(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[Yung Dramps]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: IVs need to be jettisoned from the game and never so much as referenced ever again. There is simply no salvaging them, they are by and large a wretched worthless failure of a mechanic that adds nothing of value and purely serves to waste time.

Hidden Abilities also need to be consolidated into regular-ass 3rd abilities pronto. Hell, replace some of the pre-existing ones, Cute Charm isn't more important to Cinccino than Skill Link.

Really, the more I think about it, the more I realize that the big problem that holds back Pokemon compared to other competitive games is simply how much freaking preparation is required. Let's take a look at something like uhhhh spins hypothetical wheel in head Overwatch. In that game aside from customizing your mains with optional cosmetic skins there's nothing really barring you from getting into the action. Pro players spend lots of time on the game outside of tournaments, sure, but all of that is practicing with teammates and/or online. Meanwhile with Pokemon you gotta spend so much time just doing busywork in regards to grinding, getting good IVs, natures, EVs, so on and so forth. The closest thing it can really be compared to in that regard are card games like Hearthstone, Yu-Gi-Oh or even Pokemon's own TCG, and even those have the kinda sorta entertainment value of opening up a nice pack of cards and sniffing them eagerly as well as that aspect being appealing to more people beyond a relatively small group of competitively-oriented people so even then Pokemon's kinda below them.

 

[Codraroll]

This has always been my biggest gripe with competitive Pokémon on cartridge. The skills you need to succeed in tournaments, and the things you need to do to be at all prepared for tournaments, are vastly different from another. To do well in tournaments, you need to select a good team, then excel in battles.

But to get to that good team bit, there's just so much hassle. IVs are horrible in this regard, everything about them is so hilariously opposite to the idea of competitive it's amazing they've kept them around until now. IVs are meant to make each Pokémon unique, but there are IV constellations that are in every way superior to all others, and given how much that matters in competitive, essentially, all non-optimal IV constellations are worthless. Bottle Caps and Hyper Training go a long way towards making this a non-issue, but they are so laughably rare one can't help but think the developers were forced to add them against their wishes.

Then there are Egg moves, Natures, EVs, and Abilities to consider, and getting those right are a major chore as well. Worst of all, it's just RNG most of the time. You can do a little to influence the process, but not to the required level of detail. In the end, it's just a matter of rolling dice over and over again until the right number of eyes land up. It's a boring and meaningless grind. You can throw the dice over and over and over again until you are happy with the results (making the act of a dice throw pointless), but you can't just place the dice with your desired face up.

The worst thing? Building a good competitive team is an iterative process. You eventually learn that perhaps you need a different Nature, or different moves, or a different EV spread - and then it's back to the grind. Woe be the one who uses legendary Pokémon on their competitive team, where you only get one per playthrough. Fancy a Modest Tapu Koko instead of a Jolly one? Better re-start and play over the entire freaking game. Thankfully, it's rare that legendaries are found in comp- ... nah, just kidding, they are so common and metagame relevant it's practically mandatory to fill half your team or more with them.

It's just ... urgh. Why bother with supporting competitive tournaments when they're making it such a chore to get prepared for it? Getting good at competitive shouldn't be a matter of turning your 3DS on and off for six hours until the legendary you've encountered has the right combination of nature and IVs. Nor should you be needed to grind the games over and over and over again for bottle caps to fix the IV shortfalls.

Right now, the number one thing required to be good at competitive battling is patience. You need tons upon tons of patience before you can get to that level where skill takes over. Hopefully, the TPC heads will realize this one day, talk to the game devs responsible for keeping battle preparations so obtuse, and fire them. Out of a cannon. Into the sun.

 

[Ema Skye]

TPC could just release a Pokemon battle simulator for Switch and it would top the sales charts.

Showdown is as popular as it is because it takes all the tedium out of raising Pokemon.

They keep adding baby steps to make things easier (Bottle Caps, Ability Capsule, Nature Mints) but those require so much effort to change for what essentially just amounts to clicking a button.

 

[Siggu]

TPC could just release a Pokemon battle simulator for Switch and it would top the sales charts.

Showdown is as popular as it is because it takes all the tedium out of raising Pokemon.

They keep adding baby steps to make things easier (Bottle Caps, Ability Capsule, Nature Mints) but those require so much effort to change for what essentially just amounts to clicking a button.

