The Option to Lose

[ZeroGear]

So, there's been something that's been bothering me about how the Pokemon games are generally setup, and that's the fact that the player character doesn't actually have the ability to lose any of the significant battles, or really any battle for that matter.
To be clear, I'm not talking about fainting and waking up in a Pokemon Center with some of your money lost, I mean actually losing a battle to a powerful foe and the story continuing on because it's assuming you are going to lose that fight for story purposes.
It's kinda been bothering me that none of the significant "threats" are particularly challenging, particularly the "admins" (or equivalents) starting out with weak pokemon and leveling up as you grow in power. This is ok when you're talking about your rival, who is supposed to grow alongside you, or gym leaders, who are essentially "benchmarks" for you to hit, but not the evil team, and definitely not the champion (or equivalent)!

While the game is targeted towards a younger audience, there is a reason why an instance like this would be beneficial: Motivation.
We all know the basic premise of the game is to become the champion at the end, but what is it that motivates you to strive for that level?
Imagine a story where you get to meet the champion of the region on a meet-and-greet a little while after you get your starter, and are presented the option to battle them. This is a fully optional fight, and you're free to say no and let the story progress regardless, but if you say "yes", the champion shows you how outmatched you really are at this point. When you do fail, s/he tells you that they were impressed with your courage at challenging them, and tells you that they will be waiting for a rematch at the end of your journey.
Then, at the end of the game, after having earned all 8 badges and beaten the elite 4, you finally get that rematch, and celebrate as you show them how much you've grown.
Granted, there will be people that grind out the early game and somehow manage to win the optional match, in which case the champion is shocked and tells you that they will have to up their game next time you meet, at which point they'll have a team 10 levels than in the original finale.

Another instance where this kind of thing would work is with the obligatory "bad guy team", where tier 1 grunts use un-evolved low-level pokemon, tier 2 grunts use the evolved forms at mid-level, and the "admins" use mid-high level pokemon, with the "boss" having a team comparable to that of the 8th gym leader (but still lower than the champion).
Heck, when you first encounter the team, you may fight several tier 1 grunts before the "admin" steps in and tells you to stand down. Again, you have the option to back off and let them escape, or battle the admin who is several levels above you (if you meet them after the 1st gym, then the admin is about as strong as the 4th gym leader). Again, losing is expected, and allows the villeins to escape, but the off-chance victory forces a scripted intervention by a more powerful "admin" and tacks on a few levels for future encounters.

I know this kind of a system is a little complex, and there are a lot of people out there that don't play the game for the story. However, I personally feel that a system like this, one where you have the option to lose story-significant battles, would allow for a more dynamic and organic experience in the game.
Heck, it could even be an optional system that you toggle on or off when you start a new save file, defaulting to a cinematic "no" choice when the option is presented.

But that is just how I feel.
I'd be glad to know what everyone's take on this is.

 

[LucarioIsMegaEvolving]

I think this is a really cool idea, though it could be hard to actually execute.

The battle that comes to mind with this is the battle with Zacian or Zamazenta at the start of SwSh, where it literally forces you to lose because you can't attack, which is similar but not quite the same thing.

 

[Ophie]

I remember the demo for Sushi Striker in which your very first battle is an unwinnable one, since you're up against one of the top people working for the villainous organization. A bunch of people who played that demo got confused as to how you were supposed to beat him, even though you're supposed to be outmatched, story-wise, after which one of the characters finishes the direct tutorial and you're introduced low-level henchmen you can beat.

From that, I figured people aren't used to unwinnable battles right at the start.

There's also how part of the point of video games is to make you feel like a boss and own the world. If you were in the position of any of the villagers in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you'd probably not find it very fun because some other character is changing the rules, acing every contest, and even rearranging the landscape as they see fit, and if they don't like you, they'll make your life even worse until you want to leave. But you're not. You're in the role where you get to call all the shots. (Even games known to be very difficult, like Sekiro, has this trait in them. You are supposed to feel accomplished when you finally overcome that enemy who's been kicking your butt nonstop for hours. In games like those, you feel golden through catharsis.)

