Unpopular opinions

[Worldie]

From Kurts tweets (where I still don't know if he's pro or against cheating) that show pokehex stats: this has not worked. At this point I feel like as long as it's not a showdown-like feature where you can just generate all the teams by yourself, people will just cheat mons in if they have to do work for them. Whether that's bad or good is up to yall

Heh, why doesn't that surprise me?

To be fair... I mean if you have limited time, even the "much easier version" that the game has now for swapping around Natures and stuff... it still is a hassle. Expecially cause yes, while you can swap around natures with Mints, it's still a obnoxious process including re-EVing and re-movesetting up.

I don't think it'll be ever completely solved until they do indeed just give a "showdown-like feature". High tier competitive pokemon (and prolly many mid-tier ones too) will always just rather message up one of the many services that gen pokes for you to get 4 lando-Ts already natured and EVd up than grind up BPs in Battle Tower, and I can't completely blame them really.

 

[Bakugames]

Heh, why doesn't that surprise me?

To be fair... I mean if you have limited time, even the "much easier version" that the game has now for swapping around Natures and stuff... it still is a hassle. Expecially cause yes, while you can swap around natures with Mints, it's still a obnoxious process including re-EVing and re-movesetting up.

I don't think it'll be ever completely solved until they do indeed just give a "showdown-like feature". High tier competitive pokemon (and prolly many mid-tier ones too) will always just rather message up one of the many services that gen pokes for you to get 4 lando-Ts already natured and EVd up than grind up BPs in Battle Tower, and I can't completely blame them really.

Its a situation that I feel like past inaccessibility made it a point of no return sort of thing. Maybe if previous games had similiar accessibility as gen 8 or change came quicker, cheating would have been easier to combat, but because we spent so many gens w bad accessibility, people have gotten accostumed to the pkhex routine, and now the bar has risen beyond accessibility and now its more around immediate teammaking.

 

[Blazade]

Yeah iirc the thing with SWSH is the first few mints and bottle caps aren't too bad but it can still be a real grind to get more. Resetting EVs is a matter of getting money (another slight grind), and changing movepools is easier than ever but still requires complex breeding sometimes, which is all under the hood on Showdown.

I have fond memories of playing through entire games, doing RNG manips, getting pokemon from multiple generations together to get the moveset I want, and we're better than that now but it still probably takes a day of work to get one competitive pokemon. My friends still don't make their own teams and rely on me.

What we need:
-Nature Mints and bottle caps not locked to BP as a rare resource or in the case of bottle caps, not locked to level 100.
-A "Dull" 0 IV bottle cap for min speed and, less importantly, min attack pokemon.
-To get rid of this trend where the legends are in one place but you randomly determine which one you get. Ultra Space was hell and I'm never going back. Dynamax adventures was slightly better but even so it's still a significant grind.
-Even easier access to vitamins in the postgame.

I think what would make my friends make their own competitive teams is if the only hard part was getting the egg moves on your pokemon, and the rest could be done in under an hour for someone who doesn't otherwise play much (so not swimming in money/BP). The biggest thing cheaters are saving themselves is time.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Mints and Caps being essentially post-game is just obnoxious. (At least you could get some random mints in the DLC areas, so a bad nature mon still had some chance in-game).

Honestly, I'd rather have control of EVs like most other RPGs where leveling up/getting exp awards you points you can freely allocate at your leisure.

For all the QoL things they keep adding to competitive players, the games still do a sucktastic job of bridging the In-Game and Post-Game phases. Especially now that most Post-Games are empty husks.

NSFW language, but this vid sums it up perfectly

It will NEVER make sense to me that VGC is on a Doubles format with take 6 and pick 4 rules.
When was the last time you played a battle like that in-game? Do you know what we got in-game? A ton of Singles. The Champion battle has ALWAYS been a 6v6 Singles match.

And for all the pushing TPCI does for Pokémon to become a mainstream eSport, they really have to get a clue that presentation matters. These games look sloppy and are rightfully getting dunked on by a spinoff on the goddamn Nintendo 64.

Their priorities are all over the place and again, it's baffling that we're already heading out into the next gen when the crunch to put out Gen 8's games led to such a disappointing generation.

