Reworking the System: Pokemon Battles

[NPR]

The Pokemon Battle, the driving force behind the Pokemon Franchise. For years now people from all over having been putting Pokemon to battle in a controlled environment where the trainer uses one of four moves, watches an animation and sees if their near motionless Pokemon can take down the HP of the other. This may involve strategy and planning, but it also involves hours upon HOURS of painful level and effort value grinding. We all love our Pokemon and we all love the feeling of the win, but where did the fun go? When did the game play of the Pokemon Franchise become almost mechanical? This may have been fun and amusing in the early 90's when a programmer couldn't even dream of having a battle become interactive, but now it seems a tad outdated. As the creator of Pokemon, Satoshi Tajiri has expressed, the Pokemon Special Manga represents the world he wanted to make the best. Now, video games have finally come to the point where they can almost fully handle this kind of environment. I am not saying like many others that the game should give you full control over Pokemon, nor am I implying that it should completely change it's formula. It is hard to explain so here is how it goes so far.

The DS interface is a very interesting thing that can be employed in Pokemon battles. Imagine after you selected an attack you see the miniature sprite of the pokemon moving around the touch screen, I haven't decided yet if you should control it or some forumla, but anyway, you would have to, using your stylus drag and release a ball shaped transparency over the moving Pokemon sprite. To make things more interesting depending on your attack's base accuracy, a ratio of your level to the other Pokemon's level, the size of the transparent ball would increase or decrease making it harder or easier to hit a pokemon. Also, depending on the speed of the other pokemon, it's sprite could move around the touch screen much faster. So it would be easier to hit a steelix than say a Crobat. Also, the size and shape of the Pokemon could play an interesting role to come to think of it. Using this system speed increasing moves like agility would make the Pokemon move around the screen faster, and double team may even make a decoy image or two of the Pokemon on the screen. Immunities would still work, it would just not have any effect even if you targeted the Pokemon correctly. Everything else would pretty much stay the say, all the attack and defense changing stats would do the same thing and all the type advantage and disadvantages would still apply. It would just make the game far less mechanical and much more interactive with the player. Competitive battlers would still be able to have their fun, but there would always be a way to win or lose with skill and luck, not just the fact you EV trained a Pokemon.

Ugh, long post, so discussions, questions, criticism, opinions, likelihood, ext.

 

[RJ x JC]

Very imaginative. Kudos to you, friend.

However, in my opinion, I feel that Pokemon battles shouldn't be changed all that much. True, it does seem dated for battles to just be nothing more than barely-moving sprites throwing projectiles at each other, but changing it a whole lot would introduce new problems and new things to overcome as well. Some strategies might no longer work, bad for people who've been perfecting their game for years. You get the idea.

Just think of it as Tetris: You can make it look better, but adding anything else to it would just ruin it.

I think the better option (I'm talking about you, HeartGold/SoulSilver) would be to improve the existing sprite animation more, like actually animating a Pokemon collapsing to the ground, instead of it just being sucked into the ground itself when it faints. They could also animate the Pokemon to move the way their chosen attack would be performed, like Lucario actually charging up its Aura Sphere in its hands before launching it at the opponent, Hadouken style. Flashy.

A Pokemon doing a victory pose wouldn't hurt either.

Of course, this would eat up a whole lot more space in the DS cart, space that could be used to expand overall gameplay further... so unless they could create DS carts with higher data capacity, I feel that what we have is already good enough.

After all, if the franchise lasted this long on just those meager animations, what's gonna stop them from continuing on?

Still, maybe your ideas could be used, but in a spin-off game, a la Pokemon Ranger.

 

[kaijin2k3]

Hm. I like the idea of a top down view of the two pokemon in the ring. You don't control how or where the pokemon move, but rather their natures and what pokemon they are. Like a lonely torterra wouldn't move much and would be a walking tank, while a hasty ninjask would be buzzing around the field barely visible (and becomming slowly fsater).

The battle could remain the same, with the 4 moves that you select, and you could see the animation, effects, and if they're hits or misses. I think the only thing that could change is having a Dodge or Block command, that the Pokemon could use and their chances of actually dodging or blocking an attack could depend on their speed vs. enemy speed, your timing of hitting the command, the distance between the two pokemon and what moves were used.

Perhaps even no more turns... a cooldown could be in place so you can't just keep spamming attacks, and accuracies/critical hits could be dependant on when you tell the pokemon to attack (like telling a Hitmonchan to use Sky Uppercut as a pokemon is comming down from a Bounce attack could have a high critical hit chance, while using it as the pokemon is going up has a higher miss chance, etc)

But in the end, as jima said, something like this or what you described is definitely best saved for some spinoff game.

 

[The Outrage]

As the creator of Pokemon, Satoshi Tajiri has expressed, the Pokemon Special Manga represents the world he wanted to make the best.

Would people honestly stop referencing that? I mean that was how long ago when Pokemon Special had how many chapters?

