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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

R_N said:
At that point why NOT have the wild encounters scale to your progress in the same way the Wild Area and Isle of Armor do?
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Because it's still a late/post-game area.

If anything, the Raids are what make going to the Tundra early worth it. D-Max Adventures are nice and all, but they break the game too hard. On the other hand, the raids allow people to catch some DLC mons early and still use them in-game.

DrPumpkinz said:
Poison Powder being Poison-type instead of Grass-type. Not only is it annoying that it's the only classic powder move that isn't Grass-type, but I'm pretty sure it would have been able to poison Steel-types in Gen 2, which would have been neat.
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I haven't personally tested this, but it does sound plausible since Steel doesn't have a baked-in immunity to poison as a status condition in Gen 2.

That would've been an interesting buff to Grass and Bug-types...

Yeah, I'm going to test this real quick.

Edit: It works. I wonder how that would affect the meta...
 
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RocketSurgery said:
As a result, info on a site like Bulbapedia often comes from somebody copying info from a site like Serebii, as usually evidenced by SerebiiJoe making a typo on something that gets copied over before being corrected.
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And yet, his site was the one that listed the correct damage fractions for layer 2 of Spikes (1/6) as opposed to Smogon (and I think Bulbapedia) (3/16) years ago. Funny, huh?

His was the first Pokémon site I learned about, and I still like parts of it (his Pokédex pages aren't amazing but they usually are good enough for my purposes) and I don't have to scroll past pointless anatomy/anime/whatever trivia (not to mention ads) like on Bulbapedia. I'm also quite partial to his Pokéarth pages when trying to get general info about game locations. Bulbapedia is better for images, though.

I've never really used Pokémon DB, I want to say I've visited it a few times in the past but wasn't super impressed. Maybe I should try it again? My actual favorite Pokémon data site was Veekun (excellent search customization options and ability to sort moves based on generation), but it hasn't been updated since Gen 7.
 
AztecCroc said:
Bulbapedia doesn't have ads if you're signed in, and has recently moved the game data to the top above everything else (the only good change they've made recently).
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You shouldn't have to sign into a website (particularly one that's touted as a resource) to get a reasonable experience with it. I'm not making an account that I'm never going to use just to avoid a few ads.

Didn't realize the change to move game data up, though, that is nice.
 
Not sure how to word my feelings about how the process one has to go through to get past Restricted/Sub-Legendary/Adjacent mons has been involving progressively more and more busywork. It was probably meant to be more engaging on paper, but going from "get this item from Location A postgame and go to Location B" to:

Before I begin my stupid wall of text-y gripe, I am not mentioning Roaming Legends mostly because it's already in beating a dead horse territory and people have mostly figured out how to alleviate the pain involving them for the most part.

* Soaring/Portals (ORAS): The frustration is more into "Guide Dang It" territory, but just look up your trustworthy fansite of choice to learn the date and times plus weird party member/item conditions. After that, you just fly to the specific area and land for the most part. Don't really have any notable upsides/downsides to mention here.

* Ultra Ride: Try to go a lengthy distance hoping a rare portal spawns in the color you're seeking by the time you run out of speed boost energy as well as hoping it rolls the Legendary from that pool.

-Upsides: You can at least save when you land so after that you won't have to humor the minigame if the intent is for soft resetting. The stupid shiny rates for the other mons means you do have some incentive to check the encounter anyway if you are into collecting bonuses. Also, who doesn't like zooming through space on a godlike being?

-Downsides: Unless you're willing to through the process again, you cannot leave to do anything else. With ORAS you at least could do so easily since it was a matter of making sure you landed during the set Day or time, Ultra Ride doesn't have that option.

* Dynamax Adventure: A minigame that emulates the design of a roguelike, going through multiple paths with the Legendary/Beast at the end of it. Has a nice variety element to keep things from being too mind-numbing.

-Upsides: Once you encountered the Legend of choice or Peony's daughter sells you its route, you can save it for future hunting. The shiny rate is relatively generous to compensate the time taken for each run and assuming you beat it, you will be able to guarantee its capture in any ball of choice if you have it. Another nice bit is that if you do a route with someone else of the opposite version you can still save those routes so a Sword player could do a Lunala cave of their own volition while Shield player can do the same with Solgaleo. Oh, and you are guaranteed Dynite Ore to buy things from an NPC in the area so you aren't left empty-handed. Peony's daughter also sometimes throws neat eyewear fashion your way every now and then.

