It may be worth noting that there are a bunch of threads like this already in existence that are locked that OP may want to look over.
Here's a long one by a devilishly handsome guy with a Mismagius avatar. Honestly, this topic comes up so often that maybe it should be another stickied thread.
-Too many Pokémon. Seriously, you just end up using only six on a team, why bother to make tons of them obtainable, it makes the game quickly chaotic. 150 of them is enough, but I don't have a problem with less.
-Both Fakemon and regular Pokémon. I don't know, it just feels weird, I say the one or the other, not both, but that might be very personal.
-Changed Pokémon data. I've seen some hacks which for example change the type of a Pokémon. Let's say the hacker thinks for some reason that Dunsparce should be a ground type instead of normal, but that doesn't mean all players would agree. A Pokémon has set data, otherwise it is a completely different Pokémon who just looks the same. If the hacker wants to do a change, it should be obviously be a change and the effort to design a Fakemon should be taken.
I agree with these points. Too much variety is detrimental to a hack. Too little is, well, too little. There's a balance that has to be struck. For me personally, I think somewhere around the 200 mark is good.
Fakemon and Pokemon together is weird for me as well. I liked Quartz (for what it was, I'm not saying it was good) but I probably wouldn't've had regular Pokemon been included as well.
As for changed Pokemon data, I agree that it is jarring to have types mixed up without warning, but I can definitely understand why a hacker would want to make a well-intentioned change. I'm meh on this issue.
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What truly bugs me is low effort hacks. You all know the kind of hacks I'm talking about. All of my points will be related to this main one.
Maps that obviously took less than an hour to plan out and make are usually bad. Like, universally so. GameFreak's "simple" maps aren't simple because they were quick and easy to make. The layouts were clearly thought out and went through several iterations before they looked good. The evidence for this is sitting in GSC's beta maps and prerelease screenshots. You can not expect to open A-Map for the first time and make a beautiful map. Heck, even I can't open A-Map with no plan and produce an "almost okay" map; and mapping is probably my strongest hacking ability. My latest map took me about 45 minutes to plan: basically a sketch of the layout on an index card or something similar. The flow and direction of this particular map had been predetermined by the numerous previous iterations of the map (there were at least three earlier versions of this map, the time for generating those I am not counting here). Placement of key elements as well as defining trees, grass patches, mountain ridges, and pathing happens at this stage. Then, it took about 4 hours to actually map out from scratch. And that's just the map. I'm not including tile work, events, connections, etc. Good maps look good because they take time. Most of the mapping advice out there right now is garbage, and fledgling hackers are producing garbage as a result.
Bad storylines. It amazes me how many, I guess I'll call them "consumers", in our community will eat up the worst hacks with the worst storylines and then speak of them with hushed reverence and starry eyes. Hacks that I simply have to read the opening paragraphs in the thread or glance at the first couple of screenshots to
know that I have to skip over this one. Even at the ages that these consumers are likely at, I knew what concepts simply aren't going to work. I knew what a decent storyline would look like. And I knew what red flags to look for in a hack's presentation to know what was going to be awful. You simply can't string a bunch of "this would be so cool" ideas together and make a good hack. No, Arceus and the supporting cast of EVERY. DAMN. LEGENDARY. PLUS. FAKEMON. ONES. threatening the world with powers you just made up five minutes ago is not a good hack. No, your
really evil this time look how badass they are team with no motivation or actual ability to do any real damage is not a good antagonist. People who know what quality is
are laughing at you. Read a book.
Come to think of it, I'm so glad that none of these hackers are published authors.
Bad level curve. I admit, years ago I had a pretty bad level curve in the one hack that I decided to release to the community. That was simply a bad hack and I won't try to justify it. Level curves are difficult to get right. Like everything else in hacking, they do and should take time to ferment and perfect. That said, I'm again baffled at the consumers worshiping the hacks that demand you to grind for hours or cheat to outdo their satanic level curve that no thought was put into other than "let's make this hard". That's not difficulty. That is the fakest form of difficulty a developer can throw at you. I understand that Pokemon is a bit shallow with how skilled the AI can be, but there are other ways to make the hack difficult. Look at Colosseum as one possible way among the multitude, for example. It was difficult because it restricted your Pokemon to ones with low BSTs and crappy movepools until you were almost done with the game. Meanwhile, the enemy Trainers started out with even crappier Pokemon, and eventually ramped up to just okay Pokemon with very slight level advantages. You don't need to place your players at the bottom of a level cliff to make them think about their battles. Grinding to win should be
an option, not the only viable one. The community needs to stop encouraging this.
Bad dialog. Whether it be that no character is interesting or there are grammar errors and spelling mistakes everywhere, that is the quickest way to get me to not play your hack. I understand that typos slip through. I understand that the lesser-used grammar conventions aren't natural or fresh to most people. But make an effort. Playtest your hack and talk to everyone. Fix the mistakes that you see. (Heck, I've already corrected things in this post, and I'm sure I'll miss a bunch.) Say the text out loud to yourself to catch awkward pauses or phrasing. In addition, be aware of how your text is fitting in the textbox. You should try to avoid using the "\l" at
all costs. Try to end your sentences or complete thoughts at the end of a single textbox's available space if at all possible. Do not allow your phrasing to generate awkward pauses in the text because the textbox has to make a new line to continue; format everything so that new lines are generated at natural pauses in the dialog. If English is not your native language, you get a complete and absolute pass at this. I'll play your hack in your native language if there is an option to. I know enough of the Latin-based languages to get the jist of what's going on. If not, I know that English is hard and inconsistent and it sucks and I can't expect people who aren't native speakers and haven't been educated in the language for their entire lives to get everything right. For the rest of you, again, pick up a book. Reading is the best way to improve your vocabulary and internalize grammar so that you don't make these mistakes constantly.
These are the bulk of my gripes with the hacks of today. If you can manage to piece together a hack with minimal offenses in these categories that is also even remotely interesting, you will win HotY. You will win every subsequent HotY. We will have to revise the previous HotY's so that you can win those too. Basically what I'm saying is this, these are the three ingredients that, when done right, make an objectively good hack. You don't even need Chemical X, or anything special. Do this, and you will have a better hack than 90% of the hacks out there today. The bar is set that low.