 

[Coronis]

Yeah iirc the thing with SWSH is the first few mints and bottle caps aren't too bad but it can still be a real grind to get more. Resetting EVs is a matter of getting money (another slight grind), and changing movepools is easier than ever but still requires complex breeding sometimes, which is all under the hood on Showdown.

I have fond memories of playing through entire games, doing RNG manips, getting pokemon from multiple generations together to get the moveset I want, and we're better than that now but it still probably takes a day of work to get one competitive pokemon. My friends still don't make their own teams and rely on me.

What we need:
-Nature Mints and bottle caps not locked to BP as a rare resource or in the case of bottle caps, not locked to level 100.
-A "Dull" 0 IV bottle cap for min speed and, less importantly, min attack pokemon.
-To get rid of this trend where the legends are in one place but you randomly determine which one you get. Ultra Space was hell and I'm never going back. Dynamax adventures was slightly better but even so it's still a significant grind.
-Even easier access to vitamins in the postgame.

I think what would make my friends make their own competitive teams is if the only hard part was getting the egg moves on your pokemon, and the rest could be done in under an hour for someone who doesn't otherwise play much (so not swimming in money/BP). The biggest thing cheaters are saving themselves is time.

If you cant be bothered investing time in the game then you shouldn’t be playing it competitively.

Mints and Caps being essentially post-game is just obnoxious. (At least you could get some random mints in the DLC areas, so a bad nature mon still had some chance in-game).

Honestly, I'd rather have control of EVs like most other RPGs where leveling up/getting exp awards you points you can freely allocate at your leisure.

For all the QoL things they keep adding to competitive players, the games still do a sucktastic job of bridging the In-Game and Post-Game phases. Especially now that most Post-Games are empty husks.

NSFW language, but this vid sums it up perfectly

It will NEVER make sense to me that VGC is on a Doubles format with take 6 and pick 4 rules.
When was the last time you played a battle like that in-game? Do you know what we got in-game? A ton of Singles. The Champion battle has ALWAYS been a 6v6 Singles match.

And for all the pushing TPCI does for Pokémon to become a mainstream eSport, they really have to get a clue that presentation matters. These games look sloppy and are rightfully getting dunked on by a spinoff on the goddamn Nintendo 64.

Their priorities are all over the place and again, it's baffling that we're already heading out into the next gen when the crunch to put out Gen 8's games led to such a disappointing generation.

Whats the point of putting that stuff in game during the story? Its not relevant then and you don’t have access to the full range of Pokemon at whichever stage you’re at, and if you do, why didn’t you stick with that save game? Or if its from a previous gen you really can’t play through the story a single time before battling competitively? Why bother even buying the game?

 

[superstrike66]

ORAS is the best main series remake, while HGSS is the worst (and my least favorite game in the series).

 

[Sonikku A]

Y'know, I kinda have to agree, if not for BDSP. HGSS really was flair no substance to resolving OG GSC issues

Not that it matters, the issue is all these remakes are still rigid 1:1 tile recreations, despite actual intentions of the area

But let's check the rest;

FRLG: A basic remake, it's nowhere as buggy as the original games. Abilities give mons new versatility, and restored habitat intros per area

Issues: Nat dex restrictions are horrid, and this kind of reveals how boring Kanto's layout was without glitches....

HGSS: Considered the peak of the franchise ad nauseum within the fanbase, extra modes like PT's Frontier, Pokeathlon, and following mons

Issues: This randomly reverted back to the trash GS mon distributions, and generally didn't resolve much, outside Lugia feeling like it was tacked on. Garbage level curve overrides Gen 4 buffs, and Gen 4 crossevos are ridiculously hard to obtain. Add Gen 4 general slowness, ehhh

ORAS: Hoenn confirmed memes, this actually started to resolve mons in layouts. Lombre and Nuzleaf get some buffs, and crossevos aren't as ridiculous to get. Surfing with diagonals also helps get through areas faster

Issues: Despite Battle Maison being decent, many were enraged at the removal of the Battle Frontier. Reverting to RS tile design has made Meteor Falls an ugly yellow, and removed underwater routes. Evergrande City also got hyper simplified, though now sports an oriental design

LGPE: A hyper casualized experience, LGPE also brings following mons. Also the first you can catch starters (without friendcodes)

Issues: The catching system is beyond basic, and the game randomly reverted many battle mechanics for a candy system, which got abused. And it's STILL tile based

