I second so many things that I'm not going to bother to quote any of them, but one of the most realistic/simple things that I'd love to see done, and have enjoyed in ROM hacks, would be divergent plotlines. There could be one point of divergence that allows you to go 'bad', or there could be lots of smaller ones that just add a bit of variance in gameplay. Something as simple as talking to the woman in the herb shop, being given 3 options, one of which would require you to fulfill a simple goal, like bringing her a berry, giving you x reward. The next could be harder, or just be different, but the reward would also be different. One option would be to refuse to help her, of course.

I've seen the going-evil plotline before, but I haven't played a game with the latter. (I love all of the suggestions, but I was pretty sure TSOS was also trying to get slightly more attainable ideas, I think)

 

Yeah, a divergent plotline would be interesting. Not just good or evil, but endgame - maybe you'd rather be a gym leader than a champion, or maybe becoming champion should be harder, requiring you to make a very specific set of choices (gathering support from gym leaders, maybe?).

I'd also like to be able to sell pokemon. It just feels like it's something that makes sense. A good way to limit massive money schemes would be to make the value of sale equivalent to how many levels you've put into the pokemon, meaning, if you caught a level 100 pokemon, it's going to sell for dick, but if you caught a pokemon and TRAINED it to 100, it's going to sell for a fortune. Then you factor in rareness and vendor types after that.

On the subject of money - I want to see an expanded resources system. You don't have to change medical care being free, just make managing pokemon more interesting. As is, you don't ever have to account for pokemon's feeding, sleeping or training (beyond point and click); it'd be interesting to see that change, having to unlock moves by using similar ones (100 Embers to unlock Flamethrower, or somesuch). It'd increase the feeling that you were actually a TRAINER of pokemon, rather than just a collector.

On the subject of training - Pokemon. I want to see more personality to them. There hasn't been a lick of intelligence to them since Pokemon Yellow in games, despite both the games, the show and the manga establishing pokemon as fully sentient and sapient beings. How much more poignant and compelling would Black and White's storyline of pokemon slavery have been if every pokemon in your party felt like a real character? Show, don't tell: Don't tell me my Totodile has an Impish nature, show me, by making me wake up one morning with an inventory item in my pokepack designated 'Gator Shit - looks like Totodile's up to his tricks again!'.

Those are just what I've thought of off the top of my head. Pokemon games need flavor more than mechanics upgrades.

 

Being able to sell pokemon, all based in-game. You'd have the open market style, where you can just dump anything you don't want anymore - the cut slaves, the eggs that didn't have the right nature, and so on. You wouldn't be selling to a specific NPC, it'd be the equivalent of selling to the pokemart. As we're talking about making this game based on the PC, you could do this between players. But it would work more like the stores in Runescape than anything else:
The money you get is linked with how good a quality the pokemon is (level 15 is better than level 5), how rare it is (dratini has a better standard price than ratatta), and how many the shop has (so selling hundreds of a single species actually nets you a loss).

Then you'd have the collection board. Other players could stick up requests, being as vague as they like. You'd also get randomly generated requests from NPCs.
So they could just ask for an Abra. Or they could ask for an Abra that knows headbutt. Or an Abra that is level 15+.
And then they are charged based on the specificity level, rarity, and difficulty.
For example, Vileplume cannot be caught in the wild. You HAVE to evolve Gloom to get one, whereas you can evolve a Gloom from an Oddish. So a Vileplume would have a much higher asking price than a Gloom.


Also, the ability to designate a single move as 'non-battle'. Any move with out-of-battle effects (HMs, Dig, Flash, Teleport, etc) could be selected as such, and would then disappear from the choice of available moves in battle. But I could use it in the overworld.

 

HMs shouldn't be combat moves at all. Once you get hm04,for example, any pokemon that is 'strong' should be able to move boulders when you interact with one.

I really like the idea of pokemon individuality and personality too. It'll make it even harder to bench your starter though T_T

Feeding though? No ty, unless it can be set up on an automated system, like a permanent drip you have to refill every X amount of levels or 20,000 steps. That could get tedious fast with six pokemon...

Ability trees sound awesome though! At the bottom is ember, using it X amount of times unlocks fireball (a 50 power fire move I just made up, lol, ember is 40 si?) or hitting a water type with it unlocks smokescreen etc.

 

Imagine a mod for Football Manager which changed it into a Pokemon management game.

Holy shiiiit.

