(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[R_N]

And let me remind everyone that when that happens it's going to cause 2 (possibly 3) "generation lockouts":

Can't transfer up Pokemon from Gen III-V (RSE, FRLG, DPPl, HGSS, BW, B2W2) to Gen VI (XY & ORAS).
Can't transfer up Pokemon from Gen VI to Gen VII (SM & USUM).
And if you can't send Pokemon directly from Gen VII to HOME that would be a 3rd lockout.

And remember GF's excuse for doing this (and not having ANY way for the games to interact between each) was a "future proofing" plan where Bank will always be the "go-to" app for your transferring need. And that lasted all for 2 years but GF is like a child inventor who makes something and claims big plans with it but soon gets bored of it and discards it for something new. Only hope to prevent a generation lockout is if they make it so Bank directly transfers a Pokemon to HOME. Of course that means you can't transfer a Pokemon from Gen V to VI or VI to VII but, to be fair, the only reason you'd play a past game is for the novelty of it and/or experience what it had to offer (and there's always hacks, especially for the games that can connect via Wifi and using an app that lets you spoof Pokemon).

So to be clear this is not so much "Gamefreak is killing bank in a few years" as it is "the 3DS is dead and it is very possible all service dies within a few years"

Now, that is me at my most pessimistic I'll admit. The Wii & DS wi-fi services were shut down I think in due part to the servers not being theirs and THAT service shutting down (gamespot? gamefly? i dunno, something like that). The "Nintendo Network", used from the 3DS-on, is in-house and in theory could be run for even longer and have no reason to shut down until they do a full overhaul of the system. That could be years, dare I say, even decades!
But it's also possible they just pull the plug on the Wii U & 3DS soon because they're dead services just sitting there not bringing much to the table. And if that happens, then it doesn't matter what gamefreak hoped for, the Bank will be locked out. It needs the wi-fi service to connect your NN account and to the gamefreak cloud servers where all the storage is. There will be no way to dump anything from a gen 7 game into Home because it literally cannot communicate with it. 3DS isn't really built to communicate with Phones*, either, much less the switch. Even if gen 6 & 7 could communicate with each other ala the Pal Park or PokeTransfer, 7 would be the end point.

*I am convinced Nintendo tried at one point, though. In New Leaf's Welcome Amiibo update, it had a new system where you could earn tickets but the way the ticket menu was set up implied it was going to let you grab from multiple sources. Which would makes sense if it could somehow tie into the then-upcoming Mobile game; but nothing ever came of it. The fact gen 7 had a "Go" symbol and strings about recieving pokemon from Go makes me think gamefreak thought about it as well.




But I'm glad you talked about items because it is insane how they have never implemented an item trading tool. Like...why not? There's lots of valuable items, many one-offs, why not just cut the pokemon-holding middlemen and let us swap them directly? And also, let us transfer items through POkemon Home, you cowards???

 

[Worldie]

But I'm glad you talked about items because it is insane how they have never implemented an item trading tool. Like...why not? There's lots of valuable items, many one-offs, why not just cut the pokemon-holding middlemen and let us swap them directly? And also, let us transfer items through POkemon Home, you cowards???

My guess is the same for which the Hidden Abilities are the only stat you are currently not able to manipulate. They like to release certain items via events, or keep them in specific games.

 

[R_N]

My guess is the same for which the Hidden Abilities are the only stat you are currently not able to manipulate. They like to release certain items via events, or keep them in specific games.

But a lot of items aren't like that at all, though. And if they really wanted to limit certain items all they have to do is prevent THOSE from being transferred. Fine, whatever, you dont want us to have easily transferrable *checks notes* gigantamix. Let me store all these choice items, half of which you just give away anyway.

 

[6Roggenrolas]

One annoying thing that's the root of a lot of evolution complaints (at least for me) is that evolution methods are static from game to game. Aside from a few mons that constantly change because their original evolution methods were bad ideas like Milotic and the location-based ones, evolution methods have usually stayed the same since their introduction. This seems particularly silly to me with the level-based evolutions, since when a Pokemon appears and at what level can often vary from game to game.

At its best, the unwillingness to change evo levels results in Pokemon like Deino and Zweilous being saved for late-game areas like XY Victory Road where they'll be reasonably easy to evolve. At its worst, it leads to nightmares like trying to use Noibat throughout a USUM playthrough.

