Competitive pandering is hurting Pokémon

[Quillion]

I really, REALLY have an issue with how much GF has been trying to "balance" and "streamline" Pokémon for competitive play. What do they think they are, Capcom? I'd be fine, actually love it, if they would do MORE competitive pandering to Smash, but to Pokémon?

Pokémon should remain the way it was created in the first place: A unique single-player RPG with a simple yet strategy-filled battle system that has a multiplayer aspect on the side. What happened to the reward of capturing a powerful Pokémon after several minutes of random encounters? What happened to careful strategic use of TMs since they are limited-use? What happened to the reward for patience with level grinding, which is a staple of ALL RPGS? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO POKEMON???

 

[UltiMario]

What happened to the reward of capturing a powerful Pokémon after several minutes of random encounters? What happened to careful strategic use of TMs since they are limited-use? What happened to the reward for patience with level grinding, which is a staple of ALL RPGS?

You are alone here.

Infinite use TMs is probably one of the most highly rated changes in the history of the series, along with the Special Stat Split in Gen 2 and the Physical/Special Split in Gen 4. I should not have to replay through the game 5 times to teach multiple Pokemon Earthquake. Nobody likes roaming Pokemon, and nobody likes the grind that it took to make a good IV'd/EV'd/level 100 Pokemon.

I can't believe someone is complaining about a game becoming more accessible, especially when those things didn't dumb down the game in any way.

It's not even competitive pandering, it's GF making improvements to Pokemon's aging formula. It's something they need to do more of. I WISH GF would make adjustments to balance Pokemon and work competitively, but the game is the most unbalanced as it has ever been. It's all been downhill since Gen 4.

 

[tm730]

seriously, you're the first person ive met complaining about the infinite TM's

there's over 700 Pokemon dude.

how the hell is the one time use TM gonna be good here

and before you say, "well it can be passed down by breeeding via the father"

what about those that cant breed, like Metagross and Rotom?

thats why people resorted to gameshak/action replay



training is easier to accomdate the fact that there's more pokemon than ever before

on top of that, going through the elite four millions of time to get something at lv 100 was tiring

the old way made way more sense when there was only 251 Pokemon

 

[Quillion]

I can't believe someone is complaining about a game becoming more accessible, especially when those things didn't dumb down the game in any way.

When it doesn't reward you for the time that you spend with the game, that's seriously dumbed down.

It's not even competitive pandering, it's GF making improvements to Pokemon's aging formula. It's something they need to do more of. I WISH GF would make adjustments to balance Pokemon and work competitively, but the game is the most unbalanced as it has ever been. It's all been downhill since Gen 4.

Balancing Pokémon doesn't even make sense; some Pokémon are SUPPOSED to be stronger than others. It's the whole point of sifting through constant random encounters and trying to find that rare, powerful prize. Also, where's your Project RS for Pokémon, anyway, since you seem to consider Gen 3 to be balanced?

seriously, you're the first person ive met complaining about the infinite TM's

there's over 700 Pokemon dude.

how the hell is the one time use TM gonna be good here

and before you say, "well it can be passed down by breeeding via the father"

what about those that cant breed, like Metagross and Rotom?

thats why people resorted to gameshak/action replay

Make all the TMs infinitely buyable. Rewards you for time that you spend with the game, you have to be somewhat wise with your use, and nothing is lost forever.

training is easier to accomdate the fact that there's more pokemon than ever before

on top of that, going through the elite four millions of time to get something at lv 100 was tiring

the old way made way more sense when there was only 251 Pokemon

How does that make sense? Only a few Pokémon are considered "competitively viable", so that isn't even a valid excuse for dumbing down training.

 

[Mettie7]

I'm on UltiMario's and tm's side, all the changes you're talking about are all positive. Unlimited use TMs are a godsend and if that weren't the case nowadays I probably wouldn't play Pokemon. TMs are a big investment too, usually 10-50k a pop. These changes didn't matter as much back then because there were only 151, 251, or even 386 Pokemon, depending on how far you wanna go.

I really, REALLY have an issue with how much GF has been trying to "balance" and "streamline" Pokémon for competitive play. What do they think they are, Capcom? I'd be fine, actually love it, if they would do MORE competitive pandering to Smash, but to Pokémon?

Pokémon should remain the way it was created in the first place: A unique single-player RPG with a simple yet strategy-filled battle system that has a multiplayer aspect on the side. What happened to the reward of capturing a powerful Pokémon after several minutes of random encounters? What happened to careful strategic use of TMs since they are limited-use? What happened to the reward for patience with level grinding, which is a staple of ALL RPGS? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO POKEMON???

