Unpopular opinions

[PokePoindexter]

Red sucks. Look, I understand that being the “Pokemon Master” and “The Only AI Trainer with the highest level Pokemon not in the Battle Frontier” is cool and all but i can beat him 30 levels under him. He’s not even that hard. Just use your type advantage, and the entire battle is clean and wiped like that. The level curve for him in the originals is just plain stupid, but isn’t gen 2 stupid as well?

I'm going to second this. I've never had any difficulty beating Red, even when I'm facing him with a team of Pokemon around Lv. 60.

Honestly, with Gen 2 in general, the only source of difficulty is whether or not you have the patience to do excessive level grinding. Which, in turn, is more of a test of patience than a test of skill.

 

[AstralBlade]

I'm going to second this. I've never had any difficulty beating Red, even when I'm facing him with a team of Pokemon around Lv. 60.

Honestly, with Gen 2 in general, the only source of difficulty is whether or not you have the patience to do excessive level grinding. Which, in turn, is more of a test of patience than a test of skill.

Damn right. Gen 2 just sucks. I mean sure they are good pokemon designs and the whole red battle is epic but it feels....unfinished and empty in it’s core. I dare say gen 3 is better than gens 1 and 2 tbh.

 

[PokePoindexter]

I'll also say about Gen 2 that I think Lance is easily the worst champion in the franchise so far. Bring an Ice-type or something that knows Ice Beam/Punch and you can easily turn his Dragonite triplicates into popsicles. As for the rest of his team, they're all weak to Electric and Rock, and a collective total of five of his Pokemon are 4x weak to one of those three types. I guess having a bunch of Dragons may seem somewhat imposing the first time one faces him, but once everyone learned that they can use Ice attacks to beat Dragon-types (and for that matter Flying-types as well), it only became that much easier to figure out how to handle Lance. And since the only difference between his teams in Gens 1 and 2 are evolving his Dragonairs and adding a Charizard, he's still overall very lackluster as a Champion IMO.

 

[AstralBlade]

I'll also say about Gen 2 that I think Lance is easily the worst champion in the franchise so far. Bring an Ice-type or something that knows Ice Beam/Punch and you can easily turn his Dragonite triplicates into popsicles. As for the rest of his team, they're all weak to Electric and Rock, and a collective total of five of his Pokemon are 4x weak to one of those three types. I guess having a bunch of Dragons may seem somewhat imposing the first time one faces him, but once everyone learned that they can use Ice attacks to beat Dragon-types (and for that matter Flying-types as well), it only became that much easier to figure out how to handle Lance. And since the only difference between his teams in Gens 1 and 2 are evolving his Dragonairs and adding a Charizard, he's still overall very lackluster as a Champion IMO.

Just use Feraligatr. RIP LANCE. Also bring an Ampharos for his Gyarados and the game is basically done. Make sure to have Ice Punch and GGGGGGG

 

[Detective Barricade]

I'll also say about Gen 2 that I think Lance is easily the worst champion in the franchise so far. Bring an Ice-type or something that knows Ice Beam/Punch and you can easily turn his Dragonite triplicates into popsicles. As for the rest of his team, they're all weak to Electric and Rock, and a collective total of five of his Pokemon are 4x weak to one of those three types. I guess having a bunch of Dragons may seem somewhat imposing the first time one faces him, but once everyone learned that they can use Ice attacks to beat Dragon-types (and for that matter Flying-types as well), it only became that much easier to figure out how to handle Lance. And since the only difference between his teams in Gens 1 and 2 are evolving his Dragonairs and adding a Charizard, he's still overall very lackluster as a Champion IMO.

All of his Pokemon are weak to Rock, so something with decent Attack and access to Rock Slide will bring him down quickly. If it's also fast, then Rock Slide might prevent Lance from getting a hit in at all with its chance of flinching.

Lance is an awesome character, but as a champion he's a pushover, especially compared to later champions in the franchise.

 

[PageofSwords]

It's not perfect (the gap between you and the Elite Four is a chore), but it's not this persistent problem you're always facing.

Isn't that gap still pretty similar compared to other gens (at least until DP)? Blue's starter is Lv 65 or 63 depending on whether you play the originals or remakes, Steven's Metagross and Wallace's Milotic go as high as Lv 58/59, and Cynthia's Garchomp is Lv 66 in Diamond and Pearl. My memory might be off, but I'm under the impression that you won't get anywhere near those values without grinding - rather, you'll still have to overcome a 10-15 level difference.

