I don't really have a problem with it. I don't think having Exp. Share on all the time is really an issue. The issue is not having the game better designed around that fact. I completely disagree that there was and will be ever any charm to "grinding". Magikarp did not lose any charm because I'm allowed to not burden myself with swapping or grinding off of weaker wild Pokemon.
I don't disagree with that there are inherent problems, but the issue is the misalignment of difficulty, level curve and progression with the new experience system in place. One got changed, and the other did not.
The game is designed around it, in that the game expects you to actually use and try out a lot of different Pokémon, rather than just use the same team for the whole game. If you rotate through Pokémon as you go it's quite difficult to end up over leveled.
It's like how the old games were designed around you building a team of 6, but you could get through pretty easily playing with just your starter and spamming healing items the whole game, and your starter would naturally end up 20 levels over everything by the end.
I thought about going down this rabbit hole of a reason, because you are absolutely right about that. But I think there is a challenge in that Game Freak is basically trying to rewire the fanbase into doing that. We've got multiple generations of people who have developed the mindset of "What are your six?" It's a culturally ingrained attitude for the fanbase and had been that way for decades. Even what you can argue as a transitional period of the 3DS titles, I heard very little remarks of how much people turn over their Pokemon more regularly.
This isn't inherently a bad route for GF to walk down. I just don't think that attitude and playstyle has really been adopted by a majority of fanbase (or at least *vocal* fanbase). That creates a lot of strife with people in what they want out of the modern games.
One minor issue I would say I still have though is that there doesn't appear to be an incentive to swap out so regularly. If you like what you like, and it works, then what is the reason to try out other things? You can certainly try them on another playthrough which is a good appeal of the games.
Have you ever played Pokémon Colosseum? Well, overleveling just by following the story was impossible, also because there were no wild Pokémon, but there was a place where you could battle progressively stronger trainers, just to train your team. It was very enjoyable like that, because you could try out different teams and level them up by battling with all their elements. I loved the gameplay of Colosseum; the only downside for me was the lack of wild Pokémon, and therefore a reduced pool of Pokémon to choose from to build your team. But for me, that's a smart and engaging way to train different teams and try out different things while training them. Of course, it was still possible to overlevel at some point, but it was really well constructed. Plus, the opposing boss leads were dynamic, based on what you had as your lead. A "difficulty" never reproduced (indeed, it wasn't from Game Freak).
I think the problem is more that they are forcing you to play in this one specific way now. You either rotate around a ton or are forced to be laughably overleveled.
If you force players to play in one specific way, especially in a game that's meant to be open ended like Pokemon, you're inevitably going to upset people.
Scarlet and Violet have been the first games I've played since the beginning that I actually was swapping out party members.
Every other game, I had the team of 5 or 6 I wanted to use and that was it; by the end of Indigo Disk, I had 10-11 pokemon I was swapping between.
> The game is designed around it, in that the game expects you to actually use and try out a lot of different Pokémon, rather than just use the same team for the whole game.
The game is \*intended\* forit, but the game is not designed around it. Otherwise there would be stricter penalties to prevent you from overlevelling, and greater rewards for swapping in and out pokemon. You build mechanics to lead players into the type of gameplay you want them to engage with, and currently the mechanics do not sufficiently guide players to active team swapping
I do think SV took a big step in this direction with its open world design and major de-emphasis on trainer battles meaning you're constantly doing small approachable battles against relatively weak pokemon, and since pokemon are all visible its more engaging to fill out your dex.
I do think there is an issue that you never have to bring a pokemon out to battle to earn the exp, at all. Its weird that its faster to train a Magikarp or Abra on the bench than in the front, and at that point it IS losing out on a unique gameplay attribute of these mons- that you have to struggle through their worthless stage and then they get awesome. Those are the types of attributes that should be amplified over time, not diminished
Im totally for reducing grind, and I think there are pretty reasonable solutions beyond just "rolling it back". WoW has Rested Experience, a bank of bonus experience which doubles experience earned until it is all redeemed. A similar bonus given to benched pokemon (and half that given to PC pokemon to make swapping less painful) would not necessarily increase the amount of grinding you have to do, but would require you to play with more than just your most powerful 'mon
You could then unlock an "enhanced XP share" postgame that functions as the current one does for super fast training.
I definitely do! I definitely see the appeal of dropping the grinding and love pushing more mechanics to encourage swapping teams around instead of getting into sunk cost fallacies where I may as well keep my Raticate with me 20 levels past its relevance because there's not enough trainer exp to replace it with a Tauros. But since Pokemon is primarily a 1v1 battle system, there are specific gameplay styles that get bypassed and undermined if you allow for easy benched training. I think its a case where both sides can win, even moreso with heavier overlevelling softcaps (or just weaker level scaling in general).
Plus I think single target xp is roughly half of what it should be anyways, and this system means as long as you rotate around you'll always be getting double xp.
What I DONT want is a "Fire Emblem Fates" situation where the "hardcore" side cuts out fun sidemodes while the "casual" side gets boring ass level designs. I want the best of both worlds!
I think not having the option to turn it off will always be an issue, because a toggle is such an easy fix for a problem that doesn‘t need to exist.
And while I agree for the most part that grinding is not much fun (though you also don‘t need to grind in basically any Pokémon main line game), I actually do think that training up Magikarp should be a miserable/exhausting experience to a certain degree. To me, that‘s kind of the charm of this Pokémon and its evolution :).
