Progression and Exploration

[Duck]

So, lately Nintendo has been shifting their IPs from progression-based games to exploration-based games.

By that I mean that instead of making the game loop based on getting a certain skill, or a new weapon or things like that, they focus the game loop on exploration - you play game to find new areas in which to play the game.

Notable successes of that new style are Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, both of which break the established formula of their franchises.

Now, the Pokémon core series is very much in the first camp - you're levelling your Pokémon to beat a trainer, which will let you progress further, get items and TMs and other Pokémon, to use to beat more trainers.

But it's not like all the Pokémon properties need to be this way, in fact we've had exploration based Pokémon games before: the Pokémon Rangers games are a lot more exploration based, even if there are a few things that would make it not a "pure" exploration game, and to a certain extent Pokémon Go can be considered an exploration game as well.

And the franchise is in a very good place to do a shift right now: the Switch has a lot more power than the previous hardware, so things like a fuzzy level curve and dynamic encounter tables are very much possible.

Would you like there to be more games based on this exploration design philosophy? Would you like a shift in the core series or would you prefer if those changes were confined to the spin-offs?

 

[SadOldMan]

I'd like to see a little bit more of open World in pokemon games.
Explorig is something that makes the game feel way more massive, that is why I believe new pokemon games shoul give you more freedom to disco ver more stuff on your own.
Sure it should teach you the important things, like the battle mecanics and the pokecenter ir evolutions, etc, but there are other things you should be left to disco ver by yourselve, like the routes you should take, stuff like that.
The exploration is not always about the terrsins or maps or bioms, is more about the options you have and the choice spectrum you are given to use the resources you get through the game.
I'm going too deep for a pokemon game, haha.

 

[Roni]

i'd honestly wanna see how a pokemon game that works like GTA goes. it'd be cool to have a storyline that doesn't coincide with the order of gym leaders you take on, so you can literally just go anywhere and everywhere around the region. maybe have more than 8 gyms but you don't have to battle them all to qualify for the league challenge. absolutely scale the difficulty to how strong your pokemon are at the moment to keep everything consistent (kinda like what Crystal Clear did). just make sure to add something like a mission tracker so the user doesn't get lost or anything. mini map anyone??

it's gonna be a big thing to adjust to, but now that i've just described it, reading it back makes me really wanna play something like that now damn.

 

[Duck]

While I think that some of these aspects could be done for the core series - remove roadblocks entirely and a forced gym progression, you don't have to deal with any story beats besides beating the gym leaders, fuzzy levelling and difficulty, etc - and I do think it'd make for more interesting gameplay, I don't think it's particularly suited for that. Not to mention there are some problems in making that a reality.

While the Switch can do all the work necessary for making this work while still keeping a 60 fps - BoW and Odyssey are proof of that - this would require an overhaul on a lot of things in the series and most importantly the logistics of making the game.

Odyssey took about 3 and half years in development, Sword and Shield took 3. They are nowhere near the same in terms of quality, be it visually, in performance or in terms of content.

Breath of the Wild, an even more intricate game, took 5 years in development. While I think most of the older fans would love if Game Freak took longer dev cycles and maybe expanded their team, they don't really have a lot of incentive to do that right now.

Spinoffs, on the other hand, can be shipped off to a different team, have longer dev cycles and all that jazz. And as it turns out, Pokémon has four spin-offs whose base idea fit very well with exploration:
- Pokémon Rangers
- Pokémon Snap
- PokéPark
- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon

In a ranger-like game, you go around befriending Pokémon to use to clear certain roadblocks. That's the core idea of the game - this can be done BoW style (find what you need to unlock the Big Bad hideout and beat them whenever you want) or Odyssey style (collect N McGuffins to unlock the next area).

In Snap 64, you follow a track and take pictures of Pokémon. A better framing, dynamic pose, lighting etc. will make for more points, but really, you could just, do away with the track and have you explore the areas by yourself. This would allow for more careful and intricate interactions with the Pokémon and I genuinely think could be a lot of fun.

