(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

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Why do Pikachu and Steenee need snorkels if they can just open their mouths underwater anyway?
 
ScraftyIsTheBest said:
Basically because the Gen 2 Pokemon were largely designed as an expansion roster of the original 151 rather than an entirely original and independent roster of its own, in line with GSC being conceived as more of a direct sequel to RGB. They clearly wanted people to continue using the OGs from RGBY including Johto still having things like Pidgey and Caterpie in the first routes and whatnot and just about all of the iconic Gen 1 Pokemon reprising their roles from before. The Gen 2 Pokemon were basically distributed in eccentric ways to show off new mechanics (breeding, mass outbreaks, time of day cycle, friendship, and so on and so forth) with several being rare spawns in both Johto and Kanto to give returning players an amazing sense of discovery when they found those rare new Pokemon, making it feel like they've expanded the greater knowledge of Pokemon since the original RGB. How well that intention actually worked in practice is another matter entirely, but yeah that's basically the gist of it.

Gen 3 had the first truly original and separate roster of Pokemon being a sort of soft reboot of the franchise. That said, I admit that part of me still intrinsically considers Slugma and Skarmory as honorary Hoenn/Gen 3 Pokemon, and also considers Mantine an honorary Gen 4 Pokemon in a way.
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Even assuming this was all intentional design, I think this is misguided since the game starts you in Johto and makes a point that you don't visit Kanto in any form until end/post-game. It kind of deflates Johto's sense of identity when you're mostly seeing the same old stuff you already have known for years (Pokemania was high so this wasn't even like some series where you had to "reintroduce" staples like FF4 or FF7 being jump on points for Final Fantasy). If making it feel like an extension was the goal, I still think they failed because it doesn't simply fall short but barely even tries to expand on the Kanto experience.

Johto even fails to really give itself a unique experience through things like rearranging the encounters: Most of the early game consists of Bugs, Early Birds, and Normals, Geodude for a slow tanky Rock, some Grass, and a rare Electric Type that almost everyone runs to have an option. Mid Game you see a few mons with Elemental Types and a bunch of all-rounders and Water Types, and then Late Game is when the exotic stuff like Dragons start appearing. This pattern holds even for a lot of the new mons (Togepi is like the Mt. Moon Magikarp as a late-early mon you can Baby for a better option, for example), so Johto is mostly Kanto again not only in roster, but what order that roster is made available to you. It also begs the question of where the Gen 2 species that only appear in Kanto come from: at least if they were Johto native they'd be consistent with "you never went next door" for a lot of the other mons like Hoothoot.

My point of comparison, likely benefitting from over a decade of learning, is B2W2, which as sequels revisits the exact same region rather than a neighboring one, but delivers a wildly different gameplay experience thanks to changing up the early game (which I think helps a lot in RPGs since your early game snowballs your eventual composition). Just changing the tutorial areas/maps and giving you a very different (not to mention more varied) roster makes B2W2 one of the most replayable entries in the franchise for my money, and compared to BW's infamously railroaded early game, you can walk into the 2nd-3rd Gym (basically last bit of early game) with one of as many as 8 types available to you (all of which can overlap/cover the unchosenstarters), including some extremely useful types that typically don't come into their own until mid-game such as Electric, Fire, and Steel and not even all of them on early-game "replace later" Pokemon.

Johto would be a much more fulfilling experience if either the new Pokemon or just a shuffling of the old ones could switch-up how you play it instead of being "Kanto again", and I think HG/SS benefitted immensely at the time from things like the Pokewalker, which allowed access to a couple species that, if not spectacularly amazing, were useable and exotic for early encountering (Kangaskhan and Doduo both make cool early Normals, Ponyta is a meh-but-early Fire Type alongside Magby). It really opened the teambuilding up to make the gameplay feel fresh even when I knew what every Gym Leader would probably play like between past experience and the updated mechanics coming off Platinum.

tl;dr GSC needed to shake up the Kanto Pokemon if it wasn't going to use the Johto mons more. It really felt like "been there done that" on the returning roster placement as much as being a redo of them in the first place
 
Heh, seems I'm posting again in all the old threads I used to haunt.

Anyway, here cause I have a new annoyance.

Quick Story: Saw a video about potential counters for the next 7-Star Tera Raid coming up, Normal Dragonite. A lot of them are obvious: A bulky Steel-type with Body Press. Makes sense, though out of curiosity I decided to see all the Pokemon that can learn Body Press, and one of the Pokemon that can naturally learn it is Regigigas.

