Unpopular opinions

[Yung Dramps]

I sort of touched on this in my original post but I really do think the central appeal of PMD that has kept it alive in the fandom consciousness for all these years is it being a setting where the Pokemon themselves are characters who talk and run society completely independent of human intervention. Hence the PMD fandom's main collective pastime being fanfiction: You can mine that central premise endlessly for effects comedic and dramatic alike, and the possibilities keep growing alongside the roster. The main reason why people request PMD 5 to begin with is to get fun characterizations for Pokemon from Alola onward. Perhaps a grumpy old martial arts master Drampa, or the Ultra Beasts as a recurring antagonist faction akin to Organization XIII, or a rescue team consisting of all 3 Meowth variants who share a close brotherly bond.

It's frankly shocking to me this idea hasn't really been officially explored outside the confines of this subseries and Pokepark. Where's the Animal Crossing-style life simulator, or even a different type of RPG with a lot more settlements to show off creative worldbuilding?

 

[ant4456]

I sort of touched on this in my original post but I really do think the central appeal of PMD that has kept it alive in the fandom consciousness for all these years is it being a setting where the Pokemon themselves are characters who talk and run society completely independent of human intervention. Hence the PMD fandom's main collective pastime being fanfiction: You can mine that central premise endlessly for effects comedic and dramatic alike, and the possibilities keep growing alongside the roster. The main reason why people request PMD 5 to begin with is to get fun characterizations for Pokemon from Alola onward. Perhaps a grumpy old martial arts master Drampa, or the Ultra Beasts as a recurring antagonist faction akin to Organization XIII, or a rescue team consisting of all 3 Meowth variants who share a close brotherly bond.

It's frankly shocking to me this idea hasn't really been officially explored outside the confines of this subseries and Pokepark. Where's the Animal Crossing-style life simulator, or even a different type of RPG with a lot more settlements to show off creative worldbuilding?

IMO a Pokemon Animal Crossing game would be peak. Not as a spinoff though, a mainline title! Like, you plant flowers which get certain Pokemon to come by, fish at different seasons for different Pokemon species. A carnival comes in town as a traveling Pokemon League. You form rivalries dynamically with the people around town!

It also could have Pokemon training be a more gradual process. You will love your Garchomp all the more when you put in some actual dedication to get it, and you will cherish it.

Would it be a competitive/action masterpiece? No, but it would make collecting and training feel more rewarding and dynamic imo. And with random traits for towns, it could truly accomplish Satoshi Tajiri's dream, and original plan of having the Pokemon have 65,000 randomized versions to incentivize trading a lot.

 

[Ironmage]

Honestly, I'm just sad at this point. I feel dependant on remakes for something to even vaguely get excited for since I can no longer trust any sequel to have why I was interested in the first place. More than PMD, More than Pokemon as a whole, I feel anchored to the past because I can't see myself in the future.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Sorry if catching in on some discussion late... and no, I don't really have anything to contribute to the current PMD discussion, sorry :

I'm not convinced Mewtwo should be/should have been considered "strong enough to not need a Mega" since it should be compared to boxart legends and they often have Abilities they can make better use of while maintaining similar BST to base Mewtwo.

I think this goes back to the issue of all Mega getting +100 BST. There should be no issue with any Pokemon considered fully evolved getting a Mega, though there are some Pokemon where they need +100 BST, some which need a bit more, and some that can do with a bit less (but that's still not a biggie as they can make up for it with better Typing, stat re-distribution, and Ability). Say Pokemon with 670+ BST only get +50. Here's how they could have made the Mega Mewtwo less stat strong but still battle powerful:

Normal (Psychic): 106/110/90/154/90/130//680 / Ability: Pressure
Mega Y (Psychic): 106/90/100/174/110/140//720 / Ability: Magic Bounce
Mega X (Psychic/Fighting): 106/174/120/90/110/110//720 / Ability: Moxie

I'd like to ask something in the wake of all the videos I've seen talking about future Legends games: can we stop trying to assign Pokemon to these games who don't deserve to be? What, just because the first Legends game did it means Celebi and Kyurem need games named after them as well?

(...) And as far as I'm aware, there's no mention anywhere of Kyurem being the original dragon itself; only that it's the husk left over from when the original dragon split into Reshiram and Zekrom. In that sense, it isn't any more the original than a Shedinja is a Nincada.

You have a point with Celebi, there's really no major lore surrounding Celebi and the Johto region. If any Legendary was going to be assigned the Legends Johto game it would likely be Ho-Oh.

But for Kyurem. REALLY? Comparing its importance is equivalent to Shedinja because it's the leftover body of the Original Dragon (presumably)? If the point of Legends games was to look into the history of, or at least the name of their title, an important Legendary to that region, YES, Kyurem would be the Unova Legends. As far as we know, the Original Dragon goes by the name Kyurem & major plot points in the Gen V games involve either Kyurem or the dragons which split from it. Naturally, the Unova Legends game would cover the time of the two princes and their civil war to claim the crown.

Lets be real though the next one should be Legends: Guyana

Honestly, if they do make another Legends game, it may just be better to stick away from naming a specific Pokemon and focus on a central theme of the game.

I'm having the same thoughts with the less likely future Let's Go games; Pikachu and Eevee were easy mascot they could do some creative stuff with. Trying to re-create that with other generations I don't feel will work as well. If they want to do that, might as well make the next Let's Go game take place in a unique region so they can pick or even create the mascot duo. Otherwise, if they base a Let's Go game on an old region, unless they do make new Pokemon, may be better to instead focus on a new mechanic.

Remember when everyone expected a Let's Go: Johto, and it never happened, because like Legends: Arceus it was just a experiment and GameFreaks never gives followup to their experiments?

Good point, maybe "Let's Go" and "Legends" aren't their own spinoff series but are rather part of a grander "Main Spinoff" series. Now if they get a sequel in the future, well, great, but honestly GF is more likely to want to do a new idea that they feel is more fitting to the older region they want to revisit. Maybe one day one of these games will finally let us play as a member of the villain team.

Unova isn't necessarily unsuited to one but there's no guarantee that the Unova revisit down the line will be a Legends game. For all we know it could actually be a Black 3 and White 3. Especially considering one of Gen 5's gimmicks is that its follow up game was not a third version or DLC, but rather a sequel story, as Black 2 and White 2, a third game to round it off as a trilogy would be a move I could imagine them doing. Which is to say, you never know what might happen.

