(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

Karxrida

Death to the Undying Savage
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So many cool Pokémon get locked by being post game or by rare convoluted encounters. Why are there 2 in game trades to get a Bounsweet/Steene? I think I would know by now if I want one. Why do you get an egg of an Eevee when you can catch them right in the route below? They could have used these gifts to make Mareanie/Bruxish/Dhelmise/TypeN etc. not such a pain to get in game. Route 1 Pokémon like Gumshoos, Trumbeak, Pelliper and Raticate were way too common for their own good on the 3rd and 4th islands. Once again, I think I would know by now if I wanted them. Nobody beats 4 Kahunas and says you know what my team is missing? Raticate.
To be fair to Eevee, it's a rare encounter so getting a free one is nice.

Then again you could argue that they just should have made its encounter rate higher.
 
Minior actually has a 30 % encounter rate, so that's not half bad. But the amount of 5 % encounters is a little too long for comfort: Oranguru/Passimian, Mimikyu, female Salandit, Stufful (and by extension Bewear), Jangmo-o, Comfey, plus the awfully-hard-to-get Dhelmise and Mareanie. Bruxish isn't too easy to find either.
At least you can change the chances for a female Salandit fairly easily with a male Sylveon (which, by the time you can encounter Salandit, can be obtained).
 
So many cool Pokémon get locked by being post game or by rare convoluted encounters. Why are there 2 in game trades to get a Bounsweet/Steene? I think I would know by now if I want one. Why do you get an egg of an Eevee when you can catch them right in the route below? They could have used these gifts to make Mareanie/Bruxish/Dhelmise/TypeN etc. not such a pain to get in game. Route 1 Pokémon like Gumshoos, Trumbeak, Pelliper and Raticate were way too common for their own good on the 3rd and 4th islands. Once again, I think I would know by now if I wanted them. Nobody beats 4 Kahunas and says you know what my team is missing? Raticate.
I don't think anyone gets past the first trial and thinks to themselves "Gee, my team is so missing Gumshoos/Raticate!" And the crazy person who actually might think about including one on their team can easily backtrack to Melemele Island and catch a Yungoos/Rattata if they haven't already.

Of course, I could use more tunnel/barren location encounters than just Diglett/Dugtrio. Hell, at this point I would've accepted Geodude being a little more commonplace... or throw in Drillbur/Excadrill for more mole variety.
 
I hate the Festival Plaza. I loved Join Ave from BW2 and expanding that concept would have made a lot of people super hyped. Instead, it is one of the clumsiest and poorly implemented features that ever made it into a main series game. It seems like every single time Gamefreak takes one step forward, they take two steps back to make things difficult for the player.

The main issue is Festival Coins, specifically how they are obtained and the acquisition rate. It's tedious and horrendously implemented. In comparison, Pokemiles in gen 6 were implemented perfectly. You gained them passively just from playing the game normally - from walking around, from battling or trading with others, Streetpass, or even Pokebank if you needed extra. You accumulated them automatically and you only needed to Game Sync every so often and could redeem them in-game or online for cheaper prices. You could buy really cool items like PP Ups, Rare Candies, and Heart Scales that are extremely useful.

Festival Coins are nothing like this. You don't accumulate them automatically while playing the game, they must all be obtained within the Festival Plaza and nowhere else. You get some from battling and trading online, but it's a pittance. 2 for battles, Wonder Trade, and link trades, and I think 4 for the GTS. You must talk to the NPC in the castle individually every single time you do one of these to get the FC, which is impossible on Battle Spot unless you leave and re-enter after every single game. The most lucrative way of getting FC is by spamming the same tedious and boring challenges over and over again. The challenges require you to pay attention and even if you work your ass off, you often won't get the full amount because it's also dependent on the group participation score. It doesn't scale with the amount of people doing them, so if you only have a couple of people helping out, you're going to get a puny amount of FC not matter what. And uuuuugh - that stupid fucking Alolan greeting animation takes forever and is one of the most pointless timesinks in video games ever. It's cute the first time, but not when you're expected to interact with literally thousands of NPCs.

