The Ride Pager is literally just HMs that don’t waste a move slot. Is your contention that “not wasting a move slot” is what’s lame about it?
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
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yeah now that's a truly unpopular opinion. i do think physical obstacles that could only be overcome with badges allowing your mons to do special things is better than not having anything, or having those lame checkpoints alola had, but i certainly don't miss wasting a not easily replaceable move slot on them
I mean HMs were only a problem because most of them were crap.
Surf and, post-Physical/Special Split, Waterfall were basically the go to Water moves, and Fly was decent enough.
even strength was fairly usable in the games the HM shows up early enough! but the non-replaceable part really bugs me, even foe the good moves and even if i know why it's like that. it just feels like too much commitment to a move slot at a point in the game your mons are still learning new moves
There's more to HMs than just the basic mechanical elements. For all their faults, it is nice to feel like you're actually working with your Pokemon to overcome obstacles in the overworld, particularly when you're in some super remote dungeon. To me, the Ride Pager is very sterile by comparison and makes the world feel smaller. Arguably, this serves the setting: you're a kid undergoing the Island Challenge and there are already guardrails everywhere to direct you, so maybe it makes sense that your travel options are these official worker Pokemon with safety harnesses that can always come to you immediately no matter where you are. I wouldn't say it's a direct upgrade, though.
Having said that, I'll never defend HMs too hard, because I really don't like it when a fun roster of mons can't learn all the HMs between them and I have to either ditch a team member permanently or continually deposit and withdraw mons depending on whether I'm in Battle Mode or Exploration Mode.
The fact that HMs are actual moves is what makes them so much more interesting imo. They aren't just "the thing you use to bypass an obstacle", they're "a move which you can actually use in battle that also serves the purpose of overworld exploration". It gives them a much more multipurpose feel which I quite like. Cobalt Empoleon pretty much expressed what I feel in their first paragraph.
And for what it's worth I do like the Ride Pager, I just think HMs were a better version of the same idea.
I understand people's frustrations with the fact that you can't easily delete them, but that's moreso an issue with the fact that the move deleter is often in the later portions of the game so you don't get the opportunity to remove them whenever you feel like until after the "you can't delete this" mentality has already seeped in. And also I personally never minded this too much? Like most HM moves are still good moves for an in-game playthrough so I don't ever feel like I'm wasting a slot most of the time (the two exceptions to this are Cut and Rock Smash, both of which are obtained very early on so it makes sense for them to be weaker. And even then Rock Smash I'd argue is the only one that's actually annoying since it sees constant mandatory use throughout the game while Cut is mostly used for optional goodies aside from the small handful of times you need to use it shortly after you receive it).
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There's a few separate things to discuss to grasp HMs: Field moves, field effects, and irreplaceable HMs.
Field effects are, in my opinion, an unambiguous good. "Interact with the world, without battling, generally using pokemon, in a way that leads to exploration, puzzles, and/or rewards." That's incredible. I don't care if it's Acro Bike, Headbutt, or Ride Pager, those are good things and with the decline of HMs the use of puzzles etc in the games has also become a lot rarer, which I dislike. They also make a natural form of roadblock that isn't clearly artificial, which the linear games sorely need.
Field moves are, IMO, also a good thing. "Teach your mons X move to accomplish effect X1 in the overworld" is a good way to encourage players to have a diverse team, while also leading to trade-offs for the player: "Do you teach Return or Strength on a mon" is a legitimate question. Strength isn't bad, so having it at all times is a useful tool, and it doesn't cost much, but it does make your Snorlax weaker than if you gave it Return. Or do you just dedicate a mon entirely to field moves and play with a dead teamslot?
HMs themselves are more of an issue. HMs being undeletable(even in games with the move deleter people still think of them as permanent) makes folks unlikely to want to risk a moveslot, and the specific moves used for HMs often sucking or having overlapping types makes it worse.
The thing is, GF just never tried to improve HMs. They changed the roster on occasion, changed how vital they were, but never actually looked at the list, looked at the games, and said "How do we make these fun and interesting?" There are ways, certainly, to make a Field Moves list for a game which has moves that aren't broken in the midgame, are usable late-game, and all accomplish something interesting in the overworld. GF did not make a game like that at any point in 6 generations, so of course when they were removed, people celebrated.
