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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
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!”
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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...
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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)
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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.
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.
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).
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!
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.
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.
yknow what? screw it
FUCK DPMAKES
FINISH KALOS
RELEASE POKEMON Z
FUCK DPMAKES
FINISH KALOS
RELEASE POKEMON Z
So I came across a thread on Reddit last night, and continuing on the discussion we've all been having lately about the games and difficulty, I finally understand one particular thing about the design behind Pokemon games, and I think this is one crucial thing we're all forgetting with this discussion.
The big thing is that most Pokemon games in general are designed with the intention that players have a constantly rotating party. Especially in recent generations with the massive Pokemon diversity available, the general idea is that you are meant to constantly be rearranging your team as the game goes on and your opponents get stronger, pick up stronger Pokemon that are available later. The intention is that the player should go through every route in the game and catch every Pokemon they are interested in, to overall work out a squad of useful Pokemon, and constantly rearrange and change the team as the game goes on and certain Pokemon start falling off, and stronger Pokemon start becoming available.
Most blatantly, this shows with how Pokemon distribution is in general across the games. Early game Pokemon evolve early, and become strong early on, but as the game goes on, they fall off because they're just not strong enough for the opponents that go on later. The best, strongest Pokemon become available late in the game, and in many cases evolve late and don't reach their potential until late in the game. That's precisely the point. The idea is that you catch both kinds of Pokemon, but use the early game Pokemon for the early segment, then drop them as the power level increases and phase them out of your team in lieu of a stronger Pokemon. Most obvious examples of this are the early bugs: Butterfree/Beedrill, as well as the rodents like Raticate, Watchog, etc. They evolve super early and are strong for the early game, but they will eventually fall off and become obsolete. And later on, Dragon-types like Dragonite are super late-game Pokemon, but are by far among the strongest Pokemon in the game.
I came across a post in the Pokemon that disappointed you thread here by Pikachu315111 about how Boltund, Eldegoss, and Orbeetle in Sword and Shield fell off the map and he eventually booted them as the power level increased. That's precisely the point! These are all early game Pokemon, and they evolve and reach their full power early in the game at early evolution levels, but as the game goes on and the power level increases, you are meant to eventually ditch them once better, stronger Pokemon start becoming available. Meanwhile, on the other hand, a Pokemon like Dragapult is obtained late and doesn't reach its full potential until very late in the game, but is one of the strongest Pokemon out there. This design philosophy was put in place ever since Gen 1, with early route Pokemon like Spearow and the bugs being early bloomers but falling off, until later you get better Pokemon like, say Dodrio and phase them out in lieu of the better Pokemon.
I also came across some posts later like this one that discusses Zebstrika in BW1. BW1 plays the structure I mentioned completely straight. Zebstrika is essentially, putting it in Fire Emblem terminology, the "Jagen" to Galvantula or Eelektross's "Est". Zebstrika is designed as an Electric-type who is obtained early, and compared to many other Gen 5 Pokemon, it evolves relatively early as well. So it becomes very strong and fast early on, and by the point you evolve it, a fast and powerful Pokemon for that point. Meanwhile, Joltik and Tynamo are obtained relatively late, and are exceptionally weak and need a good deal of time until they fully evolve. Tynamo especially, who sucks until it evolves, but Eelektross is a good Pokemon with great offensive stats, a fantastic movepool, and good bulk+Levitate. Zebstrika essentially serves to evolve early and hold you over while you try to raise Joltik or Tynamo, and then once you have Galvantula or Eelektross fully evolved, you can kiss Zebstrika goodbye now that Galv/Eel are fully ready to take over as your main Electric-type.
BW1 gets criticized for having a poor selection of early game Pokemon and leaving all the good Pokemon in the late game, but that's the intention. Every Pokemon was designed with an in-game defined role, and the early game Pokemon barring, say, Drilbur and maybe Stoutland, are designed to be useful early on but to quickly fall off the map in lieu of better Pokemon showing up later, while the late game Pokemon come in, and you are expected not only to catch and raise them, but have them replace and take over the weaker earlier game Pokemon you have now that they're no longer up to snuff.
