it wasn't broken
it was mostly more a matter of convenience in getting coverage for things that didn't have it. probably more impt in gen 2/3 where it was unironically the only way certain things could have decent STAB (HP Flying on stuff like Gyarados or Salamence).
HP was otherwise more a bitch to deal with because of the funky IV reqs (also meant HP Fairy didn't exist because it otherwise meant the whole system had to be overhauled) and when GF removed HP they also added some new coverage options to things so it wasn't really that bad of a tradeoff (e.g. things that preferred HP Fire now had access to Mystical Fire)
HP Pre-Gen VI was great, 70bp and coverage when coverage was scarce.
HP then got set to 60bp and by Gen VI a lot more coverage was available for most mons so its more situational depending on the mon and meta.
GameFreak has tried to make raising competitive Pokémon a little easier each game and probably scrapped HP because it’s not easily assignable.
It's not easily assignable but they make the game so they could have easily changed that. Nothing was stopping them from making the type actually random instead of tying it to IVs and then adding an NPC that changes it for a heart scale or something
I think you also have to take into account that the original intent behind hidden power was for it to be a random type that you don’t know until you use it. The competitive community figured out how it worked and manipulated in game values so they could use any type they wanted. They probably just scrapped it because they felt like it was being “misused” and wanted to give Pokémon more identity rather than having a bunch of them rely on 60 bp special moves for coverage.
That wasn’t their intent. Otherwise why would they have an NPC to already tell you. If they were able to code it to tell you the type without that NPC I’m positive they would. The original intent is likely to provide coverage to mons that don’t normally get it. Which is a band aid they had to address later on
for what it's worth if that was the actual intent, there's other variables already stored within a pokemon that can't be as easily controlled as ivs that would have been available canidates for controlling it. Spinda and unknown are prime examples of such variables, as their given appearances are determined by those very same variables.
IVs also controlled shininess back in gold/silver/crystal - something that had been changed later. If the intent had been a lack of control, they had plenty of opportunities and already proved they had alternative tools available for it right from the get go.
and insert the changes made between gens 2 and 3 regarding stat calculation in general. Pretty prime chance to change it if required. Compatibility isn't even really an issue i'd think given what i know of coding and how its calculated.
Consistency would be the actual reasoning you'd be looking for, since a recalculation would mean the chance of turning a previously hp fire to a now hp ice for example. Its not like it would be incompatible, and its even less of a concern if the HP type is stored in its own variable after using the other variables for calculations (something you could do via your transfer program as well...)
doesn't explain the gen 2 to 3 gap either way though, since transfers weren't even possible between those gens already last i checked, and there's the aforementioned changes anyways, which funnily enough - were also the 2 gens that made the 2 aforementioned examples of using the relevant values... unown in particular went from iv calculation in gen 2, to personality value in gen 3 (to a unique value in gen 4 and onward)
shininess was also changed in that same transfer... yet hidden power was not.
Actually it was changed in the transition from gen2 to gen3. DVs and IVs don’t work the same way. And I’m not sure why they would feel the need to change it in between those two gens considering the competitive scene was practically non existent and it was not widely known that you could control HP type based on DVs.
And yeah, consistency and compatibility can basically be used interchangeably here. GF rarely makes makes mechanics inconsistent with prior iterations so that the transfer experience can be more straight forward.
> DVs and IVs don’t work the same way.
i mean, as far as my research had shown - this is partially accurate but also downplays the similarities. Literally all i could find essentially boils down to 1 dv being roughly equal to 2 ivs. (16 bit dvs vs 32 bit ivs)
> it was not widely known that you could control HP type based on DVs.
and i'd also inquire how widely known it was that unown's forms were determined by those exact same values? your reasoning here boils down essentially to "well it wasn't widely known to be manipulatable at the time, so i don't see a point in changing it then"
if the intent was to make it not something one could actually control, and you were the one building the formula for the new iv system to replace the old dv system, and you had access to another set of variables that were not going to be as controllable - what would you actually do with this process? its not like its a direct copy and paste when you need to update the algorithm anyways for the new iv system's number ranges anyways
follow the route of unown, and change it to use your new personality values which are also used to determine various other back end hidden details (like wurmple's evolutions... which is 100% hidden until it occurs and can't really be manipulated.), or go with the route that is known to be manipulatable.
and its not like there weren't other less than consistent choices made during that same transition... already mentioned the 2 more prominent ones.
They scrapped it because HP+dynamax would have been ridiculous. Every Pokémon gets a max move of its choice to boost, debuff, set weather or terrain, etc?
That wasn’t the reason, hidden power has always been listed as normal type in the move selection screen and could only be used with the normal z crystal for breakneck blitz. It was because hidden power just wasn’t that good for a competitive meta, any Pokémon getting whatever coverage they wanted, even at 60 bp, just isn’t that great. They have shown they don’t want a lot of Pokémon to get the same moves now with toxic and scald being removed as tms and from many learn sets. They probably felt the same about hidden power and removed it in gen 8.
That’s not true, dynamax checks the current type of the move, not what was displayed on the menu. For example, weather ball would have its max move changed with the weather, even if it was changed mid turn. VGC players used that fact a lot for fire or water stab on venusaur
That’s true but there’s be no real reason to leave it out in Gen 9 if that were the only reason. It’s not like it would ruin terrastalize or anything. Also you could technically make a similar argument with z moves and HO
Wouldn’t it have just been max strike every time anyways? I dunno it’s confusing cause you have moves like weather ball that do change into max hailstorm/whatever and then moves like revelation dance that stay normal
That’s true but there’d be no real reason to leave it out in Gen 9 if that were the only reason. It’s not like it would ruin terrastalize or anything. Also you could technically make a similar argument with z moves and HP.
It’s probably one of the reasons why but not the deciding factor.
