bianca is not annoying she just has personality
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- Thread starter antemortem
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I'm on the same page with this as I am the Unova Original Dragon: I don't want to see this. Occasionally there's a fan design which slaps, but it's better off never being revealed because it's been too hyped and discussed.
And I'm actually completely content believing that A.) they were originally a Vaporeon, Jolteon, and Flareon or B.) that they were three unrevealed species (either 3x the same or 3 different things). But I'm not crazy enough about either idea that I want it confirmed either way. The mystery is part of what makes it interesting.
I think this is a funny thing to say right before writing a bunch of symptoms of non-linear exploration and open world games. issues that even """good""" open world games had like botw and totk. sorry for always going unga bunga open world bad but, well, open world bad!
I feel like the extent to which open-world exploration (I'm using this term because defining what makes a game "open world" is contentious) is good for a game, or a franchise, depends on how hard the developers want to define how players experience that game's story. I think it also depends on what kind of gameplay the game has and how it defines progression (stage-based, strength-based, upgrade- or skill-based, plot-trinket- [macguffin-] or collectible-based, to name a few).
I'm a Metroidvania fan, and those tend to handle their progression via upgrades. Where and how you can navigate their world mostly depends on what your character can do, and thus their stories tend to be piecemeal and not something that has particularly strong ties to what the player character is doing, at least not actively. RPGs trend toward strength-based progression (sometimes with upgrades mixed in), and since what you can do depends on how strong you are, it's easier and more natural to have an ordered narrative that players are supposed to follow. But it's also important to give the player new areas to explore between most big story beats, as that opens opportunities to strengthen your characters as well as the ability to flesh out the world.
Pokémon has kept a relatively strict story progression in its games since Gen 3 (Gen 1 and 2 had story beats that couldn't be skipped both in their beginnings and endings, but are relatively freeform in the middle section, helped by the fact that their stories aren't particularly heavy), and Gen 9 tries to open that up a little. Scarlet and Violet present the main story "mystery" immediately, that being the history and source of your version's particular -Raidon (weird thought, but perhaps the games' true "main character" is your -Raidon, kind of like how Lillie is the "main character" in the Alola games), but mostly keep details hidden until the three sub-stories are resolved and the three converge for the "The Way Home" finale. I think the actual gameplay behind this structure is relatively solid, but they aren't built equally in execution.
- Champion Road is, IMO, the weakest of the three, but not because it's the usual structure that we expect from the series. Nemona is the other focal character of this sub-story, but she's... not a very interesting character. Whether you find her battle-obsessed antics funny or annoying, we don't really get any info about her history except that she's already a champion-ranked trainer. There's a little more to learn about her in The Way Home, but it doesn't serve to explain why she's so strange or make her more endearing. Ignoring Nemona for a moment, Champion Road not dynamically adjusting Gym Leader levels is a missed opportunity to make Paldea feel alive (counterpoint: gym leader battles being rigid lets you fight tougher gyms first for a challenge). Actually, Paldea's greatest flaw is probably that its cities and towns are devoid of life. Sure, there's people in them, but you can only interact with less than half, and basically none of them give you anything worthwhile. The near-complete lack of interiors compounds this problem. Visually, I think enough of its locales are distinct enough, but unless you want a very specific service or item from a shop there's no reason to revisit them.
- Starfall Street is... polarizing. I liked it well enough, but it definitely felt like it was missing something to give it more bite. It's probably meant to expand on the school that's central to Paldea, but the school itself is optional after the tutorial, and there's not much to be gleaned from physically exploring it (though it's more worthwhile than doing that with the cities), and not seeing any Team Star presence in the school makes beating them feel... unimportant to academic safety (I guess it makes sense that delinquents wouldn't be in class, though). Raiding the Team Star bases serves to introduce players to autobattle mechanic, and unlike Champion Road, it makes sense to me why their levels don't scale with your current "progression." Penny is reclusive and you only really learn about her at the end of the storyline, but the fake(?) mystery about her and Clavell at least can be amusing. It's a shame we never get to see the bullies that led to Team Star's foundation in the first place, but (IIRC) as they were expelled and the entire school faculty was replaced prior to the game, their absence isn't unwarranted.
- The Path of Legends feels like the most engaging of the three from a story perspective, something that's helped by two factors: its involvement in helping your ride Pokémon regain its strength, and how Arven (the only one of the game's three rivals who is tied to Area Zero to begin with) is actively being expounded on with each Titan you beat. The actual gameplay this sub-story provides is unfortunately mediocre, being a pretty easy inversion of Alola's Totem Pokémon (I don't have issues with their levels not scaling here). This is also the way the game incorporates new overworld actions (still called HMs), though what they actually open up is minimal; I think you can access all of the Gyms and Team Star bases without beating any Titans, so it's all just ruinous stakes, TMs/other items, and the occasional rare Pokémon.
