Should Pokemon be Linear?

[Dragalge]

No, the adventure feel is diminished if you don't have freedom of exploration. You don't really get that as much in Unova, only with the handful of side areas dotted along the way.

I had a great adventure feel when traveling to Unova - YPR#

So yeah

No, it still is. They added some areas onto Unova, sure, but the storyline path is still mostly a straight line (the only real exception being when you need to backtrack from Opelucid City to Undella Town to reach Humilau City).

You make Zekrom and Black Kyurem sad.

In all seriousness, Unova had at least more to discover than RBY, Kanto had what the Cereleaun Cave?

 

[Grovyl]

I would like the newer generations to have some freedom, but having a linear way to things speeds the game up a bit. It makes it less complicating as well, so I would want the games to have a few options, but not entire freedom.

 

[randomspot555]

I don't care much about specific gym orders. But in BW1 at least, Gym Leaders are pretty heavily tied to the plot of the game and so kind of need to be fought in that order.

But a big plus, for me, in Unova was how close everything was, invoking the feel that Unova was based off a big metropolitan area rather than a vast region. I personally don't think Confusing Cave 259 or NeverEnding Route 023 adds much to the game besides annoyance, so I'm glad to see the use of that type of stuff minimized.

 

[pokemonjoe2000]

I think linearity makes the games story better for me personally and although i did like the way the first three gens were set up, it can be confusing when you go off in one direction only to find out that some security guard is complaining about his thirst. why doesnt he just bring a water bottle? And yes, i did buy him fresh water because i geuss i'm just cheap Yellow didn't allow you to get squirtle unless you beat lt.surge though. ahh screw it. we all know how many people on the playground bragged about there nidoking.

 

[Profesco]

I think my biggest concern, if the games were to become more open directionally, would be with maintaining the steady difficulty incline. As we saw with the first few generations (particularly Johto, for some reason), when the game opened multiple routes for you to travel after accomplishment X, you eventually found yourself exploring a route where the challenges were calibrated to the team you had 15 levels earlier. Clearly, they can't have you beat the 3rd Gym Leader with your level 30 Pokémon and then give you the option of taking the path populated by level 45 Pokémon; but you also don't want to go spend six hours on one leg of your Pokémon game and then come back to your other choice and discover that you're suddenly a God in an environment of gnats...

So I'm all for increased exploratory freedom in Pokémon games, but only if it came with some mechanism of matching each stretch of your journey to the level your team reached at that point of the game. And then we also have to remember that the game must be amenable to childhood success, so they need to retain a high level of directionality and not-too-cryptic puzzles. To be honest, I'd say the argument that they've been doing it right enough so far is still pretty strong: kids have played every generation, and have been able to beat the games each time but also have themselves an enjoyable challenge doing it, and the sales figures are proof of the model.

 

[mjunior3]

In regular RPG's, I like the ability to do almost anything (Skyrim is a good example). In Pokemon, I like having the story pieced together with directions, and an actual story that you need to follow to get farther. That is my opinon, but anyone can have their own opinion on what they want out of a Pokemon storyline.

 

[Ivoright]

Linearity isn't a bad thing (It may get a bit dull after a bit) but as long as there are plenty of distractions along the way, I'm fine.
I'm hoping that Kalos is similar to Sinnoh. Linear, but not too much.

 

[fitzy909]

Linearity isn't a bad thing (It may get a bit dull after a bit) but as long as there are plenty of distractions along the way, I'm fine.
I'm hoping that Kalos is similar to Sinnoh. Linear, but not too much.

i agree, but it would be cool if they mixed things up a bit, but i guess there are places you need to go to certain places to progress the story.

 

[☭Azimuth_055☣]

For me, I'd prefer Pokémon being nonlinear. You can have freedom to choose for yourself exactly what kind of approach do you want with the game, even if it may be slightly detrimental to the "adventure" idea.

 

[Super Nerd 7997]

I think my biggest concern, if the games were to become more open directionally, would be with maintaining the steady difficulty incline. As we saw with the first few generations (particularly Johto, for some reason), when the game opened multiple routes for you to travel after accomplishment X, you eventually found yourself exploring a route where the challenges were calibrated to the team you had 15 levels earlier. Clearly, they can't have you beat the 3rd Gym Leader with your level 30 Pokémon and then give you the option of taking the path populated by level 45 Pokémon; but you also don't want to go spend six hours on one leg of your Pokémon game and then come back to your other choice and discover that you're suddenly a God in an environment of gnats...

