What DP needs to bring me back to the series.

[Misty]

(Copied from a topic I made on GameFAQs.)

Good Pokemon early in the game.

Odd? Let me explain.

Back in the RBY days, I had a great deal of fun training up new teams. I'd select a team of 3-4 Pokemon that I'd run through the game to the Elite 4, slap on a legendary bird, then go at it. Then I'd reset and try again with a new team (I had both Red and Blue; Blue was used for this purpose while Red had my completed 'dex). This provided days of entertainment for a game that really had very little replay value in its own right.

Then came GSC. That's when things fell apart. See, most of the good early stuff? IT WAS RBY POKEMON! So what if I could trade in some asskicker via the time machine? Chances are I could catch it anyway. The fun stuff like Sneasel and Houndoom and Ursaring and Tyranitar? Nope, you didn't get those until near the end of the game.

RS had a different problem - sure, the early stuff was new, but it often sucked too much to be really worthwhile without time-consuming breeding or wasting valuable TMs.

This is where Pokemon should get its replay value, for me at least - the opportunity to try new teams with a massive layer of customization. But too often since RBY, that customization has required significant work on the player's part, and that saps the fun of it.

That's why I'm not entirely thrilled with DP at the moment - too much emphasis on the old, the marketable - I want the stuff that's actually going to jump out at me during my Pokemon journey and make me think "I sure want to use one of those!".

 

[pkmn Trainer Zach]

I know what you mean. Almost all of the Pokémon in RBY could be used in their fully evolved formes. Even Arbok and Raticate were good. In GSC, we had Pokémon like Hoothoot, Sentret, Spinarak, and Ledyba. None of them were terribly good once they evolved, and Pokémon like Raticate and Pidgeot started to suck. However, with RSE, these Pokémon have re-gained their usefulness somewhat, such as Ledian and Ariados, with abilities like Swarm with a Leichi Berry. RSE also has some of the most usless Pokémon ever, IMO. Mightyena, Pelliper, Swalot, Roselia (I do like Roselia, though), Volbeat, Illumise, Beautifly, Dustox...it goes on and on. They may not be useless (except for Mightyena and Pelliper, also Crawdaunt, maybe Masquerain), but there are like fifty different Pokémon that do the stuff they do one-hundred times better. I loved Gardevior because you could get it early. You can also get Slaking early, too. There's also Breloom, Shiftry, Ludicolo, etc.
Point being, I guess, give us awsome Pokémon from the beginning, so we don't have to end up waiting for a *OMG SALAMENCE AND METAGROSS AND TYRANITAR!!!* at the very end of the game so we have to throw our team out and start over.

 

[Jukain]

I do not agree with this opinion, except that there are few G/S/C pokes that I like, and thus why I have not produced a stable team for it. I liked the pokes for all generations, but that is merely because I do not pay attention to how powerful a pokemon is. If the programmers only aim to please the competitive pokemon players, then they will lose all of us that only want to play for fun. I don't know what the percentage is of those that play competitively and those that play for fun, but no matter what it is, it would not be fair to everyone. I have indeed seen that the programmers are now beginning to focus more towards keeping even the competitive people busy. (Battle Frontier, anyone?) I'm sorry, but I think this kind of measure, depending on how you look at it, would either make the game far too easy (Overpowered early pokes), or too hard for people of all ages to play (Pokemon mainly geared towards a strategic advantage) Either in excess would be a bad move, so they meet us halfway.

Furthermore, I am fed up with people making demands on what they think pokemon should be. It is impossible to tell who is a fan anymore and who is not.

 

[Misty]

So wait, my only requests are that DP's Pokemon A) be new and B) be halfway decent (i.e., not Nosepass-esque bad), and that's unreasonable... Yeah.

 

[Jukain]

Perhaps I misunderstood your interpretation of decent. It may have been targeted more at Zach than you. To me, the pokes of Ru/Sa/E were interesting. I don't play around with different kinds of teams as you do, so I don't really know how that feels. It seems that the fact that some pokemon are more useful than others is unavoidable, though. Then again, useful is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[Misty]

I like what I like in a Pokemon, but as a logical person and a competitive battler it's hard to escape the fact that some Pokemon have crappy stats and aren't really worth using in a battling context. If I took something like a Masquerain against the Elite 4, doubtless it'd get slaughtered without really doing anything. Same with GS stuff like Ledian. I'm not going to use something like that; as a result my options become more limited. GSC and RSE limited these options too greatly for my liking.