Don't play with my emotions.

Now I want "anti-Legends" games: taking Galar or Paldea and reimagining them back into the older map style I prefer.

AKA a Demake. Hey, you joke, but Dragon Quest XI Definitive Edition came with a mode that lets you play them like they were the older games. Surely if Square is able to do that than GameFreak can.

Must we always do this? Someone slanders XY and I have to return to set things right.

Fine, lets settle this now:

Was XY good games? Yes.

Were XY the best Pokemon games? Depends on who you ask. If you liked the direction Gen V had with a more story heavy angle, no, XY is gonna disappoint you on that end. If you didn't like Gen V's story focus and just want a basic Pokemon game with a lot of bells & whistles to try out, than you'll very much like XY. Back when it was released XY was also praised for making the 3D jump that Gen V was criticized not doing. Of course nowadays this is a moot point and you may personally find the graphics of Gen VI to be odd as they went with a chibi overworld aesthetic.

I personally was disappointed with XY as I like the story focus of Gen V, but I had a good with XY for what it was. Just wished they tried a bit more with the story.

Pokemon games are meant to be flexible. They're meant to be played through in an enormous variety of ways.

I just want the option to turn the Exp. Share on and off (oh, and the Affection bonuses).

Well, actually, I want the option to revert the Exp. Share to how it was before gen VI. I'd even be fine if it only gave additional experience to the lowest Level Pokemon in your party.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

(I'll talk about Gen 5 someday, just you wait)

please

 

[ant4456]

Good point, maybe "Let's Go" and "Legends" aren't their own spinoff series but are rather part of a grander "Main Spinoff" series. Now if they get a sequel in the future, well, great, but honestly GF is more likely to want to do a new idea that they feel is more fitting to the older region they want to revisit. Maybe one day one of these games will finally let us play as a member of the villain team.

I mentioned it before, but Legends Arceus and Let's Go are basically the same(ish) staff. They are both the "Veteran Team" as I call them at Game Freak, being older staff.

That's why both are way more focused on catching than battling.

 

[Sonikku A]

Wow, I missed the PMD talk
Several things

-Teambuilding, at least in the main story, is a waste of time. For a Pokemon game without a fixed roster i.e. Pokepark, this is about as fundamental of a failure as it gets. Your starters are buffed to high heaven and all the recruited Pokemon you get are weak. Level 13 Scyther should not have over 10 less HP than Level 15 Charmander, that's all there is to it. Frankly I could file this complaint under a broader one of this game's balancing being absolutely inscrutable at times: For example, considering this was pre-DP, why does Silent Chasm Yanma give more EXP when defeated than Ampharos in the same location and nearly as much as Arcanine later on in Mt. Blaze? And that's small fry stuff: If I had the energy I could devote an entire series of paragraphs to the absurdity of the power gaps between starters. Any Grass starter in this game is effectively a challenge run.

-Pokemon Square is a disappointingly empty hub. The benchmark of comparison I'm using here is Jubilife Village, and it's no contest. Jubilife does this cool thing, you see, where it actually evolves over the course of the game and you can talk to the joe schmoe villagers and do fun little sidequests that give you insight on this time period of the Pokemon world and how the commoners are adjusting to it. Meanwhile in Pokemon Square you can't even enter any of the houses. The whole appeal of PMD's world is seeing the Pokemon themselves be characters and how they run a society, so why not show more of that? Imagine being able to go into Lotad's house and its a big jacuzzi with lily pads, or Bellsprout's home being a greenhouse overgrowing with vines.

-And now the big dealbreaker that made me throw in the towel: This story is fuckin lame, dude. I was immensely caught off-guard by how fast you get to Great Canyon, and not in a good way: It feels like there are a whole 3 dungeons of setup cut with how abruptly the game pivots to the exiling of the player from the village. Gengar the known troublemaker who tried to extort a child tells the village that your existence will bring about the apocalypse and everyone just... Believes him unconditionally. Team ACT doesn't buy it, but they don't even try to use their fame and moral authority to stand up for you. There can be no adequate descriptor for this series of events other than "complete bullshit". If it's not at the Chairman Rose's heel turn tier of contrivance, it sure as hell ain't far behind. And yknow what? Normally, I wouldn't even care. My second and third favorite main series games have pretty nothing plots too. But after being inundated with years of hype about PMD being the spinoff with consistently great storytelling 95% of the core games' material can't even hold a candle to, my expectations were raised to a level that this junk doesn't come close to fulfilling.

First while I agree partially for Teambuilding, I do find it funny Magnemite is actually decent. A lvl 10 Magnemite is roughly on par with Lvl 15 you/partner, so even after the fugitive arc he can assist well if maintained. Same for being one of the first levitating mons, so he can chase enemies better if needed, whittle down defenses with Metal Sound. Unfortunately as noted, menuing and teams being reset each day severely hamper its use both casually and speedrun wise.

Spoilers?

Absol ironically isn't too good, especially moveset wise, though Quick Attack is good for sniping

Balance is absolutely bonkers though, and Def being based on both stat and level first game curves things to where special moves likely will do more damage than physical (this is noticeable for Groudon). Fury Attack from Beedrills does nill (50-60% range), but my Psyduck gets one shot by Tangela in Lapis cave via Absorb :V

Also fuck Articuno

Grass Types I partially disagree bar Mt. Blaze (even then, eh) and Frosty Forest. Cubone and especially Machop fair worse. Many grass types at least have sniping razor leaf or high crit Vine whip for damage, status moves, and decent stats. Cubone has no SE stab the entire campaign despite bonemerang, Machop has 0 range, eh defenses, and really sucks against birds

Story wise the issue of you being outed was forshadowed before Great Canyon. Alakazam is aware of the legend (it's why he tells you to go to Great Canyon), but kept it secret before for your safety given you at this point have proven you aren't a bad person, nor did Xatu make the connection to events yet. Incidentally, no one would've fully believed Gengar if not for YOU being suspiciously quiet and accepting his claims given the dream the night earlier
I can't even say they were 100% on board either. Lombre was apologizing before attacking you, most give up before Lapis Cave, and even if you/your partner lie and deny everything, nothing prevents Gengar from just sending a neutral party to Xatu to get a similar cryptic message for proof: you're connected to the disasters. It's SoL for the player either way, just shortened and escalated due to the player's guilt

You didn't get past Mt. Blaze, so this is another thing. The game's aware how hard the fugitive arc is, so the events between that until Groudon are super chill. It also gives time to buff another member if you need it (hah, nooooo), farm cash and items in Great Canyon, etc.

