How would you improve a Pokemon game mechanic?

[Johnny Novgorod]

But that would defeat the purpose in trading. Which is what the whole purpose of the games was crafted to do.

Yeah this guy's got a point, Pokemon is a game about connecting with people and this basically makes that moot.

Fuck trading, a game should let you enjoy single player unhindered by online perks. The game never made it a "point" that you could or should trade 'em all, the motto is CATCH 'em all. Oh, except you can't. Ever. Because you need friends with the other 15 different Pokemon games that have done the job for you. And an internet connection/link cable.

Better (as in actual) mod support. There is a ton of cool mods for pokemon, Nintendo, use some of them. Would it kill you to have some fan made, free dlc? And I'm not joking around about this: Where is my fully customizable Nuzlocke Mode?

After all, could you imagine the outrage if another game required you to use a multi-player aspect to complete the single player part 100%?

I hate when people use the "some other/another game...", instead of naming it. Because it's only used to make it harder to respond. What other game? What game are you talking about? Name it!

A lot of games have specific online multiplayer trophies that will prevent you from achieving 100% completion on trophy/achievement collection if you don't have an internet connection or don't have anyone to play with or the game's online server doesn't exist anymore.

Referring specifically to single player campaign, I can think of certain Abstergo Challenges in Asssssin's Creed IV: Black Flag which require BOTH an internet connection and a uPlay account (e.g. "sharing white whale/royal convoy/treasure chest locations"). A lot of content that you usually purchase in stores, such as guns, swords and outfits, as well as hideout collectiblles, can only be unlocked through multiplayer as well.

 

[otakon17]

Make is a third person action-RPG with you directly controlling your pokemon and it's stats and types affecting it's movement and speed.

 

[Terminate421]

But that would defeat the purpose in trading. Which is what the whole purpose of the games was crafted to do.

Yeah this guy's got a point, Pokemon is a game about connecting with people and this basically makes that moot.

Fuck trading, a game should let you enjoy single player unhindered by online perks. The game never made it a "point" that you could or should trade 'em all, the motto is CATCH 'em all. Oh, except you can't. Ever. Because you need friends with the other 15 different Pokemon games that have done the job for you. And an internet connection/link cable.

But here is where it gets better. Some Pokemon REQUIRE trading to be caught. That and you do not REQUIRE an internet connection. Even better, if you have a 3DS and don't have an internet connection with it, how is that possible? You easily connect to just about any source and use the GTS to help you "Catch 'em All".

The concept of trading for these games has been around since it's conception, regardless of it's quality of a single player, Pokemon has ALWAYS been about interacting with other human beings using your Pokemon. The other 15? If anything, Pokemon X and Y have the largest roster of pokemon available. (WILD HYDREIGONS?!?) Getting the majority of just one game is really easy. Getting the others is relatively easy for help.

The whole idea was Pocket Monsters. Take out the game from your pocket, trade/battle with other people who have that.

 

[Aerosteam]

A speed-up button.

Like the one in Fire Emblem: Awakening. I'm specifically talking about the battle animations eventually becoming repetitive. Turning them completely off is the closing thing we got, which sucks. I mean, I still want to see them because it shows that something is actually happening in the battle, but again, seeing the same move used multiple times in the same one can still get boring.

Also...

[color][HEADING=1]Get rid of hidden moves[/HEADING][/color]

For Arceus' sake, why is this still a mechanic? All it does is make an excuse not to go to a new area until you get the next gym badge. But I wouldn't mind keeping the obstacles, just don't make me replace one of my party pokemon's moves for something I'll never use in battle. [sub](Except surf.[/sub] [sub][sub]Maybe waterfall.[/sub][/sub] [sub][sub][sub]And fly.)[/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[Comic Sans]

I strongly disagree with allowing Pokemon 5 moves instead of 4. The game is balanced around having only 4. You are forced to pick and choose what works best, and need to make sacrifices based on what you think is more important in type coverage. There's no good way to implement a built in fifth. If it's a good move, then it breaks the system in place that already works well. If it's not a great move, it will never get used anyway making it pointless. Looking at your suggestion of it being moves like Tackle and Scratch, there's a reason those moves are forgotten early. They are useless. It would only clutter the screen UI with an attack that would never be used. I guess you could argue it as for not running out of PP, but even that doesn't really work. I have been playing these games since Pokemon Blue, when I was in 4th grade. Not once have I ever totally run out of PP. You'd have to attack with one Pokemon dozens, if not over a hundred times to run out. And then you use Struggle, which is actually more powerful than Scratch and the like as a last ditch effort. So no to this idea, it really wouldn't offer anything.

