(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

So the thing about Pokémon names that popped up in the "things you like" thread reminded me of this.

It's about the inability to nickname traded Pokémon.

I can let it slide that we can't change the nickname of a traded Pokémon that already has a nickname because, well, that's what they decided to name it.

But why the heck can't we nickname a traded Pokémon that doesn't have a nickname?
 

QuentinQuonce

formerly green_typhlosion
So the thing about Pokémon names that popped up in the "things you like" thread reminded me of this.

It's about the inability to nickname traded Pokémon.

I can let it slide that we can't change the nickname of a traded Pokémon that already has a nickname because, well, that's what they decided to name it.

But why the heck can't we nickname a traded Pokémon that doesn't have a nickname?
SwSh let you rename traded mons don't they?

But honestly, even though I generally nickname my mons, I think it's neat that choosing not to is just as valid. The Pokemon Adventures manga, for instance, is pretty consistent that in every grouping of Pokedex holders there's usually at least one who doesn't nickname their Pokemon.
 
Well, I just tried giving a nickname to a Pokémon I brought from Gen 7 (that doesn't have one) and it doesn't let me give it a nickname.

Although I just checked with an Arctozolt and it lets me nickname with no issues. Weird.
it's a little finnicky
In Pokémon Sword and Shield, the Name Rater can give a nickname to any unnicknamed Pokémon, even outsider Pokémon, as long as the Pokémon name is in the same language as the current Trainer's game language and it was not met in a fateful encounter; however, once an outsider Pokémon is given a nickname this way, it is now a nicknamed Pokémon, so its name cannot be changed anymore.
 
It doesn't. Rock music is called "Rock" though, so maybe some know?
Considering Mega Man's name in Japanese is "Rockman," the girl robot most commonly aligned with him is "Roll," Bass is called "Forte," and Proto Man is "Blues," I'm fairly certain they know and use the terminology "rock music."

EDIT: better read what your original post was replying to. I'm fairly certain that, while they definitely know the association the English word "Rock" has with music, I'm not sure how commonly it's connected to their words for rocks.
 

AquaticPanic

Intentional Femboy Penguin
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I have sort of a nitpick with a certain shiny trend in recent games

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Yeah these kinda blow imo. I can understand why they'd have their fans and I can somewhat see the appeal; I've heard some say they like it for highlighting the design differences between the forms and the originals and I can respect that take. But to me they're rather uninteresting and kind of harm Regional Variants' core idea of having a new take on an older mon by stripping it part of its individuality and uniqueness as a design by making it just look like the original. If anything it makes me feel kind of robbed, there's these rare palette swaps that take you some time to find, and when you do finally find them (3 out of these 7 being event only), they're just very visually similar to the common form these species already has in another region. I feel its kind of visually boring too, while all these forms have their own unique aspects to them, having their shinies be similar to existing common pokémon doesn't excite me much since when I first see the shinies, it just makes me think of another design that has already existed for years at this point

Now, I don't think all of the forms that pull this with their shiny are bad shinies. I think Grimer, Muk and Lilligant have this trend perfected: Their usual forms have colours from the original's shiny and their shinies have colours from the original's usual forms; but they mix in more colours into the palette so its not a full palette swap and keep the colours mostly as accents rather than as their main colour. Muk has a ton of colours in it and only swaps the Green for Purple, Lilligant has colours reminescent of Unovan Lilligant's shiny but swaps the Pink for Orange, like how Unovan Lilligant's shiny swaps Orange for Pink. This gives them new palettes and still keeps the reference to the originals, just that in small doses so that the new form can have its own identity instead of basing the shiny entirely off of an already-existing design. I know this does apply to some of the 7 I used as examples earlier, but in general Muk/Lilligant keeps their references to the OG in smaller bits of the designs rather than screaming their references to the older designs

I should clarify that I don't think any of these look visually unnapealing, after all if these palettes didn't work, their original designs wouldn't have used said palette. Its just that I rather am not a fan of them conceptually and would be more interested to see the new forms take on new palettes with their shinies so they can have more uniqueness to them and stand out as their own individuals instead of mostly looking like designs we've seen before
 
I think it's even more egregious with the Hisuian starters, since they have an immediate point of comparision in their prevos, and it just makes them stick out even harder than they already do. They don't just look bad compared to non-regional members of their species. They look bad compared to younger versions of themselves, on an individual level.

Like, in a regular Cyndaquil, it's the same shade of greenish blue for its whole life in its regular form and the same shade of reddish brown in its shiny form. In Hisui, it's blue as a Cynaquil and Quilava and purple as a Typhlosion (and also its fire looks radically different) but then when it's shiny, it's brown as a Cynaquil and Quilava, while as a Typhlosion is the same shade of blue that it would have been had as a Cynaquil and Quilava had it not been shiny instead of committing to the idea of "it gets a slight color shift when it reaches stage three" and making its shiny maroon or something.
 
