Unpopular opinions

[pokemon4eva]

I sometimes see something like this as a counterargument to the common complaint of the games being too easy: "Yeah, but there's no good way to make them actually difficult". Not that it applies to your post, this is just a general observation vaguely related to the same topic.

On the other hand, if you invert the whole argument, one thing is evident clear as day: It's completely trivial to lower the difficulty of a Pokémon game. Just nerf the levels and movesets of opponent trainers. The only challenge in that case is to ensure the player earns enough Exp. Points to progressively level their Pokémon above those of the opponents. For all the talk about difficulty in Pokémon and how one has to turn to "fake difficulty" to make any given game harder, it isn't often acknowledged that "fake easiness" is not a thing.

With that in mind, it's evident that the difficulty level of the games can be adjusted. Making them more difficult, at least up to a certain point, is feasible by doing the opposite of making them easier. And I think this is what people complain about when they find the games too easy: a few certain recent titles have lowered the difficulty below what's reasonable. Measures such as small boss teams, opponent movepools tailored to be easy to overcome (lacking STAB, focusing on the wrong end of the spectrum, lacking coverage, etc.), an opponent level curve flatter than the player level curve, giving the player access to strong Pokémon that conveniently counter the next boss, other such things. It's unreasonable to ask for Kaizo-level difficulty in a game targeted at children, but it's not too much of a stretch not to want the foes to be configured to crumple up and faint at the lightest touch of any of the player's Pokémon either. Especially after the games added a "use this move!" box that tell players how to win rock-paper-scissors, next to the big, glowing, flashy "click here to win the battle" button.

There is a spectrum of difficulty between "click here to win" and "grinding for seven hours is your only option", and I think it's reasonable to criticize Pokémon for having moved a little too far towards the former. Difficulty-reducing measures have been applied while difficulty-increasing measures really haven't. I think it's feasible to increase the difficulty above the current level without being unreasonable.

I get what you say, on later games we got the buffed exp share which made grinding a non issue but also made the game infintely easier. It was common to see XY playthroughs ending with teams over the 70s, with the OP gift mons like the limited Blaziken event, Mega Lucario (one of the strongest megas ever acoording to this site), the Mega kanto starter, etc. ORAS and the free Mega Lati@s was also very questionable. I'd say SM and USUM had less of this trouble, specially because bosses had EV trained mons that allowed them to hit hard, take hits and outspeed your team; it made me hopeful of difficulty in later titles. Then LGPE came in with the obligatory exp share and SwSh with its broken raid mons...

I'd say grinding was almost never an issue at beating Pokemon games, as long as you know your type charts, the strenghts and weak points of the species and are well stocked, you can take on any foe, which is why "making Pokemon easier" is a baffling choice.

This is a problem that plagues fan games in general, but yeah to be honest my experience with ROMs is that most of them end up delivering a worse experience than the actual games. Story, difficulty, and especially designs... playing them does help put gamefreak's disappointing performances into perspective. Game development is hard.

I have no problem with those games taking a different direction with anime-ish or grittier stories, but claiming that it's outright better that what GF is doing feels pretty disingenuous, since they also have plenty of mistakes in worldbuilding and storytelling. Tropes are not bad, it's how its executed that matters.

Let's be honest: a lot of ROM hacks tend to prioritize pandering to the random additions people constantly claim they want the games to have (e.g. all 151/251/386/493/649/721/809/898 Pokemon, excessive profanity, anime references, "hArD", etc.) over actually making a memorable or interesting adventure.

This is why I dislike Adventures Red Chapter so much. Unlike Reborn, Dark Rising, etc. the plot is held on their own world, but the Adventures romhack exaggerates a lot the "darker and edgier" aspect of the manga. The characters feel very derailed, the later quests were so gory and dumb (the Orange Leaders being the worst offenders), by the end it seems like a mishmash of every bad fan theory while still taking it completely seriously.

To end in a more positive note, I admit even my favorite romhacks (Vega, Prism) and fangames (Uranium, Legends of the arena) had its fair share of flaws, but because game developing is hard it feels pretty rewarding to play a fangame or romhack that manages to satisfy you like the official games do.

 

[Worldie]

I'd say grinding was almost never an issue at beating Pokemon games, as long as you know your type charts, the strenghts and weak points of the species and are well stocked, you can take on any foe, which is why "making Pokemon easier" is a baffling choice.

As I repeated a few times, everyone's experience with Dynamax Adventures (and honestly, event raids in the past) has clearly shown that on average, this is not common knowledge in the playerbase.

