You yourself admitted that the formula is stagnant. The battle mechanics being changed isn't an admission they were bad or flawed. And the mechanics being good isn't a reason not to try experimenting with them.
The problem with its emptiness isn’t that there should be Pokémon everywhere but that the map is too small for how...
Grayson Young
Isaac Lewis
Wait really? If so that is so much fucking SOUL. The attention to poke lore and detail in this game continues to impress
Isaac Fisher
>wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle
This
Jaxon Murphy
>Opponent sends 2 weak pokemon instead of 1
This isn't challenge its just tedious
Jace Butler
The stagnation, in my opinion, is more in everything other than the battle system. The stories and setting always follow the same formula - you have the 8 gyms followed by the Elite Four, a generic villain team who wants to use a legendary to do some bad thing, etc. SM attempted to shake things up a bit, but imo didn't go far enough, and then S&S went right back to the same old stagnant formula. The battle system itself is quite excellent, and shaking it up in the main campaign would only require showing off more of it throughout the game, such as having more battles that involve weather or terrain mechanics, or battles that involve things like hazards, held items, set up, momentum moves, etc; any of the mechanics that are normally pretty much only ever used in competitive play. Pokemon has an excellent system but the games barely even scratch the surface of it outside of PvP metas. Raihan is often praised for being one of the only major battles in the entire series that actually involves weather mechanics, and the only major battle involving the terrain system is a single version exclusive battle in one of the DLCs. Most players didn't even realize terrains existed until gen 7's Tapu were introduced. As far as I can remember, Steven, Klara, and one of the ace trainers in SM are the only three battles in the series that use entry hazards. Norman's gym trainers in Hoenn is the only case of stat specialists in the entire series. Instead, almost every major battle in the entire series is focused on type specialist trainers. That's what I mean by stagnation.