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Here's a little something I should've included in my USUM mini-dissertation over on the unpopular opinions thread:
What the actual hell is this? I... I can't even really articulate the feelings this scene instills into me properly. Y'know when you're playing a videogame with multiple endings and on one of the last few levels a cutscene or in-level set piece plays it in such a way that you know you're on track to get the bad ending? That's the kind of emotion this utterly bizarre recreation of the original scene on this location with Lillie plays. It's as if in this moment the universe where the Ultra games take place achieved some primordial form of consciousness, realized that a horrible, unforeseen diversion had taken place and desperately tried to correct itself, steamrolling on despite knowing it's too little too late and the sequence of events is fucked.
Whenever any form of media takes a strange, poorly-received turn of events with its story I first and foremost try to put myself in the shoes of the people involved and figure out what they were going for before thinking over how they succeeded and failed. I cannot do that here, no matter how hard I try. It doesn't even happen during the main plot btw, you have to consciously return to Exeggutor Island to activate this... thing, as OP of the linked video shows. So tell me OI, what was the point of this scene? And more importantly, did these god-foresaken "alternate retellings" make a single good decision with their story or writing??
I had no idea this happened in the game, how bizarre.
I assume they did all this as a dumb joke. Like well, we had the event data left over, what if you spent time with the fisherman.
That said I do agree that excising Lillie entirely from this whole sequence to begin with was dumb. I go to bat for USUM more than most but their decision to downplay Lillie was dumb.
There is one thing - Plumeria's dialogue in the scene when she's kidnapping Lillie is completely different, and it speaks to her character in a way that I think is more interesting than the originals.
Sun and Moon version:
"Not gonna disappear this time, huh? Seems like maybe the tall tales we heard about you were wrong."
"It's fine. There's nothing more for us to take from you."
"Which reminds me..."
"Maybe we're not the only ones around here who could be called Pokémon thieves. Is that what you are, huh? A thief?"
Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon version:
"Not gonna disappear this time, huh? Seems like maybe the tall tales we heard about you were wrong."
"Leave her be. I like a girl who's not afraid to stand up for herself."
"And besides..."
"I don't know about calling someone a Pokémon thief just 'cause she wanted to help out a Pokémon when it was suffering..."
That's... that's about it, though. That's the only good story/writing decision in the entire game.
I will be contrarian and say I like how USUM shows a different "what if" to Lusamine's madness. A lot of people says it ruins her but I think it's both interesting and in character for her to have, in another universe, flip to thinking she's the only one who can SAVE these beautiful creatures. I can easily see someone who keeps pokemon on ice, someone so controlling she emotionally abuses her children, also being someone who is so certain they're perfect that its okay if we cause untold pain on Cosmog and risk flooding the region with ultra beasts if it means we can save another world.
The problem is they don't bother, like....changing anything else to play up this aspect. They don't change nearly enough dialog (if at all??) or any major events until she gets owned by Necrozma. It'd have been really interesting if they changed more of the events and dialog to reflect her hypocrisy, the innate contradiction that makes her so fascinating, but I am reasonably sure they don't do anything even remotely close to that. I've seen romhacks unable to change any events in the game their hacking do a better job at recontextualizing these things, it's such a bummer.
Which leads to MY real problem with USUM which is they set up Lillie's character arc exactly the same even though they knew they were going to kick her to the side at the last minute so YOU can be the explicit hero. She has her resolution with Lusamine fully off screen! Lusamine's humbling was also off screen! YA'LL ARE YOU FOR REAL????
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Honestly I kind of wonder if some of the Rainbow Rocket events might've been intended for the Necrozma finale at some point. We know the idea of RR was a little later; initially the battle agency was just going to have the villains as bosses like how the battle tree has a bunch of good guys. This scenario has Lusamine trying to go off on her own, worrying everyone, Lillie gets to be an important character throughout all this and even has a pokemon and while we still dont see Lusamine get owned we at least spend mroe time with her aftermath of getting owned. We even have some fun times with Guzma!
I do kind of like RR as a capstone to their characters (Lillie is even more active than before, Lusamine is trying to actively make up for her sins and that carries over to future dialog with her) but its just hmmm this is some familiar set up & ground to cover that probably could've worked just as well in Ultra Megalopolis huh!