An idea like yours can work, even among the little kids Pokémon games are aimed at--but ONLY IF you are then allowed to defeat each and every one of those characters later on. You are supposed to be the undisputed champion of the region, and the only ones who can beat you are other players and opponents in battle facilities, where your reputation isn't on the line.

 

[TheWanderingMist]

When it comes to battles you have to lose, they should be cutscene-only. If you're in an actual battle and the story needs you to not win, there needs to be a turn limit or somesuch after which the villain either uses some unstoppable super move or gives up for the time being because you're too much of a hassle to deal with.

 

[mehmeh1]

I think there are a few battles you actually can lose in some games. For example, in USUM you can lose to Lusamine in Aether Paradise and the dialogue changes a bit, but the story still goes on.

 

[LucarioIsMegaEvolving]

I remembered a part in the second set of PMD games, where you're expected to lose against a boss. This happens a few times, where even if you defeat the boss it forces you to lose in a cutscene, which just feels unsatisfying. I think the best way to do it would be how the first Paper Mario game does it, where Bowser is invincible in the first fight, forcing you to lose. Of course, that doesn't really work in situations where it doesn't make conceivable sense for the opponent to be invincible. Branching story paths depending on whether you win or lose, while hard to program, would probably make the gameplay the most satisfying for the player.

 

[Ophie]

I think there are a few battles you actually can lose in some games. For example, in USUM you can lose to Lusamine in Aether Paradise and the dialogue changes a bit, but the story still goes on.

Which reminds me: The very first battle in Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness gives you a Salamence and you're asked to defeat Metagross. The only way that can be done is using Earthquake on the first turn, then Earthquake again on the next. Otherwise, you lose. The game still proceeds even if you lose, and you're told how to do it by an NPC, but that does make me think about how that could create sour first impressions on people.

The important thing to keep in mind about the approach to design and difficulty in Pokémon games, especially main-series ones, is that for many people, more so than most other game franchises, each main-series Pokémon might be their very first video game. Thrash them at the start and they may never play video games again.

 

[Ignition]

I've always liked when games acknowledge your losses through the story. For Pokémon, the best you'll get is a backhanded compliment on the "Player blacked out!" screen (which is still cool). It helps the MC feel like an actual person instead of some unstoppable force.

 

[catzeye]

I think there are a few battles you actually can lose in some games. For example, in USUM you can lose to Lusamine in Aether Paradise and the dialogue changes a bit, but the story still goes on.

In SwSh besides the Zacian/Zamazenta battle at the beginning of the game you can actually lose to Hop for your first two battles and the story moves on with Hop having different dialogue.

The trouble is...it's VERY hard to lose to Hop. Like it took me MULTIPLE resets just to get it to Hop to take out my starter in the first match...with him having two Pokemon. What tends to happen is if Hop's Pokemon manages to get your starter to like 5 hp or less, he'll suddenly start spamming non-attack moves instead of just taking you out. It's saying something when it took more strategy for me to lose to Hop than it was to win.

I feel like SwSh missed an opportunity to let us have more battles to lose. Given the whole setup of the Gym Challenge with a champion (who until you) has never lost a match, it actually would make a lot of narrative sense to let the losses stick against major NPCs. Like it would be interesting if by the time the you hit the champion's cup, the commentator expresses doubt about your ability to win it all if you say lost to couple of gym leaders during the badge collecting phase. Even things like dialogue changes if you lost to Milo, Nessa, or Kabu when they go to see you and Hop off.

Like say if you lost to Raihan once in the badge collecting portion, his dialogue alters to say "if you struggled against me in the gym, I'll have no problems crushing you now! You can't lose to me and expect to beat Leon"

And then you beat him he goes "how is that possible [insert something else here]". This would make the world feel alive.

And if you lose to Leon in the final match, yes you can beat him afterwards, but maybe the game makes a point to say that time has passed to since the first match.

 

[Missingno.Fan]

Maybe a bit unrelated, but I always wanted the “run” option in trainer battles to be replaced with a “surrender” option. Of course you still have important battles you have to defeat.