BDSP: Significantly faster than OG, some Gym Leaders also do creative strats. Underground areas allow for greater selection of mons to catch. You can even customize the player

Issues: This game was really glitchy on launch, and following mons are their most buggiest as well. The tile layouts are incredibly incompatible with free controls, and the friendship mechanic + perma exp share borked difficulty. Chibi design was criticized (which I call shenans), and despite underground providing mons, people were mad they didn't get them in base routes. Underground also removed the singular base you can decorate, instead having you use statues to manipulate mon spawn. Tiles also are flat! It was a budgeted mess

 

[Shedinja-43152]

ORAS is the best main series remake, while HGSS is the worst (and my least favorite game in the series).

The best main series remake are Fire Red and Leaf Green, and it will be forever.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

If you cant be bothered investing time in the game then you shouldn’t be playing it competitively.



Whats the point of putting that stuff in game during the story? Its not relevant then and you don’t have access to the full range of Pokemon at whichever stage you’re at, and if you do, why didn’t you stick with that save game? Or if its from a previous gen you really can’t play through the story a single time before battling competitively? Why bother even buying the game?

You seem upset. Eat a Snickers or something.

ORAS is the best main series remake, while HGSS is the worst (and my least favorite game in the series).

I'd agree if FRLG weren't straight up boring games. HGSS is way too overrated. If you coat a stale cake with cream and cherries on top, it'll still be a stale cake when you take a bite off it.

HGSS did nothing to solve GSC's issues for the most part.

 

[Blazade]

If you cant be bothered investing time in the game then you shouldn’t be playing it competitively.



Whats the point of putting that stuff in game during the story? Its not relevant then and you don’t have access to the full range of Pokemon at whichever stage you’re at, and if you do, why didn’t you stick with that save game? Or if its from a previous gen you really can’t play through the story a single time before battling competitively? Why bother even buying the game?

The time you invest in a competitive game should be in playing and practicing the competitive parts of the game. People who cheat on the busywork are using that time to practice online or on Showdown. And that's how it should be. Most popular e-sports have a full multiplayer experience right out of the box.

But you're preaching to the choir to an extent. As I said I enjoy the convoluted process of making competitive pokemon to the point where I make a few teams per season for all my friends. Having done that I can see that it isn't realistic to expect everyone to, even when they enjoy or are good at competitive pokemon.

 

[A_Wild_Noob_Appeared!]

If you cant be bothered investing time in the game then you shouldn’t be playing it competitively.

High-level players already invest time into the game by thinking of team ideas or practicing in battles. The thematics of working together with your team are well and good in the singleplayer campaign, but it's clearly impractical for competitive.

It will NEVER make sense to me that VGC is on a Doubles format with take 6 and pick 4 rules.
When was the last time you played a battle like that in-game? Do you know what we got in-game? A ton of Singles. The Champion battle has ALWAYS been a 6v6 Singles match.

TBH, 6v6 Singles doesn't really work with the Game Freak design philosophy because they don't really have a mechanism for getting rid of uncompetitive junk (Baton Pass, Sleep, evasion, OHKO moves). Maybe in AG the effect of these moves is mitigated to an extent because the typical users of these strats typically don't have Ubers-level stats (there are exceptions, remember how Darkrai was the most broken Pokemon in the game in both Singles and Doubles for 3 generations), but their early VGC seasons (which don't have Ubers-level legends) would be unplayable. They could remove these mechanics, but they seem to be actively encouraging the use of Baton Pass, given that they increased its distribution in Gen 8.

Also, I'm pretty sure the main reason they don't have 6v6 Singles is because they don't want to have Stall teams
Personally, I think Stall games can sometimes be interesting to watch but I assume that they think that it's boring for spectators (and/or messes with live tournament schedules).

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

High-level players already invest time into the game by thinking of team ideas or practicing in battles. The thematics of working together with your team are well and good in the singleplayer campaign, but it's clearly impractical for competitive.

TBH, 6v6 Singles doesn't really work with the Game Freak design philosophy because they don't really have a mechanism for getting rid of uncompetitive junk (Baton Pass, Sleep, evasion, OHKO moves). Maybe in AG the effect of these moves is mitigated to an extent because the typical users of these strats typically don't have Ubers-level stats (there are exceptions, remember how Darkrai was the most broken Pokemon in the game in both Singles and Doubles for 3 generations), but their early VGC seasons (which don't have Ubers-level legends) would be unplayable. They could remove these mechanics, but they seem to be actively encouraging the use of Baton Pass, given that they increased its distribution in Gen 8.

