Unpopular opinions

[pika pal]

Yeah, can't argue here. What's weird about it is the Mirage Tower was seemingly created as a practice round for the Sky Pillar, since it has the same basic puzzle, so it would have felt reasonable to progress through a gauntlet.

While I appreciate the little implied detail that apparently Rayquaza landing on the Sky Pillar once it returns apparently shook the place badly enough to cause damage to the place and crack the floor, it is dull that the location is so pristine on your first visit. Perhaps they thought the puzzle was too difficult for most people, since it takes some quick finger-work to zigzag around some of the corners without falling. Maybe they just thought it'd be boring to do the same thing twice if you want to return to catch it.

The most likely reason is because going back for the Mach bike would be a massive pacebreaker if you had the Acro Bike at this point, both for the distance and because of the story in progress. I think they could have presented other obstacles (maybe a battle without capture option ala Kyurem in B2W2) before Rayquaza goes to fix things, but the floor puzzle does present a potential wall to continuing if the player picked the wrong bike (would work better with the Gen 4 Gear system or Remakes giving both bikes)

 

[AztecCroc]

The most likely reason is because going back for the Mach bike would be a massive pacebreaker if you had the Acro Bike at this point, both for the distance and because of the story in progress. I think they could have presented other obstacles (maybe a battle without capture option ala Kyurem in B2W2) before Rayquaza goes to fix things, but the floor puzzle does present a potential wall to continuing if the player picked the wrong bike (would work better with the Gen 4 Gear system or Remakes giving both bikes)

Battle without capture wasn't a thing that was in the engine until BW2 though.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Battle without capture wasn't a thing that was in the engine until BW2 though.

Er... are we sure about that? Trainer battles have been a thing since Gen I, not to mention the ghost Marowak. Seems like it wouldn't be too hard to use the same "it dodged the ball" mechanic FRLG used literally one game earlier.

 

[pika pal]

Er... are we sure about that? Trainer battles have been a thing since Gen I, not to mention the ghost Marowak. Seems like it wouldn't be too hard to use the same "it dodged the ball" mechanic FRLG used literally one game earlier.

Did XD and Colosseum run on the same mechanics because those also had scenarios like the Battle Sims where Capture wasn't allowed or things like turning off Snags when the Machine was stolen in XD.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Did XD and Colosseum run on the same mechanics because those also had scenarios like the Battle Sims where Capture wasn't allowed or things like turning off Snags when the Machine was stolen in XD.

Broadly yes, they probably do, as they just replicate the battle system from the main series. It's honestly never occurred to me whether you could catch Pokemon in Sims (has anyone tried it? I believe in most if not all scripted sim battles you're given a custom bag, which wouldn't include Pokeballs, but I expect someone could hack them in).

For the part of XD when the Snag Machine is missing I'd assume the game just sets a flag that temporarily disables the ability to snag, so basically the same scenario as is the case for all non-Shadow encounters.

 

[AztecCroc]

Broadly yes, they probably do, as they just replicate the battle system from the main series. It's honestly never occurred to me whether you could catch Pokemon in Sims (has anyone tried it? I believe in most if not all scripted sim battles you're given a custom bag, which wouldn't include Pokeballs, but I expect someone could hack them in).

For the part of XD when the Snag Machine is missing I'd assume the game just sets a flag that temporarily disables the ability to snag, so basically the same scenario as is the case for all non-Shadow encounters.

Did XD and Colosseum run on the same mechanics because those also had scenarios like the Battle Sims where Capture wasn't allowed or things like turning off Snags when the Machine was stolen in XD.

1. The Orre games are their own separate "fork" of the engine, there is nothing from them in the later games.
2. The Battle Sims are trainer battles, you fight a Sim Trainer, the Pokémon are never "wild".

Er... are we sure about that? Trainer battles have been a thing since Gen I, not to mention the ghost Marowak. Seems like it wouldn't be too hard to use the same "it dodged the ball" mechanic FRLG used literally one game earlier.