Now here's a bigger issue I feel should've been focused on:

Spoilers I guess

if the Ninetales here is the same one from the legend, then wouldn't this mean that the PMD residents live in the far future after human civilization perished? The Decrepit Lab Friend area flat out says
An abandoned lab built by humans long ago. Left to fall into disrepair, it is now home to Pokémon
So wouldn't it make more sense to say the player's from the past? And what happened to mankind anyway?

100% agree for remake talk though. RTDX gets me for basically being BDSP/SwSh in terms of awkwardly porting lowres assets onto Switch. The movesets make it clear nothing from Gen 8 was compensated, and level up movesets force an even worse forced tierlist for starters than OG. Same for lack of stacked abilities oddly, obnoxiously large recruiting mid dungeon, and graphically I hate the cruddy shader. It is NOT watercolor, it is oversaturated processing!

Here's the last thing, I think the isekai gimmick PMD has isn't necessary. I think you can completely just have sentient mons like Pokepark with no strings attached. Super's story I argue is stupidly convoluted cuz of this, and even the devs noted how the isekai idea got tired for that game. Unfortunately they're also aware it was the only gimmick that stood out, so they ceased making new poke entries after 3DS' sales failure. RTDX if anything solidifies the inability to shake it off, and most fanfiction I've seen hasn't realized it. It's too engrained to PMD's identity

 

[ant4456]

Wow, I missed the PMD talk
Several things


First while I agree partially for Teambuilding, I do find it funny Magnemite is actually decent. A lvl 10 Magnemite is roughly on par with Lvl 15 you/partner, so even after the fugitive arc he can assist well if maintained. Same for being one of the first levitating mons, so he can chase enemies better if needed, whittle down defenses with Metal Sound. Unfortunately as noted, menuing and teams being reset each day severely hamper its use both casually and speedrun wise.

Spoilers?

Absol ironically isn't too good, especially moveset wise, though Quick Attack is good for sniping

Balance is absolutely bonkers though, and Def being based on both stat and level first game curves things to where special moves likely will do more damage than physical (this is noticeable for Groudon). Fury Attack from Beedrills does nill (50-60% range), but my Psyduck gets one shot by Tangela in Lapis cave via Absorb :V

Also fuck Articuno

Grass Types I partially disagree bar Mt. Blaze (even then, eh) and Frosty Forest. Cubone and especially Machop fair worse. Many grass types at least have sniping razor leaf or high crit Vine whip for damage, status moves, and decent stats. Cubone has no SE stab the entire campaign despite bonemerang, Machop has 0 range, eh defenses, and really sucks against birds

Story wise the issue of you being outed was forshadowed before Great Canyon. Alakazam is aware of the legend (it's why he tells you to go to Great Canyon), but kept it secret before for your safety given you at this point have proven you aren't a bad person, nor did Xatu make the connection to events yet. Incidentally, no one would've fully believed Gengar if not for YOU being suspiciously quiet and accepting his claims given the dream the night earlier
I can't even say they were 100% on board either. Lombre was apologizing before attacking you, most give up before Lapis Cave, and even if you/your partner lie and deny everything, nothing prevents Gengar from just sending a neutral party to Xatu to get a similar cryptic message for proof: you're connected to the disasters. It's SoL for the player either way, just shortened and escalated due to the player's guilt

You didn't get past Mt. Blaze, so this is another thing. The game's aware how hard the fugitive arc is, so the events between that until Groudon are super chill. It also gives time to buff another member if you need it (hah, nooooo), farm cash and items in Great Canyon, etc.

Now here's a bigger issue I feel should've been focused on:

Spoilers I guess

if the Ninetales here is the same one from the legend, then wouldn't this mean that the PMD residents live in the far future after human civilization perished? The Decrepit Lab Friend area flat out says
An abandoned lab built by humans long ago. Left to fall into disrepair, it is now home to Pokémon
So wouldn't it make more sense to say the player's from the past? And what happened to mankind anyway?

100% agree for remake talk though. RTDX gets me for basically being BDSP/SwSh in terms of awkwardly porting lowres assets onto Switch. The movesets make it clear nothing from Gen 8 was compensated, and level up movesets force an even worse forced tierlist for starters than OG. Same for lack of stacked abilities oddly, obnoxiously large recruiting mid dungeon, and graphically I hate the cruddy shader. It is NOT watercolor, it is oversaturated processing!

Here's the last thing, I think the isekai gimmick PMD has isn't necessary. I think you can completely just have sentient mons like Pokepark with no strings attached. Super's story I argue is stupidly convoluted cuz of this, and even the devs noted how the isekai idea got tired for that game. Unfortunately they're also aware it was the only gimmick that stood out, so they ceased making new poke entries after 3DS' sales failure. RTDX if anything solidifies the inability to shake it off, and most fanfiction I've seen hasn't realized it. It's too engrained to PMD's identity

I wanted to answer some things in this post as a lore nerd:

Basically, PMD doesn't take place in the world of the mainline series, anything in the first game attributed to humans is mostly retconned. Humans never existed in this world. Later games make this more clear with similar setups, and PSMD at least soft confirms that all games take place in the same world at a similar time, which makes it even weirder considering that that means four major apocalypses happened within a lifespan... Or we can take that as just fanservice. I'm not gonna judge any interpretation, just saying what happens.


Ninetales is a Pokemon that can live for around a thousand years, that's why it was able to live so long.

 

[AztecCroc]

I wanted to answer some things in this post as a lore nerd:

Basically, PMD doesn't take place in the world of the mainline series, anything in the first game attributed to humans is mostly retconned. Humans never existed in this world. Later games make this more clear with similar setups, and PSMD at least soft confirms that all games take place in the same world at a similar time, which makes it even weirder considering that that means four major apocalypses happened within a lifespan... Or we can take that as just fanservice. I'm not gonna judge any interpretation, just saying what happens.


Ninetales is a Pokemon that can live for around a thousand years, that's why it was able to live so long.

You are explicitly a human in the Explorers games, and SMD. Not sure about the gen 5 one, I never played it.