Now I'm rambling at this point, but you get the gist. The thing we're all missing here is that the intended playstyle I'm describing here is not what most of us do. Codraroll brings up that the challenge for new players is finding out which moves to use at the right time, but that's not all there is to it. The other challenge is also figuring out what Pokemon are good and what Pokemon are not, or at least which Pokemon will be useful in the long term. We don't need to do that, because us veteran players have the advantage of knowing every Pokemon's base stats, movepools, and abilities, and even if we don't, we have Bulbapedia and Serebii at our fingertips and we can look it up beforehand: we know what base stats are, we know what moves are good and what aren't good moves, and vice versa. So all of us just play the game by meticulously planning a fixed team of 6, handpicking the best Pokemon of the lot, and steamrolling the game with ease by handpicking the best Pokemon of the lot, which we know beforehand by looking up their stats and movepools.
A new player isn't going to do this. Without prior knowledge of Pokemon games, they aren't going to plan a team beforehand. Ideally, a new player would come into the game blind, start catching Pokemon and experimenting with them in each route as the game goes on, and keep doing so throughout the game even late in the game, and replace and phase out Pokemon as they start falling off and failing to match up to the power level of the opponents. Think of it akin to, say, the Persona games, where you start off with a few low level Personas, but as the game's power level goes up, you fuse your weaker Personas to develop stronger ones. That's kind of a particular RPG design, but it's also a general kind of design many games go through: the early game "gear" is effectively mediocre at best, but it's serviceable for the power level early on, but weak for the later power level and you are expected to "upgrade" and advance your gear to a stronger inventory to tackle tougher opponents. The items in Pokemon games already do this, as Poke Balls and Potions already have a chain that upgrades to stronger variants, such as Great Ball+Super Potion becoming available a bit later in the game, and even later you get the Ultra Ball+Hyper Potion. It's a natural progression that games are built on.
In fact, I've seen quite a few posts where people have said they found Pokemon games more fun/interesting when they used more than six Pokemon throughout the game and rotated. Especially with a game like XY or even Sword and Shield. This leads me to even more firmly believe that the idea of a party that constantly rotates its Pokemon is how the developers want people to play. Ideally, the only Pokemon that will likely be a permanent team member on your team is your starter: that Pokemon is designed to stay with you from beginning to end. But everything else is designed with a rotational role: catch it, use it until it falls off, and eventually rotate it out in lieu of something stronger, while the late game Pokemon will be obtained late, but they will stay with you up to the endgame as stronger options. That is precisely how the games were designed, and this is likely how a new kid would go into the games. Heck, I'm sure most of us when we were younger never planned our teams and just rolled with whatever we thought was cool and kept catching Pokemon we liked and experimenting with them. I'm sure the new kids of today would do that too.
TL;DR Pokemon games, key thing to remember, is that they are meant to be played with a dynamic and rotating party. Keep catching and experimenting with Pokemon, phasing them out as they fall off, and rinse and repeat. This is a big reason why early game Pokemon evolve early but become weak and subpar later on, while late game Pokemon are better but reach their potential later. Part of the challenge for new kids is that they don't know which Pokemon are good and which aren't: the charm for them is to keep meeting new Pokemon and catching them and playing with them until they lose their luster and then phase them out with another Pokemon they meet later on. Of course, us veteran players know everything about each Pokemon, and know what makes a good Pokemon, so we don't play like this: we can look everything up on Bulbapedia/Serebii and use our knowledge of the inherent Pokemon mechanics to meticulously plan a team consisting of the best of the best and handpick a fixed team of six consisting of the best and most effective Pokemon to use throughout the game, which is another key factor in what makes the games "easy" for veterans.
The big thing is that most Pokemon games in general are designed with the intention that players have a constantly rotating party. Especially in recent generations with the massive Pokemon diversity available, the general idea is that you are meant to constantly be rearranging your team as the game goes on and your opponents get stronger, pick up stronger Pokemon that are available later. The intention is that the player should go through every route in the game and catch every Pokemon they are interested in, to overall work out a squad of useful Pokemon, and constantly rearrange and change the team as the game goes on and certain Pokemon start falling off, and stronger Pokemon start becoming available.