Considering that Emerald doesn't actually have the code for any of the Pokémon Tower mechanics? Very.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

1. The Orre games are their own separate "fork" of the engine, there is nothing from them in the later games.
2. The Battle Sims are trainer battles, you fight a Sim Trainer, the Pokémon are never "wild".

Considering that Emerald doesn't actually have the code for any of the Pokémon Tower mechanics? Very.

1. Yep, I thought so (said as much on this thread)

2. True, I was responding to Pika's point about them. But if you can hack the game to catch trainer's Pokemon, I assume it'd be possible to catch Sim Pokemon (whether you could keep them after, I've no clue)

Emerald might not have that code, but the fact that FRLG did means that the functionality exists and could potentially have been added.

EDIT: Forgot something, RSE also has one battle where fleeing is disabled (if "run" is selected during the first battle against the Poochyena/Zigzagoon, Birch protests and it doesn't work) while Battle Facility matches obviously also disable the bag altogether. So if they really wanted to, they could absolutely have done a "battle without capture" scenario. Though I expect some clever person would eventually have found a way to glitch around it, as so often happens.

 

[MisogiKurakawa]

To throw my hat into the ring regarding the genning debate, I would argue the biggest fundamental issue with Pokemon is that of optimization. For a franchise which is supposedly about building your own team of your own choice, Gamefreak has infested the game with supermechanics and increasingly overturned Legendaries/Mythicals/Ultra Beasts/Paradoxes who are so overwhelming that they essentially demand players operate in very specific ways just to not be destroyed. Which, when it comes down to that, makes teambuilding a far more automated and ridged process than a meaningful, organic act of matching teams against each other, which I think is what GF ultimately want.

Like, anyone remember when, in the Tekken 7 tournament for EVO Japan 2020, 6 of the Top 8 were all Leroy? That got a pretty sharp and justifiable backlash, and saw the team heavily nerf Leroy just so that such a thing wouldn't happen again. And yet Flutter Mane being on 71% of all Worlds 2023 teams hardly even catches a response, because it's just expected to be part of the "perfect strategy". Simple as that.

 

[Worldie]

Like, anyone remember when, in the Tekken 7 tournament for EVO Japan 2020, 6 of the Top 8 were all Leroy? That got a pretty sharp and justifiable backlash, and saw the team heavily nerf Leroy just so that such a thing wouldn't happen again. And yet Flutter Mane being on 71% of all Worlds 2023 teams hardly even catches a response, because it's just expected to be part of the "perfect strategy". Simple as that.

This I disagree with.

GameFreaks has definitely shown they do not want "all teams to be the same", since gen 6-ish they have been always nerfing hyperdominant strategies, and specifically in gen 9 we saw both major stall nerfs (which was mainly to stop stall strategies in BSS), Scald getting nuked from the planet (it was the go-to water stab in VGC, and lord knows how much scarier Iron Bundle would have been without 15% chance to lose you the game), Zacian nerfs, Regieleki nerfs (both dominant forces last gen VGC, Zacian showing a FlutterMane-tier usage), and a few more.

The "problem" is just that Pokemon as of now doesn't do "patches". The nerfs happen between generations, so if a dominant force appears, it's likely to stay that way for the entirety of the generation.
Their current attempt at making megatame varied has been progressively introducing more pokemon as the game goes, which was mostly successful, but it doesn't do much if a force is so dominant that manages to actually stay good for 4 separate formats.

(Which does bring me to make fun of "Pokemon players", which will complain when a pokemon has wasted stats it cannot or doesn't want to use, but also complain when a pokemon like Flutter Mane gets minmaxed stats and surprise surprise it becomes dominant)

 

[Karxrida]

Scald getting nuked from the planet (it was the go-to water stab in VGC, and lord knows how much scarier Iron Bundle would have been without 15% chance to lose you the game)

Minor tangent, but last I checked Ice-types (except for Crabominable apparently?!?) are not allowed to have Scald. Game Freak could have theoretically thrown a curveball here, but there's a decent chance Iron Bundle wouldn't be given access to the move.