 

[sb879]

Sword and Shield have a lot of cool visual flair for their bosses, and one of my favorites is that when they Dynamax, the camera then pans down to see your miniscule Pokemon:

Of course, you're only miniscule if you're not Dynamaxing yourself, in which case you'd think some different angle would be used to show off the kaiju-esque nature of the fight...but nope, the same angle is used, panning down to see literally nothing:

 

[R_N]

I know I have complaiend about this before but guess what, the annoynace got a sequel
LEVITATE
When a pokemon has Levitate it never gets other abilities. At its worst this means we get the nonsense of Trapinch with 3 full abilities that all turn into Levitate.
The usual explanation for this is oh, well, it's so it makes sense that these floating pokemon are always floating. Except in gen 4 Bronzor/Bronzong had Heatproof and then got Heavy Metal in gen 5. And despite this huge glaring exception they both kept making Levitate-only Pokemon and never backfilled the older ones.

UNTIL

Gen 8 pre-release shows that Galar Weezing has two abilitie! They added Neutralizing Gas! And then, after some datamining, that also applies to Koffing & normal Weezing AND they all got hidden abilities! (Stench, Misty Surge).

but did they take this opportunity to give fun new toys to any of the other Levitate pokemon? no. Why? Why keep these pokemon with only Levitate? There's plenty of abilities that could go to the POkemon and find interesting niches and so on.

 

[Sereg]

I know I have complaiend about this before but guess what, the annoynace got a sequel
LEVITATE
When a pokemon has Levitate it never gets other abilities. At its worst this means we get the nonsense of Trapinch with 3 full abilities that all turn into Levitate.
The usual explanation for this is oh, well, it's so it makes sense that these floating pokemon are always floating. Except in gen 4 Bronzor/Bronzong had Heatproof and then got Heavy Metal in gen 5. And despite this huge glaring exception they both kept making Levitate-only Pokemon and never backfilled the older ones.

UNTIL

Gen 8 pre-release shows that Galar Weezing has two abilitie! They added Neutralizing Gas! And then, after some datamining, that also applies to Koffing & normal Weezing AND they all got hidden abilities! (Stench, Misty Surge).

but did they take this opportunity to give fun new toys to any of the other Levitate pokemon? no. Why? Why keep these pokemon with only Levitate? There's plenty of abilities that could go to the POkemon and find interesting niches and so on.

This is one of the reasons for my pet mod Tetrabilities.

 

[6Roggenrolas]

The whole "levitate mons don't get multiple abilities unless we think of a new gimmick right when they come out" is one of my all-time pet peeves.

Wanted to give a shout out to the time they took it away from a certain smiling purple ghost, replaced it with a much less unique ability... and then failed to give it a second ability or HA despite the fact that it no longer had Levitate. Neat.

 

[Kurona]

Stuff like Levitate really makes me feel like we should have certain 'innate' traits alongside more overt abilities. Pokémon like Flygon and Weezing (or Venomoth and Magnemite...) aren't exactly getting hit by ground moves any time soon, but that shouldn't also take away from their having an ability.

 

[Pikachu315111]

But I'm glad you talked about items because it is insane how they have never implemented an item trading tool. Like...why not? There's lots of valuable items, many one-offs, why not just cut the pokemon-holding middlemen and let us swap them directly? And also, let us transfer items through POkemon Home, you cowards???

Especially with Bottle Caps and Nature Mints (and the Ability Capsule). If they let us transfer items then we wouldn't have to start fresh each gen as dedicated players would probably have a stockpile of those items (or a stockpile of BP they can spend on those items) they can send over. And in SwSh the Digging Bros can be used to also find Bottle Caps and Golden Bottle Caps plus a ton of evo stones and selling fodder only for 500 Watts which if you do Raid often enough you'll have a HUGE abundance of.

NEW ANNOYING THING: But speaking of Which, GF, could you have made using the Digging Duo any slower? Seriously, I would pay double the amount their asking if the Digging Duo would just list the items they found instead of the tedious cycle of finding an item & asking me if they want them to continue digging. First off, why would I want them to stop? There's no risk-reward thing here, every item they find goes to you. And then sometimes it looks like they finish but they get a second wind and we start over again. JUST LIST THE ITEMS! Why did you make such an easy task take so long?

