Greener Grassy Terrain: A More Balanced Future For VGC?
VGC. Is it an esport? Maybe not. Yet. But it’s still our game. And while we’re not all the way there to playing a fully-fledged esport, it’s interesting to think about how we could get there. We know competitive Pokémon’s not a perfect game, so how could it be better?
Obviously, since I fell short of Worlds this year for a variety of reasons (several game-related), I haven’t had many Pokémon-related things to do. I’ve been away in Japan, looking into game design and wistfully yearning for a future title in a metagame that isn’t so inherently luck-influenced. So, as they say over there, the Devil makes work for idle hands, and I’ve been thinking of ways in which future generations of Pokémon could become a more enjoyable and diverse competitive game. Where even Houndour itself could be useable. How, you ask, could something so utterly revolutionary and groundbreaking ever happen, in this very video game? The first place to start… is the game itself!
Game Freak have made a huge effort in improving VGC in the last couple of Generations, and it shows. The Battle Box, online battling and rankings, the balance tweaks in Gen VI, it’s all excellent. But there’s still quite a few places that could use some shaking up if we want to see the competitive game grow bigger. So here’s a few creases to think about!
Your Type Chart is Venomous Poison
My relationship with the type chart has always been tumultuous, if passionate. If I’m Heidi Klum, the type chart is Seel. Basically, the only difference is it’s unbalanced, as opposed to having a weird face. The Pokémon, that is. It all boils down to some types being better than others. For example, the Water-type: it’s only weak to Grass and Electric, and only resisted by itself, Dragon, and Grass. Which is a problem, since every fully-evolved Water-type can learn an Ice move. This means that Water-types don’t really interact well with the metagame and are rather dry, a problem ironically only worsened by Rain. There are dozens of Pokémon of less common types that are basically tournament-unusable because they’re 100% flattened by well-played Rain. Rain and other monotype-heavy, polarised teams are very matchup-influenced and in my opinion, are the single worst thing about the game in its current state. And it didn’t take losing cut at Nats to getting re-paired (Thanks, dopey Hydreigon-owning oaf who knows who he is) to an unwinnable mono-Rock matchup for me to tell you that. Stuff like Rain, where if you don’t have a counter to it, you lose on team preview (but if you do have one, you win). Rain is boring, it’s stifling and it’s holding the game back. Rain just needs to go. It’s worse than Jim Davidson.
So how could we easily make Rain less of a problem? My best suggestion is: the Poison-type! A type so bad I forget it’s a type; instead I think of the time user Rebel sang the Alice Cooper song at a dog so horribly it bit him in the face. Poison is so bad, there isn’t a single primary Poison-type Pokémon in the top 50, despite its positive matchup with the new Fairy-types. It’s bad because Poison-types have both bad stats and hardly any resistances. Essentially, Poison is bad. However, as well as actually thematically making sense, were Poison to resist and be super-effective on Water, suddenly Drapion, Weezing, Tentacruel, Dragalge, and Scolipede all become totally viable teambuilding options and the game becomes more interactive for the player.
Similarly, you have the Bug-type and Ice-type, pure (or Vanilla) Ice-type in particular being dangled by its metaphorical ankles and forced to sign over its life savings for the funding of Death Row Records. Bug- and Ice-type Pokémon are flat-out inferior and should never be making it into anyone’s serious teams. Typical example: it’s all well and good having Mega Heracross, with its amazing stats and powerful STAB moves, but when it simply cannot win against a huge amount of popular choices (namely Talonflame and Sylveon), it might as well not exist. Mostly though, it’s the weakness to Hyper Voice spam that makes Heracross such a bad choice. Which takes me onto the next subject!