To put it into perspective, you need well over 17,000 FC to get a lv100 plaza. At a rate of 2-4 per trade/battle/what have you. Or you can lose your mind by grinding the bland and boring challenges hundreds of times, rarely getting the full 50 FC due to time constraints (sometimes it puts you into one with only half the time remaining) and low group participation. And every single time you must endure the 2 second long greeting animation. Even if you're not aiming for that, the 5 star facilities cost an absurd amount, 1500 the first time you buy and I think 1500 is added to the cost each additional time you want to buy it. It costs 10,500 FC to outfit your Festival Plaza with all 5 star facilities, assuming no duplicates were purchased. Yes, I know there's the Fortune Teller tents, but you have to be lucky enough to find someone who will introduce you to one and get to lv30 to unlock all the features. You also need to grind the first 1500+ from scratch at the ridiculous rates I mentioned above and the boost is still RNG afterwards, which necessitates buying multiple tents. You can try and get them for free, but the tents you get are completely random and only when you level up. The odds of getting exactly what you want are low because first you have to roll for the correct facility and then the correct number of stars. There is no way to upgrade existing facilities. You will also be forced to buy them anyways because the most useful ones are version exclusive, like Rare Kitchen.

I wouldn't be such a sourpuss about it except important game features are locked behind it. Let's start with leveling. Hyper Training was touted as the answer to all of our legendary softresetting woes, especially since UBs and Tapus are almost mandatory. No longer would we have to gen our Pokemon! we thought, until we actually played the game. You can only Hyper Train lv100 Pokemon, except that Gamefreak not only took out reliable means of XP gain (RIP Battle Chateau and Blissey Bash) but also reimplemented gen 5 XP mechanics, which is massive nerf on XP gain for Pokemon above lv60. They even removed XP gain from the Daycare so you can't afk on your Tauros to level. Pokepelago's rate is pathetic. 5 stars Rare Kitchen is the most efficient means of leveling said Pokemon, except that it's Sun exclusive and you need a couple in order to feasibly level up teams. When all that's said and done, you need to start with a Pokemon exactly at lv66 and still need 2 Rare Candies after feeding them everything on top of the FC cost for the food. Why this overly punishing system? Gear treadmill MMORPGs are far less punishing than this, and they make their money forcing you to run the same content over and over again so they get their subscription money. I bet that the Insane in the Membrane achievement in WoW would take less time than leveling a team of 6 to lv100 just grinding the E4. Everyone expected Bottle Caps to be the limiting factor, but nope, it's levels. You are almost required to deal with Festival Plaza as it is the only thing that prevents Hyper Training from being a useless feature, otherwise the leveling system makes it inaccessible for legitimate players.

Version exclusive clothing is also complete bullshit. Red is my favorite color yet I got Moon, go figure. There's also a few pieces of clothing that cannot be obtained by dyeing. Even if you find an NPC that has a piece of clothing you want, it's RNG as to which one they will sell you - you can't select which one you want to buy. You also can only buy clothes from trainers that are the same gender as you, which is understandable for some clothes (although I would prefer all unisex, but I disgress), but I'm out of luck if I want to buy glasses or hats from the opposite gender. What the fuck? For those of you upset about things like no panda hat for female trainers in XY, Gamefreak has managed to give you even more of a massive middle finger.

Thankfully, homebrew became much easier than it was before so I can edit my save file to get what I want and be done with it. I don't like cheating because I like to play games for what they are, but I have a busy working schedule and I don't have all day to grind this bullshit. I was going to buy Powersaves, but Datel is greedy and wanted me to pay extra for "early access" to codes. Without homebrew, I would have to pay an extra $25 to make Pokemon playable, but the problem is that Gamefreak is completely clueless when it comes to the needs of the competitive playerbase who play on carts. GF is like Bethesda, you need mods in order to make the game playable, and Festival Plaza is living proof of all of their shitty development decisions.

