The SpDef boost wasn't even a thing until Gen 4, so that's definitely not it. And its associated ability being originally exclusive to the Rock-type Tyranitar wasn't a thing until Gen 3 (and even then, Tyranitar having Sand Stream doesn't really make a ton of sense flavor-wise, especially compared to the Ground-type "Desert Spirit" Flygon) so that's not it either.
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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
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At the same time, though, the Max Move that summons a sandstorm is Rock-type, so...
So... what? I guarentee if Sandstorm the move had been Ground-type, Max Quake would have summoned sandstorm the weather. There was no thought put into the field effect summoning max moves beyond "what type is the move that summons this normally".
The separation between Rock and Ground has felt a bit arbitrary to me as I played more RPG's that used a singular "Earth" element for attacks and creatures of that nature. Pokemon has over time distinguished the two through more specifically flavored Dual types and more creative/out-there Mon design, but when I look at Gen 1 and 2, the types definitely feel like they were split up mostly to have separate Weakness and resistance sets to open up the Type-Chart a bit more.
This comes up a bit with moves too like Sandstorm above, especially when other Sand based moves like Sand Tomb or Scorching Sands continue to be Ground type. Considering Sandstorm's mostly a Weather move without a damage component to balance around, would the type change affect anything? Best interpretation I have is that for Sandstorm to work the Pokemon itself is producing the airborne granules (Hippowdon carries quantities around), with Rock types doing it by literally scattering micro-bits of their rock body/armor into the air.
This comes up a bit with moves too like Sandstorm above, especially when other Sand based moves like Sand Tomb or Scorching Sands continue to be Ground type. Considering Sandstorm's mostly a Weather move without a damage component to balance around, would the type change affect anything? Best interpretation I have is that for Sandstorm to work the Pokemon itself is producing the airborne granules (Hippowdon carries quantities around), with Rock types doing it by literally scattering micro-bits of their rock body/armor into the air.
I am playing through Pokemon Prism and I feel this. I tend not to spend money on healing items or Potions since I fight hundreds (literally hundreds) of encounters, so the effect is twice as irritating. Thankfully, confusion has drastically been nerfed since it only has a 33% chance to activate, functionally making it a crappier version of paralysis. However, it still is annoying in games where the activation rate wasn't lowered.
Some other things I find annoying is rare held items on wild Pokemon (like Razor Fang Gligar or Metal Coat Bronzor). In pokemon Prism, both Pokemon have around a 20% encounter rate with a 5% chance of holding an item, meaning that you effectively have a 1% chance of finding them with the desired held Item. Now, you can boost the odds to around 4% with a compound eyes Pokemon, but it is kind of inconvenient since you have to lead with the Compound Eyes mon, then switch to a Pokemon with Frisk to see if they have the item or not. I do like how in Legends Arceus, the Pokemon just drops the item it may be carrying instead.
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You could just have the Compound Eyes mon be fainted and the Frisk mon in the second slot. In the real games at least, abilities that require the Pokémon to be in the first slot still work when the Pokémon is fainted.
Probably to explain why Flying-types get hurt by it. If it was Ground players would wonder "hey, if this is a Ground-type move, why is it hurting Flying-types who are supposed to be immune, they should be flying over the sandstorm!". With it being Rock-type that thinking is a non-issue.
As for why other sand-based moves are Ground-type, likely Ground-types would be more likely to utilize sand and mud and whatever else is on the ground to attack (as Ground-types are more based on burrowing and terrestrial animals than monsters made of the ground) while Rock-types, usually monsters made from rocks, first instinct would use their rough bodies to as their weapon.
Yeah I agree with this reasoning.
I thought I could try and distinguish moves like Sand Tomb from Sandstorm based on how they deal damage, but unfortunately the move description for Sand Tomb has changed over time to make things muddier. In RSE it "[t]raps and hurts the foe in quicksand" which differs from the more abrasive effects of Sandstorm in a way that helps carve out separate identities for Ground- and Rock-type moves. In later games, though (including FRLG?), it "traps the foe inside a harshly raging sandstorm" which is literally just one-sided Sandstorm.
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Starting in Generation II, the Psyduck line has access to Psychic as an Egg move.
Starting in Generation I, Psychic is a TM.
Despite this, it is not until Generation IV that a Psyduck or Golduck can actually learn the move via TM29, despite Psychic otherwise being part of its learnset. Events I get, they're supposed to be special, but if you're going to give a Pokemon a move, let it have the move.
Bonus fun fact: Missingno., the famed RBY Glitchmon, is captured with two instances of Water Gun in its moveset. RBY also has Water Gun available as an early-game TM. Missingno. is actually incompatible with said TM.
