>>35554900I get that you're saying you'd be cool with making that small sacrifice if it meant better immersion, but even more the funny thing is, you don't even necessarily need to have a Water type pokemon to Surf... just one that's capable of swimming.
With even just what can learn Surf, it's a dick ton. Almost every single type has a Pokemon capable of learning that move outside of Water types. Some types, like Dragon or Normal, COMMONLY have members that can learn Surf. But who's to say that they can't just have some Pokemon act more as generalists in this hypothetical non-HM non-Pokeride world? Let's take Kommo-o for instance. It can't naturally learn Surf, but the creature is likely capable of swimming, so why not allow that to work too?
>>35555059Nice goalpost movement.
We're not talking about literally taking SM and just replacing Ride with true HM-less. We're talking about it as a full blown, from-the-ground-up feature, and as such the game would have to be naturally designed around that new feature. You can't just take some progress-changing feature and slap it in with no consequence, so it's only natural that changes would be made it accomodate it (for instance, a larger abundance of flight capable Pokemon available to you before the Flight badge or whatever is obtained).
Also, for the record, even if we didn't move the goalpost the answer to your question is "A lot".
The Decidueye, Vikavolt, Oricorio, Murkrow, Gengar, Hawlucha, Delibird, Toucannon, Vullaby, Pelipper, Drifblim, Salamence, Zubat, Noibat, Fearow, and the Braviary lines are all flight-capable Pokemon availble on just the first island, let alone before you get to Kiawe. This list is even bigger if you count more creative choices like Magnezone or Alakazam.
