Pokelego999
Smash Hero
- Joined
- May 27, 2019
- Messages
- 6,999
- Switch FC
- SW-0935-8215-2605
I was thinking about how Pokemon could possibly change for the better, and thus I'm putting down some ideas for fixing mistakes and bringing things to improve the games. Let us begin.
The Base Stat, Movepool, and Ability Problem.
Pokemon are very much hinged on their stats. So much so many alter them to make them better. But some Pokemon have much to be desired. For instance, Pokemon like Ledian and Furret are nothing more than deadweight in battles thanks to their stats or abilities. Giving buffs to Pokemon who need them would make more Pokemon viable than before. Let's take the previous example Ledian to show you what I mean. It's movepool and abilities make it out to be an offensive Pokemon, but it's stats pale in comparison to what it is meant to be. It has solid Special Defense and Speed, but it has a paltry base 35 Atk and base 55 Sp. Atk. It makes it quite terrible. Giving it an extra 70 in Atk would make it an actually useable Pokemon. Electivire and Magmortar are good Pokemon, but cannot tank a hit and are low ranked because of it. Giving even a small boost to their Defenses would make them much more usable. Dusknoir has good defenses but no HP, making it useless. Perhaps if it were to gain at least even a 30 point boost it would be able to have something against its rival Spiritomb. I could go on for days, but let's move on to the next topic.
Certain Pokemon have massive movepools, making them very viable. Gengar and Clefable are notable examples of this. But some Pokemon have nothing in terms of movepool. Klinklang falls under both the base stat and movepool curse. It's a physically offensive threat, but it has only three usable physical attacking moves. This rather limits Klinklang's potential and forces it to wallow in the bottom tiers. Banette is similar, in that all it's offensive options are special, but it has only two usable physical ghost STABs (excluding Poltergeist, as Banette isn't in SWSH), as it is a physically offensive menace. Sceptile looks like a physical mon and has the movepool to boot, but it's stuck with having Special Attack be the usable stat without major investment. There's plenty of examples like this. Either buff the movepool needed to run a Mon like this, or buff the opposite stat even slightly so it can have even the semblance of a niche.
The Ability problem is less so, but Abilities are important. They are what enable Pokemon like Politoed, Serperior, and Glalie (Though Glalie and Poltioed had their abilities banned) to be useful Pokemon. Rapidash for instance are stuck with useless abilities like Run Away and Flame Body that don't fit it's main goal at all. It's a fast, frail mon, yet it gets stuck with useless abilities like this that don't suit it at all. Giving Pokemon abilities that would make them useful would allow them to become good in their own right. Like, Slaking, Regigigas, and Archeops, three Pokemon known for this issue, could do with better abilities. I do have a few ability related ideas though.
Secondary Abilities
An idea I have is Secondary Abilities. Like, ever wonder like "Why does Magnezone get hit by Ground moves when it's flying?"? Well now with Secondary Abilities, Magnezone has it's base ability and Levitate. Basically it's mainly to make battling more realistic to the Dex entries. I have a lot more ideas for overhauls in abilities and movepools than just this to have this idea be a thing, but this is my main idea here. Imagine Flygon having secondary Levitate, so now it could have Sand Veil or Multiscale as an ability. Or Slaking having Truant as a secondary ability but having Guts as its main ability. Things like that. Speaking of Abilities...
Shiny Pokemon
What do abilities have to do with Shiny Pokemon? Well, what if every Shiny had an ability different from it's main counterparts? Imagine Sceptile with Contrary or Samurott with Swift Swim. Shiny Pokemon would exclusively have these abilities. It would give more enticement to hunting them than just an alternate color palette.
Shiny Pokemon would also probably have the odds lowered so they remain hard to find. Probably 1/6000 by my tastes. A nice in between. Shiny locks would also be gone, so that way anything can be hunted.
Changes to useless abilities
Various abilities are useless in battling, like Run Away and Illuminate. Giving them use would allow for some new things to come of them. Perhaps Run Away would allow the Pokemon to escape something that traps them no matter what, like Shadow Tag or Whirlpool, or Illuminate acts as a BrightPowder of sorts and lowers enemy accuracy slightly. Wouldn't those be useful? It's things like that that would change a Pokemon.
Basically what I'm doing with these changes is that every fully evolved Pokemon would be made relevant in some way. That way things would be made better for all Pokemon to battle. I have many other small ideas, but those don't need to be spoken yet. Onto some other stuff.
