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Masuda's influence over modern Pokemon gaming

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pretty much influenced by the conversation from this post onward. c:

you know, i've heard a lot (mostly in online spaces/social media. in otherwords, Very Outspoken Fans) that a lot of mistakes that Game Freak has been making so far in pokemon games is directly due to Masuda's influence. from getting rid of the battle frontier to making the games too simple, he seems to be (from my understanding) under the impression that pokemon games should not be a challenge whatsoever, to the point where older/veteran fans feel left out and feel it's his responsibility for not extending any sort of an olive branch to them and instead constantly focusing on dumbing down pokemon games as much as he can, directly or indirectly.

i'd like to personally stress that the above paragraph isn't actually reflective of my opinion on the matter or the man at hand, but i do want to ask you guys whether you agree or disagree that his influence is solely responsible for pokemon games being what they are in this day and age, flaws and all. i'd like to hope that this conversation remains constructive, so please keep the topic at hand to either criticisms or praise about his handling of pokemon games under his leadership at Game Freak, depending on your position.
 
Because Masuda is still under the impression that kids of today don't want nor can handle difficulty in a Pokémon game. "DP is easier and simpler than Platinum - we even have Gym Leaders that don't fully use their specialty type! Go with that; they'll just go play with their phones afterwards anyway."
Thing is, is Masuda wrong? Kids still love the games (I work with 4th graders and they love Pokemon now in 2021 as much as we did in 2007), They do infact have short attention spans, and when they find something hard I've seen them do one of two things
1. Sit at their desks and do nothing
2. Start talking to friends
If they had access to their phones it would go here as number 3

Masuda acknowledges that the current environment for gaming among kids has changed since the first 4 generations came out and the sales still holding up shows he's right when it comes to the games target demographics. Its not that he thinks kids are dumber but they do have a more options than ever before. I'm sure he saw it with dexit too kids won't need to transfer Pokemon if its only their second game at best. I wouldn't be surprised if bank also gave a number to transfers and it wasn't big enough for game freak to justify always having all the Pokemon.
 
Thing is, is Masuda wrong? Kids still love the games (I work with 4th graders and they love Pokemon now in 2021 as much as we did in 2007), They do infact have short attention spans, and when they find something hard I've seen them do one of two things
1. Sit at their desks and do nothing
2. Start talking to friends
If they had access to their phones it would go here as number 3

Masuda acknowledges that the current environment for gaming among kids has changed since the first 4 generations came out and the sales still holding up shows he's right when it comes to the games target demographics. Its not that he thinks kids are dumber but they do have a more options than ever before.
Just saw colours post about this thread after I posted aha.

That aside, I think he's wrong. I work with students too, elementary specifically, and while there are students who may not try or give up at challenging events, there are students who enjoy or persevere through the same events; and then there are plenty who ask for or seek help/assistance. And given the era of modern day, it is far easier to look up information for video games than before. Thus this notion that he and his team maintain that challenging games wouldn't be suitable for children is absurd to me. And even then, this is Pokémon - the games are inherently easy to begin with, especially with all of the changes and mechanics that have been introduced since Gen IV.
 
Just saw colours post about this thread after I posted aha.

That aside, I think he's wrong. I work with students too, elementary specifically, and while there are students who may not try or give up at challenging events, there are students who enjoy or persevere through the same events; and then there are plenty who ask for or seek help/assistance. And given the era of modern day, it is far easier to look up information for video games than before. Thus this notion that he and his team maintain that challenging games wouldn't be suitable for children is absurd to me. And even then, this is Pokémon - the games are inherently easy to begin with, especially with all of the changes and mechanics that have been introduced since Gen IV.

However, you recognize that there are kids who may not try or give up at challenging events. Would it be bad to appeal these kids?

Kids who give up at challenging events will feel alienated by a harder game. Instead, kids who persevere wouldn't necessarily going to be disgusted by an easy game.

So, it has a lot of sense to appeal to the kids who would give up.
 
