Necessarily Awkward Gamestuff

[Felicity]

Its not forced though. You dont have to use the Pokemon. If you -want- to use the pokemon, grinding isnt a question. Its just something you do.

Ok, so then the game fails in encouraging a player to use a pokemon? Again, it only discourages players from using it. Let's assume that both types of player wants to use it, if it's at a low-level then it still restricts and frustrates one kind of player. On the other-hand, if it was a higher level a player can willingly invest time to raise a pokemon without restricting another player.

EDIT:

requiring players to do so isn't consistent with the game's goal of reducing the necessity to grind as much as possible.

Direct from the OP, grinding should be a question, it's one of Ames goals to reduce it's neccessity : p

[dondon151]

Now do you really want to start a debate on which opinions are more "valid" than the others? When one addresses the value of somebody else's opinion, one should sit back and evaluate their's first.

Opinions can be assessed based on the strength of supporting evidence and rhetoric. I went out of my way to analyze the possible cases from different player perspectives, and I don't see anyone else on the opposing side doing the same.

[Kithros]

-.-

If it is confusing, let me re-phraze it. When you receive an event (or catch a wild pokemon), which you want to use, 9/10 cases you will grind it. It is easy to bring it up to the level you want, because there are many places of scaling levels (aka for some, difficulty). Easy in terms of time as well, as you can use the exp. share.

If you read my comments, you'll see mentions of its use on early event pokemon leveled up till the 50s, by the use of the exp share and parallel grind of a higher-leveled pokemon. This is a way to do EV training at the same time.

Now that we're all at the same page, we can discuss about this:

What I asked for was to put the event pokemon at an approximate level as the wild ones, only some levels lower, because they tend to be better and as such, can't be put on the same page as everything else in the area. I believe this is easy to understand and not nitpick on the specific words used. What you propose is indeed ridiculous, and I don't remember having suggested it. Nobody does, as it bears no reason to be done.

Now do you really want to start a debate on which opinions are more "valid" than the others? When one addresses the value of somebody else's opinion, one should sit back and evaluate their's first.

I don't see where the argument is even coming from if you're saying that they should be the same level as the wild pokemon - the example being given with Piplup for instance is talking about a level 50 Piplup, but there are already wild pokemon above level 50 at that point in the game - so if you're really asking for them to be around the same level as wild pokemon then you should already be voting for B.

Also, not everyone will grind a pokemon just because they like the pokemon. Until I reached the end of episode 14 I almost never changed any of the pokemon I was using specifically because I didn't want to grind to bring other pokemon up to the same level as them; I switched I think only 2 of my pokemon in my team throughout the entire game, and both of those were early in the game (right before the level 75 Garchomp event where it was relatively easy to grind thanks to being able to 2v2 wild pokemon) - after that I never bothered trying to use any new pokemon because I don't play pokemon to grind, even if there were some pokemon that became available that seemed a bit more interesting to me than the pokemon I already had.

Edited March 22, 2015 by Kithros

[NickCrash]

In this case someone is not reading carefully. Speaking for my part, all points have been explained and solidified. Arguing for the sake of it would be counter-productive. Statements are judged on evidence, and not the way you present them, aka rhetoric, because sooner or later they will be disputed or verified, based on the case.

Your analysis has a flaw in its first case. A person who likes raising their pokemon wouldn't decide to bring it down and back up again, but would gladly accept one in a level that makes sense for the environment it's in, but not at an already competitive level.

To explain the environment, I'll present two examples: Joltix and Heracross
Joltix is a low-level event pokemon. One can argue that the way you find it hints that it's constantly hiding from predators, therefore it couldn't be high level

Heracross is also low-level. However it is seen constantly fighting with Pinsir, so it has to survive through force. Not to mention that you fight it at lvl55 and it suddenly drops to 30. This one should be raised a bit, say 40, in order for more people to use it.

I believe these ones are clear about how I and other people see event pokemon.

Edit after reading Kithros's post:

Piplup is given to you in a competely different context than pokemon that fight in the wild to survive like Absol and Mismagius. It is regarded by its trainer as garbage that's only worth trading for drugs. Therefore it makes sense for it to be so low leveled, as it never actually fought.

