[Discussion] Discuss: "Equipping Moves" Mechanic

[udivision]

Hi folks.
Don't start threads often, but was wondering your opinion on something like this.

What if Pokemon never forgot moves?
Don't you think that could be an interesting way to mix things up? Going into battle, you'd still only be able to use 4 moves, but out of battle you could choose from any move that Pokemon has learned. TM's are automatically added to the pool of moves you can "equip" your Pokemon beforehand.

That would allow you to switch up your mon's movepool without the hassle of Move Relearning. It's also still balanced, as your mon would only have 4 moves max in battle.


How to go about implementing it?
Assuming we're using Pokemon Essentials, I think the easiest way would be making it so that the Pokemon could only use the first 4 (or last 4) moves in thier pool. A mechanic for changing the order of Pokemon moves already exists, so it would only need to be modified slightly. Auto-adding of TM's to the movepool could be ignored for now, and just using the TM would still be compatible.

Trainers's Pokemon would still have thier 4, and no changes would be needed there. However, Wild Pokemon would need to keep thier entire movepools like a trained one, so catching a higher level one wouldn't put you at a disadvantage. Or maybe, that's where Move Relearnes could come into play.

What do you think of this idea?


UPDATE To Idea
After trying to implement this idea myself, and having gotten feedback from you all, here are details of a possible system tempered by reality.

-A Pokemon can learn up to 7 moves. When they try to learn an 8th move (either naturally, from TM or HM), they'll choose which one to forget just like trying to learn a 5th.
-A Pokemon can only use 4 moves in battle. You choose which moves to use in the Summary menu by reorganizing the moves you want into the first 4 slots
-Other Trainer's Pokemon are complete unchanged.
-Wild Pokemon will use the last 4 moves they've learned, which is unchanged.
-Move Tutor/Move Relearner are unchanged.
-TMs/HMs are unchanged.

I feel like this could be equated with having 6 Pokemon in party, but only being able to bring 3 into battle or something. In battle, the extra 3 guys you can't use dont' really help, but out of it, you can change up your party on the fly, have access to more HMs, and swap out Pokemon that fainted.

 

[Ω Ruby and α Sapphire]

I think this is a good idea. It would add a real layer of stratergy, but I think you'd have to limit to be able to select from a pool of 12 or under, anymore and it would be too flexiable. Anyway I have no idea if you could actually do it (never worked with the program tbh) but I think it's an interesting concept.

 

[DarkDoom3000]

Thats a really neat idea. I really like it.

There would be a variety of ways to implement; creating the UI would be the biggest problem imo.

Im not sure how essentials/rmxp works, but if it allows dynamic arrays/lists then it should be easy to do the unlimited moveset.
if not, you could have, for each pokemon, a variable for every learnable move, and tick it whenever it leans it. and use it that way.

really neat idea nontheless. I might use.

 

[udivision]

Ruby is good with dynamic arrays. I'm trying to figure out how to implement it right now, actually. I'll report back if I have any success.

 

[Maruno]

If we're talking about adding this feature into Essentials, I'd say you'd need to change the Pokémon property "moves" and add a new one ("moveset"). "moves" wouldn't be limited to any size and would contain all the moves it can pick from, and "moveset" would point to up to 4 of them (which are used in battle).

As DarkDoom says, having an interface that allows you to choose the moves would be the hard part. There's also the effect of PP Ups to consider - not the recording of which moves have had which boosts, but the choosing of which move to boost when using the item. Again, a GUI thing.

It'd be a decent amount of scripting to do just to make it technically work, let alone making the GUI which would be a lot more scripting on top of that.

As for whether I think it's worth it: no. With the Move Relearner, infinite TMs/HMs and Move Tutors, you can do exactly the same thing (albeit in a more roundabout way) while avoiding the player asking why battles restrict Pokémon to 4 moves when they clearly know more. The "Pokémon just can't remember more than 4 moves" excuse is kinda feeble, but it works and it's tradition by now. The logical alternative, having huge movesets that can be used in their entirely in battle, requires a big overhaul and is broken. This idea, midway between the two paradigms, is unnecessary enough and confusingly restrictive enough to not be worth the effort. In my opinion.

 

[udivision]

And then there's breeding. You could end up with loads of moves (I think?) which might become a problem.

I went ahead and made the core of the system, the biggest hurdle was making it so that I wouldn't have to create the seperate definition aka "moveset" because I didn't want to make all the changes to the GUI to accomodate for that.

I think I'm done with this for now, unless anybody wants me to finish/tweak it for use in their project (I have none of my own).

