[Discussion] Pokemon Battle Systems

[TBM_Christopher]

Hey guys,
Recently in a post about what I'd like to see in a fangame, I mentioned wanting to see more creativity with the Pokemon battle system. To that end, I wanted to discuss some of the different mechanics that could be added or thrown away to change up the formula. I'm going to write this in a similar format to my design journals in class about game modifications, so be warned that I may get a bit rambly at times.

The Goal
This is the trickiest part to define, but also the most important. What do you want out of your battle system? Do you want a deep, back-and-forth system capable of the same competitive gameplay of the official games? Or do you want to focus more on the story of your game? Gameplay can actually lend itself quite well to your goals in your game.

1. The Linear Story (Get the Badges/Defeat Team Bad Guy) - For a story like this, you probably want a feeling of progress as the game goes on. That means tougher Pokemon in late game and a bit of what's called "power creep." You want your player's Pokemon at the beginning to not be as tough in terms of base stats as the ones found later, but because they've been trained so far, they'll be about on par with the wild Pokemon encountered.
2. The Nonlinear Story (Open World/Exploration/Complete the Pokedex) - There are a few ways to do this one. The most common ways are to designate general "difficulty" of an area, so there's a path of least resistance for the players, or to have enemy Pokemon scale in power to match the player's own. The latter makes for a relatively consistent gameplay experience, but is much harder to implement and balance, while the former can almost feel like a linear story without any variation from the start.
3. The Competitive Pokemon Alternative (Think "Pokemon Showdown with a Plot") - This one's a little bit trickier to define, but the plot is really there for some quick amusement or possibly a "race to the finish" type deal. This by definition has all the nuts and bolts of the Pokemon games, and is meant to allow players to eke out every single stat bonus and combination they can. To put it to a really bad analogue, the first two are like a D&D group in someone's basement, while this one is the group at Gen Con with the "flawlessly" min/maxed characters.

The Tools
There are a lot of elements that are considered definitive of Pokemon - the type chart, the 4 moves per pokemon rule, etc. Obviously there are quite a few things to think about, but let's talk about what the core mechanic would be. What defines a Pokemon RPG?


..Well, this is going to sound mind-numbingly obvious, but it's that a human goes around catching these Pocket Monsters and has them fight with wild ones and ones belonging to other humans. This is good. This is a simple premise that we can look at from a LOT of angles.


Experiment 1: The First Kid from Palette
The Pokemon Adventures manga(my favorite medium of Pokemon, yes I will admit bias here) contains a lot of stuff that some may consider "unfitting" for a Pokemon game. Remember Zombie Psyduck? The Arbok that Green's Charmeleon sliced in half? Those are a little tougher to reflect in mechanics, but how about all that stuff about positioning the Poke Ball in an advantageous spot? We can look at that pretty easily. In fact, we can throw out a lot of mechanics from Generation III and onward and focus on that positioning!

Holy Isometric Strategy, Batman!

A 2D grid-based battle system is a tall order, so let's drop everything past 2nd Gen, and focus solely on moves and their range and power, base stats, and position. Huge change, right? Is it still Pokemon? I think so. We can slap the Trainer on the same 2d Grid and incorporate a mechanic where the trainer can throw a Poke Ball to any square within a certain range. Heck, if you want to go the extra mile, maybe the Trainer can be threatened by the Pokemon or environment! There were so many times that a Pokemon attacked a person or that a trainer was at risk during battle in the manga, that the possibilities are pretty broad. And that's not even going into some of the plot elements like Yellow, Lance, or Giovanni's special abilities..

Experiment 2: The Last Kid from Palette
The Pokemon anime has a very different approach to battles from the video games, as well. Remember the episode about the Pokemon academy? That episode was basically to show how the anime was different from the video games, and it did a pretty good job of it. Type immunities are definitely not as much of a thing in the anime, so let's do the unthinkable - we'll mess with the type chart. Ash's Pikachu has regularly taken on Ground-types before, so I'm thinking the easiest thing to do would be to replace any x0 effectiveness on a type matchup with a x1/4. This means that theoretically(since no two types share an immunity), a Pokemon could have the equivalent of a 3x resistance under normal rules.

Next, when was the last time you saw a Pokemon go "ding!" and level up in the anime? Leveling up, while a satisfying reward for the player, can also be a bit of a chore if you make it to the next gym, only to find out that your Pokemon are under-leveled. Now the importance in battle lies in a Pokemon's base stats, abilities, and how it was trained(as effort values would still remain to reflect training the Pokemon). In terms of the games, this system would probably mean that in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, Brendan or May could try to battle Norman as their first gym challenge, but due to the fact that he has an evolved Pokemon, it would be no easy feat. And now for a more ambiguous thought to leave this experiment on: In the anime, Pokemon were not limited to 4 attacks; what would happen if you removed that cap? Type coverage would become much less of an issue for sure, but what else would come of it?

