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Are you fine with the way games are?

Aduro

Mt.BtlMaster
This is pretty standard with JRPGs. They tend to have elaborate stories involving plot points falling into place with other things, and Japanese RPG players are very used to linear narratives. In other words, Japanese players play RPGs to be told a story, not to make or influence one. The Shin Megami Tensei games are the closest there is, with a morality system, but it's trinary, it's usually pretty clear which is which, and there is only a single branching point somewhere in the late game that determines your ending.
I know why its happening, but that doesn't make it any less annoying when a Pokemon game gives you two dialogue options which have absolutely no influence on anything. It happened like 5 times in the very short Crown Tundra storyline.

Besides, some of the best decision systems can come from Japanese games. Like the Zero Escape series. And more recent RPGs like Octopath and Fire Emblem Three Houses at least let you make choices about where your allegiances lie. Even Zelda starting putting in dialogue trees that express your personality in Skyward Sword. Pokemon is very much behind the times in this regard.

Pokemon always says things like 'your own journey is about to unfold'. But its not your experience in any way besides you choosing what mons you want to use. Its the exact same experience everyone else gets. Scrolling through the exposition, waiting for some other character to make your decisions for you.

Also, Pokemon is definitely the most railroadey franchise I've ever played. You have to do every significant task in the exact same order.
 

Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
I agree with the lack of activities, but it is a RPG so only so much it can do before silly and pointless mini games like Alola photo club.

There's a lot they can do with side activities without resorting to mini games. We've already seen numerous examples from past games, especially the 3rd, 4th, and 5th gen games. There's alternate forms of battling/competitions such as Contests and Pokestar Studios. Battling facilities with unique battling styles such as the facilities in the Battle Frontier or Inverse battles. Capturing facilities such as the Safari Zone and Bug Catching Contest. Social interaction features such as Secret Bases/Sinnoh Underground and Join Avenue. There's so much potential for interesting and enjoyable side activities within the RPG framework, it's not nearly as restrictive as you think it is.

I would also agree if if XY and SM did not have pretty long and enjoyable dungeons.

I don't even agree with that. There's a handful of dungeons in those games that are fairly long and enjoyable (notably Terminus Cave, XY Victory Road, and Vast Poni Canyon), but the rest of them were fairly short and/or linear. The older generations had a lot more dungeons like that.

Also all dungeons are linear in Pokémon. I never got lost for more than a minute in any of them. (I played Gen 4 5 6 7 8 and remakes of Gen 1 2 3)

Again though, there's a difference between dungeons like the ones I mentioned above and dungeons like say, Glittering Cave or the Galar Mines. Those are just mindless and insultingly easy. Some of the older/more complex dungeon designs might have only one way to progress, but they were a lot more mazelike and puzzling, you had to actively figure out what the correct path was and if you wanted, you could also veer off to side paths and solve even tougher mazes and puzzles which rewarded you with rare items. A lot of the more modern dungeons are literally just straight lines with no thought or choice whatsoever, and anytime they do give you a choice of paths, it's usually just a short dead end that's not cleverly designed or hidden in any way.

The same issue occurs with the region design in general really. The older regions were a lot more complex with routes and paths that crisscrossed throughout the region, and occasionally you could even choose to branch off to an optional city or choose to do one gym before another. But from Unova on? Straight line. Little to no choice whatsoever. Go to this city before that one. Beat this gym before you can move on. Do everything the way we want it in the order we want it. And it's all really insulting and devalues the gameplay a bit. As @Aduro is alluding, Pokemon is marketed as a grand adventure where you can form your own team of Pokemon and bond with them, so it's meant to be a very personalized experience. But if the game isn't going to let you choose how your adventure plays out and make your own discoveries, it's not doing a very good job of providing that type of experience. They definitely need to loosen things up in that area. Some level of railroading to help casuals is okay, but the games have been going too far in this direction. And really, they should be guiding the casual players that are getting lost with the game design by providing highly visible landmarks and clearly defined paths (that you can veer away from if you so choose) that naturally catch their attention instead of hard roadblocks that force the player in the direction they want to go.
 

