After watching Journeys I speculate that the Masters 8 and Ash retiring were put in mind when deciding Leon's ace.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
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I didn't say necessary, I said not unnecessary. They were fun games and also fixed some of the issues with the previous games and *should* have let GF develop the next games more (yeah idk what happened with sw/sh)
I mentioned this in another post, I am convinced giving Leon a Charizard to be beaten by Pikachu for the big win was SOMEBODY holding a grudge for Kanto's League (for reference, Ritchie's Pikachu from the infamous Charizard match-up is nicknamed "Leon" in the Japanese version)
Apologies for Double-Posting but it's been a day without a new one made and this doesn't fit with my last reply to edit in.
Koraidon running instead of "biking" is charming and a better animation than actually having him use Wheels. Cyclizar, the "present" counterpart to the Bikes, even moves the same way. Koraidon is also very Dinosaur-esque, and for all the Flintstones comparisons, the Feet-Powered Car thing was still just done with vehicles, rather than Koraidon clearly being a creature mount that would more accurately compare to the Appliances or "machinery" in that show's setting.
Also might just be me but Koraidon's running works better for a visual sense of momentum. Something about Miraidon's speed and how the wheels are animated make it feel slower than it actually is.
Koraidon running instead of "biking" is charming and a better animation than actually having him use Wheels. Cyclizar, the "present" counterpart to the Bikes, even moves the same way. Koraidon is also very Dinosaur-esque, and for all the Flintstones comparisons, the Feet-Powered Car thing was still just done with vehicles, rather than Koraidon clearly being a creature mount that would more accurately compare to the Appliances or "machinery" in that show's setting.
Also might just be me but Koraidon's running works better for a visual sense of momentum. Something about Miraidon's speed and how the wheels are animated make it feel slower than it actually is.
The idea of Koraidon’s throat and tail becoming actual spinning wheels (and thus needing to somehow detach from its body while remaining fixed to an axle) always felt really off-putting to me. I know we’re talking about a big feathery magic dinosaur and that realism has already left the building, but I can’t help that it’s always been a pet peeve of mine, a mild gripe that I have whenever they make a Pokémon with organic wheels or corkscrews. I don’t mind it for inorganic creatures like Rolycoly, Klink, or indeed, Miraidon, but the fully rotational parts of, say, Starmie, Skiploom, Buizel, and Barraskewda just feel sort of wrong whenever I think about how that’s supposed to fit into their anatomy. So I’m really glad that Koraidon and Cyclizar avoided that.
Because I only saw it with a white background for a while, I got the impression from the art that Cyclizar's tire was not connected all the way along and was just a tube. I naturally accepted this as it being closer to a non-motorized bicycle which are much more skeletonized in the center. Now I'm slightly dissapointed whenever I look at the white air sac because it's a clear reminder of Cyclizar not being as cool and weird as I thought it was.
I mean the speed IS slow
Starmie, at the very least, is probably based off of some Ultraman space(?) monster, so while Staryu and Starmie are nominally starfish, they're supposed to not really be totally normal earth creatures either.
The problem with the 2017-2019 Pokémon games varies depending on which game you want to blame for the issue. Most of us can agree that it wasn't a good idea for Game Freak to have Sun & Moon in 2016 followed up by yearly releases for three more years. The actual question as I see it is which game started the issue.
