Unpopular opinions

[cityscapes]

i might be biased but in platinum/hgss, the story transitioned seamlessly into the frontier i think.

so first you have the main story, which is challenging enough that you need to know at least basic type matchups to beat it. or you could just get crazy overleveled, but that's kind of on you lol.

then you reach the battle frontier, and your in game team can pull its weight initially against the nfes, but it's going to struggle against ev trained, optimized threats later on. of course, you're not going to be sure how to beat them.

this is where the battle factory comes in! the ability to use premade sets can teach you a ton about how to play the game. for example:

"cool, this pinsir has earthquake and rock slide so it can beat steel and flying types"

"this roserade has leaf storm + white herb so it can use a super strong move without having to switch out"

"blissey can handle special attacks easily, even focus blast. what if i paired it with a pokemon with high physical defense?"

"wow this pokemon hits really hard with choice band/choice specs, maybe i should buy those"

the battle factory is infamous for being full of ridiculous hax when you're actually trying to beat it, but as a teaching mechanism it works great for introducing the player into the other facilities.

then in bw2, they had the pwt, which was also well done. again the games were challenging enough that you can't make it through without a decent understanding of type matchups.

what i like about the pwt is that it's less demanding, because you only have to win three in a row. the gym leader tournaments are scaled really well difficulty wise, with players able to win the whole thing but not without a challenging series of battles. then the champions bring it all together.

then they had gen 6, which had two problems. first off they made the games too easy, secondly they didn't make the "competitive scene" any easier to enter beyond the simple battle tower style facility. the main story is stupidly easy and doesn't really teach much. oh was your mega lucario's punch not very effective? just use a different move until you find one that works! assuming players don't turn off the exp share, which is only really done by people looking for a challenge, they'll just beat the game on levels alone.

when you reach the battle maison and unlock super whatever, it's a decent challenge. on the one hand you have your broken gift mon, but on the other hand you have ev trained mons with decent competitive sets.

in a funny way, it's actually decently balanced, but it doesn't really teach the player anything, while at the same time your in game team isn't getting you to 50 wins. gen 6 was done pretty poorly.

gen 7 was an interesting case, because they actually made the main game challenging, while also giving the player access to strong, tree-legal mons in the tapus and ubs. an interesting trainer every 10 battles also kept it interesting. but ultimately, it still is only the same old battle tower with new decorations.

they definitely balanced gen 7 better than gen 6 in this regard, but ultimately there's only so much you can do without an actual battle frontier.

 

[Hugin]

The other issue is that actual quality mons for the facilities are not just a matter of figuring it out, and you certainly can’t just add a couple TMs to your in-game team and have a good time. Good natures are easy enough, and movesets shouldn’t be hard to breed/tutor, but EV training is a time sink and IV breeding is insane. And there’s basically no indication for the average player on how to do that. The game throws you into the facility and expects you to build a team from the ground up. That’s a totally different level of effort and risk from the main game, and GF should not be surprised people don’t want to do it. Yes, they’ve been making things easier(those BLESSED Dittos), but the initial cost is ridiculously high.

 

[Miss Cottonee]

this is where the battle factory comes in! the ability to use premade sets can teach you a ton about how to play the game.

I liked this facility a lot in Gen 3. Tons of mindbending gimmick sets, but I've learned soooo much from it. ^^

An opinion I never got soulmates with, is my aversion against the focus on "power" and "being strong" in every subsequent game. Both characteristics become more annoyingly present with the years, as I experience it. First the "legendary spam" in BW2 (because you need to have them all!), then Mega-evolutions (because your final evolution isn't strong enough!), then those Z-moves (because your regular moves aren't powerful enough!), topping the cake with Ultra Beast at the moment (because legendaries are becoming so common!). I don't know. When I played Alpha Sapphire, I didn't want to use a mega-evo but I couldn't beat Archies Sharpedo without doing so. In Sun/Moon, I only used a Z-move in the tutorial because it was mandatory, and the ridiculousness of those ultra beast kept me away from them. These developments aren't completely horrid, it's just that I really dislike the stress on overpowering in the game and giving an unreasonable amount of attention to strong Pokémon and their equally strong moves... And it's difficult to stay away from it.

On a related note, it always bugged me that preventing your Pokémon from evolving almost never gave any advantages. In every game there's an NPC claiming that "little Pokémon learn moves faster" with an undertone that this is super awesome, but it's often such a tiny margin that it's not even worth it. Especially not because they aren't particularly easier to raise. I always wished that experience points scaled with evolutions or something. :(

 

[Detective Barricade]

I liked this facility a lot in Gen 3. Tons of mindbending gimmick sets, but I've learned soooo much from it. ^^

An opinion I never got soulmates with, is my aversion against the focus on "power" and "being strong" in every subsequent game. Both characteristics become more annoyingly present with the years, as I experience it. First the "legendary spam" in BW2 (because you need to have them all!), then Mega-evolutions (because your final evolution isn't strong enough!), then those Z-moves (because your regular moves aren't powerful enough!), topping the cake with Ultra Beast at the moment (because legendaries are becoming so common!). I don't know. When I played Alpha Sapphire, I didn't want to use a mega-evo but I couldn't beat Archies Sharpedo without doing so. In Sun/Moon, I only used a Z-move in the tutorial because it was mandatory, and the ridiculousness of those ultra beast kept me away from them. These developments aren't completely horrid, it's just that I really dislike the stress on overpowering in the game and giving an unreasonable amount of attention to strong Pokémon and their equally strong moves... And it's difficult to stay away from it.

