pokemon reborn Why are HMs still a thing in Pokemon Reborn?

[SeanRobert98]

I've just started Pokemon Reborn a few days ago and so far I really love the game. I enjoy the challenge brought by building a competitive team out of Pokemon you've never used before and the strategic aspect of planning your team based on what the enemy has.

 

One thing I can't understand though is why HMs are still relevant within the game? I can understand HMs like Surf and Waterfall  (because they can still be used competitively) but others like Cut and Rock Smash just end up wasting a slot in one of your Pokemon's moveset which in a game where you're often fighting against teams that have a full team of 6 Pokemon with field buffs stacked against you and all those Pokemon have a proper thought out moveset, it often seems unfair and downright annoying. It's a hindrance that prevents us from fully utilising the Pokemon that we've been given and most players would end up using the last slot  in their team as a HM slave when it could have very well been another Pokemon that they wanted to try out.

Now, I do realised that HMs are used for progression in the game by locking players out of content until they've obtained the HM hence one possible solution is that when a person obtains a HM, they can then use it without teaching it to a Pokemon (if they do teach the move to a Pokemon, it should be able to be overwritten by other moves without going to the move deleter). 

If the team is worried about how this could affect the 'realness' (I used this word for lack of a better one) of the game. It could be said that when players are in possession of a HM within this region, they are able to temporarily teach is to Pokemon as their about to perform the task (kind of like a short jolt of memory) before being forgotten afterwards (thus it does not affect the remembered moves they already have).

[Walpurgis]

I agree with what you said, but I have to point out that in Reborn you can overwrite hm moves without the need of the move deleter. It's still very annoying because you don't always have a useful tm for the pokemon in which you used the hm, but you can overwrite them.

[Aironfaar]

To add to what walpurgis said, in this mod pack, there's a mod that allows you to just use the TMX (i.e. HM) moves out of combat once you have acquired both the relevant badge and the TMX itself without having to teach it to any of your critters.

[FairFamily]

Normally I would disagree but recently my opinion has shifted. It's easier to receive the full downsides of TMs (like constant HM shifting or not having any HM compatible mon) and believe me it is no fun. 

 

My biggest issue is with how hypocritical/nonsensical it is handled. Gen 7 has no HM's but reborn keeps them anyway. At the same time reborn doesn't update the gen 7 mons to incorporate HM's. That doesn't make any sense. You either follow the main game or you implement your custom mechanics properly.

2 hours ago, GS BALL said:

1. There is a mod, as already being said.

2. HM slaves are fun to use.

3. No2 also adds to the overall difficulty and challenge of the game.

4. Actually, (certain) HM moves, find great utility in (certain) fields; especially during gym battles.

5. Reborn sticks almost faithfully, to canon gameplay. This is its main attraction!

 

Cheers!

Canonically HM's aren't a thing anymore so 5 is false. Also 2 is subjective considering HM/TM teaching is no fun. 3 is subjective of TM/HM shifting. 4 is irrelevant to the issue of being forced to have HM compatible mons.

[Commander]

I understand why people may not like the HMs and why they gripe about them, but I'm just looking and simply say "What the hell is Reborn supposed to do about it?" The game was literally built around HMs and they are key parts to the exploration aspect. You'll literally go to Apophyll just for an HM kind of important. HMs are also heavily implemented into the field effects to make them actually useful and helpful moves. Strength is actually really good in the Chess field, the Apophyll field, and Big Top for example. You can also overwrite them which was the biggest hindrance in the main games.

 

Key items I suppose could be implemented but that's something more recent fan-games should consider. I think people forget Reborn is a Gen V game which implemented future features. The groundwork from that can only be changed so much before it becomes a hassle. I know a handful of dialogue and new animations would also need to be implemented to make this work...but then it goes back to why even have those HMs in the first place since most are situational. If it's really such a problem, there's a mod that makes sure you don't need the HM slave in your party.

[Ojama Yellow]

noteworthy to point out

 

while a bit outdated, its still a fact that holy fuck why does it take so long to get that strength hm. changing that would require putting something in its place, as to make a trip that is like a fifth of the entire fucking game atm not completely irrelevant to everything that is happening at that moment. either that or rewriting the entire thing, which would take way too long. also, as previously mentioned, theyre not nearly as crippling as they were in core series, due to the ability to overwrite them at any given moment.