 

[MisogiKurakawa]

This I disagree with.

GameFreaks has definitely shown they do not want "all teams to be the same", since gen 6-ish they have been always nerfing hyperdominant strategies, and specifically in gen 9 we saw both major stall nerfs (which was mainly to stop stall strategies in BSS), Scald getting nuked from the planet (it was the go-to water stab in VGC, and lord knows how much scarier Iron Bundle would have been without 15% chance to lose you the game), Zacian nerfs, Regieleki nerfs (both dominant forces last gen VGC, Zacian showing a FlutterMane-tier usage), and a few more.

The "problem" is just that Pokemon as of now doesn't do "patches". The nerfs happen between generations, so if a dominant force appears, it's likely to stay that way for the entirety of the generation.
Their current attempt at making megatame varied has been progressively introducing more pokemon as the game goes, which was mostly successful, but it doesn't do much if a force is so dominant that manages to actually stay good for 4 separate formats.

(Which does bring me to make fun of "Pokemon players", which will complain when a pokemon has wasted stats it cannot or doesn't want to use, but also complain when a pokemon like Flutter Mane gets minmaxed stats and surprise surprise it becomes dominant)

You misconstrued my point. My point isn't that GF doesn't do balance updates efficiently (which is absolutely an issue), it's that optimization is so prevalent in the meta that something like Flutter Mane is barely enough to cause serious debate in the playerbase. To them, the use of Flutter Mane isn't a bug, but a feature, because the ultimate point of comp isn't having fun with teams you enjoy, but winning through the theoretical best and strongest teams possible. Hence, why genning is considered an "optimal" method for play, and not literally just using cheating devices like it objectively is.

 

[Worldie]

You misconstrued my point. My point isn't that GF doesn't do balance updates efficiently (which is absolutely an issue), it's that optimization is so prevalent in the meta that something like Flutter Mane is barely enough to cause serious debate in the playerbase. To them, the use of Flutter Mane isn't a bug, but a feature, because the ultimate point of comp isn't having fun with teams you enjoy, but winning through the theoretical best and strongest teams possible.

I see, though, I don't think that's telling the entire story.

Competitive Pokemon to most degree shapes the playerbase in same way MOBAs or TCGs do: people play to win, so for obvious reasons, they are going to try to use their best.
This produces "metas" which can and will often have reappearing faces.
Flutter Mane in 72% of the teams isn't exactly different from Tearlaments being everywhere in YGO, or Zeri having near 100% p/b rate in League of Legends, and in all fields you will have both a side of the playerbase which is fine with "just use what's op at a given time", and another who'll be like "zzz same champs all games".
If you have watched the Worlds streams, you definitely would have noticed many of the chatters complain about FlutterMane and Urshifu in every team, in same way they complain of Incineroar or Lando-T or whatever is the fotm pokemon. And so do actual players, however the main difference is that the players have fame and money on the line and are not bothered too much by it since they have to deal with it regardless. I am quite confident most VGC players don't exactly find fun when a meta is "either play X or X's counter", I don't think anyone remotely enjoyed playing CHALK, I doubt anyone enjoyed the omnipresence of Incineroar + Lando-T + potentially 1-2 more intimidates in gen 7, I don't think anyone liked the Zacian-centric meta of last gen 8 VGC completely nuking teambuilding, and if you hear any relevant VGCer in this generation they will complain of how insanely busted Urshifu specifically is without Dynamax to balance it out and how they hate its existance. (as Flutter Mane has counterplay and some depth to its sets, Urshifu doesn't, it does one thing but that thing it does far too well)

TLDR: Pokemon is exhibiting the same scenario regarding centralization of other more developed e-sports, on both casual and professional levels, and it's unlikely to actually change due to GF's reluctancy (is this a word?) to actually do competitive patches or banlists and only doing balance changes with new releases.