On a related note, it always bugged me that preventing your Pokémon from evolving almost never gave any advantages. In every game there's an NPC claiming that "little Pokémon learn moves faster" with an undertone that this is super awesome, but it's often such a tiny margin that it's not even worth it. Especially not because they aren't particularly easier to raise. I always wished that experience points scaled with evolutions or something. :(

It's especially of little point to hold off evolving for moves because unless it's a useful move exclusive to an earlier evolution, you can probably either make do with a slightly weaker TM or use the Move Reminder to get the desired move. Gen 6 offered a small EXP boost if the Pokemon stays in its current form past the minimum level it can evolve, but there's nothing for Pokemon who evolve in other ways such as trading or evolution stone.

I like these, don't get me wrong, but... I'm a little bothered that the Mega Evolution thing that was such a big deal in gen 6 was relegated to a post-game afterthought in gen 7. Z-Moves will likely suffer the same fate, including the type-specific Z-crystals, in gen 8. Gotta push the NEW toy for the generation!

 

[ty_taurus]

I hate breeding and I think it destroys the core themes of Pokemon.

The anime and marketing campaigns would just love for you to believe that the Pokemon you catch in the wild can be trained through hard work and dedication to be the best of the best and compete with the toughest opponents by using teamwork and friendship, but those are lies.

The only way to make it in competitive battling is through ruthless and relentless puppy milling to breed out all the imperfections of your caught Pokemon by breeding them, their children, their children's children, their children's children's children, and so on. At the end of the day, you either release all your brejects back into the wild so that Darwinism can take over, or to pass them around to other players who don't want them like unloved foster children until they find themselves rotting in the PC or are released anyway.

I would really love for breeding to be removed from Pokemon and for egg moves to be taught another way that encourages you to train the Pokemon you journeyed with, like if you could have two of your Pokemon train together for bonus EXP, and if one of them knows an egg move that the other can learn, they get a chance to learn that move. Not to mention, we live in an age where time is a premium resource and lots of players just don't have the time to breed and EV train all day. Competitive mons don't need to be handed to players, but the process should be made faster and easier once you get the ball rolling.

 

[Kurona]

I hate breeding and I think it destroys the core themes of Pokemon.

The anime and marketing campaigns would just love for you to believe that the Pokemon you catch in the wild can be trained through hard work and dedication to be the best of the best and compete with the toughest opponents by using teamwork and friendship, but those are lies.

The only way to make it in competitive battling is through ruthless and relentless puppy milling to breed out all the imperfections of your caught Pokemon by breeding them, their children, their children's children, their children's children's children, and so on. At the end of the day, you either release all your brejects back into the wild so that Darwinism can take over, or to pass them around to other players who don't want them like unloved foster children until they find themselves rotting in the PC or are released anyway.

I would really love for breeding to be removed from Pokemon and for egg moves to be taught another way that encourages you to train the Pokemon you journeyed with, like if you could have two of your Pokemon train together for bonus EXP, and if one of them knows an egg move that the other can learn, they get a chance to learn that move. Not to mention, we live in an age where time is a premium resource and lots of players just don't have the time to breed and EV train all day. Competitive mons don't need to be handed to players, but the process should be made faster and easier once you get the ball rolling.

Not only that - though destroying the spirit of the game is most certainly a huge point - but it creates a huge entry barrier for Competitive Pokémon.

In Super Smash Bros., you prepare for competitive by practising your moves and honing your skills at the game; fighting against other similarly skilled players to push your limits further and further and maybe even find new skills or strategies along the way to counter what you've come across.
In Pokémon, you prepare for competitive by... spending 90% of your time breeding, soft-resetting and EV training; an exercise which you derive no skill or improvement from and leeches time away from actual planning and strategy.

Granted it's slightly disingenuous to compare a strategy game to a fighting game and I don't believe that any improvements would ever make Pokémon as good and pick-up-and-play as Smash or Pokken or Street Fighter; but this kind of grind is excessive, unnecessary, dull and antithetical to what should be the point of a competitive strategy game in the first place. I know plenty of people who were curious about competitive Pokémon but saw this entry barrier and decided it was more trouble than it was worth.
It makes the metagame -INTENSELY- inactive. It's no wonder it stagnates when competitive players don't actually get much time to competitively play compared to other metagames; they're too busy riding around on a Tauros for hours just so they can begin to be allowed to play. And god forbid you find you need to change your natures or Hidden Power or something to counter a strategy you saw.

Breeding, I think, was an interesting idea back in Gen 2. It was one of multiple mechanics added to help Pokémon seem a bit more real; to bring another aspect of real-world animals into the game and make it feel that little bit more immersive -- not to mention helping you complete your Pokédex or being able to trade a rare or interesting Pokémon to your friend without losing your own. But as time has gone on and as additions have been added, the way it's become the core of competitive has just gotten unbearable.

 

[Miss Cottonee]

I hate breeding and I think it destroys the core themes of Pokemon.