Also, I'm pretty sure the main reason they don't have 6v6 Singles is because they don't want to have Stall teams
Personally, I think Stall games can sometimes be interesting to watch but I assume that they think that it's boring for spectators (and/or messes with live tournament schedules).

Honestly, they could experiment more with Doubles in-game. Maybe allow people to pick between Singles and Doubles or even run with the entire game in a Doubles format like the Orre games for a change.

 

[Coronis]

You seem upset. Eat a Snickers or something.

Yes, extremely upset…. please help me feel happy again.

The time you invest in a competitive game should be in playing and practicing the competitive parts of the game. People who cheat on the busywork are using that time to practice online or on Showdown. And that's how it should be. Most popular e-sports have a full multiplayer experience right out of the box.

But you're preaching to the choir to an extent. As I said I enjoy the convoluted process of making competitive pokemon to the point where I make a few teams per season for all my friends. Having done that I can see that it isn't realistic to expect everyone to, even when they enjoy or are good at competitive pokemon.

The whole point of Pokemon is catching and raising your own Pokemon so wouldn’t automatically having a complete multiplayer experience out of the gates go against that whole philosphy of the games?

High-level players already invest time into the game by thinking of team ideas or practicing in battles. The thematics of working together with your team are well and good in the singleplayer campaign, but it's clearly impractical for competitive.

You still just don’t (and shouldn’t) get things for free to enhance the competitive aspect, especially when its not the main point of the games.

Even in other games which are specifically designed to be competitive unlike Pokemon you still have to unlock various characters/weapons/armour etc. if you want to be successful.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

The whole point of Pokemon is catching and raising your own Pokemon so wouldn’t automatically having a complete multiplayer experience out of the gates go against that whole philosphy of the games?

Yet when I said that competitive items should be more available in-game instead of dumped at the end behind massive grinding, you started ranting incomprehensibly.

Raising the overall power level would allow for more thematic major battles and more strategic play for both players and NPCs.

Yes, extremely upset…. please help me feel happy again.

 

[Coronis]

Yet when I said that competitive items should be more available in-game instead of dumped at the end behind massive grinding, you started ranting incomprehensibly.

Raising the overall power level would allow for more thematic major battles and more strategic play for both players and NPCs.

Rightio…

The main point of Pokemon is the catch and collect aspect and the story of the games, competitive has and always will take a backseat to those, due to it not being a main selling point of the series. Plenty of story based games lock things behind the main storyline, so it makes sense to me, particularly when those things are practically useless for the main game.

 

[Worldie]

If you cant be bothered investing time in the game then you shouldn’t be playing it competitively.

That's not quite the case here.

"Investing in the game" would be like saying that League of Legends players have to play Soloqueue to improve their mechanics and map awareness, or that Starcraft players have to do random PvP on the ladder or even PvE to improve their timings on buildings.

The "preparation" you have to do in Pokemon gets you absolutely nothing in the way of training for the competitive. Spamming a hyperoffense team in a battle facility (that doesn't play by the rules of VGC even) doesnt really do anything.
Wasting hours facerolling the E4 with lvl 100 pokemon for money doesn't exactly accomplish anything in that regard either.

You know a game that had this kind of stupidity? World of Warcraft. Where you had to grind PvE to get gear to do PvP. So you had to invest hours in an activity that got absolutely nothing to do with what you're preparing for.

If they really wanted the "you should be putting effort in the game to play competitively" part, then a MUCH better option would have been if you could gain BP / mints / literally anything useful for PvP by... doing PvP in first place. Not by facerolling the "story focused PvE side" of the game.

 

[A_Wild_Noob_Appeared!]

The whole point of Pokemon is catching and raising your own Pokemon so wouldn’t automatically having a complete multiplayer experience out of the gates go against that whole philosphy of the games?

Most of the above proposals don't interfere much with that. Freely reassignable EVs, cheap Nature Mints, and cheap Bottle Caps/deprecation of the IV system would get rid of 80% of the busywork and they're not too far out of line with the customization aspects of other RPGs. As a Showdown player, this makes no difference for me, but it'd make it easier for casual competitive players to get into the fun parts of PvP.