I am totally okay with being able to swap out moves easier. As it stands now, you can do so, but it's a major pain in the ass. You need to farm Heart Scales and give them to a certain NPC. This is quite annoying. I would suggest not allowing respec until later in the game or giving it some sort of cost, since a lot of Pokemon have "level 0" moves, which you can only get via breeding or Heart Scale. In some circumstances this might give a Pokemon too strong of moves early on. In the end though, it would cut down on the tedium of getting said level 0 moves. Maybe still keep on an NPC at around the halfway point, but give it a small money cost rather than something as annoyingly specific as a Heart Scale.

The last suggestion doesn't really affect vets since they already know what the moves do and how to check them, but is a decent quality of life change so no reason I would say no.

If I was to suggest anything myself, it would be changing HM moves into items. Make Flash a flashlight, maybe make Surf a boat, or something. While some HMs like Surf are strong attacks and are worth a lot, most of them are not. They have done good in making most of them nonmandatory in the later games (except Surf) and restricted them to only one use needed to progress (if any) while keeping them available to grab hidden items or optional areas, removing them entirely would be better.

 

[lionsprey]

You should be able to catch 'em all in a single game.

But that would defeat the purpose in trading. Which is what the whole purpose of the games was crafted to do.

Yeah this guy's got a point, Pokemon is a game about connecting with people and this basically makes that moot.

I disagree completely with your statements.

1. Pokémon isn't a game about trading animals you catch around the world, it's about training those animals up and collecting them. Basically: Trading is not the sole purpose of these games.

2. Trading would still be useful if you could catch them all, as there would likely be constraints on catching certain Pokémon that would push people to trade simply to make things easier.


Making trading mandatory to catch them all just puts an arbitrary restriction on completing the game, and also ensures you can't complete it yourself, which you should be able to do in a solo game; After all, could you imagine the outrage if another game required you to use a multi-player aspect to complete the single player part 100%?

you also forgot the pokemon you can only get through attending an event or the pokemon that only evolve when traded.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

I mean I'm sick of every evil organization, oh I beat this thug in a pokemon battle! He's now going to let my preteen girl avatar skip right past him while he does nothing!

Like I understand, lets monster fight and all but even if I kick their asses they shouldn't let me just run roughshod over them. Pull out a gun or grab me like a terrorist in real life.

You are a special kind of crazy, y'know that? Some kid trounces you with a magical fire breathing dragon looking thing, or god only knows what else they have on them, after YOU picked a fight with them I might add, and now you're either going to be difficult or escalate things!? Yeah, sure. That'll end well.

"Alright you little punk, let's see how you deal with my pistoOH ARCEUS I'M ON FIRE! AND NOW I'M COVERED IN ACID! BLARGBLE!"

Anyway, something I've always wanted to add to this series is a way to customize your pokemon. I remember in the Pokemon Adventures Manga where Red got scammed by Blue/Green (Whatever her name is these days.) into buying some armor for his pokemon that she said would make them stronger.

It obviously didn't work, but that didn't change the fact that it made me wish I could deck the little guys up in outfits and the like and send them out into battle with them. If nothing else, it'd help hammer in the whole "these are YOUR Pokemon" aspect of the series.

Plus, who wouldn't love to send out a Scyther in Samurai armor?

 

[PinkiePyro]

as others said dump the whole hm thing and just make it more like the mechanics in ranger where if the pokemon could do it then it can just do it

raise the 4 move limit to 6 the only reason it was 4 was data limits

fix the global trade system yea if you leave a trade up too long then your pokemon can run away but assign a moderator or something the amount of crap for legandary is too damn high

 

[The White Hunter]

There is already a fifth hidden attack it is called struggle it has been there since gen 1.

And your other point is more easy.

What do I want? I want my damn puzzles back and some difficulkty injecting back into the series, Black and White were easy but then X and Y are an utter fucking joke.

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

do away with HMs. They only take up attack slots with horrible, useless attacks and limit the usefulness of many team combinations. Introduce items instead. There's a fishing rod. Why can't we also get gardening shears in place of Cut, an inflatable boat instead of Surf, etc?

