(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[R_N]

They probably just took your Gravatar if you used the same email.


The other thing is that the Pokemon.com glossary refers to EVs as "base points" but the actual stats obtained from EVs as "base stats", which the latter doesn't even have an equivalent existing term for in the community.
https://www.pokemon.com/us/play-pokemon/about/video-game-glossary
View attachment 622600

I will say "base points" as the official equivalent for our "EVs" makes sense, but also this is a great example how sometimes, after a certain point, as a community you just gotta stick to the ultra-ingrained fan terminology.

like imagine if they didnt just throw their hands up and go "fine they're shiny pokemon, officially" and they stuck to one of the other terms they floated over the years. "Differently Colored Pokemon" is not getting the article title I'm sorry.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

They probably just took your Gravatar if you used the same email.


The other thing is that the Pokemon.com glossary refers to EVs as "base points" but the actual stats obtained from EVs as "base stats", which the latter doesn't even have an equivalent existing term for in the community.
https://www.pokemon.com/us/play-pokemon/about/video-game-glossary
View attachment 622600

That's EV Yield.

This "glossary" feels like trolling.

 

[doipy hooves]

That's EV Yield.

This "glossary" feels like trolling.

EV yield is the term for how many EVs each mon drops for defeating them, and they still call that yield in the "base points" definition. Pokemon.com's "base stats" are referring to specifically the raw stat difference you gain from having EVs. Technically Bulbapedia is still wrong saying that "base stats" are the official term for EVs since those are base points and "base stats" have no analogue.

 

[Leif98]

If anything there should be a switch button to alternate between fan or official names, although I am not sure how much work that is, I have no idea how websites work. And the default should be the fan names due to usage

Not having an option to switch if there are fundamental differences in terms of names of the same things is what really annoys me about Yugioh Wikis/Yugipedia, they use the horrible dub names and I really struggle

More options is usually better.

 

[BIG ASHLEY]

Bulbapedia's decision to rename the Starter Pokemon page to "first partner Pokemon"

based on their own article, a baffling choice...

 

[Ironmage]

The changes to colour schemes also bother me because there have been multiple different official colours used at different points in time. So not only was something like SpDef being green in use before, there's no guarantee that the current scheme will stick around (forcing another big shift later down the line).

I'm of the belief that the community, not the company, sets the real standard at the best of times, and the company being provably fickle is not the best of times.

 

[DrrT]

I can respect the idea behind it, but even as a non-English native speaker I have been using the term "starter" for years. Wikidex, the spanish wiki, is not renaming it because as they note in the article the official name is used very inconsistently. And as others have said, at this point is too integrated on the fandom like Shiny Pokemon.

 

[Bakugames]

id rather they just add a sticky on top of pages that says "this is a fandom term, the official term is [x]", especially because the terms have different importances for the fandom vs the company/translators. I don't think a company making their own terms is bad, its like whatever yknow, but I think fan wikis need to draw a line between how much theyre borrowing from the source and how much theyre borrowing from fandoms. deciding to do all official is a bad decision because it makes readability worse

 

[ant4456]

Wikis should use the official terms because their job is to act as an official source, even if unofficial. They should be up to date as well.

Fan wikis are not supposed to "borrow from the source", they are supposed to be a resource to tell you the source. Using outside information should only be information gained through said source (datamining is fair game, or interviews, etc.) but other than that it should be in fan/community designated pages. These actual game concepts are not those, they are also official, and thus it falls into the first category. Bulbapedia should be close enough to an official source that if Bulbapedia says it is this, you can assume it is official/canon.

This is not just my thought, but the thought behind most fan wikis, and what I have extrapolated as the thought process of the Bulbapedia members who supported this.

Addendum: Readability has nothing to do with "official terms". It has to do with how easy it is to concentrate or find the text on the page you want quickly, which is a problem on Bulbapedia but is not related to them not using fan terms.

