Unpopular opinions

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Will has pretty bad offensive presence

5 Mons with 95+ Base SpA clicking Psychic in a game that you don't really get resistances to it besides your own Psychic mon, namely, Alakazam.

Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

We all know unga bunga is the way to play these games, but let's not be disingenious now.

 

[pika pal]

5 Mons with 95+ Base SpA clicking Psychic in a game that you don't really get resistances to it besides your own Psychic mon, namely, Alakazam.

Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

We all know unga bunga is the way to play these games, but let's not be disingenious now.

I considered the fact that two of Will's mons are so slow that you'll usually be able to hit them for a SE potential one-shot before they get a 2nd, oftentimes even a 1st attack in. No amount of offense helps if you don't get to throw enough hits with it.

Xatu and Jynx are fairly fast for in-game at 95 Base Speed (albeit still below the starter and just barely above Magmar), but outspeeding them with a game's worth of Stat Training isn't outlandish. They're also not particularly sturdy if you hit their weaknesses (of which they have a fair few by typing).

Maybe my perception is colored by my more recent runs having Will's AI eat rocks, and click Psychic less than he should have the few times it would have gone off.

 

[SandVeil10]

yeah like, I don't think I have ever seen a need to click a button that doesn't immediately do damage in any pokemon game. They have not really ever provided a reason to do it. People trying to sell the like set-up and/or stall for several turns strategy when the click a button and immediately kill them exists. leech seed and swords dance and screens is cool I guess but I already defeated the trainer by spamming Surf/Waterfall or Flare Blitz/Flamethrower

like sure, you can beat the game with Meganium or Serperior but you are actively engaging in a hard mode compared to how effortlessly strong the other 2 options are in their gens. I am not at all sad that they decided that grass moves are allowed to have real base powers as the gens went on.

I am not the biggest fan of the games or region itself, but Gen 4 had the like most solid starters in the older gens just from all 3 of them being very good and different in playstyle still while not having to rely on stall for like 5 turns because you want to roleplay as a troll trainer.

I understand your point. It's entirely fair to not wanna use strats that take more time to get going and work, when a direct, fast approach is very effective and quicker.

The goal of my post was to address the idea I've seen quite often that Serperior in BW1 can't do anything in-game. I wanted to pinpoint the sets it can run, the playstyles that are usually better for it, and how those sets are effective and valuable in their own right.

While I still like using fast and/or strong Pokémon on my team, and taking out foes swiftly in one or two moves is satisfying, I also enjoy figuring out how to use mons who don't fit those archetypes. That being said, I admit that the strats I mentioned in my previous post are gonna be less desirable for a lot of people, and for valid reasons.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

I considered the fact that two of Will's mons are so slow that you'll usually be able to hit them for a SE potential one-shot before they get a 2nd, oftentimes even a 1st attack in. No amount of offense helps if you don't get to throw enough hits with it.

Xatu and Jynx are fairly fast for in-game at 95 Base Speed (albeit still below the starter and just barely above Magmar), but outspeeding them with a game's worth of Stat Training isn't outlandish. They're also not particularly sturdy if you hit their weaknesses (of which they have a fair few by typing).

Maybe my perception is colored by my more recent runs having Will's AI eat rocks, and click Psychic less than he should have the few times it would have gone off.

To be fair, my perception is colored by IGTL runs and having to use fuckass GSC Electivire Gengar. When you can't fish for matchups, you actually get to see if it's all sweet or not.

 

[pika pal]

spamming rock throw is better than getting rock slide swords dance zen headbutt at like level 25 which is how most of these work

look I know most pokemon fans actually hate pokemon games and don't want to spend anymore time than they need to to beat them, "Goddamn this fight took 4 turns and not 2 turns so slow!" but yes I do think some Pokemon should be weaker or stronger than others and Pokemon should take work to actually become efficient

friction is good
friction is good
friction is good

you shouldnt like training your solrock in the late game, thats the point

you shouldnt like training your ralts until like level 26, thats the point

you shouldnt like training a magikarp until gyarados, thats the point

sinnoh is also not a good region for teambuilding because most of the mons are gen 3 and lower design and then there are like 8 mons that are super easy to use and scale the entire time and get their kits for almost free, so why bother

if all i wanted to do in an rpg is just spam strong attacks over and over i would play most turn based rpgs where all you do is have a loop of buff/debuff attack/attack heal in a loop mindlessly until you win, because at least that loop is more interesting and has more points of failure

friction is good and the basis of interesting games. the pokemon game playthroughs i forget the most are the ones where im just picking up mons out of convenience in a gen 6+ game and i just steamroll

edit: it is frankly harder to get a dragonite in any of rby frlg than it is to get fucking shiny pokemon in modern day

(Replying here because a lot of this was getting off-topic from its initial home in the Champions thread.)

So where I fundamentally disagree here is that using bad Pokemon (as opposed to more technical ones) does not make for an effective difficulty increase because you're not playing differently, you're playing the same-but-slower a lot of the time.
What is Solrock doing that I could not accomplish with the Geodude line or even something like Cacturne or Sandslash from the Desert? They do not accomplish anything I would not get with "better" Pokemon because they do not bring any unique traits against the in-game opponents, and the opponents do not play with varied enough strategies or smart enough AI/scripting to make outside-of-the-box thinking rewarding at all.

"Friction" as you define it only makes for good game design if it feeds a peaks-and-valleys feel, where you put up with tedious stretches that pay off in a cathartic manner. Most of the bad Pokemon just... are bad for the majority of the run due to their stats or taking forever to get moves on par with what the "good" mons use already. Solrock is a poor comparison to Ralts or Magikarp because they are all comparably pathetic for the time they spend in those forms, but Solrock has no payoff besides "I used Solrock," where Ralts/Kirlia and Magikarp are undertuned but then have legitimately viable endgame performance as your reward: you put in effort early so you don't need as much work at the later stage. Your time isn't wasted on babying the stage. A "reasonable" Pseudo Legendary timing like Pt Gible has a similar curve if not a standard "progresses and evolves with the game stages" like your starter aims to invoke.