So I'm all for increased exploratory freedom in Pokémon games, but only if it came with some mechanism of matching each stretch of your journey to the level your team reached at that point of the game. And then we also have to remember that the game must be amenable to childhood success, so they need to retain a high level of directionality and not-too-cryptic puzzles. To be honest, I'd say the argument that they've been doing it right enough so far is still pretty strong: kids have played every generation, and have been able to beat the games each time but also have themselves an enjoyable challenge doing it, and the sales figures are proof of the model.

Something in a "choose your own adventure" vein might be a good way to accomplish this (i.e. to reach the next town you can either take this spooky cave or cross the ocean). Even something as simple as extra, optional dungeons (and I mean proper ones that don't feel like a straight line) dispersed around the world would help the game feel less like a straight line, as you could stop to explore whenever you wanted. Also, the occasional widened, more open route (remember the ocean in RSE?) with several stops along the way would be great (just, you know, not another enormous ocean. A big prairie is more what I had in mind).

 

[Profesco]

Something in a "choose your own adventure" vein might be a good way to accomplish this (i.e. to reach the next town you can either take this spooky cave or cross the ocean). Even something as simple as extra, optional dungeons (and I mean proper ones that don't feel like a straight line) dispersed around the world would help the game feel less like a straight line, as you could stop to explore whenever you wanted.

Oh, certainly. I think back to the very first games, and how after beating Erika and getting the Poke Flute, you had a choice between Routes 16/17/18 or Routes 12/13/14/15 to get to Fuschia City - or you could even get into Saffron first and complete the Team Rocket "dungeon." That kind of option surplus looks really nice after having played through Unova, although it did come with some costs. In fact, if I'm being 100% honest, whichever Routes I didn't take when traveling to Fuschia ended up feeling just a little bit "tacked on" afterward, as though now there wasn't really any reason to travel the leftovers. Maybe that feeling would have been avoided if there had been another town, cave, or Team Rocket event between Routes 13 and 14, I dunno. Johto, I think, actually got this part right. After beating Morty and getting Surf, you could travel east or west, and both directions led to some new challenge, not to the same place. (Yet in Johto's case the eventual underleveling of the wild Pokémon and trainers compared to your team was even worse.)

Also, the occasional widened, more open route (remember the ocean in RSE?) with several stops along the way would be great (just, you know, not another enormous ocean. A big prairie is more what I had in mind).

Haha, "The Hoenn ocean is a great example of what would be real fun in Pokémon. Let's hope they don't do another one!" Nah, I know what you mean. The Hoenn ocean was fun to explore, even if you did end up wanting to empty the purse on Repels.

 

[Bolt the Cat]

I think my biggest concern, if the games were to become more open directionally, would be with maintaining the steady difficulty incline. As we saw with the first few generations (particularly Johto, for some reason), when the game opened multiple routes for you to travel after accomplishment X, you eventually found yourself exploring a route where the challenges were calibrated to the team you had 15 levels earlier. Clearly, they can't have you beat the 3rd Gym Leader with your level 30 Pokémon and then give you the option of taking the path populated by level 45 Pokémon; but you also don't want to go spend six hours on one leg of your Pokémon game and then come back to your other choice and discover that you're suddenly a God in an environment of gnats...

So I'm all for increased exploratory freedom in Pokémon games, but only if it came with some mechanism of matching each stretch of your journey to the level your team reached at that point of the game. And then we also have to remember that the game must be amenable to childhood success, so they need to retain a high level of directionality and not-too-cryptic puzzles. To be honest, I'd say the argument that they've been doing it right enough so far is still pretty strong: kids have played every generation, and have been able to beat the games each time but also have themselves an enjoyable challenge doing it, and the sales figures are proof of the model.

Part of that, I believe, has to do with the length of each split path. Johto's pacing was off because of how long the western path was, you had to go through 4 routes, 1 dungeon like place (Glitter Lighthouse), and fight 2 gyms before returning to Ecruteak City. That's a fairly large chunk of the game, so by the time you return to take the other path, you're significantly stronger than you were when you first started. And then you go down the other path, which acts as if all that never happened, and so you are facing drastically underleveled Pokemon at this point. I don't think that would be an issue with the current regional design, where gyms are typically one route (plus maybe a cave or forest) apart.

