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Just drives me nuts when people say shit like "ah, but are you aware of the Klempaderkinus Theory?" and then resolutely fail to actually explain what it actually means
Ugh, remind me of when people were casually dropping "Sam type" and "Dean type" into conversations. Never watched Supernatural, only vaguely aware of it, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one, yet now I'm expected to know the personalities of the Winchester brothers. (Heck, I still sort of don't get it; I think Sam is more "emotional/empathetic" and Dean is more "logical/realist"... which leads to my point of, if there's a dictionary word you can be using instead, USE THE DICTIONARY WORD!)
*Looks up Klempaderkinus Theory*
... So I got two results for that, k·p perturbation theory and K-theory, and after skimming through both I must ask what exactly conversation was this that physics & string theory concepts were brought up?
NEW UNPOPULAR OPINION:
So, can we get another Super Mechanic that's not directly connected to a Pokemon?
Like, while it's said Mega Evos came about due to the Aura Duo's energy mutating Evo Stones, that's more of a throwaway line than trying to connect the Mega Evo mechanic theme. Mega Evo didn't have a "poster Pokemon", MAYBE Diancie, and by ORAS they seemingly retcon the Aura Duo's involvement. But after that the Super Mechanic had a Pokemon directly connected to it:
Z-Moves had Necrozma, the Z-Crystals being pieces of its body & having a special form.
Dynamax/Gigantamax had Eternatus, its life energy causing the phenomenon & having a special form.
And now Terastal has Terapagos, while how it relates to Terastal isn't clear yet we now know it has a special form.
Now I'm not saying that they can't have a Pokemon which as a special form using a Super Mechanic, but would like it just be because in-lore the Pokemon just took advantage of a unique Super Mechanic that was available without directly being tied into it.
Well especially since mechanics are tied to one Gen now - the easiest way for them to explain it is via a certain Pokemon which has history in that region.
Tbf, does anyone really defend the release schedule? (I mean, I know, it’s the Internet; cast a wide-enough net and I’m sure you’ll find someone, but you know what I mean.) Even people like me who are still generally positive about the games I think are willing to admit that the schedule they keep to for a game as big as Pokémon is pretty absurd on the face of it. I do see people assessing the reason for it being as tightly cyclical as it is and saying, “Well, considering the interconnected, multi-headed beast that the franchise is, it’s probably difficult to start pumping the brakes without causing problems somewhere along the line, and there probably isn’t a lot of motivation to finally pull the trigger that will materialize those problems and force them to need to be dealt with when the product is still doing well enough commercially to get by,” but I don’t typically think that’s a sign of endorsement; it’s just a diagnosis.
At any rate, it’s nice to see them acknowledge the issue. Maybe Nintendo starting breathing down their neck after they had to apologize for SV’s performance issues. (Though the continued absence of any kind of describable plan to improve those issues has me thinking it’s probably not time yet to start holding my breath.)
I would've agreed with this wholeheartedly about 2 weeks ago but I'll admit that the fact enough people were unironically demanding the reveal of BW3 or whatever at the last direct to the point of making "Unova" trend on Twitter has shaken my confidence a fair bit. Yeah yeah I know like you said it's a big world and a big fanbase, but that scene showed me that a lot of people are either insincere about asking them to slow down or just don't care
sorry for bumping this kind of dead topic i just needed an excuse to briefly rant about this
I'll play devil's advocate a bit and say that you can wish to have a game announced so you know it exists, and also wish that it doesn't release this year and/or is polished to a satisfactory degree by having enough dev time.
I know that's my case at least. I wouldn't mind new Unova games being announced right now, but I would indeed mind them being released right now.
Well especially since mechanics are tied to one Gen now - the easiest way for them to explain it is via a certain Pokemon which has history in that region.
Alright, they can have a Pokemon with history of the region show it off, but I'm more asking for there not to be a Pokemon which is either responsible or defined by the super mechanic.
Going back to Mega Evos, there's two/three cases of that. First with the Aura Duo, Sycamore says he believes its their energy which radiated Evo Stones which became Mega Stones. However, the Aura Duo don't even have a Mega, and they don't directly have power over Mega but rather its more of a side effect of their energy. Second is Diancie which is the only Gen VI mon that has a Mega and it having a possible connection to the Anistar Sundial (both being pink and crystal) which has something to do with Mega, or at least detecting Mega Stones. Third is Rayquaza which has a special Mega Evo (or at least in the way which it Mega Evolves); not to mention Groudon and Kyogre having their own special variant of Mega.
Like, of the Super Mechanics after Mega, I'd say Terastal didn't really need to be connected to a Pokemon. Z-Moves & Dynamax, with the way its presented and story they told needed a Pokemon to justify not just its existence but why only that region had the mechanics (and the way the mechanic was presented). But with Terastal, they already established the strangeness with Area Zero, from the story and lore they setup they didn't need a Pokemon directly connected to it (and it was their decision not to have special versions of Terastal, though now Ogerpon is getting one and it doesn't seem to have anything to do with Terastal). Terapagos feels like something they tacked on just cause the previous gens had an originator of the Super Mechanic.
Well especially since mechanics are tied to one Gen now - the easiest way for them to explain it is via a certain Pokemon which has history in that region.
The issue is how short-sighted that becomes now that Dexit is a standard, as it means if the Pokemon appears as a non-home Transfer, eventually it will beg the question why it doesn't bring the mechanic with it, whether specific to itself or in general. Necrozma gets a pass since Z-Crystals kind of come about from it being injured and parts scattering, and Megas are uncertain while being from infused stones they can handwave as the player never finding.
Eternatus is the one they have to watch now since it is explicitly what provides Dynamax Energy to Galar by appearing and existing. At the same time Eternatus is extra-terrestrial apparently, which will beg the question of if they keep it a one-off species (since it being captured is canon) or explain it as another one landing (yet not causing another Dynamax phenomenon).
The thing I'm learning is that despite being 6+ Gens in when they planned these 1-off Regional Gimmicks, GF is not very good at future-proofing their Legendary Pokemon when linking them into said mechanics without just shrugging at the implication on the world (which given the reaction to Dexit and Mega/Z-move removal, they did not foresee or weren't prepared to respond to adequately).
I would've agreed with this wholeheartedly about 2 weeks ago but I'll admit that the fact enough people were unironically demanding the reveal of BW3 or whatever at the last direct to the point of making "Unova" trend on Twitter has shaken my confidence a fair bit. Yeah yeah I know like you said it's a big world and a big fanbase, but that scene showed me that a lot of people are either insincere about asking them to slow down or just don't care
sorry for bumping this kind of dead topic i just needed an excuse to briefly rant about this
I'll play devil's advocate a bit and say that you can wish to have a game announced so you know it exists, and also wish that it doesn't release this year and/or is polished to a satisfactory degree by having enough dev time.