Well yes, they are making adjustments for competitive play, there are VGC tournaments every year for it. And Pokemon still is a "RPG with a simple yet strategy-filled battle system", it's just the multiplayer aspect is more focused on now. Even if you're not interesting in the VGC or Smogon rules, it's still an incredibly fun single player game.

 

[tm730]

Make all the TMs infinitely buyable. Rewards you for time that you spend with the game, you have to be somewhat wise with your use, and nothing is lost forever.

wise? all you have to do is freaking beat the Elite Four with Amulet Coin to rack up money, man. thats not wise thats just mindless grinding.

like if the Tm's are infinitely buyable then might as well skip the BS and make them infinite use

How does that make sense? Only a few Pokémon are considered "competitively viable", so that isn't even a valid excuse for dumbing down training.

have you thought that maybe people like using pokemon other than what smogon considers OU?

some people dont care about who's viable

 

[Quillion]

Well yes, they are making adjustments for competitive play, there are VGC tournaments every year for it. And Pokemon still is a "RPG with a simple yet strategy-filled battle system", it's just the multiplayer aspect is more focused on now. Even if you're not interesting in the VGC or Smogon rules, it's still an incredibly fun single player game.

It just feels like they're starting to shaft primary single-players like myself. I already hate having to trade to evolve Pokémon and complete the Pokédex, I don't want GF to go further.

 

[UltiMario]

Balancing Pokémon doesn't even make sense; some Pokémon are SUPPOSED to be stronger than others. It's the whole point of sifting through constant random encounters and trying to find that rare, powerful prize. Also, where's your Project RS for Pokémon, anyway, since you seem to consider Gen 3 to be balanced?

You seem to have misinterpreted what I neant. Gen 4 was the most balanced gen and its been going downhill from that peak. Despite that fact, Gen 4 was still an imbalanced cluster**** when you factored in all 486, but incrediby well balanced in the context of each metagame.

This is simply always going to be the case. While the game is much more skewed now, small groups of Pokemon will always be balanced when compared to eachother, but it isnt balanced on purpose, they throw together movesets and stats and waits for the players to see what happens.

 

[Quillion]

You seem to have misinterpreted what I neant. Gen 4 was the most balanced gen and its been going downhill from that peak. Despite that fact, Gen 4 was still an imbalanced cluster**** when you factored in all 486, but incrediby well balanced in the context of each metagame.

This is simply always going to be the case. While the game is much more skewed now, small groups of Pokemon will always be balanced when compared to eachother, but it isnt balanced on purpose, they throw together movesets and stats and waits for the players to see what happens.

What the hell are you expecting? It should be common sense that in RPGs that harder-to-find weapons should be more effective than easy-to-find weapons.

Making Pokémon competitively balanced would undermine a basic, well-established design aspect that RPGs had even when they started out on the tabletop.

 

[Vashimus]

You seem to have misinterpreted what I neant. Gen 4 was the most balanced gen and its been going downhill from that peak. Despite that fact, Gen 4 was still an imbalanced cluster**** when you factored in all 486, but incrediby well balanced in the context of each metagame.

Gen 4 introduced Stealth Rock and many obscenely powerful STAB moves, largely because of the physical/special split. Dragons also became a damn near uncounterable threat because everything and it's brother got Outrage (which also got a power buff) and Draco Meteor, leading to Salamence and Garchomp getting banned.

Gen 3's is easily the most balanced in terms of risk/reward and general power level of Pokes and moves. I'd take DD Tyranitar and CM Suicune any day over threats Gen 4 and beyond introduced.

 

[Xzsmmc]

How can you talk of Gamefreak balancing things when 90% of all Pokemon are useless?

 

[Quillion]

How can you talk of Gamefreak balancing things when 90% of all Pokemon are useless?

Because they added this pointless "Fairy" type that really shouldn't have been there in the first place.

The only reason they even put it there is because people were complaining that the Dragon-types were "overpowered".

Completely forgetting that the "pseudo-legendaries" are supposed to be overpowered, only falling short of the real legendaries, because they're very hard to find and catch.

They're going against a well-established aspect of RPGs this way. Rare weapons are supposed to be more powerful than common weapons.

 

[UltiMario]

So do you also hate Steel and Dark types? Do you think its competitive pandering that they stopped Psychic from completely ****ting all over everything else?

Do you think that Mewtwo is supposed to be the ultimate Pokemon, and Psychic is supposed to be overpowered in order to allow that, and Gamefreak was just pandering to some competitive audience to balance them out? Do you also think this is against the design of RPGs?

 

[tm730]

Because they added this pointless "Fairy" type that really shouldn't have been there in the first place.

