6th Gen TMs and HMs

.Aero said:

TMs will be expanded for sure. There's literally no doubt in my mind that the number will increase. They'll probably replace a few TMs with other moves (as they have in the past) but I expect the general list to stay pretty much the same as last generation.

As for HMs, I hate them. I really honestly hate them more than anything. Essentially when planning out a team or just going through the game before you play you have to remember to cover each HM required to beat the game or just for convenience sake (like Fly). I find it ridiculous that pokemon like Wailord or Swellow need to learn Surf / Fly respectively before being able to actually do it. It didn't make much sense to me.

What I would like to see from HMs is this:
1. Keep them, but make them non-permanent. I don't understand why they were ever permanent in the first place.
2. Once you have the HM, you aren't required to teach it to a Pokemon in order for the Pokemon to be able to use it outside of battle. You just need the corresponding badge and the HM, and the Pokemon itself simply has to have the POTENTIAL of being able to learn the move (for example, say you have the Surf HM and its corresponding badge and you have a Swanna. It doesn't have to physically know Surf to be able to Surf outside of battle).
3. You can still teach it to your Pokemon because certain HMs are very useful in battle too (i.e. Surf / Waterfall).

I feel like it's an old mechanic that just needs to be dropped. It's just an inconvenience and I don't believe we'll ever have another HM Slave as good as Bibarel (and most people don't even want him in their team anyway).

I know Black and White took a step in the right direction making it so that the only REQUIRED HM as far as I was concerned was Cut. And you only had to use it once, so you could catch some Purrloin or something early (and extra one if you wanted), teach it Cut, and then forget about it later. They're almost there though and I'm hoping HMs are dropped almost entirely.

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I like the idea of having HM's as more of an ability than having to take up a move slot, but I think a more logical way they could enforce this - considering the direction they've gone with gen 5 - is to simply make HM moves replaceable, then for example, you could teach Cut to your Scyther and delete, say, X-Scissor, and then once you're done replace the HM with the TM again seeing as you can use them however many times you want now. This might become a little tedious but it saves the whole move deleter process and also means you're less likely to have to go to the PC and switch your team around just to get past a tree or a boulder etc.

These are just some of my quick thoughts on the subject:

- I would like the entire TM and HM system revamped.

- I would like to see a number of old TMs eliminated and new ones created. Also, reconfigure the power, accuracy, PP, and effects of existing TMs and HMs.

- I think moves that are useful primarily for competitive battling should be learned through move tutors rather than TMs. Preserve TMs for in-game battling. Pokemon is going too far in the direction of competitive battling to the point that the quality of the in-game experience is deteriorating.

- I would like to see one of two scenarios happen pertaining to HMs. (1) Eliminate them altogether and allow Pokemon to learn cut, fly, surf, etc. on the basis of their type and abilities; (2) Create HM slots for each Pokemon in addition to TM slots.

Handsome Samurott said:

These are just some of my quick thoughts on the subject:

- I would like the entire TM and HM system revamped.

- I would like to see a number of old TMs eliminated and new ones created. Also, reconfigure the power, accuracy, PP, and effects of existing TMs and HMs.

- I think moves that are useful primarily for competitive battling should be learned through move tutors rather than TMs. Preserve TMs for in-game battling. Pokemon is going too far in the direction of competitive battling to the point that the quality of the in-game experience is deteriorating.

- I would like to see one of two scenarios happen pertaining to HMs. (1) Eliminate them altogether and allow Pokemon to learn cut, fly, surf, etc. on the basis of their type and abilities; (2) Create HM slots for each Pokemon in addition to TM slots.

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Just because I think a lot of this is interesting, I just want to reply to each point (in hopes that I'll get a reply back!)