My issue is not wanting to SPEND less time playing Pokemon, it's wanting to WASTE less time with it. Even a very straightforward RPG like a Final Fantasy game gives me something to engage with because the bosses in the better entries have different behaviors beyond "what color explosion do I shoot in their face?" to respond to. Pokemon streamlining the mons' statlines and move access isn't what makes the games unengaging, but rather highlights the actual cause; the opponents play by the same rules as you but are stupider, meaning the game's only avenue to create a challenge is artificial limitation (See Battle Facilities or the Orre games' designed scarcity) or invoking RPG "boss only" mechanics and restore the paradigm regardless (see Totem/Ultra Space stat boosts or Raid set ups with status blocking, lopsided HP and party numbers).

 

[ant4456]

(Replying here because a lot of this was getting off-topic from its initial home in the Champions thread.)

So where I fundamentally disagree here is that using bad Pokemon (as opposed to more technical ones) does not make for an effective difficulty increase because you're not playing differently, you're playing the same-but-slower a lot of the time.
What is Solrock doing that I could not accomplish with the Geodude line or even something like Cacturne or Sandslash from the Desert? They do not accomplish anything I would not get with "better" Pokemon because they do not bring any unique traits against the in-game opponents, and the opponents do not play with varied enough strategies or smart enough AI/scripting to make outside-of-the-box thinking rewarding at all.

"Friction" as you define it only makes for good game design if it feeds a peaks-and-valleys feel, where you put up with tedious stretches that pay off in a cathartic manner. Most of the bad Pokemon just... are bad for the majority of the run due to their stats or taking forever to get moves on par with what the "good" mons use already. Solrock is a poor comparison to Ralts or Magikarp because they are all comparably pathetic for the time they spend in those forms, but Solrock has no payoff besides "I used Solrock," where Ralts/Kirlia and Magikarp are undertuned but then have legitimately viable endgame performance as your reward: you put in effort early so you don't need as much work at the later stage. Your time isn't wasted on babying the stage. A "reasonable" Pseudo Legendary timing like Pt Gible has a similar curve if not a standard "progresses and evolves with the game stages" like your starter aims to invoke.

My issue is not wanting to SPEND less time playing Pokemon, it's wanting to WASTE less time with it. Even a very straightforward RPG like a Final Fantasy game gives me something to engage with because the bosses in the better entries have different behaviors beyond "what color explosion do I shoot in their face?" to respond to. Pokemon streamlining the mons' statlines and move access isn't what makes the games unengaging, but rather highlights the actual cause; the opponents play by the same rules as you but are stupider, meaning the game's only avenue to create a challenge is artificial limitation (See Battle Facilities or the Orre games' designed scarcity) or invoking RPG "boss only" mechanics and restore the paradigm regardless (see Totem/Ultra Space stat boosts or Raid set ups with status blocking, lopsided HP and party numbers).

to address things in order

1. the point is that "wasting your time" is good, it isnt about making the game harder that wasnt the point, its about creating a link between time spent and output in player/team strength

2. most single form pokemon were balanced around being good when you pick it up, and then falling off later on without evolution to scale it, but having to put in no effort to get it to a usable state

when you catch solrock its right before a fire and then normal and then flying gym leader, all in a row! its stats were weaker back then (less HP) but its relatively solid and you dont have to put much into it to have a counter to the next stretch of the game

geodude is a lot weaker than a solrock, and to get graveler you need to train that geodude to there, then you need trade evo access for it to scale, which is its own friction

3. the point is actually the inverse, it is currently a waste of time to do anything in pokemon games besides use your starter and maybe 1/2 other pokemon and one hit KO everything because the games feed you everything, no time needed, your mons scale perfectly and you will never struggle

getting a flygon that is super strong isnt a reward because you can get a garchomp easier and its stronger

in the late games of pokemon atp its easier to catch a fucking tyranitar than have any point to catching half the dex lol

i dont care if the games are gonna be easy, its not about making them harder, its having pokemon be designed around how/where/when you get them, what stage of the game, how is that balanced


i dont care to "make pokemon more engaging", i care for there to be a reason to use the pokemon and train a team

edit: and no difficulty doesn't answer this because if you just let me get a garchomp easily thats still mechanically ruining the point of using like 70% of the pokedex lol

shitmons arent so shit when designed in an rpg context and placed well into the region, they're forever shit when you can just catch a gyarados, no magikarp required, and it gets waterfall at level 21 and is better than all of them

solrock does have a purpose in hoenn for where it is caught and the place its in, increasingly pokemon dont have any purpose, new or old, frankly

 

[Ironmage]

to address things in order

1. the point is that "wasting your time" is good, it isnt about making the game harder that wasnt the point, its about creating a link between time spent and output in player/team strength

2. most single form pokemon were balanced around being good when you pick it up, and then falling off later on without evolution to scale it, but having to put in no effort to get it to a usable state

when you catch solrock its right before a fire and then normal and then flying gym leader, all in a row! its stats were weaker back then (less HP) but its relatively solid and you dont have to put much into it to have a counter to the next stretch of the game

geodude is a lot weaker than a solrock, and to get graveler you need to train that geodude to there, then you need trade evo access for it to scale, which is its own friction