Again, as mentioned when talking about Champion Road (and to a lesser extent Starfall Street), Scarlet and Violet's biggest problem is that the world doesn't really encourage exploration. It's the most severe in human settlements, but also extends to the overworld. There are lots of items scattered about, Gimmighoul coins to collect, trainers to battle (...if you want), and calamity-suppressing stakes to remove, but the space between all of these feels needlessly large sometimes. I guess that's a side-effect of creature collecting being the actual focus of the series and expecting the myriad monsters roaming about to fill that void. Unfortunately I feel like this is another area where SV messed up a little; not being able to interact with wild Pokémon outside from battling, (and likewise for wild Pokémon with you) feels like a step down from LA. Not saying that I want all games going forward to feel as tense as Hisui often did, but I liked having other ways of interacting with my surroundings.
Hmm. That got a bit sidetracked and became more of a general critique of SV instead of a review of its merits as an open-world exploration game. Basically, my summary is: it's pretty good, and I don't have a problem with it being open world. But I do have a problem of there not being much worth actually exploring.
EDIT: forgot to mention, seems weird to lament the games' story being "weakened" by the game being turned open world when Pokémon's writing/story is consistently one of the biggest "issues" I see leveraged against the series. This isn't to anyone in particular, just a musing of mine.
I think the issue is that i find open world bad because they affect the development side, not just because i dont like to play them as games (but thats true). Even with good, competent dev teams given a longer time to work on their open worlds, it is so easy to create shallow gameplay, stories and art because you need to do so many things and fill so many quotas that you never really elaborate on anything ever.
botw lost so much of what made the loz franchise in interesting story, characters, plots, enemies etc because the bare minimum for open world takes too much time to do anything other than that. totk suffered beyond open world pitfalls and more because they forgot it was a loz game and not nuts and bolts but even with already having so much of that bare minimum already done, the game couldnt even expand upon the lore or story in any interesting way lol. and you can bring random failed open world games but idk if thats fair, you can do that for every genre.
and maybe you'll go "ok sure the lore was bad but the gameplay was good" but idk. i think botw and totk gameplay is kinda mid and even bad. shrines, ultrabeasts, depths all lack the effort and fun of loz dungeons and puzzles because its an open world so you have to make 100000 of them because the player needs to be able to find at least some of them wherever they go. combat lacks any spiceness because theres only 3 sets of enemies other than the bosses and a bunch of weapons that dont actually enhance or change how you play (once you see a meele weapon and arrows youve seen 90% of the nuance unless youre a speedrunner lol), but because there needs to be content they added a bunch of types to find and collect. and then what? walk around an empty world that loses the "well its a desolate area" wonder after an hour of playtime? do korok seeds even though you learn theres only a limited type of puzzles that repeat and once youve seen them youve seen all that koroks can offer, making them just be a chore or something to ignore once you got your slots (dont do 900 please. please. please.)? and im not even gonna talk about how totk building minecraft knock off gameplay sucks ass
and idk. i always single out botw and totk because theyre considered good open world games and they kickstarted the trend for many devs. i also find elden ring the worst of the franchise because its open world and thus has similar lessened impact in world, lore, and gameplay. and im ignoring games everyone considers bad because theres no point.
pokémon has an advantage in that they had a 900 enemy creature backlog with finished models and data they can just pick from, give slight updates and slap on the game + a few new ones, so they can fill up their world with encounters easier than loz or whatever fromsoftware does. but the games ive talked about were made by competent developers under a decent timeframe and had very clear goals. why do we think pokemon will be able to do better than Bad when they dont have that level of competence or the time and resources. of course the towns and routes and most characters will be bland, they have to waste time doing stuff for the open world. and all that time sacrificed just leads to a very mediocre gameplay feel. what the hell is there to do in sv routes other than catch pokemon, battle a few trainers, look for a gimmighoul coin and leave? have we really improved over the formula because now you can pick the route to go next? did pokemons exploration really benefit from this bare minimum half baked open world enough that it was worth to sacrifice the already dwindling effort and time taken on the region itself?
the kitakami and indigo disc plotlines and exploration were more involved and had much more interesting characters because it was a non-open world narrative disguised as open world, with smaller focused areas that got more thought put into them!! imagine if the actual main series plot had the same benefit of being focused? its not like youre losing anything anyway since nothing scales LOOOL. you could literally make each new town or whatever be a gym/titan/star member and it would be the Same Shit. itd probably be better because knowing where your player is and not wasting time in the barebones open world game would make the areas and encounters actually yknow. stand out and be fun
tl;dr open world bad and pokemon open world will never work. bring back linear games that force you into specific paths
Where I end up thinking of open games as a waste of developer effort is that nonlinear progression only really matters if the game is going to be replayed. My first time through, any path will be new to me, even a linear one. Only on subsequent playthroughs can non-linearity make things fresher in comparison. There's the barest essence of this,
but Metroidvanias also lend themselves to it really well since they can shift from linear to non-linear as the player learns more advanced techniques. However, the kind of game most commonly thought of as "open world" feels simply too large to have a lot of replayability. Pokemon probably has it even worse on the "designed for multiple playthroughs" front since you want to maintain the ability to hop into your postgame mode of choice. So I do find it really hard to see what an open design actually does to improve a Pokemon game.
