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Author Topic: Why Pokémon Sucks (And What Won't Be Done To Fix It)  (Read 63899 times)

Turtlekid1

  • Tortuga
« Reply #60 on: March 25, 2010, 10:56:19 AM »
"cli·ché also cliche  (kl-sh)
n.
1. A trite or overused expression or idea: 'Even while the phrase was degenerating to cliché in ordinary public use . . . scholars were giving it increasing attention' (Anthony Brandt)."
"It'll say life is sacred and so is death
but death is life and so we move on"

« Reply #61 on: March 25, 2010, 04:42:58 PM »
'Even while the phrase was degenerating to cliché in ordinary public use . . . scholars were giving it increasing attention'

See: Know Your Meme.
YYur  waYur n beYur you Yur plusYur instYur an Yur Yur whaYur

WarpRattler

  • Paid by the word
« Reply #62 on: July 19, 2010, 08:33:05 PM »
So yeah, this again. I still stand by much of what I've said about the fourth generation, and I'm not big on having even more new Pokémon to deal with in fifth-gen. But I'm pretty much sold on triple battles (I guess I never said it here, but I've said in the chatroom a few times that they could really just make the game all double battles all the time and I'd like it, and this is the next best thing), and many of the rumors that have been floating around (like the games not following the gym structure) would just solidify that if confirmed to be true.

Anyway, the reason I'm bringing this thread up again isn't to do with that new stuff, but rather is best summed up in an excerpt from a post in another thread:

the regular physical attack in an RPG
Aside from Mysterious Dungeon, Pokémon games don't really have these. Fifth-gen could be a good opportunity to change this.

Now, before anyone says anything, this is an idea solely for the single-player aspect of the game. I will never take part in serious competitive play in a turn-based number-based JRPG even with triple battles potentially making things interesting, but I understand that there are people who like invisible numbers (and, bafflingly, some who think competitive Pokémon is more strategic than chess; thus far I've had no luck shattering their illusion), and I'd rather not deal with any of that here.

Anyway, here's the idea: for the single-player portion of the game, remove Struggle and add a move simply labeled "Attack." It wouldn't be a particularly viable move for fighting stuff of your own level - damage could be calculated as the user's attack (either standard or special, whichever is higher) minus the target's appropriate defense - but the key point of the move would be that it wouldn't have any elemental typing whatsoever, wouldn't count toward the traditional four-move limit, and wouldn't use PP. This would ideally be added in conjunction with (directly copying from MegaTen here) an autoplay mode (set by hitting, say, the X button, and easily stopped by hitting it again; it could even be disabled outright in the option menu if you're a purist or scared you might accidentally hit it) that just uses that basic "Attack" move - and skips combat animations entirely, making it move more quickly than actually fighting out battles (barring obvious things like how you might be able to OHKO something by using Surf versus needing three turns to take it down with "Attack"), but still slowly enough that you can still see how much damage you're dealing and taking, as well as things like status effects.

The main point of this? Well, it'd mostly be for the sake of convenience and faster combat when fighting Pokémon of a lower level, given that battles are probably going to take even longer now with full animation (though running away from wild Pokémon might still be faster). Ultimately, it'd be most convenient in a New Game+-type setting, which I still think would be a pretty sweet feature as well, but it could have uses in standard play.

Interesting idea?

« Reply #63 on: July 19, 2010, 09:36:03 PM »
Battle animations can be turned off from the Options menu. Just sayin'.

Interesting that you should bring this up, though: I always have my Pokemon know one relatively weak, inexpensive move which serves basically the same purpose as a basic "Attack" feature. For instance, my team-leading Lv.100 Dragonite still knows Wing Attack.
YYur  waYur n beYur you Yur plusYur instYur an Yur Yur whaYur

Black Mage

  • HP 1018 MP 685
« Reply #64 on: July 19, 2010, 09:43:52 PM »
I don't know, I'm not sold on it.

You haven't given me a compelling reason as to why it should be there. "I'm too lazy to pick one of my four moves" isn't convincing me.

You could still do the MegaTen style Auto Battle by actually selecting the attack you want, ala Persona 1/2. Although, I'm not sure if that's really necessary to be grabbing features from other games and shoehorning them into this. MegaTen battles are pretty different than Pokemon's, and I'd have to consider whether or not I see much of a benefit in including it.