Also, competitive Pokemon is functionally an entirely different game than singleplayer. It's better to have a thematic clash (like easy training facilities postgame or whatever) if it allows both campaign players and competitive players to enjoy the game.

Even in other games which are specifically designed to be competitive unlike Pokemon you still have to unlock various characters/weapons/armour etc. if you want to be successful.

A game specifically designed to be competitive having a grind to unlock things is a bad thing. It's almost always done to extract money from the playerbase and it produces incentives to do things that worsen the competitive experience.

 

[Coronis]

Also, competitive Pokemon is functionally an entirely different game than singleplayer. It's better to have a thematic clash (like easy training facilities postgame or whatever) if it allows both campaign players and competitive players to enjoy the game.

Literally what I’ve said the entire time, it doesn’t make much sense for the mints etc (or whatever they come up with in the future) to be unlocked during the main story and be available in post game activities.

 

[pika pal]

The Pokemon games have always been pretty mediocre when looked at from a gameplay level-design standpoint. They just knew better how to dress it up in the story and sprite-art, or allow options that were worth experimenting with despite the simple approach to difficulty.

Pokemon Anime peaked in Gen 4 and Gen 7, while Pokemon Origins isn't that good once the novelty of not being the Ash anime wears off.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Literally what I’ve said the entire time, it doesn’t make much sense for the mints etc (or whatever they come up with in the future) to be unlocked during the main story and be available in post game activities.

Have you ever shuffled in grass for almost an hour to get a Scyther and when you finally got one, it's a Modest, Swarm one?

Yeah, sorry, I ain't got time for all of this nonsense.

 

[Dusk Mage Necrozma]

Have you ever shuffled in grass for almost an hour to get a Scyther and when you finally got one, it's a Modest, Swarm one?

Yeah, sorry, I ain't got time for all of this nonsense.

The argument here isn’t about availability, it’s about main game vs postgame. The problem described is also solved if Mints remain postgame but are easier to get in future generations.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

The argument here isn’t about availability, it’s about main game vs postgame. The problem described is also solved if Mints remain postgame but are easier to get in future generations.

I know the argument and gave a main game example.

Despite Game Freak's best attempts to do so, (glares at Gen 7), these games are fairly replayable. If you played Platinum right now, that scenario could happen to you.

SwSh did introduce the mints, and it's nice that Hyper Training exists, but if they seriously want to get people a little more involved with post-game activities/online battling, they gotta bridge the main game and the post-game better.

6v6 Singles is the most popular format despite not being the main VGC format because that's what people have been doing for over 25 years. I repeat, we haven't had a single Champion challenge be a Doubles match. That doesn't make a lick of sense if they wanna push VGC so bad.

More availability for competitive items in-game is also good because then people can actually get their feet wet with the strategic part of the game instead of running through it with their eyes closed because you got Gym Leaders like this:

As it stands, the main game serves absolutely no purpose. Matter of fact, the entire game doesn't if the gap between the game and its competitive part is supposed to be that wide.
Competitive battlers are much better served by going straight to Showdown in order to face better competition with better rulesets and no futile grinding.

 

[Arkm]

Arceus(both the game and mon) sucks hard

 

[Shedinja-43152]

Have you ever shuffled in grass for almost an hour to get a Scyther and when you finally got one, it's a Modest, Swarm one?

Yeah, sorry, I ain't got time for all of this nonsense.

You can breeding eggs of Schyther untill come the nature and ability do you want.

Competitive battlers are much better served by going straight to Showdown in order to face better competition with better rulesets and no futile grinding.

I would like to have friends to play with my grinding pokémon, should be an experience very different then Showdown, with so many clauses.

 

[Bakugames]

I think a compromise of allowing people to use generated mons for unranked battles, which then gives you BP that lets you deck out your own pokémon for actual rankings and official formats would be fun. Could be called training grounds or whatever. Also helps with one of the bigger issues imo that to get a lot of BP for fixes, you still need some good pokémon aka you need to grind the traditional way for them. Sometimes in-game teams can do decently but they get crept real fast and the way the bp scales means you need to play, what, dozens of battles just to get one mint.