The Overworld
The Overworld of SWSH is quite dismal, but it's a step up from the previous random encounter themed routes of the previous games. In fact, an entire open world Pokemon game fits the series well. For instance, being able to explore the nooks and crannies of the region, or look in the back alleys of cities really fits Pokemon's theme. There's multiple things I want to run over on this, but let's start with the cities, probably the shortest part. In previous games, cities and towns were teeny, and looked like no one lived there. Upscaling the cities and towns, even if some buildings are inaccessible, makes more logical sense. Ok, small gripe gone. Onto the big stuff.
Open World Gameplay
Like the cities, every part of the overworld would be upscaled. The forests and fields and caves would be giant and sprawling, and you'd be able to explore everything in them. The Pokemon themselves would also be much more advanced. In Pokepark Wii, a game from like the late 2000s, had Pokemon playing and battling with each other even when you weren't involved. The Pokemon just doing generic things and not just walking around adds a lot to the game. Like, you could see Pokemon for instance run up trees to get berries, or fly up onto a perch on a rocky cliffside, or perhaps just be playing normally. The Pokemon would each have individual actions that they would each do. Of course, unlike before, Pokemon would have things you'd need to do. Say for instance, this Pokemon is running away from you. You'd need to hop onto a Pokemon to outspeed it and battle it. Or say a Pachirisu runs up a tree. You'd knock it out to battle it. Of course not every Pokemon would be this complex, but that'd be the base extent. Imagine walking into a cave, and seeing a Galvantula making a nest with Joltik in the distance, or walking into a Haunted House and encountering a Haunter coming out of a painting. That stuff shows how they'd act, and makes it feel like you're putting in effort to find them. Another idea, courtesy of
DrCoeloCephalo
, was Pokemon running away from you or chasing after you depending on how many levels you're lead Pokemon has. Honey Trees would also make a comeback with the same system, as well as Shaking Bushes, Dirt Clouds, and Rippling Water. Of course, the areas would be far larger, not as small as the Wild Area. Another thing I thought of...
HM Moves and Pokemon Riding
The HM Moves typically were annoying to use, as they required a move slot and were useless in battle for the most part. However, if every area were given to the player immediately, it'd get boring very quickly. Thus, after every gym, you'd learn to use a new HM move, allowing you to go after Pokemon you couldn't go after before, or enter new areas previously blocked off. The Haunted House may be blocked off by a vine on the gate, but getting Cut will get rid of the vine and allow access to the Haunted House. The aforementioned Pachirisu evading you as normal? Use Headbutt and knock it out of the tree, maybe some berries may come out with it. HM Moves would allow new areas to open up in a natural way.
Pokemon Riding was gotten from Let's Go, or at least this version. You'd be able to ride various Pokemon to Fly, Surf, or Dive, as well as just on land normally. You would ride your Pokemon and go after flying or swimming Pokemon on their backs. Not much would change from Let's Go, except Diving, which would basically be RSE's concept but in all directions.
Follow Pokemon
Follow Pokemon would act as they did in Let's Go (Seriously, that game is underrated as crap), and not like SWSH. However, we're now taking something from Go here, the Follow Pokemon can now wander off slightly as well, or play with other wild Pokemon. And occasionally, they'd find Souvenirs and items. The Souvenirs would basically be little trinkets kept in a case for them, all of them varying by the area. It would act similar to the Sinnoh Underground, where you can trade these souvenirs for other items, decorations for your Secret Base, or for other souvenirs to trade with elsewhere. Your friendship will also increase more quickly with the following Pokemon.
Berries
Berries are a system known very well in Pokemon. You plant them, grow them, and get berries with helpful effects. However, they sorta dumped this at Gen 5. In the open world mechanic, you could plant berries anywhere, use a Sprayduck or something to water them, and then come back later to get berries. A simple mechanic.
Of course, I wouldn't be opposed to also adding Berry Trees alongside them. Those weren't too bad.
Secret Bases and the Underground
The Underground from Sinnoh would return, you'd be able to go underground and dig up items and fossils. Of course, the Orbs would return, but be counted as souvenirs. The trading I mentioned can also happen below ground as well. However, an extra thing is that you can occaisonally find tunnels which have Pokemon in them like Drilbur, Dugtrio, and Onix, and lead to either a guranteed fossil/rare item, an NPC's secret base, or perhaps something else... which I haven't come up with yet. I'll get back to you when I think of something.
