Ever since the early days of Pokemon there have been both TM's and HM's. They are both move's that you teach to your Pokemon, in the olden days TM's once used would go away, now they stay and you can use them as long as you like. HM's have always been able to stay, but you can not remove a HM from your Pokemon's move set once its been learnt. You can only remove it from a move tutor who is located somewhere in the game, this kind of made sense in the old games. Because before you needed moves like Cut and Strength to progress through the game, in the latest game I have got both Strength and Cut and have not needed to use it. I presume you will need surf but thats actually a good move, where as Cut and strength are not all that.

It wouldn't be as bad if we could at least unlearn them when we want, why do they still feel the need to call them HM's and not let us unlearn them?

Not really but this game has made them mostly optional. I don't think I've needed to use any of them to progress 6 badges in. And the move deleted has always been able to get rid of HM moves for you.

I assume it's to prevent any possibility that a player might get stuck and not be able to progress any further due to a design oversight
I don't believe there's any current way for this to happen, unless your pokemon can be given an HM to hold? But it seems like a "Just in case" measure.

Cause it's Pokemon and nothing ever changes in Pokemon games.

I've never understood why HM moves weren't overwritable. I think it was put in place so that you couldn't get trapped in an area that required an HM move to pass, but the infinite use part of that equation means that never made sense and couldn't be the case. It's one of the many stupid things that GameFreak refuses to change because it's been a part of the series since the start.

I thought they were overwritable nowadays?

@Jack268 said:

I thought they were overwritable nowadays?

No, I taught my Onix Strength and now I want him to learn another move but I couldn't.

Am i the only one going wtf to being able to use a tm however many times you want? Not cool, i liked having to hunt them down and use them wisely :/

@j0lter said:

Am i the only one going wtf to being able to use a tm however many times you want? Not cool, i liked having to hunt them down and use them wisely :/

I don't like it either, it makes everything seem so easy, I much preferred when you had to think about it.

@j0lter said:

Am i the only one going wtf to being able to use a tm however many times you want? Not cool, i liked having to hunt them down and use them wisely :/

It lead to most people simply "saving them" all for the right time, only to never use any of them. They even made a joke about that in the original Black/White.

It takes out some of the risk, but it gives you more control of what moves you actually want to use while playing through the story. HM's have always been horrible though, the sooner they go, the better.

I think it would be better if HM just became passive skills out of battle that didn't need a space on the move list (which I wouldn't mind being a bit bigger to make battles more interesting). It makes no sense that this fish I just caught from a river can't swim and annoying have to give something cut which I have to run back and get out of a computer when I have a giant dragon on my team which could probably destroy the twig in my way by looking at it.

Really pokemon just needs a load of big gameplay changes that aren't just x hits for 3.456 now instead of 3.455.

Is Black and White 2 good? I loved black and white but everything I've seen of it looks VERY similar and I don't know if I want to go back to playing my DS.

@j0lter said:

Am i the only one going wtf to being able to use a tm however many times you want? Not cool, i liked having to hunt them down and use them wisely :/

It's awesome because you can TEACH EVERYONE EARTHQUAKE

@Counterclockwork87 said:

Is Black and White 2 good? I loved black and white but everything I've seen of it looks VERY similar and I don't know if I want to go back to playing my DS.

It has the slowest start of any pokemon game and it was like 4 hours before I even saw my first evolution, but you eventually realise that this is because the game is fucking enormous. It's so good!

edit: Also nope we don't need them, HM's have always sucked balls and the abilities they give should all be in your Pokemon's natural range of abilities anyway so this only gets more ridiculous as I get older so I just want em' to bugger off

@Blimble: I finished emerald a weak ago and it was the first pokemon game I've spent any time with since the 90's and all through out the game, the more HM's I got I kept thinking they need to let you have a special HM slot or something. I know who I want on my pokemon team, they are there because I like the moves they have. But in order to get through the game my Swampert had to know 3 HMs because I didn't want to have 2 water pokemon. Victory road was the worst because I wanted my strong pokemon with me, but I also needed pokemon with: strength, rock smash, flash, dig, waterfall, and surf. I feel like all these HMs cuts down on how much I can actually customize my team.

