Do you want gyms back or a similar form of gyms?

[Bolt the Cat]

Btw I REALLY hope it wont be open world like LOA did it..... with 5 un-connected areas. Horrible

No offense but you really don't seem to understand what open world is. A game like LA generally isn't considered to be open world. Basically imagine instead of having 5 smaller segmented areas throughout the region like LA the entire region is one big map that encompasses the entire game. And you can go anywhere on that map pretty much from the start of the game (or close to it, some games such as BotW restrict you to a small section of the map as a tutorial) and visit any area in any order, without any kind of border impeding your progress, no loading screen anywhere in the overworld. That's what an open world game is. And Game Freak is being very clear on the website that that is the way this game is being designed. They've established that it's a seamless open world and you can enter any area from any direction. They've also established that you can visit any area in any order and you don't need to complete any part of the story to unlock any part of the region. They're trying to make a very clear distinction between what LA did and what this game is doing.

Anyway, more to the topic another common characteristic of open worlds (although not always necessary) is the ability to complete certain storyline events or quest objectives in any order. For example, in BotW you had to go throughout the game and reclaim these giant ancient robot superweapons called Divine Beasts, but you could visit them in any order you want, you didn't need to visit a specific one first then visit the next one, and so on. The Pokemon equivalent of this would be gyms, which is why there's a lot of speculation that we'll be able to complete gyms (or the gym equivalent) in any order.

 

[Trillion]

i'd like to see gyms but with more of a twist. instead of type-specialists they'd have some sort of theme

like in swsh how raihan was the "dragon-type" gym leader but was really more about weather

some quick examples:

1) you could have a gym leader that uses pokemon based on objects, for example. and their team could be something like chandelure, magnezone, and chimecho
2) gym leader that has pokemon with a common ability - intimidate for example
3) gym leader that has pokemon where their highest base stat is their attack stat

these would encourage people to use more strategy than "bring your drednaw to kabu's gym and sweep with it while spamming rock tomb". battling is more than just type matchups. the second example would encourage the use of special attackers for that specific gym, while the third would encourage bringing in your defensive pokemon

i also feel that swsh may have been a sendoff to the traditional gym formula. the badge names were super basic whereas they were pretty unique from gens 1 - 6. they were literally called grass badge, water badge, etc this gen

 

[janejane6178]

Gyms r the best.

 

[vondecayle]

While I did like the trials in Alola because it was refreshing and challenging, it is not something I look forward to in Scarlet/Violet. I would personally like colosseum tournaments like in Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness with a bunch of NPCs in the standings. Add different rules depending on the location. Face many trainers then battle against one boss. Gym leaders with just two pokemon are a pushover and the battle ends to quickly. Gym matches need to be spiced up!

 

[Ultra Beast Lover]

Agreed on the Gym leaders needing a little more to them. They're supposed to be the strongest of the region or at least the town, throw in some twists to the formula.

 

[Mew2]

If gyms return, one thing I would like to see is for their Pokémon team to scale to your own in terms of levels, with their ace being the same level as your highest level Pokémon, with the rest being somewhere between one to five levels lower or so. To compensate, depending on the number of badges you have, they may or may not use TMs, Move Tutor moves, or Egg moves. For post-game rematches, I would have them use competitive Pokémon in terms of EVs, IVs, as well as movesets, maybe having them compensate a bit by not allowing either side to use items other than Hold Items during the battle.

 

[OshyHikari]

If gyms return, one thing I would like to see is for their Pokémon team to scale to your own in terms of levels, with their ace being the same level as your highest level Pokémon, with the rest being somewhere between one to five levels lower or so. To compensate, depending on the number of badges you have, they may or may not use TMs, Move Tutor moves, or Egg moves. For post-game rematches, I would have them use competitive Pokémon in terms of EVs, IVs, as well as movesets, maybe having them compensate a bit by not allowing either side to use items other than Hold Items during the battle.

I probably would lock competitive movesets and EV/IV spreads to rematches only. It would be far too strong for the first match. It’s why some were not too fond of the Elite Four + Cynthia in BD/SP having competitive sets from the get go, as it made the initial run too frustrating for newer players who don’t understand the metagame yet.

