I get that this doesn't really make sense, but I tend to find the Gens 5-7 approach a little immersion-breaking, like oh so these four trainers independently ended up with rosters of Pokemon all at the exact same levels? Somehow it makes the Pokemon League feel more sterile to me, idk. I have no issue with the Elite Four all being equally strong with no fixed order, but the relative levels within a team can be a fun tool for expressing personality (e.g. Lorelei and her dual aces in RBYFRLG) and yet it's rarely been utilised.
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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
I think it works either way, it just happens to work better in Kanto/Johto because there was already a slight story to tell there. Like, Koga explicitly graduated from being a Gym Leader (but he's apparently still better than Will, probably because he's older and more experienced) and Bruno moved up a rank from where he was three years previous.
It makes sense that the Elite Four would compete against each other though, I liked how in the DP anime we'd see them battling each other occasionally. IIRC Lucian explicitly calls himself the strongest member of Sinnoh's group. Personally Kalos's group makes very little sense to me as a balanced group because Drasna and Wikstrom give the impression of being far more powerful than the two younger ones. For Alola's group, though, they've only just formed so that explains why they're all equal.
Regardless, I don't vibe with the idea that the E4 are carefully managing their team to avoid overtraining any individual team member relative to their peers; I think it's an interesting perspective for Gym Leaders, but outside of Paldea the E4 aren't framed as a stepping stone to greater heights, but as the absolute pinnacle of Pokemon trainers in their region. Again, I have no issue with the idea that they happen to be equally strong overall, just with the precise [X, X, X, X, X+i] level arrangement.
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Personally, my ideal scenario for an E4 challenge is a sort of middle ground between the two; the members can be challenged in any order, but their Pokémon all increase by 1 level for each member defeated. Basically if they start out with levels of, say, (50, 50, 50, 50, 52), then after you defeat the one whichever of the remaining three has levels of (51, 51, 51, 51, 53). It gives the increasing challenge of the linear-order E4s, but less so, and it gives the flexibility of the any-order E4s with less opportunity to steamroll the last member faced.
Though a related thing I’ve had issue with is the tendency to have major teams be “all Pokémon at a certain level except the ace which is two levels higher”. It just feels stale, not to mention unnatural… on that note, my example above could be better as something like (50, 51, 51, 52, 53) and so on.
Though a related thing I’ve had issue with is the tendency to have major teams be “all Pokémon at a certain level except the ace which is two levels higher”. It just feels stale, not to mention unnatural… on that note, my example above could be better as something like (50, 51, 51, 52, 53) and so on.
I like the forced order. It makes for fun storylines when there's an implied ranking in the E4. (In Paldea, Hoenn, Sinnoh, and Johto, the lower-ranked members have types that roughly beat their direct superiors, while in Kanto that's reversed, which can be read as interesting theories about how those particular E4 members are ranked). It also lets the game devs do little stories and interactions within the E4 as you face them, and forces the player to handle things in the expected way.
Personally, I like 5x50+51, then 5x51+52, etc. It makes it so you're never fighting a lower-level mon again, lets them match or outpace your levelups, and just feels clean.
Things that annoy me: The song and dance around Eggs and Baby Mons. Just admit that sex exists. Don't even use the words necessarily, but the whole rigmarole to avoid even implying that sex happens is silly.
Personally, I like 5x50+51, then 5x51+52, etc. It makes it so you're never fighting a lower-level mon again, lets them match or outpace your levelups, and just feels clean.
Things that annoy me: The song and dance around Eggs and Baby Mons. Just admit that sex exists. Don't even use the words necessarily, but the whole rigmarole to avoid even implying that sex happens is silly.
Speaking of Elite 4 members, Glacia's stated strategy in the Pokenav is "using items" yet she doesn't make any more use of items than any of the other Elite 4 members. She's got two Full Restores and a Sitrus Berry on her ace, just like everyone else.
While Eternatus does look worse in S/V it’s not nearly that bad, where did you get that render from?I'd never seen Eternatus in SV before and...
Eugh.
The new texturing makes it look fucking hideous.
Compare it to the SwSh version:
I think Eternatus (and Corviknight) might be the only Pokemon to look worse in SV.
Serebii
Serebii uses the summary renders of the pokemon which have different lighting since most pokemon look better there, Eternatus looks significantly better in the world itself
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Or to force you or someone else to buy SwSh and the 30$ DLC.
Anyway, I was looking at the list of eligible Pokemon foe the 2024 Illustration contest and something that irritates me is that Koraidon is permitted to be drawn but not Miraidon. Like why not? Both are mascots of the latest game, and what I've seen forums, Violet is more popular that Scarlet. Toxtricity has a similar issue, but its not as big as Koraidon vs Miraidon due to those two being version mascots.