I know that's my case at least. I wouldn't mind new Unova games being announced right now, but I would indeed mind them being released right now.
I also feel like a lot of Pokemon fans online, especially on social media, aren't smart enough to really pick up on things (I don't mean this in a deliberately insulting way) and so any time Pokemon decides to do a Presents which creates an expectation that something new will be revealed, generally always expect something mainline at least.
In this particular instance I think many have not picked up on the fact that DLC is functionally supposed to act as the year's flagship mainline release, and that in this case SV's DLC is effectively the 2023 "mainline game". SV and SwSh's DLC is functionally equivalent to a third version as they've said, but it's also not totally a new game like Emerald or Platinum, so the fact that it fulfills the same role from a release schedule POV means that fact is something many people don't seem to comprehend.
They also have a pretty rigid pattern nowadays of mainline games first being revealed around Pokemon Day, or maybe a little earlier than it, and then having info dropped every month five months before release little by little, but people haven't realized that this is what they're doing with the SV DLC.
If it does, it’ll almost certainly be in the context of another extradimensional Legendary spam that we’re obviously meant to not think too closely about. I don’t think we should seriously anticipate Eternatus or Terapagos ever having an actual role of substance in a different region’s story.
(Plus, at least as far as Eternatus goes, lore-wise, its sheer existence is only part of the cause of Dynamax. Even in Galar, Dynamax could only occur at specific Power Spots. It’s not as if having Eternatus in your party allows you to break that rule, so I’d suggest the possibility that Eternatus’s power alone isn’t enough to cause Dynamaxing unless it has absorbed a huge amount of power, in which case you get the Darkest Day. Instead, I think it seems as though Eternatus’s longtime presence in the Galar region caused the gradual formation of an network of energy pools where Dynamax can be technologically induced.)
If it does, it’ll almost certainly be in the context of another extradimensional Legendary spam that we’re obviously meant to not think too closely about. I don’t think we should seriously anticipate Eternatus or Terapagos ever having an actual role of substance in a different region’s story.
Honestly even then, I'd love if they do a very small lore reference like they've done for Dynamax dens.
Peony makes some very funny remarks about some of the legendaryes you can catch, and you actually have a small dialogue for the gift Cosmog that implies it came from a ultrarift somewhere (as well that implying ultra rifts may be the cause of the legendaries appearing in first place).
Thinking of it, ultrarifts more or less give them a easy, repeatable "excuse" for legendary spam anyway.
Honestly even then, I'd love if they do a very small lore reference like they've done for Dynamax dens.
Peony makes some very funny remarks about some of the legendaryes you can catch, and you actually have a small dialogue for the gift Cosmog that implies it came from a ultrarift somewhere (as well that implying ultra rifts may be the cause of the legendaries appearing in first place).
Thinking of it, ultrarifts more or less give them a easy, repeatable "excuse" for legendary spam anyway.
The series certainly isn’t short of spatial phenomena that make this possible. Hoopa’s rings and Ultra Wormholes have been used for the three instances thus far, but you just know that if Legends: Arceus had to have a Legendary spam, we’d have been finding those suckers in space-time distortions.
It’s really just the most practical way to explain the appearance of so many supposedly unique, often story-relevant Pokémon in a foreign region without tying their individual lore into knots.
Of course, even without factoring in “lynchpin for the generational battle mechanic” Legendaries, this was something that was just flat-out easier to avoid for the first few generations because the lore for Legendaries tended to be a lot simpler. There’s a pretty big difference between the Legendary Birds (who have no intrinsic ties to Kanto, no backstory, and can easily be reframed as very rare migratory birds) or the Legendary Beasts (who, despite being connected to a specific event in Johto’s history, are characterized as running freely across huge distances, and never happened to show up further away than Kanto before wormhole spam became an option anyway) versus the Tapu (who are sacred deities of the Alola region, with each tied to a particular island and all of them sharing a specific Alolan aesthetic in their design, and playing a direct role in the region’s cultural processes). Even if you don’t assume that the Tapu are unique one-off species, they still don’t really have any sensible business appearing in a non-Alolan region (unless they made regional forms of them, I suppose).
Little acknowledgements like Peony’s commentary are fine though, because it’s clearly just fluff.
The issue is how short-sighted that becomes now that Dexit is a standard, as it means if the Pokemon appears as a non-home Transfer, eventually it will beg the question why it doesn't bring the mechanic with it, whether specific to itself or in general. Necrozma gets a pass since Z-Crystals kind of come about from it being injured and parts scattering, and Megas are uncertain while being from infused stones they can handwave as the player never finding.
Eternatus is the one they have to watch now since it is explicitly what provides Dynamax Energy to Galar by appearing and existing. At the same time Eternatus is extra-terrestrial apparently, which will beg the question of if they keep it a one-off species (since it being captured is canon) or explain it as another one landing (yet not causing another Dynamax phenomenon).
The thing I'm learning is that despite being 6+ Gens in when they planned these 1-off Regional Gimmicks, GF is not very good at future-proofing their Legendary Pokemon when linking them into said mechanics without just shrugging at the implication on the world (which given the reaction to Dexit and Mega/Z-move removal, they did not foresee or weren't prepared to respond to adequately).
This has always been the case, in major and minor ways.
Necrozma's Burst Form is just straight-up gone now; they could have made an alternative way to get it, but they didn't
Diantha says "Xerneas and Yveltal are found only here in Kalos!" which I snorted with laughter at the first time I played XY as it seemed dead certain to be proven wrong
Mega Evolutions in general. It literally took GF one game to break their own design rule for megas (you have to hold a stone to mega evolve), thus making Mega Rayquaza incredibly broken
We're told, very clearly, that there are only three Type:Null in existence; it took literally one game for them to disregard this and go "yeah, nah, someone made more!"
Similarly we're told - multiple times - that only one Mewtwo was made, causing understandable confusion when others appear in the games and anime
I'll play devil's advocate a bit and say that you can wish to have a game announced so you know it exists, and also wish that it doesn't release this year and/or is polished to a satisfactory degree by having enough dev time.
I know that's my case at least. I wouldn't mind new Unova games being announced right now, but I would indeed mind them being released right now.
You know, I was about to write something about about how the subpar quality of recent games is down to Game Freak increasingly cutting corners on its development cycles - there's a bunch of angrily-titled articles out there saying that Pokemon needs to take more time with its games, after all.
Given that, I'd been under the impression that Game Freak haven't been giving themselves enough time to make quality games like they used to. But then I was like "no, let's actually look that up and be sure".
The results... don't support that conclusion, actually. Looking over the history of the franchise since the original games, yes release dates have quickened overall. But it doesn't appear as though development times have quickened to match this. I think it's also instructive to look at the time between announcements and releases, for reasons that I'll make clear.
