Wouldn't it be great if GameFreak stopped making weak Pokemon? (suggestions of improvement for Game Freak)

[cu67]

(please let this thread stay, or PM me so I can edit it.)

This needs to be addressed:why do they keep making awesome pokemon and give them next-to-nothing, low as dirt stats? Game Freak always does this and they've now pulled it with practically every Pokemon in the Kalos region, under 5 of them are way stronger than the rest and will be seen more than anything else in wifi battles. Does anyone know someone in their group in person, seen an interview about their creation process or something? I know they don't care about tiers made by fan groups like Smogon but in Japan they play by their own tiers which are very similar to the official rules. I'm sure GF could find a way to divide it further, not just bunch good stuff like Garchomp and Heatran together with pathetic Pokemon like Corsolla and Cacturne. I'd love to use them but they're not even worth wasting Pokeballs for with the way GameFreak has their wifi battles set... And that's really the issue here.

I see why they're 'weak', it's not that their stats are low... take every pokemon and average their base stats and even Maractus looks useable in comparison, but people tend to judge Pokemon's potential compared to the highest end of stats like Tyranitar, Garchomp, Lucario, Scizor, etc... Coincidentally these already strong Pokemon now have "Mega" evolutions. They care about the children but I'm sure not all children want to play with those Pokemon, when I was a little kid I liked using Pikachu against my friends team of legendary Pokemon. Perfect solution: GF should update, no fix their wifi play by making base stat based tiers, keep Pokemon with 500+ base stats out of the lower tiers. That would perfectly keep Scizor (500) and everything like it (Mega evos' etc...) away from weaker Pokemon like:

Meowstic: weak pokemon- base stats add up to466

Ferrothorn: Highly used pokemon and you'd still be able to use it - base stats below 500

These are just off the top of my head, there's PLENTY of Pokemon with 500+ base stats. I suggest this because I know GF doesn't care about the existence of Smogon, this would be an uncomplicated, one-step solution that wouldn't possibly do poorly, only create a place when weaker Pokemon can battle fairly.

Remember, GF has poor judgement and moves really slwoly. Only 2 generations ago we couldn't reuse TM's, if you wanted Earthquake you'd have to make a big decision on which Pokemon gets it. Only 1 generation ago, we didn't have a game where we could just turn on wifi and battle, we'd have to go on fansites like Smogon to find battles. Only the since last month have we had X & Y's improved , GF has been brainstorming for YEARS to make their games balanced. In gen 1 tehy didn't even care, you could destroy everything with Persian, Alakazam and Gengar.

something like that would be a good move, not just throwing 80% of Pokemon under the bus. [The rest of this is just ranting]

Game Freak knows themselves, they have secrets and private motives (some more obvious like giving the 3 gen 1 starters mega evo's to attract new and old customers) but they do look out for the portion of us that play Pokemon further than the storyline. I hope they realize that if it weren't for the wifi battles, Pokemon wouldn't even be a good game. The story, like CoD's story mode, is only there to present SOMETHING they can sell to you, the bulk of the game and the real complexities are in wifi battles. Since Smogon tiers are fictional to them, they should make an effort to fix their tiers. What I suggested earlier is perfect for their business style and demographic: a simple fix, not confusing at all, easy to implement and it would make the games much better quality. If they did that, I wouldn't be able to find anything to complain about as practically everything cruddy about Pokemon has been fixed with X & Y.

If GF can do "sky battles" and "inverse battles" which probably took some good work to plan and create, are you sure they can't just add a "junior division" for '500 base stas and below' Pokemon to play on wifi?

Are you opposed to the idea of GF making tiers/borderlines so their weaker Pokemon can still play in their metagame? Or do you believe that the current wifi battles are fair and don't need to make room for all Pokemon? I believe GF jsut doesn't realize what they're doing wrong yet or haven't put thought into it. it needs to be waved in front of their faces that adding official tiers will make Pokemon twice, maybe even 3 times as appealing to every fan.