Something in a "choose your own adventure" vein might be a good way to accomplish this (i.e. to reach the next town you can either take this spooky cave or cross the ocean). Even something as simple as extra, optional dungeons (and I mean proper ones that don't feel like a straight line) dispersed around the world would help the game feel less like a straight line, as you could stop to explore whenever you wanted. Also, the occasional widened, more open route (remember the ocean in RSE?) with several stops along the way would be great (just, you know, not another enormous ocean. A big prairie is more what I had in mind).

I think they should steer away from more open ended water routes. The problem with more open ended areas is that there's less of a sense of direction, especially when the area lacks distinguishable landmarks as most water routes do. If they must make those kinds of water routes, they should dot them with islands, shallows, depths, all matter of sea based landmarks to use as reference points in your exploration.

 

[Grey Wind]

I don't think that the "options" of which Gym leader to battle in previous generations were all that great, because it seemed like almost a mistake that the option was there at all considering that the levels of the leaders/area were set up in a linear fashion. I mean, you could very well skip Winona and head to Mossdeep, but... why. There wasn't really any point in letting you choose what order to fight certain leaders in because you just end up battling them at different levels to your own. The one time there was a similar level with the leaders (the split in Johto after Morty), you were left battling horribly under-leveled Pokemon and trainers around the Gym's area. It might be a nice option if they bumped up the trainer's/leader's levels once you chose a path and defeated a certain Gym, but I'm not really that bothered by it. I'm fine battling them in a set order.

I do think that the games could do with less of a... shoved-through-a-tunnel sort of feel like Unova had. It was weird going straight on in a sort of circle because the region didn't feel very connected. I much preferred Sinnoh's design because it felt like you were properly exploring a region than just constantly moving forward. I know backtracking doesn't seem very important, but I think the various areas connecting up makes the region more interesting to explore. Places like Mauville and Jubilife City were interesting because there were different ways to go and you had to keep revisiting them. I liked going from Mauville to Verdanturf and through the Rusturf Tunnel to suddenly find yourself back at the first Gym and I'd like Kalos to be designed similar to that instead of Unova's bizarre circular pattern.

Unova also had the issue (get it) of short routes, but that's more of a regional design problem rather than a linearity problem.

Haha, "The Hoenn ocean is a great example of what would be real fun in Pokémon. Let's hope they don't do another one!" Nah, I know what you mean. The Hoenn ocean was fun to explore, even if you did end up wanting to empty the purse on Repels.

I thought I was the only one to enjoy Hoenn's ocean. I liked getting lost after going south from Mossdeep, and then suddenly stumbling upon the cute little Pacifidlog Town, or exploring all the underwater caves and seeing where you surface. I do see where Bolt the Cat is coming from though, it could have been made better if there were more islands scattered about to break up the monotony (almost like a tiny version of The Wind Waker!).

Nice to see you back, by the way. :>

 

[Bolt the Cat]

It'd be nice if they could find a way to base the trainer levels on your progress through the game, like how many people in the past have suggested the gym leader levels be based on how many badges you have. That way it doesn't matter where you go, the pacing remains the same.

 

[11wildy]

I do like exploring stuff in the waty i want to, so i hope they will bring back a little bit of the non-linearity.

 

[JediTom]

Yes, sadly it is becoming more and more linear to the point where i noticd that in pokemon white, to get from point a to point b there was one way and one way only to get there. And just for the record, game freak, if there were like a moonshoe esque (lol) ite in the game that you get once you beat gym 8 or the elite four to be able to jump up the little ledges to access areas easier (and possibly new areas)! Just a thought. Just a thought

 

[Hikari Paradise]

No way! Linearity is what killed Unova for me and I don't wanna go through that again. Fortunately Kalos looks very non-linear and fun to explore.

 

[emawerna]

One of the aspects of Pokemon that make it great for kids (and great for me) is that it is hard to lose badly enough to have to restart your game. It is almost impossible to get absolutely stuck somewhere.

If we want to maintain the kid friendly format but also make areas with level 50 wild pokemon, the game must be linear (at least for most of the game) because it takes a long time to train your six pokemon up to at least level 50. Even a slight level differential of 5 levels makes training either boring or impossibly hard. THE PROGRAMMERS MUST BE ABLE TO PREDICT ROUGHLY HOW MUCH TRAINING YOU'VE HAD AT EACH POINT IN THE GAME REGARDLESS OF HOW FAST YOU PLAY.

Think about it. Imagine a giant optional area around the fourth gym or fifth gym.

