>>49917157>doUse side areas more. Regions like Sinnoh and Hoenn have a bunch of complicated routes, but others like Unova and Alola have more actual unique places to go by splitting the side exploration from the simpler routes. It makes everything look linear but leads to more encouragement in exploration every tine you enter a new area and see the different name and new encounters
Also, use HMs or the equivalent for this. You don't need to take up 1/3 of a player's team to have gokd exploration, just mix up the roadblocks you do have in new combinations to unlock areas as the player travels
>don'tThis was already indirectly covered above but don't make things complicated for the sake of complication. Having 4 unlabeled pathways with 3 dead ends isn't exploration, it's a waste of time. If the player knows which oath leads to progress they can CHOOSE to go exploring instead of wandering randomly. Routes don't have to look big and confusing to have exploration
I made this pic as an example, the top is what gens 1, 4, and 6 did a lot of, the bottom is more like gen 5 or 7. It's the same amount of content, but people say the bottom has oversimplified routes while praising the top in a lot of cases.
