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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
MachineParadise
Banned deucer.
Why do secondary effects seem to go off more in gen 4 than anywhere else? Whenever I replay those games I get frozen, burnt, poisoned, confused, and haxed more than in any other generation, especially in major fights where you can't afford for that to happen
That's merely just bad luck on your part. There is no mechanical difference in Gen IV causing this.
MachineParadise
Banned deucer.
Ah, okay. I figured as such but at the same time it was happening so often compared to other gens I felt like maybe there was something off with it.
Maybe it's because every other enemy in HGSS and Platinum uses status/evasion strats
The Mind Electric
Calming if you look at it right.
It's this. Loads of regular enemies abuse hax in gen 4 and it's frustrating. Easily the biggest minor annoyance I have with those games (and it is minor, the strategies aren't very effective but they sure do piss me off).
Yung Dramps
awesome gaming
I've given it some thought and I think I've settled on my current biggest grievance with Pokemon as a franchise, and it has little to do with the newest games, development schedules, graphical direction or any of the other typical complaints.
Simply put: Why are they so apprehensive about rereleasing their back catalog?
Considering the combination of absurd online price increases for the DS era titles, the lingering post-SWSH malaise in the core Pokefandom and the broader conversation that's been emerging about the dismal state of Nintendo's official games preservation courtesy of the Switch's pathetic virtual console and low-effort, overpriced rereleases I'm absolutely baffled how this isn't a bigger talking point. More than any other Nintendo franchise, so much of the Pokemon marketing machine is steeped in appealing to people's nostalgia concerning the core title(s) they grew up with, this principle being present in several ads for Gen 7, Gen 8 and even the intro for the direct that revealed BDSP and Legends Arceus. And yet there's this absolutely glaring missing link in that for as much as they love to parade those old sprites and iconography, they almost never give people a chance to re-experience their origin directly. Yeah yeah there was RBY and GSC on the 3DS' virtual console, but let's not act like that's anywhere near sufficient when the original Gen 3 games are nearing their 20th anniversary, DP is 15 and BW is over a decade old. Shilling potential remakes is not a good excuse either when 1. it's been proven by companies like Square that direct rereleases of old titles have little bearing on remake sales and if anything can actually be used to further build hype and 2. we're at a point where even the older remakes like FRLG and HGSS are getting hard to come by sans reproduction carts and emulation.
As far as I can tell, the most "valid" obstacle to more old-gen ports is adapting the dual screen functionality of Gens 4-7 to fit just one, and while this does make them a bit more high effort than the average port job it's hardly some sort of impossible herculean task. Let's go through them in order
DPPt: Copy-paste whatever BDSP does with Poketch, poffin making, underground minigames, etc.
BW1/2: Redesign menu to be like Gen 4, putting in C-Gear as a menu item that opens it up on the entire screen when selected
XY/ORAS: Same menu redesign as BW1/2 with Pokenav added as a part of it. Pokemon-amie controlled with analogue stick, grabbing items and petting mons being done by holding down a button
SM/USUM: Same as Gen 6, now with Rotom-Dex map placed into the corner of the screen like the SWSH Beta
There's some other smaller things, but if the big stuff can be managed then so can those
Simply put: Why are they so apprehensive about rereleasing their back catalog?
Considering the combination of absurd online price increases for the DS era titles, the lingering post-SWSH malaise in the core Pokefandom and the broader conversation that's been emerging about the dismal state of Nintendo's official games preservation courtesy of the Switch's pathetic virtual console and low-effort, overpriced rereleases I'm absolutely baffled how this isn't a bigger talking point. More than any other Nintendo franchise, so much of the Pokemon marketing machine is steeped in appealing to people's nostalgia concerning the core title(s) they grew up with, this principle being present in several ads for Gen 7, Gen 8 and even the intro for the direct that revealed BDSP and Legends Arceus. And yet there's this absolutely glaring missing link in that for as much as they love to parade those old sprites and iconography, they almost never give people a chance to re-experience their origin directly. Yeah yeah there was RBY and GSC on the 3DS' virtual console, but let's not act like that's anywhere near sufficient when the original Gen 3 games are nearing their 20th anniversary, DP is 15 and BW is over a decade old. Shilling potential remakes is not a good excuse either when 1. it's been proven by companies like Square that direct rereleases of old titles have little bearing on remake sales and if anything can actually be used to further build hype and 2. we're at a point where even the older remakes like FRLG and HGSS are getting hard to come by sans reproduction carts and emulation.