 

[bell02+]

I don't know, I post super long epic post about what I want to see in Diamond and Pearl, but it all boils down to 3 main points, I guess:

1) I'm hoping Pokemon becomes more realistic in the sense of how the TV show is. Where the battle feild is significant and can effect battles, and like how there is a battle at the end of pokemon contest that is judged by looks, and finally the side quests with such like a pokemon races and such. Also with more animations, even if recycled.

2) For Pokemon to be more indivual with the personalities and relationships with the trainer. Not making it extactly like a pet sim, but with slight more similarities to help with stats like feeding (before starting long quest) and grooming (for contests).

3) Finally a chance where there is no real "weak/worthless" pokemon where you can do a lot of training to improve stats that make it weak. I think it'd be especially great for online. (I was thinking stuff like this could be done with things outside of only battles, but through different kinds of minigames in the form of "training")

I guess I should say the main stuff I still want.. large worlds, nice graphics (though my definition of nice can be misleading), and more monsters, attacks, & dept.

 

[Another Fan]

^No. Please.

Weak, not weak, it is just stuff that make pokemon more diverse. Thank god for that. They aren't all designed for competitive battling. If they were we wouldn't get a pre-evolution of the pokemon of the pokemon with the worst stats. Or things like Ditto. Or Unown.

I loved GSC mostly cause I had to work to find pokemon. I did have any access at the time so if my pokemon evolved it was truly a surprise. I had to catch and train everything to know what pokemon existed. And I had to work to get to the new pokemon. And that was awesome for me.

Nosepass rocks. It a a very, very interesting and clever pokemon. Very. We need more of those. And just because competitive battling is already rather screwed up for me. Every pokemon with toxic, teams having to consist of counters to practically unbeatable pokemon, I don't get how you guys like it.

 

[ShadyWolf]

So wait, my only requests are that DP's Pokemon A) be new and B) be halfway decent (i.e., not Nosepass-esque bad), and that's unreasonable... Yeah.

Something tells me you'll be very disappointed come time for DP's release. Pokemon are becoming more and more varied than just pure-competitive battling. Nosepass is an example of this, as it doesn't have the best stats, but maintains one's interest as a challenging Pokemon to train with and has some nice bits of versatility in Thunderbolt and the eventual Ice Punch, etc. Obviously, beauty (or in this case, use as a Pokemon at all) is in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I hope to see more Nosepass-esque Pokemon, as they add flavor to the game...a generally more varied gaming experience. The game wouldn't be as fun if every Pokemon was Alakazam, Jolteon, Tyranitar or Metagross, there'd never be a true underdog.

RSE also has some of the most usless Pokémon ever, IMO. Mightyena, Pelliper, Swalot, Roselia (I do like Roselia, though), Volbeat, Illumise, Beautifly, Dustox...it goes on and on. They may not be useless (except for Mightyena and Pelliper, also Crawdaunt, maybe Masquerain), but there are like fifty different Pokémon that do the stuff they do one-hundred times better.

Mightyena, Pelipper and Crawdaunt...useless? Mightyena's great with Intimidate, and has a nice, healthy base 90 Attack score. Thanks to STAB, even Crunch can do its thing. Pelipper has a base 100 Defense, and a base 85 Special Attack...and considering it's not particularly bad outside of its Attack score, Pelipper is hardly useless in a competitive environment. Crawdaunt...I guess you pick on it for its HP, Special Defense and Speed...as it sure doesn't lack in the other three stats. Crawdaunt's a powerful sweeper given the chance, and anyone who says a base 90 Special Attack and base 120 Attack are rubbish needs a refresher course in Pokemon statistics. Yeah...Mightyena's not the best Dark-type, nor is Crawdaunt. Crawdaunt isn't the best Water-type, and neither is Pelipper. Your basic Starmie, Tyranitar or additionally overused Pokemon outclasses these Pokemon, but it's foolish to call them useless. They're only considered useless because some are solely concerned with competitive battling and using the top 5 percentile, which is most certainly a misstep.

 

[bell02+]

^No. Please.

Weak, not weak, it is just stuff that make pokemon more diverse. Thank god for that. They aren't all designed for competitive battling. If they were we wouldn't get a pre-evolution of the pokemon of the pokemon with the worst stats. Or things like Ditto. Or Unown.

