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Is a smaller regional dex better?

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 01:58:44 No.58996862 View View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>58996966 >>58996977 >>58996984 >>58996992 >>58997539 >>58998225 >>58998942 >>58999557 >>58999947 >>59000675 >>59003111

I remember playing XY when it came out and it was stupid how every other patch of grass had like 8 different new encounters, felt like playing a rom hack, and also that game sucked in general but I'm sure this was part of it. IMO they should limit it to ~200 and make each region super tight and memorable, would help with balance too

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 02:16:16 No.58996966 Report

Quoted By: >>58996983 >>58996997 >>59003120

>>58996862
300 is ideal, like BW2 unova or SM alola
Decent variety for every type and allows for each area to have a couple new encounters without spamming 10 of them per area like kalos
Only 200 is just too small when there are 1000+ pokemon now. It was fine in gen 3/4 when that was literally half the natdex

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 1711496894842.jpg, 313KiB, 1000x1000

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 02:17:37 No.58996977 Report

Quoted By: >>58996997

>>58996862

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 02:19:06 No.58996983 Report

Quoted By:

>>58996966
One thing I think SV did well was balance its new additions vs its returners really well.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 02:19:24 No.58996984 Report

Quoted By:

>>58996862
A routes pokemon contribute to it’s character, its fun to look at different routes in the series and think “oh thats where you catch Clefairy, that’s where you catch Magnemite, etc”
When every route is stuffed with Pokemon, it becomes harder to navigate where they even are, and the areas because less memorable as a result

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 02:20:38 No.58996992 Report

Quoted By: >>58997558 >>58997643

>>58996862
>random encounters....had new pokemon? instead of being the same dogshit spammed at me? so I actually see pokemon in the pokemon game instead of turning it into a walking simulator with constant repel use? And the routes have more replayability and content? NOOOOOOOOOOO THIS IS BAD FOR SOME REASON

people will invent the weirdest cope just to shit on XY

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 02:21:18 No.58996997 Report

Quoted By:

>>58996966
The problem with that thought is it's always going to keep growing so it'll eventually reach those higher numbers anyway

>>58996977
Middle ground exists you know

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 04:17:51 No.58997539 Report

Quoted By:

>>58996862
200-300 is optimal imo, anything more than 300 feels bloated and anything less than 200 feels bare bones.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 04:24:58 No.58997558 Report

Quoted By: >>58997643

>>58996992
such is the life of borts

https://archive.palanq.win/vp/thread/49258749/

BW has the lowest number of encounters available before the first gym

XY the highest

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 04:55:22 No.58997643 Report

Quoted By: >>59003492

>>58996992
>>58997558
Why are you replying to yourself, yawnie?

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 05:01:14 No.58997664 Report

Quoted By: >>59000653 >>59001062

XY had a small dex, the problem was that it also had the Kanto dex with other regions sprinkled in and they outnumber the new pokemon

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 07:50:01 No.58998225 Report

Quoted By: >>59003429

>>58996862
Honestly it is not a size issue so much as it is a distribution (and Availability, and not necessarily in the easier to get = better sense) issue. Personally i liked XY having a MASSIVE Regional Dex and that that made places feel like their own little ecosystems, but i feel SwSh and SV suffered because the open worldness of it all makes them rather "front loaded" and also spams the same shitmons across the region as filler.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 13:12:57 No.58998933 Report

Quoted By:

I liked the variety available in XY, was one of the best things about it. There were a lot of 5% encounters, it's not like every route was just crawling with different pokemon.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 13:14:18 No.58998942 Report

Quoted By: >>59003185

>>58996862
Just give me a wide variety of new Pokèmon. The regional Dex having 100 or 300 returning mons means nothing to me

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 16:03:19 No.58999557 Report

Quoted By: >>59001255

>>58996862
Unfortunately it's impossible to have a small dex these days. If it's not in the regional dex, it's not in the game. They have to artificially inflate the regional dex and suck any identity out of the region so we can't have regions with 150-250 anymore.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 17:12:48 No.58999947 Report

Quoted By: >>58999961 >>58999976 >>59000581 >>59001062 >>59001255

>>58996862
Regionaldexes should be small before Postgame. Like 150-200. People meme about the "sinnoh team" or BW before postgame, but both regions had a memorable identity because of it. XY, SM, SwSh, and SV just felt like they started in the postgame; there were too many options and you have to fall back on self imposed limitations when teambuilding, but even then you still had to see other Pokemon in trainer and wild battles. It should go:
>150-200 before postgame
>postgame unlocks another 200-300
>waves of dlc unlock the rest

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 17:14:52 No.58999961 Report

Quoted By: >>59001017 >>59001313 >>59002430

>>58999947
>Regionaldexes should be small before Postgame
Why?