It will forever get me that Age of Calamity retconned BotW cuz the story was so bare there, and expanded on Link and Zelda's relationship, alongside other chars. Only for ToK to not take anything from it
Link is so empty there, even for LoZ standards. WW is noticeably emotive, TP you have motive in part of your village getting ransacked, and SS Link grew up with Zelda, so he has personal connections with saving her. BotW you're flatter than Wes in Colosseum, and diary entries are way too missable/tell no showy
I don't even play Zelda, and I know it was more than BotW's "nothing" and complete failure of being a fantasy dystopia. Majora's Mask at least had big gates and NPCs beyond Zelda freaking out about things. BotW it's like Ganon and the Moblins don't exist for them, and ToK is similar. Sonic Frontiers had similar issues of emptiness cuz as you said, it was a trend. Open World stops the appeal when sandboxxing feels less than Minecraft, and Pokemon's anemic OW movement for so many gens barely supports it
I agree that the more linear DLCs worked, and for once I can respect GF for the char interactions. But base is lame outside the map design cuz again...not well focused
yeah to me open world is a concept where on paper its kinda like peak gaming right? just go wherever, the ideal of exploration without the limitations of real life. But it needs SOOOOO much content to support it, and unless youre willing to do that for a decade or more, your game will have to sacrifice many things to reach the bare minimum, let alone a good or great game! Not all devs and certainly not all franchises or game ideas should be open world, its a very niche type of game thats not being treated like that.
and like, i agree with the idea that pokemon would be good for open world. but in practice? ignoring all the above issues, we havent even reach good plot and gamefreak has been struggling with linear exploration, which is MUCH more approachable. this franchise should not be jumping to something as demanding as open world when it cannot even get a single benefit from it! its not like paldea is particularly replayable over other pokemon games, and id argue its probably less as youre encouraged to work on your save file with new raids and events etc. the exploration isnt memorable, any atmosphere you have gets destroyed by the graphics (listen idc about graphics but we need to be real here. open worlds are as much about doing things as it is seeing things and if your world is ugly, youre not getting people to explore it lol), its all just the same formula of catching every mon in the area, battling the trainers and fighting the boss/gym/whatever.
my frustration is less about sv in specific and more that it feels like so many AAA AND indies have locked themselves into open world and made their stories, worlds and gameplay worse as a result. open would should be niche and rare because most will never be able to make good ones
and like, i agree with the idea that pokemon would be good for open world. but in practice? ignoring all the above issues, we havent even reach good plot and gamefreak has been struggling with linear exploration, which is MUCH more approachable. this franchise should not be jumping to something as demanding as open world when it cannot even get a single benefit from it! its not like paldea is particularly replayable over other pokemon games, and id argue its probably less as youre encouraged to work on your save file with new raids and events etc. the exploration isnt memorable, any atmosphere you have gets destroyed by the graphics (listen idc about graphics but we need to be real here. open worlds are as much about doing things as it is seeing things and if your world is ugly, youre not getting people to explore it lol), its all just the same formula of catching every mon in the area, battling the trainers and fighting the boss/gym/whatever.
my frustration is less about sv in specific and more that it feels like so many AAA AND indies have locked themselves into open world and made their stories, worlds and gameplay worse as a result. open would should be niche and rare because most will never be able to make good ones
Lol this took so long to type out and I lost a chunk of my response at one point. Oops.
Also, hot take, but Zelda lore is kind of unnecessary beyond the usual Link/Zelda/Ganon relation (and even that has been discarded in a few games) and trying to force a timeline beyond specific games that are clearly sequels is one of the fandom's greatest sins.
(I know you meant divine beasts lol)
Oh, and since I almost forgot, TotK did rather notably increase the number of enemy types, something that was definitely missing from BotW.
Also wanted to bring this up but I think SV's probably too-vast map would be a little less frustrating if the actual map function in-game wasn't completely terrible with next to no automatic labeling (with no clear divisions between regions) and only one very flimsy labelling option.
Since Ironmage and I both brought it up, the way Metroidvanias do progression is probably better for something like Pokémon than a true open world. But you've got to build a world/region around that, and make decisions on how you want to wall certain areas off behind progression. Taking a couple of different examples, Hollow Knight tends to have multiple ways to get to almost any area in the game, leading to a fairly flexible number of ways one can obtain important items. On the other hand, Metroid Dread actually kind of railroads you in (with some opportunities for sequence breaks) but makes you feel like you've got freedom to roam around the map. That's closer to what Pokémon has done in the past, and again, it's not strictly bad (Pokémon needs to work on its overly-conspicuous roadblocks, though).
I think this take is probably uncommon, but I actually don't like the idea of the whole game scaling to the player's progression in an open-world Pokémon game. It breaks immersion. Let Gym Leaders/other in-universe structured groups scale, maybe, but not the entire wild Pokémon population. This doesn't apply to all games (I think the way BotW/TotK does it is decent enough), but if, say, Gen 10 does have the entire world scale to progression (assuming it's open world again), I think I would find that a lot more annoying than having a rigid storyline.
