Fair point on the rest of the stiff said but I think this is misunderstanding my point. My problem isn’t the hyperbole of your comparison, but that saying the game needs shitmons as much as it needs (a mon most people don’t think is a good presence) seems to be arguing the opposite of your actual point
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
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The game doesn't "need" more shitmons per se, but it's inevitable that as more and more pokemon get released, more and more get powercrept and die out.
That's just the nature of a 1000+ characters game.
If people are not aware of it, the game *needs* to keep powercreeping. If the new mons are not (on average) stronger, people won't use them, so people won't be interested in buying the games or the dlcs or the plushies or whatnot. You don't see people lining out the stores demanding a Scovillain plushie do you? But you do see them wanting Zacian ones. Remember the meme where the Zacian plushies were sold out, but noone bought Zamazenta ones?
It's a problem every long running series faces, mostly really card games as other "collectible entity" games like Digimon or SMT just put in and out whatever they feel like it and never had the issue of "keeping all 1000 toghether" (nor actually care of what's good or bad due to no competitive scene anyway).
Even MOBAs like League face the problem to constantly have to pull out stronger, more complex champions to keep the interest up, with the result that "release date diff" became a real meme lately.
(And guess what, they have the same "problem" aka the more stuff they release, the more obsolete the old ones become)
No matter how much your average smogooner will keep thinking you can "balance 1000 pokemon", it's not happening. The games will always have shitmons, will always have op mons, it's the nature of this kind of games.
Once more, for a fully balanced game, play checkers.
Leave the shitmons alone. I stg i wish mods enforced the "no wishlisting" rule more, these boards would be a tiny bit more readable, and would make my blocklist less flooded.
Look, I just want you to explain one thing - why can we buff torterra but not meganium
The biggest issue of your arguments is how relentlessly cynical they comes off even if there are a few solid points.
As much as the “no wishlisting” rule should be reinforced more by the mods, being so aggressive about it can end up alienating a lot more people than you might think. Going as far as suggesting a completely different game that is not even the same genre as Pokémon or even a video game at all is more insulting than you might think.
And you wanna know something? I can’t call SwSh games onward “+1000 Pokémon” if some are not even available to use to begin with. This results in less options that can be rebalanced more closely in theory, even if GF wasn’t even competant in that territory.
Another thing is that “making newer options OP” is just a lazy idea with equally lazy execution. Overtuned newcomers for sake of overtuned newcomers may drive up DLC or expansion sales, yeah, but the rate of power creep can also result in alienating the competitive audience at one point or another. While Pokémon didn’t reached it yet, there’s always a chance that people become less interested in competitive because of matches going way too fast and too hyper offense oriented.
While some Pokémon will be better than others even in-game, no one in the right mind would want obnoxiously min-maxed Pokémon not nerfed. Likewise, shitmons are disliked by wide audience because of being too weak for their own good.
League of Legends have this problem because it adds too many things too fast, resulting an absolutely bloated game for it’s own good. While the game itself is still popular after all these years, it’s because the metagame evolves so quickly since the devs reacted fast enough to nerf OP newcomers. While a vicious cycle, they have a decency not to make newcomers too OP for years. That is not the case with Pokémon, where we have to wait until SV for Zacian to be nerfed, and there is no stat redistribution on blatantly overpowered Pokémon like Palafin, the Paradox Pokémon and most of the Treasures of Ruins even after the DLC is released.
The Regulations, as it stands, aren’t enough to shake up metagames sufficently due to how too little Pokémon they ban. If they ban the top twenty, which is a lot, it might see next top twenty but still allows more creativitiy while it lasts.
There’s also accusations of P2W within Pokémon, which is running rampant back in SwSh’s DLC, and happened right now via Ogerpon, alongside HOME shenanigans. And with the ridiculous power creep caused by Gen 9, and even back Gen 6 and 7 with obscenely OP Mega Evolved Pokémon, all it’ll succeed is to make matches even more stale, not make them less.