The only reason they even put it there is because people were complaining that the Dragon-types were "overpowered".

Completely forgetting that the "pseudo-legendaries" are supposed to be overpowered, only falling short of the real legendaries, because they're very hard to find and catch.

They're going against a well-established aspect of RPGs this way. Rare weapons are supposed to be more powerful than common weapons.

Those RPGs tend to be single player only though, that's the difference.

Pokemon has multiplayer aspects to it where you battle it out with other players as a measure of skill, which is why balancing is necessary

 

[finalark]

Because they added this pointless "Fairy" type that really shouldn't have been there in the first place.

The only reason they even put it there is because people were complaining that the Dragon-types were "overpowered".

This isn't competitive balance. This is just good game design. In Pokemon 1 psychic wrecked face because the way that the special stat worked was broken and the only ghosts in the game were partially poison type, a type weak to psychic. Dragons also had a similar problem where catching one (even a non-legendary one) often made the games a cakewalk. Thus, fairy is introduced so that players and NPCs alike could have an answer for them.

Really, this is no different than Square nerfing the **** out of the Geomancer class when it was reintroduced in Final Fantasy V. Because in Final Fantasy III you could mow down nearly every non-boss encounter in the game with a party of bell-wielding maniacs.

 

[Xzsmmc]

This isn't competitive balance. This is just good game design. In Pokemon 1 psychic wrecked face because the way that the special stat worked was broken and the only ghosts in the game were partially poison type, a type weak to psychic. Dragons also had a similar problem where catching one (even a non-legendary one) often made the games a cakewalk. Thus, fairy is introduced so that players and NPCs alike could have an answer for them.

Really, this is no different than Square nerfing the **** out of the Geomancer class when it was reintroduced in Final Fantasy V. Because in Final Fantasy III you could mow down nearly every non-boss encounter in the game with a party of bell-wielding maniacs.

I'd hardly call Dragons broken. Altaria, Flygon, and Druddigon weren't exactly tearing up wifi. Problem is, GF kept slapping dragon on ridiculous Pokemon like Garchomp and Latios. Something with a 600+BST is going to be pretty damn strong, no matter what type it is. Not to mention they kept giving them great movepools, which has nothing to do with the type.

 

[finalark]

I'd hardly call Dragons broken. Altaria, Flygon, and Druddigon weren't exactly tearing up wifi. Problem is, GF kept slapping dragon on ridiculous Pokemon like Garchomp and Latios. Something with a 600+BST is going to be pretty damn strong, no matter what type it is. Not to mention they kept giving them great movepools, which has nothing to do with the type.

That is true, it's not like gen 1 where a goddamn Butterfree could wreck half the game with no problems.

Still, the best dragons were really strong and needed a goddamn counter.

 

[UltiMario]

I'd hardly call Dragons broken. Altaria, Flygon, and Druddigon weren't exactly tearing up wifi. Problem is, GF kept slapping dragon on ridiculous Pokemon like Garchomp and Latios. Something with a 600+BST is going to be pretty damn strong, no matter what type it is. Not to mention they kept giving them great movepools, which has nothing to do with the type.

The idea here wasn't that being dragon was inherently broken in a way where they hyperdominate (ex sending sub-450 BST mons to ubers would be an example for this), but they were completely superior to ever other type. Flygon was actually very strong in Gen 4 despite poor stat allocation due to the fact that Dragon/Ground was a ludicrous typing. Any other non-dragon typing for these Pokemon in past games would've rendered them even worse than they already were, and things like Druddigon were actually solid in lower tiers despite being absolute garbage otherwise.

Anything with a comparable stat or movepool to a Dragon pre Gen 6 was almost always worse than the Dragon it was being compared to because its STABs and typing were worse. Only those with vastly superior movepools and abilities could be compared or be superior to Dragons with similar stat spreads. Dragon was just inherently better to be than everything else.

 

[Alex Night]

Not to mention that Dragons overall had better base stats. Seriously, just look at the Dragon Stat averages.

http://pokemondb.net/type/dragon

You can keep saying that Dragons weren't superior and it won't stop being true. I laugh every time that people say that Water type is the most superior type out there. Dragons counter Dragons is not even a true counter and Dragons can slap on Fire Punch or Fire Blast to destroy Ice types or even Stone Edge.

 

[Himynameisisaac]

I don't think anything you stated is actually ruining the series. If anything, expanding it to a wide variety of future possibilities. And if you think it is well... stick to Gen 1 and 2? Don't ruin it for the people that enjoy it. I, personally, am not a huge fan of the emphasis on IV pokemon that's risen and all that but that's not to say that it's not a great feature. It is.