Unpopular opinions

[mertyville]

Those rumors that the legendary beasts are revived Eeveelutions and as a kid believing Ho-oh and Lugia being part of the Legendary Birds but on a higher hierachy made me want a Dark and Psychic Legendary Beast.
Honestly, I still wouldn't mind expanding them. I mean it can still be possible that Ho-oh revived Pokemon turning them into a new set of legendaries.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Seriously, where did this idea that kids have a short attention span with games come from? Is there any research the shows they'll drop a game if it presents them a little challenge? It's a stereotype with no basis. Only the most inattentive kid would give up that easily (I doubt they would have even reached Allister let alone sit through all the cutscenes).

Just stopping by to provide a counterpoint on challenge in kids games: Rayman 1 from 1995 is what happens when challenge from a friendly looking game goes too far. The game looks like this, it's beautiful:

How bad is it?

https://venturebeat.com/community/2013/11/11/rayman-the-most-punishing-game-on-the-psone/

That article about sums it up. 5 continues, have to 100% the game to actually beat it, and the tiny detail that extra lives don't respawn in prior levels. Oh yeah, and the out of nowhere enemy and collectible spawns upon reaching certain spots are the most dirty trick I've ever seen a game pull.

The newer Pokemon games may be easy, but they absolutely don't need to go in the opposite direction either. A lot of ROM hacks make this mistake.

I know this isn't entirely related to Pokemon, but play Rayman 1 and try not to use cheat codes or rage quit, it's stupid.

 

[pokemon4eva]

Oh yeah. Some people asking for difficulty in Pokemon games say that any hard difficulty is good but it also matters how executed it is. For example...

These two are way too frustrating they are unenjoyable imo: the former being even much worse on the GBA port that was its only release overseas, and the latter being a rushjob that didn't bother to properly test the game.

 

[Ironmage]

A random thought I had on the nice rival vs jerk rival issue.

We stopped getting jerk rivals around the same time we started getting rivals who took the starter weak to the player character's pick. If we assume there's a causal relationship here, we would then want to look at the underlying reason why this change in the rival's mon selection occurred. An easy guess for that would be because starter began knowing STAB moves when first obtained, and giving the first rival fight the significant advantage that comes with SE STAB when the player has next to no options around it would be unfair. This could then lead back to there being more friendly rivals after this change. After all, there's no reason why someone whose main character trait is trying to prove themselves better than the player would pick something weak to them, right?

Let's look at Silver. He had no knowledge of the player's choice when he took his starter, and his character arc is defined by his original lack of knowledge of some aspects of what makes pokemon effective (for a gameplay effect, look at how long it takes him to evolve golbat). Nothing in the plot requires Silver to have the starter with an advantage over the player. A new jerk rival could have similar characterizations, potentially swapping out "no knowledge of player's choice" with "just picks one at random because they wanted the one the player took" or "doesn't understand type matchups starting out (hey, if GF keeps assuming the player doesn't know...)." Then you could have them frustrated at losing the early encounter, and later fights with them could have their team optimized in ways other than trying to get SE typing, such as good neutral coverage, status effects, or smart use of held items. Alternately, they find a non-starter ace (could be doubled up with a Tinted Lens mon)

Wow, this started as "maybe jerk rivals aren't impossible" and turned into "what if there was someone whose game plan was 'screw type matchups, I've got Choice Band earthquakes'"

 

[Siggu]

We stopped getting jerk rivals around the same time we started getting rivals who took the starter weak to the player character's pick.

Uh... no, not really? May/Brendan, Barry, and Hugh are not jerk rivals yet they picked the starter with a type advantage.

 

[Ironmage]

Uh... no, not really? May, Barry, and Hugh are not jerk rivals yet they picked the starter with a type advantage.

I suppose I must have been counting FRLG blue and HGSS silver when writing this up.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Those rumors that the legendary beasts are revived Eeveelutions and as a kid believing Ho-oh and Lugia being part of the Legendary Birds but on a higher hierachy made me want a Dark and Psychic Legendary Beast.
Honestly, I still wouldn't mind expanding them. I mean it can still be possible that Ho-oh revived Pokemon turning them into a new set of legendaries.

A few years back I had this little fun idea of creating a new member for each of the trios; don't exactly remember why but I was able to come up with some creative ideas if I do say so myself. I think would be wishlisting if I listed all my ideas or went into much detail, so I'll keep it basic for the Legendary Beast: I made it Steel-type as a reference to both the generation names and the towers being metals.