Field effects are, in my opinion, an unambiguous good. "Interact with the world, without battling, generally using pokemon, in a way that leads to exploration, puzzles, and/or rewards." That's incredible. I don't care if it's Acro Bike, Headbutt, or Ride Pager, those are good things and with the decline of HMs the use of puzzles etc in the games has also become a lot rarer, which I dislike. They also make a natural form of roadblock that isn't clearly artificial, which the linear games sorely need.
Field moves are, IMO, also a good thing. "Teach your mons X move to accomplish effect X1 in the overworld" is a good way to encourage players to have a diverse team, while also leading to trade-offs for the player: "Do you teach Return or Strength on a mon" is a legitimate question. Strength isn't bad, so having it at all times is a useful tool, and it doesn't cost much, but it does make your Snorlax weaker than if you gave it Return. Or do you just dedicate a mon entirely to field moves and play with a dead teamslot?
HMs themselves are more of an issue. HMs being undeletable(even in games with the move deleter people still think of them as permanent) makes folks unlikely to want to risk a moveslot, and the specific moves used for HMs often sucking or having overlapping types makes it worse.
The thing is, GF just never tried to improve HMs. They changed the roster on occasion, changed how vital they were, but never actually looked at the list, looked at the games, and said "How do we make these fun and interesting?" There are ways, certainly, to make a Field Moves list for a game which has moves that aren't broken in the midgame, are usable late-game, and all accomplish something interesting in the overworld. GF did not make a game like that at any point in 6 generations, so of course when they were removed, people celebrated.
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Psychic is a bad type, but I like how unique a lot it's moves are. Stored Power, Psychic Noise, Psyshock, Expanding Force, and Future Sight are all great moves with unique properties that I could justify running for completely different reasons, beyond the usual consistency vs power dilemna with other types. IMO the best Psychic-types are the ones that are to viably use all these moves to perform different functions. For example, Iron Crown, despite not being perfect, is one of few Pokemon that largely benefits from it's psychic typing since it can use these moves effectively on a number of sets. Stored power works on cheese agility + CM sets, Future Sight is good on Volt Switch sets, Psyshock is nice on CM sets to break past walls like Clodsire, and expanding force is cool on Psychic Terrain teams, etc. The Psychic moves that Iron Crown chooses to run is pretty pivotal in altering its functionality on a team, as it is rather limited in what its able to do otherwise. Others like Armarouge and Slowking-G are also beneficiaries of the Psychic typing.
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In Gens 1-4 I agree that it would have been better to have HMs just be deletable (along with better measures to prevent softlocks ofc), because any move you delete or decline to learn is either lost forever or requires resources to replace, so there's still an interesting trade-off. From Gen 5 onwards, though, reusable TMs make things awkward. If you can repeatedly delete and replace HMs (and field move TMs) with TM moves, then those field moves are functionally just Key Items with extra steps to use them. When I've played fangames with freely deletable HMs and reusable TMs+free Move Relearner services, navigation becomes this tedious process of learning the field move only when you need to use it and then immediately switching back to the optimal battle moveset.
Of course, as you say, Game Freak never nailed this mechanic despite having generations to come up with something better.
I'm not sure if this is truly unpopular but I have mostly seen the opppsite so here it goes: Zacian and Zamazenta are cool designs (like aesthetically, not in competitive obviously). I'm not objective because legendary wolves were one of the two biggest wanted Pokemon concepts of child me, but still.
I initally thought Zacian carrying a literal sword on its mouth was too ridiculous but the design grew a lot on me after seeing it in-game (there were surely more subtle ways to handle the concept tho). The game even has the two wolves literally flying. Again it's ridiculous but so unapologetic about it I can't help but like it. They also have some incredibly good music themes.
edit: a probably more unpopular one, I like Origin Palkia a lot more than the normal one. I just don't like it's called Origin form to beging with.
I initally thought Zacian carrying a literal sword on its mouth was too ridiculous but the design grew a lot on me after seeing it in-game (there were surely more subtle ways to handle the concept tho). The game even has the two wolves literally flying. Again it's ridiculous but so unapologetic about it I can't help but like it. They also have some incredibly good music themes.
edit: a probably more unpopular one, I like Origin Palkia a lot more than the normal one. I just don't like it's called Origin form to beging with.