Your mileage may vary on whether or not that's a problem in general, but if it, it's a problem stretching across the first half of the series.

 

[AstralBlade]

Isn't that gap still pretty similar compared to other gens (at least until DP)? Blue's starter is Lv 65 or 63 depending on whether you play the originals or remakes, Steven's Metagross and Wallace's Milotic go as high as Lv 58/59, and Cynthia's Garchomp is Lv 66 in Diamond and Pearl. My memory might be off, but I'm under the impression that you won't get anywhere near those values without grinding - rather, you'll still have to overcome a 10-15 level difference.

Your mileage may vary on whether or not that's a problem in general, but if it, it's a problem stretching across the first half of the series.

I agree, but Gen 2 showed it off more due to the final battle with Pokemon Trainer Red. And I usually just level to the highest leveled gym leader Pokemon at a time, and it’s not that hard for me. The 10-15 level difference can be fixed by using type advantages really.

 

[Antihaxxer]

I don't remember if it was BW or BW2 but Stadium Battles AFTER Elite 4 was the only time i lose to random NPC

 

[Siggu]

I don't remember if it was BW or BW2 but Stadium Battles AFTER Elite 4 was the only time i lose to random NPC

Ultra Sun was the first game in a long time I had lost to a random NPC. Namely, the veteran with the three Dragons in Tapu Village.

I decided it was time to catch up after losing and ended up being noticeably overleveled against the Totem Mimikyu. Then I realized it was that the Veteran was overleveled for that point in the game.

 

[stage7_4]

Isn't that gap still pretty similar compared to other gens (at least until DP)? Blue's starter is Lv 65 or 63 depending on whether you play the originals or remakes, Steven's Metagross and Wallace's Milotic go as high as Lv 58/59, and Cynthia's Garchomp is Lv 66 in Diamond and Pearl. My memory might be off, but I'm under the impression that you won't get anywhere near those values without grinding - rather, you'll still have to overcome a 10-15 level difference.

Your mileage may vary on whether or not that's a problem in general, but if it, it's a problem stretching across the first half of the series.

I meant a persistent problem within G/S/C or HG/SS. That you can go the entire game without feeling the effects of the exp curve, then suddenly trip on it right before the Elite Four.

You are correct in that many other pokemon main series games have this exact same problem, which makes holding it specifically against the Johto games more than a little unfair.

But ping-ponging back to Johto, while many games require some pre-endgame grinding Johto lacks many quality of life features to minimize the time spent grinding. Victory Road has no trainers besides your rival, and the average wild pokemon level is 33. There is no VS Seeker, no Audino hunting, no free Lucky Egg, and no usable trainer rematch function to aid you. It's quite common for me to make it to the Pokemon League entrance with a team that barely turned 40 now expected to powergrind to 45ish on really weak wild pokemon. And Red's his own beast, there's nothing in the game that can easily get you up to his level besides Elite Four rematches (although as some people point out, you might not need to get that high to beat him).

It is interesting to look at if R/B/Y, R/S/E or D/P/Pt had a worse pre-Elite Four grinding requirement though, as even with more trainers or high leveled wild pokemon I remember the Elite Four levels being pretty dang high too. More research required.

 

[sb879]

From my experience with no-grinding runs (average team level vs Champion's ace):

RBY: ~48 vs 65
GSC: ~38 vs 50
RSE: ~44 vs 58 (little higher in Emerald)
DPP: ~48 vs 66/62

It's a pretty consistent gap. Gen 4 is probably the worst in practice because at least Gens 1-3 have badge boosts, which by endgame means all your stats are roughly 10% higher than listed. Though it's balanced out a bit if you're grinding since that's reasonably fast with the Vs Seeker.

 

[Rapti]

The last point is another thing I can't really dispute, and that's low exp amounts discourage experimentation, a problem that plagued most of this series up until the Gen 6 Exp Share changes (which might have over-corrected but still). The Johto exp curve is fine if you pick 6 decent pokemon and stick with them until the end (or better yet, 3 powerhouses and 3 untrained HM-slaves). But if you're a new player picking and switching out your team for every shiny new monster that appears, you're going to have a bad time keeping up without grinding. My only condolence is that this issue is bigger than the Johto games, so it's a bit unfair to hold it against just them. That and if you are on this forum reading this, you're already beyond this ever being a problem to you ever.