Funny enough I also actually made two new Regi instead of one (one was Ground-type with dots shaped like a Pyramid, the other was a Type I made-up with dots shaped like two diamonds). Surprise, surprise, years later they reveal they are making two new Regi, though as we know they made a Dragon and Electric-type... which means my two Regi are still valid, original characters, do not steal.

The newer Pokemon games may be easy, but they absolutely don't need to go in the opposite direction either. A lot of ROM hacks make this mistake.

I Never said they should make it super hard.

If you get right down to it, all I ask is if they did a better job as level scaling (also maybe let players turn off the Exp. Share; have it on by default by all means but let players turn it off) and gave the bosses (Rivals, Gym Leaders, villain team admins/boss, Elite Four, etc.) teams that have thought put into them (following a strategy, coverage moves, letting their Pokemon have hold items, etc.).

Now doing so might create a scenario where the player can't win just by clicking the super effective attack a few times the first time they battle the boss. BUT that's all right. It just means they need to come with some workarounds the bosses' strategy or maybe grinding a few levels.

And the worst punishment you get from losing is just going back to the last Pokemon Center and some pocket change, no big deal. And you're not asked to beat the boss without having a Pokemon faint, as long as you have one Pokemon when you knock out the bosses' last Pokemon that's enough to let you progress.

We stopped getting jerk rivals around the same time we started getting rivals who took the starter weak to the player character's pick.

No. GF themselves said they stopped jerk rivals after Gen II because on the Gameboy they wanted to emphasize personality of the characters as they couldn't do so graphically and it was easier to do that with a jerk rival.

I also have a personal theory they stopped because they knew kids were likely naming the rivals after friends and family members not knowing any better, so didn't want kids to associate their real like friends/family members to being jerks.

Probably because of both reasons did Gen III have friendly rivals but they also couldn't be named. Gen IV allowed for naming but still kept the friend aspect so now you could pretend the rival was your friend/family member going on an adventure with you. And BW onwards I feel the reasons for having the rivals the way they were split from this thinking and rather focused on theme of the games.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

I Never said they should make it super hard.

If you get right down to it, all I ask is if they did a better job as level scaling (also maybe let players turn off the Exp. Share; have it on by default by all means but let players turn it off) and gave the bosses (Rivals, Gym Leaders, villain team admins/boss, Elite Four, etc.) teams that have thought put into them (following a strategy, coverage moves, letting their Pokemon have hold items, etc.).

Now doing so might create a scenario where the player can't win just by clicking the super effective attack a few times the first time they battle the boss. BUT that's all right. It just means they need to come with some workarounds the bosses' strategy or maybe grinding a few levels.

And the worst punishment you get from losing is just going back to the last Pokemon Center and some pocket change, no big deal. And you're not asked to beat the boss without having a Pokemon faint, as long as you have one Pokemon when you knock out the bosses' last Pokemon that's enough to let you progress.

Yeah you didn’t say that. I apologize.

Overly edgy themes and difficulty in relatively kid-friendly works or former kid-friendly works is just kinda my berserk button. I feel like some works try too hard to pander to the older crowd.

An example of the latter is almost everything about the game Jak II. It is my least favorite game of all time. I probably could cut fruit with the edges of the game’s plot. If you put screenshots of The Precursor Legacy and Jak Ii: side by side, they would look like games from entirely different series. Being murderously difficult and lacking checkpoints didn’t help either.

But yeah. I wouldn’t mind a little more difficulty in the newer games but they don’t need to go overboard ever. Sorry for using your old comment to make that point. And apologies for diverting the discussion away from Pokémon - overly difficult games just really get my goat.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

I have said it before but Pokemon isn't and never was a difficult game. If anything newer games are a lot less tedious and grind-demanding than the older games, and having played the older gens recently with hindsight in mind many of the old games are pretty shockingly easy if you go out of your way to grind and put in the time and effort to level your Pokemon.

All that's really different now is that the newer games don't demand as much level grinding as past games did. Grinding is not difficulty and neither is making yourself sorely underleveled compared to the NPC opponents (the former is tedium and it's not exactly fun, the latter is also not genuine difficulty because the favor is inherently rigged in the opponent's favor because their levels are much higher). I went out of my way to grind in Sapphire lately by hunting down all the Trainers in the Trainer's Eyes and rematched them as per the level curve and after I did that, I found my team of six to not only be constantly ten levels higher than nearly every route Trainer, I was overleveled for the later Gym Leaders and stomped on them all with ease. The Hoenn Elite Four in the original RS was also hilariously easy: after doing as many Trainer rematches as I could my team by the time I reached the League was in the low 50s, and I curbstomped the entire Elite Four with relative ease: Steven included (in fact, he was laughably easy to defeat).