Starting in Generation I, Psychic is a TM.
Despite this, it is not until Generation IV that a Psyduck or Golduck can actually learn the move via TM29, despite Psychic otherwise being part of its learnset. Events I get, they're supposed to be special, but if you're going to give a Pokemon a move, let it have the move.
Bonus fun fact: Missingno., the famed RBY Glitchmon, is captured with two instances of Water Gun in its moveset. RBY also has Water Gun available as an early-game TM. Missingno. is actually incompatible with said TM.
With gen 2 I think it could just be an oversight. We have some looks at egg moves at various point in development, they were seemingly done relatively late and often had several passes. Even some evolved Pokemon had them at one point or another iirc. And we're all aware of some pokemon like Staryu having egg moves despite being genderless in the final. So giving Psyduck Psychic as an egg move instead of as a TM could have just been the right not talking to the left properly.
Gen 3 has less of an excuse considering they also removed Ice Beam from the egg move list, but left behind Psychic AND Light Screen. But also probably still an over sight.
e: Can bulbapedia PLEASE fix itself good lord. Just getting worse and worse these days.
Serebii has most of hte same information but it is like...2 degrees more annoying to shuffle between pages of information.
Gen 3 has less of an excuse considering they also removed Ice Beam from the egg move list, but left behind Psychic AND Light Screen. But also probably still an over sight.
e: Can bulbapedia PLEASE fix itself good lord. Just getting worse and worse these days.
Serebii has most of hte same information but it is like...2 degrees more annoying to shuffle between pages of information.
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Also, Psyduck doesn't learn a STAB move in Gen 3 by level-up until level 50. Have fun if it was your starter in Rescue Team.
Don't diss me
Also Cloud Nine + Damp is stupid good in general. No bad weather, no explosion traps. Can paralyze with Disable too on learn up, and has good TM pool
A somewhat similar thing happened with the Zubat line and Fly. Crobat was always able to learn Fly, but Zubat and Golbat couldn't learn it until Gen 4.
TM moves can (or could, prior to Gen 6) be passed down through breeding, so that doesn't really feel like it was the case.
Now, for somethinge else. Let’s talk about Legends: Arceus. I like the game, but unfortunately, there are quite a lot of major and minor things I didn’t like about it. I don’t like posting too many things that I dislike or find annoying in Pokémon games since I don’t want to create too much negativity, but this time, I feel that I need to do so in order to get it all out of my head.
I talked about why I don’t like the Noble battles and the player health indicator in the unpops thread a while ago, not going to repeat it here even if it is suitable for this thread as well. I guess one thing I should add is that the Noble battles felt more like a test of patience than skill. For what is supposed to be boss battles, I don’t think that is good game design. I think boss battles in other action games like Zelda and Metroid are way better because they generally test your skill and not your patience. Overall, it annoys me how bad the Noble battles are because there was so much potential to make them great. Hopefully they can get them right next time if they choose to make more Legends games.
I also find it annoying how the game is lacking some things that should be standard for an exploration-driven game. The most notable are a minimap, compass, clock and weather indicator on the overworld screen. I found it very annoying that these things were missing since it meant that I was forced to open the map to see some of these things instead of just having them directly on the overworld screen. This slowed down momentum and made it less enjoyable to explore the areas in the game.
There are also some issues with how the map and travelling works. I find it very inconvenient how you can’t travel directly from one wild area to another. Instead, you are forced to do a “middle landing” in Jubilife… every single time. It slows down momentum and makes everything much slower, which isn’t good at all. It is similar to how you can’t travel between Kanto and Johto in HG/SS since you are forced to do a middle landing there as well, and that is not a good thing to be compared to. I don’t understand why they made it so inconvenient, other action-adventure games like BOTW and XC2 allows you to travel freely between any area. BOTW allows you to travel to any checkpoint no matter where you are, while XC2 lets you travel freely between the titans. For instance, you can travel directly between Uraya and Gormott without restrictions, there’s no need to do a middle landing at Argentum or somewhere in-between. In comparison, L:A is very inconvenient in this regard.
Another thing I find annoying is how there are so few warp points in each of the wild areas. I think there should have been at least 1-2 more in every area. And not going through the gates between the areas felt very artificial, it made the world feel less connected. I also have a strong dislike for the “fog” that appears when you are near the border of the map (or rather what the game considers the border). It was very annoying, and I often found myself going there by accident since I found it hard to navigate in several areas due to the lack of a minimap. I don’t understand why they had to create this fog, the message saying that you can’t go further would have been more than enough.