I always train at least 30 different pokemon per game to at least lv, 50; done it since gen I (I originally trained all the pokemon you could catch in one cartridge to that level ,yes even Ditto)
and let me tell you gen II are the worst games when it comes to training pokemon bar none

Gen I may lack re-fights with NPCs but Cinnabar Island and (crucially) fishing in route 23 make it at least passable to train several pokemon to 40+,
in gen II I struggle to get everyone to the 30s, the only other games where the experience of actually training your pokemon is bad are, for me, gen VI where things go so fast you can barely even taste it (I keep forgetting my gen VI pokemon genders due to seeing so little if them :( )

I like training pokemon, I like spending time with my pokemon, gen II made me not enjoy either of those things cause of its leveling curve, that makes their leveling curve bad in my book

 

[stage7_4]

I always train at least 30 different pokemon per game to at least lv, 50; done it since gen I (I originally trained all the pokemon you could catch in one cartridge to that level ,yes even Ditto)
and let me tell you gen II are the worst games when it comes to training pokemon bar none

Gen I may lack re-fights with NPCs but Cinnabar Island and (crucially) fishing in route 23 make it at least passable to train several pokemon to 40+,
in gen II I struggle to get everyone to the 30s, the only other games where the experience of actually training your pokemon is bad is, for me, gen VI where things go so fast you can barely even taste it (I keep forgetting my gen VI pokemon genders due to seeing so little if them :( )

I like training pokemon, I like spending time with my pokemon, gen II made me not enjoy either of those things cause of its leveling curve, that makes their leveling curve bad in my book

No offense but your experience is quite outside average player behavior.

But I will agree that the Johto games are not made for training large amounts of Pokemon. You didn't quote it, but I said another casualty of the level curve is training for the battle frontier. Basically have to rematch the elite four over and over (but I have to do that in Sun and Moon too, although with the better exp share I can at least do 5 at once).

But for the main game? I think the problem is exaggerated.

 

[PageofSwords]

You are correct in that many other pokemon main series games have this exact same problem, which makes holding it specifically against the Johto games more than a little unfair.

But ping-ponging back to Johto, while many games require some pre-endgame grinding Johto lacks many quality of life features to minimize the time spent grinding.

Well, isn't this the real key question here though? Do these games require grinding? In a narrow sense, the answer is of course no - once you know what you're doing and prepare accordingly, you can win at those lower levels. But let's say we're not interested in the answer to this narrow question because it requires knowing the games reasonably well and when someone plays them for the first time, that's often not true. Even accounting for that, I don't think the games expect you to grind before the E4.

Considering that Gamefreak kept this up for about a decade and four generations of games, and that you generally don't have to grind during your journey through the region, the idea that they would expect you to spend a bunch of time catching up in levels at the end seems a bit odd to me. Rather, it's probably to balance out the advantages players have over the AI, i.e. presumably better type coverage, TMs, passive boosts, generally better strategies, and items.

Over time, the player lost some of those advantages as the AI improved and got better movesets to work with, but I guess that's why the level gap has shrunk in more recent generations as well.

 

[HeatEdgeSword]

I personally think that Encore is a poorly designed move. It is one of the few moves that bypasses Substitute, which can be a pain if your last turn was using Substitute and you're forced to repeat doing so. Another infuriating thing about Encore is that Pokemon still get affected by encore even when the last encore has just ended. If the user happens to faster than the Pokemon, then that Pokemon stands no chance against Encore. Switching out would be the best way of escaping the wrath of Encore, but that would be a moot point if you cannot switch. Heck, I even argue that Encore is the main reason why Wobbuffet was banned in Gen 3-4 OU.

Now, there are some ways to prevent it, like Mental Herb (which is mainly used to prevent Taunt than Encore), abilities such as Aroma Veil, but those aren't enough. I do recall that Encore did get a nerf in Generation 5... by lasting exactly only 3 turns and that's it, which only affects Wobbuffet being unbanned in Smogon formats.

 

[HONK]

I Actually found Pokemon Contests quite enjoyable... I don't really know why though.

 

[pe5e]

I personally think that Encore is a poorly designed move. It is one of the few moves that bypasses Substitute, which can be a pain if your last turn was using Substitute and you're forced to repeat doing so. Another infuriating thing about Encore is that Pokemon still get affected by encore even when the last encore has just ended. If the user happens to faster than the Pokemon, then that Pokemon stands no chance against Encore. Switching out would be the best way of escaping the wrath of Encore, but that would be a moot point if you cannot switch. Heck, I even argue that Encore is the main reason why Wobbuffet was banned in Gen 3-4 OU.

