Gaming Misc What can be done to improve the Pokémon franchise?

[GAPMan]

While the Pokémon games have been well received, there are some who feel that the franchise could have been better. With that said, what can be done to improve the Pokémon franchise?

 

[AkikoKumagara]

If they're going to continue going down the "Open world, no random encounters, no forced trainer battles in the field" route, there's a lot they need to do.

Catching mechanics from Legends felt really good, then S/V came out without a lot of the cool stuff Legends introduced, and it ended up feeling like a downgrade.

The open world makes trainer battles on the field way too easy to ignore, so we should either go back to "if you're spotted, a battle ensues" sort of thing, or give players more places that encourage battling trainers, perhaps with more desirable rewards. They tried to do this with rewards in S/V but those are also really easily ignored for the most part.

I think S/V did some things right, like finally adding some texture to the Pokémon models, but the animations are still lackluster.

The biggest thing that needs improvement, imo, is game performance. There are places in the current games that drop to like 12-15 fps, which really isn't acceptable, and performance issues have plagued the games ever since the move to 3D in 2013. I think this is something that should be addressed. I know they try with LOD models and low distance scaling, but whatever they're doing here isn't enough.

 

[smilodon]

By having development cycles longer than a single year. Even the most lucrative franchise can't make quality games that fast.

 

[Kioku]

Just go back to the old formula… Playing Sapphire again and it just works.. the newer games are needlessly convoluted and ironically cluttered even though there isn’t much to do…

 

[RAHelllord]

Performance and visual fidelity are the obvious low hanging fruit. More animations, more avatar customization would be some more. I would personally like to see more player agency for what to do and maybe allow for diverging paths so that people have more freedom to do their own thing. Like joining different factions that offer exclusive memberships. I would also like it if the world would feel a little more alive by having the day and night cycle affect the world so that NOCs actually do different things at different times of the day.

Lowering the amount of grind needed for endgame content like tera raids would also be nice, and if stuff like tera raids make a comeback then it would be really appreciated if there is more variety than just the exact same thing in the exact same boss location except it glows slightly differently.

 

[M7L7NK7]

Release a proper Gen 1 remake.. Let's Go was bullshit (catch to gain XP?? Mandatory EXP Share??) I'd pay for a mod that makes it normal again

 

[Danius88]

For starters, releasing completed games with no major bugs or glitches. It's not healthy for the industry to release games and patch them later, if they even patch them, it is becoming a dangerous standard.

 

[Jayro]

Arceus was nearly flawless, they should build upon that formula going forward with mainline games.

 

[PizzaTimeJoshua]

Legends Arceus was great! It's graphics left something to be desired but gameplay wise, it was awesome. The Pokemon Company definitely needs to slow down before releasing so quickly. Since they're trying to go Open World style, they need to take the time and make the world feel alive with plenty of detail. Take for instance Tear of The Kingdom. When I played that, even though it was a similar map as Breath of the Wild, it felt like there was so much more there. The NPC everywhere making the whole world feel alive. In Scarlet and Violet, the world kinda feels empty. Not much is happening, the Pokemon kinda just exist without much interactions. Same with the NPCs, they kinda just stand there. What the Pokemon Company's problem is that they're through too much too fast into a game. They want to have all the features, New Battle Gimmick, Open World, Exploring with everything, different storylines, New Pokemon Models/Textures,etc. But with little time to actually flush out each detail, everything feels incomplete.

 

[BasedKiliK]

Honestly, where GameFreak lacks the most these days, as well as the Pokemon Company in general, is technical programming aptitude for their core franchise when they don't outsource, as well as a development process that isn't beholden to an annual release schedule. They have no shortage of creative spirit, but the performance issues and graphical fidelity on Switch really just turned me off of the series (Scarlet and Violet releases were inexcusable). Legends Arceus IMO is still the best game they released in years, but isn't without its issues.

 

[Chary]

Arceus was the last Pokemon game that I stuck with to the end and wholeheartedly enjoyed. There's aspects of recent Pokemon games I like, and I don't think I hated any of the mainline entries, but the regions feel really hollow.