I also think there should have been more settlements in the game. While I like Jubilife Village and I think it sort of makes sense from a story perspective that there are no other big settlements, I still find it a bit lacking. There are the Diamond and Pearl Clan settlements, but those are way too small. Both BOTW and XC2 had several big settlements, L:A is lacking in comparison. I think the game should have had at least 2 more big settlements.
I think the way they handled obedience in the game is good in theory, but not so good in practice. It sort of makes sense that your own Pokémon can now disobey you at high levels (from what I have understood, this did not happen to me personally). But since it is tied to your rank (and your progress with the Pokedex) and not to how far you are in the game, it is still possible to get overleveled if you work on the Dex a lot instead of just playing the story. So that needs to be changed if they want it to actually work as intended.
I find it annoying how the game is quiet without music in way too many instances. I have seen many people complain that the game is empty because there is too little content, but I disagree. However, THIS is something that makes the game feel empty for me. I like the music in the game (when it actually plays) but I wish there were music everywhere instead of just in some areas/instances.
Many of the controls/button placements in the game feel poorly designed. Even after having played the game for over 90 hours, I often ended up pressing the wrong button. I think they could have done some things differently like using the B button to run like in the standard main series games, and make it so that you crouch when pressing the control stick instead of pressing B, like in BOTW. Basically, switch those two buttons around.
Charms are cool, but I wish the game had a better explanation for how some of them work. Notably the Survival Charm, I played through the entire game without knowing how it actually worked. I always thought it worked differently from how it worked in reality. Also, when I fought Cresselia, it immediately removed two of my charms right as I started fighting it. Don’t know how or why that happened but it was not fun at all.
The ride Pokémon are pretty good, but they have some issues that prevent them all from being perfect. Below are my thoughts on all of them:
Wyrdeer: The bike of the game. It can run fast, by pressing a button(!), and it can jump! Basically, a straight upgrade over just using the player. The only downsides are that you can’t throw stuff while riding Wyrdeer, and that the controls are a bit different from the player which often led me to pressing the wrong buttons. I also wish you could use it inside of Jubilife Village. Other than that, it is fine.
Ursaluna: The Dowsing machine of the game. Unfortunately, it isn’t very good. It moves too slowly and the signal isn’t doing a good job at showing the exact placement of the item you are trying to find. Like with Wyrdeer, you can’t throw stuff from Ursaluna either. I love Ursaluna as a Pokémon but it is sadly my least favorite of the rides.
Basculegion: The big fish takes on the role of Surf user in the game, and I think it is excellent. It can speed up, jump twice(!)
Sneasler: I guess this should be seen as the Rock Climb of the game. The big difference being that Sneasler can be used everywhere, except for on certain icy cliffs. When I first started playing the game, I was annoyed by how it wasn’t possible to climb cliffs with the player. But when I got Sneasler, I understood why. It isn’t perfect though; many cliffs have a bad design which makes them inconvenient to climb. It is also too easy to automatically activate when you are near a tree and want to pick up an item, but then the game thinks you want to climb the tree with Sneasler instead. One thing I like is how the player seems to travel in the backpack Sneasler is wearing. You can’t throw things from Sneasler, but since the player travels in the backpack, it actually makes sense so it is the only ride I can forgive for having this issue.
Braviary: Similar to Fly, but I’d say it is more similar to soaring in OR/AS. I like how it soars directly on the overworld instead of in a separate world like the Lati@s does in OR/AS. It isn’t very fast though, and while it can speed up, it seems like it automatically descends upon doing so. It can also dive down, but it seems like it doesn’t always work if you are too close to the ground. Controlling it isn’t super easy either, sadly. And while it can fly downwards, it has no way to go upwards, which is annoying since I often find myself wanting to gain height with it. This forces you to do unnecessary middle landings if you want to travel long distances, which is annoying. And you can’t throw stuff from it either. It is good but not perfect. It is annoying how it has such glaring issues since it should have been easy to make it perfect.
On the whole, I think the concept of Ride Pokémon is great but the execution in L:A is far from perfect. It is not the worst possible thing in the world, but there’s definitely room for improvement. The issues with them are a bit annoying, sadly. Though I still like the Ride Pokémon on the whole, despite the issues with them.
On to something else. I am not a big fan of the changes to the battle system. The old battle system was never broken, they did not need to “fix” it (which they didn’t even do, they just made it worse). The changes to the damage calculations are odd, it feels like everything hurts like hell and if you don’t use Supereffective STAB moves which can KO your opponent, you will likely get KO’d in return. Defensive Pokémon felt useless since even if they survived one hit, they would pretty much always die to 2 or 3 hits anyway.