 

tl;dr- editing out hms would be much more than a hassle than its worth since theyre very minor inconveniences at best in reborn.

 

5 hours ago, GS BALL said:

2. HM slaves are fun to use.

you horrible person.

[FairFamily]

1 hour ago, Commander said:

I understand why people may not like the HMs and why they gripe about them, but I'm just looking and simply say "What the hell is Reborn supposed to do about it?" The game was literally built around HMs and they are key parts to the exploration aspect. You'll literally go to Apophyll just for an HM kind of important. HMs are also heavily implemented into the field effects to make them actually useful and helpful moves. Strength is actually really good in the Chess field, the Apophyll field, and Big Top for example. You can also overwrite them which was the biggest hindrance in the main games.

 

Key items I suppose could be implemented but that's something more recent fan-games should consider. I think people forget Reborn is a Gen V game which implemented future features. The groundwork from that can only be changed so much before it becomes a hassle. I know a handful of dialogue and new animations would also need to be implemented to make this work...but then it goes back to why even have those HMs in the first place since most are situational. If it's really such a problem, there's a mod that makes sure you don't need the HM slave in your party.

Well at the very least you could make them less obnoxious. After all who doesn't love going through the same dialogue twice (looking at you iola valley)? Also I feel it is necessairy to accept the limitations of your band aids. For instance overwriting hm moves is neat but it isn't a good solution for when you have to surf, dive then surf again, another dive then a waterfall and then a strength which forces you to go back to the pc do all that stuff again then do strength, then surf, waterfall, dive surf to then see you require rock smash. The next episode adds another tm to the list in the form of rock climb. Ametrine mountain requires 6 HM's to fully explore of which 2~3 not directly visible. Amaria's gym suffers from the same problem.

 

On top of that you need to expand some movepool to gap the discrepancy between the main game and reborn. This became clear with gen 7 with a lot of pokemon not learning HM moves which hinders the experience but rock climb will be an other hassle to deal with because so little pokemon of gen 5,6 and 7 can learn it.

[Egzample]

Luckily, there is this one, tiny freaking useful HM-mod.

 

Still, it would be nice to see at last few HMs removed from Reborn; as noticed above, to explore areas like Ametrine we need either constant, aggravating shuffling of moves if we don't have HM-slave, or we need at last 2 HM-slaves (surf, dive, waterfall, strenght, rock smash, rock climb, fly would also be nice - to my knowledge, there is no single mon capable of learning all of them), plus in quite a few areas we need those terrain-altering moves, this boosts lists of obsolete moves to a staggering numbers. There is no computer anywhere around Luna, which is another nuisance after going through Iolia, there are more places like this. Also, lack of TMs also limits our capability to shuffle moves freely - we don't often get the combination of a mon that have a useful TM and also can learn few HMs, at last when we try to assemble a team of our own plan of idea.

 

Even boosted effects of Cut or Strenght in few arenas doesn't compensate for this - while it would be hard to rewrite half of the game just to remove Strenght, Surf is logical and cool, can't we come up with something like, Personal Teleporter (to Pokemon Centers, Fly), Flashlight (Flash), Machette (Cut), Scuba Gear (Dive), or so? I can come up with a logical, good story explaining why not everyone is using those items and why we couldn't get it before in a matter of minutes, we may make it funny.

 

We don't even need to completely remove HMs from the game, just at some point we might receive an alternative to it, so when we get to big exploration, we have it easier.

[Jess]

3 hours ago, Commander said:

I understand why people may not like the HMs and why they gripe about them, but I'm just looking and simply say "What the hell is Reborn supposed to do about it?" The game was literally built around HMs and they are key parts to the exploration aspect. You'll literally go to Apophyll just for an HM kind of important. HMs are also heavily implemented into the field effects to make them actually useful and helpful moves. Strength is actually really good in the Chess field, the Apophyll field, and Big Top for example. You can also overwrite them which was the biggest hindrance in the main games.

 

Key items I suppose could be implemented but that's something more recent fan-games should consider. I think people forget Reborn is a Gen V game which implemented future features. The groundwork from that can only be changed so much before it becomes a hassle. I know a handful of dialogue and new animations would also need to be implemented to make this work...but then it goes back to why even have those HMs in the first place since most are situational. If it's really such a problem, there's a mod that makes sure you don't need the HM slave in your party.