>but both regions had a memorable identity
Having the memorable identity of having Geodude and Machoke spammed everywhere isn't actually good thing, regardless of how much you like to cope that it is.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 17:16:19 No.58999976 Report

Quoted By:

>>58999947
Also a lot of those Pokemon are so prevalent because they're the early game shitmons of the region, except they decided to make them not shit for once. Before they would fall of around midgame without favoritism

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 19:19:32 No.59000581 Report

Quoted By:

>>58999947
>dlc
Kill yourself

Anonymous

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Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 19:37:01 No.59000653 Report

Quoted By:

>>58997664
No the issue is that XY's additions are painfully mediocre and easily forgetable.
Starters, Sylveon, Talonflame and Aegislash(vgc memes), Dedenne, Malamar and Hawlucha are the only memorable pokemon in Kalos and everything is just, so so forgettable.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 19:42:05 No.59000675 Report

Quoted By:

>>58996862
No. Large number of new pokemon and large regional dex remains my #1 criteria for a good gen. It's basically the only thing I care about.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 20:47:22 No.59000970 Report

Quoted By:

Pokemon has 1000 monsters now and there is no going back. I think it's good to populate the game. 400 minimum.
XY dex was very good. The routes and caves having their own encounter types made them feel more distinct.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 20:56:16 No.59001017 Report

Quoted By:

>>58999961
>Why?
So that the developers can actually design around the available Pokemon in a reasonable way. Even though no single XY boss is worse than the worst BW boss, the more specific Pokemon pools of BW make them more interesting. About the only negative of this strategy is before the first gym in BW, but that's because it was designed to try and keep the casual DS audience. Fortunately unlike Skyward Sword (or Hop, coincidentally) this didn't extend to the entire game and it immediately gets a lot better. Funnily enough XY has worse Pokemon variety in exactly Nuzlockes.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 21:06:32 No.59001062 Report

Quoted By:

>>58999947
>People meme about the "sinnoh team"
Because it's true. DP has some of the absolute worst variety pre-elite 4 in the entire series history
>>58997664
>Kanto dex with other regions sprinkled in and they outnumber the new pokemon
It's more so that the new Pokemon are incredibly rare. XY living dex took forever just because the stupid freaks never wanted to show up at 10% per route, despite only being a 64 mon dex

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 21:58:15 No.59001255 Report

Quoted By:

>>58999557
>>58999947
Newer regions have more identity than older ones.
Artificially limiting your options for team building does not equal identity

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Mar 2026 22:10:47 No.59001313 Report

Quoted By:

>>58999961
Pokémon availability is just one part of regional identity, though it is a big part of it. Alola certainly has a strong identity, even though it has 400 Pokémon available; while Paldea doesn't really feel like anything at all (and its dex also has 400 Pokémon).
I think there's an equilibrium to be reached, though. 1025 hacks/fangames are excessive in that there's basically no overlap in wild Pokémon distribution inside a region (i.e., every route has completely different set of Pokémon), which makes the environment feel disjointed and uncohesive.
That is to say, that Pokémon distribution is a part of environmental storytelling in these games. And while they're just one piece of it, they're still an important piece (considering that these creatures are the most important part of the games themselves...)
Many have said this, but BW2 had pretty good distribution, with 300 Pokémon in its dex.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 03 Mar 2026 02:15:21 No.59002430 Report

Quoted By: >>59003032

>>58999961
Having spam mons is what makes the other ones feel special, and memorable in effect. Same goes with seeing a powerful mon on a gym leader you haven't encountered yet. That's how contrast works, you can't feel like a legendary is special if there's more than 1. To add to that point, notice how legendaries have felt less special as a general concept once they started making way more of them after gen 2, similar idea

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 03 Mar 2026 05:18:50 No.59003026 Report

Quoted By:

There shouldnt be more old pokemon than new pokemon in your base dex.