Let's say you speed through with no intention of exploring. The programmers must ensure that you don't turn a corner to find that pokemon have suddenly jumped ten levels or even that you aren’t constantly having to backtrack to get more experience (i.e. they can’t presume you explored the area).

Let's say your friend feels obligated to explore every nook and cranny. We can't over-train him or he gets bored for the rest of the game.

Let's say you the speed demon decide to go back and explore the extra area to catch the pokemon there. Ever tried to find a way to use your level 60 team members to damage but not faint a level 30 pokemon? It isn't fun. You end up throwing ultra balls while it is at full health unless you are willing to sort through your un-trained previous catches hoping to find an appropriate pokemon.

In this example, the extra area reduces the enjoyment of both the speed demon and of the lagging friend.

To avoid this effect, the programmers MUST put large optional areas at the end of the game (or far enough into the game) where the wild pokemon are close to the maximum wild level of pokemon in the game.

Of course, this point of when you can survive in an area with level 50 wild pokemon comes far, far too late in the game to avoid the game being criticized as being too linear. This is probably even true if the game had extra gyms tacked onto the end such as if it had 16 gyms and the wild pokemon level maxed out after the ninth or tenth gym.

If the maximum level of wild pokemon is about 30 and not 50, then the game must only be linear up to about the sixth gym. So, the rest of the game past the sixth gym is effectively a giant “optional” area. Funnily enough, this is where the “non-linear” nature of play starts in the previous generations. Not exactly a co-incidence.

 

[Lykouros]

First, I really enjoy a non-linear region, but I like them to have enough direction that I don't feel overwhelmed by options. That's always been my problem with MMO's, personally, and games like Skyrim - way too many open areas. Sometimes I don't want to run around aimlessly hoping to find a plot point, instead I want someone to tell me "Hey you, go do this!" and then I have to do it sooner or later. That said, Unova was ridiculous in my opinion. Jhoto is probably the best example in this thread of a nice map that had it's moments of non-linear qualities, although as mentioned the underleveled pokemon were a bit disappointing.

It'd be nice if they could find a way to base the trainer levels on your progress through the game, like how many people in the past have suggested the gym leader levels be based on how many badges you have. That way it doesn't matter where you go, the pacing remains the same.

I've seen this idea mentioned elsewhere, and I really like it. One thing that might aid with the challenge, though, is an increased AI, or maybe having an x% chance of a wild pokemon level being the same as the average of your current team. Though, that might get abused quickly. Additionally, they could make several random trainers' pokemon "in the top percentage" instead of just Jimmy's Rattata

Let's say you speed through with no intention of exploring. The programmers must ensure that you don't turn a corner to find that pokemon have suddenly jumped ten levels or even that you aren’t constantly having to backtrack to get more experience.

Out of curiosity, why must the programmers ensure this doesn't happen? Games like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger have areas where the enemies are significantly harder than your team level, and it's possible to enter those areas roughly in the middle of the game(s), I think, making it a huge surprise when your oh-so-high-leveled team is wiped on the floor by a random encounter. I'd like to give kids more credit than to think they'd simply up and abandon a game because they lost once, especially in a game like Pokemon where you can save at literally any time except for during battle. Granted, I wouldn't want the entire game to be me against the world, with my pokemon getting destroyed by every enemy ever, but it would be neat if I could train a little here and there yet still have to worry about a high leveled enemy or trainer.

 

[Bolt the Cat]

The problem with the whole "level based on game progress" idea, though, is that it seems like it'd be hard to program for. You'd have to have different leveling, maybe even different evolutionary forms or Pokemon species altogether based on the timing. I'm not sure it'll ever happen.

Out of curiosity, why must the programmers ensure this doesn't happen? Games like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger have areas where the enemies are significantly harder than your team level, and it's possible to enter those areas roughly in the middle of the game(s), I think, making it a huge surprise when your oh-so-high-leveled team is wiped on the floor by a random encounter. I'd like to give kids more credit than to think they'd simply up and abandon a game because they lost once, especially in a game like Pokemon where you can save at literally any time except for during battle. Granted, I wouldn't want the entire game to be me against the world, with my pokemon getting destroyed by every enemy ever, but it would be neat if I could train a little here and there yet still have to worry about a high leveled enemy or trainer.

Getting suddenly jumped by higher level Pokemon because you happened to have wandered the wrong way is a bit unfair, especially in a kid's game. It'd be all right if they gave you some sort of warning that you were going somewhere you weren't supposed to, but otherwise they're probably not going to do it.