(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[Sixfortyfive]

Here's a minor annoyance:

I always felt like the game should have treated 255 EVs in a stat as equivalent to 256, giving you another point for the last 3 EVs instead of "wasting" them. Like it always felt that the intention was to allow the player to max out precisely two stats anyway, since the total limit was capped at 510.

Having to keep track of individual progress and making sure you don't overshoot the target was so silly before they just decided to cap each stat at 252.

 

[pika pal]

Here's a minor annoyance:

I always felt like the game should have treated 255 EVs in a stat as equivalent to 256, giving you another point for the last 3 EVs instead of "wasting" them. Like it always felt that the intention was to allow the player to max out precisely two stats anyway, since the total limit was capped at 510.

Having to keep track of individual progress and making sure you don't overshoot the target was so silly before they just decided to cap each stat at 252.

The simple answer I think is GF just not bothering with specifics after making the system. My guess is they just assigned 255 as the max because that uses the 256 values (including 0), which is a nice round 8-bit one, . Making the last 3 count as a point might not take much additional work in practice, but that's assuming GF wanted to do anything besides set-and-forget to keep the EV system simple for them at the time.

 

[sg pokemon]

Since the EVs system is still ongoing as the main discussion topic here, just wanted to chime in and say that mixed attackers are indeed given the worst hand by the fact that they only have 252 evs left to invest in their offense(s) of choice (assuming the other 252 has already gone into either hp/speed, a necessity for basically any mon really).

Now people may say that walls too have this dilemma with wanting to cover both defenses with the remaining 252 evs, except....not really, no. This is because a wall that is already investing evs into its hp stat already has an aspect of its bulk/defensive capabilities already covered in one regard; the additional investment into either def or spdef simply serves as an additional reinforcer to said defensive prowess (yes I'm aware that mons with high hp/low defenses like alomomola, drifblim, hariyama/iron hands would rather invest into one or both defenses rather than hp, but that's simply how the stat investment formula works in that evs are more impactful towards lower base stats; basically these high hp mons are the exception not the rule).

Attackers on the other hand have no such luxury; there's no hp investment equivalent to help out their general damage output (and neither does the speed investment help with actually hitting harder in either side of the spectrum); what they see from the 252 evs they have to work with is what they get, and that's that in terms of helping out damage output. Issues are further accentuated by the aforementioned issue of natures dilemma; if you want to try and make use of both offenses without hindering either of them, you need to instead hinder one of your defenses, or speed (or help out nothing in particular with a neutral nature), which creates a whole host of additional issues in and on itself. This is also not an issue walls struggle with as they're perfectly content with disregarding either atk or spa, or even speed since it's not as relevant to their function.

TLDR: Mixed attackers suffer the worst from this split evs system dilemma, as they have to make the most compromises to try and achieve their intended purpose, compared to pure attackers or even walls.

 

[Worldie]

Realistically speaking, mixed attackers are just used wrongly.

People think that they're meant to use both stats at same time. No, the deal is that they *can* use both stats.
Which means that you can't prepare for both. If you followed OU recently, one of the reasons people at some point were calling for Iron Valiant's ban/suspect in the past as well as, say, Kyurem's, was specifically that you couldn't tell if they're phisical or special from team preview alone. You could send in Blissey only to be smacked by a Close Combat, but equally send in Slowbro and eat Shadow Ball instead. Similar discourse applies to Kyurem, send in a special wall for it to DDance in your face, or send in a phisical wall only to eat a Earth Power and get 1hkod or badly chunked. (Problem further exacerbated by Terastal obviously).
The "potential" to use both is much more impactful than "actually using both". Expecially as there's only so many moveslots a pokemon can use, so the freedom to use both sides of the spectrum is not "really" there.
(This obviously doesn't actually apply to current VGC tournament system, open team sheet removes the surprise factor, but you can still make use of this on the regular VGC ladder)

The real problem "mixed attackers" face isn't EVs, it's the fact that the mixed attack stats actually eat at their BST. Expecially with today's powercreep, if you want to be even remotely viable as attacker, you're looking at 120+ in atk or spatk (bar having some particularly busted signature move or ability to compensate a low base stat). But if your budget is 550 bst, and you're already allocating 250 of those in offenses, that means you are going to either be insanely slow or insanely squishy (or both for lower bst ends).
Actively using both stats hasn't really been a thing for dedicated sweepers in ages, other than to snipe a surprise KO, but surprise coverage isn't something strictly related to mixed attackers. Garchomp has run Flamethrower, Lando has run Grass Knot, heck people ran Hidden Power on mons with 50 special attack in some cases to snipe 4x weak enemies. But even on mon that had high secondary offensive stat, running mixed sets just was almost never optimal over just investing stab / stab / setup / coverage instead.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Here's a minor annoyance:

