Unpopular opinions

[AztecCroc]

Tbh replaying Platinum currently, the point about being able to get a full team of 6 before gym 1 these days as opposed to this only being possible towards the end of the game without grinding -really- sticks out, and I, kind of, enjoy it how it used to be in a weird way? The games repeatedly state that training a full team is very difficult back then and use this to explain why enemy trainers -don't- use more than 2~3 Pokemon until the endgame. That's just not the case anymore though and you'll find yourself going up against important trainers using half your party length well into the level 50s(Something which would be fine if the games used bring 6 pick 3 or 4 like online play does, but that's a different story.)

Pokemon like Gyarados or the Pseudos, things you have to actively put effort into raising due to how slow they gain exp for example, are now easy to just slot in the back of your party forever until they evolve(previously this would slow down your exp gain via switch training or the exp share).

Stone evolutions are similarly emphasized conceived to be a trade off; lose out on moves by evolving early for extra stats, or get moves and deal with a weaker Pokemon for longer. That factor just doesn't exist anymore, however. As of SWSH/SV, you can, basically the moment you get to Mesagoza, get a fully evolved Arcanine or Ludicolo with their entire movepool available to you without the cost of a single resource beyond the stone itself.

This among other things is why I feel that the games have actually gotten significantly worse as RPGs go over time despite arguably being just as easy as ever lol.

There's not really a good way to keep the old way stone evos worked without making them an absolute pain in the ass for competitive without completely rewriting how movesets work or locking the ability to get the stones to the post-game.

Literally all RPGs have Exp work via the modern Exp method Pokémon is using, even some really old ones from like the SNES era. Exp being reduced by the amount of party members you use was never a thing in any other RPG.

 

[Ironmage]

Tbh replaying Platinum currently, the point about being able to get a full team of 6 before gym 1 these days as opposed to this only being possible towards the end of the game without grinding -really- sticks out, and I, kind of, enjoy it how it used to be in a weird way? The games repeatedly state that training a full team is very difficult back then and use this to explain why enemy trainers -don't- use more than 2~3 Pokemon until the endgame. That's just not the case anymore though and you'll find yourself going up against important trainers using half your party length well into the level 50s(Something which would be fine if the games used bring 6 pick 3 or 4 like online play does, but that's a different story.)

Pokemon like Gyarados or the Pseudos, things you have to actively put effort into raising due to how slow they gain exp for example, are now easy to just slot in the back of your party forever until they evolve(previously this would slow down your exp gain via switch training or the exp share).

Stone evolutions are similarly emphasized and portrayed to be a trade off; lose out on moves by evolving early for extra stats, or get moves and deal with a weaker Pokemon for longer. That factor just doesn't exist anymore, however. As of SWSH/SV, you can, basically the moment you get to Mesagoza, get a fully evolved Arcanine or Ludicolo with their entire movepool available to you without the cost of a single resource beyond the stone itself.

This among other things is why I feel that the games have actually gotten significantly worse as RPGs go over time despite arguably being just as easy as ever lol.

I definitely find it frustrating that the power curve still assumes the player isn't running full evolutions for most of the maingame, but for a different reason. For me, a lot of mons I would like to use are minor legendaries or similar, which still get locked to later (thanks to not having any pre-evolutions). So I don't actually get to enjoy the promised freedom to go through the story with the team that I want. It's a big reason why I prefer a bigger postgame to a wider selection during the main story.

 

[MoonlightRose]

There's not really a good way to keep the old way stone evos worked without making them an absolute pain in the ass for competitive without completely rewriting how movesets work or locking the ability to get the stones to the post-game.

Separate reminders. A move reminder around gym 4 that can teach any more a pokémon has learned and a more talented one, perhaps only available in a post game area, that can also teach moves their pre-evolutions would have learned.

 

[Samtendo09]

Or maybe make it so Stone Evolutions has severely delayed levels to when learning their moves, like ten levels later than usual, which is more severe than if you evolve your level-evolving Pokémon early on than later. Earlier availability at risk of much slower level up learnset than average, encouraging holding off a Stone if you don’t get the desired level-up moves yet.

Exp being reduced by the amount of party members you use was never a thing in any other RPG.

I think the issue is that the amount of reduced EXP per party members isn’t enough to prevent the player from unintentionally overleveling what comes next if GF insists on lower than five Pokémon on important lategame trainers. If the reduced EXP per party member became more severe the more Pokémon there are, then the permanent EXP All wouldn’t be such an issue.