Every Man Needs a Tool
Being the type of person I am, I take great care with the items I equip, both for myself and my Pokémon. For myself, that means dressing like David Blunkett stuffed into Macklemore’s washbin. For my Pokémon, that means using the most effective items possible. Effective items, in Generation VI, are sadly lacking in number. As the kind of lover who’s actually pleased at receiving a small Swarovski crystal owl on an anniversary, you can imagine how upset I was at X/Y’s removal of type-based Gems, which comprised 9 of the 12 items on my two Worlds teams. I was so addicted to gems that I managed to take Psychic Gem Beheeyem to the World quarter finals and still have no regrets. Gems were, essentially, my entire strategy, and back in the day, my teams chewed through those carats like a less-charismatic, gold-digging Bugs Bunny. So when they were gone, I had only one option: to whinge at the lack of variety in items and demand that Game Freak add more.
I am, of course, only half joking; I’m just that kind of guy. That said, currently the best items are the Sitrus Berry, Lum Berry, Life Orb, and Choice Scarf, with the resist Berries, Leftovers, Rocky Helmet, and Focus Sash being useable and the Mental Herb, Safety Goggles, and power-boosting Choice items okay for niche uses. You’re not going to see any serious players using anything not on that list. So, how about we change that? Here are some cool ideas!
- Bring back the Gems! They’re already in the game (at reduced 1.3x power), so why not? I’d still use them. Plus doing so relights the fire of Incinerate, making it hotter than a young Jason Orange and otherwise a worthwhile moveslot.
- We’re all sick of Hyper Voice, and the Safety Goggles already exist to give an Overcoat-like effect, so why not have a Headphones item that gives the holder Soundproof? Fixes Scrafty’s crippling weakness to Sylveon while still giving Sylveon the option to win with Moonblast, and gives infinitely more switch-ins to the dreadful syringomyelic death scream that is Pixillate Hyper Voice.
- How about an Eviolite that instead gives 1.5x Attack and Special Defense? High-risk, high-reward, lets more people play with their favourites. A Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 that, if viewed, does not induce involuntary seppuku by the nearest sharp object.
- And power up the Binding Band from 1/6 partial trap damage to 1/3. Then Infestation Bug-types, Cradily and Goodra instantly become a viable strategy, instead of a stupid idea used only by Weevil Underwood in real life.
Those are only a few suggestions, but they’re worth thinking about!
Everything in its Right Place
Obviously, it would be a big ask to expect Game Freak to make every single Pokémon and move into a worthwhile choice for competitive play. They’ve evidently had a go at it in Generation VI, with a lot of the lamer Pokémon receiving minor stat boosts or interesting new moves like the Terrains and Electrify. What they failed to account for, however, is that it all still gets steamrolled by the poorly-balanced Mega Kangaskhan, Sylveon, Talonflame, and Rain, so again all these options might as well not exist. You can argue that not every Pokémon needs to be viable, but I’ll always counter that there’s no harm in making more of them more useful to those that do play competitively.
So, it’s baby steps, I suppose. In the future, with the game growing as well as it has done, I’m sure Game Freak will move away from introducing broody kangaroos that can, literally, potentially one-hit KO approximately 99% of Pokémon in the game, through Focus Sash and Sturdy, with no setup, two rolls of the RNG, whilst having one weakness and with no used stats below base 100. Now, that is Dappy-in-a-petrol-station stupid. Let’s hope for a slower-paced and more interactive game based more around tactics and reaction, instead of this whole charade of having these uninteractive one-dimensional threats like Rain and Sylveon that have to be dealt with proactively and through a limited selection of Pokémon. With just a few little changes, we could very quickly have a healthier competitive game. Take a look at these ideas:
- Fix Prankster, the most irritating ability in the game! Easily done by adding base power to Swagger and by removing Full Paralysis. I lost in top cut at UK Nats by getting 5/6 turns fully paralysed by some dude who did practically nothing but spam Prankster Thunder Wave and specs Hyper Voice. That isn’t how you play to win a tournament and I’d say simply don’t be that guy, but I’d rather the game didn’t give that kind of play the chance of working in the first place.
- Remove Rock Slide’s flinch rate. A common request, and why? How did I go out of the top cut of the Major? Choice Scarf Rock Slide flinches 5/6 times. Happens to loads of people, shouldn’t be possible in the first place.
