[Discussion] Balanced pokemon for MMOs

[Omelet]

Over time I have worked on a few pokemon MMO's ,and my job was always game play design or text translation. During that time though I balanced all the fully evolved pokemon stats in order to have a more diverse competitive metagame. Movepool,stat,and ability changes for the most part. If a pokemon was a physical set-up sweeper it very likely still is that ,but maybe just a bit better at what it does. Would this sort of thing interest anybody? I was thinking of finding someone who can create a showdown server (or pokemon online server) if their was any interest in something like this. I would very likely have to pay them for their work ,so that is why I am asking here first if anybody thinks something like this sounds enjoyable. I will give a few examples of battle mechanic changes and a few full pokemon re-balances.

-Stealth rocks- Now gone. Many of the pokemon who used it were compensated with spikes or other things if they needed it. Rocks made it hard to create viable ice,fire,flying,and bug types without them having crazy high stats or some awesome secondary typing or other strong niche(gale wings). It should help free-up team building.
-Legendary pokemon- Unable to be used in battle. This mechanic was originally created due to legendary pokemon being boss encounters and un-catchable in the MMO. I would like to keep it that way though. "Legendaries staying legendary"
- Silly luck removed for the most part. Moves that had a 10% chance to completely shut down a pokemon have been adjusted. Also moves with a very low chance to miss(Example air slash and it's 95% accuracy) have been buffed up to 100% accuracy. Example Ice beam now has a 10% to lower special attack, Thunder bolt a 10% to lower speed,flame thrower chance to lower attack and so on. If you want to cause status while doing damage then use their lower power alternatives like discharge and lava plume.
-The X/Y special attack nerfs reverted for the most part. Ice beam back to 95 power, hydro pump once again 120 power.
-Many moves have received base power or other changes
-Knock off now 60 Bp and not boosted if it knocks an item off
-Pursuit is gone. Dark types received other moves to compensate
-A few new moves have been created. Most of which are things like a decent physical flying type stab or a dark type U-turn to help compensate for loss of pursuit.
-Weather has been reworked and no one creates it just by switching in.
-Mega evolution is now just a form change sort of like how the genie trio has form changes. The megas can hold items and have stats like normal pokemon.They are different from their base forms for example heracross is a moxie choice scarf sweeper while mega heracross is more of a slow bulky tank.
-Random crits are gone. Only moves with an increased chance to crit can crit now. Part of the removal of silly luck.
-Team preview exist ,but you can no longer switch the order of your pokemon. This should bring dedicated leads back.
-Their is a lot more to the changes ,but these are just some highlights I suppose.


Now a few examples! With the balances I was going for a lower tier OU higher tier UU sort of power level I suppose. Each pokemon has a few counters and then a few situations were they should be useful. Of course these balances are not perfect and some things the damage calculator can't tell you ,but we can always fix those later. I can explain any of the balances and how to counter them.

Volcarona- Bug/Fire
Abilities: Shield dust, Flame body
Stats: 85/60/80/105/105/100
Moves: No changes
With stealth rock gone it got a lot more powerful. It got a bit bulkier and lost a lot of special attack. It now needs to quiver dance if it wants to start hitting hard instead of hitting so hard without any boosts.

Crobat- Poison/Flying
Abilities: Infiltrator, Inner focus
Stats: 85/100/80/70/80/130
Moves: No changes
Crobat is versatile ,but just didn't hit hard enough to hold up. Stealth rock removal also helped it ,but it is still very manageable and has quit a few pokes that can wall it.

Weezing- Poison
Abilities: Levitate
Stats: 65/90/120/90/75/65
Moves: +recover
With reliable recovery weezing is able to wall and pivot for many teams. More psychic type pokemon are now viable which means more problems for weezing ,but he can wall many threats. none the less.

Tauros-Normal
Abilities: Sheer force,Intimidate
Stats: 80/108/95/40/80/112
Moves:+Iron head, +zen headbutt
Good all around mix of stats. Not much explaining to do here.

Seaking-water
Abilities: Lighting rod
Stats: 80/115/65/95/90/85
Moves: +Drill peck, Rock slide
Sort of a water type that kills water type counters. He is also a mixed attacker especially if he can net a lighting rod boost. Although he is fairly slow compared to other sweepers.

Now here is were the balances get unpopular. The nerfs.
Garchomp- Dragon/Ground
Abilities: Rough skin, Sand force
Stats: 98/120/90/70/80/100
Moves: No movepool changes. Ice,Fire,and thunder fang got BP buffs which will help him.
100 speed is a good speed to have especially in this relatively slower meta. Garchomp needed some nerfs though. He can still destroy things with his strong duel stabs and can now make use of elemental fangs for extra coverage.

Anyway those are just some examples! I have finished every pokemon's balance. Please let me know what you guys think! I have spent 2 years and many many hours working on this ,and am excited to get some opinions. If you would like me to post a full list of move and mechanic changes let me know!

 

[FL]

I love this idea! I have a similar one around 5 years ago for a battle simulator (like netbattle/shoddy battle). No Ou/UU tiers, just a big one (except maybe few ones like Furret)! I didn't like stats changes because this may change the pokémon too much. I guess that almost everything can be fixed with movepool, ability change and, maybe, extra evolution.

• Stealth rocks: I disagree. Just change the damage (and super-effective damage).
• Pursuit: Halve the damage isn't enough?
• Weather: Just change the ability duraction.
• Mega evolution: Didn't like this change, but I never liked Mega Evolutions anyway.
• Random crits are gone: Have my doubts if this is a good idea
• Team Preview: Just no team preview.

 

[Omelet]

For a while their was a pokemon online balance server when I worked on a different MMO(This game is now canceled due to site owner losing interest). The stats are balanced to reflect that their are not stealth rocks. Rocks are very meta-game centralizing and some-what restrict team building. Hazards are cool ,but you should not feel like you need some way to get them on the field. Like if you use them great and spikes can be really good ,but if you want to create a different kind of lead then that should be an option as well. On the last server pursuit was typeless and had an extra +5 BP and it was pretty cool ,except their really was never a good time to use it and no one really ever did. You were better off just using a stab move to hurt a switch in. Dark types are fine without it especially since a lot of them got compensated. Pursuit much like stealth rock just blocks a pretty high % of psychic and ghost types from ever being that viable. About random crits being gone this was one of my favorite changes. Random crits is silly luck I think , randomly having a chance to loose a battle you otherwise should have one is bad gameplay for the winner("Sorry man about that crit") and the loser("Just out-predicted him the whole match but lost when I got crit on the switch") this sort of scenario is all to common. While luck is still definitely present you for the most part are going to have a choice not to use luck. Like fire blast vs flamethrower for example. I think that type of luck is not bad gameplay because you are taking the risk by choice and you might have to pay for it. About mega-evos I do not like them either, like I have said about a few other things they are meta-game centralizing due to them being pretty much mandatory on every team. I also think that they are good opportunities to make a different version of the pokemon ,and it would be a waste not to use them at all. What you said about not changing stats though I just can't agree with. If you only change abilities then you are still only going to have a small pool of viable pokemon unless you throw around abilities like magic bounce will-nilly which I think would get stale pretty quick. Team preview I think needs to stay with the pool of viable pokemon increasing in size exponentially ,how ever the mechanic were you switch your team order is gone in an effort to make dedicated leads a bit more viable. The weather abilities are gone to make the strategy more versatile(You can use for example anyone you want to start your rain instead of just politoad).

Anyway thank you so much for the feedback!