Poll of the Day > What if Pokemon started to have skill trees or sub-classes?

(+) Yeah! (+)

That would be cool.
Bulbasaur could have like 3 sub-types like, "Bulb Brawler", "Florist", or "Make it Drain".

Then they could have more specializations to make more Pokemon viable.

I wish they would do more things like Dhelmise where it effectively has 3 STABs.

Pokemon just has been resting on its laurels for over a decade

I don't disagree but Pokemon is still a kid's game that is made to be simple

Actually now that I think about it, that kind of exists in regional variant forms.

Then it might actually be on par with most JRPGS...From the early 2000s.

Pokemon is not allowed to have anything cool, the fans would complain (even more)

That would defeat the purpose of catching more pokemon. Maybe if those specializations could only be acquired by catching them

TehMarioman posted...

Pokemon just has been resting on its laurels for over a decade

Zareth posted...

Pokemon is not allowed to have anything cool, the fans would complain (even more)

Sure didn't take long for the brain dead responses

The concept of sub-classes is already there in the form of divergent evolutions (Eevee being the most dramatic example of this), and anything a skill tree would do (active abilities, passive abilities, stat boosts, from which you can only select a few options) is already covered by other customization mechanics already in the games (move choices, abilities, held items, EV training). As a concept, adding more specialization options won't necessarily make more Pokemon viable, unless those options are unique buffs to currently-nonviable Pokemon (in which case, buffing them directly would do the job).

papercup posted...

I wish they would do more things like Dhelmise where it effectively has 3 STABs.

Tera types basically present the option to do this for everyone, though with a lot of caveats. There are also quite a few moves in Gen 9 that mix up type relationships, like Freeze Dry being SE against water types despite being an Ice move.

Then we would have to capture 1000 Pokemon per game.

I'd like it if Pokemon made any fundamental changes to their gameplay at all. I don't mean like "oh in 2001 they introduced Stab that was a big shift" I mean like maybe trying something new because the battle system is boring as shit.

I wish there was a mode where you could give pokemon a 5th move

EVs and IVs is basically that.

I thought you were talking about the character, maybe have different skill trees that specialize in all the types, or a catching skill tree that makes you better at catching pokemon or one to make you better at finding rare/shinies

Muscles posted...

I thought you were talking about the character, maybe have different skill trees that specialize in all the types, or a catching skill tree that makes you better at catching pokemon or one to make you better at finding rare/shinies

That could be interesting, but would pretty much require Pokemon games to be restructured to resemble ARPG's (multiple characters, a shorter campaign, shared stash).

On that note, though, a Pokemon ARPG could be pretty awesome.

adjl posted...

That could be interesting, but would pretty much require Pokemon games to be restructured to resemble ARPG's (multiple characters, a shorter campaign, shared stash).

On that note, though, a Pokemon ARPG could be pretty awesome.

My rpg experience is pretty much limited to Skyrim, so I was thinking something like that, as far as skill trees go, so I think a longer adventure would be better

Everyone talks about how Pokemon hasn't changed and is stagnant or whatever and yet nobody ever comes up with a better idea.

SpaceBear_ posted...

Everyone talks about how Pokemon hasn't changed and is stagnant or whatever and yet nobody ever comes up with a better idea.

Nobody else is the most profitable video game franchise in the world

How about a game that runs at more than 20 FPS and looks better than a PS2 game that one's on me just throw me in the credits

Or maybe you don't lock content behind a second purchase of the same game

Muscles posted...

My rpg experience is pretty much limited to Skyrim, so I was thinking something like that, as far as skill trees go, so I think a longer adventure would be better

Like, for example, in the fire tree you would have 1 that boosts fire moves, and another that boosts defenses of fire pokemon, and maybe the level 100 could be your fire pokemon get so hot it turns water attacks to steam and they take no damage

The issue with that (assuming you have limited skill points and can't eventually grind out every possible bonus) is that you'd end up gimping your ability to do parts of the game you didn't specialize in. For the most part, you don't end up playing Pokemon only to battle, or catch, or hunt for shinies, or any other one thing. You play it to do some of all of those things, and while you'll probably end up focusing on one over others depending on your personal preferences, if the bonuses from specialization are significant, specializing will make the other aspects less enjoyable.

This is why I thought that would work with an ARPG-style approach: You make different characters that specialize in different roles to contribute to the progress of an overall "account," eventually getting everything running optimally once you get all the specializations online. That said, as much as it's a cool idea, I don't think it would add all that much to the game except to pad postgame play with extra grinds to optimize everything, which isn't the best.