"A hassle" is a subjective thing. If a developer actually wants to improve a game, then they will consider everything, as long as it is doable, even if it isn't easy. Field effects weren't easy to implement/balance, but Ame and her dev team made it. So, why not keep the HM moves (since they do have their battle uses, especially combined with certain fields), but give us some HM items (at some point) later in the game, so that we are provided with a nice alternative in the case of a long exploration? In Amaria's Gym we had to use Surf, Waterfall and Dive, all together! It was incredibly troublesome to find a mon capable of learning all these. In WTC, it was even harder, since I had to do a quite tough battle (vs Taka) with 5 mons and a Surfing HM slave in my Bug monorun, since no Bugs could learn Surf before Araquanid was introduced.

 

Also, I don't like using mods, because they sometimes make the game bugged, or they get outdated and fail you in the next game releases. Animations and dialog are the smallest part of making something work, I consider coding to be the toughest. I can live without the dialog that said "BlahBlah used Rock Smash" and the silly animation with black mid screen tape with the mon on it. It's the function we all care about.

 

Finally, as an advice, don't discard fan suggestions this easily, just because they would be troublesome to implement as a game designer. If you keep doing this, then eventually you will miss the chance to add a really great feature just because "it was hard to do".

 

Edit: Pokemon Apex has HM items, and is based around them. It is also a Gen V-based game. Maybe its creator would be kind enough to share some part of his code in order to improve Reborn. There is always a way, as long as we are positive towards beneficial change.

[Commander]

You know when you really don't feel like explaining the full thing like you normally do but kind of have to because of the response you get, that's kind of my mood right now. People are having a very big misconception of Reborn right now:

 

I'm not saying HMs are not a problem. They have their faults and weaknesses. I was making a point that Reborn despite making updates and such is a very dated game being made DURING the Gen V era. Implementing all the Gen VI stuff and more was actually not that hard on top of new ideas such as field effects was due to the fact Reborn was around the 35% mark roughly. 30% if you factor all of the changes and additions in. Yes, E11 was more like the 30% mark. We're now looking at a game that's 80-85% done. Most of the polishing has been completed and most of the big goals have been reached with the new AI being one of the last major goals of polishing. I'd say there was probably a good 2 years worth of time fixing the older parts of the game alone. In fact, there was a lot of small text polishing iirc for E15 alone.

 

You're probably wondering why on earth I'm bringing this up. We actually already have seen the effects of what removing HMs would do from a story perspective with changes of E17. A lot of Reborn leaders (I mean all 32 who served in the league like Sigmund, Cain, etc) recieved team revamps breaking the monotype tradition. This actually hurt a few sections of dialogue such as with Cain and Popplio (he doesn't use poison types so he just says he doesn't want it over...not being something he'd usually use) or Fern in Aya's gym (he whines about it being a doubles instead of getting his ass whooped for using Poison Types). Likely, trying to get rid of them or pushing to the side would end up with a lot of jarring dialogue. And Reborn is not one to lazily put in feature like Insurgence/Zeta/Omnicron did as those Key Items would need animations and some sense to make it work. I'll only mention this one more time as it is A LOT more work than you people think it is. Simple solutions are very unpolished and clunky looking.

 

Now we get to my favorite part. HMs are made for side exploration and help lock out strong mons for a wider Pokemon variety. In fact, there's only one area in the entire main story where you need more than 2 HMs to move on to the next segment. That is Amaria's gym which has a PC nearby and you don't even need an HM to face Amaria. Luna is the only other issue leader but you technically could face her without HMs, but it's inconvenient. Thankfully it's only rock smash which actually isn't a bad move against her given she's dark type. Not great, but handy. I consider those a blessing compared to the Route 1 puzzles and the field effect changing puzzles. For Telkinite (or however you spell it) you needed a move that is only learned by a handful of Pokemon. I guess Ametrine cave would be a little annoying, but thankfully a water slave would resolve that (I run 2 HMs on Lanturn and I have no gripes tbh). And I wouldn't even complain about Ametrine needed so many HMs because it has some of the best stuff in it including a life orb which will be available in E18.