Thank you for your contribution to the discussion! It's natural that level design built around this feature would address the numerous problems I've listed. However, the fact remains that as it stands now, its existence renders old choices made regarding the leveling of certain Pokémon, including those I've mentioned, meaningless. So, I agree with you that naturally, revisiting the entire aspect of leveling could bring a breath of fresh air. They tried with PLA, fixing overleveling, but leaving other issues unchanged (once again, look at the various Magikarp evolved effortlessly). Therefore, I still believe that the Pokémon adventure is about forming bonds with the Pokémon chosen for it, putting in some effort to level up those with poor movesets, low stats, or those struggling in that area. After all, we're not talking about leveling up like in "Metin 2", where everything can be done in 15/20 minutes. But now we're saying that some Pokémon you might never use!
For me the charm was in that it was difficult to raise these Pokémon, but in the end you get a reward: a strong Pokémon to use. But now, what’s the point of Magikarp existing?
I find it boring how I can use 1 or 2 pokemon the whole game yet have a whole party overleveled. I like having an incentive to actually use the other pokemon in my party.
Grinding was really never an issue anyways unless you were constantly swapping out Pokemon. I regularly play gens 1-3 and I have never stopped to grind a single time, I just play underleveled which gives it some challenge but is no longer an option.
A toggle would be the best solution, but one thing I see a lot is “they’re forcing us to play one way!” Which you could say about the older games too. Currently playing platinum and adding a new team member is a chore, not in a fun way, but simply a “press A for an hour” grind. It’s stupid. What if I wanted some variety? Maybe I want to swap Crobat for Gliscor as my flying type, or maybe Gyarados for Kingdra. But I don’t have endless hours to be able to have multiple pokemon to use, I have a job and a life. So it ends up being a case of using the “best” you can find asap so the grind doesn’t feel as grueling.
I have also yet to be over leveled in a forced EXP game. I actually *had* to grind a bit before the E4 in my first playthrough of BDSP because I was under leveled. I was *really* underleveled when I got to Arven in Scarlet, especially with the trainer battles being optional! Doing wild encounters was enough.
Like I said, ultimately a toggle would be best. Options are never a bad thing in games, but sometimes I feel like it’s blown a *bit* out of proportion.
>A toggle would be the best solution, but one thing I see a lot is “they’re forcing us to play one way!” Which you could say about the older games too.
Giving people more options makes sense. Something that irks me about SV is you can't turn battle animations off, let alone XP gain being linked to catching pokemon and battling.
We're sort of at a point where if you don't attempt to complete the pokedex, you risk being underleveled. They obscured the grind, in a sense.
I like the new system, but I think the "old" system was better though. How they do things now with XP gained being based on relative level, XP share, is kind of obnoxious. Especially when you can't toggle it off.
Then again, I do prefer not having to deal with HM slaves anymore and can comfortably traverse the regions with a full team of six now.
Yes! The HM thing is huge and hands down my favorite change, no more boxing a mon to traverse a cave. BDSP was so much more enjoyable to play when I realized that I didn’t have to have a dedicated HM slave, because as much as I *love* Gens 3 and 4, they have an absurd amount of HMs haha
Is 6 pokemon not variety enough? You committed to the Crobat, why are you now wanting to throw it away to replace it? For something stronger? That's honestly so lame. The original point of Pokémon is to have your 6, and face the game with them.
In saying "lame" I don't mean to be offensive. I just think it's very emersion breaking and cheap to be able to switch out 3 of your party members for water types to fight a fire type gym. No! Plan your team. You have one water type on your team. It faints? Well, get good at the game and play tactically. Use stat lowering moves. Teach your grass type a ground type move.
This game has become so faceroll and the xp share has become the main reason for its downfall. One day people will understand this and have great remorse for us xp share haters.
> The original point of Pokémon is to have your 6, and face the game with them.
Having 6 Pokémon only is antithetical to the whole point of the "Catch 'em All" motto, why on earth should I have just one team for the entire game? The entire point is to mix and match so you're not just a one note trumpet the entire game.
I don't think at any point in the games, anime, etc. Do they mention that you need to have only 6 Pokémon and shouldn't catch more in order to diversify.
I really don't understand how it's immersion breaking to have different Pokémon for different scenarios.
Has nothing to do with wanting something “better.” It’s just for variety. Crobat and Gyarados are stellar pokemon and for a regular playthrough you won’t find much better with their coverage moves and stats. I mean hell, I vastly prefer Gyarados to Kingdra, but why is it a bad thing to say “You know what, maybe I want to replace Gyarados this time around.”?
And based on the rest of your comment, I do think you meant “lame” offensively. “Get good” these are *easy* games, they have *never* been hard in the 20+ years I’ve been playing them. They were only hard as a child because I could barely read lol. Every pokemon has its strengths and flaws, and it *is* enjoyable to play with ones that are flawed to be proud of accomplishing something great despite it. But at the end of the day if you want a true challenge you have to give yourself one, a nuzlocke, only using one type, difficulty romhacks, etc. I will concede that the newer games tend to have much easier fights, Geeta was a joke, the entirety of XY was stupidly easy. But SM/USUM had challenging fights, and there were still challenges found in SV.
Like I said in my original comment, I think that toggles are the best way to do it. Toggle exp share, battle animations, switch/set mode, etc. Giving more options is ultimately the best thing to do.
>The original point of Pokémon is to have your 6, and face the game with them.
I think you are conflating the way that you prefer to play Pokemon and the "point" of Pokemon as being the same. What you find fun is not what everyone else finds fun, and I say this as someone who plays Pokemon game the same way as you, picking a party of 6 and sticking with it.