There's a recurring thing in Pokemon that constantly bothers me: the pairing of Ghost and Dark moves. Offensively, Ghost and Dark are probably the most similar types in the game. Both are strong against Ghost and Psychic, and both are resisted by Dark and formerly Steel. The only differences are that Ghost is ineffective against Normal, while Dark is weak against Fighting and Fairy. And yet many in-game trainers throughout the generations pair them together.
Because I'm bad at prioritizing my time, I sifted through Bulbapedia's list of game characters and found as many instances of Ghost + Dark moves as I could. I present my results, with a few exclusions:
If the moves are different categories, like Night Slash + Shadow Ball. This also means nothing before gen 4.
If not due to category, there is some conceivable reason to run both moves. For example, pairing Shadow Claw and Sucker Punch (reliability and priority) or Dark Pulse + Ominous Wind (power + boosts)
If the Ghost move is some weak shit like Astonish or Lick, because those don't count as moves. Also I don't want this list flooded with early-game Zubats.
Blaine's Houndoom in his HGSS rematch (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Giovanni's Honchkrow in the HGSS Celebi event (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Silver's Sneasel in HGSS Mt. Moon and Indigo Plateau rematch (Shadow Claw + Faint Attack)
Silver's Gengar in HGSS Dragon's Den and Indigo Plateau rematch (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Morty's Gengar in B2W2 Johto Leaders Tournament (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Kimono Girl Zuki's Umbreon in HGSS (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Sidney's Zoroark in ORAS rematch (Shadow Claw + Night Slash)
Phoebe's Chandelure in ORAS rematch (Hex + Dark Pulse)
Fantina's Banette in Platinum rematch (Shadow Claw + Faint Attack)
Fantina's Spiritomb in B2W2 Sinnoh Leaders Tournament (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Cynthia's Spiritomb in Platinum before Stark Mountain (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Cyrus's Houndoom in USUM Rainbow Rocket (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Mysterial's Haunter is Battle Revolution Poketopia Championship (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Battle Hall's Group 3 Absol in Platinum (Shadow Claw + Night Slash)
Cheren's Liepard in BW Victory Road rematch and B2W2 memory link (Shadow Claw + Night Slash)
Shauntal's Gengar in B2W2 Challenge Mode rematch (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Grimsley's Honchkrow in SM and USUM Battle Tree (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Grimsley's Liepard in SM and USUM Battle Tree (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Ghetsis's Cofagrigus in USUM Rainbow Rocket (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Morimoto's Gengar in USUM (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Team Flare Aliana's Druddigon in XY rematch (Shadow Claw + Crunch)
Team Flare Bryony's Bisharp in XY rematch (Shadow Claw + Night Slash)
Lysandre's Honchkrow in USUM Rainbow Rocket (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Acerola's Banette in USUM first match (Shadow Claw + Feint Attack
Hala's Bewear in SM and USUM rematches (Shadow Claw + Brutal Swing)
Nanu's Sableye in SM and UM rematches (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Kahili's Crobat in SM rematch (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Gladion's Weavile in SM title defense (Shadow Claw + Night Slash)
Plumeria's Gengar in SM and USUM title defense (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Guzma's Honchkrow in M and UM Battle Tree (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Guzma's Toxicroak in M and UM Battle Tree (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Guzma's Liepard in M and UM Battle Tree (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
wtf Guzma why do three of your Battle Tree mons have the same accursed combo
Green's Gengar in Let's Go (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Allister's Gengar in SS champion battles (Shadow Ball + Dark Pulse)
Piers's Obstagoon in SS all instances (Shadow Claw + Throat Chop)
Chairman Rose's Perrserker in SS (Shadow Claw + Throat Chop)
Sordward's Doublade in SS multi battle (Shadow Claw + Night Slash)
There were also a few instances of Dark mons with Ghost moves and no Dark STAB, like Lysandre's Yveltal in Rainbow Rocket, but I don't want to sift back through that list for them all.
What the actual hell is this? I... I can't even really articulate the feelings this scene instills into me properly. Y'know when you're playing a videogame with multiple endings and on one of the last few levels a cutscene or in-level set piece plays it in such a way that you know you're on track to get the bad ending? That's the kind of emotion this utterly bizarre recreation of the original scene on this location with Lillie plays. It's as if in this moment the universe where the Ultra games take place achieved some primordial form of consciousness, realized that a horrible, unforeseen diversion had taken place and desperately tried to correct itself, steamrolling on despite knowing it's too little too late and the sequence of events is fucked.
