Unpopular opinions

[Celever]

not really? people want a full game of doubles, and emerald showed they could make one (1) good doubles gym, but not an entire game.

if you mean in team comp I think thats fair, though they still need to solve the early game doubles gym. you dont want it to feel like an easy chore beatdown, because then its slower singles, but the lower levels of anything means one good pokemon being supported by another can make it more of an headache than its supposed to be. its probably why the double gyms we have are all pretty much the last ones.

i think alola also solved this partially, but its easier to build a boss with a goon to support it than a team

Honestly I don’t really think I see the hardship of designing good early game double battles. Mons already has weak doubles tech that they can use as inspiration for battles and accustom the player to the battle style. Disarming Voice is a really weak spread move for instance, introduces the concept of spread moves to the player well, that type of thing. They just made Dragon Cheer which is weak dubs tech too. Late game that can be Howl and there’s clear mechanical power scaling happening there. Give the champion Decorate Alcremie lol.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with double battles that are kinda just 2 single battles except you can double target if you want to either. Most of XD’s early game is that and it plays well; you don’t really get support moves until later on on any of the available mons either on your or the opponent’s teams.

Double battles are kind of inherently faster than single battles too. Each individual turn may take longer but that’s because each turn is compressing two turns into one while taking less time than playing out 2 turns in a single battle does. So stomp battles should be taking less time on average not more. Especially if you’re stomping via actual doubles strategy such as Howl or Helping Hand or whatever and netting KOs in one turn that in singles would take 2.

 

[Hugin]

I've said before, Doubles needs to be a whole game. If the player has to swap between Singles and Doubles, whichever one is less common will feel like an imposition, and the default will be "spam strong attacks" rather than anything that exploits the doubles-specific options.

If it were up to me, though, the game would swap between Doubles where you use 2 mons and multibattles where you are partnered with someone else(generally a Rival* or otherwise significant trainer). This would give the player an example of the more complicated strats available in Doubles while also letting the designers create puzzle battles to force the player to learn.

The other key is figuring out how to reduce the number of minor battles in favor of major ones. I don't think it's a coincidence that Orre doesn't have any wild mons. Doubles is complicated and they probably knew people wouldn't want to waste time getting spammed by 2 Zubats.

* 2 rivals, Hunter and Taylor. Hunter spams offensive moves at every opportunity, Taylor uses supportive stuff like Wide Guard and Coaching without ever using attacks. When partnered with the Player, you have to compensate for their weaknesses. When they team up against you, watch out.

 

[Bakugames]

i think encounters can be single battle even in doubles. they dont need to be mechanicalmy interesting as being an introduction to new pokemon and a grinding spot is their main job

 

[Genuine_Angus_B33F]

A full doubles game is a concept I am very interested in personally, but I think that the modern game's standards are potentially ill-equipped to do so without making a few unorthodox choices and breaking some established conventions.

Points about generic double battles being pretty boring when they are constant and monotonous is true, in my opinion; the Orre duology's biggest strength is that even the most generic fights often come in-built with an objective that can not be solved by simply swinging for the fences with the same one-two punch combo over and over again. The process of whittling down and catching Shadow Pokemon leverages the concentration of focus onto a smaller number of more complicated battles by utilizing a tighter margin for error and a window for success that doesn't extent infinitely upward with player power. Meanwhile, the severely limited roster pushes players to make use of more situational and haphazard synergies, and the purification system around it all pushes players to taste test all kinds of different combinations rather than simply settling on a single power couple to take on the world.

Removing the dynamics around Shadow Pokemon from the game takes away all this design scaffolding that pushes the strengths of doubles to the forefront, and you can see that if you see what a playthrough of these games looks like if you choose to simply ignore the vast majority of Shadow Pokemon - you get a lot of easy, tedious fights. With that in mind, I think people who are skeptical of just taking an indev vanilla main series game and flipping a switch to turn every fight from singles to doubles are probably right.

With that all said, I think that it is a big tricky to find what the keystone here is. I wouldn't hate an Orre game remake or blatant spiritual successor, but it'd be sort of narrow to say Shadow Pokemon are the only way to make doubles work. There's a lot of things one could point to, but to me, it's a lot about being extremely strict on limiting powerful, linear strategies that beat a large majority of possible opponents but suffer into specific counters. Stuff like instant Weather or Terrain abilities, redirection + setup sweeper duos, trick room setup duos, and even just strong and reliable spread move combos can all easily erode a lot of the potential of a doubles game by being a solution to too great a portion of the game.

