>>46099426I like how people are assuming the only way to go is the extremes of "pokemon trainers will be braindead and have 1 or 2 pokemon" or "everyone must have 6 pokemon"
But why don't we think outside the box a bit? First off, fix the braindead AI in the games. It's clearly not that hard to do if fangames like Reborn can make actually genuinely passable AI trainers. Just do something like that! Like, maybe give younger trainers like Youngsters and shit lesser AI and as they get stronger, make their AI, naturally, better. Along with that, lower-level trainer classes would likely have around 1-3 Pokemon, since when you think about it hard enough, the player would technically be fighting quite a few of those, sometimes in a row even who knows. And higher-level trainer classes would have 2-4, or even 5 and 6 Pokemon depending on the location. This also brings me to another point: What if there were boss AI trainers like the, we'll call them Route Leaders, like in Gen 7? Rando trainers that can be more than just your average run of the mill trainer. Plus, think about the strength of Pokemon too, like naturally a trainer could have multiple weaker mons, while you can have rando trainers have lesser, stronger Pokemon.
Also, evil team grunts should totally have more Pokemon than a run of the mill trainer. Like, a sort of scaling of having more Pokemon as the game goes on, with earlier grunts having 1 or 2 and later ones having 3 or 4, because fuck fighting shitty grunts that use literally one (1) unevolved shitmon.
I would give my autistic thoughts about Gym Leaders, but I'm pushing post length as is.
