Opinions on Poké Ride

[godiego]

Surf has more power yes, but Scald has that 30% chance on a burn, and often you don't really need the extra power of Surf to KO mons weak to Water.

except if the extra power Surf has doesn't make a meaningful impact then the likeliness that Scald's 30% burn chance makes an impact (ie., Burn secures an effective ohko, Burn's attack reduction prevents you from being ohko'd) is also slim due to its lower power. and importantly Scald is a defensively oriented move, not offensive; a move that is best abused by walls, a group of Pokemon that, in terms of wastefulness, are pretty wasteful for the main campaign

And it's not important why people make a certain choice, it's that they can make a choice.

not important aside from the fact that people have been arguing that HMs stink for objective reasons (eg., bad moves therefore "important" moveslot wasted therefore bad mechanic), when the reality is simply a case of "i don't wanna use [move]" (or perhaps a sort of not wanting to be told to use a move).

 

[Like_Fahrenheit]

I really like Poke Ride, I think it's a great addition and alternative to HMs. My favorite is the Charizard, just because flying is super convenient. Second would be Tauros because of how fast I can go, and the amount of money I get from busting rocks on Poni Island

 

[Beth Pavell]

when the reality is simply a case of "i don't wanna use [move]" (or perhaps a sort of not wanting to be told to use a move).

You want an example of HMs at their worst, I point you towards Victory Road in Gen III Hoenn. You had to use Flash, for heaven's sake. Now fine, Flash has been downgraded to TM status, but that still leaves the likes of Cut, Rock Smash, Whirlpool, etc that have variously been in the HM roster at one time or another. The best you can say for them is that they form useful stop-gaps in movesets early on. Later on, fine, we could always pull out the HM slave to get at that one item behind Cut or whatever, but there's nothing in that that makes you think. Then there's the faff of getting to the Move Deleter if you ever want to get rid of a HM from a main party member. It's just extra admin

It's all a nuisance that frankly can be avoided by shuffling HMs over to TM moves, as SM demonstrates. Either that or go for a HM-free main story à la BW - which would be fine, but I don't see that as a particular improvement