"Oh, that's neat, Regigigas has a move which it can use to (sorta) work around its Ability but it's not too broken that it makes Regigigas OP."

Decided to then check to see if there's any movesets made with Body Press Regigigas, and that's when I learned something new, something annoying: Slow Start also halves the damage of Moves which uses another stat.

Turns out, Slow Start doesn't technically halve the Attack stat, what it does is that any damaging move Regigigas uses has its damage halved. And the only reason I can see for them doing this way is to SPECIFICALLY prevent it working around its Ability using Moves that use another stat such as Body Press (or it's opponent's stats like Foul Play, though Regigigas can't learn that). And I must ask:

WHY?

As I said, it being able to use Body Press doesn't make it OP. It's Defense is 110, it doesn't get STAB, its Speed is still halved, and it'll be at a severe disadvantage against a Pokemon resistant or immune to Fighting-type Moves (almost same deal with Foul Play; but even if the opponent's Attack is higher it's probably not 160 high and is still a non-STAB Move).

Flavor-wise it also doesn't make sense. The idea behind Body Press is that the Pokemon is just leaning against the opponent and having its bulk squash them (as it just so happens Pokemon with high Defense tend to also be big and weighty). So how does Slow Start halve that? Does it now also make Regigigas lighter without compromising its sturdiness?

Finally, if it's not giving Regigigas a way to work around its Ability, then why bother adding it to its naturally Leveling-up pool? As a TM; fine, TMs are artificially taught Move the Pokemon could theoretically be able to use (even if they don't because its doesn't match their stats). But them adding it to its natural Leveling-up pool is like them suggesting this is a strategy Regigigas can use... except it can't, so why is it here?!
 
Seems less like a specific nerf to Gigas and more just a quirk of how the stat modification/calculation works in relation to those moves (that notably, did not exist at the time and probably weren't on their mind).

The inverse of this, Pure Power & Huge Power, works the same way: They double the effective power of Foul Play & Body Press
 
Pikachu315111 said:
Turns out, Slow Start doesn't technically halve the Attack stat, what it does is that any damaging move Regigigas uses has its damage halved. And the only reason I can see for them doing this way is to SPECIFICALLY prevent it working around its Ability using Moves that use another stat such as Body Press (or it's opponent's stats like Foul Play, though Regigigas can't learn that). And I must ask:
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It's not any damaging move, it's just that Body Press uses physical Attack modifiers, it only swaps in the user's Defense stat and stages, not stat stage modifiers are the Attack ones. Huge Power and Choice Band boost Body Press, Fur Coat and Eviolite do not.
Also all Z moves, though not Max Moves.
 
More random thoughts of someone who is currently hyperfiyating too much on Pokemon again. Really sorru to keep pestering you guys with rather bland things.

-Masters of all things made me realize that despite showing a lot of interest on their strength, Nemona never gets to capture or use any Paradox Pokemon in SV. It would have been interesting to see her use the funny ones, namely Scream Tail or Iron Bundle (still can't believe we have giant Jigglypuff and toy Delibird relatives with legendary BST)

-So why we don't have a clean render of Índigo Disk Kieran? If I'm not mistaken, we have one for cosplayer Volo, which I could argue it's a lot more of a spoiler even without context given how much he looks like Arceus.

-Finally the contents in Daybreak are very nice and long for a free update (the Ingo challengues in particular are cool for people who like battle buildings even trough they can get ridiculous, and the little stories with Adamas/Irida are very nice if you like their characters and wonder about their futures, also the *secret weapon* of the village is hilarious). Of all ganes, LA did not need a battle facility, but there it is anyways unlike in the Indigo Disk. Honestly it feels like I -and most people- didn't think much about it because it was announced alongside SV. Still can't believe they killed LA's hype so quickly.

((On an unrelated note could someone please explain to me how signatures work? I would like one even if most of the time they ate not displayed on mobile ))
 
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DrrT said:
-So why we don't have a clean render of Índigo Disk Kieran? If I'm not mistaken, we have one for cosplayer Volo, which I could argue it's a lot more of a spoiler even without context given how much he looks like Arceus.
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I don't think it's for spoiler reasons, since he's prominent in the key art.
We don't have an official render of Wielder Volo either, just a clean scan of his concept art. Perhaps one day someone with a good scanner will scan a replacement of the one we have for ID Kieran

I think they just don't find it a priority to show the full renders of everyone for whatever reason. Like we know they have finalized art of the E4 but they've never updated the website with them (I mean, Larry aside. But he's a Leader, too, so...). The only reason we have them is because of the Digital Guide, to rip them directly from there (apparently). And none of the teachers aside from Jacq had art released, though we can presume they have them on hand.
Nothing new, sadly, they can be really hit or miss with who they release art of, much less variants of. You'd think with them being recurring bosses and central characters that the Shadow Triad's artwork would be out there but no. Concept art only. At least with the goddesses they're only important to the backstory.
 
