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I'm mostly indifferent to forced Exp Share, even as a "hardcore" player. There's a common notion that the games aren't balanced around it, and I just don't think that's the case. XY obviously weren't, but the idea has stuck. My last run was what I, and I assume a lot of people, would consider a pretty typical run where I battle every trainer and catch a modest amount of Pokemon. I will admit I didn't raid at all, but given that 1) the raids are obviously optional, 2) even if you do them the candies are optional to use (in other words, analogous to a toggle), and 3) aren't even affected by the Exp Share, I don't think that matters. Here's a nice big image showing my levels throughout the game compared to my opponent's:
(if you're astute you'll notice that there's more than 6 pokemon of mine shown, but to be clear I wasn't actually raising over 6 at a time, a few were dropped over the course of the run)
Yes, I'm higher leveled than the lead a number of times, but only by a few levels, and I've even made this image in disservice to my point by showing off the opponent's lead which is 2-4 levels lower than the ace. I'm around the levels of the trainers I'm fighting, even with this "extra" exp I'm supposedly receiving. So to me it seems clear that the level curve is designed with the amount of exp offered from the Exp Share, and is essentially just a switch to a simple party wide exp system rather than one based on individual merit. Which, for the record, I don't think is necessarily better, but I don't think it's a matter of difficulty one way or the other.
The way I play Pokemon seems to be different to everyone else, as I used to focus greatly on the Evs given out from wild Pokemon and trainer battles. I would only send certain Pokemon into battle if they gained favorable EVs (e.g. I would never send my Kadabra to fight a Machop, otherwise he would get useless attack Evs that I would have to remove afterwards), so that by post-game my in-game team are either fully EV trained or close to it. It also increases the difficulty of the game, as I had to find ways of winning against occasional poor type matchups, but that makes the game more fun for me.
EXP all completly screws this up, as you are not only sharing EXP around the party but also EVs! It means post game I cannot EV train more than 1 pokemon at the time, unless the both need speed or attack EVs etc. at the same time. I had to spend DAYS collecting EV reducing berries post-game per Pokemon in Sword in order to remove all the useless EVs picked up though the game, which was a absolute pain and delayed me being able to use the battle tower properly for weeks. I hate EXP-All with a passion and it still being on all the time really kills my interest in the game (also 1 use TMs returning sucks!)
They're not something to worry about, but if HP bars draining faster is high up on the list of improvements after 15 years (especially when the 3rd version of the game that came out just a couple years later largely fixed that already) and much better hardware, that's pretty sad.
I dont think anyone thought they were high improvement, it was expected from the gen 8 engine, but people just acted like it wasnt going to happen and i thought that was funny lol. It aint that deep chief it was a joke
Im surprised by this exp shitstorm, like we didnt knew about it from the beginning, when they said it would have QoL stuff from modern games it was obviously exp share and box-bag, it sucks but not something new. And this is Pokémon, the games arent hard useless you go out of your way to make them harder, you can always box half of your team to prevent exp gain from random trainers just like how you could not use items, ignore the cover legendary and not catch a strong ice shard user to not cheese Cynthia.
If anything, TM being a grind again is the real problem (but we are going to drop the game after the league and play showdown instead because no battle stop so whatever, that if you still want to buy this).
So Pokemon used get about 1/2 Exp and unused Pokemon get 1/4. That makes solo runs harder and would let the Bibarel with 4 HMs you never use in battle be somewhat usable useful in an emergency, if that mattered any more. This isn't bad enough to make me say it sucks, but it's bad enough to be kind of worrying. I'm also still optomistic because of the Level 19 Dustox gaining 10 and 25 Exp more Exp than the Level 22 Machop. Even if the scaling doesn't add up, I doubt it's outleveling Cynthia amounts of extra Exp.
Yeah at this point it's pretty obvious they're nudging people to using a full team and the number of people calling Exp. Share a dealbreaker (even if everyone who whined about it actually abstained from buying the game, which is obviously far from the case) is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of younger players who might just use the starter with 4 STAB moves and then give up once they run into a matchup they can't brute-force their way through and realize they might have to grind some other Pokemon up 30+ levels.
