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Unpopular Pokemon opinions V2 (READ FIRST POST)

Leonhart

Imagineer
Monozu said:
My unpopular opinion is that anime contests >>>>> in-game contests (Gen 3 and 4). Anime contests were so much more creative with their appeals and actual battles, where coordinators invented their own move combinations in the hopes of looking elegant while fighting. They also had their own personal struggles and drama to overcome.

In game contests had none of that, and it was simply picking a move and hoping judges liked it.

I actually agree with this, and I've recently realized just how bland Contests are in the games since they're repetitive and not much fun to me these days. I used to be a fan of them back in Gen III, but now I just find them really tedious compared to their anime counterpart.
 

Orphalesion

Well-Known Member
I really dislike the idea of Arceus. The idea of "Pokemon God" just seems really, really silly imho.

I'd like it better if the lore was more along the lines of Arceus being used as a symbol for "god" in the Pokemon world/Sinnoh (just like in the very beginning the Egyptians used animals as symbols for the gods)
 

Weavy

I come and go suddenly
Ultra Beasts > Regional Variants.

At least UBs were actually new Pokemon and I personally think their strange appearances and "out there" concepts made them really interesting and they're among some of my favourite Gen 7 Pokemon. Meanwhile, I never really cared for regional variants; they're essentially just old Pokemon with a new coat of paint and most of them to me were rather meh.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
Luthor said:
I actually think it would be perfectly fine to have an evolution for Banette without getting rid of Mega Banette as long as Banette's evolution had different strengths. Know a lot disagree.

While I like the species, I personally think that it didn't need a Mega Evolution and that its Mega Evolved form could've just been a real evolution of the original Jupetta (Banette). The same goes for a lot of Mega Pokemon from my viewpoint, although I respect your opinion.
 

Dragalge

"Orange" Magical Girl
I would like for the Gen V release in GO to be just Unova Pokemon for two weeks or so to replicate BW1’s thing of only seeing new Pokemon in the main game. Gotta relive that nostalgia (can’t believe it’s about to be nine years since BW’s release)!

Also Carracosta -> Blastoise
 

The Teller

King of Half-Truths
I never liked the concept of Mega Evolutions. Just give them new evolutions! Make my Pokedex bigger! Z-Moves did nothing for me. Big whoop, you introduced 18 new Hyper Beams, that you can only use once per battle, at the expense of using more useful held items.

I LOVED the fact that you could only use new Pokemon in Black and White. You couldn't just rely on old standbys early on like Zubat, Machop, and Geodude (everybody always complains about them being in every game, but nobody ever talks about how incredibly powerful they are in the early game as well). I wish they would do that again sometime.
 

Pokegirl Fan~

Liko>>>>>Ash
I never liked the concept of Mega Evolutions. Just give them new evolutions! Make my Pokedex bigger! Z-Moves did nothing for me. Big whoop, you introduced 18 new Hyper Beams, that you can only use once per battle, at the expense of using more useful held items.

I LOVED the fact that you could only use new Pokemon in Black and White. You couldn't just rely on old standbys early on like Zubat, Machop, and Geodude (everybody always complains about them being in every game, but nobody ever talks about how incredibly powerful they are in the early game as well). I wish they would do that again sometime.
I agree with all of these. All these new gimmicks every generation is getting as bad as the Yugioh summoning gimmicks.
 

janejane6178

Kaleido Star FOREVER in my heart <3
I never liked the concept of Mega Evolutions. Just give them new evolutions! Make my Pokedex bigger! Z-Moves did nothing for me. Big whoop, you introduced 18 new Hyper Beams, that you can only use once per battle, at the expense of using more useful held items.

