You may feel it's insulting, but that is how it works.
Pokemon, Moba, MMO, same scenario, if you want to win, you use the top percentile, you don't use your favourites if they're bad.
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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
Pokemon, Moba, MMO, same scenario, if you want to win, you use the top percentile, you don't use your favourites if they're bad.
Complacent Gaming Syndrome, in other words.
In every game where characters have different stats, someone will get overused and someone will get underused.
Pretty much.
Which bear in mind, CAN be extremely limiting, because once a meta develops, people will often face resistance in using "off meta" picks and so good stuff can remain dormant for months. This even extends to card games, anyone who for example plays YGO knows that realistically speaking there's only a handful of meta relevant deck (often even sharing a good 10-15 cards between each other) and everything else is either rogue, unviable, or dies-to-Nibiru tier.
A pokemon related case for example is Arctovish in Smogon: the Pokemon has been in game from the very start of SwSh, and has had its HA for ages, and it was basically never used cause lul ice type, to the point it had dropped all the way to PU iirc.
Then someone actually tried it and boop, oh hey it's actually good!
Point being, that yes, people *will* generally look to only use the top percentile of any multi-character environment and look at everything else as fringe or niche or unviable.
That won't prevent some people from experimenting, obviously, but in 99% of the situations, using a so called "meta pick" will be better than using your favourites.
One can like it, or hate it, but as I said, that is how competitive gaming works.
When designing Dynamax, GF did a playtest to makes sure that it is balanced. So they do indeed test out their mechanics according to the interview. Of course, we don't know what kind of tournament it was; was it BO1, BO2, Singles, Doubles etc so we can raise the question on the proper evaluation, interestingly enough though, they were well aware of the unpredictability factor Dynamax, but unlike Smogon, which views sheer unpredictability as a bad thing, GF views as a good thing and believes that it adds another layer and is not " cheap ".
Which to be fair was an interesting thing at start... back then, "you can dynamax anyone at any time" felt like a interesting choice over already knowing beforehand who the Mega was, and it did spark "interesting" strategies to deal with enemy dynamaxing at wrong time.
I would suspect their playtesting is limited to their own format though, so BSS and VGC doubles.
In which *to be fair* Dynamax isnt anywhere as broken as it is in singles. Ultimately even as far as Smogon doubles goes, the only thing that really made Dmax broken were certain interactions due to both transferability of old moves and lack of item clause.
Beat Up Terracott was fun and viable but didnt really pick up as meta defining for example, nor did Weakness Policy abuse.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Much as I prefer Crystal's approach of giving Suicune, Entei, and Raikou their own specific overworld sprites instead of the generic cat/dog sprite GS used, I also... hate them.
Well alright, Raikou's is okayish, and gets the major features of its design across passably. You might not instantly get that it's a big catlike thing, but the fangs and claws stand out. B- for this one.
Entei is... meh. Again, if you look at this and instantly know what it's meant to look like you've got better eyes than I do. It's got more black in the centre of its design compared to the others so looks slightly more mysterious and again the major features of its design come across passably well. C+ for this one.
And then we come to Suicune. Just an absolute trainwreck of a design. I am not joking when I say that for a long while I thought it was an octopus - the side ribbons look like additional arms and the crest piece looks like an octopus' elongated head. It's not clear where or what the head of this creature is and the two yellowish pixels combined with the downward dip of the crest make it look like it has two large, glaring eyes. I have to really stare at this to perceive Suicune's actual design. This design gets an F.
I know they were limited in what they could do with Gen II pixels. But... lord, these are abysmal. I'm not a sprite artist but I hate to say "this is rubbish" and not provide any constructive criticism so I'll say that I think Suicune's sprite could have been saved. Raikou's doesn't include its thundercloud and Entei's doesn't include its volcano cloud, so perhaps Suicune's could have foregone the side ribbons or significantly downsized the crest, making room to showcase its legs and body shape better.
But yeah. I look at this and just see octopus. It creeps me out no end.
Well alright, Raikou's is okayish, and gets the major features of its design across passably. You might not instantly get that it's a big catlike thing, but the fangs and claws stand out. B- for this one.
Entei is... meh. Again, if you look at this and instantly know what it's meant to look like you've got better eyes than I do. It's got more black in the centre of its design compared to the others so looks slightly more mysterious and again the major features of its design come across passably well. C+ for this one.
And then we come to Suicune. Just an absolute trainwreck of a design. I am not joking when I say that for a long while I thought it was an octopus - the side ribbons look like additional arms and the crest piece looks like an octopus' elongated head. It's not clear where or what the head of this creature is and the two yellowish pixels combined with the downward dip of the crest make it look like it has two large, glaring eyes. I have to really stare at this to perceive Suicune's actual design. This design gets an F.