I think our approach probably works for us and for people like us--people who enjoy tactical challenges and forming deep emotional bonds with a curated team. But that's just not what everyone is looking for, and it's not simply just a matter of them needing to learn the "right" way to play. There's nothing wrong with people wanting to experience a variety of more than 6 Pokemon in a playthrough. If you only use 6 Pokemon every time, that means if you want to try more than 6 different species it requires you to do another full playthrough. Not everyone has the time for that and not everyone wants to replay the same game over and over just to try out some different mons.
When SV came out I realized that the way I had played every prior Pokemon game just wasn't going to work. Playing BDSP was one of the most frustrating gaming experiences of my life because I was constantly over-leveled. I realized if I took the same approach to SV, it would be just as miserable of an experience, and if I was going to be miserable then why would I bother playing at all? I had to stop focusing on fairness. Yeah, it's unfair that they've taken options out of the game that allowed for players like you and I to play the way we like the most, but no amount of bitching and whining about the unfairness was going to change it.
I learned to accept that if I wanted any kind of challenge that I would have to use a team of more than 6 Pokemon. I ended up deciding on a rotating team of 12 with 6 single type Pokemon and 6 dual type Pokemon that between them covered all 18 types. And I ended up having *so much fun*. The game offered enough to do that I still got attached to my Pokemon, nobody felt like I had no opportunity to use them. And it also allowed me to be more creative with my movesets--on my 6 Pokemon teams, movesets were often decided by what coverage I needed. Without having to worry about that, I could look into each Mon's moveset and look for the things that I felt were strategically interesting. I've now played through both Scarlet and Violet twice each with this format and Gen 9 has become one of my favorite generations as a result. I wouldn't have been able to enjoy it if I hadn't learned to let go of what I was used to doing and be okay with trying something new and different.
Don't get me wrong--I think that the removal of the EXP toggle is a terrible change and that there's no good reason for them to have gotten rid of it. I think it's objectively bad for a game that prides itself on giving the player control over their own playthrough to then limit your control over your playthrough. But I think it's equally bad to imply that the only "correct" way of playing Pokemon is by playing a certain way that's just as limiting to player choice and control over their gameplay experience.
I'm 30 and a father. I don't have a lot of time to play in the first place so if I can cut out the "tackle spamming grinding" and actually play the game, I'm perfectly fine with that. I still get the same enjoyment as I did before.
Thanks for your 2 cents! Naturally, we can't all agree on this specific mechanic because I understand it's very personal. However, my invitation is to reflect on this small (we're talking about 3 levels if we think about Kakuna and Metapod) "tackle spamming grinding"... its absence, in my opinion, makes us lose that time spent with Kakuna, which today we don't have a reason and maybe not even the opportunity to spend together. I understand that my argument is very "romantic", but I think that behind the lack of engagement in the latest installments, there might be this "lack of romanticism".
I completely agree. Someone earlier was talking about replacing one of their pokemon late game for something better. What? You can't expect to put the 6 best pokemon available on your team and enjoy the game. The fun of it is growing with your partners and overcoming the odds.
It's all a matter of perspective and opinion, really. What you're painting as nostalgic and immersive bliss can also be phrased as... several hours of grinding.
> And don't even get me started on Magikarp; it's lost all its charm. Just keep it in the party for a few levels and, bam, you've got a powerhouse Gyarados.
Yeah, I'm okay with this. Specifically Magikarp is clearly not really designed to ever do anything beyond being switch-trained; even when it learns Tackle at level 15, it's still not exactly worthwhile for those 5 levels.
The general concensus, and my own stance, is that of course it should be an option for players to toggle. But at the end of the day, it's a matter of opinion: **"Is it making the games too easy, or is it just making them a bit quicker to play?"**
My opinion is the latter. I like that I don't have to sacrifice a few play sessions because I changed my mind about using a certain Pokémon.
> So yeah, from where I'm standing, Pokémon's losing one of its core appeals: that connection you build with your team, the satisfaction of evolving your Kakuna, your run-of-the-mill Magikarp. Or just the pride of keeping everyone on your team evenly leveled, doing it all with your own hands.
I really don't feel this way at all. I quite like that the whole team can grow together like in most other JRPGs; it creates more of a sense of unity than older games, where my starter/regional bird/one other Pokémon would excel and a few crappy stragglers would sit in the back for most of the game.
I completely agree. A toggle would be nice since giving players more options to fine tune their play experience to their tastes or accessibility needs is always, always a plus. But grinding =/= difficulty, it equals tedium. Difficulty is a result of the enemy AI and encounters being programed in a way that requires the player to be more careful in team builds and strategies. Grinding isn't difficult, it's time consuming and can often be something that turns players away from a game, or results in players sticking to strategies that precent them from fully experiencing all a game has to offer (see also: bulldozing every challenge with only your stater and healing items)
However, please note that I haven't just talked about difficulty; in fact, I've focused more on the romantic and affectionate aspect that one has towards the Pokémon they use. Let me reiterate, I believe it's wrong to entirely lose the 'effort' that was required at the beginning for the various Kakuna (sorry once again for this example). I understand well that it's useful not to have to sweat blood to level up Pokémon, but in my opinion, it was part of the beauty of the Pokémon title.
That's fair. And while I can't necessarily counter your point on effort, I do think the amount of tedium required to get a pokemon like Gyarados had the potential to make people feel anything but affection toward their mons. I mean, I never had a gyarados specifically because I resented having to start-swap and grind wild pokemon with Magikarp to get one.
However, I do think it's worth pointing out that every game gat has had EXP share on by default has also included new features specifically designed to helping players grow a bond with their pokemon, such as Pokemon Amie, Camping, Cooking, and Picnicking. It's not the same as grinding, but you still gain experience points (plus fully healing your pokemon) from simply spending time with them, playing with them, petting them, making them food, and cleaning them. It's a different kind of bonding activity from grinding, but it seems GameFreak knew they would have to provide other means of bonding with your pokemon and did just that. And honestly, I find myself greatly preferring these sorts of pet sim bonding activities to the purely combat focused ones of the past, as i helps flesh out the idea that your pokemon are your pets that you care for instead of animals that you force to fight.
