Pokemon in the future?

So with the release of black and white not long ago, I started wondering where Pokémon is going from here. I mean essentially since their first game the same game play and story has stayed the same... which I think sucks... So I was wondering what you people think game freak should innovate / change / implement to the game to make it more appealing than it has been since red and blue.

My idea in essence is to create a game that combines all of the regions from the past Pokémon games, Kanto, Johto, etc etc into one massive game in one. A lot of people I have seen though say this is a bad idea in that the level problems coming into a new region would make you seem overpowered and in turn make the game seem boring.
My idea to fix that state of mind is to simply up the level cap to maybe 200 or even 300 and along with raising the level cap make it so that the level of the Pokémon your fighting in the wild immediately scale their level to your lead or highest level Pokémon, say if you have a level 30 Pokémon as your lead then when you enter a new area all the Pokémon would scale to around 25 or 28. Same goes for gym leaders except they would scale up instead of down so for that same level 30 Pokémon you would have a gym leader with a level 33 or 35 only the gym leaders would only scale every 5 or so many days of play, that way players could still train their Pokémon to help them beat the gym if they’re having a hard time

Also to add something interesting each person can choose their starting region and that influences their starter Pokémon (like every other Pokémon) but when they enter a new region (after completing some goal to pass the previous region [not necessarily all 8 gyms or the elite four but some task]) they get the option to do a mission / task that is relatively hard, but allows them to start with a new starter Pokémon from that region. Keeping in mind that keeping your Pokémon of higher level in the pc will keep the level cap from scaling up; making it so you can in essence play a whole new game from the start.

This is just my idea and people are more than welcome to comment or criticize but keep it pleasant, also I would love to hear everyone else’s ideas.

Way too complicated for a game whose major selling point is its simplicity

I think they should just make an MMO out of it already

sqrage said:

I think they should just make an MMO out of it already

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Ive honestly been wanting one since i was 7.

also, pokemon died after Crystal. all the new ones look like robots.

I mean essentially since their first game the same game play and story has stayed the same...

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From what I've heard, Black/White actually has some bit of a storyline - mind you, I haven't played White yet (it's waiting in my desk until I get the 3DS, I'm not spending any longer than necessary queueing for the 3DS on release day so I got Pokemon White early and am waiting for PayPal funds to be cleared so I can order Final Fantasy IV ) and I haven't played a Pokemon game fully since Red/Blue which, frankly, had no storyline unless the anime's intro theme in conjunction with Team Rocket being a nuisance constitutes a storyline.
Although, I may have pretty much forgotten whatever storyline Red/Blue may have had, it's been so long since I've played

My idea to fix that state of mind is to simply up the level cap to maybe 200 or even 300 and along with raising the level cap make it so that the level of the Pokémon your fighting in the wild immediately scale their level to your lead or highest level Pokémon, say if you have a level 30 Pokémon as your lead then when you enter a new area all the Pokémon would scale to around 25 or 28. Same goes for gym leaders except they would scale up instead of down so for that same level 30 Pokémon you would have a gym leader with a level 33 or 35 only the gym leaders would only scale every 5 or so many days of play, that way players could still train their Pokémon to help them beat the gym if they’re having a hard time

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Scaling, while it would be great, can't really be balanced - if your party is anyway staggered in terms of levels, levelling weaker Pokemon is just going to be very troublesome or ludicrously easy.

Scaling to your highest level Pokemon results in only one (perhaps two, depending on just how staggered everything is) being able to fight effectively - trying to level one of your Pokemon could end up resulting in constant switching of the levelling Pokemon for the strongest Pokemon which would slow down development of the other and also delay the bridging of the level gap (since the Pokemon you swap in to fight will take his/her share of the EXP)

Scaling to your lowest level Pokemon would make everything very easy since most Pokemon (provided they aren't at a type disadvantage) shouldn't have great difficulty beating weaker Pokemon.

Perhaps balancing to average levels could be a solution, but I don't really know - it's been too long since I've played :\

Either way, I think the Pokemon formula doesn't necessarily need changing. While it does seem as though it's eventually going to run out of steam (although, 5 generations is an impressive feat IMO), the gameplay does cater for a broad enough range of players to be able to retain a hold on a fair share of players - I mean, it works great for casual play, it's a f***ing goldmine for people who enjoy games with collectible elements and (from what I can gather) there's a fair bit of number crunching and theory involved in the game mechanics who like to get the most out of everything.

Sorta like WoW in a number of ways, when you think about it. Not sure if Pokemon has a similar player base (does anyone know what sort of player base it has?) but it does share some of those traits that make WoW so engaging. If only Pokemon had awesome lore

also, pokemon died after Crystal. all the new ones look like robots.

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Died, but kept on living? Or was reanimated?
Hmmm, zombie Pokemon... Zombiemon!
BRB, copyrighting

EDIT: I reserve to right to spout sh!t about stuff I've got no idea about... :3

I think Black and White has definitely strayed away from the path than the previous generations would dare to, there have been various alterations to mechanics such as poison not affecting Pokemon outside of battles and doctor trainers who will heal your Pokemon and serve as valuable checkpoints. These alterations along with others were definitely added to tone down the difficulty a bit and make the process of the grinding or making your way through large routes between cities a lot more bearable, and generally to tend the game to the more casual audience that Nintendo seem to have picked up over the years.