One last thing is that going as far as telling others to not bother with balancing, period, rather than just tell them this thread is not the place for balancing, is a way to kill the others’ joy. You have the right to complain, but if you go to an extent to tell others that there is no point of rebalancing something like a game with +300 Pokémon despite knowing how many non-competitive people disliked overtuned ‘mons and how much they dislike shitmons, that is just being selfish to a fault.
I know I'm being extremely cynical on this subject, and I'm doing it on purpose, because honestly of all the various weird things I read, it's the one I think is the most pointless, because it doesn't make sense on logical standpoint (hence my checkers comparison).
Incidentally, while GameFreaks does not patch aggressively as live services do, they have been instead opting for gradual introductions of pokemon in metagames while also gradually adding more via either raids, Home, DLCs.
The purpose is the same: you need to keep shaping up the meta, otherwise you end up in same scenario that Overwatch faced, where due to slow, passive patching, you have 6+ months of stale metas where people just get progressively more bored and abandon the scene.
We may likely see more on this subject from GF/TPCI in future, as we all know, their purpose is to make VGC a real esport and not just a meme, and they're slowly making steps toward them.
The P2W shenenigans regading DLCs are a joke and anyone making them should be ashamed of themselves.
The only *legitimate* complaint is the fact that reg D and E allowed transfer-only non breedable pokemon which require older games, that is a legitimate complaint and something I sincerely hope they learned the lesson about. It had not happened since the inception of "current gen only rule", and it should have stayed that way.
But for the DLC part, I don't quite recall people being smadge about needing ORAS to play, I don't recall people being this mad about needing USUM to play. People are being *so* dumb about it that they don't realize that in fact the DLCs cost half of a full game, and if we were still in "2nd version" era, you'd be paying 120 bucks instead of 90.
Owning the DLCs is just the same as owning the last games as is. Just happens to be dlcs of a game and not a entire separate entity that you have to play through AGAIN despite it being almost identical to the predecessor (i'm looking at you USUM).
A player being requested to own the latest version of a game to be able to partecipate efficiently to VGC is a fair request. That's how every competitive game works, and as I pointed somewhere else, you don't see Smash players calling DLCs P2W (assuming the scene hasnt got killed yet), you don't see TCG players complaining of new card expansions making old ones obsolete, etc.
What is NOT good is requiring you to not only own "the gen 9 games", but also several gen 8 ones. That we can agree on.
I will just say that if it was a "once in a while" thing, it'd not be this obnoxious, but you can notice how frequent it is. Almost every day there is someone "trying to fix a pokemon" in one of the threads. And it's pointless. We can't do it, and even if we could, people always fail to see the result, aka, for a mon you buff, another becomes useless, but rather hide behind the illusion that you can "balance" 1000+ pokemon forms and make them all equally viable.
Once more, to the point of boring myself, checkers does that. Every pawn is the same.
Chess doesn't and I don't recall chess players asking for pawns to be able to move same as the Queen do you?
One point about game design:
If new options are introduced, and those options are not completely awful, then the game will experience powercreep. It's unavoidable. Either a new option is trash(in which case no one uses it and we all get mad at GF for wasting our time), it's notably better in many/most situations than the existing options(in which case we get mad about powercreep), or it's better some of the time and worse at others(in which case it's only used when it's better, and the avg power of teams increase). You may recognize option 3 as the reason why more and more stuff needs to be banned every gen if we want Stall to remain viable, even when something like Gen VII happens and most of the mons are mid at best.
Now, there are ways to fix this. Dexit(eliminating a bunch of mons) COULD have reduced power creep if GF had tried. And taking a bunch of staple moves like Knock Off and Scald away helps. But fundamentally, if you give people a mon that's good in one gen, and then next gen give them an identical mon except this one gets +10 across the board in weather and -10 outside weather, then weather teams just got better and non-weather teams stayed the same. And this holds even if the mon is on avg weaker than the previous option, and there's no real way for that not to happen.