When someone uses a more balanced team of 6 Pokemon without focusing on an overleveled starter whose moveset they can easily customize depending on the matchup or 2-3 Pokemon that do the actual battling while the rest of the party is just there as HM slaves, I'm sure they have data indicating that it presents more opportunities for players to find Pokemon they become attached to to the point of wanting to buy more merchandise or future games.
Additionally, I'm sure there are even more players in the past who didn't have much of a problem beating the game without Exp. Share but then ran into a brick wall and were out in terms of future games when it turned out that all the Pokemon they spent hours training actually sucked and they'd have to either get a cheat device or spend much more time than they'd spent on beating the game itself in a boring breeding loop just to get the good ones. If the Exp. Share now means that simply beating the game is going to result in that many more level 60+ Pokemon, that along with stuff like mints and bottle caps makes getting into competitive play much easier for new players.
I dont think anyone thought they were high improvement, it was expected from the gen 8 engine, but people just acted like it wasnt going to happen and i thought that was funny lol. It aint that deep chief it was a joke
They objectively are high on the list of improvements when the promotional material is focused on stuff like 'Pokemon can follow you around now' or 'you can make Poffins again' whereas in the leadup to ORAS it was known for months that there would at least be new Mega Evolutions and different versions of the cover legendaries.
The phrases they are hammering the most in marketing these games are 'faithful remakes' and 'quality of life' which indicate that the only non-cosmetic differences between the originals and the remakes will just be stuff that makes completing the story mode or breeding Pokemon more convenient. That doesn’t seem to offer much for anyone who’s already played a Sinnoh game, especially when making it easier to obtain flawless Pokémon compared to Diamond/Pearl is offset by needing to transfer them to a different game to actually use them competitively.
My main concern here is that if there's "technically not one use but the only way to get them multiple times is in the post game, making the option useless because whos gonna play this game after the credits roll" TMs. The decision is stupid but if they make all tms available in the normal game, even if a bit late, it won't be as stupid I guess.
My main concern here is that if there's "technically not one use but the only way to get them multiple times is in the post game, making the option useless because whos gonna play this game after the credits roll" TMs. The decision is stupid but if they make all tms available in the normal game, even if a bit late, it won't be as stupid I guess.
I'm gonna be the devil's advocate here in that people did complain that infinite use TMs made the game's item management too easy.
Which I think its fucking stupid LOL being able to make more than one pokemon usable is like. Bare minimum. TRs still pisses me off and returning to expendable TMs does it too.
I genuinely feel like the creators of these games are totally oblivious to what fans want.
Pokemon has ALWAYS been a series that has suffered from poor QoL choices and mechanic implementations. The IV/EV system, Hidden Power, antiquated mechanics, single-use TM's, HM's, etc. have always felt like straight up burdens to the player, detracting from the overall fun of the experience. I genuinely cannot comprehend why Pokemon games always seem to take 1 step forward and two steps backward, constantly undoing their own progress with erratic and insensible decisions. The Exp Share should have been an option, no questions asked. Why force that at the player? Single-use TMs are simply laughable and a big fuck you to the players. This worries me that they will continue to make poor decisions in the future.
It also makes it feel a bit... inconsistent? If you assume one-use TMs were kept to preserve the original, literally why do an entirely new area of catchable pokémon, revert the exp share, and add mobile PC?
Maybe I'm just stupid, but it feels like there's no rhyme or reason to the things that are considered necessary for an authentic remake vs what's ok to be added in.
I feel like one-use TMs isnt a symptom of overbearing faithfulness considering all the other tricks they've pulled. Why they did it this way will only be parsable once we see how they work in the final game or some sort of interview. Very strange decision but we don't got much context for it as of yet.