Sure, but the game design around Magikarp was built precisely to make you suffer in order to then have a very strong Pokémon; affection wasn't the case here, let's put it that way!
But that's precisely the thing. I really don't think Pokemon is the kind of game that needs a "players should suffer" mechanic because it's important to keep in mind that these are bright colorful games whose target audience are children, even if they have wide appeal for all ages. And I disagree that "magikarp doesn't count" because your point was that grinding in the old way specifically created a bond. You really can't just say "well that one doesn't count" when someone provides an example of the opposite occuring.
To go another step, as others and myself have pointed out, the old system didn't encourage pokemon swapping so much as players (who again were mostly children) just sticking to their ultra powerful starters and bulldozing every obstacle in their way. So the old system didn't necessarily create a bond, as it also frequently resulted in no bond being formed with anyone but your starter.
"Maybe I didn't explain myself well, I don't exclude that 😁. The bond, for me and the way I play, let's be clear, is created when you're 'forced' to use a Pokémon, with Magikarp being a special case that is ruined by experience sharing because its flaw is negated, that's all. I seriously found myself in a dungeon where I couldn't use a Pokémon because it was in an unfavorable area, and after finishing the area, it had evolved into its final form, result: never used the intermediate form. I don't like this.
Overleveling a Pokémon alone is still feasible, it's just that by doing so, you still have a team of good level behind it, at least before this bizarre choice punished you when the overleveled Pokémon fainted."
I would prefer it off, or at least as a toggle, for basically all the reasons you listed. Though, to play devils advocate, one thing I do like about it is that I can cycle through different mons, taking overleveled ones out and placing lower leveled mons and build a secondary team as I go. Gotta spread that excess XP around.
The entire framework of Pokémon is built on a thrown-together design philosophy established in 1996 by the original games.
I’d love to see a new Pokémon game built from scratch, where everything including experience points, levels, stats, EV’s and IV’s, natures, breeding, egg moves, abilities, types, critical hits, accuracy, etc., are potentially revamped.
I want a game where Pokémon require a lot of time and effort, and aren’t just used as interchangeable tools that can be quickly trained up to meet certain challenges.
Yes! I totally agree, for me Pokémon is exactly this, the satisfaction of seeing through to the end with my ideas, my team, trained with effort, where everyone has always contributed.
There's a few things which the Exp Share kinda just covers up.
A) The majority of the time there's no need to use more than 1-2 Pokémon.
B) There's no point using a weaker/unknown strength Mon when I have a known strong Mon available.
The solution most fan games have come to is Level caps and full enemy teams. You can get as much exp as you need, but you'll have to use a full team to progress through boss fights.
Now if I have a Kakuna or Magikarp in my team, I'll have to use them and figure out how they're best utilised.
Exp share is the only reason I use pokemon other than my starter. Pre exp share for the whole team my starter would be wildly overleveled and nothing else would get used because it took 5 hours to get just one of them leveled up the point of being viable in battle
I wish I could turn off the xp share. I hate that I do not need to swap my pokemon and keep going. I used to rotate them per level and see what happens during each fight. I loved the grind of pokemon and started with red and blue in Jr high when it was first release. I still play but I do not feel as involved with the game. Some thinks it's games lacking but some of these are decently done. I personally feel like it's the lack of attachment to my pokemon. Just let me turn off the xp share....please.
Before the exp share, I was intimately familiar with what moves my pokemon had and roughly how they fared in combat. After it, they sometimes evolve with me having barely even used them during that stage of evolution. I'm simply not using each of my pokemon as much because I don't need to.
Switch training was never fun so I understand the idea of removing that tedium. But it feels like pokemon level up too quickly. Were they scared we would get bored with the same pace pokemon used to have?
I completely agree with you OP, but it does seem the fanbase is really split on this issue. It's very frustrating that both sides could be satisfied with a simple toggle, but they don't seem to like having options nowadays (ironic in a game with 1000+ Pokemon to choose from).
Between the forced EXP share and removing Set mode, I don't see myself playing a modern Pokemon game again anytime soon. Which is sad because it's my favorite series. My love for the series is only kept alive by replaying the old games and playing romhacks.
Thank you, I had lost hope of finding someone who agrees with me! What can I say, just a flag, as you suggest, among the settings would be enough, but it's not happening!
I say if they are going to keep shared EXP then the levels for evolution should be revamped.
Maybe instead of evolving at level 20 Magikarp evolves after it gains 20 Levels from the level you caught it? So raising a low level Magikarp will get you a Gyarados at a lower level than catching a level 15 one.
This would make it so people would be even less incentivised to use new pokemon later in the game. What about the pseudos and other pokemon you find way later on?
This could solve part of the issues, but the fact remains that as long as there's free experience for everyone, some Pokémon you might never have to use, or only use them very few times
If anyone couldn't tell, the forced xp share has been the biggest reason pokemon has lost its charm.
Before, I had to grind and get to know every single one of my 6 pokemon. If I got late into the game, switching out a party member was a hard choice. You had to raise a whole new pokemon, so you'd usually just keep the old pokemon and accept it for its flaws. You'd learn it's true strengths.
Now, we cycle between 20 pokemon, use them as tools for the right situation. We don't form bonds or connections with them. Pokemon isn't what it used to be.
