Paldea Region - Discussion/Speculation Thread

[janejane6178]

I've always felt like towns in Pokemon have a lot of appeal and can be really great when done right. Part of the fun of the journey isn't just the routes and wilderness, but going from town to town and seeing what there is to see there.

Cities can be just as rich a setting for exploration as open wilderness imo. There's a reason the Yakuza series has such good open world game design even though its map is relatively small compared to open world games more focused on wilderness.

I yearn for the day we get a city in a Switch Pokemon game that has as much as to do in it (or more to do in it) as Lumiose City or Castelia City. Aesthetically I've always really enjoyed the city design in Pokemon, especially in the 3d Pokemon games, and I'd like to see them push what they can do with that. Galar's cities are beautiful but there's very little to do in them and for most of them pretty much no reason to regularly revisit them.

Accurate thank u
Thr cities in Galar felt empty and rushed
Especially the grass gym one

 

[Ultra Beast Lover]

So far the one city they've shown looks really pretty. Of course it's very much possible that there won't be a lot to do but I'm holding out hope that there will be a lot of things to do. I hope the castle/cathedral looking building is actually explorable, in fact it almost reminds me of something from one of the movies in the anime but I forget which one as there's been a surprising number of castle looking structures.

 

[U.N. Owen]

One of the things I'd like to see return is not having straight line routes. Galar's routes felt like constant straight lines. The major effect this had was ultimately shrink the region size. It did not help that the settlements themselves felt very much empty which left a lot to be desired.

 

[Orphalesion]

One of the things I'd like to see return is not having straight line routes. Galar's routes felt like constant straight lines. The major effect this had was ultimately shrink the region size. It did not help that the settlements themselves felt very much empty which left a lot to be desired.

Well, with the game being open world I think there is less chance of straight line routes returning.

 

[Wulava]

I honestly wish that there would be actual dungeons with puzzles in this one.

Also, I would love to have A LOT of sidequests in this one. One thing I really like in Legends were collecting stuff and doing side challenges and mini-games. The Old Verses, wisps, and Unown hunting were a great distraction. It really encourages you to explore every nook and cranny of the area. Imagine finding 200 Joltik in this game.

--

On a different note, this region could potentially be the one at war with Kalos 3,000 years ago. If I'm not mistaken, Galar had no references to that historical event.

 

[Sponge]

I honestly wish that there would be actual dungeons with puzzles in this one.

We had something like that briefly in Legends, the snowpoint temple had a puzzle element. Maybe they'll expand upon that for this game.

 

[DSDark]

133.3 % increase is not a minor difference

That's not really the point. The point is in both 6 and 8 actually a lot of the cities are "empty". They are full of buildings but there's not reason to go in them or you simply can't go in them. I'd like for SV to have a minimalist approach to it's cities and towns. Give me enough building that I can go into that serve at least a one time purpose. Crafting would help with this, as in if every house at a crafting item I could get if I went in. Or if every person had dialogue that was meaningful in some way.

 

[Sponge]

Well, with the game being open world I think there is less chance of straight line routes returning.

I wouldn't mind if the game had "routes" in the sense that they're just commonly travelled paths. (used by people who aren't pokemon trainers or at least not strong pokemon trainers)

From a world building point of view it would make sense to still have routes, even if there was nothing stopping you from ignoring them and wandering off into the wilderness.

 

[janejane6178]

That's not really the point. The point is in both 6 and 8 actually a lot of the cities are "empty". They are full of buildings but there's not reason to go in them or you simply can't go in them. I'd like for SV to have a minimalist approach to it's cities and towns. Give me enough building that I can go into that serve at least a one time purpose. Crafting would help with this, as in if every house at a crafting item I could get if I went in. Or if every person had dialogue that was meaningful in some way.

How r the cities in xy empty? In swsh u had a town without a single building to go into
How can u compare that to xy, which even had a hige towns with countless of buildings to go into and each of its towns and cities had several buildings

 

[Teravolt]

How r the cities in xy empty? In dwah u had a town without a single building to go into
How can u compare that to xy, which even had a hige towns with countless of buildings to go into and each of its towns and cities had several buildings

Number of buildings does not equal importance.

Take Laverre City. If my memory is correct, there was a boutique, a Pokémon Center, and the factory (which was useless once the factory quest was finished).

The only city I remember enjoying extensively in Kalos was Lumiose City. That was cool. Apart from that, I couldn’t tell you the names of most cities in Kalos.

I do agree that SwSh had pretty bland towns, though.