 

[MisogiKurakawa]

I see, though, I don't think that's telling the entire story.

Competitive Pokemon to most degree shapes the playerbase in same way MOBAs or TCGs do: people play to win, so for obvious reasons, they are going to try to use their best.
This produces "metas" which can and will often have reappearing faces.
Flutter Mane in 72% of the teams isn't exactly different from Tearlaments being everywhere in YGO, or Zeri having near 100% p/b rate in League of Legends, and in all fields you will have both a side of the playerbase which is fine with "just use what's op at a given time", and another who'll be like "zzz same champs all games".
If you have watched the Worlds streams, you definitely would have noticed many of the chatters complain about FlutterMane and Urshifu in every team, in same way they complain of Incineroar or Lando-T or whatever is the fotm pokemon. And so do actual players, however the main difference is that the players have fame and money on the line and are not bothered too much by it since they have to deal with it regardless. I am quite confident most VGC players don't exactly find fun when a meta is "either play X or X's counter", I don't think anyone remotely enjoyed playing CHALK, I doubt anyone enjoyed the omnipresence of Incineroar + Lando-T + potentially 1-2 more intimidates in gen 7, I don't think anyone liked the Zacian-centric meta of last gen 8 VGC completely nuking teambuilding, and if you hear any relevant VGCer in this generation they will complain of how insanely busted Urshifu specifically is without Dynamax to balance it out and how they hate its existance. (as Flutter Mane has counterplay and some depth to its sets, Urshifu doesn't, it does one thing but that thing it does far too well)

TLDR: Pokemon is exhibiting the same scenario regarding centralization of other more developed e-sports, on both casual and professional levels, and it's unlikely to actually change due to GF's reluctancy (is this a word?) to actually do competitive patches or banlists and only doing balance changes with new releases.

Oh, this I agree on 100%. It's a nuanced subject, which has to take into account multiple levels of interaction between players to understand, but definitely at its core speaks to the weird degree of apathy GF seems to have towards competitive. Like, I don't think they resent Pokemon's competitive sphere, but they certainly seem to treat it and the games as a whole as two disconnected markets, in spite of competitive being about as logical a conclusion for the franchise's design as any other E-Sport.

 

[Ransei]

PSS, top notch pvp battling, a Vs. Recorder with a Mock Battle function, a fleshed out Secret Base system, rewarding shinies, easy grinding, a Battle Maison, and full Natdex accessibility bar mythicals with just the 2 prior games > a Battle Frontier but absolutely none of the above.

 

[Worldie]

Oh, this I agree on 100%. It's a nuanced subject, which has to take into account multiple levels of interaction between players to understand, but definitely at its core speaks to the weird degree of apathy GF seems to have towards competitive. Like, I don't think they resent Pokemon's competitive sphere, but they certainly seem to treat it and the games as a whole as two disconnected markets, in spite of competitive being about as logical a conclusion for the franchise's design as any other E-Sport.

Honestly I don't think it's "apathy" per se, rather, they don't quite know how to deal with it.

Before mentioning GameFreaks, remember this is ultimately Nintendo we're talking about. Major Japanese companies.

Japanese companies have... difficulty dealing with such huge scale fan/player interaction when it isn't "make more gachas to milk money possibly featuring big tiddies".
Remember the shitshows that happened with Smash competitive scene during Covid? "We'd rather let the game die and have noone play it than let you mod it to play remotely"
If it wasnt for Covid times, I'm not even sure we'd even have co-streamed Worlds from localized streamers. And players as well as streamers are still completely forbidden to show any external company mark other Pokemon, GameFreak's and Nintendo's. Every major competitor is fighting to the nails to slot as much external advertising in their streams (without resorting to actual Twitch/Youtube ads) to squeeze more money from investors, yet TPCI is forcing players to cover their shirts if they dare have a brand on them.
Oh and let's not forget streams literally getting DMCAd if they shown Necrozma's Z-move in gen 7.

