- Boring rivals. I feel like we haven't had interesting rivals since gen 5, and even then 1 of the two rivals in that gen was still pretty boring. I want more rivals like Barry, Gary, and Silver. We have too many rivals that are fine with you winning, and don't really show they want to succeed until maybe the last battle, but by that point, I already have a set depiction of the rival. This is a big reason I'm not a fan of Hau. He'll randomly challenge you to a battle, but won't actually take it seriously until the final battle.
My favorite rival was probably Barry. He had an actual role in the main story and I feel like the player had constant interactions with them that felt natural. He was quirky, which made him stand out compared to other rivals but could still be serious. It felt like we were actually going on an adventure together, rather than against each other or separately.
Also, stick with 2 rivals at the most. X and Y had too many characters. I feel like none of them stood apart, and overall they just felt bland. It felt like the story would have progressed the same even if they had not been there. 2 is great so that players can have 1 easy win, but still have to train to beat the other rival. This also then shows younger trainers the importance of types.
- No Vs. Seeker, or other way to rematch trainers. Please, there are only so many trainers. I need a way to make money and grind without it feeling too grindy.
- No new eeveelution. Give me a dragon Eevee named Draceon you cowards.
- What a ton of other people are saying- Handholding. I agree with this so much. However, I don't want it to go back to how it was in Red and Blue. As a child, I was confused about where to go and what to do. There was very little guidance. I want something like a phone in a pokecenter that the player can interact with if they don't know where to go next. When used, the player would call the professor for the region and the professor would give some hint about where to go. The first time a player uses the device it would give a detailed description like "*player name* did you know that *cave name* connects 4 different cities together? There was an earthquake recently, so some of the tunnels are still blocked off, but I think the tunnel leading to *city name* is still intact. It'll be some time until the other tunnels are clear, why not head to *city name*". Every interaction after that would just be a brief message like "You should head to *city name* through *cave name*". The importance of this is not only giving players some detail pertaining to the world and explaining why they can't access certain areas, but it's also giving some guidance and with the second interaction onward it'll just be a brief reminder about where to go. Each of these interactions would change based on what stage you are in the story. There would be enough interactions to give some guidance, while not too much to spoil the players about what they need to be doing.
There would be a small cutscene showing the player the item, maybe do a forced first interaction (like with the pokenav in emerald, and how after getting it you had to call Mr. Stone). This way, it would show people how to use it, but then they could choose to never use it again.