 

[DSDark]

I wouldn't mind if the game had "routes" in the sense that they're just commonly travelled paths. (used by people who aren't pokemon trainers or at least not strong pokemon trainers)

From a world building point of view it would make sense to still have routes, even if there was nothing stopping you from ignoring them and wandering off into the wilderness.

I think this is important. Have the "walking path" be labelled as route whatever. However the areas surrounding the routes need to have names as well similar to the wild area and the 'fields in Legends.

 

[Wulava]

I would really love it if towns/cities would have considerable changes in them as you do more stuff in the game, similar to how Jubilife Village grows as you finish requests in Legends. Areas becoming more populous, blocked streets/locked buildings becoming accessible, more stores unlocked, store catalogs expand, mini-games unlocked, etc.

This would encourage backtracking just to check new stuff.

 

[Tsukuyomi56]

If we are going open world the game may use the obedience mechanic from Legends: Arceus where the “met level” serves as the limit for a Pokémon to willingly obey your commands (rather than the bandaid method used in Sword/Shield). The option to go after high level Pokémon is there (if you are gutsy enough) but will not be of much use until you get more badges or their equivalent.

 

[DSDark]

So I have a thought about the how the openness of the region and ride pokemon could work.

Open region: We know that SV is going to be open world the questions is how open. Breath of the wild is what generally comes to mind. In BOTW you can go to any section of the map from the start without anything limiting excess. If you want to go to hyrule castle, the island in the southwest, or volcano you can. Whether you survive those areas is a different thing; however, you can go there if you want. However, you cannot reach every part of those sections. You cannot climb up every mountain, swim across every lake, glide across every open space. To reach these sections you have either spend your stamina by completing shrines or craft enough stamina rich foods and elixirs. SV should use this model and apply it to it’s open region. However, stamina shouldn’t work the same way it does in BOTW. Stamina should be tied to the pokemon you are riding. SV should expand on the ride system from Legends and allow the character to register their own pokemon for their rides. Each type of ride; flying, surfing, climbing, and riding should be upgradable and each upgrade should be locked behind completing a gym. Each ride start off at level 0 and can be upgraded to level 3. For the four rides, 8 upgrades are locked behind the gym badges, and then 4 more for beating the elite 4 round out the upgrade system to 12 upgrades and each ride caps at 3. You can choose which mount you want to upgrade, if you want you can fill you surfing ride upgrades on the first 3 gyms. This would be similar how in BOTW you can choose whether to upgrade your stamina or hearts for your play style.

Rides: Each ride would have a set of pokemon that can be registered to that ride. This would be done from your rotom phone or pc. The regional bird would be the base flying example. Stage 1 would be flying level 0, stage 2 is level 1 and stage 3 is level 2. The regional bird would not reach the highest level, without help. However, if you choose to evolve your ride and you have not unlocked the next level the game will warn you that if you evolve this pokemon at this time you will need to register a new pokemon for that ride. SV would need to use Legends evolution system, where the player picks when they want to evolve their pokemon. Each upgrade improves the ride. Level 0 is the most basic for each ride, for flying you can only fly for a short time, slowest speed, a short vertical lift before gliding. Each next level has a longer and faster dash, and the vertical lift improves each time. Surfing tier 0 slowest dash speed and shortest stamina, with each level getting a little faster and more stamina, with tier 3 unlocking diving and unlimited stamina. Climbing and riding level increases would be speed and stamina based. As you upgrade your rides more parts of the region become accessible and in these new areas rare pokemon would be found and pokemon with higher tier potentials would be found as well. As a reward for being the champion, you could earn items in the postgame to upgrade any fully evolved pokemon within the ride to highest level. So you could get your regional bird to level 3 this way.

 

[Fairy King]

We have seen some of the map. In the trailer we can see the far left coast and the bottom coast.

I wonder if the blue dots are towns or cities. And wow, that is a LARGE body of water in the north.

 

[janejane6178]

--

On a different note, this region could potentially be the one at war with Kalos 3,000 years ago. If I'm not mistaken, Galar had no references to that historical event.

That would be splendid. I want them to reference on that if its true

 

[DSDark]

That would be splendid. I want them to reference on that if its true

imagine getting Hyrule warriors pokemon canonical spinoff that is the war between Kalos and if it is this region?

 

[Bolt the Cat]

So I have a thought about the how the openness of the region and ride pokemon could work.

