with in her dorm reveals that if she suffers from anything it's more loneliness as she's hyperfixated on training & battling that she has become too strong of a trainer no one can keep up with her; the above mentioned yandere moments now more sounding as slips of desperation than an assertion of obsession/possession.
That said it is still something she needs to learn to control, notably on when to chime in on conversations (Nemona, how about we give Arven a few minutes to grieve over his parent being dead & their robotic clone vanishing before we start gushing over the Legendary's Pokemon battling prowess; maybe even show a little empathy there (when Penny has more emotional awareness than you...)).
The whole ending to Team Star's story is iffy. They pretty much wrote themselves into a corner where, to have a good ending, everyone just had to forgive Team Star even though some harsher punishments should have been handed out.
It can't be ignored that for over a year the Team Start Captains and subordinates have not attended classes (which also speaks to the handling of the Team Star issue by the Academy) and tried recruiting other students to join them. Yet, while they are now attending classes again, not only are they being allowed to continue where they left off but also are allowed to keep their bases that been converted into official Academy supported training grounds (so, um, there's no issue with the bases like property ownership or disturbing the environment?). Like I'm not suggesting expulsion, but I don't know, community service or something? Or was converting the bases into training grounds now make them like a school club thus are now subject to Academy regulations going to be required to show positive results of their work?
Which I felt was sort of what they implied with Penny's consequences, at least from her reactions. Sure she started the whole Team Star thing and stole quite a bit of League Points, but she's a good computer engineer so instead of fining her she now works for the Pokemon League and no, she doesn't get a choice in this. "That's slavery". We prefer "indentured internship"; it makes the PTA less angry.
Actually, them letting the player keep the League Points I think shows how much the League cared about that issue. Altogether Penny probably only "stole" a few thousand dollars, probably a drop in the bucket for the League, the salary for a computer engineer on Penny's level probably would cost WAY more in just a month. Penny's skills are worth way more than what she took, but they could use her "grand theft" as a means to get free labor.
Oh, and of course I think Penny and the Team Star Captains could benefit from mandatory therapy sessions (Arven and Nemona too).
For the Pokemon sprites, I can imagine the thinking being "well, these are remakes of Gen I, we should prioritize having the Gen I Pokemon being in a clear pose so you can see it's features" whereas in RSE they're willing to do more dynamic poses as, even for the Gen I Pokemon in Hoenn's Dex, the attention is still going to be all on the Gen III Pokemon (maybe even thinking they need to have the older Gen Pokemon in more dynamic poses to made players interested in them).
For the Trainer overworld sprites, I see that more as just are evolution. Ruby & Sapphire were just continuing how they traditionally did the sprites as GF was more focused on making the new region, but when FRLG came around they probably decided to focus more on details like how "hey, this is a top down perspective, the trainers wouldn't be looking right at the screen when walking down but rather at the bottom of the screen".
Worldie, that's the kind of level-scaling I'm talking about.
Level-scaling going by the party's Level? That's a terrible idea, I can't imagine a system which actually takes the party's Level and base opponent's on that. No matter what scenario I do there's both a way it can cause problems and to be abused.
Since me just saying it isn't good enough *rolls up sleeve* here is my idea of what the theoretically Paldea Level-Scaling would look like for the 18 bosses (and remember, if I a single person could do this, GF a company with a whole team of planners surely can):
So some ground rules. Going to stick around the Levels GF had settled on, no need to complicate things for just an example.
Because we have 3 separate Stories, each will work within it's own Level System. All Level System works via # of Badges. The more Badges you have, the stronger the next boss will be. Wild Pokemon and Trainers on the overworld are not affected by this, how they are now is how they would be in this system. The only difference I would maybe do is have certain pocket of areas where there are stronger Wild Pokemon (that way, after getting stronger there's a reason to come back) and after a certain of Badges have defeated Trainers refresh with stronger teams (and since you defeated them have them appear on the mini-map with an icon that looks like the VS Seeker; post game all trainers refresh once every day).
Victory Road (Gyms):
There are two sub-systems here: Total # of Badges & # of Gym Badges.
The total # of Badges adds +1 to the Levels of all the Gym Leader's Pokemon for each Badge.
