How should a water/ocean HackRom be like?

Hello, I am currently working on the Pokèmon Secret Diaries project with a pal, but i often think about other possible projects that i will or could work for in the future. An idea that came immediatly in my mind was an HackRom based entirely on the water: deep ocean, portual cities, rivers, underwater ruins ecc. But i realise that many problems may come with this idea, I would not have any problems with programming, scripting and adjusting the graphics, the problems will be others. For example how should the rom be re-balanced? since the rom is based on water, you will have a water-type starter, and you will encounter water-type pokemons all the time, so for battles? should I change the datas for effectivity between types? Hope some of you guys can help me about this, or maybe come up with cool ideas for the Rom, I'm always listeng.

Hola Manspart, estoy jugando a secret diaries y me he quedado encerrado en la comisaría y no se salir, podías ayudarme? Por otra parte en cuanto a ideas sobre juegos Pokémon podrias hacer un juego donde se estuviera todos o casi todos los mapas, o también que fueras un líder de gimnasio o ser del alto mando, también podrías hacer una versión siendo algún miembro del team rocket, gracias y hasta luego.

I'm just spitballing here, maybe a whole new type chart is in order, like Pokemon Sweet has. Different aquatic types based on the current ones like Coral (Rock), Sea Anemone (Poison), Phytoplankton (Grass), Mollusc (Steel) etc. Hope this random idea helps!

Less random encounters would absolutely be a must.

But I agree with the post above, a reworked type chart would be one of the less messy ways around the typing issue, although another alternative would be devaluing type effectiveness as a whole?

For example, adding in new terrain effects, moves that interact with others in different ways (using electricity after a move has flooded the area), new combination move (so that the player has to be cautious of the opponent could use the reaction from one of their own moves against them)... But that would involve a lot of changes to the core gameplay...

It depends on how far you're willing to change the core gameplay of the series. At the moment, type effectiveness is a central part of it, so having lots of of variety in Pokemon typing (whether that comes from making a new type chart or not using many water types in your water based map) is necessary. If you have a lot of water types and keep the type chart the same, what's stopping people from sweeping the whole game with grass and electric types?

Something in the middle might be incentivizing different play styles, like how Team Rocket Edition does: by making money and exp more scarce, it makes the player more likely to use the stealing mechanic. Maybe you could do something like have supereffective moves have some sort of penalty (like electric type moves damaging both the player and the enemy)? Or reward players by using disadvantaged types in battle (with more money / exp / other resource at the end)?

Anyway, I look forward to seeing what you do with yours ^-^

I like the idea of having an entire region centered around water.
But to make it more pleasant to play I'd prefer a shorter game with the main point being exploration, kinda like a water-based version Pokemon Orange or Sun and Moon.
Right now there are 141 water pokemon, without megas, legendaries and gen 8 mons that would be maybe 110, adding another 40 mons or so that can either be found on islands or have other businuess being underwhater (like ghost types) should be enough for a smaller game.

Also I'd suggest a rework for the water type, spreading it out into maybe 4 or 5 typings.
Some examples would be:
Land type for water mons that tend more towards being on land like Krabby or Panpour.
A fish type would be pretty hilarious and also include quite a lot of stuff.
Giving stuff like Staryu the Psychic type instead of water.
Ocean type for stuff usually found in the ocean and not in lakes, etc.

I feel like while you would probably have to re-work the typings like how others have said. I do want to throw out you could lessen this by adding other biomes that can allow for more variance, which you have sort of mentioned with the deep sea, and ruins which I think are great! Though I'd like to add to this.

For instance you can have swamps, and bogs that can contain primary rock/ground, grass, and poison type pokemon. There are hydrothermal vents in the ocean that can allow for fire type pokemon. When you get close to the poles, you start seeing more primarily ice type pokemon. There are also various instances of real life locations in which the water is just simply strange. Such as various pink lakes, in which the water is a bright bubble gum pink, maybe you have an instance of this somewhere in the game, and that's where you can get primarily physic and fairy type pokemon. There really is a ton you can do with this concept!

I also do want to mention as well, not all ocean pokemon are water types! There's a little post here about it!

Hello everyone,

I would like to throw in my two cents. Having a region solely based on water is a great idea! The water type is my favorite typing and Squirtle is my favorite pokemon. So I'm a little biased lol

Personally, I don't think you need to rework the type chart https://pokemondb.net/type/dual - scroll to the dual water type section. As you can see from this chart resistances and weaknesses are still accounted for and balanced.

lind524's suggestion is interesting and should be explored

For example, adding in new terrain effects, moves that interact with others in different ways (using electricity after a move has flooded the area), new combination move (so that the player has to be cautious of the opponent could use the reaction from one of their own moves against them)... But that would involve a lot of changes to the core gameplay...

Click to expand...

For example if the player is in a double dive battle and one mon uses an electric move (chinchou, lanturn), if the partner mon doesn't have volt absorb or is not immune to electricity then they would also receive damage since water conducts electricity.

For surface battles on top of water you could have a pokemon usage restriction like air/fly battles in Gen 6. So only water, flying, and mons that can swim (learn surf) can participate in the battle.

For battles under the water you could have "dive battles" where only water types are allowed to participate.

Exploration would be a great feature and the ruins from Gen 5 come to mind, not to mention Gen 3/ORAS. You could have treasure to collect and find - relics, plates, coins, shards, etc.(use there item icons instead of a generic pokeball in the overworld). You could have a "Treasure Hunter" as a NPC that requests certain items. You could have a "Dealer/Collector" that is in the market for rare items and requests the player to seek them out then pay you handsomely for it - refer to Gen 5. Instead of the itemfinder you could have the scanner (During my first playthrough of ORAS when I acquired this item that's what I thought it was used for, to locate the underwater items. It turned out to be wrong but, I thought that it was an interesting idea).

As for fishing. My preference is the random tile encounters (gen 1-gen 6). If the player uses a lure ball while fishing than the catch rate is increased - like current games. If you are just surfing than lure and dive balls would have a catch rate of a normal pokeball - like current games. You can keep the three rods or you could have one rod and multiple lures (old lure, great lure, and super lure). Each lure would have different encounters much like the rods do now. Also, you could add additional lures for catching certain mons in a particular body of water i.e. a marsh lure would be more effective in the swamp.

As for dive encounters. Mons can be seen in the overworld and interacted with to initiate battles. Also, seaweed and kelp, like in Gen 3/ORAS, could also act as "grass" for those random encounters. Using a dive ball underwater would increase the catch rate.

Pearls and big pearls would only be found in oyster/clam mons.

Gym leader idea: You could have a surfing race on the back of your surfer either against the gym leader themselves or against a gym trainer. Not sure how to implement it but, you could have a water gun target mini game as well where you would go up against the gym leader themselves or against a gym trainer. The player would have to win both of these in order to face the gym leader - refer to the Orange Island anime episodes with Cissy.

This is all that I have for the moment. I'll keep thinking on it and if I think of something else, I'll be sure to post it. Good luck with your game and let me know when you've completed it. I would love to play it!