I have opinions on game design, and on GF's approach to things, but also it's damn hard to pull off well.
If new options are introduced, and those options are not completely awful, then the game will experience powercreep. It's unavoidable. Either a new option is trash(in which case no one uses it and we all get mad at GF for wasting our time), it's notably better in many/most situations than the existing options(in which case we get mad about powercreep), or it's better some of the time and worse at others(in which case it's only used when it's better, and the avg power of teams increase). You may recognize option 3 as the reason why more and more stuff needs to be banned every gen if we want Stall to remain viable, even when something like Gen VII happens and most of the mons are mid at best.
Now, there are ways to fix this. Dexit(eliminating a bunch of mons) COULD have reduced power creep if GF had tried. And taking a bunch of staple moves like Knock Off and Scald away helps. But fundamentally, if you give people a mon that's good in one gen, and then next gen give them an identical mon except this one gets +10 across the board in weather and -10 outside weather, then weather teams just got better and non-weather teams stayed the same. And this holds even if the mon is on avg weaker than the previous option, and there's no real way for that not to happen.
I have opinions on game design, and on GF's approach to things, but also it's damn hard to pull off well.
As inevitable it is, how power creep is handled, or how much there is in one shot, must be considered as well.
Back in Gen 5, there was a notable power creep, including the infamous weather wars. There is blatant power creep regarding newer Pokémon, but to be honest, it have more to do with the fact that many Gen 1, 2, 3 and 4 Pokémon aren’t good to begin with, so it’s not a huge issue by itself since it simply means more viable options.
As VGC centers around Double, the power creep isn’t as obvious as it does in Smogon. That said, there can only be so much power creep before it gets both ridiculous and actively detrimental to the metagame.
It happened in XY + ORAS because of the infamous CHALK team, one that left a negative impact into VGC until corrections were done in Gen 7.
And with a worringly increasing amount of overtuned Pokémon introduced in this Generation, even with Doubles in mind first and foremost, I fear that we will get a history repeat of a team like the CHALK or worse, and public interest of competitive might get a downturn again.
I think I said and heard enough from this forum tonight. As much as there are valid points, I feel like it might devolve into toxicity. I’ll give it a rest until the subject changes.
speaking of changing the subject and unpopular opinions: it was mentioned that zacian is much more popular than zamazenta, but i love zamazenta - regardless of how it ended up operating competitively. compared to zacian, it's just such a gorgeous regal-looking creature, and to me, zacian doesn't hit the mark in either form - hero is too common, crowned is too detailed and almost digimon-y.
i also like that it's a defensively focused box legendary!! sure they failed entirely at actually making it good at being defensive in mechanics, but the concept is what counts
i also like that it's a defensively focused box legendary!! sure they failed entirely at actually making it good at being defensive in mechanics, but the concept is what counts
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What a fun argument about competitive niches in an ingame forum.
Anyway as a strictly ingame player my overleveled Meganium will stomp everyone or will be a challenge to use in battles with Ogre Clan or on certain challenge runs so idc.
Chikorita line is another member of the second evo supremacy group of starters for me.
For me as well, and I believe a large number of the fanbase, the Chikorita line (especially Meganium itself) aren’t high in the list of popular starters - less incentive to buff it.
Also um, isn’t Pokemon (especially nowadays) a very offensive biased game competitively? (I haven’t played competitive for many gens so I could be grossly misinformed) A defensive Pokemon is inherently going to be worse than an offensive Pokemon no?
Anyway as a strictly ingame player my overleveled Meganium will stomp everyone or will be a challenge to use in battles with Ogre Clan or on certain challenge runs so idc.
Chikorita line is another member of the second evo supremacy group of starters for me.
For me as well, and I believe a large number of the fanbase, the Chikorita line (especially Meganium itself) aren’t high in the list of popular starters - less incentive to buff it.