 

[Worldie]

I suppose that's fine - but it leaves me feeling more like these guys are grifting to appeal to their audience rather than actually having such strong feelings towards the game.

Well that is kinda how streamers work. They build a persona and commit to it, because that's what their audience expects from them and if they have a significant income off their content, they can't afford to deviate from it. If you have built your online persona about how "RBY were the best game everything else sucks", you can't really show you enjoy the newest game, you *have* to show you're just playing them "cause you have to".

I do however feel the main issue with all the modern ragebait about pokemon rants is just the refusal to recognize that, for what the games are, they still succeed at what they do: create creatures that are lovable by children, in an adventure that a child would love and a world that the child can immerse themselves into, while throwing a bone to the older players with the competitive shenenigans and the occasional more complex endgame like raids or once in a while battle facilities.

(And also, as I mentioned a while ago, the illusion to think that you can make this sort of collector based RPGs hard without severely compromising their identity)

 

[tentaghost]

Exp being reduced by the amount of party members you use was never a thing in any other RPG.

Well neither is one unit only having four attacks and having no seperate defend command lets be real here.

Levels are weird in pokemon anyways, like for most of the time ingame it feels like its the only thing that really matters as far as your mons general strength and damage output goes wereas in most other games while levels are still a big factor, it isnt the ONLY factor(equipment, proficiency, items that permenately buff stats or taking advantage of items that do a fixed amount of damage to an opponent, evs and type boosting items sort of help aliveate this but the inherent benefits of leveling up outweighs them both by a wide margin).

Now this isnt a bad thing per say, a benefit to a system like this is that its an intuitive way to keep track of how strong a player or an opponent is, however this means that both general progression and the games own world has to be controlled and linear so the player doesnt either get WREKT by a high level opponent or steamroll through the entire game, and it seems like game freak doesnt really understand this considering their efforts at making pokemon games more open to the player, something that doesnt really work with a rpg where levels are such a big factor in strength.

 

[Mad Ram]

In the qualitiy department though, I think its just all dragged out and tired, and doesn't even fucking make sense when you think about it for 2 seconds because the "golden age" of Pokemon (2008 - 2012) was also dominated by yearly releases as well.

TBF there have been multiple hardware leaps since 2008-2012, and game development time has definitely increased. For an extreme, it used to take about three months for an Atari game to be made when modern AAA titles take at least five years. Frankly, DS games don't need as much time to make which is why they were able to be made so fast.

 

[Karxrida]

Literally all RPGs have Exp work via the modern Exp method Pokémon is using, even some really old ones from like the SNES era. Exp being reduced by the amount of party members you use was never a thing in any other RPG.

Those RPGs are also actually balanced around shared EXP and designed under the assumption that you're fielding more than one dude at a time against hordes of mobs. And despite that, necessary grinding could still end up being an issue in some SNES and especially NES games.

Also, the Pokémon fandom is still traumatized by how badly X and Y fumbled the EXP Share lol. It's very possible to find yourself 10+ levels above Dianatha when you fight her for the first time without even trying.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

I maintain that XY EXP Share was designed around the idea of using a constantly rotating team. Considering how utterly massive the Kalos Pokedex is, with over 400+ Pokemon and almost every single route having something different with little repetition between routes and dungeons, combined with the addition of catching EXP, I suspect XY was intended for players to catch a few Pokemon in every single route and dungeon they come across, whether it be a new Gen 6 Pokemon, an old gen Pokemon, a Pokemon who has a Mega, or a combination of all of them, and rotate near constantly along the way.

Unfortunately, that is not the way most people play Pokemon games. They either pre-plan a fixed squad of six and stick with it or solo the whole game with just their starter. The notion of rotating your party is not necessarily intuitive for Pokemon, especially when major NPCs stick to a fixed squad most of the time.

 

[pika pal]

Literally all RPGs have Exp work via the modern Exp method Pokémon is using, even some really old ones from like the SNES era. Exp being reduced by the amount of party members you use was never a thing in any other RPG.

My turn to "um ackshually" because I can say from experience that several RPGs, such as the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series, did in fact have "split" EXP in their entries during the SNES era and even as late as the DS with things like DQ9 and Monsters Joker 1 and 2. It's to the point that an ideal grinding method in several of them is to take fewer Party members to battle if you want them to grow quickly so it wouldn't spread out. So saying "literally all" even for a hyperbolic "most but not all" is still bull considering several of these series predated Pokemon and continued as its contemporaries.