Gamzee Makara

Flirtin' With Disaster
Counterpoint: People who would normally play VGC are just going to play Showdown(Or mods/romhacks) and not actually care about anything that doesn't affect it it, with the new Gens' input added, which the VGC and YouTuber/Twitch community keeps going and out of shutdown via litigation and arrests by holding their participation in promos and Tournaments hostage by claiming that they use it to practice VGC.

In order to get 8-11-year old Japanese boys to care about graphics and all that, you need to kill Showdown to remove the copyright infringing sim that is diverting the majority of players of Pokémon players away from the real games and thus caring, fix/adjust the netcode, then adopt patch culture to fix things regularly andkill tiers, and thus Smogon.

This is what we call a fat chance in frozen-over Hell, mostly due to Nintendo caring more about meeting in person to play games, and thus excusing shitty netcode(And internet in general) in their minds,...despite COVID-19 and (American)COVIDiocy showing the flaw in that mindset...the above emotional/marketing/community management hostage situation regarding Showdown and Smogon, and patches likely being rejected by TPCI and Nintendo for disrupting brand synergy and consistency across all forms of media, in particular the anime and various manga, with patches to moves and abilities in particular giving toy designers, animators, artists and writers a barrage of problems that would even breach lackadasical Japanese labor laws.
 

Divine Retribution

Conquistador de pan
The majority of Pokemon's playerbase definitely does not play Showdown; Showdown only has a couple thousand users on it at most at any given time. Pokemon games sell in the tens of millions. Perhaps you could say that the majority of competitively-active players use Showdown but I'd hesitate to even make that claim without some hard statistics in front of me. Anyways I can't say for sure why TPC hasn't issued a cease and desist to Showdown; even though they don't represent the majority of the playerbase they certainly do divert revenue away from the main series and they certainly do breach TPC's copyright holdings. Far more insignificant projects have been struck by C&D's, including fan-made ROMs and a Minecraft mod.

with patches to moves and abilities in particular giving toy designers, animators, artists and writers a barrage of problems that would even breach lackadasical Japanese labor laws.

Not really sure what you mean by this. Adjusting the base power and exact effects of moves and abilities shouldn't have any effect at all on designers, animators, artists, etc. The animations and artwork can stay the same; there's no reason to change them. I'm also unsure exactly what makes you think regular patches would kill tiers; it wouldn't, it would merely shake them up every now and then. By that logic, every new generation should kill tiers.
 
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Gamzee Makara

Flirtin' With Disaster
The majority of Pokemon's playerbase definitely does not play Showdown; Showdown only has a couple thousand users on it at most at any given time. Pokemon games sell in the tens of millions. Perhaps you could say that the majority of competitively-active players use Showdown but I'd hesitate to even make that claim without some hard statistics in front of me. Anyways I can't say for sure why TPC hasn't issued a cease and desist to Showdown; even though they don't represent the majority of the playerbase they certainly do divert revenue away from the main series and they certainly do breach TPC's copyright holdings. Far more insignificant projects have been struck by C&D's, including fan-made ROMs and a Minecraft mod.



Not really sure what you mean by this. Adjusting the base power and exact effects of moves and abilities shouldn't have any effect at all on designers, animators, artists, etc. The animations and artwork can stay the same; there's no reason to change them. I'm also unsure exactly what makes you think regular patches would kill tiers; it wouldn't, it would merely shake them up every now and then. By that logic, every new generation should kill tiers.
Be honest...if Showdown and Smogon didn't exist anymore, people wouldn't be so whiny about battle mechanics.

Ray Rizzo and Wolfie Glick, among others, have done the hostage thing.

Having to constantly redraw and redefine how moves work every few weeks or months would be the problem, especially for Adventures, where they have explicitly called out percentages of secondary effects. Imagine, at a whim, Kusaka has to change a move's function in the middle of writing it, and then again. The anime would have to constantly stop using stock attack images and effects if, for example, Fire Blast now had a guaranteed burn chance, then, with barely any notice(In animation time), it no longer did. All of this at the whims of fickle fan feedback that fuels patches.

It killed them for Smash Ultimate. No tiers from the circut due to patches. The same would likely happen if patches were regular in Pokémon.
 