3. the point is actually the inverse, it is currently a waste of time to do anything in pokemon games besides use your starter and maybe 1/2 other pokemon and one hit KO everything because the games feed you everything, no time needed, your mons scale perfectly and you will never struggle

getting a flygon that is super strong isnt a reward because you can get a garchomp easier and its stronger

in the late games of pokemon atp its easier to catch a fucking tyranitar than have any point to catching half the dex lol

i dont care if the games are gonna be easy, its not about making them harder, its having pokemon be designed around how/where/when you get them, what stage of the game, how is that balanced


i dont care to "make pokemon more engaging", i care for there to be a reason to use the pokemon and train a team

edit: and no difficulty doesn't answer this because if you just let me get a garchomp easily thats still mechanically ruining the point of using like 70% of the pokedex lol

shitmons arent so shit when designed in an rpg context and placed well into the region, they're forever shit when you can just catch a gyarados, no magikarp required, and it gets waterfall at level 21 and is better than all of them

solrock does have a purpose in hoenn for where it is caught and the place its in, increasingly pokemon dont have any purpose, new or old, frankly

I'm not convinced this is a recent problem. RSE Hoenn belongs to Swampert, and Swampert alone. Now maybe if you made the objectively wrong starter choice you might need some extra help, but we aren't currently concerned with self-imposed challenges. If we're wanting other mons to be relevant, those other mons need to be strong for two reasons. Firstly, they need to be able to compete with the starters and other gift mons that GF is unwilling to make worth dropping. Secondly, the NPCs need good mons so they can force the player out of their default pattern, and those NPCs collectively need to fill out a lot more than 6 teamslots.

 

[ant4456]

I'm not convinced this is a recent problem. RSE Hoenn belongs to Swampert, and Swampert alone. Now maybe if you made the objectively wrong starter choice you might need some extra help, but we aren't currently concerned with self-imposed challenges. If we're wanting other mons to be relevant, those other mons need to be strong for two reasons. Firstly, they need to be able to compete with the starters and other gift mons that GF is unwilling to make worth dropping. Secondly, the NPCs need good mons so they can force the player out of their default pattern, and those NPCs collectively need to fill out a lot more than 6 teamslots.

No, I don't want them to make most Pokemon stronger lol, I want many Pokemon to in fact be bad in the grander scheme

 

[ant4456]

Good Design:

Early Game - Midgame - Lategame

Starter:
Good - Mid - Good

Raticate
Good - Mid - Bad

Gyarados
Bad - Good - Good

Butterfree
Good - Mid - Bad

Jynx
Unavailable - Good - Good

Dragonite
Unavailable - Bad - Great

Pidgeot
Mid - Mid - Mid

Fearow
Mid - Good - Bad


Bad Design:

Starter
Good - Good - Good

Corviknight
Good - Good - Good

Boltund
Bad - Bad - Bad

Thievul
Bad - Mid - Bad

Dragapult
Unavailable - Unavaulable - Unavailable until literally 10 levels until its Dragapult - Great

I'm not even sure I have used a Dreepy in my fucking life despite having completed the SWSH dex. I think I literally just caught a Dragapult in a raid, then got eggs which is funny tbh

This is all cherrypicked to an extent. There are lines in both games that kind of betray the overall trend, but I think that even as someone who finds Kanto boring and doesn't even like the dex much, it's a very well-balanced cast for a singleplayer RPG and that's been lost. Because you can just...

Stop using a Pokemon

Fucking Gary does that. In RBY. Hell, some modern rivals do. You don't have to continue using Raticate in the lategame, and hey, there are Pokemon designed for that kind of purpose.

The idea of making a core 6 and just using that is mostly because of the dexes being designed around that kind of thing, even though a lot of the games pretty explicitly give reasons to not do that, or switch it up. I'm pretty fucking sure Game Freak knew the elemental monkeys both fell off after the midgame and weren't going to be popular designs when evolved, and by the time you get the stones you have options for those types.

Unova does have big issues in this regard mostly with them making Pokemon to min-max for competitive use like Excadrill existing in the game at all compared to 90% of the Pokemon, but I think since Gen 3 it's the closest we've had to there being a reason to use most of the dex.

 

[CynicalGiant]

I think discussing Solrock as if its like a shitmon is a bit strange to me because its just incredibly acceptable. It is like the definition of "if you want to use solrock you can use it" 95 attack, stab rock throw thats 10% more accurate than the Rock Tomb TM they gave you for free. Resists Fire. It's fine. If you want the harder to use and more painful experience you go with Aron which eventually pays off in the big choo choo train kaiju.

Feeling like you have to use the strongest available pokemon rather than just using whatever you want to use feels like a brainworm problem more than anything. Who cares what is objectively the best. Who cares about ingame tierlists. None of it is real. Unless the pokemon is truly without anything going for it, you can probably use it and win. There are very few actually terrible pokemon for ingame, even if they were to make the mandatory fights in the games have particular strategies more often. This is also true in a lot of modern rpgs anyway.

You also never really needed to grind to beat any pokemon game. This is especially relevant in Fire Red/Leaf Green where like most of the community discussions of it were like "oh man the grinding in this game is rough" and then you find out they either use a weird definition of grinding nobody else does, or they have a brainworm that demands they be at the same level as every gym leader or elite four member. You don't, they made badge boosts for that reason and once they removed those they changed the exp formula to make it easier for stuff to catch up.

I think the biggest problem of pokemon design is that a lot of pokemon don't feel unique because move design is pretty boring. More unique moves and abilities that lead to more unique playstyles would make the games a lot more interesting than just either stall or one shot. I think it is a good thing they removed most of the tedium of acquiring team members you want to use, and moving away from the rigid puzzle box design they were never really good at was also a good thing. They just need to like make a lot more moves for ingame purposes. Nearly every pokemon has like 40ish/60ish/80ish stab moves, come up with like new things those equivalents can do.

Another thing is that status conditions and defensive stat management is pretty lackluster in Pokemon compared to other rpgs, so there's very little in playstyle variety. You either troll the opponent by stalling forever, a friend of mine does this, or you one shot everything, which I do in nearly RPG I play lol. There should be more than just these two, Shin Megami Tenseri and Metaphor have a lot more interesting variations as a comparison. Hell even Yakuza 8 had more playstyle variety than a lot of Pokemon movepools do.

