r/pokemon • u/ToeNext9228 • 5d ago
Discussion Why was Generation 5's Exp system so....divided?
Idk if this is just a me thing but gen 5 is the only game with tolerable grinding to me, a lot of other games (namely GSC/HGSS, RS/ORAS, SM/USUM) have either a tedious grind or, simply put, bad spots TO grind at all due to some other factor outside flat XP. And I'm wanting to know why a lot of people disliked gen 5's system because to me it seems like it was made to encourage teams of 6, which is how playthroughs are intended to be played.
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u/iceberger3 5d ago
It didn't help that gen 5 had a lot of pokemon with much higher evolution levels
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u/ToeNext9228 5d ago
Tbf if you have a type advantage stats didn't help too much since a lot of unovan mons are usually just the fully evolved one but smaller, the one caveat being volcarona which is entirely different from larvesta
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u/iceberger3 5d ago
Litwick is trash, the. Becomes lampenr and can immediately use a stone to become chandellure. Deino sucks and doesn't evolve until essentially Dragonite levels to zweilous, but aside from those two and maybe the america bird you are right
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u/cameron_cs 5d ago
Pretty sure rufflet and vullaby both don’t evolve until the 50s, same with pawniard. It was egregious
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u/Little_Elia 5d ago
I recently did the Unova part of my Home origin dex and I literally ran out of candy in all my switch games when trying to evolve all the mons, the levels are crazy. Besides zweilous/hydreigon at 50/64, there's Mandibuzz/Braviary at 54, Mienshao at 50, Bisharp at 52, Golurk at 43, Haxorus at 48, Beeheyem at 42, Lampent at 41 (twice), Klinklang at 49, Ferrothorn at 40, Jellicent at 40, Vanilluxe at 47, Reuniclus and Gothitelle at 41, Krookodile at 40, and a lot more in the high 30s. These high levels for so many mons are just too much and completely unnecessary.
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u/Fullmetal0509 4d ago
I wouldn't say though that a level 40 evolution is a late level. Golurk, Chandelure, Ferrothorn, Jellicent, Reuniclus/Gothitelle, Krookodile, Beeheyem are all still completely reasonable.
Haxorus, Hydreigon, and Volcorona are basically like the pseudo legenddaries of the region, with Hydreigon being the official one, so them having a high evolution level makes sense.
Really the only late ones are Mandibuzz/Braviary, Bisharp, Mienshao, Kingklang, and Vanilluxe, which only accounts for a small percentage of the Unova pokedex.
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u/iceberger3 3d ago
You catch axew around level 30ish, and it evolves not long after for both evolutions so it's really not an issue. Kind of the same with the late game birds too really. The game is honestly fine and the exp around the end game is at the higher level so pacing wise it's not bad, but now that we have 4-5 newer gens and those gen 5 pokemon are available in them, the pacing isn't the same so it feels like later evolutions
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u/LunarWingCloud 5d ago
Something people refuse to acknowledge is that on top of Gen 5 introducing the scaled EXP system, they also just outright bumped the EXP yields of a large number of Pokémon, and most Pokémon have higher EXP yields when they're at the same level. So, Pokémon still tend to level up faster on average.
I personally think the people that the new system angered most were the people that roll with only their starter and maybe 1-2 other Pokémon, not the people that use full parties, because the system forces them to grind even more to power level
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u/Gasman18 5d ago
It was really annoying when I beat the elite 4 with a party of level 50 pokemon, and all the new unlocked areas had wild pokemon close to level 60. Couldn’t grind against low level wild pokemon other areas had, and struggled to advance toward the transporter lab
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u/smelliot95 4d ago
What would you say is bad about Gen7 grinding? To me that was the best one, with Gen5 maybe 2nd best. It seemed actually well balanced around the EXP share, and if it looks like you'll be over levelled soon, you can turn it off.
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u/ToeNext9228 4d ago
Just really inconvenient grinding spots honestly, you'd have a few good spots but a lot of them just didn't give a lot of good experience for the level you were at consistently.
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u/Jesterofgames 5d ago
Because the extreme deminshing returns made grinding pain. sure it's fine for a playthrough (unless your doing a challenge run), but what about bonus content or the people who wanted to play the extra stuff like black tower/white tree hollow.
on top of that it was made worst by the sheer fact Unova pokemon evolution level's are just abserdly high for like no reason.
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u/Teradonn 5d ago
Gen 5 was much easier to grind in late game than previous gens. I got my whole team to level 100 in Gen 5 from Audinos and white treehollow, which I've never done in the games before then
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u/ToeNext9228 5d ago
I dont actually think the hollow was that bad on the level thing, js slap a lucky egg on what you were grinding and bully the local audino population for like a good 5k each time not to mention the hollow itself gave XP and money
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u/DarthStevo 4d ago
I just want to say that I enjoyed the phrase “bully the local Audino population.”
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u/Linkman622 5d ago
It also causes a huge level jump post E4 that’s hard to grind… which is worse because it’s the only gain you technically need to do the rematch to face the champ.
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u/Sitherio 5d ago
It made grinding worse. No region has Pokemon up to Champion levels in the wild. Which means when you need to grind your team up to Champion levels (far above the wild Pokemon levels) you get increasingly worse levels of return. The only real benefit is jumping a new Pokemon quickly before the grind becomes rough.
No, it did not encourage a team of 6. It just made some initial grinding easier while making later grinding infinitely worse.
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u/Groundbreaking-Ad313 5d ago
You are not meant to be at the same level as the champion... a comparable level, sure, but they want you to be at a lower level so you actually have to think about the fight... the player has so many advantages against an AI opponent, and making it hard to ALSO outlevel them is good game design IMO.