 

[jordanthejq12]

As I repeated a few times, everyone's experience with Dynamax Adventures (and honestly, event raids in the past) has clearly shown that on average, this is not common knowledge in the playerbase.

Plus, even veterans aren't necessarily going to have every single type interaction memorized. I for the longest time did not realize Rock doesn't resist itself, to give an example.

 

[Sonikku A]

Plus, even veterans aren't necessarily going to have every single type interaction memorized. I for the longest time did not realize Rock doesn't resist itself, to give an example.

Oh you'll hate this in my hack

 

[jordanthejq12]

Oh you'll hate this in my hack View attachment 293698

Normal neutral against Steel? That's an interesting choice.

Also, Bug losing the SE against Poison was a mistake.

 

[Magnus0]

Normal neutral against Steel? That's an interesting choice.

Also, Bug losing the SE against Poison was a mistake.

To be fair, poison would have been even worse in the early gens if it was also weak to bug. The real mistake was making fairy resist bug for no reason.

I have always thought that an interesting way to make poison 'better' is to introduce an interaction with the water type. I think it would be cool if poison and water were super effective against each other, as a reference to water polution. We don't have any interaction like that in the type chart right now, which is a missed opportunity in my opinion. The closest thing is bug and fighting resisting each other, or maybe ghost and dragon being super effective against themselves, but this isn't quite the same thing as two different types being super-effective against each other.

 

[Bakugames]

More double immunities and super effectiveness would be really cool. Maybe they would make the type chart more complicated than it already is though

 

[Sonikku A]

I mainly buffed ice and rock defensively (especially with Ice being immune to dragon), and made bug have way more resists to compensate lack of offense
Poison hurts fighting too to prevent Fighting being as bad as Gen 5

 

[Pikachu315111]

Difficulty Adjustments:
There is one option of difficulty adjustments I don't recall seeing anyone mention: Level Limit like they do in the Battle Facilities. When you first challenge "boss" trainers (Rival, Gym Leader, Villain Team Admin, Villain Team Leader, Elite Four, Champion, other notable trainers), if your Pokemon is higher level than them, your level is lowered to their lowest leveled Pokemon's Level. If you lose, it'll then let the level limit raise to their highest Pokemon's Level, and if you were to lose after that the Level Limit will increase by 1 Level until you finally win.
And if they put in a Difficulty Setting they can adjust this idea, like on Easy you start at their highest level Pokemon's Level while on Hard you always stay at their lowest level Pokemon's Level.

As I repeated a few times, everyone's experience with Dynamax Adventures (and honestly, event raids in the past) has clearly shown that on average, this is not common knowledge in the playerbase.

To be fair, a move now tells you whether they're super effective, resisted, or immune now so you don't need to know the Type Chart like you used to (it's not perfect of course, doesn't take account Abiliites, but it's better than nothing).

Though they really should have a pull-up Type Chart like they did in FRLG.

Oh you'll hate this in my hack View attachment 293698

Questionable Changes:
Fire doesn't resist Ice
Ice immune to Dragon
Fighting resist Steel
Poison resist Water
Poison weak to Bug
Bug resist Water, itself, Ghost & Dragon
Rock not weak to Grass & Steel
Steel doesn't resist Normal & Rock
Steel weak to Electric

Alright Changes:
Fighting weak to Poison
Bug weak to Poison
Bug resist Dark
Rock resist Electric
Ghost doesn't resist Bug
Dragon weak to Steel

Though I think this kind of leans over into wishlisting, so all else I'm going to say is that, while I see some of your reasoning, some I agree with, some I don't, and some changes I just don't get.

More double immunities and super effectiveness would be really cool. Maybe they would make the type chart more complicated than it already is though

What do you mean? Like two Types that share immunity with one another (like Normal & Ghost)? Would be more interesting, especially since we don't have a "Double Weakness"; though we do have a double Resistance with Fighting & Bug.

I mainly buffed ice and rock defensively (especially with Ice being immune to dragon), and made bug have way more resists to compensate lack of offense
Poison hurts fighting too to prevent Fighting being as bad as Gen 5

All well and good, but there does have to be some reasoning behind why that Type has that relation. Granted, the current Type Chart isn't clear in that regard, but I can BS a reason for those match-ups. But with your chart I don't get why Bug is suddenly resistant to so many Types (only one I can see if Dark, MAYBE Bug, but the others like Ghost & Dragon?).

