@KzTxL7:
If we want to talk about a "design flaw" that undermines the game then lets look at Switch/Shift mode. Cause nothing is more unfair then telling me the opponent next Pokemon and giving me a free turn to switch to another Pokemon completely risk free. You know what I did? I turned that function off.
If you don't like the option to change your pokemon during the Elite 4? Then just don't do it. Simple problem with a simple solution and preserves the challenge of the Elite 4.
Shift/Swift has always been a part of the game. Maybe it makes it less difficult, but from day one, we've understood it as an option one has when playing the game. If they took away the option to choose and made it purely shift mode, I think we'd have something to complain about.
On the other hand, have we always been able to change parties completely when fighting the elite 4 or anything similar to it?
@Nekketsu:
The same could be said about the Exp. Share, or the O-power, or Rotom buffs. These are all features available for the player to use, but that are not being forced upon you.
How is not want to use any of these features, adding artificial difficulty, I ask. Wanna know what's artificial difficulty? Doing a nuzlocke.
Not using max revives or revives isn't artificial difficulty per se, unless you have them, your pokemon die and you don't use them and then they die and you lose. You have a means to succeed and you don't use it. As long as the experience share can be turned on or off, it seems like a choice they're naturally giving you to make about difficulty. As for O-powers and rotom buffs… they're buffs, maybe I can't defend choosing not to use them as artificial difficulty, but to me, buffs are a different kind of animal than long time and integral parts of an Pokemon since the first game.
I'd agree that Nuzlocke is the best example of artifical difficulty, but it's artificial because you're choosing to disregard certain options that are available to you and playing by certain rules that aren't in the game. Choosing not to use certain items or use the systems the game puts in place for you is the same thing, just to a much lesser extent.
To me the big difference between those buffs, the experience share, and just about everything else is that they don't really compromise the overall structure of how Pokemon has been. We've always been able to do the things that O-Power's provide, just through different means. I just feel that what the Elite 4 is, gets negated if you have access to the PC box while fighting them. They aren't really the Elite 4 if the limits that have been a part of the experience of fighting them don't exist.
Then again, maybe it's a quality of life thing? For many the removal of HM's is still a sour spot and I'm all for it, seeing them as more of an annoyance than anything, but my position is still that the PC should not be usable while fighting the Elite 4.