At this point I'm inclined to agree. They clearly have the idea the long-standing players only care about online battling, so we have Sword and Shield, games geared towards long-standing players, with everything but online battling stripped down (limited Pokémon availability notwithstanding).

Maybe they could use Let's Go to make a story-driven game for those that like collecting and playing the story, and then a battle-centric game with blazing fast access to competitive teams, but little of everything else.

 

[Worldie]

Showdown is as popular as it is because it takes all the tedium out of raising Pokemon.

I think you underestimate how much of the "free" aspect of the simulator influences its popularity.

 

[Kurona]

I remember during the whole Dream Ball Aegislash controversy Ray Rizzo put out a statement that included this. It really put things into perspective.

Hide

Let me tell you I don't know anything about ingame. I have maybe 60 hours of gametime and I couldn't tell you the difference between a dream ball and a dusk ball, so I had absolutely no idea it was in a dream ball. I just take my Pokemon through Nintendo's hack check online on battle spot and at the competitions and they're totally fine because they are always bred completely legitly, so I go ahead and use it. I simply do not play ingame, there's no way I would have even known it was in a dream ball since it doesn't tell you, and I wouldn't have even known there was anything wrong with it being in a dream ball because it passes hack checks and I don't even know what the hell a dream ball is or how you get dream balls.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Not to mention all of this just continues to add onto a major problem with the Pokemon franchise it looked like they were sort of addressing when the gen started: content bloat.

Cut Bloat & Grind

They chopped Megas & Z-Crystals to focus on just one "Super" mechanic, Dynamax. They looked through all the moves and got rid of a number of them they probably felt redundant or gimmicky, many new moves filling a niche or being a Signature move. Some Pokemon with special evolution methods (like location based and Sylveon) just had their methods made simpler (evo stones & happiness).

This also goes for grinding bloat, Nature Mints and passing moves between two members of the same species saves plenty of breeding time with the former only requiring BP and the latter being free.

And while yes they added 100 new TRs honestly I feel this is also a way to reduce bloat, specifically related to the Move bloat, as now all those moves (and moves that were made into the 100 TMs) have a higher chance of being taught to a Pokemon. Connected to that, having the cafe guy in every Pokemon Center be a Move Reminder that reteaches any move your Pokemon knows also felt like them cutting the mulch. Heck, we can now access our PC no matter where we are locking us to only six Pokemon in Gyms, the Battle Tower, and during battle!

And let's remember last gen we got the Hyper Training where we finally were able to affect IVs directly. Sure they added a new currency in the Bottle Caps but they have added easier ways to get it like buying Silver Bottle Caps in the Battle Tower for 25 BP.

However, from what I'm hearing, GF is now replacing all the bloat they previously got rid of with new ones and for mechanics which for similar ones they made free or using "existing" currencies.

That EV Resetter didn't need to take the new "armor currency". Heck, why is the EV Resetter this random woman somewhere in the Isle of Armor instead of somewhere in the Dojo? Apparently you need to spend MILLIONS of Watts to fix up the Dojo occasionally getting certain upgrades for it. They couldn't make the EV Resetter one of the rewards for that (and have that service be free)?

You need to collect 8 items to make another item in order to evolve Galarian Slowpoke... why not just have it evolve after collecting the 8 items OR just making that evo item available?

To give a Pokemon the ability to Gigantamax we need to find 4 each of two kinds of Giga food items which are uncommon/rare drops? Why? Especially with how they like to give away Gigantamax Pokemon in Raids now, why make turning a Pokemon Giganatmax into the new hassle? I haven't played it yet so I don't know, but do they at least give you enough supplies to make one serving after exploring the entire island (and says supplies refresh everyday)? If so then I guess that isn't so bad, but if they don't then that's a massive waste of making an entire island if they don't give you the supplies needed for exploring all over it each day. Also Kubfu can't Gigantamax from the start?!

I also heard that Cramorant machine isn't all that great either, another missed opportunity.

And while not part of Isle of Armor but a general thing, why not let us use Ability Capsules to access Hidden Abilities? Or if they want to make it "SLIGHTLY" complicated we need maybe two Ability Capsules or see someone who we have to pay an additional money/BP/Watt charge.

And getting rid of IVs is a whole entire issue onto itself.

 

[Worldie]

To give a Pokemon the ability to Gigantamax we need to find 4 each of two kinds of Giga food items which are uncommon/rare drops

Ehm at least this one, not quite, it's just 3 mushrooms that are somewhat rare. Still tedious, but not as much.