 

[jordanthejq12]

There is one option of difficulty adjustments I don't recall seeing anyone mention: Level Limit like they do in the Battle Facilities. When you first challenge "boss" trainers (Rival, Gym Leader, Villain Team Admin, Villain Team Leader, Elite Four, Champion, other notable trainers), if your Pokemon is higher level than them, your level is lowered to their lowest leveled Pokemon's Level. If you lose, it'll then let the level limit raise to their highest Pokemon's Level, and if you were to lose after that the Level Limit will increase by 1 Level until you finally win.
And if they put in a Difficulty Setting they can adjust this idea, like on Easy you start at their highest level Pokemon's Level while on Hard you always stay at their lowest level Pokemon's Level.

There's one thing that puts a bit of a wrench in this concept: Moves. If the level cap for a particular Gym is 25, for example, and I'm able to overgrind to 30 to get Flamethrower, you can lower my level all you want, I still have Flamethrower.

The obvious way around this--cutting off XP entirely--is less vulnerable to this, although you can still EV train.

 

[Bakugames]

What do you mean? Like two Types that share immunity with one another (like Normal & Ghost)? Would be more interesting, especially since we don't have a "Double Weakness"; though we do have a double Resistance with Fighting & Bug.

Yes basically, like uuuh electric and water are now immune to each other, and grass and dragon are weak to each other. Random picks ofc but you get the point lol
I can try and explain some of the choices, though idk if theyre the best explanations but:

Fire doesn't resist Ice

I think if you drop snow or ice on fire it'll die, especially snow. Though thats kinda the issue of the whole water fire and ice trio resisting and being weak to each other, you can craft an argument for any sort of order.

Ice immune to Dragon

A resistance would make more sense, and the explanation only works if you only plan on making reptilian dragon types, but most reptiles die in cold temperatures and not a lot are build to survive cold weather.

Steel weak to Electric

Some types of metal, like mineral water, are very good conductors.

 

[Sonikku A]

>Why is bug suddenly resisting things
The real reason is strictly for buffs
But another I just realized now would be Japan's love for bug superheroes. And we all know how much plot armor super heroes have
>Why doesn't normal be resisted to steel
Buff, cuz lack of SE anything and then that hurts. Also Steel stole Rock's thunder, so nye nyeh :P
>Why rock-
Buff. Also steel tools weather easily after drilling rock, so
Similarly, Ice is simultaneously weak to rock and SE against it due to both weathering each other extremely well
>Water and Poison?
I treat poison like oil, which repels. Admittedly it should be two ways logically, but I didn't want to hurt Poison's viability
>Why is Ice immune to Dragon
*glances at Gen 5*
And I don't like Fairy type, so
Admittedly like you said, this really only applies to reptiles. But considering Gen 1-3 is only that minus Altaria, but it's flying already , eh
Fire not resisting Ice isn't new. Gen 1 did that
Electric and steel is like what the others said
-How will this affect Emerald/Comp
Well Skarmory is horribly ruined by this (Quad weak electric), and it may generate another Gen where Normal and Ice rule. I'm honestly doing this on a whim, so outside that, I really don't know
But if it's more balanced, hey not bad...

 

[ttr]

A lot of rom hacks seem to stick to single battles as well, which can make it more difficult to create a boss that is challenging, but in a fair way. Double battles offer more of a chance to create interesting strategies that the player needs to overcome and that the player has the tools available to overcome. This criticism in not just directed towards hacks though, the main series constantly ignores double battles unless it its you teaming up with your rivals/friends/leaders or the rarer required battles like in Raihan's Gym.

There's a lot more to keep in mind in double battles, making brute forcing the opponent more difficult. A Follow Me + Swords Dance/Nasty Plot combo can be deadly to someone who is just mashing A on the Super Effective move, as suddenly the opponent is at +2 and you have only hit the supporting Pokémon. It's a problem that can be overcome, either with your own redirection or using a spread move, but it makes the player think rather than just attack. If all else fails, you can still grind and brute force your way through, but it makes it more of a puzzle that can be completed even if you are under leveled in the games.

 

[Pikachu315111]

There's one thing that puts a bit of a wrench in this concept: Moves. If the level cap for a particular Gym is 25, for example, and I'm able to overgrind to 30 to get Flamethrower, you can lower my level all you want, I still have Flamethrower.

I think that would be okay. The reason for doing this Level Limit is more for players who want a more difficult challenge. It helps with the concern of overleveling, with Moves you can easily decide just not to have a certain Move but, right now, if a Pokemon is overleveled there's nothing you can do not not makes things more challenging aside from not using it. And for players who are having difficulty, well if they want to level up for a stronger move if they think that would help them then that's their choice.