 

And now we go back to Gen V talk. When Reborn was being worked on, Ame kept a lot of the traditional Pokemon frame work. A lot of things from it actually bit her in the back in the long run which she has admitted for a few things she wish she did them differently now that she's older and wiser. There are things in HC/Redux that I could change or go back on, but I can't. You just have to accept the faults or the gripes with it and move on. That's a very long explanation which I'm willing to go into if you guys REALLY want to hear that, but the short version is this: we hear and know of these complaints, but opt not to deal with them to put effort into more important parts of the game. 

[SeanRobert98]

18 hours ago, Aironfaar said:

To add to what walpurgis said, in this mod pack, there's a mod that allows you to just use the TMX (i.e. HM) moves out of combat once you have acquired both the relevant badge and the TMX itself without having to teach it to any of your critters.

Oh my god. Thank you, I needed this!

 

2 hours ago, Commander said:

You know when you really don't feel like explaining the full thing like you normally do but kind of have to because of the response you get, that's kind of my mood right now. People are having a very big misconception of Reborn right now:

Hey, thanks for the reply! I do see your point because I'm only still at the 3rd gym and there's already a lot of content so I get that finding and changing all the strings would be annoying.

I do want to say that I'm really grateful to the developers for the game because I eventually stopped playing Pokemon due to how easy it was and it's this game that made me want to play Pokemon again so thank you for everything!

 

p.s. I'm sorry for double commenting, I just saw the MultiQuote button.

[Jess]

17 hours ago, Commander said:

You know when you really don't feel like explaining the full thing like you normally do but kind of have to because of the response you get, that's kind of my mood right now.

You never are obligated to reply, but if you do, don't complain about it... It is only reasonable that, if you comment on such a topic, you will have opinions opposing yours.

 

17 hours ago, Commander said:

We actually already have seen the effects of what removing HMs would do from a story perspective with changes of E17. A lot of Reborn leaders (I mean all 32 who served in the league like Sigmund, Cain, etc) recieved team revamps breaking the monotype tradition. This actually hurt a few sections of dialogue such as with Cain and Popplio (he doesn't use poison types so he just says he doesn't want it over...not being something he'd usually use) or Fern in Aya's gym (he whines about it being a doubles instead of getting his ass whooped for using Poison Types). Likely, trying to get rid of them or pushing to the side would end up with a lot of jarring dialogue.

I did say that the HM are quite good story wise. We have to use Rock Smash to advance in Railnet, so Charlotte asks us to advance first. Then, we seek Strength, so the dialogs revolve around getting the HM. But, after that, there is no dialog involving Strength. So, my suggestion was to give us access to HM items after all the main story involvement of the HM is done. This way, you'd have zero interaction with dialog, hence no need to alter anything. Much less "hassle".

However, I think you still focus on trivial issues, such as appearance, animation, etc. Trust me, almost nobody is playing Reborn for the fancy animation of a Pokemon using Rock Smash in the middle of a screen. In fact, it stalls out progress so much, that most people hate it!

 

18 hours ago, Commander said:

there's only one area in the entire main story where you need more than 2 HMs to move on to the next segment. That is Amaria's gym which has a PC nearby and you don't even need an HM to face Amaria.

I never had an issue with Amaria's Gym when it comes to battling her. But, you don't mention the fact that I have to find a 'mon to teach it all 3 moves in a Bug monotype, which sucks. Also, you didn't reply about WTC, when I had to 5v6 Taka. There are quite a few issues easilyresolved with HM items. And Pokemon Apex as I said, has them implemented. So, judging by the fact that you don't explain how hard it would be to ask for the code and replace the respective parts of Reborn code, I can't really get your reasoning.

 

18 hours ago, Commander said:

Luna is the only other issue leader but you technically could face her without HMs, but it's inconvenient. Thankfully it's only rock smash which actually isn't a bad move against her given she's dark type. Not great, but handy.

Rock Smash won't do anything vs Luna. If you've played the game even once and used Rock Smash successfully vs her, congrats. I've ran through Reborn 5 times and I never managed to even scratch her 'mons with Rock Smash. Let's be honest and not try to overcompliment things, such as Rock Smash's usefulness. I won't even bother wondering why the hell Luna's Gym has no PC outside/inside it, cause this would solve many issues and I dunno if it was implemented in E17.

 

18 hours ago, Commander said:

There are things in HC/Redux that I could change or go back on, but I can't. You just have to accept the faults or the gripes with it and move on. That's a very long explanation which I'm willing to go into if you guys REALLY want to hear that, but the short version is this: we hear and know of these complaints, but opt not to deal with them to put effort into more important parts of the game. 

