Things that grind your gears!

[Luthor]

The fact that for trading isn't really set up for Regional Variants is a bit annoying . Surely you should be able to request separate forms.

 

[Emboar_Rulez]

The fact that you can’t chat while trading.Makes it annoying because you can’t ask if they have a certain Pokémon

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

The fact that you can’t chat while trading.Makes it annoying because you can’t ask if they have a certain Pokémon

I miss the emojis used in Gen V. I used them often during trade matching negotiations to say whether I wanted a Pokémon or not. Too bad too many players just used the feature to show off Shiny and then quit the trade without doing anything else.

 

[WishIhadaManafi5]

I miss the emojis used in Gen V. I used them often during trade matching negotiations to say whether I wanted a Pokémon or not. Too bad too many players just used the feature to show off Shiny and then quit the trade without doing anything else.

I do too. Word. Ended up giving up on using that feature due to it.

 

[Emboar_Rulez]

I miss the emojis used in Gen V. I used them often during trade matching negotiations to say whether I wanted a Pokémon or not. Too bad too many players just used the feature to show off Shiny and then quit the trade without doing anything else.

The fact that nicknames don’t show up makes it impossible to simply name a Pokémon Mew? Or shiny plz

 

[Ophie]

Actually, people were expecting something like Super Mario Sunshine, especially after Breath of the Wild got voice acting.

I'm always confused about how expensive voicework can be... Which one is more expensive again? I've heard stuff like an English dub and localisation cost as much, if not more than the entire game's development. So... they can afford to have all characters voiced in Japanese, but a single English actor costs as much as 10 or even 20 Japanese actors???

Do you mean voice work for some certain cutscenes when referring to Super Mario Sunshine? I remember that there were a LOT of complaints about that, particularly Bowser's weird voice, that there hasn't been a Mario game quite as voiced as that ever again. That's the thing about asking for voice work: It falls entirely on the quality and the direction. Breath of the Wild has it done well. The Faces of Evil, on the other hand, is a different story completely.

English-language voice work has a budget that varies drastically depending on who you cast. Troy Baker is the most infamous example, as he has fees comparable to big-time Hollywood actors. You could be spending upwards of a million dollars just to have him around, but he is really good, and he can act like a Hollywood actor. (To that extent, studios tend to cast Nolan North as a substitute, who can imitate Baker's voice pretty well.) This is, of course, not getting into casting actual Hollywood actors, like Keifer Sutherland voicing Snake in Metal Gear Solid 5. This is done due to star power, with the game companies hoping to get a boost in sales from fans of the actor. Most games, however, don't have actors with fees THAT high. My example of Sushi Striker, for instance, has Cristina Vee playing (girl) Musashi and Kyle McCarley playing Kojiro (no, they are not named after Team Rocket), who are paid around the same amount as the Japanese voice actors.

The main difference is the quantity of available voice work. Japan is a small country with very dense urban populations, so there is a lot of animated programming and other works of fiction, which means there's large demand for voice actors. That level of demand doesn't quite exist anywhere in the Anglosphere (with the exception of Canada), so you have situations where either they are paid more than their Japanese counterparts (Tara Strong, David Lodge) or they have to take second jobs to make ends meet and voice acting is more something they do because they like to do it (Brad Swaile, Billy Kametz). The aforementioned Vee and McCarley are two cases where they have so much voice work that they can live entirely on it, but there aren't many cases of that in English.

Bear in mind that production costs in general are higher in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada than in Japan. It comes from a higher cost of living (property values, taxes, transportation, etc.) but also a robust legal system and, to a lesser extent, a union system that ensures people are treated fairly. Bear in mind also that the anime industry does not pay well unless you are an executive or are in merchandise. Housing projects exist in major urban areas to provide shelter for anime animators, as their wages are not high enough to be self-sufficient in some places.

The Simpsons costs about US$5 million to make per episode (about US$1 million goes to the voice actors), whereas JoJo's Bizarre Adventure costs about US$500,000 per episode, sometimes less. It's not that the Americans are greedy, but that the Japanese have a different set of circumstances. American animation is high-pay and high-return, whereas anime is low-pay and low-return. One episode of The Simpsons costs as much as about 10 episodes of JoJo, but The Simpsons has far, far greater than 10 times the viewership. The Simpsons makes so much money in advertising revenue that they can afford to pay the staff well. Most anime...do not make any money in advertising revenue at all (JoJo included). Rather, because different studios bid on a project and the studio that can promise to do it with the least amount of money is the one that gets the project, it is literally a race to the bottom. Anime budgeting and pay is in serious need of reform.