I always felt like the game should have treated 255 EVs in a stat as equivalent to 256, giving you another point for the last 3 EVs instead of "wasting" them. Like it always felt that the intention was to allow the player to max out precisely two stats anyway, since the total limit was capped at 510.

I'm not actually sure this is the case. Looking at how the series typically allocates EVs to NPC Pokemon, I've often thought that 510 was chosen because there's a (relatively) neat way to divide that total between 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

If you max two stats, it's 252 each with 6 remaining (this is used in numerous instances)

If you split the total between three stats it's 170 EVs each (this is also used in numerous instances)

If you split the total between four stats it's 127 (this rarely gets used; more practically you'd do 126*4, +6)

If you split the total between five stats it's 102 EVs each (less commonly used, but shows up very occasionally - and obviously you've got the option of 100 in each with 8 in the remaining stat, which is used for a couple of the Frontier Brain's mons in Emerald iirc)

If you split the total between six stats it's 85 EVs each (this is used in Emerald for apprentice teams, and possibly in other games too but I haven't checked)

 

[khlaylav]

Not particularly in the mood to get into a long analysis of Black/White 2 teams in comparison to their prequels, but it is very weird that despite their being sequels and therefore expanded Pokedex, Hugh does not have a single Pokemon that couldn't already be found in Unova. Starter, Unfeazant, monkey, Boufflant. Just weird. Not without precedent (Barry doesn't take advantage of the expanded Pokedex in Platinum, for example) but still funky.

 

[R_N]

Not particularly in the mood to get into a long analysis of Black/White 2 teams in comparison to their prequels, but it is very weird that despite their being sequels and therefore expanded Pokedex, Hugh does not have a single Pokemon that couldn't already be found in Unova. Starter, Unfeazant, monkey, Boufflant. Just weird. Not without precedent (Barry doesn't take advantage of the expanded Pokedex in Platinum, for example) but still funky.

I was going to say he had a Flygon, but turns out he only picks it up in his post game fight.

Really thought for sure his final regular fight had the thing!

 

[nitchenkightmares]

The fact they gave sylveon mystical fire, only for the next region to remove it from sylveon for no reason!
Why it's not like the move was dexited! The move is still used happily by the ralts line. Amazing how they advertise eevee this much and GF makes it their mission to deny its evolutions any viability.

 

[R_N]

The fact they gave sylveon mystical fire, only for the next region to remove it from sylveon for no reason!
Why it's not like the move was dexited! The move is still used happily by the ralts line. Amazing how they advertise eevee this much and GF makes it their mission to deny its evolutions any viability.

To be fair it lost Mystical Fire because it was something it only learned by TM move and then it stopped being a TM move. So everything that only learned it by TM lost it, not just Sylveon.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

The fact they gave sylveon mystical fire, only for the next region to remove it from sylveon for no reason!
Why it's not like the move was dexited! The move is still used happily by the ralts line. Amazing how they advertise eevee this much and GF makes it their mission to deny its evolutions any viability.

I didn't know they cut off Sylveon's access to Mystical Fire until just now, but I'm kinda glad they did it. It being the only Eeveelution with actually good coverage was a bit weird.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Having now played two Pokemon games and experienced what it's like to transfer stuff between your two games, I find it extremely annoying that you actually have to TRADE Pokemon when trading Pokemon. Just let me move a Pokemon from one game to the other. Why do I gotta send something else back the other way each time? Also why do I have to ferry items on Pokemon one at a time instead of just sending the items directly?

 

[Cancel cult]

the elevator in casarafa or whatever its called

 

[R_N]

Having now played two Pokemon games and experienced what it's like to transfer stuff between your two games, I find it extremely annoying that you actually have to TRADE Pokemon when trading Pokemon. Just let me move a Pokemon from one game to the other. Why do I gotta send something else back the other way each time? Also why do I have to ferry items on Pokemon one at a time instead of just sending the items directly?