Whenever any form of media takes a strange, poorly-received turn of events with its story I first and foremost try to put myself in the shoes of the people involved and figure out what they were going for before thinking over how they succeeded and failed. I cannot do that here, no matter how hard I try. It doesn't even happen during the main plot btw, you have to consciously return to Exeggutor Island to activate this... thing, as OP of the linked video shows. So tell me OI, what was the point of this scene? And more importantly, did these god-foresaken "alternate retellings" make a single good decision with their story or writing??
What I find especially odd with that scene is that they could have used it to put back in the trip to the island with Lillie. In original SM you went with Lillie to Exeggutor Island and had your heart-to-heart with her, it's during a moment in the game there's high tension as you're trying to heal Nebby & rescue Lusamine. Then at the end of the game Lillie goes away to Kanto to find a cure for Lusamine and become a stronger trainer. USUM changes that where you go by yourself to get the flute and Lillie doesn't leave (instead Gladion does to just become a stronger trainer). So, if Lillie is still in Alola and you want an additional event on Exeggutor Island for USUM, why not move the Lillie scene to then? And it wouldn't be a copy & paste, this is during the post game so Lillie would have differing thoughts as she would have talked with Lusamine. It would have been a neat "before & after" comparison of her character arc when she made a major change in her life. The excitement of finally taking the initiate vs re-analyzing her actions and experience to see how much she gained from doing them.
But NAH! Let's do a quick joke instead where we repeat the heart-to-heart scene instead but this time its with an older man... there's comedy somewhere in there, right?
Veteran, and technically that's the chief of the Seafolk Village not that the title is special enough for him to be given his own model. Actually, here's another idea they could have done if they wanted to do more with Exeggutor Island: have it so you can do this once per day but you go to the island and have this scene happen with different characters. They could even do a "dating sim" joke and have it so your paired with opposite gender characters:
Male players would get Lillie, Lana, Mallow, Acerola, Mina, Olivia, Hapu, Kahili, Plumeria, Burnet, Wicke, Lusamine, & Anabel.
Female players would get Gladion, Ilima, Kiawe, Sophocles, Hala, Nanu, Molayne, Guzma, Kukui, Faba, Looker, & Colress.
And if they want to throw in a "joke date" they can have the males have the chief of the Seafolk and females have maybe the principle of the Trainer School.
I will be contrarian and say I like how USUM shows a different "what if" to Lusamine's madness. A lot of people says it ruins her but I think it's both interesting and in character for her to have, in another universe, flip to thinking she's the only one who can SAVE these beautiful creatures. (...)
The problem is they don't bother, like....changing anything else to play up this aspect.
And that right there is also my problem. They wanted to show this other perspective but changed very little to NOTHING to adjust her to this mindset. If anything its more evidence they just wedged in the Ultra Recon Squad story where it didn't fit instead of properly weaving it into the narrative. In USUM, before the events of the game, the Ultra Recon Squad went to Lusamine and told her what was going on and Lusamine decides that'll be how she'll get into Ultra Space and save the Ultra Beasts. Her character actions would be different, heck, I'd say she may be more reclusive and stand offish as she doesn't need to keep face to anyone now: she's the good guy and she's not doing anything wrong. Oh, these kids came to tour the facility? Look, I got Ultra Beasts to save so follow Wicke and make sure they don't touch anything.
Gengar at least has nonzero reason to run Dark if it's a ghost specialist's ace: it gets around Normal-types (though it's obviously far from its best coverage if you're not expecting Normal/Psychic). Needing to get around immunities doesn't apply to Dark types running ghost moves.
Gengar at least has nonzero reason to run Dark if it's a ghost specialist's ace: it gets around Normal-types (though it's obviously far from its best coverage if you're not expecting Normal/Psychic). Needing to get around immunities doesn't apply to Dark types running ghost moves.
Something weird about that is that a lot of mons games treat Gengar like it's a pure Ghost mon, and those almost never have a Poison STAB. (The normal coverage is usually Dark Pulse like people say) It's like Gengar never even had the Poison-Type...