 

[ant4456]

You are explicitly a human in the Explorers games, and SMD. Not sure about the gen 5 one, I never played it.

Yes you are, but in SMD and GTI you come from another universe explicitly. And in Explorers it's just entirely unexplained, but your theory about PMD taking place post humans could not work then because you are a human from the future, already far post PMD world being PMD.

 

[Sonikku A]

SMD got Wigglytuff's gender wrong, it was legit fanservice
All games take place in separate continuities. Too many inconsistencies otherwise

 

[Coronis]

SMD got Wigglytuff's gender wrong, it was legit fanservice
All games take place in separate continuities. Too many inconsistencies otherwise

Yoom-tah ;)

 

[Sonikku A]

Yoom-tah ;)

That originated in RT
Which RTDX removed >:[

 

[ant4456]

yo, so with the recent VGC controversy I wanted to talk about it

IMO it's more nuanced than just "make it super easy to get mons in-game or allow genning", which in of itself is a hot take, but the hotter take is just I think TPC is correct to ban people for genning. Not because oh I hate them or they aren't skillful, people like Brady Smith are skilled and I do not disrespect people for genning, I just think there are core assumptions in the conversation that are incorrect.

The motto of the series is "Train On." they want you to have to train your Pokemon, but that's obviously not wanted by the players who have to make so many teams in order to make it far. I also think people are disingenuous when they say genning is not cheating.

Because time is an advantage at a high enough level, being able to test more teams and tweak quicker is a major advantage, like:

Who is more likely to win?

1. The guy who spent 100 hours battling to find their best team, spending 20 minutes at most between play sessions to gen Pokemon

2. or the guy who spent 15 or so hours making their first team, playtested for 5 hours, tweaked, played another 5 hours, realized it sucks, starts over, spend another 20 hours making a new team, retry on the ladder, oh you're getting bad luck with practicing the team against weird ass matchups, ok now this needs a tweak grind again

I'd hope this makes it clear how being able to have all of your teams in a split second is an advantage, because teambuilding is a skill especially in a tournament like VGC's where you cannot spend a week making a new team and prepping for your opponent. You need a shit ton of practice not just to find the team you want, but also in order to train yourself at piloting the team against different matchups. This takes a lot of time, and having to spend time tweaking or making a team is a significant time loss that otherwise could be spent practicing.

The real debate shouldn't be "is genning cheating". For one, cheating is arbitrary term, but the base assumption is that cheating means an unfair advantage. Unfair could be considered going around the rules. Cheating can be defined in a tournament not just because it's a dick move, but because said tournament says to not do x, y, z. In my opinion, genning is by definition cheating. It is not cheating inside the actual battle; it is cheating in preparation.

In this multi-step game, you have to make the ultimate recipe and win against others with it. To test the recipe, first you have to cook it. But I just got my friend Carl to get me a cake exactly as I said despite the fact that the tournament says, "Do not ask Carl to make a cake for you". Still, I do it anyways because it's an advantage and I don't like waiting for the cake to cook, and I test the recipe. I realize it sucks, and I ask Carl to make another cake.

My opponent is still making the first cake, and still is at the store buying ingredients.

The real debate should be, do we accept that training is a part of the game? And the popular answer, simply, is no. When people say "genning is not cheating", they are definitionally deciding that training is not a skill. Preparing your team is not a skill and is not tested in the actual competition that matters, how well you pilot the team, and what team it is.

Game Freak and The Pokemon Company want training to be a part of the competition, because it's part of the RPG, you have to play with more mechanics. You have to breed, grind money, do Tera Raids, etc. etc. In a way it's like an MMO in The Pokemon Company's eyes, and before playing PVP you have to go back and interact with all of these nuanced systems before you even have a chance. Sword and Shield made this even more blatantly obvious by making the game 10FPS when you run it online, by showing you a bazillion other trainers moving around the overworld, most likely training their own Pokemon.

Really, in a way, genning is a cultural battle and it's not between He Who Shall Not Be Named and the competitive players. It's between the game itself and the players. The players who are interested in Smogon or VGC want the game to be about battling, which is the part they find most interesting. It's not like these are shiny hunters, they want to battle. Game Freak, the designers, have an interest in making the game more well-rounded. They want you to interact with all of the branches of the game, as much as they possibly can edge you towards it.

But, I don't think there is no audience for this. Look at MMOs like PokeMMO, which are way harder to grind out a team than the main series games, even probably compared to the actual Black and White, especially if you want shinies. It is similarly a game that wants you to grind and interact with all of the mechanics, and it has survived for around 10 years. PokeOne is another fanmade MMO and similarly keeps an audience of competitive battlers who play within the bounds and see training as part of the game.

So, I don't think there is any perfect solution, but I have one that I can borrow from Temtem, an MMO Pokemon-like that I think has a lot of good ideas, regardless of how you feel it is quality wise (please don't quote this part of the post, I don't care!)

Temtem has three major branches of PVP play. Temtem Ranked, Temtem Showdown and Temtem Tournaments. All of these provide varying levels of time to put in before you can play.

Temtem Ranked: Your Temtem are given full IV-equivalent but not EVs, items, moves or abiltiies. This is up to you, but also removes the main problem stopping you from bringing your Temtem from the main playthrough, or needing to breed for literal hours, from being able to play with your actual in-game collection. Temtem Showdown lets you play against, to my knowledge, exclusively other Temtem Showdown players, who all are able to use teams like you would Pokemon Showdown. Tournaments are also held on Temtem Showdown, but...

The official, most real Temtem tournaments for the main game require in-game built teams. Including breeding for IVs. This means that every type of player is rewarded in some way. Those who don't care don't even need to buy the game, they can just play, just don't expect to be able to play against those who put in like 20 hours to craft their perfect team. Those who don't want to grind for hours of breeding can still play with imperfect Temtem in ranked, and you also get practice with teams without needing to put in 20 hours before you know you like the team.

I think this is the best solution personally, let me know what you all think, I put a good amount of time into this post.