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i quite agree with many of the points made about HMs being better than the ride pager and its variants, but i do think the moves being undeletable were already a hard sell in the early gens, let alone now.
maybe field moves should be exactly that - moves for the field, separate from your 4 battle moves, but that you still need to teach to one of your mons and can't be removed. maybe a limit of 1 or 2 field moves per mon? i am just spitballing here
maybe field moves should be exactly that - moves for the field, separate from your 4 battle moves, but that you still need to teach to one of your mons and can't be removed. maybe a limit of 1 or 2 field moves per mon? i am just spitballing here
This is more or less how field moves work in the Monster Hunter Stories games and it works well there most of the time so I wouldn't be opposed to this as a replacement for HMs.
Fly is decently usable in battle, but it has its own issue in that it basically forces you to have a Flying-type (or the occasional non-Flying-type that does learn it) on your team in order to make use of fast-travel… either that, or you have to pull something that can learn it out of your PC every time you want to fly somewhere, which isn’t very, well… fast.
People say this a lot, and fair enough to those who feel that way, but it’s never really resonated with me. I like puzzle-solving, but being obligated to teach a certain move that my Pokémon is going to be stuck with for the duration of the dungeon in order to solve the puzzle doesn’t give me a satisfying feeling of cooperation; it just feels inconvenient.
I would say I get a perfectly sufficient sense of bonding with my own Pokémon by using them in battle as I go through the dungeon. They’re still essential to the player’s progress in that regard; it’s not as if they’re just languishing away in your pocket while you’re carried through the cave or across the ocean by a rental.
On top of that, part of the reason why I don’t feel that sense of connection is also because the presentation with HMs has always been pretty lacking — ironically, it wasn’t until the Ride Pager that you actually saw the specific Pokémon performing the task. Like, when you use Strength, you get a quick glance at your Pokémon’s sprite, but then it’s you who’s kicking the boulder around. With Machamp Shove, you see the Machamp helping you and putting in the work. With Surf and Fly, it’s just a generic sprite. Nothing to differentiate from a random Lapras or bird Pokémon that could have just been sent to you via something like the Pager. Cut, Rock Smash, Defog, etc.? Just that quick glance at the sprite, then the HM action is applied. No real action on the part of your Pokémon.
Plus… I think the existence and commonality of HM slaves says something about how strong of a bond players typically build with their Pokémon on the basis of HMs. Are they really feeling closer to that random Lv5 Zigzagoon that they’re just dragging around in order to get through a cave and putting no other investment into? Do they feel like that’s a satisfying way to solve puzzles in coordination with their Pokémon?
I think Hugin covered my thoughts on this fairly comprehensively. I think moves having field effects is cool and a nice way to add dimension to certain moves, but when those kinds of moves are required for progression, it turns into a headache.
Yeah that's fair; it's definitely a little impersonal. I imagine having more unique sprites would've meant drastically reducing the number of Pokemon that could learn these HMs (which would make them feel even worse as an RPG element) and, in the case of Strength, limiting the design space for puzzles because of the extra space taken up by a second sprite.
Speaking of which, I think it's interesting to name Machamp Shove specifically after mentioning your enjoyment of puzzles earlier in the post, because I think Machamp Shove was a terrible sendoff to boulder puzzles. The only ones I can remember from SMUSUM are super boring, and part of the reason why is because they have to accommodate the size and movement of the Machamp sprite. It was a massive letdown for me after Gen 6 and especially Gen 5 had some great Strength puzzles despite changing their basic mechanics significantly from earlier games.
You might think I'm just being contrary, but my answer to these questions is unironically 'yes'
Zigzagoon is an interesting reference point. Because in RSE, the optimal HM user until the latter water routes is Linoone. Strength, Rock Smash, Cut, Thief, Pickup(maybe Surf). And because it needs to be lvl 20 for Strength, you should catch a Zigzagoon early and actually use it for route-clearing purposes until it evolves, and probably keep using it for a while after that(In E, Pickup gets better with levelup, Thief is extremely useful against bosses, and in the midgame base-80 STAB and 100 speed is nothing to sneeze at). So the HM user you're taking through Victory Road may well be a lvl 32 Linoone that carried you against Wattson and stole Flannery's White Herb. And sure he's fallen off, can't battle anymore, but he's still fulfilling a key team function. That's an excellent story.
It's just that in most games, the end result is far less interesting.
HMs are kind of nice, until you remember that you hardly ever actually want them on your mons.
BDSP was the closest to a solution in my book, but I understand where the "Your Pokémon helping you" crowd comes from.
Also, Surf and Waterfall being the de facto reliable Water moves caused severe ripple effects (
) on the enemy trainers since that used to mean pretty much no Water-types learned them by level-up.