Red/Green - stated by official sources to have taken around six years: the original release date for Pokémon Red and Green was December 1995, but they were ultimately released in February 1996 (Blue came at the end of the same year, Yellow came in September 1998).
Gold/Silver - famously had a quite protracted development period, which began not long after the release of Red and Green. Announced in 1997 for an end-of-year release, which was pushed back at least once for an eventual November 1999 release. Details about a Pokemon game that would eventually become Pokemon Crystal (then referred to as Pokemon X) were reported in various media in December 1999 and slated for an April 2000 release, but Crystal ultimately was released in December 2000. Ho-Oh aside, the first Gen II Pokemon to appear in the anime was Togepi in June 1998, almost a year and a half before the games were out.
Ruby/Sapphire - again had a notoriously difficult/protracted development, which is confirmed to have started in 2000; released in November 2002. Notably, the demo from July/August 2002 is (some minor differences aside) pretty much identical to the finished game. FireRed and LeafGreen were announced in September 2003 and released January 2004; Emerald was announced July 2004 and released in September. We got Gen III Pokemon showing up in the anime in July 2001, again almost a full eighteen months before the games themselves were released.
Diamond/Pearl - presumably started development in mid-2004 (or possibly even early 2003) as they were announced in October 2004. They were initially slated for a mid-2005 release, but not released until September 2006. Notably, Platinum's release was not for another two years: September 2008, which was pushed back slightly from an initial announced August release in May of that year. HGSS were then announced in May 2009 for a September 2009 release; I haven't found anything indicating how long those games took to develop. The first Gen IV Pokemon to appear in the anime was Munchlax in July 2004 (having been officially revealed in May); more than two years before DP came out, though it went on to appear in various other games prior to DP.
Black/White - In an interview held in either late 2010 or early 2011, Junichi Masuda confirms that "[Black and White's development] began about four years ago", placing the start of the game's development period around 2006 - the games were announced in April 2010 for a subsequent September 2010 release. B2W2 were announced in Feburary 2012 for a June 2012 release: it's been mentioned in interviews that the sequels were not planned during BW's development, so likely began production after those games' release or shortly before. The first Gen V Pokemon to appear were Zorua and Zoroark, both revealed in February 2010.
awkward...
X/Y - took three and a half years to develop in total: announced January 2013 and released in October 2013, so would have been in development from either late 2009 or very early 2010 if "three and a half years" isn't an exact figure. ORAS apparently had only one year of development, for a November 2014 release. The first Gen VI Pokemon to be revealed were Chespin, Fennekin, Froakie, Xerneas, and Yveltal simultaneously in January 2013.
Sun/Moon - Development of Sun&Moon started immediately after ORAS was completed, and took around three years. This doesn't tally exactly with the two years between releases, but if we assume development of ORAS was finished in mid-2014 this would roughly make it two and a half years. However I wonder if the stated "three years" figure might include some time spent on a considered "Z" game, elements of which seem to have been folded into Sun&Moon. USUM were stated to have been worked on by a smaller, younger, and less experienced development team numbering roughly half of the workforce who developed the base SM games while the rest of the team focused on the next generation. Sun&Moon were announced in February 2016 for a November release, which has become the standard for all mainline first releases since. The first Gen VII Pokemon revealed was Magearna in February 2016, a handful of days prior to the announcement of the Gen VII titles.
Sword/Shield - announced February 2019 for a November 2019 release. There's notoriously been some disagreement in the fandom about how much time it took for these titles to be developed, but what seems certain is that conceptual planning began immediately following the release of Sun&Moon in 2016 while physical development of the games began in 2017, giving an overall development time of three years. The first Gen VIII Pokemon announced were Zacian, Zamazenta, Grookey, Scorbunny, and Sobble simultaneously during the announcement of the Gen VIII games.
Scarlet/Violet - Started production in late 2019, announced in February 2022 for a November 2022 release - again, the first Gen IX Pokemon (Sprigatito, Fuecoco, Quaxly, Koraidon, and Miraidon) were revealed simultaneously with the announcement of new games.
All this taken into account, we can see that pretty much all of the new games after RS have had, on average, a three-year development time: some a little more, but none of them less (remakes, by their nature, take far less time to develop). What jumps out at me is that even Black and White - which one might assume would have taken less time thanks to being on the same console as the previous generation - had an equivalent development timeline to other generation-launching games, with production beginning not long after DP's release.
The circumstances aren't exactly identical for Sun/Moon, but as I alluded to above it's commonly thought that Game Freak changed tack from a Kalos revision to a completely new set of games. Whatever the case, those games still had the same three-year development timeframe as equivalent games. The shortest confirmed development time besides ORAS is for LGPE, which has the justification of including far fewer Pokemon than contemporary titles do and also being a remake.
So, in sum, it's pretty clear that development timeframes are not the issue at hand for a perceived lessening in quality, since they haven't changed massively over the years. The increase in the speed (and amount) of release dates is slightly concerning, but they're separate - albeit connected - issues. Why the need for more releases if they're still taking the same amount of time to make?
It's interesting to me that while RG, GS, and DP all had at least one delay during their development, games released subsequent to DP have not. Now, perhaps quality control at Game Freak has simply improved since then, but I find that highly unlikely given that video game delays are still very much a thing in 2023. I don't think Pokemon is somehow immune from what is simply an industry-wide occurrence. So it does cause me to wonder whether there's an edict now from somewhere that delays are not acceptable. You've only to look at the number of titles in the series recently which have had day-one issues, such as BDSP - not made by Game Freak, of course, but still ultimately likely subject to TPC's mandates when it comes to matters such as release dates, publicity, and creature/character design.
All games have glitches, of course, and multiple Pokemon games have been patched and fixed even before doing that online was possible, so the prevalence of online patches for later games doesn't prove anything. However, I still do think that the increased speed of releases points to a shift in attitudes. From DP onward the timeframe between games being announced to games being released has been much shorter on average.
As I alluded to above, it's not just release dates that have quickened: the way new Pokemon are teased has also changed markedly. Previously, a handful of next-generation Pokemon would be slowly rolled out over a protracted period, but that's not the case any more. Imagine having a Pokemon revealed now and not getting it in the games for another 18 months. In fact, ScVi's Teal Mask DLC - revealed in February for a September release - is one of the longest waits there's been for an announced new release that wasn't a generation debut in a long time. Even Platinum, which took two years to arrive after DP, only had a four-month wait from its announcement to its release.