I also would love to see a Pokemon MMO one day.

Jindo said:

I think Black and White has definitely strayed away from the path than the previous generations would dare to, there have been various alterations to mechanics such as poison not affecting Pokemon outside of battles and doctor trainers who will heal your Pokemon and serve as valuable checkpoints. These alterations along with others were definitely added to tone down the difficulty a bit and make the process of the grinding or making your way through large routes between cities a lot more bearable, and generally to tend the game to the more casual audience that Nintendo seem to have picked up over the years.

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Those changes don't really influence the difficulty, they just make the gameplay more smooth aka better. Having to walk back to the pokemon center (especially without a bike) was just annoying, I really liked the changes they did.
Another example would be that they don't show the current weather effect every round anymore, gosh that was annoying...

I didn't notice any considerable change in the difficulty compared to the older titles, the final four (you can choose the order in which you want to fight them now!) and the "champion" were a bit easier imho, but I'm happy about that as well since grinding a few hours before being able to beat them is lame.

I just wish they'd put a bit more effort into the graphics. The pokemon look so pixelated and the random "color blob" backgrounds of the battles are just god-awful. I don't understand why they don't make backgrounds that represent the environment you're currently fighting in.

Persnonally.... I think scalingly will be extremely weird... Like(if memory serves0 the 1st gym of silver/gold... where the 1st gym is bird type and he a lvl 8 pigeotto.... the 1st time i say it i was like as pidgey dun evolve till much later.... And it may be weird to see a lvl 8 gyrados or lvl 100 magikarp.. imean come on..... Then if it affect legendaries then it will be more weird.... I really hope Pokemon could be a fighting game like one which the name i forgt.... I saw the potential in that game....

Pokemon games like this probably won't change much, but they are going for the better. Unfortunately the main target for pokemon games seems to be the younger audience still. The only difference i would make to it is actually making it 100% serious. And i mean serious as in pokemon actually attacking people if they get pissed and people actually kicking you in the balls if you can't back up you're constant intrusions. But this would be another game all together. I do like the flow in black and white, it's a faster progress, feels more natural and the villains are pretty cool, in the sense they actually seem evil (kidnap people's pokemon, physically hurt pokemon etc.). But until a game is targeted for a more mature audience we will always have the same 'generic' pokemon story we had so far.

Scaling, while it would be great, can't really be balanced - if your party is anyway staggered in terms of levels, leveling weaker Pokemon is just going to be very troublesome or ludicrously easy.

Scaling to your highest level Pokemon results in only one (perhaps two, depending on just how staggered everything is) being able to fight effectively - trying to level one of your Pokemon could end up resulting in constant switching of the leveling Pokemon for the strongest Pokemon which would slow down development of the other and also delay the bridging of the level gap (since the Pokemon you swap in to fight will take his/her share of the EXP)

Scaling to your lowest level Pokemon would make everything very easy since most Pokemon (provided they aren't at a type disadvantage) shouldn't have great difficulty beating weaker Pokemon.

Perhaps balancing to average levels could be a solution, but I don't really know - it's been too long since I've played :\

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My proposal was short and condensed of course (first post would be a little bit longer if i went into too much detail ) but i agree that this kind of method might cause very slight problems depending on how its implemented and the desired result, but i mainly said it to show people my point of view on the subject as well as get people to share their thoughts as your doing now

Scaling to your highest level Pokemon results in only one (perhaps two, depending on just how staggered everything is) being able to fight effectively

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this is true but think about if you chose to scale them to the average of the party Pokemon's levels, you have the possibilities of 2 very big extreme cases of inefficiency, say if you have a level 37 Pokemon with you and a level 300 as well, the 300 would shoot the average to about 125. and vice-versa you wouldn't be able to efficiently level either of your Pokemon.

One thought is to scale it directly based on the lead Pokemon in your team, that way you could have a level 300 with you and be able to level your level 37 because the average isn't thrown off.

Additionally, what if we scaled it automatically depending on which Pokemon is currently out, say we start with our level 37 then the wild Pokemon would be about 35, if we then switched for our 300 then the wild Pokemon would, metaphorically, seem more threatened by a stronger Pokemon and in turn it becomes more willing to viciously fight raising its level to about 290 or so. Then base the experience gained base off of a percentage that is also scaled to the level of the Pokemon, so the 300 would gain 100,000 while the 37 only gains 1,000

I also would love to see a Pokemon MMO one day.

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Truthfully I don't think Pokemon could effectively be turned into an mmo, at least not in my mind, unless they extremely overhaul the battle system, into something more streamline and quick. Maybe so that your trainer can only have one Pokemon with him/her at a time and he specifically trains that Pokemon until he wants to switch it up, ex. go to a pc and swap for another 1 Pokemon.