I maintain that XY EXP Share was designed around the idea of using a constantly rotating team. Considering how utterly massive the Kalos Pokedex is, with over 400+ Pokemon and almost every single route having something different with little repetition between routes and dungeons, combined with the addition of catching EXP, I suspect XY was intended for players to catch a few Pokemon in every single route and dungeon they come across, whether it be a new Gen 6 Pokemon, an old gen Pokemon, a Pokemon who has a Mega, or a combination of all of them, and rotate near constantly along the way.

Unfortunately, that is not the way most people play Pokemon games. They either pre-plan a fixed squad of six and stick with it or solo the whole game with just their starter. The notion of rotating your party is not necessarily intuitive for Pokemon, especially when major NPCs stick to a fixed squad most of the time.

The actual problem as outlined is that Pokemon games are barely designed around any kind of coherent difficulty curve. EXP All is made as if you're going to rotate/retrain your members frequently like DQ Monsters or SMT Demons; meanwhile the bosses are mostly brute-force-able without particular strategies or strengths vs weaknesses, which would be the main incentive to rotate Pokemon like party member or Classes in a corresponding RPG. It increased the resource pool without any particular demand for the higher power instead of making the same resources more convenient to use or distribute as, say, the EXP candies could do once those were added.

 

[Worldie]

Unfortunately, that is not the way most people play Pokemon games. They either pre-plan a fixed squad of six and stick with it or solo the whole game with just their starter. The notion of rotating your party is not necessarily intuitive for Pokemon, especially when major NPCs stick to a fixed squad most of the time.

I'd say this is incorrect.

This is how "veteran players" play the game.

Most "normal" players usually play on a whim, and will easily replace someone in the team if they find a Pokemon they like more. Expecially kids but also people who play the game blind in general. How exactly are you meant to "plan your team" if you don't even know what pokemon are available in first place?

The exp share was likely introduced to make "adding whatever freshly caught pokemon to the team" painless, as well as not punishing you for wanting to always lead with your favourite and ending with one overleveled mon and 5 underleveled ones.
Which it kiiinda succeeds in, but also they definitely botched the exp curve in some entries. Maybe on the assumpion that people won't stop to grind and will just run from A to B without spending time in a given area (particularly evident in SwSh/SV, where if you just "speedrun" the plot you're mostly on level or very slightly ahead, but if by any chance you spend some time goofing around in the wild areas you *easily* overlevel everything)

(That said, I don't think there's any reasonable way to balance both at same time. If you balance the assumpion of grind, then you make the game insanely hard if you don't grind. If you balance around going from A to B, well you have what it is now. The games would need some proper level scaling functionality to accomodate for both, but that's a much bigger task than people think it is considering how many level ranges you'd have to account for, expecially if they plan to continue with the "do anything in any order" as they've done for SV.)

 

[DreamPrince]

On the topic of Calyrex forms, one thing I really hate about them is that the fact that the two forms have separate movepools. This means whenever you defuse Calyrex, you are losing the moves exclusive to that form. For example, if your Ice Rider had High Horsepower, you lose it when you defuse it, and should you fuse it again, you grind the TMs for them again, and then you have to PP it up. The PP up is especially notable, since you start from base, and PP ups are either rare or super expensive to buy. And you will be defusing on cartridge, since you can only have one Calyrex per save file and you will be building both considering both are top tier restricteds. Necrozma also has this problem, but it’s only one move, and you have fusion two items, so you can have up to two forms without the need of defusing. Kyurem actually handles it the best- the moves are treated like level up, meaning if you PP Up Scary Face, the Fusion move will have the same PP.

 

[Sirya]

Probably already been discussed, but I hate the movepool distribution (aka learnset) they started making a few generations ago. In particular, I don't like how widely distributed -and nonsensical too- are some moves like Knock Off in these last gens. To me, it seems the value some Pokémon could've had as Utility exists no more since Knock Off isn't anymore a niche option you have to dedicate a teamslot for but something you just have, usually in various mon in the same team and even for damage purposes (some actual Pokémon that have access to it have so much Atk that crippling your item is just a secondary, minor effect of a move that could just outright kill you).

I love how in Gen 3 Knock Off is a very picky option and it does no damage at all, while being incredibly good (as has always been the option to erase held items). These days it just feels like no matter the mon, no matter what 3 moves it has, the 4th slot is always Knock Off just because it can and it is that good. It is in fact so good in terms of how much damage it does -since it was boosted- and how great of a secondary effect it has that there's no reason not to run it if the Pokémon learns it, and to nobody surprise, everyone learns it.