Also um, isn’t Pokemon (especially nowadays) a very offensive biased game competitively? (I haven’t played competitive for many gens so I could be grossly misinformed) A defensive Pokemon is inherently going to be worse than an offensive Pokemon no?
Stop you right there. Meganium isn't And Never was my favorite pokemon. It deserves a buff as a starter pokemon
To briefly answer the comp part, in Singles yes Offense is heavy but Support does have roles, and in Doubles you need a good mix to stop your attackers from getting double teamed.
As for Meganium, I'm kind of the opposite point from you where I long accepted not every Pokemon can be good in competitive, and my wish to see it buffed was because I used it for GSC/HGSS once each and it was not fun either time. Part of it is that Johto's major battle type-matchups are hostile to pure Grass but it also highlights that Meganium really doesn't have anything to do besides slowly chip away at enemies that resist its very limited attack options or sit on things like Leech Seed. Even in the limited option Colosseum I found it the most underwhelming of the starters. I don't care if it stays in FUBL for eternity competitively but I do think it could have used more to do in some form, as I like its design but it's an active detriment to the gameplay side of the experience for me even compared to most "bad but I like using this" mons.
When it comes to competitive, Pokemon is stuck in a weird spot because it's trying to be a competitive game while at the same time also being a single-player RPG, which is what it was designed to be from the start. The earlier generations like Gens 1-3 were most certainly not designed with PvP in mind, as competitive Pokemon wasn't really a big thing back in those days. Gen 3 introduced Doubles but back then they were mostly a tentatively designed battle type they were experimenting with. It wasn't until Gen 4 that they really started making Pokemon into a PvP thing that people can feasibly have a competitive environment with, with VGC becoming a thing in Gen 4 and that being the first generation of modern competitive.
Pokemon has been in a weird place there for a long time because it tries to be a competitive game, but at the same time doesn't want to compromise its original identity of being a dedicated single-player RPG with mons continuing to be designed also with that mentality in mind.
With respect to in-game, which I feel is also an important thing to address, again, Meganium gets more scrutiny because it's a starter, and those Pokemon have an expectation to at least be very good in-game for an in-game playthrough, because they fulfill a very distinct role from an RPG standpoint: they are your first partner Pokemon, and they are designed to be good from beginning to end, being the one Pokemon you are always expected to keep with you to the finish line, being your dear partner and friend and your number one. In a way, the starter trio in every game is effectively the honorary trio of protagonists in their flagship game, among the Pokemon of their roster. The game's journey is their journey as much as it is their Trainer's, and they grow alongside the Trainer who chose them and will be there to the end.
I won't say Meganium is necessarily awful in-game in its home region's games, but it's definitely been ridiculed for being underwhelming as a starter, which to be fair, is not entirely its fault, as Johto is horrendously hostile to Grass-types. But I think even in the context of GSC and HGSS it's kind of in a weird spot where it's defensively oriented, and frankly it does have the tools in-game to suffice with Synthesis, screens, and stuff like Safeguard, Aromatherapy, and status with Poison Powder and Body Slam. But I feel many expect their starters to be a powerhouse force that can destroy teams and be the most powerful member, and Meganium isn't really the type to do that because its whole schtick is geared towards supporting its team and being a defensive backbone rather than a powerhouse destroyer like other starters. The fact that it's on the more passive side even as a starter probably hurts its perception especially when it's a member of an archetype that people have very specific expectations for when it comes to game design and how they perform in an in-game playthrough.
Those are my two cents on the matter.
Pokemon has been in a weird place there for a long time because it tries to be a competitive game, but at the same time doesn't want to compromise its original identity of being a dedicated single-player RPG with mons continuing to be designed also with that mentality in mind.