Secret Bases would remain the same, just use Secret Power on a bush, tree, mountain inlet, underground wall, etc, poof secret base, dolls and decorating and stuff. Nothing'd really change here.
I probably have more stuff on this section that I forgot about while writing, but I'll add it if I remember.
Pokemon Animations
Pokemon are known for being lively and unique, but they aren't very lively. Ever since XY, they were hit hard. They are basically just shallow versions of the Battle Revolution and Pokedex 3D models with the color being bleached. Their cries were also horribly updated on a lot of them (RIP Buizel and the entirety of Gen 5). Bringing back some color and making the animations more lively would help matters tremendously. For instance, Latias and Latios look like they're being hung from the ceiling. Let them move around a little more in their idle animation, not just as one animation, but the entire thing. Metagross is stuck with it's top half upwards and it's not as intimidating as Colosseum or Gale's models. Keeping the way that one was, or perhaps adding some extra idles, like smashing the ground or roaring could work the charm. Eelektross, Tropius, and Swellow, among others, could go back to being grounded to bring back their former glory. Lugia looks like a guy in a suit, if you're going to make it fly, at least make it's wings look normal like in BW. Speaking of Lugia....
Scaling
My friends, we play a game where Wailord is a pool floaty and Pichu is the same height as Eternatus. If Let's Go could get scaling in battles right I don't see why SWSH couldn't. Pokemon could be made their proper sizes in Battle, Following, and Refresh/Camp. I don't really have much more to say here, it's rather straight forward.
Refresh/Camp
Probably one of the features that made Pokemon the most realistic were Pokemon Amie and Refresh. You could feed, pet, and somewhat play with one Pokemon at a time. I loved how it was. Then Camp came around, and while not bad, got rid of a lot of the activity. You could make them fetch, and see them playing, but not much else. They can't be pet or fed, and many Pokemon break and distort their models to turn their heads (Coughs in Kyogre and Regigigas). Fusing the systems could work. Making it so you would have the camp system, with their normal non distorted models, and having them actually play and not glitch into each other. You could play as before, but also have the same petting and high five features from Refresh and Amie. You could also feed them with not just one thing, but also various berries, poffins, pokeblocks, pokebeans, pokepuffs, and various other random food items from throughout the series.
I'll add more later.
The Base Stat, Movepool, and Ability Problem.
Pokemon are very much hinged on their stats. So much so many alter them to make them better. But some Pokemon have much to be desired. For instance, Pokemon like Ledian and Furret are nothing more than deadweight in battles thanks to their stats or abilities. Giving buffs to Pokemon who need them would make more Pokemon viable than before. Let's take the previous example Ledian to show you what I mean. It's movepool and abilities make it out to be an offensive Pokemon, but it's stats pale in comparison to what it is meant to be. It has solid Special Defense and Speed, but it has a paltry base 35 Atk and base 55 Sp. Atk. It makes it quite terrible. Giving it an extra 70 in Atk would make it an actually useable Pokemon. Electivire and Magmortar are good Pokemon, but cannot tank a hit and are low ranked because of it. Giving even a small boost to their Defenses would make them much more usable. Dusknoir has good defenses but no HP, making it useless. Perhaps if it were to gain at least even a 30 point boost it would be able to have something against its rival Spiritomb. I could go on for days, but let's move on to the next topic.
Certain Pokemon have massive movepools, making them very viable. Gengar and Clefable are notable examples of this. But some Pokemon have nothing in terms of movepool. Klinklang falls under both the base stat and movepool curse. It's a physically offensive threat, but it has only three usable physical attacking moves. This rather limits Klinklang's potential and forces it to wallow in the bottom tiers. Banette is similar, in that all it's offensive options are special, but it has only two usable physical ghost STABs (excluding Poltergeist, as Banette isn't in SWSH), as it is a physically offensive menace. Sceptile looks like a physical mon and has the movepool to boot, but it's stuck with having Special Attack be the usable stat without major investment. There's plenty of examples like this. Either buff the movepool needed to run a Mon like this, or buff the opposite stat even slightly so it can have even the semblance of a niche.