The # of Gym Badges decides two factors: Base Levels & # of Pokemon. Each Gym Leader is going to have 8 teams, starting from 0 Gym Badges to 7 Gym Badges. For each Gym Badge they have the Base Levels increase (which is than further increased by total # of Badges you have) and at certain benchmarks gain an additional Pokemon. Here's how that table looks:
And it then goes without saying each team will have the Evo Stage & Movesets (& maybe Abilities) adjusted based on the Base Levels (with maybe allowing for a Pokemon to evolve if they do so by Level and the total # of Badges has them exceed that Level).
Starfall Street (Team Star):
Two sub-systems here as well and they're pretty much the same: Total # of Badges & # of Team Star Badges.
The total # of Badges adds +1 to the Levels of all the Squad Captain's Pokemon for each Badge.
The # of Star Badges decide two factors: Base Levels & # of Pokemon. Each Squad Captain is going to have 5 teams, starting from 0 Star Badges to 4 Star Badges. For each Star Badge they have the Base Levels increase (which is than further increased by total # of Badges you have) and at certain benchmarks gain an additional Pokemon (Starmobile counts as a Pokemon in this case). Here's how that table looks:
Of course each team will have the Evo Stage & Movesets (& maybe Abilities) adjusted based on the Base Levels (with maybe allowing for a Pokemon to evolve if they do so by Level and the total # of Badges has them exceed that Level).
Path of Legends (Titans):
And the final pair of sub-systems: Total # of Badges & # of Titan Badges.
The total # of Badges adds +1 to the Titan's Level for each Badge.
The # of Titan Badges just decides the Base Level. Each Titan has 5 Movesets, starting from 0 Titan Badges to 4 Titan Badges. For each Titan Badge they have the Base Level increase (which is than further increased by total # of Badges you have). Finally, the 'Raidon Upgrade you get is based on the number of Titans you defeat, not what Titan you defeat. Here's how that list looks:
I'll admit, this was a bit more complicated than I thought, but it was a fun thought experiment, gave me insight of design aspects I had to put more thought into, and overall I think I came up with a good system that both should give Trainers a good challenge but nothing this is too much that a little training can't help with.
Because we have 3 separate Stories, each will work within it's own Level System. All Level System works via # of Badges. The more Badges you have, the stronger the next boss will be. Wild Pokemon and Trainers on the overworld are not affected by this, how they are now is how they would be in this system. The only difference I would maybe do is have certain pocket of areas where there are stronger Wild Pokemon (that way, after getting stronger there's a reason to come back) and after a certain of Badges have defeated Trainers refresh with stronger teams (and since you defeated them have them appear on the mini-map with an icon that looks like the VS Seeker; post game all trainers refresh once every day).
Victory Road (Gyms):
There are two sub-systems here: Total # of Badges & # of Gym Badges.
The total # of Badges adds +1 to the Levels of all the Gym Leader's Pokemon for each Badge.
The # of Gym Badges decides two factors: Base Levels & # of Pokemon. Each Gym Leader is going to have 8 teams, starting from 0 Gym Badges to 7 Gym Badges. For each Gym Badge they have the Base Levels increase (which is than further increased by total # of Badges you have) and at certain benchmarks gain an additional Pokemon. Here's how that table looks:
| Gym Badges | Base Levels | # of Pokemon |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 14/15 | 3 |
| 1 | 16/17 | 3 |
| 2 | 20/21 | 3 |
| 3 | 22/23 | 4 |
| 4 | 27/28 | 4 |
| 5 | 33/34 | 4 |
| 6 | 37/38 | 4 |
| 7 | 40/41 | 5 |
And it then goes without saying each team will have the Evo Stage & Movesets (& maybe Abilities) adjusted based on the Base Levels (with maybe allowing for a Pokemon to evolve if they do so by Level and the total # of Badges has them exceed that Level).
Starfall Street (Team Star):
Two sub-systems here as well and they're pretty much the same: Total # of Badges & # of Team Star Badges.
The total # of Badges adds +1 to the Levels of all the Squad Captain's Pokemon for each Badge.