Further changes/features could be -
-The limit of moves a Pokemon could hold would be 12, but they can only use 4 in battle
-Abilities/Hold Items that affect the number of moves a pokemon can know? (i.e. Simple Minded: Slowbro can only go into battle with 3 moves at a time, but his critical hit rate is always high /Super Brace: Ups EV growth when held, limits moveset to 3)


EDIT: Actually, some of the trickier things could be handled by referencing the "moveset" and not all of the moves. That'd certainly take care of the any possible breeding problems: you'd just arrange the moveset of the male so that the first 4 moves are what you want. That would also make breeding guys with different movesets a lot easier. Or it could be a random 4 from any move he knows.

I understand if you think the idea's not worth it, though. Ain't broke don't fix it. But I just get the feeling that the game could changed for the better without actually introducing gamechangers.

 

[Maruno]

I went ahead and made the core of the system, the biggest hurdle was making it so that I wouldn't have to create the seperate definition aka "moveset" because I didn't want to make all the changes to the GUI to accomodate for that.

I'd certainly like to know how you give the player the chance to choose which four moves to use in battle without including some GUI element (like a choice list).

 

[Awkward Squirtle]

What about the issue of PP? If you can just replace a move whenever you want, PP becomes practically useless... You could assign PP to a move slot rather than a move, maybe?

 

[DarkDoom3000]

^ one way would be treating PP like MP of traditional RPGs. each move slot has 100 PP, and each move has a PP cost: the amount of PP that move takes off(and if you have less PP than the cost, you can't use the said move.)

so lets say you equip Tackle, it usually has 35PP. so in this system you would just divide the 100 by 35. = 2.8 Cost

So each time you use tackle, it would take off 2.8 PP. If you switch it with another move, the PP would carry over. but the PP cost would change. so...

If you switch it with something like hydro pump, which has 5 PP usually, the PP cost would become 5/100 = 20PP.

So you could only use it 5 times anyway. Thus it balances out and doesn't cause any problems when transfering moves.

so if you used tackle 10 times, taking off 28PP, then switched to hydro pump and used it once, you would have 28+20 = 48 - 100 = 52 PP left.

 

[udivision]

Lol, you guys are overcomplicating things.
I lied, I kept working on it and am I happy with the results

Notes:
-Press "A" and the description of the move comes up.
-For no other reason than GUI constraints, you're limited to 7 moves. Basically, your pokemon can have 2 movesets with 1 overlapping move
-When you're mon tries to learn an 8th move, it's the same as him trying to learn a 5th move in any other pokemon game, and you choose which one to forget.

Like I said, the first four moves are the ones you go into battle with, so "choosing your moves" is exactly the same as reorganizing your moves in any pokemon game.

No changes to PP have to be made. In fact, if you run out of PP for a move you can actually sub it out for one with more until you get back to the poke center.

I actually think this system could be pratical. I'm mostily saying this because if it's not, than the whole thing was just a (fun) waste of time

 

[MaTe9usz6]

It's awesome! I want it in my game.

 

[IceGod64]

Notes:
-Press "A" and the description of the move comes up.
-For no other reason than GUI constraints, you're limited to 7 moves. Basically, your pokemon can have 2 movesets with 1 overlapping move
-When you're mon tries to learn an 8th move, it's the same as him trying to learn a 5th move in any other pokemon game, and you choose which one to forget.

Like I said, the first four moves are the ones you go into battle with, so "choosing your moves" is exactly the same as reorganizing your moves in any pokemon game.

No changes to PP have to be made. In fact, if you run out of PP for a move you can actually sub it out for one with more until you get back to the poke center.

I actually think this system could be pratical. I'm mostily saying this because if it's not, than the whole thing was just a (fun) waste of time

And those additional moves actually save to the Pokémon and everything? Clever and all, but while it's an interesting idea, it's something the base games never have done, and for that reason alone, I say it shouldn't be added to the actual kit.

The use I see for this is as an HM Slave "killer" You could just store the Pokémon's HM move(s) in an extra slot.

 

[G_Sylar]

This should be the way moves are handled in the official games too. It's way more realistic and makes your pkmn less boring after so many battles with the same moves.

 

[DarkDoom3000]

Neat; nice to see you got it working. We need to see more features like that. it transcendes the official games.

that said; wouldn't put it in starter kit because
1- isn't an feature from official games
2- every game having it would make it loose it's magic. and thus become a generic feature.

