>>45674524The issue is that giving so many options gives a huge advantage to the player, and Game Freak stopped doing options in interesting ways.
In Gen IV, you had standard grass encounters, surfing encounters, and three tables for fishing encounters on one route. Basic, all games before it had that. But then it adds dual-slot mode which brings new Pokémon to routes when a specific Pokémon GBA game is inserted. You get daily swarms where a new Pokémon appears on a specific route for a day. You get the Poké Radar which also adds new encounters. Yes, they are all post-game methods, but they add replayability to prior locations in a variety of ways (Super Rod is technically also post-game). Add that to the Underground getting all previous fossils, the Great Marsh expansion, the Backlot Mansion, new special gift Pokémon, and new areas and suddenly the Pokédex nearly triples in size.
With the amount of Pokémon we have now, I don't think this all has to be post-game. There's actually a fairly simple solution. You get the Vs. Seeker from Rowan's assistant, the other player character not long after the second Gym. Professors have given rewards for reaching specific thresholds of caught Pokémon. Why not combine this so the player is rewarded throughout their journey for catching Pokémon? Like every 30 Pokémon, you get a new interaction with the other player character that gives you a choice between a set of key items that will allow you to find new Pokémon in previous locations. This gives players who learn what Pokémon each items give access to do subsequent playthroughs where they choose the items needed to build a specific team from an earlier point while also encouraging them to explore and do side content fill up that Pokédex to get more options. Putting a hundred Pokémon in one location without conditions is not fun or interesting.
You look at other JRPGs and you don't see them giving the player access to every skill as early as possible.