Off the cuff personal theory: Since SWSH is gonna remain the competitive hub, ILCA just wanted to experiment with the old ethos of TM management for the main story in a safe environment. Ice Beam or Earthquake shortages aren't as big a deal when the game they belong to isn't gonna be supported for official tournaments anyway
It also makes it feel a bit... inconsistent? If you assume one-use TMs were kept to preserve the original, literally why do an entirely new area of catchable pokémon, revert the exp share, and add mobile PC?
Maybe I'm just stupid, but it feels like there's no rhyme or reason to the things that are considered necessary for an authentic remake vs what's ok to be added in.
The two design choices of one time TM use vs. mandatory Exp. All are remarkably contradictory. The former is a relic of the past, stays faithful to the original, and adds to the "challenge" in some way. While the latter is a modern mechanic, not in the original, and detracts from the challenge.
Yet GF somehow thought it was a good idea to give us the former, which almost nobody asked for, instead of the latter which a huge majority asked to be optional. They really are a baffling company.
I just want one game in this franchise that I don't have to mod extensively or straight up cheat in because of horrendously STUPID design decisions.
Platinum does come THIS close to be just... good.
But then I remember that I will always have to bust out PKHex because that idiotic IV system still plagues that game, I remember that I will never be able to roll with 6 mons unless I use a walk through walls cheat because of the sheer number of trash HMs and because of this, Bibarel will always be a lock on all Plat teams, I remember Natures I don't have mints for, I remember single-use TMs that I can never buy once I use them, I remember Cynthia's Garchomp not holding a Yache Berry, I remember hours of that fucking digging mini-game for shards, I remember looking at my Luxray running Thunder Fang because at least it wasn't as stale as Spark, which was the actual best physical STAB option it had, I remember Cyrus making no goddamn sense as an antagonist outside of having a cool theme, I remember the dex NEEDING to be expanded because the new cross-gen evos were not available in-game and Flint still had a thoroughly mediocre roster with the likes of Flareon and Rapidash because there were still not enough good Fire-types in that game, I remember the brilliant idea of yet another Ice Leader on the 7th Gym, I remember Volkner being an absolute chump and the difficulty in general plummeting past Wake tbh, I remember having to grind Chimchar on Lv. 6 mons until Level 14 because it wouldn't ever beat Roark otherwise because they had picked Rock as the first Gym again, and mind you this is the exact same thing they did in Hoenn.
And mind you, in my book, this is the best game in the main series.
So many of these are just products of their time, so many of these would be obviously fixed by a remake. OBVIOUSLY!!!
So HOW? How did that happen?
Why are the goddamn maps based on DP? Masuda and Game Freak spent time and money refining that game when they were making Platinum! ALL OF IT!!! What the hell happened? How did these people reach the conclusion that all the improvements they had made on that game were horrendous mistakes that should never see the light again?
And now, I have to wake up and read an extremely cursed, and I don't mean that because of the stream of expletives I I said when I saw that you had to pony up 500 PokeDollars to get in a safari zone which is arguably the worst in the franchise, where over half of it is a mire of mud tiles that get you stuck in place, making the most basic mobility a struggle, and what do I see in that hellhole?
A Bidoof.
A Bidoof that I can't even battle normally, I gotta use these repulsive safari mechanics, despite the fact that I could catch one in the very first route of the game.
And then I realized that people had already done the math and that meant that was the archaic DP encounter table.
And then I realized that I wouldn't be able to just make everything Med. Slow Exp. Group, maybe spice up the leaders, no...
That meant that they screwed up the level curve between Veilstone, Pastoria, and Hearthome, so the game would also have the horrendous level issues that DP had.
That meant that I'd have to update every single route to Platinum's encounters.
That meant that I couldn't trust them to not inevitably screw up the post-game, so I'm not even sure if you can rematch the leaders. And of course, the Frontier isn't available, nor it will ever be available, regardless of how wack Gen 4's Frontier was.
And naturally, if I got a Luxray, I'd have to enjoy the beauty of having what boils down to an accurate Electric Take Down as STAB. Because the concept of "having a reliable move that doesn't suck is very important to a type in general" still eludes these fools.
