Happiness Revamp

[Toujours]

Personally, this is something I would really love to see in X & Y, and one that might actually be likely considering the talk about bonds with your Pokemon! If you saw a happiness revamp, how would it look to you?

I would link happiness to something more than just walking around and completing battles. Maybe one factor of happiness would work like that, similar to EVs...you can only raise happiness through battling and walking so much, and then you have to do personal things with it like take it to a side quest and go through that with it, or something like that. Also, things such as nicknaming it and keeping it in your party would affect the happiness levels too. I can't imagine a Pokemon in the box for months would be happy.

Those are some of my early ruminations on happiness. Your thoughts?

[Miss Doronjo]

Yeah, I hope happiness has more that you can do with, and with a more realistic approach, like maybe, as you said, how much you keep it -with- you instead of in your box.

Mmm, that reminds me of what someone said in the battle system thread; they've said that GF have mentioned something interesting:

「プレイヤーとポケモンの絆が深くなることで、さらにポケモンが強くなる新しいバトルの仕組み。
誰もが楽しめるシナリオと音楽」
“A new battle mechanism in which Pokémon become stronger by having their bonds deepened with the player”.

Could 'bonds' mean something here? I thought that it can be quite interesting; liiiiike aside from basic pokemon happiness, maybe there can be a statistic of your own personal bond with your pokemon?

[Sydian]

This would be nice, and hopefully make friendship evolutions go a lot smoother. I really like the idea of nicknaming helping friendship, cause I nickname all my Pokemon haha.

[tente2]

I'm not sure what you mean by "taking it on a sidequest", and although I don't like the sound of that, depending on what you actually mean I might love it.

I do agree happiness could be worked on, but I don't know specific ways to improve the system as of right now. I do want happiness to be able to be raised to its full value in any way it can be raised, though. Having to raise a Pokemon's happiness first to a certain level by doing X, and then completing the process by doing Y, sounds unnecessarily complicated. Does that make sense?

Nicknaming is a good idea, too. Like Sydian said, I nickname all of mine, and I think it would be cool~!

[Sassy Milkshake]

I feel like happiness is too in depth numerically to begin with. A revamp would be nice, but honestly I have no clue how that'd work.

[Toujours]

Originally Posted by tente2

I'm not sure what you mean by "taking it on a sidequest", and although I don't like the sound of that, depending on what you actually mean I might love it.

I think happiness could be worked on, but I don't know specific ways to improve the system as of right now. I do want happiness to be able to be raised to its full value in any way it can be raised, though. Having to raise a Pokemon's happiness first to a certain level by doing X, and then completing the process by doing Y, sounds unnecessarily complicated. Does that make sense?

Nicknaming is a good idea, too. Like Sydian said, I nickname all of mine, and I think it would be cool~!

By a side quest I mean the little side things you can do in most games such as contests, musicals, etc.

Just one thing I hated about the happiness meter in other games is that when I wanted a high happiness Pokemon, I just had to run back and forth along a straightaway for an hour or two until it was at max happiness, and give it a Rare Candy. I know it seems strange but I would like for you not to be able to do that, because it makes no sense for a Pokemon to love you as much as it could possibly love you because it sat on your waist while you walked in a circle. To me, happiness should be complicated, because the idea of making someone happy in real life is complicated. Maybe even different species should have different ways that work better on them; Snorlax would be raised much faster by feeding Berries, while Carvanha could be raised faster by battling, etc...

[tente2]

Originally Posted by Toujours

By a side quest I mean the little side things you can do in most games such as contests, musicals, etc.

Just one thing I hated about the happiness meter in other games is that when I wanted a high happiness Pokemon, I just had to run back and forth along a straightaway for an hour or two until it was at max happiness, and give it a Rare Candy. I know it seems strange but I would like for you not to be able to do that, because it makes no sense for a Pokemon to love you as much as it could possibly love you because it sat on your waist while you walked in a circle. To me, happiness should be complicated, because the idea of making someone happy in real life is complicated. Maybe even different species should have different ways that work better on them; Snorlax would be raised much faster by feeding Berries, while Carvanha could be raised faster by battling, etc...