Also I'm pretty surprised you guys don't realize why the EV resetter and the Tutor take Armorite Ore as currency: it's a failsafe to guarantee that people will continue doing raids in Isle of Armor for a while even after they don't need the pokemon anymore.
Same reason World of Warcraft made so that you could get legendary quest items in easy LFR raids ages ago: to keep people playing them so they can carry the bad players (yes, that is a thing)

 

[R_N]

I remember during the whole Dream Ball Aegislash controversy Ray Rizzo put out a statement that included this. It really put things into perspective.

Hide

Let me tell you I don't know anything about ingame. I have maybe 60 hours of gametime and I couldn't tell you the difference between a dream ball and a dusk ball, so I had absolutely no idea it was in a dream ball. I just take my Pokemon through Nintendo's hack check online on battle spot and at the competitions and they're totally fine because they are always bred completely legitly, so I go ahead and use it. I simply do not play ingame, there's no way I would have even known it was in a dream ball since it doesn't tell you, and I wouldn't have even known there was anything wrong with it being in a dream ball because it passes hack checks and I don't even know what the hell a dream ball is or how you get dream balls.

honestly i see this and think Nintendo's hack check probably needs to have a pokeball check it otherwise doesnt have (does it even check if Cherish?). Seems fairly important to add after yo ucan rbeed for them, they add even more special balls and there's a whole chart you have to keep track of who is compatable where and where from.

But also maybe...care just a smidge more about the game you're playing outside of battle. Doesnt even have to be a lot! Just...just a litttle more so you can notice that there's a status screen that shows the ball. Know it exists, maybe?

That EV Resetter didn't need to take the new "armor currency". Heck, why is the EV Resetter this random woman somewhere in the Isle of Armor instead of somewhere in the Dojo? Apparently you need to spend MILLIONS of Watts to fix up the Dojo occasionally getting certain upgrades for it. They couldn't make the EV Resetter one of the rewards for that (and have that service be free)?

This one's real weird because the watts you spend on the dojo otherwise give a bunch of nice benefits, including cheaper vitamins. You'd think these two would go hand in hand together. And there's even a watt trader out front alongside a berry farm! But instead this woman is out on an island just off shore and I don't think anyone but the map points out she ("Lady Clear") is there.

To give a Pokemon the ability to Gigantamax we need to find 4 each of two kinds of Giga food items which are uncommon/rare drops? Why? Especially with how they like to give away Gigantamax Pokemon in Raids now, why make turning a Pokemon Giganatmax into the new hassle? I haven't played it yet so I don't know, but do they at least give you enough supplies to make one serving after exploring the entire island (and says supplies refresh everyday)? If so then I guess that isn't so bad, but if they don't then that's a massive waste of making an entire island if they don't give you the supplies needed for exploring all over it each day. Also Kubfu can't Gigantamax from the start?!

Max Soup requires 3 mushrooms, that's it. It is annoying that it must be 3, since they seem to take a while to respawn, but that's it. The Honey is used as an additive for Urshifu specifically and you only need one.
While it is silly it cant GMax from the start it's part of a whole segment of the DLC with Hop. Has a boss battle and everything. So far as flavoring is concerned I'm fine and hypothetically you only really need to do it once.

I also heard that Cramorant machine isn't all that great either, another missed opportunity.

Cramorant's issues are more on the "why isnt there a recipe book" side with a dash of "why is the pokeball portion the only portion that's RNG". There are some hand yrecipes in there and imo they go hand in hand with the rewards you get otu of dynamax raids.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Cramorant's issues are more on the "why isnt there a recipe book" side with a dash of "why is the pokeball portion the only portion that's RNG". There are some hand yrecipes in there and imo they go hand in hand with the rewards you get otu of dynamax raids.

Also I just found out that apparently giving the Cramorant Machine four Silver Bottle Caps has it give back a Golden Bottle Cap, so I think that probably instantly justified its existence, lol!

 

[DreamPrince]

TPC could just release a Pokemon battle simulator for Switch and it would top the sales charts.

Showdown is as popular as it is because it takes all the tedium out of raising Pokemon.

They keep adding baby steps to make things easier (Bottle Caps, Ability Capsule, Nature Mints) but those require so much effort to change for what essentially just amounts to clicking a button.

Keep in mind that Play!Pokemon events make tons of money. The audience come and watch players battle each other for huge top prizes. Not to mention that there is a ton of merchandise for sale.