 

[doipy hooves]

IMO it's more nuanced than just "make it super easy to get mons in-game or allow genning", which in of itself is a hot take, but the hotter take is just I think TPC is correct to ban people for genning. Not because oh I hate them or they aren't skillful, people like Brady Smith are skilled and I do not disrespect people for genning, I just think there are core assumptions in the conversation that are incorrect.
...
The real debate shouldn't be "is genning cheating". For one, cheating is arbitrary term, but the base assumption is that cheating means an unfair advantage. Unfair could be considered going around the rules. Cheating can be defined in a tournament not just because it's a dick move, but because said tournament says to not do x, y, z. In my opinion, genning is by definition cheating. It is not cheating inside the actual battle; it is cheating in preparation.

I think it's correct of TPC to ban people for genning purely because it's clearly defined in their rules. On the other hand Kaphotics has been pointing out the common issues with bad hacks for years, so there should really be no excuse for showing up at worlds with nonsense like a wild-caught natural 6IV shiny rare mark max size mon at this point. Of course, accessibility within the game is a different matter that gamefreak should address themselves.

 

[Ironmage]

yo, so with the recent VGC controversy I wanted to talk about it

IMO it's more nuanced than just "make it super easy to get mons in-game or allow genning", which in of itself is a hot take, but the hotter take is just I think TPC is correct to ban people for genning. Not because oh I hate them or they aren't skillful, people like Brady Smith are skilled and I do not disrespect people for genning, I just think there are core assumptions in the conversation that are incorrect.

The motto of the series is "Train On." they want you to have to train your Pokemon, but that's obviously not wanted by the players who have to make so many teams in order to make it far. I also think people are disingenuous when they say genning is not cheating.

Because time is an advantage at a high enough level, being able to test more teams and tweak quicker is a major advantage, like:

Who is more likely to win?

1. The guy who spent 100 hours battling to find their best team, spending 20 minutes at most between play sessions to gen Pokemon

2. or the guy who spent 15 or so hours making their first team, playtested for 5 hours, tweaked, played another 5 hours, realized it sucks, starts over, spend another 20 hours making a new team, retry on the ladder, oh you're getting bad luck with practicing the team against weird ass matchups, ok now this needs a tweak grind again

I'd hope this makes it clear how being able to have all of your teams in a split second is an advantage, because teambuilding is a skill especially in a tournament like VGC's where you cannot spend a week making a new team and prepping for your opponent. You need a shit ton of practice not just to find the team you want, but also in order to train yourself at piloting the team against different matchups. This takes a lot of time, and having to spend time tweaking or making a team is a significant time loss that otherwise could be spent practicing.

The real debate shouldn't be "is genning cheating". For one, cheating is arbitrary term, but the base assumption is that cheating means an unfair advantage. Unfair could be considered going around the rules. Cheating can be defined in a tournament not just because it's a dick move, but because said tournament says to not do x, y, z. In my opinion, genning is by definition cheating. It is not cheating inside the actual battle; it is cheating in preparation.

In this multi-step game, you have to make the ultimate recipe and win against others with it. To test the recipe, first you have to cook it. But I just got my friend Carl to get me a cake exactly as I said despite the fact that the tournament says, "Do not ask Carl to make a cake for you". Still, I do it anyways because it's an advantage and I don't like waiting for the cake to cook, and I test the recipe. I realize it sucks, and I ask Carl to make another cake.

My opponent is still making the first cake, and still is at the store buying ingredients.

The real debate should be, do we accept that training is a part of the game? And the popular answer, simply, is no. When people say "genning is not cheating", they are definitionally deciding that training is not a skill. Preparing your team is not a skill and is not tested in the actual competition that matters, how well you pilot the team, and what team it is.

Game Freak and The Pokemon Company want training to be a part of the competition, because it's part of the RPG, you have to play with more mechanics. You have to breed, grind money, do Tera Raids, etc. etc. In a way it's like an MMO in The Pokemon Company's eyes, and before playing PVP you have to go back and interact with all of these nuanced systems before you even have a chance. Sword and Shield made this even more blatantly obvious by making the game 10FPS when you run it online, by showing you a bazillion other trainers moving around the overworld, most likely training their own Pokemon.

Really, in a way, genning is a cultural battle and it's not between He Who Shall Not Be Named and the competitive players. It's between the game itself and the players. The players who are interested in Smogon or VGC want the game to be about battling, which is the part they find most interesting. It's not like these are shiny hunters, they want to battle. Game Freak, the designers, have an interest in making the game more well-rounded. They want you to interact with all of the branches of the game, as much as they possibly can edge you towards it.

But, I don't think there is no audience for this. Look at MMOs like PokeMMO, which are way harder to grind out a team than the main series games, even probably compared to the actual Black and White, especially if you want shinies. It is similarly a game that wants you to grind and interact with all of the mechanics, and it has survived for around 10 years. PokeOne is another fanmade MMO and similarly keeps an audience of competitive battlers who play within the bounds and see training as part of the game.

So, I don't think there is any perfect solution, but I have one that I can borrow from Temtem, an MMO Pokemon-like that I think has a lot of good ideas, regardless of how you feel it is quality wise (please don't quote this part of the post, I don't care!)

Temtem has three major branches of PVP play. Temtem Ranked, Temtem Showdown and Temtem Tournaments. All of these provide varying levels of time to put in before you can play.

Temtem Ranked: Your Temtem are given full IV-equivalent but not EVs, items, moves or abiltiies. This is up to you, but also removes the main problem stopping you from bringing your Temtem from the main playthrough, or needing to breed for literal hours, from being able to play with your actual in-game collection. Temtem Showdown lets you play against, to my knowledge, exclusively other Temtem Showdown players, who all are able to use teams like you would Pokemon Showdown. Tournaments are also held on Temtem Showdown, but...

The official, most real Temtem tournaments for the main game require in-game built teams. Including breeding for IVs. This means that every type of player is rewarded in some way. Those who don't care don't even need to buy the game, they can just play, just don't expect to be able to play against those who put in like 20 hours to craft their perfect team. Those who don't want to grind for hours of breeding can still play with imperfect Temtem in ranked, and you also get practice with teams without needing to put in 20 hours before you know you like the team.

I think this is the best solution personally, let me know what you all think, I put a good amount of time into this post.

What concerns me about attempting to require the grind is the ability to get an advantage in time efficiency by using real-world resources. Even if somebody needs to be doing the IV breeding, there's no way to enforce that said somebody is the same one actually battling in the tournaments. A person with spare money or influence could just have another do the tedious parts while they focus on battles (or sleep, for that matter). They'd probably have to ban all traded mons to even start to enforce a restriction against doing this, which is completely untenable for several reasons. Heck, I recall hearing about tricks with the Switch's System Transfer functionality used for distributing Mario Maker levels that get taken down on the main servers, those would probably let someone else do all the grind in one place and pass the competitor the save file.

