Suppose You directed Generation 9.

[ShadeStrider]

Gamefreak hires you because Generation 8 wasn't the "Smashing Hit" they wanted it to be.

 

You get all the time you need, and you have complete creative freedom. You can even delay the damn game if the Workload is too big.

 

You don't even have to go with 3D graphics. Sprites are OK. Even a Style Reminiscent of Octopath Traveler would be nice.

 

Restrictions: You have to have new Pokemon. You have to have a type and a few new moves. You have to have a new Region. 

 

But you don't have to worry about Merchandising and the Anime. Ignore those things.

 

What do you do?

 

Spoiler

Would you add in actual Mechanics instead of useless gimmicks? Would you bring old ones like Triple Battles back?

 

[Alazir]

Oh I don't have to go with 3D graphics? The gen 5 animated sprites are coming back for certain. 

 

Not so sure with the new stuff, but as for mechanics I think I would do away with Dynamax entirely. Bring back the existing Z-moves and make them available, and bring back all the Megas and make new ones. I would make sure at least a couple gyms are in Double Battle format. Also Triple and Rotation would come back. For brand new content, I'd have to think on it. I may come back to this.

[BRS swag]

The new region would be based on the colorful land of India. I would create a new type defensively comprising of all types for the god of pokemon Arceus. I would call this the "Divine" type. Offensively all types are neutrally affected by it. The move Judgement would be Divine type, would hit all opponents and capable of raising all stats like Ancient Power. A new move called Dissolution would act as a one-hit KO move to be used only once in a battle but with --- accuracy. A new move called Divine Enclosure with 5 (max. 8) PP creates an invisible wall that halves damage from all attacks till 5 turns. Triple Battles of Unova are coming back. Loved those beauties. A new eeveelution called Faireon (or Nympheon) will be Divine type and can evolve only in a certain location where the chosen one meets Arceus and will be the only pokemon apart from Arceus to learn Judgement.

HP: 110

Att.: 60

Def.: 65

Sp.Atk.: 130

Sp.Def.: 65

Spd.: 95

[ShadeStrider]

I'd also appreciate it if comments would describe a basic outline for the Story.

[Lorisaur]

On 9/25/2019 at 3:51 PM, ShadeStrider said:

Gamefreak hires you because Generation 8 wasn't the "Smashing Hit" they wanted it to be.

 

You get all the time you need, and you have complete creative freedom. You can even delay the damn game if the Workload is too big.

 

You don't even have to go with 3D graphics. Sprites are OK. Even a Style Reminiscent of Octopath Traveler would be nice.

 

Restrictions: You have to have new Pokemon. You have to have a type and a few new moves. You have to have a new Region. 

 

But you don't have to worry about Merchandising and the Anime. Ignore those things.

 

What do you do?

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Would you add in actual Mechanics instead of useless gimmicks? Would you bring old ones like Triple Battles back?

 

OH GOSH CAN I WRITE A BOOK ABOUT THIS?

 

Just kidding, but I really have so much to write lol

[Lorisaur]

Sorry for double posting.

 

When I was a 10 years old kid, instead of leaving home forever to catch'em all I used to think about... which pokemons could be nice in an hypotetical game. Most of "my game's" mons were fake, exept for a twenty-ish ones like Charizard or Deoxys, and the regional pokedex had 196 pokemons in total. I'll try to list as many as I remember, they were quite cool I think. Fakemons were inspired by my toys lol

If I had to create a game now, I would mostly think of what I thought as a kid. Have fun.

 

The games were pokemon Time and Fusion, not because of Dialga or Kyurem (bw2 wasn't even out yet) but because the legendary was basically my watch

So yeah the story was all about time, the villains were a Team Rocket-style serious crew who wanted power over the flow of time in order to sell it and basically dominate the world forcing everyone to buy time continuously.

The main legendary was indeed able to control the personal time, making time go faster or slower for everyone differently according to his will. He was good and had a zygardeish role in the ecosystem, but here comes the Fusoon legendary: a bouncy pink ball EHM a core of energy able to bond with any pokemon and influence it with his power. The villains were able to catch and make it dark, so he could basically make an any pokemon obey to the villains. In Time they alredy have it and their quest is to catch the watch, and vice versa in Fusion they alredy have Time's legend.