Most blatantly, this shows with how Pokemon distribution is in general across the games. Early game Pokemon evolve early, and become strong early on, but as the game goes on, they fall off because they're just not strong enough for the opponents that go on later. The best, strongest Pokemon become available late in the game, and in many cases evolve late and don't reach their potential until late in the game. That's precisely the point. The idea is that you catch both kinds of Pokemon, but use the early game Pokemon for the early segment, then drop them as the power level increases and phase them out of your team in lieu of a stronger Pokemon. Most obvious examples of this are the early bugs: Butterfree/Beedrill, as well as the rodents like Raticate, Watchog, etc. They evolve super early and are strong for the early game, but they will eventually fall off and become obsolete. And later on, Dragon-types like Dragonite are super late-game Pokemon, but are by far among the strongest Pokemon in the game.
I came across a post in the Pokemon that disappointed you thread here by Pikachu315111 about how Boltund, Eldegoss, and Orbeetle in Sword and Shield fell off the map and he eventually booted them as the power level increased. That's precisely the point! These are all early game Pokemon, and they evolve and reach their full power early in the game at early evolution levels, but as the game goes on and the power level increases, you are meant to eventually ditch them once better, stronger Pokemon start becoming available. Meanwhile, on the other hand, a Pokemon like Dragapult is obtained late and doesn't reach its full potential until very late in the game, but is one of the strongest Pokemon out there. This design philosophy was put in place ever since Gen 1, with early route Pokemon like Spearow and the bugs being early bloomers but falling off, until later you get better Pokemon like, say Dodrio and phase them out in lieu of the better Pokemon.
I also came across some posts later like this one that discusses Zebstrika in BW1. BW1 plays the structure I mentioned completely straight. Zebstrika is essentially, putting it in Fire Emblem terminology, the "Jagen" to Galvantula or Eelektross's "Est". Zebstrika is designed as an Electric-type who is obtained early, and compared to many other Gen 5 Pokemon, it evolves relatively early as well. So it becomes very strong and fast early on, and by the point you evolve it, a fast and powerful Pokemon for that point. Meanwhile, Joltik and Tynamo are obtained relatively late, and are exceptionally weak and need a good deal of time until they fully evolve. Tynamo especially, who sucks until it evolves, but Eelektross is a good Pokemon with great offensive stats, a fantastic movepool, and good bulk+Levitate. Zebstrika essentially serves to evolve early and hold you over while you try to raise Joltik or Tynamo, and then once you have Galvantula or Eelektross fully evolved, you can kiss Zebstrika goodbye now that Galv/Eel are fully ready to take over as your main Electric-type.
BW1 gets criticized for having a poor selection of early game Pokemon and leaving all the good Pokemon in the late game, but that's the intention. Every Pokemon was designed with an in-game defined role, and the early game Pokemon barring, say, Drilbur and maybe Stoutland, are designed to be useful early on but to quickly fall off the map in lieu of better Pokemon showing up later, while the late game Pokemon come in, and you are expected not only to catch and raise them, but have them replace and take over the weaker earlier game Pokemon you have now that they're no longer up to snuff.
Now I'm rambling at this point, but you get the gist. The thing we're all missing here is that the intended playstyle I'm describing here is not what most of us do. Codraroll brings up that the challenge for new players is finding out which moves to use at the right time, but that's not all there is to it. The other challenge is also figuring out what Pokemon are good and what Pokemon are not, or at least which Pokemon will be useful in the long term. We don't need to do that, because us veteran players have the advantage of knowing every Pokemon's base stats, movepools, and abilities, and even if we don't, we have Bulbapedia and Serebii at our fingertips and we can look it up beforehand: we know what base stats are, we know what moves are good and what aren't good moves, and vice versa. So all of us just play the game by meticulously planning a fixed team of 6, handpicking the best Pokemon of the lot, and steamrolling the game with ease by handpicking the best Pokemon of the lot, which we know beforehand by looking up their stats and movepools.