/longrant
 
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regarding the topic of gumshoos/raticate/pelipper being spammed on all the routes, I think there is a worse offender, and is the wild tables on caves.

I get it that zubat are going to be a spam in general, but from previus games where zubats were annoying, there was a single first cave as worst offender, and the subsequent caves were better. but not in alola. ALL FUCKING CAVES (except thank god the poni canyon) are 70% zubat and 30% digglet.

The worst offender in terms of zubats has always been Mt. Moon, with a damned 79% of zubats. but guess what? that was only on the first floor, and you had variety between geodude, paras, and clefairy, and sandshrew in yellow.

Is so frustrating they left geodudes locked until halfway the third island, when they could had put them in any of the other caves. I would bee happy with even a 5% rate in some of the earlier caves. Specially because that would mean you could chain them before they get SELFDESTRUCT.

Also, note how Kanto's Diglett's cave is actually a tunnel but Alola's Digglet's tunnel is actually a cave.
Still, instead of making an area with 95% digletts and 5% dugtrios, to mimic kanto, they decided to go again with the 70% zubat and 30% diglett.
 
regarding the topic of gumshoos/raticate/pelipper being spammed on all the routes, I think there is a worse offender, and is the wild tables on caves.

I get it that zubat are going to be a spam in general, but from previus games where zubats were annoying, there was a single first cave as worst offender, and the subsequent caves were better. but not in alola. ALL FUCKING CAVES (except thank god the poni canyon) are 70% zubat and 30% digglet.

The worst offender in terms of zubats has always been Mt. Moon, with a damned 79% of zubats. but guess what? that was only on the first floor, and you had variety between geodude, paras, and clefairy, and sandshrew in yellow.

Is so frustrating they left geodudes locked until halfway the third island, when they could had put them in any of the other caves. I would bee happy with even a 5% rate in some of the earlier caves. Specially because that would mean you could chain them before they get SELFDESTRUCT.

Also, note how Kanto's Diglett's cave is actually a tunnel but Alola's Digglet's tunnel is actually a cave.
Still, instead of making an area with 95% digletts and 5% dugtrios, to mimic kanto, they decided to go again with the 70% zubat and 30% diglett.
X/Y mitigated the bat problem by including Woobat and introducing Noibat. Each found in only one cave, and Victory Road for Noibat IIRC. I would have loved to have seen at least Noibat make a return in Sun/Moon to mitigate the bat problem, but no. Zubat, Zubat, and more Zubat, then later... Golbat! Woo...
 

Codraroll

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Worst thing is... it's not like the Alola Pokédex lacks Pokémon that could have filled out the caves. Makuhita, Misdreavus, Roggenrola, Carbink, Sableye, Paras, Clefairy, Cubone, Nosepass, Torkoal, Geodude, Riolu and Gible were all found in caves in previous games. Many of them are now found in outdoor locations instead, and/or arguably needed the cave to be "tailored" for them (such as Clefairy in Mt. Moon or Torkoal in Fiery Path - these Pokémon aren't necessarily typical cave Pokémon), but still it should have been possible for the designers to find more than two Pokémon to put in the caves. And I doubt it would have broken game balance to bring back some old staples of caves, such as Rhyhorn, Aron, Whismur, Woobat, Onix, or even Heatmor. And heck, where are Solrock and Lunatone?!?
 
It's odd, really. Anyone with half a brain can see that GF is pandering hard to the first generation because of the 20th anniversary. Which is great and all, but... Sun and Moon are supposed to be a "new adventure", as advertised! So I'd imagine that most people playing through S/M want to discover new Pokemon to use, battle, and try out, but instead they encounter caves full of nothing but Zubat and Diglett/Dugtrio. I mean, yes, nostalgia, but I feel like if I wanted to play using Gen I Pokemon, I would just boot up Blue on the Virtual Console.