I LOVED the fact that you could only use new Pokemon in Black and White. You couldn't just rely on old standbys early on like Zubat, Machop, and Geodude (everybody always complains about them being in every game, but nobody ever talks about how incredibly powerful they are in the early game as well). I wish they would do that again sometime.
I agree with u with all but the mega evolutions, which I really liked itsconcept
 
It is true that Pokémon battling is a game that is infested with an absolutely insane amount of luck, such as critical hits, freezes, full paralyses, Speed ties, and more, and even team matchup and prediction are forms of variance. However, luck and variance is something that is evened out in the long run, as explained by a certain mathematical theorem, known as the law of large numbers. Therefore, the skill of a Pokémon Trainer can be shown by his or her performance over a large number of battles, where luck and variance have been evened out. A Pokémon Trainer's win-loss record over 5 or 9 battles in some tournaments, on the other hand, cannot be even remotely close to an accurate indication of skill, since the sample size is way too small for variance to be evened out, which means that, within 5 or 9 battles, it is not uncommon at all for a less skilled Trainer to achieve a better win-loss record than a more skilled Trainer. A less skilled Trainer achieving a better win-loss record or GXE than a more skilled Trainer over 1,000 battles, on the other hand, is something that is virtually impossible. This is actually not just my opinion. It is a fact.

However, I believe that it is worth posting this fact in this thread anyway, because despite what I explained above being a fact, it is still, nonetheless, extremely commonly denied, or at the very least, unacknowledged by many people, for some unknown reasons.
 

Xuxuba

Well-Known Member
When it comes to new Pokémon games, i care more about new features, postgame content and replay value than i ever cared about new Pokémon's designs.
 

Divine Retribution

Conquistador de pan
It is true that Pokémon battling is a game that is infested with an absolutely insane amount of luck, such as critical hits, freezes, full paralyses, Speed ties, and more, and even team matchup and prediction are forms of variance. However, luck and variance is something that is evened out in the long run, as explained by a certain mathematical theorem, known as the law of large numbers. Therefore, the skill of a Pokémon Trainer can be shown by his or her performance over a large number of battles, where luck and variance have been evened out. A Pokémon Trainer's win-loss record over 5 or 9 battles in some tournaments, on the other hand, cannot be even remotely close to an accurate indication of skill, since the sample size is way too small for variance to be evened out, which means that, within 5 or 9 battles, it is not uncommon at all for a less skilled Trainer to achieve a better win-loss record than a more skilled Trainer. A less skilled Trainer achieving a better win-loss record or GXE than a more skilled Trainer over 1,000 battles, on the other hand, is something that is virtually impossible. This is actually not just my opinion. It is a fact.

However, I believe that it is worth posting this fact in this thread anyway, because despite what I explained above being a fact, it is still, nonetheless, extremely commonly denied, or at the very least, unacknowledged by many people, for some unknown reasons.

I think most people's frustrations with the luck-based aspects of Pokemon boil down to individual games or small sets of games, whether that be a game on the ladder where they got particularly unlucky, or tournaments they lost to hax (You actually touched on this yourself, but yeah, most tournaments are best of 3 or best of 5. These are both far too tiny a sample size to effectively isolate and eliminate luck as a factor in determining the outcome). I think most people accept that over large amounts of matches "luck" tends to even itself out, but the problem is that in many scenarios you don't have a large amount of matches to work with, and looking at a small sample size such as a tournament, luck can be a very heavy factor. It can be frustrating to have such a weighty factor in deciding the outcome of a battle or tournament be mostly out of a player's control.

This is part of the reason why I actually think Pokemon is kind of a terrible game competitively. I think a truly good competitive game should strive to eliminate RNG-based mechanics as much as possible so the players have as great a control over the game as they possibly can, effectively mitigating luck as a factor in determining the outcome of individual matches and leaving raw player skill and tactics in its place. Pokemon's battle system is so fundamentally based on RNG mechanics that the entire battle system would need to be overhauled to eliminate them, which would lead to balancing issues. Pokemon simply wasn't designed to be a competitive game. RNG may eventually even itself out, and looking at a player's long-term win/loss ratio or GXE is usually a fairly accurate measure of their "skill", but on an individual basis luck will always be a factor in any given match.
 

Mr.Munchlax

Great Ball Rank Trainer
I think Pokémon Connoisseurs are a cool job. Granted, Cilan and especially Burgundy didn’t always do the best job representing it, but I like the idea of people specialize in finding compatibilities between people & Pokémon.