I would like to hear the long explanation, since I get the impression that you avoid it, or think that we aren't intellectually capable of understanding it, which is kinda naive to think, judging by the fact that many forum users are highly educated and quite clever people. Aka, don't get too high of yourself and take the time to actually explain stuff.

[Norm]

On 2/20/2018 at 12:33 AM, Commander said:

I'm not saying HMs are not a problem. They have their faults and weaknesses. I was making a point that Reborn despite making updates and such is a very dated game being made DURING the Gen V era. Implementing all the Gen VI stuff and more was actually not that hard on top of new ideas such as field effects was due to the fact Reborn was around the 35% mark roughly. 30% if you factor all of the changes and additions in. Yes, E11 was more like the 30% mark. We're now looking at a game that's 80-85% done. Most of the polishing has been completed and most of the big goals have been reached with the new AI being one of the last major goals of polishing. I'd say there was probably a good 2 years worth of time fixing the older parts of the game alone. In fact, there was a lot of small text polishing iirc for E15 alone.

You make it sound like Reborn is some obscure 90s RPG that is limited by the technology that supports it, yet it clearly isn't. Essentials (at least compared to traditional ROM hacking) is rather easy to learn and isn't as restrictive as ROM hacking in terms of what you can do in it. Reborn has shown that it can put Essentials to the limits in terms of coding, so something as simple as HM allocation should be no sweat (relatively). Also where are these percentages coming from? Maps? These numbers seem arbitrary, and no matter how far the game is in completion, there is almost always room for polish in some areas. Look at the recent AI changes, Relationship System, or Team changes in the past 2 episodes, those are changes that were made far later in development than field effects, and where no doubt harder to incorporate than a HM fix

 

On 2/20/2018 at 12:33 AM, Commander said:

You're probably wondering why on earth I'm bringing this up. We actually already have seen the effects of what removing HMs would do from a story perspective with changes of E17. A lot of Reborn leaders (I mean all 32 who served in the league like Sigmund, Cain, etc) recieved team revamps breaking the monotype tradition. This actually hurt a few sections of dialogue such as with Cain and Popplio (he doesn't use poison types so he just says he doesn't want it over...not being something he'd usually use) or Fern in Aya's gym (he whines about it being a doubles instead of getting his ass whooped for using Poison Types). Likely, trying to get rid of them or pushing to the side would end up with a lot of jarring dialogue. And Reborn is not one to lazily put in feature like Insurgence/Zeta/Omnicron did as those Key Items would need animations and some sense to make it work. I'll only mention this one more time as it is A LOT more work than you people think it is. Simple solutions are very unpolished and clunky looking.

 

Actually, Cain's hesitations about adding the starter to his team are removed, and nothing is really hurt by this change objectively. If one likes the monotype teams more, that's fine, but breaking the monotype tradition doesn't really hurt anything at this point. HMs don't need to be abolished, they only need to be able to be used with ease. Even with the current system, I still find myself having to give a slot to a Surfer just so I don't have to lug an HM slave around during required story parts. HMs also aren't friendly to a lot of Pokemon. I know my Greninja would much rather be carrying Hydro Pump over Surf, but I can't really make room for the former because I need the latter's utility. Thesuzerain's games may be unpolished, but the removal of HMs is something that made the games less frustrating than it could have been, and in my experience, never did their incorporation seem clunky or uninviting. It really isn't true that all simple solutions are unpolished. simple does not denote lazy or easy. It refers to how intuitive and efficient something is. A simple solution can be polished, look good, or add missing components to games. 

On 2/20/2018 at 12:33 AM, Commander said:

Now we get to my favorite part. HMs are made for side exploration and help lock out strong mons for a wider Pokemon variety. In fact, there's only one area in the entire main story where you need more than 2 HMs to move on to the next segment. That is Amaria's gym which has a PC nearby and you don't even need an HM to face Amaria. Luna is the only other issue leader but you technically could face her without HMs, but it's inconvenient. Thankfully it's only rock smash which actually isn't a bad move against her given she's dark type. Not great, but handy. I consider those a blessing compared to the Route 1 puzzles and the field effect changing puzzles. For Telkinite (or however you spell it) you needed a move that is only learned by a handful of Pokemon. I guess Ametrine cave would be a little annoying, but thankfully a water slave would resolve that (I run 2 HMs on Lanturn and I have no gripes tbh). And I wouldn't even complain about Ametrine needed so many HMs because it has some of the best stuff in it including a life orb which will be available in E18.