And technically if the Pokemon battle system was implemented as it is now it wouldn't be able to be considered an mmo, say one person finds a mewtwo dungeon and wants to bring his friend to help him out, what are they both going to do? have the whole team go into a turn based fight? what happens in a team mate goes afk when the boss battle starts, then comes back before its over? how would he get into the fight?

The game in my mind to be turned into an mmo needs to become more or less like a mix of final fantasy 13 (atb bar) and kingdom hearts (being able to dodge / move freely).

ACTUALLY now that I thought about it more deeply, for the mmo to seem like it would work good for my mind you would have to get rid of the trainer all together unless there's a way to make it so that your always the trainer until you see a Pokemon then you throw your ball then you lose all control of the trainer and go specifically to the Pokemon, in that case the trainer themselves would have no purpose other then visual/nostalgic.

you are the pokemon mmorpg, or you got a single pokemon mmorpg?
i think itd be ballin

2-P said:

Those changes don't really influence the difficulty, they just make the gameplay more smooth aka better.

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Of course they influence the difficulty - albeit only a little bit, if you get sent to the nearest (or last visited) center when you lose all your Pokemon, and these changes are specifically intended to help keep your Pokemon alive, then you are therefore less likely to lose all your Pokemon and in turn more easily able to progress.

I wanted these ever since:

1. A compalling storyline that revolves around each world, and it's not based on the Pokemon anime.
2. As much glitches and secrets in the games, very much like Pokemon Red Blue and Yellow. It's rare nowadays to see a glitch that gives benefits, like Missingno.
3. Since it's an adventure game, I wanted to see more minor storylines as well as dungeons/caverns that just give player lots of curiosity in the world of Pokemon. Shouldn't the world itself be more diverse than just towns and roads?
4. Instead of changing the difficulty by either scaling or anything that involves too many factors, I wanted a dynamic story plot difficulty and give players to choose their difficulty based on the interactions in-game.
5. Give secret missions that involves each Pokémon crime syndicates entering a conflict and resolving it into a friendly match.
6. Give additional storyline plots and extended modes after completing the Pokedex internationally.

And one more idea that isn't completely involved in the main series of Pokemon.

7. Make direct human-to-Pokemon and Pokemon-to-Pokemon interactions starting off from Pokemon Mystery Dungeon spin-off series.

also, pokemon died after Crystal. all the new ones look like robots.

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More like plush toys and stuff animals.

Though, 3rd gen still had some better stuff. Like Absol and Metagross.

4th and 5th, not so much. Too rounded and looked too soft.
[del]I think it's because they brought in some Western guy for the design team, IIRC.[/del]
I'll look for a source on that.

Yeah, the design team changed through the generations. I hate the new guys.

http://pokebeach.com/2010/07/the-new-pokemon-dont-look-like-pokemon

Every time a new generation comes out, many fans complain that the Pokemon introduced don’t look like Pokemon or don’t mesh well with previous generations. A lot of the time this can simply be attributed to the fact that we’re just not used to them yet, but what many people do not know is that the Pokemon are created by different groups of people each generation (I didn’t really know that myself!). The following post from Azure Dragon on BMGf sheds some light on who creates Pokemon.

There’s a team of people that is in charge of monster design. They’re listed under “Pokemon Design.” They come up with the ideas. They decide which ones are the best and refine them. Then, Ken Sugimori draws those designs. In the first generation, it was a group of four people (Sugimori being one of them), and Satoshi Tajiri’s role (the creator of Pokemon) in creating the monsters was basically to approve them and suggest changes after the basic ideas were being designed. He’s the only one under “Director” and “Game Design” for the first generation which means that he was in charge of pulling everything together and the overall experience of playing the game.

Nowadays… well, the truth is that in Ruby and Sapphire, Junichi Masuda took over. Ever since R/S/E, Satoshi Tajiri has not been working on the games at all. He’s listed as “Executive Director” in most games. What does this mean? “Executive Director” is a fancy way of saying “this is the original creator, he approved this game but was not an active part of development.” Occasionally he’s listed as an “Executive Producer,” which, from what I can gather, means he funded it but was still not an active member in developing it. Finally, in Pokemon Rumble (surprisingly enough), only Sugimori and Masuda are listed in the credits as “advisers” for the spin-off game. Tajiri is not listed at all.

So, Satoshi Tajiri is not really putting his mind into the monsters anymore. However, there is another part of why the monsters look different. The “Pokemon Design” of D/P/Pt was held by thirteen people. Ten of these people did not work on the first generation’s Pokemon; Shigeki Morimoto (he’s the guy who put Mew into the game) also stopped doing monster design during D/P/Pt. What does this mean? The people coming up with the Pokemon ideas are, mostly, different people each generation. R/S hired a ton of people, and that’s why the third generation’s style was so different. Black and White has also hired more people.

Thus, the main reason why the Black and White Pokemon look weird is because the design team has new people on it. Also, Satoshi Tajiri hasn’t worked on the games for a looooong time (since the Gold and Silver days), thus the reason why Gen III and Gen IV looked so different from Gen I and Gen II. And now Gen V could look very different as well.

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