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The sales numbers prove a point, though.

to be completely fair, pokemon games will always sell well. although admittedly i'm not familiar with the business side of game development nor will i pretend to be, but i don't believe pokemon games have ever had "bad" sales, except if you count third games (platinum compared to dp, crystal compared to GS i believe, emerald compared to rs and even b2w2 despite it being a sequel). i'm unsure if sales can be directly attributed to masuda's leadership and decisions as director or not, given this.
 
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However, you recognize that there are kids who may not try or give up at challenging events. Would it be bad to appeal these kids?

Kids who give up at challenging events will feel alienated by a harder game. Instead, kids who persevere wouldn't necessarily going to be disgusted by an easy game.

So, it has a lot of sense to appeal to the kids who would give up.
You talk as if there aren't considerations for such events though. Look at SwSh as a recent example:
  • Players can raise their Pokémon's Affection to have them do things the opponents will never do, such as actually evade 100% accuracy moves, survive lethal hits, break out of status, and have increased chances to score critical hits. It's RNG dependent, but provided nonetheless.
  • EXP is abundant in the games. Having a hard time with that Gossifleur? Well, overpower it with a higher level! You can use a vast assortment of EXP Candies, not-so-rare Rare Candies, or EXP from playing with your Pokémon; oh, and the EXP from sending them to work on jobs while you aren't playing the games. This is the main way to appeal to these children, and always has been. And speaking of EXP, everyone gets EXP now so need to worry about training up weak Pokémon!
  • Why not explore the Wild Area, which the game encourages you to do, and find really cool items that can give you an edge in battle? Like a Fire Stone for that Growlithe you just caught. Or some Leftovers so your Pokémon always recovers health in battle. You can even get really cool TRs with powerful moves that most opponents won't use themselves.
  • Speaking of evolving Pokémon, stone-based evolutions, of which there are several that kids can acquire before the first Gym, get their entire pre-evolution's moveset in addition to their own. So Flare Blitz or Flamethrower that pesky Gossifleur away. And remembering these moves is now free! No more any kind of currency!
  • Want to do a Surprise Trade and see what you get in return (provided you have paid for the internet service)? What's that? You received a really good/Legendary/breedject/type-convenient Pokémon that gets even more EXP than the friends you catch? Why not use it in conjunction with the above things!
  • And don't forget - you will always have a party advantage against nearly every Trainer in the game; strength in numbers and all that. Those pesky Gym Leaders with two Pokémon? Better bring your full party of six; use those Revives and Max Revives to keep up the good fight too.
  • Then there are the tutorials up the wazzoo for mechanics and such; some games even fade to black and warp you to where you need to go.
How are children who may struggle in these games alienated with these considerations in place among others, such as Pokémon encounter placement?

With all of this in mind and at any player's/child's disposal, better opponent AI, opponents using the occasional item or so, & full opponent movesets (all for example) would make the game too hard? Too off-putting to never play again?
 
to be completely fair, pokemon gamers will always sell well. although admittedly i'm not familiar with the business side of game development nor will i pretend to be, but i don't believe pokemon games have ever had "bad" sales, except if you count third games (platinum compared to dp, crystal compared to GS i believe, emerald compared to rs and even b2w2 despite it being a sequel). i'm unsure if sales can be directly attributed to masuda's leadership and decisions as director or not, given this.
You are right. It would be very difficult for a Pokemon game to have "bad" sales or completely flop, given the IP.

But at the same time, [playing it "safe"] itself is technically a decision. [Avoiding "bad" sales] itself could also be a goal. Keeping it kid-friendly, adding tons of convenient features, making things easy are all "safe" approaches that would have very few complaints from the majority of consumers. Also, easy convenient games would have better accessibility for new gamers.
 
Just saw colours post about this thread after I posted aha.