Apart from the distribution, since it got damage boosted I also dislike how there's almost no drawback at all when it comes to use it. If a mon doesn't have Knock Off and has to rely on Crunch -which has been T-tars case for a while, fe-, guessing wrong hits hard. You hit a resisted mon for recoverable damage and it also heals with its leftovers twice (1st on the resisted switch in, 2nd on your switch out). There's nothing of that guessing with Knock Off. You just hit the mon for almost the same damage and get rid of its leftovers at the same time, meaning you've actually done more damage, and the best part is it doesn't matter 90% of the progression would've been attained in the same way independently of who your opponent sent in.

 

[Azery]

Probably already been discussed, but I hate the movepool distribution (aka learnset) they started making a few generations ago. In particular, I don't like how widely distributed -and nonsensical too- are some moves like Knock Off in these last gens. To me, it seems the value some Pokémon could've had as Utility exists no more since Knock Off isn't anymore a niche option you have to dedicate a teamslot for but something you just have, usually in various mon in the same team and even for damage purposes (some actual Pokémon that have access to it have so much Atk that crippling your item is just a secondary, minor effect of a move that could just outright kill you).

I love how in Gen 3 Knock Off is a very picky option and it does no damage at all, while being incredibly good (as has always been the option to erase held items). These days it just feels like no matter the mon, no matter what 3 moves it has, the 4th slot is always Knock Off just because it can and it is that good. It is in fact so good in terms of how much damage it does -since it was boosted- and how great of a secondary effect it has that there's no reason not to run it if the Pokémon learns it, and to nobody surprise, everyone learns it.

Apart from the distribution, since it got damage boosted I also dislike how there's almost no drawback at all when it comes to use it. If a mon doesn't have Knock Off and has to rely on Crunch -which has been T-tars case for a while, fe-, guessing wrong hits hard. You hit a resisted mon for recoverable damage and it also heals with its leftovers twice (1st on the resisted switch in, 2nd on your switch out). There's nothing of that guessing with Knock Off. You just hit the mon for almost the same damage and get rid of its leftovers at the same time, meaning you've actually done more damage, and the best part is it doesn't matter 90% of the progression would've been attained in the same way independently of who your opponent sent in.

The thing about Knock Off is that it was actually kinda fine in gen 6/7 with how every team usually had 2~ knock off absorbers,

but come gen 8 and 9, well....

 

[Lontra Assassina]

GameFreak didn't kill Pokémon, you just outgrew it and can't accept it.

To quote ImJustRob:
"You just keep pedaling that sentiment because you're angry that the games do not give you the same experience that they did when you were a child, the games are not growing up with you..."

Genuinely, a lot of discourse around the series would improve if people realized they can choose to not engage and play something else. That's not me trying to shut down criticism (I've been a hater plenty of times here), but eventually you gotta realize that you should spend time with things you love instead of insisting on something that's not making you happy. The series has been running for 30 years now, that's a good run, right?

I think a recent trend I hate in particular is bringing political concepts or talking points into the discussion - which most discussion videos, even ones that aren't even criticizing Pokemon - do. No, we do not need to have a discussion on the "complexities" of capitalism or whatever to know that a game has to have a fucking deadline & set budget, or talk about how the evil Pokemon Company's corporate greed is being fueled by us because "they know we will buy shit" or whatever the fuck people bring up in these conversations.

I noticed how one of the ways Dexit has impacted discussion around the games is that everyone wants to build this narrative that the development for every new Pokémon game is miserable and every game's faults can be blamed on a lack of time, even though there's nothing in the Teraleak that points in that direction. It's almost like an apology for the critics, even though every single commercial game out there is created under a deadline, and even commercial art can be great on its own rights.

 

[bdt2002]

This thread has seen a handful of discussion about certain Types being stronger, weaker, needing buffs or nerfs, so on and so forth. I want to propose a new, different approach. I think a lot of the type imbalance in Pokémon comes from the idea of dual typings rather than the strength of any one individual Type. Fighting/Ghost, for example, is as deadly of a combination as it is because the lack of anything that resists them (even the Hisuian Zorua family would be vulnerable to a hypothetical Fighting/Ghost with Scrappy) gives far more creative liberty in moveset crafting since that one extra moveslot that may have otherwise gone to a coverage move can now go to an extra utility move.