...and of course, that's slightly awkward considering those aforementioned strategies make up a pretty solid amount of what people think of when considering VGC in general. Sort of similar to how porting competitive singles staple moves and items like hazards and utility attack overload into a singles game does not constitute good singles ingame design, I don't know how much the "Doubles game as a pipeline into VGC" thing would actually work without just making something more like a series of Battle CDs / direct VGC tutorial, which I don't think is something people are thinking of with a "Doubles Game."

I have more thoughts but am limited by time.

 

[Bakugames]

Double battles are kind of inherently faster than single battles too. Each individual turn may take longer but that’s because each turn is compressing two turns into one while taking less time than playing out 2 turns in a single battle does. So stomp battles should be taking less time on average not more. Especially if you’re stomping via actual doubles strategy such as Howl or Helping Hand or whatever and netting KOs in one turn that in singles would take 2.

see the issue imo is that while this is true, just because a doubles battle goes faster doesnt mean it feels faster for a player. a lot of the feeling comes from the effort of adjusting 4 inputs instead of one, which feels more sluggish than a single move click, even if that means you knock things faster. and it sounds exaggerating that itd matter that much but i think it does have an effect, as whenever i ask why someone doesnt like double battles the answer is more commonly that theyre annoying and slow

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

not really? people want a full game of doubles, and emerald showed they could make one (1) good doubles gym, but not an entire game.

No, no. I was talking about how most battles in Emerald could be doubles if you wanted, but they could also be turned into singles if you broke up the duos.

And that gym was a top 3 gym in the whole franchise lol, put some respect on Tate and Liza's names

With that in mind, I think people who are skeptical of just taking an indev vanilla main series game and flipping a switch to turn every fight from singles to doubles are probably right.

I dunno about that. Iirc, some editors can be used to force doubles for any trainer. Maybe I'll do that in SwSh when I'm done with Stadium 2/Crystal.

 

[Basedwell]

I love how Tate and Liza in Emerald are immune to Earthquake, and have a lot of tools to combat Surf spam, and those are the only 2 real spread moves in the game. Emerald may not have the toughest gyms but definitely has the best designed.

 

[Genuine_Angus_B33F]

I dunno about that. Iirc, some editors can be used to force doubles for any trainer. Maybe I'll do that in SwSh when I'm done with Stadium 2/Crystal.

This is far from a matter of whether or not you can do something. I'm well acquainted with what's possible in this regard - did you know doing so in specifically Black and White is actually a gigantic pain in the ass?

I'm more considering the details of executing that idea. There are a fair few ways to play these very basic switch-flip type hypotheticals, but I'm not super interested in the result of doing so alone.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

This is far from a matter of whether or not you can do something. I'm well acquainted with what's possible in this regard - did you know doing so in specifically Black and White is actually a gigantic pain in the ass?

I'm more considering the details of executing that idea. There are a fair few ways to play these very basic switch-flip type hypotheticals, but I'm not super interested in the result of doing so alone.

In that case, I'd take a closer look at the Orre games' rematches, Mt. Battle, Emerald, and Platinum, to a lesser extent.

These are the closest that you'd get to constant, regular double battles without the Shadow mon dynamic.

The thing about developing an entire game around it would also run into a situation like this, where you can just barrel through common trainers. Personally, I don't think that's entirely a problem. People need matches to put theories to the test and practice. It also lulls the player into a sense of safety and confidence so the harder challenges have an amplified impact.

The simple switch flip is but the first step. It gives a framework to work with.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Yeah Emerald is absolutely chock-full of double battles. Obviously the majority are singles but literally every area has at least one, and in most cases two or three or four, opponents who can be fought as a pair. Not just routes but even locations like the Trick House, Mt Pyre, and every single gym... and ofc all the Gym Leader rematches are fought as double battles too, they're a lot of fun. It's kind of the standard for how other games should be imo.

 

[Basedwell]

I don’t see the point in nitpicking or trying to rationalize every single decision Pokemon makes… like you wanna know why Mega Rayquaza doesn’t need any item? Because they wanted it to be more powerful and broken in competitive, and it’s cool.

You wanna know why regional forms exist some places but not others? They wanna capitalize on nostalgia without replacing the original.

Also in Emerald, Platinum, and B2W2 they were clearly building towards something as those games had a ton of double battles, and even triple battles in the B2W2. But then there was that direction change post-gen 5

 

[Samtendo09]

I don’t see the point in nitpicking or trying to rationalize every single decision Pokemon makes… like you wanna know why Mega Rayquaza doesn’t need any item? Because they wanted it to be more powerful and broken in competitive, and it’s cool.