I really follow your thoughts, but I think it has more to do with people perfecting this for competition and elevating this as a standard (like Kurona says too). That way you cannot keep up with it unless you do the same. But yea, it still remains a bit disheartening to release boxes of hatched Pokémon...

 

[Caramel Prisoner]

I do so agree with this. I actually tried my hand at breeding once - in Sun, I bred a competitive Popplio (not one with Hidden Power Fire, but good enough) and a perfect Smeargle for catching purposes.... and then never did much with them because the experience left me so drained that I just couldn't be bothered. I didn't even want to get into proper competitive at the time, just felt like checking out the Battle Tree. But the thought of going through that process two more times just to have a viable team for an ingame challenge just killed my motivation.

 

[Kurona]

I do so agree with this. I actually tried my hand at breeding once - in Sun, I bred a competitive Popplio (not one with Hidden Power Fire, but good enough) and a perfect Smeargle for catching purposes.... and then never did much with them because the experience left me so drained that I just couldn't be bothered. I didn't even want to get into proper competitive at the time, just felt like checking out the Battle Tree. But the thought of going through that process two more times just to have a viable team for an ingame challenge just killed my motivation.

This is a point I was wanting to put in but you put it across so much better than I was going to. I'm a bit more dedicated and have a bit more time than others so I've gone through breeding a ton of Pokémon and occasionally EV training them in Pelago and other means... and then I just get fed up of the whole thing and leave it. Haven't touched Ultra Sun aside from events recently because this is so tedious.

 

[Hugin]

I think another part of that is the IV system is just terrible. Natures are great, they’re obvious with clear benefits and drawbacks to each one. EVs are a bit annoying to grind, but not hugely, and again, there’s a clear trade-off to putting them in certain stats and now it’s pretty easy to check what’s happening. But IVs? There’s no real decisions to make there, it’s just straight 31s with a possible 0 Atk or 0 Speed. Anything else is a bad spread. Combine that with the massive time sink that is breeding for perfect mons and you’ve got a perfect system for keeping people from playing your game without adding anything to the experience.

 

[Codraroll]

It makes the metagame -INTENSELY- inactive. It's no wonder it stagnates when competitive players don't actually get much time to competitively play compared to other metagames; they're too busy riding around on a Tauros for hours just so they can begin to be allowed to play. And god forbid you find you need to change your natures or Hidden Power or something to counter a strategy you saw.

This discussion could be had about many aspects of Pokémon, actually. For instance, you're screwed out of luck if you plan to use legendary Pokémon in a changing metagame. You get one per game cart, and if you for instance reset for your single Tapu Koko to have a Timid nature, and suddenly Naive is what you need, you're in for a fun time. For a start, you need to start a game from scratch and beat the Elite Four to get another one. Then you'll have to spend some time soft-resetting for the right nature and IVs, maybe even a Hidden Power you need. Only then can you begin EV training and level grinding. And if suddenly Jolly Tapu Koko becomes a necessity, then you have to go through it all over again. And that's on top of the fact that you need multiple game carts and/or access to the paid subscription service to be able to transfer the darn thing to your primary game cart to begin with.

All this is bad enough, but what makes it hair-pullingly frustrating is that legendaries are overwhelmingly common in competitive play. A large portion of your team can't be bred for, it has to be obtained through tedious soft-resetting. Throwing dice over and over again until the desired number of eyes appear, each throw taking upwards of a minute. Just to get to the entry level of the competitions.

Competitive Pokémon is a lot about planning and preparing. Trial and error is very helpful, but that stage is extremely tedious unless you use third-party software or competitive websites like this. Imagine doing trial and error and practice battles to build a team using only game carts.

The entry level to competitive Pokémon is ridiculously high. Not because the concept is hard to grasp, or because it's difficult to become good at it, but because of the sheer tedium of obtaining the Pokémon you need in order to play on a competitive level.

 

[Tapu Koko Loko]

I think another part of that is the IV system is just terrible. Natures are great, they’re obvious with clear benefits and drawbacks to each one. EVs are a bit annoying to grind, but not hugely, and again, there’s a clear trade-off to putting them in certain stats and now it’s pretty easy to check what’s happening. But IVs? There’s no real decisions to make there, it’s just straight 31s with a possible 0 Atk or 0 Speed. Anything else is a bad spread. Combine that with the massive time sink that is breeding for perfect mons and you’ve got a perfect system for keeping people from playing your game without adding anything to the experience.

Stakatakatakatakataktakatakatakatakatakatakataktakataka is the most notorious exception to perfect IVs, and IVs are a decent way to determine Hidden Power (at least until Fairy type arrived and Legends started getting 3 perfects and therefore became unable to get HP Fighting).

That said, with Hyper Training none of these issues about IVs, breeding and barriers of entry shouldn't be much of a problem, but GF had to go and decide that leveling to 100 should be stupidly tedious (it would take over a month to level up a mon from the fluctuating exp group from lv1 to lv100 in the pokepelago)

Speaking of which, it takes 31 hours 45 min to fully EV train in the pokepelago, making it useful only to adjust the most complicated spreads (and you should abuse vitamins if the recommended spread is below 100, farming for vendor trash in the boulders before the Battle Tree takes less time). Compare to ORAS, where you could get ANY spread in 10 minutes tops with little trouble thanks to the versatility of Horde battles.