 

[ant4456]

I think discussing Solrock as if its like a shitmon is a bit strange to me because its just incredibly acceptable. It is like the definition of "if you want to use solrock you can use it" 95 attack, stab rock throw thats 10% more accurate than the Rock Tomb TM they gave you for free. Resists Fire. It's fine. If you want the harder to use and more painful experience you go with Aron which eventually pays off in the big choo choo train kaiju.

Feeling like you have to use the strongest available pokemon rather than just using whatever you want to use feels like a brainworm problem more than anything. Who cares what is objectively the best. Who cares about ingame tierlists. None of it is real. Unless the pokemon is truly without anything going for it, you can probably use it and win. There are very few actually terrible pokemon for ingame, even if they were to make the mandatory fights in the games have particular strategies more often. This is also true in a lot of modern rpgs anyway.

You also never really needed to grind to beat any pokemon game. This is especially relevant in Fire Red/Leaf Green where like most of the community discussions of it were like "oh man the grinding in this game is rough" and then you find out they either use a weird definition of grinding nobody else does, or they have a brainworm that demands they be at the same level as every gym leader or elite four member. You don't, they made badge boosts for that reason and once they removed those they changed the exp formula to make it easier for stuff to catch up.

I think the biggest problem of pokemon design is that a lot of pokemon don't feel unique because move design is pretty boring. More unique moves and abilities that lead to more unique playstyles would make the games a lot more interesting than just either stall or one shot. I think it is a good thing they removed most of the tedium of acquiring team members you want to use, and moving away from the rigid puzzle box design they were never really good at was also a good thing. They just need to like make a lot more moves for ingame purposes. Nearly every pokemon has like 40ish/60ish/80ish stab moves, come up with like new things those equivalents can do.

Another thing is that status conditions and defensive stat management is pretty lackluster in Pokemon compared to other rpgs, so there's very little in playstyle variety. You either troll the opponent by stalling forever, a friend of mine does this, or you one shot everything, which I do in nearly RPG I play lol. There should be more than just these two, Shin Megami Tenseri and Metaphor have a lot more interesting variations as a comparison. Hell even Yakuza 8 had more playstyle variety than a lot of Pokemon movepools do.

I want Pokemon to be a game and not just a slideshow for my favorite PNGs of different Pokemon I like, which Pokemon games sometimes and especially used to be

I can and will use my favorites if I want. But modern Pokemon isn't a good RPG at all. You can always subvert the best things in an RPG, but modern Pokemon has no direction or balance. Everything is busted and broken, except the mons they decide are bad, and nothing takes any effort.

The Bug catching RPG is not a good bug catching RPG anymore because of your line: "Team members you want to use"

The game shouldn't be designed for "I want to use my scrimblos". It just shouldn't be. You should be able to use your scrimblos, but the game shouldn't be designed for the "All I want to do is use my scrimblos" demographic.

Why do you catch the mid bug? Because that mid bug is pretty good right now, and maybe later I pick up a bug I am already into, and maybe I form an attachment with the mid bug I picked up.

There is no texture to a game without friction. I don't feel any joy in having my favorite Pokemon if it took 0 effort to make this team and there is no effort put into using it.

Pokemon do not need "unique playstyles" because they aren't unique characters mechanically, and that's okay, they are most often w variants to click moves at different strength levels, and that works very well when they carefully craft you to get them at different points and be better at different points.

For the record: No! Atlus games are better RPGs for sure, but frankly no, it and honestly most RPGs don't have many 'good' playstyles. In almost every Megaten game I've ever played the objectively best play in every single fight is to just buff party/debuff enemy/spam effective moves, throw in a heal here and there, boss has a "Warning: Block or die" turn, rinse repeat baby. And honestly that's true for a lot of turn based party RPGs.

RPGs as numbers games often fall into simple loops with objectively better playstyles and that's fine. Pokemon is supposed to be interesting in that you craft your party, but I don't find any joy in doing that when it's really easy, it's that simple.



edit: Rereading this it kinda comes off as snappy and tbh that's because I am kinda feeling that way bc I am not feeling great IRL, not anyone here's fault and my bad, but like, I'm not upset if anyone disagrees or think you're wrong if you get different joy from mons, but I feel like y'all are trying to say my idea of what Pokemon should be is invalid, even though it is kind of what Pokemon started as.

It's honestly something that is a modern game design thing where I feel like most people think of game design as just how to optimally make someone feel good/fun but I think that's really just based on your goal. To me, friction is fun and makes things feel more rewarding, and I think that balancing around every Pokemon having a kit from the jump and being solid makes it impossible to have any sense of balance.

And I want balance not for difficulty but because of friction. I want to use my favorites sometimes, but I want it to feel rewarding when I do, because it took effort.

The way the series is heading in we're getting close to being able to catch basically any mon available in the game within 3 hours of starting and it being good. You play games like Pokemon Go and you login swarmed with starters, Pikachu, Eevee, popular Pokemon. Remember when Eevee was rare and Eeveelution statlines were powerful? Remember when pseudos were in one random lategame/postgame location and you had to spend an hour to train it up? Remember when Starters were rare and they didn't plop all of them into a DLC?

Actually, to be fair, I do think the DLC making you do quests to unlock those is actually kinda cool tbh, that is kind of friction that I like, though it's funny how fanservicey it is.

Like, even the postgame should matter. I think having a Tyranitar should mean something. It used to mean a lot in games like GSC, now you just catch it.

 

[CynicalGiant]

the objectively best play

like I said in the post you replied to, this is not a real thing. this is a mostly online brainworm, there is nothing forcing you to use the strongest thing and you almost never need to do it whether its pokemon or an atlus game or final fantasy or dragon quest or whatever. who cares if you used the objectively best and most optimal route or not.