And that right there is also my problem. They wanted to show this other perspective but changed very little to NOTHING to adjust her to this mindset. If anything its more evidence they just wedged in the Ultra Recon Squad story where it didn't fit instead of properly weaving it into the narrative. In USUM, before the events of the game, the Ultra Recon Squad went to Lusamine and told her what was going on and Lusamine decides that'll be how she'll get into Ultra Space and save the Ultra Beasts. Her character actions would be different, heck, I'd say she may be more reclusive and stand offish as she doesn't need to keep face to anyone now: she's the good guy and she's not doing anything wrong. Oh, these kids came to tour the facility? Look, I got Ultra Beasts to save so follow Wicke and make sure they don't touch anything.
God the Ultra Recon Squad kills me
here is every single scene with them:
-they walk in from off screen
-spiel their plot at you.
-walk immediately off screen
If you're lucky you might battle them or Colress will acknowledge them.
This includes the actual climax of the gaaaaameeeee. You go through the entire 98% unchanged Aether base raid and then they just walk in from off screen, talk a lot, then walk right back off screen. No one interacts with them! They're barely even acknolwedged! what????
The misc events around Alola they added are better integrated than this and by definition those are just new events plopped around the world!
Let me start with the single worst artifact in this franchise now that Exp. All Share is forced.
Experience Groups.
Seriously, whose idea was this that the horrible Scatterbug I'm desperately grinding in the hopes that I get a good bug mon needs twice the experience my starter needs to level up?
To make things worse, the mons that actually get unlucky and get these weird Exp. Groups are usually the ones who have a terrible training phase to achieve their potential. Scatterbug, Ralts, Feebas, you name it.
Now, remember that if you're trying to have your team at the same level, you'll cycle the lowest-leveled one to the front so they get the full 100% experience from a match instead of 50%. And they're experience sinks. And tend to be rough to train at their start.
This is not a good design.
Moving on... We're getting back. Back to good old KANTOOOOO. Because apparently GF just loves Kanto. I'd love it too if it made me rich.
RBY came out what, 2 decades ago? So how is it that they keep pandering to these older fans of the series, people who dumped countless hours in those nice little buggy games, and keep making the games dumber?
And I mean it literally. I just had Ramos spam Acrobatics with Jumpluff against an Ampharos! Like, there's no excuse for this. That AI is unacceptable.
To make things worse, we know there's good AI hidden in the games. Leon will not only switch out in the Battle Tower but also use his G-Max Charizard when he can switch it in at an advantage instead of saving it for the last mon no matter what, a trend established in XY with the Megas. They just don't use that AI outside of the post-game.
Now I know some of you are thinking: "What about little Timmy? We can't have hard AI because kids need to beat the game too."
Let's ignore for a second that if you picked Charmander as your starter in RB you were in some deep, deep problems against Brock and kids just had to hold that L back then.
This is a problem that was already (shoddily) solved in BW2. Difficulty settings exist exactly for this kind of thing.
Sure, GF will need to y'know, not lock Easy mode to one version and force you to beat Normal to play through it in a game with only one save file and having the same problem with Hard mode. But that's just a minor detail.
Let me start with the single worst artifact in this franchise now that Exp. All Share is forced.
Experience Groups.
Seriously, whose idea was this that the horrible Scatterbug I'm desperately grinding in the hopes that I get a good bug mon needs twice the experience my starter needs to level up?
To make things worse, the mons that actually get unlucky and get these weird Exp. Groups are usually the ones who have a terrible training phase to achieve their potential. Scatterbug, Ralts, Feebas, you name it.
Now, remember that if you're trying to have your team at the same level, you'll cycle the lowest-leveled one to the front so they get the full 100% experience from a match instead of 50%. And they're experience sinks. And tend to be rough to train at their start.
Uh, Scatterbug just has the normal exp group. The Starters (and some other Pokemon) just have an exp curve that levels them up incredibly quick at the start.
Gen 1 AI was so stupid that it would spam status moves forever if the type was SE against you. Ironically this was a trait of the good AI.
Jumpluff spammed Aerobatics because it did the most damage to Ampharos. The other option was Grass Knot, which equates to about 80 BP while Aerobatics effectively has 110 BP; Ampharos also has slightly lower defenses. Both attacks would be not very effective so it defaults to the highest option. What it should have done at least once was pop a Leech Seed on you, but I don't know when & why the AI decides not to use something; even in teh battle tower sometimes you just wont see them. Switching to Weepinbell wouldn't have been better and they want the Aces to be the final boss of the gym so even though Gogoat had Bulldoze it wasn't going to be switched out.