The problem is that Sun and Moon were obviously designed to appeal to the crowd of fans that have been playing for the full 20 years. Forgive my generalization here, but the thing is that these players have, well, been playing for 20 years. They're experienced. They probably want to play competitively. So GF pandering so hard to the nostalgia that people have for the beginning of their journeys but then stripping out so many quality-of-life things for trading and battling, as well as putting new features behind arbitrary grinds, shows, I feel, a significant disconnect between what Game Freak thinks long-time fans want, and what we actually want.

Also, GF, not everyone started with RBY! Give generations 2 and 4 some love!
 
Worst thing is... it's not like the Alola Pokédex lacks Pokémon that could have filled out the caves. Makuhita, Misdreavus, Roggenrola, Carbink, Sableye, Paras, Clefairy, Cubone, Nosepass, Torkoal, Geodude, Riolu and Gible were all found in caves in previous games. Many of them are now found in outdoor locations instead, and/or arguably needed the cave to be "tailored" for them (such as Clefairy in Mt. Moon or Torkoal in Fiery Path - these Pokémon aren't necessarily typical cave Pokémon), but still it should have been possible for the designers to find more than two Pokémon to put in the caves. And I doubt it would have broken game balance to bring back some old staples of caves, such as Rhyhorn, Aron, Whismur, Woobat, Onix, or even Heatmor. And heck, where are Solrock and Lunatone?!?
It also would've been nice to not share like half the entire Alola Dex between the four islands. What's the point in each island having its own Pokedex when a good chunk of each is the same handful of evolution lines?

And what the hell does Vast Poni Canyon have anything to do with the kind of electromagnetic radiation needed to trigger Magneton/Nosepass/Charjabug's evolution into Magnezone/Probopass/Vikavolt? I like that they implemented another Pokemon that evolves this way, (hopefully Crabrawler uses the Icy Rock in future games, and... how about something else needing the Mossy Rock? or hell, just make these use the Ice Stone and Leaf Stone, it's not like they've changed a Pokemon's evolution mechanic before...) but why must I wait until near the end of the game to evolve them? Especially in a place that shows no hints whatsoever of "hey! Pokemon that like electricity may evolve here!"? Blush Mountain, with the power plant in the area and a couple of Electric types there, seems like it'd be the perfect place, but nope!
 

Xen

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Well for what it's worth, Johto did get some pandering. The region is brought up quite a bit throughout the game, and it even has an entire city (or two if Konikoni counts) based off of the region.

That being said, the RBY pandering is definitely present with the regional dex, and it really hurts the variety of Pokemon available (especially when a good chunk of those 300 Pokemon are legends/Ultra Beasts/Type: Null). I understand they wanted to showcase Alola regional variants, and the large influx of Kanto mons does make sense to the region's lore, but geez. Give all generations at least some limelight with the dex. The pool of Kanto mons is significantly larger than the new Pokemon, and poor Johto/Sinnoh have basically no representatives in the dex at all except for species that were grandfathered in due to cross-gen evolutions that link back to the original 151.
 
It also would've been nice to not share like half the entire Alola Dex between the four islands. What's the point in each island having its own Pokedex when a good chunk of each is the same handful of evolution lines?
The idea that four islands that close together wouldn't share significant portions of their populations is absurd. If you're just suggesting there should be a single 'dex or something, then sure.
 
The idea that four islands that close together wouldn't share significant portions of their populations is absurd. If you're just suggesting there should be a single 'dex or something, then sure.
Lore wise, logic wise, mabye, but this doesn't work gameplay wise. If we ignore the lore and look at it from a gameplay perspective, what Detective Barricade said makes a lot of sense. If each Pokedex is extremely similar, then there isn't really much point in having them separated at all. At this rate, you may as well have one unified Alola Pokedex and that Pokedex only. Lore and logic cannot excuse everything. I'd much rather have one unified Dex over four similar ones (which are redundant anyway since you have an Alola Dex...). Also, Poni Island should have a much different Dex even lore wise, it's an island almost completely claimed by nature...
 