• Define rework the entire system (unless the other points were what you were getting at).
• It isn't really viable to rework a large amount of TMs just for the sake of doing. The only one that I can even think of that was buffed last generation was Giga Drain, which made sense since for what it was it shouldn't have had 5 PP (the power boost was just a nice addition!).
• I think there's already a lot of overlap between competitive moves and in-game moves (Scald, Roost, Giga Drain, Volt Switch, etc.). Besides, nothing is deteriorating the in-game experience since there's very few moves that are even in-game exclusive as it is (especially since Stealth Rock got removed),
• Yeah I have nothing to argue against removal of HMs =P

Jake♫ said:

This I would just like to see you expand upon. Any particular reason you would like them left out? Personally, leaving them out is just discouraging to a lot of people who battle competitively, and it makes it much more difficult to actually make a Pokémon viable. I can understand keeping some things out so that move tutors actually have a purpose (which I feel that has been done well in the past, it gives a lot of things new toys to play with), but I don't see a point of keeping some of the more powerful TMs out of the game just for the sake of doing it. I guess I can understand leaving some of them out because they probably don't have as much use in-game as they would competitively, but even then I'd love to see some of them included in the Gen 6 TM list.

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To limit the competitive use of TMs. If they keep them as unlimited then I hope that all of the TMs are smaller TMs that can help through the main game and give little use competitively. Make competition ready teams worth raising rather than just slapping on TMs like in B/W. I was so happy when moves like Dark Pulse and Stealth Rock were removed because it limited their use to a select few. Move Tutors should be the ones for competitive use, and since you have to earn either shards or Battle points to get them, it makes it more worth while to get them, plus limits them. Spreading all the super moves freely with no restrictions makes all the teams fairly boring as its easy to copy them if you know how.

Yes I prefer harder work for competitive teams. I disliked the easy to attain teams in B/W. I really wish they'd go back to one time use for TMs as I find infinite use a pointless change. Just make them all Move Tutors if they can be used infinitely. At least this way there'd be a way to control it.

I can understand wanting to work hard for something that's battle-ready, but if people are going for competitive wouldn't you think people are already spending enough time breeding and EV training that taking away useful TMs is kind of becoming overkill? I understand Move Tutors exist, but they're rather limited to how many there really are. I actually agree that TMs should go back to one time use. Would you agree that if they went back to one time usage that these moves shouldn't get removed?

Besides, limiting moves to certain Pokémon is rather silly when you think about Pokémon as a whole game. The point of it is that you are able to use whatever you want how you want it. Now, you can argue "Hey, competitive tiers everything and labels them on how useful they are!" People play more than one tier than just OU. It's not like they're limited in what they can do.

I think if anything taking away TMs like that is just discouraging those who like to partake in competitive battling (Yes, I'm biased, I know =P). Game Freak and Nintendo are well aware of the competitive community and how large it has become, so I doubt they would want to really make them upset. Plus, a lot of moves overlap anyways (Like Dark Pulse, as your example. Who wouldn't want to use it, either in-game or competitively?).

Okay, Stealth Rock I can see as being mainly competitive, but Dark Pulse? That's the go-to special Dark move. It's pretty basic STAB and coverage for any special attackers that can get it. Not exactly a super-competitive use there.

Please get rid of cut and add hedge trimmers as a key item or something. Seriously.

Cut used to be slightly helpful early on, though it quickly started sucking less than half way to the move deleter, but now, with Tackle being an all around better attack (with equal power and more accuracy) Cut just plain sucks. Get rid of it. Please.

I do like how in B2W2 it's more of an optional move (as opposed to walking through grass or fighting trainers and whatnot) but it still sucks and the game could easily be played without it.

I like how TMs are reusable now, and I hope it stays that way. Maybe if they don't get rid of Cut, they could at least move it to a TM like they (thankfully) did for Flash and Rock Smash...