-Downsides: You're spending a lot of time each run just to reach the Legendary, so 0 IV resetting/Shiny Legend hunting through this is going to be a headache depending on your situation or feelings about solo play since the AI companions still are set to "sandbag" level. Although you don't have any real choice if this hunt involves Zygarde/Guardian Deities/Light Trio since they are shiny locked outside of this minigame.

* BDSP Ramanas Park: So, do you like the Sinnoh Underground?

-Upsides: They come with their Hidden Ability by default if they possess the potential for one so you don't have to deal with the general hassle of acquiring an Ability Patch if you really wanted a Static Zapdos but the Sinnoh Battle Tower's 200 BP cost might be too disheartening.

-Downsides: Jokes about having to buy and install this overly punched bag of a game aside, Ramanas Park is going to be a bit of a test of patience. You have to do the minigame minigame in the Grand Underground for some rare items to trade for Slates to enable the encounters in Ramanas Park. And you also cannot pick what Legendary since you are required to at least do the process for the Legendary Golems (and for some others, the Kanto Birds or Johto Beasts as well). There is also the added issue that the Shiny charm is bugged to only work for eggs so unless you don't mind learning the RNG Manipulation methods, you might be better off choosing another game assuming a shiny lock isn't enforced.

I was considering noting Gen IX's way of doing it but I feel it would just be repeating myself outside of the few upsides and I am getting petered out spending over an hour going through this making sure I am not sounding too much like a yapping mouth with legs and hands. Really, I just miss the days of "here's this weird item to spawn a lava frog or doing a quick errand for a feather to ward off the sleep paralysis demon, now piss off and have fun" sometimes. Cheers.
 
When you dump a whole bunch of old legendary Pokemon into a new region that they're not native to by lore or whatever, you're going to get awkward reasons for them to be there and equally half-baked methods to acquire them. There's an argument to be made that legendary Pokemon would be more satisfying captures if they were restricted to their origin games, where they often have story-related reasons to be where they are and made available as they are. It'd greatly reduce the number of them in any given title and thus reduce the "checklist/busywork" component of obtaining all of them.

The problem is that, well, nobody wants to have to buy (and usually clear!) a bunch of old games just to get a handful of their exclusives.
 
Sixfortyfive said:
The problem is that, well, nobody wants to have to buy (and usually clear!) a bunch of old games just to get a handful of their exclusives.
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Not just that, but it also becomes a huge issue due to their attempt to try and make Pokemon a competitive game.

We saw the shitshow that this year has caused due to several of the legendaries (and even some of the non-leges) demanding you to own Legend-Arceus and/or Sword & Shield. Making the competitive scene "actually p2w" (no, not due to the DLCs, but literally requiring you to own multiple titles not related to the current competitive one) was a really bad choice that everyone hopes they do not repeat.

That said, personally, I am a big fan of how SV did the "legend hunting". Even though the point grinding is kinda boring, it actually goes insanely fast if you're doing it with other people (I think I got enough points to unlock every single legendary within 3 hours or so, while just chitchatting on Discord). The fact you can also get the other version exclusives like that is a big plus.
And well, even though I'm a lazy bum and just looked for a guide, honestly even just going around doing your own stuff in Paldea and running around this or that legendary and going "oh so that's where it was" is a pretty neat feeling, and much less tedious than UltraRift grind or the Dynamax Adventure RNG fest.
 
Worldie said:
Not just that, but it also becomes a huge issue due to their attempt to try and make Pokemon a competitive game.

We saw the shitshow that this year has caused due to several of the legendaries (and even some of the non-leges) demanding you to own Legend-Arceus and/or Sword & Shield. Making the competitive scene "actually p2w" (no, not due to the DLCs, but literally requiring you to own multiple titles not related to the current competitive one) was a really bad choice that everyone hopes they do not repeat.

That said, personally, I am a big fan of how SV did the "legend hunting". Even though the point grinding is kinda boring, it actually goes insanely fast if you're doing it with other people (I think I got enough points to unlock every single legendary within 3 hours or so, while just chitchatting on Discord). The fact you can also get the other version exclusives like that is a big plus.
And well, even though I'm a lazy bum and just looked for a guide, honestly even just going around doing your own stuff in Paldea and running around this or that legendary and going "oh so that's where it was" is a pretty neat feeling, and much less tedious than UltraRift grind or the Dynamax Adventure RNG fest.
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It was kind of fun wandering the region looking for one Pokemon and instead finding another one when I wasn't expecting it.

if the DLC was out when I was just putzing around the region looking for raids or shinies or hatching eggs for dozens of hours it probably would have recreated one of the experiences they wanted out of this sidequest: discovering them like how snacksworth did, by happenstance. (the other experience being they want you to use his clue to seek them out). It works better if you do them in batches, though, which can be hard if you're not grinding BBQs, so there's always some give& take I suppose.