Pokémon’s had a lot of other “broken” combinations over time, too. Electric/Flying is the only dual Typing in the game I think that is a true upgrade over a single Type in pure Flying (Tornadus fans are in shambles rn), Water/Ice becomes Fighting/Ghost level if you have access to Freeze-Dry or other ways around opposing Water, and Fairy/Ground is so strong offensively it hasn’t even been given a Pokémon yet. On the other side of the coin, you have Pokémon with stacking weaknesses and little synergy between Types. Having multiple 4x weaknesses is pretty much a death sentence for any combination burdened with this terrible fate, and many dual Typings still can’t hit all 18 singular Types for at least neutral damage with Steel usually being the culprit there.

Redefining type roles and how they interact with one another could be one way to help keep overwhelming dual Type combinations in check fairly consistently. This wouldn’t fix every issue, but I simply want to see more readily available counterplay to “broken combinations” when they come up and Pokémon are given the tools and stats to make use of those combinations. Some combinations like Bug/Steel or Water/Ground for example, though, I don’t think need any nerfs, while I struggle to want to buff some Types like Ice too much because of the untapped potential a buffed Ice typing could have with its own combinations.

 

[Ironmage]

This thread has seen a handful of discussion about certain Types being stronger, weaker, needing buffs or nerfs, so on and so forth. I want to propose a new, different approach. I think a lot of the type imbalance in Pokémon comes from the idea of dual typings rather than the strength of any one individual Type. Fighting/Ghost, for example, is as deadly of a combination as it is because the lack of anything that resists them (even the Hisuian Zorua family would be vulnerable to a hypothetical Fighting/Ghost with Scrappy) gives far more creative liberty in moveset crafting since that one extra moveslot that may have otherwise gone to a coverage move can now go to an extra utility move.

Pokémon’s had a lot of other “broken” combinations over time, too. Electric/Flying is the only dual Typing in the game I think that is a true upgrade over a single Type in pure Flying (Tornadus fans are in shambles rn), Water/Ice becomes Fighting/Ghost level if you have access to Freeze-Dry or other ways around opposing Water, and Fairy/Ground is so strong offensively it hasn’t even been given a Pokémon yet. On the other side of the coin, you have Pokémon with stacking weaknesses and little synergy between Types. Having multiple 4x weaknesses is pretty much a death sentence for any combination burdened with this terrible fate, and many dual Typings still can’t hit all 18 singular Types for at least neutral damage with Steel usually being the culprit there.

Redefining type roles and how they interact with one another could be one way to help keep overwhelming dual Type combinations in check fairly consistently. This wouldn’t fix every issue, but I simply want to see more readily available counterplay to “broken combinations” when they come up and Pokémon are given the tools and stats to make use of those combinations. Some combinations like Bug/Steel or Water/Ground for example, though, I don’t think need any nerfs, while I struggle to want to buff some Types like Ice too much because of the untapped potential a buffed Ice typing could have with its own combinations.

I don't think this invalidates thinking about the power of types individually because good types are more likely to be synergistic than bad ones. Water and Ground are both good enough individually that Water/Ground would have needed the mentioned double 4* weaknesses to not be good as well. It feels like it's Steel specifically that's good at making pairings with some lower-tier types like Grass and Bug work well.

 

[Azery]

I don't think this invalidates thinking about the power of types individually because good types are more likely to be synergistic than bad ones. Water and Ground are both good enough individually that Water/Ground would have needed the mentioned double 4* weaknesses to not be good as well. It feels like it's Steel specifically that's good at making pairings with some lower-tier types like Grass and Bug work well.

the funny thing is that steel feels like one of the most balanced and loadbearing types in the game lmao, whereas ghost/fairy and to some degree, dark, have become incredibly broken ever since gen 6

 

[LPBvgc]

I find it ironic that people are bashing Mega Dimensions for being grindy yet glaze Gens 3 and 4 which are just as if not even more grindy if you want the full experience.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

View attachment 799787

I find it ironic that people are bashing Mega Dimensions for being grindy yet glaze Gens 3 and 4 which are just as if not even more grindy if you want the full experience.

EV training for Emerald's Battle Frontier is so fucking boring dude. Especially if you're training something other than Speed, HP, or Special Attack. Honestly even Special Attack is pushing it.