For the record, the highest paid actor in the world, with an annual income of roughly US$1 billion, is a voice actor, Frank Welker. He manages to have both, where he has high fees but also lots and lots of work. He is one of the greatest voice actors to have ever lived though, and he is the go-to person for animal sounds (though his best known role is Fred in Scooby-Doo, whom he has voiced in nearly every adaptation since the franchise began in the 1960s, though he wasn't paid quite as handsomely then as he is now).

I miss the emojis used in Gen V. I used them often during trade matching negotiations to say whether I wanted a Pokémon or not. Too bad too many players just used the feature to show off Shiny and then quit the trade without doing anything else.

I never had any good experiences with that. It seems all anyone wanted to trade were Legendary and Mythical Pokémon. I'd offer up an ordinary Pokémon, they'd spam the frowny face, and leave.

 

[TwilightBlade]

Just throwing this out there. I don’t like how every early regional bird is literally normal/flying type. I felt like they could have done a little more than just slap a normal typing onto them. But maybe they just look plain so that’s why they are normal?

Yeah I totally agree that them being part Normal was redundant and kind of lazy too. I'm not a Talonflame fan per say but I was so glad that Game Freak broke a pattern there by making a regional bird that wasn't Flying/Normal.

 

[WishIhadaManafi5]

Do you mean voice work for some certain cutscenes when referring to Super Mario Sunshine? I remember that there were a LOT of complaints about that, particularly Bowser's weird voice, that there hasn't been a Mario game quite as voiced as that ever again. That's the thing about asking for voice work: It falls entirely on the quality and the direction. Breath of the Wild has it done well. The Faces of Evil, on the other hand, is a different story completely.

English-language voice work has a budget that varies drastically depending on who you cast. Troy Baker is the most infamous example, as he has fees comparable to big-time Hollywood actors. You could be spending upwards of a million dollars just to have him around, but he is really good, and he can act like a Hollywood actor. (To that extent, studios tend to cast Nolan North as a substitute, who can imitate Baker's voice pretty well.) This is, of course, not getting into casting actual Hollywood actors, like Keifer Sutherland voicing Snake in Metal Gear Solid 5. This is done due to star power, with the game companies hoping to get a boost in sales from fans of the actor. Most games, however, don't have actors with fees THAT high. My example of Sushi Striker, for instance, has Cristina Vee playing (girl) Musashi and Kyle McCarley playing Kojiro (no, they are not named after Team Rocket), who are paid around the same amount as the Japanese voice actors.

The main difference is the quantity of available voice work. Japan is a small country with very dense urban populations, so there is a lot of animated programming and other works of fiction, which means there's large demand for voice actors. That level of demand doesn't quite exist anywhere in the Anglosphere (with the exception of Canada), so you have situations where either they are paid more than their Japanese counterparts (Tara Strong, David Lodge) or they have to take second jobs to make ends meet and voice acting is more something they do because they like to do it (Brad Swaile, Billy Kametz). The aforementioned Vee and McCarley are two cases where they have so much voice work that they can live entirely on it, but there aren't many cases of that in English.

Bear in mind that production costs in general are higher in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada than in Japan. It comes from a higher cost of living (property values, taxes, transportation, etc.) but also a robust legal system and, to a lesser extent, a union system that ensures people are treated fairly. Bear in mind also that the anime industry does not pay well unless you are an executive or are in merchandise. Housing projects exist in major urban areas to provide shelter for anime animators, as their wages are not high enough to be self-sufficient in some places.

The Simpsons costs about US$5 million to make per episode (about US$1 million goes to the voice actors), whereas JoJo's Bizarre Adventure costs about US$500,000 per episode, sometimes less. It's not that the Americans are greedy, but that the Japanese have a different set of circumstances. American animation is high-pay and high-return, whereas anime is low-pay and low-return. One episode of The Simpsons costs as much as about 10 episodes of JoJo, but The Simpsons has far, far greater than 10 times the viewership. The Simpsons makes so much money in advertising revenue that they can afford to pay the staff well. Most anime...do not make any money in advertising revenue at all (JoJo included). Rather, because different studios bid on a project and the studio that can promise to do it with the least amount of money is the one that gets the project, it is literally a race to the bottom. Anime budgeting and pay is in serious need of reform.

For the record, the highest paid actor in the world, with an annual income of roughly US$1 billion, is a voice actor, Frank Welker. He manages to have both, where he has high fees but also lots and lots of work. He is one of the greatest voice actors to have ever lived though, and he is the go-to person for animal sounds (though his best known role is Fred in Scooby-Doo, whom he has voiced in nearly every adaptation since the franchise began in the 1960s, though he wasn't paid quite as handsomely then as he is now).



I never had any good experiences with that. It seems all anyone wanted to trade were Legendary and Mythical Pokémon. I'd offer up an ordinary Pokémon, they'd spam the frowny face, and leave.

