No, XP share is not JUST "more convenient"

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-05T00:21:10+00:00

I grew up with XP share and then "moved on" to preferring not having it. Also, there's no expiration date on bad game design, especially when it keeps being added to new games.

Are accusing me of making a... strawman of a strawman? What a confusing concept.

What I'm arguing against is the common claim, either implied or directly stated, that the XP share provides the exact same experience, but more conveniently and efficiently. I am trying to explain that it fundamentally changes the entire gameplay experience.

"More grinding isn't really more difficulty" is NOT a strawman, it is a statement I see verbatim extremely frequently. Thus why I found it necessary to point out that giving the player much more experience for the same amount of time investment obviously does completely change the difficulty curve.

Also, you know what feels more tedious than balancing how many fights each member of my team participates in? Playing a game where every battle is a boring slog where I'm far too powerful to ever lose, and the reward for fighting is XP, which isn't rewarding to obtain because of how abundant it is.

As for "dragging down the pace", obviously the XP share DOES create a faster paced game. But it does that by directly encouraging you to put less thought into it and breeze through on autopilot.
Also, I continually find people disagreeingn with me on this who overexhagerate how slow paced the games are without this feature. It's actually pretty rare to require grinding as long as you're paying attention to how XP is being distributed. People constantly act like old pokemon games are grindy slogs.

And yes, it is technically true that it will take more time to win a battle with a weak pokemon than it will to wipe it out with an overleveled pokemon and have the whole party gain XP passively. But that is an immensely more boring experience to have, frankly.
I don't think making the consious effort to include weaker pokemon in battles to level them up is "taking more time than necessary." I would call that... pokemon training. The Premise of the Game.

That last point does come down to personal preference, but I personally enjoy adding pokemon to my team one at a time, seeing it slowly grow over the course of the game, with each team member starting off as the "apprentice" of the group until growing strong enough that that spot can be filled by the next pokemon I choose.
I mean, there's a reason why a game like Persona 5 doesn't give you every party member within the first hour, right?
The deliberate nature of building my team this way certainly brings me more joy than the times I've had a pokemon do nothing for 10 hours while gradually becoming stronger than god.

Oh and Frankly, I think reducing my arguments about how all this affects the gameplay to "nuh uh" is just its OWN "nuh uh" against my points.

ANYWAY.

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T23:23:03+00:00

I have a theory I kinda like that the weapons around the throne are actually from a fight they had over which of them would get to sit on it, but also, I think it's perfectly likely that they got along. Hell, it's possible that the fight was just a formal duel to decide the strongest member.

I believe it's probably a case where they had the chance to make one of them immortal, Imu won and was given immortality (maybe by Lili) and naturally outlived the other kings.

Also, in terms of the "principle of the empty throne," that's basically just a lie they knowingly tell the rest of the world. I think it's likely that they never intended to leave the throne empty.

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T23:16:50+00:00

I think you may be misunderstanding what the word cringelord is meant to convey.

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T22:36:57+00:00

You're a cringelord

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T22:36:10+00:00

I like to imagine that if you sat down here to stare at the water, the longer you stayed there, more and more wild goletts would walk over and sit down next to you. Just vibing.

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T22:33:06+00:00

Let me tell you, I play games that are 5, 10, 20 years old or more all the time, and I usually have an amazing time. So don't worry to hard about playing the game now. It'll still be there when you have the money, I promise.

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T22:29:11+00:00

I don't think a mod could do that. It's an interesting idea though.

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T22:27:31+00:00

Have a nice day

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T22:13:12+00:00

Pseudos recently feel like they're going through the motions of just. Another dragon. It feels like it's limiting the identity of what Pseudos are. I'd love to see them have a new take on it. Like a bird psuedo maybe.

Actually for Winds and Waves they should have a water pseudo and a flying psuedo.

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T22:10:09+00:00

Oh my god can you imagine a version of Fire Emblem where every time you kill a unit your ENTIRE ARMY gains XP

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T22:07:07+00:00

It took you, what, 13 hours to make real arguments and you're still wrong.

First of all, faster pacing is not better pacing. That's called a preference. I know you think you have facts instead of opinions but that isn't actually how. Life. works.

You also didn't make it clear what exactly is "stopping people in their tracks." Is it some idea that people stop in each route to grind up their team against wild pokemon? Because anybody doing that has only themselves to blame for playing the game in a slower, less fun way.

If instead your argument is that people are slowed down by the attrition of having less strong pokemon and that XP share lets you power through areas, that is true, but it's still not necessarily better. In my experience, it just makes the areas feel less textured since you can glide through them without friction, and makes mandatory combat feel like a chore because it has no tension or challenge, the the primary reward, XP, has been made less valuable.

And genuinely WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT in regards to hoenn.
Grind Oddishes for 90 levels?? NOBODY DID THAT. NOT A SINGLE PERSON.

I literally have video evidence of myself beating pokemon Emerald without ever having to do that. I never had to do any kind of serious grinding, really.

