I feel like they botched open world in Violet/Scarlet. What they really need is some kind of difficulty options, like level scaling. I've done some hacking and it's honestly really easy to make a toggle so that enemies are scaled to near your party and bosses slightly higher, or not at all if 'progressing'/grinding exp is important to you.
Some interactions with wild pokemon that aren't just murder, catch, or die to. Arceus experimented with this a bit in that you could feed them or accidentally wake them up, but I feel it could go further, like aiding one being attacked by another pokemon.