Out of all the G6 and G7, OR is the only one I haven't logged 999+ hours of game time, and that's because GF forgot to inject artificial tedium into it.

 

[earl]

and this is why smogon is played on a simulator, ladies and gentlemen

 

[ty_taurus]

I think another part of that is the IV system is just terrible. Natures are great, they’re obvious with clear benefits and drawbacks to each one. EVs are a bit annoying to grind, but not hugely, and again, there’s a clear trade-off to putting them in certain stats and now it’s pretty easy to check what’s happening. But IVs? There’s no real decisions to make there, it’s just straight 31s with a possible 0 Atk or 0 Speed. Anything else is a bad spread. Combine that with the massive time sink that is breeding for perfect mons and you’ve got a perfect system for keeping people from playing your game without adding anything to the experience.

I actually don't like Natures either.

The problem I have with them is that they're 25 of them and there's currently no way of changing them. Here's the thing, most Pokemon only benefit from 2-4 different Natures, meaning the other 21-23 are either indifferent or downright detrimental to any given Pokemon species. There's definitely some unneeded bloat in this mechanic, like the neutral Natures if nothing else.

I've played around with ideas where Natures were a little more unique. Rather than just giving you a flat buff and debuff, maybe Natures could work in more situation ways. Examples I thought of were things like:
Brave: +Attack/+Special Attack when your opponent carries a Super Effective Move.
Bold: +Defense/+Special Defense until you take action in combat each turn.
Lonely: +All Stats if all other Pokemon on your team are unconscious.

I think it would be cool, but I also think it could become needlessly complicated. At this point, I think it would just be better to remove the stat penalties associated with Natures and just have 5 new ones:
Aggressive: +Attack
Fearless: +Defense
Prudent: + Sp Attack
Cautious: +Sp Defense
Cheerful: +Speed
I would also be more transparent with what these Natures do so casual players can actually understand what it means and not think it's just a word that means nothing. Also, I'd include a Pokemon Acting Coach NPC who you could pay to "change" your Pokemon's Nature (i.e. teach them how to act differently in combat if their natural Nature doesn't compliment their fighting style).

Complexity doesn't always equate to strategic value. Sometimes simpler things can be just as effective. In this case, most Pokemon just use a nature that hurts the stat they never use (i.e. Attack or Special Attack in 90% of examples). There is a point that some Pokemon might lose the Speed Penalty that they might care about to some degree in concurrence with Trick Room or Gyro Ball. It's not a completely clean change, but I do think it retains the customization aspect, makes it more widely accessible, and makes it clearer and easier to comprehend for casual players without sacrificing anything major for the hardcore players.

 

[Pikachu315111]

The games always had a major disconnect between the morals of the main story and the requirements in order to be competitive or complete the Battle Facilities. The main story tries to have you connect with the Pokemon you catch, acting as if that's the only member of its species you caught when in reality you could have gone through a dozen before you got the right Nature, Ability, and/or IVs (and even Gender in some cases). Your Starter isn't even immune to this as, though you only get the one, the thing is you could have reset the game multiple times just before getting the Starter in order to get the one that's right or at least "will do". And sadly that latter one is the fate of all the Pokemon you catch during the story, for the story "they'll do" but when it comes to competitive/Battle Facilities during the post game you're done with them. At most you make a special place for them in the Box where they can retire, but from then on the morals the story tried to cram into you flies out the window. The very team you beat the game with, the team the game intends for you to feel you put your sweat and blood raising to be the best and when you become Champion make you feel like that's the case... isn't true as they most likely can't hold their own outside of the game's story because of imperfections they have.

And how do the morals stop mattering? Because now you're paying close attention to its stats, breeding dozens of rejects until getting the perfect one you want, instead of using "what you got" you specifically create a team of usually the most used Pokemon because they're the ones who had the stats or gimmicks which puts them above other Pokemon. All Pokemon are not equal, and while that makes sense in a progression sense as you'd want to encounter stronger Pokemon as you play through the story, in the sense the game tries to make you feel all Pokemon are equal it falls apart as, no, no they're not. The early route rodent, bug, and bird rarely ever get close to being competitive. Actually you could say that about a lot of com mons, even for ones rare to find. The "good ones" are scattered here and there with no sense of order. You're cherry picking the Pokemon, not just catching em' all and using the one you like.

Actually, that's another problem. Sad to say, but Crazy!Lusamine was right when she called out the player.

"Terrible? Me? How am I different from any Pokémon Trainer, like your little "friend" there? What do you do with a Pokémon you can't use? You remove it from your party, as you please."

She's right. By the end of the game we have a Pokedex worth of Pokemon sitting in our PC doing nothing, and only a handful did we ever have on our party and trained until they no longer were useful or something stronger came along. And Poke Pelago doesn't really "resolve" the problem because it doesn't matter what Pokemon you have, it's the number of Pokemon which matters (if you exit and enter Poke Pelago it'll be different Pokemon hanging out on each island, heck the ones who come back with the treasure for the mining island would be a different batch then the ones you sent in). Infact in some cases the game encourages you to catch (or at least encounter) a lot of Pokemon of the same species. There's using the Poke Radar to try to create chains for finding Shinies, ORAS had the PokeNav Plus feature of encountering a Pokemon with better IVs, Hidden Ability, and having Egg Move by raising the number of times you caught/battled said Pokemon, and since they're counting Let's Go as a main series game they now want you to catch tons of Pokemon so you can send to the Professor so he would reward you with stat boosting candies for the Pokemon that "matter" (and that game also has a feature similar to the previously mentioned PokeNav Plus of finding better Pokemon as you catch/battle more members of its species).