ChandelureDetour

Well-Known Member
There's a lot they can do with side activities without resorting to mini games. We've already seen numerous examples from past games, especially the 3rd, 4th, and 5th gen games. There's alternate forms of battling/competitions such as Contests and Pokestar Studios. Battling facilities with unique battling styles such as the facilities in the Battle Frontier or Inverse battles. Capturing facilities such as the Safari Zone and Bug Catching Contest. Social interaction features such as Secret Bases/Sinnoh Underground and Join Avenue. There's so much potential for interesting and enjoyable side activities within the RPG framework, it's not nearly as restrictive as you think it is.

I completely forgot about Pokestar Studio and Pokémon Contest as far as creative battles go. I also forget about the Safari Zone and Bug Catching Contest. I was only remembering the Battle frontier and Battle Subway/Tree/Maison.

I don't even agree with that. There's a handful of dungeons in those games that are fairly long and enjoyable (notably Terminus Cave, XY Victory Road, and Vast Poni Canyon), but the rest of them were fairly short and/or linear. The older generations had a lot more dungeons like that.

Again though, there's a difference between dungeons like the ones I mentioned above and dungeons like say, Glittering Cave or the Galar Mines. Those are just mindless and insultingly easy. Some of the older/more complex dungeon designs might have only one way to progress, but they were a lot more mazelike and puzzling, you had to actively figure out what the correct path was and if you wanted, you could also veer off to side paths and solve even tougher mazes and puzzles which rewarded you with rare items. A lot of the more modern dungeons are literally just straight lines with no thought or choice whatsoever, and anytime they do give you a choice of paths, it's usually just a short dead end that's not cleverly designed or hidden in any way.

To be fair, Galar mines 1 and 2 are early game. Union Cave, Eterna forest, Petalburg Woods, Virdian forest, Ilex forest and debatably Mt. Moon are super easy and short too. The rest of the SwSh has no excuse though. Unova and Kalos had some great dungeons. Alola was lacking for most of it. Brooklet hill and Lush Jungle could have been amazing if a Trial did not take place there. Alola sort of turned most possible dungeons into trials thinking back on it. Poni island picked up the pace though. Glimwood Tangle was pretty bad for the last actual dungeon in SwSh.

The same issue occurs with the region design in general really. The older regions were a lot more complex with routes and paths that crisscrossed throughout the region, and occasionally you could even choose to branch off to an optional city or choose to do one gym before another. But from Unova on? Straight line. Little to no choice whatsoever. Go to this city before that one. Beat this gym before you can move on. Do everything the way we want it in the order we want it. And it's all really insulting and devalues the gameplay a bit. As @Aduro is alluding, Pokemon is marketed as a grand adventure where you can form your own team of Pokemon and bond with them, so it's meant to be a very personalized experience. But if the game isn't going to let you choose how your adventure plays out and make your own discoveries, it's not doing a very good job of providing that type of experience. They definitely need to loosen things up in that area. Some level of railroading to help casuals is okay, but the games have been going too far in this direction. And really, they should be guiding the casual players that are getting lost with the game design by providing highly visible landmarks and clearly defined paths (that you can veer away from if you so choose) that naturally catch their attention instead of hard roadblocks that force the player in the direction they want to go.

I agree with this mostly. BW1 was very linear when compared to other entries. B2W2 improve on this a lot! Stuff like Desert resort being optional. XY also had some moments with freedom as well. Alola and Galar I totally agree with though.
 

Divine Retribution

Conquistador de pan
Be honest...if Showdown and Smogon didn't exist anymore, people wouldn't be so whiny about battle mechanics.

Honestly, yes they would. People whine about the mechanics of every game ever. It's inevitable; no game can make everyone perfectly happy, and if someone isn't perfectly happy, they complain. It's an unavoidable part of the human experience.

Ray Rizzo and Wolfie Glick, among others, have done the hostage thing.

I don't know who those people are, or what you mean by "the hostage thing". You keep using vague terms and obscure references to things that you seem to expect people to understand, can you elaborate on what you mean a little so we're all on the same page?