All of this not surprising comping from a culture where many big videogame brands still apply scene blocks to their entire games or threaten to "ban you" (whatever this ever means on single player games) if you stream their games due to obsessive protection of their IP.

Nintendo/TPCI/Someone higher up is definitely trying to push Pokemon (both TCG and VGC) into E-sports territory. The problem is that they don't know "how" to make the game big, and if they do, they're well skeptical about it.

After Worlds ended (in fact iirc they announced this as it was in progress), they announced a significant reshaping of the events, adding more money to regionals/internationals, and opening the way for brand advertising as well as (potentially) official private tournaments in the future.
These are all things that have been a thing in actual e-sports for a while. The Pokemon brand itself is not enough to carry people to play it competitively, you need to actually be able to generate money (both for players and external investors). Whichever people in suites oversee Pokemon smell the potential money to be made, but are still struggling to do baby steps in a environment that's generating billions oversea, which is pretty funny.

 

[MisogiKurakawa]

Honestly I don't think it's "apathy" per se, rather, they don't quite know how to deal with it.

Before mentioning GameFreaks, remember this is ultimately Nintendo we're talking about. Major Japanese companies.

Japanese companies have... difficulty dealing with such huge scale fan/player interaction when it isn't "make more gachas to milk money possibly featuring big tiddies".
Remember the shitshows that happened with Smash competitive scene during Covid? "We'd rather let the game die and have noone play it than let you mod it to play remotely"
If it wasnt for Covid times, I'm not even sure we'd even have co-streamed Worlds from localized streamers. And players as well as streamers are still completely forbidden to show any external company mark other Pokemon, GameFreak's and Nintendo's. Every major competitor is fighting to the nails to slot as much external advertising in their streams (without resorting to actual Twitch/Youtube ads) to squeeze more money from investors, yet TPCI is forcing players to cover their shirts if they dare have a brand on them.
Oh and let's not forget streams literally getting DMCAd if they shown Necrozma's Z-move in gen 7.

All of this not surprising comping from a culture where many big videogame brands still apply scene blocks to their entire games or threaten to "ban you" (whatever this ever means on single player games) if you stream their games due to obsessive protection of their IP.

Nintendo/TPCI/Someone higher up is definitely trying to push Pokemon (both TCG and VGC) into E-sports territory. The problem is that they don't know "how" to make the game big, and if they do, they're well skeptical about it.

After Worlds ended (in fact iirc they announced this as it was in progress), they announced a significant reshaping of the events, adding more money to regionals/internationals, and opening the way for brand advertising as well as (potentially) official private tournaments in the future.
These are all things that have been a thing in actual e-sports for a while. The Pokemon brand itself is not enough to carry people to play it competitively, you need to actually be able to generate money (both for players and external investors). Whichever people in suites oversee Pokemon smell the potential money to be made, but are still struggling to do baby steps in a environment that's generating billions oversea, which is pretty funny.

Regarding spoilers, it's less obsessive protection of IP, and more just that Japan highly values spoiler culture, to where often Wikipedia summaries for mystery novels are written to leave the solution out. It's fundamentally just an act of respect towards the creators.

 

[pika pal]

The big problem I think Pokemon as an E-Sport runs into is that too much of the teambuilding process runs on things that TPC does not want you to be able to change openly about your Pokemon. Note that the following may not all apply to VGC's Meta but I think they are worth mentioning as part of the overall design.

Beforehand this was the aspect of IVs and Nature, things intrinsic to the Pokemon and either hidden or dressed as part of their personality so that changing them might break the "Animal Buddies" aspect of the IP. Even with changes brought on by Bottle Caps or Nature Mints, they don't make these very accessible and they're still in minor ways constricted by that Aesthetic value: Hyper Training is "I'll make your Pokemon as strong as it can be!" to disguise the IV buff, but also means there's no flavorful equivalent for reducing a stat and making a Pokemon "worse" at something as you often see players desiring for Confuse/Foul Play or Trick Room optimization.