A new player isn't going to do this. Without prior knowledge of Pokemon games, they aren't going to plan a team beforehand. Ideally, a new player would come into the game blind, start catching Pokemon and experimenting with them in each route as the game goes on, and keep doing so throughout the game even late in the game, and replace and phase out Pokemon as they start falling off and failing to match up to the power level of the opponents. Think of it akin to, say, the Persona games, where you start off with a few low level Personas, but as the game's power level goes up, you fuse your weaker Personas to develop stronger ones. That's kind of a particular RPG design, but it's also a general kind of design many games go through: the early game "gear" is effectively mediocre at best, but it's serviceable for the power level early on, but weak for the later power level and you are expected to "upgrade" and advance your gear to a stronger inventory to tackle tougher opponents. The items in Pokemon games already do this, as Poke Balls and Potions already have a chain that upgrades to stronger variants, such as Great Ball+Super Potion becoming available a bit later in the game, and even later you get the Ultra Ball+Hyper Potion. It's a natural progression that games are built on.
In fact, I've seen quite a few posts where people have said they found Pokemon games more fun/interesting when they used more than six Pokemon throughout the game and rotated. Especially with a game like XY or even Sword and Shield. This leads me to even more firmly believe that the idea of a party that constantly rotates its Pokemon is how the developers want people to play. Ideally, the only Pokemon that will likely be a permanent team member on your team is your starter: that Pokemon is designed to stay with you from beginning to end. But everything else is designed with a rotational role: catch it, use it until it falls off, and eventually rotate it out in lieu of something stronger, while the late game Pokemon will be obtained late, but they will stay with you up to the endgame as stronger options. That is precisely how the games were designed, and this is likely how a new kid would go into the games. Heck, I'm sure most of us when we were younger never planned our teams and just rolled with whatever we thought was cool and kept catching Pokemon we liked and experimenting with them. I'm sure the new kids of today would do that too.
TL;DR Pokemon games, key thing to remember, is that they are meant to be played with a dynamic and rotating party. Keep catching and experimenting with Pokemon, phasing them out as they fall off, and rinse and repeat. This is a big reason why early game Pokemon evolve early but become weak and subpar later on, while late game Pokemon are better but reach their potential later. Part of the challenge for new kids is that they don't know which Pokemon are good and which aren't: the charm for them is to keep meeting new Pokemon and catching them and playing with them until they lose their luster and then phase them out with another Pokemon they meet later on. Of course, us veteran players know everything about each Pokemon, and know what makes a good Pokemon, so we don't play like this: we can look everything up on Bulbapedia/Serebii and use our knowledge of the inherent Pokemon mechanics to meticulously plan a team consisting of the best of the best and handpick a fixed team of six consisting of the best and most effective Pokemon to use throughout the game, which is another key factor in what makes the games "easy" for veterans.
I think that there's a very large wrench in that plan, that results in "teams" made with no prior knowledge being even more static and restrictive than a planned set of 6. Starters are pretty good throughout ingame, and a player always has them in their first few battles. An intended lesson of "pokemon fall off and can be rotated out" is replaced with "The Starter is the only good mon that can be found." Sure, once the later-game hits wild pokemon will start being good, but by then a naive stat comparison will show the starter (almost certainly with full but unoptimized EVs, and a solid level lead if they've been always active) still ahead. It can take obvious special cases like legendaries to get through that, and because they're shown as special, it doesn't teach players that good mons exist in the grass.
But maybe that's just my experience, since I've had at least one planned member ever since I stopped trying to brute-force with my starter. I probably would not have experimented with gen 5's later mons if I hadn't committed to getting Drilbur before buying the game and realized that it puts in work.
There's no best example than Pidgey, Spearow and Doduo in the Kanto games. The former two are available right in the start but Doduo only appears mid-late in the adventure, and is clearly the superior option in terms of power and movepool. You wish to change your staying team member and start with a newly caught Doduo with little exp (and DV points), that option depends on you.
