New Gameplay Features/Mechanics Discussion Thread

[Azhdarcho]

The trouble I have with the couple proposed solutions for HM moves is that there's a real disparity between how good some HM moves are. Like, yes, Cut and Flash are not especially useful late in the game (though I've found Flash helpful when trying to catch legendaries by bottoming out their accuracy while I spam pokeballs), but Surf is one of the better water moves available to lots of mons.

So, if we add in a fifth moveslot, it gives a real advantage to Surf-learners or even Strength-learners, because they will have access to five viable moves, compared to normal mons or the mons who can only learn Cut, etc. You could force it to not be available in battle, but what's the point of it being a move? Or you could do something convoluted where you could choose to teach it as a regular move OR an HM move, but that's confusing. If HMs get relegated to Key Items, then the moves still have to become TMs to be teachable, or they have to become level-up moves/tutor moves/egg moves. There are also moves that have field effects that are no longer HMs or never were HMs, like Dig, Teleport, Flash, and Rock Smash, so it's not like field moves would disappear if you make the HMs Key Items.

I guess my preferred solution would be to move up the Move Deleter to earlier in the game, in an easily accessed town. Instead of putting him in like the second-to-last town that takes forever to get to, I'd put him in the middle of the game, where Cut is starting to lose its viability, and it would make it easy to shuffle your party around. Alternatively, they could make them overwriteable, but not let you release the last monster you have that could possibly learn it so that you don't get trapped.

Or you could take the route GF seems to be taking and just make them completely unnecessary for completing the game, but I'm an old fart who thinks that's more watering-down of the game's difficulty and BACK IN MY DAY CRIPPLING YOUR PARTY WITH USELESS MOVES WAS JUST HOW THINGS WERE DONE AND WE LIKED IT THAT WAY *waves cane*.

 

[clbgolden12]

Someone posted this on the news thread:

https://41.media.tumblr.com/ff91d94953894693d287fbe324c9d612/tumblr_o36ockWJT41u235xho1_1280.png

Further support of my earlier theory?

And, regarding trainer-Pokemon, err, "fusion", I can see that being in these games. In fact, in Pokken there's these stones called Resonance Stones that connect the trainers with their Pokemon. Maybe these stones could be the ones on the Japan logo. The only problem with this is, however, is that Pokken is a spin-off, Greninja and Ash (appear) to not have stones on them when they revert to Ash-Greninja form (edit: Then again, the devs might need to add something to activate it), and we don't even know what the Resonance Stones look like.

 

[WhiteBlair]

Someone posted this on the news thread:

https://41.media.tumblr.com/ff91d94953894693d287fbe324c9d612/tumblr_o36ockWJT41u235xho1_1280.png

Further support of my earlier theory?

Solid catch, in my opinion. Though, is the speculated fusion is between the Trainer-Pokémon or Stone-Pokémon? I haven't followed the Pokkén Tournament details much, so unaware if the Shadow Mewtwo is a merge of its trainer or not.

 

[clbgolden12]

Solid catch, in my opinion. Though, is the speculated fusion is between the Trainer-Pokémon or Stone-Pokémon? I haven't followed the Pokkén Tournament details much, so unaware if the Shadow Mewtwo is a merge of its trainer or not.

We're still not sure exactly what Shadow Mewtwo is, yet.

Edit: Also, what do you mean by Stone-Pokemon?

 

[TyranatarGojira]

I'd like to see them making levelling harder. Like making opposing Pokémons give less experience or revamp the experience groups, say, like this:

- 600.000 -> 1.000.000 (rodents, early route bugs, etc).
- 800.000 -> 1.250.000 (regular 2-stage Pokémons).
- 1.000.000 -> 1.500.000 (regular 3-stage Pokémons).
- 1.059.860 -> 1.750.000 (starters).
- 1.250.000 -> 2.000.000 (pseudo-legendaries).
- 1.640.000 -> 2.500.000 (legendaries).

But, to make things easier for competitive players, growth till level 50 would be the same as ever and then become harder from 51 to 100.