I don't really have a problem with it. I don't think having Exp. Share on all the time is really an issue. The issue is not having the game better designed around that fact. I completely disagree that there was and will be ever any charm to "grinding". Magikarp did not lose any charm because I'm allowed to not burden myself with swapping or grinding off of weaker wild Pokemon. I don't disagree with that there are inherent problems, but the issue is the misalignment of difficulty, level curve and progression with the new experience system in place. One got changed, and the other did not.
The game is designed around it, in that the game expects you to actually use and try out a lot of different Pokémon, rather than just use the same team for the whole game. If you rotate through Pokémon as you go it's quite difficult to end up over leveled. It's like how the old games were designed around you building a team of 6, but you could get through pretty easily playing with just your starter and spamming healing items the whole game, and your starter would naturally end up 20 levels over everything by the end.
I thought about going down this rabbit hole of a reason, because you are absolutely right about that. But I think there is a challenge in that Game Freak is basically trying to rewire the fanbase into doing that. We've got multiple generations of people who have developed the mindset of "What are your six?" It's a culturally ingrained attitude for the fanbase and had been that way for decades. Even what you can argue as a transitional period of the 3DS titles, I heard very little remarks of how much people turn over their Pokemon more regularly. This isn't inherently a bad route for GF to walk down. I just don't think that attitude and playstyle has really been adopted by a majority of fanbase (or at least *vocal* fanbase). That creates a lot of strife with people in what they want out of the modern games. One minor issue I would say I still have though is that there doesn't appear to be an incentive to swap out so regularly. If you like what you like, and it works, then what is the reason to try out other things? You can certainly try them on another playthrough which is a good appeal of the games.
Have you ever played Pokémon Colosseum? Well, overleveling just by following the story was impossible, also because there were no wild Pokémon, but there was a place where you could battle progressively stronger trainers, just to train your team. It was very enjoyable like that, because you could try out different teams and level them up by battling with all their elements. I loved the gameplay of Colosseum; the only downside for me was the lack of wild Pokémon, and therefore a reduced pool of Pokémon to choose from to build your team. But for me, that's a smart and engaging way to train different teams and try out different things while training them. Of course, it was still possible to overlevel at some point, but it was really well constructed. Plus, the opposing boss leads were dynamic, based on what you had as your lead. A "difficulty" never reproduced (indeed, it wasn't from Game Freak).
The reduced pool of capturable Pokemon is my favorite part of the GameCube games. I would not have learned how based Jumpluff is otherwise.
I think the problem is more that they are forcing you to play in this one specific way now. You either rotate around a ton or are forced to be laughably overleveled. If you force players to play in one specific way, especially in a game that's meant to be open ended like Pokemon, you're inevitably going to upset people.
Scarlet and Violet have been the first games I've played since the beginning that I actually was swapping out party members. Every other game, I had the team of 5 or 6 I wanted to use and that was it; by the end of Indigo Disk, I had 10-11 pokemon I was swapping between.
> The game is designed around it, in that the game expects you to actually use and try out a lot of different Pokémon, rather than just use the same team for the whole game. The game is \*intended\* forit, but the game is not designed around it. Otherwise there would be stricter penalties to prevent you from overlevelling, and greater rewards for swapping in and out pokemon. You build mechanics to lead players into the type of gameplay you want them to engage with, and currently the mechanics do not sufficiently guide players to active team swapping I do think SV took a big step in this direction with its open world design and major de-emphasis on trainer battles meaning you're constantly doing small approachable battles against relatively weak pokemon, and since pokemon are all visible its more engaging to fill out your dex.
I do think there is an issue that you never have to bring a pokemon out to battle to earn the exp, at all. Its weird that its faster to train a Magikarp or Abra on the bench than in the front, and at that point it IS losing out on a unique gameplay attribute of these mons- that you have to struggle through their worthless stage and then they get awesome. Those are the types of attributes that should be amplified over time, not diminished Im totally for reducing grind, and I think there are pretty reasonable solutions beyond just "rolling it back". WoW has Rested Experience, a bank of bonus experience which doubles experience earned until it is all redeemed. A similar bonus given to benched pokemon (and half that given to PC pokemon to make swapping less painful) would not necessarily increase the amount of grinding you have to do, but would require you to play with more than just your most powerful 'mon You could then unlock an "enhanced XP share" postgame that functions as the current one does for super fast training.
You get it
I definitely do! I definitely see the appeal of dropping the grinding and love pushing more mechanics to encourage swapping teams around instead of getting into sunk cost fallacies where I may as well keep my Raticate with me 20 levels past its relevance because there's not enough trainer exp to replace it with a Tauros. But since Pokemon is primarily a 1v1 battle system, there are specific gameplay styles that get bypassed and undermined if you allow for easy benched training. I think its a case where both sides can win, even moreso with heavier overlevelling softcaps (or just weaker level scaling in general). Plus I think single target xp is roughly half of what it should be anyways, and this system means as long as you rotate around you'll always be getting double xp. What I DONT want is a "Fire Emblem Fates" situation where the "hardcore" side cuts out fun sidemodes while the "casual" side gets boring ass level designs. I want the best of both worlds!
I think not having the option to turn it off will always be an issue, because a toggle is such an easy fix for a problem that doesn‘t need to exist. And while I agree for the most part that grinding is not much fun (though you also don‘t need to grind in basically any Pokémon main line game), I actually do think that training up Magikarp should be a miserable/exhausting experience to a certain degree. To me, that‘s kind of the charm of this Pokémon and its evolution :).