Why has the pattern shifted the way it has? Maybe it's simply a business decision - we know Nintendo and Game Freak obviously want to hit the holiday market, and an early-year announcement leading up to a late-year release hits that pattern well. But that doesn't explain why new Pokemon (and new content in general) don't get the leadup they once did. Maybe it's the perceived "short attention span" mantra we keep hearing about (this one's on my mind today due to the recent passing of Michael Parkinson; listening to the radio and someone said that the reason chat shows aren't as good any more is because people nowadays have poor attention spans, as though podcasts aren't a hugely popular form of entertainment now).
The problem is the amount of projects they're working on at once. To put it in perspective, why was the development of Gen II difficult? Because Game Freak were also preoccupied with the development of Pokemon Stadium and the localisation of the first generation, both of which diverted time and resources away from the new games. The development of RS was also difficult, but that's been put down to very different reasons - and you'll notice that development of Pokemon Colosseum isn't cited as a difficulty during RS's development time. That'd be down to that game being made by a different studio - obviously, the two teams worked together closely as Colosseum is compatible with not just RS but also FRLG.
Game Freak has made some smaller side games alongside the main series, but all of the major spin-off games since Stadium were developed at least partially by other studios (Creatures, Inc developed the PokePark series, Bandai Namco developed Snap, the Ranger series was developed by both HAL and Creatures, Inc, Genius Sonority made PBR, ColoXD, and Trozei, Spike Chunsoft made the Mystery Dungeon series, Niantic made Pokemon Go... I could go on). But Game Freak developed LGPE, L:A, and Pokemon HOME in tandem with SwSh and ScVi.
This has to be a factor in why recent games have been so unpolished. They've been splitting their focus - allegedly, SwSh's development team was younger and less experienced, presumably because more experienced colleagues were taken up with LGPE and L:A. Looking at Gens III, IV, V, and VI, the primary focus was always the main series. But now they're split multiple ways, and I'm finding it hard not to think that that's the reason for the subpar quality of new releases - it doesn't matter how much time you've got, reduce the manpower and the results will be inferior.
Ironically HOME is the one thing that was repeatedly delayed recently (and what a shitshow that was) but that almost proves my point in a way - you can release a full game with some unfinished aspects and just about get away with it, but you really can't release a storage app if it's not capable of doing the one thing it's meant to do - storage.
Anyway, didn't mean for this to turn into an essay but that's what happens when I reflect on the growing crappiness of modern Pokemon I guess!
This has always been the case, in major and minor ways.
Necrozma's Burst Form is just straight-up gone now; they could have made an alternative way to get it, but they didn't
Diantha says "Xerneas and Yveltal are found only here in Kalos!" which I snorted with laughter at the first time I played XY as it seemed dead certain to be proven wrong
Mega Evolutions in general. It literally took GF one game to break their own design rule for megas (you have to hold a stone to mega evolve), thus making Mega Rayquaza incredibly broken
We're told, very clearly, that there are only three Type:Null in existence; it took literally one game for them to disregard this and go "yeah, nah, someone made more!"
Similarly we're told - multiple times - that only one Mewtwo was made, causing understandable confusion when others appear in the games and anime
You know, I was about to write something about about how the subpar quality of recent games is down to Game Freak increasingly cutting corners on its development cycles - there's a bunch of angrily-titled articles out there saying that Pokemon needs to take more time with its games, after all.
Given that, I'd been under the impression that Game Freak haven't been giving themselves enough time to make quality games like they used to. But then I was like "no, let's actually look that up and be sure".
The results... don't support that conclusion, actually. Looking over the history of the franchise since the original games, yes release dates have quickened overall. But it doesn't appear as though development times have quickened to match this. I think it's also instructive to look at the time between announcements and releases, for reasons that I'll make clear.
Red/Green - stated by official sources to have taken around six years: the original release date for Pokémon Red and Green was December 1995, but they were ultimately released in February 1996 (Blue came at the end of the same year, Yellow came in September 1998).
Gold/Silver - famously had a quite protracted development period, which began not long after the release of Red and Green. Announced in 1997 for an end-of-year release, which was pushed back at least once for an eventual November 1999 release. Details about a Pokemon game that would eventually become Pokemon Crystal (then referred to as Pokemon X) were reported in various media in December 1999 and slated for an April 2000 release, but Crystal ultimately was released in December 2000. Ho-Oh aside, the first Gen II Pokemon to appear in the anime was Togepi in June 1998, almost a year and a half before the games were out.
Ruby/Sapphire - again had a notoriously difficult/protracted development, which is confirmed to have started in 2000; released in November 2002. Notably, the demo from July/August 2002 is (some minor differences aside) pretty much identical to the finished game. FireRed and LeafGreen were announced in September 2003 and released January 2004; Emerald was announced July 2004 and released in September. We got Gen III Pokemon showing up in the anime in July 2001, again almost a full eighteen months before the games themselves were released.
Diamond/Pearl - presumably started development in mid-2004 (or possibly even early 2003) as they were announced in October 2004. They were initially slated for a mid-2005 release, but not released until September 2006. Notably, Platinum's release was not for another two years: September 2008, which was pushed back slightly from an initial announced August release in May of that year. HGSS were then announced in May 2009 for a September 2009 release; I haven't found anything indicating how long those games took to develop. The first Gen IV Pokemon to appear in the anime was Munchlax in July 2004 (having been officially revealed in May); more than two years before DP came out, though it went on to appear in various other games prior to DP.
Black/White - In an interview held in either late 2010 or early 2011, Junichi Masuda confirms that "[Black and White's development] began about four years ago", placing the start of the game's development period around 2006 - the games were announced in April 2010 for a subsequent September 2010 release. B2W2 were announced in Feburary 2012 for a June 2012 release: it's been mentioned in interviews that the sequels were not planned during BW's development, so likely began production after those games' release or shortly before. The first Gen V Pokemon to appear were Zorua and Zoroark, both revealed in February 2010.
X/Y - took three and a half years to develop in total: announced January 2013 and released in October 2013, so would have been in development from either late 2009 or very early 2010 if "three and a half years" isn't an exact figure. ORAS apparently had only one year of development, for a November 2014 release. The first Gen VI Pokemon to be revealed were Chespin, Fennekin, Froakie, Xerneas, and Yveltal simultaneously in January 2013.
Sun/Moon - Development of Sun&Moon started immediately after ORAS was completed, and took around three years. This doesn't tally exactly with the two years between releases, but if we assume development of ORAS was finished in mid-2014 this would roughly make it two and a half years. However I wonder if the stated "three years" figure might include some time spent on a considered "Z" game, elements of which seem to have been folded into Sun&Moon. USUM were stated to have been worked on by a smaller, younger, and less experienced development team numbering roughly half of the workforce who developed the base SM games while the rest of the team focused on the next generation. Sun&Moon were announced in February 2016 for a November release, which has become the standard for all mainline first releases since. The first Gen VII Pokemon revealed was Magearna in February 2016, a handful of days prior to the announcement of the Gen VII titles.