- Reduce the power of Parental Bond. I think this kind of goes without saying: I will reiterate that every single Pokémon in the game that can OHKO Kangaskhan can also be OHKOed by Kangaskhan. The destructive rage of a single mother off the rails has escaped from backstage on Jeremy Kyle. Now, it’s after you, on your Nintendo 3DS. But in Pokémon, there is no Graham in aftercare. Only the bitter draught of defeat.
Showdown at the OK Computer
Now, these are all just small balancing changes, which are relatively inconsequential and not enough for Pokémon to explode as an e-sport. So what do I think would be the single healthiest thing for the game? A separate game mode for competitive battling. Basically, an officially-implemented Showdown. Make your Pokémon in-game, choose everything about them, battle with them. No need to worry about time commitments or Pokémon availability, and no need for hack checks or anything else at all. Just pure and simple competitive Pokémon. Don’t like it? Stick to the main game and play like you have done before. Do like it? Then wouldn’t that be wonderful?
Greener Grassy Terrain, Indeed
Anyway, those are a few of my thoughts on how to re-tune the game we love into something more sporting. Who knows, maybe some of this stuff might actually happen? Interesting, right?
Something a lot of people don’t pick up on with competitive Pokémon is, a lot of the winning comes down to building the most effective team that beats everything. Not a team that has a strategy as such: a team that beats as much as possible. That generally means finding the most overpowered combinations, and exploiting them to the max. How to win more games? Learn how to identify what’s good, and how to build with it. How better to do that than think about what is strong and how you could beat it? Even though it might seem like it’ll never happen, it’s always useful to challenge yourself by analysing the game and its balance. If you’ve never tried it before, give it a go!
So, I hope you’ve had an enjoyable read! Maybe have a think yourself on what really is unbalanced about the game, and how you’d change it. It’s a really good topic, so I’d like to hear what you think!
About the Author
Zog A veteran tournament player, Daniel "Zog" Nolan is proud of his no-nonsense attitude and silly sense of humour. When he's actually doing work, Zog likes to hide toy snakes in the wilderness (and other decidedly more lab-based activities) in the name of scientific progress. Follow on Instagram at dan_z_nolan and Twitter @Zoggykins!
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Liked the article and agreed with what you wanted to say , i would like to see more creativity as most of teams cant do anything about gravitating towards to strong unoriginal choices. I hope that more grassy terrain will happen , but unfortunetely i dont much think so that game freak will do that
I am so happy I read this that I am making a comment. This article is not only beautifully written, but also it makes a multitude of valid and reasonable points. I agree with all of it. I am certainly not saying the current meta is broken, but obviously there are many areas which can still be improved for the competitive player. Game Freak has made great strides in this respect as of late. Let’s see what they can create next!
I’m going to chime in on the “Official Showdown” part of this. Yes, it solves a problem, especially for newer players (like me). However, it also completely robs the game of one of its critical characteristics: the breeding a raising of your pokemon. Instead of giving people a means to bypass that for the sake of competitiveness, I think that we should rework things to make it more attractive.
You see, right now, IV’s and EV’s can ONLY be positive, and, as such, it incentivizes breeding “perfect” pokemon. What if, instead, IV’s operated a bit more like natures: the net IV’s of a pokemon are always zero, so any positives are offset by negatives. It doesn’t have to be restricted to a pair of stats, though, it could be like:
HP: 31
AT: 31
Def: -16
SpA: -15
SpD: 0
SpE: -31
This would let people make either very average, balanced pokemon, or something that is specialized but weak in certain areas.