Most event pokemon are handouts. Therefore they could be theoretically speaking at any level. Since people are giving them away though, it makes more sense for them not to be trained, therefore low-level. Perhaps not complete babies. They could be low enough not to be instantly useful.

The "wild pokemon" statement is probably misinterpreted here. When you receive pokemon as events in the wild, like Tropius, Nuzleaf, Heatmor, it makes sense that they are about the same level as the surrounding pokemon. They can be a little lower (aka low level pokemon) due to certain circumstances, but they won't be baby pokemon. Examples of such circumstances are Joltix hiding from forest predators, Vulpix and Smoochum being bullied by higher level pokemon, that essentially don't let new ones to train, and others. I can't cover every case in one post.

I see your point, and it makes sense that some people don't have the patience to bring up more and different pokemon, and sometimes grinding gets repetitive. I like doing it at an extend because Reborn has a nice environment for experimentation (who would expect that Charlotte in ep13 could be beaten by a Honchkrow, a Manectric, a Swoobat and a recently caught Donphan?). My point is that you do not need to grind every single event pokemon. This is something you will do based on your individual interests. As event pokemon are considered better than those you normally find in the wild, and the best example for that is Route1, having to grind them up a bit means having to work a bit more for better pokemon. You can always pick pokemon a bit higher, but a bit worse than the events, and move on trying to use something you normally wouldn't. Both could work in the end, and both are under Reborn's "style"

Sorry for the wall of text.

[Felicity]

In this case someone is not reading carefully. Speaking for my part, all points have been explained and solidified. Arguing for the sake of it would be counter-productive. Statements are judged on evidence, and not the way you present them, aka rhetoric, because sooner or later they will be disputed or verified, based on the case.

Your analysis has a flaw in its first case. A person who likes raising their pokemon wouldn't decide to bring it down and back up again, but would gladly accept one in a level that makes sense for the environment it's in, but not at an already competitive level.

Why wouldn't they lower their mons level? The argument is that these people want to raise these pokemon based on the premise that time spent means they feel like the mon was earned no? This can be done by breeding a new mon and then raising it. It provides a solution for both players, one needn't grind (much) and the other can feel like they earned the mon, if the event itself didn't do the trick.

[Shamitako]

The argument is that these people want to raise these pokemon based on the premise that time spent means they feel like the mon was earned no?

I love how everyone is focusing on this when I'm P sure I'm the only one that mentioned it

Anyways, it's illogical from a game PoV, but it is how I feel. Same reason I almost exclusively use female Pokemon. So, again, I'm not really a good standard. I was just voicing my personal opinion and feelings

And no, I wouldn't go and artificially lower their level. The whole point is that I don't want a fake partner. If I get them already at a fairly pre-trained level, then they're not really mine. And on top of that it's being suggested I should go and take away those levels so I can fake growing with them. I get that an emotional stance is a silly one in a video game, but trying to fight something based purely in emotion with arguments made of logic isn't exactly going to work either

This can be done by breeding a new mon and then raising it.

Assuming it's one of my favorites and I'm desperate to use it, I'll do this. Otherwise I'll just stick with my current team

My opinion doesn't make a very solid argument, but it's not really intended to be one...

[dondon151]

I get that an emotional stance is a silly one in a video game,

I don't think that an emotional stance is silly. It's part of the reason why we're allowed to nickname Pokemon, for example. When you give the player a choice to use various characters that have differing characteristics, whether the characters be human or non-human, that gives room for emotional attachment in a game.

It's not possible to take all of these possible positions into account, though. There could be a player who only uses a Pokemon if its starting level is odd, and it would be silly to design a Pokemon game that accommodated for this obsession.

[Chase]

This really is just a bottom line "How much do you want it?" type of deal. Poll seems to indicate that most players will go to utmost lengths of grinding to use pokemon they want.