PP Ups and PP Maxs being so rare and it doesn’t carry over is something that irritates me.

I’ve been trying to get the Super Single Stamp from the Battle Tree in UM, so I’ve been adjusting my Pokémon’s movesets to prioritize accuracy over power, such as Dragon Pulse over Draco Meteor. The problem is I PPed all my Pokémon for multiplayer and now I have to get rid of them, essentially wasting the items. You can get them from one of the beaches, but they are super expensive at 48 BP. And if you need multiple for many Pokémon, it adds to really quickly. It’s optimal for Pokémon to have Max PP in battle facilities for fighting against stallers as well as the possibility of Pressure quickly depleting PP, especially with Mono-Legendary teams as well. It’s just creates an unnecessary layer of tedium, especially with how unpredictable and unforgiving battle facilities are. It would be much better if PP was saved when you got rid of a move-like if you maxed Overheat but replaced with it something else for a bit- it would keep the PP the same when you retaught it the move later.
 
Why is Dragonite the way that it is? I saw an edit on reddit so that it had the same colours as Dratini and Dragonair and it while still didn't look good, it at least looked like it was related to them.
 
DreamPrince said:
PP Ups and PP Maxs being so rare and it doesn’t carry over is something that irritates me.

I’ve been trying to get the Super Single Stamp from the Battle Tree in UM, so I’ve been adjusting my Pokémon’s movesets to prioritize accuracy over power, such as Dragon Pulse over Draco Meteor. The problem is I PPed all my Pokémon for multiplayer and now I have to get rid of them, essentially wasting the items. You can get them from one of the beaches, but they are super expensive at 48 BP. And if you need multiple for many Pokémon, it adds to really quickly. It’s optimal for Pokémon to have Max PP in battle facilities for fighting against stallers as well as the possibility of Pressure quickly depleting PP, especially with Mono-Legendary teams as well. It’s just creates an unnecessary layer of tedium, especially with how unpredictable and unforgiving battle facilities are. It would be much better if PP was saved when you got rid of a move-like if you maxed Overheat but replaced with it something else for a bit- it would keep the PP the same when you retaught it the move later.
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Keeping the PP Up count for the slot might make sense, but keeping potentially close to a thousand different PP Up counts? No, that's just a waste of save file space.
 
MoonlightRose said:
Why is Dragonite the way that it is? I saw an edit on reddit so that it had the same colours as Dratini and Dragonair and it while still didn't look good, it at least looked like it was related to them.
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It could just be another Magikarp/Gyarados thing (NO, I'm not referring to the conspiracy theory their final evolutions were swapped; they may have had drastic differences but there are clearly still things about each final's evo which relate to the previous).

At a point in developing them GF decided having both a more slender/graceful sea serpent and it evolving to a European dragon. The jump between it having no limbs to suddenly having limbs probably was felt as such a drastic change it was similar to a metamorphosis akin to a caterpillar into a butterfly/moth or tadpole into a frog/toad (or, relating back to my Magikarp/Gyarados mention, the carp (a marine animal which a sea serpent would also be considered) jumping over the dragon gate and transforming into a dragon). Many animals who undergo this change also tend to change color and lose/gain body parts, so instead of making a Dragonite which keeps in line with Dragonair they took this opportunity to just design a European dragon Pokemon that looks appealing.
 
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Pikachu315111 said:
It could just be another Magikarp/Gyarados thing (NO, I'm not referring to the conspiracy theory their final evolutions were swapped, it may have had drastic differences but there are clearly still things about each final's evo which relate to the previous).

At a point in developing them they decided having both a more slender/graceful sea serpent and it evolving to a European dragon. The jump between it having no limbs to suddenly having limbs they probably felt was such a drastic change it was similar to a metamorphosis akin to a caterpillar into a butterfly or tadpole into a frog/toad. Many animals who undergo this change also tend to change color and lose/gain body parts, so instead of making a Dragonite which keeps in line with Dragonair they took this opportunity to just design a European dragon Pokemon that looks appealing.
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I mean, based on the internal index numbers Dragonite was created first and Dratini and Dragonair were created together later. It seems like they just wanted to combine the lines for some reason, same as what happened to the Squirtle line.
 