I've always thought HM abilities should just be passives that Pokemon that would be able to learn them would have. As long as you've got a flying Pokemon in your party you can fly, as long as you've got a water Pokemon in your party you can surf, etc. It's not any fun being pidgeonholed into only having 4/5 real Pokemon because you have 1-2 HM slaves. 
 
As for TMs, I would always save TMs and never use them when they were one-use because I didn't want to waste them. It was a smart and needed change to make them unlimited use, especially for people making competitive teams.

I'm not beyond having HM slaves.

@Hizang: You could say this about a lot of things in pokemon.

Playing pokemon I have come to realize that the only times they ever really innovate is when they get new hardware. So hopefully the next one, which has to be on the 3ds, (right?) will have 3d pokedex, if not full 3d pokemon battles, and at least semi-3d world.

As others said I think they should be usable outside of battle and not take any of your move slots. 
 
@Counterclockwork87 said:

Is Black and White 2 good? I loved black and white but everything I've seen of it looks VERY similar and I don't know if I want to go back to playing my DS.

Like everything else, HMs are still in Pokemon because they've always been there. So of course they're unnecessary.

Pokemon... Pokemon never changes

@Hizang: Do they still make you learn fucking Waterfall and Whirlpool? THOSE are the fucking worst

It's a decent way to gate access to different areas of the game, it's a lot better than having a random NPC run over and block you from going somewhere you're not supposed to, which is something Pokemon does a lot. That makes no logical sense, any kid could deke his way around one fat mountain man who gives him like three person's width of clearance to pass him. And yet no, he stops and heeds his warning like a dork.

YOU CAN USE TMS MORE THAN ONCE?

THANK FUCKING CHRIST

I never used the damn things because I was always worried about using one-time items.

Also, HMs suck now, and have always sucked. At least you can just get an HM slave or two.

@Terramagi: It was like that in B&W1 as well.

In terms of HMs, though, I feel like they were what made the game feel like an actual RPG; you had to get the next neat ability (HM) to get to the new areas. There's still some HM area requirements in B&W2, but these seem to be mostly removed in favor of the standard "you need x gym badges/this area is off limits, come back later." I'd be fine with HMs being phased out, but I feel like they should still stay in some form or fashion. If they just removed the permanency of HM moves (you can forget them at any time), they'd be fine in their current form due to the infinite TM use.

I'm actually glad for the infinite TMs as well; it makes some people focus a bit more on the strategy side of Pokemon, like making the best movesets and team setups.

@Petiew said:

@j0lter: I think it's better this way. If you're making a bunch of different teams to play online it'd be frustrating to only be able to use a TM on one single pokemon out of 500+. Lots of the TMs were one time only and couldn't be bought, this way gives better flexibility.

This so much the one time use with tm's was very annoying when making a competitive team.

I wish the HM's where more useful, the only HM that's good is surf the rest are just garbage.Maybe if there base power where higher and had a good secondary effect I would use them more.

Edit: Forgot to add waterfall in useful HM list.

@Hizang: Do they still make you learn fucking Waterfall and Whirlpool? THOSE are the fucking worst

@j0lter said:

Am i the only one going wtf to being able to use a tm however many times you want? Not cool, i liked having to hunt them down and use them wisely :/

No.... it makes the post-game team-building for competitive/battle subway play much easier and flexible, thus making it a lot better.

The best TMs that really makes the game easy are mostly obtainable only after the game anyway.

@AndrewB said:

I've never understood why HM moves weren't overwritable. I think it was put in place so that you couldn't get trapped in an area that required an HM move to pass, but the infinite use part of that equation means that never made sense and couldn't be the case. It's one of the many stupid things that GameFreak refuses to change because it's been a part of the series since the start.

Well in the first games you only had like 20 bag slots and it didn't force you to carry HM's around with you so if they were overwriteable then you could really end up in a situation were you overwrote a move and got stuck in a cave or something without the access to the HM to relearn the move.