 

[ant4456]

What concerns me about attempting to require the grind is the ability to get an advantage in time efficiency by using real-world resources. Even if somebody needs to be doing the IV breeding, there's no way to enforce that said somebody is the same one actually battling in the tournaments. A person with spare money or influence could just have another do the tedious parts while they focus on battles (or sleep, for that matter). They'd probably have to ban all traded mons to even start to enforce a restriction against doing this, which is completely untenable for several reasons. Heck, I recall hearing about tricks with the Switch's System Transfer functionality used for distributing Mario Maker levels that get taken down on the main servers, those would probably let someone else do all the grind in one place and pass the competitor the save file.

This is technically a possibility with any game where a grind is required, this is also an industry with literal pay to win tactics. In my opinion, focus more on actual realistic issues: Like lacking the ability to obtain certain Pokemon within the game itself. This is an actual monetary challenge every competitive player will have to face, unless they already have every game.

The problem you are describing could happen with theoretically any PVP game with a grind, like any MMORPG. But is that really even a big issue?

Also, like I said, there isn't forced in-game teams in Temtem Showdown tournaments for obvious reasons. They are two different types of players, and I think making tournaments only for one type of player is a problem with the game design, both ways. Why should those uninterested in doing the grind be forced when they don't consider it an interesting challenge? And why should those who want it to be a part of the preparation of the game have to play against those who don't want to, and thus likely fight hacked teams that bypasses that anyways?

 

[A_Wild_Noob_Appeared!]

Because time is an advantage at a high enough level, being able to test more teams and tweak quicker is a major advantage, like:

Who is more likely to win?

1. The guy who spent 100 hours battling to find their best team, spending 20 minutes at most between play sessions to gen Pokemon

2. or the guy who spent 15 or so hours making their first team, playtested for 5 hours, tweaked, played another 5 hours, realized it sucks, starts over, spend another 20 hours making a new team, retry on the ladder, oh you're getting bad luck with practicing the team against weird ass matchups, ok now this needs a tweak grind again

Realistically, a player who does not bring hacked Pokemon to the tournament can still use hacks or use Showdown to practice. Such a player will lose some time preparing their team right before the tournament, and have less time to make changes, but it's not by as much as you're saying. In the end, I'd argue that the advantage provided by hacking your team for the tournament is vastly outweighed by various factors which Gamefreak has no control over (such as how long your work hours are, or how much time you need to dedicate to family responsibilities).

"But we should still make the tournament as fair as possible"

I'd argue that access to hacked Pokemon makes tournament preparation far more far. If Gamefreak could magically prevent all hacking from occurring, the gap between players who have access to resources and those who do not might be significantly greater. Although it does cost money to get a hacked Switch, a player without resources could probably still find someone else to hack their team for free (which might be what happened, judging from his comments). If no hacking could occur, then it would be much more difficult for someone without money/influence to get competitively trained Pokemon without spending the time personally.

This is technically a possibility with any game where a grind is required, this is also an industry with literal pay to win tactics. In my opinion, focus more on actual realistic issues: Like lacking the ability to obtain certain Pokemon within the game itself. This is an actual monetary challenge every competitive player will have to face, unless they already have every game.

The problem you are describing could happen with theoretically any PVP game with a grind, like any MMORPG. But is that really even a big issue?

I mean, there is a very simple solution for Gamefreak that lets them remove grind and remove monetary challenges to the greatest extent possible. Most games with serious competitive events (other than pay-to-win card games) put all players at the same level. It's not like you're forced to prove that you bought the Smash DLC or completed the story mode since they'll give you a device with all characters unlocked.

Also, like I said, there isn't forced in-game teams in Temtem Showdown tournaments for obvious reasons. They are two different types of players, and I think making tournaments only for one type of player is a problem with the game design, both ways. Why should those uninterested in doing the grind be forced when they don't consider it an interesting challenge? And why should those who want it to be a part of the preparation of the game have to play against those who don't want to, and thus likely fight hacked teams that bypasses that anyways?

Most people spend some of their free time on activities other than practicing competitive Pokemon. Is there a reason why someone who chooses to spend time training in-game needs to be separated from people who choose to spend time on other unrelated things?

Because time is an advantage at a high enough level, being able to test more teams and tweak quicker is a major advantage, like:

Who is more likely to win?

1. The guy who spent 100 hours battling to find their best team, spending 20 minutes at most between play sessions to gen Pokemon

2. or the guy who spent 15 or so hours participating in a cake-baking competition, playtested for 5 hours, participated in another cake-baking competition, played another 5 hours, realized that they needed spend another 20 hours practicing for a cake-baking competition, and then afterwards makes another team to try on the ladder, oh you're getting bad luck with practicing the team against weird ass matchups, ok now this needs a tweak (but doesn't need to grind) again

Can the player who also likes to spend time in cake-baking competitions claim that it's unfair that they're matched against people who spend all of their time practicing competitive Pokemon? The only difference between the two situations is that an out-of-touch game company has arbitrarily connected the training minigame with the competitive game, even though the two activities are completely different. The reason why the official Temtem tournaments require you to grind is not because it has intrinsic value, but because encouraging that makes them the most money, despite the fact that it makes the tournament objectively less fair and less competitive.

Edit: You could argue that it should be up to the playerbase to decide whether or not in-game grinding should be given value, but judging from the fact that most of the top-level VGC players are using hacked teams, it doesn't seem that they care about it very much.

 

[ant4456]

Realistically, a player who does not bring hacked Pokemon to the tournament can still use hacks or use Showdown to practice. Such a player will lose some time preparing their team right before the tournament, and have less time to make changes, but it's not by as much as you're saying. In the end, I'd argue that the advantage provided by hacking your team for the tournament is vastly outweighed by various factors which Gamefreak has no control over (such as how long your work hours are, or how much time you need to dedicate to family responsibilities).