[wraith89]

Pokemon do not exist simply for their battling worth. To some people, it is about battling and all, if that is your mindset. However, some are also there for conceptual reasons and just so one can collect them all. I don't mind having things like Lumineon exist simply because they are aesthetically pleasing, even if it doesn't offer much over other Water Pokemon. Tiers and that kind of stuff is a fanmade concept: it is not exactly what Gamefreak had in mind in creating the game. That being said, I seriously don't know what they were thinking when they said they "balanced" this generation. Not really enough balance, to be honest, but more of a limelight for the new Fairy Pokemon and to nerf Special moves, randomly nerf Meteor Mash while keeping a high benefit, low cost move like Close Combat the same. I think they were intending to balance their "doubles" metagame more, which is the standard format, but unfortunately, the game is not filled with doubles so it makes it harder to design a team for doubles rather than singles, which most people do play.

They did do the unthinkable this generation: change base stats of Pokemon! However, I have to say, it was very halfhearted, as it was merely + 10 base stat (with the exception of Pikachu, who gained + 10 on both defences, but whatever), usually to a stat point they did not need (Azumarill getting + 10 SpA comes into mind). I also don't think anybody would have agreed that Alakazam deserved the same boost as any other Pokemon receiving them, as most seem to be Level 10 bugs and Pidgeot and the likes. A lot of old Pokemon, unfortunately, are victims of power creep. The three legendary birds that are featured in this game come into mind, as they were consciously placed in this game, but unfortunately, there were little improvements to them. Two of them are huge victims to the power creep and really needed some adjustments to their movepool and base stats for them to be even competing with NORMAL mundane Pokemon like Staraptor or the scary Talonflame. A Mega evolution for each would also come into mind as well, but it did not happen. Those are some stuff that do come into my mind. You also cannot talk about Gen I like that because that was basically the "Gotta Catch 'Em All" days: I don't believe little children (which the primary demographics was) cared so much about "what kind of team should I use?" as opposed to "Cool Ember/Flamethrower/Fire Spin/Fire Blast Charizard!" and to trade and battle with friends for fun. It's a trainwreck competitively, and they've really started paying attention more in Gen IV when the game started becoming more global and less of a kid's adventure field. Gen IV put the focus on competitive, hence the terribly disappointing gameplay but the targetting of teenagers to battle with their friends online while little children can still enjoy the "story mode". I cannot stress it enough: the motivation is mostly monetary rather than any of the fanbase kind of things. Do they listen? Yeah sometimes... hence they created "Fairies" to balance out the overpowered Dragons (even Gamefreak knew this)... but I still have no idea what they have against Ice types that they fail in balancing it at all.

I don't believe base stats total determines anything: Dusclops has lower total BST than Pidgeot and it's more usable than Pidgeot. It's a matter of distribution. Ferrothorn is crazy and yet its base stats don't even add up to 500. Vanilluxe is unusable and its base stat is on par with Lapras's. It does not have to do with base stats only: there's many factors we have to consider before saying "lol tier this tier that". And Gamefreak does not make tiers: that's generally fandom, and they only tend to ban event legendaries, major legendaries (not minor legendaries like trios and such), and Chatot (well not anymore). Last gen we saw a huge power creep with Pokemon like Conkeldurr and Haxorus coming into play, with absurd stats that just makes you wonder if these people had the mind of a 9 year old overpowering their favourite mons, except it's official. This generation is supposed to see balance, but the said balance... isn't exactly there. I'm going to tell you also that most of the lower weaker Pokemon are actually USABLE in their own rights. Most of them anyways (sorry Kricketune, you are not salvagable unfortunately). But generally, they don't always look at competitive viability but more about marketing (this is why Charizard gets two Megas while many Pokemon received none). But seeing how this is the introductory series of a generation, I think we can expect a lot of better things for their next installment: it usually is a lot better (i.e. B2W2 fixed a lot of things that were lacking in BW... I really didn't like BW asides from story).

That being said, I understand your frustration, but that's not exactly going to stop them from making "weakmons", and their motive isn't exactly competitiveness. It's definitely not with "balance" in mind either. I think it's more of a shift of focus from adventure field to a mass multiplayer kind of game with a story (though the story part is clearly getting weaker and weaker).

