A few years ago, I got back into Pokemon around the release of Platinum. The "kiddie" image the series soon attracted forced me to shamefully withdraw from playing before that. It wasn't until later in life that I learned that caring what others think of you is nothing but a bs fear. With this, I preordered my copy of Platinum and quickly researched the Pokemon I had missed out on since Generation II.
With me getting back into Pokemon, I also began to explore the competitive side of the game that I had never realized when I was younger. Sure, battles with friends on the old link cable were fun, but the battles on Shoddy against others on the internet were something different. Instead of playing just for fun, I was playing to win due to the level of competition. Fun only came with a win, while losing simply lead to more practice. Every battle only lead to more experience to apply to next. This, to me, was "fun".
For me, Generation IV was great. There was a great balance in it to the point where skill was ultimately the most important factor in determining the winner. The amount of threats was enough to where you could cover most with your team, but you still had to watch out for the lure or threat that requires you to play around it with a skillful approach. The game itself was deep in tactics, from the lead matchup to scouting every threat to get a full understanding. There were just enough archetypes out there to where each game was diverse and required a different approach, but there was no overlying archetype that completely dominated
With the start of Generation V, I was hyped. At first, I defended some of the changes this generation brought, but the thing that I could never defend was just the sheer amount of broken threats simply dumped onto the game. Along with the new Pokemon, old friends long forgotten were given major boosts via Dreamworld. The most important of these were the weather starters in Politoed and Ninetales, who were gift wrapped a free pass to the top of OU purely because of their new abilities. Weather (kek) by design of Game Freak or just pure coincidence, a lot of the new and improved threats introduced were able to take advantage of these weathers. A lot of skill was removed as the game became based purely on team matchups. The cleanup process with the suspect testings became a dragged out process that only brought more threats to the limelight. It seemed to finally calm down at the end of BW1, but BW2 only introduced more threats that, strangely, seemed to abuse weather as well. All progress made in the suspect tests prior seemed to be for naught, as we even wasted time unbanning things to accommodate to this change. Any fun I found in Pokemon last gen was completely drained due to the drop in overall quality. My only hope was that Gen VI would fix things for the competitive scene.
In a way, Gen VI did fix things by bringing weather back to a niche archetype instead of the defining factor it was last gen. While this was good, it still didn't fix the fact that the Pokemon itself were overpowering on their own. Gen V somewhat began the trend of this "power creep", but Gen VI really expanded on it in a big way. Along with the megas, which take advantage of the increased stat totals and buffed abilities, we also have seen Pokemon such as Greninja and Aegislash who are unpredictable and force situations we often times can't or have no hope to prepare for. Like the previous generation, suspect tests are a constant now that tries to balance the metagame. This often does not work, as with the banning of one overpowering threat, another will simply rise to take advantage of the situation. On top of this, new games this generation are adding new megas for us to use. Like BW2 did to BW1, this basically craps on any potential progress made with balancing the game.
While Gen IV did introduce the idea of suspect testings, it never had to do this many as the previous two gens to strike a balance. There is just too much of a power creep being pumped into this game to where it'll take years to find the perfect balance. Most of the blame can be put on Game Freak for this. After all, this is a game where the target market is children. Children are very easily fascinated by strong and cool things. The competitive audience just isn't big enough to where Game Freak should really care about trying to balance the game. On top of that, I don't even think it's possible to balance it in the future (without a serious retcon, which is nothing but a pipe dream) as this series continues to grow and grow. Fun, for me at least, has died.
As this series continues to grow, what do you think the future of competitive Pokemon will hold? I myself think that the skill and "fun" involved with winning the game has and will continue to decline due to the power creep, but I'm far more interested in your opinions. After all, we all have different opinions on issues due to our different viewpoints and experiences. ^_^
With me getting back into Pokemon, I also began to explore the competitive side of the game that I had never realized when I was younger. Sure, battles with friends on the old link cable were fun, but the battles on Shoddy against others on the internet were something different. Instead of playing just for fun, I was playing to win due to the level of competition. Fun only came with a win, while losing simply lead to more practice. Every battle only lead to more experience to apply to next. This, to me, was "fun".
For me, Generation IV was great. There was a great balance in it to the point where skill was ultimately the most important factor in determining the winner. The amount of threats was enough to where you could cover most with your team, but you still had to watch out for the lure or threat that requires you to play around it with a skillful approach. The game itself was deep in tactics, from the lead matchup to scouting every threat to get a full understanding. There were just enough archetypes out there to where each game was diverse and required a different approach, but there was no overlying archetype that completely dominated
With the start of Generation V, I was hyped. At first, I defended some of the changes this generation brought, but the thing that I could never defend was just the sheer amount of broken threats simply dumped onto the game. Along with the new Pokemon, old friends long forgotten were given major boosts via Dreamworld. The most important of these were the weather starters in Politoed and Ninetales, who were gift wrapped a free pass to the top of OU purely because of their new abilities. Weather (kek) by design of Game Freak or just pure coincidence, a lot of the new and improved threats introduced were able to take advantage of these weathers. A lot of skill was removed as the game became based purely on team matchups. The cleanup process with the suspect testings became a dragged out process that only brought more threats to the limelight. It seemed to finally calm down at the end of BW1, but BW2 only introduced more threats that, strangely, seemed to abuse weather as well. All progress made in the suspect tests prior seemed to be for naught, as we even wasted time unbanning things to accommodate to this change. Any fun I found in Pokemon last gen was completely drained due to the drop in overall quality. My only hope was that Gen VI would fix things for the competitive scene.
In a way, Gen VI did fix things by bringing weather back to a niche archetype instead of the defining factor it was last gen. While this was good, it still didn't fix the fact that the Pokemon itself were overpowering on their own. Gen V somewhat began the trend of this "power creep", but Gen VI really expanded on it in a big way. Along with the megas, which take advantage of the increased stat totals and buffed abilities, we also have seen Pokemon such as Greninja and Aegislash who are unpredictable and force situations we often times can't or have no hope to prepare for. Like the previous generation, suspect tests are a constant now that tries to balance the metagame. This often does not work, as with the banning of one overpowering threat, another will simply rise to take advantage of the situation. On top of this, new games this generation are adding new megas for us to use. Like BW2 did to BW1, this basically craps on any potential progress made with balancing the game.
While Gen IV did introduce the idea of suspect testings, it never had to do this many as the previous two gens to strike a balance. There is just too much of a power creep being pumped into this game to where it'll take years to find the perfect balance. Most of the blame can be put on Game Freak for this. After all, this is a game where the target market is children. Children are very easily fascinated by strong and cool things. The competitive audience just isn't big enough to where Game Freak should really care about trying to balance the game. On top of that, I don't even think it's possible to balance it in the future (without a serious retcon, which is nothing but a pipe dream) as this series continues to grow and grow. Fun, for me at least, has died.
As this series continues to grow, what do you think the future of competitive Pokemon will hold? I myself think that the skill and "fun" involved with winning the game has and will continue to decline due to the power creep, but I'm far more interested in your opinions. After all, we all have different opinions on issues due to our different viewpoints and experiences. ^_^