In PokéPark, you're a Pokémon that roams a region to find minigames / mini-battles and just friend them all. The original got a bit stale after a while but I think that with more intricate quests and just you know, asking your friends to do stuff for you instead of having to switch between player characters / unlock moves, you could make it work. Involve Dialga in the storyline and you can make Majora Mask Pokémon and I'd be down for that.

As for Mystery Dungeon, I do think that a tweak to the formula would be necessary. Think Pokémon Breath of the Wild where the shrines are dungeons and you have an initial team for puzzles and stuff.

 

[Sheep]

Never played Ranger or some of the other provided examples but I'm definitely interested in the more explorative aspect they've been including in main games lately, since I realize it adds more longevity to the games for me. I enjoy having a more open world to explore that lets me go where I want as well as hunt for things (shinies in this case) that I can bring along to future games (thanks to HOME).

Breath of the Wild, an even more intricate game, took 5 years in development. While I think most of the older fans would love if Game Freak took longer dev cycles and maybe expanded their team, they don't really have a lot of incentive to do that right now.

Unfortunately this is very true. :( All I can see sticking around is a small area within the main games, like the wild area, that mimics this aspect without giving us a fully-fledged explorative game in this style.

 

[CelloX]

I desperately want a game with open world and possibly even survival mechanics! I want it to feel like how ash had to travel between towns and ran into random events and stuff while surviving the environment in the anime,

 

[colours]

truth be told, i think the progression-style from pokemon games has gotten a bit old. at the very least, exploration-based ones would definitely be welcome! it's probably why the pokemon mystery dungeon games are some of my favourite pokemon games period, because they're almost all exploration based since that's the point of them.

i'd just love a pokemon game where exploration is mainly the focus and progression is merely a bonus. let players wander around to their heart's content and they can choose to resume the storyline if they want or they can choose not to and still roam around freely. that kind of stuff sound exciting and invigorating!

 

[Mab]

i would love to see exploration focus, it's basically what i've been wanting for years. but after they bungled sorta trying that kinda thing with SwSh's wild area, I'm not sure they have the game design chops to make the idea work. nintendo at least knows what they're doing with these exploratory games, game freak iunno...

 

[AquaNinja99]

I love a balance between a LOT of things. This also applies to exploration and progression. If you get an open world game, everyone would start at the starting town and immediately go to the route where OP Pokémon are. While in progression, if you are stuck at one point in the game and you either don't want to go to the Internet and look for a walkthrough or you have NO access to the Internet, you just grind to get overleveled Pokémon and the game will feel easy.

 

[Meister_anon~Master_o f_None]

Personally I would limit that to only the spin-off games, they've already struck the perfect balance in older games between progression and exploration, for me I think it was either emerald, and either diamond or platinum that was the best in that regard.

Now if they did a mystery dungeon series which usually has a nice plot and give it more to explore I think that would be a huge success.
I don't have any solid ideas for it , but I feel that series would benefit the most.

 

[Megan]

I think it's possible to create mainline games that mainly focus on exploration. The first two generations already it it albeit in a very rudimentary way.

However, going that route means they'd need to cut a lot of corners. Taking BotW as an example: in order to give the player all the possibilities they first needed to cut out a lot of items and make exploration based around only a handful (bombs, glider, the magnet thing). No hookshot, no game specific gimmick item (think: ocarina, seasons staff, etc.). Even the amount of usable weapons is rather limited and only vary in terms of how many upgrades there where to, let's say, your basic sword.

I think, if Pokemon were to go there, they need to cut the roster quite a bit. They may even need to cut the amount of TMs and learnable moves, while making emphasis on making moves more viable for exploration. The amount of battles would most likely decrease as well. They're still there, because of course Pokemon still is about fighting about as much as it is about exploration. But battles would also need to become more meaningful. Give people the ability to go wherever they want and suddenly you can't throw trainers at them that block the path and need to be defeated first. The player just climbes a mountain and skips them if they wanted to.