I get that HMs are needed for some things like areas where you'd be trapped if you got in with the move and would be unable to leave without it, but even something like Strength isn't really going to trap you if they keep the Gen5 mechanic where you only have to push the boulder once, ever... I think they could even get rid of Waterfall as an HM if they design the areas like Tohjo Falls (GSCHGSS, east of New Bark Town) for example, with two waterfalls (one you climb and one you go down) and then a ledge to get you back where you started. That wouldn't trap anyone... And I get that Waterfall is a good alternative to Surf for physical water types, but we don't really need so many water type HMs...

As for the TM list, I think some of them need to be kept, the obvious ones (Flamethrower, Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Fire Blast, Thunder, Blizzard, Hyper Beam, Giga Impact, Earthquake, Solarbeam, Psychic, Light Screen, Reflect... You know, those ones.) But some of them just... I dunno. They kinda aren't great, at least a bunch of them. It's nice to have stuff like Thunder Wave since paralysis helps with catching Pokemon and against some tough enemies, but some moves just seem like a waste... Round and Echoed Voice are weird, I'm not into competitive battling, are they useful at all there? I can't imagine using them in game, they seem like a waste of time when I could just give my Pokemon better moves... Also, while I realize they all have their own up and down sides, do we really need Work Up, Bulk Up, and Hone Claws? They all raise attack and one other stat (special attack, defense, and accuracy) but really, do they all have to be TMs? And even if there's reason to keep them...

What's with the order of the TMs. Okay, I get that people know TM 15 as Hyper Beam, and have since the beginning, and the same goes for some other attacks such as Blizzard and Psychic, for example, but the order is just so weird... With all the changes over the generations, it's just a mess of random moves. Maybe they should do a reordering of the TMs... Order them by type or power or something... Put Hyper Beam and Giga Impact next to each other maybe? I dunno, but something should be done...

In Gen 1 there was at least some sort of logical-ish order... Teleport, Mimic, Double Team, and Reflect were all in order, and while they don't have that much to do with each other, at least they are all moves that don't do damage. And a good amount of attacks were grouped by type, like Submission, Counter, and Seismic Toss, and also Earthquake, Fissure, and Dig. But because every generation takes some from the previous ones, and replaces some others, we've got a whole random mess of TMs in a weird random order. Because unless I'm mis-reading Bulbapedia's lists, the TMs haven't even been grouped remotely by type, since Gen 1... There's no three TMs in a row which are the same type in Gen 2 or later. And it just seems to get progressively more messy looking.

Basically I think they need to make the HMs more useful, or demote them to TMs, and I think they should reorder the TMs so it's not such a huge random mess. Considering that in the beginning, it wasn't a mess at all, and looked pretty neat, with most attacks grouped by type, I'm sure it wasn't meant to ever get quite as messy as it has, but I guess it just did, because of how the TMs were replaced through the generations. I think it's time to fix it up though... It's just a big mess.

I'd be okay if they abolished the HM system entirely. Replace it for Key Items instead or give certain Pokémon Field Abilities somewhat similar to the Pokémon Ranger games. Fifth Gen already trimmed the number of HMs from eight to six and removed the Gym Clause that every generation had before. On top of how little use HMs had in Fifth Gen, it honestly felt like GameFreak themselves were beginning to fade out the use of HMs from the games. They can then make priority moves such as Surf, Waterfall, Fly, Strength, Cut, etc. into TMs instead.

If they were to make them into TMs then I'd definitely expect them to keep the current system in place of infinite TM uses, which honestly I still feel like was a silly implementation that I'm not fully keen on seeing come back. I mean it's convenient and everything but it makes HMs seem even more useless (with the only difference between being able to delete them naturally).

All the more reason to remove HMs, in my opinion. I actually would prefer they keep TMs reusable, and not just because it was convenient, but also because it would seem like a step back. GameFreak, ever since the beginning of the third generation, has been slowly moving their way onto the competitive scene of Pokémon. Gen V took the biggest leap there. In making TMs a reusable mechanism rather than a one-time use thing, it certainly made it easier on those in the competitive scene or those thinking of getting into competitive battling a bit easier to do.