The problem I have with Reborn's exploration is intrinsically linked to HMs and move-allocation, having to trek back to the PC to get a Pokemon with a specific move so I can explore an area further is incredibly tedious to me. It makes the exploration feel uninviting, like a chore that needs to be done to get something rather than an experience that rewards my curiosity. Luna's gym isn't somehow made bearable by the fact that Rock Smash has type advantage. 40 BP fighting coverage is beyond terrible at this point in the game. I hate the mountain areas of Reborn in particular because it seems like I have to plan for them in order to get everything I need in one visit. Whether it's allocating a third to half of my team to HM slaves, or training up Pokemon with Power Gem and Earthquake, or if its one of the billion goddamn strength puzzles, it feels like these puzzles are a test of my patience rather than my observational skills and puzzle-solving. Something like the Gible puzzle is fun, Something akin to To Teknite's Power Gem, Earthquake, repeat is not fun.

On 2/20/2018 at 12:33 AM, Commander said:

And now we go back to Gen V talk. When Reborn was being worked on, Ame kept a lot of the traditional Pokemon frame work. A lot of things from it actually bit her in the back in the long run which she has admitted for a few things she wish she did them differently now that she's older and wiser. There are things in HC/Redux that I could change or go back on, but I can't. You just have to accept the faults or the gripes with it and move on. That's a very long explanation which I'm willing to go into if you guys REALLY want to hear that, but the short version is this: we hear and know of these complaints, but opt not to deal with them to put effort into more important parts of the game. 

I know that there are mods that exist in this community that are easy to use, but that isn't an excuse for the devs. That's like saying Bethesda shouldn't be held responsible for Skyrim's myriad glitches just because the USP mod exists. A lot of mods tend to clash with each other, so I often have to choose between certain mods because they don't work with Waynolt's modpack. Hell, I like playing Hardcore/Redux, but most of the mods aren't compatible with it, forcing me to deal with some of the clunky HM features.  Reborn is a game that still has a loyal and active community, there is still plenty of time to change things. Accepting a game's the flaws is your own prerogative, not some ultimatum that everyone needs to follow. It's often the job of game developer's of all different forms to give the most polish to their game, and what is being proposed isn't for the dev team to reinvent the wheel, HMs can still exist, just make it so they're field moves. My suspension of disbelief would accept it, and I'm confident others would too. I don't need sweeping dialogue changes or a new system, just a QoL feature that would make it easier to experience what the creator has envisioned

 

[Jess]

@Norm God bless you for that, it's like you said everything I have in mind too.

Many games have utilised HM items or distributed an HM's off-battle effect to many moves. e.g. Rocks can be smashed by all Fighting type moves after, say, fifth badge. Boulders could be moved around by a whole shitload of moves.

There are ways. But not if devs are 100% negative to this change, even though EVERYONE admits that it would improve the gaming experience of Reborn by a mile.

[keltena]

15 hours ago, Jess said:

I would like to hear the long explanation, since I get the impression that you avoid it, or think that we aren't intellectually capable of understanding it, which is kinda naive to think, judging by the fact that many forum users are highly educated and quite clever people. Aka, don't get too high of yourself and take the time to actually explain stuff.

Wow is that an uncharitable reading of what they said. o_o All they said was that a fuller explanation would be very long and they'd only get into it if people really wanted them to, which seems perfectly reasonable to me—giving long explanations takes time and effort, so most people aren't going to want to drop everything to give one, especially when they don't even know for sure people want to hear it. That's not "getting too high of yourself" or refusing to explain things to people; they already did give a fairly detailed explanation right there! You don't necessarily have to like or agree with whatever Commander says, but there's no need to be rude to someone who's been taking the time to try to answer your questions.

[Jess]

2 hours ago, keltena said:

You don't necessarily have to like or agree with whatever Commander says, but there's no need to be rude to someone who's been taking the time to try to answer your questions.

I wasn't the one who was rude. Commander started his reply with this phrase.

