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I think the automatic Exp Share is something that Game Freak probably felt they were bringing up to standard, kind of like adding autosave, since like @colours said it’s something that most other party-based RPGs don’t even really think about; it just is that way and everyone accepts it.
The decision to make that change (and to stick with it here) was probably influenced by the everywhere-PC. Fast level growth and being able to swap between numerous team members at any time go hand-in-hand, and according to Ohmori, their internal feedback indicated that many players just left the Gen 6/7 Exp Share on, so they probably didn’t think too many people would take issue with it or that there would be any need for a toggle anymore. It seems they thought that the people who toggled it off were mainly people who just wanted to train one or a few specific Pokémon at a time, not people who were trying to affect the overall difficulty level - so to them, the everywhere-PC looked like a reasonable compromise (if you just want to train one Pokémon without leveling up the others, simply pop the rest into the PC for a bit).
I do think people should have the option if they want it since it seems like it would be trivial to implement, but I can see how GF came to the conclusions that they did. (I personally have only ever had problems with SwSh’s level curve when factoring in the DLC’s Exp Charm; the new Exp Share system on its own has been mostly fine for me so I don’t really have a dog in this race.) That being said, we talk about “bringing things up to standard,” and I think that just once again stresses the absence of native difficulty levels. I think there’s something to be said for the idea that the challenge should emerge organically from the game rather than from turning off a systemic mechanic, but the thing is, people only resort to doing that in the first place because Pokémon still, after all these years and despite the examples set by so many of their contemporaries, refuses to provide players with proper difficulty settings that can be adjusted to suit their level of play.
The decision to make that change (and to stick with it here) was probably influenced by the everywhere-PC. Fast level growth and being able to swap between numerous team members at any time go hand-in-hand, and according to Ohmori, their internal feedback indicated that many players just left the Gen 6/7 Exp Share on, so they probably didn’t think too many people would take issue with it or that there would be any need for a toggle anymore. It seems they thought that the people who toggled it off were mainly people who just wanted to train one or a few specific Pokémon at a time, not people who were trying to affect the overall difficulty level - so to them, the everywhere-PC looked like a reasonable compromise (if you just want to train one Pokémon without leveling up the others, simply pop the rest into the PC for a bit).
I do think people should have the option if they want it since it seems like it would be trivial to implement, but I can see how GF came to the conclusions that they did. (I personally have only ever had problems with SwSh’s level curve when factoring in the DLC’s Exp Charm; the new Exp Share system on its own has been mostly fine for me so I don’t really have a dog in this race.) That being said, we talk about “bringing things up to standard,” and I think that just once again stresses the absence of native difficulty levels. I think there’s something to be said for the idea that the challenge should emerge organically from the game rather than from turning off a systemic mechanic, but the thing is, people only resort to doing that in the first place because Pokémon still, after all these years and despite the examples set by so many of their contemporaries, refuses to provide players with proper difficulty settings that can be adjusted to suit their level of play.
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