Also, the Kanto games, including FRLG, are also really easy and even the older games were not very hard at all (especially RGBY: look at the movesets, they're terrible).

In fact, when you look at the movesets and Pokemon that bosses in past games have used, you'll find that most of them across the generations are not all that good. There have historically only been a few exceptions: one of them is Whitney's Miltank, and that's a case where the Pokemon is disproportionately strong compared to the Pokemon you will likely have by that point, and the moveset relies a lot on rigging the RNG in Whitney's favor (Attract and Stomp), and Clair's Kingdra, which has an accuracy lowering move.

In fact, looking through the games I'd say the only cases where the Pokemon games have had any semblance of difficulty are arguably the Johto games, SM and USUM, and arguably BW2's Challenge Mode (and maybe even BW1). Those are cases where the bosses used legitimately interesting movesets, and in the Totem Pokemon's case, they had teammates that provided support in the best ways possible.

Speaking of which, I'd argue that of all the games so far Sun and Moon (and USUM even moreso) are actually the best executed in terms of Pokemon games that are actually challenging. The Totem Pokemon legitimately had well thought out movesets, clever use of items, and same with their SOS Pokemon who in many ways provided strong support to them to make legitimately challenging battles. Considering that's one of the newer games, and Gen 7 being one of the few that executed legitimate challenge well, I'd say they've definitely tried to implement real challenge in a newer game. I don't know how people generally feel about these but it says something when Totem Lurantis is one of the most memorable boss fights in history for how difficult it truly was. And that's even *with* the EXP Share on, for the record.

 

[Sonikku A]

Something funny is how there's a change for Emerald where the Rival hides their anger at losing at Route119. Scott comes by and notes it, much to the player's surprise

...Come to think of it, Scott's kinda rude with how blunt he is

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Something funny is how there's a change for Emerald where the Rival hides their anger at losing at Route119. Scott comes by and notes it, much to the player's surprise

...Come to think of it, Scott's kinda rude with how blunt he is

Yeah Scott was an almost entirely pointless addition to Emerald. You don’t need an entirely new character to advertise a new feature (hi Ultra Recon Squad! Not entirely the same thing but they were also pointless characters despite showing up more than you’d think they do).

Similarly, I think Charon is the worst case of “they wasted a perfectly good character” in all of the games. He never battles you and to my knowledge never does almost anything plot relevant. He has that special sprite in the intro that looks like a reversed battle backsprite almost. You’d think he could serve as a replacement for that entirely pointless Saturn rematch (as Saturn is by far and away the easiest of the admins and doesn’t get any harder between battles aside from having actual coverage on Toxicroak).

Cases of the third version or in one case BW2 introducing characters that are meaningful include characters like Looker and Colress. They actually do things and aren’t just there for the sake of “Look! We added extra content!”

 

[DreamPrince]

Yeah Scott was an almost entirely pointless addition to Emerald. You don’t need an entirely new character to advertise a new feature (hi Ultra Recon Squad! Not entirely the same thing but they were also pointless characters despite showing up more than you’d think they do).

Similarly, I think Charon is the worst case of “they wasted a perfectly good character” in all of the games. He never battles you and to my knowledge never does almost anything plot relevant. He has that special sprite in the intro that looks like a reversed battle backsprite almost. You’d think he could serve as a replacement for that entirely pointless Saturn rematch (as Saturn is by far and away the easiest of the admins and doesn’t get any harder between battles aside from having actual coverage on Toxicroak).

Cases of the third version or in one case BW2 introducing characters that are meaningful include characters like Looker and Colress. They actually do things and aren’t just there for the sake of “Look! We added extra content!”

Maybe he was designed to promote the Frontier in Emerald?

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Maybe he was designed to promote the Frontier in Emerald?

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say more or less. But when your character is kinda a jerkwad with no reason to exist otherwise...

 

[Meganium1579]

1. Meganium Is my Favorite Starter
Its Really Cute, And Most People Hated It
2. I dont really Hate Aromatise
Cuz I dont Think Its that Bad
3. Stantler Is Cute, At The right Picture
4. Dubwool is OP
5. I dont Mind Greedent

 

[Codraroll]

I have said it before but Pokemon isn't and never was a difficult game.

I don't think people necessarily want high difficulty in Pokémon. I've seen many posts about how that isn't really feasible given the current battle mechanics (free +100% damage bonus if you can identify the typing of the opponent and have the right move for it being the greatest example), static enemy teams, and the symmetrical design philosophy (anything you can face, you can also use - which Pokémon recently seems to have distanced itself from). The player simply has too many advantages. High difficulty is hard to create, and it probably wouldn't be very fun all in all either.