The game made great use of choices, you could basically interact with npcs in interesting ways and choose things like which towns you can access first according to how do you behave with others. You can also join the villains at any moment, it leads to a different storyline in which you want to become the leader and catch the legendary by yourself. After you do, most grunts will follow the old leader who tries things in the post game, but you still have a decent group of guys following you.

Speaking of postgame... my idea was to 1) make the game open world. The region had a slight hoenn inspiration, but you only get surf in the postgame. With surf however you can explore so many new areas making the map huge. There's also another region, made of few islands, where the plot continues and Deoxys plays a pivotal role in it

You also start to get boss battles in the story, battles with uncatchable forms of pokemons or with pokemons over lv100.

At the end of postgame you got a dark candy, a key item that could upgrade any lv100 mon to lv 101. It could be trained from there up to 200, the maximum level cap. But this was competitively useless and mainly for completionist

Aaaand yeah you get a battle frontier with eleven buildings. It had the 10 from the old games plus one unlocked after getting a silver in all the others - battle mirror. Just like tower, but all trainers have something from your team like a pokemon or someone with the same ability etc. The frontier brain is your mirrored image, with your same identical team but you are constantly slowed down on time. I'll get to time slowdown later.

There are also boss rush features a la bowser's inside story but that has nothing to do with battle frontier. It had huge rewards but I thought it to be almost impossible without lv200 mons

 

As for game mechanics, I added a new type - Cut type. Some moves (cut, slash, crush claw, air slash and a few more) became Cut type. Some pokemons also became Cut, like Scizor or Zangoose/Seviper. Or well Kartana, altough it didn't exist yet lol.

Another huge/small addition was attributes. Few pokemons had them, they were passive abilities linked to the species itself. They were things like "any received water damage is also an electric damage" or "non-stab moves get a 1.2 boost if the pokemon moves first". Not too impactful, but useful.

Also, there were Fusions. The legendary could bond to any pokemon making its secondary type Fighting, allowing him to use aura sphere and vacuum wave, and giving him a special attack boost in base stat if it was low. Other stats could change as well. As legends were untradable, only one fusion pokemon was allowed in a team, and it counted as an uber slot

We have then Time flows, the ultimate form of speed control. There were four forms of the legend, normal attack defens and tech, with different time-changing moves. Normal had good stats and time reset, which negated any buff/drop to speed, tailwind or trick room or anything else from both sides of the field. Just an honest pokemon, with the best stats of the forms. They all were dark-bug btw because yes. Attack was a glass cannon with time speeder, that doubled its time for three turns after the one the move was used, meaning he could attack twice in the same turn for three times selecting two different moves. Using the move however dropped significantly the alredy low defenses so it was risky. Defense was my favourite. Bulky but not passive, time slowdown halved opponent's speed for 3 turns after use and negated trick room during the effect. Tech finally had balanced stats. Weirdtime, for 3 turns either player could attack twice with the same pokemon at the cost of not attacking with the other. Just for doubles.

Deoxys could also learn those moves but they were less effective for him

 

I also had A TON of minor changes in mind like a new kind of secret bases, or new ways to play online but I'm tired and I'll talk about it later. Alongside my pokemons, I still remember everyone

[ty_taurus]

If I got to direct the next games, the biggest thing I'd want to do would honestly be to do a heavy rebalancing in multiple areas to accomplish a few different goals for each one.

 

Task 1 - Reevaluate every Pokemon's stats, abilities, and moves such that each Pokemon has a cohesive combat style.

What do I mean by this? I feel like when Pokemon are created, they're designed haphazardly without really thinking about if their stats, typing, moves, and abilities actually flow together. Look at Toxapex and her signature ability Merciless. It's a great ability, but has no business being the signature ability of a wall who would much rather benefit from Regenerator. Merciless would be way more suited on Pokemon like Seviper and Victreebel. There are some Pokemon who could use a change in abilities to pick up newer ones that fit their style. Dancer Bellossom is another cool example, but other Pokemon need more help. Other Pokemon may need their stats reworked to better suit the combat style they embody. Ledian, for example, has excellent physical coverage, Iron Fist, and was designed with the allusion to a Power Ranger, but has an attack stat of 35, worse than Flabebe. This doesn't make any sense from a game design perspective, and examples like this should be fixed.

 

Task 2 - Shallow out every Pokemon's move pools.