I'll also just say that decision to keep their Ace in the back is probably more of an aesthetic game design decision than anything else. Structurally it makes more sense to deal with their strongest pokemon last instead of suddenly having it switched in two turns into the fight and now the rest of the fight is dealing with the small fry. In the case of SWSH in particular this is emphasized by the entire live competition aesthetic; these aces correspond with a change in the music & the spectacle of the dyna/gigantamaxing. It's the grand finale of the fight and goign from Gigantamaxed Machamp back to a plain lower leveled . Battle Tower gets around this because it's a post-game facility that you're just actively grinding.
There is plenty the games could do to be a harder experience, from using the higher levels of AI where applicable to larger teams to actually using the IV/EV system* to better movesets and items, but sometimes the it's okay that they work the way they do.
*Now boy is this something that bugs me. Gen 7 actually used EVs all over the game's important trainers and it was a really cool behind the scenes thing that they dropped entirely in SWSH outside of those weird gimmick fights (like eviolite dottler) and Pier's Obstagoon (purely to make up for not dynamaxing).
Uh, Scatterbug just has the normal exp group. The Starters (and some other Pokemon) just have an exp curve that levels them up incredibly quick at the start.
In practice, I consider the starters the standard since they're the first mons everyone gets. And that doesn't help having to Tackle twice the mooks for a level with a worse mon lmao. Especially since Early-Game is already a slog.
Jumpluff spammed Aerobatics because it did the most damage to Ampharos. The other option was Grass Knot, which equates to about 80 BP while Aerobatics effectively has 110 BP; Ampharos also has slightly lower defenses. Both attacks would be not very effective so it defaults to the highest option.
Grass Knot is only NVE on Mega Ampharos; even incorporating the difference in its defenses I'm pretty sure Grass Knot would do more to it than Acrobatics R_N
Let me start with the single worst artifact in this franchise now that Exp. All Share is forced.
Experience Groups.
Seriously, whose idea was this that the horrible Scatterbug I'm desperately grinding in the hopes that I get a good bug mon needs twice the experience my starter needs to level up?
To make things worse, the mons that actually get unlucky and get these weird Exp. Groups are usually the ones who have a terrible training phase to achieve their potential. Scatterbug, Ralts, Feebas, you name it.
Now, remember that if you're trying to have your team at the same level, you'll cycle the lowest-leveled one to the front so they get the full 100% experience from a match instead of 50%. And they're experience sinks. And tend to be rough to train at their start.
This is not a good design.
Moving on... We're getting back. Back to good old KANTOOOOO. Because apparently GF just loves Kanto. I'd love it too if it made me rich.
RBY came out what, 2 decades ago? So how is it that they keep pandering to these older fans of the series, people who dumped countless hours in those nice little buggy games, and keep making the games dumber?
And I mean it literally. I just had Ramos spam Acrobatics with Jumpluff against an Ampharos! Like, there's no excuse for this. That AI is unacceptable.
To make things worse, we know there's good AI hidden in the games. Leon will not only switch out in the Battle Tower but also use his G-Max Charizard when he can switch it in at an advantage instead of saving it for the last mon no matter what, a trend established in XY with the Megas. They just don't use that AI outside of the post-game.
Now I know some of you are thinking: "What about little Timmy? We can't have hard AI because kids need to beat the game too."
Let's ignore for a second that if you picked Charmander as your starter in RB you were in some deep, deep problems against Brock and kids just had to hold that L back then.
This is a problem that was already (shoddily) solved in BW2. Difficulty settings exist exactly for this kind of thing.
Sure, GF will need to y'know, not lock Easy mode to one version and force you to beat Normal to play through it in a game with only one save file and having the same problem with Hard mode. But that's just a minor detail.
Totally with you on improving AI. Pokemon battles have the potential for incredibly deep strategy, and it goes almost entirely wasted in the story mode. Sure, you're never going to replicate the intricacies of a human opponent, and packing every trainer with completely optimized sets might encroach on bullshit ROM hack difficulty, but even with those limitations in mind, the extent to which story battles fail to meet the standard set by PvP is insulting.