But people want a step up from a "poke the enemy and it keels over" level of difficulty too. There is something about seeing late-game Gym Leaders with three Pokémon with several empty moveslots, a total lack of route Trainers carrying more than two Pokémon, held items almost never being used, or a conspicuous lack of anything resembling strategy from in-game opponents. As a player, you don't feel like you're being challenged on even terms, Instead, the game deliberately restrains itself from battling you on your level. The rival deliberately picking the starter weak to yours is a great example of this. It's as if the game bends over to facilitate your victory, and it's being really obvious about it. That's frustrating. It's the difference between being challenged and being led to victory. Of climbing a wall versus going up an escalator.

Arguably, the Challenge Mode in BW2 doesn't make the game that much harder. Only a few trainers are affected by the setting, and them having higher-leveled Pokémon even means you're getting more XP to fight the common route trainers with. But still it feels good to see the Gym Leader having an extra Pokémon, with moves to address the glaring weaknesses of their specialty type. Or Elite Four teams full of held Items. It's the game letting itself play a little smarter, letting you face a higher level of challenge. It's still not particularly difficult, but it's not "Oh no, here comes the player, better do everything we can to let them win!" And that makes a world of difference.

The games don't have to be hard to be fun. But I'd say they need to be less in-your-face easy.

 

[mertyville]

The difficulty in older games had some two interesting things about them that worked for the time. You can grind until you can defeat your opponent by sheer level, which can lead you to explore certain areas rewarding you perhaps with a Pokemon you hadn't encountered yet like a Pikachu in varidian forest when grinding that Caterpie because you chose Charmender.
Also in case you don't like grinding can be a way to encourage you to use different Pokemon like I lost with Warturtle back in the day against St. Surge, but when I realized his Raichu kept 2HKOing my Oddish, that Oddish may have the means to defeat Surge. That never happened at the time, but it you could be considering trying out different Pokemon at different points of the game against various trainers.
You may talk to NPC's searching for solutions. Maybe one of them has a useful Pokemon that could make the fight go smoother. Perhaps an Onix against that annoying Miltank?

Obviously with the internet era and seeing wild Pokemon in the overworld, those options don't seem relevant. It's a pain to grind. You can look tutorials if need be.
It becomes more and more difficult to have fun because using online resources is tempting and grinding isn't really rewarding, but just a waste of time to get the results you want.

 

[Samtendo09]

I don't think people necessarily want high difficulty in Pokémon. I've seen many posts about how that isn't really feasible given the current battle mechanics (free +100% damage bonus if you can identify the typing of the opponent and have the right move for it being the greatest example), static enemy teams, and the symmetrical design philosophy (anything you can face, you can also use - which Pokémon recently seems to have distanced itself from). The player simply has too many advantages. High difficulty is hard to create, and it probably wouldn't be very fun all in all either.

But people want a step up from a "poke the enemy and it keels over" level of difficulty too. There is something about seeing late-game Gym Leaders with three Pokémon with several empty moveslots, a total lack of route Trainers carrying more than two Pokémon, held items almost never being used, or a conspicuous lack of anything resembling strategy from in-game opponents. As a player, you don't feel like you're being challenged on even terms, Instead, the game deliberately restrains itself from battling you on your level. The rival deliberately picking the starter weak to yours is a great example of this. It's as if the game bends over to facilitate your victory, and it's being really obvious about it. That's frustrating. It's the difference between being challenged and being led to victory. Of climbing a wall versus going up an escalator.

Arguably, the Challenge Mode in BW2 doesn't make the game that much harder. Only a few trainers are affected by the setting, and them having higher-leveled Pokémon even means you're getting more XP to fight the common route trainers with. But still it feels good to see the Gym Leader having an extra Pokémon, with moves to address the glaring weaknesses of their specialty type. Or Elite Four teams full of held Items. It's the game letting itself play a little smarter, letting you face a higher level of challenge. It's still not particularly difficult, but it's not "Oh no, here comes the player, better do everything we can to let them win!" And that makes a world of difference.

The games don't have to be hard to be fun. But I'd say they need to be less in-your-face easy.

If anything, the game's Trainer battles almost became... too monotonous lately? We've seen so much of the patterns and the lack of actual strategy from too many opponents to the point it do comes off as easier for veterans. You can only start to see actual strategy from rare NPC trainers or late Gym Leaders, Elite 4 (if any) and Champion. And even then, not late game opponents are winners, if Wulfric is any indication.