I think if you drop snow or ice on fire it'll die, especially snow. Though thats kinda the issue of the whole water fire and ice trio resisting and being weak to each other, you can craft an argument for any sort of order.

But this isn't just plopping snow/ice on a flame, this is a cold energy attack being used against a fire elemental creature. Cold, ice, or snow, the Fire-types high internal temperature and possible superheating the air around it would weaken the effectiveness of Ice-type moves by making them weaker/less cold.

A resistance would make more sense, and the explanation only works if you only plan on making reptilian dragon types, but most reptiles die in cold temperatures and not a lot are build to survive cold weather.

Still doesn't make sense. Why would an ice elemental creature have any resistances to dragon energy? A cold-blooded creature being weak to cold, makes sense. But dragon energy is just raw power with none of the biological handicap.

Some types of metal, like mineral water, are very good conductors.

I know, but all I see if just electrical moves travelling along the metallic surface easier but not really doing any more damage aside from that. Steel doesn't resist because it can't stop the electricity, but the electricity moves too fast through it for it to cause any burning effects.

And we all know how much plot armor super heroes have

Which is why Fighting resists Dark... Bug can also resist Dark in this case but that's really all this explanation would justify.

Buff, cuz lack of SE anything and then that hurts. Also Steel stole Rock's thunder, so nye nyeh :P

Yeah, but that doesn't ignore the fast a Normal-type is still attacking something super hard (harder than rock) without elemental energy back-up.

Buff. Also steel tools weather easily after drilling rock, so

You need more than it just being for balance, it has to make some sense why that Type's energy is affecting an elemental creature in that way.

Also Steel still harder than Rock, even when dull. Also a living Steel elemental probably has ways to mend itself.

I treat poison like oil, which repels. Admittedly it should be two ways logically, but I didn't want to hurt Poison's viability

I think Magnus0 idea of just Poison being SE against Water makes more sense in that case. Adding water would dilute Poison, having the opposite effect. At the very least Poison can pollute Water.

*glances at Gen 5*

???

 

[Bakugames]

But this isn't just plopping snow/ice on a flame, this is a cold energy attack being used against a fire elemental creature. Cold, ice, or snow, the Fire-types high internal temperature and possible superheating the air around it would weaken the effectiveness of Ice-type moves by making them weaker/less cold.

But you can still easily use the same logic to argue that fire should be super effective to water, as a fire elemental could easily superheat the air to the point of boiling water, and an ice elemental can lower the temperature to freeze water, while an ice elemental can drop the temperature quickly which inhibit the combustion process

 

[Sonikku A]

Unpopular opinion, Psyducks Gen 1-2 sprites are better than Gen 3-5s

 

[Pikachu315111]

But you can still easily use the same logic to argue that fire should be super effective to water, as a fire elemental could easily superheat the air to the point of boiling water, and an ice elemental can lower the temperature to freeze water, while an ice elemental can drop the temperature quickly which inhibit the combustion process

Water Against Fire: Doesn't undo the Fire-type is being doused with water which is what hurting the Fire-type.
Water Against Ice: The water is constantly moving so doesn't have time to freeze for the short time its exposed to the cold air.
Fire Against Ice: Cold air doesn't affect fire as fire is providing its own heat.

 

[CPU]

Ice being NVE against Water has always seemed to me to be a statement of Water's high specific heat.

Pretty sure I've stated this before but I really liked SM/USUM's strategy of making boss trainers harder by giving them EVs/Natures. But then you have Guzma and his Modest Pinsir (proooobably a mistake from the devs)

 

[Theorymon]

Here's a pretty unpopular, but very meta opinion about Pokemon I've been thinking about for the past month.

I'd like for Pokemon to have a serious competitior to it, that isn't a total flash in the pan.

I've seen people in the Pokemon community bash Yokai Watch, Temtem, Monster Hunter Stories, Robopon (acutally Robopon is terrible and deserves it lmao), etc, all out of a silly, fan boyish desire for Pokemon to be "the best".

I've always been interested in Pokemon competitors, I don't think this franchise is impossible to beat at its own game so to speak. However, at least with my experience with several of them, they have unfortunately fallen short in several ways, so I have yet to see a Pokemon-like game I'd seriously recommend over Pokemon in certain aspects.

