Dear community,
In canon Pokemon games and some romhacks, multiple things irked me and I would have loved to do my own attempts at changing these things. But alas I fail to learn how to do a fangame, so I wanted to spark discussion and maybe give ideas to experimented hackers/RMXPers.
The main motto of Pokemon always has been "gonna catch'em all!", but I rarely ever have seen it in action, for you only have 6 active Pokemons for battling, and more often than not you have one or two HM slaves to complete the campaign. Additionally, I've always felt it was hard to get a newly captured Pokemon up to speed with the current team, given how low level wild encounters are. Therefore I thought I'd do a checklist of novelty mechanics I like to see implemented, it covers opinions on campaign and exp; strategic battling; and items:
- HM items to free space OR HM moves that can be replaced
- Free move re-learner, I find the mushroom thing to be unnecessary
- One Held item that acts as a gen II exp. share for Pokemon stored in PC; instead of gaining a fraction of the exp it gains the total amount -> Allows to train and evolve Pokemons without actively using them, avoids to take breaks to train new Pokemon hours on end
- Cancel the exp. gap between wild and trainer's Pokemon OR allow trainer re-matchs
- Cancel the STAB bonus to encourage more novelty coverage movesets
- Involve Pokemon in puzzles, same style as the Regi quest in RSE; the twist being a PC stands at every puzzle to ease team swaps
- More "battle tower"-like facilities, as done in Pokemon Empyrean, but with even more features, mono-type challenge, 2v2 challenge, mini-cup, with continued access and level scaling with a 5-level range, the goal being to encourage the use of all Pokemon available in the game just for the sake of it. These battle towers would yield exp. points in the form of items after each completed challenge, and you could give those exp. points item to any Pokemon you want. They would come in normalized formats and giving the player a choice ("you have gained 2000 exp. from this victory, would you retrieve them in 1000-exp packs, or in 500-exp packs?" To me it is much more interesting than grinding with wild Pokemon, or using Rare Candies. Same could apply to EVs, instead of earning them chaoticly in battles you would unlock them in challenges.
- Alternatively, some EV-teller and EV-deleter NPCs could appear and allow to monitor EVs along the way instead of having it as a late-game exclusive mechanic. I can't seem to understand why it is so difficult to access that.
- Generally, adding ways to earn exp other than battling, there could be side-quest, daily or weekly events and missions.
- Completely re-assess the way hidden items appear, I'm tired to find Max Potions in early-game area and having to stock them for later, instead make them be more Ethers
- Having more items to simulate moves, for example if X Defense Harden move, one could imagine items in similar fashion with debuffs or basic typed-moves (Ember, Thundershock, Bite, etc.). Use of said items would allow to manage a coverage gap in a battle. Very RPG-ish though.
- Even more bag categories OR same bag categories in the item PC... Tired to have disorganized stocks of berries, evolution stones, held items, EV medicines, potions, etc etc. The categorization is ever-growing. Pokemon Empyrean has done a great job but it could go even further.
- Since we make the "grinding" a bit easier, we could allow some drawbacks, for example permanent alterations on Pokemon made by rogue NPCs: stat malus, permanent status alterations, stealing player's Pokemon, you name it.
All of these stay in the realm of a game with batling of course, I think I also would love a game system where all you have to do is catch'em all and not necessarily battle, in that regard the good old Pokemon Snap was very refreshing to me when I had a chance to play it.
If you have any other crazy idea that completely changes the core values of Pokemon main series I'll be happy to read.
In canon Pokemon games and some romhacks, multiple things irked me and I would have loved to do my own attempts at changing these things. But alas I fail to learn how to do a fangame, so I wanted to spark discussion and maybe give ideas to experimented hackers/RMXPers.
The main motto of Pokemon always has been "gonna catch'em all!", but I rarely ever have seen it in action, for you only have 6 active Pokemons for battling, and more often than not you have one or two HM slaves to complete the campaign. Additionally, I've always felt it was hard to get a newly captured Pokemon up to speed with the current team, given how low level wild encounters are. Therefore I thought I'd do a checklist of novelty mechanics I like to see implemented, it covers opinions on campaign and exp; strategic battling; and items:
- HM items to free space OR HM moves that can be replaced
- Free move re-learner, I find the mushroom thing to be unnecessary
- One Held item that acts as a gen II exp. share for Pokemon stored in PC; instead of gaining a fraction of the exp it gains the total amount -> Allows to train and evolve Pokemons without actively using them, avoids to take breaks to train new Pokemon hours on end
- Cancel the exp. gap between wild and trainer's Pokemon OR allow trainer re-matchs
- Cancel the STAB bonus to encourage more novelty coverage movesets
- Involve Pokemon in puzzles, same style as the Regi quest in RSE; the twist being a PC stands at every puzzle to ease team swaps
- More "battle tower"-like facilities, as done in Pokemon Empyrean, but with even more features, mono-type challenge, 2v2 challenge, mini-cup, with continued access and level scaling with a 5-level range, the goal being to encourage the use of all Pokemon available in the game just for the sake of it. These battle towers would yield exp. points in the form of items after each completed challenge, and you could give those exp. points item to any Pokemon you want. They would come in normalized formats and giving the player a choice ("you have gained 2000 exp. from this victory, would you retrieve them in 1000-exp packs, or in 500-exp packs?" To me it is much more interesting than grinding with wild Pokemon, or using Rare Candies. Same could apply to EVs, instead of earning them chaoticly in battles you would unlock them in challenges.
- Alternatively, some EV-teller and EV-deleter NPCs could appear and allow to monitor EVs along the way instead of having it as a late-game exclusive mechanic. I can't seem to understand why it is so difficult to access that.
- Generally, adding ways to earn exp other than battling, there could be side-quest, daily or weekly events and missions.
- Completely re-assess the way hidden items appear, I'm tired to find Max Potions in early-game area and having to stock them for later, instead make them be more Ethers
- Having more items to simulate moves, for example if X Defense Harden move, one could imagine items in similar fashion with debuffs or basic typed-moves (Ember, Thundershock, Bite, etc.). Use of said items would allow to manage a coverage gap in a battle. Very RPG-ish though.
- Even more bag categories OR same bag categories in the item PC... Tired to have disorganized stocks of berries, evolution stones, held items, EV medicines, potions, etc etc. The categorization is ever-growing. Pokemon Empyrean has done a great job but it could go even further.
- Since we make the "grinding" a bit easier, we could allow some drawbacks, for example permanent alterations on Pokemon made by rogue NPCs: stat malus, permanent status alterations, stealing player's Pokemon, you name it.
All of these stay in the realm of a game with batling of course, I think I also would love a game system where all you have to do is catch'em all and not necessarily battle, in that regard the good old Pokemon Snap was very refreshing to me when I had a chance to play it.
If you have any other crazy idea that completely changes the core values of Pokemon main series I'll be happy to read.