That aside, I think he's wrong. I work with students too, elementary specifically, and while there are students who may not try or give up at challenging events, there are students who enjoy or persevere through the same events; and then there are plenty who ask for or seek help/assistance. And given the era of modern day, it is far easier to look up information for video games than before. Thus this notion that he and his team maintain that challenging games wouldn't be suitable for children is absurd to me. And even then, this is Pokémon - the games are inherently easy to begin with, especially with all of the changes and mechanics that have been introduced since Gen IV.
Like you said some kids give up and that might be the point. if they alienate any kids they have less sales. In an effort to make sure any kid can beat the game they make it easy. You'd think well, when we were kids we beat the games didn't we? I almost didn't beat emerald because I couldn't find the guy in the shipyard on my first playthrough, infact I feel like gamefreak was aware that some kids might have gotten stuck there besides me because in the remakes you walk into the shipyard and are brought right over to the guy. I figured it out after I reset the game and played it again but a kid now a days may just put it down and play the million's of free to play games on the app store. back when we were kids free games were not so available and you were stuck with whatever your parents bought.
I'd also argue the modern games aren't as easy for kids as they are for adults too. When X and Y came out I destroyed the elite 4, I was in highschool and I knew what I was doing. This youtuber I was subbed too had his little brother stream with him the x and y elite 4 and the kid lost his first attempt. So it could still be challenging but for kids who maybe have only played a few pokemon games.
 
Like you said some kids give up and that might be the point. if they alienate any kids they have less sales.
Ultra Sun & Moon are arguably the most difficult games to play given the improved Totem Battles (and Totem Battles in and of themselves), Ultra Necrozma, moveset coverage that opponents have, and the fact that many opponents have full 508 EV investment, beneficial natures, and high to perfect IVs (which is unprecedented for any Pokémon game).

As of March 31st, 2021, the games have sold 8.98 million copies, ranking them as the ninth–best selling Nintendo 3DS titles of all time; they were also the best selling games in Japan the year of their release. It was amusing watching my little brother, 10 at the time, wipe to Araquanid and Necrozma - though while he did have moments where he stopped playing due to those battles, his interest for the game was higher and he eventually beat it, several times. As colours mentioned, the Pokémon games will always sell - Game Freak will always make money off of them, even if they royally upset the fanbase like they did with Sword and Shield's "DexGate;" SwSh still has sold over 21 million copies and is the third most bought game to date of the franchise.

I doubt the number of children that stop playing for whatever indefinite amount of time because they can't find the next person of interest will affect that purchasing sphere in any substantial fashion, let alone at all. And also, Pokémon is not intended to be speedrun by children - it's okay for them to stop playing for a while to do other things, and resume their journeys at a later time.
 
I think the only thing wrong with GF’s approach is that it assumes everyone wants to play the same way, or rather, if they don’t, then the onus to make the games more challenging should be on the players themselves. But native difficulty settings are a ubiquitous concept by now, and Pokémon has such a wide audience that it’s pretty much guaranteed that some peoples’ (particularly veteran players’) ability will outstrip anything that the regular game is designed for, so logically, why wouldn’t you try to accommodate for that? I think their ideas about making the games more accessible have been largely pretty sound - there’s definitely a lot of janky stuff in the older games that only served to add tedium rather than proper challenge - but it would be nice if they could start thinking about the audience in the other direction as well. There’s no reason why this kind of game can’t support multiple skill levels.
 
when you really think about it, pokemon is such an odd and unique jrpg in its own right. let's think about all the different kinds of ways that adjustable difficulty has been pulled off in other jrpgs, and see how that roughly "translates" over to the pokemon gaming experience:
  • variable damage - this is typically the most fundamental of adjustable things in difficulty settings. what this basically means is that either you do more damage (easier mode) or the opponent does more damage to you (harder mode). i can only take a guess that Game Freak isn't completely sure how to implement this in a way that makes sense mechanically, which is perhaps why it hasn't been done a yet. this is not a defense, but rather a possible reason. pokemon is a lot more about immersion than other jrpgs are and would be, so there would have to be some reasonable explanation for this. yes, EVs exist, but EVs also have a maximum threshold. a fully EV trained lv 12 onix by brock is still going to be level 12 no matter what unless a higher difficulty level raises the level, and even then there's a hard limit on how high its stats would be. this isn't applicable so much in other jrpgs. i suppose you could replace the gym leaders' pokemon with different ones, but there's still the level and stat cap to keep in mind...

    i think totem pokemon might've been the right direction as far as how to handle stat increases - in other words, giving boss pokemon a buff and having the player figure out how to overcome that disadvantage seems a lot more in line with what i'd expect to be "challenging" in the pokemon sense.