As far as I can tell, the most "valid" obstacle to more old-gen ports is adapting the dual screen functionality of Gens 4-7 to fit just one, and while this does make them a bit more high effort than the average port job it's hardly some sort of impossible herculean task. Let's go through them in order
DPPt: Copy-paste whatever BDSP does with Poketch, poffin making, underground minigames, etc.
BW1/2: Redesign menu to be like Gen 4, putting in C-Gear as a menu item that opens it up on the entire screen when selected
XY/ORAS: Same menu redesign as BW1/2 with Pokenav added as a part of it. Pokemon-amie controlled with analogue stick, grabbing items and petting mons being done by holding down a button
SM/USUM: Same as Gen 6, now with Rotom-Dex map placed into the corner of the screen like the SWSH Beta
There's some other smaller things, but if the big stuff can be managed then so can those
Well DPPT would definitely not be as easy as just "copy-pasting" whatever BDSP does, BDSP I guarantee is doing its own groundwork that wont just be shoved into a DS emulated game.
Honestly we had DS games on Wii U. The solution is simply "they will have two screens emulated", the worst thing they need to resolve is probably add cursor control of some sort if they dont want it to be handheld only. We have a whole extra set of buttons & control sticks now so thats "easy" if awkward.
I think it ultimately comes down to Nintendo, in general, not interested in doing this. There is one N64 game on Switch and it was part of a collection you can no longer get. We're 4 years in and they're not even bothering throwing gameboy games up on their service, all gameboy games have been from other companies releasing their own emulated games in collections. So even if THAT isnt happening any time this decade, GBA & DS titles definitely aren't.
Honestly we had DS games on Wii U. The solution is simply "they will have two screens emulated", the worst thing they need to resolve is probably add cursor control of some sort if they dont want it to be handheld only. We have a whole extra set of buttons & control sticks now so thats "easy" if awkward.
I think it ultimately comes down to Nintendo, in general, not interested in doing this. There is one N64 game on Switch and it was part of a collection you can no longer get. We're 4 years in and they're not even bothering throwing gameboy games up on their service, all gameboy games have been from other companies releasing their own emulated games in collections. So even if THAT isnt happening any time this decade, GBA & DS titles definitely aren't.
Yung Dramps
awesome gaming
Truth be told the adaptations I suggested are really just to get DS/3DS games looking decent in the Switch's handheld mode, but if the Wii U was able to pull off two-screen emulation on the tablet that didnt look terrible then I guess like you said all that's needed is to get certain touch functions working with joysticks, in which case the main obstacle is indeed Nintendo themselves sadly. Even then I'd legit make the argument that even by their terrible standard the state of Pokemon rereleases is below par, at least with something like Mario they can pretty consistently get everything from 1 through World ported on the newest device regardless of how shitty the retro games support is. Similarly I'd say that not having Gens 1-3 is beyond inexcusable, and I'd put 5 as the "bare minimum" at this point
The situations between the pokemon games and the "first" 4 "major" mario games are just in totally different ball parks.
mario they can consistently do it because NES & SNES are on just about everything (albeit, it took a long ttime for the NES to come to 3DS and SNES was only on new 3DS late in its lifespan).
if Nintendo "officially" (for lack of a better term) supported the gameboy I think they'd probably nudge gamefreak to have the GB pokemon titles on it since they'd (1) already done that (2) switch is portable and (3)
But here we are in 2021 and Nintendos' entire gameboy catalog is only available on the 3DS.