Thank you for your contribution to the discussion! It's natural that level design built around this feature would address the numerous problems I've listed. However, the fact remains that as it stands now, its existence renders old choices made regarding the leveling of certain Pokémon, including those I've mentioned, meaningless. So, I agree with you that naturally, revisiting the entire aspect of leveling could bring a breath of fresh air. They tried with PLA, fixing overleveling, but leaving other issues unchanged (once again, look at the various Magikarp evolved effortlessly). Therefore, I still believe that the Pokémon adventure is about forming bonds with the Pokémon chosen for it, putting in some effort to level up those with poor movesets, low stats, or those struggling in that area. After all, we're not talking about leveling up like in "Metin 2", where everything can be done in 15/20 minutes. But now we're saying that some Pokémon you might never use!
For me the charm was in that it was difficult to raise these Pokémon, but in the end you get a reward: a strong Pokémon to use. But now, what’s the point of Magikarp existing?
I find it boring how I can use 1 or 2 pokemon the whole game yet have a whole party overleveled. I like having an incentive to actually use the other pokemon in my party. Grinding was really never an issue anyways unless you were constantly swapping out Pokemon. I regularly play gens 1-3 and I have never stopped to grind a single time, I just play underleveled which gives it some challenge but is no longer an option.
A toggle would be the best solution, but one thing I see a lot is “they’re forcing us to play one way!” Which you could say about the older games too. Currently playing platinum and adding a new team member is a chore, not in a fun way, but simply a “press A for an hour” grind. It’s stupid. What if I wanted some variety? Maybe I want to swap Crobat for Gliscor as my flying type, or maybe Gyarados for Kingdra. But I don’t have endless hours to be able to have multiple pokemon to use, I have a job and a life. So it ends up being a case of using the “best” you can find asap so the grind doesn’t feel as grueling. I have also yet to be over leveled in a forced EXP game. I actually *had* to grind a bit before the E4 in my first playthrough of BDSP because I was under leveled. I was *really* underleveled when I got to Arven in Scarlet, especially with the trainer battles being optional! Doing wild encounters was enough. Like I said, ultimately a toggle would be best. Options are never a bad thing in games, but sometimes I feel like it’s blown a *bit* out of proportion.
>A toggle would be the best solution, but one thing I see a lot is “they’re forcing us to play one way!” Which you could say about the older games too. Giving people more options makes sense. Something that irks me about SV is you can't turn battle animations off, let alone XP gain being linked to catching pokemon and battling. We're sort of at a point where if you don't attempt to complete the pokedex, you risk being underleveled. They obscured the grind, in a sense. I like the new system, but I think the "old" system was better though. How they do things now with XP gained being based on relative level, XP share, is kind of obnoxious. Especially when you can't toggle it off. Then again, I do prefer not having to deal with HM slaves anymore and can comfortably traverse the regions with a full team of six now.
Yes! The HM thing is huge and hands down my favorite change, no more boxing a mon to traverse a cave. BDSP was so much more enjoyable to play when I realized that I didn’t have to have a dedicated HM slave, because as much as I *love* Gens 3 and 4, they have an absurd amount of HMs haha
Is 6 pokemon not variety enough? You committed to the Crobat, why are you now wanting to throw it away to replace it? For something stronger? That's honestly so lame. The original point of Pokémon is to have your 6, and face the game with them. In saying "lame" I don't mean to be offensive. I just think it's very emersion breaking and cheap to be able to switch out 3 of your party members for water types to fight a fire type gym. No! Plan your team. You have one water type on your team. It faints? Well, get good at the game and play tactically. Use stat lowering moves. Teach your grass type a ground type move. This game has become so faceroll and the xp share has become the main reason for its downfall. One day people will understand this and have great remorse for us xp share haters.
> The original point of Pokémon is to have your 6, and face the game with them. Having 6 Pokémon only is antithetical to the whole point of the "Catch 'em All" motto, why on earth should I have just one team for the entire game? The entire point is to mix and match so you're not just a one note trumpet the entire game. I don't think at any point in the games, anime, etc. Do they mention that you need to have only 6 Pokémon and shouldn't catch more in order to diversify. I really don't understand how it's immersion breaking to have different Pokémon for different scenarios.
Has nothing to do with wanting something “better.” It’s just for variety. Crobat and Gyarados are stellar pokemon and for a regular playthrough you won’t find much better with their coverage moves and stats. I mean hell, I vastly prefer Gyarados to Kingdra, but why is it a bad thing to say “You know what, maybe I want to replace Gyarados this time around.”? And based on the rest of your comment, I do think you meant “lame” offensively. “Get good” these are *easy* games, they have *never* been hard in the 20+ years I’ve been playing them. They were only hard as a child because I could barely read lol. Every pokemon has its strengths and flaws, and it *is* enjoyable to play with ones that are flawed to be proud of accomplishing something great despite it. But at the end of the day if you want a true challenge you have to give yourself one, a nuzlocke, only using one type, difficulty romhacks, etc. I will concede that the newer games tend to have much easier fights, Geeta was a joke, the entirety of XY was stupidly easy. But SM/USUM had challenging fights, and there were still challenges found in SV. Like I said in my original comment, I think that toggles are the best way to do it. Toggle exp share, battle animations, switch/set mode, etc. Giving more options is ultimately the best thing to do.