Eh, problem is that you've got soooooo many pokemon these days, that for completionists (Me! Put out Manaphy already!) it'll be irritating to see it slow down. And be really unfair to the guys who have to be very high level to evolve, like Hydragon and Volcanoa.

As for fusing Pokemon... Well we have an example of that. Kyurem. Fusing has to be done outside of battle, and it only works with very specific pokemon. And it looks like Zygarde might be fusing too, only with other Zygarde. And that's even assuming the fusion has anything to do with merging Pokemon, or is even a thing.

I do hope the Trainer customization from XY returns. That was one of the biggest complaints for ORAS, that it was missing.

I'd also like something like Super Training for the EV's. It was a bit less tedious than trying to constantly track down the right pokemon, and grinding, and grinding, and grinding to get the EV up. Also I liked being able to just look at a chart to figure out what the growth was.

 

[WhiteBlair]

We're still not sure exactly what Shadow Mewtwo is, yet.

Edit: Also, what do you mean by Stone-Pokemon?

Stone, as in the diamond-shaped figure in the logo.

 

[clbgolden12]

Stone, as in the diamond-shaped figure in the logo.

Oh. In that case, the theory is on Pokemon-Trainer "fusion".

 

[Wryteous]

I truly hope fusion is not a thing. As cool as some design concepts would be. Pokemon-pokemon and pokemon-trainer fusion is a totally unrequired mechanic that will just make battling and strategy way too complicated. And coming off the generation that just introduced Mega-Evolution, it seems even more unnecessary. Plus, fusion is such a generic cliche.

What we need is more flexibility in battle options. Rotation, Triple and Inverse battles are rarely touched upon, they need to be given more spotlight. A customizable rule system and custom battle options reminiscent of the stadium games would improve both competitive and casual online battling so much too.

 

[The Pokemon Broadcast]

Or you could do something convoluted where you could choose to teach it as a regular move OR an HM move, but that's confusing. If HMs get relegated to Key Items, then the moves still have to become TMs to be teachable, or they have to become level-up moves/tutor moves/egg moves. There are also moves that have field effects that are no longer HMs or never were HMs, like Dig, Teleport, Flash, and Rock Smash, so it's not like field moves would disappear if you make the HMs Key Items.

You do make good points here.
It would be confusing in general, I agree

In that case, I'll still hold on to the hope of HMs becoming either items our character can use and acquire on their journey, or at the very least, phase the HMs out over time, like getting "rid" of some lesser HMs, like demoting Cut to TM status, like what happened with Rock Smash. I mean, at least starting in Gen 6, we only seem to need Cut to get an item we couldn't get before. And that item isn't even crucial to the story.

A few other ideas I came up with:

1.) I can't remember which board it was on, but I saw someone mention the idea of the game showing the Pokemon actually dodge an attack instead of just standing there. In the same vein as that, I though of maybe having every Pokemon have a unique attack animation for every possible attack it could learn. Whether that's by normal level up, HM/TM moves, Egg moves, Move tutors etc.

To use the move Low Kick as an examples, there are some Pokemon where when they use this moves, the general animation just looks silly, to be honest. I mean, the Pokemon model is just spinning in a static position, and it looks ridiculous. It would be cool to see, for example, the Pokemon using this move actually make a kicking motion with one of their legs. Also, to continue this whole "unique battle animations" tangent, if a Pokemon is attacking another, it would be cool to show them actually attacking each other. Like if a Rattata is using a simple Tackle attack, show it running up to the opponent to, well, physically tackle it!

But then, would this make the games appear too violent, especially when it comes to more powerful, whether special or physical, moves?

I know this won't happen for these games. Speculations is fun isn't it?

2.) Am I the only one that found it weird for Pokemon to gain experience when simply catching a Pokemon? I think this is a way to gain extra exp. points that could be done away with. If I'm simply catching something with just a Quick or Master ball, my Pokemon shouldn't be getting points for just standing there.

Similar thing should happen for double battles (I'm not including triple and rotation battles, since all three Pokemon in those battle formats have a high chance of doing something at some point). If I'm just sending out another Pokemon and the other one is the one knocking out the opponents last Pokemon, the one I just sent out should be getting nothing, because it technically did nothing at all.