What I like conceptually about open-world games/a lot of metroidvanias is that everyone's experience will be a little different. The in-game story may suffer (not saying it's a given, but more likely), but the individual story of playing the game is different, and you'll have your own little anecdotes to share. Pokémon does have some of that baked into its formula (which creatures you choose to raise), so, you know what, I will concede that it's probably not the end-all for the "best" game possible.
I gotta say, though, I've personally set my bar for stories from Game Freak internally low, so I don't really care what story they churn out. I'm just along for the ride.
I'll agree with this idea (that it becomes increasingly hard to flesh out a game the bigger and more open you make it) at its basic level, but I have to disagree with various points you bring up here.
You're not the only person I've seen complain about BotW/TotK for how they mess up the Zelda formula, but I think the main other person I've seen do it is more miffed by how it messes with item conventions (for puzzle solving, durability being annoying, dungeons, etc.)
Yeah, TotK is, in a lot of ways, a massive tech-demo flex, and I don't entirely jive with the technology's abilities in it, either (I think BotW's runes were more interesting from a basic puzzle-solving perspective), but a lot of bigger challenges in the game are based on them.
Also, hot take, but Zelda lore is kind of unnecessary beyond the usual Link/Zelda/Ganon relation (and even that has been discarded in a few games) and trying to force a timeline beyond specific games that are clearly sequels is one of the fandom's greatest sins.
I never understood the vitriol toward shrines/divine beasts/whatever as "weaker puzzles" because they encourage you to find your own solution with the tools you have been given. You're free to bring other things in that can help, but you don't need to and aren't forced to. Sometimes the puzzle is outside of the shrine, too, though I guess that isn't that different from older sidequests. Really, the only issue I see here is how the puzzles aren't built around a specific dungeon item and forcing you to learn how to use it, but those remaining interesting throughout a game depend on said items being versatile and not "this solves this problem and ONLY this problem." Also:
(I know you meant divine beasts lol)
Mostly fair points here; I watch a lot of a very good OoT player and, aside from the glitches, there are a lot of sword options in that 25 year-old game, and BotW/TotK really haven't added that many more (and even removed a few, I think). The whole "huge overworld with a bunch of mini-challenges" is something that Super Mario Odyssey dabbles in too with its Moons, and I watched a video essay about that game, critiquing how the huge number of Moons (and quick timing of getting one to another) diminishes the satisfaction from getting one; I think that's what you're feeling, and I think it's a reasonable thing to critique.
Oh, and since I almost forgot, TotK did rather notably increase the number of enemy types, something that was definitely missing from BotW.
I haven't played any of the Dark Souls games (I've started Bloodborne but haven't gotten very far), so I'm not speaking from personal experience, but it's my understanding that none of these games are particularly... direct with their stories. I can't say how different Elden Ring's game progression is from Dark Souls or other FromSoft games, but I didn't think it did anything super different with how its narrative was presented.
I think Game Freak should, and could, have the resources available to them if they wanted to use them, given how lucrative the franchise is. Time, though? Yeah, that's a problem, and one that I've seen brought up a lot since SV released. A lot of fans are desperate for Game Freak to get more time to develop a generation, myself included. I choose to believe that the complete lack of interiors would have been one of the first things fixed if they had more development time, but that might be copium.
That's... all Pokémon has ever really had when it comes to its routes, as far as return value is concerned. If you ask me, though, part of the problem is that it's much easier to hide secrets worth searching for in a smaller, 2D game world than it is in a full 3D world with a wide camera angle (SV's poor draw distance aside). They could have added more places worth climbing or surfing to that you could see early on, but they chose not to, and that's a loss.
I haven't played the DLC yet, but I can respect a good, streamlined story. I think you are downplaying the effort Game Freak does put in to the areas they choose to apply themselves to (mostly Gym Leaders/teachers in SV). It's bad that the rest of the world is essentially a ghost town, but they do try to make their named and "important" NPCs have definite personalities and goals. This was true in SwSh as well, where each pairing of possible trainers had a specific interaction in a postgame tournament.
Also wanted to bring this up but I think SV's probably too-vast map would be a little less frustrating if the actual map function in-game wasn't completely terrible with next to no automatic labeling (with no clear divisions between regions) and only one very flimsy labelling option.
Since Ironmage and I both brought it up, the way Metroidvanias do progression is probably better for something like Pokémon than a true open world. But you've got to build a world/region around that, and make decisions on how you want to wall certain areas off behind progression. Taking a couple of different examples, Hollow Knight tends to have multiple ways to get to almost any area in the game, leading to a fairly flexible number of ways one can obtain important items. On the other hand, Metroid Dread actually kind of railroads you in (with some opportunities for sequence breaks) but makes you feel like you've got freedom to roam around the map. That's closer to what Pokémon has done in the past, and again, it's not strictly bad (Pokémon needs to work on its overly-conspicuous roadblocks, though).
I think this take is probably uncommon, but I actually don't like the idea of the whole game scaling to the player's progression in an open-world Pokémon game. It breaks immersion. Let Gym Leaders/other in-universe structured groups scale, maybe, but not the entire wild Pokémon population. This doesn't apply to all games (I think the way BotW/TotK does it is decent enough), but if, say, Gen 10 does have the entire world scale to progression (assuming it's open world again), I think I would find that a lot more annoying than having a rigid storyline.