Having to constantly redraw and redefine how moves work every few weeks or months would be the problem, especially for Adventures, where they have explicitly called out percentages of secondary effects. Imagine, at a whim, Kusaka has to change a move's function in the middle of writing it, and then again. The anime would have to constantly stop using stock attack images and effects if, for example, Fire Blast now had a guaranteed burn chance, then, with barely any notice(In animation time), it no longer did. All of this at the whims of fickle fan feedback that fuels patches.

Moves are often adjusted between generations, is there any need to go back and retroactively correct every reference to them in other media? Apparently not, because they don't. A few minor inaccuracies like this is perfectly acceptable without leading to unnecessary confusion or breaking immersion for the viewers; even if you make a drastic change like giving Fire Blast a 100% Burn chance, you don't need to retcon every instance of Fire Blast appearing in other media 1984-style for some misguided sense of consistency. The anime has never been perfectly consistent with the games anyways.

It killed them for Smash Ultimate. No tiers from the circut due to patches. The same would likely happen if patches were regular in Pokémon.

I'm not familiar with the tiering system for Smash Ultimate. I am familiar with the tiering system for Smogon, having participated in it. If patches were made regular (best case scenario, say once a month, although I think that would be a stretch) the tiering system would have to adjust a bit, but adjust it would. Tiering updates would probably have to happen a little more often and the tiering councils would have to step their game up a little instead of sitting on issues for months at a time, but I don't regard either of those things as a bad thing, and neither would result in the death of the tiering system as we know it.
 

CMButch

Kanto is love. Kanto is life.
I will play SH/SW someday, I just hope when I do that all Pokemon will be in it so I can catch them all because I like Pokemon Camp when I saw it in Youtube videos. To see all Pokemon interact with each other to play ball etc. :D
 

Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
To be fair, Galar mines 1 and 2 are early game. Union Cave, Eterna forest, Petalburg Woods, Virdian forest, Ilex forest and debatably Mt. Moon are super easy and short too. The rest of the SwSh has no excuse though. Unova and Kalos had some great dungeons. Alola was lacking for most of it. Brooklet hill and Lush Jungle could have been amazing if a Trial did not take place there. Alola sort of turned most possible dungeons into trials thinking back on it. Poni island picked up the pace though. Glimwood Tangle was pretty bad for the last actual dungeon in SwSh.

I'd disagree on Viridian Forest, Mt. Moon and Eterna Forest, those were a bit more mazelike. Unova's better dungeons tended to be optional. Kalos only really had 2 good ones, the rest were fairly linear. There's been a handful of good ones, but really 5th gen was when the region design started to go downhill, Hoenn and Sinnoh are what the regions should be like.

I agree with this mostly. BW1 was very linear when compared to other entries. B2W2 improve on this a lot! Stuff like Desert resort being optional. XY also had some moments with freedom as well. Alola and Galar I totally agree with though.

Again, not to the degree of earlier regions. Unova and Kalos had a few optional caves, but that was it for the most part. Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh had entire swaths of the region that were optional. You could choose between Rt. 12-15 or Rt. 16-18 to get to Fuchsia City. You could do multiple gyms in Kanto in whatever order you want (Gyms 3-7 were pretty much up in the air, although aside from Fuchsia/Saffron there is an intended order). You could go in two different directions from Ecruteak. You had an entire stretch from Rt. 129-Slateport that was entirely optional. You could go in two different directions from Hearthome and had a choice of several gyms along the way. The newer regions do not give you this level of choice, it's always just a short detour while it railroads you along a set path.
 

Dragalge

"Orange" Magical Girl
I'd disagree on Viridian Forest, Mt. Moon and Eterna Forest, those were a bit more mazelike. Unova's better dungeons tended to be optional. Kalos only really had 2 good ones, the rest were fairly linear. There's been a handful of good ones, but really 5th gen was when the region design started to go downhill, Hoenn and Sinnoh are what the regions should be like.