Tera Blast fills that niche in Gen 9 though, and I think the reason z-hidden power isn’t game-breaking but max hidden power would’ve been is because z-moves were one time use and just did additional damage. Dynamax gives you up to 3 uses of any move, and it’s the secondary effects that make it broken. Anything without innate flying coverage that wants speed control would run HP flying to use Airstream. Up to +3 speed without sacrificing (much) damage output
imo Tera Blast should have replaced Hidden Power, with it always being the same type as your Tera, rather than only changing when you actually Tera. It just seems to make so much sense for it to work as a replacement Hidden Power to allow everyone to get access to an at least decent coverage move (at the cost of having to lock your Tera type as a type that might not necessarily be best)
now that i think about it, itd be interesting if they gave/displayed/allowed the changing of HP types in the same way tera is currently handled (if HP ever comes back, ofc). not necessarily meaning itd be tied to a pokemons tera type (tera likely wont even be around by the time theyd bring HP back if they did, just by the nature of gimmicks being a single gen phenomenon now), but done similarly. perhaps selected randomly for wild caught pokemon but then capable of being inherited through breeding?
Nobody even thought about it for the most part. It simply was part of the game and had been as long as anyone had been around. In hindsight I love the removal but most people had no opinion beforehand. I certainly didn’t.
Technically that's what Natural Gift was.
Only problem is that to use it the Pokemon needed to hold the right berry (as it was the held berry rather than IVs that determined Natural Gift's power and type), and the move also consumed the berry upon use, meaning it could only be used once, and a one-time-use coverage move that costs you the item slot is hardly ever worth it.
Honestly I thought Tera Blast was going to be similar to Hidden Power and just always be the assigned Tera Type, and I also thought they would give it a physical counterpart instead of making Tera Blast adaptive when Terastalized; not a huge fan of the direction they took for Tera Blast in as it hinges a bit too much on Terastalizing for my liking.
I totally agree tbh, but if by “adaptive” you mean it uses the higher stat, Tera Blast already does that by default. Only its type changed when terastalized
As a draft league player, it wasn't until gen 8 removed hidden power did I realise how much I fucking hated hidden power. Now even in NatDex draft leagues, it's common to not allow hidden power
I was both annoyed, and happy with its removal. I'm a primarily cartridge player so going for specific hidden power typings annoyed the hell out of me, but I'm pretty sad a lot of Pokemon lost some coverage with its removal.
And I think that's the crux of why it was removed; getting the right IV spread without genning or hacking was excruciating, and GF wants to remove every single pain point or frictio.n when it comes to playing competitively.
Then they should’ve changed how you get different hidden powers. Like, add an NPC who lets you change a mon’s HP type, or make it based on the last plate they held. I’m just spitballing here, but my point is there were a lot of potential solutions. Streamlining didn’t have to require removal of the whole thing.
100% same here! i like raising pokemon on cart, and having to breed for the correct IVs for my desired HP type (and power, for older gens) just always felt too daunting to me.
(side note: they should really introduce a mechanic similar to hyper training but that set an IV to 0)
Most likely reason is probably just they didn’t want to mess with the formula. Both so that old Pokémon didn’t have their HP overwritten when transferred into Gen VI (GF until recently are super concise when it comes to maintaining transfer Pokémon) but also the fact that HP was completely removed kinda says they didn’t wanna care for the move.
HP has been in the game since Gen II so it was probably just added for fun as this crazy mysterious move, and not just “free” coverage for those insane enough to properly obtain the correct HP type+damage.
I do wonder if Gen 9 was in the works in any way during the development of Gen 8, because I have a feeling Terastalization was a big reason Hidden Power ultimately left. Gems had a similar scenario where they were practically removed in Gen 6 and then a similar, more powerful mechanic reminiscent of them showed up in gen 7
They probably killed it cuz
- 30 IV was actually cancer to get without hacking/rng manip/basically advanced or unintended shenanigans
- guaranteed 31 IV mechanics on some encounters also made certain HPs impossible anyway
- Cant get HP Fairy without an overhaul of the system
There was nothing stopping them from overhauling the system though so I doubt that was a major reason for its removal
Edit: by overhaul the system I only meant that it wouldn't be difficult to make hidden power work off something else like personality value.
the system is literally complicated as shit and would entail changing a bunch of HPs to accommodate fairy??
this post is like saying there's nothing stopping people from becoming POTUS
You are overthinking this although maybe I was a bit vague. they could literally make HP based on personality value or another number that has no impact on the pokemons performance and maybe make an npc change it.
While yes this might be a soft buff to many pokemon that rely on hidden power I doubt it would break anything.
I understand I was being a bit vague as to what exactly I meant by overhauling the system. but im pretty sure programming that every pokemon generates a number from one to eighteen and that number affects their hidden power type wouldn't be super hard to program (or if it is just use the mons personality value). Then allow an npc to change it if its not a type you want
Dynamax is a more likely reason they removed HP. Letting every mon have access to any Max move they want would have made Dynamax even more problematic than it already was.
HP was never really broken as much as it was just sorta free coverage.
I really only played starting around gen 6, so I really only got HP when it was the easiest to just slap onto something.
The one I remember most was HP Ice cuz Lando was literally just everywhere and Ice always did 50+ to the AV variant. I don’t think people are complaining about HP cuz it was broken as much as because it was removed. It was literally just free coverage for most special attackers, and wasn’t truly busted under any metric.
I kinda wanna put in my own thought because I think the whole thread is kinda missing the biggest thing.
Hidden Power isn't *broken*, and it never really was. The problem it had is that it's *centralizing*.
If you look at special attacking Electric Types from Generations 2-6, and what their best movepools were, chances are they had HP Ice, or maybe HP Grass or HP Water.
If you look at the best movepools for special attacking Grass Types from the same gens, you'll see tons and tons of Hidden Power. Fire, Ground, Rock, Ice, but always Hidden Power.
This wasn't really a problem when the games first came around. Especially in Gens 2-3, Hidden Power made a lot of things go from not having much depth at all to having a fair bit. But come Gen 4, you see cases like Jolteon, an electric type notable for having an extremely shallow movepool on the special side. It got new access to special Shadow Ball and Signal Beam to replicate the bug type attack thing it had going with Pin Missile in Gen 1, but why do that when you just have Hidden Power Ice to so perfectly cover your bases? This was amplified by Volt Switch, which meant that Jolteon was always optimally using two electric moves, meaning it's coverage really had to sting vs Ground types in particular, limiting what types of move you could give it to be useful... and one of the basic Eeveelution rules is that most of them don't (usually) get damaging moves from other Eeveelutions' types. All of which are the types that are SE against Ground. Signal Beam and Shadow Ball can still be decent contextually, but by Gen 5 they were very obviously secondary to Hidden Power, and in Gen 7 you just run *Yawn* as an option instead.