The field effects are essential though. Pokémon's map designs weren't exactly great to begin with, but it really went downhill in the later games without physical obstacles to traverse.
BDSP was the closest to a solution in my book, but I understand where the "Your Pokémon helping you" crowd comes from.
Also, Surf and Waterfall being the de facto reliable Water moves caused severe ripple effects (
) on the enemy trainers since that used to mean pretty much no Water-types learned them by level-up.The field effects are essential though. Pokémon's map designs weren't exactly great to begin with, but it really went downhill in the later games without physical obstacles to traverse.
BDSP's HM implementation felt so bad to me and I'm not entirely sure why.
Letting you use field moves after a certain point in the game is standard HM implementation, so that was fine. I think it's partially that they felt just like a waste of time with the animation of a random Bibarel popping up every time you needed to break a rock. Game, I don't know or care about this Pokémon, you don't need to show it to me. Maybe it's just because it's a change that only existed to correct a complaint about the original game (or to make it feel more in line with how Gen 7 handled HMs, though I didn't mind Gen 7).
I guess I also felt that BDSP's overworld just felt really bad in general with how it allowed full movement across the map but was still designed with the originals' grid design as a base. Maybe it compounded with that.
Letting you use field moves after a certain point in the game is standard HM implementation, so that was fine. I think it's partially that they felt just like a waste of time with the animation of a random Bibarel popping up every time you needed to break a rock. Game, I don't know or care about this Pokémon, you don't need to show it to me. Maybe it's just because it's a change that only existed to correct a complaint about the original game (or to make it feel more in line with how Gen 7 handled HMs, though I didn't mind Gen 7).
I guess I also felt that BDSP's overworld just felt really bad in general with how it allowed full movement across the map but was still designed with the originals' grid design as a base. Maybe it compounded with that.
So, Rock Smash rocks exist in the game for 2 reasons. They're not puzzles or anything else, Rock Smash is just a check for "Have you progressed far enough in the game to get past this point" and "Have you devoted 1/24 moveslots to Rock Smash"*. And the latter effect is designed to make your team worse. You're exploring with a bit of a handicap, which especially in deep dungeons where you could theoretically run low on HP/PP/items/etc, matters a lot.
BDSP doesn't do that. Which, fine, that's a choice. But that means that MOST of the smashable rocks in the original game are now useless. If you're in an area past when Rock Smash unlocks, you clearly have the move, so why are they making you check again? With the exception of literally inside Oreburgh Gate, every single Rock Smash rock in BDSP serves no purpose.
*Which is my least-favorite field move effect. Cut, Whirlpool, Rock Smash, all are basically the same field effect and are all terrible.
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Rock Smash and Cut have always been the worst field moves by a mile. Cut is thoroughly useless beyond being a check no matter how you slice it.
The problem is simple. As moves, they're pretty much garbage, so you know you're essentially burning a moveslot, or worse, a team slot on route-clearing. Neither is desirable. BDSP limits it to the field moves, but that makes the bigger issue stand out a bit more.
Take a look at this Cut puzzle
So, which tree should you cut? The answer is that it doesn't matter. As long as you have Cut, you can just unga bunga through it.
There are no downsides to removing these obstacles.
That's why Cut is inherently a bad field move. It has no puzzle value whatsoever. With Rock Smash, you can get a bit more creative with environmental puzzles, even though the field effect itself is as plain as Cut's. There is never a reason to think when encountering a Cut tree. Just chop it and move on.
Some field effects have either exploration or puzzle value, but Cut has neither. It's a minor speed bump once the ability to dispatch trees is acquired and little more than a roadblock before that.
And that's why I said Pokémon's map designs were never anything special to begin with. Yet, they've gotten significantly worse after the removal of the few moves that worked as legit roadblocks to exploration.
SV kind of attempts to remedy this, but honestly, there isn't a lot locked behind its roadblocks to make it worth mentioning. Thanks, "open" world.
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I feel like the obvious solution to all this which Game Freak will probably get around to eventually is free on-demand usage for certain Pokemon to complete certain overworld tasks. So, for example, you can actually fly on the back of designated flying Pokemon like Salamence and Dragonite, or push big boulders with designated "strong" Pokemon like Conkeldurr and Ursaring, all cases like this complete with unique animations for each Pokemon. Like what LGPE did, but more sophisticated and spread to a whole 400-something size main game roster. I'm all but certain that this is a medium-term goal for the company (the Synchro Machine in ID even feels like laying the groundwork for such a thing), it's just a matter of how much longer until the conditions are right to pull it off. The sooner the problems with this series' production pipeline are resolved, the better.