I'm sick of it all. Honestly. When you play other games and see devs trying out new things, devs trying to optimize good things, devs that actively work for a better experience, you look back at this franchise and see just how completely fucked it is.
Compare Samus Returns to Metroid Dread and remember these are the same damn devs and look at just how much they improved, how many issues that SR had got eradicated in Dread and then come back to this thread and read that people are unironically concerned that Flint will have 2 Fire mons out of 5 again.
Make it make sense. Tell me. Explain it to me how one would to a child. How can I ever look forward to a game on this franchise? It's an endless tango of mediocrity. One step forward, one step back. All. The. Damn. Time.
I just want one game in this franchise that I don't have to mod extensively or straight up cheat in because of horrendously STUPID design decisions.
Platinum does come THIS close to be just... good.
But then I remember that I will always have to bust out PKHex because that idiotic IV system still plagues that game, I remember that I will never be able to roll with 6 mons unless I use a walk through walls cheat because of the sheer number of trash HMs and because of this, Bibarel will always be a lock on all Plat teams, I remember Natures I don't have mints for, I remember single-use TMs that I can never buy once I use them, I remember Cynthia's Garchomp not holding a Yache Berry, I remember hours of that fucking digging mini-game for shards, I remember looking at my Luxray running Thunder Fang because at least it wasn't as stale as Spark, which was the actual best physical STAB option it had, I remember Cyrus making no goddamn sense as an antagonist outside of having a cool theme, I remember the dex NEEDING to be expanded because the new cross-gen evos were not available in-game and Flint still had a thoroughly mediocre roster with the likes of Flareon and Rapidash because there were still not enough good Fire-types in that game, I remember the brilliant idea of yet another Ice Leader on the 7th Gym, I remember Volkner being an absolute chump and the difficulty in general plummeting past Wake tbh, I remember having to grind Chimchar on Lv. 6 mons until Level 14 because it wouldn't ever beat Roark otherwise because they had picked Rock as the first Gym again, and mind you this is the exact same thing they did in Hoenn.
And mind you, in my book, this is the best game in the main series.
So many of these are just products of their time, so many of these would be obviously fixed by a remake. OBVIOUSLY!!!
So HOW? How did that happen?
Why are the goddamn maps based on DP? Masuda and Game Freak spent time and money refining that game when they were making Platinum! ALL OF IT!!! What the hell happened? How did these people reach the conclusion that all the improvements they had made on that game were horrendous mistakes that should never see the light again?
And now, I have to wake up and read an extremely cursed, and I don't mean that because of the stream of expletives I I said when I saw that you had to pony up 500 PokeDollars to get in a safari zone which is arguably the worst in the franchise, where over half of it is a mire of mud tiles that get you stuck in place, making the most basic mobility a struggle, and what do I see in that hellhole?
A Bidoof.
A Bidoof that I can't even battle normally, I gotta use these repulsive safari mechanics, despite the fact that I could catch one in the very first route of the game.
And then I realized that people had already done the math and that meant that was the archaic DP encounter table.
And then I realized that I wouldn't be able to just make everything Med. Slow Exp. Group, maybe spice up the leaders, no...
That meant that they screwed up the level curve between Veilstone, Pastoria, and Hearthome, so the game would also have the horrendous level issues that DP had.
That meant that I'd have to update every single route to Platinum's encounters.
That meant that I couldn't trust them to not inevitably screw up the post-game, so I'm not even sure if you can rematch the leaders. And of course, the Frontier isn't available, nor it will ever be available, regardless of how wack Gen 4's Frontier was.
And naturally, if I got a Luxray, I'd have to enjoy the beauty of having what boils down to an accurate Electric Take Down as STAB. Because the concept of "having a reliable move that doesn't suck is very important to a type in general" still eludes these fools.
I'm sick of it all. Honestly. When you play other games and see devs trying out new things, devs trying to optimize good things, devs that actively work for a better experience, you look back at this franchise and see just how completely fucked it is.