I will admit, though, that I would prefer it if pokemon’s stats were entirely random. The concept of breeding a perfect killing machine instead of training it and working with it’s strengths and weaknesses feels mechanical, which is kind of the opposite of what Pokémon is supposed to be about. Instead of everyone having the same team with the exact same stats and moves, everything would be organically different. Yes, you could brute force breed a “perfect” Pokemon, but it would be so difficult and uncontrollable that most would just give up. Instead, lets have pokemon that have certain genetic tendancies: something like “Most Alakazams are SpA, but it’s still possible to catch/Breed one that has high Att”. This way, as people played the game, they could build teams around the pokemon that they catch, because they found an amazing Beedrill or Furrett, or just really like Poliwhirl. To a further extent, let breeding only influence the outcome of the child; if you breed a neutral Alakazam with one that is higher in SpA, you’re likely to get one focused on SpA but not guaranteed. This would, of course, piss off most tournament competitors because they hate randomness, but it’s what I think. It encompasses the spirit of the game and encourages people to bond with their digital pets and play with what they enjoy instead of what is best.
/rantoff
The way I’d get around IV’s is making them manipulable; that’s something you could even work into the plot of the main game if need be. You’d still need enough IV’s to get the spread you want but, say you had an intended special sweeper with 31/25/29/5/27/31. You could take that unused Attack and move it to SpA, maybe moving the leftovers to generate a nice Hidden Power. As said It’d make Hidden Power far more attainable along with stuff like Trick Room room teams, or just breeding in general, without removing the ‘game’ elements of Pokemon.
Very, very insightful article and a fun read. While I agree with a lot of what you wrote, simply stating what I agree with would be boring. So here’s where your wrong: (I’m only kidding, fellow Radiohead admirer)
For one, I’ve never found rain to the be that difficult to deal with. On none of my teams have I ever asked myself: “BUT CAN I BEAT RAIN?” because, I dunno, it’s just not too threatening to me and I think there are common solutions. For example, on my current team, my Guts Conkeldurr makes for a great lead against rain, and I only put him on the team to have more fire power on Kangaskhan + Heatran. Another problem with rain is that the two most common electric types are Zapdos and Thundy, which are weak to Rain Team’s double Ice Beam. This is why Raikou needs to see more usage, as Assault Vested, Snarl Raikou can really mess up Rain while being a beast altogether.
Second, while I somewhat agree with your sentiment about items, you’re missing a couple.
Assault Vest? Weakness Policy? Maranga? Kee? AMULET COIN????
(Seriously though, what if one of your pokemon holds Amulet Coin and you win Worlds – would your scholarship money double? It could become viable)
That really, really sucks. I empathize. BUT that it is the game you signed up for. When you decided to keep playing Pokemon seriously and go for winning seasons, you accepted the rules of this incredibly luck-based game. It’s trash that the darkness of RNG had to show itself in your UK Nats top cut match, but it happens.
You said the best teams are the ones that can beat the most things. If you believe Swagger and Full Para to be THAT effective and prevalent, where is your Taunt user?
Again, amazing article and thanks for the read. If I came off too harshly in my critique it’s only because you’re writing displays a maturity and I assume you can handle criticism and engage in a real discussion.
I would like to echo what Cappa said. I think a “competitive” mode would be good, as it eliminates a barrier to entry, but I feel that Pokemon would lose a lot of what it’s going for in the process.
I do think some compromise can be reached, though. If, say, there was an online aspect that functioned similarly to the Battle Factory. You’d get to rent EV trained Pokemon and use them against other trainers in an online ladder. The rented Pokemon would be for this mode and this mode alone, so it wouldn’t affect actual competitive play (people would still need to breed and train their teams for live tournaments). There would, however, be a way to practice with Pokemon and team setups without having to go outside the game or having to actually breed the Pokemon beforehand.
Just an idea.
I agree with most things in the article, though. I’m a fan of hax. I think the luck factor of Pokemon is important. But, I do agree that Thunder Wave and Swagger are a bit much in conjunction with each other and Prankster. Reducing the chance of confusion each turn is a change I’ve seen mentioned and one I could stand behind. Making swagger into a hitting attack also seems like a good move.
I’m also all for increased viability, in both the form of buffed typings and more useable items. I’ve always been a fan of large variety, though I can understand the point of view that too much variety makes a competitive seen “chaotic.”
Chaos might be good.