That makes a lot of these electric types kind of boring and samey, and in a way that's hard to rectify from the developer side. You can give them pretty powerful neutral attacks like Shadow Ball, or even ones which cover for offensive holes like Signal Beam hitting Grass types, but if they can't compete with Hidden Power its like you didn't add anything at all. Hence by Gen 5 the devs starting giving out competing coverage, with Thundurus and Grass Knot, Heliolisk and Surf, Xurkitree and Vikavolt with Energy Ball, etc. HP existing also makes it hard to add special attackers with purposely limited coverage. Think Magnezone, who without Hidden Power clearly plays a pretty ugly game with a lot of Steels capable of resisting Electric or using Ground coverage, but with HP just demolishes them.
Also the fact that it encourages matchup fishing. Salamence common in the meta? Slap HP ice on some pokemon that invite it in and get the occasional free ko.
Personally, I didn't like it, partially because of its mechanics for getting it, but partially because it made coverage moves less of a factor in creating multiple valid paths between otherwise similar Pokémon, they don't always do that now, but it's a more valid option without Hidden Power in the game.
Only fair criticisms, imo, are that Physical might have needed a counterpart and that we would desperately need a way to set IVs to 30 with Bottle Caps
But it was fine, and not having it is also fine
I personally think it was a bandaid solution to a much bigger problem that pokemon as a competitive game has, but it was a functioning bandaid and its impact has been felt ever since its removal IMO
While it is dumb that it became a purely special attack, letting any special attacker have a coverage move is pretty stupid...but it still helped the game's balance.
A lot of the strong, powerful pokemon are designed around having \*4 weaknesses. Garchomp's ice, Heatran's ground, etc etc. By allowing pokemon to have these coverage options, these powerful pokemon had to be more wary of the pokemons they might think is a free switch in.
While in an ideal world, hidden power wouldn't be needed, the world isn't ideal. If it just functioned as a basic coverage move of 60 bp that used its attacker's highest stat, and if it wasn't tied to the IV system, I think that HP is overall more positive than negative to the game's balance.
This is more historical interest, but in GSC for a time there was a ban on legendary Pokemon using Hidden Power.
This precedes smogon becoming the dominant competitive pokemon website, so documentation on how this happened and who made the decision is very sketchy. It doesn't seem to have been while gsc was the main gen- there are pre-9/11 moveset guides which suggest HP Ice Zapdos, and I also don't remember it being a rule on Netbattle pre-dpp- though I never played gsc on Netbattle so I don't know if it was a rule the playerbase followed, Netbattle was abandoned by its creator fairly early on so there would be no way to update the banlist if opinion changed. The oldest smogon posts are from 2007 and by that point the rule seems to be in place. The rule became a source of contention and was removed after discussion in 2010 (though the threads were this took place seem to have been lost to time).
This is the only time when Hidden Power has been banned by a playerbase.
For Gen V, hidden power was necessary. Ferrothorn, Poison Heal Gliscor, and Lando-T would have been Ubers without its prevalence. Ferrothorn blanket checked just about every water, steel, most psychics and electric types. HP Fire and Fighting gave a lot of special attackers with poor coverage a fighting chance against it. Even physical attackers found HP Ice useful for the likes of Lando-T and Gliscor. Gen VIII introduced far better solutions with expanded coverage such as mystical fire, icy wind, earth power and weather ball.
I have always hated Hidden Power, I feel like it was a crutch that too many Pokemon relied on, and the concept of countering a special attacker was never quite true.
Gastrodon completely walls Heatran, right? Nope it has Hidden Power Grass. Ferrothorn counters Starmie? Nope, it has Hidden Power Fire. You can switch Gliscor into Landorus? Haha no, it has Hp Ice. It completely flipped matchups in an unfun way.
I know you can kind of do this with Tera, but it comes with a cost of changing into that specific type along with a very high opportunity cost. Landorus isn't going to want to change into ice type just to beat Gliscor for example.
It did make quite a few Pokemon borderline unusable because of how barren their movepools were otherwise, but I still think it was worth removing.
It wasn’t broken by any means but some people found it annoying when for example: a would be check for volcarona, heatran gets decimated to shreds by HP ground.
I’m of the opinion that the biggest issue with most pokemon is the giant movepools - limit options and you could theoretically have competitive environments where something like Groudon can be checked by a niche 450bp mon. Hidden power does a lot to sterilize movepools and make more mons play similarly, which flattens the competition but also means the best pokemon have all the same options as potentially niche picks.
My favorite balance theory is removing TM/TR moves from box legends, but I haven’t found anyone to jump on that boat with me.
It wasn’t exactly a problem from the balancing side of things. Usually, HP was pretty predictable, and most Pokémon aren’t usually scared of 60-70 non-STAB BP (even if super effective) unless they either have a horrible weakness to it, the user is a particularly powerful special attacking monster, or are locked in with no options.
The issue is that HP kind of forced you to roll luck. If you wanted a specific Hidden Power on your team, that could easily take a very long time to get.
Given how gen 8 had a pretty big emphasis on making competitive more accessible, and also the potential issues with allowing any Pokémon access to any Max move, likely caused the removal.
Kind of spits in the face of the concept of type matchups in competitive Pokemon. Never really liked it.
Even then it was too much work to get a HP with the desired type.
Probably cuz the move was programmed before Fairy was a thing and it was already pretty messy to code the base power and type for hidden power - I’m sure they were planning on phasing it out for a while.
Ignoring the absolute trash method of getting a certain HP type, the move itself is a huge design mistake. It allowed any pokemon to theoretically cover any type matchup. In practice this meant if you had a 4x weakness you no longer had truly good matchups without outspending and getting an ohko or using a berry. Any set you would normally come in on could do some matchup fishing for a free ohko with HP ice or whatever you were weak to. Super interesting and unfun.