Turtlekid1

  • Tortuga
« Reply #65 on: July 19, 2010, 09:56:30 PM »
I was under the impression that the main motive was the desire to conserve PP (which may not be in abundance) for actual threats, and let a default "Attack" take care of nuisance-'mons.
"It'll say life is sacred and so is death
but death is life and so we move on"

Black Mage

  • HP 1018 MP 685
« Reply #66 on: July 19, 2010, 10:02:27 PM »
So, "I'm too lazy to ration my four moves."

Same idea.

WarpRattler

  • Paid by the word
« Reply #67 on: July 20, 2010, 01:31:40 AM »
Again, it's just something that'd be convenient in certain parts of the game. Thinking about it more, the MegaTen-style auto-attack wouldn't be much faster than just selecting an attack in any case where it'd be over in one turn anyway; however, being able to set up tactics outside of battle so that a Pokémon would perform a pre-determined move as its first move in a battle against a wild Pokémon (and being able to easily toggle whether or not it would do so, and automatically not doing so against anything you don't have fully registered in your Pokédex) could be useful.

Ignoring how nice it would be in a potential New Game+ scenario, that sort of auto-attack could be useful for any sort of area with common wild Pokémon with Arena Trap or Shadow Tag preventing you from just running away from pointless battles (Diglett's Cave in FireRed and LeafGreen being a past example). And for those who feel the need to do so, it'd also cut down on time spent grinding (though probably moreso for those who just want experience than those who are dealing with EVs).

A non-typed non-PP-consuming attack separate from the standard moves would ultimately be a bad idea, particularly given the way I described it as working - in my example, it'd be mostly useless unless you're fighting Pokémon several levels lower than the user, and in rare cases it could instead be overpowered against Pokémon of the same level or higher (basically, your Pokémon would need to have especially high attack and be fighting Pokémon with considerably low defense, leading to the free attack being more effective than standard moves).

Non-typed standard moves, on the other hand, could be cool, since they'd simply be attacks guaranteed to deal damage unaffected by resistances (at the cost of also not being affected by STAB or weaknesses). However, unless the only non-typed attacks had power similar to the likes of Scratch and Tackle, they could obsolete the concept of ineffective attack type match-ups (Poison vs. Steel, for example, or Normal vs. Ghost and vice versa), as no one would use the attacks that could end up doing absolutely nothing when there are viable alternatives guaranteed to work.

Turtlekid1

  • Tortuga
« Reply #68 on: July 20, 2010, 08:12:54 AM »
If Pokemon games had an EarthBound-style system of encounters, the game could just automatically defeat enemies who aren't actually a threat.  That, too, would be a huge time-saver.
"It'll say life is sacred and so is death
but death is life and so we move on"

WarpRattler

  • Paid by the word
« Reply #69 on: July 20, 2010, 03:35:45 PM »
Right up until you want to capture one of those Pokémon for some reason or another.

However, some way of making battles not be entirely random (while still keeping the random encounter system rather than switching to a field encounter system a la EarthBound) might be cool. Unfortunately, I can't think of anything that would work well in a Pokémon game, where just turning to face a different direction counts as a step for purposes of triggering random encounters.

CrossEyed7

  • i can make this whatever i want; you're not my dad
« Reply #70 on: July 20, 2010, 10:18:44 PM »
Do the Earthbound system, but as a toggleable option.
"Oh man, I wish being a part of a Mario fan community was the most embarrassing thing about my life." - Super-Jesse

WarpRattler

  • Paid by the word
« Reply #71 on: July 21, 2010, 01:44:57 AM »
The EarthBound system just plain wouldn't work in a Pokémon game, though, because of that whole thing about seeing what you're going to fight before you actually fight it.

Unless you mean just the bit where you automatically defeat anything that isn't a conceivable threat, which doesn't work because of attacks using PP.

Turtlekid1

  • Tortuga
« Reply #72 on: July 21, 2010, 07:50:07 AM »
Why would they have to use PP?  If they're not a conceivable threat, they wouldn't require PP to defeat.  That kills both the "I hate the endless random encounters" and the "I don't want to waste PP on this nuisance" birds with one stone.
"It'll say life is sacred and so is death
but death is life and so we move on"

« Reply #73 on: July 21, 2010, 10:47:05 AM »
You all seem to be forgetting that you can run from weak battles.
YYur  waYur n beYur you Yur plusYur instYur an Yur Yur whaYur

Turtlekid1

  • Tortuga
« Reply #74 on: July 21, 2010, 11:28:06 AM »
That still requires entering the battle in the first place.  It's only slightly quicker to run than to kill defeat the wild 'mon.
"It'll say life is sacred and so is death
but death is life and so we move on"

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