>>42067582>>42068828Personally, I think that the hatred towards the water routes is exaggerated. They're not that bad and you're not going to die from a few repels here and either. Most water routes tend to either be pretty straightforward (if you're not a brainlet) or optional.
That being said, they tend to suffer from really samey distribution. You encounter the same shit in every body of water unless the game specifically excludes that Pokemon. It's pretty repetitive and a big reason why repels are abused - if there were more different Pokemon for each sea route you'd see less of that because you'd presumably want to catch them all. So that's one aspect to fix - make the variety bigger.
In addition, a lot of the routes look too similar. Change up the tileset, even a few different shades would be nicer.
Finally, water routes shouldn't be a thing on their own, they should always be transitory with interesting islets or hidden away areas. That makes thing worth exploring and rewards people who go through with them. Generally in Pokemon games your reward is more exp, the occasional decent item (money items, TMs), rare Pokemon (Regis, fully evolved Kingdra in BW), and completely optional places like the Abandoned Ship. Water routes should always strive to do things like this so you explore the area and get something that makes you feel like it ultimately is worth it.
Cave systems also fall under similar rules.