You also can't mess around with types too much. Specializing in one type is exactly the opposite of how teams should be built (you generally want to maximize type coverage so you can respond appropriately to whatever your opponent brings out), and if you tie too many type-specific bonuses to a specialization, that introduces too many extra variables to have to predict when battling (the vast majority of competitive Pokemon is a matter of predicting what your opponent will do and acting to mitigate that). Tweaking type relationships is a massive undertaking, balance-wise.

SpaceBear_ posted...

Everyone talks about how Pokemon hasn't changed and is stagnant or whatever and yet nobody ever comes up with a better idea.

Most of the time, even if every item on their wishlists were delivered, those people probably still wouldn't buy the game. Realistically, Pokemon already does about as much to innovate between generations as can be expected, which people would realize if they stopped to consider why they were ever interested in the games in the first place:

• Explore the world and catch fantasy creatures - Each generation has a new world to explore and new fantasy creatures to catch
• Customize the creatures you catch to personalize your team - Each generation adds new ways to customize your Pokemon, both in the form of new mechanics and by adding new options to or streamlining existing mechanics (new moves, new abilities, new hold items...)
• Use those creatures in turn-based battles against other teams - Each generation adds new battle mechanics to consider
• Battle and trade with friends - Major advances in this aspect have been more limited, but the shift to having online play was a huge step, and since then there have been things like raids that introduce a co-op aspect as well

That's not to say there isn't still ample room to improve some of those things (the battling in particular has a tendency to get bogged down by overexplaining everything, like telling you 3-4 times that your pokemon is confused before it hits itself), but "innovating" more than this would be a fundamental change in the sort of game that it is, and that's just not a reasonable expectation. Most of the people saying "Pokemon is stagnant" just don't actually like the kind of game Pokemon is and instead want to have their nostalgia fuel overhauled into the sorts of games they currently play.

I guess the best analogy for what I meant about "variations" is what the newer Mortal Kombat games have. Like Sub-Zero had "Grandmaster", "Cryomancer", etc.

Each would allow different positions on the skill tree(s).

Maxing out an entire tree would give you access to the "ultimate" move of that particular tree. This move fundamentally alter the strategies and builds for each Pokemon. At the end of each tree the skill would be unique to that specific Pokemon.

Bulbasaur's "Make it Drain" style/variation tree might terminate with a passive skill that allows him to drain a small amount of hp no matter what ever turn, or single drain skills hit for 3 turns.

And for kids, there would be an option just to do a traditional balanced build.

jsb0714 posted...

Sure didn't take long for the brain dead responses

Sure didn't take long for the Game Freak shills to show up

BigOlePappy posted...

I guess the best analogy for what I meant about "variations" is what the newer Mortal Kombat games have. Like Sub-Zero had "Grandmaster", "Cryomancer", etc.

Each would allow different positions on the skill tree(s).

Maxing out an entire tree would give you access to the "ultimate" move of that particular tree. This move fundamentally alter the strategies and builds for each Pokemon. At the end of each tree the skill would be unique to that specific Pokemon.

Bulbasaur's "Make it Drain" style/variation tree might terminate with a passive skill that allows him to drain a small amount of hp no matter what ever turn, or single drain skills hit for 3 turns.

And for kids, there would be an option just to do a traditional balanced build.

But the whole point is to go out and catch them not building them

JOExHIGASHI posted...

But the whole point is to go out and catch them not building them

I mean... People are still going to catch them. You can beat the entire game with 1-2 Pokemon, including your overpowered starter, but people still try catch 'em all.

You kinda already have that between IVs/EVs, natures, abilities, and move choices.

BigOlePappy posted...

I mean... People are still going to catch them. You can beat the entire game with 1-2 Pokemon, including your overpowered starter, but people still try catch 'em all.

But you're supposed to go catch the specific one you want. You don't just catch to fill the Pokedex. You have to go look for the one with the correct nature and whatever other traits.

Count_Drachma posted...

You kinda already have that between IVs/EVs, natures, abilities, and move choices.

Maybe, but every Bulbasaur only has access to the same moves.

BigOlePappy posted...

Maybe, but every Bulbasaur only has access to the same moves.

The other 1007 Pokemon, however, have access to different moves. I get the notion of offering more build variety, but Pokemon really is not lacking in build variety when you look at it on a team-wide scale and not just your individual Pokemon. Even if you are just looking at Bulbasaur, you've got 20 natures, 15 level up moves (not counting what the evolutions can learn, which adds further options and also variation in terms of choosing when to evolve), a couple dozen TM options, 2 abilities, 5-10 plausible EV training options, dozens of hold items... In practice, only the 3-4 best configurations tend to get used, but that's going to be true no matter how much variety there is, since it's never going to be possible to balance everything perfectly. What you're proposing is just more of what's already there, gated behind an extra interface to pretend they didn't just choose to buff Bulbasaur with some stat boosts and new abilities/moves.