The goal of a wiki's information (not distribution of information, but information; titles, data, what is actually talked about, etc.) is not to appeal to the common user, but to appeal to fucking nerds. By appealing to pedantic fucking nerds, you make sure that when it gets to the common user, it is good enough information that no pedantic fucking nerds can argue it is wrong. At that point, the pipeline of a wiki has succeeded.

 

[Ironmage]

The goal of a wiki's information (not distribution of information, but information; titles, data, what is actually talked about, etc.) is not to appeal to the common user, but to appeal to fucking nerds. By appealing to pedantic fucking nerds, you make sure that when it gets to the common user, it is good enough information that no pedantic fucking nerds can argue it is wrong. At that point, the pipeline of a wiki has succeeded.

Aren't all the fucking nerds the people who have been describing these terms for years when the company was just short of deliberately obfuscating them to sell more strategy guides? So wouldn't using the community names be appealing to both the fucking nerds and the common user?

 

[ant4456]

Aren't all the fucking nerds the people who have been describing these terms for years when the company was just short of deliberately obfuscating them to sell more strategy guides? So wouldn't using the community names be appealing to both the fucking nerds and the common user?

There's different types of nerds. Pokemon history nerds, Lore nerds, anime nerds, competitive nerds, general game nerds, card nerds, etc. The pedantic nerds in question that are in these discussions tend to be in the first two categories. All can be pedantic but this is who we are talking about when I say "pedantic fucking nerds", because these are the types to be high up in a Wiki like this; rightfully so.

It's also why Bulbapedia has anime/manga shit before the game data.

You have to realize that the Pokemon community is large enough to have basically entire sectors at this point, and that's also why there are other sites that way more prioritize game data.

It's not like all of these sites are run by the dataminers or competitive players. Most of the game data is just imported from dataminers, who supply the entire scene of Informational Pokemon Websites.

Why would it be decided by the community if the goal is to be closest to the original source? I don't know why your question was even asked. There are priorities and the original source is #1 every time no question, no ifs, no buts about it. This is just bringing everything up to standard.

These nerds care way more about the history or lore, the source, than the community bitching on Twitter.

 

[Hugin]

There's a few separate issues with using the official terms.
Inertia. People have been using Starter Pokemon and Effort Value for so long that changing them isn't going to happen for a lot of people. Wikis are better at this than most sites, because redirects are so powerful, but you can still expect folks to be complaining about this for literal years because we've got 2+ decades of habit to break.
Confusion. For example, Base Stats are now "species strengths", while Effort Values are now "Base Stats" and EV Yield is "Base Points". Expect a LOT of discussions to go off the rails while this happens because 2 users are using the same term to refer to 2 different things, links are now pointing to the wrong page, etc.
The official media DOESN'T USE THESE TERMS ANYWAYS. Partly because so much of the official stuff is in Japanese, partly because TPC/GF/Nintendo would like to hide the workings of the games from us, many if not most of these changes are things the EN community has never heard of before. If Nintendo would talk about things like EVs in-game, there'd be motivation for us to use their terms, but since they don't, "Nintendo calls EV's Base Stats" is a wacky trivia fact rather than something that should be at all relevant to us.
Inconsistency. It's already been pointed out that Official Pokemon DID use Starter for a while before changing their minds, and the official colors have always been a mess. If TPC decides to start calling EV Yields something different next gen, is Bulbapedia going to swap everything over again? Because that just makes the previous problems worse.