Open region: We know that SV is going to be open world the questions is how open. Breath of the wild is what generally comes to mind. In BOTW you can go to any section of the map from the start without anything limiting excess. If you want to go to hyrule castle, the island in the southwest, or volcano you can. Whether you survive those areas is a different thing; however, you can go there if you want. However, you cannot reach every part of those sections. You cannot climb up every mountain, swim across every lake, glide across every open space. To reach these sections you have either spend your stamina by completing shrines or craft enough stamina rich foods and elixirs. SV should use this model and apply it to it’s open region. However, stamina shouldn’t work the same way it does in BOTW. Stamina should be tied to the pokemon you are riding. SV should expand on the ride system from Legends and allow the character to register their own pokemon for their rides. Each type of ride; flying, surfing, climbing, and riding should be upgradable and each upgrade should be locked behind completing a gym. Each ride start off at level 0 and can be upgraded to level 3. For the four rides, 8 upgrades are locked behind the gym badges, and then 4 more for beating the elite 4 round out the upgrade system to 12 upgrades and each ride caps at 3. You can choose which mount you want to upgrade, if you want you can fill you surfing ride upgrades on the first 3 gyms. This would be similar how in BOTW you can choose whether to upgrade your stamina or hearts for your play style.

Rides: Each ride would have a set of pokemon that can be registered to that ride. This would be done from your rotom phone or pc. The regional bird would be the base flying example. Stage 1 would be flying level 0, stage 2 is level 1 and stage 3 is level 2. The regional bird would not reach the highest level, without help. However, if you choose to evolve your ride and you have not unlocked the next level the game will warn you that if you evolve this pokemon at this time you will need to register a new pokemon for that ride. SV would need to use Legends evolution system, where the player picks when they want to evolve their pokemon. Each upgrade improves the ride. Level 0 is the most basic for each ride, for flying you can only fly for a short time, slowest speed, a short vertical lift before gliding. Each next level has a longer and faster dash, and the vertical lift improves each time. Surfing tier 0 slowest dash speed and shortest stamina, with each level getting a little faster and more stamina, with tier 3 unlocking diving and unlimited stamina. Climbing and riding level increases would be speed and stamina based. As you upgrade your rides more parts of the region become accessible and in these new areas rare pokemon would be found and pokemon with higher tier potentials would be found as well. As a reward for being the champion, you could earn items in the postgame to upgrade any fully evolved pokemon within the ride to highest level. So you could get your regional bird to level 3 this way.

I like this idea, reminds me of Ranger a bit how stronger Pokemon had stronger field abilities for clearing more advanced obstacles. Thing is though, BotW didn't really lock its Divine Beasts behind stamina upgrades or runes, which is the BotW equivalent of what you're proposing. You were just locked to the Great Plateau where you learned how to use each rune and then once you did that, you could tackle whichever Divine Beast you wanted in any order. The stamina upgrades were just to access sidequests and secrets (shrines, Korok Seeds, treasure, etc.). Similarly, I don't think gyms should be locked behind later game field abilities. You should be able to just do them in any order (at best locking you in to the first gym as a Great Plateau-esque tutorial before opening you up to the full region afterwards). If they want to lock things behind stamina upgrades it should probably be something like a rare species of Pokemon, a sidequest, or whatever collectible they might implement in this game (the equivalent of Zygarde Cells/Totem Stickers/Alolan Digletts/Wisps).

 

[DSDark]

I like this idea, reminds me of Ranger a bit how stronger Pokemon had stronger field abilities for clearing more advanced obstacles. Thing is though, BotW didn't really lock its Divine Beasts behind stamina upgrades or runes, which is the BotW equivalent of what you're proposing. You were just locked to the Great Plateau where you learned how to use each rune and then once you did that, you could tackle whichever Divine Beast you wanted in any order. The stamina upgrades were just to access sidequests and secrets (shrines, Korok Seeds, treasure, etc.). Similarly, I don't think gyms should be locked behind later game field abilities. You should be able to just do them in any order (at best locking you in to the first gym as a Great Plateau-esque tutorial before opening you up to the full region afterwards). If they want to lock things behind stamina upgrades it should probably be something like a rare species of Pokemon, a sidequest, or whatever collectible they might implement in this game (the equivalent of Zygarde Cells/Totem Stickers/Alolan Digletts/Wisps).

I didn’t say the gyms would be locked behind field abilities. I said that any gun could be done in any order. The field abilities or rides would allow you more accessibility within the region.

 

[Bolt the Cat]

I didn’t say the gyms would be locked behind field abilities. I said that any gun could be done in any order. The field abilities or rides would allow you more accessibility within the region.

Actually you didn't specifically mention that gyms could be in any order. And you said that your gym progress would affect your stamina and how much of the region you can explore.