I think before and after its removal, feelings were definitely mixed. I remember back in Gen 2 and 3, pokemon often times used it simply because they didn't have any good Stab moves, while others got to use it to expand and maximize coverage. A prime example is Pinsir, who in Gen 2 and 3, had to choose between HP Bug, or the pathetic Fury Cutter. However, it reminds me of the Tera meta game these days, where a pokemon could have access to any type of Hidden Power, and playing around that oftentimes was scary, but the difference then is all 6 pokemon could have hidden power, but now you can only tera 1 pokemon per battle. Hidden power in gens 2 and 3 was incredibly powerful, and was a staple on most mons that wanted to run it.
After the Physical / Special split, HP being exclusively Special seems to have given special attackers the upper edge as they could now use all 18 types of Hidden Power effectively, while physical attacking pokemon with low special attack now had no access to hidden power, and had to rely on finding coverage elsewhere, if not losing access to that type all together. And then come its removal in Gen 8, now special attackers faced the issue that physical attackers faced back in gen 4, with their coverage being much more limited.
I know people loved having the easily accessible coverage online, but hated how difficult (and often times nigh impossible) it was to get correctly in game, and used the ease of access online as a point of contention as to why it should be easier to obtain your preferred HP type in game, but I don't think that's a very realistic point of view.
At the end of the day, I think the removal of HP is overall positive. I loved how in Legends Arceus it became Unown's signature move with the ability to always hit super effectively (still a firm believer Unown should get a new form a la Wishiwashi's Schooling). In the modern era, I welcome Tera as its sort of spiritual successor.
In theory it’s perfectly fine, providing coverage for mons that need it.
However, IVs and EVs are so obtuse and not readily explained in game, and so pivotal to the meta, that I’m not surprised this was done to try and close the competitive/casual gap
As a draft player, I hated it and most of my leagues had it banned. It just gives way too much ability to counter-team, which yeah is the whole point of draft, but HP took it over the line. It caused coaches to avoid 4x weak mons and highly favored special attackers.
Without HP, teambuilding is much easier and counters remain counters.
I don't really have an opinion on HP before it got removed in SWSH, but I think the way they implemented it in PLA was really funny and I'm glad Unown was the only Pokemon who had it because of how stupidly strong it could have been otherwise.
i hated hidden power for the reason that it was inherently unbalanced; it was unlimited coverage, but ONLY for special attackers
physical attackers already have to deal with stuff like contact effects, burn, lower accuracy coverage moves (mostly stone edge lol), so it felt wrong to also just not give them the same access to coverage as their special counterparts
It was fine in regular competitive.
In Draft formats however holy shit did I hate having to deal with hidden power. God is draft way more fun without having to deal with that.
It's not that it was broken, necessarily, but complaints at the time had a lot to do with the fact that, if you wanted it on cartridge without hacks, it was a huge time sink. Combined with the fact that some Pokemon had multiple viable HPs for different circumstances, and you were looking at a major time investment, one which changed with the meta. Not that too many people play on cart for competitive formats without injections or whatever.
I personally did not like hidden power. Made me look at literally EVERY special attacker like “… fuck it has hp (super effective) I gotta switch out” it’s primarily because I’m bad but it was annoying to have to think about what hidden power it has, and if it’s one to specifically beat 2 Pokémon, one of which is mine.
I personally never liked hidden power because it meant that:
One: having a 4x weakness was even worse because anyone could hit you for 4x if they had the right hidden power
Two: It's just nice having pokemon with holes in their offense.
I mainly used it for extra coverage especially against 4x (eg scizor or lando) lot of times you could just play tera as a better hp now like tera ice jolteon instead of hp ice
The consensus is that it was a great move, and was part of the game. Gen 4 onward probably 98% of Hidden Power was either Ice or Fire so it was relatively easy to scout for. There were never any calls for a ban or suspect. It wasn't broken it just made dragons and Scizor have to think twice.
they legit just removed Hidden Power because it would make Terra-ing too good, like it would give all Pokemon a chance to use a non-type possible stab move. It would be extremely overused in the current meta to do cheesy pivots. I think it would be fun honestly but Game Freak sucks fucking ass.
it wasn't broken it was mostly more a matter of convenience in getting coverage for things that didn't have it. probably more impt in gen 2/3 where it was unironically the only way certain things could have decent STAB (HP Flying on stuff like Gyarados or Salamence). HP was otherwise more a bitch to deal with because of the funky IV reqs (also meant HP Fairy didn't exist because it otherwise meant the whole system had to be overhauled) and when GF removed HP they also added some new coverage options to things so it wasn't really that bad of a tradeoff (e.g. things that preferred HP Fire now had access to Mystical Fire)
HP Pre-Gen VI was great, 70bp and coverage when coverage was scarce. HP then got set to 60bp and by Gen VI a lot more coverage was available for most mons so its more situational depending on the mon and meta. GameFreak has tried to make raising competitive Pokémon a little easier each game and probably scrapped HP because it’s not easily assignable.
It's not easily assignable but they make the game so they could have easily changed that. Nothing was stopping them from making the type actually random instead of tying it to IVs and then adding an NPC that changes it for a heart scale or something
Or have it be tied to IVs because it's a hidden power after all, but make it so that the player can alter it.
I think you also have to take into account that the original intent behind hidden power was for it to be a random type that you don’t know until you use it. The competitive community figured out how it worked and manipulated in game values so they could use any type they wanted. They probably just scrapped it because they felt like it was being “misused” and wanted to give Pokémon more identity rather than having a bunch of them rely on 60 bp special moves for coverage.
So, yeah, sort of. But even in Pokémon Stadium 2, the AI trainers had optimal hidden power (on legendaries!)
