Octavius

Episode 6 in Antares Academy. One of the puzzles will offer a choice of either a Metalmorph or Dawn Stone!

@ssbCasper for bringing the empire family together and keeping us going. you've had quite the anime arc so far! @StoicStone for your great ideas, pithy banter, and writing... and not hunting me down and shooting me when i rewrite your dialogue... @groniack for obvious reasons. so many great ideas would have never been possible without your coding skills, good sir. i'll always feel indebted to you for that. @Swamp King for being the draft league rival i never knew i needed! now go make some back sprites! @Dypatome for organizing our many files and for those celaena sprites which i have not been able to top... yet... @ty (did you change your name on this site lol?) for developing into the content developer we always knew you could be. @Zygrado for helping and getting involved in the most delightfully weird ways. @WSGreen for teaching me how to map. @Autumn Rain for the artwork and finishing touches that make the game that much better. @ Commander for absolutely nothing. Thank you all for being the (digital) friends I never knew I'd have. Here's to many more years of smooth game development, deep conversation, quality jokes, and a near endless supply of really amazing puns! God bless you all, and long live the Empire!

Episode 2 is almost ready for launch! We've mostly wrapped up our internal beta, but wanted to start our new discord server by giving a few people a sneak peek at what's to come! So if you're interested in playing the episode 2 beta and want to give us some feedback, let us know and we'll send you an early access link to our new discord server!

Which is the TRUE master race??? https://www.strawpoll.me/15718838

Hey everyone! We're just finishing up season one of the EPL, or Empire Premier League! The EPL is a draft league Pokemon battling format that operates pretty much the same way as the Pokemon GBA. If you're unfamiliar with the GBA, check it out on YouTube. It's a really fun way to battle by drafting and using a team of Pokemon from all the different Smogon tiers! It isn't just the usual showdown ladder grind. Anyways, for season 1, we had membership reserved to the Empire dev team itself. But now, we're looking to add a few new teams for season two! So if you're interested, post a reply or pm me and i'll send you over some information. Hope to hear from you soon!

@Jess Do you think Flygon would be better competitively with a Dragon/Bug typing (and access to different abilities) than a Dragon/Ground typing? Or what if it got tinted lens instead of compoundeyes? I think tinted lens would be just as good, if not better (especially if flygon were a special attacker).

Flygon feels like a smorgasbord of ideas that were all thrown together. It's like Gamefreak couldn't decide on an overall direction for it, so they just gave it a lot of different traits and hoped players would love it for whatever it ended up being. And what it ended up being is a physical attacking, dragon/ground type with levitate. Called the 'mystic' pokemon, some of its lore reads "Because its flapping wings whip up a cloud of sand, this Pokémon is always enveloped in a sandstorm while flying. Red covers shield its eyes from sand. The flapping of its wings sounds something like singing. Because the “singing” is the only thing that can be heard in a sandstorm, this Pokémon is said to be the desert spirit". Huh. Well that's kind of weird. I guess levitate makes sense as Fly-gon can, in fact, fly; but based on its lore it should also definitely get abilities like sand veil or shield dust. It's also apparently a 'spirit' of some sort and is known for singing. Yet it's a physical attacker. I would expect a 'singing' spirit to be more specially inclined. And, even though it's known for making noise, it doesn't learn any sound-based moves... except... It technically does! Flygon's pre-evolution, Vibrava, learns Bug Buzz by level up! And that makes a lot of sense, given that Vibrava's lore states "Vibrava’s wings have not yet completed the process of growing. Rather than flying long distances, they are more useful for generating ultrasonic waves by vibrating." Cool! So Vibrava doesn't really fly, but Vibrava's only ability is Levitate. So what's up with that? And while Bug Buzz seems like a move that makes sense on this pokemon species based on its lore (maybe Perish Song would be another), neither Flygon, Vibrava, or Trapinch are actually bug-type at all. Trapinch is ground, and Vibrava/Flygon are dragon/ground types. And despite not being bug-type, they are exclusively in the Bug Egg Group! What the heck!? So look at these guys. What in the world are they? The first two evolutions definitely look like bugs. Even Flygon still looks like a bug, but definitely bears many more lizard-like traits (like its arms). It's kind of like this species has a metamorphosis between each stage, ultimately emerging as this 'singing' desert bug-lizard. But it's also said to be a spirit. Whatever that means.. So what do you think Flygon is? Or, what do you think it should be? What typing should it have, what abilities or moves should it be able to use? how should its stats look? And how do you make sense of its pre-evolutions? I'm curious to see what you think.