I'd say the player did get too many advantages at once, and the fact that the Dynamax mechanic is restricted to important battles is a blessing in disguise, since you can't just use it to clean off common Trainers. Not that the NPC trainers who do use it make the most of it and is restricted to their Ace too often, but it was still overall a step up compared to how the in-game handled Megas and, to lesser extent, Z-Moves.

GF only needs to make complete and competent (but not 100% optimal) movesets, not repeat the same mistakes as XY regarding Gym Leaders, avoid using weak Pokémon for such leaders (unless they make a moveset to make the absolute most of their Ability and stats), a slightly more competent AI (i.e. taking the player Pokémon's Ability into consideration but not Illusion) and a 50% chance to switch out a very unfavorable match up to switch in a Pokémon that could tank the STAB or even outright immune to it. Its not huge, but it does make a difference.

ROM hacks tend to repeat the opposite mistake - making it so hard by making the major NPCs' having higher level than player could reach at the time and a frighteningly competent movesets all around can make it unfriendly to casual players who just want to have fun, though a few did allow for a "Causal Mode" that lower level to more reasonable extent and make the movesets a bit less optimal, but still competent for later trainers. Still, goes to shows that the big part of the fanbase's solution is not always the best.

 

[pokemon4eva]

...Come to think of it, Scott's kinda rude with how blunt he is

In Adventures he's way worse. He always knew about the ongoing crisis but didn't bother to warn the public nor his frontier brains because he didn't want to postpone his preciate facilities he wanted to put them on a test that ended up endangering everyone. Also, the final battle would've ended much earlier if the holders could use Jirachi's wishes.....buuuuuut Scott already reserved one of the wishes for himself so it was out of the options (the wish was for more people to come to the frontier at the end).

Similarly, I think Charon is the worst case of “they wasted a perfectly good character” in all of the games. He never battles you and to my knowledge never does almost anything plot relevant. He has that special sprite in the intro that looks like a reversed battle backsprite almost. You’d think he could serve as a replacement for that entirely pointless Saturn rematch (as Saturn is by far and away the easiest of the admins and doesn’t get any harder between battles aside from having actual coverage on Toxicroak).

Charon is the new leader of Galactic after the postgame, now with more simple and greedy goals: steal the Magma Stone for munnies. It was kinda boring and anticlimatic how he was defeated in just one cutscene, I thought he was going to either battle you or unleash the wild Heatran at you (you know, like he did in Generations years later -_-). Nowadays it's more common to see that, like Ghetsis using Kyurem or Lusamine using Nihilego boosting aura or the Rainbow Rocket episode. In Adventures he's obsessed with legendaries and manages to snatch several of them, becoming a much bigger threat. (also, Slowking fits this evil genius so much)

 

[Adeleine]

If anything, the game's Trainer battles almost became... too monotonous lately? We've seen so much of the patterns and the lack of actual strategy from too many opponents to the point it do comes off as easier for veterans. You can only start to see actual strategy from rare NPC trainers or late Gym Leaders, Elite 4 (if any) and Champion. And even then, not late game opponents are winners, if Wulfric is any indication.

This is something I hear often, it having "become" this way or heavily changed, and I don't aree. Gym leaders have been filled with gunk Pokemon and movesets since Gen 1. Even late-game. I figure Gen1 and Gen2 don't need that much elaboration (Sabrina Abra lol), but...

R/S Leader(s) 7 has two Pokemon total, and for a double battle no less.
R/S Leader 8... Seaking is neither the worst nor the second worst out of 5. Luvdisc and Sealeo get those honors.

D/P Leader 7 has Snover and Sneasel.

B/W Leader 7 has Vanillish. No leader in the whole game has more than three Pokemon.

All of these Pokemon are worse than any 6-8 XY leader's Pokemon. Sure, Wulfric gets obliterated by any Fire-type, but so does B/W Brycen, unless you fall before the might of... Beartic's Brine.

GF only needs to make complete and competent (but not 100% optimal) movesets

This may have not been what you meant, but a lot of people point to the "better strategies" and "complete movesets" of Pokemon from earlier generations, and, well...

Winona (6) has Water Gun / Supersonic / Aerial Ace (50 Atk!) / Protect Pelipper. Send help, please. Skarmory has Sand-Attack and Fury Attack.