With respect to in-game, which I feel is also an important thing to address, again, Meganium gets more scrutiny because it's a starter, and those Pokemon have an expectation to at least be very good in-game for an in-game playthrough, because they fulfill a very distinct role from an RPG standpoint: they are your first partner Pokemon, and they are designed to be good from beginning to end, being the one Pokemon you are always expected to keep with you to the finish line, being your dear partner and friend and your number one. In a way, the starter trio in every game is effectively the honorary trio of protagonists in their flagship game, among the Pokemon of their roster. The game's journey is their journey as much as it is their Trainer's, and they grow alongside the Trainer who chose them and will be there to the end.
I won't say Meganium is necessarily awful in-game in its home region's games, but it's definitely been ridiculed for being underwhelming as a starter, which to be fair, is not entirely its fault, as Johto is horrendously hostile to Grass-types. But I think even in the context of GSC and HGSS it's kind of in a weird spot where it's defensively oriented, and frankly it does have the tools in-game to suffice with Synthesis, screens, and stuff like Safeguard, Aromatherapy, and status with Poison Powder and Body Slam. But I feel many expect their starters to be a powerhouse force that can destroy teams and be the most powerful member, and Meganium isn't really the type to do that because its whole schtick is geared towards supporting its team and being a defensive backbone rather than a powerhouse destroyer like other starters. The fact that it's on the more passive side even as a starter probably hurts its perception especially when it's a member of an archetype that people have very specific expectations for when it comes to game design and how they perform in an in-game playthrough.
Those are my two cents on the matter.
What really gets me about the ingame situation is that I feel there should be an option for a more support-oriented starter. The fantasy of the starter sticking with the player throughout the entire game only works well if the starter aligns with said player's playstyle. It can feel that because the games don't introduce the starters beyond their types, modern starters ingame have been homogenized just taking a guess at where your attacker fits on the speed/bulk axis (and that those that have a unique identity get it only in competitive with an HA and egg moves). Gens 1 and 2 may have assumed that the player could already figure out that Grass is a support type, but at least Venusaur and Meganium aren't just generic attackers coloured green.
Meganium also had the poor luck to come in the Generation after Venusaur - where the other 8 types were Gyms.
Rock, Water, Ground - all the types that Grass hits super effectively.. are all Kanto Gyms. Water, Electric, Ground - all the types that Grass resists.. are all Kanto Gyms.
Flying, Bug, Poison*, Steel, Dragon - Johto Gyms that resist Grass
Flying, Bug, Ice - Johto Gyms that hit Grass super effectively
Grass was just at a much bigger disadvantage in Gen 2 gameplay, the most obvious discrepancy being in the early game sadly. Plus unlike the Bulbasaur line, the Chikorita line didn’t have a secondary type going for it.
*Ecruteak’s Gym is made up entirely of Poison Pokemon - though iirc they don’t actually have any Poison type moves.
Rock, Water, Ground - all the types that Grass hits super effectively.. are all Kanto Gyms. Water, Electric, Ground - all the types that Grass resists.. are all Kanto Gyms.
Flying, Bug, Poison*, Steel, Dragon - Johto Gyms that resist Grass
Flying, Bug, Ice - Johto Gyms that hit Grass super effectively
Grass was just at a much bigger disadvantage in Gen 2 gameplay, the most obvious discrepancy being in the early game sadly. Plus unlike the Bulbasaur line, the Chikorita line didn’t have a secondary type going for it.
*Ecruteak’s Gym is made up entirely of Poison Pokemon - though iirc they don’t actually have any Poison type moves.
Chikorita also doesn't get a lot of the support-oriented stuff you'd expect from a Grass-type in-game. Dual Screens are nice, but Aromatherapy is bad in-game, and Poison Powder is the only status it gets by level. No Leech Seed or Mega Drain either, and Giga Drain only through TM. So if you came to it expecting a stally, status-inducing tank like Bulbasaur was, you'd be quickly disappointed. I think we're due for another purely defensive Grass* to fill that role(maybe give us a Mushroom starter in Gen XI with Spore), because making fast, offensive grass-types has not gone well in most generations.