Waterfall is slightly better imo because waterfalls are integrated more naturally into the Pokemon overworld and the idea of scaling one is conceptually much cooler than cutting down a tree, but overall I totally agree.
What's crazy is that it doesn't take much for an HM to not just feel like another Cut reskin. Strength's primary use case is to push a single boulder out of the way to open a path, but the few puzzles you get per game really help make it more interesting. I feel like it'd be super easy to do the same for Cut and Rock Smash
it is very true that half of our HMs are variations on the cut theme (cut, rock-flavoured cut in rock smash, water-flavoured cut in waterfall AND whirlpool, rock climb before LA was basically waterfall on earth). i get that multiple road blocks are useful in the sense of "you can get past A now, but not past B yet", but more context-based roadblocks (mons on the field, events, even badge checls if they don't look as contrived as the trial checkpoints in alola work).
to me, the field moves that should be HMs are:
- fly. it doesn't need to exist as strictly a field move, but the convenience of going back to visited places quick needs to exist for our collective sanity.
- just one of cut or rock smash. probably the latter, you can put rocks just about anywhere.
- one of flash or defog. they really got afraid of that effect as generations went by but it was a fairly effective one imo. i am NOT wasting my time meticulously following the map of the cave online just to not use the HM, and i don't think i am in the minority on that.
- surf. obviously.
- a way to explore the sky and places only accessible by air. i think the way dive works is very good, but they chose the medium with the least roadblocking opportunity - water - for it. even dig as an HM would have more potential than dive, but a sky version would patch a lack of very basic trait of rpg map design - keeping things above our heads until We Are Ready. it could also just be modern rock climbing, but i am not as much of a fan.
- strength. boulder puzzles can be basic but that's more on the games being geared towards kids than the mechanic itself being bad.
- dowsing machine effect. it is in most games to find items, but you could very easily hide progress triggers behind it, too (requiring the use of the move, of course). it's different from cut variants because the trigger can be separated from the path it's unblocking. it could very easily be a psychic move in battle, if having them usable in battle is the choice.
and here you go, this is at least seven HMs already without even exploring brand new ideas.
to me, the field moves that should be HMs are:
- fly. it doesn't need to exist as strictly a field move, but the convenience of going back to visited places quick needs to exist for our collective sanity.
- just one of cut or rock smash. probably the latter, you can put rocks just about anywhere.
- one of flash or defog. they really got afraid of that effect as generations went by but it was a fairly effective one imo. i am NOT wasting my time meticulously following the map of the cave online just to not use the HM, and i don't think i am in the minority on that.
- surf. obviously.
- a way to explore the sky and places only accessible by air. i think the way dive works is very good, but they chose the medium with the least roadblocking opportunity - water - for it. even dig as an HM would have more potential than dive, but a sky version would patch a lack of very basic trait of rpg map design - keeping things above our heads until We Are Ready. it could also just be modern rock climbing, but i am not as much of a fan.
- strength. boulder puzzles can be basic but that's more on the games being geared towards kids than the mechanic itself being bad.
- dowsing machine effect. it is in most games to find items, but you could very easily hide progress triggers behind it, too (requiring the use of the move, of course). it's different from cut variants because the trigger can be separated from the path it's unblocking. it could very easily be a psychic move in battle, if having them usable in battle is the choice.
and here you go, this is at least seven HMs already without even exploring brand new ideas.
I'm not getting the hate on Waterfall, even though it's been historically unimpressive.
Waterfall and Rock Climb allow for layered exploration, which not only makes the world more interesting but also serves multiple purposes in map design.
Waterfall and Rock Climb allow for layered exploration, which not only makes the world more interesting but also serves multiple purposes in map design.
Oops, brain fart. I meant Whirlpool, the HM move that is so bad it only ever appeared in a single Region.
Waterfall I dislike, but only because they have ignored the best option with it. Let players go down Waterfalls without the move, and climb them with the move. Then you can use Waterfalls like Ledges in the early game, and the player can go up/over them later in the game. That would make for all sorts of fun/interesting map design decisions. I'd also make Rock Climb work the same way with actual ledges. It's not a lot, but Cobalt Empoleon is right, it doesn't take much to make them feel like an interesting part of the game.
I'm pretty sure it used to work like this.