Current Events > Now that we've had time with Pokemon Z-A, which battle system do you prefer?

(+) Yeah! (+)

The Z-A system feels fun and does a lot of stuff I like, but it just doesn't feel like it's quite there yet. The way your Pokemon always move over to your side before executing a long-range attack makes them feel so much slower than if they just fired it off where they were standing, especially if repositioning means their attack gets blocked by a wall, tree, or other obstacle. Speed also doesn't feel impactful as a stat and I'm not sure if it even does anything at all.

I still prefer the main series combat system, but Z-A's could easily overtake it if it gets a bit more refinement in future releases.

ZA is fun, but it feels more like a rough draft for a real time battle system than the final product. I think with some work it could be great, but right now its very simplistic

I much prefer the traditional format, but Legends is pretty much their series for trying out new shit in the combat system, so can't really fault them for it.

As for speed in Z-A, it only affects move cooldowns, at a rate of 1 second for roughly every 33 points. There are some further restrictions to this: the first 25 points of speed don't actually do anything, so for example, 125 speed is needed for approx 3 seconds of reduced cooldowns. Also, move cooldowns bottom out at 3 seconds and cannot be reduced any lower than this by any means, so moves like Quick Attack already have as low of a cooldown as they can possibly have and see zero benefit from speed, and it is not possible to get a cooldown low enough to just let you spam the same move continuously with no delay no matter how high your speed gets.

As a result, yes, speed is overall significantly less impactful, unlike in Arceus where it was arguably even more important than it is in the main series games (although it worked more on a "breakpoint" based system in PLA, where speed only had an impact at certain specific values, but that impact was -very- significant)

Turn based.

No matter how good the more action oriented combat systems may get, I never want them to replace turn based Pokemon games.

I would tweak Z-A slightly and make it so you can hold the button for a Pokemon's move, and that would create a circle you could move around that tells the Pokemon where to go to enact the move once you release the button.

I like the new style a lot but Indon't like how speed barely matters. My level 100 gengar with full speed investement should not launch a shadow ball at the same speed as a level 45 Haunter and also get half of its HP nuked.

Turn-Based

I like Z-A's system but I wouldn't want it to become the main system... Feels like we lose out on stuff like Abilities and some moves wouldn't really work in Z-A's system (I don't see how something like Trick Room would work)

I wouldn't mind seeing it again later down the line though

Turn-based. Z-A's system needed some more refinement, but it has potential.

Philip027 posted...

I much prefer the traditional format, but Legends is pretty much their series for trying out new shit in the combat system, so can't really fault them for it.

Murphiroth posted...

Turn based.

No matter how good the more action oriented combat systems may get, I never want them to replace turn based Pokemon games.

This sums it up for me. If they go all-in on the real-time battles in the mainline games and replace turn-based battling entirely, I stop buying Pokemon games. That's a complete deal-breaker for me.

Not saying its not a fun time, but I legit cannot comprehend saying you prefer the ZA system unless youre a radical anti-turnist.

There's a pro and a con with ZA's battle system and both of it is that speed stat is largely useless.

Pro, this means slower pokemon that could never be good in a turn base system because they would die before they ever get to do anything can actually be good in ZA's system. Which is nice, but

Con, since the new megas are being designed for ZA's system it's also shown with some rather odd megas stat adjustments. I'm just kind of salty after seeing Leaked Mega Darkrai losing 40 speed. That said if games did move forth with ZA's battle systems then new pokemon would be balanced around speed not being very meaningful which wouldn't necessarily be better. A lot of fast sweepers have to trade off defenses. But if speed didn't matter then you can just give them powerful attack and good defenses with no trade off.

BlueBoy675 posted...

ZA is fun, but it feels more like a rough draft for a real time battle system than the final product. I think with some work it could be great, but right now its very simplistic

Gamefreak: 30ish years later and it still feels like a rough draft.