Now, there are some ways to prevent it, like Mental Herb (which is mainly used to prevent Taunt than Encore), abilities such as Aroma Veil, but those aren't enough. I do recall that Encore did get a nerf in Generation 5... by lasting exactly only 3 turns and that's it, which only affects Wobbuffet being unbanned in Smogon formats.

I dont really agree with this. Encore was never more then a nice move, because it is so prediction heavy based. You have to predict that your
opponent uses a move you want him to encore in while you switch in your encore mon and then yet again have to predict the next turn that your opponent doesnt just know you will encore him and switch out, so another 50:50 situation. And frankly if your opponent pulls that off all he got was ONE free turn, not the end of the world. Switching is always the easiest way to avoid it. The only mon that prevents switching AND gets encore is wobbuffet. But it is hardly too good. Again even in the best case it just creates only one free turn. The main reason why wobbuffet was banned in gen 3 was because of wobbuffet dittos. If both players by choice or mistake went both into their wobbuffet, then the game would end instantly in a draw. This is because nether mon can switch out or harm the other as even if they BOTH lose all pp and struggle they still cant kill the each other as struggle recoil didnt work like today. That meant that leftovers wobboffet dittos where endless battles aka draws. That was the main reason behind the ban. The reason wob got unbanned in gen 5 was because the shadow tag mechanics changed and now allowed shadow tag users to switch out from other shadow tag users, which wasnt possible before.
So encore was really never the reason why wob was banned or unbanned. Outside wob encore is basicly not seen in competive play. And it is pretty obvious why. Too prediction based for too little of a reward.

 

[Sondero]

Outside wob encore is basicly not seen in competive play. And it is pretty obvious why. Too prediction based for too little of a reward.

I know it doesn't detract from the point much, yes Shadow Tag is the main deciding factor that Wob has been banned in the past. But I wanted to note that encore still has its fair share of use, especially in doubles, where you can force one (if not both) of the opposing Pokemon into using protect, which happens to be a move pretty much every Pokemon that don't run a choice item or Assault Vest carry. And there's also other incredibly encore prone moves in the format like Fake Out, Trick Room, Feint, other protect variants like Wide Guard etc.

 

[pe5e]

I know it doesn't detract from the point much, yes Shadow Tag is the main deciding factor that Wob has been banned in the past. But I wanted to note that encore still has its fair share of use, especially in doubles, where you can force one (if not both) of the opposing Pokemon into using protect, which happens to be a move pretty much every Pokemon that don't run a choice item or Assault Vest carry. And there's also other incredibly encore prone moves in the format like Fake Out, Trick Room, Feint, other protect variants like Wide Guard etc.

That is true. I didnt speak about doubles because he mentioned the wob ban which only ever happend in singles.

 

[King Feraligatr]

Probably going to get some flak for this, but I think Pokemon hasn't really been good since B2W2 (and even then, I found BW kinda meh). Gen 6 is one big forgettable blah to me. And Gen 7, while a bit better than than 6, still has plenty of issues. Sure they added some features (albeit ones that break the game hard and should been given to you after the postgame plot), but the core games are kind of lacking (especially Gen 6). Hell, it took a harder mode ROM hack to get me to care about ORAS at all (first run was bleh). I'm not a competitive player, so if the main game is lacking, I'm really not going to enjoy the game. Fans make better Pokemon games nowadays than the official devs.

 

[Wizard]

I do recall that Encore did get a nerf in Generation 5... by lasting exactly only 3 turns and that's it, which only affects Wobbuffet being unbanned in Smogon formats.

Both Politoed and Alakazam are commonly seen running encore

 

[Mova]

The only reasons I've been sticking with Pokémon at this point are the creature designs and the world. I'm generally a sucker for monster collectors as a whole, including Digimon, Yo-kai Watch, and so on.

However, I've gotten exhausted of the battle system because it has been the same boring stuff without any minor additions such as timed hits, as seen in Super Mario RPG and the Mario & Luigi series. I don't expect a major overhaul or anything, but I'd like to see the mechanics become a bit more based around skill, as opposed to over-relying on luck. I wonder how Showdown would implement that, though.

 

[Tapu Koko Loko]

The only reasons I've been sticking with Pokémon at this point are the creature designs and the world. I'm generally a sucker for monster collectors as a whole, including Digimon, Yo-kai Watch, and so on.