Again, not to the degree of earlier regions. Unova and Kalos had a few optional caves, but that was it for the most part. Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh had entire swaths of the region that were optional. You could choose between Rt. 12-15 or Rt. 16-18 to get to Fuchsia City. You could do multiple gyms in Kanto in whatever order you want (Gyms 3-7 were pretty much up in the air, although aside from Fuchsia/Saffron there is an intended order). You could go in two different directions from Ecruteak. You had an entire stretch from Rt. 129-Slateport that was entirely optional. You could go in two different directions from Hearthome and had a choice of several gyms along the way. The newer regions do not give you this level of choice, it's always just a short detour while it railroads you along a set path.
To be fair on Ecruteak's part, that actually hindered Johto a lot. It's partly why there is such a terrible level curve in Johto. I want more options on where to go too but nothing like how GSC/HGSS handled it.

That said, on optional places to go off to, yeah Galar lacked in this badly. While what is substantial about them is another discussion, previous regions at least had optional areas that were not visited in the main game such as Alola's Kale'e Bay, Haina Desert, Ten Carat Hill, etc or Sinnoh's route that was south of Sandgem.

One thing I will give SWSH credit for is the freedom in the Crown Tundra. Aside from the UB quest, you can do the other three in any order which is something we have not seen in such a long time. Surprised people are not wanting the directors of CT for Gen 9!
 

Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
To be fair on Ecruteak's part, that actually hindered Johto a lot. It's partly why there is such a terrible level curve in Johto. I want more options on where to go too but nothing like how GSC/HGSS handled it.

The solution to that problem is level scaling, and we already kind of have that, so we'll probably never see a GSCHGSS situation again.

One thing I will give SWSH credit for is the freedom in the Crown Tundra. Aside from the UB quest, you can do the other three in any order which is something we have not seen in such a long time. Surprised people are not wanting the directors of CT for Gen 9!

The DLC definitely looks to be a step forward in the direction Pokemon should be going, and I expect 9th gen to go even further with it by making the entire game like IoA/CT. They do seem to be slowly heading in the direction of making the game more open and allowing you to complete certain events in any order, so I'm not as worried about them improving in those areas. I'm more worried about the amount of side activities and puzzling/mazelike design, as those aspects have been sorely lacking for 3 or 4 generations.
 

ChandelureDetour

Well-Known Member
I'd disagree on Viridian Forest, Mt. Moon and Eterna Forest, those were a bit more mazelike. Unova's better dungeons tended to be optional. Kalos only really had 2 good ones, the rest were fairly linear. There's been a handful of good ones, but really 5th gen was when the region design started to go downhill, Hoenn and Sinnoh are what the regions should be like.

I actually really like how much more freedom that was in B2W2 when compared to BW. Here are some examples if you are interested. B2W2 has most of Castelia Sewers, Desert resort entirely, Route 16 and Lostlorn forest, Relic Passage, mistralton cave (Surf revisit), Route 7 and Celestial Tower, Strange House, Route 14, I think maybe Route 9, and that’s all I can remember as completely optional. Of course certain areas often have hidden secrets.

XY let’s you visit Route 22, Route 6, Azure Bay, Route 16 and Lost hotel, most of Terminus Cave and that’s all for Kalos.

Alola has several hidden nooks and crannies on the Routes. I will only say those which are extremely optional. Ten Carat hill, Seaward Cave, Kala’e bay, Hau’oli cemetery, Sandy Cave (USUM), Melemele Sea, Pikachu Valley (USUM), 99% of Route 7, Hano Beach, Malie City Outer cape, Mount Hokulan, Blush Mountain (if u count it), Secluded Shore (SM), Haina Desert, Lake of the Sunne/Moone, 90% of Route 17 and that’s all of the freedom before Postgame.

SwSh is significantly worse at this but I will still list what is optional. 95% of Route 4, 20% of Route 5, 30% of Route 6, 20% Route 8, 40% Route 9, 5% Route 10. SwSh is the worst at this.
 

Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
I actually really like how much more freedom that was in B2W2 when compared to BW. Here are some examples if you are interested. B2W2 has most of Castelia Sewers, Desert resort entirely, Route 16 and Lostlorn forest, Relic Passage, mistralton cave (Surf revisit), Route 7 and Celestial Tower, Strange House, Route 14, I think maybe Route 9, and that’s all I can remember as completely optional. Of course certain areas often have hidden secrets.