Up until Generation 7, Nintendo, TPCi, and Game Freak had always taken one year off during each active generation to work on the first games of the next one, since it naturally takes more time to make a new region from scratch. The years we saw this in were 1997, 2001, 2005 (since 2003 had no games and 2004 had two games), 2007, 2011, and 2015. With this in mind, one of three things could have happened to keep this pattern going:
- Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon either don't exist, or if they do released in 2018
- Either Let's Go Pikachu & Let's Go Eevee gets delayed to 2019 (if USUM got delayed), or Sword & Shield gets delayed to 2020
- Same as #2, but both delays happen and Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon gets to stay as a 2017 release
Generation 8's lineup didn't completely fix the issue, as we still had Sword & Shield's DLC in 2020 and two Pokémon games release in 2022. I can excuse BDSP because it was made by a different company/team, but if the DLC release dates for Galar and most likely Paldea is taken into account, the years of release for Game Freak specifically suddenly goes from this:
2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 (if the DLC was its own game), 2022, 2022
To this:
2016, 2017, 2018, 2020 (if a delay happened and still added DLC content), 2022, 2023
Castersvarog
formerly Maronmario
Not helping matters with the Gigantimax vs Dynamax thing is that often there’s just no reason to use the Gigantimax versions of a Mon because the Dynamax moves are just way to strong and their just super rare unless you buy dlc. Compare Centiferno, Wildfire and Fireball to setting up the Sun for free, Chi strike to an attack boost, etc.
Wildfire was extremely powerful in doubles. Easily worth using over regular Dynamax Charizard.
On the other hand, you have stuff like G-Max Grimmsnarl having a 50% chance to inflict drowsy that was counteracted by Grimmsnarl's own Fairy moves. Similar situation with G-Max Drewnaw not being able to set up rain with its Water moves and not wanting to use its Rock moves to replace any preexisting rain with sandstorm. Compare this to G-Max Coalossal and Lapras being able to set up weather and a beneficial effect without interfering themselves.
I went to the list on Bulbapedia and it's definitely a mixed bag. There's actual good options (Kanto starters, Lapras, Urshifu-Single), good moves on bad mons(Pikachu, Butterfree), options that would be good but are straight-up worse than the standard move(Machamp, Galar starters, Urshifu-Rapid), weak options(Centiscorch, Orbeetle), and options that are just bad for the way DMax works(Melmetal, Grimmsnarl).
The imbalance of the DMax moves definitely hurts. It's tough to like any max move that replaces one of the "+1 stat" or "set up weather/terrain" moves. And DMax being broken doesn't help, either, because it makes a bunch of effects either useless because you kill stuff to fast or useless because your oppt has also gotten bigger and is immune.
Like, I respect the difficulty GF had balancing this stuff, but they definitely made it as hard as possible to come up with good balance when they designed the DMax mechanic.
The imbalance of the DMax moves definitely hurts. It's tough to like any max move that replaces one of the "+1 stat" or "set up weather/terrain" moves. And DMax being broken doesn't help, either, because it makes a bunch of effects either useless because you kill stuff to fast or useless because your oppt has also gotten bigger and is immune.
Like, I respect the difficulty GF had balancing this stuff, but they definitely made it as hard as possible to come up with good balance when they designed the DMax mechanic.
That reminds me of that G-Max Steelsurge hazard is not coming back in SV as a standalone move.
... I think it better that way. otherwise Ice types are in shambles.
... I think it better that way. otherwise Ice types are in shambles.
See, here's the thing, we got G-Max steelsurge at home and its brother instead
Ice types will be in shambles either ways.
Also allow me a correction regarding the Dmax things.
The Galarian Starters G-max moves were actually useful in VGC. Ability negation was pretty important to get around things like Disguise or the various Multiscale clones from the restricted legendaries, and since Rillaboom set its own terrain anyway, losing the ability to set it on G-max attacks wasn't a huge deal. It also helped that G-max starter moves had fixed power so you'd not get punished for the otherwise low BP of Grassy Glide.
G-Max Cinderace had similar success in singles iirc for same reason (ability negating is very strong), though it didn't see much usage in doubles since glass cannon with no utility doesn't really do much, and well, rip Intelleon.
It's not even really "at home" since these are the existing Hazards, rather than Steel Surge's Steel-type version of Stealth Rock, which would bury Ice and Rock while doing a number on Fairies (except Clefable because Magic Guard is a fair ability)
Well yes, but the man was talking of ice types so...