The idea of HM's is solid, you use your Pokemon's abilities to get past obstacles a human kid couldn't pass on their own, but their implementation is archaic and cumbersome. Since the use of HM's outside of battle is still gated by badges obtained (unless this somehow changed in B&W) I see no reason why each pokemon couldn't have a list of "Innate abilities" that are unlocked once you get the right badge.

If they'd be willing to drop the idea of you using pokemon abilities out of battle they could also turn every one of those abilites into an Item. Teleporters instead of Fly, portable water scooter instead of Surf etc.

Also:

I'm sure some of them at least are still there to control where you can go and direct progress because you can't surf or move this boulder yet.

@JackSukeru: Actually, what you said makes a lot of sense. You could have every Pokemon who can learn a type of HM have a separate list for those moves, and just replace the current attack versions with new ones. They've already changed the attack values and effects of HM moves over the years.

But don't get me started on the many, many things that could be streamlined in Pokemon.

@Hizang said:

@Sploder I would say it has a very quick start, get going in like 10 mins

I meant in terms of actually being able to get your adventure on and check out some of the new features and have fun without being aggressively tutorialised. The new cities were laaame.

HMs are the worst. If there were one thing I could change about Pokemon, it would be getting rid of HMs.

Instead of HM's, have your dude get a surfboard, rock climbing gear, machete (or in pokemon land, weed wacker) and just have fast travel unlock ater event X

HM's definitely stick out more than ever now, what with most other things getting pretty well streamlined. I'm actually not opposed to the idea of needing to have certain Pokemon with you in order to progress past an obstacle, in fact I think that aspect of it should stay, but it's the part where the HM has to occupy a valuable spot in your move list that's a big bummer.

I think how I'd want to see it is... like, instead of getting the HM "Fly" and having to teach that move to your Pokemon, you just unlock the ability to fly, and from that point on the option to fly is available to any Pokemon with wings -- regardless of whether they have it as a combat skill. I don't mind needing to have a Water type with me to surf around. That makes sense. Bring a big, burly Pokemon with you to shove rocks around, sure. You're still needing to bring particular creatures along with you to get past obstacles, but with the important difference of not making them useless "HM slaves" cursed with inferior moves. Moreover, the important difference is that your core group could actually perform these tasks -- which is more fun, methinks.

Well, that's my rambly thought on the matter. Until then, I'll keep on reserving my 6th slot for TOOL MONSTERS.

On a related note, anyone know where the Move Deleter is this time around?

@Superkenon said:

HM's definitely stick out more than ever now, what with most other things getting pretty well streamlined. I'm actually not opposed to the idea of needing to have certain Pokemon with you in order to progress past an obstacle, in fact I think that aspect of it should stay, but it's the part where the HM has to occupy a valuable spot in your move list that's a big bummer.

I think how I'd want to see it is... like, instead of getting the HM "Fly" and having to teach that move to your Pokemon, you just unlock the ability to fly, and from that point on the option to fly is available to any Pokemon with wings -- regardless of whether they have it as a combat skill. I don't mind needing to have a Water type with me to surf around. That makes sense. Bring a big, burly Pokemon with you to shove rocks around, sure. You're still needing to bring particular creatures along with you to get past obstacles, but with the important difference of not making them useless "HM slaves" cursed with inferior moves. Moreover, the important difference is that your core group could actually perform these tasks -- which is more fun, methinks.

Well, that's my rambly thought on the matter. Until then, I'll keep on reserving my 6th slot for TOOL MONSTERS.

On a related note, anyone know where the Move Deleter is this time around?

I believe the Move Tutor and Move Deleter are near the Pokemon World Tournament area. Should say on your map when you hover over it.

@MstrMnyBgs: Ah, thanks. I'm a bit slow, so I haven't been there yet, but that's good to know.

It worked for the first 2 gens, but after that its just been a nuisance.

I honestly don't know why they can't just give us key items like an ax or a surf board Hell even power gloves would be cool. In a world full of tech and none of these exist? I avoid teaching my pokemon hm's like its the plauge -_-

HM moves are useless and take up a valuble slot, they could always add a special move slot for pokemon or something that would be nice too, instead of forceing us to take up one of the spots that a powerful or useful move sets.

Or like that guy said just unlock the ability.