And the sad thing is that moral has value. Most players want and do get attached to their in-game teams. And they have released mechanics that try to make it feel having that connection feel important like with Friendship and Pokemon-Amie/Refresh. But the problem is there's more mechanics that doesn't support it and the post game/competitive certainly doesn't. It's a problem GF dug for itself and they chose the "best way" to handle it was to ignore it, still having the game force a moral it'll eventually drop when the story is done all in the while releasing more new mechanics which may or may not enforce the morals or even stay in the games.

So, the question now comes to how to "fix this". Well, sadly there's no "fixing". What exists is mostly here to stay unless they want to completely redo everything they done which would be a massive time commitment which would also result in losing a lot of players who spent hours trying to make a good team. So, yeah, not happening. At best you can "mitigate" the issue by addressing the main problems. At risk of wishlisting, so I'm going to keep this vague as possible, they could do the following:

Got A Bit Long So Hiding It

Make Hyper Training more versatile: So you can max a Pokemon's stats to 31 IVs, great! How about also letting us change its Nature (and also let us choose choose to make an IV zero; for those Trick Roomers and Special Attackers not wanting max Confusion damage)? Also, remove that Level 100 restriction. That was stupid. Or at least lower it to Level 50. Bottle Caps are hard enough to come by anyway... may also want to do something about that.
"Oh, so instead of accepting the Pokemon you catch for what it is you're now forcing it to become what you want it to be?". Yes, once again, "mitigating". If they really want to have the Pokemon you catch feel they're the best, allow the player to make them into the best. And hey, about this: the Pokemon you had on your initial Champion run team get free Hyper Training!

Naturally Raise IVs: Would it really ruin the experience if the Pokemon's IVs naturally increased every level up? Unless their IVs were already high, they can't max out their IVs through level up alone and mechanics wise they are getting stronger then they were before (yeah, yeah, EVs were meant to show that but you can raise EVs with Vitamins and max them easier) thus enforcing the moral.

Disable Nature Effects: Yup, you read that right, though I'll go into more detail. If a Pokemon gets a Nature which hinders it more than helps, give the player a choice to disable that Nature (at least until they can change it). Once again we go into "mitigating here", while I would want a Pokemon with a helpful Nature obviously, to just continue on with the game I'd be okay getting a Pokemon who has a Nature which doesn't really hurt or help, be it affecting stats I don't care about or being one of the neutral Natures. If I get a bad Nature I may feel compelled to catch another Pokemon, thus going against the game's moral and maybe even breaking my immersion. But if I was just able to go, "oh, its Nature is bad, let me disable it" I can go on, especially if I had a way to change it later.

Egg Moves (& Breeding): Huh, this where we hit a major hurdle. There has to be a reason to Breed. Sure, there's getting a Shiny more easily, but if that's your focus that'll mean even a Pokemon with perfect IVs/Nature/Ability would be tossed away. It's also why we can't just let IVs be easily raised, easiest way to get Pokemon with higher IVs is by breeding and that should be the reward. So sadly, I'd say most Egg Moves should remain Breeding locked. THAT SAID, I would say they should expand upon it. In my opinion there's two types of Egg Moves: one that a species should be able to learn via tutoring and the other it could only get via genetics. For the tutoring Egg Moves, maybe instead of needing to always breed for it you can have a Pokemon bred with that Egg Move then be able to teach it to other members of the same species (probably with help from a Move Tutor). As for the genetic Egg Moves, I'd say they should go a bit further with it, allowing it to learn moves that species normally wouldn't learn but due to the father being a certain species of Pokemon this child does have it. Mostly be restricted to wider coverage moves, but that's a notable inclusion due to Z-Moves making even a weak elemental move a one-use 100+ Power nuke.
Also, maybe make it easier to get a Shiny via Breeding. Like the more total IVs the Pokemon has the more likely of it being a Shiny. Heck, maybe even have the Egg somehow show that it contains a Shiny Pokemon just to save time.

Ability Capsule: Give it a cheaper BP cost and have a way it can unlock Hidden Abilities.

PC Pokemon: Poke Pelago wasn't a bad idea, but the problem was the individual Pokemon didn't matter. Maybe work out a way so that the individual Pokemon, or at least the unique combination of traits a species has (Typing, Ability, Height, Weight, Color, Nature, etc.) can effect certain outcomes on things. That way you can personally assign a Pokemon to a task instead of of it just being another face is a random generated group. In addition to that, in addition to having an area like Poke Pelago I think they should do something that they played around with in XY: giving your Pokemon to someone. In XY there was an old guy who asked if he could play with one of your weaker Pokemon, post game you learn he passed away but your Pokemon gave him some joy in his remaining time. They should expand on this, letting you give NPCs Pokemon you're not using so they can help them with tasks. The Professor needs a kind of Pokemon for research, the Daycare needs help in raising/training Pokemon or Eggs, Gym Leaders/Pokemon League/Battle Facilities would like a Pokemon to help them with something, and other random NPCs who needs a Pokemon help for a certain amount of time. And while you'll be reward with items or money or a service, in-story it'll help world build and maybe they can have a NPC or location act/look better as you help them. Your PC Pokemon aren't useless because you're not actively using them, rather you're sending them out to people who could use their help. It not only reinforces the moral but also shows why the player character is so special and how they're serving their region as the Champion or soon-to-be Champion.