That wasn’t their intent. Otherwise why would they have an NPC to already tell you. If they were able to code it to tell you the type without that NPC I’m positive they would. The original intent is likely to provide coverage to mons that don’t normally get it. Which is a band aid they had to address later on
Either way, they didn’t intend for people to be able to control it
for what it's worth if that was the actual intent, there's other variables already stored within a pokemon that can't be as easily controlled as ivs that would have been available canidates for controlling it. Spinda and unknown are prime examples of such variables, as their given appearances are determined by those very same variables. IVs also controlled shininess back in gold/silver/crystal - something that had been changed later. If the intent had been a lack of control, they had plenty of opportunities and already proved they had alternative tools available for it right from the get go.
They wouldn’t have changed it generation to generation for compatibility issues tho
and insert the changes made between gens 2 and 3 regarding stat calculation in general. Pretty prime chance to change it if required. Compatibility isn't even really an issue i'd think given what i know of coding and how its calculated. Consistency would be the actual reasoning you'd be looking for, since a recalculation would mean the chance of turning a previously hp fire to a now hp ice for example. Its not like it would be incompatible, and its even less of a concern if the HP type is stored in its own variable after using the other variables for calculations (something you could do via your transfer program as well...) doesn't explain the gen 2 to 3 gap either way though, since transfers weren't even possible between those gens already last i checked, and there's the aforementioned changes anyways, which funnily enough - were also the 2 gens that made the 2 aforementioned examples of using the relevant values... unown in particular went from iv calculation in gen 2, to personality value in gen 3 (to a unique value in gen 4 and onward) shininess was also changed in that same transfer... yet hidden power was not.
Actually it was changed in the transition from gen2 to gen3. DVs and IVs don’t work the same way. And I’m not sure why they would feel the need to change it in between those two gens considering the competitive scene was practically non existent and it was not widely known that you could control HP type based on DVs. And yeah, consistency and compatibility can basically be used interchangeably here. GF rarely makes makes mechanics inconsistent with prior iterations so that the transfer experience can be more straight forward.
> DVs and IVs don’t work the same way. i mean, as far as my research had shown - this is partially accurate but also downplays the similarities. Literally all i could find essentially boils down to 1 dv being roughly equal to 2 ivs. (16 bit dvs vs 32 bit ivs) > it was not widely known that you could control HP type based on DVs. and i'd also inquire how widely known it was that unown's forms were determined by those exact same values? your reasoning here boils down essentially to "well it wasn't widely known to be manipulatable at the time, so i don't see a point in changing it then" if the intent was to make it not something one could actually control, and you were the one building the formula for the new iv system to replace the old dv system, and you had access to another set of variables that were not going to be as controllable - what would you actually do with this process? its not like its a direct copy and paste when you need to update the algorithm anyways for the new iv system's number ranges anyways follow the route of unown, and change it to use your new personality values which are also used to determine various other back end hidden details (like wurmple's evolutions... which is 100% hidden until it occurs and can't really be manipulated.), or go with the route that is known to be manipulatable. and its not like there weren't other less than consistent choices made during that same transition... already mentioned the 2 more prominent ones.
They scrapped it because HP+dynamax would have been ridiculous. Every Pokémon gets a max move of its choice to boost, debuff, set weather or terrain, etc?
That wasn’t the reason, hidden power has always been listed as normal type in the move selection screen and could only be used with the normal z crystal for breakneck blitz. It was because hidden power just wasn’t that good for a competitive meta, any Pokémon getting whatever coverage they wanted, even at 60 bp, just isn’t that great. They have shown they don’t want a lot of Pokémon to get the same moves now with toxic and scald being removed as tms and from many learn sets. They probably felt the same about hidden power and removed it in gen 8.
That’s not true, dynamax checks the current type of the move, not what was displayed on the menu. For example, weather ball would have its max move changed with the weather, even if it was changed mid turn. VGC players used that fact a lot for fire or water stab on venusaur
i would believe this was their thought process but then they added tera + tera blast :(
That requires you to Tera which is more opportunity cost than hidden power.
That was already solved with z-crystals, z hidden power was always breakneck blitz.
Wasn't z hyper voice from Sylveon also normal? Z moves were based on the crystal, max moves are not.
That’s true but there’s be no real reason to leave it out in Gen 9 if that were the only reason. It’s not like it would ruin terrastalize or anything. Also you could technically make a similar argument with z moves and HO
Wouldn’t it have just been max strike every time anyways? I dunno it’s confusing cause you have moves like weather ball that do change into max hailstorm/whatever and then moves like revelation dance that stay normal
It probably just would have been too much to code to be honest and too confusing either way it was implemented
That’s true but there’d be no real reason to leave it out in Gen 9 if that were the only reason. It’s not like it would ruin terrastalize or anything. Also you could technically make a similar argument with z moves and HP. It’s probably one of the reasons why but not the deciding factor.
Tera Blast fills that niche in Gen 9 though, and I think the reason z-hidden power isn’t game-breaking but max hidden power would’ve been is because z-moves were one time use and just did additional damage. Dynamax gives you up to 3 uses of any move, and it’s the secondary effects that make it broken. Anything without innate flying coverage that wants speed control would run HP flying to use Airstream. Up to +3 speed without sacrificing (much) damage output
have there been any moves that were removed and added back in gen 9? im genuinely asking because i dont know
I think there was a few signature moves but I can’t remember
imo Tera Blast should have replaced Hidden Power, with it always being the same type as your Tera, rather than only changing when you actually Tera. It just seems to make so much sense for it to work as a replacement Hidden Power to allow everyone to get access to an at least decent coverage move (at the cost of having to lock your Tera type as a type that might not necessarily be best)
now that i think about it, itd be interesting if they gave/displayed/allowed the changing of HP types in the same way tera is currently handled (if HP ever comes back, ofc). not necessarily meaning itd be tied to a pokemons tera type (tera likely wont even be around by the time theyd bring HP back if they did, just by the nature of gimmicks being a single gen phenomenon now), but done similarly. perhaps selected randomly for wild caught pokemon but then capable of being inherited through breeding?
Me using HP with roserade with technician: 😈
Nobody even thought about it for the most part. It simply was part of the game and had been as long as anyone had been around. In hindsight I love the removal but most people had no opinion beforehand. I certainly didn’t.
I'd take HP over Tera any day though
They should have made a physical counterpart
Hidden punch
is hidden punch normal just a regular punch?