I think one of the best aspects of Pokemon was the route design. The exploration of getting from town to town, and how unique each city felt. Gens 2-5 were incredible about making the regions feel alive and like actual worlds. Ever since the transition to 3D, every route feels like a straight line, and the towns are completely dead inside. There's no lore to learn from NPCs, they all say generic lines. Sinnoh's interconnected world through Mt Coronet was so cool to explore, and coming back with new HMs to get further was one of the best experiences I've had in a Pokemon game. It feels like all the new games are derivative of older games without understanding what made them so fun. Put cave here because Pokemon games have cave. Put grass route here because you need Pokemon to catch. Zzzzz.

The development times make it so incredibly impossible to actually make a game that has a soul to it. I think Scarlet and Violet's concept of an open world had a lot to work with, but the problem was that every town felt boring and lifeless. The devs have barely enough time to make sure the game boots at all, let alone have the freedom to care about putting together interesting town design.

 

[hippy dave]

Get rid of all those weird little creatures, make the game about robots instead, robots are cool

 

[The Catboy]

Back-paddle on everything from S/V and start finishing games before releasing them. Legend’s was so promising before it fell flat they stopped supporting it. S/V was clearly a traditional Pokémon game, before they clearly shifted it over to a poorly made open world game. They should have spent more time refining the game and learning what people wanted out of an open world Pokémon game. They should have also spent the past year actually fixing the game instead of hyping up their DLC. Stop making focusing on DLC would also be nice.

 

[Jayro]

Legends Arceus was great! It's graphics left something to be desired but gameplay wise, it was awesome. The Pokemon Company definitely needs to slow down before releasing so quickly. Since they're trying to go Open World style, they need to take the time and make the world feel alive with plenty of detail. Take for instance Tear of The Kingdom. When I played that, even though it was a similar map as Breath of the Wild, it felt like there was so much more there. The NPC everywhere making the whole world feel alive. In Scarlet and Violet, the world kinda feels empty. Not much is happening, the Pokemon kinda just exist without much interactions. Same with the NPCs, they kinda just stand there. What the Pokemon Company's problem is that they're through too much too fast into a game. They want to have all the features, New Battle Gimmick, Open World, Exploring with everything, different storylines, New Pokemon Models/Textures,etc. But with little time to actually flush out each detail, everything feels incomplete.

The jerky animations of not-so-far-away stuff is really jarring, and not even saving any FPS by doing such silly, needless "optimizations".

 

[louza]

I'm ok with releasing completed games without bugs.

 

[Xdqwerty]

firing the pokemon company's ceo

 

[Ricken]

I kinda miss when it was brutally difficult to get perfect competitive mons
On one hand they kinda listened to the community in making them more accessible (due to PkHex being used competitively since its inception) but on the other hand, it was cool knowing how much it took to get a perfect Pokemon. I bred many in my time (with a 6IV Ditto...)

I digress. Shinies becoming more common saddens me too.

 

[captain_obvious]

Pokemon needs longer development times. Making good quality games takes a skilled team years (not just one year). To pump out quality titles every year there would have to be multiple teams working on different games simultaneously.

It won't actually happen though. Pokemon sells incredibly well, regardless of any quality issues. I gave up and found something else to play.

But it is worth mentioning that Pokemon Legends: Arceus was great on an overclocked Switch.

 

[Deleted member 672055]

longer devtime, who the fuck is telling them to churn out games every single fucking year?

the retarded shareholders?

 

[zxr750j]

I'd like better multiplayer exploration and the more side-quests the better. Open world is nice but I also like the linearity where you unlock the world piece by piece. Maybe different levels in difficulty, where opponents get better AI, mons and stats etc. A bit more sort of randomness in trainer battles (and re-battling) would be nice. Shiny's should be returned to original rarity. Getting a living shiny dex should be obnoxiously difficult and getting 1 shiny should be a very happy event. A twinkle and sound when in proximity of a shiny in overworld like in Arceus should definitely return. Casual play trough and hard grinding endless quests with tiny but exclusive rewards (getting "a grain of sand" after defeating the game with only struggle), it should have it all.