And the thing is, Bulbapedia is one of the big-name sites for this sort of information. Now that they've changed, every other site has to either change, or deal with an infinite wave of new users confused about why Species Strengths are Base Stats. Either it's a bunch of backend work to fix things like Showdown, or it's a bunch of moderator time dealing with noobs who now have one more information hurdle to get over before they can be part of the community. Neither is good, and Bulbapedia making this choice unilaterally forces every other site in the community to have the same discussion. (and that's before we consider THIRTY YEARS of old sites, printed guides, etc that are never going to be updated)

 

[Bakugames]

i think the issue w that argument is that we're not talking about information thats immutable like the exp formula, but terminology, which has been one of the worst communicated parts from pokemon since forever

a wiki is to give correct information about the source, but the issue is theres no consistent official terminology for most of the things being complained about (in english). Half of these terms will be deprecated or ignored depending on translator and the media, while the fandom terms have been consistent for almost two decades.

when the official source is being obfuscative, confusing and inconsistent, you need to draw a line on how accurate you want terminology to be. idc abt the first partner pokemon, but the stuff with base stats evs etc is too much. its just kinda dumb

 

[Ravenson]

i think the issue w that argument is that we're not talking about information thats immutable like the exp formula, but terminology, which has been one of the worst communicated parts from pokemon since forever

a wiki is to give correct information about the source, but the issue is theres no consistent official terminology for most of the things being complained about (in english). Half of these terms will be deprecated or ignored depending on translator and the media, while the fandom terms have been consistent for almost two decades.

when the official source is being obfuscative, confusing and inconsistent, you need to draw a line on how accurate you want terminology to be. idc abt the first partner pokemon, but the stuff with base stats evs etc is too much. its just kinda dumb

It reeks of "some higher up either just came into power or has recently acquired way too much free time and is going to screw things up for the real users like what always happens when higher ups make arbitrary changes for no good reason."

 

[Bakugames]

To add on what I said: the fact they just reused starters in a tweet is a funny thing yeah, but it's a larger symptom of the fact theres no true official terminology for so much of the franchise in english. who's to say that lospecies strengths will be the translated terminogy in the next gen, or the gen after that? will bulbapedia just use whatevers the first "official" terminology, or will we have arguments on whats more official? its fine for now, but i feel like it'll get more complicated unless tpci finally makes a bible of all the official terms for everything and constantly use them

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

I'll twist the knife a little more.

They can't even get the proper terminology themselves because the so-called official sources aren't even that relevant to begin with. I'd understand it if they were coining terms in VGC rulesets, guides and commentary, but ultimately, what they got is...

Oh, they called base stats "species strengths" on the trivia part of the back of a fucking Gen 1 shitmon Tazo back in 1999.

Guess we gotta upend the whole fucking wiki!

 

[DrrT]

I feel kind of bad for interrumpting a lot more interesting discussion, but here is a little thing that annoys me: the weird discrepancies around the Red Gyarados' backstory.

We are told it kept the red coloring because it was forced to evolve early, but we know it isn't the case cause of two things: because Shinies are just a rare alternate coloration in-game and a golden Magikarp will always turn into a red Gyarados, and because iirc the Lake of Rage itself has low-levelled Gyarados which suggest these were forcibly evolved as well, and they are normal ones.

You could argue that maybe it just happens to be a weird coincidence, but obviously the game treats that Gyarados as a Shiny one. I find it both fascinating and annoying the game gives you an over-complicated backstory for a Shiny Pokemon, because it could lead new players to never question if others exist at all or that they have the colors of their previous stages because of Rocket messing with them (it would obviously never happen today with Internet, but I'm reminded if my child self catching a shiny Tentacool and no one knowing what was up with it, sadly I ended up losing my cartridge with Tentacruel on it).

These are tons of words just to point out something that may seem obvious but I never realized previously how weird it is. I wonder if the concept of a red Gyarados came first, or if the Shiny mechanic did. We will never know I guess.