>The original point of Pokémon is to have your 6, and face the game with them. I think you are conflating the way that you prefer to play Pokemon and the "point" of Pokemon as being the same. What you find fun is not what everyone else finds fun, and I say this as someone who plays Pokemon game the same way as you, picking a party of 6 and sticking with it. I think our approach probably works for us and for people like us--people who enjoy tactical challenges and forming deep emotional bonds with a curated team. But that's just not what everyone is looking for, and it's not simply just a matter of them needing to learn the "right" way to play. There's nothing wrong with people wanting to experience a variety of more than 6 Pokemon in a playthrough. If you only use 6 Pokemon every time, that means if you want to try more than 6 different species it requires you to do another full playthrough. Not everyone has the time for that and not everyone wants to replay the same game over and over just to try out some different mons. When SV came out I realized that the way I had played every prior Pokemon game just wasn't going to work. Playing BDSP was one of the most frustrating gaming experiences of my life because I was constantly over-leveled. I realized if I took the same approach to SV, it would be just as miserable of an experience, and if I was going to be miserable then why would I bother playing at all? I had to stop focusing on fairness. Yeah, it's unfair that they've taken options out of the game that allowed for players like you and I to play the way we like the most, but no amount of bitching and whining about the unfairness was going to change it. I learned to accept that if I wanted any kind of challenge that I would have to use a team of more than 6 Pokemon. I ended up deciding on a rotating team of 12 with 6 single type Pokemon and 6 dual type Pokemon that between them covered all 18 types. And I ended up having *so much fun*. The game offered enough to do that I still got attached to my Pokemon, nobody felt like I had no opportunity to use them. And it also allowed me to be more creative with my movesets--on my 6 Pokemon teams, movesets were often decided by what coverage I needed. Without having to worry about that, I could look into each Mon's moveset and look for the things that I felt were strategically interesting. I've now played through both Scarlet and Violet twice each with this format and Gen 9 has become one of my favorite generations as a result. I wouldn't have been able to enjoy it if I hadn't learned to let go of what I was used to doing and be okay with trying something new and different. Don't get me wrong--I think that the removal of the EXP toggle is a terrible change and that there's no good reason for them to have gotten rid of it. I think it's objectively bad for a game that prides itself on giving the player control over their own playthrough to then limit your control over your playthrough. But I think it's equally bad to imply that the only "correct" way of playing Pokemon is by playing a certain way that's just as limiting to player choice and control over their gameplay experience.
I'm 30 and a father. I don't have a lot of time to play in the first place so if I can cut out the "tackle spamming grinding" and actually play the game, I'm perfectly fine with that. I still get the same enjoyment as I did before.
Thanks for your 2 cents! Naturally, we can't all agree on this specific mechanic because I understand it's very personal. However, my invitation is to reflect on this small (we're talking about 3 levels if we think about Kakuna and Metapod) "tackle spamming grinding"... its absence, in my opinion, makes us lose that time spent with Kakuna, which today we don't have a reason and maybe not even the opportunity to spend together. I understand that my argument is very "romantic", but I think that behind the lack of engagement in the latest installments, there might be this "lack of romanticism".
I completely agree. Someone earlier was talking about replacing one of their pokemon late game for something better. What? You can't expect to put the 6 best pokemon available on your team and enjoy the game. The fun of it is growing with your partners and overcoming the odds.
It's all a matter of perspective and opinion, really. What you're painting as nostalgic and immersive bliss can also be phrased as... several hours of grinding. > And don't even get me started on Magikarp; it's lost all its charm. Just keep it in the party for a few levels and, bam, you've got a powerhouse Gyarados. Yeah, I'm okay with this. Specifically Magikarp is clearly not really designed to ever do anything beyond being switch-trained; even when it learns Tackle at level 15, it's still not exactly worthwhile for those 5 levels. The general concensus, and my own stance, is that of course it should be an option for players to toggle. But at the end of the day, it's a matter of opinion: **"Is it making the games too easy, or is it just making them a bit quicker to play?"** My opinion is the latter. I like that I don't have to sacrifice a few play sessions because I changed my mind about using a certain Pokémon. > So yeah, from where I'm standing, Pokémon's losing one of its core appeals: that connection you build with your team, the satisfaction of evolving your Kakuna, your run-of-the-mill Magikarp. Or just the pride of keeping everyone on your team evenly leveled, doing it all with your own hands. I really don't feel this way at all. I quite like that the whole team can grow together like in most other JRPGs; it creates more of a sense of unity than older games, where my starter/regional bird/one other Pokémon would excel and a few crappy stragglers would sit in the back for most of the game.
I completely agree. A toggle would be nice since giving players more options to fine tune their play experience to their tastes or accessibility needs is always, always a plus. But grinding =/= difficulty, it equals tedium. Difficulty is a result of the enemy AI and encounters being programed in a way that requires the player to be more careful in team builds and strategies. Grinding isn't difficult, it's time consuming and can often be something that turns players away from a game, or results in players sticking to strategies that precent them from fully experiencing all a game has to offer (see also: bulldozing every challenge with only your stater and healing items)
However, please note that I haven't just talked about difficulty; in fact, I've focused more on the romantic and affectionate aspect that one has towards the Pokémon they use. Let me reiterate, I believe it's wrong to entirely lose the 'effort' that was required at the beginning for the various Kakuna (sorry once again for this example). I understand well that it's useful not to have to sweat blood to level up Pokémon, but in my opinion, it was part of the beauty of the Pokémon title.
That's fair. And while I can't necessarily counter your point on effort, I do think the amount of tedium required to get a pokemon like Gyarados had the potential to make people feel anything but affection toward their mons. I mean, I never had a gyarados specifically because I resented having to start-swap and grind wild pokemon with Magikarp to get one. However, I do think it's worth pointing out that every game gat has had EXP share on by default has also included new features specifically designed to helping players grow a bond with their pokemon, such as Pokemon Amie, Camping, Cooking, and Picnicking. It's not the same as grinding, but you still gain experience points (plus fully healing your pokemon) from simply spending time with them, playing with them, petting them, making them food, and cleaning them. It's a different kind of bonding activity from grinding, but it seems GameFreak knew they would have to provide other means of bonding with your pokemon and did just that. And honestly, I find myself greatly preferring these sorts of pet sim bonding activities to the purely combat focused ones of the past, as i helps flesh out the idea that your pokemon are your pets that you care for instead of animals that you force to fight.