Honestly, I disagree with what you said about rain. Rain doesn’t need to go, as it is a viable playstyle and it isn’t broken, it’s just another thing you have to prepare for. If you don’t, then yeah, you’re going to lose, that can be said about many things, like Zard Y. If you don’t have a way to deal with him, you will lose. You also mention poison being super effective on water to nerf rain, but poison is already SE to Ludicolo. But I do agree, it being SE to water would make it a much more viable type. However, I think it might nerf rain a little too much, to the point where it’s unviable. Then again, I suppose there’s Mega Swampert. Also I have to agree with what badIntent said about the type chart
I also disagree with what you said about Ice types not being used on a serious team. People have had good success with things like Mega Abomasnow and to a lesser extent, Mamoswine. However, it’s clear that Ice types to need a buff. They could make it super effective to like fairy.
Everything else though, I got top say I agree with.
Don’t get me wrong, if you build a proper rain team, it is insanely difficult to deal with.
I mean with rain you only have to bring Politoed+ a swift swimmer. You can choose to run Ludicolo, or Mega Swampert, or to a lesser extent, Kingdra and then build your team around countering things that typically beat rain, like how some rain teams carry Talonflame to deal with Grass types + Conkeldurr, but I honestly don’t see the issue with rain. I don’t think making rain unplayable is a good solution at all. Infact, I think it was already nerfed enough with perma weather being gone(Thank god). Rain is something you need to prepare for, but that doesn’t make it broken.
I agree with nearly everything said here, and I thank you for taking the time to write this article. Your articles are always very insightful and entertaining.
I think the most important step is actually getting these changes implemented. By posting on Nugget Bridge, I doubt any of the higher-ups at GameFreak will read this and make a difference. I have heard that they occasionally come on here, but to truly make a difference and get these changes across, the community as a whole needs to find a way to make their voice heard to the ones at GameFreak who can actually implement these changes. I think posting this for community discussion and to get some ideas brewing is a great decision, but the next step is to make sure that the ones who can actually do something hear this.
Amen. I’m not even new, but I burned myself out around a week ago and downloaded League. Haven’t played it yet, but I still intend to, and all I need is a nice quiet weekend to start.
And amen to this, too. I really feel like I spend more time on Showdown or the Battle Resort bike route than actually playing.
Something about this just… bothers me. Maybe I’m reading elitism into it that isn’t there. I do know that I think this game is very much not about easy wins- there’s no fun or growth in that. At the last PC I went to I lost four out of six games (you walk on thin ice with Gengar/Whimsicott), and those two wins were against a brand-new player and a Mega Camerupt team that matched up horribly with mine (he also lead expecting my Rain mode rather than Aegislash).
I very much agree with this. Granted, my old teams from the ’14 meta don’t cross my mind much, but I take pride in whatever team I currently have in use and feel fairly attached to the Pokemon in it.
On the other hand, I’ve been pouring a lot of blood, sweat in tears into Showdown testing recently (too much, in fact), and I’ve gotten a bit attached to the particular Milotic and Arcanine I’ve been using. Or, at least, I think of them as the same ones even though different team drafts = different instances.
To solve the “competitive mode issue” don’t make it built in to the game. Make it such that you get the pokemon you need during registration and you return them when you are done competing. That will keep the core of its game for the casuals and solve the issues for the competitors.
If I’m understanding you correctly, you get your Pokémon when registering for an event. Of this is the case then how will we practice on Battle Spot? If the answer is to breed/SR Pokémon ingame then the whole registration thing is pointless because you have all of your Pokémon already. Tell me if I misunderstood.
The luck based aspect should be removed all together IMO. What kind of strategy game allows a player who has been outplayed by his opponent to win on a single luck based event such as a critical hit? What a joke. Especially when you can only lose one game to be guaranteed top cut.
You seem to have understood my point correctly. However, you are forgetting a couple of things:
1. You can practice on showdown. It is better currently and does not force you to breed. There are many other advantages and disadvantages that I won’t get into now.
