how come most 1st gyms are rock type?

Question

I noticed that almost all of the 1st gyms are rock types why??

Answer 1

I always thought it was to set up a difficulty level. For example, in the 1st gen, picking a Bulbasaur would be easy mode, since you're have no problem defeating Brock and Misty, the first 2 gym leaders. Squirtle was Normal, since he would squash Brock, but wouldn't be very effective against Misty's water pokemon. Charmander was Hard since he wasn't effective against the first 2 gyms.

Comments

Yeah, no. That would only be the case if you only used your starter. There are Pokémon you can catch before these early gyms to offset types.
Brock - Mankey or Nidoran
Misty - Pikachu
Surge - Dugtrio
Falkner - Mareep
Whitney - female Onix or Steelix
Roxanne - Shroomish
Roark - Machop
Gardenia - Golbat

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Yeah, they wouldn't want you to be completely helpless, and if they didn't offer said Pokemon to offset, then the game would just be grinding to beat gyms, instead of finding new strategies and learning the type system. :P

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Sometimes part of the appeal can come from winning with a disadvantage. Heck, I've beaten Brock with a Pikachu before. But that disadvantage is self-generated rather than the game making it that way.

Another thing I can say from experience is that the difficulty with Venusaur is late-game. Its movepool isn't as diverse as Charizard and Blastoise, and the opponents it faces aren't so ideal. 7th gym is Fire, E4 trainers use Poison, Ice, and Dragon, and your rival will have a Charizard and an Alakazam. Grass moves all come with drawbacks in early games, low power, lost turns etc. If you're clever, you might teach it Swords and a strong Normal type move (EQ also available in 3rd gen), and use it as a physical sweeper.

Answer 2

It's probably because There are only a few pokemon you see at the beginning of the game. weak, rock, normal-flying, bug, grass, fighting and normal. Well, Normal types are not a common gym type. And as you noticed, in sinnoh, kanto and hoenn the first gym is rock, and in johto, the first gym is flying. In Hoenn, Sinnoh, and johto, the second gym is (in that order) fighting, grass and bug. Which kind of goes with what I said: By the time you ge to the first gym, those will have been the only pokemon you will have seen. grass, flying, fighting, bug, normal, and normal-flying types. You know, the machops, makuhitas, pidgeys, starlys, spearows, caterpies, weedles, wurmples, metapods, rattatas, bidoofs, sentrets. They cant start you off with those and then have a gym leader with dragon or ice types! get what im sayin?

Comments

it would be cool if they tried starting with a dragon gym. axew, dratini, and bagon!!!

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Yeah but realize only two types really work against dragon and they are dragon and ice. While some of the water starters do learn ice type moves it usually isn't until their later levels.

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you are correct but have you thought that the reason there rock type is becasue ash's and reds first gym battle was against a rock type ??

Answer 3

No particular reason, Thats Gamefreaks business, Although I always thought, it was because it gave water and grass types an easy start, and made fire have to work harder.