The events are gaining in popularity, so that’s probably why we have another ‘super’ mechanic each generation. There’s also significantly high cash prizes and scholarship bloats recently. I remember in 2014, my first Regional was free but in 2019, it cost 50$ for admissions.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

I remember an old video from Extra Credits, and while their videos are usually great, this old one contained the dumbest thing they've ever said. Yes, I've watched their newer videos. I continue to watch them. If you know what I'm alluding to and disagree, I don't want to hear about it. Anyway, they said something along the lines of "people who hack Pokemon don't consider it cheating even though it misses the whole point of the game, which is to raise and bond with your Pokemon".

Yes, because the core appeal of Pokemon is
G R I N D

 

[Ironmage]

I'm an absolute sucker for weird tricks like deliberately lowering a good stat, so I'd have a hard time accepting an outright removal of IVs. That said, Stakataka can't carry the importance 30 bytes of stat ranges by itself, so I'd probably be in favour of having easily accessible 31s and 0s (heck, keeping 1 bit per stat is enough to keep Hidden Power functional).

One thing I will note when it comes to grinding, is that gen 7 has a notable advantage in its EV and EXP grinding since those could be done afk. From what I understand, it can be difficult to get the required resources in gen 8 if you don't enjoy raids. Meanwhile, you can do something more enjoyable (or sleep) while Pelago gives its rewards.

As for people who treat the cartridge as just an entrance fee for the official tournament, they're just the other side of the spectrum from those who have no intention of doing PvP matches with anything more than whatever they first beat the Champion with.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

(heck, keeping 1 bit per stat is enough to keep Hidden Power functional).

Alternatively, either 1) don't ever bring Hidden Power back because it's honestly really dumb to let special attackers just pick whatever coverage they want, or 2) just let the player pick whatever Hidden Power they want because it's even more dumb to lock it behind unalterable RNG, prevent Fairy from being a Hidden Power, and prevent important Pokemon from using HP Fighting because they can't have enough imperfect IVs.

 

[R_N]

Side note related to all this: the dlc gave one fairly significant bone to long standing competitive players

You can take a transferred Pokemon and make them legal.

This does reset their moveset, so you do have to track down relevant TMs/TRs or make use of the new egg move passing mechanic, but if you already had a perfect Pokemon before you dont have to ptu any extra work to breed the proper abilities, IVs, or nature and dont have to fiddle with the EVs (hypothetically). That's pretty big!

It also shockingly requires no secondary currencies, I suppose the "price" being the moveset reset.

But frankly I'm more shocked they added this at all

 

[InfurnusV2.0]

Fused pokemon like Black/White Kyurem and Dusk/Dawn Necorzma can't be traded.
Moreover u can only have 1 Black Kyurem or 1 White Kyurem at a time. However, we can have both Dusk mane & Dawn wings Necorzma at the same time. The issues comes, if you defused them Sunsteel Strike/Moongeist Beam gets deleted. As suppose to Kyurem where fusion bolt/flare gets replace with scary face.

Why does GF do this? Just make them permanent. And this way u can finally give Black Kyurem ice punch.

 

[Kurona]

Side note related to all this: the dlc gave one fairly significant bone to long standing competitive players

You can take a transferred Pokemon and make them legal.

This does reset their moveset, so you do have to track down relevant TMs/TRs or make use of the new egg move passing mechanic, but if you already had a perfect Pokemon before you dont have to ptu any extra work to breed the proper abilities, IVs, or nature and dont have to fiddle with the EVs (hypothetically). That's pretty big!

It also shockingly requires no secondary currencies, I suppose the "price" being the moveset reset.

But frankly I'm more shocked they added this at all

Moreover, like the added Pokémon it's not even part of the DLC itself; it's something everyone has access to and the NPC is added to the Battle Tower rather than anywhere on the Isle. Pretty nice

 

[Bull Of Heaven]

Fused pokemon like Black/White Kyurem and Dusk/Dawn Necorzma can't be traded.
Moreover u can only have 1 Black Kyurem or 1 White Kyurem at a time. However, we can have both Dusk mane & Dawn wings Necorzma at the same time. The issues comes, if you defused them Sunsteel Strike/Moongeist Beam gets deleted. As suppose to Kyurem where fusion bolt/flare gets replace with scary face.

Why does GF do this? Just make them permanent. And this way u can finally give Black Kyurem ice punch.