 

[Castersvarog]

The actual problem as outlined is that Pokemon games are barely designed around any kind of coherent difficulty curve. EXP All is made as if you're going to rotate/retrain your members frequently like DQ Monsters or SMT Demons; meanwhile the bosses are mostly brute-force-able without particular strategies or strengths vs weaknesses, which would be the main incentive to rotate Pokemon like party member or Classes in a corresponding RPG. It increased the resource pool without any particular demand for the higher power instead of making the same resources more convenient to use or distribute as, say, the EXP candies could do once those were added.

Something I’ve found when I’m playing is the one of two things happens with the level curve:
1) I stick to a team of six Mons I like and wanna use, and end up overleveled if I don’t avoid most fights. If I fought optional trainers in SV I’d be over leveled instead of just a hair on par.
2) I swap my team out constantly to not get overleveled and I end up getting little attachment with most of my party. In ZA I genuinely didn’t care for half of the 15 mons I was using throughout the main story and just stopped using them come postgame.

And a major problem with this is the exp share being stuck to on. Other RPGs that have a squad of party members are built around using a squad of party members and levels are set up properly to account for it so long as you’re not avoid 99% of encounters. Plus there’s often a lot of ways to work around the grinding like Audino equivalents, changing the encounter rate manually, items that increase exp to a member, bosses giving tons of exp vs fodder, etc.

But Pokémon constantly fails to account for this, it builds a level curve that hints to play as much of the game as possible, like it doesn’t have an exp all in it, then gives you the exp all, which increases total exp given to the party by 6.5x, ultimately undermining it entirely.
It would be similar to an rpg building a massive intricate spell system, then giving you a spell that deals 99999 damage with no mp cost, right at the start of the game.

Worst part is how easy of a fix it would be, re-add the toggle the exp share had in gens 6-7. It literally pleases everyone with a problem, it did please everyone with a problem when it was available, but they removed it and there’s a problem

 

[Azery]

View attachment 799787

I find it ironic that people are bashing Mega Dimensions for being grindy yet glaze Gens 3 and 4 which are just as if not even more grindy if you want the full experience.

i will be fully honest, this sounds like someone with a massive insecurity problem.

to be blunt I think the issue with the Z-A DLC's grind is that it is -required- for main content progression(lets denote by this, everything up to rayquaza), and that the template for it in its entirety is the most boring, cookiecutter shit imaginable. It takes everything wrong with the base game's formula(something that would already become clear if you went through the infinity royale or mable's 1000 battles task, usually both), dials it up to 11, and asks you to pay $30~ for it

 

[Castersvarog]

i will be fully honest, this sounds like someone with a massive insecurity problem.

to be fully blunt I think the issue with the Z-A DLC's grind is that it is -required- for main content progression(lets denote by this, everything up to rayquaza), and that the template for it in its entirety is the most boring, cookiecutter shit imaginable. It takes everything wrong with the base game's formula(something that would already become clear if you went through the infinity royale or mable's 1000 battles task, usually both), dials it up to 11, and asks you to pay $30~ for it

I swear so many non-poketubers who have played the dlc just go ‘uuuuugh, for real I have to grind how much this time?’ And I don’t blame them, it’s just farming the same thing they probably did in the basegame again just to do the story, but now there’s even more of it.

Meanwhile stuff like the battle frontier/tower has always been optional. You don’t have to spend hours upon hours preparing a team to get to the top. Plus there’s more to their postgames beyond the frontier/tower like just seeing new areas, catching new mons, etc. Gen 2/HGSS give you an entire second region to explore and is even bigger in the remakes with more to just see and do.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

I swear so many non-poketubers who have played the dlc just go ‘uuuuugh, for real I have to grind how much this time?’ And I don’t blame them, it’s just farming the same thing they probably did in the basegame again just to do the story, but now there’s even more of it.

Meanwhile stuff like the battle frontier/tower has always been optional. You don’t have to spend hours upon hours preparing a team to get to the top. Plus there’s more to their postgames beyond the frontier/tower like just seeing new areas, catching new mons, etc. Gen 2/HGSS give you an entire second region to explore and is even bigger in the remakes with more to just see and do.

And yet it's always the Battle Frontier that gets highlighted when people talk about how much better the old games where.

Surely people wouldn't gush endlessly about a feature they didn't actually fully engage with, right?

 

[Ravenson]

One seventh (or one fifth) of the Battle Frontier is certified grind-free at least, so even players who don't like the grind have a part of the major post-game facility that they can interact with and potentially win at to their heart's content.