Now, I know damn well y'all ain't dissing GOAT of the Wild!
I actually agree with some of the complaints tho.
Back on topic, ya boi is back to spit some of the hottest takes this thread will ever see. Let's get to it.
Regarding the whole discussion about the type chart,
the Fairy-type is actually essential to the game. I had the experience of going back to Stadium 2 and messing with some things, mainly updating some moves and giving every type some kind of reliable STAB.
Dragon-types immediately became a problem.
Buffing Steel and Ice to try and mitigate the issue does not work, at all. Dragon/Fire was an extremely good offensive combo after Outrage got buffed in Gen 4 for a reason, it's just that strong without a type immune to it. This led me to eventually looking at the type interactions and reaching the same conclusion that GF did. A new type was needed, and at that point, you really might as well make Fairy.
I completely disagree with how they handled Fairy though, for various reasons. Bug did not need another type resisting it, and a lot of legendaries should've been retconned to being Fairy-typed. Mew is a very, very obvious example. There's kind of a flavor issue with Fairy as a type tbh. But yeah, Fairy is very blatantly a balance patch type and it shows.
As for other changes... There can't be a lot of them. Things go south FAST. I think right now, the only two that I'd be 100% sure I would do is having Water be weak to Poison and removing the Bug resistance from Fairy.
Psychic isn't bad because it's a bad-type, it's bad because it has two balance patch types holding it back. Yes, Dark and Steel 100% neutralized that threat. I'd argue the biggest problem with it is that it kind of lost its identity by now. When you think of Psychic-types, you think of fast, strong special attackers that are kind of frail, especially on the physical side.
Except now they're not that strong because of power creep and low offensive value, and a lot of other types also have fast, strong special attackers, so why bother with dealing with a type that's weak to common meta-types?
On that note, whoever mentioned bad physical Psychic moves was 100% correct.
Every type should have AT LEAST some reliable STAB. What I mean by that is 90BP, 100% accuracy, and no drawbacks. If you can't see the value in this, go play pre-Gen 4 games, especially Stadium 2.
Does that mean I want types to be bland? Hell no, it's the opposite. I want every type to be able to create an identity, but you can't do that relying on moves like 60BP, 5pp Giga Drain as your main damage-dealing option. I also believe that types should have "signature" moves that aren't as available as regular coverage moves. For example, Discharge is mostly learned by Electric-types unlike Thunderbolt, and boasts a side-effect that is more commonly assigned to that type, in this case, paralysis. However, I do believe said moves should be stronger, otherwise people will still use the generic option.
Speaking of which, TMs.
Whoever decided that Close Combat should not only be a TM but also a well-distributed one was completely out of pocket. A lot of these moves should NOT be easily attainable coverage and one could argue there are too many of them by now.
There's a real issue when it comes to identity in these games on several levels as of late, which brings me to my next point.
Dexit's greatest problem is that there's too much bloat on dexes.
This was already an issue as early as XY, but it's rampant after SwSh. You can't have so many options to build a team so early. Especially taking into account strong, older Pokémon. One or two throwbacks like Ralts in SV? Great, that's probably the best early-throwback mon they had in a minute. Otherwise, you just dilute things too much and the region loses its identity.
When you think of older regions, you think of some mons that are iconic to that region, even if they show up in other regions. For example, Nidoran-M. When you remember Nidoran-M, you probably immediately remember that route west of Viridian City.
There's a case to be made when it comes to replayability, but that's mostly a thing on games like BW1 and FRLG that don't have enough viable options early, which leads to roadblocks.
Sinnoh is notorious for the classic lineup of Starter, Shinx, Starly, Budew, Gible... but there are a LOT of interesting options there like Machop and Buizel, even if they aren't your immediate first or iconic options.
This issue stems from a conscious design in later regions due to other dogwater mechanics like the Exp. All and the increased focus on the exploration of barren plains, but in my opinion, it sucks.
Speaking of the exploration of barren plains... Open-world in Pokémon. It. Cannot. Work.
Technically, it can, but it would require an entirely different approach to what they did in SV. Paldea ironically isn't any more of an open world than Kanto was. Matter of fact, it falls into the exact same pitfalls. These are too abundant and uninteresting to bother listing in such a long post. Instead, I'd rather talk about why it fails at a core level.
Levels.
To make an open world Pokemon game work, you need to take into account the levels of the mons and trainers you'll encounter. There's little to no point in going straight to Glaseado to get bodied by a Lv. 40 1st Stage pseudo, that isn't what an open world entails.
Ideally, Paldea should have had a Metroidvania-like approach to how one encounters mons, in which players could reasonably access all major areas and cities by sticking to the main paths but still having to unlock abilities to reach other sub-areas where stronger mons, trainers, and items lie. This was actually done to gate off the stakes that unlock the Ruinous Legends.
The result of GF's poor decisions regarding Paldea's open world is that it's a mechanic that doesn't add any depth to the game, as any sequence-breaking only serves to make the game easier.