(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[VividBunnie]

The existence of the PP Max in later games. I am lousy with articulating my thoughts so it may be awkward for me as I try to explain why. It's existence is borderline redundant these days as PP Ups have been getting easier and easier to acquire in large numbers and feels like its the only reason the weaker version hasn't been upgraded to use multiple at once like Rare Candies were. For most content these days, the PP resource management wouldn't be something that comes to mind outside of higher end raids and your its outright refreshed after a fight when doing gauntlets like Wyndon Tournaments in SwSh and Academy Ace Tournament in S/V as well as after every fight in Blueberry Clubroom, but its a different matter if you're preparing a mon for competitive environments. I could say more but my brain is turning into mush and I already feel lousy knowing I have to make three times as many button inputs just to validate the existence of an item that is rarely obtainable depending on the game.

This could have been twice as long, but I didn't want to waste anyone's time with a wall of text. Tldr: PP Maxes are less useful as PP Ups become easier to get and the only reason it exists nowadays is saving button presses. This probably doubles as a silly unpopular take too, but I wanted to say it since I rarely speak out on personal thoughts with this game's design choices.

 

[R_N]

At the very least if they're not going to tweak how PP Ups work they should probably make PP Maxes more readily obtainable, just so there's more reason to use them to save time (and possibly money, depending on the cost). Depending on the game they're downright vestigial and easy to forget exist at all.

 

[pika pal]

Remind me, do Moves retain their boosted PP if forgotten and remembered later (like rotating movesets on a SV Raider)? Making them permanent on PP Max would be a specific but at least convenient QoL difference if they're not going to adjust that for the moves in general.

 

[R_N]

Remind me, do Moves retain their boosted PP if forgotten and remembered later (like rotating movesets on a SV Raider)? Making them permanent on PP Max would be a specific but at least convenient QoL difference if they're not going to adjust that for the moves in general.

It's not retained

 

[AztecCroc]

The existence of the PP Max in later games. I am lousy with articulating my thoughts so it may be awkward for me as I try to explain why. It's existence is borderline redundant these days as PP Ups have been getting easier and easier to acquire in large numbers and feels like its the only reason the weaker version hasn't been upgraded to use multiple at once like Rare Candies were. For most content these days, the PP resource management wouldn't be something that comes to mind outside of higher end raids and your its outright refreshed after a fight when doing gauntlets like Wyndon Tournaments in SwSh and Academy Ace Tournament in S/V as well as after every fight in Blueberry Clubroom, but its a different matter if you're preparing a mon for competitive environments. I could say more but my brain is turning into mush and I already feel lousy knowing I have to make three times as many button inputs just to validate the existence of an item that is rarely obtainable depending on the game.

This could have been twice as long, but I didn't want to waste anyone's time with a wall of text. Tldr: PP Maxes are less useful as PP Ups become easier to get and the only reason it exists nowadays is saving button presses. This probably doubles as a silly unpopular take too, but I wanted to say it since I rarely speak out on personal thoughts with this game's design choices.

I honestly didn't realize PP Maxes still existed in SV for a while, given the only ones available outside random chance are the 3 in Blueberry.

Remind me, do Moves retain their boosted PP if forgotten and remembered later (like rotating movesets on a SV Raider)? Making them permanent on PP Max would be a specific but at least convenient QoL difference if they're not going to adjust that for the moves in general.

No.

 

[CPU]

Rocky Helmet having a stronger effect than Rough Skin/Iron Barbs annoys me. I can't think of any other case where an item is more powerful than an ability with the same effect.