What I like conceptually about open-world games/a lot of metroidvanias is that everyone's experience will be a little different. The in-game story may suffer (not saying it's a given, but more likely), but the individual story of playing the game is different, and you'll have your own little anecdotes to share. Pokémon does have some of that baked into its formula (which creatures you choose to raise), so, you know what, I will concede that it's probably not the end-all for the "best" game possible.
And... you know what, I agree with basically all of this. I like this conclusion. It's far better for a game/series to refine what it wants to do and make it actually fun and functional instead of following the most recent trend and biting off more than they can chew. I'm not a big graphics guy but agree that, even ignoring performance, SV look really bad (well, the overworld does; the Pokémon themselves look really good IMO).
I gotta say, though, I've personally set my bar for stories from Game Freak internally low, so I don't really care what story they churn out. I'm just along for the ride.
While the topic is still on open world games I want to add that the character movement in those sorts of games (at least the few that I've played) often feels so bad and slow at times that it makes the already somewhat uninteresting areas even more of a slog to go through. Apologies in advance for the incoherent rambling.
Like how in botw/totk Link walks so slowly and running barely feels like an improvement over his movement speed (not to mention how quickly stamina runs out in the early/mid game) that it just makes traversing the massive world feel like such a slog at times. Or how climbing and swimming are slow unless you have a full set of armor with the buffs to those methods of traversal which makes having to climb or swim feel like the last thing you ever want to do. Wouldn't be so bad if the world wasn't massive and all the other stuff mentioned above about how it can feel so empty at times wasn't present but alas.
SV is better in this regard since you get the bike dragon so early on it gives you a decently fast way to get around on land but whenever you're off them traversal is slow so in comparison which makes your "basic" movement feel so much worse to play with. Then there's the upgrades to your bike dragon which are fine but once you've collected all of them it just exacerbates the difference in how movement feels when you're on and off your bike, even then when you're on the bike sometimes getting around can feel a bit... slippery? for lack of a better word
In comparison the movement in Xenoblade X feels so good and fun from the start since despite the massive world you can run fast without stamina limitations and jump high as hell which makes traversal across the wide open areas actually fun to do. Gaining access to Skells after chapter 6 and the flight module after chapter 9 certainly improve your movement options and increase the amount of areas you can access (especially with the flight module) but it doesn't detract from your base movement in comparison to the bike dragons from SV which make your basic off the bike movement feel completely pointless outside of building where you literally cannot ride them.
If pokemon is going to continue down the open world style path of games (it shouldn't imo but it probably will) then I'd at least hope that getting around is a bit more fun to do and not as reliant on you getting multiple upgrades over the course of the game to reach the point where it becomes fun (at which point you've already explored most of what there is to explore).
Like how in botw/totk Link walks so slowly and running barely feels like an improvement over his movement speed (not to mention how quickly stamina runs out in the early/mid game) that it just makes traversing the massive world feel like such a slog at times. Or how climbing and swimming are slow unless you have a full set of armor with the buffs to those methods of traversal which makes having to climb or swim feel like the last thing you ever want to do. Wouldn't be so bad if the world wasn't massive and all the other stuff mentioned above about how it can feel so empty at times wasn't present but alas.
SV is better in this regard since you get the bike dragon so early on it gives you a decently fast way to get around on land but whenever you're off them traversal is slow so in comparison which makes your "basic" movement feel so much worse to play with. Then there's the upgrades to your bike dragon which are fine but once you've collected all of them it just exacerbates the difference in how movement feels when you're on and off your bike, even then when you're on the bike sometimes getting around can feel a bit... slippery? for lack of a better word
In comparison the movement in Xenoblade X feels so good and fun from the start since despite the massive world you can run fast without stamina limitations and jump high as hell which makes traversal across the wide open areas actually fun to do. Gaining access to Skells after chapter 6 and the flight module after chapter 9 certainly improve your movement options and increase the amount of areas you can access (especially with the flight module) but it doesn't detract from your base movement in comparison to the bike dragons from SV which make your basic off the bike movement feel completely pointless outside of building where you literally cannot ride them.
If pokemon is going to continue down the open world style path of games (it shouldn't imo but it probably will) then I'd at least hope that getting around is a bit more fun to do and not as reliant on you getting multiple upgrades over the course of the game to reach the point where it becomes fun (at which point you've already explored most of what there is to explore).
help me
not about your take here but I love most of the mons on your signature alot, cryogonal, klinklang, noibat, shedinja are all very high up my favourites list (assuming that is your favourites list)
My favourite kind of Pokémon games is where the world feels big but still has a fairly linear path (I think that's another reason why I love the Gen 7 games so much)
pokémon wise i think the bare minimum gen 10 is gonna need to improve the open world concept is level scaling. if the wild mons and gym battles don't get stronger as you do, the game is still kinda defining an order for you.