That point aside, what you are suggesting doesn't seem much better. Throw away a system that has been perfected over four generations for that? I'm imagining what you are trying to say, and all I can see is something visually unappealing, and gameplay-wise, probably more tedious than the current system.

The game itself doesn't even really impose level-grinding to much extent to beat the main story line.

 

[Shinx3000]

I my opinion, pokemon battle system improving gradually throughout each Gen is good, overdoing it all at once would not be good IMO and if you think about throw the battle system has been, you may know why. Now I feel some of the mechanics should be revised, mainly the typing and how some moves affect other pokemon.

Ground does not affect levitate or flying pokemon right? (its assumed that levitate/flying are not on the ground so should not get hit by a move on the ground) But what about bonemerang? Mud slap? etc.. they are not restricted to the ground per say as a bone gets thrown, mud can get slapped upwards not like magnitude or earthquake is moving the ground or earth power opening the ground etc...

Surf should hit a pokemon if they used dig before this move is used (before dig hits or misses the target, its first turn) and not sure how dive would work, but a pokemon that's hidden underwater should get hit with Earthquake.

Also Hyperbeam should hit ghosts, its normal but not a physical move like all other normal attack moves, making it not hit ghosts. Now why should that be?

For now those would be good improvements. Also I'd like to see when a move like growl, tail whip or dragon dance etc... moves are used, what the stat gain/loss is. You know that stat gets lowered a little, but what is the stat now that its been lowered or raised?

 

[The Outrage]

Also Hyperbeam should hit ghosts, its normal but not a physical move like all other normal attack moves, making it not hit ghosts. Now why should that be?

That would imply that Ghost Pokemon are immune to all physical moves, and they're not. Even when it was type-based, Ghosts were only immune to normal, not other physical type moves. Making ghosts immune to physical moves would just be broken, and making it immune only to physical normal moves wouldn't make much sense either. Notice how ghosts can't hit normals either? Just look at it this way, Normal Pokemon well, normal, while ghosts are supernatural. And you know, we "normal people" don't really interact with the "supernatural"

And what do you mean "all the other normal type attacks"? There are a lot of special normal moves.

 

[Shinx3000]

That would imply that Ghost Pokemon are immune to all physical moves, and they're not. Even when it was type-based, Ghosts were only immune to normal, not other physical type moves. Making ghosts immune to physical moves would just be broken, and making it immune only to physical normal moves wouldn't make much sense either. Notice how ghosts can't hit normals either? Just look at it this way, Normal Pokemon well, normal, while ghosts are supernatural. And you know, we "normal people" don't really interact with the "supernatural"

And what do you mean "all the other normal type attacks"? There are a lot of special normal moves.

What other special normal type moves are there besides hyper beam?

Also a ghost is supposed to be translucent (a spirit, not a physical being) so physical moves shot not hit a ghost. Physical fighting moves don't hit a ghost so whys should other physical moves? Unless moves like foresight are used or ouder slouth, no physical moves should be able to hit a ghost.

A ghost can't hit a normal type because it goes right through a physical being, so the ghost typing should be redone completely to make up for this, but this way it would make ghosts stronger and only special moves could affect them and any physical move with an added element like "Flame wheel" or "Volt tackle" and the element would hit the ghost, not the pokemons body

 

[The Outrage]

What other special normal type moves are there besides hyper beam?

Tri-Attack, Uproar, Hyper Voice etc...

Also a ghost is supposed to be translucent (a spirit, not a physical being) so physical moves shot not hit a ghost. Physical fighting moves don't hit a ghost so whys should other physical moves? Unless moves like foresight are used or ouder slouth, no physical moves should be able to hit a ghost.

So make ghost types broken because you're annoyed by something?

That aside, what do you mean "Physical fighting moves don't hit a ghost so whys should other physical moves? " Ghosts are immune to all fighting moves be they physical or special.

A ghost can't hit a normal type because it goes right through a physical being, so the ghost typing should be redone completely to make up for this, but this way it would make ghosts stronger and only special moves could affect them and any physical move with an added element like "Flame wheel" or "Volt tackle" and the element would hit the ghost, not the pokemons body

So apart from the ethereal ghost-types themselves, what Pokemon isn't a physical being?

Normal Vs. Supernatural makes much more of a better explanation as to why those two types don't interact.

 

[LegendKillerUK]

I wouldn't want the game battles to look any different, If Nintendo were ever to go 3D with the battle engine I'd certainly wish for an option to disable it. The current look of the game in all its 2D glory is what makes the game for me. It has been like it too long for a change in look. Altough I do agree with the other chat on moves that shouldn't effect levitating Pokemon etc. That does need to be addressed to help consistency within the game.

 

[xinnamin]

I doubt that revamping the entire battle system would be a good idea. The Physical/Special split in itself was huge, and in my opinion, enough of a change. Doing anything else fancy with the mechanics, especially of attack effects, immunities, and abilities, may just be a bit much. The Physical/Special split was easy to adjust to, but anything more would, in my opinion, ruin it for a lot of older fans.