Yung Dramps
awesome gaming
Who said Game Freak's gotta go through the garbage virtual console? Nintendo just threw out 3 N64, Gamecube and Wii games on a bundle and that sold gangbusters despite being about as low-effort of a collection as it gets, if they have no intention to bring VC up to snuff then I see no reason why Game Freak can't put the individual games on the eshop for a few bucks each or get someone to make their own collection with how many generations they feel is the minimum that will lure in consumers into getting it for a $60 pricetag (imo like I said the bare minimum is up to BW2 w/o remakes, maybe if they were feeling less cheap they could chuck in a few 3ds games but that might be too optimistic cuz Nintendo)
Well, to "who said" honestly probably Nintendo more than anything. They always put weird markers of value on things....and they're always the ones to put exemptions on themselves and by themselves i mean their in-house stuff. Remember when they slapped AllStars rom on a disc but no their vc?? and now its just there on NSO...bizarre...but then there's the mario collection which had like 3 new emulators??? it's all nonsense.
Like yes, you're right, they (nintendo & gamefreak) could. But Mario's always going to get the better deal out of these and they have, for whatever reason, whether its apathy, business reasons, development reasons, etc seemingly no interest in giving that same opportunity to others.
Also...just putting that aside....I think it is very optimistic to assume they would put gen 1, 2, both sets of 3, 4 & 5 all on one collection, though. You say "absolute minimum" but you and I both know it would go up to gen 3 at most, probably not even have FRLG, and also it would be split into 2 versions (RGR and BSS) with a third (YCE) later on.
I don't know what is going on, but EV training in Platinum sucks. No matter how many times I try, somehow the EVs I put on the Pokemon are too much or less, even if I train at spots that only let me encounter 1 Pokemon.
I make sure Pokemon get Pokerus, give them Vitamins and then for instance EV train them by fishing for 76 Magikarps after 10 carbon. Somehow, there are still evs missing in Speed.
What is going on? Didn't have that issue in Emerald, BW or BW2.
I make sure Pokemon get Pokerus, give them Vitamins and then for instance EV train them by fishing for 76 Magikarps after 10 carbon. Somehow, there are still evs missing in Speed.
What is going on? Didn't have that issue in Emerald, BW or BW2.
Alright we get to the top of the Glitter Lighthouse in Olivine City in GSC (I think it's different in HGSS), hear about a sick Pokemon with this moody music, CLIMB THE STAIRS-
olivine city music plays.
olivine city music plays.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Gen II: "So, this is where you'll be living while you're working as the lighthouse-keeper. Long hours, but you get your own room and it's catered accommodation"
Gen IV: "listen bucko, you'll sleep in this 2 square foot freezing cold sterile glass ring and you'll be grateful for it"
One thing I really like is how in later gens, different trainer classes use different types of balls. Fishermen use net balls, Rich Boys use luxury balls, etc. It tells you about the person.
Except that they don't commit to it. It feels like with big trainers/gym leaders, they're 'forced' to use ultra balls, and evil teams all use Dusk Balls for some reason. It feels like they need a lot more obtainable ball variety to make it work.
Except that they don't commit to it. It feels like with big trainers/gym leaders, they're 'forced' to use ultra balls, and evil teams all use Dusk Balls for some reason. It feels like they need a lot more obtainable ball variety to make it work.
Evil teams dont all use dusk balls
Team Skull & Team Yell grunts use Nest Balls
Aether Foundation & Rainbow Rocket grunts use Great Balls
Aether Foundation scientists use repeat balls
Rainbow Rocket admins all use Master Balls
Macro Cosmos trainers, and Oleana, use....wow jsut Pokeballs?
Guzma, Plumeria, Lusamine, Rose all use Ultra Balls.
Piers is the only "evil team" trainer who uses Dusk Balls
In all, I think there's a decent bit of variety in play here, but you're not wrong that Ultra Balls, especially widening the scope out to folks like the gym leaders & trial captains, are kind of the default "strong trainer" ball. It'd have made a lot of sense for Guzma to have Net Balls, for example; even with the trial captains they let Lana use Net instead.
e: Nessa's trainers use Dive, Opal's use Heal...that's cute, I like that. Turns out when they're not being Team Yell, the Spikemuth trainers use Dusk so for once Piers bucks the "Ultra Ball" brand.