Sword/Shield - announced February 2019 for a November 2019 release. There's notoriously been some disagreement in the fandom about how much time it took for these titles to be developed, but what seems certain is that conceptual planning began immediately following the release of Sun&Moon in 2016 while physical development of the games began in 2017, giving an overall development time of three years. The first Gen VIII Pokemon announced were Zacian, Zamazenta, Grookey, Scorbunny, and Sobble simultaneously during the announcement of the Gen VIII games.
Scarlet/Violet - Started production in late 2019, announced in February 2022 for a November 2022 release - again, the first Gen IX Pokemon (Sprigatito, Fuecoco, Quaxly, Koraidon, and Miraidon) were revealed simultaneously with the announcement of new games.
All this taken into account, we can see that pretty much all of the new games after RS have had, on average, a three-year development time: some a little more, but none of them less (remakes, by their nature, take far less time to develop). What jumps out at me is that even Black and White - which one might assume would have taken less time thanks to being on the same console as the previous generation - had an equivalent development timeline to other generation-launching games, with production beginning not long after DP's release.
The circumstances aren't exactly identical for Sun/Moon, but as I alluded to above it's commonly thought that Game Freak changed tack from a Kalos revision to a completely new set of games. Whatever the case, those games still had the same three-year development timeframe as equivalent games. The shortest confirmed development time besides ORAS is for LGPE, which has the justification of including far fewer Pokemon than contemporary titles do and also being a remake.
So, in sum, it's pretty clear that development timeframes are not the issue at hand for a perceived lessening in quality, since they haven't changed massively over the years. The increase in the speed (and amount) of release dates is slightly concerning, but they're separate - albeit connected - issues. Why the need for more releases if they're still taking the same amount of time to make?
It's interesting to me that while RG, GS, and DP all had at least one delay during their development, games released subsequent to DP have not. Now, perhaps quality control at Game Freak has simply improved since then, but I find that highly unlikely given that video game delays are still very much a thing in 2023. I don't think Pokemon is somehow immune from what is simply an industry-wide occurrence. So it does cause me to wonder whether there's an edict now from somewhere that delays are not acceptable. You've only to look at the number of titles in the series recently which have had day-one issues, such as BDSP - not made by Game Freak, of course, but still ultimately likely subject to TPC's mandates when it comes to matters such as release dates, publicity, and creature/character design.
All games have glitches, of course, and multiple Pokemon games have been patched and fixed even before doing that online was possible, so the prevalence of online patches for later games doesn't prove anything. However, I still do think that the increased speed of releases points to a shift in attitudes. From DP onward the timeframe between games being announced to games being released has been much shorter on average.
As I alluded to above, it's not just release dates that have quickened: the way new Pokemon are teased has also changed markedly. Previously, a handful of next-generation Pokemon would be slowly rolled out over a protracted period, but that's not the case any more. Imagine having a Pokemon revealed now and not getting it in the games for another 18 months. In fact, ScVi's Teal Mask DLC - revealed in February for a September release - is one of the longest waits there's been for an announced new release that wasn't a generation debut in a long time. Even Platinum, which took two years to arrive after DP, only had a four-month wait from its announcement to its release.
Why has the pattern shifted the way it has? Maybe it's simply a business decision - we know Nintendo and Game Freak obviously want to hit the holiday market, and an early-year announcement leading up to a late-year release hits that pattern well. But that doesn't explain why new Pokemon (and new content in general) don't get the leadup they once did. Maybe it's the perceived "short attention span" mantra we keep hearing about (this one's on my mind today due to the recent passing of Michael Parkinson; listening to the radio and someone said that the reason chat shows aren't as good any more is because people nowadays have poor attention spans, as though podcasts aren't a hugely popular form of entertainment now).
The problem is the amount of projects they're working on at once. To put it in perspective, why was the development of Gen II difficult? Because Game Freak were also preoccupied with the development of Pokemon Stadium and the localisation of the first generation, both of which diverted time and resources away from the new games. The development of RS was also difficult, but that's been put down to very different reasons - and you'll notice that development of Pokemon Colosseum isn't cited as a difficulty during RS's development time. That'd be down to that game being made by a different studio - obviously, the two teams worked together closely as Colosseum is compatible with not just RS but also FRLG.
Game Freak has made some smaller side games alongside the main series, but all of the major spin-off games since Stadium were developed at least partially by other studios (Creatures, Inc developed the PokePark series, Bandai Namco developed Snap, the Ranger series was developed by both HAL and Creatures, Inc, Genius Sonority made PBR, ColoXD, and Trozei, Spike Chunsoft made the Mystery Dungeon series, Niantic made Pokemon Go... I could go on). But Game Freak developed LGPE, L:A, and Pokemon HOME in tandem with SwSh and ScVi.
This has to be a factor in why recent games have been so unpolished. They've been splitting their focus - allegedly, SwSh's development team was younger and less experienced, presumably because more experienced colleagues were taken up with LGPE and L:A. Looking at Gens III, IV, V, and VI, the primary focus was always the main series. But now they're split multiple ways, and I'm finding it hard not to think that that's the reason for the subpar quality of new releases - it doesn't matter how much time you've got, reduce the manpower and the results will be inferior.
Ironically HOME is the one thing that was repeatedly delayed recently (and what a shitshow that was) but that almost proves my point in a way - you can release a full game with some unfinished aspects and just about get away with it, but you really can't release a storage app if it's not capable of doing the one thing it's meant to do - storage.
Anyway, didn't mean for this to turn into an essay but that's what happens when I reflect on the growing crappiness of modern Pokemon I guess!
This has always been the case, in major and minor ways.
Necrozma's Burst Form is just straight-up gone now; they could have made an alternative way to get it, but they didn't
Diantha says "Xerneas and Yveltal are found only here in Kalos!" which I snorted with laughter at the first time I played XY as it seemed dead certain to be proven wrong
Mega Evolutions in general. It literally took GF one game to break their own design rule for megas (you have to hold a stone to mega evolve), thus making Mega Rayquaza incredibly broken
We're told, very clearly, that there are only three Type:Null in existence; it took literally one game for them to disregard this and go "yeah, nah, someone made more!"
Similarly we're told - multiple times - that only one Mewtwo was made, causing understandable confusion when others appear in the games and anime
You know, I was about to write something about about how the subpar quality of recent games is down to Game Freak increasingly cutting corners on its development cycles - there's a bunch of angrily-titled articles out there saying that Pokemon needs to take more time with its games, after all.
Given that, I'd been under the impression that Game Freak haven't been giving themselves enough time to make quality games like they used to. But then I was like "no, let's actually look that up and be sure".