What I would like to see instead is some more animation, mostly of pokemon getting hit or fainting, and possibly the implementation of a weak basic attack that doesn't take up a moveslot and has no PP limit or type, and does no more damage than maybe 1/16 of the opponent's total HP. It would be similar to the "A" attack in the PMD games and be unusable if all 4 main moves run out of PP, just so Struggle is still implemented in game. It would be nice to have so that you don't have to waste the PP of a superpowerful move if the opponent has barely any HP left, and certainly makes more sense than pokemon being able to perform 4 high power attacks but not even a simple weak tackle at the same time.

 

[Shinx3000]

So make ghost types broken because you're annoyed by something?

That aside, what do you mean "Physical fighting moves don't hit a ghost so whys should other physical moves? " Ghosts are immune to all fighting moves be they physical or special.

I am not annoyed with anything, I just don't get why some special moves should not be able to hit a ethereal creature just because they are based on a type that should not be able to hit because they are normal/and fighitng which implies they use physical body to hit foe, but other physical moves can hit like rock moves... should rocks not go through the ghost and whatnot?

Besides saying "It would make ghosts broken" to do things this way, do yo think it shouldn't have been this way?

 

[The Outrage]

I'm pretty sure I've made my stance between Ghost and normal types already when I said "normal" vs supernatural do not interact.

 

[LegendKillerUK]

I never understood how 'Lick' came to be a Ghost move. Alright it is also seen as a 'Physical' attack which is accurate but would love to see how a 'Normal' type is somehow unaffected by a lick. I would have that as a 'Normal' type of attack.

 

[Shinx3000]

I'm pretty sure I've made my stance between Ghost and normal types already when I said "normal" vs supernatural do not interact.

Still you never said why other physical moves not normal or fighting like physical flying moves can hit a ghost if the first two I said can't. If something like an aerial ace can hit a ghost, a slash should be able too as aerial ace uses a sharp spike, beak or part of the body to hit the foe and slash does similar right?

 

[The Outrage]

Notice how there is a Hidden Power for everything except normal, and an elemental plate for everything except normal? Every type probably have some sort of supernatural/elemental power except for normal.

 

[Shinx3000]

Notice how there is a Hidden Power for everything except normal, and an elemental plate for everything except normal? Every type probably have some sort of supernatural/elemental power except for normal.

I can see that, but then your saying that moves such tri attack and hyper beam don't have an element, which tri attack clearly does, fire/electricity and ice.

 

[Sleet]

I don't think the battle system has gotten boring, but I do agree that at least minor changes need to be made. The first and foremost one is the animations. Pokémon should stop looking lifeless, and attacks should actually appear like they're doing something. Physical attacks should involve actual contact, special moves should be "fired" or whatever in a believable way, etc. In the main handheld series, the Pokémon can stay as sprites (and probably should, because all that animation in 3D would be hard on the DS) but they should look like they're actually battling, and not having a light show.

I do think your idea would work, but might be a little extreme. An idea I like is an "action command" concept, similar to how things work in Paper Mario: by doing a certain action correctly, quickly, and/or at the right time, you can shift the battle in your favor by doing more damage, resisting more damage, or surviving special effects. It doesn't need to be game-breaking, but it would make for some more active gameplay (no matter how simplistic Paper Mario's combat engine is, I always find the battles at the very least somewhat exciting). Using appropriate commands for attacks would also make, say, Hydro Pump feel like a different move from Surf, and not the same move with more power and less accuracy. For example, to use Psychic, you have to use your stylus and flick a sprite of your opponent into the "wall" to deal damage. Do it too weakly, and it does half damage. The commands shouldn't be so complicated that they disrupt the flow of battle, and they also shouldn't be that hard to do. It should be so that someone who has decent experience with the command should be able to get the full effect most of the time, to keep the emphasis on strategy and not on "minigames." It could also be done so that accuracy is built into the system; accurate moves will have easy commands, while moves like Zap Cannon would be harder, so that misses are most common. The only flaw I could see with that idea is that eventually people would still figure those out, and less accurate moves would be majorly favored competitively. Either way, it's nice to be able to attribute game-changing freak accidents to human error and not to the game's RNG.

However, overall the system should be almost exactly the same. It just needs a little "fluff" to make it more involved.

 

[Vib]

I think that it would be very cool to add some kind some kind of timed, "fluffer" to attacks.(in addition to all of the new animations and stuff), a la Paper Mario's "Stylish" attacks.

Maybe introduce some certain "tapping" or rhythm based things (think Elite Beat Agents) to help the attack.

For all of this, definitely, DEFINITELY have 3 attack options in the "options" slot. "Action", which is what we are discussing, "Scene" which is like what it is now, and "DRAB", which is the no animations, boring, bullcrap stuff.

Personally, I don't think a whole live action battle thing would work in the main series game. I would, wholly support a spin-off "Pokemon: EPIK BATLLES!" or whatever that does that kind of thing, and that thing only in that game.

Even if it was implemented in the main series games, think of the LAG in Wifi. It takes long enough as it is...

I agree with Sleet, however, on the fact that the Main battle system needs a FLUFF.