May as well post my photo session with the legends https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/in-game-photography-thread.3711008/page-2#post-9901808
Them just standing around until you interact with them leads to fun opportunities.
 
My only hang up with the Legendary integration is the continued penchant for Shiny Locks when the mon appears on the Overworld, because there is very little to do with the Legendaries if you're not playing competitive by the time they unlock. Snacksworth especially annoys me on this front because most of the mons he allows encounters for have been Shiny-Eligible in "normal" gameplay encounters for years, which makes the limitation feel arbitrary ("Non-Shiny on field" didn't stop them in the Sprite Eras) or the result of incompetence by the development team (can't reconcile the Field Model with Shiny Battle).

It's actually a shame because BBQ grinding is a give-and-take, but Snacksworth as a framing device and approach to Legendary encounters is one of my favorites they've had since Gen 6 where they just threw them under an umbrella without specific regional tie-ins. No busywork to start the encounter once you have the Snack and find the location, rewards knowing the Region and has a logic instead of "find this Wormhole wherever the hell," and even for the grind it just comes down to doing enough in general instead of a specific sequence (like "Catch/Photograph Fire" tasks being needed for Moltres for example).

I even think Snacksworth could be a really fun way to justify Shiny chances: The Snack attracts a Pokemon he saw at that spot, but since it was years ago, no guarantee it's the exact same one he saw (and a lot of these Legendaries like the trios are species with implicit multiple specimens).
 
pika pal said:
r the result of incompetence by the development team (can't reconcile the Field Model with Shiny Battle).
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Which reminds me that I saw one of our usual dataminers (I think it was matt) just force them to be shiny and it really doesn't work properly

Which further reminds me that all the legends(/mythics) in L:A were also shiny locked (even Phione, the one that respawns) and this probably resulted in the oopsie that if you had a Shiny Giratina in Origin form use Shadow Force it would crash the game.

I dunno gamefreak maybe refine your systems a lil.
 
pika pal said:
My only hang up with the Legendary integration is the continued penchant for Shiny Locks when the mon appears on the Overworld, because there is very little to do with the Legendaries if you're not playing competitive by the time they unlock. Snacksworth especially annoys me on this front because most of the mons he allows encounters for have been Shiny-Eligible in "normal" gameplay encounters for years, which makes the limitation feel arbitrary ("Non-Shiny on field" didn't stop them in the Sprite Eras) or the result of incompetence by the development team (can't reconcile the Field Model with Shiny Battle).

It's actually a shame because BBQ grinding is a give-and-take, but Snacksworth as a framing device and approach to Legendary encounters is one of my favorites they've had since Gen 6 where they just threw them under an umbrella without specific regional tie-ins. No busywork to start the encounter once you have the Snack and find the location, rewards knowing the Region and has a logic instead of "find this Wormhole wherever the hell," and even for the grind it just comes down to doing enough in general instead of a specific sequence (like "Catch/Photograph Fire" tasks being needed for Moltres for example).

I even think Snacksworth could be a really fun way to justify Shiny chances: The Snack attracts a Pokemon he saw at that spot, but since it was years ago, no guarantee it's the exact same one he saw (and a lot of these Legendaries like the trios are species with implicit multiple specimens).
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The system that SV and LA use for static encounters requires everything about the Pokémon to be predefined. It's why said legends also always have the same IVs.
 
Snacksworth was great and had one of the greatest Spanish names ever (Galletano, a pun of the name/term Cayetano and Galleta or biscuit, and being very obviously based on a spanish famous figure) and I absolutely loved that the legendaries were finally in the overworld again...but yeah as much as I love the sense of wonder it brings back and how much fun I had exploring around for them it's really hard to justify them not being able to be shiny - i think only the Galarian horses would have been new in that regard? It's already bad enough Calyrex is nowhere to be found which is a very shitty move as mentioned. I genuinely wonder if they really could not figure out how to make them work which would be hilariously sad. But then again there has been certain shiny-locked mons not released for years, and annoyingly GF seems to still want to do it despite not always making them avaliable later, like if they just want to have them "just in case".

It's kind of annoying because as much as I appreciate what i just mentioned and how much more exciting is to find them in the overwold, it does also feel like a step back in certain aspects to just farming Dynamax adventures (which are my least favourite justification for the legendaries being catchable, the Ultra wormholes at least made sense with the setting and the Hoopa rings while unrelated to Hoenn were a decent enough excuse, and yes I do prefer some snacks allowing you to meet them because at least there is some thought of where they spawn in Paldea, and some of them like Zapdos feel specially fitting and exciting even if it doesn't measure up to say, the Treasures of Ruin).
 
