Take the influence of Natures further?

[Orion-Sama]

Look. Another inspired Topic by me!

Well... I was thinking today about Pokémon Natures. And I also remembered how the Battle Palace makes your Pokémon battle on themselves, and their attacks equal their Nature. While that makes such facility awfully hard, it's also quite the advancement into deepening this one aspect of Pokémon.

Now, I was thinking... why not take it even further in Diamond/Pearl? Natures are, in short, the personality of a Pokémon. But for the most part, their only influency is limited to the Stats of any given Pokémon. Still, their effects in the Battle Palace sets up a very promising ground for even more influences when it comes to Wild Pokémon at least.

The idea is as follows: the Nature of a Wild Pokémon would determine their favorite Moves they'd use against you. In the exact same way as the Battle Palace. Some Pokémon would attack with damaging Moves. Others would try to disrupt you with Stat-inducing moves, and others would protect themselves with self-aid Moves. While that would be quite limited by the Pokémon's Level-up pool, it'd add more variety when it comes to Wild Battles, as oppossed to having them follow a set pattern (Typically a disruptive Move, then attacks, and then heal, limited to availability of such Moves.) over and over. Then again, I thought of more possibilities.

The Pokémon's Nature could also influence a Pokémon's behavior when finding a Trainer. Say, Natures like Brave or Jolly would battle on no matter what. However, Natures like Timid or Hardy would be prone to flee from battle at the minor provocation. It'd make Natures more influential in Wild Battles, and would add a bit of a challenge. Something I liked of GSC was that: some Pokémon species were prone to flee whenever you found them. That should be retaken, and be determined not only by species, but by Natures...

Another idea includes that there could be some side-quests or mini-games where you can't take part, but you can choose one or more of your Pokémon for such task. Say, you move the Pokémon around a field in overworld mode, and there could be battles around. Such battles would be fought the same as in the Battle Palace, with Pokémon attacking on their own and chosing moves in accordance to their Nature.

Just a few ideas I had, but I seriously think Natures need to have more of a weight in the overall gameplay. Those changes, while a bit small, would add some more depth and dimension to Wild encounters, and could make a difference between an easy-to-catch Pokémon and one that flees right away. Would make it quite interesting. Plus, the prospect of Pokémon-based side-quests using their Move affinity based on Natures would also be good in my opinion.

So... discuss.

 

[Auraninja]

I think that is actually a good idea, but I would rather have them do something outside wild battles. What if, if D/P had a new Pokemon interaction, that we can have natures influence that? Like we'll use the microphone and the such in D/P, so what if we had natures influence the possible new interaction? Do you get what I'm saying?

Also, natures do influence something else. It effects how they move when the get a Pokeblock. For example, Quirky Pokemon go in circles.

 

[Tropical Spirit]

I totally agree with you. I mean, I actually thought that when I first played Sapphire. Having the natures determine minor things would be a neat feature, and much more useful, than, let's say, hearing the wild pokemon's cries once every minute. >_>;

And yaeh, any kind of more developed minigame would be more than welcome. D:

 

[The Great Butler]

Great ideas, especially the ones involving the behavior of wild Pokémon.

 

[Eszett]

I actually had a plan to use that preference chart for the Battle Palace in an ability called Instinct, which would choose such a move every other turn in that fashion.

And this is another one of my crazy ideas, but bear with me: The game would develop some sort of record about how you treat your Pokemon in battle and which moves they would use. Using plenty of outright attacks and sacrificing a low-HP Pokemon to allow another Pokemon to get in and take the KO would drive your personality more towards Cool-favoring natures. Tending to play your cards well and use type advantages to your benefit would drive you towards Smart natures and further from, say, Cute natures. Overall, this would affect the natures you most often find on Pokemon. As an example, sending in Pokemon and letting them take super-effective hits while at the same time using sweeping moves galore would help you find more Naughty Pokemon.

This log would only go so far, however, so you would have plenty of room to adjust your preferences towards the sorts of Pokemon you want to find.

 

[PDL]

I can definately see it working for wild battles, the side-quest thing would probably be based on pure luck, and a tad complicated for people who are completely new to the game :\

 

[m0nkfish]

How about nature-specific moves? So dual-types who get STAB on Att and Sp.Att learn a different attack for a different nature:
e.g:
An Adamant Solrock learns Rock Slide at level 40
A Modest Solrock learns Psychic at level 40

...type thing?

 

[Metal Force]

Well interesting ideas you got there, & I agree with you that pokemons should be differens inways by thier natures, one of my ideas is that the pokemon itself while battling suddenly boosts a state acording to it's nature when it feels it's in danger, though some people wouldn't care nor like the idea about your ideas but I & many people like them.

 

[umbreunatic]

you have great idea's. But I don't like the idea of fleeing. Because, if you want to catch a pokemon with one of those natures, that pokemon is far more difficult to catch than others, so especially when you want to catch a legendary with one of those natures, it will be far to difficult. but I like your other idea's!

 

[Wolf Goddess]

How about nature-specific moves? So dual-types who get STAB on Att and Sp.Att learn a different attack for a different nature:
e.g:
An Adamant Solrock learns Rock Slide at level 40
A Modest Solrock learns Psychic at level 40

...type thing?

I think that might be a tad too confusing.