This also extends to really weird edge cases like Gender (for Enamorus Contact) and Shiny-ness (see things like the M13 Beasts having special moves but then being nature/shiny locked to use them together) that a saavy player might account for in Genning/hunting in order to add that little extra advantage (Before, if my Entei wasn't Shiny, there was no ES threat, but I could also run a non-event Shiny Entei to bluff the move while using Jolly for a Speed advantage, for one example).

Things like changing the Movepools or Abilities are reasonable enough, it brings to mind things like MOBA's where you have mid-competition progression paths or a Side-Deck in YGO to change your deck for Game 2 based on Game 1's strat. EV's could fall into this category as well if they didn't require "training" every time to distribute them rather than "a fully trained Pokemon has X amount of EV's that you can redistribute from their Summary Screen anytime". Pokemon was designed around a brand image that resulted in mechanics not being designed for true formal competition (as opposed to locals or Playground tournaments between friends who probably didn't look too heavily into this), and now it's coming back to bite the Esports push because TPC is trying to put Band-aids on a Progeny that was raised a completely different way than they need for this (not wrong, but the direction is totally off).

A big reason Genning is so prominent is because Pokemon is not designed to encourage you to hunt for and drastically change your Pokemon to achieve an optimal result (Optimized stuff emerges for sure but I doubt GF planned for Incineroar or Landorus-T or Fluttermane to appear on literally every other team that enters), at most to adjust the one you already raised such that each change takes the same amount of effort and thus takes disproportionately more work vs reward for tiny adjustments. This is all with regards to having the Pokemon itself and changing it to fit a new role, as opposed to when each attempt to get the proper mon can take potential weeks just to see (Urshifu requires a long run of the IoA to get the other Evolution even before potentially having to reroll or respec, and Enamorus is another infamous one of late).

tl;dr Pokemon wants to do eSports but the Pokemon are still your animal friends instead of Units for Gameplay, which clash hard for accessibility.

 

[A_Wild_Noob_Appeared!]

This also extends to really weird edge cases like Gender (for Enamorus Contact) and Shiny-ness (see things like the M13 Beasts having special moves but then being nature/shiny locked to use them together) that a saavy player might account for in Genning/hunting in order to add that little extra advantage (Before, if my Entei wasn't Shiny, there was no ES threat, but I could also run a non-event Shiny Entei to bluff the move while using Jolly for a Speed advantage, for one example).

Side track, but I'll always been annoyed that it took until Gen 8 for Entei to learn Flare Blitz outside of events. It got Sacred Fire of all things by level-up two generations prior, even though it had never even been an event move.

 

[MisogiKurakawa]

The big problem I think Pokemon as an E-Sport runs into is that too much of the teambuilding process runs on things that TPC does not want you to be able to change openly about your Pokemon. Note that the following may not all apply to VGC's Meta but I think they are worth mentioning as part of the overall design.

Beforehand this was the aspect of IVs and Nature, things intrinsic to the Pokemon and either hidden or dressed as part of their personality so that changing them might break the "Animal Buddies" aspect of the IP. Even with changes brought on by Bottle Caps or Nature Mints, they don't make these very accessible and they're still in minor ways constricted by that Aesthetic value: Hyper Training is "I'll make your Pokemon as strong as it can be!" to disguise the IV buff, but also means there's no flavorful equivalent for reducing a stat and making a Pokemon "worse" at something as you often see players desiring for Confuse/Foul Play or Trick Room optimization.

This also extends to really weird edge cases like Gender (for Enamorus Contact) and Shiny-ness (see things like the M13 Beasts having special moves but then being nature/shiny locked to use them together) that a saavy player might account for in Genning/hunting in order to add that little extra advantage (Before, if my Entei wasn't Shiny, there was no ES threat, but I could also run a non-event Shiny Entei to bluff the move while using Jolly for a Speed advantage, for one example).