3.) Even though I don't mind turning it off for the maing game, I still think the Exp. share could be fixed. Here's how: before the Pokemon league, we get the old Exp. share at some point. We get the new Exp. share (how it works now) in the post game. Because the new Exp. share is a godsend for post-game leveling.

 

[Gabriel Faria]

Eh, problem is that you've got soooooo many pokemon these days, that for completionists (Me! Put out Manaphy already!) it'll be irritating to see it slow down. And be really unfair to the guys who have to be very high level to evolve, like Hydragon and Volcanoa.

Well, they could have post-game areas with lots of trainers. These trainers would have teams of high-levelled mons and be battleable daily. Also, some of them could have Blissey or Audino teams.

Another thing that would be cool is a revamp of the levels Pokémon evolve at. I think many evolve too early into their final stages, like at the 10s or 20s. Something like gen V would work. Making the early route bugs evolve at, say, lv.10->lv.18, the starters at lv.20->lv.45, etc...

 

[Trainer Yusuf]

3.) Even though I don't mind turning it off for the maing game, I still think the Exp. share could be fixed. Here's how: before the Pokemon league, we get the old Exp. share at some point. We get the new Exp. share (how it works now) in the post game. Because the new Exp. share is a godsend for post-game leveling.

Ideal way to handle this would be having two different items, regular Exp Share, which would be a multiple regular held item that works as previously, and another new Key Item that works as the current Exp Share.

Because otherwise we can't just turn on/off the mechanics to be different, the items are effectively different items with different classifications and effects.

 

[TyranatarGojira]

I truly hope fusion is not a thing. As cool as some design concepts would be. Pokemon-pokemon and pokemon-trainer fusion is a totally unrequired mechanic that will just make battling and strategy way too complicated. And coming off the generation that just introduced Mega-Evolution, it seems even more unnecessary. Plus, fusion is such a generic cliche.

Agreed. And we already had the Poke-Amie for something where the trainer pokemon bond effects the Pokemon, improving performance.

The whole "Crystal in the logo means fusion" thing is shaky to me. I mean yeah we had the mega stone in XY's title, and the Orbs in ORAS, but those are two very similer mechanics. We could well be looking at something very like primal reversion for the legendaries or something.

What we need is more flexibility in battle options. Rotation, Triple and Inverse battles are rarely touched upon, they need to be given more spotlight. A customizable rule system and custom battle options reminiscent of the stadium games would improve both competitive and casual online battling so much too.

Or the ability to pick matches with conditions like the Battle Frontiers. Like the roulette, or using rental or random Pokemon.

 

[Anti Spiral]

Eh, problem is that you've got soooooo many pokemon these days, that for completionists (Me! Put out Manaphy already!) it'll be irritating to see it slow down. And be really unfair to the guys who have to be very high level to evolve, like Hydragon and Volcanoa.

Manaphy is avaiable on Ranger still. I bought a copy recently and was able to transfer to my current games.

 

[Tsukuyomi56]

Hopefully Pokemon fusion will not become a thing, it seems like the sort of stuff that involves magic or stuff seen in a laboratory in the Pokemon world particularly as it only makes sense for Kyurem and Reshiram/Zekrom and to some extend, Magnemite and the Beldum evolution line (based on their Pokedex descriptions). As for Pokemon/human fusions, no, just no, let that mechanic stay in the Digimon series.

 

[Wryteous]

Or the ability to pick matches with conditions like the Battle Frontiers. Like the roulette, or using rental or random Pokemon.

That would be great! I can imagine just entering an online frontier event with nine other people. We all get to pick rentals and start a short tournament. Online features like that would be incredible

 

[baguette]

I just hope there's gonna be some more things to do after the main game or just more ways to interact with Pokémon.
I'm old, I just want to pet cute things haha

Also recently I began to really get a laugh out of Pokémon breeding since basically when you're breeding for IVs you end up having generations of incest babies...wonder how that doesn't destroy the genepool. Or what about a heterosis effect so that the baby would be 'stronger' the more different the parents are lol

What I'd really like tho is some way to 'reset' your Pokémon's levels

 

[jireh the provider]

Trainer Skills.