A well-designed difficulty setting would work wonders. Normal would start easy and rise in strategic demand as the game progresses (almost like a curve... for difficulty). For the littlest Timmy, easy mode would stay simple, and for the biggest Tim, hard mode would be complex right out of the gate. Ideally, to avoid the endgame of hard mode falling into bullshit ROM hack territory, the level of strategy needed for each mode would form a kind of Z-shaped graph.
Blue is hard mode, purple is normal mode, and red is easy mode. Y measures strategy level, while X measures game progression, with 0 being the start and 10 being the champion.
The most important thing is that the difficulty comes less from higher levels or stronger moves, but from actual intelligent strategy. Would it be hard to program AI opponents to be engagingly intelligent? Maybe. My experience with battle facilities is mostly limited to Emerald's Battle Factory, so maybe they cracked the code at some point and I just never found out. But would it be worth the time and money it would take to program AI opponents to be engagingly intelligent? Absolutely. Strategic depth is Pokemon's greatest strength, and that many players never get to experience it is a crime.
Grass Knot is only NVE on Mega Ampharos; even incorporating the difference in its defenses I'm pretty sure Grass Knot would do more to it than Acrobatics R_N
This is a fairly consistent problem with the AI failing to properly realize the power of variable power moves. I presume it's because it treats them as "1" power internally. Another example I noticed is that Hapu's Mudsdale will consistently Double Kick Flying-types even though it has Heavy Slam.
Yeah, that's an unfortunate bug, but it makes sense - at least there's an attempted thought process behind the bad decisions there, even if it's an erroneous one.
The most irritating AI in the series for me is definitely the one in Sword and Shield, which very frequently bases its decisions on total RNG (outside of the Tower, I know - that's always an intentional step up and does not count).
It just turns every turn into a dice roll - even if you know they have a coverage move, they could go forever without actually using it. Since most of my team in the main campaign was made of notoriously weak Pokémon, especially from the first to fourth Gyms or so and I was further limiting my own options by trying to resist the Experience Share and catch up my lowest-leveled Pokémon, there were many times when I should have lost, but too often, the AI used its best option just once and then immediately switched to spamming useless alternatives instead of finishing my Pokémon off. There were times when I thought a battle was hopeless and was just waiting for it to be over so I could prepare properly/start over/try again with a different strategy, and it would have been faster if I did... but instead of allowing me even that even passably engaging form of gameplay and decision making, I still won because the AI stalled for so long instead of finishing me off, which was just tedious and boring. Gym Leaders at least had decent AI, but nearly every random route Trainer (at least as far as the fourth Gym - dunno if they got better or if I just stopped paying attention) and even some important rival battles were very clearly nothing but dice rolls, and it was just so much less fun.
And I don't even just mean that Sword and Shield were "too easy" all around - several of the aforementioned Gym battles were actually pretty memorable and pleasantly surprising, and I think three of them even beat me on my first try. In my defense, two of those losses were me trying to get away with switch training my weakest Pokémon instead of taking them seriously as a boss, but one of them actually did just catch me off guard, and I appreciated that!
This is a ramble I wrote to a friend of mine when I was analyzing SwSh during my first playthrough yes, this is the kind of thing I do all the time... probably to no one's surprise, and I think it conveys how I felt while going through the early-game slog of Galar - I believe I had just finished Route 3 and was about to enter Galar Mine when I wrote this?
"Okay, so the way the damage formula works, attacks don't just do more damage based on higher stats.
They also do more damage at higher levels - even if the Pokémon happen to have exactly the same stats despite the level difference.
This is meant to compensate for the way stats increase: like, if I'm level 35, my Attack is about 35% of what it would be at level 100, and if you're level 35, your Defense and HP are about 35% of what they'll be at level 100... but that means I'm doing 35% of the damage I'll eventually do, while your defenses are only around 12.25% of what they'll eventually be, because Defense and HP are effectively multiplied together.
That would mean a level 1 Pokémon using a move against another level 1 Pokémon would be (roughly) one hundred times as strong (1% over 1% squared) compared to a level 100 Pokémon using the same move against another level 100 Pokémon (1 over 1 squared).
To compensate for that, level is another factor in the damage formula; as a consequence... give or take some amount (I think level 100 Pokémon actually turn out to do more damage to each other than level 50 Pokémon? not sure exactly what causes that but I'm giving a highly simplified version here), a level 15 Pokémon fighting a level 15 enemy ought to be doing about the same amount of damage as a level 50 Pokémon fighting a level 50 enemy... with the same move.