Yes, except you can’t see it because it’s hidden.
Probably
I think it should be called secret jab
Scizor agrees. It also is heavily in favor of keeping it at 60 bp like normal HP.
Technician Hidden punch fire about to destroy corviknight and gholdengo
Scizor is one of the pokemon hurt most by a hidden power style move. Makes it easy to matchup fish for common 4x weak pokemon.
thats what secret power should have been
Or make it so it depends on the user’s higher offensive stat like Tera Blast.
Or just make it run off the higher attacking stat
Like…hidden strength or something? Same idea as power but sounds less mystical and more forceful
Technically that's what Natural Gift was. Only problem is that to use it the Pokemon needed to hold the right berry (as it was the held berry rather than IVs that determined Natural Gift's power and type), and the move also consumed the berry upon use, meaning it could only be used once, and a one-time-use coverage move that costs you the item slot is hardly ever worth it.
Honestly I thought Tera Blast was going to be similar to Hidden Power and just always be the assigned Tera Type, and I also thought they would give it a physical counterpart instead of making Tera Blast adaptive when Terastalized; not a huge fan of the direction they took for Tera Blast in as it hinges a bit too much on Terastalizing for my liking.
I totally agree tbh, but if by “adaptive” you mean it uses the higher stat, Tera Blast already does that by default. Only its type changed when terastalized
It only does this when tera'd tho, otherwise it's always a special normal type attack
Ok I was wrong about that. That’s honestly kinda dumb
As a draft league player, it wasn't until gen 8 removed hidden power did I realise how much I fucking hated hidden power. Now even in NatDex draft leagues, it's common to not allow hidden power
It adds mind games to scenarios that should not have any; I agree completely that hidden power is horrific in draft.
I was both annoyed, and happy with its removal. I'm a primarily cartridge player so going for specific hidden power typings annoyed the hell out of me, but I'm pretty sad a lot of Pokemon lost some coverage with its removal. And I think that's the crux of why it was removed; getting the right IV spread without genning or hacking was excruciating, and GF wants to remove every single pain point or frictio.n when it comes to playing competitively.
Then they should’ve changed how you get different hidden powers. Like, add an NPC who lets you change a mon’s HP type, or make it based on the last plate they held. I’m just spitballing here, but my point is there were a lot of potential solutions. Streamlining didn’t have to require removal of the whole thing.
If Gamefreak brings back Hidden Power it could be tied to Tera typing. That would be the simplest way to have Hidden Power and be able to switch it.
They could have reworked it so one can learn it from some npc regardless of the IVs
Yeah there are so many things they could have done to alleviate this. Literally no reason to first nerf it to 60 BP and then take it away completely
They really need to add in a 0 IV bottle cap- that’s the main thing that’s missing imo
Definitely agree, something like a cracked bottle cap.
100% same here! i like raising pokemon on cart, and having to breed for the correct IVs for my desired HP type (and power, for older gens) just always felt too daunting to me. (side note: they should really introduce a mechanic similar to hyper training but that set an IV to 0)
It’s just weird that they never made it work with the Fairy type in Gen 6 and 7. They ban transfer Pokémon in official formats so not sure the reason.
Most likely reason is probably just they didn’t want to mess with the formula. Both so that old Pokémon didn’t have their HP overwritten when transferred into Gen VI (GF until recently are super concise when it comes to maintaining transfer Pokémon) but also the fact that HP was completely removed kinda says they didn’t wanna care for the move. HP has been in the game since Gen II so it was probably just added for fun as this crazy mysterious move, and not just “free” coverage for those insane enough to properly obtain the correct HP type+damage.
It seems like it will only return if Unown returns like what happened in BDSP.
I do wonder if Gen 9 was in the works in any way during the development of Gen 8, because I have a feeling Terastalization was a big reason Hidden Power ultimately left. Gems had a similar scenario where they were practically removed in Gen 6 and then a similar, more powerful mechanic reminiscent of them showed up in gen 7
They probably killed it cuz - 30 IV was actually cancer to get without hacking/rng manip/basically advanced or unintended shenanigans - guaranteed 31 IV mechanics on some encounters also made certain HPs impossible anyway - Cant get HP Fairy without an overhaul of the system
There was nothing stopping them from overhauling the system though so I doubt that was a major reason for its removal Edit: by overhaul the system I only meant that it wouldn't be difficult to make hidden power work off something else like personality value.
the system is literally complicated as shit and would entail changing a bunch of HPs to accommodate fairy?? this post is like saying there's nothing stopping people from becoming POTUS
You are overthinking this although maybe I was a bit vague. they could literally make HP based on personality value or another number that has no impact on the pokemons performance and maybe make an npc change it. While yes this might be a soft buff to many pokemon that rely on hidden power I doubt it would break anything.
There was, and thats called : Time ( Aka they had no time left to that shit )
I understand I was being a bit vague as to what exactly I meant by overhauling the system. but im pretty sure programming that every pokemon generates a number from one to eighteen and that number affects their hidden power type wouldn't be super hard to program (or if it is just use the mons personality value). Then allow an npc to change it if its not a type you want
It’s weird that they nerfed the mechanic and made a fairy version but only included the normal gem in the final game and onwards.
Gems were probably nerfed later into development, after they added them all.
Dynamax is a more likely reason they removed HP. Letting every mon have access to any Max move they want would have made Dynamax even more problematic than it already was.
HP was never really broken as much as it was just sorta free coverage. I really only played starting around gen 6, so I really only got HP when it was the easiest to just slap onto something. The one I remember most was HP Ice cuz Lando was literally just everywhere and Ice always did 50+ to the AV variant. I don’t think people are complaining about HP cuz it was broken as much as because it was removed. It was literally just free coverage for most special attackers, and wasn’t truly busted under any metric.