(Besides, Stone Axe / Ceaseless Edge are going to potentially change a bit of how Hazards anyway are played since they allow to set Hazards in face of Magic Bounce and Taunt users, expecially as Kleavor and Samurott-H are somewhat decent mons on their own right)
My thoughts on the USUM matter is that I feel people wouldn't have been as bitter/soured towards it if it had released a year later than it did.
I feel people were mainly bitter towards it because it came out a mere year after SM did and despite being an overall better game in my eyes (albeit with a story that was worse in some parts) the fact that it stole the spotlight from SM as the main Alola game just one year later probably soured a number of people on it because of that alone.
Older third version games like Emerald and Platinum came out 2-3 years after their base games did which gave the base games more time in the spotlight to shine before their enhanced, better versions came and effectively outclassed them.
The problem is alleviated in subsequent generations with SwSh getting an Expansion Pass that added onto the original game instead of being a new game that was effectively the same as the original but better, thus allowing SwSh itself to remain relevant in the market for longer as a result because DLC in that regard is more consumer friendly and doesn't fully obsolete the base game. We can safely assume SV is getting DLC this year two, and in both of these cases the DLC came out just one year after the base game, and it being DLC as opposed to a third version game justifies the one-year gap.
I feel people were mainly bitter towards it because it came out a mere year after SM did and despite being an overall better game in my eyes (albeit with a story that was worse in some parts) the fact that it stole the spotlight from SM as the main Alola game just one year later probably soured a number of people on it because of that alone.
Older third version games like Emerald and Platinum came out 2-3 years after their base games did which gave the base games more time in the spotlight to shine before their enhanced, better versions came and effectively outclassed them.
The problem is alleviated in subsequent generations with SwSh getting an Expansion Pass that added onto the original game instead of being a new game that was effectively the same as the original but better, thus allowing SwSh itself to remain relevant in the market for longer as a result because DLC in that regard is more consumer friendly and doesn't fully obsolete the base game. We can safely assume SV is getting DLC this year two, and in both of these cases the DLC came out just one year after the base game, and it being DLC as opposed to a third version game justifies the one-year gap.
Also, there's people young enough to not understand that updated re-release was the norm back in the day. Last time we had updated re-release was Platinum; a decade minus one year before USUM. B2W2 was a more-effort sequel rather than straight updated re-release. XY has allegedly canned Z version.
Also USUM is a dual version game instead of consolidated game unlike past updated re-release. Again B2W2 take precedent but its a debate whether it counted as updated re-releases or the only sequel game in the series. It sounds like pretty scummy to split content once again.
Plus as in 2017; DLC is the norm and Pokemon was frowned upon for the re-release tactic. I understand the situation however with 3DS's aging hardware is not possible for expansion pack. But again, young people has no understanding that it was hardly possible in the past to patch whole new content and updating and re-releasing was how it was done.
These really are just the antithesis of fun.
So next we have a Mighty Mark Pikachu (Tera Water), how hard could that be right?
Start of battle, puts up a barrier for its ENTIRE HP. Then, for most of the early part of the battle, keeps on stealing our Tera Orbs energy to prevent us from Terastallizing which is pretty much the ONLY way you're doing any significant damage against it.
Well, only way of doing significant damage IF your Pokemon is Super Effective against it (STAB required without stat boosting). If you don't, ha, good luck figuring out a way not to be deadweight!
Now I was using an Arboliva, the one I used throughout my main playthrough. Not a bad choice, just in one area. Arboliva is part Normal. This means a normal Wild Arboliva has a coin flip of having a Tera Type of the useful Grass-type... or Normal. GUESS which one I had. Yup, Normal Tera, which means despite the Arboliva which I actually do have a connection to, more than the Azumarill and Toxicroak I used to catch the other Mighty Marks, it proved to be less useful because it didn't have the right Tera Type. All I could do was Cheer and use Light Screen, any other turn I might as well not have been there.
Got Spare Change For Tera Types?