honestly, level scaling is easier to rationalise than fixed levels even in linear pokémon games - why do i, the player character, happen to live where the weakest pokémon live? how does, say, a sinnoh trainer who lives in sunyshore begin their journey?? meanwhile, level scaling can be explained as "mons too weak for my team hide in fear, mons too strong are not threatened and don't show up". if badges make stronger mons obey, they can make them appear in the wild. etc.
honestly, level scaling is easier to rationalise than fixed levels even in linear pokémon games - why do i, the player character, happen to live where the weakest pokémon live? how does, say, a sinnoh trainer who lives in sunyshore begin their journey?? meanwhile, level scaling can be explained as "mons too weak for my team hide in fear, mons too strong are not threatened and don't show up". if badges make stronger mons obey, they can make them appear in the wild. etc.
i feel like when ppl talk about level scaling, they talk about granular increases matching your level exactly, but i think pokemon could beneft from soft scaling: there are checks in the game, and each set a specific level for your next goal.
for example: you just started your journey, so you have no checks. this means whatever gym you fight will be level 14 with 2 pokemon. once you beat that, youll pass one check so the next challenge will be level 21 with 3 pokemon, etc etc.
I think encounters stand for being more granular though, as pokemon of equal skill/slighly lower are more likely to challenge you. would be fun to add level "repels" that can attract weaker or stronger pokemon too
for example: you just started your journey, so you have no checks. this means whatever gym you fight will be level 14 with 2 pokemon. once you beat that, youll pass one check so the next challenge will be level 21 with 3 pokemon, etc etc.
I think encounters stand for being more granular though, as pokemon of equal skill/slighly lower are more likely to challenge you. would be fun to add level "repels" that can attract weaker or stronger pokemon too
Soft scaling is absolutely better, hard scaling is stupid in most games, and it would be especially stupid in Pokémon. Also soft scaling to major battles could be implemented without issue without changing how the code that defines trainers works, soft scaling could not.
I am actually vehemently opposed to wild Pokémon scaling because, while it is certainly convenient that the player always starts where the region's weakest Pokémon reside, I'd rather take that concession than have the whole ecosystem gradually get stronger and more deadly the stronger the player gets. It's a matter of immersion/cohesiveness with worldbuilding for me. I feel like having dynamic wild Pokémon tables for an entire region would be a coding/planning/implementation nightmare several orders of magnitude greater than just coding in multiple teams for gym leaders.
SwSh introducing Flying Taxis also kind of fixes the issue that trainers starting out in different cities would face, since they can take you anywhere in the region. Heck, Arven even mentions (as a bit of comedic interjection) that they'll go down into Area Zero to get people out of there if they really needed it.
Also it just makes less sense, like in a Watsonian perspective the world of pokemon some places near towns and city would reasonably be farther from dangerous stronger pokemon. Take a look at Legends, Jubilife village is right next to much calmer groves and flatlands likely because its one of the safest locations for people who aren't originally native to a dangerous land to build because level 60 pokemon wont come in one day and destroy everything easily. Meanwhile from a doylist perspective its always made more sense to have the earlygame be much weaker, while much later locations have much stronger enemies to keep up with the player.
Now, I know damn well y'all ain't dissing GOAT of the Wild!
I actually agree with some of the complaints tho.
Back on topic, ya boi is back to spit some of the hottest takes this thread will ever see. Let's get to it.
Regarding the whole discussion about the type chart, the Fairy-type is actually essential to the game. I had the experience of going back to Stadium 2 and messing with some things, mainly updating some moves and giving every type some kind of reliable STAB.
Dragon-types immediately became a problem.
Buffing Steel and Ice to try and mitigate the issue does not work, at all. Dragon/Fire was an extremely good offensive combo after Outrage got buffed in Gen 4 for a reason, it's just that strong without a type immune to it. This led me to eventually looking at the type interactions and reaching the same conclusion that GF did. A new type was needed, and at that point, you really might as well make Fairy.
I completely disagree with how they handled Fairy though, for various reasons. Bug did not need another type resisting it, and a lot of legendaries should've been retconned to being Fairy-typed. Mew is a very, very obvious example. There's kind of a flavor issue with Fairy as a type tbh. But yeah, Fairy is very blatantly a balance patch type and it shows.
As for other changes... There can't be a lot of them. Things go south FAST. I think right now, the only two that I'd be 100% sure I would do is having Water be weak to Poison and removing the Bug resistance from Fairy.
Psychic isn't bad because it's a bad-type, it's bad because it has two balance patch types holding it back. Yes, Dark and Steel 100% neutralized that threat. I'd argue the biggest problem with it is that it kind of lost its identity by now. When you think of Psychic-types, you think of fast, strong special attackers that are kind of frail, especially on the physical side.
Except now they're not that strong because of power creep and low offensive value, and a lot of other types also have fast, strong special attackers, so why bother with dealing with a type that's weak to common meta-types?
On that note, whoever mentioned bad physical Psychic moves was 100% correct.
Every type should have AT LEAST some reliable STAB. What I mean by that is 90BP, 100% accuracy, and no drawbacks. If you can't see the value in this, go play pre-Gen 4 games, especially Stadium 2.