Lore wise, logic wise, mabye, but this doesn't work gameplay wise.
Too bad for the gameplay, then. You try to create the best gameplay experience you can, within the constraints of the in-game world. It's not some arcade game.
Also, Poni Island should have a much different Dex even lore wise, it's an island almost completely claimed by nature...
Sure, agreed.
 
The idea that four islands that close together wouldn't share significant portions of their populations is absurd. If you're just suggesting there should be a single 'dex or something, then sure.
And yet Kalos has three Pokedexes, despite being one big chunk of land, which don't share any Pokemon between them. If it was going to be like 25% the same bunch of Pokemon you've already encountered on each island the whole time, then why have four Pokedexes to be keeping track of in the first place? Why not just the Alola Pokedex, as in just the one Pokedex for the entire region? We're only being asked to catch ~300 different species of Pokemon for the completion rewards, it's not like the other ~500 Pokemon matter... certainly not enough to have Pokedex entries... (seriously, you'd think Kukui or "Alolan Oak" would offer to at least upgrade the Rotom Dex for the National Dex)
 
And yet Kalos has three Pokedexes, despite being one big chunk of land, which don't share any Pokemon between them.
The fact that few species resided in multiple places was one of the worst aspects of XY. That they screwed up once isn't a justification for repeating that screw-up.
If it was going to be like 25% the same bunch of Pokemon you've already encountered on each island the whole time, then why have four Pokedexes to be keeping track of in the first place? Why not just the Alola Pokedex, as in just the one Pokedex for the entire region? We're only being asked to catch ~300 different species of Pokemon for the completion rewards, it's not like the other ~500 Pokemon matter... certainly not enough to have Pokedex entries... (seriously, you'd think Kukui or "Alolan Oak" would offer to at least upgrade the Rotom Dex for the National Dex)
Again, if you believe the reappearance of species means there should be one 'dex, I don't even disagree. If you believe species shouldn't reappear, that's laughable on its face.

Taistelu said:
So the "in-game world" is an excuse for poor design?
No. It's what governs what's possible and what isn't, in terms of gameplay choices the developers can make. The conceptual integrity of the world has to be upheld for the gameplay to exist, basically. Gameplay design is carried out within the framework the in-game world provides. It's not "poor design"; it's that the "design" of the world, by definition, trumps the design of the game that takes place inside it. Think about the same thing where, for example, a TV show is concerned. A show develops a character in a coherent way for however long; the show faces a plot challenge or whatever in a certain episode and has that person do something completely inconsistent with their character to make things fit; the episode is thrilling, whatever, and fans have a great experience watching it, but the structural integrity of the character has been collapsed and the character as it existed previously has basically ceased to exist (ruining the show's credibility and the fans' long-term ability to enjoy it).
 
It's still something that could have done better.

Rattata's line being on every island can be understood as the point is that it's invasive, and so is Yungoos for being sent to stop them. Wingull's line being really common makes sense IMO when it's based on seagulls and pelicans. Zubat's line has been this way in all games bar XY (as far as I know) and BW, so it's a lost cause.

Problem is, they are way too common. A lot of, if not all, island-unique encounters are hidden in 5% encounter rates. And most of them happen to be new Pokemon.

Other games dealt with these com-mons in a better way (by letting them appear on later areas but with a lower rate, or having areas so drastically different they are not found), with only a few Pokemon truly being rare.
 