There are some fangames which are designed with that same philosophy. Games like Reborn and Rejuvenation have TRASH early mons but considering how brutal some bosses can be, you gotta use what you have access at the moment (I don't know how I reached this far with my usual 6 team approach). Also there's a level cap which pretty much punishes you for focusing on one mon, so it encourages you to share exp between rotating mons.
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It seems like in the wake of SWSH the biggest, newest narrative that has emerged to explain the """""franchise downfall""""" (I don't actually believe the series is in a prolonged period of decline but bare with me) is that Game Freak doesn't have enough development time anymore to make complete, polished games, that the generation lifespans they've been granted to make new ones are insufficient.
After doing just a cursory glance at SWSH's development history and the time given for some other games, I massively dispute this claim.
"Originally teased at E3 2017 and announced in February 2019, Pokémon Sword and Shield were released in November 2019.
Sword and Shield's concept planning began immediately following the completion of Pokémon Sun and Moon in 2016, while full production began a year later in September 2017." -Wikipedia
Basically, SWSH had 3 years of development if you include pre-production, 2 years if you exclude it. Again, people say this is too little, but is it really? Because as far as I can tell by looking at other big Switch releases, this is seems more or less industry standard. Let's start with the 3 year timespan.
-While it's a little fuzzy, Super Mario Odyssey seems to have started development around late 2013/early 2014 giving it a roughly 4 year cycle. That's more than SWSH, but not an immense difference, especially considering how Odyssey went back to the far more glamorous, open and generally more labor-intensive style of games like Galaxy.
-Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's intial dev cycle began in early 2016, giving it a cycle of 2.5 years, less than SWSH.
-Perhaps the most striking and genre-specific comparison I can find, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 started development in 2014 too (admittedly the only source I can find on this is Wikipedia with no citation note, so it might be a wee shaky), in which case it has basically the same timeframe as SWSH and wins the honor for the shortest dev time of any of the Xenoblade games
Now, to be fair, none of these explicitly state whether they include pre-production or not, so let's be extra cynical and go down to the 2 year timeframe. It's definitely a lot tighter, but not completely unheard of; examples of well-made games with such a window include Sonic Unleashed and Splatoon 2.
So, if not dev time, why did SWSH turn out in the questionably polished state it did? Simply put, I think the main culprit is just plain old hardware inexperience. Really when you think about it during the 2010s GF has had to make not one, but two massive unprecedented hardware leaps (2d to 3d, then handheld to HD console), something they've never really been faced with before. With that in mind unless Nintendo's next console is some 8K 500 FPS hyper-realistic monstrosity I highly doubt they'll be forced to make another big leap like that for a long time, so yay.
After doing just a cursory glance at SWSH's development history and the time given for some other games, I massively dispute this claim.
"Originally teased at E3 2017 and announced in February 2019, Pokémon Sword and Shield were released in November 2019.
Sword and Shield's concept planning began immediately following the completion of Pokémon Sun and Moon in 2016, while full production began a year later in September 2017." -Wikipedia
Basically, SWSH had 3 years of development if you include pre-production, 2 years if you exclude it. Again, people say this is too little, but is it really? Because as far as I can tell by looking at other big Switch releases, this is seems more or less industry standard. Let's start with the 3 year timespan.
-While it's a little fuzzy, Super Mario Odyssey seems to have started development around late 2013/early 2014 giving it a roughly 4 year cycle. That's more than SWSH, but not an immense difference, especially considering how Odyssey went back to the far more glamorous, open and generally more labor-intensive style of games like Galaxy.
-Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's intial dev cycle began in early 2016, giving it a cycle of 2.5 years, less than SWSH.
-Perhaps the most striking and genre-specific comparison I can find, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 started development in 2014 too (admittedly the only source I can find on this is Wikipedia with no citation note, so it might be a wee shaky), in which case it has basically the same timeframe as SWSH and wins the honor for the shortest dev time of any of the Xenoblade games
Now, to be fair, none of these explicitly state whether they include pre-production or not, so let's be extra cynical and go down to the 2 year timeframe. It's definitely a lot tighter, but not completely unheard of; examples of well-made games with such a window include Sonic Unleashed and Splatoon 2.