All of Wallace's (8) Water-types have Water Pulse and no stronger STAB move (besides Earthquake Whiscash, which is admittedly good stuff). Luvdisc has Flail, Milotic has Twister (covers Dragons? it has Ice Beam. Twister just free reprieve chance), and Seaking has Fury Attack. All free-turn filler.

Candice's (7) Sneasel has Avalanche (???) and Slash. Snover has Razor Leaf and Ingrain (sure it'll survive to take advantage of that). Abomasnow has Swagger and Grasswhistle?? Like sure, those two can be dangerous, but this is clearly cheese and not a competent moveset for rewarding play.

Volkner's (8) Ambipom has no STAB moves. Raichu and Luxray have Charge Beam but no other special moves. Octillery has no move above 65 BP, which includes 10 BP Bullet Seed.

Skyla (6) has all-physical Swoobat with 57 Attack. Not technically all-physical because... Amnesia? (not Simple.) Unfezant has Quick Attack, Razor Wind, and Leer.

Brycen (7) has Astonish Vanillish, Rapid Spin Cryogonal, and Swagger Beartic.

B/W Drayden/Iris (8) have two Dragon Dance sweepers! With, uh, Dragon Tail as their only STAB move. What? And Fraxure has Dragon Rage.

"Why are you only using the first entries and not Emerald/Plat/B2W2?" Because X was a first entry too. There may be a case that remake trainers are notably better than first entry trainers, but that's not the narrative I normally hear.

 

[Yung Dramps]

"Why are you only using the first entries and not Emerald/Plat/B2W2?" Because X was a first entry too. There may be a case that remake trainers are notably better than first entry trainers, but that's not the narrative I normally hear.

Even if the enhanced version movesets are significantly better, that brings up a whole new problem. Either dev conditions and/or priorities for the first versions are just so buggered that they can't even properly design the bosses' movesets on the first go or they're deliberately gimping them as yet another push for people to buy the third versions, both of which are very bad for different reasons

 

[Celever]

Even if the enhanced version movesets are significantly better, that brings up a whole new problem. Either dev conditions and/or priorities for the first versions are just so buggered that they can't even properly design the bosses' movesets on the first go or they're deliberately gimping them as yet another push for people to buy the third versions, both of which are very bad for different reasons

I don't think it's necessarily only those two options. There's probably an understanding that only more serious Pokémon fans will buy the third versions of each generation, while the first versions are for a wider audience which includes casuals and kids. So they make movesets easier in the first games, and then give things a little difficulty spike in the third versions because the players tend to be better. Which is still unnecessary, kids can figure out how to win third versions easily too, but it's a less cynical explanation for things.

This is something I hear often, it having "become" this way or heavily changed, and I don't aree. Gym leaders have been filled with gunk Pokemon and movesets since Gen 1. Even late-game. I figure Gen1 and Gen2 don't need that much elaboration (Sabrina Abra lol), but...

R/S Leader(s) 7 has two Pokemon total, and for a double battle no less.
R/S Leader 8... Seaking is neither the worst nor the second worst out of 5. Luvdisc and Sealeo get those honors.

D/P Leader 7 has Snover and Sneasel.

B/W Leader 7 has Vanillish. No leader in the whole game has more than three Pokemon.

All of these Pokemon are worse than any 6-8 XY leader's Pokemon. Sure, Wulfric gets obliterated by any Fire-type, but so does B/W Brycen, unless you fall before the might of... Beartic's Brine.


This may have not been what you meant, but a lot of people point to the "better strategies" and "complete movesets" of Pokemon from earlier generations, and, well...

Winona (6) has Water Gun / Supersonic / Aerial Ace (50 Atk!) / Protect Pelipper. Send help, please. Skarmory has Sand-Attack and Fury Attack.

All of Wallace's (8) Water-types have Water Pulse and no stronger STAB move (besides Earthquake Whiscash, which is admittedly good stuff). Luvdisc has Flail, Milotic has Twister (covers Dragons? it has Ice Beam. Twister just free reprieve chance), and Seaking has Fury Attack. All free-turn filler.

Candice's (7) Sneasel has Avalanche (???) and Slash. Snover has Razor Leaf and Ingrain (sure it'll survive to take advantage of that). Abomasnow has Swagger and Grasswhistle?? Like sure, those two can be dangerous, but this is clearly cheese and not a competent moveset for rewarding play.

Volkner's (8) Ambipom has no STAB moves. Raichu and Luxray have Charge Beam but no other special moves. Octillery has no move above 65 BP, which includes 10 BP Bullet Seed.

Skyla (6) has all-physical Swoobat with 57 Attack. Not technically all-physical because... Amnesia? (not Simple.) Unfezant has Quick Attack, Razor Wind, and Leer.