You wanna know why regional forms exist some places but not others? They wanna capitalize on nostalgia without replacing the original.

Also in Emerald, Platinum, and B2W2 they were clearly building towards something as those games had a ton of double battles, and even triple battles in the B2W2. But then there was that direction change post-gen 5

I feel like you contradicted yourself as you did rationalize Mega Rayquaza specifically, since you could say the same thing to the Primal Forms and the Mega Mewtwo forms, and Mega Rayquaza managed to be beyond broken even in VGC.

People nitpick or rationalize the big things, like how viable a Pokémon is in-game or competitive, for a reason. When it goes as far as people constantly nitpick the smallest things that don’t really harm the fun, or rationalize the big negatives that is either detrimental or contrived, then that’s where the issue arises.

 

[Basedwell]

I feel like you contradicted yourself as you did rationalize Mega Rayquaza specifically, since you could say the same thing to the Primal Forms and the Mega Mewtwo forms, and Mega Rayquaza managed to be beyond broken even in VGC.

People nitpick or rationalize the big things, like how viable a Pokémon is in-game or competitive, for a reason. When it goes as far as people constantly nitpick the smallest things that don’t really harm the fun, or rationalize the big negatives that is either detrimental or contrived, then that’s where the issue arises.

I mean like an in-game/canon rationalization, I should have clarified. I meant it in the context that I’d be fine with new Mega and Regional forms in Z:A even if it didn’t make “canon” sense. There’s other contexts, that’s just the currently relevant one.

 

[Sonikku A]

I feel officially VGC needs 6 tiers available all the time

-Restricted (2 Legendaries at max)
-Modified Restricted (above + no DLC mons)
-Modified RegH (no Legendaries/Paradoxes)
-Local dex Retricted (no transfering from other games)
-Local Dex Modified Restricted
-Local Dex Modified RegH

Part of the issue later gens is how powercreep pressured the same teams to revolve around restricted mons, but I feel variety still could have em. So just make a separate tier to play in. It'd allow weaker mons to shine in the "RegH" tier

It'd also force GF to be way more aware of what mon is dominating VGC for lower tiers, then potentially balance

Or GF can simply ignore that and make the problem worse to encourage DLC

 

[Hiddenfreezer]

So I tried the Battle Frontier in Emerald for the first time last year.
One of the worst game modes I have ever played. Pokemon Stadium 25+ years ago was better if I would compare it.

 

[Bakugames]

i think the popular opinion is that hms are bad and annoying but i have a specific opinion that is hms were completely fine in gen 1. as a matter of fact, that was the only game they fundamentally worked

 

[Ironmage]

Having generational gimmicks tied to held items helps to mitigate poor item balance (by forcing powerful mons off the standard for their role) and should have continued being the case post-3ds.

 

[Dive Missile]

i think the popular opinion is that hms are bad and annoying but i have a specific opinion that is hms were completely fine in gen 1. as a matter of fact, that was the only game they fundamentally worked

agreed, i think hms are fundamentally a cool concept that just wasn't given enough thought over the generations. its cool to have your mons help you on your adventure, and in gen 1, aside from flash, they were fine moves and most mons didnt learn 4 useful moves anyways. but then, despite movepools getting better and better, more hms kept getting added and they were pretty much all abysmal moves. i love hoenn but having surf waterfall and dive all be mandatory is just completely idiotic lol

 

[Bakugames]

agreed, i think hms are fundamentally a cool concept that just wasn't given enough thought over the generations. its cool to have your mons help you on your adventure, and in gen 1, aside from flash, they were fine moves and most mons didnt learn 4 useful moves anyways. but then, despite movepools getting better and better, more hms kept getting added and they were pretty much all abysmal moves. i love hoenn but having surf waterfall and dive all be mandatory is just completely idiotic lol

Yeah, I also think the fact they were limited and had very specific archetypes helped a lot:

cut -> straight obstacle remover. its a move with bad bp but that was focused for early/mid game. as you advance, you see no cut trees.
strength -> late game obstacle remover. often more engaging in that its related to strength puzzles, and is relegated to late game/post game stuff: as such, its a better move you're much more comfortable keeping around
surf -> mid game traversal. very useful move that makes you not feel bad about needing to use it for traversal, learned by many monsters including as good coverage.
flash -> optional move, who is pretty bad but also very limited. its asking the player if they prefer convenience or doing it the hard way (blind). rock tunnel can be completed and 100% without flash, but flash gives you convenience by sacrificing a resource (moveslot)
fly -> a better move that also asks if you prefer convenience or not. its easier to slot as a move similar to surf, and very useful