Weirdly enough, this reminds me how weirdly sudden post Gen 3 Charizards shiny is compared to the preevos
For GSC it started with Yellow Charmander, a suvdued red purple Charmeleon, then finally a pale purple Charizard. It felt like a gradual evolution shiny wise
But Gen 3 on it's yellow Charmander, Yellowish Charmeleon...then suddenly a black Zard

Not that black Zard isn't cool, especially compared to so many trash yellow green shinies, but it definitely is disconnected from the rest of the line
 
In most games, friendship evos require a friendship of 220 or greater to evolve. However, the friendship checker in most games uses a chart similar to the one below in order to decide what message to give. Since the second-highest range starts at 200 and ends at 254, you can't necessarily use that message to tell that a Pokemon is ready to evolve (unless you've gotten it all the way to 255).

friendship1.png


This is changed in Sword and Shield, where they finally changed the highest interval to 220-254.
friendship2.png

However, they changed the evolution requirement to 160 friendship at the same time, which is not on the bound of any of these intervals, meaning that the friendship check message still cannot be used to (precisely) determine when a Pokemon is ready to evolve by friendship.

Sure you could just wait until you've reached the next highest interval, but why not just put the requirement at 180? That way there's a good in-game indicator as to when your Pokemon is ready to evolve. (Some checkers use alternative intervals, but there aren't any with an interval that starts at 220 except for in Sword and Shield)
 
If they keep anything from Legends Arceus it would be nice if they kept the "evolution ready!" message, because the millisecond you reach the proper happiness threshold it will tell you without needing to level up or backtrack to the happiness checker (+ because of how evolution works in LA, you don't even need to level up anymore!).

Though if they keep it the same I'd rather they keep the lower 160 threshold and just, like, have a special messsage for when you get there.
 
In most games, friendship evos require a friendship of 220 or greater to evolve. However, the friendship checker in most games uses a chart similar to the one below in order to decide what message to give. Since the second-highest range starts at 200 and ends at 254, you can't necessarily use that message to tell that a Pokemon is ready to evolve (unless you've gotten it all the way to 255).

View attachment 417383

This is changed in Sword and Shield, where they finally changed the highest interval to 220-254.
View attachment 417384
However, they changed the evolution requirement to 160 friendship at the same time, which is not on the bound of any of these intervals, meaning that the friendship check message still cannot be used to (precisely) determine when a Pokemon is ready to evolve by friendship.

Sure you could just wait until you've reached the next highest interval, but why not just put the requirement at 180? That way there's a good in-game indicator as to when your Pokemon is ready to evolve. (Some checkers use alternative intervals, but there aren't any with an interval that starts at 220 except for in Sword and Shield)
179 is the cap for non-camp friendship in SwSh (ie 180 is where the previously affection based mechanics start).
 
In the Little Things You Like thread green_typhlosion brought up how in HGSS most of the gyms are inaccessible until you complete some task and how it adds to the worldbuilding and sense of exploration when you actually have to do stuff and talk to people instead of just turboing through the gyms immediately.

It got me thinking about the different types of gym roadblocks and it reminded me of a small thing I dislike about BW (and a lot of other games), which is when the goodness of the player character's soul is confirmed in-universe by some kind of magic. Upon reaching Mistralton City, you have to ascend Celestial Tower to track down Skyla so you can get your sixth badge. At the top, she asks you to ring the Celestial Tower bell, which is supposed to reflect the nature of the person who rings it (among like a million other things).

When you do, she says:
"What a pretty sound. <Player>, you are a kind and strong person. It's that kind of sound."
Idk I'd rather not be told 'wow you're a great person' because of a magic bell, especially in a Pokemon game where you never really choose to do anything morally upstanding; it's just required to advance the story.

It's a shame too, because the Celestial Tower bell is the centrepiece of the J.I.L.T. sidequest in BW2, which is one of my favourite things in any Pokemon game ever.
 
I'll be real the belll thing feels less like magical You Are Good Or Bad By Ring and more just another way for a character to make a read on us based on what we do a thing with


If you want the actual magical you're a good person, from the same game, i would probably glance more towards the whole Hero plotline.
 
Whirlpool, y'all. Fucking Whirlpool. It is so bad that I literally picked SoulSilver Version so I could catch Lugia first, meaning that once you reach the Pokemon League, you can delete this trash HM forever.

I guess Flash and Defog and the other completely worthless HMs can fit in this complaint as well. But at least you can get through dark areas or fog without those moves. Dive, the other third Water HM, has decent combat use and the underwater areas in Hoenn are gorgeous. Cut can at least have marginal combat use (I've used it on Oddish or Roselia as legitimate early coverage/grinding help, although that says more about their trash movepools than Cut actually being worth anything). But Whirlpool? Required for story progression, not distributed at all outside of Water types, and worthless in battle. Uggh.

EDIT: You know how much I hate this? After getting the Dragon Claw TM on Route 27--the last required use of Whirlpool in the game--I literally walked all the way back to New Bark Town to fly to Blackthorn (because you can fly from New Bark to the Safari Zone but not from outside Tohjo Falls to New Bark, ROFL) to delete it.
 
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I'll be real the belll thing feels less like magical You Are Good Or Bad By Ring and more just another way for a character to make a read on us based on what we do a thing with


If you want the actual magical you're a good person, from the same game, i would probably glance more towards the whole Hero plotline.
That's fair, although I'd argue that that raises some separate, equally troubling questions haha.

We're told by characters in the region that the bell's sound differs depending on the person ringing it, so either it's just like a confidence game/psychic reading thing where it's all in your head and an authoritative third party can just infer whatever they like depending on your vibe (in which case there's a lot of potential for exploitation), or there's actual random variance in how the bell sounds (in which case people who get unlucky have been condemned by a bell for no reason).
 

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