  • less experience - i can imagine the formula for gaining experience could be tweaked so that it's harder for the player to overlevel in harder difficulty modes. at the same time, however, this seems oddly difficult in the sense of frustrating rather than a challenge in the strategic sense, which i feel is what more people are look for, so i don't really see gaining less experience as any sort of a solution to much. my 002c though, perhaps others would disagree.

  • more intelligent AI - this is something that has actually been done before in official pokemon games, if you've played any post-game battle facility ever. the AI actually tries and attempts to guess the player's next move, but because it's an AI, it's not terribly different to just.. click on a different move in anticipation of a switch. perhaps this would be the challenge players are looking for however, something that actually plays more chess-like rather than "win with repeatedly pressing the same move".

  • less money gained/no items allowed - i can imagine there are some people who don't like using items in battle anyway, so this would not bother them in the slightest. plus it's... not really hard at all to budget in pokemon? idk, i can't imagine this affecting a whole lot.
i dunno. i'm trying to think of a bit more, but it's hard to do that because other RPGs have some sort of factor where like, it's so easy to play around with the gameplay elements to adjust difficulty high or low all you want. pokemon is uniquely very limiting in that there's only so many things you can adjust, which is perhaps why challenge mode felt as lackluster as it did; it's not terrible hard to overcome a few levels of a difference and it's not even difficult to not bother grinding and beat gym leaders that overlevel you provided you play your cards right. so like, would a combination of above feel challenging, or frustrating and tedious? i can imagine that's why self-inflicted challenges are a thing - because it limits the player significantly in some way or another, providing more of that challenge players actually seek.

i dunno. my two cents after thinking about this whole difficulty thing a lot. it's more complicated for pokemon than an easy/normal/hard, but i wouldn't know, im not a game developer. maybe there's an easier way to go about with it.
 
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I don't really care that Pokémon games main experience aren't challenging at all, I even understand, although I liked that they weren't so easy. However, optional difficulty unlocking is something that would be welcome.

What saddens me is the withdrawal, and the lack of options, of challenging side content, like the Battle of the Frontier. The removal of optional and side challenges is something I find really offensive to longtime fans.

As for Massuda, I believe that only someone involved with the production of the games could say something.
 
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i dunno. my two cents after thinking about this whole difficulty thing a lot. it's more complicated for pokemon than an easy/normal/hard, but i wouldn't know, im not a game developer. maybe there's an easier way to go about with it.
Honestly, I don't think it's that tricky to make a hard difficulty for a Pokémon game. There have been various difficulty hacks for older games that didn't need to completely reprogram things.
All that would be needed is giving enemies larger teams with better movepools and stronger Pokémon species, giving them EV training, and giving hold items to the whole team and better ones the just a sitrus berry on the boss's ace.
I mean I could come up with this in just a minute or so and it doesn't even require trying to improve the AI or add new programming like for Totem Pokémon.

That wouldn't make the game as hard as an 8-bit era RPG, but it'll at least be a more difficult and hopefully satisfying challenge for experienced players.
 
Honestly, I don't think it's that tricky to make a hard difficulty for a Pokémon game. There have been various difficulty hacks for older games that didn't need to completely reprogram things.
All that would be needed is giving enemies larger teams with better movepools and stronger Pokémon species, giving them EV training, and giving hold items to the whole team and better ones the just a sitrus berry on the boss's ace.
I mean I could come up with this in just a minute or so and it doesn't even require trying to improve the AI or add new programming like for Totem Pokémon.