You know how the Pokémon games are all about the Pokémon growing up, becoming stronger and better? Why doesn't the trainer do the same?

Imagine us, the trainer, influencing the battles with our own "Abilities". Trainer Skills would affect all our Pokémon, but unlike Pokémon Abilities, we could choose our Skill - only one, that's the key - from the list of available ones. And we would gradually unlock more options by playing the game, some type-related ones could even be tied to the Badges and the best ones could be an incentive to compete in Battle Frontier facilities (or Maison or future equivalents).

Here are some examples of possible Skills to give You an idea:

Safe Entry: This trainer's Pokémon aren't affected by traps on the field. Meaning no more Stealth Rock and Sticky Web.

Enthusiastic: This trainer's Pokémon wake up faster when put to sleep. Meaning Early Bird for everyone, suck it, Dark Void.

Unyielding: This trainer's Pokémon receive less (-20%) damage from enemy attacks, but receive a cut (-20%) in Speed. Good for Trick Room teams for example.

Fast Dodge: This trainer's Pokémon are skilled at evading priority moves (I'm thinking 50% chance).

Venomous: This trainer's Pokémon always inflict bad poison instead of regular one, be it as a result of moves or Abilities (like Poison Touch or Poison Point). Could be a reward for beating a Poison-type Gym, for example.

True-Grit: This trainer's Rock-type Pokémon cannot be OHKO'd. Basically all Rock-types get a bonus Sturdy.

Unarmed: This trainer's Pokémon are faster (~20%) when they don't hold items or if they use/lose them. Unburden for all, except with a much lower boost that lasts through the match and can apply to Pokémon with no items from the start.

and many many more!

Something like this would be a great improvement toward the essential RPG element - character's development - as well as a perfect way to perhaps fix some problems people have - like the complaints about Stealth Rock - without necessarily changing the game's mechanics. It would pretty much be team customization, how cool is that? Even more cool would be to see the trainer themselves influence the battles (by making a team that's even more "their own") and improve over time. And again, making some of the Skills rewards for completing various challenges would be a sweet form of encouragement.

Just to anan extra element in the design, I would say that in singe player, there should be a drawback on having battles with these abilities being used. Like, al the pokemon being used only gets half the experience. Say, if I beat a enemy, normally, I would get 300 exp. points on that pokemon. But with my trainer skills included, my pokemon only get 150

 

[kariocean]

If pokemon fusion is a thing in the next game then here's my future team: Gardevoir, Gothitelle, Froslass, Lopunny, Meloetta, and whatever the fire starter is.

On a more serious note I want Meloetta to be able to learn boomburst in next game I mean considering her concept of singing it just seems weird to me that Meloetta can't learn it.

 

[Supersonicbro]

I don't know where this will go because there's no "New attacks and abilities" page so I'll just put it here.

I just had an idea about two abilities they could make.

1. Lucky Guess: The pokemon well randomly reveal an opponets move. In a double battle it'll only target one pokemon at random like how synchronize does.

2. Sharp eyes: When the pokemon is sent out it'll tell whether the pokemon is weaker to physical attacks or special ones based on the defense and special defense of the pokemon. In the instance of the numbers being the same, it'll have a message saying "it's defenses are even!" It's a pretty short message to explain that point.

These abilities will add more value to "support" pokemon and make them more like scouters without needing to do much testing against the opponent.

 

[Citizen Insane]

If pokemon fusion is a thing in the next game then here's my future team: Gardevoir, Gothitelle, Froslass, Lopunny, Meloetta, and whatever the fire starter is.

On a more serious note I want Meloetta to be able to learn boomburst in next game I mean considering her concept of singing it just seems weird to me that Meloetta can't learn it.

I was more thinking of Pidgeot learning Boomburst for its mega evolution. I don't get why Swellow gets it but Pidgeot not.