Make the fusions permanent? Presumably they don’t do this because you might want your Zekrom back at some point.

 

[R_N]

Moreover, like the added Pokémon it's not even part of the DLC itself; it's something everyone has access to and the NPC is added to the Battle Tower rather than anywhere on the Isle. Pretty nice

Oh seriously? I didn't know that part, that's also surprising

 

[InfurnusV2.0]

Make the fusions permanent? Presumably they don’t do this because you might want your Zekrom back at some point.

What's the problem with that?
Box legends are never rare. U can get zekrom in White, Black 2, AS, UM and soon SWSH

 

[Bull Of Heaven]

They're almost always one per game, which will be limiting to at least some people sometimes (doesn't apply as much to the Cosmog family I guess). And given how players get attached to specific individual Pokemon, some might want that specific Zekrom back.

Edit: Also, what if you only have one Kyurem and you want to try out both formes?

 

[DreamPrince]

They're almost always one per game, which will be limiting to at least some people sometimes (doesn't apply as much to the Cosmog family I guess). And given how players get attached to specific individual Pokemon, some might want that specific Zekrom back.

Edit: Also, what if you only have one Kyurem and you want to try out both formes?

The DNA Splicers only allows one fusion of Kyurem at a time.

 

[DreamPrince]

So let's get the obvious out of the way.

This expansion pass costs around half the price of the full SwSh game. I only just bought it and it's downloading, which from the sounds of it was a mistake. Apparently playing through Isle of Armour casually takes around ~2 hours. There are no generic trainers -- only story battles -- and somehow the levels of the few story battles is lower than the Champion even though the game's been out for ages and everyone's already beaten the game.

So, judging at least by Isle of Armour, this was not worth the price. Hell, everyone who's finished Isle of Armour has just been disappointed, so it's not even worth the 2 hour playtime.

And even if Crown Tundra is much bigger and amazing, forcing players to buy both "packs" in a pass (meaning it's the equivalent of one pack with a staggered release for half of it) is awful. Players should have the option not to buy this 2 hour waste of time if they want.

Terrible business practice. 0/10.

Gamexplain's review mentions that it feels like an actual exploration unlike the base wild area, which feels very bare bones. The story was charming, and a pleasure to see returning Pokemon. The scaling was commented for allowing flexibility. Graphics are on par with the base, and its full of technical error, freezes, and frame rate drops like the base wild area in online play. iHowever, they noted that casual players or players who did not like base SwSh will probably not have their minds made.

I liked the content, though I'm a competitive player, and my first thoughts were on all the nice QOL changes, like Gigantamax Soup as well as the new tutors and how they affect competitive battling. The Diglett side quest allows you obtain regional variants unavailable in Alola. I'm even starting a team featuring Dragalge, a Pokemon that I love and that I've been meaning to build around. I think this pass is great for competitive players, but is probably a pass for casuals.

One other thing: The problem with DLC compared to the 3rd version is that you buy the base game to gain access to the DLC. Its not like Diamond to Platinum, where you could skip Diamond and exclusively play Platinum. That's means the base game has to be really good, and SwSh;s reaction is very mixed, and the DLC does not fix any of the problems with SwSh's base game. Not to mention SwSh + DLC is 89.99$, in contrast to Diamond + Platinum, which 80.00$, making third versions cheaper despite being a separate game.

 

[Worldie]

Not to mention SwSh + DLC is 89.99$, in contrast to Diamond + Platinum, which 80.00$, making third versions cheaper despite being a separate game.

I'd still consider this a moot point.
The price tag for a AAA 3ds game was 40 bucks, while price tag for AAA switch games is 60. There's no getting around this.

The fair comparison is 89.99$ to 120$ (twice the 60$ of a single game), not to 80$.

 

[Kurona]

Fused pokemon like Black/White Kyurem and Dusk/Dawn Necorzma can't be traded.
Moreover u can only have 1 Black Kyurem or 1 White Kyurem at a time. However, we can have both Dusk mane & Dawn wings Necorzma at the same time. The issues comes, if you defused them Sunsteel Strike/Moongeist Beam gets deleted. As suppose to Kyurem where fusion bolt/flare gets replace with scary face.

Why does GF do this? Just make them permanent. And this way u can finally give Black Kyurem ice punch.

I really don't agree with the permanent thing, but there's no reason DNA Splicers should only support one fusion at a time. At worst have two sets of splicers so we can have both Kyurem-W and Kyurem-B at the same time.