 

The thing I don't understand is why they haven't gone all-out with the regions yet. It's not like we 'need' fancy graphics. I'm pertty sure the 3DS can handle gen IV or even V graphics in addition to all of the areas. If you stick to classic sprites, I KNOW it can be done.

 

What I would like to see in a Pokemon game is the complete removal of IVs and EVs.

 

To be replaced by...?

I mean, EVs and IVs are pretty much

a) what differentiates Pokemon of the same breed and level, which is good (all Pokemon being the same would be lame).

b) prevents rare candy spam.

 

Actually, nothing.

I want all Pokemon to be the same, even if it is lame. Because then the battles would be determined by the player's choices in it.

 

I realize this might be a little outside the topic of discussion, but what I want to see is hand-held devices in the shape of pokeballs that one can clip to one's belt and carry around everywhere. The pokeball stores the data of your team of 6 and can be used to challenge other people around you carrying a pokeball for a quick battle. It's not the game per se, merely a 1vs1 or 2vs2 device that also keeps track of your wins, losses, eventually medals when some players rise above the others, etc.

Imagine riding the bus, just minding your own business, when suddenly the pokeball strapped to your waist begins vibrating. You grab it, look around, and notice a guy glaring down at you from the back of the bus. You flick open your pokeball and walk towards him.

No words needed. No greeting or friendly banter. Punk kid wants to fight so you oblige.

The bottom half of your pokeball is the controls. The top half is the display screen. The devices link up wirelessly and the game is on.

After an intense few minutes of battle, you are the victor. You add reputation points to your trainer profile while the loser hops off the bus promising revenge.

As you reach your destination, pokeball now firmly attached to your belt, you use your phone to log into the online ranking list. Your name is displayed at the very top of your area's competitive arena:

Red
US, NY - City of New York Gym Leader

A city victory against its champ is worth a ribbon, a state (or province) victory is worth a stripe, a country victory is worth a badge. You are in the international circuit. Your profile is nowhere near the top yet, but one day you'll challenge the champion.


Why doesn't this exist yet?

 

IVs can be kinda stupid, but EVs give players a greater degree of choice over how they choose to raise their pokemon (ie., choosing to specialize speed or defense over attack or vice versa.)

 

Would you be doing a romhack or starting from scratch? If you planned on starting from scratch and wanted some help I would be willing to contribute some of my time to the project.

Some things that I would want to be done:

1. All Pokemon from every generation.
   • The original 151 seems like a good place to start for this project and then after we have a working base we could slowly start patching in from Gen 2/3/4 and higher.
   • http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_Pokémon_by_National_Pokédex_number This provides a list of all the Pokemon, as well as their national pokedex number.
2. All maps from every generation
   • Like all the Pokemon we should start with the first generation and then once we have a decent working base we could start adding in the next generations.
3. No levels based on trading.
   • Simply because if this isn't a romhack and is a standalone game, implementing trading would be a pain. Maybe something that could be patched in at a later date.
   • As to not change the game mechanics too much from standard Pokemon games, a new type of stone should be implemented to level Pokemon that used trading as an evolution starter.
   • Players could then level the Pokemon with the stone anytime they wished, just as they could with trading.
4. Ability to catch all Pokemon, including starter Pokemon at some point within the game. (Maybe special events?)
5. No 4-move limit.
   • This may have originally been done due to memory requirements on the Gameboy and not being able to handle hundreds of Pokemon with all their moves.
   • Regardless, if this is not a romhack and is intended as a standalone PC game, we do not need to have such limitations.

 

No pokemon that can only be obtained throught a special event that happened some year ago and are impossible to get now.

 

I'd like for the types to be less overpowered against one another. It's fine that water beats fire, etc... Less fine when it's almost always a one-hit-KO.

Also. Pokemon online. That is all.

 

I always thought a new game plus where your old characters name is still on all the gym's "winner list" and the Hall of Fame, as well as your Pokedex not resetting would be a great way to not only encourage actually completing the dex but also create a more fun experience. I always wanted to build a romhack just off that premise alone. In the same vein as the international pokedex opens up more pokemon to catch new game plus changes the wild encounters in areas but along with that new game the gym leaders might have stronger pokemon or a new lineup but their known favorite would be even stronger. (ie. Sabrina would use different psychics but alakazam would still be there and 5 - 15 levels higher)

The new game plus feature is a really cool way of getting all the starters and not just roflstomping the whole game like in yellow, due to you having only one at a time.

There's a whole lot more to it but those are just some ideas.

 

I meant like a special event within the game, like how in Pokemon Yellow you could get Squirtle from the thing in Viridian city. I forget how the others were obtained though.