Things like changing the Movepools or Abilities are reasonable enough, it brings to mind things like MOBA's where you have mid-competition progression paths or a Side-Deck in YGO to change your deck for Game 2 based on Game 1's strat. EV's could fall into this category as well if they didn't require "training" every time to distribute them rather than "a fully trained Pokemon has X amount of EV's that you can redistribute from their Summary Screen anytime". Pokemon was designed around a brand image that resulted in mechanics not being designed for true formal competition (as opposed to locals or Playground tournaments between friends who probably didn't look too heavily into this), and now it's coming back to bite the Esports push because TPC is trying to put Band-aids on a Progeny that was raised a completely different way than they need for this (not wrong, but the direction is totally off).

A big reason Genning is so prominent is because Pokemon is not designed to encourage you to hunt for and drastically change your Pokemon to achieve an optimal result (Optimized stuff emerges for sure but I doubt GF planned for Incineroar or Landorus-T or Fluttermane to appear on literally every other team that enters), at most to adjust the one you already raised such that each change takes the same amount of effort and thus takes disproportionately more work vs reward for tiny adjustments. This is all with regards to having the Pokemon itself and changing it to fit a new role, as opposed to when each attempt to get the proper mon can take potential weeks just to see (Urshifu requires a long run of the IoA to get the other Evolution even before potentially having to reroll or respec, and Enamorus is another infamous one of late).

tl;dr Pokemon wants to do eSports but the Pokemon are still your animal friends instead of Units for Gameplay, which clash hard for accessibility.

Yeah, from my perspective, there's basically only two solutions to the genning problem, insofar as it is a social practice.

1. They just go all in on disconnecting competitive from the actual game and just establish a full-on Showdown-esque battle simulator for competitive formats.
2. They enact some kind of hard reset to the idea of competitive that actively pushes the community away from optimization, thus making genning no longer an incentive.

Neither are exactly beneficial scenarios - I really dislike the former from just a conceptual POV, and the latter would probably alienate a lot of people who staked their careers on the game as it currently is - but something has to be done regardless. They can't just keep betting on half-measures to somehow bail them out constantly.

 

[Worldie]

1. They just go all in on disconnecting competitive from the actual game and just establish a full-on Showdown-esque battle simulator for competitive formats.
2. They enact some kind of hard reset to the idea of competitive that actively pushes the community away from optimization, thus making genning no longer an incentive.

Or honestly neither.

They are making getting competitive pokemon easier and more accessible every generation. With the DLC seemingly introducing "ev reset items", we're realistically only a few step away (one of which being 0 IV caps) from literally taking 5 minutes from catching a pokemon to making it VGC ready.
The only thing that is really missing is a way to quickly swap around a legendary or have multiple of them.

 

[MisogiKurakawa]

So, another subject I think is worth discussing - Is it really worth keeping IVs?

This is a genuine question in my mind. While the purpose of the mechanic was pretty plainly just as a means of diversifying Pokemon and making them seem more "real", the mechanic is basically the leading cause behind the genning culture which has been such a talking point lately among the competitive space, because so much the game are rooted in these very hard numbers that people are trying to optimize. Sure, Bottle-Caps have been implemented as an attempt to enable one to naturally get perfect IVs in-game, but for the sake of game balance those items are difficult to obtain and expensive, requiring substantive amounts of time grinding money which plays into the time reasons for people cheating as a means of skipping the process. Natures and EVs already exist as the primary form of stat customization while being much easier to interact with and digest, so what's the wholesale benefit of keeping the system?

 

[Coronis]

So, another subject I think is worth discussing - Is it really worth keeping IVs?