Plus, again, divergent evolutions already do this. You can choose which Eeveelution you want, or what your Snorunt or Kirlia becomes. That doesn't apply to every Pokemon, obviously, but I'm inclined to say that it's common enough to satisfy the basic idea of "I want to make a choice of what sort of Pokemon this ends up being when it's finished."

Hopefully they get rid of the shitty trade only and walking Pokemon evolutions.

Not sure if this is really relevant but I recently played a romhack that had all the newer moves and some of the Pokemon were learning moves every other level. I feel like the movesets are saturated enough as it is.

SpaceBear_ posted...

Not sure if this is really relevant but I recently played a romhack that had all the newer moves and some of the Pokemon were learning moves every other level. I feel like the movesets are saturated enough as it is.

Yeah, if you add too much more to the possible moves each Pokemon can pick, levelling up starts to become a chore because you have to re-evaluate your move choices so frequently (less of an issue in more deliberate training, but if you're just casually working your way through the story and aren't already sure what you'll pick, every new move opportunity is a decision to consider, which gets really tedious if it happens too often).

Revelation34 posted...

Hopefully they get rid of the shitty trade only and walking Pokemon evolutions.

At least with S/V they included an NPC trade for a Haunter, but didn't give that Haunter an Everstone like previous generations did, so it evolves into a Gengar as soon as you get it. Trade evolutions are indeed a pain, though. As much as I recognize that they're just trying to provide an incentive to play with friends, it actively hurts the game for people that don't have friends playing it.

BigOlePappy posted...

Make it Drain

Hehe

adjl posted...

As much as I recognize that they're just trying to provide an incentive to play with friends, it actively hurts the game for people that don't have friends playing it.

Do they not have online trading?

Metalsonic66 posted...

Do they not have online trading?

They do, but trade evolutions in particular lend themselves much better to trading with people you know. The biggest thing is that if a Pokemon you've been using for a while levels up to the point where evolving will require a trade (Gengar's a good example of this: Gastly turns into Haunter based on level, then Gengar requires a trade), it's pretty normal to want it back because you're invested in that specific Pokemon, rather than in whatever somebody else has done with their copy of it. That's harder to orchestrate through online trades. For trade evolutions that require a particular hold item, that introduces something that can go wrong pretty easily.

For the more recent games, it's particularly annoying because you need NSO to make online trades, so trade evolutions are effectively paywalled if you don't have anyone local. NSO isn't exactly a major paywall, by any means, but it's just another reason why I feel that trade evolutions take away from the game, rather than adding anything of value.

adjl posted...

Yeah, if you add too much more to the possible moves each Pokemon can pick, levelling up starts to become a chore because you have to re-evaluate your move choices so frequently (less of an issue in more deliberate training, but if you're just casually working your way through the story and aren't already sure what you'll pick, every new move opportunity is a decision to consider, which gets really tedious if it happens too often).

Is the whole TM/HM system still clunky as all fuck?

HM's are gone in S/V (all traversal abilities are tied to the cover legendary, who joins you almost immediately and periodically gets new abilities as you feed it sandwiches). TM's are still there, but you can now create copies of any that you've already found at will in exchange for a few resources that are fairly easy to farm. There are still a whole lot of restrictions on who can learn what TM's that you really can't know without consulting external resources (unless you're a glutton for trial and error), but that's to be expected because letting anyone learn anything would be a mess, and I'd say it's generally a pretty good system now in that you're no longer dealing with a cripplingly finite resource and you don't have to worry as much about screwing Pokemon up by not taking the right abilities on levelling up.

adjl posted...

Yeah, if you add too much more to the possible moves each Pokemon can pick, levelling up starts to become a chore because you have to re-evaluate your move choices so frequently (less of an issue in more deliberate training, but if you're just casually working your way through the story and aren't already sure what you'll pick, every new move opportunity is a decision to consider, which gets really tedious if it happens too often).

At least with S/V they included an NPC trade for a Haunter, but didn't give that Haunter an Everstone like previous generations did, so it evolves into a Gengar as soon as you get it. Trade evolutions are indeed a pain, though. As much as I recognize that they're just trying to provide an incentive to play with friends, it actively hurts the game for people that don't have friends playing it.

Unfortunately they didn't do that for Scizor. By the time I finished the Pokedex the "new game feel" already wore off.

Maybe I'll get into the shiny hunting whenever the DLC comes out.

If you want better pokemon with skill trees look up Monster Sanctuary.

adjl posted...

the cover legendary, who joins you almost immediately

So Legendary

Metalsonic66 posted...

So Legendary

https://i.redd.it/t2ea1p7iynda1.jpg

Arthur Dent approved