The problem here-- a level 50 Pokémon fighting another level 50 Pokémon is going to have access to stronger moves than, say, Tackle and some 40 BP STAB that usually relies on its worse offensive stat.
For most (offensively oriented) competitive Pokémon, even a 70-80 BP move is below average for your primary attacking option - imagine how long battles would take if you had to settle for your early-game moveset instead!
And as mentioned, it's not quite evenly scaled - I think level 100s do slightly more to each other than level 50s, which also means level 15s do slightly less to each other than level 50s... on top of having to rely on these weaker moves. amendment: I'm not actually positive if I was correct on this part - someone let me know if this is wrong!
So battles get slower. This part is true in every game!
But... generally speaking, there are solutions in place:
- Moves like Leer and sometimes Howl are widely distributed among early-game Pokémon
- Some games give early-game Pokémon better moves than others (SM, as a pretty extreme example, gave Z-Moves to turn your average Normal attacks into a 100 BP move at a minimum to tear through a slow fight, starting when your own team was no stronger than level twelve... not that that was necessarily the best solution, but the option was there!)
- And in general, early-game Pokémon tend to be proportionally frailer than their evolutions - in-world, this is just intuitive because most of them are gaining physical size and naturally end up bulkier, but it serves a gameplay purpose, too!
In Sword and Shield:
- Growl is on everything; Leer is on almost nothing (at least that I've seen)... my Wooloo even started with the effectively redundant Growl and Defense Curl
- Sand Attack is also very common, further reducing average damage per turn
- I actually have one Pokémon with Hone Claws, which negates both of these... but she's a special attacker, and her only physical move worth using is a 40 BP Normal-type move without STAB, so it adds up to very little anyway
- Next to no Pokémon seem to have coverage moves this early (this is actually also an indirect problem with the starters all being monotype: in SM, for example, every starter got a decently useful move of a second type early on to reflect its eventual evolution, and then USUM went on to add a third!) another amendment: I realized later that this is also a consequence of the way TRs were handled - by locking all of the usual viable, interesting moves and good coverage options behind Raids and giving you only bottom-of-the-barrel moves as rewards for exploring in the actual campaign, Sword and Shield limited your move options pretty heavily, especially compared to other games from Gen V and later with reusable TMs...
- One of the first Pokémon you can encounter has Fluffy
- Skwovet, the single most common encounter, has 75 base HP and 55 Defense - compare Bunnelby, which has 38 for both
In past games, threatening coverage and strong STAB moves are used only by opponents who also have the AI to use them well, which actually makes it harder and not easier, but it also means a) if an enemy is able to take you out, the battle is over quickly and b) beating these enemies is a matter of working around those moves rather than praying they use the wrong ones (see Ilima in SM and USUM, as well as the Trainer's School teacher in USUM - they were specifically designed to make you give attention to your non-starter team members, and if you didn't, they would not hold back). Meanwhile, in SwSh, most of the NPCs seem like they're really inconsistent about using these even when they have them, which mostly just wastes your time and makes it both way easier to win when it shouldn't be and moderately harder to plan ahead in any meaningful way?
But yeah, the average battle with my Wooloo has her not at all threatened (she takes 50% of her health at most)... but they were also taking like five or six turns per Pokémon for a while, so it's just slow without being challenging. Which is a combination that doesn't work so well. XP"
But the most egregious part is that every Max Raid boss uses pure RNG to select its moves. As if getting the right NPC partners wasn't luck-based enough (and their own AI is also pretty tragic...), the more "difficult" five star raids stack so many advantages that you can't possibly win consistently in single player, then "balance" it by choosing suboptimal moves 75% of the time and absolutely wrecking you (or, more accurately, ignoring you and wrecking the AI partners with no counterplay) the other 25%.
