Survey: Do you think move types should be changed?

Should Razor Wind be Flying type?
Why is Bite Dark?
Explosion/Self-destruct as a Fire move so it hits on Ghosts, yay or nay?


What kind of questions you ask yourself when doing a rom hack, and how do you awnser it?

Some move typings make no sense at all, but isn't just a matter of 'Why Bite is Dark?', also there's the 'tuning'. Sometimes, you just need one more Dark type move, so 'Why not make Bite a Dark type?'.
Personally, I prefer getting move typings that makes sense, but also I understand the tuning thing. Imagine your little pidgey having a Flying type moveset when you get it? It would be too OP in early game, that's why, even being a bird, it's first flying move is at lvl 28.

I'd rather you just create new moves with the types you want, and maybe remove the old moves too. That way I can't get caught out by your changes, because I don't have any preconceptions of what moves with new names do.

I say, "very rarely, if ever". Changing the types of moves (or Pokemon) generally just creates needless busy work for anyone who is familiar with the main games and will have to relearn what types the moves are in your hack. Just create new moves if you must.

As for your specific question, Bite and Crunch are Dark-type for obvious reasons. Biting the opponent is fighting dirty, which is the whole M.O. of the Dark-type. Dark as in evil, not dark as in night.

Interesting topic, for me I had to figure out how I was going to answer this, when working a gen 3 rom hack, and added the fairy type, but
realized I had no way to add newer moves. So if my fairy pokemon were to have fairy moves, I'd need to change some.

So I totally agree with changing pokemon types/move types, and your own custom moves.
The entire nature of romhacking is a desire to change the game, no reason to limit ourselves
just because some people may be a little mentally rigid.

Like many other things, it depends on whether what you change is for the better or for worse (which is sometimes subjective). If we follow logic, some moves would probably have to change types. But I think game balance is allways more important than logic and realism in these kind of games so these changes should be done carefuly and only if it's something actually positive for the gameplay.

For example, some hacks/fan games change Cut into a Grass or a Steel type move, making an otherwise useless move that nobody would use if it wasn't an HM into an interesting early game move. Now if we say, for example, "hey, why is Megahorn a Bug type move? let's change it into Normal", well... there you're turning one of the strongest Bug type moves into basically a Mega Kick 2.0, also ruining a nice coverage move for Pokémon like Seaking and Rhydon.

As for status moves, it's irrelevant in 99% of the cases. I remember wondering in another thread why were Coil a Poison type move, or Wide Guard a Rock type move, but since they're status moves it doesn't matter, they could be Ice or Dragon moves and it would be literally the same.

Monaco said:

Explosion/Self-destruct as a Fire move so it hits on Ghosts, yay or nay?

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That would be pretty broken, unless you reduce its power. Imagine a Pokémon like Golem surviving an attack (which isn't hard with Sturdy), then hitting a Grass, Steel or Ice type oponent back with a 250 base power super effective attack.

[ Original Post ]
Explosion/Self-destruct as a Fire move so it hits on Ghosts, yay or nay?

Click to expand...

That would be pretty broken, unless you reduce its power. Imagine a Pokémon like Golem surviving an attack (which isn't hard with Sturdy), then hitting a Grass, Steel or Ice type oponent back with a 250 base power super effective attack.

Click to expand...

idk that wouldn't really be any more broken than choice scarf explosion/self-destruct and those already exist.
and realistically a fiery explosion does wreck all those things. burns grass, mangles and melts steal, and completely evaporates ice.

and the balance is you're still giving up a pokemon for the damage.

I personally think most the hm's that r normal type need changing. Polished crystal is an example of a rom hack that does this. It changes cut to steel type for example and increases power. Very cool. It always annoyed me how strength, cut, and head butt are all normal. I'd make strength a rock move, and cut either steel or grass type. Head butt could be a dark type move. Randomly head butting somebody is pretty sneaky, and a way to fight dirty. Although headbutt is the one hm I don't mind being normal type. Especially since bite is a dark move that already makes the opponent flinch.

Definitely not a fan of having to relearn these kinds of changes for every rom hack, but it's not a "deal breaker" or anything.