RPGs as numbers games often fall into simple loops with objectively better playstyles and that's fine.

people say this all the time to disparage turn based games but this is true of like literally any video game with numbers, turn based or not. there is always a best option, and it doesn't really matter. the point of video games is to have fun, and rpgs excel at player expression and playstyle variety. your advocacy for constantly switching out and discarding members as you progress is not "better game design" it is simply a playstyle preference.

edit: also, you can beat rpgs that insist that you have to use status effects and spam block or stat ups by never doing those things if you are stubborn enough. part of the fun of rpgs for me personally is they can often be open ended enough that you can be creative in ways that fly in the face of the developer's intentions, lmao.

 

[ant4456]

like I said in the post you replied to, this is not a real thing. this is a mostly online brainworm, there is nothing forcing you to use the strongest thing and you almost never need to do it whether its pokemon or an atlus game or final fantasy or dragon quest or whatever. who cares if you used the objectively best and most optimal route or not.

people say this all the time to disparage turn based games but this is true of like literally any video game with numbers, turn based or not. there is always a best option, and it doesn't really matter. the point of video games is to have fun, and rpgs excel at player expression and playstyle variety. your advocacy for constantly switching out and discarding members as you progress is not "better game design" it is simply a playstyle preference.

if you replied before I edited reread it because none of this matches my actual point

 

[CynicalGiant]

To me, friction is fun and makes things feel more rewarding, and I think that balancing around every Pokemon having a kit from the jump and being solid makes it impossible to have any sense of balance.

I don't think it's impossible, they just have to get more creative with encounter and move design.

I don't personally find it rewarding to use the bad party member for most of the game until they suddenly become amazing. They should probably support that kind of playstyle still but like I'm not sure it was ever popular even like 30 years ago. I'm also not sure how much of the fabled having to switch out party members because they fell off thing was true in Pokemon. I've used Fearow thru an entire playthru of gen 1 without ever feeling like the 20 less base attack compared to Dodrio mattered.

 

[ant4456]

I don't think it's impossible, they just have to get more creative with encounter and move design.

I don't personally find it rewarding to use the bad party member for most of the game until they suddenly become amazing. They should probably support that kind of playstyle still but like I'm not sure it was ever popular even like 30 years ago. I'm also not sure how much of the fabled having to switch out party members because they fell off thing was true in Pokemon. I've used Fearow thru an entire playthru of gen 1 without ever feeling like the 20 less base attack compared to Dodrio mattered.

at the end of the day I don't mind if we disagree but ngl the "you just have optimal brainworms" thing was a bit tilting

my favorite pokemon are like, ultra necrozma, dialga, espeon, sylveon. garchomp, scolipede, tyranitar, etc. my favorites are not "suboptimal" lol they're basically all good pokemon with good stats good moves etc.

at the end of the day, you go down the most popular pokemon lists and most of them used to be a lot harder to train or to catch in the first place. and i think that its unhealthy for the franchise where it feels like the bug catching element doesnt matter anymore. the rarest bugs that did exist are now super common and super easy to get and use mechanically

lets use eevee as an example because as its popularity has maintained consistent you can see the progression

-eevee starts in gen 1 as a pokemon you can only get one of per playthrough

-eevee in gen 2 you get one but eggs exist (not a problem tbh idt thats bad necessarily)

-eevee isnt in hoenn

-eevee is once per game gift in sinnoh once more edit: and the trophy garden as a rare encounter im dumb i forgot that

-eevee in b2w2 is hidden in a grass patch under castelia sewers with other cute pokemon as a rare spawn, i myself have spent upwards of 15 minutes getting unlucky there, before

-eevee in kalos is in the route north of the second gym, not that rare, and also directly in the path you need to take to progress

-eevee appears right at the first route of island 2 in alola and you can catch eeveelutions as semi rare spawns next to the battle royale route

-eevee is super easy to find in galar and you can easily catch every eeveelution, one randomly spawns at level 60 at the island with like every fucking rare pokemon in the game every single day

-in paldea you can literally just get eeveelutions like everywhere so easily they just spawn. there's a fixed guaranteed spawn and two general areas for I think every single eeveelution to spawn at


they made diamonds (i know diamonds arent actually that rare or smth w/e) as common and as easy to obtain as dirt. is how i see it and why i think its a problem, progression feels like its dying

im not excited to use my favorite pokemon anymore in any of the modern games

 

[CynicalGiant]

at the end of the day I don't mind if we disagree but ngl the "you just have optimal brainworms" thing was a bit tilting

because you kept saying every other sentence objectively this objectively that, wasting time not using the best thing, etc., I didn't mean it as an insult, I apologize if it came off that way. I also have brainworms that stops me from doing certain things in games. I just don't think rationalizing it makes much sense. I can't get myself to use old pokemon in a new gen. I can't get myself to use more than 1 pokemon of the same type in a team. I could come up with like some grand theory of game design why these are optimal and good but I don't see a point. It's all preference.

im not excited to use my favorite pokemon anymore in any of the modern games

I don't really understand why. I've read all your posts about it and I'm still not sure why you would feel less excited to use your favorites simply because there's other equally as strong or stronger pokemon available at the same time or earlier.

speaking of eevee, my favorite electric pokemon in gen 1 are so much worse and available later than Jolteon is but I still stubbornly used Electabuzz or Magneton even tho I was actively nerfing myself by not just taking the faster and stronger electric type available like 10-15 levels earlier. I'm not sure that even back in the gen 1 days that they were ever like fully on the high levels of friction you must choose and make hard choices at all times thing.

 

[Ironmage]

Meanwhile, I like Dhelmise. Which has been a lategame, 1% encounter in all of its appearances. I don't find its position rewarding. It means that if I want to do ingame playthrough things with Dhelmise, there's a lot of blowing through things with the easy options to get to it followed by not a lot of time to use it. And Dhelmise is an easy one: it's not so overwhelming that it couldn't be any earlier. Some of my other favourites aren't even that lucky. I want the power floor to be high enough there's still game left by the time e.g., Iron Valiant becomes available.