Volt-Ikazuchi said:
I miss being able to max out every stat
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I don't.

I prefer the restriction to two stats maxed because it makes Pokémon less bulky (good) and it's just more interesting from a game design perspective. While obviously a lot of Pokémon have their two stats basically predetermined, mixed attackers/walls or still need to figure out how to divvy up their EVs and you can still do some finagling with Speed.
 
I've actually got a stat annoyance of my own: natures lowering a stat. Being able to boost one and only one stat by 10% is cool, since it gives a meaningful choice to make about whether you want speed, bulk, or power. But lowering a different stat makes it even harder to use mixed attackers while being total irrelevant for single-category attackers, and in-game having a key stat lowered can encourage you to just not use a Pokemon at all, compared to an unorthodox stat being boosted which might encourage you to use that Pokemon in a way you hadn't thought of before. Plus there are just way too fucking many of them to remember easily, and Gentle and Lax are hot dogshit in basically every context.
 
DrPumpkinz said:
I've actually got a stat annoyance of my own: natures lowering a stat. Being able to boost one and only one stat by 10% is cool, since it gives a meaningful choice to make about whether you want speed, bulk, or power. But lowering a different stat makes it even harder to use mixed attackers while being total irrelevant for single-category attackers, and in-game having a key stat lowered can encourage you to just not use a Pokemon at all, compared to an unorthodox stat being boosted which might encourage you to use that Pokemon in a way you hadn't thought of before. Plus there are just way too fucking many of them to remember easily, and Gentle and Lax are hot dogshit in basically every context.
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You can see this with a lot of the Pokemon used in the Battle Frontier (III and IV) specifically: any mixed attackers, like Houndoom or Blaziken, tend to have neutral natures rather than those you'd expect like Naughty or Rash. There's a handful of Brave and Quiet builds, but generally only on Pokemon which are already slow and don't care about losing the additional speed (and... Electrode, weirdly) and none of the fully-evolved Pokemon ever run Gentle or Lax.

I completely get the thinking here. Whenever I'm breeding Pokemon and come to something that's best off as a mixed attacker, I often have a huge amount of difficulty deciding which nature to go with. I'm disinclined to use a neutral nature in most cases as it feels like a waste, but equally I hate having to hobble a defensive stat unless it's something which genuinely already cannot take a hit. Or you could just run Adamant or Jolly or Modest or Timid, but then you're actively making your other attacks weaker.
 
I think that any stat system for pokemon needs to ask itself how it makes in-game runs and competitive teambuilding more interesting*. There's plenty of other concerns, but if you don't have good answers to those two questions, it's probably a bad system.

In-game, currently, the IVs and natures make mons slightly different when you catch them, and EVs make your team stronger than enemy mons of a similar level. Which is...fine. They're not bad things, but the systems are too opaque and slow to bother engaging with for an in-game run, so they're mostly trivial to meh in practice.

Competitive, Natures generally give you one question per mon when teambuilding, and it's a question with at most 2 reasonable answers for 90% of mons/sets. IVs are basically solved before you ask the question(Max everything, exception for atk and/or speed in specific builds). EVs at least have variety, though the granularity is odd given how often max/max/4 is the right build. There's at least situations where that ISN'T right, so that's something.

Looking at that...yeah, matches my gut feeling, this system works well enough that I get why they haven't changed it, but also it feels very much like there's room for improvement.

*balance can be addressed at later stages
 
Karxrida said:
because it makes Pokémon less bulky (good)
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Sixfortyfive said:
Mix attackers having to make an actually meaningful sacrifice seems like an appropriate counterbalance for having meaningful versatility.

I get where you're coming from though.
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Sonikku A said:
Come to think of it, how many mix attackers are actually successful? Infernape was one...Nidoking?
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Exactly. Now, I'm not going to be disingenuous and say that all mixed attackers have always sucked, but you'd think they took RBY/GSC by storm back in the day.

Reality paints a different picture though. There are too many factors to be considered. Even when SkarmBliss was in vogue, Electabuzz wasn't the face of good offense.

What usually happens is that Gimmick Freak puts out mons like, well, this:

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Mixed attackers are inherently limited by their BST. So they're either too frail, too slow, both (Hi, Camerupt!), or quickbanned (Hi, Deoxys!)

That's the balancing act.
 
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