The current state of affairs in pokemon is too convoluted to change only a few things and call it balanced. Any time you change the type chart, it creates a massive ripple effect: if poison is now super effective against water, for example, that's not only a nerf to water but also a nerf to fairy and grass. Because if you make poison stronger, all the other types that are weak to poison will suffer by extension (like poison being more commonly carried as a coverage move). And by extension you also buff psychic and ground because those attacking types suddenly become more important to have against the more prevalent poison type. And of course that also buffs steel (and the poison type itself) because its poison immunity becomes even more powerful. Any time a meta-defining change like that is proposed but you want to maintain a similar state of balance to the previous meta, there ultimately have to be underlying changes to offset the ripple effect created by the gigantic change. And unfortunately, those smaller changes also create ripple effects to the point that you eventually have to rebalance every pokemon on an individual level, every item, ability, move, and mechanic. So if you're going to try and tweak one thing, you have to realized that it will completely shift the entire meta. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, though. You just have to be aware that it is a thing. It also means people are going to have to relearn how to play the game around the new meta that's been created. Remember the changes to Knock Off and the introduction of the Fairy type? Completely changed everything. But eventually the dust settled and a new metagame with new strategies formed around the new system. This happens in basically every generation of pokemon, so no matter how much people complain, they;ll eventually either adapt or not associate with the new stuff. So no matter how much or how little you change as far as game balance is concerned, you're going to be left with a new metagame with its balances and imbalances. Some metas will be better than the previous ones; some will be worse. But no matter what you do or what changes you think would be best, there's always going to be resistance and people who think they know better. And while all of us have our own ideas for how to improve the game, i doubt any of us have ever actually tested our proposed changes to see how they would actually shake things up. And that's fine; we just have to remember that none of us can actually back up any claims that say one idea is better or worse than another. At least not with evidence that isn't just hypothetical. But I think we can create a list of common ground ideas: for starters, can we all agree that mons without any competitive viability or niche (idk, like dewgong or meganium) deserve to have a way in which they can distinguish themselves from other mons that are strictly better versions of themselves?

I got a good laugh when I saw this. I can't help but feel responsible for you starting this topic, darkfighter15. but yeah, absolutely everyone is biased in some way or another. like zargerth said, there can be no perfect system. that's the case with anything; it's the state of mankind and can't be changed. so whomever tries to come up with their own system is going to have their own faults or preconceived notions influencing their decisions. Ideally, you'd have multiple (and very different but also open-minded) people working together to achieve the best possible result. But that doesn't ever really work in practice (see U.S. Government), so you try to shoot for some series of guidelines that are objectively good and true and hope things fall into line based off of those guidelines. Now since this is again on the topic of types, there absolutely should be types that are stronger and types that are weaker. that doesn't mean that every mon within each type is going to be good or bad strictly because of their typing, though. with game mechanics, moves, abilities, stats, etc., any number of mons within each type can fill out a specific niche. which is why you really do need to balance on the individual pokemon level so that each mon can have its own niche (at least one) and have some use in some tier in some way. and that's what it means for each mon to be equitable as opposed to only having a few chosen mons be amazing and strictly outclass every other mon that tries to do the same thing. you're inevitably going to have mons within each type that are weaker than others, but this is a good and necessary thing. it's even better when the weaker mons have something they can do that the better mons can't--so that in some way, the weaker mons are still useful and even better than the stronger mon.

first of all, balancing mons has never been a priority for gamefreak. but since we're talking balancing mons... based on their history, gamefreak actually balances mons around the VGC format (competitive doubles) but are still aware of the tiered 'showdown' format where mons are divided into tiers based on their usage. which means their overall vision allows them to create pokemon that are worse or better than pre-existing ones because then those pokemon would just find spots in different tiers. so it doesn't matter if a mon they create sucks competitively, because then it can just be used in a tier with all the other mons that suck competitively. this post, though, is about the type chart overall. namely because it IS unbalanced. for example, there are far more bug and grass types in lower tiers than there are fighting or dragon types. and i agree with you in that it would be better to see a more equal distribution of types through all competitive tiers. But without minor changes to the type chart (which idk why you're more against that than other changes that people would also need to learn/re-learn), you're going to need more than just the changes you proposed to actually see any significant shift. namely because most of your changes are based around weather. and weather really only affects a handful of pokemon. like someone here said, weather setters would gain a massive boost with your changes, but leave most mons unaffected. gigalith would be way better, but sudowoodo sure wouldn't. changes would need to either affect a wider swathe of pokemon of that particular type than just weather mons, giving more pokemon the opportunity to have a niche (or reason to be used) in a higher tier in the metagame. OR implement changes that only affect select pokemon of a particular type (preferably sucky ones). For example, introducing moves or giving abilities to only the mons that are bad instead of just making tyranitar even better. But to optimally balance the game, each pokemon needs to be looked at on an individual basis. Many pokemon are only used in the tier they are in because of a specific niche: like araquanid wouldn't be nearly as good if it didn't have access to sticky web or didn't have its water bubble ability. Here are some better changes: Rock types: 1. have rock-types take no damage from stealth rock 2. introduce better special attacking rock-type moves or rock-type moves that grant temporary immunities (like magnet rise) Grass types: 1. give more grass-types abilities that cover their weaknesses (like thick fat) or allow them to hit through their resistances (like tinted lens or a grass-type move that works like freeze-dry) 2. highlight grass-types' ability to be annoying: introduce a sucker-punch esque priority move and/or have worry seed act as an entry hazard with the same effect Ice types: 1. change the Freeze mechanic to halving the opponent's Sp. Attack and have them be 'fully frozen' 25% of the time, unable to take action 2. make new ice-type moves that are like scald/thunder wave, but apply the new freeze mechanic instead And these are just a few examples.