"But we should still make the tournament as fair as possible"

I'd argue that access to hacked Pokemon makes tournament preparation far more far. If Gamefreak could magically prevent all hacking from occurring, the gap between players who have access to resources and those who do not might be significantly greater. Although it does cost money to get a hacked Switch, a player without resources could probably still find someone else to hack their team for free (which might be what happened, judging from his comments). If no hacking could occur, then it would be much more difficult for someone without money/influence to get competitively trained Pokemon without spending the time personally.


I mean, there is a very simple solution for Gamefreak that lets them remove grind and remove monetary challenges to the greatest extent possible. Most games with serious competitive events (other than pay-to-win card games) put all players at the same level. It's not like you're forced to prove that you bought the Smash DLC or completed the story mode since they'll give you a device with all characters unlocked.


Most people spend some of their free time on activities other than practicing competitive Pokemon. Is there a reason why someone who chooses to spend time training in-game needs to be separated from people who choose to spend time on other unrelated things?

Can the player who also likes to spend time in cake-baking competitions claim that it's unfair that they're matched against people who spend all of their time practicing competitive Pokemon? The only difference between the two situations is that an out-of-touch game company has arbitrarily connected the training minigame with the competitive game, even though the two activities are completely different. The reason why the official Temtem tournaments require you to grind is not because it has intrinsic value, but because encouraging that makes them the most money, despite the fact that it makes the tournament objectively less fair and less competitive.

Edit: You could argue that it should be up to the playerbase to decide whether or not in-game grinding should be given value, but judging from the fact that most of the top-level VGC players are using hacked teams, it doesn't seem that they care about it very much.

1. yes some people do like grinding and don't like fighting people who skipped the grind if they did do it

2. giving people more options is better, your only argument against a several pronged approach is "oh why split the players", why not? why force people with different views on the game to all compete in the same format

"why does capitalism exist, because capitalism exists we cannot have grinding in competitive games"

guess what, the world is not a meritocracy, I'm sorry you had to learn this on Smogon Forums, but all competition is flawed due to material conditions, including real ass sports

you could argue that it's actually a design flaw that Pokemon is not free to play to be more accessible and fair, or that having to buy the latest game is unfair, yadda yadda and I'd never take you seriously, at the end of the day it ain't that fucking serious, competitive Pokemon is not that serious and it having barriers to entry is not the end of the world

statistically if you care about pokemon the barrier to entry is not money, its fucking understanding dumb shit like how levitating pokemon ignore certain parts of terrains, learning niche facts about stats and slowly coming to understand the game

brady fox is not an example of "guy who needed to hack because money", he paid for a vacation to go to japan and admitted he could have just bought the game

competitive Pokemon is not a real esport and probably won't ever be one

you pay money to travel to play one of the most volatile competitive videogames to either mostly just get nothing, maybe the costs of travel accounted for and some more, or what is still practically a feeble amount compared to what a giant company overlord could afford, and will maybe pay off 1/5th of your college loan

there is no intrinsic value to competitive pokemon, smogon or vgc. it does not matter, and never will. I think you should put it in the hands of different players to figure out how they want to play. It is you who has arbitrarily decided what should matter, and wants to force that as the standard, and for what?

why is it up to you or anyone to decide what someone values in a giant ass RPG turned competitive game? How about I fucking exclude battles, would you like that? Pokemon is about training not battling, why do I have to do this side minigame when I'm just trying to speedrun making great Pokemon? Why is one thing "the minigame", and the other the main event? Most casual players think the fucking battles suck! That's why all of their ideas to change Pokemon involve removing turn based gameplay, to them is not the minigame?

To me, competitive Pokemon is barely even the same videogame as Pokemon. Most of my time playing Pokemon mainline games is exploring, managing resources and zoning out as I click buttons, hunt a shiny, do whatever. How can you make a definition of competitive Pokemon that is not arbitrary?

Simple: Your standards are arbitrary. Is creating a team of Pokemon quickly not a skill? What is stopping me from creating a competition where all you do is prep teams? If I put a prizepool of $1,000 to be best at training up a new team with proof, I'd probably have more competitiveness in my event than the average Smogon tournament.

in case it isn't clear because post is long: I think it is very stupid to act like there is only one standard for what can be considered competitive in a videogame. I think it is wrong to say that the entire rest of the game is a "minigame", and I think that there is enough skill in learning to proficiently create Pokemon that you could even make it its own competitive game. There is also speedrunning which is basically a form of competitiveness, and that is very cool and competitive too.

I don't want training to be part of Smogon at all, but I'm not going to stop people who see the game as something beyond just the match. Because it's not up to anyone in particular, and there is no authority, it's subjective.



im not even anti genning i literally have done it before but my god the dickriding goes CRAZY

 

[Karxrida]

Game Freak and The Pokemon Company want training to be a part of the competition, because it's part of the RPG, you have to play with more mechanics. You have to breed, grind money, do Tera Raids, etc. etc. In a way it's like an MMO in The Pokemon Company's eyes, and before playing PVP you have to go back and interact with all of these nuanced systems before you even have a chance. Sword and Shield made this even more blatantly obvious by making the game 10FPS when you run it online, by showing you a bazillion other trainers moving around the overworld, most likely training their own Pokemon.

So I play a little-known MMO called Final Fantasy XIV, so I can confidently say this mindset on their part is flawed. Why?

Because in FFXIV, the high-end content people want to do (Savage raiding) is intertwined with the grind. Pokémon locks its comparable content (PVP) completely the behind the grind.

Want to get the best gear to max your damage, healing, and bulk? Then go do the Savage stuff, learn the fights and your job (or jobs), beat the bosses weekly, get your gear and slowly get all the pieces until you have best-in-slot, and eventually obtain the shiny weapon and rare raid tier mount for sweet sweet bragging rights. You play the content to get the gear that enables you to play the content better. It feeds into itself.

Wanna learn how to play competitive Pokémon? Then go do a bunch of completely unrelated and boring shit before you can even test teams. The system is inherently flawed from the outset because the gameplay loop doesn't even loop.

Of course people want to skip it. Grinding for the resources to perfect your Pokémon is absolutely unrelated to the actual combat. At least in an MMO you have crafters who will make stuff you need and throw it on the market board so they can make a profit to buy houses or whatever. Like trading is a thing but, it's not exactly convenient when you probably still have to interact with the systems you hate to provide something of value. Or just pay a dude real cash I guess.

 

[Ironmage]

So I play a little-known MMO called Final Fantasy XIV, so I can confidently say this mindset on their part is flawed. Why?