[Sheep]

But can you really justify getting a better pokemon for free with literally no downsides to the situation all for the sake of player convenience? We shouldn't be handing out pokemon that can just slot right onto your team in no time and are better than the ones you've been using up 'til then. For every positive there needs to be an associated negative. Then it becomes up to the player to decide whether the positive is worth the negative, nothing of value should ever really be free.

[dondon151]

Of course there are downsides. I've already elaborated on them in detail. The newly added Pokemon is likely still behind the player's current team in levels (not to mention evolution stage), it doesn't have any EVs, and its moveset probably needs work.

[Personthing]

But can you really justify getting a better pokemon for free with literally no downsides to the situation all for the sake of player convenience? We shouldn't be handing out pokemon that can just slot right onto your team in no time and are better than the ones you've been using up 'til then. For every positive there needs to be an associated negative. Then it becomes up to the player to decide whether the positive is worth the negative, nothing of value should ever really be free.

Event Pokemon are rewards for side questing though, and we're not asking for them to dominate from the get go, (Especially since they would not have any EVs, and will need to work on their movesets) just be usable from the start and be able to catch up without grinding for 5 hours. Around a majority of the event Pokemon aren't worth using at all, as their levels are so low, and in some cases you can even find Pokemon that do the same job but are at a somewhat usable level right next to them. For example, you can get a level 15 Scraggy (after Shelly) for defeating 3 high level'd Pangoros when you can get a level 25 Pancham in the same area, without having to deal with the 3 Pangoros. The Pancham is somewhat usable and will only take about 7 levels to get up to speed with the rest of the party, which it would easily gain during the raid on Sigmund's orphanage. (By letting Shelly's Pokemon do most of the work) Would you agree that in this situation Scraggy seems like much more trouble than it's worth, especially when Pancham can become about as strong, but with much less effort? Not the best example because it's pretty early on, but this issue becomes much more prominent as the game goes on.

TLDR: I feel like a lot event Pokemon have far more negatives to them than positives because of their extremely low level, and are often outclassed by Pokemon you can just get through random encounters for much less effort.

Edited March 22, 2015 by Mighty Kamina

[madf0x]

Event Pokemon are rewards for side questing though, and we're not asking for them to dominate from the get go, (Especially since they would not have any EVs, and will need to work on their movesets) just be usable from the start and be able to catch up without grinding for 5 hours. Around a majority of the event Pokemon aren't worth using at all, as their levels are so low, and in some cases you can even find Pokemon that do the same job but are at a somewhat usable level right next to them. For example, you can get a level 15 Scraggy (after Shelly) for defeating 3 high level'd Pangoros when you can get a level 25 Pancham in the same area, without having to deal with the 3 Pangoros. The Pancham is somewhat usable and will only take about 7 levels to get up to speed with the rest of the party, which it would easily gain during the raid on Sigmund's orphanage. (By letting Shelly's Pokemon do most of the work) Would you agree that in this situation Scraggy seems like much more trouble than it's worth? Not the best example because it's pretty early on, but this issue becomes much more prominent as the game goes on.

TLDR: I feel like a lot event Pokemon have far more negatives to them than positives because of their extremely low level, and are often outclassed by Pokemon you can just get by random encounters for much less effort.

I get what youre saying but I dont think the scraggy event is a good example since many people would prefer the scraggy over pancham despite the level difference(potentially cause of shofu fanboyism but still).

[aspectoflife]

wasn't one of the reason to make event pokemon has egg move was to save players breeding time, might as well cut grinding time too.

wild pokemon are sometimes encountered in their non evolved form even when they're already past their evolution level, spheal in ruby is an example, so it doesn't break the game logic. Why not make rare candies sellable btw, a person who is lazy like me can just grind easily and those people who enjoys bonding with their pokemon can train them normally. Of course this is for the later parts of the game, where the level discrepancy between the event pokemon and the wild pokemon is too huge. Grinding to 40 50 is kinda ok, pass that its too much of a pain. The beauty of selling rare candies compared to rebattling trainer is that people have to manage their resources instead of getting money and levelling at the same time

[Kithros]

wasn't one of the reason to make event pokemon has egg move was to save players breeding time, might as well cut grinding time too.