One annoying thing that's the root of a lot of evolution complaints (at least for me) is that evolution methods are static from game to game. Aside from a few mons (...) This seems particularly silly to me with the level-based evolutions, since when a Pokemon appears and at what level can often vary from game to game.

At its best, the unwillingness to change evo levels results in Pokemon like Deino and Zweilous being saved for late-game areas like XY Victory Road where they'll be reasonably easy to evolve. At its worst, it leads to nightmares like trying to use Noibat throughout a USUM playthrough.

And even more annoying is that, of all gens, SwSh would have been the generation to do it because of, say it with me, Dexit. A good justification for Dexit would have been actually looking at every Pokemon they were including in the Galar Dex and adjusting things like their stats, movepool, Ability, and other things like evolution level to be more align with current design and level curve. BUT NOPE!

Stuff like Levitate really makes me feel like we should have certain 'innate' traits alongside more overt abilities. Pokémon like Flygon and Weezing (or Venomoth and Magnemite...) aren't exactly getting hit by ground moves any time soon, but that shouldn't also take away from their having an ability.

I'm really torn between agreeing but disagreeing. On one hand it makes sense for them to just make it an innate trait for some Pokemon to just be flying/floating without needing a specific Ability. On the other hand I also understand why from a mechanic perspective why GF wouldn't want to do that as that would be giving a lot of Pokemon an additional boon.

Maybe GF should make a new item that only works with Pokemon who are flying/floating but don't have the Flying-type that gives them the Ground immunity. And if this item is given to a Pokemon with Levitate it'll allow that Pokemon to switch to another Ability.

In addition I'd also change some of the Ground-type animations like with Earthquake and Magnitude to show the ground rising up underneath them explaining why even Pokemon floating low to the ground are hit by it.

Finally, and this is a change I'd do for all Types that have an immunity, I'd make some moves of the immune Type still do damage. For Flying-type, I get why Earthquake and Magnitude does no damage but why not the Bone moves, Drill Rush, Mud moves, & Sand Tomb? For Ground/Steel/Fairy/Dark why don't the Electric/Poison/Dragon/Psychic moves that make contact don't do any damage?

 

[SamuraiCelebi]

In addition I'd also change some of the Ground-type animations like with Earthquake and Magnitude to show the ground rising up underneath them explaining why even Pokemon floating low to the ground are hit by it.

So...basically using the Stadium/Colosseum/XD move animations in the core series games?
That seems reasonable to me!

 

[Kurona]

Starting to get just a little bit sick of the Gigantamax Raid Events.

I'm actually okay with the Delibird one given it isn't lasting long, it gives better rewards, it's easy to defeat and it doesn't seem overly common. But I just wasted two wishing pieces in a specific den looking for certain Pokémon (specifically HA Mandibuzz or HA Grimmsnarl), and I got a Gigantamax Snorlax and Gigantamax Centiskorch instead. I'm sick of encountering them so commonly in normal daily dens, but why would they spawn in specific dens I'm trying to hunt in? Given how these events have run since launch, will I actually ever be able to just use Wishing Pieces normally, or will I always be stuck with Pokémon I don't care about catching when I've had well over a month to do so?

This could have been so simple to get right. Restrict event raids to certain special dens, or have them be the pink laser exclusive ones. But instead after a few days they just become an annoyance when you're trying to find literally anything but them; it actually takes the exciting randomness factor out of what makes Raids so great when you're just seeing that stupid useless Giga fire bug again.

 

[Cheryl.]

That one scene near the end of Sword and Shield’s main story where Chairman Rose and Leon are talking by themselves and the game decides to just have them portrayed as still images for seemingly no reason whatsoever.

The scene may be important to the story and all but Rose wasn’t even talking about any backstory or anything, he was just talking about the Galar region and the game just decides to make them into a storybook. It doesn’t even look that great either which is the worst part. Definitely feels like a symptom of the game being rushed. (Another weird scene would be when you defeat Eternatus and the music suddenly goes into rapid overdrive when Zacian and Zamazenta jump off, feels really weird there lol)

 

[R_N]

That one scene near the end of Sword and Shield’s main story where Chairman Rose and Leon are talking by themselves and the game decides to just have them portrayed as still images for seemingly no reason whatsoever.