Brycen (7) has Astonish Vanillish, Rapid Spin Cryogonal, and Swagger Beartic.

B/W Drayden/Iris (8) have two Dragon Dance sweepers! With, uh, Dragon Tail as their only STAB move. What? And Fraxure has Dragon Rage.

"Why are you only using the first entries and not Emerald/Plat/B2W2?" Because X was a first entry too. There may be a case that remake trainers are notably better than first entry trainers, but that's not the narrative I normally hear.

I think the difference, which Codraroll also identified, is that whether something actually is particularly challenging or not, what matters is whether it feels challenging and therefore rewarding. Elite Four members having only 4 Pokémon makes them feel like regular trainer battles, and I think that's what Samtendo means by battles becoming monotonous. When boss battles of recent gens feel tonally like trainer battles of older gens, players don't get that little dopamine rush of feeling like they actually achieved something. This is something SwSh does well, because the atmosphere of gym battles is so damn good that it feels like an achievement even though the battle's easy, and the Elite Four (or Champion's Cup) are actually 6v6 battles right? This is basically all we've been asking for.

Even if the movesets suck and the champion uses a Delibird, if bosses just used more Pokémon the games would be way more fun. Players tend to have 6 Pokémon on their team by the mid-to-late-game, so when the Elite Four or 8th gym leader also uses 6 Pokémon it feels like you actually achieve something when you beat them as opposed to entering the battle with the upper hand. I think gyms should be structured as 1 uses 2 Pokémon, 2 and 3 use 3 Pokémon, 4 and 5 use 4 Pokémon, 6 and 7 use 5 Pokémon, and after that every boss uses 6. Yes, that probably includes the battle against the evil team leader, though 5 is also fine (Platinum Cyrus).

 

[Samtendo09]

This is something I hear often, it having "become" this way or heavily changed, and I don't aree. Gym leaders have been filled with gunk Pokemon and movesets since Gen 1. Even late-game. I figure Gen1 and Gen2 don't need that much elaboration (Sabrina Abra lol), but...

R/S Leader(s) 7 has two Pokemon total, and for a double battle no less.
R/S Leader 8... Seaking is neither the worst nor the second worst out of 5. Luvdisc and Sealeo get those honors.

D/P Leader 7 has Snover and Sneasel.

B/W Leader 7 has Vanillish. No leader in the whole game has more than three Pokemon.

All of these Pokemon are worse than any 6-8 XY leader's Pokemon. Sure, Wulfric gets obliterated by any Fire-type, but so does B/W Brycen, unless you fall before the might of... Beartic's Brine.


This may have not been what you meant, but a lot of people point to the "better strategies" and "complete movesets" of Pokemon from earlier generations, and, well...

Winona (6) has Water Gun / Supersonic / Aerial Ace (50 Atk!) / Protect Pelipper. Send help, please. Skarmory has Sand-Attack and Fury Attack.

All of Wallace's (8) Water-types have Water Pulse and no stronger STAB move (besides Earthquake Whiscash, which is admittedly good stuff). Luvdisc has Flail, Milotic has Twister (covers Dragons? it has Ice Beam. Twister just free reprieve chance), and Seaking has Fury Attack. All free-turn filler.

Candice's (7) Sneasel has Avalanche (???) and Slash. Snover has Razor Leaf and Ingrain (sure it'll survive to take advantage of that). Abomasnow has Swagger and Grasswhistle?? Like sure, those two can be dangerous, but this is clearly cheese and not a competent moveset for rewarding play.

Volkner's (8) Ambipom has no STAB moves. Raichu and Luxray have Charge Beam but no other special moves. Octillery has no move above 65 BP, which includes 10 BP Bullet Seed.

Skyla (6) has all-physical Swoobat with 57 Attack. Not technically all-physical because... Amnesia? (not Simple.) Unfezant has Quick Attack, Razor Wind, and Leer.

Brycen (7) has Astonish Vanillish, Rapid Spin Cryogonal, and Swagger Beartic.

B/W Drayden/Iris (8) have two Dragon Dance sweepers! With, uh, Dragon Tail as their only STAB move. What? And Fraxure has Dragon Rage.

"Why are you only using the first entries and not Emerald/Plat/B2W2?" Because X was a first entry too. There may be a case that remake trainers are notably better than first entry trainers, but that's not the narrative I normally hear.

In that case, it really shows how aging the way GF handles the Leaders' Pokémon to the point of insulting, and it really give a sense of a true lack of progression, if you ask me. I agree with what DrumstickGaming had said, too.