The # of Star Badges decide two factors: Base Levels & # of Pokemon. Each Squad Captain is going to have 5 teams, starting from 0 Star Badges to 4 Star Badges. For each Star Badge they have the Base Levels increase (which is than further increased by total # of Badges you have) and at certain benchmarks gain an additional Pokemon (Starmobile counts as a Pokemon in this case). Here's how that table looks:
| Star Badges | Base Levels | # of Pokemon |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 14/15 | 3 |
| 1 | 18/19 | 3 |
| 2 | 23/24 | 4 |
| 3 | 33/34 | 4 |
| 4 | 40/41 | 5 |
Of course each team will have the Evo Stage & Movesets (& maybe Abilities) adjusted based on the Base Levels (with maybe allowing for a Pokemon to evolve if they do so by Level and the total # of Badges has them exceed that Level).
Path of Legends (Titans):
And the final pair of sub-systems: Total # of Badges & # of Titan Badges.
The total # of Badges adds +1 to the Titan's Level for each Badge.
The # of Titan Badges just decides the Base Level. Each Titan has 5 Movesets, starting from 0 Titan Badges to 4 Titan Badges. For each Titan Badge they have the Base Level increase (which is than further increased by total # of Badges you have). Finally, the 'Raidon Upgrade you get is based on the number of Titans you defeat, not what Titan you defeat. Here's how that list looks:
| Titan Badges | Base Level | 'Raidon Upgrade Reward |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 15 | Dashing |
| 1 | 19 | High Jump |
| 2 | 24 | Swimming |
| 3 | 34 | Climbing |
| 4 | 41 | Gliding |
I'll admit, this was a bit more complicated than I thought, but it was a fun thought experiment, gave me insight of design aspects I had to put more thought into, and overall I think I came up with a good system that both should give Trainers a good challenge but nothing this is too much that a little training can't help with.
Hm, maybe it would be best for the main game just have the Regional Dex be like 200 (with focus on the new Pokemon of course though plenty of veterans to fill out gaps and teams, especially for the Gym Leaders). But there's still like 200-300 additional Pokemon in the code, they just don't have a Dex entry until you've at least seen all the Regional Dex in which case the Expanded Dex opens up (all the Pokemon in the Regional Dex can be at least seen, if not obtained than at least used by another trainer in the game; also you don't need the Expanded Dex to obtain a Pokemon outside of the Regional Dex, it just won't have a Dex entry (but will be searchable in the Box)). The Expanded Dex is not needed for completion, the Shiny Charm is only rewarded for completing the Regional Dex. The Expanded Dex is just a bonus to give all the Pokemon in the game a new dex entries.
Which is fair being this is Unpopular Opinions. I think we've all gotten a bit ruffled on these subjects. Let's respect everyone's thoughts and have civilized discussions.
I just want to point out real quick that Scarlet and Violet is actually up there in the new numbers count of Pokemon. At 115 new Pokemon, it's ranked 4th place, defeating the numbers of most of the newer gens. However, even then there are also other things such as Regional Forms that do not count as entirely new Pokemon, but do make up some of the difference in Gens 7 and 8. If you don't include Regional Forms, then Gen 7 only adds 88 Pokemon. If you include Regional Forms, it becomes a much more reasonable 112. I count regional forms in terms of actual designs because they are featured prominently in-game, and generally act as new Pokemon, even if obviously based on another.
Legends Arceus only had around 240 Pokemon in the dex, which made sense for its smaller world and scope. Scarlet and Violet has 400 because part of the reason to explore this big world is to obtain new Pokemon. Sword and Shield having 400 is a lot more arguable, but I think Raids justify at least a good chunk of it; you need Pokemon to hunt down.
Also, something people do not often talk about is that each of the Switch games have changed the texturing and lighting of the Pokemon pretty drastically. LGPE and SWSH Pikachu may use the same model, but the touch ups make them look quite different; this goes even further with Scarlet and Violet, which created hundreds of new animations for old Pokemon, and even new models for a lot of them.
I see. My mistake then. Thanks for letting me know.