 

[Axiemeister]

Rocky Helmet having a stronger effect than Rough Skin/Iron Barbs annoys me. I can't think of any other case where an item is more powerful than an ability with the same effect.

how did i mandela effect myself into thinking both were equally strong. i am pissed too now

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Been playing a lot of Emerald Battle Frontier, and one thing that has always stuck out to me in several iterations of the Battle Tower is how unceremonious the conclusion of any streak is, win or lose. Throughout the first 6 matches of a streak, they take their time to show you riding the elevator and walking to your room, each opposing trainer gets an entrance and exit animation with a little bit of dialogue, and there's at least a perfunctory pause so that the attendant can heal your party between each battle. But then you lose, get a literally half-second glimpse of the battle room one last time, and a lightning quick hard transition to the front desk ends with a "Thanks for playing!" from the attendant and nothing more. The conclusion of a winning streak is treated with only barely more acknowledgement than a loss

It's like they're trying to unceremoniously dump you out of the building as quickly as possible, like it's designed to just rub a little more salt in the wound of what could have already been an hours-long ordeal blowing up in your face upon the most absurd bad odds that the game is capable of throwing at you.

I'm not sure if I love or hate it.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

It's like they're trying to unceremoniously dump you out of the building as quickly as possible, like it's designed to just rub a little more salt in the wound of what could have already been an hours-long ordeal blowing up in your face upon the most absurd bad odds that the game is capable of throwing at you.

I think I'd feel more aggrieved about spending hours on a Battle Tower streak if they had some kind of time-wasting celebration every time you finished a set of seven.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

I think I'd feel more aggrieved about spending hours on a Battle Tower streak if they had some kind of time-wasting celebration every time you finished a set of seven.

I'm not looking for much. Just a little confetti pop or whatever. Something other than "get out, loser."

Anyway, going back to the Emerald Tower makes me appreciate the BDSP Tower structure a little more, where they split it between Normal and Master ranks so that you don't have to redo a ton of low-level NFE battles whenever you start a new streak in the latter. It's wild that they put the boss battles on Emerald at matches 35 and 70. It's like an hour of filler every time before you get to the meaningful matches.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I'm not looking for much. Just a little confetti pop or whatever. Something other than "get out, loser."

Anyway, going back to the Emerald Tower makes me appreciate the BDSP Tower structure a little more, where they split it between Normal and Master ranks so that you don't have to redo a ton of low-level NFE battles whenever you start a new streak in the latter. It's wild that they put the boss battles on Emerald at matches 35 and 70. It's like an hour of filler every time before you get to the meaningful matches.

One of the best things BW did was having a Super line for each of the Subway modes

 

[Toxtection]

-Moving NPCs that keep getting in your way every time you try to sidestep them (NOT story-based barriers)

-Trying to turn without taking a step on emulator speed-up

-Cave maps that just show the path and layout, but not where the trainers/items are

-Getting a TM, but then realizing that your pokemon only gets the move in later gens and not the game you're playing

-Being unable to run in some buildings

-Nearing the end of a cave, but having to go all the way back and heal, especially in challenge-runs where you can't just die and white-out

-V-Create's 95% accuracy. Unlike other 95-acc moves, this one is especially egregious because when they designed the move, Victini was the only one intended to use it and it can't miss for it thanks to Victory Star, yet they still gave it 95% accuracy resulting in lots of bullshit with custom formats/Rayquaza

-Gamefreak designing signature abilities for new pokemon and then giving them Regenerator, effectively ensuring that those abilities aren't going to be used much if at all

 

[AztecCroc]

Gamefreak designing signature abilities for new pokemon and then giving them Regenerator, effectively ensuring that those abilities aren't going to be used much if at all

Most of the Pokemon that have Regenerator and a signature ability wouldn't have seen use for the signature if they didn't have Regenerator.

• Regerator-less Toxapex with just Merciless (or Limber) wouldn't have seen competitive play, Toxapex has 63 and 53 attacking stats with 35 Speed. No Regenerator (without basically reworking it into a completely different Pokémon) = PU
• Eldegoss was PU even with Regenerator and didn't exactly see play in VGC, especially with Cotton Down since that hits its partner's Speed as well as the opponents'.
• Klawf is similarly bad if not worse, especially since it has no other recovery and is fairly slow which means it couldn't take advantage of Anger Shell if it had to. Also it's just a bad ability honestly, it either shouldn't lower the defenses or it should be a proper Shell Smash and sharply raise the stats it boosts. Shell Smash wouldn't be worth running on most of it's users either if the boosts were only 1 stage.
• Not having Regenerator presumably means that Hydrapple would have still had Gluttony, and with Supersweet Syrup only activating once per battle for no reason, means that it likely would have just run Gluttony and a some berry (probably one of the healing ones, maybe a stat boosting one).