 

[Fractral]

Remove Mega Kangashkhan, or nerf it severely. I only beat the one I encountered online because the guy I was playing was an idiot and tried to use power up punch on my Gengar. Also, buff the other Megas. How they could make some of them actually weaker than the ordinary forms boggles me. *cough* MegaScizor *cough*.
Outside of multiplayer-
change the EXP share back to how it was in the previous generations.
Remove the shift battling system, it's OP as hell.
Stop making it necessary to catch the legendary pokemon to complete the story, it prevents you from catching a good one on your first run through.
Add more optional side areas, preferably with hidden legendaries from old gens.
The story in Black/White was great, do something like that again.
Make the evil team more competent, but keep the stupid grunts. The bosses should be the evil intelligent ones. Ghestis from Black/White was a good example of this, keeping his true motives hidden, as well as his team. Shame he threw all subtlety away in the sequel.

 

[duwenbasden]

Remove all "but thou must do this!!111" from the game. I almost ragequitted after that harpy in Pokemon X won't stop "asking" you to follow her lead. Why the fuck should I follow you? How about YOU wait HERE until I feel like doing it?

An option to refuse the battle iff your level is too high. Countless times I ran into idiots taunting me to battle his level 10 Caterpie against my level 80 Charizard. It is not fun, and a waste of my time.

Balance the battles. How many times does confusion actually matter to the NPC Pokemon?

 

[AntiChri5]

After all, could you imagine the outrage if another game required you to use a multi-player aspect to complete the single player part 100%?

I hate when people use the "some other/another game...", instead of naming it. Because it's only used to make it harder to respond. What other game? What game are you talking about? Name it!

And what ever you come up with, it's a very good chance (like 99%) that there's a fundamental difference between what singleplayer/multiplayer/ 100% completion means in that sentence, and Pokemon's.

I'm not referring to a particular game.

I just meant that if some other game was released with a single player mode that required a multi-player aspect to complete, people would be furious and there would be an ourage.


For some reason, people have accepted that, with Pokémon, you either have to rely on others or buy a second console and game just to complete the pokédex, which is arguably the ultimate aim of the game - Y'know, hence the phrase Gotta catch 'em all

And don't get me started on online trading. Peoples' demands ridiculously high more often than not, so it's not a realistic way to complete the game. Even so, you still have to rely on others for it.

It's already happened. Mass Effect 3 required that you play the multiplayer in order to get one of the endings for singlelayer. MASSIVE hate backlash. They ended up having to undo it in a patch.

 

[AntiChri5]

I think Pokemon's biggest problem is an unwillingness to shake up the formula. A lot of stuff in X and Y are there because that's how it was in Red and Blue. Staying true to your roots is important, but eventually it's time to move on.

The thing i most want is no more of the "three starter" nonsense. We constantly have to choose from three new pokemon at the beginning of the game. That was fine when there weren't so many, but now there are almost a thousand of the bastards. The chances of a player having a different pokemon they would rather pick are pretty high now.

Let the player choose from a fairly extensive list that includes almost all non legendaries. That way their starter is a dear partner for their entire adventure, not some annoying burden they cram in a box as soon as they get the one they really wanted.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Funnily enough, I was thinking about this while working today. I have two big things that would work with one another and they are thus:

Multiple Save Files: This is one of the only RPGs (Japanese or Western) that I can think of that doesn't offer multiple save files. What's really odd is how this has never been an option despite the game series having started nearly 20 years ago. I know I'm not alone in my desire to start a new adventure over from the beginning. I hate how I can't do that without deleting my save file (which is also strangely difficult to do compared to other RPGs).

In-Game Trading using multiple save files: There isn't a new game+ mode and there's no way of catching all of the Pokemon on a cartridge without trading. Ever since the beginning there have been people who either couldn't or wouldn't buy both versions in order to catch every last Pokemon. Even then, there are other instances of Pokemon that you won't be able to catch by virtue of choice. I don't see it as being right that you have to exploit a glitch in the earlier games to get all 3 starters. Being able to trade Pokemon between save files would make the process of 'catching them all' seem a lot more doable.

I have a third thought and it would definitely be controversial...