On 2/20/2018 at 7:33 AM, Commander said:

You know when you really don't feel like explaining the full thing like you normally do but kind of have to because of the response you get, that's kind of my mood right now

 

So, think twice before calling me rude. I'm obviously not the rude one here.

[RedAlert]

I don't really have much of a say in the matter, but I'll weigh with this: HMs are annoying yes, but they've been annoying in the main games as well.

...

Yeah that's it. That's my opinion.

As for changes I'm pretty okay with things the way they are, there are a lot more things in the game I find way more annoying than this. Obviously it sucks that you have to run back to your PC to pick up a Pokemon that knows that HM move, but it's not really THAT big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, imo.

 

17 hours ago, Jess said:

I would like to hear the long explanation, since I get the impression that you avoid it, or think that we aren't intellectually capable of understanding it, which is kinda naive to think, judging by the fact that many forum users are highly educated and quite clever people. Aka, don't get too high of yourself and take the time to actually explain stuff.

Hey, c'mon, that's not fair, it's quite different from what he was trying to say. Sometimes we get lazy typing out all we want to say because we assume the other person knows what we're talking about and so we just omit things out of our post. I'm guilty of it too. We all are. In no way did he say or insinuate that forum users are intellectually incapable of understanding what he's trying to say.

 

22 minutes ago, Jess said:

I wasn't the one who was rude. Commander started his reply with this phrase.

On 2/20/2018 at 11:03 AM, Commander said:

You know when you really don't feel like explaining the full thing like you normally do but kind of have to because of the response you get, that's kind of my mood right now

 

So, think twice before calling me rude. I'm obviously not the rude one here.

And I don't find that rude at all, actually. I get that the tone of the post can seem like it but it's really hard to understand what the other person thinks or feels over the internet, so please don't make assumptions, anyone.

 

I'm probably a total stranger to everyone here and it might not be my business or position to break up potential fights but I've been following this place for a while and it seems like a nice and friendly community, let's just try to keep it that way.

Edited February 21, 2018 by RedAlert

[Commander]

39 minutes ago, RedAlert said:

I'm probably a total stranger to everyone here and it might not be my business or position to break up potential fights but I've been following this place for a while and it seems like a nice and friendly community, let's just try to keep it that way.

I'd rather people step in over keep a fight over me continue like it's an episode of the Bachelor. And really don't be afraid to step in and speak up. All should feel welcome and comfortable around Reborn. I'm not going to say much over the subject because anything I would've said has been said already. I guess it's best to drop the subject. On a different note:

 

45 minutes ago, RedAlert said:

As for changes I'm pretty okay with things the way they are, there are a lot more things in the game I find way more annoying than this. Obviously it sucks that you have to run back to your PC to pick up a Pokemon that knows that HM move, but it's not really THAT big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, imo.

That reminded of the fact you have to remove a Pokemon from your party just to carry and egg. I'd take HMs any day over dealing with that because some of those eggs take like 20 minutes just to get back to (looking at you, Rowlett).

[Walpurgis]

Even if the whole HM thing is annoying I wouldn't say that it's a problem, at least in Reborn. The only time it has ever bothered me is when going through Iolia Valley and it's not like the end of the world, just annoying. For the other part, I don't see how implementing something like Waynolt's HM mod into the game would break the story. In fact, as the OP presents it you still need the item and much more importantly you still need the badge, so nothing invalidates your quest for Strenght and Aya's badge, there are a lot of ways to solve the annoyance the HMs present without hurting the story at all. It for sure would require some work, and I can't and I won't by any means demand this from the dev team.  I didn't say it in my first post but I think it's a very important thing to clarify in this context and Commander's response, as rude as it might come off and even if I don't agree with all he said, is totally justified.

Changing how HMs are used on the field would just neither break nor make the game, it's a detail.

22 minutes ago, GS BALL said:

Sorry to interrupt and interfere... Again... But not "everyone" admits that it would improve the gaming experience of Reborn by a mile (HM system changing)...

 

I like a lot my HM-slaves, thank you very much! Plus, i always preferred the older generations' mechanisms...

 

I somehow bet that i am not the only one, either...

there are a lot of sadists out there  

[Egzample]

43 minutes ago, GS BALL said:

Sorry to interrupt and interfere... Again... But not "everyone" admits that it would improve the gaming experience of Reborn by a mile (HM system changing)...