AztecCroc said:
I mean, based on the internal index numbers Dragonite was created first and Dratini and Dragonair were created together later. It seems like they just wanted to combine the lines for some reason, same as what happened to the Squirtle line.
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Ah, interesting. Could it be they were maybe developed to be pre-evolutions to Dragonite? Like I know this is a case for some of the Starters, either their basic & final stages or just their final stage are made first and previous stages are made after to match the design.

If that's the case, it could very well be an intentional reference to the carp jumping over the dragon gate again, but since they already did that concept they made the carp into a sea serpent.
 
Didn't Dragonite also have a different designer from Dratini/Dragonair? I may be misremembering. I wish there was something like the Cryptodex for other gens.

Anyways, I got reminded of how much I hate Rhyperior's design so here's an unnecesary long rant about it. (Putting it into spoilers just in case someone doesn't care about what a wannabe artist thinks)
I have no issues with cross-gen evolutions, in fact some of my favourite mons like Kingdra, Scizor and Hydrapple are some of them. Similarly, while I believe it shouldn't be obvious in a vacuum the design comes from another generation (which is something that happens with a lot of Gen 4 ones), I don't think that automatically makes a design bad on its own merits. I also don't think Rhydon already "feeling" like a fully evolved mon should be in consideration when talking about its evolution, so Archaludon and the two Ursalunas don't bother me.

What grinds my gears about Rhyperior is that it seems like a mess even as an standalone design. It looks like if my 6 year old self designed it, and not even in a cool sense (like, I get why people probably think Zacian Crowned looks dumb as a wolf literally carrying a sword, even if I just can't help but love it). I have probably some of the most basic tastes on Pokemon designs around -some of my favourites include Yveltal, GMax Charizard and Galarian Moltres- and even as a kid I found Rhyperior ugly. The difference with say, Magmortar, which I have also always disliked, is that Rhyperior doesn't seem to have any strong identity, a basis to it. It really feels like they wanted a Rhydon evolution but were not sure of how to handle it so they just tried random stuff on it without any thought on how they would look together. I picture my child self excitedly going "it now has TWO horns, and its arms are CANNONS now, and he also has ARMOR, and the tail has a giant ROCK on its end, and it has those cooler new colors!!!" while adding all those random things to Rhydon's face. And yet, as I said that child's first impression was that it looked hideous. It looks dumb when put side to side with Rhydon, and it has an awkward body shape that makes it look ridiculous when moving around like in LA or SV.

I can't stress enough how my issue with it is not that it changes drastically, there are some evolutions that I dislike (namely Grumpig or my first ever starter Sceptile who was a disappointment after the cool Grovyle) but can stand on its own. I think the best comparison is Mega Heracross, who is also a very big and strange change from the original but unlike Rhyperior, feels more like a proper redesign rather than awkwardly stacking things on top of the original one. One could argue it looked better on static sprites and I would kind of agree but I don't think it's an excuse as it looked weird even in the anime: it's just not a design that feels like something that moves around should have, particularly with its huge spiky arms. That's definetly saying something in a series with living objects and humanoids like Cinderace or Incineroar. Rhyperior just looks artificial but not in a good sense, specially as an evolution, yet it also doesn't seem like that was what they were trying to create.

I'm not even a Rhydon fan. It's just disappointing than the first ever created Pokemon got such a trainwreck of an evolution. I wish I would know what their thought process when designing it was. Maybe then I would be able to understand it better and at least appreciate it. But if the concept was really just "cooler Rhydon" or "Rhydon with an armor vest", they dropped the ball spectacularly. I really think the only reason it isn't hated that much is because is an old design by now and because it keeps Rhydon's basic facial features.

I am not aware of what was the fandom's reaction when it was recent as I didn't even have Internet back then. But I have seen ocasionally people talking about how oit of place it looks rather than it being a bad design which is my point.
 
Watched a "Hoenn starters&legendaries vs Sinnoh starters&legendaries" video earlier and honestly... the Sinnoh trio are really underpowered compared to most other legendary trios aren't they? In terms of abilities, specifically.
  • the weather trio get to bring weather with them, making them far more powerful (kind of in Rayquaza's case - Mega Rayquaza corrected this for a time with strong winds)
  • the tao trio get their own versions of Mold Breaker
  • Xerneas and Yveltal get an ability which powers up their signature moves
  • Solgaleo and Lunala get their own versions of Clear Body and Multiscale; this one's kind of skewed as Shadow Shield is far more generally useful but they're both undeniably good abilities to have
  • Zacian and Zamazenta get an automatic stat boost whenever they're switched in (this was nerfed in Gen XI, but is still excellent)
  • Koraidon and Miraidon get an automatic weather/terrain setup whenever they're switched in

While the creation trio just get... Pressure. Quite underwhelming really, and doesn't do anything to make them more powerful or make their signature moves more effective.