As you can see, there are a lot of different ideas to toy around with. I've experimented around with some of these changes, but I'm sure there are tons that I've missed, and there are definitely a few I've left out. Now my questions to the community, what makes your battle system unique? Is there something that you want to avoid including in your game? What do you believe make up the core mechanics of a Pokemon game?
​

 

[Maruno]

This thread is about the battle system in Pokémon, yet your "Goal" and "Tools" sections talk about the plot instead. I'll just ignore those.

I've always been a big fan of the battle system in Grandia II (it seems to be unique to the Grandia games, and I have no idea why because it's great). Have a video:



The key aspect is the Action Bar (bottom right). Each combatant has an icon on the bar, which moves right according to their speed to the "Command" mark, where they choose what to do. Having chosen a command, they move through the red part (at a speed depending on the command chosen) to the "Action" mark at the end, where they perform that command. Having done so, they return the left end of the bar and do it again.

This means the order of turns is not fixed, and can vary quite a lot. Some attacks in Grandia II can "cancel" their target's command while they're charging it (i.e. in the red part of the bar) and knock their icon back to halfway along the blue part of the bar, thus disturbing turn order even further. I imagine this could be what flinching does in this new system.

As far as attacks go, there's a regular attack which can always be used. There's also a Critical attack, which is a bit weaker but can cause flinching. Neither of these pause gameplay in order to be used. All other moves are either Special or Magic, and pause gameplay and are much stronger. The Special/Magic split is analogous to Physical/Special Pokémon moves, and you'll notice that each of these has its own PP bar (called SP and MP), rather than each move having its own PP bar. This is a common feature in RPGs (occasionally called stamina or suchlike), but you have to admit that it's daft to run out of power to use Tackle and instead need to resort to Hyper Beam.

Another important feature is that attacks can be levelled up throughout the game. Grandia II gives each move 5 levels, and levels them up by spending Special and Magic Coins earned from battle. It may be better to give each move its own experience bar, which increases via usage, though. New moves are learnt upon level up as you'd expect. There are no limits to the number of known moves (although there aren't that many in Grandia II).

These are the main aspects of Grandia II's battle system which should be considered for adapting to Pokémon, in my opinion. The movement around the battlefield and area-of-effect attacks are certainly good features, but might be lived without.

Magic moves (and some Skill moves) aren't naturally known by the combatants. Instead they are known by Mana Eggs and Skill Books respectively, and are given to the combatants to use. I imagine these to be what TMs could be - moves which the Pokémon could use but doesn't naturally have access to. In Grandia II, a combatant can have 1 Mana Egg and/or 1 Skill Book equipped in addition to their held item, and this may be the way the Pokémon adaptation could work or not.

 

[BlackWaltz3]

Maruno; I saw this today and thought the battle system might interest you. I'm not familiar with Grandia aside from watching some of that video, but it looks pretty similar to what's in this one.

 

[Maruno]

This thread really needs more discussion.

The main question is: How can the Pokémon battle system (visual/mechanics/both) be improved?

Obviously battles are a major part of a Pokémon game. They're used all over the place to solve every problem you come across. This means they need to work well, and have some depth to them.

What depth does the current system have? There's the elemental types with their weaknesses and resistances, there's STAB, there's speed dictating the order of movement within a round, there's the other stats which affect how much damage a move deals, and there's a wide variety of effects (moves/abilities/items/weather) which can affect the situation.

I'd say that the most important part of the battle system are the effects. The mechanics haven't changed at all since Pokémon began - the Special stat splitting into SpAtk and SpDef doesn't count since they're just numbers (the same for new elemental types), and STAB and abilities were introduced in Gen 3, but that's about it. Every new thing that has ever been added has been the effect of a new move, ability or item.

Let's put that aside for one moment. What depth is there to the battle system? Well, none at all, really. There's a bit of strategy in reacting to what the opponent does, but you create your Pokémon team and their movesets/abilities/item collection outside of battle. Smogon exists to provide a selection of "optimal" set-ups for your Pokémon, and Smogon exists way outside of the battle system (it's not even in the game!). Most of the effort you put into battle (particularly breeding/training for "optimal" stats and moves and all that) has been done before the screen even starts flashing and the combat music starts playing. From then on, your choices are limited to 4 moves, 6 Pokémon and a Bag O' Items (which really just means "a stack of Full Restores and Max Revives"). That's not as much choice as maybe there should be for such an important system.

Let's go back to the most important part of the battle system: effects. The games have no problems with adding new moves and abilities and whatnot, and trying to make improvements here wouldn't be the best idea because that's what the games already do. However, they're extremely reluctant to touch the rest of the battle mechanics. Maybe they think it's good enough already; maybe they want to keep things consistent for the sake of compatibility and "lore"; maybe they just don't want to deviate from anything that was in the original popular games. Whatever the reason, it's good for us. Why? Because there's a lot we can consider for improvement.

It's worth noting at this time why certain features aren't in the Pokémon games. The main reason is that a Game Boy's screen is so small. You can't show off the monsters (which you want to do in a monster-catching-and-fighting game) in any other way than by arranging the battle screen the way it is, which means there's no room for a battlefield to move around in. There's room now for a battlefield, but by now the mechanics are set in stone and Game Freak can't make such a big change to the main series of games.

