Although Gen 9 games are not even out yet, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet have already proven to be controversial to a degree, as there have been very few trailers and official reveals compared to past generations, for example. Another rather debatable fact about Gen 9 is that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet already nerfed their most OP Pokemon way before the games even came out, which is something a known and trustworthy leaker named Riddler Khu disclosed in the past few weeks. In fact, Khu teased that one of the strongest new critters in Gen 9 was going to be the so-called coin Pokemon, which is allegedly a Ghost/Steel pocket monster with a powerful Ability and signature move, with the latter being nerfed prior to launch.
The coin creature is likely to remain one of the most OP Pokemon in Scarlet and Violet, even after the nerfs, but this poses the question as to why The Pokemon Company doesn't employ a different system for their games to support more frequent post-launch patches. This is something that many live service titles in the industry do, with developers focusing on new bits of content to release every season, including balance patches that tackle the most problematic elements in the game. In Pokemon, the competitive battling side of the franchise would very much benefit from this approach, and it's a conversation worth having ahead of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's launch.
Why Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Could Benefit From Frequent Post-Launch Patches
While nerfing a Pokemon before the games are even out does seem bad, it's worth considering that Game Freak likely had its reasons to do so, but it does make for a good case in favor of more frequent post-release adjustments rather than pre-launch changes. Much like any other video game with a competitive side to it, the Pokemon franchise does have official tournaments and even world championships, so having post-release patches would help much more with the meta as a whole.
For example, Pokemon Sword and Shield's competitive battles ended up being unbalanced most of the time due to a few recurring outliers in the form of Calyrex riding either Spectrier of Glastrier, Incineroar with Intimidate, Zacian, or Regieleki. These Pokemon have been dominating the double battle format forever in Gen 8, but throughout the entire competitive season no changes were made to them. While this is understandable to a degree, considering that farming for the best possible stats and Abilities on Pokemon is not an easy task, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet can do better.
In fact, it seems that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's DLC will have a game-changing feature that resembles PkHex, a save editing software that allows users to change values, Abilities, Natures, and pretty much every other aspect of a given critter, or even generate them from thin air. Of course, this isn't "legal" in competitive matches, but if a similar feature is indeed coming to Gen 9's DLC, then it would make the grind for a fully trained team of pocket monsters not so unbearable in comparison to Gen 8.
As such, with the Pokemon Day Care gone in Scarlet and Violet and with the release of a PkHex-like feature in future expansions, a live service model for Gen 9 and future mainline games could do wonders for both endgame retention and more variety in competitive battles. However, The Pokemon Company would have to rebuild the game from the ground up, considering that this system would not only have to be implemented from scratch, but also provide players with constant content drops and balance patches along the way. Overall, while it's nice to imagine that something like this could happen, it's very likely that a similar approach would come no earlier than Gen 10, if at all.
PokemonScarlet and Violet release on November 18 for Nintendo Switch.