The scene may be important to the story and all but Rose wasn’t even talking about any backstory or anything, he was just talking about the Galar region and the game just decides to make them into a storybook. It doesn’t even look that great either which is the worst part. Definitely feels like a symptom of the game being rushed. (Another weird scene would be when you defeat Eternatus and the music suddenly goes into rapid overdrive when Zacian and Zamazenta jump off, feels really weird there lol)

Maybe it was intentional and they wanted Galar to look its best in a way the in-game engine couldn't handle but it just looks bad and out of place. I have issues with SWSH's towns but they're generally good at looking nice in the distance so having a more "fleshed out" Wyndon doesn't feel too out of step for a cutscene. So yeahI feel pretty confident this was supposed to be an actual cutscene, yeah.
XY's weird artistic cutaway felt very purposeful. AZ is ancient and the story he's telling is presented like it is on some scrolls or an old story book. It even has a bit of faux animation and such to accent its moments. Also the contents of that flashback probably would have been pretty complext o render?

SWSH is just 2 guys talking on a roof over still images that feel like cleaned up concept art for how a cutscene was supposed to function. And it's not very interesting visually.

 

[Pikachu315111]

I just realized something. You all remember how many of us complained/joked how the Lucario and Latios/Latias that was just given to us in XY and ORAS, respectively, were "welfare" Pokemon. Well, while Gen VII didn't give you an "welfare" Pokemon as far as I can remember, Sword & Shield did: Eternatus. Yup, want to have an easy time against Leon? Just use Eternatus as it seems like Leon's team was built to lose against it:

Aegislash: Eternatus has Flamethrower.
Dragapult & Haxorus: Any of Eternatus's Dragon-type moves would work. Looking at them individually, Dragapult may go first but Eternatus has high HP and good defense it can take a physical hit from it, meanwhile Dragapult's HP and Special Defense isn't. Haxorus is slower than Eternatus and also has lower HP and Special Defense (however if for some reason Eternatus doesn't knock it out it can hit back with a powerful Outrage or Earthquake).
Starter: Being Dragon-type, Eternatus resists all the Starter's STABs. While Inteleon and Rillaboom have Ground-type moves they probably wouldn't hit it hard enough before getting knocked out (especially in Rillaboom's case being a Grass gorilla against a Poison dragon).
Gigatnamax Charizard: Not only does it resist the Fire STAB, but Eternatus specifically comes with a 100 Power Dragon-type move that does double the damage against Dyanamaxed and Gigantamaxed Pokemon.

Now, not to make it a complete cakewalk for Eternatus, Leon does have an ace up his sleeve (which changes depending on the Starter he took to train) which all you could argue be a counter for Eternatus: Seismitoad, Mr. Rime, & Rhyperior. But still, you got to be playing pretty sloppy to let Eternatus faint against them.

Another Annoying Thing: Concerning both Hop & Leon's Champion Tournament rematches: both only use 5 Pokemon despite having previously battling with a whole party of 6. Leon drops Haxorus and Hop drops Pincurchin. Why? Infact why not have all trainers use 6 Pokemon, why does every opponent only use 5? Same thing happened in Gen VII though some trainers like Professor Kukui (and in USUM had both Hau and Gladion) did use 6 Pokemon. But, GF, this is POST GAME additional content, you can make it tougher!

 

[Kurona]

Really embracing the first word of this thread title here; but every time I see that the move has been renamed to "vise grip" I feel immense physical pain.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Really embracing the first word of this thread title here; but every time I see that the move has been renamed to "vise grip" I feel immense physical pain.

Technically it should have been "vise" in the first place as the move is referencing the clamping tool and in the US (which where the translation team is) we spell it as "vise". "Vice" is also a word in the US but they're various definitions to it with many having negative meanings. Not sure why they originally used the Commonwealth British spelling unless maybe the one who named it was from the UK; also don't know why it took them 6 generations to correct it/decided to correct it.

 

[Galarian Meloetta]

Technically it should have been "vise" in the first place as the move is referencing the clamping tool and in the US (which where the translation team is) we spell it as "vise". "Vice" is also a word in the US but they're various definitions to it with many having negative meanings. Not sure why they originally used the Commonwealth British spelling unless maybe the one who named it was from the UK; also don't know why it took them 6 generations to correct it/decided to correct it.

Kind of weird they decided to fix it now considering this is the generation in Galar, a region based on Britain where they have used stereotypical british slang/words as much as they can fit in.