Pokémon usually tend to learn the better moves from TMs, and there are a large amount of players who will usually use those TMs earlier on in the game rather than later. In competitive battling, a large portion of movesets come from the help of TMs. Before they were reusable, it was a lot more of challenge to obtain a certain moveset for one's Pokémon if they had already used up that TM before. Gen V made this a lot easier for competitive players by making TMs reusable and also helped players still have Pokémon worth having with the right moves thanks to TMs.

tl;dr I'd prefer they keep TMs reusable and still get rid of HMs.

Trust me, I'm all for helping competitive players out, so that's definitely not my issue here. I guess I just didn't understand why they had to change the mechanics of TMs to be reusable in the first place. Maybe they thought it aligned with HMs better than they are all reusable, just you can remove HMs from moveslots without the help of the Move Deleter? I don't know. Then again, I really don't mind that TMs are reusable in the first place, it just felt like a really strange mechanic change for something that has been set for 10+ years.

tl;dr Idk why I'm arguing against this =x

XanderO said:

To limit the competitive use of TMs. If they keep them as unlimited then I hope that all of the TMs are smaller TMs that can help through the main game and give little use competitively. Make competition ready teams worth raising rather than just slapping on TMs like in B/W. I was so happy when moves like Dark Pulse and Stealth Rock were removed because it limited their use to a select few. Move Tutors should be the ones for competitive use, and since you have to earn either shards or Battle points to get them, it makes it more worth while to get them, plus limits them. Spreading all the super moves freely with no restrictions makes all the teams fairly boring as its easy to copy them if you know how.

Yes I prefer harder work for competitive teams. I disliked the easy to attain teams in B/W. I really wish they'd go back to one time use for TMs as I find infinite use a pointless change. Just make them all Move Tutors if they can be used infinitely. At least this way there'd be a way to control it.

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Most competitive players use Pokégen anyways so making teams harder to get would hurt the non-competitive players who don't want to spend time in the towers getting tons of BP for moves that could easily be more accessible.

The only way to fight cheating in Pokémon games is to make stuff more readily available.

To be honest, I only see the TM/HM list go up to 100 and that's that, because I feel going over 100 TMs/HMs would bring balance issues for a Pokemon's movepool and getting rid of Move Tutors. I only see them getting rid of the gimmick moves like Struggle Bug and Bulldoze and replaced with new TMs.

Cerberus87 said:

Most competitive players use Pokégen anyways so making teams harder to get would hurt the non-competitive players who don't want to spend time in the towers getting tons of BP for moves that could easily be more accessible.

The only way to fight cheating in Pokémon games is to make stuff more readily available.

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While I do agree with the sentiment of this, the games are pretty good at picking up hacks when you go into WiFi and preventing them from being used, so even cheating is difficult now adays =P I'd honestly just like to see the competitive TMs kept since having a giant amount of Move Tutors (as compared to the 10-20 that are usually seen) just seems silly to me.

Why not a 5th slot that can''t be used in battle, and is only for an HM move? That or, like others have said, remove the need for a move deleter.

Pinkie-Dawn said:

To be honest, I only see the TM/HM list go up to 100 and that's that, because I feel going over 100 TMs/HMs would bring balance issues for a Pokemon's movepool and getting rid of Move Tutors. I only see them getting rid of the gimmick moves like Struggle Bug and Bulldoze and replaced with new TMs.

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Future generational Wifi battling will be VERY interesting, then. Namely, we'll have TMs that are reuseable in Gen. V being replaced in Gen. VI with new ones under the same number, and thus we could very well end up with over 100 TM moves that could all be used in Gen. VI Wifi. TM moves are NOT blocked on imports.

Cyclone

I myself was ready to say that we need a better roster of TMs, but ever since I read XanderO's explanation, I actually think I agree with him.

Now that TMs have become reusable, and so many of the best attacks come from TMs, it makes leveling up your Pokemon to learn new moves kinda pointless, because you can just slap all your TMs onto a Pokemon and be done with it. It also makes obtaining TM moves through breeding equally as pointless. The way moves are obtained in this game is kind of unbalanced now.