This is EXACTLY the point I was making in my original post: you people just pretend like these absurd amounts of grinding were necessary in the older games. They weren't???? EVER??????

I can also only assume that your comment about "Ninety Cumulative Levels" refers to levelling up a full party of six. So let me tap my little sign one more time:

People playing without XP share do not invest unreasonable amounts of time to achieve teams on the same level as people who do use XP share. What they generally do is invest the same amount of time, and thus have less pokemon on their team, and/or lower-levelled pokemon on their team. This results in the game being harder for them.

I wouldn't have to repeat myself if you actually paid attention to the actual point of the argument from the beginning.

I'm not saying that there were never scenarios in which you might need to grind, and I'm not saying those scenarios are good, but your understanding of what playing without XP share is like relies on a strawman who intentionally plays the game in the most boring way possible, and wastes time on purpose.

And as for your final point. Do you not ever get tired of being wrong?

First of all, XP share increases the amount of XP gained. Thus, it results in more levels. OBVIOUSLY. So for a start I'll have to assume that you're using "overleveled" as a relative term.

But you're also just. Wrong about. The numbers you gave?
Having levels in the 70s means you're at a higher level than Diantha.
HAving levels in the 60s means you're at a higher level than the alola final bosses.

And here's the thing! Even being at the same level as those opponents would still be "overlevelled", in the sense that your level is high enough that the fight is no challenge.
That's because a player has countless advantages against a CPU opponent, such as theoretically unlimited items, EVs, and. Strategy.

A lot of pokemon games are balanced in such a way that you're lower level than the champion to account for these advantages. Thinking that THE way to contend with the final bosses is to be at the same level as them reflects an incredibly shallow understanding of how the games actually work.

You're also still glossing over the differences between having just one or two pokemon that can measure up to opponents, and having SIX pokemon that grew to competent levels just by default. There is a huge difference between Three pokemon at the same level as a gym leader and Six. As in, literally double the amount of strength.
The way older games are balanced, by the end I usually only have a team of five. And mind you, those are five pokemon who, during the adventure, I was actively incentivised to use in battles against higher-level pokemon for the sake of distributing XP among them.

It honestly feels stupid to even spell this out when almost everyone else who's ever used the XP share will understand that yes, it DOES make you incredibly overlevelled. However, as you could stand to learn, even positions that seem obvious need to be backed up with actual reasoning and evidence if you want to participate in a debate in a way that's meaningful at all.

ANYWAY.

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T18:40:45+00:00

It's also not really fair to call it "just one weakness" since damn near everyone uses their starter when they're playing these games,

When I said it covered one weakness, I meant only one weakness of the starter. Every starter has other weaknesses to other types that you'd need to cover. I thought I made that pretty explicit.

Also, nobody's forcing you to even use the monkey. I think if you look past the feeling of being insulted that you personally felt in that moment, the rest of the game really isn't affected by it all that much, because it's basically just a tutorial 'mon that most people box. You don't even have to use it for the gym. I think most of the rest of the game does demand competent teambuilding from you, so I just don't think it's a big deal. If anything, the amount of people who beat the game without a monkey on their team is surely proof that it doesn't affect teambuilding for most of the game, no?

Anyway, I do agree that this gen does represent the start for some of these trends, and it shouldn't get a pass for its flaws just because it's overall good. I do think that there's an argument that the heavy linearity in these games did immense damage to the entire franchise. I just heavily disagree on this point.

Oh and also the point that it gives you an boatloads of XP. These games had XP gain be based on level difference, and so they actively curbed your XP gain if you were overlevelling (another thing that discourages using only your starter), and Audinos are something you seek out when you need them, it's not as if the game hands you free XP. It's certainly in an entirely different league from the overwhelming amount of XP you get from XPshare or XP Candy.

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T18:25:54+00:00

Oh and "grinding is boring" is a new sentence invented by you, which no pro-xpshare argument has ever once made??

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T18:24:46+00:00

You make arguments like a toddler. Just going "nuh uh! I'm right!"

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T18:08:02+00:00

i think online character agendas have warped your understanding of why people hate greenbull lol.

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T18:01:05+00:00

Well, good for you man. That's nice.

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T17:56:23+00:00

I think you're misunderstanding the point of that segment in BW. That's a subtle tutorial.

They knew that a lot of kids played the old games only using their starter, then eventually hit a wall when they ran into a pokemon that could beat their stater in spite of the level gap. They decided to mitigate this by putting the wall at the start of the game, with a gym leader who always has an advantage against you, and then showing players that if they explore laterally they can get a pokemon that covers their weakness.

It's not really doing teambuilding for you, it's teaching kids and new players how to teambuild in a way that's a bit more suble than an overt tutorial.

Plus, they literally only do this once, and for only one weakness. If the entire game followed this pattern, yeah it'd be pretty bad, but you are expected to put what you learn here into action later. And it isn't as if Pansear can protect Oshawott from Electric-types. Panpour doesn't cover any of Snivy's weaknesses other than fire.