That reminds me of trying to trade in Let's Go. Wasn't able to get version exclusives due to people showing them off and then leaving, people leaving and people showing their rare Pokemon off and then leaving.

 

[MrJechgo]

/snip

That is some great respond, thanks for the info It... kinda bumps me down that this is the case of English voice acting though ^^;

Yeah I totally agree that them being part Normal was redundant and kind of lazy too. I'm not a Talonflame fan per say but I was so glad that Game Freak broke a pattern there by making a regional bird that wasn't Flying/Normal.

I swear, I thought it was a typo when I read that both Rookidee and Corvisquire were pure Flying type Ok, fine, Corviknight is Steel/Flying, but at least it can be an offensive Pokémon... compared to Skarmory which got relegated to a trap layer...

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I find it slightly annoying that it is so hard to find Bagon in SM/USUM. A really low level Salamence I can understand being extremely rare but why make Bagon so much rarer than Beldum? Both are the first stages of a pseudo legendary and reach their final stage at the same time. Bagon is a bit more useful in battles given that Beldum has an extremely limited movepool.

 

[Emboar_Rulez]

The fact that Azurill isn’t a water type

 

[Red and Blue]

I don't like that we have to catch a Pokemon that is G-MAX capable instead of it being something we can unlock in them. I had a Hatterene on my team and if I wanted to use it to its fullest potential I had to catch a different one completely.

Not sure if the DLC will rectify this or not since they seem to be doing that with the starters at least.

 

[Luthor]

Defensive Pokemon that get no reliable form of healing can be quite annoying. The one that springs to mind is Bastiodon. Just imagine how much fun that would be if it got something like Strength Sap, Shore up or Wish.

 

[Leonhart]

Yeah I totally agree that them being part Normal was redundant and kind of lazy too. I'm not a Talonflame fan per say but I was so glad that Game Freak broke a pattern there by making a regional bird that wasn't Flying/Normal.

I remember thinking that the Hoho (Hoothoot) line should've been Flying/Psychic, especially after seeing how Satoshi's Yorunozuku (Ash's Noctowl) was practically treated as a pseudo-Psychic Pokemon in the anime.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

Syncronoise seems to be a somewhat useless attack in most cases because of the requirements necessary for it to cause damage. Needing to have at least one type of the same as the user is the problem here. It will damage any allies who have the same type and how often is a player online going to send out a Steel, Psychic, Water type against another one of those types? And poor Umbreon will be stuck with a powerful attack that it can never use unless Miracle Eye was used.

 

[Ophie]

Regarding Synchronoise: I've always seen it more as a double battle move, since in double battles, you're expected to have Pokémon that can cover for each other. In such an environment, it's not uncommon to have both sides have a Pokémon of the same type out (Water being perhaps the most common instance). Of course, it's still very situational, since it depends on your opponent's actions, and it's really one of the moves removed in Generation VIII that won't be missed I'd still be interested trying it out.

I find it slightly annoying that it is so hard to find Bagon in SM/USUM. A really low level Salamence I can understand being extremely rare but why make Bagon so much rarer than Beldum? Both are the first stages of a pseudo legendary and reach their final stage at the same time. Bagon is a bit more useful in battles given that Beldum has an extremely limited movepool.

To be fair, Beldum's catch rate is much, much lower than Bagon's, and since it only knows Take Down, you have limited time to catch one at low HP before it knocks itself out. That might've been the reason why. At least when you encounter Bagon, as long as you don't knock it out, the little guy is effectively yours.

Defensive Pokemon that get no reliable form of healing can be quite annoying. The one that springs to mind is Bastiodon. Just imagine how much fun that would be if it got something like Strength Sap, Shore up or Wish.

There are certain defensive Pokémon with few to no healing options that have worked out fine, particularly under VGC rules, such as Dusclops, Mudsdale, and especially Duraludon. I think is Bastiodon's biggest problem is more that it has multiple x4 weaknesses (and is the same problem holding Probopass, Leavanny, and Alolan Sandslash back). I'd like to see them introduce something, like a hold item, that rectifies that, some stat bonus or whatever that can only be used by a Pokémon with multiple x4 weaknesses.

 

[Auraninja]

I remember thinking that the Hoho (Hoothoot) line should've been Flying/Psychic, especially after seeing how Satoshi's Yorunozuku (Ash's Noctowl) was practically treated as a pseudo-Psychic Pokemon in the anime.

If you think about it, there are many "pseudo-Psychic" Pokemon. One sort-of popular example is Venomoth, as you can see in Sabrina's team in R/B/FR/LG.

 

[Emboar_Rulez]

When I’m hunting shinys they take ages to show up.But random occurring ones like the 5! I saw today always happen.