Post Game Content & DLC Expansion: Finally, if one of the issues with in-game teams being they have rarely anything to do post game, then have a considerable amount of post game content that you can do with your in-game team. For example, B2W2 had the White Treehollow and Black Tower which gave both a battling challenge where you can get Experience & money while also having a bit of a story (and as you progressed you saw changes or heard how NPCs stories are progressing in White Forest/Black City). Also the little side quests they had in USUM could have worked if they were kept post game and related to important characters who needed the player's help with something. Finally, why not every so often make new story content and released it as DLC? Instead of having one post game "episode" every so often they'd release a new episode which could also maybe add other little side quests throughout the region. Not only would it give you opportunities to use your in-game team again but also world build and develop characters.

Well, this post is already long so I'll just end it there.

 

[ty_taurus]

So, the question now comes to how to "fix this". Well, sadly there's no "fixing". What exists is mostly here to stay unless they want to completely redo everything they done which would be a massive time commitment which would also result in losing a lot of players who spent hours trying to make a good team. So, yeah, not happening. At best you can "mitigate" the issue by addressing the main problems.

I liked many of your suggestions, but I did want to single out this part specifically and ask a question: Is it really a bad thing to redo things?

Sure, it might not be best to redo everything all at once, but pretty much all other game series that I can think of make some pretty dramatic changes game in and game out. Pokemon seems to be the only series where the designers seem skittish to change things, which has ultimately influenced the fanbase.

I'm not saying we should embrace a Pokemon future where each game has a different set of Types, certain Pokemon are removed from the game entirely, and combat is always in flux by influences from the combat gimmick of the week. What I am saying is, maybe we should reconsider certain things like Breeding and Egg Moves, Natures/EVs/IVs/, maybe even Pokemon Typings in some cases (Bug/Psychic Butterfree, anyone?).

I love Pokemon, but I can't but look at the series and see an unhealthy amount of bloat. I don't think its enough to ruin the experience by any means, but I do thing some things that are seen as "standard" aren't necessarily the best for the series as a whole. Some others have mentioned things like how breeding and the obscene amount of monotonous time it takes to actually make competitive walls is a huge turn off to many would-be competitive battlers if the system wasn't so unfriendly. Designers are able to figure out solutions to what works and what doesn't by experimenting, and I think this mentality of things that cannot change might be holding back what could be some really phenomenal changes that could make the games even better. They'll never know until they test things out, and they also shouldn't be afraid to revert certain features that didn't pan out.

 

[hypno28]

Hyper Training is only justifiable because it doesn’t actually raise IVs. The concept is a stretch but it’s at least plausible. Having IVs increase naturally would just be not having IVs anymore (which would be absurd). I guess it’s possible to come up with a concept that could justify changing natures.

I think they should be making the world more, not less, complex. One way they can get away with increasing convenience is speeding up in-game time, though. For example, in breeding, we’re already seeing a sped-up representation of a much longer process. I don’t see why it couldn’t be almost instantaneous under the same logic.

 

[Pikachu315111]

I liked many of your suggestions, but I did want to single out this part specifically and ask a question: Is it really a bad thing to redo things?

Sure, it might not be best to redo everything all at once, but pretty much all other game series that I can think of make some pretty dramatic changes game in and game out. Pokemon seems to be the only series where the designers seem skittish to change things, which has ultimately influenced the fanbase.

I'm not saying we should embrace a Pokemon future where each game has a different set of Types, certain Pokemon are removed from the game entirely, and combat is always in flux by influences from the combat gimmick of the week. What I am saying is, maybe we should reconsider certain things like Breeding and Egg Moves, Natures/EVs/IVs/, maybe even Pokemon Typings in some cases (Bug/Psychic Butterfree, anyone?).

I love Pokemon, but I can't but look at the series and see an unhealthy amount of bloat. I don't think its enough to ruin the experience by any means, but I do thing some things that are seen as "standard" aren't necessarily the best for the series as a whole. Some others have mentioned things like how breeding and the obscene amount of monotonous time it takes to actually make competitive walls is a huge turn off to many would-be competitive battlers if the system wasn't so unfriendly. Designers are able to figure out solutions to what works and what doesn't by experimenting, and I think this mentality of things that cannot change might be holding back what could be some really phenomenal changes that could make the games even better. They'll never know until they test things out, and they also shouldn't be afraid to revert certain features that didn't pan out.

If it was up to me I would certainly simplify things and add in features to make things easier for the player to adjust their experience and get into competitive. But the problem is it's not up to me, it's up to GF. And GF are very much stuck in their ways.

The solutions I suggested are based on things GF would be more willing to do. GF are not just going to scrap IVs or breeding (in the core series), especially if they want players to be able to transfer their older Pokemon to newer games and discover they did something that made the player feel like they wasted their time (even though it should be understood that each game and its metagame is its own thing so any changes made may have made previous work they did in a previous gen "go to waste").