Relatedly, Telepathy makes sense as an ability for Origin Palkia (even if it is useless in singles) but it doesn't really suit Origin Dialga; I've seen all kinds of theorycrafting posts for more suitable time-themed abilities. Even Levitate would have been more beneficial.
 
QuentinQuonce said:
Watched a "Hoenn starters&legendaries vs Sinnoh starters&legendaries" video earlier and honestly... the Sinnoh trio are really underpowered compared to most other legendary trios aren't they? In terms of abilities, specifically.
  • the weather trio get to bring weather with them, making them far more powerful (kind of in Rayquaza's case - Mega Rayquaza corrected this for a time with strong winds)
  • the tao trio get their own versions of Mold Breaker
  • Xerneas and Yveltal get an ability which powers up their signature moves
  • Solgaleo and Lunala get their own versions of Clear Body and Multiscale; this one's kind of skewed as Shadow Shield is far more generally useful but they're both undeniably good abilities to have
  • Zacian and Zamazenta get an automatic stat boost whenever they're switched in (this was nerfed in Gen XI, but is still excellent)
  • Koraidon and Miraidon get an automatic weather/terrain setup whenever they're switched in

While the creation trio just get... Pressure. Quite underwhelming really, and doesn't do anything to make them more powerful or make their signature moves more effective.

Relatedly, Telepathy makes sense as an ability for Origin Palkia (even if it is useless in singles) but it doesn't really suit Origin Dialga; I've seen all kinds of theorycrafting posts for more suitable time-themed abilities. Even Levitate would have been more beneficial.
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The weird thing is the 2 new origins don't even get separate abilities. It's the same as base Dialga/Palkia; Telepathy is just the hidden ability.

I can understand not wanting to give them new signature abilities; none of the Hisui Pokemon got them presumably because L:A did not have abilities at all and I guess didnt feel like backtracking new ones for SV. But still could have given them something else to "match" Giratina-O getting Levitate....
I guess the design ethos was just "vaguely better Dialga/Palkia" down to ability?





As a complete tangent, but since I mentioned abilities...it's really weird to me that Zorua/Zoroark don't disguise themselves in the overworld at all in L:A. Illusions are still their entire shtick! SV did do this, and I doubt it was added in response to L:A not doing it. Just a shame.
 
QuentinQuonce said:
While the creation trio just get... Pressure. Quite underwhelming really, and doesn't do anything to make them more powerful or make their signature moves more effective.
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I sort of think that in Gen III/IV, they just didn't understand that Abilities could make Pokemon more powerful. Like, they knew there were in-game effects, but I think that GF thought the Ability was something fun and clever rather than an actual balance element to consider. "They're Legendaries, Legendaries get Pressure" was probably the extent of the thought. Which is just...yeah, Pokemon needs them to go through and do a clean rebalance/rebuild, fixing this sort of thing one mon at a time.
 
Hugin said:
I sort of think that in Gen III/IV, they just didn't understand that Abilities could make Pokemon more powerful. Like, they knew there were in-game effects, but I think that GF thought the Ability was something fun and clever rather than an actual balance element to consider. "They're Legendaries, Legendaries get Pressure" was probably the extent of the thought. Which is just...yeah, Pokemon needs them to go through and do a clean rebalance/rebuild, fixing this sort of thing one mon at a time.
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I don't think they were completely unaware that drought/drizzle were stronger than pressure, since Groudon and Kyogre do have a lower BST than title legends with bad Abilities. 10 points is pretty laughably low given the power discrepancy in practice, so it was still underestimated.
 
Ironmage said:
I don't think they were completely unaware that drought/drizzle were stronger than pressure, since Groudon and Kyogre do have a lower BST than title legends with bad Abilities. 10 points is pretty laughably low given the power discrepancy in practice, so it was still underestimated.
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It might have also been done to reinforce the idea that Rayquaza was superior to them. This was the first time they had played with the idea of cover legends not being equals (unless you count Suicune, i guess). They did sometime similar in Gen 5, where Kyurem < Reshiram/Zekrom < Fused Kyurem.
 
I do broadly think that they weren't completely stupid, they did know how abilities could make Pokemon much stronger even in Gen 3 & 4. Some abilities were just very good and seemed very purposefully given to Pokemon or designed with it in mind.

Seems more like they just had a shifting focus on how they wanted to handle Legends specifically having abilities over the years.
 
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