The quickest way to fix the problem is to remove the infinite use of TMs. The only problem is, before Gen V, gym leaders would give you TMs as prizes, and these TMs would only be found once in the game. So if you needed a second Avalanche or Stealth Rock, and there was no other way to give your Pokemon that move, you were pretty much out of luck. :( Also, if you're trying to breed a Pokemon with the right nature and ability, you would also have to breed Pokemon with all the TM and egg moves you want, which makes breeding more complicated than it is now.

I don't think moves should be impossible to obtain in the games. The fun of Pokemon is making custom creatures to pit against your friends', which means you get to choose the kind of moves you want your Pokemon to use. Rare one-time-only TMs throws a wrench into that fun. However, when it comes to raising Pokemon, I do believe that Gen V practically handed that experience to you on a silver platter. Audino is really easy to find, TMs are infinite use and give Pokemon their best moves, money is laughably easy to earn (even without VS Seeker), and vitamins can be obtained after certain battles. The game just hands you all the best stuff without you ever needing to put up much of a fight to earn any of it, and it takes some of the fun and challenge out of the game.

That's what I liked about the first four generations: breeding and leveling up your Pokemon was vital for improving their skill set, and you actually had to put some effort into obtaining their best moves, even after you beat the game. But that was mostly because TMs were one-time-use, although I don't really want that to happen again. I really liked how Crystal did Move Tutors, where you needed to earn a lot of coins to get the three elemental strikes, which are really great moves, but since Europe is all goofy about gambling in games, that's no longer an option. I don't really like the shards, because obtaining them is too much of a luck-based hassle, and I always thought it was kind of a lame excuse for currency anyway. I've also never been a fan of using Battle Points for TMs, because it's a really tedious method of obtaining them, but I'm okay with them being used for vitamins and hold items.

I say, bring back the Game Corner for a variety of non-gambling skill-based games to earn coins toward moves from Move Tutors. Also, raise the payout on the games, because in HGSS even if you were good at Voltorb Flip, it was still tedious to earn coins from that game, so it never felt worthwhile. Even better, maybe they could bring back the Pokeathlon and use that as a way of earning currency for Move Tutors. I loved the Pokeathlon over every other side-competition specifically because by participating you earned a substantial amount of points you could save toward some worthwhile items, and because of that it became somewhat addictive. That's my problem with other side-competitions, like Contests and Musicals: you don't really get anything useful from doing them.

Anyway, on to Move Tutors. Use those as a way of getting the really powerful TM attacks from Gen V (Flamethrower, Earthquake, Psychic, etc.), but don't make it possible to pass them on via breeding. This way, leveling up to learn moves is still meaningful, TMs are still useful while raising your Pokemon early on, and obtaining the best moves takes effort. There definitely needs to be a way to make raising a Pokemon feel like a worthwhile effort instead of making it insultingly easy to do, but it also shouldn't be a tedious affair, either.

^Thats a solid post there! I think that the thing about the move tutors is tedious and luck-based, there needs to be a different way of getting them, or at least the currency. The Platinum way was kind of fun with the digging underground, it was tedious but at least you could of gotten something more out of that.

TMs that need to be removed - Anything that seems to only be usable by a small margin of Pokemon, example - Snarl and Frost Breath.
TMs that "sucks" still need to be in-game because TM's are not this late-game thing, they are from start to post-game. Having some TM's be sucky is part of the game.

Oh and with cut, I wish they'd bring back its secondary effect as being a repel.

I don't think they will change the whole list, although I think they should modify some moves (*ahem*cut) to make them a little bit more useful. But that's really all I think about it, I'd say they are going to keep the trend of just adding to the list, and maybe modifying some (very few.) TMs/HMs.

Blue Emerald said:

I myself was ready to say that we need a better roster of TMs, but ever since I read XanderO's explanation, I actually think I agree with him.

