How would you balance out the Pokemon's screentime?

[L-05308]

In the Best Whishes searies theirs seems to be a bit of a class system for how much the Pokemon appears:

Class 1: Snivy, Oshawott, Tepig-Who appear all the time
Class 2: Pansage, Crustle, Excadrill, Emolga, Scraggy- Who somtimes seem like we see the every week while we somtimes forget who they are
Class 3: Tranquill/Unfezant, Swadloon, Palpitoad, Boldore, Stunfisk (Though lately the derp pokemon could be seen as class two)-Who appear seldom.

Oshawott appeared 8 straight episode from its debut and has missed out on the least episodes with his biggest gap in his appearances being BW039-BW042, the don battle tournement, thats a whole 4 episodes without him in a row!

Tepig has it simaliur, getting 5 straight episode appearences from his debut and his biggest gap being BW035-BW042, 7 episodes in a row without Tepig. BW059-BW064, 6 episodes in another big gap for Tepig.

Snivy's biggest gap is 5 episodes, BW026-BW030 and BW033-BW037, but she dose tend to get large gaps more often, 4, BW062-BW065 and a few 3 episode gaps, BW014-BW016, BW022-BW024 and dosen't tent to appeaer many episodes in a row.

Now Pansage's biggest gap is 6, BW013-BW018, but gets many 3 and 4 gaps as well, more often then not missing out.

Crustle's biggest gaps are BW049-BW055, 7 though its appearance in BW056 was brief, it stopped Dweble getting a huge gap as it got another big gap BW057-BW061, 5. Dwebble's second biggest gap is 6, BW013-BW018. While Dwebble often gets gapps around 3 episodes, it did make 5 straight appearence, a personal record, BW028-BW032.

When Excadrill didn't obey it understandable git big gaps, 10 episodes, BW010-BW019 and then 7, BW026-BW032. After he opened up he still got big gaps, 7, BW035-BW041, and then a wopping 10 again, BW049-BW058.

Emolga got a big gap pretty quickly, 6, BW026-BW031 but it got much worse with a 9 episode gap, BW042-BW050 her biggest gap. She had another 6, not appearing in BW054-BW059. Most of her appearance of one offs as well with her only appearences in a row being BW024-BW025 and BW040-BW041.

Scraggy used to have it good, you could have considered him class 1, but BW021-BW024 came along with no Scraggy for 4 episodes and it only got worse. BW033-BW042 was a 10 episode gap and then he got BW044-BW054, 11 episode gap! He then got a 9 gap, BW057-BW065. Lucky he still gets good focus.

Stunfisk's first gap was BW033-BW035, 3 episodes which was not that bad, he then got BW037-BW040, 4 episodes. Still not to bad. His bigget gap was then BW042-BW058, 16! episodes! with! no! Stunfisk! Shockingly, he has yet to make two consecutive appearences. 16 is a huge gap for a Pokemon that is constly traveling with its trainer and never at junipers.

Tranquill gets them huge as well, while it may have fit into class 2 in the run up to its evplution, it has since had an 11 gap, BW044-BW054 and BW056-BW066, thankfully appearing in BW067 and BW068 these next two weeks.

Swadloon who? Class 2 untill he did not appear in BW039 and kept not appearing till BW056. BW039-BW055, 17 is a huge gap. As you'd expect he ha made no appearence since with BW069 being the next episode he has a chance off appearing in.

Palpitoad got a fairly big gap to start with, BW033-BW038, 55. He then got a 7, BW043-BW049. It went horrible after that as he has made no appearance since his gym batttle in BW050, again with the first chance of popping up again BW069.

Boldore had 3 straight epsodes, BW034-BW036 but then a gap of 11, BW037-BW047 and then another 11 gap, BW049-BW059. Boldore has not appeared since BW063 and I'm sure he'll end up topping his previous gap record of 11.

For Krokorok it is to early to tell, though I bet he'll go into Class 3.