 

[Esserise]

Meanwhile, I like Dhelmise. Which has been a lategame, 1% encounter in all of its appearances. I don't find its position rewarding. It means that if I want to do ingame playthrough things with Dhelmise, there's a lot of blowing through things with the easy options to get to it followed by not a lot of time to use it. And Dhelmise is an easy one: it's not so overwhelming that it couldn't be any earlier. Some of my other favourites aren't even that lucky. I want the power floor to be high enough there's still game left by the time e.g., Iron Valiant becomes available.

For what it’s worth, you can get a Lv13-18 Dhelmise before the first badge in SwSh by fishing it up at 10% odds if you have the DLC. It’s a weird case where even though it’s not in the Isle of Armor Dex, it’s still, for some reason, in the encounter pool for Challenge Beach fishing spots. It’s how I used one for the main playthrough once, I was very happy to discover that it was an option.

 

[ant4456]

because you kept saying every other sentence objectively this objectively that, wasting time not using the best thing, etc., I didn't mean it as an insult, I apologize if it came off that way. I also have brainworms that stops me from doing certain things in games. I just don't think rationalizing it makes much sense. I can't get myself to use old pokemon in a new gen. I can't get myself to use more than 1 pokemon of the same type in a team. I could come up with like some grand theory of game design why these are optimal and good but I don't see a point. It's all preference.

for full disclosure i have teambuilding brainworms as follows and if i have others idt i know them:

-i will only use 1 monotype per team
-i will try to avoid overlapping types at all costs

excited to use your favorites simply because there's other equally as strong or stronger pokemon available at the same time or earlier.

its not less excited because other strong pokemon exist, its that i think part of the fun of these pokemon is their rarity and effort put into mons

too much of a good thing kinda deal. the more they throw my favorite pokemon in my face the less i find it interesting, and the easier it is to train the less rewarding it feels for me to do it. i havent trained a hydreigon but if someone does that in BW i go "wow thats a lot of commitment and thats kinda cool"

i think there is smth fun about being committed to using one of your favorite pokemon that is more rewarding than it just being easy to catch and use

Meanwhile, I like Dhelmise. Which has been a lategame, 1% encounter in all of its appearances. I don't find its position rewarding. It means that if I want to do ingame playthrough things with Dhelmise, there's a lot of blowing through things with the easy options to get to it followed by not a lot of time to use it. And Dhelmise is an easy one: it's not so overwhelming that it couldn't be any earlier. Some of my other favourites aren't even that lucky. I want the power floor to be high enough there's still game left by the time e.g., Iron Valiant becomes available.

to be clear im not defending the status quo im saying its not good, i think dhelmise should be available earlier and stuff, i dont think it should be that rare or hard to get

i think they need to rebalance how they do it across the board. pseudos, starters, eeveelutions, trade evos, volcarona and the works need to become more rare and mons like dhelmise need to be less rare imo, and i think that would lead to more naturally trying dhelmise and more people appreciating it honestly

since we're on a comp forum i think most here have had the experience of using mons in comp that you think are lame and then coming to like them over time, that is a passive benefit of having there be some level of matching in rarity/popularity and ease

ive defended hoenn balance to start this convo and i think as i feel we are coming more to an understanding, there are def some times where they were way too conservative

i was gonna use masquerain on my xd playthrough team and go with Vaporeon/Flygon/Masquerain/Magneton as a core 4 and then pick two extras as it went on, but Masquerain is literally actually too shit for even me who spent hours at Mt Battle getting a Vibrava to do it. Intimidate and Fighting resist would be nice except its stats pre buff are even more terrible, you have to train it unevolved longer to get IIRC Water Pulse, Bug/Flying is Physical, bad level up moveset and limited TM availability in XD make it much worse

that being said, i found making that team enjoyable and had a few mons i hadnt trained before, Houndoom/Magneton i hadn't trained before and were very solid, Flygon it was my second time using one besides for B2W2 and Breloom its been a while, I did have an issue kinda like you described where the game abruptly ends at like Level 45 and at the point I finally got the Flygon I worked hard for the game just ended lol

But I had fun

 

[pika pal]

Here's a major reason I dislike mons that fall off by design (this is a dislike, not an argument for optimization): A mon designed to drop off is essentially telling me my investment has an end of life, so why would I put the time into that instead of something that I can use until the end of the run? Like if Solrock is going to just be bad after I pass Winona and get into the Water-Heavy late game of Hoenn, I have to replace it or just accept that I'm down a team member for what is ostensibly the "harder" late game, certainly a very encounter dense one with the remaining Gyms, Team dungeon, and Victory Road.

Pokemon isn't in the vein of many other Monster RPGs where you have Fusion type mechanics to "upgrade" your old team members by using them as a base for what takes their place once they fall off. When my Slime in Dragon Quest Monsters is too weak to keep up, I fuse it into Drake Slime or a Garuda that holds up better, but is also stronger thanks to inheriting skills/stats such that my time is rewarded more than if I had Scouted and outright replaced the Slime. If I am going to have to invest time into a period where a Mon will not contribute to the team, training something that has ramp up time feels like a reward, whereas a fall-off feels like paying back a loan or a Crutch Character's reliance coming back to bite (especially since early Pokemon did not have inherent split EXP like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest style JRPGs).

Designing Pokemon that will not keep up is counterproductive to what Pokemon brands itself around, which is treating the Pokemon as companions or characters rather than gameplay units. This feels at odds with the Gameplay design of mons with an effective expiration date as well, vs Lategame additions that stick around once they're in.