Does that mean I want types to be bland? Hell no, it's the opposite. I want every type to be able to create an identity, but you can't do that relying on moves like 60BP, 5pp Giga Drain as your main damage-dealing option. I also believe that types should have "signature" moves that aren't as available as regular coverage moves. For example, Discharge is mostly learned by Electric-types unlike Thunderbolt, and boasts a side-effect that is more commonly assigned to that type, in this case, paralysis. However, I do believe said moves should be stronger, otherwise people will still use the generic option.
Speaking of which, TMs.
Whoever decided that Close Combat should not only be a TM but also a well-distributed one was completely out of pocket. A lot of these moves should NOT be easily attainable coverage and one could argue there are too many of them by now.
There's a real issue when it comes to identity in these games on several levels as of late, which brings me to my next point.
Dexit's greatest problem is that there's too much bloat on dexes.
This was already an issue as early as XY, but it's rampant after SwSh. You can't have so many options to build a team so early. Especially taking into account strong, older Pokémon. One or two throwbacks like Ralts in SV? Great, that's probably the best early-throwback mon they had in a minute. Otherwise, you just dilute things too much and the region loses its identity.
When you think of older regions, you think of some mons that are iconic to that region, even if they show up in other regions. For example, Nidoran-M. When you remember Nidoran-M, you probably immediately remember that route west of Viridian City.
There's a case to be made when it comes to replayability, but that's mostly a thing on games like BW1 and FRLG that don't have enough viable options early, which leads to roadblocks.
Sinnoh is notorious for the classic lineup of Starter, Shinx, Starly, Budew, Gible... but there are a LOT of interesting options there like Machop and Buizel, even if they aren't your immediate first or iconic options.
This issue stems from a conscious design in later regions due to other dogwater mechanics like the Exp. All and the increased focus on the exploration of barren plains, but in my opinion, it sucks.
Speaking of the exploration of barren plains... Open-world in Pokémon. It. Cannot. Work.
Technically, it can, but it would require an entirely different approach to what they did in SV. Paldea ironically isn't any more of an open world than Kanto was. Matter of fact, it falls into the exact same pitfalls. These are too abundant and uninteresting to bother listing in such a long post. Instead, I'd rather talk about why it fails at a core level.
Levels.
To make an open world Pokemon game work, you need to take into account the levels of the mons and trainers you'll encounter. There's little to no point in going straight to Glaseado to get bodied by a Lv. 40 1st Stage pseudo, that isn't what an open world entails.
Ideally, Paldea should have had a Metroidvania-like approach to how one encounters mons, in which players could reasonably access all major areas and cities by sticking to the main paths but still having to unlock abilities to reach other sub-areas where stronger mons, trainers, and items lie. This was actually done to gate off the stakes that unlock the Ruinous Legends.
The result of GF's poor decisions regarding Paldea's open world is that it's a mechanic that doesn't add any depth to the game, as any sequence-breaking only serves to make the game easier.
Regarding dexes, I do think the issue comes more from not focusing on the new Pokémon enough, which is an issue that is severe in XY (partially due to no Kalos Pokémon able to Mega Evolve) and even moreso in Sun and Moon despite the Totem Pokémon. This stems from both the accessibility issue and the rarity on too many of the new Pokémon, to the point the player would just stick with the route 1 mons and their starter because the new Pokémon tend to be far too rare for their various power level.
Now, I know damn well y'all ain't dissing GOAT of the Wild!
I actually agree with some of the complaints tho.
Back on topic, ya boi is back to spit some of the hottest takes this thread will ever see. Let's get to it.
Regarding the whole discussion about the type chart, the Fairy-type is actually essential to the game. I had the experience of going back to Stadium 2 and messing with some things, mainly updating some moves and giving every type some kind of reliable STAB.
Dragon-types immediately became a problem.
Buffing Steel and Ice to try and mitigate the issue does not work, at all. Dragon/Fire was an extremely good offensive combo after Outrage got buffed in Gen 4 for a reason, it's just that strong without a type immune to it. This led me to eventually looking at the type interactions and reaching the same conclusion that GF did. A new type was needed, and at that point, you really might as well make Fairy.
I completely disagree with how they handled Fairy though, for various reasons. Bug did not need another type resisting it, and a lot of legendaries should've been retconned to being Fairy-typed. Mew is a very, very obvious example. There's kind of a flavor issue with Fairy as a type tbh. But yeah, Fairy is very blatantly a balance patch type and it shows.
As for other changes... There can't be a lot of them. Things go south FAST. I think right now, the only two that I'd be 100% sure I would do is having Water be weak to Poison and removing the Bug resistance from Fairy.
Psychic isn't bad because it's a bad-type, it's bad because it has two balance patch types holding it back. Yes, Dark and Steel 100% neutralized that threat. I'd argue the biggest problem with it is that it kind of lost its identity by now. When you think of Psychic-types, you think of fast, strong special attackers that are kind of frail, especially on the physical side.
Except now they're not that strong because of power creep and low offensive value, and a lot of other types also have fast, strong special attackers, so why bother with dealing with a type that's weak to common meta-types?