Not including Transfer moves, Many Pokemon can have upwards of 70+ moves to choose from which is a ton. Naturally, many of these aren't very useful, either because the moves themselves are weak transitional moves (i.e. Water Gun, Psybeam, Tackle, etc.) or because the Pokemon in question has no use for that kind of move. Alakazam doesn't need to have access to Fire Punch, Ice Punch, and Thunder Punch with his really low attack power. Not every Pokemon needs to have access to tools like Rest, Toxic, and Protect either. Not every Water Pokemon under the sun needs to get Ice Beam and Blizzard through TMs. If every Pokemon has a more shallow movepool to work with, it can both help create a unique playstyle for each Pokemon while also adding value to the Pokemon that naturally learn moves like Rest and Sleep Talk when suddenly not everything can mimic that same design.

 

Additionally, in an effort to increase the quality of life on maintaining a Pokemon's moveset, moves will no longer be forgotten. Instead, players can simply customize their Pokemon's 4 moves from the Pokemon menu.

 

Task 3 - Increase transparency for IVs, EVs, Hidden Powers, and Natures, and create the Elite Training Ground, a location for players to train these values.

So this is honestly a huge one, so let's break it down one piece at a time...

 

First and Foremost, the Elite Training Ground would Replace Breeding

The Elite Training Ground (ETG) is a location that would be added to streamline the development of the invisible values of Pokemon while also helping to teach casual players about these features in a way that's both approachable and less of a grind. The ETG would feature a variety of services that could be used once per x amount of time. Using features in the ETG will allow you, the trainer, to gain Elite Experience, ultimately earning you Elite Trainer Levels. The higher your Elite Trainer Level, the faster it becomes to elite train your Pokemon, essentially creating an initial amount of work needed to begin training your Pokemon for competitive play, but becoming exponentially faster the harder you train. Pokemon Happiness also influences this, as max Happiness Pokemon will get more opportunities to grow stronger faster. The amount of Elite Experience you gain would be relative to the Pokemon you're training. You'll get a lot less points training your level 3 Rattata with no EV/IV investment vs your level 87 Dragonite who's close to capping all their values. Once you've proven that you're capable of training your Pokemon to be the best they can possibly be, it becomes increasingly faster to do that for new Pokemon. This makes sense, as it should take less time for a trainer who's well-experienced in elite training to help Pokemon reach their fullest potential.

 

So now, let's break down each feature of the ETG starting with EXP Training

 

EXP Training is you selecting 2 Pokemon to spar with one another. This sparring session will net a large chunk of bonus EXP to be distributed between the two Pokemon and the amount of Bonus EXP is influenced both by your elite trainer level as well as the average level between the sparring Pokemon. The EXP is distributed differently depending on your Pokemon's level difference as well. Two Pokemon of the same level split the EXP 50/50, but if the level gap is larger, the EXP will split disproportionately and benefit the weaker Pokemon more. If you have one level 75 Pokemon training a level 25 Pokemon, the stronger one won't be learning much, but will instead be helping the weaker Pokemon get stronger faster, basically. 

 

Additionally, since Egg Moves would no longer be possible without breeding, Egg Moves, Tutors, and TMs would all be merged into 1 new category: Cross Training Moves. Cross Training Moves are moves that cannot normally be learned by a Pokemon, but can be learned if that Pokemon EXP trains with another Pokemon that has that move. Alola Ninetales currently has Moonblast as an Egg Move, so with the ETG, how it works is that Alola Ninetales can learn Moonblast by training with another Pokemon who knows that move, such as a Gardevoir. Cross Training Moves require a Pokemon train multiple times before they can learn that move, and the amount of time will differ depending on the move in question. Moonblast might require a Pokemon train 5 times with another Pokemon that knows Moonblast. One great benefit to this is that Genderless Pokemon would have access to Cross Training Moves where previously they could not have any Egg Moves.

 

Next Feature: Hidden Type Meditation

Currently, the move Hidden Power has a different power level and type depending on your Pokemon's IV spread. This would be changed so that Hidden Type is now a completely separated value. The strength of Hidden Power would now be streamlined at 70 power, and a physical variation would be added: Hidden Force. Hidden Power and Hidden Force would be the only two moves that every single Pokemon can learn, extending this to Pokemon like Metapod, Magikarp, and Cosmog. Both moves would be learned when first using the Hidden Type Meditation feature.