The one you have shown are especially dreadful!

 

[pokemon4eva]

For Winona's case, it seems they just focused on making her Altaria good (offensively deadly with her DD set in RSE, and defensively annoying with Cotton Guard+Roost in ORAS, and both with EQ), and the rest of the team just 3 level up moves+Aerial Ace/Roost.

 

[Codraroll]

This is something I hear often, it having "become" this way or heavily changed, and I don't aree. Gym leaders have been filled with gunk Pokemon and movesets since Gen 1. Even late-game. I figure Gen1 and Gen2 don't need that much elaboration (Sabrina Abra lol), but...

R/S Leader(s) 7 has two Pokemon total, and for a double battle no less.
R/S Leader 8... Seaking is neither the worst nor the second worst out of 5. Luvdisc and Sealeo get those honors.

D/P Leader 7 has Snover and Sneasel.

B/W Leader 7 has Vanillish. No leader in the whole game has more than three Pokemon.

All of these Pokemon are worse than any 6-8 XY leader's Pokemon. Sure, Wulfric gets obliterated by any Fire-type, but so does B/W Brycen, unless you fall before the might of... Beartic's Brine.


This may have not been what you meant, but a lot of people point to the "better strategies" and "complete movesets" of Pokemon from earlier generations, and, well...

Winona (6) has Water Gun / Supersonic / Aerial Ace (50 Atk!) / Protect Pelipper. Send help, please. Skarmory has Sand-Attack and Fury Attack.

All of Wallace's (8) Water-types have Water Pulse and no stronger STAB move (besides Earthquake Whiscash, which is admittedly good stuff). Luvdisc has Flail, Milotic has Twister (covers Dragons? it has Ice Beam. Twister just free reprieve chance), and Seaking has Fury Attack. All free-turn filler.

Candice's (7) Sneasel has Avalanche (???) and Slash. Snover has Razor Leaf and Ingrain (sure it'll survive to take advantage of that). Abomasnow has Swagger and Grasswhistle?? Like sure, those two can be dangerous, but this is clearly cheese and not a competent moveset for rewarding play.

Volkner's (8) Ambipom has no STAB moves. Raichu and Luxray have Charge Beam but no other special moves. Octillery has no move above 65 BP, which includes 10 BP Bullet Seed.

Skyla (6) has all-physical Swoobat with 57 Attack. Not technically all-physical because... Amnesia? (not Simple.) Unfezant has Quick Attack, Razor Wind, and Leer.

Brycen (7) has Astonish Vanillish, Rapid Spin Cryogonal, and Swagger Beartic.

B/W Drayden/Iris (8) have two Dragon Dance sweepers! With, uh, Dragon Tail as their only STAB move. What? And Fraxure has Dragon Rage.

"Why are you only using the first entries and not Emerald/Plat/B2W2?" Because X was a first entry too. There may be a case that remake trainers are notably better than first entry trainers, but that's not the narrative I normally hear.

This is a very good breakdown, and it illustrates that the earlier games weren't perfect either.

However, if I were to have one counterpoint against it, it's that while Gym Leaders haven't improved all that much since then, the options available to the player have ballooned enormously. In recent games, almost all Pokémon have an extremely wide arsenal of usable moves, and the TMs that teach them are multi-use. Megas, Z-moves, and Dynamax also provide a solid power boost in a pinch. Gone are the days when a level 60 Rhydon used Leer, Tail Whip, Fury Attack, and Stomp. Nowadays, you're likely to have dual STAB and coverage long before level 40. Whatever you face these days, the game is likely to provide your team with a solid answer to it.

Or in other words, the players are more powerful. Major trainer battles are still as exploitable as they were before, but you've got a lot more tools with which to exploit them. It doesn't seem like the games are giving the opponents all the same tools to use, leaving the games feeling much easier by comparison.

That being said, much of the challenge in these games is about finding out which moves to use at what time, and veteran players have the advantage of knowing how to determine this as soon as they open the game. If you know that a Bug/Flying type will be absolutely smashed by a Rock move and how to find a Rock-type in the grass outside of town, of course you're going to find the battle easy. You will click Rock Throw and watch the foe go down. The difficult thing to new players is figuring out how to use Rock Throw in the first place. It can be considered a puzzle, of course it's easier when you know the solution. I think this highlights the need for some higher difficulty settings, so that even players who know the rules can have some more parameters to the puzzle to take into account.

 

[Yung Dramps]

yknow what? screw it

FUCK DPMAKES

FINISH KALOS

RELEASE POKEMON Z