If you have 100 new mons, 200 should be your max limit.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 03 Mar 2026 05:20:53 No.59003032 Report

Quoted By: >>59003080

>>59002430
How am I going to see the “special” pokemon when I’m too busy using repels the whole game to avoid the dogshit level design?

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 03 Mar 2026 05:45:44 No.59003080 Report

Quoted By: >>59003084

>>59003032
After you've had enough of using commons and finally yield to the patrician zubat spam design so you can encounter a mon you actually want to use. And it will feel much more rewarding than having the game reward you for simply existing.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 03 Mar 2026 05:48:08 No.59003084 Report

Quoted By: >>59003096

>>59003080
How am I going to encounter a Pokemon I want to use if all the maps are filled with dogshit?

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 03 Mar 2026 05:53:57 No.59003096 Report

Quoted By: >>59003133

>>59003084
They aren't all filled with dogshit, but there are Pokemon that are more common then others. In order to encounter others you'll have to take the effort to get through the common encounters without using repels. The alternative is that you walk into the place and it's one big candy store with zero restraint handing you everything on a silver platter. Might as well not even play the game at that point.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 03 Mar 2026 06:00:57 No.59003111 Report

Quoted By:

>>58996862
For me, it's the Hoenn dex

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 03 Mar 2026 06:03:29 No.59003120 Report

Quoted By:

>>58996966
Agreed. 400 is fine as well, but 300 is that sweet spot to appreciate what's there while still having plenty of variety.

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 1615485867620.png, 834KiB, 3307x1637

Anonymous Tue 03 Mar 2026 06:06:30 No.59003133 Report

Quoted By: >>59003514

>>59003096
>They aren't all filled with dogshit,

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 03 Mar 2026 06:24:59 No.59003185 Report

Quoted By: >>59003413

>>58998942
The amount of returning mons changes everything as it defines the percentage of new mons among the wild encounters

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 03 Mar 2026 07:31:17 No.59003413 Report

Quoted By: >>59003514

>>59003185
Honestly i feel like the proper way to do it is basically kinda like the DPPt Sinnoh Dex.

>Start game, Dex is ~200-250 Pokemon that the Campaign and areas are designed around, the MAJORITY are new. (This also makes "Catching them all" not overwhelming for the kids when they open the Dex and see 400 entries immediately)
>Complete 1st Dex, vomit in 100 more old mons as "Post-Game" that is a larger more taxing Dex to complete for Diploma and Shiny Charm.
>Have even more mons tradeble/homeable in but not catchable and no Dex entry.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 03 Mar 2026 07:37:42 No.59003429 Report

Quoted By:

>>58998225
>SV suffered because the open worldness of it all makes them rather "front loaded" and also spams the same shitmons across the region as filler.
This.
A lot of the later area encounters felt boring since 99% of them were just evolutions of shitmons I already caught at the start of the game.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 03 Mar 2026 08:10:40 No.59003492 Report

Quoted By:

>>58997643
People don't really care to argue with them since the Teraleak so they need to reaffirm their wasted years because 4chan has to be a fucking sunk cost fallacy for wastes of flesh. There's literally no reward for this, they just want to die on a hill no rational person would ever want to do for the sake of contrarianism

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 03 Mar 2026 08:17:08 No.59003514 Report

Quoted By:

>>59003133
Turns out restricting yourself to 150 Pokemon when there were nearly 500 options was a retarded idea

>>59003413
That's SM/USUM not DPPl. DPPl was too restrictive because it loaded its dex with shitmons like in the above link. SM does a decent job with mon balance despite not having good routes, though. It does unnecessary stupid shit like route 1 Salamence but I still like being able to catch that versus SwSh going "Y-you're not high leveled enough to catch this mon!"

Shit like that is why they should have actually added level restrictions to normal Pokemon instead of tradeshit to Gym Badges to prevent brainless grinding. Anyone who says otherwise is a massive, whiny faggot

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Is a smaller regional dex better?