On the topic of Calyrex-Shadow, my issue is that they introduced a third Psychic/Ghost after after Lunala and Necrozma-DW. The latter fusion is a anyway. Why not make Calyrex a different type? Psychic-Dark and Ghost/Grass come to mind. I have a theory that states that Spectrier was originally going to be a dark type, but they changed it due to wanting the Galarian Birds to be a Dark/Fighting/Psychic Trio.
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>Unpopular Opinions
I think I'll just shoot and give my take,
I think any Pokemon Game post Gen 7, is just kinda underwhelming and unenjoyable and probably the worse aspects of the franchise and is simply a cashgrab from poor gamefreak management, starting from the removal of megas and memoryholeing of them when they could've continued to add more to mons that needed it the most like Shiftry and Flygon and I can even name more mons that desperately needed a mega, secondly, no national dex meaning many certain mons just weren't in the game, limiting the metagame to very few mons until the DLC which made players spend more money and introducing a gimmick in Gen 8 that was so unpopular it got banned by Assad margins and another gimmick in Gen 9 that was basically just adaptability for all mons and almost got banned this year,
Sun and Moon should've really been their template for to handle a new gimmick, they didn't throw away or mess with Megas or anything they just kept them the same as ORAS and basically just got a traditional composite Pokémon game that didn't go overboard and was just right and then suddenly they abandoned ALL that in Sword and Shield
Again I had harsher words in mind, because there's something about the graphics and just the vibes that just doesn't feel ok to me, not trying to ruffle any feathers, DM me if you want to debate further.
I think I'll just shoot and give my take,
I think any Pokemon Game post Gen 7, is just kinda underwhelming and unenjoyable and probably the worse aspects of the franchise and is simply a cashgrab from poor gamefreak management, starting from the removal of megas and memoryholeing of them when they could've continued to add more to mons that needed it the most like Shiftry and Flygon and I can even name more mons that desperately needed a mega, secondly, no national dex meaning many certain mons just weren't in the game, limiting the metagame to very few mons until the DLC which made players spend more money and introducing a gimmick in Gen 8 that was so unpopular it got banned by Assad margins and another gimmick in Gen 9 that was basically just adaptability for all mons and almost got banned this year,
Sun and Moon should've really been their template for to handle a new gimmick, they didn't throw away or mess with Megas or anything they just kept them the same as ORAS and basically just got a traditional composite Pokémon game that didn't go overboard and was just right and then suddenly they abandoned ALL that in Sword and Shield
Again I had harsher words in mind, because there's something about the graphics and just the vibes that just doesn't feel ok to me, not trying to ruffle any feathers, DM me if you want to debate further.
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Flygon was actually supposed to have a Mega Evolution but they couldn't come up with a good design for it so it was scrapped
Also Dynamax wasn't banned for being unpopular, it was banned from smogon formats due to being ridiculously overpowered in a 6v6 singles environment
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>Flygon was actually supposed to have a Mega Evolution
Oh I'm fully aware of that, no worries, the game devs said that in an interview from while back, I just remember team building and thinking how good Flygon could've been had it got a mega because of its really poor stat allocation, and Dynamax was pretty hated/unpopular I'd say we're both correct, it was overpowered and created an unhealthy metagame and was very disliked, IIRC, many folks complained nonstop about it when Mods made a thread to talk about the question of Dynamax which was what resulted in it getting yeeted,
I wish dondozo didn't exist. It just feels like such a half-assed solution to all the crap gamefreak released this generation, like, it almost completely walls so much of the broken physical threats (Palafin, Cp, Bax, RM, Sneasler, etc.) just by virtue of typing and ability, but, aside from its gimmick in doubles (which was also too strong and thus banned), it just has nothing else to make it an interesting pokemon. It has water moves and dragon moves, earthquake for some reason, curse, and rest. That's it. It feels like a gen 3 movepool. I also feel like it's one of like, 3 defensive pokemon keeping the floodgates of OU closed (the others being Tusk and Glowking), preventing all the broken shit from running amok, and I suppose I could be grateful for that, but at this point I'd much rather just have the broken stuff out, ban it, and return to a normal state of tier rather than the Jenga metagame we have now, where banning one thing leads to another being too good.