Also remember any changes made should limit what players want to do. If players want to spend time grinding for a Pokemon with the right Nature they should be allowed to. The changes I suggested are just additions or simple changes onto existing mechanics.

 

[King Feraligatr]

Tedious shit like getting perfect Natures, IVs, moves, etc. are reasons why I cheat and edit my save games. While I might not play online, I still don't like having to deal with subpar Pokemon like this. And as others have stated before, I don't necessarily like having to ditch my main game run team. Cheating/save editing to make them much better reduces the feel to ditch them far less. I'm know I'm hardly an honest player, but I mostly keep my antics to myself.

Also, I like the fangames that allow you to change stuff like IVs far easier. Again, not having to ditch my main team Pokemon is nice. Among other things.

 

[ty_taurus]

If it was up to me I would certainly simplify things and add in features to make things easier for the player to adjust their experience and get into competitive. But the problem is it's not up to me, it's up to GF. And GF are very much stuck in their ways.

The solutions I suggested are based on things GF would be more willing to do. GF are not just going to scrap IVs or breeding (in the core series), especially if they want players to be able to transfer their older Pokemon to newer games and discover they did something that made the player feel like they wasted their time (even though it should be understood that each game and its metagame is its own thing so any changes made may have made previous work they did in a previous gen "go to waste").

Also remember any changes made should limit what players want to do. If players want to spend time grinding for a Pokemon with the right Nature they should be allowed to. The changes I suggested are just additions or simple changes onto existing mechanics.

GameFreak does have an abnormal skittishness around change with Pokemon, but I think saying that they will not do something might be a dangerous statement. It wasn't too long ago that some of us would be saying that GameFreak would not change a Pokemon's base stats for any reason, and then X and Y happened with Sun and Moon going even farther with it and giving Masquerain as much as 40 additional points between Special Attack and Speed.

I don't mean to imply that I think it absolutely will happen, but DVs from the past were abolished, and gameplay aspects like contests were removed (or at least made exclusive to the Hoenn and Sinnoh regions). Sun and Moon even did away with Gym Battles which were the Crux of Pokemon for nearly 20 years. Granted, that might only be temporary, but we don't even know if Gym battles will ever return in a new generation or if they'll be restricted to Kanto-through-Kalos.

They're taking more risks now. At this point I wouldn't rule out any possibilities. They could even release a Pokemon game from a different time period where certain Pokemon we're familiar with could be extinct, or if its the past, don't exist yet. Anything is possible.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Adding points to stats and removing gameplay features such as Contests and Gyms is one thing. But the IV system (which replaced the DV system, something they were able to do because Gen III had no backward comparability so they got an opportunity to do an overhaul) is a major mechanic backbone, they can't just remove it and expect things to work normally.

Now certainly they can do whatever they want (as seen with the decisions they're doing with Pokemon Let's Go), but all we can do is go off prior experience. If they get rid of IVs next core series games and implement something that's easier to understand then great! But that's not how they done things in the past, instead providing us ways to manipulate IVs and breeding a bit more easier. You also got to remember how GF see things: they believe IVs are important to make each Pokemon feel different from another member of its species, sort of like genes. In addition breeding also brings a bit of "realism" showing how Pokemon reproduce and by breeding good genes (IVs) mates together you create stronger children with superior gene (IVs) and you can do this to make the most "ideal" member of that Pokemon species (yes, you get to learn all about the questionable ethics of eugenics in a kid's game where where you collect colorful monsters that fight each other in friendly competition!).

 

[ty_taurus]

Adding points to stats and removing gameplay features such as Contests and Gyms is one thing. But the IV system (which replaced the DV system, something they were able to do because Gen III had no backward comparability so they got an opportunity to do an overhaul) is a major mechanic backbone, they can't just remove it and expect things to work normally.

Now certainly they can do whatever they want (as seen with the decisions they're doing with Pokemon Let's Go), but all we can do is go off prior experience. If they get rid of IVs next core series games and implement something that's easier to understand then great! But that's not how they done things in the past, instead providing us ways to manipulate IVs and breeding a bit more easier. You also got to remember how GF see things: they believe IVs are important to make each Pokemon feel different from another member of its species, sort of like genes. In addition breeding also brings a bit of "realism" showing how Pokemon reproduce and by breeding good genes (IVs) mates together you create stronger children with superior gene (IVs) and you can do this to make the most "ideal" member of that Pokemon species (yes, you get to learn all about the questionable ethics of eugenics in a kid's game where where you collect colorful monsters that fight each other in friendly competition!).

Has GameFreak ever stated that they believe IVs are important to Pokemon to make them feel different from one another? If not, I don't think we can safely make that kind of claim.

Either way you slice it, IVs actually fail at doing that hence why places like here on Smogon, Pokemon are always assumed to be running their most optimal IVs and that any not using proper IVs essentially doesn't exist as far as any conversation goes. If you're talking about giving Mawile 216 Speed EVs to outrun threats like Scizor, you're not taking into account that your Mawile has anything less than 31 IVs for Speed.

If GameFreak really did have that view of IVs, I would assume that they will eventually come to realize this fact and try to rectify it.