I suppose this fits here. The first volume of the Special manga covering Scarlet and Violet has been announced.
I'm not a reader anymore, but it annoys me. Why? Well we are in February 2024. A new main series game will be announced in like a week, and only now is the SV storyline starting. Why is this still happening after B2W2? I don't envy the author at all. It must be hard to try and keep the attention on your product when it isn't the "hot" Pokemon thing anymore. I get it's probably because of the annual releases but surely something can be changed to avoid this stuation. Seeing when the story starts also makes me wonder if the pacing is suffering too, but I don't want to judge something I have not read yet.
I'm not a reader anymore, but it annoys me. Why? Well we are in February 2024. A new main series game will be announced in like a week, and only now is the SV storyline starting. Why is this still happening after B2W2? I don't envy the author at all. It must be hard to try and keep the attention on your product when it isn't the "hot" Pokemon thing anymore. I get it's probably because of the annual releases but surely something can be changed to avoid this stuation. Seeing when the story starts also makes me wonder if the pacing is suffering too, but I don't want to judge something I have not read yet.
To be fair the SV manga started in August...but also I think it's probably for the best that they aren't rushing out a series the moment a new game launches every time.
They skipped Legends Arceus (& BDSP but there's not much a BDSP arc could do, really...) too.
Like Adventure's problems wouldn't get better if they had to contend with every single game, as soon as it came out. Seems fine to just take its time on what's actually out.
It did? I felt like Violet first appeared very recently. Time sure flies by huh
My issue was more the timing than rushing them to be honest. With remakes (maybe?) out of the way I guess it isn't that bad but it just feels like the arc should have started around the new gen release to at least bring more attention to it. But since SWSH apparently went on long enough to have Tinkatink mentioned I guess the schedule is just behind. And August was before The Teal Mask so I stand corrected.
This is the only reasoning I can think for Calyrex not being in the Indigo Disk in any way, and it annoys me a lot because even ignoring competitive avaliability of such an important mon, it also didn't happen before.
The Crown Tundra is also on Switch sure, but when USUM introduced its legendaries it didn't keep the ones from the previous 3DS titles out. You could just own the latest games and have access to them.
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This admittedly might fit better in the unpopular opinions thread, but for the sake of cohesion In going to say this here: I honestly don’t mind the way The Indigo Disk handled the old Legendaries. Sure, it might feel weird to some calling some of the missing ones “old” now, but nonetheless I can understand arguments for why they were removed:
Calyrex’s absence feels deliberate when Glastrier and Spectrier made it in, and may have something to do with the fact that Calyrex-Ice and Calyrex-Shadow were technically the first pay to win Pokémon in the core series in The Crown Tundra. The extremely specific way Game Freak approached these Pokémon allows the Calyrex fusions to be carried over from Pokémon HOME without causing pay-to-win issues with Paldean-native Calyrex for the overall benefit of VGC tournaments. The Reins of Unity being available in single player doesn’t change much when the Paldean-native Calyrex itself would require a DLC purchase anyways and that would be the one that has trading issues when paired with the Key Item.
The only other notable absences here, excluding Sinnoh’s legendaries who are easily explained because of BDSP and Legends, are Xerneas, Yveltal and Zygarde. Starting with the X & Y mascots, this is just a theory but it’s possible that the Fairy Aura and Dark Aura abilities ran into some trouble in the new games when combined with Terastalization. The trouble in question would have to do with the abilities incorrectly providing the Terastalizing STAB boost to Xerneas or Yveltal’s ally as well as itself in Double Battles, since the game currently doesn’t have any way of correctly accounting for the Tera + Fairy/Dark Aura combination’s stack effect only effecting a single Pokémon on the field. This does sound like something that could be patched in if Game Freak wanted to, though. As for Zygarde, Aura Break sets aren’t quite as much of an issue as those two, but there’s also the argument to be made that maybe they just didn’t want to bring Zygarde raids back from The Crown Tundra after we all saw how well that went last time even without Tera Raids.
Edit: I just noticed I haven’t mentioned the Regis yet; while I wouldn’t call them as significant as the above examples, Regigigas already being in both The Crown Tundra and Sinnoh’s games anyways means that there would be little incentive to collect and/or trade up the Regis to Scarlet & Violet again for the sake of finding another wild Regigigas. The Crown Tundra was able to get away with it since it released before these Sinnoh games, and there it arguably helped with finding Regigigas in BDSP as well. Aside from another Regigigas encounter being more redundant than ever before, my only other guess is that they saw what Regieleki (and Regidrago too I suppose) did once Terastalizing became available to them and wanted to avoid that being VGC legal as well.