TLDR: They don't just run Regenerator over their signature abilities because it's good, but because the signatures are bad (or at least bad for them).

 

[DrPumpkinz]

It is weird how often signature abilities are paired with specifically Regenerator.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Speaking of which, Signature abilities as HAs.

Signatures are supposed to be part of a mon's identity and gimmick, why should I need to go out of my way for them?

I understand Gale Wings' case tho, especially in XY. Hoo boy, that one was a doozy

 

[Railroader17]

-Gamefreak designing signature abilities for new pokemon and then giving them Regenerator, effectively ensuring that those abilities aren't going to be used much if at all

Regigigas would like a word with you, a very slow word.

Like seriously Gamefreak went out of their way to make sure he had Slow Start in LEGENDS ARCEUS, THE GAME WITHOUT ABILITIES.

They seriously fucking hate this Pokemon, and he'd actually love Regenerator not just because it would mean being free from Slow Start, but from actually having the bulk to use Regenerator!

 

[Axiemeister]

slow start is a patently terrible ability even considering like... the lore? sure he's dormant and needs to be awakened but that's before he can fight. why does he need to awaken every single time he comes out of a pokéball? the bad ability gimmick made sense for slaking as a common pokémon you find in the wild, but regigigas being so crap is stupid

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

slow start is a patently terrible ability even considering like... the lore? sure he's dormant and needs to be awakened but that's before he can fight. why does he need to awaken every single time he comes out of a pokéball? the bad ability gimmick made sense for slaking as a common pokémon you find in the wild, but regigigas being so crap is stupid

It's been far too long, Sheer Force should've been made Gigas's HA already.

But hey, now Varoom can have it too

 

[Hugin]

It's been far too long, Sheer Force should've been made Gigas's HA already.

But hey, now Varoom can have it too

Honestly, it'd be fun if Slow Start/Defeatist/Truant/Stall were made the HAs of Regigigas/Slaking/Archeops(mix and match as desired). Give a bit of variety/thought to using those mons, let us work around their drawbacks.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Speaking of which, Signature abilities as HAs.

Signatures are supposed to be part of a mon's identity and gimmick, why should I need to go out of my way for them?

I understand Gale Wings' case tho, especially in XY. Hoo boy, that one was a doozy

What's annoying is the way this actively discourages using certain Pokemon in some cases. I remember part of my rationale for getting Y was that Skrelp and Dragalge were exclusive and I wanted to use one on my team. But when I saw that Skrelp can't get Adaptability (which isn't a signature ability for it, but whatever) in Y I decided not to bother. It was only once ORAS came out and HA Skrelp became available that I bothered with breeding one. Same thing happened with a lot of Unova Pokemon since I couldn't access the Dream World or the GTS when I first played BW. I was like "well, don't want to use these without their good abilities, guess I'll just wait."

slow start is a patently terrible ability even considering like... the lore? sure he's dormant and needs to be awakened but that's before he can fight. why does he need to awaken every single time he comes out of a pokéball? the bad ability gimmick made sense for slaking as a common pokémon you find in the wild, but regigigas being so crap is stupid

Mmmyeah this kind of does feel like the sort of thing that a second form could fix. Well not a fix but... I kind of dig the lore of "Regigigas has been asleep for so long it's just permanently tired now, it always needs to charge up" and it's funny that Sinnoh has a crap legendary AND a crap mythical but surely at some point we could see an Original Regigigas form. A Primal Reversion Regigigas if you will, one that has its whole power ready from the get-go. I guess L:A would have been the game for this except 1.) no abilities in that game 2.) it wasn't nearly far back in time enough, we're talking literal prehistoric Sinnoh/Hisui

Honestly, it'd be fun if Slow Start/Defeatist/Truant/Stall were made the HAs of Regigigas/Slaking/Archeops(mix and match as desired). Give a bit of variety/thought to using those mons, let us work around their drawbacks.