But then as gens followed, you have a bunch of extra hms you have to handle, making this balance completely broken. Not only that, but a lot of them are just mechanical copies of the above moves!!!
rock smash, whirlpool, waterfall, rock climb? mechanically the same function as cut: they are simple obstacle removers/skippers
defog? thats just flash (removing inconvenience from an area)
dive? that's fancy surf

Another thing they miss the mark is the balance that gen 1 had with placement of hm usage. the fact later games would make you carry cut copies until the end of the game is stupid as hell. cut was made for early game! why are we being forced to use all these hm moves all the time instead of transitioning them??

 

[Basedwell]

HMs get substantially better if you don’t have to reuse them to access things later in the game. It’s one thing when your level 3 Rattata has to learn Cut, and it’s another when you need to backtrack through a route to catch a Postgame legendary and you’ve already used a Super Repel, only to realize you have to choose between giving a good Pokemon a useless move, and going back to the Pokemart to add your hm slave to your party.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

HMs get substantially better if you don’t have to reuse them to access things later in the game. It’s one thing when your level 3 Rattata has to learn Cut, and it’s another when you need to backtrack through a route to catch a Postgame legendary and you’ve already used a Super Repel, only to realize you have to choose between giving a good Pokemon a useless move, and going back to the Pokemart to add your hm slave to your party.

That's true of the moves themselves, but personally I love backtracking through old areas and finding new stuff.

Johto is a great region for this - there's Cuttable trees on almost every route and practically every area before Ecruteak has a pond or river or beach in it. Union Cave in particular is a delightful trove of secrets. Even Whirlpool gives you access to a few trainers and items otherwise hidden away. Annoying as it was that they locked evolution items behind it, the addition of Rock Climb areas in HGSS felt 100% in keeping with the originals.

It was kind of the challenge for me, and still is when I replay those games - I could take my whole team (but potentially overwrite their more useful moves with HMs) or leave a couple of them behind in exchange for a weak HM slave and/or a "catching specialist" like something fast with Sleep Powder or Hypnosis if I was trying to catch Lapras or something.

 

[Hugin]

I have 2 thoughts on HMs:
In-battle, they should be utility moves, not damaging ones. Picture things like Flame Charge, Power-Up Punch, and yes, Fly. Make it so that inexperienced players are forced to add utility to their movesets rather than just spamming their strongest STAB, and in tough battles the kids might actually use set-up or stall moves when there's no other way to win. And for experienced players, HMs would then become a balance between what moves you can fit on your combat team vs which moves go to a dedicated mon you only bring along sometimes.
Out of battle, HMs should be chosen for puzzle-solving reasons rather than obstacles(even if they can be used for that). Strength is perfect as-is. But picture Rock Climb that lets you go up over vertical ledges, or Surf's interaction with Currents. "Bring Cut to get through a door" is just boring.

The execution of HM moves has always been poor, though, and I'm somewhat sad GF just decided to execute them.

 

[Basedwell]

That's true of the moves themselves, but personally I love backtracking through old areas and finding new stuff.

Johto is a great region for this - there's Cuttable trees on almost every route and practically every area before Ecruteak has a pond or river or beach in it. Union Cave in particular is a delightful trove of secrets. Even Whirlpool gives you access to a few trainers and items otherwise hidden away. Annoying as it was that they locked evolution items behind it, the addition of Rock Climb areas in HGSS felt 100% in keeping with the originals.

It was kind of the challenge for me, and still is when I replay those games - I could take my whole team (but potentially overwrite their more useful moves with HMs) or leave a couple of them behind in exchange for a weak HM slave and/or a "catching specialist" like something fast with Sleep Powder or Hypnosis if I was trying to catch Lapras or something.

Oh no, I love Johto’s hm use for the most part, I like how you use each about perfectly in proportion to its strength as a move and how it provides opportunities to go back and unlock new portions of already visited routes and caves. The Fighting Dojo guy, Ruins of Alph, those three lady trainers, are among my favorite instances in the series.

What I don’t like is when I feel like I have to repeatedly come back to these areas and use niche hms like Rock Smash and Cut, which Platinum and Hoenn made me feel at times. B2W2 postgame is pushing it a bit.