Make Event Pokemon available via DLC: I don't want to buy a cheat device. The problem is, there isn't any other way for me to get a Darkrai, Deoxys, Keldeo...there are a lot of event exclusive Legendary Pokemon that just don't seem to be in circulation anymore and I can't guarantee that I can make it to future events. Genosect and Melottea annoyed me by being present on Pokemon Black & White but it didn't seem like they were put into circulation as downloads until Black 2 and White 2 released. I'm also kind of paranoid that you will need to have a subscription to the Pokebank to get future event Pokemon...thanks Mew for trigger that little bit of anxiety!

 

[Folksoul]

Getting rid of HM's and Trade Evolution and exclusive legendaries. I should never need another player to level MY team member and I may or may not get it back. Common version exclusives are fine though. That's a whole Pokemon you're trading. Catch two, trade one for its opposite on GTA and call it there.

Exclusive legendaries means, without some cheating involved, it is impossible for every player to "catch em all" and keep them and not just re trade them for pokedex data. Have the "plot" one on the main quest and the other in a bonus dungeon, like Zygarde or Mewtwo. I cannot have both Xerneas and Yvetal without depriving someone of the one I didn't get in my copy. That is outright against the spirit of the series and its sort of sad.

Because of the Bank, all currently known Pokemon are now available and new mons in the subsequent versions, whatever they may be, will be passed forward ad infinitum, focus on story. Go full SMT on this, or as close as you can before the E-E10 rating is threatened.

 

[SilverLion]

Remove Iv's.
I understand why they're there, but unlike Nature or EV's it's too dififcult to personally customise your own and, most importantly for my reasoning, it drives people to endlessly breed Pokemon until they get the ones with perfect IV's, tossing away dozens of "useless" mons because they don't fit their impossibly high standards. It goes against the whole message of "Pokemon are friends, not tools". But SilverLion, IV's affect stats, how would you fix that? Easy, just have stats that correpsond to 20-25 IV's in every stat and that now all you have o customize is EV's and Nature. It'll also mean that any Pokemon you catch in the field like a bog standard Pidgey off of Route 1 can match up to a Pidgey chain-bred for perfection after just a little EV grinding. It'll make players that much closer to their Pokemon and really make the message stick that much more and not feel like a weak justification thrown in to avoid people like PETA saying it's just flamethrower cock-fighting.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

I mean I'm sick of every evil organization, oh I beat this thug in a pokemon battle! He's now going to let my preteen girl avatar skip right past him while he does nothing!

Like I understand, lets monster fight and all but even if I kick their asses they shouldn't let me just run roughshod over them. Pull out a gun or grab me like a terrorist in real life.

You are a special kind of crazy, y'know that? Some kid trounces you with a magical fire breathing dragon looking thing, or god only knows what else they have on them, after YOU picked a fight with them I might add, and now you're either going to be difficult or escalate things!? Yeah, sure. That'll end well.

"Alright you little punk, let's see how you deal with my pistoOH ARCEUS I'M ON FIRE! AND NOW I'M COVERED IN ACID! BLARGBLE!"

Anyway, something I've always wanted to add to this series is a way to customize your pokemon. I remember in the Pokemon Adventures Manga where Red got scammed by Blue/Green (Whatever her name is these days.) into buying some armor for his pokemon that she said would make them stronger.

It obviously didn't work, but that didn't change the fact that it made me wish I could deck the little guys up in outfits and the like and send them out into battle with them. If nothing else, it'd help hammer in the whole "these are YOUR Pokemon" aspect of the series.

Plus, who wouldn't love to send out a Scyther in Samurai armor?

Okay, no pistol. Maybe the place is rigged to blow up. Bad guy has the detonator.

I don't know, I'm just sick of it all coming down to a pokemon battle...

XY had some creepy moments, playing as a girl walking down the allyways getting stopped by strange old men. I have little doubt that by social contract, failing to win the battle would mean my Avatar would be forced to suck it.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

This is soley because I'm an adult playing a kids game, but I'd like a more realistic and maybe more adult story.

I'm guessing you've never played a Shin Megami Tensei game before, because they're more or less this. Persona 3 (FES or th PSP port) & 4 are my personal favorites, but there's a ton of solid games in the series.

OT: A better story would be really nice, although I know this isn't going to happen. Other than that, I'd really like a better official online community system a la steam or PSN or something, even if it's just for pokemon. I'd make things a lot easier and more fun.

Is that what the Persona games are about? Catching and battling Munsters?

I honestly haven't enjoyed a good RPG since the RPGs on the PSOne