I've always said this!! Slow Start Slaking, why the hell not

 

[Axiemeister]

Mmmyeah this kind of does feel like the sort of thing that a second form could fix. Well not a fix but... I kind of dig the lore of "Regigigas has been asleep for so long it's just permanently tired now, it always needs to charge up" and it's funny that Sinnoh has a crap legendary AND a crap mythical but surely at some point we could see an Original Regigigas form. A Primal Reversion Regigigas if you will, one that has its whole power ready from the get-go.

because why does regigigas, a legendary, get stuck with a lame strictly negative ability, but palafin, some random concept, gets to have a second uber-like form locked behind a frsnkly laughable condition? make slow start unlock a second regigigas form (more easily than fice consecutive turns out...) and make the original one like 480 bst and the full functioning one 680+

 

[R_N]

"hey wouldn't it be funny if this lumbering giant had to get going to have workable stats" "yeah!"
then they don't ever change it because they don't care enough about Regigigas. It's the funny legendary Pokemon with a funny gimmick.

[years pass]

"hey what if we had a super man dolphin that got super busted on switch out" "yeah!!!!"
then they just go ham with it because they think it's a fun idea. Maybe it will get a slight tweak the next time it shows up if they felt they overtuned it, or maybe they just leave it alone because super man dolphin is funny

 

[AztecCroc]

It is weird how often signature abilities are paired with specifically Regenerator.

I mean all of those Pokemon have 3 abilities, Eldegoss actually has Regenerator as one of its main abilities.

"hey wouldn't it be funny if this lumbering giant had to get going to have workable stats" "yeah!"
then they don't ever change it because they don't care enough about Regigigas. It's the funny legendary Pokemon with a funny gimmick.

[years pass]

"hey what if we had a super man dolphin that got super busted on switch out" "yeah!!!!"
then they just go ham with it because they think it's a fun idea. Maybe it will get a slight tweak the next time it shows up if they felt they overtuned it, or maybe they just leave it alone because super man dolphin is funny

Given Palafin had zero impact on VGC after the first couple months? It'll probably get left alone.

 

[pika pal]

It says something that Regigigas would legitimately more viable if its ability just gave it the Sleep Status at the start of a battle. At least then it'd have some status protection for a while.

Hell Platinum's approach of Regigigas being Level 1 for the catch was a better gag than the ability.

"hey wouldn't it be funny if this lumbering giant had to get going to have workable stats" "yeah!"
then they don't ever change it because they don't care enough about Regigigas. It's the funny legendary Pokemon with a funny gimmick.

Regigigas is legitimately a joke that no one besides Gamefreak finds funny anymore. I swear every single game or media that includes Gigas either ignores or glosses over Slow Start as a concept unless GF themselves made it.

They clearly didn't just stop caring about Regigigas considering it keeps coming back in multiple GF projects (BW2, the weirdly specific ORAS appearance, Gen 8 with the new Regis, and LA where they gave it Slow Start without abilities), so Slow Start has to be something they think is worth hanging onto despite it making a Legendary they want to give an imposing air a complete joke.

 

[DrrT]

I always wonder why it's so important to them to have Regigigas keep the ability even in LA. It isn't like it would have broken the experience without it. I know part of its design literally calls back to it being dormant for so long (it literally has moss covering it) but if it's really a joke it really isn't that funny anymore -and I say that as someone who usually likes the puns in the series a lot, Dudunsparce best cross-gen evo.

Back in ORAS I was hoping for a Primal version that would change the ability. If they did it now, it could be interesting to have some kind of Regidrago and Regieleki callback under the moss. Still, I just wonder why they go trough so much trouble to keep Slow Start for so many years. They must think it's a very important part of its identity for some reason but while I get the idea on Slaking, it just seems uneccesary on a legendary.