Does anyone else find the game mechanic of levelling up, in the context of monster collecting RPGs, a bit redundant?
In a traditional RPG, you're lucky to see a dozen playable characters, and one of them is the protagonist so you want him to be a viable combatant all the way through. You gain levels to provide character progression, to see your characters get stronger as you advance the story and explore the world.
But in a monster collecting RPG, there are easily over a hundred playable monsters, and the protagonist is the guy collecting them, who can potentially own monsters of every species at the same time. Your character progression doesn't come from just levels, because you're adding new monsters to your menagerie, and a species of monster can be inherently stronger or weaker than another species due to different base stats.
Therefore I'm starting to think a game like Pokémon but without levels, or at least a lower level cap (say, the monster's natural level + 15), would provide better character progression than Pokémon games do. That way, it would be nearly impossible to keep the same team of monsters from the first "gym" boss to the last and just overlevel your way to easy victory after easy victory. The game would basically force you to retire your whole team several times as you NEED new monsters on your team that are inherently stronger species or else you can't hope to win.
Does this kind of game already exist? Am I making sense to anyone? And if not, could you set me straight?
Does anyone else find the game mechanic of levelling up, in the context of monster collecting RPGs, a bit redundant?
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why force the player to get stronger monsters, if the player can instead be forced to get different monsters that aren't necessarily stronger, but have different abilities?
That sounds close to Labyrinth of Touhou 2. You bring 12 team members with you and each covers a niche. You are given a wide range of ways to upgrade them because there are a shit ton of stats that influence many things. Levels are just there to give you a steady rate of giving you these stats. Hard mode just makes it so you can't go above a certain level until you beat X boss so every fight is challenging.
If I remember, games like Dragon Warrior Monsters had you lose the two monsters you mated to get an offspring, so upgrading through tiers was risky and it thinned the number of guys you actually had
The problem with this is that what will end up happening is a grand exercise of rock-paper-scissors, because without levels, everything has to have roughly similar moves and power, and then at that point, why bother collecting them? It makes it stale and boring.
I guess I just like being able to use the same pokemon throughout an entire game. I don't really like the idea of abandoning certain pokemon to the box simply because they are not viable any longer. Sure, this happens because some pokemon that you come across are just vastly better than the bird/dog/early game pokemon you started with, and you really want that new one. I like blasting through the entire game with a small team I started with. It's interesting to start with a weak little piece of shit that eventually becomes an unstoppable tank because you invested time into, got it stronger, and leveled it up. They can be viewed as simple pawns used only to advance the story, or they can be characters onto themselves if you allow them to grow, and one solution just happens to be with the use of leveling.
Treating them as "characters" when they're just stat blocks that aren't used by the story is teetering dangerously close to VN/Walking Simulator territory.
See:
This:
- is the wrong way of looking at things.
People like to feel invested into something. The idea of taking your shitty starter Pokemon to the big finale is something that appeals to people. The idea of using your team of shitters to take down some dip with a great lineup (i.e. 8ch v. 4ch) is appealing. The idea of going from the bottom to the top, and of clinging onto things, is appealing.
Why is there leveling in these games? Because it lets people do this shit. It draws in a bigger audience than the alternative, and as a result, it makes more money. Game-making is about making money, not about being novel.
Persona pushes you to get newer and stronger monsters instead of leveling up the ones you have.
Although you're melding them anyway, so you never really keep them forever.
Because everyone has their favorite pokemon team and not necessarily the strongest team fighting-wise?
Look into the Shin Megami Tensei series OP. Leveling your demons really won't do shit after you learn all their moves, you have to fuse the fuck out of them to create new ones.
SMT as well. Though 3 does have evolving demons into its higher tier if you keep it long enough
Why should monster collecting be only about the collecting, and not also about increasing the skill/usefulness of your monsters?
It's great that you want to win and want the best shit, but have you ever thought about liking something because it exists in the game? Min-max autism can really suck the life and any joy away out of any game you know. No one likes min-maxing faggots you know. Not even min-maxing faggots like themselves.
Why hello there Persona.
Grinding is only tedious if the reward doesn't match the challenge.
Fights in RPGs should be structured in a way that accents player growth. This does NOT mean that there should be level scaling, since that's hilariously broken.
Rather, grinding should feel and be purposeful, rather than an exercise in tedium.
Though a low level Spectrobe can cheese a higher level enemy through manipulation of the enemy AI/having a favorable attack type matchup. Levels just seem tacked on.