I know they were limited in what they could do with Gen II pixels. But... lord, these are abysmal. I'm not a sprite artist but I hate to say "this is rubbish" and not provide any constructive criticism so I'll say that I think Suicune's sprite could have been saved. Raikou's doesn't include its thundercloud and Entei's doesn't include its volcano cloud, so perhaps Suicune's could have foregone the side ribbons or significantly downsized the crest, making room to showcase its legs and body shape better.
But yeah. I look at this and just see octopus. It creeps me out no end.
The talk of GF never thinking of meta balance makes the whole "early route mons are perpetually weak 90% of the time" honestly hurt more. It shows they can "nerf" a mon, but ultimately do it for traditional spite, regardless of the starter literally being a better mon
Granted, Guts Swellow, Staraptor, and Scolipede are great. But that's the exception, not norm
I honestly think the balancing issues really set in place in Gen 4 due to
-Hyper distributions of good moves (Why does Infernape get Grass knot!?)
-Not fully compensating the special/physical split (We still have no physical variant of hidden power)
-Stealth Rock being massive for damage if your typing sucked
-Lots more setup moves, or better distribution of setup moves (Nasty Plot)
-Minmaxing (Granted, certain Gen 1 mons had it and lasted as a result)
-Way more weaker Legendaries or event mons
Actually, for Gen 3 OU (since that's before 4), let's look at the viable mons
For the 27 OU (well, 28 given Chansey is still good) staples + 77 other viable UUBL mons, we have 104 (or 105) to choose from
Of the 27:
Gen 1 - 12 (13)
Gen 2 - 7
Gen 3 - 8
Of the 104 (105);
Gen 1 - 42 (43)
Gen 2 - 28
Gen 3 - 34
It seems mostly balanced, Gen 1 having more due to having more pokemon than others...but! This is current OUs! Well after influence from later Gens, which GF won't have for ref of Gen 4s dev. As such, this data is biased! If anyone has 2004 OU data, please add!
Gen 4 I recall being more aggressive, let's just look at OU staples only (again biased via later gen influence)
Of the 49;
Gen 1 - 11 (12 Chansey)
Gen 2 - 10
Gen 3 - 7
Gen 4 - 21
Yeesh, Gen 3 mons took a hit. It's clear a lot were built on pre split. There's almost twice as many OU 4 mons than 1s! I blame Rotom forms partially too
There's probably other factors, but it gets more how noticeably abrupt this is
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I found a holdover from the gameboy days that I actually take issue with: boxes only holding 30 mons. More specifically, the 5 rows by 6 columns layout of those boxes.
It's very useful to be able to easily store mons in groups of 6 when you're dealing with multiple teams. The only space-filling way to do that is to put the mons in a row. However, when you would actually put that team somewhere it's being used, it's not in a row format. Earlier gens used 2*3 arrays, while gen 8 uses 1*6 column vectors. So a player has to manually rearrange the mons every time they move their teams in or out of a box. This has become worse in gen 8, because 2*3 sets could at least be (inefficiently) stored in 6*5, but 1*6 cannot. One of several easy solutions would be to expand to a 6*6 square area, but that hasn't happened because the devs forgot that they can use more than 5 bits for indexing.
It's very useful to be able to easily store mons in groups of 6 when you're dealing with multiple teams. The only space-filling way to do that is to put the mons in a row. However, when you would actually put that team somewhere it's being used, it's not in a row format. Earlier gens used 2*3 arrays, while gen 8 uses 1*6 column vectors. So a player has to manually rearrange the mons every time they move their teams in or out of a box. This has become worse in gen 8, because 2*3 sets could at least be (inefficiently) stored in 6*5, but 1*6 cannot. One of several easy solutions would be to expand to a 6*6 square area, but that hasn't happened because the devs forgot that they can use more than 5 bits for indexing.
The problem with all three of these sprites, IMO, is that they're the only sprites that look like they're facing the camera. You're looking at the three of them head on when for every other sprite in the game you're looking from above.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Mmm, not really - about half of the Gen II menu sprites for Pokemon are head on. The beast trio use the "animal II" sprite in menus which looks more like a head on sprite than a top down one; the "quadruped II" sprite is one that's viewed from above, and that looks most similar to the trio's Crystal sprites.
https://archives.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Category:Generation_II_menu_sprites
As I said I think with Suicune in particular they should have made it look more like the quadruped II sprite and put less emphasis on its crest and streamers - making the head bigger and the crest smaller would do the trick. It doesn't look remotely like a quadruped at first glance as it is.