 

[ant4456]

Here's a major reason I dislike mons that fall off by design (this is a dislike, not an argument for optimization): A mon designed to drop off is essentially telling me my investment has an end of life, so why would I put the time into that instead of something that I can use until the end of the run? Like if Solrock is going to just be bad after I pass Winona and get into the Water-Heavy late game of Hoenn, I have to replace it or just accept that I'm down a team member for what is ostensibly the "harder" late game, certainly a very encounter dense one with the remaining Gyms, Team dungeon, and Victory Road.

Ideally you like Solrock and wanna run it, and if you tried Solrock for mechanical reasons *maybe you like Solrock more than you did before*

I do agree that it shouldn't be as focused and we can't forget there are trainers between the bosses, but tbh I'm not a huge fan of monotype trainers partially due to this, I think type effectiveness can become less interesting mechanically with monotype trainere being the focus of bosses

But... Solrock isn't bad, either. I did earlier that like "Early Mid Lategame", and I see Solrock as like

"Unavailable - Great - Mediocre"

Which is how a lot of Pokemon without evos kinda tend to be tbh, they are great when you catch them and falloff but not as hard as say, a Raticate.

I think a Unova example would be Durant, where I outright think Hustle is a balancing factor based on where it's placed:

You catch it and with minimal training its a great counter/check to 3/4 of the Elite 4 you're just about to face.

If you did use that Watchog and decided eh I don't care much about it at the endgame, there's still an option for you.

I think that as much as Pokemon is about committing to your faves, I think it's also about finding your faves, it's also discovery and exploration. Trying shit out, and also choice.

For a lot of these Pokemon, these are kinda the best chances they're going to have to get used if they aren't already destined to be popular. Interesting mechanical implementations.

I don't think people would care about Dunsparce as much if it was common or had good stats. I think these mechanical stories and these mechanical storylines should be a big part of the games. The discovery and tragedy of finding this rare as fuck Pokemon that kinda sucks and thinking it would evolve and it doesn't is something fairly unique to a monster collector and is an ongoing joke/tale like 25 years later.

Designing Pokemon that will not keep up is counterproductive to what Pokemon brands itself around,

This is kinda ranty so consider this like entirely disconnected:

I don't like the *modern* (there is a distinction) Pokemon "brand".

The Pokemon brand wasn't always like this, nor were the games always designed like this. Like Bug Types as a whole, even. I prefer the Pokemon as it was envisioned and iterated upon, I do not like the modern Pokemon brand.

This doesn't mean I don't like Pokemon, I still like SV, excited for Women Love Women, Champions is gonna be a blast etc. But I think the Brand TM is getting a bit insufferable lmao

What the Pokemon brand represents now is Plushies Marketing. 'Coincidentally', they're getting better at making the Pokemon they want to be popular better competitively. The Pokemon they make merch drops of are also the ones getting the most buffed in-game and availability shoved down our throats.

Pokemon has never been more of a popularity contest. Shit like Unova's "Charizard Bridge" seems insanely tame compared to nowadays where they just decided "We're gonna try to make Piplup a third mascot this year" in 2021 and made like four animated short movie videos and half the point of the entire Year of Sinnoh was to push fucking Piplup.

I saw on the wiki the other day that nowadays the anime just has Shiny Legendary/Mythical Pokemon like, semi often. Shiny Rayquaza was an insanely cool and hard to get Pokemon (legit) and they made a Raid and now everyone and their mother has one

Penny exists in her entirety
SWSH's Gigantamax selection
Meowth having two different Regional forms
When you log into Pokemon Go you see straight-up several starter Pokemon at your feet
TCG sets they do
The merch they make
The Pokemon they show in ads

I'm not a fan of fanservice in general. I think I've said several times in this thread years ago I think shit like Volo being a Cynthia ancestor (and her getting several in general???) is cringe.

There is plenty of Pokemon media and now more such as Pokopia where you can get more of your favorites, without having balance problems in an RPG, but cynically I feel like the major rebalance I've been yapping about is all about Brand Synergy tbh. None of these changes help Solrock more than they help Greninja Charizard Sylveon and the rest, who are all infinitely easier to get nowadays, and giving less reason for them to mechanically shine.

They are cramming popular Pokemon down our throats in every single media source, now, and it's genuinely a bit tiring.

I can't pinpoint like one exact spot where it feels like they just went all in but honestly USUM Rocket post-game is probably the closest thing to a start, with the push for Eevee as a secondary mascot being the beginning of The End Times. That was the first game where they made shinies super easy to get, the game super easy in general, all of the rare Pokemon in Kanto you can just Get, fairly easily, Bulbasaur is in Viridian Forest etc.

Waow you can ride Charizard and fly. Also you can just find Charizards

Pay $50 for Mew

It feels like the devs of the games were at one point more agnostic and obviously knew what was popular, but didn't go all in on like, feeding into that. And I do mean the devs and not just the Brand because I do not think the TPC marketing department wrote Legends Arceus

Alternative Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire script if it took place 30 years after Gen 1, written post-2020:

And then in Sootopolis City Steven walks to the player, and then "BARRY OAT" APPEARS and he battles you and when you win he's like "Heh, smell ya later!" and you go and battle Kyogre/Groudon. And then you catch one and you meet Mary Oat, who is the Female version of Gary Oak and she's like "You see I knew all of this would happen because we are a cool family tree and awesome." She has a Pidgeot and knows all of the world mythology

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

And I want balance not for difficulty but because of friction.

Here's a major reason I dislike mons that fall off by design (this is a dislike, not an argument for optimization): A mon designed to drop off is essentially telling me my investment has an end of life, so why would I put the time into that instead of something that I can use until the end of the run?

So here's the thing. Ant has a point, but right now, the franchise is very unconducive to friction because everything is too freaking easy. You might as well try to get friction on ice.