IIRC the Digimon games on WonderSwan worked like this. Though only the first is in English, and it's the sequels that really flesh out everything.
Pokemon's story is all about how the Pokemon are your friends. Putting your starter in a box is pure blasphemy.
However, sending hundreds of others directly to the box and never letting them be in your party for even a second is perfectly fine.
Ever since I was a kid, when I play Pokemon, I literally only battle with my starter, because he's my best bro. I don't faint any wild pokemon, because the game always has something about your trainer treating pokemon well, and going around knocking out random pokemon seems mean. However, instead I make sure to knock out every single trainer pokemon in the game in order with only my starter, so my starter still ends up getting enough EXP to solo the game. The rest of my party then consists of pokemon that you get in the story. Like in Red/Blue I need to carry Snorlax, Eevee, and Lapras at all times, then HM slaves that are obviously the most fitting for any particular HM, like how Lapras is obviously the pokemon meant to use Surf. Scyther/Pinsir (but especially Scyther) is obviously the one meant to use Cut. Pinsir can learn a ton of HMs, but Machop is obviously meant to learn Strength, so he needs to be on the team. The Pidgey line is obviously meant for Fly, but I'm out of space on my team and Fly isn't required anyway. I've never quite known which pokemon is meant for Flash (Lanturn in Gen II works but in Gen I, Voltorb?) but Flash isn't needed either.
In Yellow of course you just use Red's team from Gen II, because they're all made of Pokemon you get in the story anyway. In Gen II you have your starter, Togepi, Sudowoodo, Eevee, Lapras again, Shiny Gyarados, Snorlax, and in Crystal, Suicune, so you actually have some decisions to make, especially since IIRC this doesn't cover all the HMs you might need. It's a very heartbreaking ordeal when you need to box one of these guys though. Sure you can take them back out to go to the Hall of Fame with you, but by then I've grown attached to my HM slave (probably Pinsir because he can learn a bunch), and I feel bad about boxing that one.
Pokemon is an emotional journey if you try to take the idea of "your pokemon are your friends" seriously.
In RB, your starter is basically the difficulty level of the game.
I never understood why people would do that.
Because they're psychopaths
Which starter would u fugg
you're mom nigga
Any SMT game, even modern Persona forces you to constantly get new demons even if your earlier one's can level up.
I wanna fuck Makoto so bad.
You tell me.
87.5%
Soul Hackers does that, every demon has a set level. You have to constantly change party or you won't progress. It is a nice concept but it has no place in a game with Pokémon that has a "friendship" philosophy. Plus, I like certain Pokémon or whatever. SMT gives them massive level curve so you can level them but it is really hard so you are better of fusing them. Still, they are games with different philosophies
Some people just don't like the starters. There is nothing wrong with building whatever team you like.
The starter is there with you at the most crucial moment in your life, when you start your journey. That can never be matched.
It's a line of code that gets surpassed by other lines of code three quarters of the time. Grow up.
You realize we're talking about Pokemon, right?
Why are you even here?
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I agree, fellow gentlesir! How dare these children in this Pokémon thread have fun instead of being enlightened, mature gamers like us! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to post on Reddit and play more Lawbreakers, the game for mature gamers like ourselves!
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Why not translate pokemon into a tactical 3D game so you can make pokemon useful in a larger variety of ways than in the current vidya?
SMT is already like what you describe.
Then stop playing videogames you piece of shit.
If Koei makes a Pokemon Conquest 2 that might happen.
I wanted to make a Pokémon inspired game once and still do tbh. For the same reasons you make, "levels" would not be a game mechanic. Monsters would still gain XP from fights, but it would be a 'skill currency' used to purchase new skills/moves. Once you fill all the skillslots of a mon they simply stop gaining XP– until you have them forget a skill. The number of skills a mon could have at once would also be variable to their race– a ghost might have plenty of skillslots but a golem would only have a few, for example. It would also have a turn-based-tactics battle system (similar to FFT or DnD 4.0) with a unit max of 5v5. Battles would be far less often than the "every couple steps" bullshit and would actually be individually dangerous. The core game focus would also not be about "Catch ALL the shit you don't even want!" but instead, be about developing a small team of your favourite monsters and developing unique tactics from the kinds of monsters in your party.
While I kinda like the idea of monster collecting games I actually don't give a single solitary shit about collecting monsters.
I only like them because in theory there's a few monsters in there that I'll like which I will stay with for the rest of the game.