Granted the player should never see this, but I hate how the player room events references May's rooms text/scripts for Brendan's room
It also seems like this was programmed before GF implemented the North/South/East/West player facing flags for the first floor
Why does this bug me? It means editing scripts fully is harder for this area in particular cuz they're connected
Managed to delink Brendan from May, but still
It also seems like this was programmed before GF implemented the North/South/East/West player facing flags for the first floor
Why does this bug me? It means editing scripts fully is harder for this area in particular cuz they're connected
Managed to delink Brendan from May, but still
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Can you explain this in more detail? I'm curious as to what you mean exactly.
Each Map has its own set of scripts to execute events. Maps for the most part are independent, bar connections to seamlessly transition from 1 area to another
Brendan's house/room however for whatever reason isn't independent for scripts. It's linked to May's, which can cause issues if you're doing text or event edits in May's room, as it'll affect Brendan's as well
The other issue is it seems to be programmed before setting up direction Flags in the first floor. The player's direction (North, South, East, West) determines which subscript to use in some cases. Like....touching the pokeball in the Rival's room
For the first floor however, it uses older unlabeled variables based on player position instead. Annoyingly the variables are the temporary ones that most other scripts can access, so being unlabeled doesn't help
TLDR, the player/rival's house as a whole is iffy for events, and was likely made before most areas
I am a bit annoyed by the implementation of experience groups in Pokémon. Firstly I think the Erratic and Fluctuating groups are completely unnecessary. They are very bizarre, gimmicky groups that serve very little purpose. They should have just stuck with the original four groups in my opinion.
But even isolated to these four groups the implementation is wonky. In Gen 1 it seems they put Pokémon with a BST of 430 or above in the Slow group, whereas everything below 430 would be in the Medium Slow or Medium Fast groups depending on if they were two or three stage evo's. Fair enough I guess.
The problem is after Gen 1 once the Special split happened, they never went back to address this. Pokémon like legendaries, pseudo-ledgendaries, Gyarados and Snorlax, I can understand remaining in the Slow group on account of their stupendous stats. But Pokémon like Tentacruel and Tauros who got shafted by the Special split, end up being straddled with poor experience for the rest of their lives without the stats to justify it.
In addition, it seems the designation of a Slow experience mon has become more and more arbitrary over time. There is no good reason why Pokémon like Mantine and Stantler should be in the Slow group. They have enough problems as is, to hamstring them further with poor experience just adds insult to injury. Freaking Carnivine of all things is a Slow experience mon.
Anyway it would be nice if GF streamlined the experience group system to get rid of some of the unnecessary ones and have a consistent methodology in place (i.e. everything above 535 BST, the cap for starters and Eeveelutions, is in the Slow group). Right now this feels like a design flaw that is a bit illogical to me.
But even isolated to these four groups the implementation is wonky. In Gen 1 it seems they put Pokémon with a BST of 430 or above in the Slow group, whereas everything below 430 would be in the Medium Slow or Medium Fast groups depending on if they were two or three stage evo's. Fair enough I guess.
The problem is after Gen 1 once the Special split happened, they never went back to address this. Pokémon like legendaries, pseudo-ledgendaries, Gyarados and Snorlax, I can understand remaining in the Slow group on account of their stupendous stats. But Pokémon like Tentacruel and Tauros who got shafted by the Special split, end up being straddled with poor experience for the rest of their lives without the stats to justify it.
In addition, it seems the designation of a Slow experience mon has become more and more arbitrary over time. There is no good reason why Pokémon like Mantine and Stantler should be in the Slow group. They have enough problems as is, to hamstring them further with poor experience just adds insult to injury. Freaking Carnivine of all things is a Slow experience mon.
Anyway it would be nice if GF streamlined the experience group system to get rid of some of the unnecessary ones and have a consistent methodology in place (i.e. everything above 535 BST, the cap for starters and Eeveelutions, is in the Slow group). Right now this feels like a design flaw that is a bit illogical to me.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Granted, this isn't something I'm largely invested in, but on balance I honestly prefer the messiness of the approach you've outlined. Things like this genuinely do make the Pokemon world feel more diverse and interesting than it otherwise would. I appreciate that might sound like a quibble for the sake of it, but it's not. Just because a Pokemon is weaker on average than others, it doesn't necessarily follow that it should be easy to raise or evolve early. Imagine if every Pokemon of the same type evolved the same way, or if every Pokemon that evolves twice evolved first at level 15 and then again level 30. It'd be consistent, but not interesting.