2. This is a compromise. Obviously both sides don’t get what they want. The casuals don’t like the “showdown mode” but the competitors don’t like the current system. My proposal was meant to balance out the concerns of both sides and find something that will be better than what we have to deal with now.
I am sure you will agree that practicing on showdown is far less of a hassle as breeding hidden powers or soft resetting for legendaries. Having a pokemon generator in game is ridiculously insensitive to 90% of the audience but if we just do it in events (where it actually matters) we can solve most of the issues.
On a side note this will stop hacking DQs and not put players without both games/a reliable trade partner at a disadvantage.
Which is fine for casual play, but a competitive game shouldn’t have random factors that affect players unequally before the match even begins.
And your last sentence pretty much describes how getting perfect Pokémon used to be. They’ve been continuously making it easier because everyone hated it, it created an unnecessary barrier to entry, and it encouraged hacking.
Well first of all, good article! And some ideas that popped into my head when reading some comments here. The competetive mode for easier and faster battle ready pokemon is a good idea, dont get me wrong, but also a more simply suggestion would be to add berries that lower or add iv’s, just like the reducing berries for ev. That would make breeding a lot easier and still keep the philosophy of pokemon in mind imo
And i also like to see some nervs in abilities listed above
I like the IV berry idea. Releasing, wonder-trading, or just box dumping dozens or hundreds or breedjects has always seemed very counter intuitive to the theme of the games. I would love the ability to retrain/build a playthrough team into competitive viability post elite 4.
IV’s are really GameFreak’s last holdout in visibility for Pokemon breeding/catching/encountering. How do you visualize potential in a way that new players won’t confuse with training? Gen 6 has taken great strides to demo the way the sausage is made.
Instead of making an official alternative to Showdown, GF could just buy Showdown. Honor all that work its creators have put into it and integrate that brilliant statistical engine into the Global Link. Like they did with Ingress.
I think the Pokemon-GL has so much untapped potential for competitive play, and having an expanded event capture that allows a player to run analysis on their teams would be sweet. That would eliminate a lot of time spent manually measuring kill counts, success ratios etc.
Here’s how I’d like to see it implemented.
On the Global Link web site, they have a teambuilder similar to Showdown’s. You can then download the team data to your cartridge, and when you do a multiplayer/Battle Maison (or whatever the next gen version is called) battle, you get three options: Party, Battle Box, or Global Link. You wouldn’t be able to access the team outside of those situations, which should keep the casual players happy.
Such a great read and I’d love to see stuff like this implemented into the game. I think Nintendo and therefore Game Freak as companies don’t think to highly of competitive games. Take Smash for an example. Melee has a huge competitive scene based on stuff that was, in some ways, accidentally in the game that the fans took with and ran. Follow that up with Brawl where it was all taken out and slowed right down, proof that Nintendo was almost trying to kill competitive Smash. Do you ever see huge tourneys for Brawl? Nope, because it sucks (and Melee is the best). I think that once Nintendo embraces that we love Pokemon for both the stories but also for the competitive scene, Pokemon can become something that you can sit down and play for 20+ as a casual and enjoy yourself, but also become an fully fledged E-Sport. 😀
*Huge round of applause* Well said Zog.
I feel that gen 6 has had a huge power gap. Gems patched it up a lot in gen 5, but the power gap meant that the most powerful megas remain flexible and highly destructive, but the mid tier pokemon need things like CB and stuff like that to be strong enough to match them, yet need limitations, like HP loss/move lock. The gems gave them a 1x CB boost, which gave way to some very interesting things they could do. Now, it is all about taking the big hits, and hoping for the KO in return.
The interesting thing about all of this is that Pokemon was never meant to be a competitive game. It has had an unbalanced type chart, luck-based moves, etc since the very beginning. TPCi has definitely seen how competitive play has grown and is working hard to help it grow. However, the next step is to change alter game mechanics to make the game more fun and remove many luck based events, or at least intentionally luck based events (cough cough, swagger).