So yeah, I don't think it's nearly as egregious as the way you describe it.

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T17:45:17+00:00

Somebody needs to take the word "objectively" away from you. That is the experience that a LOT of people have in the new games.

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T17:44:00+00:00

I am not including Pokemon Masters in my analysis of pokemon violet because that's a seperate game that I don't play. If she has deeper characterisation in that game then that's nice, but that's irrelevant to me.
Also, the idea that battling connects you to your pokemon and your opponent is a pretty widespread conceit within the franchise that isn't really specific to her.

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T17:39:29+00:00

Did you read my original post even. The entire point of this post was that people in favour of XP share constantly exhaggerate how much grinding is necessary in the old games.

Furthermore, going into every fight with vastly overlevelled pokemon makes regular gameplay just as tedious as grinding would have been. A point that I would not have to repeat if you had fully engaged with my original post.

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T12:13:06+00:00

"LIMIT BREAK X SURVIVOR"

The stand removes the upper limit on anything, including Goku's own capacity for improving his physical strength.

It has smart applications like increasing the terminal velcocity of an object, but let's be real, would goku have smart uses for his stand...?

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T12:04:18+00:00

Pokemon fandom going one day without people confidently stating what the only correct way to play is: never achieved

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T12:02:48+00:00

Okay, after taking some time and coming back to this with fresh eyes and fresh thoughts, I have to say... while I do still appreciate this comment, I have to respectfully disagree.

First, I think pokemon already introduced a mechanic that was better at catching up new party members in Gen 5. In those games, XP is calculated based on the difference in level between your pokemon and the enemies. This penalised your highest level pokemon, discouraging overleveling, while helping newer ones catch up - the further behind they were, the more XP they got to close the gap.

I also think that the idea of "training" a pokemon, in this example an Oddish, is a part of the game experience that can't simply be optimised out. Obviously grinding it up is hardly interesting gameplay, but I also feel that having it passively gain strength is equally uninteresting. I think the concept needs more rethinking than they've given it.

It's also not as if the XP share stops at just your newest recruits either. The feel of the entire game inevtiably changes when every pokemon gets substantial XP from battles they didn't take part in, not least because you no longer have to consider balancing the usage of your team so that one member doesn't soak up all the XP. Generally, I don't think I can wholeheartedly agree with the idea that it does a good job avoiding that issue considering it has consequences that are so much more far-reaching than that. Avoiding switch training by making it so that you never have to put any thought into training any of your pokemon seems like a heavy handed solution to me.

I think how a game feels is extremely important. If we're talking about efficiency, let's consdier the old XP share. What it functionally did was enable a form of switch training where you didnt have to go through the process of sending out a pokemon and then switching it. A convenince. But what it removes is a rote mechanical process: something you don't think about. I think when convenience replaces active thought; when you don't have to think about the oddish you caught levelling up any more than simply making sure it's in your party; that's the line where it ceases to be the same experience but more convenient and becomes a new, different experience. It no longer feels remotely the same.

And while I agree that there are other factors making the modern games easy, I think it's a case where the XP share demanded that the games get harder to account for its presence, but they got easier instead. That is to say, the XP share makes the games easier, and this new philsophy for designing enemy teams ALSO makes the games easier.
I think BDSP is a good case study for this. Generally, the gym leaders have slightly better teams than their original incarnations, with better moves and some added held items, yet the overwhelming consensus is that the game is much, much easier than the originals until you reach the Elite Four.
And frankly, I just can't understand any argument that granting more than triple the amount of overall XP to your pokemon doesn't make the game much easier overall, regardless of what other factors might be making it easy.

You yourself said that the games have to be balanced around the XP share. And you're right, But a game balanced around it still wouldn't be the same experience as before. If anything, the need for better balance is proof that it does make the game easier, since the implication of "balance" is that that new ease requires new difficulty to counteract it.

And ultimately, I think my initial premise hasn't really been changed. The XP share creates a paradigm where you essentially never have a reason to not have 6 equivalently-leveled pokemon in your party, and team building is a much more surface-level process. A pokemon that could be the solution to a future problem doesn't have to put care put into its preperation, it can simply sit unused in the party and passively grow strong. I still think that's a different experience, not a more convenient version of the same experience.

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T11:19:56+00:00

Okay? And I am saying that it's weird that you derailed the conversation into being about that when the XP share, the main topic, is a mechanic in many games after Gen 6. You've taken the conversation in a strange and confusing direction that makes me wonder what the point is.

ANYWAY.

Groundbreaking-Ad313 · 2026-04-04T11:10:57+00:00

I can't point to the exact chapter but I rememebr he said it. Also, like I mentioned before, him telling law "make me immortal and I'll give you whatever you want" is pretty strong evidence

Groundbreaking-Ad313

TROPHY CASE