So, if not dev time, why did SWSH turn out in the questionably polished state it did? Simply put, I think the main culprit is just plain old hardware inexperience. Really when you think about it during the 2010s GF has had to make not one, but two massive unprecedented hardware leaps (2d to 3d, then handheld to HD console), something they've never really been faced with before. With that in mind unless Nintendo's next console is some 8K 500 FPS hyper-realistic monstrosity I highly doubt they'll be forced to make another big leap like that for a long time, so yay.
I don't see a particularly strong distinction between not giving sufficient development time to polish a game and not being experienced with the hardware. Aside from resigning yourself to the fact that a game produced on a new gen console will always be unpolished, the only way to get experience with the hardware other than releasing mediocre games to understand it better (oh hey look it's Little Town Hero) would be... to give more time to familiarize the team with the hardware, right?
GF historically has shown to be pretty bad in making the jump
Even OG Pokemon RGB, they were pretty terrible in utilizing the console
GSC dev was them scrambling by until they suddenly got help in optimizing from Iwata. But it still horribly hurt the sizes of Johto and Kanto due to it happening too late
Gen 3 there was no reason to stick to rigid 4 grid movement and shaped tiles. Yet it did, and due to not utilizing palettes properly, the palettes were rigid and prevented proper Day Cight cycles, in addition to archaic text prompts slowing, slow HP drain, and lack of stat modifier indicators
Gen 4 was another chance at full movement and overhaul for battle speed, but they chose to jump into 3D tile design that was...mostly underutilized outside Plat Distortion world. Even Gen 5 didn't really fix that, and 4 was slower than 3 overall ironically
6 and 7 ran like hell on old 3DS. Even for how high poly the mon models were, there's no way they should lag in a mostly empty battle scene. Pokedex 3D pro had even higher poly models, and ran better
So SWSH suffering...we need to admit first that older games are guilty of many of its environment flaws for archaic graphics
Even OG Pokemon RGB, they were pretty terrible in utilizing the console
GSC dev was them scrambling by until they suddenly got help in optimizing from Iwata. But it still horribly hurt the sizes of Johto and Kanto due to it happening too late
Gen 3 there was no reason to stick to rigid 4 grid movement and shaped tiles. Yet it did, and due to not utilizing palettes properly, the palettes were rigid and prevented proper Day Cight cycles, in addition to archaic text prompts slowing, slow HP drain, and lack of stat modifier indicators
Gen 4 was another chance at full movement and overhaul for battle speed, but they chose to jump into 3D tile design that was...mostly underutilized outside Plat Distortion world. Even Gen 5 didn't really fix that, and 4 was slower than 3 overall ironically
6 and 7 ran like hell on old 3DS. Even for how high poly the mon models were, there's no way they should lag in a mostly empty battle scene. Pokedex 3D pro had even higher poly models, and ran better
So SWSH suffering...we need to admit first that older games are guilty of many of its environment flaws for archaic graphics
Codraroll had mentioned in a previous post that it feels like to the people doing planning and art development got much more time than the people who was in charge of 3D modeling. It’s probably safe to say while they had roughly similar time to those other games, the people in charge the planning had more time than those implementing the artwork in-game, which explains the rushed element.
I've always considered realistic the issue with hardware inexperience.
As Sonikku A stated, GF already shown they are... bad when it comes to hardware transitions. And it doesn't help that over the years they have been carrying around a ridicolous amount of legacy code (see, how battles actually work behind the scenes being the same or almost the same for.. how many gens again?)
I do still wonder how the "next games" will pan out though. This time they had waaaay more time to learn the hardware's quirks, and honestly even going from base game to Armor and then Tundra shown they have learned a few tricks here and there and improved the quality of their work.
And they are now basically in Nintendo's HQ, meaning they can actually access support from their designers, well, assuming they'd actually be willing to ask for it.