wild pokemon are sometimes encountered in their non evolved form even when they're already past their evolution level, spheal in ruby is an example, so it doesn't break the game logic. why not make rare candies sellable btw, a person who is lazy like me can just grind easily and those people who enjoys bonding with their pokemon can train them normally. Of course this is for the later parts of the game, where the level discrepancy between the event pokemon and the wild pokemon is too huge. Grinding to 40 50 is kinda ok, pass that its too much of a pain. The beauty of selling rare candies compared to rebattling trainer is that people have to manage their resources instead of getting money and levelling at the same time

Rare candy can be bought actually, but it costs 20000 each so it's not really very practical to buy rare candy (if you really want to though they're available in the candy shop in obsidia ward). Rare candy doesn't work at all for filling this purpose though because rare candy is better at leveling up already high level pokemon than for using it on low leveled pokemon (since it takes more time to level up the higher level you are under most circumstances) - if rare candy didn't cost something absurd then people could just rare candy their pokemon to level 100 instead of using it to level their pokemon from 50 to 75 (yeah a level 100 pokemon might not obey sometimes, but a level 100 pokemon that doesn't obey sometimes is still way stronger than a level 75 pokemon).

[Shamitako]

It's not possible to take all of these possible positions into account, though. There could be a player who only uses a Pokemon if its starting level is odd, and it would be silly to design a Pokemon game that accommodated for this obsession.

Thus the poll owo

[Kithros]

The poll is pretty heavily biased in that only the forum regulars are going to be voting on it - the people who frequent the forums are mostly people who have been waiting between a lot of the episodes, where they really have nothing to do in the game other than grind so it doesn't bother them at all. I've grinded a Lucario and Metagross up to 75 once I reached the end of episode 14 since I had nothing else to do *BUT* if this were a finished game then I would've completely ignored those pokemon, played through to the end of the game and then stopped, and it would be as though those pokemon never existed even if I preferred them over the pokemon I had on my team. If the game were finished and I were playing through the game for the first time - if I'm at level 75 and there's a level 10 event pokemon, anything short of one of the insanely strong legendaries would be completely ignored by me (I wouldn't even bother for Garchomp). Sure I would level up a Garchomp right now between the episodes because I have nothing better to do, but the game should be designed for what it's going to be as a finished product, not for what it's like while people are waiting for it to be finished.

[Commander]

The poll is pretty heavily biased in that only the forum regulars are going to be voting on it

Honestly, if you put it right below the download link and everybody who played the game up to the current episode voted for it, the results still remain the same as voice your claiming to be the majority is actually the minority in terms of RPG standards. Grinding is a necessary evil that feels far more rewarding than just merely being able to push through the game. I mean some of the things people are arguing against have been done in best selling games for ages. Heck, even in the main Pokemon games if you want to use a Pseudo legend you still gotta spend a lot of time before it gets good.

I mean the really big advantage of spending a couple hours once in a while grinding is that you can easily plow through some leaders instead of struggling against each leader kind of like Shofu is. Besides, how many people are actually going to even pick up Piplup when a way better water type (used to be two) is available at the very beginning of the game. You still have to spend a half hour raising it even at Lv 50 to even use it compared to something you already could be using that is likely much better and EV trained.

[Sheep]

The poll is pretty heavily biased in that only the forum regulars are going to be voting on it - the people who frequent the forums are mostly people who have been waiting between a lot of the episodes, where they really have nothing to do in the game other than grind so it doesn't bother them at all.

Can't speak for anyone else but I can tell you that I, as a forum regular, don't play this game in between episodes. I go and do other things instead.

[aspectoflife]

Rare candy can be bought actually, but it costs 20000 each so it's not really very practical to buy rare candy (if you really want to though they're available in the candy shop in obsidia ward). Rare candy doesn't work at all for filling this purpose though because rare candy is better at leveling up already high level pokemon than for using it on low leveled pokemon (since it takes more time to level up the higher level you are under most circumstances) - if rare candy didn't cost something absurd then people could just rare candy their pokemon to level 100 instead of using it to level their pokemon from 50 to 75 (yeah a level 100 pokemon might not obey sometimes, but a level 100 pokemon that doesn't obey sometimes is still way stronger than a level 75 pokemon).