Well the boring answer is they don't want people to do that, generally. Or at least, know people might do that, but the audience of "people who buy multiple games within a generation and have multiple GBAs/DS/3DS and then want to transfer all/most of their pokemon from one game to another" is significantly more niche in their mind than what they want which is "two people make a connection and decide to trade a couple of Pokemon and maybe send over an item with them at the same time"

Likely what lead to Bank/Home being able to do this, even if those are more intended as a mechanism to store pokemon and transfer up, so not fully left in the lurch at least. But we'll probably never get game to game instant or mass transfer because they want Trading to be ~An Experience~














That said, would it kill them to make wonder trade a more instant experience. The intent in SV (& SWSH, to an extent) is cute, where it wants you to send a Pokemon up and then pick it up as you adventure around, but at odds with how quickly trades finish in the background and then how long it takes to sit through the entire trade animation and then it immediately asks if you want to do another. You can have it a stationary regular trade experience or you can have it be a fun background experience; pick one!

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Well the boring answer is they don't want people to do that, generally. Or at least, know people might do that, but the audience of "people who buy multiple games within a generation and have multiple GBAs/DS/3DS and then want to transfer all/most of their pokemon from one game to another" is significantly more niche in their mind than what they want which is "two people make a connection and decide to trade a couple of Pokemon and maybe send over an item with them at the same time"

Likely what lead to Bank/Home being able to do this, even if those are more intended as a mechanism to store pokemon and transfer up, so not fully left in the lurch at least. But we'll probably never get game to game instant or mass transfer because they want Trading to be ~An Experience~














That said, would it kill them to make wonder trade a more instant experience. The intent in SV (& SWSH, to an extent) is cute, where it wants you to send a Pokemon up and then pick it up as you adventure around, but at odds with how quickly trades finish in the background and then how long it takes to sit through the entire trade animation and then it immediately asks if you want to do another. You can have it a stationary regular trade experience or you can have it be a fun background experience; pick one!

Even between different players, I don't see why trades have to be transactionable. The whole inspiration behind the mechanic was being frustrated at not being able to share a rare item in Dragon Quest with another player. Why can't one play just give someone a Pokemon?

I don't really care about it being instant or mass (except maybe the items, sending every TM and PP Up one at a time from Colosseum to Emerald was obnoxious).

 

[R_N]

Even between different players, I don't see why trades have to be transactionable. The whole inspiration behind the mechanic was being frustrated at not being able to share a rare item in Dragon Quest with another player. Why can't one play just give someone a Pokemon?

I don't really care about it being instant or mass (except maybe the items, sending every TM and PP Up one at a time from Colosseum to Emerald was obnoxious).

Because they want it to be An Experience. The inspiration of the mechanic was then explained as resolving by an even more transactional solution, after all; iirc it was literally akin to "i'll trade 3 red dragonflies for your green". More like arranging a trade for a TCG. Presumably they settled on the current format because it was simpler than that and [was meant to] foster more connection. Wow I'm giving you X and getting Y in return!

Obviously how well this actually works outside of very pragmatic circles like us, who knows. but it's what they want rather than "donating" a Pokemon. Guessing they don't like the vibes of it.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

This is indeed a very minor thing but having started the series with Gen II, it always bugs me that in most games you can't talk to NPCs on land while you're surfing. If you're surfing on a lake or river or in the sea and there's a fisherman stood on a dock or something you usually have to dismount and come on land to battle them. It's such a pointlessly restrictive change.

 

[Sonikku A]

This is indeed a very minor thing but having started the series with Gen II, it always bugs me that in most games you can't talk to NPCs on land while you're surfing. If you're surfing on a lake or river or in the sea and there's a fisherman stood on a dock or something you usually have to dismount and come on land to battle them. It's such a pointlessly restrictive change.

I think it's due to GF not wanting NPC events that affect Player position to trigger, since those events ignore collision. Of course they could've simply had another event for if you're surfing, given the surf flag exists
But they chose the one with the least need to code checks for...regardless how annoying/unrealistic

 

[bdt2002]

Recently I've found myself wanting to go back to playing the older Pokémon games, and I'm sure by this point we've all experienced that feeling of "This game has that select group of Pokémon that's really good for a playthrough and everything else is noticeably worse". The disparity in viability between the different options for team members is something that's took away some of my interest in replaying and possibly even trying to aim for 100% in these games, but I want to put a question out into the world real quick. From a game balance perspective, is it possible that Starter Pokémon are too powerful?