 

Hidden Type Meditation allows a Pokemon to unlock their Hidden Type, not only learning Hidden Power and Hidden Force, but making their Hidden Type view-able from the stats window of a Pokemon. Which Type a Pokemon receives is random under normal conditions, and a Pokemon who has already unlocked their Hidden Type can perform Hidden Type Meditation again to randomly change their Hidden Type. A Pokemon holding an Arceus Plate when performing Hidden Type Meditation will always receive the Hidden Type that matches the Plate.

 

Next Feature: Hyper Training Locations, IVs and Natures

IVs currently are completely random between 0 and 31. IVs would change to be between 0 and 15 and the value is just added to your Pokemon's current stat values regardless of level. Additionally, every Pokemon begins with 0 IVs. Now, IVs are acquired through Hyper Training in specific locations of the ETG. Things like sitting under a waterfall to increase Defense, Dodging Rocks to increase Speed, etc... Every Pokemon gains 2 Points per Hyper Training session by default; however, Natures have been re-purposed and will influence this.

 

Natures no longer influence your stats by +10% and -10% modifier (Something else will replace this which I'll bring up next.) Instead, your nature determines the points you'll earn from Hyper Training. An Adamant Pokemon, for example, will earn 4 points when Hyper Training Attack, but only 1 Point when Hyper Training Special Attack. Ultimately, an Adamant Pokemon can still max their Special Attack, it will just take longer to do so.

 

Next Feature: Battle Tactics Training

A new element to Pokemon would be their established Battle Tactics. Each Pokemon begins with the Tactic "Freestyle" which does nothing; however, you can train each Pokemon to have a certain battle tactic and change that tactic be reusing this feature. These are the tactics:

Aggressive: Attack +10%

Patient: Defense +10%

Calculative: Special Attack +10%

Resilient: Special Defense +10%

Energetic: Speed +10%

These effectively replace the current use of Natures, but without the stat penalty. This is because the stat penalty was already completely ignored by most Pokemon just by choosing either Attack or Special Attack, depending on which offensive stat the Pokemon didn't already use, and ultimately discouraged mix sets, as mix attackers would be forced to take a penalty while other Pokemon didn't have to.

 

Next Feature: Super Training Dummies, EVs

Currently, each Pokemon has certain EVs that they yield for being defeated in combat. This means players need to grind through a bunch of similar enemy Pokemon to train up this points which can be time consuming an monotonous. Instead, defeating enemy Pokemon nets your Pokemon blank EV points up to a max of 127. The amount you gain increases slowly as your Elite Trainer Level increases, starting with 0.25 Points per battle. With Super Training Dummies, you can distribute these points manually across your Pokemon's stats. The amount of points you can distribute increase with your Pokemon's level (to a max of 63 points per stat at level 100), and each point correlates to +1 in a stat per point.

 

Last Feature: Ability Training

This would simply replace ability capsules in allowing players to change the ability of the Pokemon they have. This would not be restrictive of Hidden Abilities; however, your Elite Trainer Level would need to reach a certain point before you could select Hidden Abilities for you Pokemon.

 

That concludes all the different features of the ETG, but let's talk for a second about why all this change?

 

The first big thing is all about being transparent with the player about these values. Everything would be clearly displayed with numbers, not vague spider graphs. Additionally, the entire ETG would be all about explaining these elements, giving the player control, and making it easy to learn. The games don't currently do this, and it creates this unnecessary gap between hardcore and casual players. It's also super grindy to have to chain-breed Pokemon in a world where time is a premium. This system would still create the initial slow grind in the beginning, but by the time your Elite Trainer Level hits max, you're able to completely create new Pokemon sets quickly and efficiently to encourage players to experiment with different Pokemon and different sets. You have to prove you're a good trainer to do it, but are rewarded by no longer needing to grind out for every new Pokemon you want to experiment with.

 

Also, I have always felt that the concept of Breeding has been incredibly toxic to the themes of Pokemon as a whole. The games want you to believe that becoming a master is all about bonding with your Pokemon and helping them master their strengths and weaknesses to become the best they could be. In reality, actual Pokemon masters completely trash the Pokemon they experienced their journey with and turn the daycare into a puppy mill to breed out all the imperfections of the Pokemon they caught and trained with. We even have a term for all the imperfect Pokemon created along the way: Brejects. Game or no, this is an awful way to look at the Pokemon world.

 

Removing breeding and replacing it with the ETG makes elite training all about putting in the work the way the game's themes want you to: Working hard with your partner Pokemon that you've developed bonds with to do all the things Breeding did, but with more control.