I voted "Yes, and fake moves are also Ok to use", because it is a necessity in my fangame.
- There are 2 new types added : Shadow and Light. A small handful of official attacks become of these types. (No, I'm not talking about the Sound type where it is a minimum of 15 moves that become of this type)
- Type affinity is taken into account for debuff moves: depending on the affinity, the attack will have more or less chance to hit. Consequence: many ghost Pokémons would be immune to it. (Mostly status moves are Normal type.) A not insignificant quantity of them therefore become of a "non-Normal" type.
Some examples:
• Glare => Normal to Dragon type (Fairies will be immune)
• Poison Powder => Poison to Grass Type (The Rock type will be vulnerable to it and it avoids a duplicate with Toxic)
• Leer => Normal to Dark type (Ghosts will be not immune)

And a universal reason: indeed, some moves really deserve to be better classified. We find this on several fangames
• Razor Wind => Fly
• Cut => Grass
• Strength => Fighting

i think its alright to change move's types if you can justify it. personally it has bothered me that mega punch and mega kick wherent fighting moves. or that razor wind was normal. in my personal hack i changed alot of moves to fit what made sense to me.

I think it's ok to change types of moves (or strength or effects) as long as the player is aware of the change and as long as they don't run into a bad situation that would have never occured under normal (vanilla games) circumstances. If the player is allowed to slowly get accustomed to the move changes then its also fine to use those changes later on as a required mechanic if you so choose.
Making bad moves less bad is also totally fine. When I mess around with some (especially earlier generation) games then I like to, for example, turn Cut into a powered up Bug type move. Bug type moves are very rare in those games, especially stronger ones, and by changing type and power you not only add a little bit more diversity to the move list but you also make it more bearable to carry the move around (as it's not just an inferior Scratch) while also giving the player another tool against, let's say gen 1 Psychic types. Steel would have also been fine but I like to be consistent in different generations and imo Bug fits pretty well as it kinda reminds you of ants cutting through leaves with relative ease.

I have no real opinion on new moves. Imo whoever introduces something new to the movelist is very much responsible to make it feel like it fits into the game. If you come up with a completely new move and it fits well both in mechanics and theme then that's fine.

While I agree with the prior statement of making HMs more diverse (Steel-type Cut, for example, gives it a nice niche compared to Normal, especially if you also do something to make Steel more useful as a coverage type) I prefer to approach this question from the perspective of removing types altogether, because frankly I think some of the existing ones (Ground/Rock, Bug/Grass, Ghost/Dark, Water/Ice) are too similar.

Some of the types may be similar but they have very different weaknesses and strengths: ice and water really don't mechanically resemble each other much, it's only the abundance of ice/water mons that make them seem so.

I'm in favor of very minor move changes (especially for balance) unless switching things up is the point of the hack: a 'weird' version that goes out of its way to turn all types into, say, candy themes (pretty sure there was a hack like that) can be fun.

Like many others, I too think of giving some utility to Cut, Razor Wind and many others. Sometimes, it is fitting to simply change their types. Other times, it would be better to simply re-imagine their mechanics.

I see suggestions in favour of turning Cut into Grass, Steel or Bug type. I confess that Steel did not occur to me, and I quite like these changes.
What I have been thinking, though, is to keep it a Normal-type move, but give it an effect that makes it super-effective against Grass-type Pokémon, much like Freeze Dry has its own effect that makes it super-effective against Water, whereas it should not be, under normal circumstances.

Alternatively, just remove Cut. Instead, allow Fury Cutter to do its part in the overworld.

I would also like to hear your takes on making Physical, Normal-type contact moves be type-fluid. If a Geodude uses Tackle, it would be a Rock Tackle. If a Steelix uses Headbutt, it would basically be Iron Head. It could be hard to define the limits of what makes sense (and what is balanced) with this mechanic, though.

For HMs in particular, I prefer to have the move type/base power altered (except for surf, probably). Since I'm so used to playing without HMs in these more recent gens, I'm always reminded of how annoying it is to teach HMs to important Pokemon on your team knowing the HM is pretty much a waste of a move slot. I noticed some ROMs changed Cut into bug/steel type, which makes a lot of sense. Even if the base power for a move like that remains the same, I think the change in typing helps enough with coverage that I'm ok with it.