This is a genuine question in my mind. While the purpose of the mechanic was pretty plainly just as a means of diversifying Pokemon and making them seem more "real", the mechanic is basically the leading cause behind the genning culture which has been such a talking point lately among the competitive space, because so much the game are rooted in these very hard numbers that people are trying to optimize. Sure, Bottle-Caps have been implemented as an attempt to enable one to naturally get perfect IVs in-game, but for the sake of game balance those items are difficult to obtain and expensive, requiring substantive amounts of time grinding money which plays into the time reasons for people cheating as a means of skipping the process. Natures and EVs already exist as the primary form of stat customization while being much easier to interact with and digest, so what's the wholesale benefit of keeping the system?

I wouldn’t say EVs and natures are much easier to interact with.

Bottle Caps cost 20k to max out one stat. Mints cost 20k to change nature. Vitamins cost 10k each for a total of 260k to max out one stat. Or you can grind out EVs from actual battles (takes longer than grinding money), or you can hope you get lucky with raids for any of them.

On the actual genning issue, gen for personal use yeah sure, don’t gen if you’re competing in an actual sanctioned tournament - its that simple. You don’t deserve to be there if you’re not willing to put in the time and effort (which is far less these days due to the QoL changes that have been made) to put together your team.

Hopefully we do get a 0 IV Bottle Cap (Rusted Bottle Cap?) for those TR etc. cases - but they’re the only ones where it would take a significant amount of time to build a Pokemon.

 

[Bakugames]

My main issue with ivs, evs and honestly most building is how the work with the current gamefreak philosophy: Gamefreak absolutely HATES giving numbers or information to anything that isnt the bp/accuracy and your stats. You never learn that the flinch chance of something is 30%, it just "has a chance". you don't learn that natures give a 10% change for the two stats, its just "affects your stats". You're given macho braces and bottle caps that make your pokemon stronger, but you're not told how, why, and by how much. Its the worst with ivs because they have the biggest obfuscation of the entire series, as the breeding behind them is almost unexplained beyond vague mentions of breeding. Its a convoluted system made worse by how annoying it is to interact with

I get it on paper because throwing a bunch of random numbers is probably very confusing for a kid, when the current simple wording is plenty enough for them to understand the move and pick what they want to do. But also cmon, whats the point of making all these items that interact with these hidden mechanics when you refuse to even explain how they work?
On a game I play, the writing for the skills and abilities of characters is written like the pokemon ones by default, but you can click an expand button that changes the description to a more detailed version with raw %s. It goes from "This character jumps, dealing massive damage" to "This character jumps every 5s, dealing 500% damage + 50% def". Something like that in the settings, where you can choose to view a more detailed version of how the game works would help a lot.

I still think ivs are kinda dumb and I think the coromon system or even just a "choose the stats to improve" take that jrpgs have done for years is much more intuitive. I also find the take of making pokemon feel unique a bit stupid because the average player will absolutely not notice or care, and the competitive player will not give a shit about the granularity of pokemon stats and always go for the optimal version

 

[Hugin]

Yeah, it's not that natures are "easier" per se than IVs, it's that Natures show up on the stats page and make it very clear(except for the colors being backwards) what they do. IV's are intentionally hidden behind vague wording from rando NPCs. If I catch a Meowth, I have to load up an IV calculator online to know if they're good or not. For Nature, it's open the stats screen and check. Guess which one I take note of on in-game runs.

 

[AztecCroc]

Yeah, it's not that natures are "easier" per se than IVs, it's that Natures show up on the stats page and make it very clear(except for the colors being backwards) what they do. IV's are intentionally hidden behind vague wording from rando NPCs. If I catch a Meowth, I have to load up an IV calculator online to know if they're good or not. For Nature, it's open the stats screen and check. Guess which one I take note of on in-game runs.

Vague wording? It's been a thing you can just check in the PC/Summary since gen 7. If it says "Best" then that stat is maximum and if it says "No good" that stat is minimum, all the others are irrelevant.

It's fairly clear and easy to know your EVs nowadays, since with no Hidden Power nothing other than 31 or 0 matters.