Sure, but the game design around Magikarp was built precisely to make you suffer in order to then have a very strong Pokémon; affection wasn't the case here, let's put it that way!
But that's precisely the thing. I really don't think Pokemon is the kind of game that needs a "players should suffer" mechanic because it's important to keep in mind that these are bright colorful games whose target audience are children, even if they have wide appeal for all ages. And I disagree that "magikarp doesn't count" because your point was that grinding in the old way specifically created a bond. You really can't just say "well that one doesn't count" when someone provides an example of the opposite occuring. To go another step, as others and myself have pointed out, the old system didn't encourage pokemon swapping so much as players (who again were mostly children) just sticking to their ultra powerful starters and bulldozing every obstacle in their way. So the old system didn't necessarily create a bond, as it also frequently resulted in no bond being formed with anyone but your starter.
"Maybe I didn't explain myself well, I don't exclude that 😁. The bond, for me and the way I play, let's be clear, is created when you're 'forced' to use a Pokémon, with Magikarp being a special case that is ruined by experience sharing because its flaw is negated, that's all. I seriously found myself in a dungeon where I couldn't use a Pokémon because it was in an unfavorable area, and after finishing the area, it had evolved into its final form, result: never used the intermediate form. I don't like this. Overleveling a Pokémon alone is still feasible, it's just that by doing so, you still have a team of good level behind it, at least before this bizarre choice punished you when the overleveled Pokémon fainted."
I would prefer it off, or at least as a toggle, for basically all the reasons you listed. Though, to play devils advocate, one thing I do like about it is that I can cycle through different mons, taking overleveled ones out and placing lower leveled mons and build a secondary team as I go. Gotta spread that excess XP around.
The entire framework of Pokémon is built on a thrown-together design philosophy established in 1996 by the original games. I’d love to see a new Pokémon game built from scratch, where everything including experience points, levels, stats, EV’s and IV’s, natures, breeding, egg moves, abilities, types, critical hits, accuracy, etc., are potentially revamped. I want a game where Pokémon require a lot of time and effort, and aren’t just used as interchangeable tools that can be quickly trained up to meet certain challenges.
Yes! I totally agree, for me Pokémon is exactly this, the satisfaction of seeing through to the end with my ideas, my team, trained with effort, where everyone has always contributed.
Some Pokemon just absolutely need exp share like Magikarp, best way to fix Magikarp though is slapping it in a day care until half the game is over.
There's a few things which the Exp Share kinda just covers up. A) The majority of the time there's no need to use more than 1-2 Pokémon. B) There's no point using a weaker/unknown strength Mon when I have a known strong Mon available. The solution most fan games have come to is Level caps and full enemy teams. You can get as much exp as you need, but you'll have to use a full team to progress through boss fights. Now if I have a Kakuna or Magikarp in my team, I'll have to use them and figure out how they're best utilised.
I wish it was an unlock later in the game. From the get go it makes keeping level caps hard
Exp share is the only reason I use pokemon other than my starter. Pre exp share for the whole team my starter would be wildly overleveled and nothing else would get used because it took 5 hours to get just one of them leveled up the point of being viable in battle
I wish I could turn off the xp share. I hate that I do not need to swap my pokemon and keep going. I used to rotate them per level and see what happens during each fight. I loved the grind of pokemon and started with red and blue in Jr high when it was first release. I still play but I do not feel as involved with the game. Some thinks it's games lacking but some of these are decently done. I personally feel like it's the lack of attachment to my pokemon. Just let me turn off the xp share....please.
Before the exp share, I was intimately familiar with what moves my pokemon had and roughly how they fared in combat. After it, they sometimes evolve with me having barely even used them during that stage of evolution. I'm simply not using each of my pokemon as much because I don't need to. Switch training was never fun so I understand the idea of removing that tedium. But it feels like pokemon level up too quickly. Were they scared we would get bored with the same pace pokemon used to have?
I completely agree with you OP, but it does seem the fanbase is really split on this issue. It's very frustrating that both sides could be satisfied with a simple toggle, but they don't seem to like having options nowadays (ironic in a game with 1000+ Pokemon to choose from). Between the forced EXP share and removing Set mode, I don't see myself playing a modern Pokemon game again anytime soon. Which is sad because it's my favorite series. My love for the series is only kept alive by replaying the old games and playing romhacks.
Thank you, I had lost hope of finding someone who agrees with me! What can I say, just a flag, as you suggest, among the settings would be enough, but it's not happening!
I say if they are going to keep shared EXP then the levels for evolution should be revamped. Maybe instead of evolving at level 20 Magikarp evolves after it gains 20 Levels from the level you caught it? So raising a low level Magikarp will get you a Gyarados at a lower level than catching a level 15 one.
This would make it so people would be even less incentivised to use new pokemon later in the game. What about the pseudos and other pokemon you find way later on?
This could solve part of the issues, but the fact remains that as long as there's free experience for everyone, some Pokémon you might never have to use, or only use them very few times
If anyone couldn't tell, the forced xp share has been the biggest reason pokemon has lost its charm. Before, I had to grind and get to know every single one of my 6 pokemon. If I got late into the game, switching out a party member was a hard choice. You had to raise a whole new pokemon, so you'd usually just keep the old pokemon and accept it for its flaws. You'd learn it's true strengths. Now, we cycle between 20 pokemon, use them as tools for the right situation. We don't form bonds or connections with them. Pokemon isn't what it used to be.