 

[Orphalesion]

When it comes to battles you have to lose, they should be cutscene-only. If you're in an actual battle and the story needs you to not win, there needs to be a turn limit or somesuch after which the villain either uses some unstoppable super move or gives up for the time being because you're too much of a hassle to deal with.

Agreed, Final Fantasy has battles like that on occasions, you fight for a set amount of time, then the boss opponent just uses some sort of limit attack and you "lose" the battle (you still get exp and items for it). Those battles still offer a challenge because rather than to defeat the opponent, you have to survive their onslaught for a set amount of time.

 

[Auraninja]

I think this is also a thing in Dragon Quest.
I never like to continue after dying (I reset instead), but from what I understand, you wake up in a church with half of your coins gone (sound familiar?).

In any case, why are you diddling around for? If there is such an evil threat to be challenged, then why are you doing meaningless sidequests?
Why hasn't the antagonist done anything? You think they would have caught on by now? Ganon(dorf) is especially bad at this.

 

[Monox D. I-Fly]

I remember the demo for Sushi Striker in which your very first battle is an unwinnable one, since you're up against one of the top people working for the villainous organization. A bunch of people who played that demo got confused as to how you were supposed to beat him, even though you're supposed to be outmatched, story-wise, after which one of the characters finishes the direct tutorial and you're introduced low-level henchmen you can beat.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories players laugh in Heishin.

 

[Divine Retribution]

I don't really like forced defeats in any game. More player agency is always better in my opinion. However, I wouldn't mind if losing sometimes had more consequences. Maybe losing to the main villain forces you to undergo a sidequests to fix the damage done, or maybe another character steps in to save the day and the player simply doesn't get the glory of having defeated the main bad guy.

Forced losses are plot devices, and not even very good ones at that. Consequences for losses are a better way to get players invested in important battles while still placing control ultimately in their hands.

 

[Ishiftyounot]

I think enforcing a forced defeat would be difficult to accomplish without players having some semblance of forewarning, because you're more likely to find people reset to try again and getting more and more frustrating with each attempt not realising that they're meant to lose. Even if you had an NPC explain that you will very likely lose (say for example Hop telling you Leon would kick your ass if you battled him before your first gym match, and you battled him anyway) I still think you'd run into this issue. Sword and Shield did do something similar in the right way with the legendary wolves (as mentioned above) - the battle ends after 3 moves and it's clearly explained that you cannot hit it so you can figure out it's a story loss. Maybe implementing something like that could work? Maybe at a really low level against a higher level opponent your Pokemon just cannot do anything to the opponent and people comment on how outmatched you are?

Personally I think the best way to do things is not to enforce a loss, but to make it so you losing does alter the story even a little bit. Maybe the gym leader or rival comments on beating you if you go for a rematch, or in certain scenarios it doesn't just send you back to the Pokemon Center and the game proceeds without acknowledging the loss. Especially for rival battles, if you lose you should lose and not be able to redo it. Bit like in FireRed/LeafGreen with your first battle versus your rival (the one where you get your starter) - if you lose you don't redo the battle, the game proceeds as normal. Maybe keep something like that again.

 

[Ophie]

I don't really like forced defeats in any game. More player agency is always better in my opinion. However, I wouldn't mind if losing sometimes had more consequences. Maybe losing to the main villain forces you to undergo a sidequests to fix the damage done, or maybe another character steps in to save the day and the player simply doesn't get the glory of having defeated the main bad guy.

Forced losses are plot devices, and not even very good ones at that. Consequences for losses are a better way to get players invested in important battles while still placing control ultimately in their hands.

I honestly don't mind, particularly if it's important to the narrative that the player character lose. It's just like in any other story with heroes and villains, where the hero will occasionally lose to a bad guy or at least be forced to go on the defensive to survive. These are used to 1) show that the stakes are higher with this bad guy than the ones before, 2) that the hero needs to improve in some way, even if it's a personality flaw that gets in the way, 3) to not underestimate said bad guy, 4) show that the hero is flawed, and flawed protagonists are always more interesting than flawless ones, and 5) to emotionsally frustrate the audience so it feels sweeter when the hero finally defeats the bad guy later.