Was it Vice Grip in LGPE, or did they change it in those games?

 

[Vinc2612]

I think that move renaming as a whole is a little thing that annoys me more than it should.

Since gen 1, we had the moves Intimidation (Glare) and Ténèbres (Night Shade). In gen 2, they added the Dark Type (Ténèbres in French) m. In gen 3, they added abilities, including Intimidation (Intimidate).

Then years after in generation 6, they decided that it was too confusing, renaming them into Regard Médusant (Astonishing Glare) and Ombre Nocturne (Night Shadow).
Those were okay translations I guess. I understand the need and Regard Médusant is a great name at least for the pun.

But in gen 8, they did a couple of renaming for... No reason? At least I can't find any. And the names became terrible. Worst offenders are Fléau which became Gigotage (from Flail to Wriggling) and especially Vol-Vie (Absorb) which became Vole-Vie (from Life Theft to Steals Life). The conjugaison was not needed, it sounds worst, and every time I read it, it just looks like they made a typo.

 

[Imperial Magala]

We have two pokemon lines (Wooper and Mudkip) based on Axolotls and Giant Salamanders and neither of them have regular or shiny pallettes in mud brown. Pink and blue are more colorful, but brown still fits them being ground types and Gen 3 had too many purple water shines in my opinion.

 

[Pikachu315111]

View attachment 215053View attachment 215054
We have two pokemon lines (Wooper and Mudkip) based on Axolotls and Giant Salamanders and neither of them have regular or shiny pallettes in mud brown. Pink and blue are more colorful, but brown still fits them being ground types and we already have Gen 3 had too many purple water shines in my opinion.

Well the thing is GF didn't pick their Shiny Colors. Up till Gen 5 the Shiny Colors were just the next hexadecimal code. Gen 6 and beyond is when Shiny Colors were hand selected.

I guess a big question for many fans would be should GF go back and update older Pokemon Shiny colors? Now while I'm sure many of you are thinking "only go back and change some of the bland ones", thing is that decision is up to GF and we've seen they don't quite think the same way the players do. So this comes with the warning that, if they do, that some favorites may get changes and some blands ones may be left alone.

 

[Galarian Meloetta]

Well the thing is GF didn't pick their Shiny Colors. Up till Gen 5 the Shiny Colors were just the next hexadecimal code. Gen 6 and beyond is when Shiny Colors were hand selected.

I guess a big question for many fans would be should GF go back and update older Pokemon Shiny colors? Now while I'm sure many of you are thinking "only go back and change some of the bland ones", thing is that decision is up to GF and we've seen they don't quite think the same way the players do. So this comes with the warning that, if they do, that some favorites may get changes and some blands ones may be left alone.

"Just make everything green, the players love green shinies, right?" - someone at Game Freak, probably

 

[R_N]

It's gamefreak so we're going to find out that starting in gen they just hand "paint" every single model in their shiny colors so they have to cut them entirely moving forward

apparently the shiny pokemon are stored internally as separate models so, like. I wouldn't be surprised. It was the same thing they did with sprites but it's infinitely more wasteful....

 

[DreamPrince]

It's gamefreak so we're going to find out that starting in gen they just hand "paint" every single model in their shiny colors so they have to cut them entirely moving forward

apparently the shiny pokemon are stored internally as separate models so, like. I wouldn't be surprised. It was the same thing they did with sprites but it's infinitely more wasteful....

Why though? Wouldn’t it save them time to just retexture the existing model?

 

[CPU]

Well the thing is GF didn't pick their Shiny Colors. Up till Gen 5 the Shiny Colors were just the next hexadecimal code. Gen 6 and beyond is when Shiny Colors were hand selected.

I've heard this before but haven't seen any real evidence for it. What does "next hexadecimal code" mean, anyway? The next "palette," when each Pokémon has its own (unique?) palette?

The closest thing to evidence I've seen has been the Shiny Pokémon from the Spaceworld demo, where Game Freak was still using the RBY-style palettes and in which they actually DID have all Pokémon of one specific color palette changed to a different, consistent, palette.

I've heard this rumor from before the Spaceworld demo leaked, though, so if you have any source or explanation I'd love to hear it. I could see Gens 1 and 2 doing this but don't know if it really holds up past that.