After watching the Worlds finals and many traumatic experiences many of us have had, full paralysis needs to go. Reducing Pokemon’s speed to almost noting is incredibly powerful and when you consider the full paralysis it can be too game changing. Reduce Rock Slide’s flinch chance to 10% and maybe buff its power to 80 so it becomes more of an actual offensive move not something you just throw out and hope for the best. Also buffing Stone Edge’s accuracy so there is a better reason to use it over Rock slide would be great. Swagger and confusion needs to be reformed also but honestly I have no idea what they would do besides remove it. Also pls nerf Kang. It’s really disgusting seeing well-built, slightly inconventional teams go deep in tournaments but still lose to Kang/Lando/Thundy anyways.
This is actually a great idea. It allows simple easy teambuilding while keeping activity on the console where the graphics make sense.
Although catching and breeding Pokemon has a lot of charm and is what the series is based on, it definitely creates an entry barrier for people who don’t have time or patience. All competitive games involve some form of leveling up in-game and unlocking stuff and I don’t think Pokemon should be any different. However it needs to be toned down a lot if the game is to grow more. I feel like simply removing IVs would be very beneficial since that is where the majority of time spent goes to. Or changing the range of them from 0-31 to 0-7. This would basically reduce the chances of getting a 5IV legendary from 1 in 4000 to 1 in 250. Either would be a welcome feature in the next generation.
No mention on Aeriliate? Salamence’s Double Edge is as strong as LO Rayquaza’s Dragon Ascent, but Sala has Intimidate and better defenses. Honestly if Kang and Gardevoir are nerfed, Salamence will just take their place.
Imo the meta is way too limited, with all those 600 BST mons with great movepool/abilities, rain teams, Perish Trap, Smeargle, Tailwind, Pixiliate, Aegislash, Amoonguss. It’s almost impossible to “work around” those things (unlike gen 4 where the biggest threat was… Azelf).
Thundurus and the general power creep shuts down every set up attempt. Explosion nerf and steel losing its resistances means Metagross isn’t popular, which allows Landorus to reign nearly free. Strong spread moves such as Hyper Voice and sun-boosted Heat Waves makes gameplay dumb as hell. Bisharp and Aegislash starts the “guessing pressure” right on team preview. When you try to deal with all those team archetypes and “threats”, you end with CHALK. So fun.
As for Thunder Wave and Swagger, the problem is on Thundurus alone. Those moves on other pokemon aren’t broken. I’d rather see Thundurus nerfed (remove its Prankster or whatever).
Imo GF needs to be bold and just remove problematic things from the game, and not trying to fix a problem with another problem. Had they just removed Outrage and Draco Meteor, fairy type would never be a thing, bug types would still be good, fighting types would still be popular, psychic types would still have their uses to counter said popular fighting types, and so on. Since gen 4 pokemon feels like an unorganized, convoluted stack of failed balancing attempts.
I have 2 things to say about these ideas
1-typechart- personally, I only think that we need another ghost resistant typing, say fairy, good pixies driving away evil spirits. However, if this happens another super effect on fairy is in order.
2-ingame showdown- I really dislike this idea. I infact enjoy breeding and training mons to win me competitions. What needs to happen is that IVs should be removed and you can choose which HP you want. Instead of the hidden power guy telling you the hidden power, he would give you the list of types and you pick one from there. Whether you want Fire, Ice, Ground or even Poison, it is right there at your fingertips.
I disagree with removing IVs completely. They produce a great variation between fast-mode and Trick Room Pokemon, and that difference needs to stay distinct for a lot of Pokemon to remain usable.
I could see IVs being dropped down to 0-3 (giving 5 for each IV could work, so 3 would give +15 at Level 100) so there are 4 distinct IVs for each stat (as there are really only 4 people use, which are 0, 1, 30, and 31).
0 = Low Even (+0 at Level 50 / +0 at Level 100)
1 = Low Odd (+ 2.5 at Level 50 / +5 at Level 100)
2 = High Even (+5 at Level 50 / +10 at Level 100)
3 = High Odd (+7.5 at Level 50 / +15 at Level 100)
At Level 50, I don’t think this would cause too much of an issue for Hidden Power users, though it may be at Level 100. An effective drop of 3 or 5 in a stat could be devastating for calculations, though this is obviously balanced by all Pokemon having the overall IV nerf.