For instance, Mario has to lose at the beginning of the first Paper Mario game to Bowser to show how much more powerful Bowser has become when he wields the Star Rod. Mario literally cannot damage him once the Star Rod activates. If you defeat him then, the story would end right there, rather than Mario traveling all over the Mushroom Kingdom to gather the means to fight on more even terms. (Though that's the only game where you are forced to lose at the beginning, it would become a recurring thing in every Paper Mario game in which the villain becomes invincible and Mario needs outside help. In Color Splash, however, there is a point where you first encounter the Black Paint on the floor and merely touching it takes away half of his HP to show that Mario is not yet ready to fight it.)

A huge amount of the most iconic stories ever written have the protagonist or some other powerful character lose somewhere. In Green mythology, the Hydra thrashes Hercules, forcing a retreat until he comes back with a better plan, though the solution varies between adaptations. The Count of Monte Cristo begins with the protagonist easily losing a struggle and getting sent to a remote prison; the rest of the story is him taking revenge on the people who falsely imprisoned him. Hamlet has Claudius steal the throne from him early on, which triggers Hamlet's descent into homicidal madness. In Star Wars: A New Hope, Darth Vader easily overpowers Obi-Wan and later chops off one of Luke's hands. Tony Stark's failures in the first Iron Man movie motivate him to build better armor suits. Batman gets his butt kicked repeatedly by Bane in both Bane's debut comic and in The Dark Knight Rises, and in both cases it was due to Batman's own neglect and carelessness. The character Worf in Star Trek: The Next Generation can hold his own in fights but is repeatedly targeted and defeated by villains to show how big a deal they are that they could defeat the main characters' best fighter so easily (which happened often enough to lead to the term "The Worf Effect"). Light Yagami in Death Note is humiliated and thoroughly outsmarted each time a new character from Wammy House challenges him. Monkey D. Luffy loses twice to Crocodile in One Piece to show that Luffy cannot rely on his standard physical punches and kicks to fight him. In Samurai Jack, Jack is unable to defeat The Guardian, who watches over a time portal, because he's not strong enough yet. Jack would repeatedly save the day but fall just short of going back in time, which would eventually turn him into a broken, frustrated man in Season 5. The Mario Bros. are outclassed by the Shroobs in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, who have a flying saucer that defeats them in three turns; the purpose is to introduce the Baby Bros., who have a means to defeat the flying saucer and demonstrate that all four characters are needed to fight the Shroobs. Kingdom Hearts II has the Nobodies show up in his town before he learns about the Keyblades, and they cannot be harmed using Roxas's conventional weapons to shatter Roxas's smugness he gained from winning play-fights with his friends and rivals and to show that his hometown is under real danger if he doesn't find something able to harm them (while also showing that the people who sent the Nobodies in know Roxas is special and would rather eliminate him before he can fight back).

The alternative for video games is to show all of this happening in a cutscene, which I believe is a worse alternative because then there is no agency at all and could make for much too long of a cutscene while being more expensive to animate and maybe do voice acting for (though in some cases, the characters are already speaking a bunch in these fights).

Yes, these are plot devices, but I don't think they're bad. They've been around for as long as storytelling has existed. Joseph Campbell argues that this is a very common aspect of the Hero's Journey, as described in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, covered in the "Belly of the Whale" section (which itself is a reference to an example, in which Jonah, from the Bible, was famously swallowed by a whale or some other very large sea creature, the circumstances of which he was powerless to prevent).

 

[Divine Retribution]

Yes, these are plot devices, but I don't think they're bad. They've been around for as long as storytelling has existed. Joseph Campbell argues that this is a very common aspect of the Hero's Journey, as described in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, covered in the "Belly of the Whale" section (which itself is a reference to an example, in which Jonah, from the Bible, was famously swallowed by a whale or some other very large sea creature, the circumstances of which he was powerless to prevent).