I'm not talking about something like Swampert in Hoenn where there's no Grass specialists or how the Alola starters and the Paldea starters all have really strong signature moves. I'm looking at every and all Starter Pokémon here from a game design standpoint, more specifically the fact that they all start at Level 5. Level 5 might not sound like a major advantage, but due to the ways Pokémon stats scale with leveling up, the difference in power between lower level Pokémon is far greater than the difference in power between higher level Pokémon. I understand the point that Starter Pokémon are supposed to be beginner-friendly, memorable Pokémon. That's great and all, but I find that there's very little, if any active incentive to not want to blitz right through the early parts of a playthrough with just my starter. Which, yeah, that's what most of us did when we were younger.

The problem? Because your starter is so much stronger than these Pokémon seen at the very beginning of the game, but you also need noticeably less Exp. Points to level up early on, your starter that's most likely going to be the strongest Pokémon on your team stays disproportionately strong. The player's starter being the strongest Pokémon on a team isn't necessarily a bad thing- in fact, I'd argue it's both thematically fitting and helps that whole "beginner friendly, memorable" theme starters are going for as a mechanic. When I say disproportionally strong, I'm talking about Starter Pokémon relative to the obstacles the games throw at them. I remember one playthrough I was running of... it was either Pearl or Platinum, I think it was the latter, where I somehow managed to fully evolve my Turtwig I was using before the third Gym without even trying. I was just running around the region, seeing how many Exp. Points I would get if I tried to explore everything and defeat wild Pokémon and Trainers for EVs and money and whatnot. Since the game wasn't presenting me with any reasons to stop doing what I was doing because it was working, I just kept on doing it, and somehow I ended up with a Torterra by the time I reached Hearthome.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Recently I've found myself wanting to go back to playing the older Pokémon games, and I'm sure by this point we've all experienced that feeling of "This game has that select group of Pokémon that's really good for a playthrough and everything else is noticeably worse". The disparity in viability between the different options for team members is something that's took away some of my interest in replaying and possibly even trying to aim for 100% in these games, but I want to put a question out into the world real quick. From a game balance perspective, is it possible that Starter Pokémon are too powerful?

Well, yes. They're meant to be. It's deliberately designed that way to make you want to use it throughout the game.

Not just in the earlygame when they're significantly better than any other Pokemon you'll find in the wild but all the way through to the end when they'll be on par with some of the strongest evolved species. It's likely to be one of the best - if not the best - member of your team. They often have highly diverse learnsets and fairly broken signature moves and they evolve more quickly than a lot of other species. The incentive not to solorun the entire game with your starter is that often the first or second gym will be a type it can't handle, but because of the way the combat system works it's sometimes possible to overpower a bad matchup regardless.

I'm not really sure what it proves that you were able to evolve your Turtwig before gym three though...? As you say, you were grinding. That's possible with the vast majority of Pokemon (and doesn't Grotle evolve fairly early by comparison anyway?) but it's not intended. Unless you're literally using two or three Pokemon on your team you're not going to be fully evolved by gym 3 in Sinnoh.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Gen 4 also discourages soloing the game slightly more than most of the other games by virtue of the early route Pokemon being generally good. Starly and Shinx have a lot more staying power than Pidgey or Rattata, for example. And then you have something like the popular and powerful pseudo-legend Gible being available relatively early. For as much as people joke about "every gen 4 player makes the same team," at least you can tell that the devs were trying to make a lot of Pokemon useful.

But yes, I do think most of us realized at some point that the path of least resistance was to just dump all of your Exp on your starter and overpower every bad match-up. And I do agree that it's kind of a problem in that it discourages experimentation for team-building. The starters generally having higher BST and better-than-average movepools means that most other things you catch will be relatively weaker at the same level, and since wild Pokemon you encounter are almost always going to be at lower levels than your starter, that just compounds everything, and then you have other factors like late-game acquisitions being even further behind the curve due to 0 EVs and such. It all creates a feedback loop where you stop wanting to stray off of the beaten path and swap in and out new team members because you're intuitively aware that doing so is likely to slow down your progress.

Creating a well-balanced, full team of six was something that I only started to do once I wanted more of a challenge, and that seems like it should be the opposite of the intended game design. But in a lot of games--if you're playing for efficiency--it just makes more sense to settle on your starter, one or maybe two extras to cover bad match-ups, and filling out the rest with HM / field move utility mons.