But those aren't menu sprites. They're sprites that are seen on the overworld that are head on when almost if not every other overworld sprite is seen from above, making them look out of place.
It's also bothers me why Gamefreak waits until generation change to patch problematic pokemon. Why didn't you just nerf Parental Bond in gen 6 instead waiting gen 7? Why didn't you nerf Aegislash stat right away when you realized its too strong when developing gen 8? Oh right, because single player campaign will be too much affected
GF: We care about Single player campaign
All games: can just solo with starter
It's been noted that the meta became more hyper offensive over the years, and defense gets more and more worthless as a stat compared to offense. It could be they...just want a faster meta to get over it?
On the other hand, Ferrothorn and especially Toxapex exist, and Aeigslash line are ridiculously bulky, so maybe not
I dunno, GF are weird
All games: can just solo with starter
It's been noted that the meta became more hyper offensive over the years, and defense gets more and more worthless as a stat compared to offense. It could be they...just want a faster meta to get over it?
On the other hand, Ferrothorn and especially Toxapex exist, and Aeigslash line are ridiculously bulky, so maybe not
I dunno, GF are weird
I'm more surprised that it cannot learn Round, which is a move about multiple Pokémon joining in to sing.
... actually, Toxtricity, another instrument-based Pokémon, cannot learn Round either. Neither can Obstagoon, and all three of them are themed around music!
I think you messed up your search, Round wouldn't show up on some lists since it's considered a universal TM. When I checked all three could learn it (and bizarrely, Honedge and Doublade couldn't until gen 8).
Whoops.
I fought Whitney in HGSS. I have a Heracross. That's the Gym battle.
I feel cheated. Like, that's it? No unstoppable Rollout chain? No Stomp/Attract stunlock? No Scrappy reveal to outsmart your outsmarting of bringing a Gastly? No laughing and drinking milk as your attacks bounce off her 95/80/70 defenses?
I guess you're supposed to feel cathartic from sending the demon of your childhood to the Shadow Realm, but...I just feel sorry for her.
I feel cheated. Like, that's it? No unstoppable Rollout chain? No Stomp/Attract stunlock? No Scrappy reveal to outsmart your outsmarting of bringing a Gastly? No laughing and drinking milk as your attacks bounce off her 95/80/70 defenses?
I guess you're supposed to feel cathartic from sending the demon of your childhood to the Shadow Realm, but...I just feel sorry for her.
I still remember during pre-release season when people were theorizing that Grookey's evolution would be a Grass/Rock-type.
Actually miltank's defenses are 95/100/70. Just an addendum.
Edit: I remembered wrong, defense is actually 105. That's goofy for that point in the game.
HGSS Whitney still shouldn't be a cakewalk with Heracross unless you raised it to Level 19 for Brick Break (which ime is a major slog since you catch it at a super low level after already beating Bugsy and there aren't that many decent grinding options immediately afterwards).
Having said that, I remember having the same 'that wasn't as cathartic as I was expecting' moment when I OHKO'd Miltank with a crit Fire Blast from Quilava lol.
Headbutt is your friend with this. If you're lucky enough to find a Group B tree in Ilex Forest, you can beat up Butterfree/Beedrill and Noctowl, which have pretty hefty XP yields even at low levels. It's not as bad as you might think.
I'm still pretty astonished that you can find an "I Win" button against one of the most notorious leaders in series history, and all it takes is Cut, Headbutt, and a fair bit of patience. That Miltank is at level 19--you're hardly "overleveling".
Oof I guess, but that's still beating like 50 Pokemon with a cumulative 20% encounter rate on a specific Headbutt tree group. You're more patient than I am haha.
On another note, I'm replaying X at the moment and it's a little frustrating that they went back to requiring a ton of field moves for progression and exploration in the same generation where they made a very clear pivot towards encouraging players to build a full team and experiment with different moveslot choices. The huge regional Dex, access to tons of TMs from relatively early on, and the updated Exp Share (if you choose to use it) all create opportunities for teambuilding that are stymied by the need to carry mons with Cut, Fly, Rock Smash, Strength, Surf, etc if you don't want to have to spend ages backtracking.
In fairness it's mostly a me problem because a) I tend to use theme teams that don't have access to Fly and/or Surf and b) I hate leaving items behind even when I'm playing a game for like the 34th time haha, hence why I only consider it a small annoyance.
Back to? Gen 5 also used HMs.