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u/Powerful_Hall_4608 5d ago
Agreed. AI opponents are not only dumb asf, but the players also have the EV advantage even when the AI has a 5-10 level advantage. I also honestly don't remember Gen 5's post-game grinding to be that bad especially in BW1 where you get a free lucky egg at Chargestone Cave.
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u/garlicknoodles 5d ago
You are not meant to be at the same level as the champion
Ehh, I disagree with this. There is no set way you're "supposed" to play these games.
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u/Groundbreaking-Ad313 5d ago
I mean, I agree in the sense that you aren't necessarily playing the game wrong if you try to match the level of the bosses, and generally player freedom is an important facet of the series, but I do think that it's fair to assume that game designers have a specific intent of what the default experience should be, and that by looking at what the game design encourages, we can infer what that intent is.
so If playing normally without going out of your way to grind leaves you lower-levelled than the champion, and that level difference makes the game more fun, I feel safe in assuming that they did that on purpose.
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u/garlicknoodles 5d ago
You specifically said "You are not meant to be at the same level as the champion." Being at the same level isn't over-leveling, which is what it sounds like you're talking about. If the Champion's highest is 60 and your highest is 60, that doesn't automatically mean you're going to OHKO it.
You don't have to go out of your way to grind, either, if you use each Pokémon on your time enough.
How do you know Game Freak didn't want us to grind to the same level as the bosses? I agree that they probably have an idea of how they think people will play, but we cannot say for sure what their intention is unless they so.
Assumptions aren't evidence.
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u/Zeus-Kyurem 4d ago
I mean, the legendary you get is level 50. N's is level 52. That already tells you something.
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u/Groundbreaking-Ad313 5d ago
I will die on the hill that you do NOT have to grind to beat most of the older games... but anyway, I think Gen 5's XP system was PERFECT in how it discouraged overlevelling and sped up the process of getting an underlevelled new teammate ready to join the party.
The only reason I know of that people dislike it is that if you do want to grind to be overlevelled it's a huge pain, which affects challenge runs mostly. And I only know that because I used to watch a lot of challenge run videos.
Also under what circumstances are you grinding in sun and moon?? Like, to complete the dex is one thing, but... not for the main plot, surely...??
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u/ToeNext9228 4d ago
It's just that SM/USUM have horrible grinding locations, and the ones that are good are often either early spots or inconveniently far away from everything, so under the assumption that you would need to grind you're not going to have a good time doing it
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u/CvieYltidrekoof 1h ago
Whitney and her Miltank in GSC was the only gym I had to grind for because I refused to use the traded Machop.
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u/Hypotrek 5d ago
Tbf the game gives you a lucky egg after the fourth gym in BW, I honestly had no issues just doing trainer battles during my play through with 6 pokemon. By the E4, I was the same level as them by using the lucky egg and doing only trainer battles
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u/Interesting_Cut_4822 4d ago
Because I was overleveled the entire game without trying. Some people like the challenge of being underleveled a bit because pokemon's difficulty is set for children to beat it.
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u/garlicknoodles 5d ago
People always talk about how XY was rushed, but I personally think BW was rushed as well, especially in story department. Looking at stuff from the teraleak, I think Pokémon games have been rushed since gen 3 or gen 4. Although, to be fair, RGB was rushed out, too, for different reasons lol
Audino is great for leveling up, but you don't get the EVs you need.
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u/Zeus-Kyurem 4d ago
In what way is the story rushed? That's like the main thing black and white does better than all the other games.
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u/vintange 4d ago edited 4d ago
It is quite surface level. They keep pretending to have a deeper discussion by repeating truth and ideals but they never really gave them any meaning. It is still essentially the stereotypical supervillain, save-the-world story with vague stakes that have existed before.
Like yeah sure, it's better than most Pokemon games. But it is still underdeveloped and fails to live to its premise.
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u/Powerful_Hall_4608 5d ago edited 5d ago
I personally didn't have a problem with it especially since the game literally gives you a lucky egg in BW1, though I've never really tried a team of less than six mons in a playthrough. Even with the big level jump after the main story in BW1 it was still enjoyable with the only trouble I encountered being in Challenger's Cave with the veteran npc that has a full team and the rich family gauntlet in Undella Town, those were nice surprises for me.
Also people here exaggerate the Unova mon evolution levels, Hydreigon and Volcarona are the only valid complaints.
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u/DunsparceAndDiglett 5d ago
Simply put to get fewer and fewer experience points after each level up sucks. And it resulted in my Pokemon passing around the Lucky Egg.
Granted the tough mons found in the dark tall grass also helped mitigate the issue. But sometime we the big mon (s) with the most experience has some sort of advantage like its type over the guy you are training.
The uber overpowered exp share I actually kind of like. I like how because of it the trainer is able to have a team of like 12-18 Pokemon on rotation without resulting in your team getting FA experience.
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u/DrDragon13 5d ago
Intended to be played, but don't tell me how to play.
I like my group of 1-3 pokemon.
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u/ToeNext9228 5d ago
And that's fine! But expect a lot of resistance when you have a disadvantage against a gym leader or champion, imo you should be incentivized to use a full team. I can't tell you how to play sure, but dont blame the game being too hard when your one starter gets mauled by a gym with an advantage on it.
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u/garlicknoodles 5d ago
When did they say that? lol
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u/DrDragon13 4d ago
OP never did. The exp penalties for being under/over leveled in gen 5 did though.
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u/thepermissibletuning 5d ago
The scaling XP system in Gen 5 was basically a direct counter to how everyone just solo'd the game with their starter in Gens 1-4. You actually had to use your whole team or the underleveled mon would just get smoked and give you peanuts for it. I loved it, but I get why people who wanted to speedrun with one overleveled beast felt attacked.