Compare Samus Returns to Metroid Dread and remember these are the same damn devs and look at just how much they improved, how many issues that SR had got eradicated in Dread and then come back to this thread and read that people are unironically concerned that Flint will have 2 Fire mons out of 5 again.
Make it make sense. Tell me. Explain it to me how one would to a child. How can I ever look forward to a game on this franchise? It's an endless tango of mediocrity. One step forward, one step back. All. The. Damn. Time.
Off topic but cyrus is the funniest antagonist in this franchise from the sheer absurdity of his goals with no proper explanation. He decided he just was bored of our world and said "alright im gonna make a new one". Not even his grunts know what the fuck hes about.
Also I recommend checking other monster raising games like monster hunter stories and coromon. Theyre leagues better than pokemon tbh
Off topic but cyrus is the funniest antagonist in this franchise from the sheer absurdity of his goals with no proper explanation. He decided he just was bored of our world and said "alright im gonna make a new one". Not even his grunts know what the fuck hes about.
Also I recommend checking other monster raising games like monster hunter stories and coromon. Theyre leagues better than pokemon tbh
Exp. Share Always On: Ugh, like, is there any hints they may have rebalanced the game to make sure you don't accidentally over level your team like in SwSh...
NWR's footage has several trainers in its footage, all of them line up with their DP levels as should probably be expected.
Well I guess they just don't care anymore. What am I saying, since day 1 we saw they didn't care about the BDSP.
Portable Box: That's whatever at this point. Just disable it when you challenge the Pokemon League.
One-Use TMs Return:
Like, nice they mentioned we'd be able to get multiple but with a change like that it would be expected to be bare minimum.
Wait, GF, did you go back to One-Use TMs because you don't want to have to redo the TM distribution balance? Remember, since back then TMs were one-use, GF were more inclined to make powerful TMs available early on since you only had one shot. But had they been made infinite they would have to rethink all TM locations so they didn't include an OP one early on... and apparently that seems to have been too much of a chore for them.
Like, are GF are experimenting with these games to see how much budget cutting they can do with them? Keeping as much as the old stuff as they could while adding in some new stuff they thought they would have added at that time they were developing Diamond & Pearl (not Platinum though, at most with Platinum they're using it as a hindsight with Pokemon availability... mostly by placing them in the Underground cause they apparently decided to keep the distribution table the same to DP cause using the Platinum one would mean they'd have to take the few seconds to think how version exclusives would work).
Yeah but all that means is they just added back in Hidden Power. I doubt it means they did anything interesting with them. I guess they could have done something interesting with Hidden Power... probably not though. Probably still can't become Fairy-type.
Of course... but why should we have to do that? Why can't they just put a OFF BUTTON for the Exp. Share in the Option Menu. No, it's now up to the players who want a decent challenge to have to figure out a way around the Exp Share, likely training up two different teams and swapping between them like every major boss battle.
"Is that a bad thing? It means you get to use 12 Pokemon instead of 6"
True, in some cases it would create a more interesting experience and opening up more opportunities to use Pokemon you either wanted to use or never thought of using. But of course that should still be up to the player to decide. If a player wants to just use one team throughout but still wants the game to be challenging that should be an option, and its a really east option to add. But GF are too obsessed thinking if the game requires the player to possibly grind for even a nanosecond that all the little kids who go "BORED" and move back to playing Fortnite... not realizing that making their game braindead easy is doing that exact same thing.
With that said, I hope TMs in BDSP are as easy to get as TRs, and not locked as something like 64 BP prizes. If any TMs are finite like in original DP, then it would absolutely suck.
Hopefully they just made it so you can buy them all from Marts throughout the region. Divide all TMs between all the Marts, make the more powerful ones available at later game Marts, have the Veilstone Department Store have a bit more than Marts as well as having some of the decently powered/more used TMs, done.
Of course, since that's not how it was done in the original there's actually a high chance that's not how its done. Which in that case we gotta look at new game additions which means they could just have them be random drops in the new Underground.
What the fuck is wrong with this game's marketing? Who's making the active choices to make their product seem inferior? First the nonsense reveal, now this.