But when, for example, you need to deal with a difficult boss or don't have great long-term options available at the time, the early-game monster that ends up falling off is pretty valuable. Good old Radiant Dawn Sothe here is a pretty good example of that.

You know he's going to fall off, but you're getting your teeth kicked in, so there's absolutely a lot to be gained in stopping that.

If say, Brawly were tougher, Dustox would have been able to have a similar role in RSE. But since he isn't, you might as well unga through and not bother.

 

[ant4456]

View attachment 821660

So here's the thing. Ant has a point, but right now, the franchise is very unconducive to friction because everything is too freaking easy. You might as well try to get friction on ice.

But when, for example, you need to deal with a difficult boss or don't have great long-term options, the early-game monster that ends up falling off is pretty valuable. Good old Radiant Dawn Sothe here is a pretty good example of that.

You know he's going to fall off, but you're getting your teeth kicked in, so there's absolutely a lot to be gained in stopping that.

If say, Brawly were tougher, Dustox would have been able to have a similar role in RSE. But since he isn't, you might as well unga through and not bother.

pokemon reborn is honestly probably the best game I've played for limiting your options and progression, when you're in the city you got fuckass toptiers like Mightyena and Trubbish (Toxic Spikes W) and then as the game progresses you get more and more options and slowly get an actual team, which makes the progression palpable and mechanical

and even when you have your main team you wanna get some cteam options for bosses

i do agree that difficulty helps overall but i still think they can do more even with the games being fairly easy imo, i dont got much more to say apologies

 

[Esserise]

Here's a major reason I dislike mons that fall off by design (this is a dislike, not an argument for optimization): A mon designed to drop off is essentially telling me my investment has an end of life, so why would I put the time into that instead of something that I can use until the end of the run? Like if Solrock is going to just be bad after I pass Winona and get into the Water-Heavy late game of Hoenn, I have to replace it or just accept that I'm down a team member for what is ostensibly the "harder" late game, certainly a very encounter dense one with the remaining Gyms, Team dungeon, and Victory Road.

Pokemon isn't in the vein of many other Monster RPGs where you have Fusion type mechanics to "upgrade" your old team members by using them as a base for what takes their place once they fall off. When my Slime in Dragon Quest Monsters is too weak to keep up, I fuse it into Drake Slime or a Garuda that holds up better, but is also stronger thanks to inheriting skills/stats such that my time is rewarded more than if I had Scouted and outright replaced the Slime. If I am going to have to invest time into a period where a Mon will not contribute to the team, training something that has ramp up time feels like a reward, whereas a fall-off feels like paying back a loan or a Crutch Character's reliance coming back to bite (especially since early Pokemon did not have inherent split EXP like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest style JRPGs).

Designing Pokemon that will not keep up is counterproductive to what Pokemon brands itself around, which is treating the Pokemon as companions or characters rather than gameplay units. This feels at odds with the Gameplay design of mons with an effective expiration date as well, vs Lategame additions that stick around once they're in.

I would argue that I don’t think GF are necessarily asking or expecting players to be thinking about maximizing the value of their “investment” when it comes to this. I think they anticipate that players, especially children, will probably futz around and experiment with different Pokémon throughout the game. After all, in a blind playthrough, how is the average player supposed to “know” that their Oinkologne will fall off before the endgame, and “know” what the superior options that they could be using instead are?

Your hypothetical question of “Why would I put time into this instead of something I can use until the end?” relies on the player having a lot of advance knowledge, including what the meta of that specific game even looks like — a blank-slate player picking Chikorita in Gold doesn’t know that they’re choosing the starter that’s at a significant disadvantage in Johto’s meta, and that they “should” choose one of the other two if they want to get the most out of their “investment.”

I don’t think it’s necessarily at odds with the series’s ideals, I think the series’s ideals are just more nuanced than “Pokémon are supposed to be your friends and companions.” That’s certainly part of it, of course, but it’s also a monster collecting game. They want players to catch and try out lots of Pokémon in order to figure out not just which ones are effective, but also which ones they like. As a counterpoint, I don’t think GF would particularly love the notion of players identifying and locking in a team of the most efficient six from the jump and condemning everything else they catch to PC purgatory just for the Dex completion reward. If you spent a but of time running a Kecleon, you still built a relationship with that Kecleon even if you don’t take it to the Elite Four. (And if you do take it with you, then you get the relationship of trying to push past harder obstacles together.)

 

[CryoGyro]

I'm generally on ant's side here, and I think I can sum it up as this: in the name of "QOL" and sheer options and a superficial ideal of balance, Pokemon has gotten much worse at generating compelling, emergent stories via gameplay. There have always been issues; for every inexplicably terrible Pokemon like Gen 3 Lileep, there's a grossly overtuned starter like Swampert (my own unpopular opinion is that the starter status quo is one of the worst design choices Pokemon continues to make). Restrictions were always loose and arbitrary at best, to where a Pokemon lacking ideal STAB moves and comprehensive coverage is seen as an unforgivable defect.

But games that 'modernized the formula' only took it further and further. BW took huge strides in filling out offensive options, to where most Pokemon are straightforward beatsticks with no-frills attacks. XY stuffed in as many Pokemon as possible, eliminating a 'baseline experience' that players can relate to each other over, such as memeing about caves full of Zubat or everyone's Sinnoh team. The Switch generations let you just run on up to formerly powerful, elusive, committal Pokemon and snag 'em then and there. Because so many people's Pokemon valuation starts and ends at 'do they look cool,' that became the reality. Utterly interchangeable entries on a list. No implied work or prestige, no positional context, no story to tell. Just the loadout you happened to bring to this grand game of rock-paper-scissors.

People don't tell stories about these games like they used to. While I'm sure a general change in internet culture is a factor, I don't think the games are blameless either. Games are widely mechanically evaluated on 'did it annoy me,' and modern design reflects that, even though annoyance is a premier route to experiences that mean something and stick with you.