Oh. Then yeah, I would love that! We need to get more usage out of things like Contests anyway.

Well, I agree that walking in circles to be happy sounds a little silly! I think Gamefreak should do some massive overhaul so that happiness is more in-depth. What I don't want, though, is for the thing to become sort of like a recipe: 'walk X steps, and then do Y, and then feed it Z', or something. Because that'd be like trying to apply rules to love and making it orderly, and such. (Just the fact that our current happiness system is based off of numbers peeves me.) Maybe something like 'A, B, and C contribute to your Pokemon's happiness' but having A, B and C be more profound things would please me.

I also want happiness to have a more direct affect on battles, statistics and generally things about your Pokemon. Having happiness affect evolutions and a few moves doesn't sound rewarding enough. Maybe have happier Pokemon evolve at earlier levels than frustrated Pokemon? Learn moves sooner?

And maybe Pokemon could be happy in different ways. Sort of how a Pokemon's Contest stats can be distributed different ways, happiness could be done the same way. "Eager"? "Grateful"? "Affectionate"? "Loyal"? "Sympathetic"? I think in this way your ideas could be implemented; you could make certain Pokemon more (i.e.) 'Understanding' by doing B, but that wouldn't work for all Pokemon because different Pokemon want different things. And in this way, you couldn't make a Pokemon fully happy (assuming you could "max" out all areas) by just doing the same thing over and over again.

[pikakitten]

Originally Posted by Toujours

Personally, this is something I would really love to see in X & Y, and one that might actually be likely considering the talk about bonds with your Pokemon! If you saw a happiness revamp, how would it look to you?

I would link happiness to something more than just walking around and completing battles. Maybe one factor of happiness would work like that, similar to EVs...you can only raise happiness through battling and walking so much, and then you have to do personal things with it like take it to a side quest and go through that with it, or something like that. Also, things such as nicknaming it and keeping it in your party would affect the happiness levels too. I can't imagine a Pokemon in the box for months would be happy.

Those are some of my early ruminations on happiness. Your thoughts?

I would actually like this, so long as we get something out of it, also I already bond with my pokemon, the games normally elaborate that a friendship between a person and their pokemon gives them victory, so this would be a cool little feature xD

[tente2]

I think if Gamefreak began taking the bonds between players and their Pokemon more seriously (which I already try to do) and actually began rewarding players more, Pokemon X and Y might be among my favorite Pokemon games ever.

And I might be more inclined to keep my starter.

[Vehks]

I would like Gamefreak to add more depth to the 'bonding' system in pokemon. To a great many players pokemon are nothing more than a numbers spreadsheet.

It's why I'm so against IVs, it encourages players to just throw away 'worthless' pokemon and just farm for 'perfect IVs'. It seems completely detrimental to what Gamefreak intended pokemon to be.

[Toujours]

Originally Posted by pikakitten

I would actually like this, so long as we get something out of it, also I already bond with my pokemon, the games normally elaborate that a friendship between a person and their pokemon gives them victory, so this would be a cool little feature xD

You made me think, what if they actually affected the battle characteristics of the Pokemon? That might be a tad far, but I think it might be able to work. Something like a connection link or whatever they were called in Nobunaga's Ambition, where your Pokemon was better in battle if it was happy? That might ruin the purpose of the move Frustration though. >_o

[Pinkie-Dawn]

It appears that GF may be hinting that that Pokemon will gain automatic stat boosts at the beginning of the battle the stronger your bond with it is. I wonder how this mechanic will affect the metagame and how competitive players will start treating their Pokemon as living beings rather than mindless drones.

[Toujours]

It just worries me that they might just figure out how the dynamics of it works and it'll become just like EV training; in addition to EVs they just have to follow the formula for max happiness. :(

[tente2]

Originally Posted by Pinkie-Dawn

It appears that GF may be hinting that that Pokemon will gain automatic stat boosts at the beginning of the battle the stronger your bond with it is. I wonder how this mechanic will affect the metagame and how competitive players will start treating their Pokemon as living beings rather than mindless drones.

Originally Posted by Vehks

I would like Gamefreak to add more depth to the 'bonding' system in pokemon. To a great many players pokemon are nothing more than a numbers spreadsheet.