Mantine, Stantler, and Carnivine are all variously underperforming mons, but the high experience threshold each possesses adds to the challenge of using them. And for people like me who often like to play through the games using Pokemon like that for that extra element of difficulty it really does make the difference.
I've said the same about Pokemon like Rufflet and Noibat which evolve extremely late. While there is a valid argument for tweaking the level at which it evolves (and it was thrashed out quite comprehensively a while back so let's not have it again) I maintain that the high threshold is inherently part of the challenge of using one in any game not called Black or White.
And Pokemon has long had junk rare Pokemon which aren't strong or powerful enough to justify their elusiveness and are by no means a cakewalk to raise. Lickitung and Farfetch'd are both elusive but underwhelming. Chimecho is super rare in Hoenn but absolutely stinks statwise. Johto is so full of junk rare mons I can hardly list just one: Yanma, Dunsparce, Aipom, Marill, Unown. There's even a Gentleman on the SS Anne in RBYFLRG who lampshades this by asking "what would you prefer, a strong or rare Pokemon?" Can't I have both? Well no, not always. In Pokemon the twain don't always meet, and some of the strongest Pokemon are often the easiest to raise.
It doesn’t help that most junk rare Pokémon in question are single-stage (like Unown, Kanto Farfetch’d and Dunsparce, or were single-stage in the generation they are introduced in (such as the case for Lickitung, Yanma, Aipom and Chimecho), meaning it is not even worth trying to level up and hope it can evolve once you found it back in the introductionary generation.
This problem become less bad, but still present, regarding single-staged Pokémon from Gen 6 onward, with some single-staged Pokémon introduced in that Generation and later being decent enough to worth keeping in a playthrough unless they happens to be way too evasive.
Still, many players would rather use viable and easy to raise Pokémon unless they really want to challenge themselves by using mediocre / bad Pokémon, so a rare but mediocre Pokémon only useful for niche minigames (if any) or for completion.
We can agree to disagree on this. I don't think the late evolution levels counter argument works in this case because evolution levels shouldn't be retrofitted as it causes problems when transferring Pokémon. And I'm not advocating GF retrofits their experience groups either. I'm more decrying the fact that there doesn't seem to be a consistent methodology in place. I can appreciate Gen 1's effort to have some methodology but it appears to be completely abandoned at this point. As a logical person I prefer if there is a framework to decide these things rather than pure randomness but that might just be me. It is a game after all, I can see why some people might prefer randomness.
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I am extremely freaking annoyed at Exp. Groups.
It doesn't work, it's a horrible artifact from Gen 1's RPG-focused design that carried over all the way to the present because of reasons I'll never understand.
The result? Now we got the Exp. Share, (Itself a hot mess, but I digress) giving the same exp to all mons with a slight modifier based on level.
Except you'll have certain groups needing like, 2 or 3 times the experience per level up depending on the group. So they'll stay underleveled. Which baits people into leading with them so they get more exp to even things out... and whoever is on a group like say, Medium-Slow is relegated to bench-warmer status for a looooong time.
Even in Gen 1 we had wonderful experiences such as Dragonite being on the Slow group AND needing to reach Lv. 55 to be fully evolved.
This is nothing short of abysmal game design.
Oh, btw, the early bugs are usually in Medium-Fast. Y'know, the things that are deadweight until Lv. 10 or so?
Let's take a look at something interesting.
So, a question for the class. Why? Just why? Why does the Medium-Fast Exp. Group needs almost TWICE the experience to reach Lv. 10 and stop being deadweight?
There isn't a single point in the franchise where Exp. Groups justify themselves as a good decision. Not. Even. Once.
I wouldn't mind experience groups if they were implemented properly as a tiering system. Which is at least what Gen 1 tried to do but those days are long gone.
I also agree the Medium Fast group is at a disadvantage in the early game compared to Medium Slow. At least they even out eventually. But I wouldn't even mind just three groups: Fast, Medium, Slow.
I do get the point of Slow if it's meant for strong Pokémon or ones for which you have to push through for some reward (i.e. pseudo legendaries). But right now there are way too many Slow mons that are just stuck there with no reward in sight. It hurts their viability for no good reason.