I am not a big fan of the Strong/Agile styles either. They don’t work very well. Since they are tied to the Speed stat of the Pokémon (or so I assume), it means that slower Pokémon will always be at a disadvantage. Showing turn order is pretty useless as well since it will change if the opponent also uses a move which affects action speed. But those problems are almost tolerable compared to the very worst issue I have with the game.
Over the years, there have been many features and mechanics in the Pokémon games which I dislike, but this game introduced the first one I downright hate. What I am talking about is the fact that opponents can attack before you make your decision on a turn. It is the single worst mechanic the series has ever introduced if you ask me, I find it completely unacceptable in every way. I consider it to be a bigger issue than dexit, and if this is kept in future games, then I am definitely quitting Pokémon. This mechanic alone removed a lot of the fun from battles for me. I assume it won’t be kept in any regular main series games (thankfully), but it might be the deciding factor for whether I get any future Legends games.
I also dislike how wild Pokémon can gang up on you, sometimes up to 4 at once (or even more? I never had more than 4 at once though) while you are always limited to 1 Pokémon of your own. This creates very unfair situations. The lack of spread moves really hurts as well, and the changes to the battle mechanics means that you will likely get defeated even if you are at a higher level than the opponents.
I have seen some people say that this battle system would be horrible for PvP, and I agree. But I think it is really terrible for PvE as well. I think there is potential to improve the battle system in Pokémon, but the way L:A did it was definitely not an improvement. It feels like the changes they did here turned every battle into a luck-based revenge kill fest. It does not offer much room for strategy, which is the one thing I like the most about Pokémon battles: how strategy-based they are.
Another thing related to battles which I dislike is the black borders (or what they should be called) which appear at the top and bottom of the screen when you are in a battle. They are completely unnecessary and they obscure your vision which makes you see less during the battle, which is very annoying.
I also find it annoying how you only get Exp. at the end of every battle instead of after every opponent you defeat. While this does make things go faster, it makes it harder to train if you want to keep your whole team at even levels (which I usually want to). If one Pokémon faints during a battle, it will get less Exp. than the others and be at risk of being underleveled compared to them. I don’t care if the old system makes things “easier”, the new one makes it less fun to train Pokémon, which is what is important for me.
In think those are all of my issues with the battle system in L:A. In the end, L:A is the first Pokémon game I have played where I don’t like the battles (which is otherwise one of my favorite things about Pokémon), and that’s not a good thing at all.
I think the system with encountering Pokémon on the overworld is a great concept and I’ll take it over random encounters any day, but the execution in L:A has some issues. My biggest issue is the aggressive wild Pokémon. When they target you, you can’t warp anywhere, so the game forces you to either fight them or run until you are out of their reach (which takes a while) They can also attack you from far across the map, though Alphas are the worst when it comes to this. I also find it really annoying how the aggressive wild Pokémon will attack you even if your lead/party is at much higher levels than them. There should be a limit here. They should have made it so that if you are at 5 or at the very least 10 levels higher than all wild Pokémon, they should ignore you (except for Alphas).
I also wish wild Pokémon could respawn slower. Now they do so very quickly, almost immediately. Which has its positives but also negatives. It is annoying if you just want to relax and chill for a bit, the game does not give you many opportunities to do that out in the field. I also find it really annoying how wild Pokémon can randomly run from battles even if you are battling them with your own Pokémon. This was something I strongly disliked back in G/S/C and I do not approve of them bringing it back. I don’t care if it makes the game more “realistic” or “immersive” or whatever, it makes the game less fun to play and that’s a negative for me. Overall, I think S/S had a better overworld encounter system than L:A.
The targeting system has some problems as well. Sometimes the game chooses another target than the one you had in mind. I remember one time when I was going after an Alpha Lopunny and it was right in front of me, I was targeting it (or at least I thought so) but the game targeted one of the Zubat that was chasing after me instead, putting me in a bad situation.
With all of that said, I still liked L:A. Far from the best Pokémon game if you ask me, but still fun to play despite all of the issues it has. It is good but not great. If I were to rank the main series games, L:A would be somewhere in the middle.
Enough about L:A. I have a few other things that annoy me as well, might as well bring them up while I’m here.
The time system in the regular Pokémon games is really bad. Having the in-game time tied to real-life time is a cool idea, but it gets annoying if you lock many events to specific times, days or even months! I think it was a really cool idea when they introduced it back in G/S/C, but it has really overstayed its welcome since then. For all of the things L:A did wrong, changing the time system to a better one was definitely one thing the game did right. I hope future games will follow in its footsteps regarding the time system.