Legends is their golden boy, BDSP was just something they felt was mandatory to throw out because had they done only Legends they'd be bombarded with people asking "but where's Gen IV remakes?".
Wouldn't surprise me if they split the work load between smaller groups who at the start work off the same version but, as development continues, some teams update their version to test out the mechanics & features they're working on while others don't need to. Thus when they want to showcase certain mechanics & features there's slightly different graphics & UI between them cause the latest version may be v5 but battling team is working off v4 (cause v5 update is just cosmetic), the new Underground team is all the way back on v2 cause they don't need all the new versions bells & whistles, etc.. Now before release they of course update all games to the latest version to make sure when they combine it together it all works... BUT it's not like that when they make the trailer which they probably do weeks in advance.
Today's update pretty much confirmed our greatest fears. The real question is whether this can even beat out the original Diamond & Pearl, forget Platinum.
My prediction: it'll probably be equal to original DP if not on the easy side with faster speed.
They wanted to make DP remakes... and they made them. As for all the new Pokemon in the Underground, while I'm sure in the main game you'd be able to get a batch more to expand your team beyond what's available above ground, like many of Pokemon's features with indepth mechanics I'm afraid you'd have to spend a considerable amount of time in the Underground to get any feeling of it making a difference in gameplay (and hopefully not overleveling your team in the process due to always one Exp. Share), thus you'll probably push most of that into post game when it's time to complete the dex.
They're afraid kids would somehow accidentally turn off Exp. Share, hit a battle that's actually challenging and would need some grinding to get past now, and then throw away their Switch and go play Fortnite. Or whatever mobile phone game is popular cause GF for some reason are deathly afraid of the mobile gaming market overshadowing Pokemon.
I have no problem with features that decrease grinding, or having them on by default. Hell, I like them. Grinding is exhausting. The problem is that you can't turn it off. People who would like to make the game more difficult literally just do not have the option to adjust the difficulty in that way. Why.
Not to mention there's also no in-between option. It's either on and all your Pokemon gain experience or off and only Pokemon that were in battle gain experience. What happened to being able to select one or two Pokemon you want to gain experience without having to send them into battle? Why not only have it give experience to either the Pokemon that's the lowest Level and/or to all Pokemon that Level are below the highest Pokemon's (thus if you're contently switching your Pokemon during battle and even change up who is sent out first you could have a team that's evenly leveled without being overleveled)?
In practice, all it does is to force players to swap parties just because they ended up overleveled their Pokémon, and they adjusted the level consistency poorly to take the Exp. All in consideration.
Though, if that's their intention, why don't they have it so you can make a second team (and even a third team) that you can quick swap with from the Portable PC? It's not hard to swap out my team one-by-one from my party to the PC in a box I dedicated to just being my "team swap box"... but once again if that's GF's intention then why not they program that into the game?
"Hmm, I feel my current team is getting overleveled/I just want to change up who I'm using".
*Goes to Portable PC*
*Selects to swap Team 1 with Team 2*
*Closes Portable PC*
"LET'S GO!"
"Hmm, I feel my current team is getting overleveled/I just want to change up who I'm using".
*Goes to Portable PC*
*Swap Slot 1 Pokemon*
*Swap Slot 2 Pokemon*
*Swap Slot 3 Pokemon*
*Swap Slot 4 Pokemon*
*Swap Slot 5 Pokemon*
*Swap Slot 6 Pokemon*
*Closes Portable PC*
"Finally, let's get going already."
Ugh, for some reason the forum posted my message before I was done with it... Oh well, guess this will be a multi-parter afterall.
Off topic but cyrus is the funniest antagonist in this franchise from the sheer absurdity of his goals with no proper explanation. He decided he just was bored of our world and said "alright im gonna make a new one". Not even his grunts know what the fuck hes about.
Cyrus is basically a bootleg Kefka, except that Kefka is a compelling and entertaining character. Honestly, Cyrus is probably the best allegory for modern Pokemon: kinda boring, makes questionable decisions, but has a cool boss theme.