 

[udivision]

Whoa, this isn't supposed to go in the Starter Kit. Mostily for the reasons you guys have mentioned. I used the Starter Kit as a base because I wanted to actually figure out how to code my idea rather than just suggesting it, and just in case someone wanted to put it in their game, I'd have a battle plan for making that happen.

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it!

 

[Worldslayer608]

As for whether I think it's worth it: no. With the Move Relearner, infinite TMs/HMs and Move Tutors, you can do exactly the same thing (albeit in a more roundabout way) while avoiding the player asking why battles restrict Pokémon to 4 moves when they clearly know more. The "Pokémon just can't remember more than 4 moves" excuse is kinda feeble, but it works and it's tradition by now. The logical alternative, having huge movesets that can be used in their entirely in battle, requires a big overhaul and is broken. This idea, midway between the two paradigms, is unnecessary enough and confusingly restrictive enough to not be worth the effort. In my opinion.

Maruno is about as correct as can be.

The idea is cool, but I can guarantee you it will warp game play on the users side. You then have to handle and account for the opponents AI. You are starting to dig yourself into a deep hole by designing something that is not only warping the way the game is played and the balance within, but also killing other aspects of the game, such as getting the player to move around the world and explore new things.

I think as far as a Pokémon game is concerned, the Move Tutor is natural, logical and also highly practical.

 

[FL]

I have thought this a while ago (after deleting and re-learned some moves for multiplayer battles and teams), it's works like move relearner, but you can add the TM and breeding moves if you can learn of them.
In this way the TMs never got unlimited but all can be re-buyable in shops after unlocking them finding in game.
The move-change can only done when you learn a new move (the new move only) and in Pokécenter PC.

I am also thinking a similar thing for Abilities.

 

[udivision]

Maruno is about as correct as can be.

The idea is cool, but I can guarantee you it will warp game play on the users side. You then have to handle and account for the opponents AI. You are starting to dig yourself into a deep hole by designing something that is not only warping the way the game is played and the balance within, but also killing other aspects of the game, such as getting the player to move around the world and explore new things.

I think as far as a Pokémon game is concerned, the Move Tutor is natural, logical and also highly practical.

Could you please explain what you mean?
The enemy AI is completely unchanged, btw, they have their 4 moves and that's that.

Killing other aspects of the game? Stopping player from exploring the world? I'm talking about keeping 3 extra moves, not something that'll rock your Pokeworld. Don't see how it's any less natural, logical or practical.

 

[Worldslayer608]

Could you please explain what you mean?
The enemy AI is completely unchanged, btw, they have their 4 moves and that's that.

Killing other aspects of the game? Stopping player from exploring the world? I'm talking about keeping 3 extra moves, not something that'll rock your Pokeworld. Don't see how it's any less natural, logical or practical.

The difference between you having 7 moves and your opponent having only 4 is exponential when you have the ability to start optimizing your moves. You are losing balance quite a bit when you start doing this.

By exploring, I mean when you can optimize your move for opponent that cannot optimize theirs agaisnt you, you are not giving your player a huge upper hand. This essentially cuts out the need to explore and level your Pokemon to get past a certain point. I could just keep re-optimizing my moves to figure out the most powerful configuration.

Natural as in feeling like a legit Pokemon game.

Logical as in there are already practical implications in place.

Practical for the same reason it is less logical.

You are starting to skew a lot of things and creating far more work to keep things balanced than there needs to be when you have a move tutor.

 

[udivision]

"Trainer is about to send out a Weezing. Apparently, you are pyschic. Would you like to change Pokemon? It won't cost you a turn either. Man, lucky you."

That "breaks" the game more then streamlining the whole Move Relearning/Teaching process by adding a buffer, doesn't make any sense in the conext fo the game either. You're given an unfair advantage for no reason too.

Just in case I didn't explain it well in the OP (which I probably haven't) you can only select your 4 outside of battle. In other words, when you go into that trainer battle, you don't have a chance to change them. Just like you don't have a chance to run back to the PC and Swap out your guys once the battle starts. You have to do that before hand.

I don't see how letting my Pikachu keep Quick Attack makes not leveling him up or exploring other Pokemon choices a valid gameplan, but if I do, I guess that's more power to me.

Players will re-optimize their moves to figure out the most powerful configuration anyway, it's just that it's really clunky beyond teaching them TMs/HMs.

The only battle you should really be refighting is the Elite Four. If you're contsantly fighting the same trainer over, changing your moves to give you a better advantage, it's probably time to start trying something else (different mons or training) cuz the moveset isn't the problem.