It’s a skill that could definitely come in handy when you want to help your family & friends either find a pokémon that beat suits them or come to better understandings with the ones you have. Plus, I can easily see people like the Dog Whisperer studying the techniques of Connoisseurs if pokémon existed in the real world.
 
I think most people's frustrations with the luck-based aspects of Pokemon boil down to individual games or small sets of games, whether that be a game on the ladder where they got particularly unlucky, or tournaments they lost to hax (You actually touched on this yourself, but yeah, most tournaments are best of 3 or best of 5. These are both far too tiny a sample size to effectively isolate and eliminate luck as a factor in determining the outcome). I think most people accept that over large amounts of matches "luck" tends to even itself out, but the problem is that in many scenarios you don't have a large amount of matches to work with, and looking at a small sample size such as a tournament, luck can be a very heavy factor. It can be frustrating to have such a weighty factor in deciding the outcome of a battle or tournament be mostly out of a player's control.

This is part of the reason why I actually think Pokemon is kind of a terrible game competitively. I think a truly good competitive game should strive to eliminate RNG-based mechanics as much as possible so the players have as great a control over the game as they possibly can, effectively mitigating luck as a factor in determining the outcome of individual matches and leaving raw player skill and tactics in its place. Pokemon's battle system is so fundamentally based on RNG mechanics that the entire battle system would need to be overhauled to eliminate them, which would lead to balancing issues. Pokemon simply wasn't designed to be a competitive game. RNG may eventually even itself out, and looking at a player's long-term win/loss ratio or GXE is usually a fairly accurate measure of their "skill", but on an individual basis luck will always be a factor in any given match.

If it is true that a certain scenario does not allow for a large enough sample size for variance to be evened out, then a person's performance within such a scenario should, in the first place, simply not be taken as an indication of skill or lack thereof, period. So if you happen to get unlucky and lose all 9 of your battles in a Premier League tournament, then who cares. You can still be good, as long as your win-loss record is better than that of others over a much larger sample size of battles. The problem of being frustrated by the luck-based aspect of Pokémon battling can be completely eliminated by simply measuring your own skill based on your performance over a large number of battles, while seeing each individual battle or best-of-3 set as nothing more than tiny building blocks of your true achievement. However, many people seem to be strongly opposed to acknowledging this solution, for some reasons.
 

SBaby

Dungeon Master
If it is true that a certain scenario does not allow for a large enough sample size for variance to be evened out, then a person's performance within such a scenario should, in the first place, simply not be taken as an indication of skill or lack thereof, period. So if you happen to get unlucky and lose all 9 of your battles in a Premier League tournament, then who cares. You can still be good, as long as your win-loss record is better than that of others over a much larger sample size of battles. The problem of being frustrated by the luck-based aspect of Pokémon battling can be completely eliminated by simply measuring your own skill based on your performance over a large number of battles, while seeing each individual battle or best-of-3 set as nothing more than tiny building blocks of your true achievement. However, many people seem to be strongly opposed to acknowledging this solution, for some reasons.

I can empathize with what Divine Retribution is saying though. In an elimination tournament, where one bit of bad luck can end your run, it definitely feels as if real skill is taken out of the equation in place of RNG. A less skilled player who happens to be luckier can end up winning the top prize.

This is one of the reasons why it's difficult to make a competitive game that has a turn-based battle system. There is always going to be the RNG factor. Until you can manipulate the RNG to the point where it's guaranteed to happen, or guaranteed NOT to happen (Disgaea managed to do this without being a competitive game), skill will continue to be eclipsed.
 
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Ignition

We are so back Zygardebros
I don’t see why Emerald is better than Ruby and Sapphire besides the Battle Frontier (which I think was a boring post game)
 

Sceptile Leaf Blade

Nighttime Guardian
I don’t see why Emerald is better than Ruby and Sapphire besides the Battle Frontier (which I think was a boring post game)
Better breeding mechanics, more pokémon available like Heracross and Ditto, sprite animations for enemy pokémon (well, two images that the game rotates and pans), ability to fight both Team Aqua and Team Magma, ability to rematch gym leaders, move tutors...
 
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