I don't understand what you mean here. My "playstyle" is overwhelmingly focused on online play? My playstyle is based on using my favorite Pokémon for an adventure, mainly with different teams comprised of my favorites. With that being said, my single-player campaign is extremely important to me. Playing online is the end goal. It's not all about the destination; it's about the journey too. Competitive players complain about the Exp. Share as well as the friendship/affection system. With me, the single-player campaign simply doesn't challenge me in any way, and I am not interested in limiting my play just to be challenged.
And other people are, and that's why they don't like the system.
The game should be responsible for challenging me, not me.
And that's your philosophy that isn't shared by the people complaining. The fact that there is an entire forum in this very board devoted exclusively to "doing challenge runs of the game", there are similar forums / threads in other boards such as Serebii, there is an entire board dedicated to the Nuzlocke challenge, and there is an entire thriving Youtube / Twitch subcommunity dedicated to challenge runs, means that there is a sizable comunnity with a different philosophy.
Yet, the reasons that the games aren't challenging for me have nothing to do with the Exp. Share or friendship/affection systems. Rather, it's because the trainers are weak, barely use held items, often have poor AI, don't have Pokémon with good EVs and IVs, and too many elite trainers use monotypes, making them easy to beat. The very few things that actually did challenge me, such as Ultra Necrozma and Steven Stone's Champion battle in the remakes, did so even with the Exp. Share and friendship/affection systems enabled. I also went into the battle underleveled despite the Exp. Share.
Cool, good for you.
As I have said before, "toggling exp share / affection" is not the only way to make the game harder, nor is it necessarily the best. But it is one way that was the default standard for a long time.
If you went against Ultra Necrozma and Steven Stone without affection / exp share the fight would have been harder unless you explicitly ground to catch up to where the Exp Share would have sent you. You would have been even more underleveled - or perhaps you would have fought more trainers and therefore engaging with more of the content of the game, who knows, but it is fundamentally giving more choice to the player about how to handle their playthrough.
Yet, I'm not convinced that these features actually make the games easier.
Yet, those mechanics don't rob any player of the option to make the game harder, as the game can still be difficult based on how players choose to play their game. That's also not "objective fact." An objective fact is a universal truth. A subjective opinion is a personal truth, preference, or experience. Pokémon being easier because of Exp. Share and friendship/affection is not a statement that is true for every player. Whether a player considers something difficult or not is personal, no matter the reason.
Affection means you deal more damage, avoid attacks that would otherwise not hit, tank hits you otherwise wouldn't (up to a 1 in 4 chance) and might be able to shrug off status conditions. The Exp Share / Exp Charm means you get stronger faster.
It fundamentally makes you stronger in every relevant part of battling. That
is making the game easier than it otherwise would. You have yet to make any cohesive argument about how higher DPS, not being hit by attacks, preventing sure death and shrugging off status conditions can possibly not make the game easier. Affection status heals even triggers before Toxic Orb / Flame Orb, so it's not like it'd even significantly damage Guts / PH strategies (it'd enhance Guts even, since it's one turn without Poison / Burn damage), at most you get 1 turn without PH healing while you have a high chance of tanking OHKOs, and get basically a free Eva boost.
Until you make an argument that can sufficiently displace the obvious conclusion of "If I deal more damage, the game is easier, if I take less damage the game is easier, if I'm not hampered by a status condition, the game is easier" I'm not convinced.
I disagree. I don't think the game would be harder without them. Instead, the games simply becomes much more tedious without them. Leveling up to 100 takes much longer,
Most people don't level their Pokemon up to 100, that's mostly for online play. The type of people complaining are by large only concerned with the single player campaign which can be handled at very lower levels.
as well as getting your Pokémon's levels ready for the next gym or whatnot because you have to level each Pokémon individually. EV training becomes much more time consuming because you also have to train each of them individually.
Same thing applies to EV training. If you argument hinges on "reaching level 100" or "EV training" it is already fundamentally talking about a very different experience than the people complaining and one that wouldn't be affected at all if you could toggle Exp Share / Affection.
On the subject of getting ready to the next gym, that depends on a number of factors but yes, generally speaking, it would take more time. That isn't an argument about it not being harder, but it would take more time. Whether the people complaining would like to toggle the Exp Share when they feel they're sufficiently behind, or grind out of a sense of connection, or go Leroy Jenkins and blaze in underleveled is up to them, but the entire point is choice.
The people complaining aren't saying "Get rid of it" they're saying "I want to be able to opt-out".
When I said the Exp. Share makes the game easier, I meant it improves the quality of life when playing. As for the friendship/affection system, simply because a Pokémon has a higher chance of surviving an attack, landing a critical hit, and/or shaking off a status condition doesn't automatically make the game easier depending on how you play. The possibility always exists that you can do other things to make the game harder for yourself.
Yes, you could make the game harder for yourself. And being able to opt out of those mechanics would be a simple way both implementation wise and playthrough wise to make the game harder for those who so choose.
You're going to need a more complex argument than depending on how you play. If it were Gen I than sure, I could see, how say, higher crit chance could be not ideal, but I fail to see any kind of strategy that would not want to deal more damage, or not receive damage.
At the very least, not any one that has any kind of statistical significance. We can say "Forced Exp Share / Affection make the game easier on average" (as I should have said from the beginning, I'll admit) if you want to be pedantic.
Yet, you practically said something to a similar effect in your previous paragraph. You said, "The game without them might not be something you'd call hard." I agree. Pokémon is one of the easiest games that anybody can play, at least in terms of single-player. Yet, despite believing that, that doesn't mean that I'm not engaging with what others said. However, what people have said doesn't make much logical sense to me.
How does "I want to make the easy game harder" not make logical sense? That is, by itself, a complete answer and an instinct that's present in so many people that there are entire communities devoted to "making games harder".
In fact, we have two of them here in this very board. We have one that make things harder within the rules of the games, and other that jailbreak the games / make clones they can tweak the rules so it's harder.
For instance, regarding Exp. Share, the typical reasons are "you can't turn it off," which doesn't really explain why you'd want to turn it off in the first place, and "it causes overleveling," when in reality, overleveling is caused more by playstyle than by Exp. Share itself.
And people want to play the game with more choices on how to play the game. This is the entire crux of the argument, people are saying "I want more choice in how I can play the game."
They don't want to have to choose between "I need to change my playstyle" and "I want to make the game harder" they want both. This is achieved in most games by having a difficulty select. Pokemon doesn't have a difficulty select, but being able to toggle those systems would be a small step towards that.
Regarding the friendship/affection system, it's said that "it gives the player an unfair advantage," when, in reality, it doesn't give too much of an advantage other than a few added perks that don't make you invincible. With that being said, I am definitely engaging with what they're saying; it's just that what they're saying doesn't convince me of anything because it's illogical.
If your closing argument to "I want to make the game harder and having a choice in toggling this game mechanic as I was able to do in the past would help me doing that" is "They're illogical" you're most likely not engaging with what people are saying.
Every encounter we've had has shown me that you don't engage in any arguments in good faith and as such I'm done talking with you. I'll be watching this in case the discussion turns ugly but I will not be responding to you any further unless absolutely necessary.