That wouldn't make the game as hard as an 8-bit era RPG, but it'll at least be a more difficult and hopefully satisfying challenge for experienced players.

ehhh i suppose i was overthinking it a bit (i did mention EV training btw). better movepools is debatable depending on level cap; obviously it's unfair to give the first gym pokemon a tm that you'd find in endgame, so there has to be some sort of balance. hold items are a good idea though. unsure about "stronger" pokemon species, depending on what they are. as in, more pokemon that are evolved? seems interesting. o:
 
ehhh i suppose i was overthinking it a bit (i did mention EV training btw). better movepools is debatable depending on level cap; obviously it's unfair to give the first gym pokemon a tm that you'd find in endgame, so there has to be some sort of balance. hold items are a good idea though.
I'm partly thinking of good coverage (like how Bea's Hitmontop cannot hurt a ghost at all in Sword) and partly getting rid of certain moves that show up late game but are actually not very good under most circumstances, like moves that have lower accuracy without an item or ability to boost them.
For examples of both, in gen 4 Cynthia's Garchomp has Dragon Rush instead of Dragon Claw; it also uses Giga Impact which gives the player a free turn--that's a huge help for the player and outside Slaking high end AI trainers shouldn't have the recharge moves.
Edit: Part of this is the weird availability of a lot of moves even to the player, though; they take way too long to give the Elemental Punches in Sw/Sh, for instance, while they were available pretty early in G/S/C.

unsure about "stronger" pokemon species, depending on what they are. as in, more pokemon that are evolved? seems interesting. o:
Other than evolutions, some species are stronger than others so there could also be a few Pokémon swapped with a stronger species; replacing a Steelix with a Metagross isn't technically a straight upgrade but will generally be a much harder opponent.
 
Honestly, I don't think it's that tricky to make a hard difficulty for a Pokémon game. There have been various difficulty hacks for older games that didn't need to completely reprogram things.
BW2 already had a hard difficulty and all it did was up the levels, change some moves for important battles and add an extra pokemon to almost every gym leader. It was fine and imo made the game more enjoyable for someone like me. Though they dropped the ball by making it post game content that needed another player's game. Game had an easy mode too, though I never tried it. All gamefreak needs to do is do what they did in BW2 but make it available from the start of the game.
 
Who knows where the mentality originates, but it is clear it is how the games are being constructed. I will agree that the mentality should not exist, but communicating it to them would be a difficult task. For one thing, they are the most familiar with the Japanese audience, so it is up to them to communicate it to them if they can. Another is that I do not know what people mean by "difficulty". The pokemon games were never particularly difficult, with the possible exception of at least one situation where they only offered one pokemon before that point that would've made it easier. Larger teams, I feel, is more of a flavor sort of thing, though I do not understand why they don't make them larger either, other than the Japanese audience playing by a separate format than ours. (if that is still a thing) Honestly, though, I do not feel it makes a difference other than taking more time.

Pokemon games never felt that different to me other than being dissatisfied with the last couple gens, but that was more of an expectation sort of thing, and otherwise, I think I missed what made me actually play the main series, and truthfully, I do not think there was a real reason other than I just liked to play it. That is just me, though, and I don't know what anyone else is seeking. I only know that games like the main series are in no way threatened by casual gaming. It is apples and oranges.
 
when you really think about it, pokemon is such an odd and unique jrpg in its own right. let's think about all the different kinds of ways that adjustable difficulty has been pulled off in other jrpgs, and see how that roughly "translates" over to the pokemon gaming experience:
  • variable damage - this is typically the most fundamental of adjustable things in difficulty settings. what this basically means is that either you do more damage (easier mode) or the opponent does more damage to you (harder mode). i can only take a guess that Game Freak isn't completely sure how to implement this in a way that makes sense mechanically, which is perhaps why it hasn't been done a yet. this is not a defense, but rather a possible reason. pokemon is a lot more about immersion than other jrpgs are and would be, so there would have to be some reasonable explanation for this. yes, EVs exist, but EVs also have a maximum threshold. a fully EV trained lv 12 onix by brock is still going to be level 12 no matter what unless a higher difficulty level raises the level, and even then there's a hard limit on how high its stats would be. this isn't applicable so much in other jrpgs. i suppose you could replace the gym leaders' pokemon with different ones, but there's still the level and stat cap to keep in mind...