You can supplement buffs/nerfs indirectly in an unbelievable number of ways. Whether you change core mechanics (like freeze working more like burn/paralysis instead of sleep), moves (like magnet rise applying to your whole team instead of just the active mon), or abilities (like what you mentioned with light metal having a new competitive wrinkle to it), there's always going to be a trickle-down effect. this applies with changing the type chart, moves, mechanics, everything. and while it's difficult to do a complete overhaul without people being turned off by it, sometimes the best way to bring things into a better state of balance is a few quality of life changes. Like bug maybe not being resisted by every single type or ice having one extra resist so it can actually switch into moves sometimes. Ultimately, you have to remember that most of the time, players are going to side with gamefreak's vision for balance over any one person or design team. Unless the person (or community overall) feels like gamefreak made a mistake in an isolated case and that the person's idea is better in line with gamefreak's overall vision than gamefreak's original idea was (in that isolated case). For example, I would venture to guess that most people would be supportive of a type chart change where bug now deals neutral damage to fairy instead of being resisted by it. on the other hand, i imagine people would think introducing a bug-type move with 180 base power and 100 accuracy that sleeps your opponent 100% of the time and has no drawback would be a terrible idea. The problem of achieving better game balance isn't with type chart changes. Those are fine if done correctly. The problem is trying to over-adjust things where your own ideas become out of line with gamefreak's overall vision and thus aren't readily accepted. So with that in mind, people would largely disagree with your steel switches out last nerf but be perfectly fine with your rock gets +1 defense as well as sp. defense in a sandstorm buff.

In my opinion, Corey (at least with the poison mist field) has always been Reborn's gatekeeper. I had nothing for his crobat in my first run. And of all my friends who played back in the day, the only friend who had an easy time of him on their first run had a Guts Luxray. As for the 'other' category that I selected: it was for Ciel. If that was one of the options, I didn't actually see it, so my bad. Otherwise, I vividly recall being stunned by Ciel in my second playthrough. I was carried by my Mamoswine in that gym in my first run, so I went in overconfidently. But without a really powerful super effective priority move like Mamo's ice shard, I got speed checked and acrobatics spammed into a loss. Pretty sure that was one of, if not my only loss in my second playthrough.

Looking for some feedback from you folks: As you know, we are planning on implementing a few fakemon in Pokemon Empire. Our original plan was to introduce 3 or so new original fakemon into the game per episode. These pokemon would all have a unique or rare type combination, fill a specific niche (like for a weather team), and/or have a design/lore that is new or really interesting. Recently, we've decided to scrap one of our fakemon designs (or at least not release it in ep1). the pokemon was going to be a fire/fairy type based off of a wallaby/kangaroo. it would be cute and have a fairly low Base Stat Total. It would function as more of a utility pokemon, but still be able to pack a little punch offensively. And while we don't want to reveal the front sprite, here's a tiny shot of one of it's overworld sprites--just so you get the idea. The overall points of this are: first, does anyone care about us introducing fakemon that are designed more for the early game? This isn't to say this wallaby fakemon won't be good or have a unique niche, but it probably wouldn't be in the same competitive tier as other fire- or fairy-types like infernape or gardevoir. And second, oare concerned that this fakemon doesn't have a particularly interesting backstory, and that making a wallaby into a fire/fairy type might feel a bit... forced. So, what would make you want to use this fakemon in your playthrough? Better design? Better stats/power level? More interesting lore? Something else? Or should we scrap the idea entirely? Any thoughts or feedback will be taken into consideration. Thanks, everyone!

This is a quick spoiler regarding some changes to moves we have been considering: when looking at moves such as rollout and ice ball, we realized that, plainly, these moves are terrible. And this sucks. Especially when looking at rollout, which has kind of a legendary place in the history of Pokemon as being the move that Whitney's Miltank would smush your entire team with. So we wanted to give rollout and moves like it a better chance to shine (without changing their core mechanics). Here are our proposed changes: increasing accuracy from 90 up to 95 Yes, I know, it's not 100 accuracy. But when rolling out at an opponent, you figure there's a chance they can move out of the way. But when you're trying to land a move 5 times in a row, having a 10% chance to miss every time can really derail any hope you'd have of landing that ever-so-satisfying 5th hit. Rollout no longer 'locks you in' to the move This is the biggie. Being 'locked in' to rollout is a tremendous liability. You can't change moves, switch out, or do anything. Your opponent can easily switch out to a Pokemon that resists the hit or takes the move well and proceed to do whatever it wants, knowing you're stuck doing the same thing 5 turns in a row. By giving the rollout user the freedom to change actions, they have more opportunities to make the move successful and not just be stuck there looking silly when it doesn't work out. Everything else regarding rollout, ice ball, etc. will be the same: base power, the effect to double power every time it's used, up to 5 times, etc. Oh, and yes, you can DEFINITELY expect more custom rollout-type moves to be appearing in Pokemon Empire. But we'll leave that for another day. This is Octavius, rolling out...

Wanted to post this awesome shiny golett (potentially available ep1) that @Dypatome has been working on: Anyone recognize the reference?