I loved GSC mostly cause I had to work to find pokemon. I did have any access at the time so if my pokemon evolved it was truly a surprise. I had to catch and train everything to know what pokemon existed. And I had to work to get to the new pokemon. And that was awesome for me.

Nosepass rocks. It a a very, very interesting and clever pokemon. Very. We need more of those. And just because competitive battling is already rather screwed up for me. Every pokemon with toxic, teams having to consist of counters to practically unbeatable pokemon, I don't get how you guys like it.

I'm pretty sure you misunderstood what I meant. This is basically to come out people choosing uber pokemon to the point in which they have to be banned in battles.

I'm not implying it is easy, what I was saying is that you can raise a pokemon like Magikarp to level 100 and it'll be the same as in the other games, pretty weak, however doing other minigames to the point in which most won't be dedicated makes it strong enough for level 100 competitions. I'm not saying it is something that is simple, it should be as difficult as finding shinny pokemon or any other extra added to the game to increase the desire to play after you beat it.

It's more about wrapping everything together, about fairness and extending games, it also can open up strategies beyond limiting one or two ultimate move sets per monster and it's about immitating the TV show. The TV show implies this all the time, especially in contest battles, some pokemon should be able to be really strong in certain areas other than direct stats making them a power house at the end of mastering it (after all the hard work).

 

[Another Fan]

I am not an anime watcher. But I can see the fact that it would be nice if pokemon had a chance to be better. However, that would change what they are. And make it basically a different pokemon with the same sprite but can't argue that it would be bad if a pokemon with bad stats could be made decent.

Still, I do not think all pokemon are designed for battling in mind. Like marill had the worst stats in GSC. What do they do? Make azurill. See it is cute and fun and interesting but no luck in battle. It makes sense, it is a fat ball with no arms. Still, that doesn't mean it is bad to me and I do not want it to be different.

 

[Fig]

What DP needs is less useless pokémon. And yeah, Nosepass was pretty much useless.

Note that a "useful" pokémon doesn't mean it has to be good in competitive battling, far from it - only that there's a point to actually having one of those besides "filling up thep ookédex".

Take Zigzagoon in RSE - not a particularly good battler in its own right, but that ability to randomly pick up items once in a while made it a welcome addition to my team while actually playing the game (it also had, IIRC, a pretty decent array of teachable HMs). The sames goes for pre-evo : pre-evos that allow for new moves to be learned are cool, pre-evo that exists only to fill the pokédex...less so.

So how could they have made Nosepass, for example, more useful? I don't know? Isn't it said that they have a magnetic nose? THey could have pulled some kind of compass-like ability out of that that may have been of use in the game to, say, point in the direction of the nearest item ball (even hidden ones). Note how they brought in relicanth in the Regi quest - that's a way to give a pokémon a use besides "filling up the pokédex" that has nothing to do with battling.

Food for thought. (The game DOES need a fair amount of battle-worthy pokémon, tho)

 

[Jukain]

Nosepass's claim to fame is that it's the only Rock pokemon that naturally learns a powerful Electric move, namely Zap Cannon. To you, it may not have the Sp. Atk to use it, but it's all I can find. It has the #4 highest Def and Sp. Def of all other Rock pokes, and that's the closest to anything it has in all of its stats.

Magikarp evolves to Gyarados, Feebas evolves to Milotic, Luvdisc is the best source of Heart Scales, Dunsparce has a diverse movepool, but probably not the stats to use it, but it also has Run Away and Serene Grace and is within the top 10 of Normal's highest HPs, but it ties with Noctowl in its place. Those are the main "useless" pokemon I normally hear about. There may be more, but I can't think of them right now.

 

[Fig]

Karp is an example of a "useless" pokémon done right (in RBY ; the beating Gyarados took when they changed SP to SP AT/DEF really diminished Karp's value). Sure, on its own it does nothing, but there IS a good reason to capture a karp other than the pokédex : it's how you get Gyarados (unless you want to wait until you get the high-end fishing rods).

Useless pokémon done wrong are those pokémnon that don't have the stats to be serious contenders for fighting spots, yet don't have any use in the game other than fighting.

Nosepass is one. Even with what it has (whooo...an electric move with 50% accuracy!), it just isn't a contender for a fighting spot. Others include nearly all the early GSC pokémon (in GSC) - Sentret line, Ledyba line, Spinarak line, Hoot-Hoot line, Yanma, the list goes on...