Calyrex’s absence feels deliberate when Glastrier and Spectrier made it in, and may have something to do with the fact that Calyrex-Ice and Calyrex-Shadow were technically the first pay to win Pokémon in the core series in The Crown Tundra. The extremely specific way Game Freak approached these Pokémon allows the Calyrex fusions to be carried over from Pokémon HOME without causing pay-to-win issues with Paldean-native Calyrex for the overall benefit of VGC tournaments. The Reins of Unity being available in single player doesn’t change much when the Paldean-native Calyrex itself would require a DLC purchase anyways and that would be the one that has trading issues when paired with the Key Item.
The only other notable absences here, excluding Sinnoh’s legendaries who are easily explained because of BDSP and Legends, are Xerneas, Yveltal and Zygarde. Starting with the X & Y mascots, this is just a theory but it’s possible that the Fairy Aura and Dark Aura abilities ran into some trouble in the new games when combined with Terastalization. The trouble in question would have to do with the abilities incorrectly providing the Terastalizing STAB boost to Xerneas or Yveltal’s ally as well as itself in Double Battles, since the game currently doesn’t have any way of correctly accounting for the Tera + Fairy/Dark Aura combination’s stack effect only effecting a single Pokémon on the field. This does sound like something that could be patched in if Game Freak wanted to, though. As for Zygarde, Aura Break sets aren’t quite as much of an issue as those two, but there’s also the argument to be made that maybe they just didn’t want to bring Zygarde raids back from The Crown Tundra after we all saw how well that went last time even without Tera Raids.
Edit: I just noticed I haven’t mentioned the Regis yet; while I wouldn’t call them as significant as the above examples, Regigigas already being in both The Crown Tundra and Sinnoh’s games anyways means that there would be little incentive to collect and/or trade up the Regis to Scarlet & Violet again for the sake of finding another wild Regigigas. The Crown Tundra was able to get away with it since it released before these Sinnoh games, and there it arguably helped with finding Regigigas in BDSP as well. Aside from another Regigigas encounter being more redundant than ever before, my only other guess is that they saw what Regieleki (and Regidrago too I suppose) did once Terastalizing became available to them and wanted to avoid that being VGC legal as well.
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Yeah the way they've handled pokemon availablity in SV is really dumb
The regi, Calyrex, the wolves, Enamorus and the rest of that gang, etc
It's like the moment they set up the moveset refresh they immediately stopped caring about availability of those limited Pokemon.
You could use Regieleki or Urshifu or Enamorus or whoever else in last year's VGC, and all Ranked Series since then.
The regi, Calyrex, the wolves, Enamorus and the rest of that gang, etc
It's like the moment they set up the moveset refresh they immediately stopped caring about availability of those limited Pokemon.
VGC no longer requires Pokemon to be native to the region. Even last year, before the release of the DLC, you could use any of the non-Restricted Legendary Pokemon available.
You could use Regieleki or Urshifu or Enamorus or whoever else in last year's VGC, and all Ranked Series since then.
Was this only a thing in the 3DS games, then? And possibly Sword & Shield too, but let’s face it, I’m pretty sure no one had a clue what the heck was going on once the pandemic started shutting down VGC events. Either way I appreciate the clarification, even if I still don’t mind the changes myself.
The mark-regulation system was implemented in XY and kept through to SWSH; this also applied to most of the online competitions so no pandemic VGC didn't matter that much.
With gen 9, they kept the marks so you can tell where a Pokemon came from but stopped the requirement. My assumption is it was probably pragmatic
Gen 3, 4 & 5 they just plopped them anywhere. Strictly speaking there weren't even wide releases of some of the notable legends; Gen 5 didn't make the box legends regularly available for example (an event or DW here or there).
Gen 6 they implemented the regulation, presumably to get around moveset issues, and because they implemented that but didn't want people to not use the Legendary pokemon they had to release all of them. This kept through Gen 7 & SWSH
But presumably due to a mix of factors (movexit, the wildly different moveset availability in BDSP & LA, wanting people to use their old Pokemon easier than the Battle Ready Mark), they implemented the moveset reset function in Home and now that that's no longer a problem they no longer have obligation to release every thing. Just get them from older games like the old days, easy of accessibility be damned.
I do assume we'll get SOME of them as raid events, the regi really feel designed for it if nothing else, but probably not all of them
e: And the various hisui Pokemon are in this mess too. Pouring one out for Ursaluna, Wyrdeer and an assortment of other regional evolutiosn you cant even properly breed for.
Because they already have the mechanical parts of the cards ready to go, they're just holding a contest to see who gets to have their art on them.
Mechanical Parts ?
The card's mechanics. They're already designed everything about the card, aside from the artwork.
Though they're promos and generally not very good so they could have still just decided to do Koraidon & Miraidon cards to begin with anyway.