I love the idea for the wild Pokemon, though. It makes alot of sense, and would spice up otherwise boring battles.

 

[hIrAm]

How about nature-specific moves? So dual-types who get STAB on Att and Sp.Att learn a different attack for a different nature:
e.g:
An Adamant Solrock learns Rock Slide at level 40
A Modest Solrock learns Psychic at level 40

...type thing?

Mhm, Wolf Goddess nailed that one. It would be waayy too confusing for the l'il ones who play the game. They'd have a Solrock, expecting it to learn Rock Slide, when out of the blew it learned Psychic. That would hurt their feelings. D:

 

[ArrEmmDee]

Or you know, since Natures sort of suck, they could downplay their influence? Not suck, but add that extra irritant to 'oh so now in addition to EVs and gender I have to bother with Nature?--hooray'. Personal gripe, don't mind me.

Kekekekeke, sometimes ideas from you guys are good, and sometimes they just overcomplicate everything. This might be an overcomplication, but it's also adding a bit more strategy, and I think I could warm up to that. I really love the the idea of Nature affecting moves and behavior in battle-- maybe a Lonely natured Pokémon might not want to attack if you have too many Pokémon in your party/during a double battle, and a Hasty Pokémon might be quick to attack even if their stat is lower, and this would leave them more vulnerable to certain attacks-- or maybe something like using Solarbeam first turn without charging up first, and as a result, it becomes a lot weaker.


I do sort of like the idea of certain natures gaining access to certain moves-- not necessarily to replace other moves and have varying movesets, but the ability to learn certain types of moves a bit sooner than they normally would-- IE a defensive nature would learn moves like Iron Defence, Barrier 10 levels before they usually do, and attacks like Slash and other offensive attacks might be pushed back as a result. That might take too much memory and programming, though, but then, a lot of this might.

 

[PDL]

I do sort of like the idea of certain natures gaining access to certain moves-- not necessarily to replace other moves and have varying movesets, but the ability to learn certain types of moves a bit sooner than they normally would-- IE a defensive nature would learn moves like Iron Defence, Barrier 10 levels before they usually do, and attacks like Slash and other offensive attacks might be pushed back as a result. That might take too much memory and programming, though, but then, a lot of this might.

That could work, but 10 levels would be a bit too much... it takes a while to train a pokemon for 10 levels, especially when the move you want is critical to the moveset and nature. a 1 level difference would work though... although would would be defined as a defensive move? stat-uppers like dragon dance? or moves like spikes? what about attacks like Ancientpower that do both?

 

[Orion-Sama]

I think that is actually a good idea, but I would rather have them do something outside wild battles. What if, if D/P had a new Pokemon interaction, that we can have natures influence that? Like we'll use the microphone and the such in D/P, so what if we had natures influence the possible new interaction? Do you get what I'm saying?

Also, natures do influence something else. It effects how they move when the get a Pokeblock. For example, Quirky Pokemon go in circles.

Well... I doubt Pokémon will become a "creature care" game. Those are too annoying and would add an extra chore to the already-existing ones. I do think there should be another effect outside of Wild Pokés, but... that'd conflict with the "Trainer" aspect and I don't have any worthy idea in that regard. And since I always prefer ideas that could actually make it...

And yup. To be honest, I completely forgot about Nature's effect in Contests and Pokéblock affinity. XD

The side-quest thing would probably be based on pure luck, and a tad complicated for people who are completely new to the game :\

That's true, sadly enough. Then again, your Pokémon should be able to actually be controlled a la Mysterious Dungeon at least once in the game. Without being fully dependant on their Trainers. But again, that's too complicated for the most part.

you have great idea's. But I don't like the idea of fleeing. Because, if you want to catch a pokemon with one of those natures, that pokemon is far more difficult to catch than others, so especially when you want to catch a legendary with one of those natures, it will be far to difficult. but I like your other idea's!

Well... as I said, they wouldn't flee right away. They'd take a few, or even several attacks before doing so. And as I said, they could use a Nature-Species ratio for fleeing. Much like GSC. Say, a Pokémon like Tangela would be prone to flee as a Species, but depending on their Nature, they'd flee right away or take a while longer, or not even flee at all. Most Species wouldn't flee that much, even with a Nature prone to that. And well... increasing effort for certain stuff would make this franchise that much better, and not a walk in the park, as it is now. And you always have Nature Breeding if you're actually having trouble finding a specific one. Not to mention a Catcher that makes the job a breeze, and Natures would have a hard time acting on... which means they'd be mostly for the initial quest. And the effect would be reached: make such initial quest that much more interesting and hard.

And well... Legendaries would be one of the few Species that wouldn't be affected by the Nature fleeing ratio. Because it'd be very screwy if a one-off escaped, and you wouldn't ever see it again. It WOULD affect wandering Legendaries, if any, though. AND would help a bit. Say, if a Pokémon like Entei has a non-fleeing Nature, it'd take some turns before it fled the battle, which would make catching those Pokémon more possible aside the Master Ball throw-away...

And as always, I like your ideas, Eszett. I don't have much others by now, though. Thanks for the comments so far. Any ideas and comments are always welcome.

 

[Denjuu]

I like the mini-game idea?
Remember in Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga, there were mini-games within the adventure? That will be an excellent addition to the Pokemon game series!