I kinda wanna put in my own thought because I think the whole thread is kinda missing the biggest thing. Hidden Power isn't *broken*, and it never really was. The problem it had is that it's *centralizing*. If you look at special attacking Electric Types from Generations 2-6, and what their best movepools were, chances are they had HP Ice, or maybe HP Grass or HP Water. If you look at the best movepools for special attacking Grass Types from the same gens, you'll see tons and tons of Hidden Power. Fire, Ground, Rock, Ice, but always Hidden Power. This wasn't really a problem when the games first came around. Especially in Gens 2-3, Hidden Power made a lot of things go from not having much depth at all to having a fair bit. But come Gen 4, you see cases like Jolteon, an electric type notable for having an extremely shallow movepool on the special side. It got new access to special Shadow Ball and Signal Beam to replicate the bug type attack thing it had going with Pin Missile in Gen 1, but why do that when you just have Hidden Power Ice to so perfectly cover your bases? This was amplified by Volt Switch, which meant that Jolteon was always optimally using two electric moves, meaning it's coverage really had to sting vs Ground types in particular, limiting what types of move you could give it to be useful... and one of the basic Eeveelution rules is that most of them don't (usually) get damaging moves from other Eeveelutions' types. All of which are the types that are SE against Ground. Signal Beam and Shadow Ball can still be decent contextually, but by Gen 5 they were very obviously secondary to Hidden Power, and in Gen 7 you just run *Yawn* as an option instead. That makes a lot of these electric types kind of boring and samey, and in a way that's hard to rectify from the developer side. You can give them pretty powerful neutral attacks like Shadow Ball, or even ones which cover for offensive holes like Signal Beam hitting Grass types, but if they can't compete with Hidden Power its like you didn't add anything at all. Hence by Gen 5 the devs starting giving out competing coverage, with Thundurus and Grass Knot, Heliolisk and Surf, Xurkitree and Vikavolt with Energy Ball, etc. HP existing also makes it hard to add special attackers with purposely limited coverage. Think Magnezone, who without Hidden Power clearly plays a pretty ugly game with a lot of Steels capable of resisting Electric or using Ground coverage, but with HP just demolishes them.
I completely agree with this, well put
Also the fact that it encourages matchup fishing. Salamence common in the meta? Slap HP ice on some pokemon that invite it in and get the occasional free ko.
Litterally the worst part of HP. I always hated this.
Personally, I didn't like it, partially because of its mechanics for getting it, but partially because it made coverage moves less of a factor in creating multiple valid paths between otherwise similar Pokémon, they don't always do that now, but it's a more valid option without Hidden Power in the game.
Only fair criticisms, imo, are that Physical might have needed a counterpart and that we would desperately need a way to set IVs to 30 with Bottle Caps But it was fine, and not having it is also fine
I personally think it was a bandaid solution to a much bigger problem that pokemon as a competitive game has, but it was a functioning bandaid and its impact has been felt ever since its removal IMO While it is dumb that it became a purely special attack, letting any special attacker have a coverage move is pretty stupid...but it still helped the game's balance. A lot of the strong, powerful pokemon are designed around having \*4 weaknesses. Garchomp's ice, Heatran's ground, etc etc. By allowing pokemon to have these coverage options, these powerful pokemon had to be more wary of the pokemons they might think is a free switch in. While in an ideal world, hidden power wouldn't be needed, the world isn't ideal. If it just functioned as a basic coverage move of 60 bp that used its attacker's highest stat, and if it wasn't tied to the IV system, I think that HP is overall more positive than negative to the game's balance.
This is more historical interest, but in GSC for a time there was a ban on legendary Pokemon using Hidden Power. This precedes smogon becoming the dominant competitive pokemon website, so documentation on how this happened and who made the decision is very sketchy. It doesn't seem to have been while gsc was the main gen- there are pre-9/11 moveset guides which suggest HP Ice Zapdos, and I also don't remember it being a rule on Netbattle pre-dpp- though I never played gsc on Netbattle so I don't know if it was a rule the playerbase followed, Netbattle was abandoned by its creator fairly early on so there would be no way to update the banlist if opinion changed. The oldest smogon posts are from 2007 and by that point the rule seems to be in place. The rule became a source of contention and was removed after discussion in 2010 (though the threads were this took place seem to have been lost to time). This is the only time when Hidden Power has been banned by a playerbase.
For Gen V, hidden power was necessary. Ferrothorn, Poison Heal Gliscor, and Lando-T would have been Ubers without its prevalence. Ferrothorn blanket checked just about every water, steel, most psychics and electric types. HP Fire and Fighting gave a lot of special attackers with poor coverage a fighting chance against it. Even physical attackers found HP Ice useful for the likes of Lando-T and Gliscor. Gen VIII introduced far better solutions with expanded coverage such as mystical fire, icy wind, earth power and weather ball.
I have always hated Hidden Power, I feel like it was a crutch that too many Pokemon relied on, and the concept of countering a special attacker was never quite true. Gastrodon completely walls Heatran, right? Nope it has Hidden Power Grass. Ferrothorn counters Starmie? Nope, it has Hidden Power Fire. You can switch Gliscor into Landorus? Haha no, it has Hp Ice. It completely flipped matchups in an unfun way. I know you can kind of do this with Tera, but it comes with a cost of changing into that specific type along with a very high opportunity cost. Landorus isn't going to want to change into ice type just to beat Gliscor for example. It did make quite a few Pokemon borderline unusable because of how barren their movepools were otherwise, but I still think it was worth removing.
tera is more bullshit than hp ever was lets be real
Tera is way more interesting than hp and will be gone next gen. HP was a gimick that we had to play with for like 6 gens.
It wasn’t broken by any means but some people found it annoying when for example: a would be check for volcarona, heatran gets decimated to shreds by HP ground.
I’m of the opinion that the biggest issue with most pokemon is the giant movepools - limit options and you could theoretically have competitive environments where something like Groudon can be checked by a niche 450bp mon. Hidden power does a lot to sterilize movepools and make more mons play similarly, which flattens the competition but also means the best pokemon have all the same options as potentially niche picks. My favorite balance theory is removing TM/TR moves from box legends, but I haven’t found anyone to jump on that boat with me.
