If you were in charge of modernizing pokemon.. Pokemon Sword

What would you do? What mechanics would you change, or what elements would you add? Gameplay, online, etc. What modern trends (or old trends) would sync well with pokemon?

For me, I've always wondered how an ATB system would translate. Changing the speed mechanic and allowing player to select their commands in real time, while the other player's meter is ticking. If they don't select fast enough, their opponent may attack. But it could be up for total abuse, with fast mons getting more than 2 turns in before the other mon can attack. Sweepers could become more deadly, with walls unable to attack in time.

Well, I wouldn't still be using old legacy code from the old games, that's for sure.

I'd change some of the type names
For example, I'd rename "grass" to "plant" - it makes more sense
and "flying" to "air" - again, makes more sense

I would make it more open world, similar to the wild area, but make the whole game like that. Allow the player go to anywhere they want, but of course, be forced to do the gyms in order. However, that wouldn't stop the player from visiting all the towns. So even with 1 badge, they could go visit the 8th gym city. They just couldn't challenge the gym until they had the 7 other badges. The badges would unlock things similar to the way they do now. The gyms would more closely scale with the player level. The gyms would unlock other things, such as the ability to fast travel, and buy better items from the shops. It would not restrict the level at which Pokemon could be caught. These unlocks would only be for the first 8 gyms.

I would also make the world larger, and include all of the previous regions. So after becoming the champion of the first region, the player then has the option to travel to the next area to become that champion.

Finally, since all regions would connected in a sense, the player could choose which region to start out with. They get to choose the respective starters of that region, and of course, progress through that region's gyms and story. The gym unlocks would be the same regardless of region.

This would require reworking all the region maps into open world style.

It would actually require rebuilding the entire game.

I would still keep the battle, catching, trading, training (EVs/IVs, etc), and breeding systems, as I like the current system.

I know this would make a HUGE game, but honestly, I think it could and should be done.

I'd definitely look over weaknesses/resistances, and some pokémon typings. It's hard to say any of these would be a given since it might shift the balance too much but:
Water weak to ice.
Steel weak to electric but resists fighting.
Electric weak to dragon.
Flying no longer weak to ice, and no longer resists grass.
Fighting no longer weak to flying, hits neutral against bug.
Rock no longer weak to grass.
Ground no longer weak to water, but weak to bug.
Ice resists water and normal, but is resisted by rock.
Normal resists bug.
Bug no longer resisted by fairy, fire or ghost.

Pokemon type changes (With moveset additions where relevant):
Swablu, Starly line, Farfetch'd: Nor pure flying type.
Gyarados, Goodra line, Now Dragon/Water (Double weak to ice).
Ekans line: Now normal/poison
Ninetales: Now Fire/Ghost
Shellder line, Clamperl: Now Water/Steel
Huntail: Now Water/Dark
Gorebyss: Now Water/Psychic
Bellossom, Comfey: now Grass/Fairy
Sunflora/Sunshine Cherrim: Now Grass/Fire
Golduck: now Water/Psychic
Starmie, Slowpoke, Slowbro: Now pure Water.
Politoed, Azurill: now Water/Normal.
Porygon Z: Now Normal/Ghost
Shinx line: Now Dark/Electric
Manaphy: Now Water/Fairy
Rockruff/Lycanrock day: Now Normal/Rock
Lycanrock Midnight: Now Dark/Rock
Komala: Now Normal/Grass

I'm sure at least some of these could be changed without messing up the balance completely.

make an online platform (mobile / steam) where people can upload their pokemon from Nintendo device and battle there. positive part is whenever new generation comes out, they just add new thing there and dex cut won't be a problem. also there's minimum need of balancing effort, cuz who the f*** cares about balance where there's garchomp, kyogre, etc is there to kill em all

then make a new generation like usual, like swsh, new pokemon only and only a few older. this is where they keep balancing and keep meta as vary as possible. gladly like swsh but also cut exadrill, tyranitar etc, hopefully makes bst even more similar and create a place where pikachu, rapidash everyone could join the rumble

The biggest change I want made to Pokémon's gameplay is for your 'mons to be restored to full health at the end of every battle, and for the design to be balanced around that.

Pokémon will likely never have consistently challenging or intense battles outside of "bosses" because of damage carrying over. The trainers and wild Pokémon can't put up too much of a fight because then your team would constantly be in the red.

If that's not a concern, though, then they can go all out in every fight. The impact of this design decision can be directly seen in games like Final Fantasy XIII—say what you will about that game, but if you don't grind (and that game also successfully incorporates techniques to disincentivize grinding without restricting player freedom), even battles against normal enemies are consistently challenging and require you to put in thought and effort. That's because non-boss enemies aren't designed to slowly chip away at you throughout a dungeon (like trainers in this game), they're designed to kill you, making each individual battle much more intense and thrilling. If you're careless, you can easily wipe just going through dungeons.

Compare that to something like Pokémon or even other games in the Final Fantasy series where the majority of encounters pose no real threat and you can easily just mash X/A because, since you're not being healed after every battle, enemies actually fighting back would be a nuisance.

It's also a quality of life thing, especially when money is as abundant as it is in this game. Having to spend money on healing items doesn't actually add to the resource management, it just wastes time in the menu between battles since I can buy all the healing items I need and never be in fear of running out of money for them.

...All that being said though, the current format is probably better if they're going to keep targeting these games at the kiddies. (Didn't they complain about BW being too hard or something like that?)

Damn there's some cool ideas here:

NS-4701 posted...

I'd change some of the type names
For example, I'd rename "grass" to "plant" - it makes more sense
and "flying" to "air" - again, makes more sense

I would make it more open world, similar to the wild area, but make the whole game like that. Allow the player go to anywhere they want, but of course, be forced to do the gyms in order.

I really like this, and to be honest, half of what I always imagined for a home console version. Because we do have the technology to create this now. Oh well...

But I love this, Pokemon in Botw style. HMs/poke ride would be far more impactful in how you navigate the world.

Bike should be early feature, quickly surpassed by being able to ride a pokemon with more speed. Different pokemon excel at different terrains (grass, mountain, sand). Surf obviously allows to traverse water, allowing travel of lakes, rivers and coasts. Fly being the fast travel system, with designated "perch" points in towns or outposts. And maybe a superior fly version (Soar) that unlocks near the end of the game, that basically allows you to travel the world FF airship style. And of course with this, following pokemon. I mean, how do we not have this?

McLahey posted...

The biggest change I want made to Pokémon's gameplay is for your 'mons to be restored to full health at the end of every battle, and for the design to be balanced around that.

Pokémon will likely never have consistently challenging or intense battles outside of "bosses" because of damage carrying over. The trainers and wild Pokémon can't put up too much of a fight because then your team would constantly be in the red.

I also really like this. We know Gamefreak will never make pokemon hard, unfortunately, but it's cool to imagine where each fight could be a challenge. And with this, make battle items (potions) more rare. Even limited, maybe two per battle.

Id bring in fully customizable
character and age creation.

Id release mewtwo in his mecha suit form

Probably introduce fusions

And maybe a character starting with an egg pokemon

Main character actually having dialogue and not just dialogue choices.

Bring back movie making to make your character famous

Champion hall customizations

Not having to rebattle e4 to sit on your champion throne, (unless you wanted to)

I'd leave it alone. It's perfect just the way it is.

GuitaristMatt posted...

I'd leave it alone. It's perfect just the way it is.

No, it ain't