 

[Ironmage]

To add on what I said: the fact they just reused starters in a tweet is a funny thing yeah, but it's a larger symptom of the fact theres no true official terminology for so much of the franchise in english. who's to say that lospecies strengths will be the translated terminogy in the next gen, or the gen after that? will bulbapedia just use whatevers the first "official" terminology, or will we have arguments on whats more official? its fine for now, but i feel like it'll get more complicated unless tpci finally makes a bible of all the official terms for everything and constantly use them

My understanding is that at least parts of the existing community standard is extrapolated from the earlier official sources, so the argument of "most official" instead of seniority has already begun. Off the top of my head,

• Effort Value (EV) is from the first indicator of its existence: the Effort Ribbon being awarded in gen 3 for maxing them out.
• The colours for non-HP stats are derived from natures via contest stats/flavours E.g. Attack is red because a mon with an Attack-boosting nature will prefer Spicy food and Spicy/Coolness is red.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

We are told it kept the red coloring because it was forced to evolve early

When are we told that? I've never heard this before, so I'm curious to know which character says this.

 

[Esserise]

When are we told that? I've never heard this before, so I'm curious to know which character says this.

I think it’s from the anime. There’s no mention of such a thing in the script for GSC. In those games, it’s just a rare Gyarados. Team Rocket are said to be forcing the Magikarp in the lake to evolve early, but while the Gyarados’s wild behavior is attributed to that, its color isn’t.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

It's pretty lame that NPC trainers in most of the recent games refuse to ever send out their "ace" Pokemon before the rest of their team has been disposed of.

Playing FRLG right now and it's honestly a little refreshing just to see the rival switch into his starter first partner right away.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

It's pretty lame that NPC trainers in most of the recent games refuse to ever send out their "ace" Pokemon before the rest of their team has been disposed of.

Playing FRLG right now and it's honestly a little refreshing just to see the rival switch into his starter first partner right away.

It's a massive problem with how they've handled most of the super mechanics (a discussion that I'm sure everyone's sick of haha). In attempting to force a climactic moment against the opponent's Mega/Tera/Dynamax, the devs have achieved the opposite, giving the player both a supermon of their own and the freedom to set up and/or snowball with it, safe in the knowledge that the opponent's most threatening mon can't put a stop to your sweep until it's too late (if at all).

Obviously Dynamax is by far the worst offender and Tera isn't as game-warping as the others in the single-player experience, but they all cause issues that are exacerbated by forcing AI aces to the back.

 

[R_N]

I dunno I think shoving out their best Pokemon the millisecond they can is kind of....dumb?
Like oh okay I guess the finale of this battle will be your weaker Pokemon. Great.


It just makes sense from a gamefreel perspective to put the best for last.

 

[DrrT]

I think it’s from the anime. There’s no mention of such a thing in the script for GSC. In those games, it’s just a rare Gyarados. Team Rocket are said to be forcing the Magikarp in the lake to evolve early, but while the Gyarados’s wild behavior is attributed to that, its color isn’t.

Well, ignore my entire post then lol. I was so sure that was said in the games themselves.

It's pretty lame that NPC trainers in most of the recent games refuse to ever send out their "ace" Pokemon before the rest of their team has been disposed of.

Playing FRLG right now and it's honestly a little refreshing just to see the rival switch into his starter first partner right away.

I still think Glimmora being send first and Tera anyways would have been an interesting twist fpr Geeta, even if just to shake things up a bit.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

I dunno I think shoving out their best Pokemon the millisecond they can is kind of....dumb?
Like oh okay I guess the finale of this battle will be your weaker Pokemon. Great.


It just makes sense from a gamefreel perspective to put the best for last.

This sums up my thoughts, and I agree with this.

In SwSh and SV especially, I like that they send out their ace that uses Dynamax/Terastal last especially because environmentally, the game has a special final showdown theme for the Gym Leader in both cases with crowds cheering.

I like to think of the battles in-game there that I do as a performance of sorts, so I save my Dynamax/Terastal use for that very moment: both me and my opponent unleash the super mechanic and do a showdown between two Dynamaxed/Terastallized Pokemon going at it.

It's why I find Brycen's tendency to practically never send out his Beartic last in BW1 to be frustrating that nowadays I grab a Stoutland to force it to be last using Roar. In Gen 5 that final Pokemon Gym Leader theme is epic as hell and I just think it feels right to keep the ace as that final Pokemon from an environmental storytelling standpoint.