I think our disagreement here ultimately boils down to a preference for games that give us a static story versus games with sandbox elements where player's decisions and performance impacts the story. Personally I prefer the latter and I don't think there's any room for forced losses in them. Extremely difficult encounters where the player needs to squeeze every ounce of skill they have to even have a chance of succeeding? Sure. But a forced loss that the player can do absolutely nothing about? I don't find those to be very engaging. It works if you're following a set plot that needs the player to lose, but if there's some amount of player agency in the plot (as I believe there should be), then the player should always at least have a chance. I view Pokemon as the latter sort of game, largely due to the "blank slate" player character. In the Pokemon games, your player character has only the most basic backstory, and their skill and capabilities are determined only by you, the player controlling them, and your own capabilities and understanding of the game.

One series that makes some use of forced losses (somewhat to my chagrin) is the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon spinoffs, as I'm sure you know. One of my biggest pet peeves with PMD2 is that you never actually get a chance to battle Team Skull beyond the first boss battle, where Skuntank isn't present. After that, every encounter with them is simply Skuntank and Koffing using their gas attack in a cutscene to KO you without even engaging in an actual battle. If they actually let you fight back, even if the battle is rigged so that it's extremely unlikely for you to win (say, if Skuntank was a much higher level than what the player and their partner would be at in that stage of the game), at the very least the illusion of having a chance would make the battle more immersive. Instead of saying "Oh, well I got KO'ed in a cutscene, nothing I can do about that I guess", the player instead feels like they at least had an opportunity to fight back, which is likely to spur them into training and improving so they stand a better chance for the next encounter. I believe that's a more organic and immersive way to encourage the player's improvement and advance the story than an absolute forced loss or defeating them in a cutscene.

 

[Ophie]

I think our disagreement here ultimately boils down to a preference for games that give us a static story versus games with sandbox elements where player's decisions and performance impacts the story. Personally I prefer the latter and I don't think there's any room for forced losses in them. Extremely difficult encounters where the player needs to squeeze every ounce of skill they have to even have a chance of succeeding? Sure. But a forced loss that the player can do absolutely nothing about? I don't find those to be very engaging. It works if you're following a set plot that needs the player to lose, but if there's some amount of player agency in the plot (as I believe there should be), then the player should always at least have a chance. I view Pokemon as the latter sort of game, largely due to the "blank slate" player character. In the Pokemon games, your player character has only the most basic backstory, and their skill and capabilities are determined only by you, the player controlling them, and your own capabilities and understanding of the game.

One series that makes some use of forced losses (somewhat to my chagrin) is the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon spinoffs, as I'm sure you know. One of my biggest pet peeves with PMD2 is that you never actually get a chance to battle Team Skull beyond the first boss battle, where Skuntank isn't present. After that, every encounter with them is simply Skuntank and Koffing using their gas attack in a cutscene to KO you without even engaging in an actual battle. If they actually let you fight back, even if the battle is rigged so that it's extremely unlikely for you to win (say, if Skuntank was a much higher level than what the player and their partner would be at in that stage of the game), at the very least the illusion of having a chance would make the battle more immersive. Instead of saying "Oh, well I got KO'ed in a cutscene, nothing I can do about that I guess", the player instead feels like they at least had an opportunity to fight back, which is likely to spur them into training and improving so they stand a better chance for the next encounter. I believe that's a more organic and immersive way to encourage the player's improvement and advance the story than an absolute forced loss or defeating them in a cutscene.

Though I do prefer video games with more linear structure because it allows for a tighter, more organized narrative (I'm a narratologist--I study, analyze, and write about story structure), I'd say that the presence of unwinnable battles is still not something that has to be mutually exclusive with wide-open, sandbox type games. There are situations in our lives we have no control over and of which we have no choice but to lose, or we are given choices in which both of them are losing options, and having these in games, I'd argue, would make them more realistic and believable. Lose-lose scenarios, in particular, are still a form of agency, and these decisions pop up in even the most open-world, pick-your-action games like the Mass Effect games and the Grand Theft Auto games (along with unwinnable fights). Even then, there are points in these stories where the player character has no agency. Maybe they're unable to move, maybe they're under duress, maybe they're scared. It wouldn't make sense to have more agency for the player character than what they should be experiencing at the time.