Edit: like for example, if I had to go through Whirlpool Islands multiple times for plot related reasons or to catch multiple legendaries and had to remember all the HM users needed.

I do think Rock Climb in HGSS feels unnecessary because a lot of the stuff it unlocks isn’t that cool to me, like a bunch of evolution items I wish didn’t exist in the first place. Also I understand why but wish you didn’t need flash in Cerulean Cave and Whirlpool Islands because I always forget lol

But for Red, I really appreciate how the only HM move you need to reach him is Rock Climb. Also Rock Climb has the best HM animation

 

[pika pal]

I think the main thing HMs needed was designing them around puzzles and any obstacle removal being one-and-done like a lot of strength shortcuts in later games. Don't make me fish out an HM user every time I have to go back through an area. An added bonus to this would have been the ability to design to avoid Softlocks more easily and not required a specific NPC just to remove the mediocre moves if you weren't carrying specific HM mules.

 

[Just A Seaking]

My take on HMs is that their removal in Gen 7 was a massive overreaction on Game Freak's part to criticism that could have easily been resolved just by making their requirements less harsh. It honestly baffles me that they immediately nixed them altogether after years of sticking with the same old rigid system rather than try to compromise on how they work even once.

Like Bakugames said, HMs were at their best in Gen 1. Each move had clear niches and were designed around specific thresholds in the game. The lack of HM removal was a problem since it was easy to saddle a carry like your starter with a crappy move for eternity, but other than that they were implemented perfectly well. Yet after that, besides adding an HM remover in Gen 3 (and I guess Stadium 2), HMs stayed rigidly fixed in place, while the number of HMs kept ballooning, culminating in dumb bullshit like Defog and Rock Climb in Gen 4. Even in Gen 5 and 6, where the reliance on HMs was heavily decreased (except Kalos Victory Road requiring Strength at the very last minute - that was a nasty surprise back in 2013), they never altered the moves themselves or alleviated the strict rules of "this move must take a move slot and you cannot forget it without going out of your way to do so". Then Gen 7 rolled around, and they were gone with no fanfare.

HMs implement two things that I regard as important: immersion, and friction. Poke Ride and other similar mechanics offer neither, because you're essentially handed the keys to someone else's Pokemon - one that appears after nowhere and vanishes as soon as the job is done. The actual progression is similar enough to HMs, but it makes all the difference that it's not your 'mon doing it. As for friction: I think it's not only fine but good that HMs take up moveslots, because it introduces opportunity cost. I need to use this move to progress - do I give it to a team member in place of a stronger 4th move, or do I hand it off to a weaker 'mon I've caught and have them take up a team slot? Friction isn't necessarily a bad thing - I think these kinds of restrictions can be interesting and lead to some neat player expression if handled properly. There is no such decision making to be had with Ride 'mons. The best form of it are the Raidons in SV, just because they're seamlessly implemented into the flow of the game and because the Raidons are distinctly your 'mon, but I just don't think it's as interesting.

That's not to say HMs are flawless; like I pointed out before, the moves themselves never changed, and the requirements for getting rid of them are just too strict. Making them unforgettable as a means of preventing softlocks was understandable given Cinnabar Island, but that's just one move (Surf), and by the time Gen 2 rolled around, it was already an antiquated means of preventing softlocks. There is no compelling reason why a move like Defog should ever be unforgettable, and there's also not a good reason for them to never increase the power of moves like Cut or Whirlpool if they're going to continue implementing those obstacles further and further into the game. Cut being 50 BP is fine in the context of Gen 1 where you get it before the 3rd gym - it's just a slightly superior version of Tackle and stops mattering after Erika - but rapidly stops making sense when you're seeing Cut trees well into Kanto in GSC. If GF had A. dynamically changed the power of HMs in each game to match progression more evenly and/or B. removed the restriction on forgetting HMs move and simply incorporated more ways around softlocks, it wouldn't have been necessary to remove them at all - and yet they got axed in Gen 7 without even an attempt at compromise.

There is another factor that I've neglected to mention, and that's models. It's obviously much simpler to model one Sharpedo that every player will use rather than incorporating ride animations for every single species of 'mon that can use a given HM. The generic sprite/model used for HMs like Surf might also have been regarded as antiquated by this point in the 3D era, especially moving into the Switch. I think that's a more fair reason, but I think the gameplay benefits of HMs outweigh any graphical concerns (not to mention that these games aren't lookers regardless). Still, there's something to be said for a visually striking setpiece like riding a giant lizard or leaping into the air on a Basculegion's back.