The results... don't support that conclusion, actually. Looking over the history of the franchise since the original games, yes release dates have quickened overall. But it doesn't appear as though development times have quickened to match this. I think it's also instructive to look at the time between announcements and releases, for reasons that I'll make clear.
Red/Green - stated by official sources to have taken around six years: the original release date for Pokémon Red and Green was December 1995, but they were ultimately released in February 1996 (Blue came at the end of the same year, Yellow came in September 1998).
Gold/Silver - famously had a quite protracted development period, which began not long after the release of Red and Green. Announced in 1997 for an end-of-year release, which was pushed back at least once for an eventual November 1999 release. Details about a Pokemon game that would eventually become Pokemon Crystal (then referred to as Pokemon X) were reported in various media in December 1999 and slated for an April 2000 release, but Crystal ultimately was released in December 2000. Ho-Oh aside, the first Gen II Pokemon to appear in the anime was Togepi in June 1998, almost a year and a half before the games were out.
Ruby/Sapphire - again had a notoriously difficult/protracted development, which is confirmed to have started in 2000; released in November 2002. Notably, the demo from July/August 2002 is (some minor differences aside) pretty much identical to the finished game. FireRed and LeafGreen were announced in September 2003 and released January 2004; Emerald was announced July 2004 and released in September. We got Gen III Pokemon showing up in the anime in July 2001, again almost a full eighteen months before the games themselves were released.
Diamond/Pearl - presumably started development in mid-2004 (or possibly even early 2003) as they were announced in October 2004. They were initially slated for a mid-2005 release, but not released until September 2006. Notably, Platinum's release was not for another two years: September 2008, which was pushed back slightly from an initial announced August release in May of that year. HGSS were then announced in May 2009 for a September 2009 release; I haven't found anything indicating how long those games took to develop. The first Gen IV Pokemon to appear in the anime was Munchlax in July 2004 (having been officially revealed in May); more than two years before DP came out, though it went on to appear in various other games prior to DP.
Black/White - In an interview held in either late 2010 or early 2011, Junichi Masuda confirms that "[Black and White's development] began about four years ago", placing the start of the game's development period around 2006 - the games were announced in April 2010 for a subsequent September 2010 release. B2W2 were announced in Feburary 2012 for a June 2012 release: it's been mentioned in interviews that the sequels were not planned during BW's development, so likely began production after those games' release or shortly before. The first Gen V Pokemon to appear were Zorua and Zoroark, both revealed in February 2010.
X/Y - took three and a half years to develop in total: announced January 2013 and released in October 2013, so would have been in development from either late 2009 or very early 2010 if "three and a half years" isn't an exact figure. ORAS apparently had only one year of development, for a November 2014 release. The first Gen VI Pokemon to be revealed were Chespin, Fennekin, Froakie, Xerneas, and Yveltal simultaneously in January 2013.
Sun/Moon - Development of Sun&Moon started immediately after ORAS was completed, and took around three years. This doesn't tally exactly with the two years between releases, but if we assume development of ORAS was finished in mid-2014 this would roughly make it two and a half years. However I wonder if the stated "three years" figure might include some time spent on a considered "Z" game, elements of which seem to have been folded into Sun&Moon. USUM were stated to have been worked on by a smaller, younger, and less experienced development team numbering roughly half of the workforce who developed the base SM games while the rest of the team focused on the next generation. Sun&Moon were announced in February 2016 for a November release, which has become the standard for all mainline first releases since. The first Gen VII Pokemon revealed was Magearna in February 2016, a handful of days prior to the announcement of the Gen VII titles.
Sword/Shield - announced February 2019 for a November 2019 release. There's notoriously been some disagreement in the fandom about how much time it took for these titles to be developed, but what seems certain is that conceptual planning began immediately following the release of Sun&Moon in 2016 while physical development of the games began in 2017, giving an overall development time of three years. The first Gen VIII Pokemon announced were Zacian, Zamazenta, Grookey, Scorbunny, and Sobble simultaneously during the announcement of the Gen VIII games.
Scarlet/Violet - Started production in late 2019, announced in February 2022 for a November 2022 release - again, the first Gen IX Pokemon (Sprigatito, Fuecoco, Quaxly, Koraidon, and Miraidon) were revealed simultaneously with the announcement of new games.
All this taken into account, we can see that pretty much all of the new games after RS have had, on average, a three-year development time: some a little more, but none of them less (remakes, by their nature, take far less time to develop). What jumps out at me is that even Black and White - which one might assume would have taken less time thanks to being on the same console as the previous generation - had an equivalent development timeline to other generation-launching games, with production beginning not long after DP's release.
The circumstances aren't exactly identical for Sun/Moon, but as I alluded to above it's commonly thought that Game Freak changed tack from a Kalos revision to a completely new set of games. Whatever the case, those games still had the same three-year development timeframe as equivalent games. The shortest confirmed development time besides ORAS is for LGPE, which has the justification of including far fewer Pokemon than contemporary titles do and also being a remake.
So, in sum, it's pretty clear that development timeframes are not the issue at hand for a perceived lessening in quality, since they haven't changed massively over the years. The increase in the speed (and amount) of release dates is slightly concerning, but they're separate - albeit connected - issues. Why the need for more releases if they're still taking the same amount of time to make?
It's interesting to me that while RG, GS, and DP all had at least one delay during their development, games released subsequent to DP have not. Now, perhaps quality control at Game Freak has simply improved since then, but I find that highly unlikely given that video game delays are still very much a thing in 2023. I don't think Pokemon is somehow immune from what is simply an industry-wide occurrence. So it does cause me to wonder whether there's an edict now from somewhere that delays are not acceptable. You've only to look at the number of titles in the series recently which have had day-one issues, such as BDSP - not made by Game Freak, of course, but still ultimately likely subject to TPC's mandates when it comes to matters such as release dates, publicity, and creature/character design.
All games have glitches, of course, and multiple Pokemon games have been patched and fixed even before doing that online was possible, so the prevalence of online patches for later games doesn't prove anything. However, I still do think that the increased speed of releases points to a shift in attitudes. From DP onward the timeframe between games being announced to games being released has been much shorter on average.
As I alluded to above, it's not just release dates that have quickened: the way new Pokemon are teased has also changed markedly. Previously, a handful of next-generation Pokemon would be slowly rolled out over a protracted period, but that's not the case any more. Imagine having a Pokemon revealed now and not getting it in the games for another 18 months. In fact, ScVi's Teal Mask DLC - revealed in February for a September release - is one of the longest waits there's been for an announced new release that wasn't a generation debut in a long time. Even Platinum, which took two years to arrive after DP, only had a four-month wait from its announcement to its release.