Wait, I thought, maybe I could change it's Tera Type, let me see how many Grass Tera Crystals I have, I've done plenty of Tera Battles so maybe I have enough... 16. BOY, GOOD THING THEY MADE CHANGING TERA TYPES BE 50 CRYSTALS! And remember, I'm not changing its Tera Type to a Type which it isn't, I'm trying to change its Type which it had a 50% chance of being! Nope, doesn't matter, 50 Tera Crystals or get out.
And even if I wanted to "grind" for Tera Crystals, I can't. I only have a few Grass-type Tera Raids, and once you clear out your Tera Raids you need to wait the next day for more to appear. But even if they did respawn it would take me hours of clearing the map multiple times before I had enough, that is if I don't get a Tera Raid which completely stumps me (which at that point I have to go online and get a group, boy good think EVERYONE has access to the internet at a moment's notice, right?). But it doesn't work that way, I'd have to grind who know how many days before I get to FIFTY shards.
This problem never came up when playtesting? Wanting to change a Tera Type to help with a Raid? Seems like a common issue that would pop-up. At the very least may want to consider having an NPC who'll trade Tera Crystals with you so that all those atm useless crystals could be swapped for ones you need!
MM Pikachu?
And, while I'm complaining about MM Tera Raids, how about I complain about them picking Pikachu. Really? After having Charizard, Cinderace, and Greninja, your next choice is Pikachu? "Well its for Pokemon Day". That's not an excuse, at least for having a normal Pikachu. Could have been a Shiny Pikachu. A Cap Pikachu. No, it's just a plain old Pikachu. ~OoOoOoh~, it has a "mIgHtY mArK", it's SOOOOO speica... no, it's not special at all. "I have a Mighty Mark Pokemon"! "Cool, what does having a Mighty Mark do for it"? "Absolutely F***ING NOTTHING"! "Then, why is it special"? "I don't know, GF hasn't figured that part out yet"!
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Almost all mainline Pokémon games are good to great, no game “ruined” the series, and even some of the more safe entries can be fun in their own right
Premise: I don't think the 7 star raids are "perfect", however I do disagree that they are designed poorly.
I also 100% agree there should be some easier way to access Tera shards, but I'm also quite confident this will come with DLCs eventually, kinda like Gmax shrooms and Ability Patches eventually came in SwSh, since the progressive introduction of QoL seems to be one of the key features of the DLC format.
I think your problem is your approach to them. You said you wanted to use your Arboliva but had wrong Tera type and thus changing it would be a chore.
I had same problem, incidentally... and so I just went, caught a few random Smoliv until I got one with Grass tera type, and just leveled it to 100 with the plethora of XP candies I stacked up by now, then bottle capped it up. Didn't even bother EVing it. I don't see any reason to "change" my competitively trained Arboliva for the raids, I rather have dedicated mons for them (I do have a Vaporeon and Qwilfish specifically geared and evd for previous raids for example).
I do like the design behind these raids: I consider them puzzles (I am still somewhat sure this was official words, but I can't find the source anymore, so consider it my thought instead), where you're required to find the solution to. In this case, the solution was "somewhat bulky grass type OR ground water absorber which can either setup and live long enough to Terastal, or provide support for someone else to do that".
I like the fact these raids force you to think out of the box on how to beat them, compared to "ha ha supereffective go brrrr" that is basically the gameplan for everything in pokemon games, and they even encourage support moveset that can single handedly carry a team (Clodsire and Gastrodon support sets with Mud-Slap for this raid can do absolute miracles and if Tera Grass can even carry them, as well as support Arboliva and Toedscruel with screens and Sun).
There is one major flaw in the raids though, which isnt just 7 stars, but honestly all of them, just way more evident in 7 stars: the fact you get punished for other people's mistakes.
I get that they want people to cooperate for them, and find solutions toghether, nothing wrong with it, but considering the insane amount of "super casuals" that play them, as well as well actual kids, I think they need a different option than "every death punishes the entire group".