* Yokai Watch acutally doesn't play too much like Pokemon outside of monster collections, having a more action focus, which is pretty cool! However, the way you collect monsters is even worse than Shin Megami Tensei (basically, give Yokai food and pray to god it joins you), and Yokai Watch's attempt at a competitive scene failed because getting good Yokai is somehow worse than Pokemon! And of course, Level-5 put out so many Yokai Watch games out in a short span of time that the franchise burned to the ground. Seriously, they released their "3rd versions" in the same year the base games came out!

* Temtem got SO close, it was clearly made by fans of the franchise. The campagin is much more difficult than Pokemon, there's a focus on doubles, and they even removed hax from the game! And yet, getting a good Temtem is an awful experience (though this may be migitated because the competitive ladders I think now just max out IVs), and despite it being very similar looking to Pokemon, its actualy a very difficult game to learn competitively with argubly worse balance than Pokemon.

Temtem really showed me that trying to beat "Pokemon" at its own game is very difficult, even for fans of the franchise!

Like, the closest I can get to saying "wow this Pokemon competitor is REALLY damn good" (though I admit I haven't played Monster Hunter Stories despite hearing good things about it), is the Shin Megami Tensei series. I dearly love Shin Megami Tensei because it scartches the monster collecting part of Pokemon a bit... but calling it a Pokemon competitor is a bit of a stretch, because not only does the series actually PREDATE Pokemon, but it totally ignores the trading and competitive aspects because that's not what Shin Mgemi Tensei cares about.

TL;DR: If Pokemon had a serious competitor franchise, I think that'd benefit both, and maybe force Nintendo, TPCI, and Gamefreak to invest more in the franchise. Alas, I don't think anyone has really cracked the code to doing it yet, and I think that's a shame!

 

[Siggu]

Temtem really showed me that trying to beat "Pokemon" at its own game is very difficult, even for fans of the franchise!

I actually think that was the problem with Temtem, because its identity was pretty much only "Pokémon competitor" instead of something on its own right.

 

[Worldie]

I actually think that was the problem with Temtem, because its identity was pretty much only "Pokémon competitor" instead of something on its own right.

TL;DR: If Pokemon had a serious competitor franchise, I think that'd benefit both, and maybe force Nintendo, TPCI, and Gamefreak to invest more in the franchise. Alas, I don't think anyone has really cracked the code to doing it yet, and I think that's a shame!

I still have some moderately high expectations on TemTem and the influence it can have on Pokemon's franchise.

The fact it exists and didn't flop on its own is pretty big, and it's now also coming to next gen consoles (personally considering to grab it on my PS5 when it launches there). The more it grows and gains success, the more likely it is that someone at Nintendo / TPCI / GF's office notices it and looks at what's making it popular and potentially takes note of it.

It wouldn't even be *weird*: games of same genre copy each other all the time.

 

[UninspiredLunch]

I mean, the problem is that if you genuinely want to design a game that can compete with pokemon your best bet is probably to spend all your budget on a time machine. I can't think of another video game series with more cross-generational appeal.

 

[Nokocchi]

The fact it exists and didn't flop on its own is pretty big

Barely peaking past 1000 players for the last few months is not what I'd call a success for an MMO. Like there are games of that genre that were shut down despite having far better numbers then that.

By this point I think Temtem is well beyond the point of no return for being anything even resembling a competitor to Pokemon, regardless of how many systems they port it to.

Most mongame fans(many of whom backed many non-Temtem kickstarters and even some that backed temtem itself) have pretty much already written off the game by this point. The only time I see it being brought up on most mongame discords is people pointing and lamenting(backers) or laughing(non-backers) at how mediocre it is despite being the most pokemon-like of the recently released mongames and having its crowdfunding largely fueled by the sword/shield hatedom.

 

[Worldie]

Barely peaking past 1000 players for the last few months is not what I'd call a success for an MMO. Like there are games of that genre that were shut down despite having far better numbers then that.

I wouldn't remotely consider it a MMO.
It's a indie project, that has a (quite optional) multiplayer aspect, and doesn't feature a subscription nor a full AAA price.

I am not exactly expecting it to have World of Warcraft level playerbase, and having 1000~ active players on average is decent enough for me to not define it a flop.

 

[Nokocchi]

I wouldn't remotely consider it a MMO.

I'm considering it an MMO because that is what the creators themselves consider it to be(or at the very least advertised it to be, using the term directly)

Also I have been editing my prior post to add more details. As someone who is part of many mongame discords, I learned I am far from alone in the flop view, especially considering that 1000 is significantly less than it had the first few months of existence.