Single Player Vs. Competitive Experience: Pokemon Edition

What do you prefer Game Freak to focus more on in Pokemon?

  • Single Player

    Votes: 7 58.3%

  • Competitive Play

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Both

    Votes: 5 41.7%
  • Total voters
    12
Pinkie-Dawn

Pinkie-Dawn

Vampire Waifu
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    This has been one of the major debates within the Pokémon community. A lot of fans were distasted by the recent games, having to heavily focus on the competitive community with TMs now becoming reusables, easier ways to increase EVs and IVs for newcomers to get into the scene, new abilities, mechanics, and formes to buff previous gen Pokémon in order to balance the metagame. These were all in sacrificing key features for the main story by making the region more linear (so people can get over with it and start developing competitive teams), grinding become less tedious, and postgame content being lackluster compared to previous games. This eventually got the sides under a debate. I've made an article discussing about this issue in further detail before Sun and Moon was released, so I'm leaving a link to it for you guys to read so I don't have to constantly copy/paste what I've written from there to here. I did read this one post from /vp/ that's partially in favor of the single player side:

    I honestly think the power creep is absolutely fucked and will never be fixed. Marowak's a shining example of how a Pokemon that's just decent on its own can be a king in its meta just by having a combination of fantastic typing, ability, and coverage that specifically walls OU's Biggest Hits, but there aren't enough counterpick Pokemon to really turn the tides for the whole game, unfortunately.

    Plus, there's always the ugly truth that ever since gen 6, GameFreak is always going to have to outdo themselves with some big marketable flashy over the top battle mechanic to take front and center in all the advertising. Granted, Z-Moves are more tame in practice than Megas are, but it doesn't seem like Megas are ever going to go anywhere, so that's a blemish we're gonna be stuck with, and we never know what flashy over-centralizing gimmicks the future will hold. And you can't take care of the power curve by introducing more shitmons, because that doesn't delete already-existing Pokemon, and they'll just continue to see use forever while the new shitmons get ignored.

    I don't know what else can be done short of giving the nerf stick to every powerful Pokemon a la Gengar and Talonflame until everybody's equally shitty, but with 800+ Pokemon, there's hardly any point in worrying about equality, now is there? Now, we just need to worry about exterminating the biggest threats that everybody uses and everybody else hates.

    tl;dr the meta will never not be cancer.
    Click to expand...

    Do you guys want Game Freak to abandon competitive aspect and return to making Pokémon more like an actual JRPG, or do you want them to continue adding deeper layers in the competitive scene to attract older audiences without the need of taking the "edgy" route in its games?
     
    I'm very in favor of focus on the single-player experience. I've never really had an interest in competitive battling, so streamlining the story and simplifying the gameplay in favor of making it easier for newbies to get onto the competitive scene tends to annoy me. I'd be annoyed if any game degraded its story, setting and mechanics in favor of the promotion of a single feature, and Pokémon's been doing that lately imo ): It's a bit saddening.

    That said, I exaggerate a bit. It's really not a huge deal. The new games are still pretty good, even with my dislike of the focus on competitive.
     
    I'm just a casual player and have no experiences on breeding the perfect mons nor max'ed EV/IV on the pokemon's potential. People may enjoy on their own ways either competitively or casually and I hate when competitiveness gets too out of hand.
     
    I don't mind them focusing on both, as long as the games don't become too boring for those who only want to focus on one thing. Personally I am more into single play, just because competitive play doesn't interest me that much.
     
    I play both ways. :/
    Usually in each new set of games I have one as my competitive hub and the other is a casual play through game.

    Also, I don't pay attention to tiers or the meta. I IV breed and EV train but I couldn't care less what tier what I want to use is in. I've been successful using a Wartortle in ORAS rating battles. I used it because...I like Wartortle. :\ Not all people who play competitively are snotty and tier obsessed. :)

    I do think the competitive focus took a step back in SM though with the removal of hordes and super training. Also it's way harder to grind to lv100.
     
    I'm kinda biased seeing as I've only ever been interested in competitive battling for a short period, but I would honestly prefer the single player experience to be focused on more, particularly the post-game, which hasn't been good enough recently imo. The post-game is the only real issue of mine tbh, as Sun and Moons' story and single player experience was generally really good.
     
    Competitive Pokémon never interested me in the least bit, since I know my strategies that I use would not cut it at all in any battle with another player that could be from clear across the globe. I'm one of those people who would rather 'do my own thing', thank you.
    Things would be better if future game development focused on making the single-player experience as fun as possible (and no, I don't mean introducing more issues and annoyances than fixing them as Sun/Moon has done.)
     
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