 

[Sceptile Leaf Blade]

I think is Bastiodon's biggest problem is more that it has multiple x4 weaknesses (and is the same problem holding Probopass, Leavanny, and Alolan Sandslash back). I'd like to see them introduce something, like a hold item, that rectifies that, some stat bonus or whatever that can only be used by a Pokémon with multiple x4 weaknesses.

I don't think it's the multiple 4x weaknesses, although as a wall that is problematic. It's more the lack of utility and offensive presence. I also wouldn't put Sandslash in that list, as I've had a lot of success with Sandslash as kind of a hail-version of Excadrill. Not quite as fast or as hard-hitting but excellent flinching utility with Icicle Crash and Iron Head and solid bulk as long as you keep it away from Fire or Fighting (but you build your team to deal with such issues, for instance I had Gengar and Kommo-o in that team too). You don't see pokémon like Stakataka or Rhyperior suffer as much despite having multiple 4x weaknesses, and that's because they carry offensive presence and/or utility. Leavanny's problem is that Bug and Grass just don't work together offensively, with four different types resisting both and Leavanny lacking sufficiently powerful coverage to deal with that (while Sandslash gets something like Drill Run to get past Fire and Steel types, Leavanny gets nothing to threaten Flying, Fire, Poison, or Steel types with). It's a problem you also see with Leafeon, which lacks coverage in a similar way. Probopass just doesn't have the offensive presence to make its time spent on the field threatening and lacks recovery to stall things out.

 

[Ophie]

I don't think it's the multiple 4x weaknesses, although as a wall that is problematic. It's more the lack of utility and offensive presence. I also wouldn't put Sandslash in that list, as I've had a lot of success with Sandslash as kind of a hail-version of Excadrill. Not quite as fast or as hard-hitting but excellent flinching utility with Icicle Crash and Iron Head and solid bulk as long as you keep it away from Fire or Fighting (but you build your team to deal with such issues, for instance I had Gengar and Kommo-o in that team too). You don't see pokémon like Stakataka or Rhyperior suffer as much despite having multiple 4x weaknesses, and that's because they carry offensive presence and/or utility. Leavanny's problem is that Bug and Grass just don't work together offensively, with four different types resisting both and Leavanny lacking sufficiently powerful coverage to deal with that (while Sandslash gets something like Drill Run to get past Fire and Steel types, Leavanny gets nothing to threaten Flying, Fire, Poison, or Steel types with). It's a problem you also see with Leafeon, which lacks coverage in a similar way. Probopass just doesn't have the offensive presence to make its time spent on the field threatening and lacks recovery to stall things out.

I've used Alolan Sandslash myself and found success with it (even when I took one to VGCs one year...though the room was so stuffy and lacking in air circulation, but that's another issue and not one I'd fault Game Freak, The Pokémon Company, or Nintendo with), so I know they can be worked around. But I also remember Alolan Ninetales getting all of the attention competitively while Alolan Sandslash got nothing but "haha it's so weak to so many things" which is a major part of why I put one on a team. Slush Rush Alolan Sandslash, as it turns out, is a perfect counter to Snow Warning Alolan Ninetales, able to get ahead of Ninetales and knock it out with Iron Head before Ninetales can set up Aurora Veil. But what I mean is that I saw Alolan Sandslash on only one other person's team I fought throughout all of Generation VII, but it's a Pokémon that I feel should be seen more. Of course, I also put it on a double battle team, so I didn't have to just switch out if a Fire or Fighting attack showed up and I could gang up on the user to prevent that from happening.

But you have a point there--I now think it's the weaknesses combined with the lack of offense that gives Bastiodon and Probopass problems, because they have stone-wall stats and are thus meant to prevail through attrition, but that strategy gets undone the moment something with a Fighting or Ground move pops up. Both Probopass and Bastiodon can have Sturdy, but it feels pointless to have such high defenses if they need to have something to stop from getting taken out in one hit. (Bear in mind that I have also used Probopass in the past as a disruption Pokémon, and Bastiodon's long been on my list.)

You're also right that I forgot about Stakataka and Rhyperior, who both have ways to survive x4 weakness moves and turn the momentum around, Stakataka with Trick Room and Rhyperior with Rock Polish, and both have a high Attack stat and variety in moves to take out Pokémon that did that to them. Coalossal is part of that list too; as a Rock/Fire type, it has a x4 weakness to both Water and Ground but has an Ability designed specifically to deal with that, and while it doesn't have the offensive power of the other two, it's the only one that can use both physical and special moves. All three of these Pokémon have the capacity to knock out Pokémon that can hit for their weaknesses quickly; Bastiodon and Probopass do not. (Incidentally, both of them come from Generation IV, when Game Freak's designers seemed to think the Rock/Steel type combination was incredible.)