[SEASON 2] Q&A - Ask Questions Here!

[Suicune's Fire]

The description for modest and intimidating is very vague. If any, which of the two is least / most desirable, and how do they differ from each other in terms of what kind of response you receive?

It's sort of meant to be intentionally vague but I'd be happy to update it so it's more clear. :]

So Modesty is gained from being weak to whoever you're interviewing. Their reactions ALL depend on their personalities, so you'll be going in blind anyway unless you use Investigate on them and know all their details first. Some pokemon (like Abgrew) like Modesty because they aren't threatened by you, and they would see it as you being nice or approachable. However, some pokemon might see this as weak, sort of like a 'weakling' walking up to a bully, if you get what I mean.

Intimidation is when you are strong against whoever you're interviewing. Their reactions might be negative, because they're threatened by you, or they might become scared of you and spill everything they know. Or, they might see your intimidation as courageous and think you're brave for coming up to them (bully coming up to bully, for example).

It's safe to assume that most pokemon like modesty, because you're not being threatening, but intimidation could make them fear you or they could be offended that you had the audacity to approach them using intimidation tactics. For Giphlin, she probably would have reacted more aggressively if whoever approached her was modest, because she felt like she could walk all over them. She refrained from snapping at Felix because he was a little bit intimidating. She didn't want to upset him and risk injury, for instance, so although he maintained her uppity attitude, she kept it pretty tame.

I hope that helps. ^^; Basically, it's a gamble. Having the same type and having a positive rapport is the best way to go, but you might achieve different results depending on modesty/intimidation. It means that even if you don't share a type with the person you're interviewing, having modesty with the right NPC could be akin to have a positive rapport, while having an intimidating effect could do the same. On the flip side, both modesty and intimidation could act as a something akin to a negative rapport, but it all depends on the NPC and their personality!