Comparatively, the only pokémon in RBY that I would qualify as useless would be the bugs, and even then only the Paras and Beedrill line (Butterfree was useless in the long haul, but useful enough in the early game due to its various status effecter combined with being just about the first pokémon available with the then-broken psy attacks, and Venomoth was actually vaguely trainable). And even Paras found a niche in GSC, when False Swipe was added to the game, breedable on the Paras-ect line, complimenting their Spore attack to make a useful pokémon catching tool.

 

[Jukain]

Then the only further explanation I can provide is that people catch pokemon not for battling or contests or whatnot, but simply because they like them, or to complete the dex. They may use other pokemon for battling, but they simply must have the pokemon they adore just to have it. There is no pokemon in all of creation that doesn't have its fans.

 

[Another Fan]

True, I like that as well. Adds variety.

However, that does not mean they are not useless to the person in question. I can see how you may want to have more useful pokemon but I truly do not. This means conflicting opinions but there is no problem.

I think that pokemon doesn't need to be changed it is fine so far. Some new things beside pokemon would be nice. A breath of fresh air.

 

[ShadyWolf]

What DP needs is less useless pokémon. And yeah, Nosepass was pretty much useless.

Note that a "useful" pokémon doesn't mean it has to be good in competitive battling, far from it - only that there's a point to actually having one of those besides "filling up thep ookédex".

Reasons any Pokemon can be useful:

1- Someone may like it, and Pokemon is primarily about using what you like, not what can be used for the most consecutive wins or is simply the best at battle. The likes of Smogon wish to turn it around, but whatever.

2- Contests. The contests involving the Tough, Cool, Smart and etc stats allow you to use any Pokemon you want with approximately the same success, as far as I know. What's to make Nosepass or Feebas unsuccessful in such a scenario? (Note...I've little experience with contests, and thus you can discount this point if I'm mistaken...aside from the fact someone may prefer the added challenge of using a Pokemon at a disadvantage.

3- Merely beating the game is a challenge. Ever try beating the game with a team of say, all unevolved Pokemon such as Torchic, Abra, Wooper and Makuhita? It's not easy. Even near the lv.100 mark, there's no guarantee of victory. Heck, even doing it with the likes of Spinda is a challenge. It's of a higher difficulty, and becomes all the more satisfying when you achieve something.

The above are very good reasons to consider a Pokemon useful, in my view.

And heck, if you're talking only on the level of competitive battling and not the whole game itself, even Nosepass has some competitive value. After all, it CAN effectively drop a Skarmory, Forretress, etc...

 

[evkl]

1 and 3 are so wrong, it's ridiculous.

1: The point of the game is to battle. That's what you do. The reason it isn't stated as such is because the market can't afford to hear "DO BATTLE" from a game targeted at young kids, or there'll be a huge societal backlash. Nonetheless, that's what you do the entire game. Competitive battling is playing against someone with some modium of talent--something the computer AI cannot have in PKMN.

3: The game is not a challenge. Period. The AI is awful; the opposing trainers, a joke.

As for contests, that's not what the game is truly about, just like breeding isn't what the game is truly about. The game is about battling.

 

[Jukain]

Pokemon may be about battling, and I considered that in my last post with they could use other pokemon for battling and just catch their favorite pokemon for the fun of it. However, some people can take a pokemon that could otherwise be found useless into a force to be reckoned with. The game may be about battling, but some people get far more from it than that. There may be people that only do the contests, I don't know. As for breeding, without it, the competitive people would not have a leg to stand on in a lot of cases. I apologize if I offended anyone with that. To make the games just so that it appeals to a certain group of people would be a huge mistake. They would lose a lot of money from the people they ignored in the process. Some people may tell me that they've done that anyway, but I don't think so. I can understand why you feel that pokemon need to be "more useful", but what's good for you may not be good for me. You're even entitled to think I'm completely and utterly wrong, but I will stand by everything I say here.

 

[bell02+]

Well.. that's me kind of. Usually I clear the game with some unevolved pokemon because I want to.

I also know that all of the there is only a limit to how strong you can make them. That's why I hope there can be a way to make them strong enough for human competitions. It doesn't matter how difficult they make it, though I think the method still should be somewhat fun; I think the difficult could be a defining seperation with trainer dedication.

Plus on the flip side I think it would be very intresting to fight opponites that are difficult to beat besides being supposedly weak or not having the strongest type moves.