Grand Theft Auto 2 has a mission where you're vastly underequipped to complete it--you get caught by enemies too strong for you to fight, no matter how good at the game you are. This is meant to lead to the next plot point in which the boss of the gang you're a part of realizes he didn't think it through, then lets you try again with the equipment needed to complete it; this is to establish that the boss is a reasonable man and will acknowledge himself as the reason for a mission's failure, the idea that you can trust him. Red Dead Redemption has a particularly emotional one in which the player character has to hold the line against a massive number of enemies long enough for his family to flee. The enemies are endless, and they will keep spawning until the player character runs out of health and dies.

Can these examples theoretically be programmed to allow you to win where you would lose? Sure, but I don't think the stories would be better for it. If there was a movie where a man made a noble last stand to protect his family, the family runs away to safety, and the it's suddenly revealed that the man is still alive and rejoins them, even if he's heavily injured but he'll survive, that drastically lessens the emotional impact than if he really did die there or he was hospitalized and died of his wounds. Audiences and critics would complain that the man being okay after all was a plot contrivance and weakens the narrative. (And yes, I do believe JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders would have been better if Avdol stayed dead, no matter how much the fans liked him.)

All in all, I think where we differ in opinion is not the preference for linear games versus wide-open games, but games designed to have as strong a narrative as the staff can write versus games where you create your own narrative even at the cost of a weaker story. The latter can only be done in a wide-open sandbox kind of game, but the former can be done with both linear and wide-open sandbox games, albeit it's a LOT harder to do with a wide-open game. That is, you prefer player agency at any cost; I prefer the ability to tell a better story. (Games with a level-up system like the main series Pokémon games are a lot harder to pull off truly unwinnable battles though, since they have to account for players who do a ridiculous amount of grinding, which is the more likely reason it isn't done very often.)

 

[SBaby]

That's the thing I really like about Pokémon Tabletop. You can lose battles and still continue the campaign. You can lose to a Gym Leader, and they won't forget that you lost. In fact, often times they won't let you challenge them again right away if you DO lose (if you lose to Blaine, you definitely won't be able to rematch him again for awhile, because he'll make you do a quest before you can rematch him). And this can be for a few reasons. The first reason is that if you lost and just go back in with the same team and the same situation they might consider it a safety issue for your Pokémon. Another reason is that unlike the video games, healing at a Pokémon Center in Tabletop is something that takes time. It isn't just a five second sequence of flashing Pokeballs. You're typically spending an entire day or two in-game waiting for your Pokémon to be healed. So if the battle was close, they might have to spend some time healing, and you'll have to as well. The final reason is like I mentioned about Blaine, they may have you complete a quest to prove that you're worthy.

Also, if you lose a battle to say, Team Rocket (or really any evil Team), there's a good chance you might have some of your Pokémon stolen from you, and if you're a player at all worth your salt, you'll be spending time tracking them down so you can get your Pokémon back. Sometimes the DM might even have this happen to a player character or an NPC as an adventure hook. In fact in Pokémon Tabletop, this is actually a really great way for a DM to basically get players to go wherever they want them to go. If you want a player in any Pokémon Tabletop game to do something they wouldn't normally do, just have a bad guy steal one of their Pokémon. The only thing I will say is just make sure they can get the Pokémon back. Don't make the loss of their Pokémon permanent, because that would be very offputting. But it really is that effective in getting them to do what you want them to do. If you run a Pokémon Tabletop game, try it sometime.

 

[malcolm_n]

Snip

I've enjoyed Pokemon Tabletop as well (and its D&D/Pathfinder equivalent, Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters). Unfortunately, I think implementing something like that in the mainstream video games would be hard, especially with (as the OP puts it) them being more geared to a younger crowd.

That said, as an older player, I too would like to see a game where we challenge the "team" too early and lose specifically within the narrative of the game. But then, I'd also like to see options where we can travel to a different first/other gyms so that we don't have to tailor our teams to defeat a specific type or greatly overpower them up front.