I also want to talk about BD/SP a little. I haven’t played these games, but I think the graphics and the graphical style isn’t very good. I watched some parts of a video where one of the games were being played, and it looked bizarre. Yet, I think it could have worked if it had been done better. I played through the Switch remake of Link’s Awakening a while ago, it is done in a similar graphical style… and it just works, somehow. I can’t really explain how or why, but that’s how I feel regarding this.
I am a big fan of OR/AS, but there is one issue I have with them which has become more and more apparent as time has gone by. The lack of character customization. As of now, it has been in every single other main series game released after X/Y. Even LGP/E and BD/SP had it, although not on the same scale as the other games. So the fact that it is missing from OR/AS is very annoying since they chose to add it to the other remakes released after X/Y.
Lastly, one thing I realized because of the recent news about S/V. The Pokémon fandom is still terrible at handling spoilers. Whenever something new for an upcoming game is revealed, it is everywhere in an instant, you have no chance to stay unspoiled unless you avoid every Pokémon site in the world. I used to think the fandom had gotten better at handling spoilers, but now I honestly feel like we have gotten worse at it. It seems like Pokémon fans have absolutely zero respect for those who wish to stay unspoiled for upcoming games. Even here in OI, I have seen people post some pretty major spoilers for S/V outside of the S/V thread. The way the fandom handles spoilers is just a big shame. And no, it is not “your own fault” for being spoiled if you go to Pokémon sites, the fandom should keep all things about upcoming games in the threads designed for those, not everywhere else.
Since I don’t want to get too spoiled for S/V, I will have no other choice than to go on a hiatus from all Pokémon sites and forums during the last months before the pre-release period, just like I did for S/S. Though I will probably still post here on the forums once in a while even after starting my hiatus, but it will mostly be about minor and other things. So that’s annoying. But at the same time, it is nice to take a break from the forums now and then, so it isn’t all bad.
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That was a lot of negativity. To make up for it (somewhat), I am going to make a post in the likes thread later today.
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The thing is, several Egg Moves were removed in Gen V because they were available as TMs, giving the implication that TMs being infinite made passing TM moves via breeding to a species that couldn't learn it that way (with a male parent that could learn the move), alongside actually adding the TMs to their learnset, unnecessary.
Although, for some reason, in Psychic's case, only Psyduck needed breeding to get it.
L A U N C H C - G E A R C O M M U N I C A T I O N S ?
why.
I like Gen V, but it's so weird that for all the small polish the games got (saving speed increased, faster battles, infinite TMs, weather listed on sidebars) you still have to click through at least one additional text box to resume play, even though said C-Gear is completely irrelevant nowadays.
At least it lets you battle with someone over IR anywhere, so it's nice you don't have to go to a Pokemon Center anymore to duke it out, but it is still annoying upon bootup.
why.
I like Gen V, but it's so weird that for all the small polish the games got (saving speed increased, faster battles, infinite TMs, weather listed on sidebars) you still have to click through at least one additional text box to resume play, even though said C-Gear is completely irrelevant nowadays.
At least it lets you battle with someone over IR anywhere, so it's nice you don't have to go to a Pokemon Center anymore to duke it out, but it is still annoying upon bootup.
In addition to some more warps in the wild areas, it would have been nice to have a warp that actually put you right next to the farm in Jubilife, having to walk over there every time was incredibly annoying (not helped by the fact the click function on the stick of my left Joycon straight up broke so I couldn't even run on foot).
Mind blown, I didn't even know left stick click to dash was a thing. I thought the symbol on the controls list just meant moving the left stick to its edge like smash attacks in Smash. Heck, I didn't even know it was physically possible to press the stick down unless it was vertical; there's so much resistance.
Games that have the "push the stick to do a thing" are basically satan and they are LEGION
The fact that the symbol clearly indicates something to do with the stick is honestly a step up from referring to an L3 and R3 that is labelled nowhere on the controller like the PS4 does.
There aren't many Wii U games that use stick-clicks - the only one I've played is Splatoon - but I passed so much time clicking my GamePad's sticks for fun that it feels weird to hold a controller where I can't do that now.
The function is extremely common in modern Playstation / Xbox games so I assume that's why it didnt really surprise me at all
Is it just me or does pressing a control stick have so much resistance that it feels like breaking that part of the controller? It feels like it's not supposed to move down like that and the only reason it does is because you've broken it by pressing too hard.
It has more resistance because you're using the stick all the time so if it didn't you'd be "accidentally" pressing it constantly.
I miss Poliwhirl's old colors.