No. It's what governs what's possible and what isn't, in terms of gameplay choices the developers can make. The conceptual integrity of the world has to be upheld for the gameplay to exist, basically. Gameplay design is carried out within the framework the in-game world provides. It's not "poor design"; it's that the "design" of the world, by definition, trumps the design of the game that takes place inside it. Think about the same thing where, for example, a TV show is concerned. A show develops a character in a coherent way for however long; the show faces a plot challenge or whatever in a certain episode and has that person do something completely inconsistent with their character to make things fit; the episode is thrilling, whatever, and fans have a great experience watching it, but the structural integrity of the character has been collapsed and the character as it existed previously has basically ceased to exist (ruining the show's credibility and the fans' long-term ability to enjoy it).
I can suspend my disbelief. I'd rather have a variety of Pokemon island specific rather than the same Pokemon everywhere. Codraroll made a nice post on this iirc. I don't want to see Yungoos/Gumshoos/Rattata-A/Raticate-A on EVERY island. Yeah it might make sense lore wise but its just dumb gameplay wise. It is not a fun experience, especially when a lot of new Pokemon are locked behind low encounter rates eaten up by, you guessed it, common Pokemon that no one is really going to want if they didn't get one on the first Island. I'll give an example.

Stufful is a very annoying Pokemon to catch. First of all, it is available in one place, route 8. Second of all, it has a 5% encounter rate. Why? Surely something like 20% would've been OK. In day, this is how the encounter table goes (night is the same but replace Yungoos with Rattata-A). (The reason I'm using Route 8 is because I've just tried to catch a Stufful here and it was very annoying).

Trumbeak: 30%
Yungoos: 30%
Salandit: 20%
Fletchinder: 15%
Stufful: 5%

Trumbeak is an evolution of an early game bird which is very common on the first island. Yungoos is also a Pokemon that is very common on the first island. You have tons of chances to catch these Pokemon on the first island. If you didn't do it then, why would you now? These two Pokemon eat up 60% of the Encounter chances. You have over a half chance to find a Pokemon that no one will want at this point in the game. Either because they will already have one or they don't need one. This leaves 40% to be distributed between 3 Pokemon. Stufful, a new Pokemon who is actually quite popular is locked in this one route at 5%. How is this fair? If we used the same Pokemon, I'd order the encounter table like this.

Salandit: 30%*
Fletchinder: 20%
Stufful: 20%
Yungoos: 15%
Trumbeak: 15%

*Salandit has the highest to be merciful to those trying to get a Female one

This way, Yungoos and Trumbeak still appear, which fits in lore-wise, but at a low rate (15% each). This means that Pokemon first found on this island (Salandit/Fletchinder/Stufful) have increased encounter rates. Stufful is still relatively rare, being a 20% in one route, but is actually bearable to catch (remember that you want one with Fluffy as well, not Klutz).

I went off on a tangent a bit here, but as per my example above. I think having a variety of Pokemon and having it work lore wise can work together, but it isn't done like this in game. Common Pokemon appear often with new, encountered Pokemon. The way it is now, in most areas on Islands 2/3/4, it only works lore wise, when it could work both ways.
 
Yes. I'm not arguing against the encounter rates being different (or, say, using the way encounter tables vary from patch to patch within a route to fix this issue). You have to consider which parts of the game are under the purview of the world (and therefore not at the discretion of the developers) and which parts are under the purview of the game-design (and therefore completely at their discretion). I'm all for finding ways to make the gameplay experience better, smoother, more convenient, etc., while working within that framework. The DexNav was a great example of how to do that (and if it had returned in SM, there would probably be many fewer complaints about these issues).
 
Poke Bank and its very non-tactile bottom screen. Just. Why? I move at least five boxes every time and I lose connection a lot of times so sometimes I have to try for actual hours and it is just so tedious. And my connection behaves badly due to the house layouts, many pcs working at the same time and plain living in one of those places that just have bad wifi no matter what. Cannot imagine if it actually was bad.
Being able to sort things using the stick would make it so much better. Hell, they could even let us switch between the bottom and top screen, but having one and being able to switch things around in bank and not only dumping them would be great.
 

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