>>59592304
Competitive pokemon is deep and hard to master. Mainline games are no longer the platform for competitive battles. Check out the Pokemon champions thread and ask there. >>59590755

>>59592304
I imagine competitive players are a minority. Albeit, most of the people who play this franchise are kids or very casual gamers, so that skews it.
Personally I think the single player experience is a little shallow, and a lot of people who enjoy that kind of gameplay and want something a bit deeper probably eventually graduate to other JRPGs, or start introducing alternate rulesets like nuzlocke challenges. But the single player Pokemon experience is still charming enough to play once in awhile. I mean, even if you play competitive now, that's probably what got you into the series in the first place. So yeah, it's fun. Just not something you're likely to get a ton of mileage out of before you start wanting more, whether that be pvp, battle facilities, nuzlockes, or other games.

>>59592371
Are the battle facilities fun at least? I always hear people talk about battle frontier/battle towers but I never got to those when I played through as a young'un. Or actually I don't think they were in the games I played

Pokemon games have an intended flowchart that splits from the completingmain story to non-battling activities, collecting or battling and battling splits further into battle facilities and pvp battles. If you want to spend your time shiny hunting or making a living dex, great. If you want to have curry parties or do contests, ok. If you want to get good at the battle facilities, go ahead. No one can tell you what is or isn't fun for you, you're going to have to figure that out yourself. That said, Battle Facilities in any real form are gen 3-7 exclusive, so you're a little fucked if all you have is a switch. Gen 8 and BDSP battle tower are so easy it isn't fun and I've never even touched any of the arceus post game battle thingies and I don't know anyone that has. As time as gone on, the games have skewed more towards collecting and pvp battles with champions coming out and more and more rare things to collect like marks and alphas.

>>59592380
They're fun if you have the internet and can be like bashing your head against a wall if you don't, at least the early ones. Gen 3 and 5 in particular have some really varied options while gen 4 is more straight forward challenging battling. Gen 6 and 7 have the least options but arguably have more diversified options in what options you can play with and surrounding flavor. I'm a big fan of the named trainers in the battle tree and Red and Blue returning.

>>59592304
>Is pokemon fun to play if you never get into multiplayer/online/competitive battling?
Yes

>>59592304
99.999999% of pokemons audience plays the game completely in singleplayer

>>59592304
I literally still play BW2 battle subway and USUM battle tree to this day. Battling with my favorite Pokemon is fun enough to me. I do very basic competitive team building too. I only worry about natures and EVs, but could care less about IVs (though I still check them). Then I slap on some moves and a held item I'm ready to go

>>59592494
Is the trainer AI/NPCs fun enough in those modes? I just wonder do they switch out/make battles interesting enough.

>>59592497
sometimes. Ive noticed they switch out more in USUM in certain conditions though I'm not really sure what causes them. You'll have to kinda play this stuff yourself to be your own judge, or watch videos to see them in action. To me they're a decent challenge but I dont want to say anything concrete to get your hopes up and disappoint you if its not specifically what youre looking for

>>59592304
99% of the playerbase never touches pvp and the games are designed with this in mind. The base game is usually trivially easy so kids can get through it, with the challenging stuff gated to the post game or DLCs. SV is purely doubles in the dlc postgame which is fun.

>>59592610
>The base game is usually trivially easy
False. Cynthia is the Dark Sovls of pokemon champions.

I'd say the grand majority continue to enjoy the single player content. That's pretty much all I care about as well. At some point you need to trade, and it's fun to battle other players from time to time but that's more enjoyable with friends and family. Battling strangers for ranks and the mind numbing battle towers that offer little reward for the time required don't appeal to me. To me 99% of the appeal is collecting a new set of Pokemon, training them into Champions and exploring new regions, and a solid narrative that doesn't annoy me helps.

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>>59592304
Yes. I'm primarily a collector so I rarely battle other people anyways and never wanted to do anything competitive. I find it more fun to get a living dex in my games