New pokemon games coming out

I feel you, man. There's too many competition nowadays. I still remembered the days when I ran through Pokemon Red with my Venusaur, Arcanine, and Gyarados.

There's also the fact that we now have 800+ pokemon, so....

 

The thing that bugs me isn't the sheer number of Pokemon so much as how many dual types and exceptions you have to remember now. Back in the day there were fewer dual types so if a thing looked like a type, it probably was and you could easily call which move was going to be super effective. Now though? How would you guess that this is Ground/Steel? How about this clear Flying/Grass type? Nope, Grass/Ghost. Likewise, the diversification of moves is also giving Pokemon greater ability to strike outside thier specialty. Used to be you could feel pretty secure about sending out a Psychic or Ghost type against a Normal Pokemon like Rattata. Not anymore. Bite and Crunch are Dark type attacks now. A Rock type against Fire? Metal Claw, bitches.

It feels like some of the strong visual and moveset theming from the older games is slowly leaking out of the games. And I get it: new type combinations are exciting, offer new competitive options, or offer more diverse options for the player: but it also takes away some of the strategy. I just want to plonk Metagross or Snorlax out there and let them steamroll entire trainers instead of trying to play jan-ken with the elemental types. It also really devalues Pokemon with low defense and speed, since it's easy for them to get OHKO'd by an unexpected SE move.

 

I'm sad because I just missed out on a tottadial using the island scan before I fully explore the island or got passed things that I need to in order to fucking explore the island.

 

You're focusing too much on the super effective modifier. It's nice, but it's hardly the most important thing for attacking. The bonus for a pokemon using moves of its own type, the pokemon's stats, and interesting support moves/abilities also need to be taken into account. Specialities in competitive pokemon haven't been based around types for a long time, if they ever really were. It's more overall roles like sweeper, physical/special sponge, staller, phazer, weather teams, baton pass teams, etc. Strategy has for the most part been getting more complex with each new gen.

Consider Raticate (non-Alola) vs Claydol, for example. Both at level 100 to simplify damage calculations.

Raticate used Crunch! It's super effective!
(move has 80 power, 2x modifier due to super effective)
Damage to Claydol: 126-150

or

Raticate used Double-Edge!
(move has 120 power, 1.5x modifier due to same type attack bonus)
Damage to Claydol: 142-168

And neither of these possibilities are guaranteed to even 2HKO the Claydol.

 

I'm not talking about the competitive scene - competitive has gotten incredibly complex and that's a good thing, but I'm just talking about the core single player experience vs. AI for the casual player.

EDIT: Simple strategies like type matching are not as viable anymore - and how will you know roles without checking wikis, lists, etc? I'm not necessarily saying the added complexity is terrible for the game, but it definitely has lost some of the strong veneer of nostalgia that brings old GenWunners back without the primacy of type jan-ken and strong visual themeing.

In truth, Sun/Moon are pretty casual friendly because of the low level of grind needed, the lack of HM's, and the relative absence of huge areas stuffed with multiple trainers and wild mons that grind your team down through attrition. That the focus more on your team's individual roles and strategies is probably better for the game as a whole - but does take more considerably more effort for the casual player to understand than 'Set plants on fire, put out fires with water, plants drink water.'

 

Well, got a jolly deino from the island search this time. So my semi permanent team right now is snorelax, deino, pikachu, and the grass starter.

Though the catch rate is fucking awful. Level ten or lower pokemon with one HP should not fucking be able to break out of a fucking ultraball, three great balls, and a pokeball.

This type of thing happened more than once on different species of pokemon, it's annoying.

 

You might just be on the RNGs bad side. I haven't noticed Pokemon breaking out of 3+ balls unless they were a Legendary, I hadn't bothered to Paralyze it, or it was a Beldum. Of course, it's possible I'm just on the RNG's good side.

If it's under L10 I've mostly been throwing Quick Balls or Nest Balls. Nest Balls are actually stupid good for most everything on the first two islands - with S&M's calcs for the Nest Ball it's more effective than Ultra Balls for everything under L30, and even at L30 they're just as good as Ultras.

 

Yeah, I'm on it's bad side. The time I described was for that deino. While it took 1 ultraball, 2 great balls to catch that pompom bird thing in the meadow.

And this is with them at 1 hp due to those moves. I didn't know the nest ball was like that though.

I'm currently trying to catch a bagon on route three and then will be catching bonsly and happiny afterwards. I will have all the first island pokemon besides the fishing/surfing and moon version exclusives then.

 

Well, just got proof the pokemon RNG is tsun for me. Fourth encounter on route 4 was an Eevee! yay!

-lvl 12 eevee with 1 hp and paralyzed proceeds to break out of 8 regular pokeballs instantly-

...The hell? I thought. But then again the eevee itself was in like a fourth or fifth pokemon helper chain. So it's probably tougher than the original eevee I was going for that broke out of it's pokeball and proceeded to call other eevees to ravage my corpse without fail.

I kill one, another took it's place. I didn't even use the damn alarm ball! This type of thing literally has started to happen to me since that trial. Hell, I got my hapinny after killing 20-35 bonsly and 1 sudowodow. It's a chansey now since it came with the oval stone though.

Anyone else experiencing ridiculous chains like that?

 

I had a 40~ish chain when I tried to catch Beldum, but Beldum only knows Take Down and nothing else, and has the absolute lowest catch rate in the game. I also had a pair of 20-30 chains when I was searching for a Thick Club, but I wasn't trying to catch anything then, just steal a Thick Club.

SOS battles are sometimes annoying, and sometimes kind of terrifying if you consider the ramifications.