However, I've gotten exhausted of the battle system because it has been the same boring stuff without any minor additions such as timed hits, as seen in Super Mario RPG and the Mario & Luigi series. I don't expect a major overhaul or anything, but I'd like to see the mechanics become a bit more based around skill, as opposed to over-relying on luck. I wonder how Showdown would implement that, though.

Pokemon is more reliant on prediction, remembering stats and running quick calculations in your head/damage calculator than luck, and transitioning from turn-based to real time is a huge and extremely difficult leap.

 

[Pikachu315111]

I don't think the issue is with them having stayed with the same style for so long, but rather they haven't really made it feel rewarding putting effort into delving into the mechanics as they are now. As Tapu Koko Loko said, Pokemon's turn based battle system relies on knowing their Pokemon's specs (Stats, Ability, Moves, Type Match-ups, Held Item), damage calculation, predicting what your opponent has or is going to do, and calculating risk vs reward. It is a really deep system with many generations worth of Moves, Abilities, and Items to flesh it out and provide potentially limitless options...

BUT the games NEVER require you to do this. Okay, maybe the Battle Facilities will require you to have a winning strategy, but unless you're versing another human opponent the AI is usually simple and doesn't use any strategy except the type of Pokemon they're using. And no, I'm not asking to have Battle Facility level trainers during the main game, but I'm asking to see them at least using strategies that makes me think more carefully about how I set up my Pokemon. But since they don't there's no reason for me to dive into the deep battling mechanics as surface level stuff is good enough to get me by and going deeper doesn't change anything.

You know, the reason we haven't seen a Battle Frontier since Gen IV is because GF says the majority of players weren't playing it so they felt it wasn't worth doing. But I'm wondering if this is because, since the Battle Facilities expect the players to start using strategy, it's not that players don't like it but weren't prepared because the main game didn't require them to be so feel like this is a "difficult spike". Which in that case the solution wasn't removing the Battle Frontier but to add strategies to the trainers in the main game.

The reason this indepth battling system feels so bland is entirely GF's fault for not wanting to put the effort to make players use more complex strategies during main game. Thus players aren't prepared for Battle Facilities thus players don't want to play it thus GF feeling their efforts were wasted thus GF makes the game simpler... BREAK THE CYCLE GF! The issue is on your end!

 

[Tapu Koko Loko]

I don't think the issue is with them having stayed with the same style for so long, but rather they haven't really made it feel rewarding putting effort into delving into the mechanics as they are now. As Tapu Koko Loko said, Pokemon's turn based battle system relies on knowing their Pokemon's specs (Stats, Ability, Moves, Type Match-ups, Held Item), damage calculation, predicting what your opponent has or is going to do, and calculating risk vs reward. It is a really deep system with many generations worth of Moves, Abilities, and Items to flesh it out and provide potentially limitless options...

BUT the games NEVER require you to do this. Okay, maybe the Battle Facilities will require you to have a winning strategy, but unless you're versing another human opponent the AI is usually simple and doesn't use any strategy except the type of Pokemon they're using. And no, I'm not asking to have Battle Facility level trainers during the main game, but I'm asking to see them at least using strategies that makes me think more carefully about how I set up my Pokemon. But since they don't there's no reason for me to dive into the deep battling mechanics as surface level stuff is good enough to get me by and going deeper doesn't change anything.

You know, the reason we haven't seen a Battle Frontier since Gen IV is because GF says the majority of players weren't playing it so they felt it wasn't worth doing. But I'm wondering if this is because, since the Battle Facilities expect the players to start using strategy, it's not that players don't like it but weren't prepared because the main game didn't require them to be so feel like this is a "difficult spike". Which in that case the solution wasn't removing the Battle Frontier but to add strategies to the trainers in the main game.

The reason this indepth battling system feels so bland is entirely GF's fault for not wanting to put the effort to make players use more complex strategies during main game. Thus players aren't prepared for Battle Facilities thus players don't want to play it thus GF feeling their efforts were wasted thus GF makes the game simpler... BREAK THE CYCLE GF! The issue is on your end!

I completely agree. The problem with battle facilities is that the game goes from "crush your enemies, see their pokemon driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their trainers" in the story to "bring your AAA+ game and one loss erases all your progress" in the facilities. G6 fixed it somewhat with the normal battles and their NFE/bottom tier mons, allowing for some measure of strategy and learning. Then G7 messed it up by not deleving your mons to 50, reducing all strategy to your prowess with the A button.