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So, what's the next big battle mechanic? [Megas, Z-Moves, Dynamax, ...]

Flowerchild

fleeting assembly
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    We've had Megas, Z-Moves, and Dyna/Gigantamax and I'm betting this pattern of more or less disposable battle mechanics is gonna continue for at least another generation or two. What kind of thing do you think might come next? Either in a positive "this is what I'm hoping for" way or a cynical "they're gonna do something stupid like X" way. Making up totally ridiculous ideas is both allowed and encouraged.

    Something that just popped into my head now that might be interesting would be a kind of fusion mechanic - basically fusing two party Pokémon together for the duration of a battle. That fused Pokémon gets the better of the two of each stats, up to four types (jeez, imagine quadruple super effective hits) and uhhhh... eight moves? That might be a bit much. But I think I'd enjoy that more than the stuff we've been getting lately because it would actually take some tactical planning to defeat it, yaknow? Not like Dynamic where it's just more attack and HP and basically nothing about the actual battle changes.

    Ramble with me!
     
    Glad to ramble, I thought of a fusion mechanic too! That does sound cool and would be nice to see in the future. I've been thinking about this for a while, so I have a lot of ideas (even for the visuals - I know that's irrelevant here, but that's how my imagination works).

    Your take on the exact mechanics is also what I first had in mind. However, I though about it and that seemed a bit broken (specifically the "gets the better stat" part - for example, fuse a Blissey with anything strong, like a Tyranitar, and it just gets a monstrously huge HP boost; fuse Shuckle and you boosted the subject's defenses to absurd levels with no cost at all).

    My following proposition for the mechanic focuses more on having access to both fused Pokémon's moves, as well discouraging the Blissey/Shuckle scenario:

    -fusion is possible in Double Battles only [you need 2 Pokémon, don't want it used willy-nilly all over the place like Mega Evolution or Z-Moves];
    -fusion can be done once per battle [of course];
    -fused entity gets all of the participant's types, sum of participant's HP, average of their other stats [because it will attack twice, which effectively gives it the sum of the participant's attacking stats, also huge double HP, no need for increased defense (we know what happens with Dynamax)];
    -fused entity doesn't get any stat changes or switch-out healed status conditions that the participants may have [see Visuals below for explanation];
    -while fused, participant's held items and abilities have no effect [of course, can't mix these, too powerful and technically complicated];
    -when making a move, the fused entity makes two moves at once - one from one participant, one from the other, in arbitrary order (LIMITATION OPTIONS: no same move twice, only one status move, some moves cannot stack (Protect, Focus Punch, priority and such being technically tricky in this scenario) etc.);
    -fusion breaks when fused entity goes under X% HP (e. g. 50% or 25%); when it breaks, both participants get their proportional share of the remaining HP and keep all stat changes and status conditions the fused entity had;

    Visually and thematically:

    "The participating Pokémon are returned to their Pokéballs. The Pokéballs are connected with a wire or pole which is extended, filled with energy, spun and thrown in a cool way (think Dynamax football). In the air, a body of energy is materialised from the Pokéballs and their connecting element. It is of generic Pokémon shape (a big, glowing, semi-transparent Substitute Doll), with patchwork colours matching the participant's types. The Pokéballs are its cheeks, the wire a bond between them that allows the Pokémon to control their joined body.

    When the fusion breaks, the body fades away and the connector is unplugged from the Pokéballs which roll away each to its side of the field and release their Pokémon."

    ---
    Second thing, I also thought of a (really cool, if I may say so) power armour mechnic (see details here: https://www.pokecommunity.com/posts/10080673). This is weakness-covering armour imagined primarily to power up weak and mediocre Pokémon by turning their weaknesses into strengths. (You can see how my procedure turned Sableye and Mawile into fast special sweepers and Ledian and Delibird into physical tanks. No, seriously.)

    Power armour being as Japanese a trope as for instance Kaiju, we might just see something like that someday.
    ---
    In general, my liking of current and upcoming mechanics depends largely on how fun and all-inclusive they are. I don't like overly competitive scenarios or there being Pokémon that you must use if you want to win (which there always will be, but at least it can be made harder to happen). I like Dynamax because of this: it is versatile, potentialy creative and available to all. Mega Evolution on the other hand, as cool as it was, just raised the bar so high only ridiculously strong Pokémon could have fun, while others were ground to dust by them in 3 seconds.
     
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    If GameFreak is going to continue the same gimmick, I'm sure it'll just be a fancier and more complex way of making Pokémon larger and stronger. Not sure if I like that though, tbh. :/
     
    for one thing it'd be interesting to see what Game Freak would do with a Shadow Pokemon-esque gimmick from Pokemon Colosseum/XD.
     
    Incidentaly, about the fusion mechanic: there exist 2 four-type combinations that have no weaknesses: Dragon/Water/Bug/Steel and Water/Steel/Ground/Flying.
     
    Incidentaly, about the fusion mechanic: there exist 2 four-type combinations that have no weaknesses: Dragon/Water/Bug/Steel and Water/Steel/Ground/Flying.

    PalkiaScizor and QuagsireSkarmory are the new meta, let's make it happen
     
    Super Evolution of course. Pop a super-stone & go Super Sonic, or Saiyan, whatever you prefer.

    On a serious note, maybe something like Cyber Mewtwo, or Shadow forms. I say that because we seen Cyber & Shadow forms before. Maybe they revisit the days of Shadow Lugia & Cyber Mewtwo.

    Maybe the next title will be futuristic.
     
    While this is something I doubt will ever happen, I'd like a battle mechanic in a future Pokemon game that requires you to use every singe one of your party Pokemon at once in a "cooperative battle" style, similar to the Pokemon Conquest where you have six warriors on a battlefield who battle together. Basically all six of your Pokemon are on the battlefield together and you have to fight with all of them at once. Think of it like hoard encounters, except instead of using only one of your Pokemon, you have to strategically think of what to do with all of your Pokemon on the battlefield at once.

    This would definitely make a Pokemon game feel like a traditional RPG, since in games like Fire Emblem, you don't send out one character at a time, right?

    Maybe they could reserve six v six battles to something like a sports arena.

    Also, I would like another region without the Gym Challenge, but not Island Trials again. I feel like we need another region where Gyms aren't the focus.
     
    thinking upon it a bit it's actually kind of a shame not seeing armoured pokemon cause i think that would've been cool to experience what certain pokemon would've been like "armoured" and the whole lore/explanation behind it.
     
    I know, possibly for the ninth Pokémon Generation, Dynamega and Gigantamega Evolutions might be a good big battle mechanic. You, know Dynamax and Gigantamax plus Mega Evolution is equal to Dynamega and Gigantamega Evolutions. That's all.
     
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