 

[bdt2002]

I'm not really sure what it proves that you were able to evolve your Turtwig before gym three though...? As you say, you were grinding. That's possible with the vast majority of Pokemon (and doesn't Grotle evolve fairly early by comparison anyway?) but it's not intended. Unless you're literally using two or three Pokemon on your team you're not going to be fully evolved by gym 3 in Sinnoh.

It doesn't really prove anything, to be fair. My memory of the whole thing is pretty foggy; all I really remember was a Level 32 Torterra and seeing "Badges: 2" on the screen at one point when I saved the game. This was more than likely something I did years ago and forgot about until just recently.

Creating a well-balanced, full team of six was something that I only started to do once I wanted more of a challenge, and that seems like it should be the opposite of the intended game design. But in a lot of games--if you're playing for efficiency--it just makes more sense to settle on your starter, one or maybe two extras to cover bad match-ups, and filling out the rest with HM / field move utility mons.

I didn't make my first full team of six until X & Y growing up, and my first team without a Legendary was in Sun & Moon. To this day I remain terrible at making decisions, and up until the Switch era I would either use some kind of theme team or spam my starter because, like I said, I had no reason not to. Trying to actively choose which of hundreds of Pokémon to use is genuinely aggravating on my brain in a way that I can't think of how to explain, but I also don't feel like I should have to handicap myself to not grinding my starter or not using a full team to make these games a challenge. Then again, that might just be a consequence of me still playing a game series meant for children in my early 20s. On a more optimistic note, I'd like to think I've gotten better at what I would consider "real" teambuilding in recent years, with my Legends: Arceus team, my Violet team, and an Alpha Sapphire team from 2021 all consisting of choices I decided on my own without someone telling me what to pick or using a theme team of some kind.

 

[AztecCroc]

I remember one playthrough I was running of... it was either Pearl or Platinum, I think it was the latter, where I somehow managed to fully evolve my Turtwig I was using before the third Gym without even trying.

Yes, and? Torterra is an old gen Grass starter not named Sceptile, so evolves at 32, and the third gym in Pearl has a level 30 ace. So it's not like you were somehow particularly off the level curve.

 

[Hugin]

I think starters are themselves at a good point for power, or at least you can't change them without causing problems. 320ish BST is better than early-route derps(often better than the rodents/birds, worse than the evolved bugs) but not by much. And the Medium Slow growth rate is good for giving kids who play the game clear rewards for battling while slowing them down if they try to solo the endgame. It's not like the final evos are THAT broken either(in-game, without HAs or egg moves), since often things you're facing lategame have higher BSTs and more interesting typings.

The issue is that the games don't do enough to discourage solo-running. I suspect the new ExpShare was partly to address this, since it makes it easier to train a team of up to 6 mons, but there's just rarely a battle that can punish you having just one mon. No level cap means "overlevel and hit it harder" is a valid strategy for most challenges you encounter, with the added benefit of making every future challenge easier. Grindy dungeons are basically nonexistant these days with how easy healing is, so having additional mons doesn't matter there. Double battles show up once a game at best, which makes preparing for them silly. And a lot of mons(especially starters) have enough movepool options with the modern TM list to have SOMETHING to hit an opponent with. Gone are the days of non-STAB Return on a special attacker because everything else is resisted. The new Super mechanics don't help either, making it even easier to just power through.

I still say that if GF had any courage, they'd make Gym 1-2 a Dragon gym at one point, just to teach players that they have to catch something.

 

[Worldie]

I still say that if GF had any courage, they'd make Gym 1-2 a Dragon gym at one point, just to teach players that they have to catch something.

Ehhh, it wouldn't do anything.
Early gyms are so low on stats due to using unevolved forms that even if they're running dragon types... does it really matter that they have a Gible or Goomy instead of a Staryu, you're still 2-3hkoing it with whatever basic coverage (even normal or dark type like your usual Bite / Scratch) you have.
And in worst case you're tossing a potion.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Not to be *that* guy, but this is still a game aimed at kids.

It's fine if you can solo the game with your starter. It's kind of inevitable with how levels work.

There are many other problems that would be better to address instead of this. Someone mentioned how the games don't teach people about its intricacies well enough. That's a good point to start.