Why has the pattern shifted the way it has? Maybe it's simply a business decision - we know Nintendo and Game Freak obviously want to hit the holiday market, and an early-year announcement leading up to a late-year release hits that pattern well. But that doesn't explain why new Pokemon (and new content in general) don't get the leadup they once did. Maybe it's the perceived "short attention span" mantra we keep hearing about (this one's on my mind today due to the recent passing of Michael Parkinson; listening to the radio and someone said that the reason chat shows aren't as good any more is because people nowadays have poor attention spans, as though podcasts aren't a hugely popular form of entertainment now).
The problem is the amount of projects they're working on at once. To put it in perspective, why was the development of Gen II difficult? Because Game Freak were also preoccupied with the development of Pokemon Stadium and the localisation of the first generation, both of which diverted time and resources away from the new games. The development of RS was also difficult, but that's been put down to very different reasons - and you'll notice that development of Pokemon Colosseum isn't cited as a difficulty during RS's development time. That'd be down to that game being made by a different studio - obviously, the two teams worked together closely as Colosseum is compatible with not just RS but also FRLG.
Game Freak has made some smaller side games alongside the main series, but all of the major spin-off games since Stadium were developed at least partially by other studios (Creatures, Inc developed the PokePark series, Bandai Namco developed Snap, the Ranger series was developed by both HAL and Creatures, Inc, Genius Sonority made PBR, ColoXD, and Trozei, Spike Chunsoft made the Mystery Dungeon series, Niantic made Pokemon Go... I could go on). But Game Freak developed LGPE, L:A, and Pokemon HOME in tandem with SwSh and ScVi.
This has to be a factor in why recent games have been so unpolished. They've been splitting their focus - allegedly, SwSh's development team was younger and less experienced, presumably because more experienced colleagues were taken up with LGPE and L:A. Looking at Gens III, IV, V, and VI, the primary focus was always the main series. But now they're split multiple ways, and I'm finding it hard not to think that that's the reason for the subpar quality of new releases - it doesn't matter how much time you've got, reduce the manpower and the results will be inferior.
Ironically HOME is the one thing that was repeatedly delayed recently (and what a shitshow that was) but that almost proves my point in a way - you can release a full game with some unfinished aspects and just about get away with it, but you really can't release a storage app if it's not capable of doing the one thing it's meant to do - storage.
Anyway, didn't mean for this to turn into an essay but that's what happens when I reflect on the growing crappiness of modern Pokemon I guess!
That regarding the essay regarding that GF is splitting projects when they really shouldn’t have done, but did it anyways, resulting less-fun games, speaks volume of GF’s overly ambitionous and arrogant food-for-thoughts to the point that not even TPC would appreciate any longer one day or another.
I always told myself since months ago that increasing development time alone will not magically solve many of modern Pokémon’s problems. It’ll also take increased manpower, better technology advancement and better focus on mainline games to pull off better results, which GF doesn’t seems willing to do it yet.
Reminder that while most RPGs on GBA had 8 directions for movement and other mechanics, GF rigidly stuck to a hard defined grid 4 direction movement GB style till end of BW2
It wasn't tech limits, I can't even say it was them not being ready. They chose to hyper limit OW movement outside HMs (which for Gen 4 was obnoxious)
Even post XY nothing really changed besides 360 none grid movement till LA. You had Oras soaring, but that had no challenge. Roller skating was ditched immediately despite potentially lending itself to other movement (jumping over NPCs? You know, to skip battles outside)
To be fair, the pokemon battling is the main thing, but ow movement and cutscenes should've evolved alongside. People note the bizarre lack of voice acting for chars that clearly are lip syncing to something, and model/anims we know are done by Creatures, Inc, who have done a better job other games (Pokepark, Unite, even that arcade thing)
And less said of neat features introduced in 3rd game versions being dropped immediately. It's clear GF works in teams that barely communicate with each other cross projects
"Dropping neat features" is often an intentional thing (fairly certain I've read that from interviews) as a way to make different games more distinct and to give you a reason to go back to older games.
I think this philosophy falls flat with how they're pushing people to keep moving on from generation to generation, and how new Pokémon are probably the biggest reason people pick up new games. I'm fine with dropping a side feature here and there, but when quality of life aspects get gutted for the sake of being different I raise an eyebrow.
"Dropping neat features" is often an intentional thing (fairly certain I've read that from interviews) as a way to make different games more distinct and to give you a reason to go back to older games.
I think this philosophy falls flat with how they're pushing people to keep moving on from generation to generation
I feel like I’ve seen a lot of people claim that “incentivizing people to revisit old titles” is a factor, but not once do I recall ever seeing someone from Game Freak state in an interview that it is a conscious choice in their development process. I’m open to being proven wrong, but if I’m not, that’d explain the disparity you see.
I think the only time they’ve cared about getting people to engage with a game that’s older than the most recent prior generation is when they released the GB / GBC titles on the 3DS Virtual Console.
Either way, I believe that the reality behind a lot of features that get dropped is that they were never designed to be lasting concepts. So many ideas that they come up with for third versions or whatever aren’t introduced to make a lasting impact on the series; they’re there to help justify the price tag of the double-dip. Mantine Surf quite clearly wasn’t ever intended to survive past USUM, for instance.
Usually, when a new feature has a meaningful utility purpose, they do try to retain it in some form — now, that’s not to say they haven’t made some flat-out bizarre cuts in the past, but I think generally you can see an effort to retain features that have an impact on the player’s ability to access useful benefits that affect the core of the game. One example that comes to mind is Hidden Abilities. Gen 5 lost access to them with the death of the Dream World, so XY had things like Hordes and the Friend Safari, and then ORAS had the DexNav. SM had SOS Battles. SwSh and SV made raids the main point of access for Hidden Abilities. The implementation changes with every game, but you can tell there’s an effort to keep HAs accessible. I think the problem with this approach is more that they end up constantly trying to reinvent the wheel, so every new implementation is going to come with a new basket of strengths and faults, so you get situations like DexNav being generally prefered over SOS Battles. The fundamental idea of having a specific method of finding wild Pokémon with rarer / better traits didn’t go away, but Gen 7’s execution was so different and clunky that it felt like a downgrade, as opposed to an upgrade or even just a sidegrade.
Gen 5 lost access to them with the death of the Dream World, so XY had things like Hordes and the Friend Safari, and then ORAS had the DexNav. SM had SOS Battles. SwSh and SV made raids the main point of access for Hidden Abilities. The implementation changes with every game, but you can tell there’s an effort to keep HAs accessible. I think the problem with this approach is more that they end up constantly trying to reinvent the wheel, so every new implementation is going to come with a new basket of strengths and faults, so you get situations like DexNav being generally prefered over SOS Battles. The fundamental idea of having a specific method of finding wild Pokémon with rarer / better traits didn’t go away, but Gen 7’s execution was so different and clunky that it felt like a downgrade, as opposed to an upgrade or even just a sidegrade.