Hidden Power probably also needs a rework with Fairy being a type, and I’m not sure how they could go about that currently (unless they take some variations from more common Hidden Power types and give them to Fairy, or even just the one from somewhere).
This IV rework also streamlines IV breeding and resetting legendaries leagues faster, with only a 1/4 chance of the right stat instead of 1/32.
All this said, I do disagree with the idea of in-game Showdown functionality, as that sort of removes some of the charm of getting and raising your Pokemon (despite how much of a chore some players find it, I actually enjoy breeding Pokemon and training them once I find a team I like and want to use). With the above IV rework, this removes the need for a Showdown almost entirely by accelerating the processes even further than Gen 6 did.
Any reworking of IVs has to be done considering speed in mind. That’s the only stat where a variable IV matters, as some people IV for their Pokemon to hit exact speed tiers (i.e. Sogeking’s 15 Speed Adamant Conkeldurr to underspeed Min Speed Aegislash while outspeeding Scrafty, something that a simple Brave nature can’t acquire). It’s the only reason why I think the current system works, to some degree, even if that produces a lot of hand wringing about perfect IVs in every other stat.
You are quite controversial indeed.
First of all I like your intentions behind this article, as Pokemon has become in this meta very consistent, and by consistent I mean repetitive. I do not mind CHALK one bit, probably because of team reasons. Rain is always an issue, needs to go? I don’t know. If we ban everything that wins often from time to time, we might as well get rid of everything and run Grassy Terrain pokemon or just Mega Beedrills. I do agree with one thing, para+confusion is cheap. I wouldn’t nerf it to Detroit nor would I remove it. But this could be a nice nerf/tweak:
-Swagger: Doing the same thing, but if there is another status afliction such as Paralisis, Burn, Poisoned or Asleep, the confusion chance should decrease to 25%-30%
I’m more the kind of guy who adapts and uses non meta and meta pokemon without meta sets. Not for the sake of originality but for the sake of making a meta call.
PD: Ice type, best type offensively. I use it and it wrecks Lando,Thundy and Amoongus. It’s up to the team to cover or mitigate their type weakness.
I don’t like the idea of full paralysis being taken away. Without that, it becomes a benefit to many Pokemon as well as all Trick Room teams, and therefore makes it an unfortunate side effect at many points and Thunder Wave a virtually unusable move.
I think quartering a Pokemons speed permanently is more than enough to make thunder wave uh, “usable” considering how many Pokemon rely on their speed
One thing that needs to be removed for the purpose of making the game more competitive is critical hits. Reducing the amount of extra damage they now do in Gen VI was a good step in the right direction, but the fact that the mechanic exists at all is a problem. Flinches and Full paralysis are also problematic, absolutely, but their qualities are tied to specific moves and abilities. Critical hit are a luck based factor that can apply to EVERY attacking move in the game. That specific attack you’re EV’d to survive? Not this time! Been boosting your defenses? Futile!
I also think Poison is mostly fine on the Type Chart as of the inclusion of Fairy types. It may be lousy offensively, but only two weaknesses and five resistances makes up for that. I think a bigger part of why we don’t see more Poison types around isn’t that the type is bad on the Type Chart, but that there aren’t a whole lot of Poison types out there that have especially impressive BSTs. The two Poison Pokemon with the highest overall stats are Crobat at 530 and Venusaur at 525 (not counting Mega Evolutions). Poison is the ONLY type in the game which has no legendary Pokemon (VGC legal or not). Erstwhile, the other types have a slew of 580-600 BST legendary and pseudo-legendary Pokemon populating VGC teams, but not Poison.
If you want to see more Poison types in the VGC, part of the solution is that there need to be stronger Poison types to use. Stats obviously aren’t the only thing that go into making a Pokemon good or bad, but they go a good long way towards the former.