It's why I'm so against IVs, it encourages players to just throw away 'worthless' pokemon and just farm for 'perfect IVs'. It seems completely detrimental to what Gamefreak intended pokemon to be.

YES. Please. The reason why I tried out competitive battling, and then decided I didn't like it, was because in competitive play Pokemon aren't even really Pokemon anymore, they're just tools. Which is why I prefer casual play, since I can pick Pokemon I like, and bond with them. And that's why I never delete my save files in my Pokemon games; it's not like I'd want to play them again, anyway, because playing through them with different Pokemon would be weird. I tend to correlate regions and games, with the Pokemon I played them through with. (i.e. Pokemon Black/White reminds me of Musharna, one of the Pokemon I used.)

I doubt competitive players will begin to bond with their Pokemon, regardless of what Gamefreak implements into the games, but I'd find it interesting for happy Pokemon to get a battling advantage.

I'm already paranoid about my Pokemon fainting, and I stay away from bitter herbs at all costs, because I don't want my Pokemon's happiness to go down.

[PokémonShinySilver]

Happiness has been in Pokémon games since the days of Gold/Silver, and I surely would like to see some improvements to the Happiness system in Pokémon X and Y.

Let's say that... depending on how high the Pokémon's happiness is, the more higher the Defense and Special Defense is, while if it's the opposite... they'll have more higher Attack and Special Attack.

Something like that surely would be a good change to the Happiness system and it's effect in battle.

[Lapras*]

Hm, I would actually keep it as is. I don't think nicknaming would affect happiness, because it would be encouraging people to do so and not everyone would want to, plus it seems like nicknames aren't really Pokemon's thing, only Richie in the anime and I don't think anyone else in the games nicknames their Pokemon

Oh, really, Pinkie-Dawn? I think that will affect battling a ton, especially competitively!

When I play competitively, I mostly the same Pokemon with the same sets as they've worked for me before. I also nickname them, so when I use them on different teams I don't really think of the Pokemon as the flawless IV 252 HP EV 252 Def EV 4 SpD EV Chansey, I think of them as Aroma the Chansey, one of my partners. Maybe I'm just weird, haha.

[Forever]

Originally Posted by Pinkie-Dawn

It appears that GF may be hinting that that Pokemon will gain automatic stat boosts at the beginning of the battle the stronger your bond with it is. I wonder how this mechanic will affect the metagame and how competitive players will start treating their Pokemon as living beings rather than mindless drones.

As a competitive player, I'm opposed. I mean, I don't play wifi competitive but I play simulator competitive, and while it probably won't affect me at all, I think it just... would be strange. Like really, I like Pokemon as they are, not that we have to form some kind of bond to guarantee we'll win because look at Ash, he has a bond with Pikachu and he sucks. Maybe we should follow his example and not have bonds and be good trainers instead :3;

But yeah I'd agree with keeping it and using it in your party would at least affect happiness, given that I thought that was already the case lmao.

[shengar]

They've done it with the obsolete Exp formula, replacing it with the new. So I owuld like to see them revamp this rusty mechanics they've introduce since GSC too. Revamping old, rusted, mechanics is always a good thing for me, except when its done poorly or try to emulate the anime like.....

Originally Posted by Pinkie-Dawn

It appears that GF may be hinting that that Pokemon will gain automatic stat boosts at the beginning of the battle the stronger your bond with it is. I wonder how this mechanic will affect the metagame and how competitive players will start treating their Pokemon as living beings rather than mindless drones.

Nope, it would just make Pokemon in competitive battles even more mindless drone. Even worse, happiness now would be just another counting factor for them to make their Pokemons "competitive" worthy. I don't like it how they deal with those thing by shoving something down to our throat. I'm never against Pokemon bond-relationm but being choked down forcefully irritate me.

Originally Posted by Forever

As a competitive player, I'm opposed. I mean, I don't play wifi competitive but I play simulator competitive, and while it probably won't affect me at all, I think it just... would be strange. Like really, I like Pokemon as they are, not that we have to form some kind of bond to guarantee we'll win because look at Ash, he has a bond with Pikachu and he sucks. Maybe we should follow his example and not have bonds and be good trainers instead :3;

But yeah I'd agree with keeping it and using it in your party would at least affect happiness, given that I thought that was already the case lmao.