I still think if we're going to say Nemona has any issues, it's a physical disability, not a mental one. She's constantly out-of-breath, complains about the stairs which no one else does, wears a wrist brace, can't throw pokeballs well, and is the one out of the endgame 4 who is most in need of rest at the waystations. There's a lot of issues that would manifest with similar symptoms, and her dealing with that would make her monofocus on the one area where her physical ability doesn't matter(battling) make a lot more sense.
Nemona is the best character in the franchise. Girl just wants to pull up and battle everyone like she's trying to unlock Sinnoh's National Dex.
Most relatable character EVER.
Most relatable character EVER.
I discuss a bit about Nemona in a response to a response to you, so see below for that.
As for Team Star, my reconciling if we take the Scaling as Gameplay/Story Segregation is that the Team Star Leaders are just that strong relative to each other but were contributing in other manners to Operation Star and such: Eri is the strongest in a straight battle, Ortega's not as strong but he built the Starmobiles which was obviously important, Mela bonds with the Charcadet they evolve to power them but she may not have particularly strong individual Pokemon. Bearing in mind Team Star was formed by misfit Bullying Victims rather than an organized criminal group or gang, they had to work more with what everyon could bring to the table than pushing for Power = Authority.
As for the ending of the story, Clavell more or less says that they're in charge of the Bases-turned-Training-Grounds as Community Service for their truancy, so presumably proof that they're putting a real effort into it would be expected (albeit also easy to come by since they clearly have positive relations with a lot of the students outside pushy recruitment). It is at most a slap on the wrist, but I'm fairly sure that's the point given the full context of the situation that wasn't known to him or the current staff when he made the initial expulsion threat. As I could tell from the flashbacks, Star prepared the Starmobiles and put an intimidating front up towards the students bullying them, but the confrontation was without a direct threat or any altercation before the latter withdrew from the Academy, with the cover-up being more the Deputy Director protecting his ass over the ignored bullying that led to the incident to begin with. The obvious point the story wants to go for is that Team Star were the victims of the incident, so to have the Academy punish them for withdrawing from a hostile environment for a supportive one would just be proving the same point that the cover-up did.
The resolution is to get them back into interacting with the Academy and have some reprimanding on the record, but with the obvious point that Clavell isn't giving them a punishment he thinks they don't deserve after they were wronged already by his predecessors.
As far as Penny, I think the idea is a combination of "if she works for us she doesn't work against us" for wanting her on-board regardless of her intent, and Geeta not exactly being a fun boss to work for as is a throughline with the Gym Leader rematch dialogue, given most of the strong-arm dialogue towards Penny comes from her in the scenes.
Everyone seems to agree Nemona is basically a character replaying the game compared to you being a first timer (up to and including not using Legendaries for a challenge lol).
I kind of read Nemona (even if not by intention of the writing) as being on the Autism spectrum, as I was diagnosed with Aspergers in my younger years (whether that would hold up if I got a more current evaluation) and pattern-finding me correlates some of the more prominent behaviors/symptoms to her stand-out traits. If you'll indulge my cringe diagnosing of a fictional character
- Hyper Fixation on things, in this case battling and your player character as a rival
- Trouble with socially normative behavior, as per her obsessive talk with you about being rivals, following you between Gyms. More specifically here are a few from an article that came up for Symptoms in Adolescents on a cursory Google Search
- find it hard to take turns in conversations – for example, they might like to do all the talking or find it hard to answer questions about themselves (Nemona constantly butts into topics even when she doesn't have something related to wat it started on)
- talk a lot about their special interests, but find it difficult to talk about a range of topics or things they don’t find very interesting (literally anything besides Battling for her can be counted on 2 hands at most)
- have difficulty reading nonverbal cues, like body language or tone of voice, to guess how someone else is feeling – for example, they might not be able to tell when someone is teasing them or using sarcasm (She's very bad at reading the room in Area Zero as discussed above with things like Arven or the aggressive Raidon scaring yours)
- In light of the above, she's very bad at socializing given she's the class president and yet doesn't seem to have any friends or social circles alluded to within the school.
The "autistic savant" trope isn't necessarily a good one but under this lens I think Nemona does a better job of showing the negatives of living in that manner since she doesn't have much for friends/a support system and lacks the ability properly pursue them even if she