 

[Espeonite]

I don't mind either way.

 

[Littlemyuu]

Would be fun if we race on our legendary mascot while the Pokemon battling on hover platforms. but that would be a nice dream.

 

[Ishiftyounot]

I want gyms back, but with a twist to make them a bit more of a challenge (in a sense) without losing the trials / Noble Pokemon bits we got in SMUSUM and Legends: Arceus. These games are going to be fully open world right? So progression won't be tied to location and theoretically you'll be able to do things in whatever order you want, which scuppers my initial idea for the starting few gyms to be typing-based (to introduce the player to type match-ups and creating a balanced team) and ending with gyms based on concepts like weather, Trick Room, terrains, job/archetype-based (like farmer, pirate, chef, etc.) or whatever other concepts the developers can come up with! Raihan was a solid start to that concept and BDSP continued it to some extent with the Crasher Wake / Volkner rematches (who had rain teams) but they could do more?

 

[Bolt the Cat]

Would be fun if we race on our legendary mascot while the Pokemon battling on hover platforms. but that would be a nice dream.

Actually there's been a lot of jokes about the legendaries about battling in a Yu-gi-oh 5D's sort of style, but they could actually be considering something like this as a gimmick (kind of this game's equivalent of Sky Battles, Max Raid Battles, etc.). That would actually fit the game's open world if we could engage in a more mobile style of battle where we're chasing/are chased by an opponent while we're battling them on the legendary. They could even add obstacles that you would have to dodge to avoid taking damage in a sort of LA style. Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs actually did something similar to this in the past where you had to dodge attacks on flying Pokemon (and in fact one of the most memorable parts of that game IMO was where you were trying to reach an island called Mt. Layuda where Zapdos was, but it was protected by constant thunderstorms, so when you went there for the first time there was a section where you were riding Latios/Latias and continuously dodging thunderbolts as you made your way to the island), replicating something like that would be really intense and fun.

That being said, I'm not sure we'll battle like this is the actual gym battles/equivalent per se, and in fact the arena by that windmill suggests that we won't in that battle. So this might be something unrelated.

 

[janejane6178]

I want gyms
I dont want missions that involve stupid things like seeing a picture with and without a disturbing man and tell what is the difference between them
Horrible

 

[Smeargle-Sketch]

I want gyms
I dont want missions that involve stupid things like seeing a picture with and without a disturbing man and tell what is the difference between them
Horrible

What are you referring to?

 

[Ignition]

What are you referring to?

Kiawe's trial in the Alola games with the Hiker

 

[Kaddy2009]

I want gyms to come back: but, I sort of liked how SwSh had it set up where you did a challenge before you got to battle the Gym leader.

 

[janejane6178]

I want gyms to come back: but, I sort of liked how SwSh had it set up where you did a challenge before you got to battle the Gym leader.

But challenges before gym leader always existed o.o
For example, the tree climbing in xy, the glass floor before water GYM in ORAS..

 

[Kaddy2009]

But challenges before gym leader always existed o.o
For example, the tree climbing in xy, the glass floor before water GYM in ORAS..

Oops! I forgot about that, haha

 

[Bolt the Cat]

I miss some of the gym puzzles from the earlier gens (Gens 3 and 4 in particular had a lot of really good gym puzzles). Honestly it feels like we've lost a lot of the interesting puzzle designs from some of those earlier generations. I know it's a bit harder to develop them in 3D, but Zelda comes up with some interesting 3D puzzles all of the time so Game Freak could definitely step things up in this area.

 

[Pokefan_1987]

Kiawe's trial in the Alola games with the Hiker

Yes and unfortunately the game AI is lying, the Marowak still attack you even if he said they only attack if you got the question wrong.


I prefer gyms compared to anything else. The so called omni-boost/totem boost and S.O.S. partner in battles was quite annoying. Araquanid and Togedemaru were very annoying to defeat. I'm glad that Ultra Sun/Moon seemed to nerf how much Totem Lurantis uses Solar Blade since it was known to use it way more than the actual in game limit in the prequels.

 

[TwilightBlade]

It's not that I want them back necessarily but I expect them to return because of the overhaul that they got in Shield and Sword which made gyms popular again.