...which may be why both gen 8 and 9 used the same approach, pokemon in raids have a certain chance to have HAs, and there's actual items to swap to HAs now.
I do agree with the rest anyway, most of the "abandoned features" were likely just meant to be for that game and were never meant to reappear.
I feel like I’ve seen a lot of people claim that “incentivizing people to revisit old titles” is a factor, but not once do I recall ever seeing someone from Game Freak state in an interview that it is a conscious choice in their development process. I’m open to being proven wrong, but if I’m not, that’d explain the disparity you see.
Also, good luck revisiting old games you don't have but would like to try when old games like, say, Platinum or HGSS, are now out-of-print with copies selling for about a hundred dollars.
Game Devs: refuses to re-release their classic games despite being able to do this
Game Devs: "Why are people pirating our games?"
My brothers in Jesus, you had a bunch of classic games begging to be officially ported in modern devices! This is why people pirate games! Convenience! And also prices, but convenience is the first reason why emulators are so popular!
And speaking of convenience, this is also why people generate competitive Pokémon in VGC. Even if it doesn't take hours of grind and RNG manipulation to create a team of six perfect competitive Pokémon, it also takes time to build your team and make changes. What's this? You just found out this Pokémon would be even better with this one Egg Move and this rare TM and the tournament is tomorrow? Have fun spending one more hour trying to hatch another Egg with the perfect IV spread!
Also, good luck revisiting old games you don't have but would like to try when old games like, say, Platinum or HGSS, are now out-of-print with copies selling for about a hundred dollars.
Game Devs: refuses to re-release their classic games despite being able to do this
Game Devs: "Why are people pirating our games?"
My brothers in Jesus, you had a bunch of classic games begging to be officially ported in modern devices! This is why people pirate games! Convenience! And also prices, but convenience is the first reason why emulators are so popular!
And speaking of convenience, this is also why people generate competitive Pokémon in VGC. Even if it doesn't take hours of grind and RNG manipulation to create a team of six perfect competitive Pokémon, it also takes time to build your team and make changes. What's this? You just found out this Pokémon would be even better with this one Egg Move and this rare TM and the tournament is tomorrow? Have fun spending one more hour trying to hatch another Egg with the perfect IV spread!
Good thing they haven’t invented bottle caps and mints. (yes I know there should be a 0 iv one too, but that only comes into consideration for a relatively small amount of Pokemon).
Good thing they haven’t invented bottle caps and mints. (yes I know there should be a 0 iv one too, but that only comes into consideration for a relatively small amount of Pokemon).
I don't think of every special-only set wanting 0 Atk and every trick room set wanting 0 spe (also activation order for weather/terrain setting?) as a particularly small pool in doubles.
Good thing they haven’t invented bottle caps and mints. (yes I know there should be a 0 iv one too, but that only comes into consideration for a relatively small amount of Pokemon).
While true, there are still reasonable points about the whole genning thing.
Don't get me wrong, I can't care less personally of if a person gens their mons or not (as ultimately, skill and a bit of RNG is what determines if you win or lose a match, not the pokemon's source), but even with how convenient it is to train mons nowadays, it's still time investment. XP Candies and money have to be farmed, so do Bottle caps and expecially Ability Patches.
It doesn't help that in the last Worlds regulation there was the huge controversy about allowing Home transfers, as even if you don't factor in the Legends mons, it was still the first time since the introduction of "current gen limitation" that you actually needed to own previous generation games in order to have access to the entire competitive roster (most importantly, one offs like Urshifu).
Time is indeed a convenience. It's well known large majority of proper VGC players gen their mons, even those who pretend they don't. And the very few who do not... they ask friends to get the mons for them, because connections are a thing and even if the connections obtain them legitimately, you still aren't wasting time breeding / catching / grinding for money instead of actually teambuilding or practicing.
The "fun" part is that due to the above, genning in fact does the opposite of giving a unfair advantage, it leverages the field, because if genning was not possible at all, then people with connections or just willing to pay others would be at an advantage over players who can't afford to spend whatever few hours are needed to sort up teams.
And speaking of convenience, this is also why people generate competitive Pokémon in VGC. Even if it doesn't take hours of grind and RNG manipulation to create a team of six perfect competitive Pokémon, it also takes time to build your team and make changes. What's this? You just found out this Pokémon would be even better with this one Egg Move and this rare TM and the tournament is tomorrow? Have fun spending one more hour trying to hatch another Egg with the perfect IV spread!
This point is a bit exagerated but is not false, and mainly applies to one-of pokemon. The meta was all about Urshifu-Dark and suddently a week before the major tournament they realize that actually Urshifu-Water is the good one? Welp time to restart the game again and catch one then evolve then train it. Gets much worse when factoring in pokemon like Enamorous who actually need different IVs based on which form you want to use (and yes, we're still all waiting for the 0IV caps).
I mean, in my opinion, if you are trying to be a top player in a “competitive” game environment you should be willing and able to put in the time and effort that is required. If you aren’t, and your available time is better spent on something else, that’s a choice you’ve made.
I don't think of every special-only set wanting 0 Atk and every trick room set wanting 0 spe (also activation order for weather/terrain setting?) as a particularly small pool in doubles.
Relatively small. As in, the plethora of Pokemon wanting/needing maximised offensive stats, and every single Pokemon needing maximised defensive stats.
The "fun" part is that due to the above, genning in fact does the opposite of giving a unfair advantage, it leverages the field, because if genning was not possible at all, then people with connections or just willing to pay others would be at an advantage over players who can't afford to spend whatever few hours are needed to sort up teams.
On the contrary, I'd say it does still give an unfair advantage because if someone wanted to compete but was unaware of genning or just simply wanted to follow the given rules, they would still be at a disadvantage for time even if they had a friend getting the team members for them. The person actually getting the team members would still get them slower than just genning them; and if rapid meta developments happen and/or you needed a very hard to get mon, you would be in a worse position because you are slower to react than people who do gen. It doesn't matter if you have someone else getting it, it will still take them a long time to get you the team if it takes a long time to get where by the time they are done it could already be out of meta and you've moved on to something else. If you don't gen, you either have to stick with what you already got, choose a team that may be less efficient but is easier to get, or settle on less time to practice even if it's just time on waiting for your friend to get you whatever obscure mon you need.
On the contrary, I'd say it does still give an unfair advantage because if someone wanted to compete but was unaware of genning or just simply wanted to follow the given rules, they would still be at a disadvantage for time even if they had a friend getting the team members for them.
Let's be fair here, if you're actually competing in VGC in any serious way, you know of genning and you know that everyone else does as well as the million of public bots that gen for you.
Let's not pretend literally anyone in the serious scene is unaware of the situation.