 

I like a lot my HM-slaves, thank you very much! Plus, i always preferred the older generations' mechanisms...

 

I somehow bet that i am not the only one, either...

Not only you, I've seen such approach in this topic, but all I see there is ''our grandfathers were doing it like this, and so we will do, we don't need those blasphemous 'electricity' and 'engines' when we have our faithful horses''. You liked it? Cool. But that's not an excuse to cease the improvment. Again, I maintain my view that at some points we could have been given some items allowing us to leave HM-slaves behind, especially for Rock Smash or at last 2 water-type HMs.

 

By the way, HM-slaves are the best proof that HM-system isn't working well - if almost every single player comes up with such by-pass to the whole HM-mechanism, that means it is a nuisance. Even Nintendo after this many years finally changed it, cause even such... resistant to changes company like them figured out this should be changed, and they did.

 

 

[Alexa Knight]

On 2/19/2018 at 11:22 AM, Commander said:

I understand why people may not like the HMs and why they gripe about them, but I'm just looking and simply say "What the hell is Reborn supposed to do about it?"

Well, they could do the exact same thing Pokemon Zeta/Omicron and Insurgance did: Add items [A machete, a dolly, a torch, etc.] to replace them, then go the S/M/US/UM route and make the HMs into TMs.

 

Another option is have the relevant Pokemon? Go hard!

 

I refuse to believe a Scyther, who literally has FRICKIN' SCYTHES FOR HANDS needs a SPECIAL MOVE to cut a tree down. Suck my ass, Gamefreak.

 

Actually, edit: Even better reason: Lapras. How does the LIVING EQUIVALENT OF A FERRY need to learn how to do the EXACT thing Areus created it for?! Gaaaaaah!

 

 

Edited February 22, 2018 by Alexa Knight

[RedAlert]

One thing that I do to solve this problem in Reborn is check whether any of my party Pokémon that can learn that particular HM know a move that is reteachable by TM: ie., for Amaria I had Greninja learn Waterfall and Surf in place of Grass Knot and Dark Pulse and once I got past the waterfall, I retaught him those two moves with TMs overriding the HMs. It's actually pretty helpful that HMs can be forgotten any time in Reborn (don't know if this applies to the later Pokémon games).

[Walpurgis]

2 hours ago, RedAlert said:

One thing that I do to solve this problem in Reborn is check whether any of my party Pokémon that can learn that particular HM know a move that is reteachable by TM: ie., for Amaria I had Greninja learn Waterfall and Surf in place of Grass Knot and Dark Pulse and once I got past the waterfall, I retaught him those two moves with TMs overriding the HMs. It's actually pretty helpful that HMs can be forgotten any time in Reborn (don't know if this applies to the later Pokémon games).

In official pokemon games HMs have never been overwritable (is that a word?), mainly to avoid the player from accidentally softlocking themselves. 

[Egzample]

12 hours ago, GS BALL said:

Reborn's main attraction, is complexity, challenging gameplay and the regularly repeated by now: "To force you use underrated mon".

 ^ This cool

12 hours ago, GS BALL said:

HM-slaves are also a special category of underrated mon and Reborn does a damn fine job, in making you utilize them

^ This not. Those are two different things, to force you to think how to make a progress with limited access to mons and TMs, and to utilize completely ancient and annoying mechanism.

 

12 hours ago, GS BALL said:

The developers also have a tight schedule and quite the workload, i understand, since Reborn isn't the only project being developed... I wouldn't want them suffer with extra, needless workload, especially when and where they already offered a middle ground solution

This is not an excuse, we are waiting for years for a new episode to come anyway, things like implementation of Gen7 makes it longer, I'm totally cool with some extra waiting in exchange for improved gameplay.

 

12 hours ago, GS BALL said:

I know it's a matter of perspective and tastes, ultimately, so there will be polarization. I sincerely hope we can keep it civil, though and cooperate, in order for everybody to somehow get as close as possible, to their ideal iteration of the game.

We don't need polarisation, what I propose is, to avoid completely redoing parts of the game, to give us certain HM-items after certain points in the game - basically, after the city is refurbished, this is the moment when the biggest exploration begins I think, with some exceptions, like RockSmash-item somewhere before Iolia - upgraded mining kit or dynamite or so. Once again, with area-altering moves the amount of moves that are necessary to explore is way too high.