On that note, whoever mentioned bad physical Psychic moves was 100% correct.
Every type should have AT LEAST some reliable STAB. What I mean by that is 90BP, 100% accuracy, and no drawbacks. If you can't see the value in this, go play pre-Gen 4 games, especially Stadium 2.
Does that mean I want types to be bland? Hell no, it's the opposite. I want every type to be able to create an identity, but you can't do that relying on moves like 60BP, 5pp Giga Drain as your main damage-dealing option. I also believe that types should have "signature" moves that aren't as available as regular coverage moves. For example, Discharge is mostly learned by Electric-types unlike Thunderbolt, and boasts a side-effect that is more commonly assigned to that type, in this case, paralysis. However, I do believe said moves should be stronger, otherwise people will still use the generic option.
Speaking of which, TMs.
Whoever decided that Close Combat should not only be a TM but also a well-distributed one was completely out of pocket. A lot of these moves should NOT be easily attainable coverage and one could argue there are too many of them by now.
There's a real issue when it comes to identity in these games on several levels as of late, which brings me to my next point.
Dexit's greatest problem is that there's too much bloat on dexes.
This was already an issue as early as XY, but it's rampant after SwSh. You can't have so many options to build a team so early. Especially taking into account strong, older Pokémon. One or two throwbacks like Ralts in SV? Great, that's probably the best early-throwback mon they had in a minute. Otherwise, you just dilute things too much and the region loses its identity.
When you think of older regions, you think of some mons that are iconic to that region, even if they show up in other regions. For example, Nidoran-M. When you remember Nidoran-M, you probably immediately remember that route west of Viridian City.
There's a case to be made when it comes to replayability, but that's mostly a thing on games like BW1 and FRLG that don't have enough viable options early, which leads to roadblocks.
Sinnoh is notorious for the classic lineup of Starter, Shinx, Starly, Budew, Gible... but there are a LOT of interesting options there like Machop and Buizel, even if they aren't your immediate first or iconic options.
This issue stems from a conscious design in later regions due to other dogwater mechanics like the Exp. All and the increased focus on the exploration of barren plains, but in my opinion, it sucks.
Speaking of the exploration of barren plains... Open-world in Pokémon. It. Cannot. Work.
Technically, it can, but it would require an entirely different approach to what they did in SV. Paldea ironically isn't any more of an open world than Kanto was. Matter of fact, it falls into the exact same pitfalls. These are too abundant and uninteresting to bother listing in such a long post. Instead, I'd rather talk about why it fails at a core level.
Levels.
To make an open world Pokemon game work, you need to take into account the levels of the mons and trainers you'll encounter. There's little to no point in going straight to Glaseado to get bodied by a Lv. 40 1st Stage pseudo, that isn't what an open world entails.
Ideally, Paldea should have had a Metroidvania-like approach to how one encounters mons, in which players could reasonably access all major areas and cities by sticking to the main paths but still having to unlock abilities to reach other sub-areas where stronger mons, trainers, and items lie. This was actually done to gate off the stakes that unlock the Ruinous Legends.
The result of GF's poor decisions regarding Paldea's open world is that it's a mechanic that doesn't add any depth to the game, as any sequence-breaking only serves to make the game easier.
It’s never as severe as GSC and HGSS’ case for the Johto mons, even with the “sequel” reasoning in mind, but this is something to not forget. If the new Pokémon (and newly introduced regional forms and cross-gen evos) were focused first and foremost for availability and accessibility, then more new Pokémon would have chances to be remembered instead of a few at a time.
I used to think the same, but looking at the early routes for both Galar and Paldea, they're packed with brand-new shitmons.
It's simultaneously an issue with too many mons clogging the paint early on and making it hard to choose which ones to add to your team and just kind of making all of them blend together, but also an issue of having too many early-game mons to catch, so late-game mons are just kind of there.
It's a conscious design by Game Freak to make people rotate their parties more, but it's irksome because it makes the games less memorable since you don't get to carry a squad from beginning to end anymore without making them extremely over-leveled.
Thanks, Exp. Share!
Core series Pokémon games are going to have issues with level scaling no matter what happens. This really does feel like a "Pick your poison" situation" with no perfect outcome. If you're the developers of these games, here are your choices regarding the Exp. Share:
And then you have games like X & Y which are going to be stupid easy no matter what happens with the Exp. Share, but we don't talk about that
- Bring back the Exp. All item and open Pandora's box about the problems that might cause
- Take the old approach and force players to grind levels when they might not want to
- Take the Gens 6-7 approach that gives players a toggleable choice, but said choice is between two non-preferred outcomes anyway
- Same as the previous option, but without the toggle- you're stuck with your choice once you make it
- Keep the Exp. Share as it is now and try and obligate players to not be able to enjoyable raise a team for the whole game
None of these regions are tbh. It's ridiculously easy to get incredibly overleveled in any game where the forced Exp. Share is mandatory, to the point one is forced to skip content in order to not break the game.
Having the toggle on the main menu really is the best option if we're being honest. At least players can make a conscious choice about it.