[cu67]

I think you're spot on with the Lumineon example. I'm trying looking at this issue through a broader spectrum; if it weren't for the design, Pokemon would be walking stat charts and you'd always chose the strongest stats... But if they didn't have designs, Pokemon would be a game of strategy that I'm no way interested in playing. I'd rather play chess with my grandfather and build a better relationship with him through that rather than "Stat-chartmon" with people online. You can call me an asshole for that but it's the aesthetics that initially draws me to the Pokemon and helps them grow on me, while stats are almost equally as important. Again, looking at the big picture, there's only so much I can appreciate from looking at a Pokemon. To be honest, break it down, I loved Lumineon from the moment I saw it but if I can only look at it's beauty and not use it in the game, I'd rather spend time looking at some fine art or admiring the graphics of a better game. And that's just my perspective when I take everything I like about Pokemon and analyze it separately. Put design and playability together and you have a Pokemon's worth, imo.

I know, Marketability is important. I don't mind because I like all Pokemon designs separately, they all have redeemable aspects even simple designs like Electrode for it's concept of being a detonating, electric-type sphere with a face. Kind of sad though, Pokemon has been a part of my life for a long time and I am so into it that I'm not even in the main flock of fans. Most people do buy the games for the story and to catch them all, I'm not sure what Satoshi had in mind when he thought up of Pokemon. Did the creators want it to be a quest to catch the creatures or was the competitive battling scene intentional? Did the competitive battling scene spring up from a simple children's game, meaning the initial intention was just that, to profit off of children? If so, each year that passes I'm distancing myself from their demographic. I don't know how much of a niche "competitive battling" is, but it seems Game Freak does acknowledge at least, that it is a part of the Pokemon franchise... They have those VGC tournaments every year.

But as I said, looking at the whole egg of Pokemon and taking a look at each layer: 1.) Aren't there more enjoyable turn-based strategy games than Pokemon? The answer is opinionated but I don't think Pokemon is best game there is, especially with the work you have to put in to train Pokemon and the low amount of "viable" ones. Work vs. Reward on this one, although many people don't care about EV's/IV's and others just use hacking devices. 2.) Besides the actual concept of the game, are the designs the best thing you could be looking at right now? To me, as I tried explaining earlier, I can't enjoy a Pokemon just for it's visual appearance. This renders it useless, as I'd rather stare or enjoy doing other things.... What else is there to Pokemon? The simple desire to "Catch Em' All"? This is just the hook that got people addicted ot Pokemon, I think it's a rare occurrence that some people went from that initial desire to wanting to play Pokemon competitively. So if you're trying to say that there is value in the story and catching Pokemon, I respect that but I'm not the kind of person that plays Pokemon just to go around searching for game data to complete a Pokedex and recieve a virtual diploma.

I LOVE Pokemon... I LOVE it, I mean it. I tried quitting, could not. If I'm going to be forced into only using a few "viable" Pokemon then I want to give it up entirely. Of course when X & Y came out I got back into it hoping for a new mindset. I have 300+ hours (mostly from me leaving the system on while away) on X and I'm loving it but seeing all these same Pokemon I saw last gen, only stronger and harder to shake off makes me lose hope... This is getting kind of complicated, sorry, I just am not 100% sure what draws me to Pokemon but it's definitely not the "catch em' all" gimmick nor the plot which I only find necessary so Ninentdo x GF can rehash their cash cow and profit off the large percent of people addicted to catching every Pokemon. If I ever stop enjoying the designs AND the metagame, I don't know if there's anything left in Pokemon for me. I might just start over and seek other forms of fun.

[SilentFox]

Whilst I am not opposed to the idea, I recall that we tried creating a tiering system based just on base stats and found it a very high task. That was merely a concept around the time I was much more active here. The issue isn't as simple as you're believing but the base idea is sound. This needs some testing and I'll actually challenge you in the guise of hopeful wonder to build a team under that concept and I'll try too to see firsthand how you're expecting this to work.

I know that is a strange request but as I was willing to see how that would work years prior, perhaps now there are people willing to try different concepts. I just want to test this theory before accepting your pitch.