I'm agree. I'm always against of Pokemon Game trying to emulate the anime. This kind of mechanic would just make it even worse because happiness is just another counting factor like IVs, EVs, and nature that competitive player to manipulate.

[Arlo]

Originally Posted by Toujours

You made me think, what if they actually affected the battle characteristics of the Pokemon? That might be a tad far, but I think it might be able to work. Something like a connection link or whatever they were called in Nobunaga's Ambition, where your Pokemon was better in battle if it was happy? That might ruin the purpose of the move Frustration though. >_o

That's actually what I tend to believe the hint-dropping about bonding is all about - that happiness will affect battle characteristics. Right now, the only effects it has are happiness evolutions and the power of Return (and Frustration, which is pretty much useless as it is, since just having the pokemon in your party and walking around increases its happiness). I'd like to see happiness applied as a modifier to all base stats - higher happiness = higher stats, across the board. And I suspect that something like that is what they're actually going to do. It'd tie in well with the whole notion of befriending pokemon rather than just using them as soulless tools, which has been a constant theme throughout the games, but has never really existed in the games, other than as a concept. I won't be in the least surprised if GF makes it a reality.

[Toujours]

I don't think it's emulating the anime, but emulating the universe. In the manga even, Pokemon fight better when they love their trainers. It makes sense that Pokemon that love their trainers would fight harder for them, not anything to do with the anime but to do with just the way the universe is.

[Forever]

I was just thinking about this and I figured it fit here best!

As we know, these games are mentioned to have tighter bonds with their Pokemon more than ever before. What comes to mind here is traded Pokemon, and using Pokemon at high levels before defeating a certain gym leader. Anything relating to your Pokemon not obeying you, basically. Then one item comes to mind, the Soothe Bell, the thing used to soothe restless Pokemon and increase your friendship with them. From that comes two ideas:

1. That traded, and high level Pokemon will obey you no matter what, as long as you have the Soothe Bell in your possession (making it a higher value item). And what if it was stolen (as part of the storyline), and everything higher-levelled than the opponent that stole your Soothe Bell no longer obeyed you, and you'd need to regain your friendship/happiness with them, leading to what was referred to in the first post, as to how to overcome that.

2. Jealousy. With happiness working out a certain way, could they introduce jealousy into these games? For example, if a Pokemon is being used less by another Pokemon in your party then it would become jealous and obey you less in battle, adding an extra (annoying) twist to the games until you used it more (meaning you had to pay attention to how jealous it was becoming, by the happiness checker).

[vaporeon7]

I think if they made it so Pokémon could become jealous and not obey you, it might confuse little kids who try and foolishly solo with their starter, when they find nothing is obeying them. I would like to see unhappiness used more, like an Eeveelution based on how much it doesn't like you.

[Victini]

I adore this idea so much oh my gosh. <33

Yes please!! We definitely need a happiness revamp!! >w<
With the whole battle revamp that has been hinted to occur regarding bonds, I am definitely hoping they will give us more of a reason to work on happiness (besides evolution or raising Return's attack power, etc). Having the opportunity to create an actual bond of sorts with your Pokemon would be awesome! Ever since I was just a tiny little Pokemon lover I've wished for our in-game Pokemon to be able to respond in more complex ways to happiness levels. I've always wished our Pokemon could be more like the ones in the anime.

Seeing them grow attached to their trainers in the anime, and be able to fight harder and longer because of their bond, is just pure awesome. Wouldn't it be something if our Pokemon actually initiated evolution earlier due to a strong bond? Similar to how they've been shown to evolve for their trainers in mid-battle when all seems lost...? That's another new thing!! Evolution -during- battle, rather than right after it! Kfkjslfjdol.. I'm getting all excited thinking about it. <333

It really just comes down to a greater realism in the Pokemon games in general. If they go through with all of the previous ideas stated above, as well as this hinted battle system I mean.

Disobedience, greater willpower, jealousy, anger, love.. they just... make sense.
Why would a little sentient being not have these kinds of feelings, afterall?