Because in FFXIV, the high-end content people want to do (Savage raiding) is intertwined with the grind. Pokémon locks its comparable content (PVP) completely the behind the grind.

Want to get the best gear to max your damage, healing, and bulk? Then go do the Savage stuff, learn the fights and your job (or jobs), beat the bosses weekly, get your gear and slowly get all the pieces until you have best-in-slot, and eventually obtain the shiny weapon and rare raid tier mount for sweet sweet bragging rights. You play the content to get the gear that enables you to play the content better. It feeds into itself.

Wanna learn how to play competitive Pokémon? Then go do a bunch of completely unrelated and boring shit before you can even test teams. The system is inherently flawed from the outset because the gameplay loop doesn't even loop.

Of course people want to skip it. Grinding for the resources to perfect your Pokémon is absolutely unrelated to the actual combat. At least in an MMO you have crafters who will make stuff you need and throw it on the market board so they can make a profit to buy houses or whatever. Like trading is a thing but, it's not exactly convenient when you probably still have to interact with the systems you hate to provide something of value. Or just pay a dude real cash I guess.

This sticks out to me because it's something that I used to get out of Pokemon. I was completely fine with having most high-end held items and several TMs locked behind Battle Points because my primary drive was to be playing the Facility anyway. In USUM, I generally avoided the more point-efficient minigame because it wasn't what I was playing for. Now, with the standard Facility being missing, I don't see any reason to engage with postgame content at all (which in turn leads into a general lack of interest in the game).

 

[Worldie]

This sticks out to me because it's something that I used to get out of Pokemon. I was completely fine with having most high-end held items and several TMs locked behind Battle Points because my primary drive was to be playing the Facility anyway. In USUM, I generally avoided the more point-efficient minigame because it wasn't what I was playing for. Now, with the standard Facility being missing, I don't see any reason to engage with postgame content at all (which in turn leads into a general lack of interest in the game).

Same, but his point (which is correct in my opinion) is that Pokemon locks most of its PvP related shenenigans behind non pvp ones.

You are not learning anything about battling people by grinding raids or doing contests.

 

[ant4456]

Because in FFXIV, the high-end content people want to do (Savage raiding) is intertwined with the grind. Pokémon locks its comparable content (PVP) completely the behind the grind.

the least popular part of the SV grind is tera raids which is literally an entire unique batyle system inside the game that is multiplayer, mostly because it's the longest part of the grind (for an arbitrary reason I will add)

but to say the grind parts of Pokemon have nothing to do in battling is weird, though with SV it is less so than games like USUM because the game isn't finished so no battle facility.

SWSH had a cool thing where when you played battles online you'd get BP and rewards to help you make new Pokemon even between rank ups, ir seems SV doesn't have that but does have rank up rewards

that is to say that Pokemon does integrate your battling back into making new Pokemon to continue battling, giving Bottle Caps, money, important TMs, etc. I do think SWSH did a better job though.

Wanna learn how to play competitive Pokémon? Then go do a bunch of completely unrelated and boring shit before you can even test teams.

this is subjective, I think that learning how to effectively breed, how to take down raids efficiently, make a strategy for EV training (money grind or killing grind) and get more efficient at it is fun

That being said I did stop

Wanna know why I don't do it anymore? 15-20FPS game gets real tiring after playing it for hours. I made a few VGC teams, shiny hunted some and then when I touched not grass, but Splatoon 3 a 60FPS game again, I was like "yeah nvm"

and I'd like to reiterate that they should let people who want both play with and without real Pokemon in-game but let people play with others in a Showdown-like way, on cart, if they want. But completely cutting out a lot of systems is in my opinion not a "better designed game", just a different one for different people.

 

[Bakugames]

Are we gonna ignore one of the reasons this topic sprung back is because you either need to buy two 60$ games and one 30$ dlc to get meta viable pokemon on top of the grind for them, or hope someone else who bought into the system will do that grind for you

 

[ant4456]

Are we gonna ignore one of the reasons this topic sprung back is because you either need to buy two 60$ games and one 30$ dlc to get meta viable pokemon on top of the grind for them, or hope someone else who bought into the system will do that grind for you

that's not the reason why
literally almost if not all high level vgc players are middleclass people who can afford to travel out to a fucking videogame tournament with a low prizepool that can threaten to end your run with just some bad luck

people will gen no matter what because they don't want to grind, and that's cool
people should gen if they want to, but to try and make this out to be some issue with accessibility is whack imo, like are you telling me Pokemon fans of all people are generally those who hold off on buying buggy games day 1 no matter what

no, the reason people gen is because they don't wanna grind shit that they don't care about
the people in competition are gonna buy the DLC, and then also gen
and most of them will already have Legends Arceus, they will just gen anyways, which is totally fine and fair, but the minority of genning is because something is impossible.

brady smith could have bought legends arceus, as he said, he literally bought a vacation to Japan
he just didn't want to and genned, based
I genned the Shiny Zacian in SWSH because I was too lazy to do the event, so I just made the mon lol.

I think that this is all trying to cross hairs with different playerbases. People who are actually competing for something like top VGC, is genning and also probably has the money or already has bought all recent pokemon games. People who want to practice and play without worrying about in-game team have Showdown or also gen. And are also generally the least likely people to buy the games, or even care about playing on Game Freak's servers. Those who see training as a big part of the game, will generally not use genning, but also isn't the same demographic of people competing for top VGC.

Pokemon is arguably pay to win, but something that makes pay to win games egregious is you are just buying things to obtain a competitive advantage. The official format is for specifically the mega fan nerds who probably already buy Pokemon games. Also, these games are, you know, real ass fuckin games! You are buying an entire videogame with its own campaign, a lot of content, etc.

The only real argument I see is that of Legends Arceus, being a game that never had a competitive format, or even PVP to begin with meaning it could have reasonably been skipped if you are truly only in it for the competitive aspect. However, I still mostly see it like this: It is a reasonable expectation to expect players to buy the games as they come out, especially as a creature collecting game. The problem is, again, a lack of options. On official cart, there needs to be a way to play with uncaught Pokemon, be it used in actual tournaments or not, at minimum for practice.

Genning will exist regardless of monetary value because time is important. A lot of people just don't want to, and it's based to gen if so. But I think trying to take one side and make it "the right one" is silly, there is a place for genning/Showdown and a place for preparation.