Valid points, didnt think about that. cheaper rare candies with level cap called not so rare candies will solve that tho, i dunno im jus not a fan of grinding and just grasping at straws

[madf0x]

Maybe..... Uncommon candies? :Kappa:

[dragon-in-night]

I agree with Kithros. Look at player's reactions with field effects in forum and shofu's channel, you can see the differences betwwen opinion of forum members and outsiders.

Edited March 22, 2015 by dragon-in-night

[Gaunt]

Not everyone's opinions are equally valid, not everyone's opinions are equally informed, and communities are subject to groupthink.

Wrong, everyone opinion IS equally valid because it's their own personal one, you can try to influence/change it with your posts (which we are doing right now) but that's about it, you have NO right to judge which are valid and which are not based on your own biased (just like mine) perspective.

Not equal at all. We'd be forced to grind if we want to use a low level event Pokemon. You could choose to use common candies if getting an event Pokemon at such a low level that it's unusable matters to you.

Wrong too, you'll be forced to grind and i'll be forced to use Common Candies or breed (because i would not use that lv50 "whatever" even Pokemon), you don't want to do that i don't want to do this: equal

The poll is pretty heavily biased in that only the forum regulars are going to be voting on it

Honestly even if that's the case, of which i'm not sure (not having the statistic) it's their problem/fault for not actively participating in this not ours imo.

[madf0x]

Wrong, everyone opinion IS equally valid because it's their own personal one, you can try to influence/change it with your posts (which we are doing right now) but that's about it, you have NO right to judge which are valid and which are not based on your own biased (just like mine) perspective.

Wrong too, you'll be forced to grind and i'll be forced to use Common Candies or breed (because i would not use that lv50 "whatever" even Pokemon), you don't want to do that i don't want to do this: equal

Honestly even if that's the case, of which i'm not sure (not having the statistic) it's their problem/fault for not actively participating in this not ours imo.

Uhh wut. Yeah you can make an argument for everyones opinion counts but saying that his claim that an opinion is only valid if its backed by rhetoric is a biased perspective is well faulty rhetoric.

Second part: just no, you have a warped sense of what the word forced means. The stance hes taking, right or wrong, is that for a low level even pokemon to be viable he is forced to grind it up. Alternatively if it was already higher up itd be viable, and if you choose to have it low leveled you have options to do so. Its an argument of viability versus choice.

For the last, that is the very foundation of group think...

[Commander]

The poll is pretty heavily biased in that only the forum regulars are going to be voting on it

So the people who are more knowlegeable of the game with some playing many times over shouldn't have a greater influence compared to some random youtube user who believes that Blaziken is the only way to play the game? So what if it's a little bias. Some of us, including myself, were actually just like some of those people on Shofu's youtube channel, yet we seem to disagree with this widely believed opinion the levels should be drastically raised.

I respect the opinion of people outside of the site, but when it comes to decisions that might change the way the game is played, I'd rather put my trust in the experienced, well-known players rather than a whole bunch of random people who may have played the game for a few hours. Yeah, it might not always be the best solution, but it's certainly the safest.

Edit: I'm done arguing now as I'm sure I made my point a long time ago to the point this is only going to end in bickering.

[Personthing]

Wrong too, you'll be forced to grind and i'll be forced to use Common Candies or breed (because i would not use that lv50 "whatever" even Pokemon), you don't want to do that i don't want to do this: equal

No. You're completely wrong about this. Should I want to use an event Pokemon that happens to be at a low level, I am forced to waste hours of my time grinding it up to the point where it doesn't get slaughtered by every opponent I face. If for whatever reason you have such a huge problem with an event Pokemon you want to use coming at a usable level, you can either: Use it as is, lower it's level via common candies, or breed a new one. It's clear as day which one gives more options, so no, it's not equal. I'm being made to waste my time if I want to use a low level Pokemon. You're choosing to waste your time because you have a problem with actually being able to use a Pokemon out of the box.

Edited March 22, 2015 by Mighty Kamina