An idea to standardize evolution stone distribution

[d4rk]

Sometimes, evolution stones are frustrating.
In Pokémon Red from the 90s, no Moon Stone was sold in stores,
In Pokémon Gold from the 2000s, the process to get stones was post-game and unnecessarily tedious, effectively restricting the use of related Pokémon in the main-game.

My point is, there seemingly seems to be some type of idea that getting hands on an evolutionary stone should be a harder challenge than simply levelling Pokémons.
Which makes no real sense.

Since the alternative explanation is realism or roleplay... After all, Moon stones would come from the moon, I had an idea:

let your romhacks feature stone traders and exhibitions. Instead of finding them in stores (weird), you just have a room full of NPCs who sell their stones. You can even make them "rare" using multiple means:
- overpriced items (easiest to implement)
- trading multiple stones, ex. 2 grass stones for 1 dawn stone, etc.
- trading stones for other items like heart scales and the like (not my preferred option but why not)

additionally there could be event trainers that happen to gift one stone when beaten.

What are your opinions? Do you hate it too when a game only has a set amount of stones available?

 

[giradialkia]

Good point, and I think most hack creators would be in agreement.

The fact that they could be bought in Gen 1 is something that should've carried forward to every generation. Gen 2's method was inexcusable.

I think, short of having them for sale in a Department Store (or perhaps some Stone Maniac), some sort of exchange is a cool idea. Like in Gen 3 where a Shard Collector will trade for stones. Only, make it so 1 shard = 1 stone, and not 10 shards = 1 stone. Make it fair.

 

[Corveone]

These are items that can evolve a Pokémon with just a click anytime you want. They shouldn't be limited or too frustrating to get because that's a problem for players who want to fill the Pokédex or for the competitive, but shouldn't be too easy to obtain or made available too early either, because if they were, you could have several fully evolved Pokémon early on with no effort.

The thing is, Gen 1-7 games countered this (or in some cases tried to) with the "Stone evolution penalty", so many of these Pokémon would miss valuable moves and be stuck for a while with an awful move pool if you evolved them too early. For example, in USUM if you want a Clefable with Moonblast, you must stick with Clefairy until level 46, even if you've already found the Moon Stone when it was level 15.

But now in Gen 8, you can teach Stone-evolved Pokémon pre-evolution moves anytime. So, I believe there should be some way to prevent steamrolling the early game with fully evolved Pokémon with strong STAB moves taught via move relearner.

The key is to find the right balance. A simple alternative is limiting the Stone supply through the main story, or making them somewhat tricky to obtain. Then, in the post-game, just add a Store that sells them or whatever method that makes it easier to obtain them.

 

[d4rk]

I agree the balancing of it can be tedious because indeed one does not need to evolve a Pokémon too early and have it steamroll the game.
It is good to limit the early-game access to those items, but the reasoning needs to be done thoroughly according to the evolved Pokémon's stats, and according to what other Pokémon are available by level-up evolution when the stone is found. I.e having a fully evolved Cleffable in Pokémon Red when the team is lv.15 isn't a good fit because lv.15 still has Rattatta, Spearow and Charmander. But level 30 and more is the right fit.

I could even argue that stone-evolved Pokémon with lower BST than starters, or overall awful BST (Sunflora I'm looking at you), may become available starting lv. 20-25.