The Ability problem is less so, but Abilities are important. They are what enable Pokemon like Politoed, Serperior, and Glalie (Though Glalie and Poltioed had their abilities banned) to be useful Pokemon. Rapidash for instance are stuck with useless abilities like Run Away and Flame Body that don't fit it's main goal at all. It's a fast, frail mon, yet it gets stuck with useless abilities like this that don't suit it at all. Giving Pokemon abilities that would make them useful would allow them to become good in their own right. Like, Slaking, Regigigas, and Archeops, three Pokemon known for this issue, could do with better abilities. I do have a few ability related ideas though.
Secondary Abilities
An idea I have is Secondary Abilities. Like, ever wonder like "Why does Magnezone get hit by Ground moves when it's flying?"? Well now with Secondary Abilities, Magnezone has it's base ability and Levitate. Basically it's mainly to make battling more realistic to the Dex entries. I have a lot more ideas for overhauls in abilities and movepools than just this to have this idea be a thing, but this is my main idea here. Imagine Flygon having secondary Levitate, so now it could have Sand Veil or Multiscale as an ability. Or Slaking having Truant as a secondary ability but having Guts as its main ability. Things like that. Speaking of Abilities...
Shiny Pokemon
What do abilities have to do with Shiny Pokemon? Well, what if every Shiny had an ability different from it's main counterparts? Imagine Sceptile with Contrary or Samurott with Swift Swim. Shiny Pokemon would exclusively have these abilities. It would give more enticement to hunting them than just an alternate color palette.
Shiny Pokemon would also probably have the odds lowered so they remain hard to find. Probably 1/6000 by my tastes. A nice in between. Shiny locks would also be gone, so that way anything can be hunted.
Changes to useless abilities
Various abilities are useless in battling, like Run Away and Illuminate. Giving them use would allow for some new things to come of them. Perhaps Run Away would allow the Pokemon to escape something that traps them no matter what, like Shadow Tag or Whirlpool, or Illuminate acts as a BrightPowder of sorts and lowers enemy accuracy slightly. Wouldn't those be useful? It's things like that that would change a Pokemon.
Basically what I'm doing with these changes is that every fully evolved Pokemon would be made relevant in some way. That way things would be made better for all Pokemon to battle. I have many other small ideas, but those don't need to be spoken yet. Onto some other stuff.
The Overworld
The Overworld of SWSH is quite dismal, but it's a step up from the previous random encounter themed routes of the previous games. In fact, an entire open world Pokemon game fits the series well. For instance, being able to explore the nooks and crannies of the region, or look in the back alleys of cities really fits Pokemon's theme. There's multiple things I want to run over on this, but let's start with the cities, probably the shortest part. In previous games, cities and towns were teeny, and looked like no one lived there. Upscaling the cities and towns, even if some buildings are inaccessible, makes more logical sense. Ok, small gripe gone. Onto the big stuff.
Open World Gameplay
Like the cities, every part of the overworld would be upscaled. The forests and fields and caves would be giant and sprawling, and you'd be able to explore everything in them. The Pokemon themselves would also be much more advanced. In Pokepark Wii, a game from like the late 2000s, had Pokemon playing and battling with each other even when you weren't involved. The Pokemon just doing generic things and not just walking around adds a lot to the game. Like, you could see Pokemon for instance run up trees to get berries, or fly up onto a perch on a rocky cliffside, or perhaps just be playing normally. The Pokemon would each have individual actions that they would each do. Of course, unlike before, Pokemon would have things you'd need to do. Say for instance, this Pokemon is running away from you. You'd need to hop onto a Pokemon to outspeed it and battle it. Or say a Pachirisu runs up a tree. You'd knock it out to battle it. Of course not every Pokemon would be this complex, but that'd be the base extent. Imagine walking into a cave, and seeing a Galvantula making a nest with Joltik in the distance, or walking into a Haunted House and encountering a Haunter coming out of a painting. That stuff shows how they'd act, and makes it feel like you're putting in effort to find them. Another idea, courtesy of
DrCoeloCephalo
, was Pokemon running away from you or chasing after you depending on how many levels you're lead Pokemon has. Honey Trees would also make a comeback with the same system, as well as Shaking Bushes, Dirt Clouds, and Rippling Water. Of course, the areas would be far larger, not as small as the Wild Area. Another thing I thought of...HM Moves and Pokemon Riding
The HM Moves typically were annoying to use, as they required a move slot and were useless in battle for the most part. However, if every area were given to the player immediately, it'd get boring very quickly. Thus, after every gym, you'd learn to use a new HM move, allowing you to go after Pokemon you couldn't go after before, or enter new areas previously blocked off. The Haunted House may be blocked off by a vine on the gate, but getting Cut will get rid of the vine and allow access to the Haunted House. The aforementioned Pachirisu evading you as normal? Use Headbutt and knock it out of the tree, maybe some berries may come out with it. HM Moves would allow new areas to open up in a natural way.