Now that we know where to look for possible changes, the next question is: what should we do there? Should we add whole new aspects (e.g. some kind of grid battlefield to move around in), or should we change existing features (e.g. replace the "battle round" with the Grandia-style "higher speed stat means moving more often"), or should we remove a feature (e.g. STAB, elemental type immunities)? In fact, does the battle system need more complexity after all, or does it need streamlining? Does each Pokémon need more restrictions on what it can do (e.g. fewer learnable type-coverage moves) in order to promote specialisation and differences? If so, is this specialisation defined per species or is it something each individual Pokémon develops as it grows (like a class system)?

This is the point of this discussion, and I know I haven't addressed it in this post. Hopefully, though, this background will help to frame the question and provide things to think about.

Maruno; I saw this today and thought the battle system might interest you. I'm not familiar with Grandia aside from watching some of that video, but it looks pretty similar to what's in this one.

That looks exactly like the Grandia battle system (albeit a simplified version). Nice to see someone else has realised how good it is.

 

[Worldslayer608]

Pokemon battles are really complicated in terms of what you can actually change without completely killing the feel that is a Pokemon handheld game. The flagship series have a battle system that has remained consistent over the years and I think it is the right call to keep it that way... for flagship like games.

I feel as if the battle system is a dynamic that will only really change with the adjusting of the overall play-style of the game wherein lies the heart of the issue. But perhaps that is just me.

A game that had a notable battle system shift that I recall, is one that I actually consider a complete flop, is the Digimon World series. It was executed in such a sharp and horrible way I feel, and maybe that is why the idea of changing the battle system perturbs me so much.



Digimon World 1 had a pretty sweet, and basic battle system and it is to date, my favorite battle system fora monster based game. They changed it to be more of a turn based battle system in the future games and I did not really like this. I like the idea of a timing based system rather than a turn based system, it makes the battle feel more realistic to me. The Digimon in Digimon world 2 also ended up being static, so they would not run around a battlefield... another thing that appealed to me was the idea of space during a battle, which is excluded entirely from Pokemon games.

 

[FL]

About the official games: I am agains't big changes on battle system. One of the factors that make pokémon a success is it's formula, if you change this, some fans that love the system won't like, like ЩѻƦḽᶑʂḽдƴƹƦ™ pointed. If pokémon change this system, probably the series divide into two types of games, like the Mario series done when released Mario 64 a returns at New Super Mario Bros (and maybe a third with Mario 3D Land).

For official games, the only changes that I suggest are:

• Change double weakness and double resistance to only 3x (because that a 4x move is too strong to handle)
• Maybe pokémon that can have two abilities at same time.
• A pseudo-random distribution (like DOTA 2) to avoid scenes of extreme luck/unluck.
• Correct the type chart. The ice type is too weak at defense.
• I also wish to have a "equip moves mechanic" like a move relearner at menu (in XY you can relearn egg moves if your pokémon had any).

If you like tactical battle system and similar things: Let's to fangames and spinoffs like Conquest.

For fangames I suggest the features:

• Field boost (25%/50% of move type more strong/weak depending at field)
• PP bar (like a MP/Mana bar)
• More moves learned at same time by pokémon (6 is a good number)
• Let's the player choose a status to boost every time that the pokémon raises a level (similar to Sword of Mana) instead of effort system.

I particularly like alot other battle modes like Double/Triple and Rotation battles.

Let's me suggest a battle system that I liked alot and may fills for a pokémon game:


One of my favorite games. Uses an Active Turn Battle System that you can movement the character in 2D to far/near the opponent, similar to a 2D fighting game. Both have 4 tiers of moves based in the distance between you and the opponent. Every character obtains a certain amount of Guts points per turn that are required for each move. And the more moves you use, more your accuracy drops/the enemy accuracy raises.

Pokemon battles are really complicated in terms of what you can actually change without completely killing the feel that is a Pokemon handheld game. The flagship series have a battle system that has remained consistent over the years and I think it is the right call to keep it that way... for flagship like games.

I feel as if the battle system is a dynamic that will only really change with the adjusting of the overall play-style of the game wherein lies the heart of the issue. But perhaps that is just me.

A game that had a notable battle system shift that I recall, is one that I actually consider a complete flop, is the Digimon World series. It was executed in such a sharp and horrible way I feel, and maybe that is why the idea of changing the battle system perturbs me so much.



Digimon World 1 had a pretty sweet, and basic battle system and it is to date, my favorite battle system fora monster based game. They changed it to be more of a turn based battle system in the future games and I did not really like this. I like the idea of a timing based system rather than a turn based system, it makes the battle feel more realistic to me. The Digimon in Digimon world 2 also ended up being static, so they would not run around a battlefield... another thing that appealed to me was the idea of space during a battle, which is excluded entirely from Pokemon games.

I like the systems of both games. The major fault of Digimon World 2 is that system is TOO slow, the animation for using/receiving every move spends a huge time to perform, a critical thing for a turn based system, that is monotone by nature. And maybe the fusion system, while I enjoys training different monsters, this annoys the level down, and capture the certain digimon to combine to get the right species is a little annoying, some are hard to catch.