So I came across a thread on Reddit last night, and continuing on the discussion we've all been having lately about the games and difficulty, I finally understand one particular thing about the design behind Pokemon games, and I think this is one crucial thing we're all forgetting with this discussion.
The big thing is that most Pokemon games in general are designed with the intention that players have a
constantly rotating party. Especially in recent generations with the massive Pokemon diversity available, the general idea is that you are meant to constantly be rearranging your team as the game goes on and your opponents get stronger, pick up stronger Pokemon that are available later. The intention is that the player should go through every route in the game and catch every Pokemon they are interested in, to overall work out a squad of useful Pokemon, and constantly rearrange and change the team as the game goes on and certain Pokemon start falling off, and stronger Pokemon start becoming available.
Most blatantly, this shows with how Pokemon distribution is in general across the games. Early game Pokemon evolve early, and become strong early on, but as the game goes on, they fall off because they're just not strong enough for the opponents that go on later. The best, strongest Pokemon become available late in the game, and in many cases evolve late and don't reach their potential until late in the game. That's precisely the point. The idea is that you catch both kinds of Pokemon, but use the early game Pokemon for the early segment, then drop them as the power level increases and phase them out of your team in lieu of a stronger Pokemon. Most obvious examples of this are the early bugs: Butterfree/Beedrill, as well as the rodents like Raticate, Watchog, etc. They evolve super early and are strong for the early game, but they will eventually fall off and become obsolete. And later on, Dragon-types like Dragonite are super late-game Pokemon, but are by far among the strongest Pokemon in the game.
I came across a post in the Pokemon that disappointed you thread
here by Pikachu315111 about how Boltund, Eldegoss, and Orbeetle in Sword and Shield fell off the map and he eventually booted them as the power level increased.
That's precisely the point! These are all early game Pokemon, and they evolve and reach their full power early in the game at early evolution levels, but as the game goes on and the power level increases, you are meant to eventually ditch them once better, stronger Pokemon start becoming available. Meanwhile, on the other hand, a Pokemon like Dragapult is obtained late and doesn't reach its full potential until very late in the game, but is one of the strongest Pokemon out there. This design philosophy was put in place ever since Gen 1, with early route Pokemon like Spearow and the bugs being early bloomers but falling off, until later you get better Pokemon like, say Dodrio and phase them out in lieu of the better Pokemon.
I also came across some posts later like
this one that discusses Zebstrika in BW1. BW1 plays the structure I mentioned completely straight. Zebstrika is essentially, putting it in Fire Emblem terminology, the "Jagen" to Galvantula or Eelektross's "Est". Zebstrika is designed as an Electric-type who is obtained early, and compared to many other Gen 5 Pokemon, it evolves relatively early as well. So it becomes very strong and fast early on, and by the point you evolve it, a fast and powerful Pokemon for that point. Meanwhile, Joltik and Tynamo are obtained relatively late, and are exceptionally weak and need a good deal of time until they fully evolve. Tynamo especially, who sucks until it evolves, but Eelektross is a good Pokemon with great offensive stats, a fantastic movepool, and good bulk+Levitate. Zebstrika essentially serves to evolve early and hold you over while you try to raise Joltik or Tynamo, and then once you have Galvantula or Eelektross fully evolved, you can kiss Zebstrika goodbye now that Galv/Eel are fully ready to take over as your main Electric-type.
BW1 gets criticized for having a poor selection of early game Pokemon and leaving all the good Pokemon in the late game, but that's the intention. Every Pokemon was designed with an in-game defined role, and the early game Pokemon barring, say, Drilbur and maybe Stoutland, are designed to be useful early on but to quickly fall off the map in lieu of better Pokemon showing up later, while the late game Pokemon come in, and you are expected not only to catch and raise them, but have them replace and take over the weaker earlier game Pokemon you have now that they're no longer up to snuff.
Now I'm rambling at this point, but you get the gist. The thing we're all missing here is that the intended playstyle I'm describing here is not what most of us do. Codraroll brings up that the challenge for new players is finding out which moves to use at the right time, but that's not all there is to it. The other challenge is also figuring out what Pokemon are good and what Pokemon are not, or at least which Pokemon will be useful in the long term. We don't need to do that, because us veteran players have the advantage of knowing every Pokemon's base stats, movepools, and abilities, and even if we don't, we have Bulbapedia and Serebii at our fingertips and we can look it up beforehand: we know what base stats are, we know what moves are good and what aren't good moves, and vice versa. So all of us just play the game by meticulously planning a fixed team of 6, handpicking the best Pokemon of the lot, and steamrolling the game with ease by handpicking the best Pokemon of the lot, which we know beforehand by looking up their stats and movepools.
A new player isn't going to do this. Without prior knowledge of Pokemon games, they aren't going to plan a team beforehand. Ideally, a new player would come into the game blind, start catching Pokemon and experimenting with them in each route as the game goes on, and keep doing so throughout the game even late in the game, and replace and phase out Pokemon as they start falling off and failing to match up to the power level of the opponents. Think of it akin to, say, the Persona games, where you start off with a few low level Personas, but as the game's power level goes up, you fuse your weaker Personas to develop stronger ones. That's kind of a particular RPG design, but it's also a general kind of design many games go through: the early game "gear" is effectively mediocre at best, but it's serviceable for the power level early on, but weak for the later power level and you are expected to "upgrade" and advance your gear to a stronger inventory to tackle tougher opponents. The items in Pokemon games already do this, as Poke Balls and Potions already have a chain that upgrades to stronger variants, such as Great Ball+Super Potion becoming available a bit later in the game, and even later you get the Ultra Ball+Hyper Potion. It's a natural progression that games are built on.
In fact, I've seen quite a few posts where people have said they found Pokemon games more fun/interesting when they used more than six Pokemon throughout the game and rotated. Especially with a game like XY or even Sword and Shield. This leads me to even more firmly believe that the idea of a party that constantly rotates its Pokemon is how the developers want people to play. Ideally, the only Pokemon that will likely be a permanent team member on your team is your starter: that Pokemon is designed to stay with you from beginning to end. But everything else is designed with a rotational role: catch it, use it until it falls off, and eventually rotate it out in lieu of something stronger, while the late game Pokemon will be obtained late, but they will stay with you up to the endgame as stronger options. That is precisely how the games were designed, and this is likely how a new kid would go into the games. Heck, I'm sure most of us when we were younger never planned our teams and just rolled with whatever we thought was cool and kept catching Pokemon we liked and experimenting with them. I'm sure the new kids of today would do that too.
TL;DR Pokemon games, key thing to remember, is that they are meant to be played with a dynamic and rotating party. Keep catching and experimenting with Pokemon, phasing them out as they fall off, and rinse and repeat. This is a big reason why early game Pokemon evolve early but become weak and subpar later on, while late game Pokemon are better but reach their potential later. Part of the challenge for new kids is that they don't know which Pokemon are good and which aren't: the charm for them is to keep meeting new Pokemon and catching them and playing with them until they lose their luster and then phase them out with another Pokemon they meet later on. Of course, us veteran players know everything about each Pokemon, and know what makes a good Pokemon, so we don't play like this: we can look everything up on Bulbapedia/Serebii and use our knowledge of the inherent Pokemon mechanics to meticulously plan a team consisting of the best of the best and handpick a fixed team of six consisting of the best and most effective Pokemon to use throughout the game, which is another key factor in what makes the games "easy" for veterans.
