@ultratiem @piracysails The piracy megathread site says that's a fake clone https://rentry.co/megathread-unsafe-sites

@lvxferre Define meaningful changes to core gameplay and Gamefreak doesn't seem to have perverse monetary incentives to power creep so I'm just guessing a more benign creative block here rather than willful. I don't think people buy Pokemon games for the competitive esports aspects anyway even though I see a lot of changes in later gens clearly geared towards VGC gameplay.

@lvxferre I know there are perverse incentives for power creep for games with in-game monetization but even with MOBAs who produce less and have less combinatorial possibilities on moves/items can have power creep so I don't think mass production alone does it. I'd reckon power creep is a demand side problem, people get more dopamine when something they use is overpowered. Also legendary power creep prolly started with Gen III Kyogre rain-boosted STAB Choice Specs 150 base power spread move.

@sleepybisexual Aside from what lvxferre said, there's also Stealth Rock with very ineffective way of removing it because of ghost types, random 120 base power moves and the physical/special split essentially buffing the coverage of offensive pokemon (Gengars can actually use Ghost type moves). Essentially the gen that made dragons overpowered. I guess you can say these are all subtle. Gen 6 onwards just made it more blatant with gimmicks like mega-evolutions, z-moves and terrain.

@lvxferre @sleepybisexual Gen IV was when the real power creep started to happen.