 

[Siggu]

Has GameFreak ever stated that they believe IVs are important to Pokemon to make them feel different from one another? If not, I don't think we can safely make that kind of claim.

Either way you slice it, IVs actually fail at doing that hence why places like here on Smogon, Pokemon are always assumed to be running their most optimal IVs and that any not using proper IVs essentially doesn't exist as far as any conversation goes. If you're talking about giving Mawile 216 Speed EVs to outrun threats like Scizor, you're not taking into account that your Mawile has anything less than 31 IVs for Speed.

There's a difference between "IVs make every Pokemon individual unique within its species" (which is the purpose of IVs) and "Everyone picks the individual with the best IVs" (which is what we look in IVs).

 

[Kurai_Seishen]

What does it really matter if IVs are gone? Yeah, +31 points to your stats can be the difference between life and death, but if nobody has that +31 points, then it sort of balances itself out if they gone, doesn't it? I'm sure I'm oversimplifying things because I know there are multiple Pokemon who manipulate IVs to their advantage (such as Special Attackers always minimising their Attack to lessen Foul Play's damage), but it seems to me that IVs aren't as important because everyone knows not to run anything less than max (usually).

The only thing removing IVs would affect is Hidden Power, which I think everyone thinks needs a different way to select its Type anyways. Selecting its Type on the fly would be a bit broken; now every Special Attacker has a move of every Type in the game at any point, but I honestly can't think of any other solution to this. Maybe their Personality Value, so now we could have HP Fairy?

Also, I completely understand that IVs are a sort of hidden mechanic to help differentiate every Pokemon from each other, and its only us old farts who know every pixel of these games who care about IVs. But there's a point when you have to segregate the gameplay and the story, or rather, you need to make sacrifices in both categories to make a pleasurable experience. If a gameplay mechanic sucks then nobody's going to care about the logic or story reasons behind it, and likewise if a story is terrible then the gameplay that supports it isn't going to hold the entire game up (except if you're one of those people who sees things in black and white and only cares about one or the othre).

 

[ty_taurus]

What does it really matter if IVs are gone? Yeah, +31 points to your stats can be the difference between life and death, but if nobody has that +31 points, then it sort of balances itself out if they gone, doesn't it? I'm sure I'm oversimplifying things because I know there are multiple Pokemon who manipulate IVs to their advantage (such as Special Attackers always minimising their Attack to lessen Foul Play's damage), but it seems to me that IVs aren't as important because everyone knows not to run anything less than max (usually).

The only thing removing IVs would affect is Hidden Power, which I think everyone thinks needs a different way to select its Type anyways. Selecting its Type on the fly would be a bit broken; now every Special Attacker has a move of every Type in the game at any point, but I honestly can't think of any other solution to this. Maybe their Personality Value, so now we could have HP Fairy?

Also, I completely understand that IVs are a sort of hidden mechanic to help differentiate every Pokemon from each other, and its only us old farts who know every pixel of these games who care about IVs. But there's a point when you have to segregate the gameplay and the story, or rather, you need to make sacrifices in both categories to make a pleasurable experience. If a gameplay mechanic sucks then nobody's going to care about the logic or story reasons behind it, and likewise if a story is terrible then the gameplay that supports it isn't going to hold the entire game up (except if you're one of those people who sees things in black and white and only cares about one or the othre).

The problem with IVs is that it takes malicious grinding to actually get perfect Pokemon. Like it's literally hours of breeding, running back and forth to hatch eggs, and more breeding. This creates a huge time investment for anyone interested in actually competing in Pokemon online from their own game and ultimately turns away players that otherwise would love to get into Pokemon. EVs also do this to an extend as well as natures, but IVs is the most rudimentary. It also indirectly encourages hacked mons because people don't want to waste the time IV breeding for every Pokemon they want to train, especially since you still need to EV train and level grind each Mon anyway. It also pushes players away from the official games and into Pokemon Showdown which is not an official Pokemon program.

Personally, I think abolishing IVs, condensing EVs, and having them obtained via level would simplify what is currently a huge amount of monotonous grinding. Just make EVs a 1:1 Ratio instead of a 4:1 Ratio at level 100 and have them be obtained as Pokemon Level with the cap on EVs going up per level as well. Lastly, make EVs manually adjustable from the menu, like attribute points in other RPGs.

If that all happened, and Natures were simplified/changeable like how I mentioned before, or something similar, building competitive mons would have all the strategy it currently has but require a fraction of the grind to get each mon to that point. More players would become active online, and make Pokemon less complicated overall.

There's a difference between "IVs make every Pokemon individual unique within its species" (which is the purpose of IVs) and "Everyone picks the individual with the best IVs" (which is what we look in IVs).

But that's a semantics argument. No one looks at IVs and thinks "wow, this is a system that makes each of my Pokemon unique and special." Everyone looks at IVs and thinks "This is a arbitrary value that must be manipulated to maximize potential." It's a failure of application.

If they really want a system that does make each individual Pokemon feel unique and special, they'll need something that isn't IVs because IVs don't do that in practice. It's also likely to be impossible just based on how the mechanics of Pokemon work. It's hard enough making Pokemon species who's different ability options are equal in value. Good luck finding any serious Toxepex running Merciless, for example.