Edit: and oh, I forgot to mention that its design is just boring to me. It's a generic catfish... but fat. Blue-on-white color scheme is the most overdone color scheme for water pokemon and it shows. It also has this big dumb expression it constantly makes, with the crossed eyes and the slightly-opened mouth, which removes ALL the suspense I had upon seeing its silhouette in the water. And I get it, it's supposed to partner with Tatsugiri, but, quite aside from the fact that that interaction is both buggy and ironically, matchup-fishy, a doubles gimmick in a game where 90% of the battles are single just isn't very useful, which means that it has to have SOMETHING to be able to stand on its own. I also feel the same way about Tatsugiri in terms of design, but at least Tatsugiri has some things going for it in Dragon typing and Nasty Plot by level-up, and its color gimmick is sort of neat if you're into that sort of thing.
On the plus side, its shiny is kinda cool at least
edit 2: Me when I post an unpopular opinion on the unpopular opinions thread and it's unpopular
Edit: and oh, I forgot to mention that its design is just boring to me. It's a generic catfish... but fat. Blue-on-white color scheme is the most overdone color scheme for water pokemon and it shows. It also has this big dumb expression it constantly makes, with the crossed eyes and the slightly-opened mouth, which removes ALL the suspense I had upon seeing its silhouette in the water. And I get it, it's supposed to partner with Tatsugiri, but, quite aside from the fact that that interaction is both buggy and ironically, matchup-fishy, a doubles gimmick in a game where 90% of the battles are single just isn't very useful, which means that it has to have SOMETHING to be able to stand on its own. I also feel the same way about Tatsugiri in terms of design, but at least Tatsugiri has some things going for it in Dragon typing and Nasty Plot by level-up, and its color gimmick is sort of neat if you're into that sort of thing.
On the plus side, its shiny is kinda cool at least
edit 2: Me when I post an unpopular opinion on the unpopular opinions thread and it's unpopular
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I kind of have the opposite regard for this sort of interaction, because Dondozo is kind of a defensive version of what Lando-T did for a team-wide level in past gens by being a blanket check/glue on several defensive teams, such that you can build around stuff you want to try and Dondozo is usually a reasonable way to patch up a core's weakness while being splashable enough to cover several such team needs. Defensive teams have their work cut out for building ever since Gen 7, so anything that can compress that amount of defensive backbone is a godsend (I say as a player who doesn't do much Stall/Balance but knows they're important to measure a Meta's health).
Regardless, you know what I'm about to say.
Dondozo was not created as is because of singles, its entire purpose was to match with the Dondozo/Tatsugiri gimmick. Unaware makes for a perfect match for that gimmick, since you're trying to make your "raid boss" survive and do as much damage as possible, thus ignoring opposing stat buffs is reasonable.
The effect of Dondozo on 6v6 singles was not intentionally designed and is just a smogon thing. It was definitely not created as "half assed solution" to anything.
In fact, it's a pretty creative design and a successful showcase of a new gimmick for once, as despite VGC players hating it as much as you, it was one of the very few times in last generations where a gimmick pokemon actually had competitive viability.
I can't say I agree or disagree but I always thought it looked like a ripoff of Wishcash cause Gamefreak was simply to lazy to make new designs for Pokémon, the resemblance is so uncanny they've should've just called it a regional variant
1) It's huge and fat.
2) Catfish are associated with earthquakes in Japan.
Not nearly close enough to be a regional variant, but if you made it Water/Ground and made the whiskers longer and slapped a D on its forhead, I could see it as an evolution.