Now that TMs have become reusable, and so many of the best attacks come from TMs, it makes leveling up your Pokemon to learn new moves kinda pointless, because you can just slap all your TMs onto a Pokemon and be done with it. It also makes obtaining TM moves through breeding equally as pointless. The way moves are obtained in this game is kind of unbalanced now.

The quickest way to fix the problem is to remove the infinite use of TMs. The only problem is, before Gen V, gym leaders would give you TMs as prizes, and these TMs would only be found once in the game. So if you needed a second Avalanche or Stealth Rock, and there was no other way to give your Pokemon that move, you were pretty much out of luck. :( Also, if you're trying to breed a Pokemon with the right nature and ability, you would also have to breed Pokemon with all the TM and egg moves you want, which makes breeding more complicated than it is now.

I don't think moves should be impossible to obtain in the games. The fun of Pokemon is making custom creatures to pit against your friends', which means you get to choose the kind of moves you want your Pokemon to use. Rare one-time-only TMs throws a wrench into that fun. However, when it comes to raising Pokemon, I do believe that Gen V practically handed that experience to you on a silver platter. Audino is really easy to find, TMs are infinite use and give Pokemon their best moves, money is laughably easy to earn (even without VS Seeker), and vitamins can be obtained after certain battles. The game just hands you all the best stuff without you ever needing to put up much of a fight to earn any of it, and it takes some of the fun and challenge out of the game.

That's what I liked about the first four generations: breeding and leveling up your Pokemon was vital for improving their skill set, and you actually had to put some effort into obtaining their best moves, even after you beat the game. But that was mostly because TMs were one-time-use, although I don't really want that to happen again. I really liked how Crystal did Move Tutors, where you needed to earn a lot of coins to get the three elemental strikes, which are really great moves, but since Europe is all goofy about gambling in games, that's no longer an option. I don't really like the shards, because obtaining them is too much of a luck-based hassle, and I always thought it was kind of a lame excuse for currency anyway. I've also never been a fan of using Battle Points for TMs, because it's a really tedious method of obtaining them, but I'm okay with them being used for vitamins and hold items.

I say, bring back the Game Corner for a variety of non-gambling skill-based games to earn coins toward moves from Move Tutors. Also, raise the payout on the games, because in HGSS even if you were good at Voltorb Flip, it was still tedious to earn coins from that game, so it never felt worthwhile. Even better, maybe they could bring back the Pokeathlon and use that as a way of earning currency for Move Tutors. I loved the Pokeathlon over every other side-competition specifically because by participating you earned a substantial amount of points you could save toward some worthwhile items, and because of that it became somewhat addictive. That's my problem with other side-competitions, like Contests and Musicals: you don't really get anything useful from doing them.

Anyway, on to Move Tutors. Use those as a way of getting the really powerful TM attacks from Gen V (Flamethrower, Earthquake, Psychic, etc.), but don't make it possible to pass them on via breeding. This way, leveling up to learn moves is still meaningful, TMs are still useful while raising your Pokemon early on, and obtaining the best moves takes effort. There definitely needs to be a way to make raising a Pokemon feel like a worthwhile effort instead of making it insultingly easy to do, but it also shouldn't be a tedious affair, either.

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I strongly disagree, the TMs are infinite use but have been made difficult to find to compensate for it. Most of the strong TMs can only be found in the post-game. I'm half way through Black 2 and have yet to find a good TM move.

Do you know there are TM moves you can't breed into a Pokémon? Several Pokémon learn Earthquake, whereas their base stages can't. It was really annoying to want to give Earthquake to a starter but finding out Bulbasaur or Charmander can't learn it, so you can't breed the TM into them.

Making it hard to get strong moves will only benefit cheaters who instantly Pokégen their Pokémon without wasting TMs. The people who just want to play for fun will be the ones on the short end of the stick if TMs become disposable again.