Pokemon Riding was gotten from Let's Go, or at least this version. You'd be able to ride various Pokemon to Fly, Surf, or Dive, as well as just on land normally. You would ride your Pokemon and go after flying or swimming Pokemon on their backs. Not much would change from Let's Go, except Diving, which would basically be RSE's concept but in all directions.
Follow Pokemon
Follow Pokemon would act as they did in Let's Go (Seriously, that game is underrated as crap), and not like SWSH. However, we're now taking something from Go here, the Follow Pokemon can now wander off slightly as well, or play with other wild Pokemon. And occasionally, they'd find Souvenirs and items. The Souvenirs would basically be little trinkets kept in a case for them, all of them varying by the area. It would act similar to the Sinnoh Underground, where you can trade these souvenirs for other items, decorations for your Secret Base, or for other souvenirs to trade with elsewhere. Your friendship will also increase more quickly with the following Pokemon.
Berries
Berries are a system known very well in Pokemon. You plant them, grow them, and get berries with helpful effects. However, they sorta dumped this at Gen 5. In the open world mechanic, you could plant berries anywhere, use a Sprayduck or something to water them, and then come back later to get berries. A simple mechanic.
Of course, I wouldn't be opposed to also adding Berry Trees alongside them. Those weren't too bad.
Secret Bases and the Underground
The Underground from Sinnoh would return, you'd be able to go underground and dig up items and fossils. Of course, the Orbs would return, but be counted as souvenirs. The trading I mentioned can also happen below ground as well. However, an extra thing is that you can occaisonally find tunnels which have Pokemon in them like Drilbur, Dugtrio, and Onix, and lead to either a guranteed fossil/rare item, an NPC's secret base, or perhaps something else... which I haven't come up with yet. I'll get back to you when I think of something.
Secret Bases would remain the same, just use Secret Power on a bush, tree, mountain inlet, underground wall, etc, poof secret base, dolls and decorating and stuff. Nothing'd really change here.
I probably have more stuff on this section that I forgot about while writing, but I'll add it if I remember.
Pokemon Animations
Pokemon are known for being lively and unique, but they aren't very lively. Ever since XY, they were hit hard. They are basically just shallow versions of the Battle Revolution and Pokedex 3D models with the color being bleached. Their cries were also horribly updated on a lot of them (RIP Buizel and the entirety of Gen 5). Bringing back some color and making the animations more lively would help matters tremendously. For instance, Latias and Latios look like they're being hung from the ceiling. Let them move around a little more in their idle animation, not just as one animation, but the entire thing. Metagross is stuck with it's top half upwards and it's not as intimidating as Colosseum or Gale's models. Keeping the way that one was, or perhaps adding some extra idles, like smashing the ground or roaring could work the charm. Eelektross, Tropius, and Swellow, among others, could go back to being grounded to bring back their former glory. Lugia looks like a guy in a suit, if you're going to make it fly, at least make it's wings look normal like in BW. Speaking of Lugia....
Scaling
My friends, we play a game where Wailord is a pool floaty and Pichu is the same height as Eternatus. If Let's Go could get scaling in battles right I don't see why SWSH couldn't. Pokemon could be made their proper sizes in Battle, Following, and Refresh/Camp. I don't really have much more to say here, it's rather straight forward.
Refresh/Camp
Probably one of the features that made Pokemon the most realistic were Pokemon Amie and Refresh. You could feed, pet, and somewhat play with one Pokemon at a time. I loved how it was. Then Camp came around, and while not bad, got rid of a lot of the activity. You could make them fetch, and see them playing, but not much else. They can't be pet or fed, and many Pokemon break and distort their models to turn their heads (Coughs in Kyogre and Regigigas). Fusing the systems could work. Making it so you would have the camp system, with their normal non distorted models, and having them actually play and not glitch into each other. You could play as before, but also have the same petting and high five features from Refresh and Amie. You could also feed them with not just one thing, but also various berries, poffins, pokeblocks, pokebeans, pokepuffs, and various other random food items from throughout the series.
I'll add more later.
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