What the heck happened to the amazing boss design of Totem Pokémon? Those were asymmetrical fights just like this - they had advantages that you as a player could not possibly match, and they also had clear disadvantages relative to you as a player - but they made the most of their mechanics, made the best decisions possible and actively made an effort to challenge you, and they were still perfectly fair and possible to beat consistently given the right approach. Meanwhile, Max Raid bosses are just downright broken, and their core mechanics don't even attempt to give you a fair chance or leave room for any innovative strategies ("hey, wouldn't it be fun if we made it possible for them to nullify every effect except raw damage even after players succeed in setting them up, and then we gave them temporary total immunities to all status moves on top of that, and then we made even strategic choices of damaging moves barely matter because most of your attacks are hitting barriers instead of their HP?") - if they were controlled by a competent AI, you'd pretty much never be able to win. But the thing is that their moves are selected so randomly that they just throw away those advantages - instead of being properly balanced and giving players a chance the right way, they once again have the issue of stalling for no reason and leaving openings completely at random so you can just pray your way to an unearned and unstrategic victory.
Let me put this in perspective... in a single-player five star raid battle, as many as seven moves happen every turn (your team's one per Pokémon and the boss's three attacks), and you only control one of them. That one move is never going to be enough to outweigh the other random selections in impacting the outcome of the battle. This is the feature that's supposed to appeal to players who want to be challenged and want opportunities to test their skill. A+ game design.
There's a point where the AI being totally RNG-based is more frustrating than actually losing a fight would be - compare Sun and Moon's bosses, which will beat you right away if they actually can (see the early-game boss Ilima's Smeargle, which isn't hard to beat at all if you've caught other Pokémon, but it always takes advantage of its coverage moves if possible and punishes you if you try to solo him with just your starter). Even as an extremely early-game boss, being beaten like that in no way unfair or unfun - that's a wake-up call or a mercy kill or whatever else you want to call it. It makes it clear that you're doing something wrong and makes it clear what you need to do to prepare, and then you can try again once you've figured it out. The game doesn't have to be hard - it just has to make your decisions matter. It should react to them, punish them and reward them, not just ignore them the way Max Raid battles do.
OH RIGHT-- speaking of RNG! You know what the absolute worst part of Max Raids is? The fact that you only get to attempt one Poké Ball, and it's after you finish the battle. If Pokémon breaks free, then rather than just somehow making the battle harder, or giving it another turn to use a move or recover from sleep, or wasting your resources, or inhibiting you in any meaningful or interesting way... it just ends the battle and makes it all for nothing.
I genuinely do not understand how this entire feature got to be so popular, but I just can't stand it. Every time I try to get back into Shield - and it's really not for lack of wanting! some of the Wild Area events have motivated me to pick it up again if they have cool rewards or G-Maxes that I like - it just becomes so actively frustrating that I find myself resenting it and want to stop. And it doesn't help that this and the completely gutted Battle Tower are the only forms of repeatable postgame content in the game... This is why I haven't picked up Shield in months.
This is different from what happens nowadays though. The games have good AI that's actually good, they just lock it in whatever weak post-game facility they got and for the main story, we got... Bea's Machamp never using its G-Max Move.
Speaking of post-game...
We're getting hit by this double whammy of games with abysmal replayability due to excess cutscenes (Shoutouts to Melemele) and extremely lackluster post-games for a while now.
OH RIGHT-- speaking of RNG! You know what the absolute worst part of Max Raids is? The fact that you only get to attempt one Poké Ball, and it's after you finish the battle. If Pokémon breaks free, then rather than just somehow making the battle harder, or giving it another turn to use a move or recover from sleep, or wasting your resources, or inhibiting you in any meaningful or interesting way... it just ends the battle and makes it all for nothing.
The actual worst part is the extent to how arbitrary it is once you find out about the catch rates
if you are playing on your own and it's not an event Pokemon, it is 100% guaranteed! That's good! Events, though, are species' normal catch rate...unless it's an event G-Max in which case it's about 20 no matter the pokemon. It's an event you see, we need you to be playing constantly to get the Pokemon.
And then you go online. If you're the host, it's not a big deal, all the rates above are the same. If you're the partner everything gets tanked. 100% standard pokemon get knocked down to species rate. G-Maxes (event or otherwise) get knocked down to catch rate of 3.
Yeah that's....that's great incentive to partner up, for sure.
Seriously, when I first heard about this I almost fell off my chair. I know you're supposed to just partner up and all that jazz, but sometimes you don't wanna deal with GF's bungled online or is just playing on the go and don't have any wifi around.
Seriously, when I first heard about this I almost fell off my chair. I know you're supposed to just partner up and all that jazz, but sometimes you don't wanna deal with GF's bungled online or is just playing on the go and don't have any wifi around.