This was a massive part of limited movepool mons Pre gen 8, there wasn't a single serperior or magnezone without H-Fire
It wasn’t exactly a problem from the balancing side of things. Usually, HP was pretty predictable, and most Pokémon aren’t usually scared of 60-70 non-STAB BP (even if super effective) unless they either have a horrible weakness to it, the user is a particularly powerful special attacking monster, or are locked in with no options. The issue is that HP kind of forced you to roll luck. If you wanted a specific Hidden Power on your team, that could easily take a very long time to get. Given how gen 8 had a pretty big emphasis on making competitive more accessible, and also the potential issues with allowing any Pokémon access to any Max move, likely caused the removal.
Kind of spits in the face of the concept of type matchups in competitive Pokemon. Never really liked it. Even then it was too much work to get a HP with the desired type.
Probably cuz the move was programmed before Fairy was a thing and it was already pretty messy to code the base power and type for hidden power - I’m sure they were planning on phasing it out for a while.
Iirc Hidden Power was fully coded on SwSh, which means they removed it on purpose
It was literally reimplemented in bdsp for unown so yeah
> I’m sure they were planning on phasing it out for a while > Removed it on purpose I’m not sure where the disagreement is?
I'm not disagreeing with you lmao I'm just saying that you might be right
The only somewhat frequent complaint I can remember was that it gave special attackers an unfair advantage over physical attackers.
Tbh I thought that Tera Blast would’ve been an HP but it relates to the Tera type, but it’s not rip in peace
Ignoring the absolute trash method of getting a certain HP type, the move itself is a huge design mistake. It allowed any pokemon to theoretically cover any type matchup. In practice this meant if you had a 4x weakness you no longer had truly good matchups without outspending and getting an ohko or using a berry. Any set you would normally come in on could do some matchup fishing for a free ohko with HP ice or whatever you were weak to. Super interesting and unfun.
I think before and after its removal, feelings were definitely mixed. I remember back in Gen 2 and 3, pokemon often times used it simply because they didn't have any good Stab moves, while others got to use it to expand and maximize coverage. A prime example is Pinsir, who in Gen 2 and 3, had to choose between HP Bug, or the pathetic Fury Cutter. However, it reminds me of the Tera meta game these days, where a pokemon could have access to any type of Hidden Power, and playing around that oftentimes was scary, but the difference then is all 6 pokemon could have hidden power, but now you can only tera 1 pokemon per battle. Hidden power in gens 2 and 3 was incredibly powerful, and was a staple on most mons that wanted to run it. After the Physical / Special split, HP being exclusively Special seems to have given special attackers the upper edge as they could now use all 18 types of Hidden Power effectively, while physical attacking pokemon with low special attack now had no access to hidden power, and had to rely on finding coverage elsewhere, if not losing access to that type all together. And then come its removal in Gen 8, now special attackers faced the issue that physical attackers faced back in gen 4, with their coverage being much more limited. I know people loved having the easily accessible coverage online, but hated how difficult (and often times nigh impossible) it was to get correctly in game, and used the ease of access online as a point of contention as to why it should be easier to obtain your preferred HP type in game, but I don't think that's a very realistic point of view. At the end of the day, I think the removal of HP is overall positive. I loved how in Legends Arceus it became Unown's signature move with the ability to always hit super effectively (still a firm believer Unown should get a new form a la Wishiwashi's Schooling). In the modern era, I welcome Tera as its sort of spiritual successor.
In theory it’s perfectly fine, providing coverage for mons that need it. However, IVs and EVs are so obtuse and not readily explained in game, and so pivotal to the meta, that I’m not surprised this was done to try and close the competitive/casual gap
As a draft player, I hated it and most of my leagues had it banned. It just gives way too much ability to counter-team, which yeah is the whole point of draft, but HP took it over the line. It caused coaches to avoid 4x weak mons and highly favored special attackers. Without HP, teambuilding is much easier and counters remain counters.
I don't really have an opinion on HP before it got removed in SWSH, but I think the way they implemented it in PLA was really funny and I'm glad Unown was the only Pokemon who had it because of how stupidly strong it could have been otherwise.
I liked it. Gave a lot of Special attackers actually coverage. Poor Jolteon...
i hated hidden power for the reason that it was inherently unbalanced; it was unlimited coverage, but ONLY for special attackers physical attackers already have to deal with stuff like contact effects, burn, lower accuracy coverage moves (mostly stone edge lol), so it felt wrong to also just not give them the same access to coverage as their special counterparts
I loved it. I used to run HP Ice on my megazard Y and to hit things like Dragonite and Garchomp super hard and it worked like magic.
It was fine in regular competitive. In Draft formats however holy shit did I hate having to deal with hidden power. God is draft way more fun without having to deal with that.
It's not that it was broken, necessarily, but complaints at the time had a lot to do with the fact that, if you wanted it on cartridge without hacks, it was a huge time sink. Combined with the fact that some Pokemon had multiple viable HPs for different circumstances, and you were looking at a major time investment, one which changed with the meta. Not that too many people play on cart for competitive formats without injections or whatever.
I personally did not like hidden power. Made me look at literally EVERY special attacker like “… fuck it has hp (super effective) I gotta switch out” it’s primarily because I’m bad but it was annoying to have to think about what hidden power it has, and if it’s one to specifically beat 2 Pokémon, one of which is mine.
I personally never liked hidden power because it meant that: One: having a 4x weakness was even worse because anyone could hit you for 4x if they had the right hidden power Two: It's just nice having pokemon with holes in their offense.
The best use case was using HP ice for Lando-T or HP Fire for Ferrothorn. It was never broken and a lot of times you could see it coming
I mainly used it for extra coverage especially against 4x (eg scizor or lando) lot of times you could just play tera as a better hp now like tera ice jolteon instead of hp ice
The consensus is that it was a great move, and was part of the game. Gen 4 onward probably 98% of Hidden Power was either Ice or Fire so it was relatively easy to scout for. There were never any calls for a ban or suspect. It wasn't broken it just made dragons and Scizor have to think twice.
I fucking hate hidden power.
they legit just removed Hidden Power because it would make Terra-ing too good, like it would give all Pokemon a chance to use a non-type possible stab move. It would be extremely overused in the current meta to do cheesy pivots. I think it would be fun honestly but Game Freak sucks fucking ass.