The only thing I can think of to increase the Pokemon's appearances is having them all out for lunch like they did many times in AG and DP, for some reason in BW not all of the gangs pokemon need to eat, with usually only the startes getting a meal.

So I want you to discuss who you'd like to see more off/less off and what you'd do to even out the appearence rate. It's obvious the writers need to sot out that before they can even attempt to better the distribution of Personality and Development.

 

[CommanderPigg]

What's pikachu, then? God-tier?
I'd just get rid of pikachu, dammit.

 

[Jaye]

The simple things would really improve the situation, I feel. For example, as the OP mentioned, having all of the Pokemon out to eat, and having the characters actually train their Pokemon would give those Pokemon something to do other than just appear for the sake of appearing.

I would also include more trainer battles and have the characters use a different Pokemon in almost every battle instead of the same stock choices. Again, this would give a Pokemon screentime for a good reason, and not just for the sake of having screentime. This could also work for random wild Pokemon battles, too. I've no problem with certain Pokemon getting more screentime than others, but mixing things up now and then would be good.

So instead of Pikachu being used and starring in gym battles, use a different Pokemon. Ash could've used Pidove at the Striaton Gym, for example, and maybe could've used Roggenrola for the Nimbasa City gym.

It surely cannot be that difficult to give all the Pokemon adequate screentime. Even if it's just minor, at least that Pokemon is on the screen doing something, which is a lot better than sitting in the Pokeball or in someone's lab.

 

[Karamazov]

I'm all for killing off Oshawott.



Or just having the twerps use a variety of Pokemon to solve problems. The Archen and Audino episodes were great, because it allowed Ash's neglected Pokemon to play an important role in the story.

 

[Peppermint Phoenix]

I would just ditch all the bull episode that aren't about battingly and have Ash fight random trainers every episode

 

[ravenclaw1991]

The simple things would really improve the situation, I feel. For example, as the OP mentioned, having all of the Pokemon out to eat, and having the characters actually train their Pokemon would give those Pokemon something to do other than just appear for the sake of appearing.

I was wondering about this in the last episode actually. When they were eating out before the Bouffalant attacked Ash only had Snivy, Tepig, Oshawott, and Scraggy out of their Poke Balls. That leaves one other Pokemon he had on him at the time that was stuck in their ball while everyone was eating. Then there's Cilan who only had Pansage out. Crustle and Stunfisk were stuck in their balls too. I'm pretty sure even if they are in Poke Balls, they still need to eat.

I would just ditch all the bull episode that aren't about battingly and have Ash fight random trainers every episode

That would get repetitive. I mean, there is already some repetitiveness to the series already, but that would just be too much.

 

[Peppermint Phoenix]

@gryffindor1991

Not if I work it all into a continuous arch and give each of these trainers a different personality. Sort like a monster of week thing but instead of monster a temporary rival

 

[Jaye]

Although there are a lot of so-called "worthless" episodes, there's only so much you could show of a Pokemon's personality in a battle. So a lot of those episodes are important, in that they can be used to put the Pokemon in different situations where they can show off different facets of their personality.

I was wondering about this in the last episode actually. When they were eating out before the Bouffalant attacked Ash only had Snivy, Tepig, Oshawott, and Scraggy out of their Poke Balls. That leaves one other Pokemon he had on him at the time that was stuck in their ball while everyone was eating. Then there's Cilan who only had Pansage out. Crustle and Stunfisk were stuck in their balls too. I'm pretty sure even if they are in Poke Balls, they still need to eat.

It's pretty lazy, really. Throughout AG and DP every single Pokemon on the main casts were outside their PokeBalls during those sorts of scenes, but in BW they are randomly neglecting certain Pokemon.

 

[Peachy]

DP did a very good job of this. When ever they had a chance to have all of the pokemon out of their pokeballs they took it.
But, for granted, in DP Ash didn't have 10 to juggle around.