    i think totem pokemon might've been the right direction as far as how to handle stat increases - in other words, giving boss pokemon a buff and having the player figure out how to overcome that disadvantage seems a lot more in line with what i'd expect to be "challenging" in the pokemon sense.

  • less experience - i can imagine the formula for gaining experience could be tweaked so that it's harder for the player to overlevel in harder difficulty modes. at the same time, however, this seems oddly difficult in the sense of frustrating rather than a challenge in the strategic sense, which i feel is what more people are look for, so i don't really see gaining less experience as any sort of a solution to much. my 002c though, perhaps others would disagree.

  • more intelligent AI - this is something that has actually been done before in official pokemon games, if you've played any post-game battle facility ever. the AI actually tries and attempts to guess the player's next move, but because it's an AI, it's not terribly different to just.. click on a different move in anticipation of a switch. perhaps this would be the challenge players are looking for however, something that actually plays more chess-like rather than "win with repeatedly pressing the same move".

  • less money gained/no items allowed - i can imagine there are some people who don't like using items in battle anyway, so this would not bother them in the slightest. plus it's... not really hard at all to budget in pokemon? idk, i can't imagine this affecting a whole lot.
i dunno. i'm trying to think of a bit more, but it's hard to do that because other RPGs have some sort of factor where like, it's so easy to play around with the gameplay elements to adjust difficulty high or low all you want. pokemon is uniquely very limiting in that there's only so many things you can adjust, which is perhaps why challenge mode felt as lackluster as it did; it's not terrible hard to overcome a few levels of a difference and it's not even difficult to not bother grinding and beat gym leaders that overlevel you provided you play your cards right. so like, would a combination of above feel challenging, or frustrating and tedious? i can imagine that's why self-inflicted challenges are a thing - because it limits the player significantly in some way or another, providing more of that challenge players actually seek.

i dunno. my two cents after thinking about this whole difficulty thing a lot. it's more complicated for pokemon than an easy/normal/hard, but i wouldn't know, im not a game developer. maybe there's an easier way to go about with it.

I appreciate this kind of analysis. I agree that you can't just directly import the same kind of logic that other RPGs use for raising difficulty, and that Pokémon would require a more tailored solution.

One thing I'm considering is, maybe they wouldn't need to apply the challenge factor on such a granular level? I think maybe for most of the common Trainers, an overarching application like "AI buff + 1 or 2 extra mons + higher levels (with lower exp payout to mitigate overleveling)" might be sufficient, and that their main efforts could be concentrated more on the actual boss fights. This series has form when it comes to constructing difficult boss battles - Emerald, Platinum, and USUM are all examples of that, along with other scattered cases like Whitney and BW Ghetsis, and I think those are predominantly what people remember when they think of meaningfully difficult experiences in Pokémon. (Though there are some exceptions among common route Trainers, like Ace Trainer Duo Dennis & Maya or Battle Girl Hedvig, so maybe they could also add an extra Trainer or two on each route who is a little more rigorously outfitted.)

Though on top of that, I personally would rather insist on imposing some kind of hard limit on item usage. I've always believed that it just fundamentally isn't fair that the player can use infinite healing items and can even revive fainted Pokémon in battle, but the opponent cannot. I suppose a simple way to go about that would be to just orient all battles to work like those that take place in battle facilities/competitive, by barring external item use on both sides outright, but obviously it would be more challenging if the opponent were allowed to use some recovery tools while the player could not, although that might require more complex programming.
 
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