XY let’s you visit Route 22, Route 6, Azure Bay, Route 16 and Lost hotel, most of Terminus Cave and that’s all for Kalos.

Alola has several hidden nooks and crannies on the Routes. I will only say those which are extremely optional. Ten Carat hill, Seaward Cave, Kala’e bay, Hau’oli cemetery, Sandy Cave (USUM), Melemele Sea, Pikachu Valley (USUM), 99% of Route 7, Hano Beach, Malie City Outer cape, Mount Hokulan, Blush Mountain (if u count it), Secluded Shore (SM), Haina Desert, Lake of the Sunne/Moone, 90% of Route 17 and that’s all of the freedom before Postgame.

SwSh is significantly worse at this but I will still list what is optional. 95% of Route 4, 20% of Route 5, 30% of Route 6, 20% Route 8, 40% Route 9, 5% Route 10. SwSh is the worst at this.

Yeah, I mentioned those detours, but again, having a short detour like that isn't as strong as entire paths that are optional. We're not just talking a section of an area or even a single area itself, but entire strings of areas. We most certainly do not have that much in the more recent regions.
 

Marbi Z

Cin-Der-Race!
For the most part yes though I’d really like to be able to cancel an online battle search and Save Data Backup support would be great.
 

Sicksadpanda

Discord Staff
Well, the truth is, every gen always has some sort of controversy. I remember the internet bashing on the current gen since gen 3, but once enough time has gone by, people will look back and praise about how great the older games were compared to the newer ones. I'm willing to bet that by gen 10, people will look back at gen 8 and say how amazing Sword and Shield were, and how gen 10 should've followed their examples. It's just a cycle repeating itself.

That being said, I legitimately think Sword and Shield are great games, and much better than some of the older games. However, there's still a lot of factors in what makes a game good, so it's still subjective. All the "problems" you see in Sword and Shield are just the loudest, because they are the newest games. Some of the problems are new, but some of the problems are also old too...just forgotten.

My advice is to not pay attention to the community trash talking the current pokemon gen and make your own judgement by either playing the game or watching a video without commentary. Otherwise, the negativity can impact your enjoyment.
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
There are a few changes that I’d like to see but none are deal breakers for me. For instance I would like to see Rock Climb return as a mechanic to reach high ledges and get rare items and Pokémon that way, Foresight and other similar moves return as causing a targeted Pokémon to lose a type immunity is always helpful especially when using the False Swipe method to catch Ghost Pokémon, and Defog to return as either a TM or TR.
 

Golden_Arcanine

Well-Known Member
1. Dexit: It's a fanmade, millennial-whinefest. Be greatful for what you get - and we all know that we could upload everything to Home. And now with the DLC, we've basically seen GameFreak's intention - and why they weren't fussed about it. Next titles will probably incorporate the few remaining omissions. Point being: People need to keep calm and not throw a millennial-fit every time there's something they don't like.

Yes and no. Could GameFreak have made the game with all of the Pokes in there? Absolutely, and the notion that they couldn't is ridiculous. But on the other hand that we're going to eventually have a game with 1000+ Pokemon seems unrealistic. I think it's more the randomness of which Pokes made the cut, and which ones didn't.
 

Locormus

Can we please get the older, old forum back?
Yes and no. Could GameFreak have made the game with all of the Pokes in there? Absolutely, and the notion that they couldn't is ridiculous. But on the other hand that we're going to eventually have a game with 1000+ Pokemon seems unrealistic. I think it's more the randomness of which Pokes made the cut, and which ones didn't.

I'm not saying that they couldn't. We can now tell that plitting the dex was done to increase content-value to the DLC packs.

I'm pretty sure that there'll be an all encompassing tournament where all Pokemon can be used.

As for randomness, yes, some picks were random and one needs to ask serious questions as to why they for instance included Manectric when they had the newly designed Boltund which is a similar mold - and other such cases.
 

Divine Retribution

Conquistador de pan
Can we drop the "be grateful for what you get" nonsense please? It's a valid argument when you're getting something for free; it's downright insulting when you're shelling out $90 for it. When I'm paying $60 for a game and then $30 for DLC on top if it, I have the right to expect my money's worth.
 
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