As shown in other games (expecially World of Warcraft mythic+ system recently, but not limited to it), any environment in which the entire group gets punished for the failure of a single person leads to toxic environments where a "meta" is created and people who play outside the meta are often isolated.
We've all seen during latest raids how most raid creators will drop the lobby as soon as a suspect mon is locked in, or people drop off as soon as someone locks in a non-widely aknowledged viable pokemon. Heck I've been doing it myself and I hate it because I can't be arsed wasting 5-6 mins in the already somewhat buggy raid interface knowing that we aren't going to win cause the genius who locked Miraidon will both just die and buff Pikachu with lightning rod.
I would really hope that GF changes their design on this kind of challenges by changing the way death penalties work, in order to just punish the player and not the team. Tera raids would be *massively* less frustrating if instead of a global timer reduction, a player's death would just cumulatively increase their respawn timer, that way the single person who locks a terrible pokemon will be punished either ways by increasing death timer, but the rest of the team isn't. NPCs deaths don't punish you based on same concept (you have no control on what they do or what they bring), so I don't see why other players' deaths should.
I already play enough League of Legends for my daily toxicity dose, I'd rather not have the very same kind of mechanics in my children game thank you.
I've seen speculation that Pikachu is a safe lead-up event but that something is planned for/after Pokemon Day because of Pikachu's abrupt ending clock time on the 27th. For brand synergy they also might not want to split attention too hard between a Mightiest Raid and Pokemon Go Tour (since they want Go to integrate with the main game audience per the Home Integration and attempts at melding its mechanics/QoL). I don't necessarily expect something absurd like Mewtwo, but I'd also believe we're pending something like a "Lance's Dragonite" Unrivaled raid or something, doubly so if SV has any news beyond Home Integration incoming
Well I wasn't talking about a competitively trained Pokemon, I was just talking about the Arboliva I used during my main gameplay.
I understand and somewhat like the "puzzle" aspect to these Raids. You can't just send in any Pokemon, you gotta send in a Pokemon you did some preparation with. Fine. In the last MM Raids none of my main game Pokemon were good choices so I did the training work to get a Pokemon I could use in the Raid. No problem with that. However, this was a MM Raid where I thought "hey, the Arboliva I used for most of the game could have a turn to shine"! As I said, it wasn't a competitive Arboliva so I easily could change some of its Moves, an item I thought would help, and used Candy to Level it up to 100. However, because it was Tera Type Normal instead of Grass, this golden chance to have a Pokemon I have a personal preference for went from headlining to meagerly supporting on the sidelines while I watched other Tera Grass Arboliva and Lurantis claim the glory. All because they made it stupidly hard to change Tera Types, I would have gladly changed Tera Types, but there was no possible way of me doing it. Could I have trained up another Arboliva with Tera Grass? Sure, but I wanted to use the one I had throughout the main game and was in the Hall of Fame. I had done everything right... I was just unlucky that I had the wrong Tera Type.
And that's where to me a puzzle turns from "good/decent" to "bad". Because my Pokemon was missing one key trait, it no longer was viable (at least as an upfront attacker). BULLS***!
I still stand behind the stance the main issue is with how to take down the Barrier. Max Raids did the Barrier fine. It essentially acted the same way, but instead of making it so you needed to remove a chunk (or in MM Pikachu's case the entirety) of the health bar to remove the Barrier, it was just a certain number of hits. And you didn't need to use the gimmick of the game to get rid of a piece, every single hit took off at least one from the barrier's bar. That way, EVERYONE was still able to contribute even if they weren't the one who D/G-maxed or didn't even have a Type advantage. But with Tera Raids? Either use a Super Effective Tera Type (or do some setup hax) or do nothing.
I do share the odd frustration that of all the things the game gives you the capacity to alter, Tera Types are so prohibitively limited in resources compared to everything else. I get it's part of the appeal to catching the Raid Bosses or certain wild mons, but in those cases the type is also part of the challenge of the content being fought so it serves a purpose even if you'd immediately change it.