On that note ever since Blue/Red till X/Y (the limit of my shit tolerance, only played in hopes that Amie might be good, it wasn't) I've never even tried to complete the Pokedex much less even catch a hundred.
Though I hate leveling no matter the form and no matter the game.
I'd rather there just be a system that has no leveling and you get only x number of points to distribute through a list of skills/abilities (could have where you stack points to "level up" said skills/abilities into a specialization though) on your character/monster, you can freely re-spec for convenience but you can't get anymore than the original number of points.
Basically a system kinda like pics related but no bonus points.
The game doesn't give any other option, it's either those 3 or go pound sand up your ass.
Which in the past gens at least had something that might be good, now it's all shit so if I still played Pokemon I'd be pissed at the starters being such insta-binning crap.
that's just 5% of the game, you're supposed to play pokemon with friends (real or virtual) and the fun-factor comes from trading, talking about your party and battling each other, the community makes the game.
Also its a game that revolves around the post-game.
this. in the pre-everything-is-on-the-internet days of pokemon red/blue, i remember being the only in my circle of friends who "fell" for the guy selling the magikarp. when i next battled my best friend and fucking obliterated his team with a sick-ass flying water dragon he shit his pants. it's memories like that that stick with someone for a long time, maybe forever, and as said giving a player that agency is really important to drawing and keeping them invested in the game
Someone make a 56% face edit of neo-Holla Forums
Hey Brian, haven't seen you since GAF imploded. How's your family?
Pokemon's battle system has always been shit. The fun of pokemon is exploring the world and discovering all these people and monsters. Not grinding for hundreds of hours to hatch good eggs followed by hundreds of more hours of grind to autistically raise hidden stats, followed by battling other people who wasted their time doing the exact same thing just so you can take turns letting the RNG gods decide the battle. Especially since you can't even use any monsters you want without people calling you "cheap" for using "banned" pokemon.
Pokemon multiplayer is fun if you're 10 and battling as an exercise for friends to show each other their teams. But it's not an actually good game.
A novelty that got by because everyone wanted to see Pokemon in 3D and this was it. Then after five minutes of playing the main game, you discover the minigames, and play those instead, trying to use them to justify your purchase.
There's also Strange Journey, where your demons don't learn moves when they level up, or SMT1 where your demons don't earn experience or level up at all
The whole point of pokemon is to find your super special favorite buddies and be friends with them forever. It goes against the whole message if the game just went "fuck you your pikachu is shit get a new slave now."
Other games, whatever, I guess.
This. Pokemon's battle system doesn't really take much skill or planning. The most advanced it gets is baiting on a switch to hit them effectively off-type. But even that's more luck than a real read.
This guy is also right. The shows all demonstrate this. You can't just change Pokemon like the OP is suggesting, it would be removing one of the core attractions.
Wew
Use growth
Honestly it feels like EXP and leveling just sticks around because it's what everything has always been built around. Taking an existing game like pokemon and removing levels might not work, but i don't think it would be that hard to come up with something less tedious if you build the game seeking alternatives.
Just for example, one of the classic uses is to gate progress, like in the first Dragon Quest. (Oh, these gold guys are too tough, guess I need to beat up more of these Rock guys.)
But that's mostly obsolete, as there's a a ton of other ways to do this. Make barriers that are unlocked by new abilities, have scripts ungate the next area, you quicktravel between different areas and they don't show up in the menu until it's time.
But what does levelling do in Pokemon since it already uses all of the above across the series?
Levels make your pokemon stronger. In tiny increments. You know what might be neat? maybe instead of levels from 1 to 100, have tiers, maybe 10 or 20 or so, where your pokemon gets a good chunk stronger. What would do that? Well maybe make gyms more like gyms and have you pokemon go up a tier when you beat the gym with that pokemon in the party. I mean, being able to replay the gyms would be nice in itself, and probably less tedious than slaughtering countless audinos or something.
What else? A lot of Pokemon evolve at certain levels as they grow. Well, if you go with tiers, just use the tier closest equivalent to the level.
But leveling up is also how pokemon leran moves, well that and TMs and move tutors.
Hmm actually, those ideas put together might actually work, though that's just a cobbling together of ideas. Imagine how much nicer a monster training game would be if it were built from the ground up to avoid forcing the player to grind levels.
How much XP is required for that?
In games like Pokemon, levels could be replaced by "predispositions". Your Pokemon would gain those by fighting in a certain way (for example, using special moves, physical moves, moves of its type, status moves, etc), certain Pokemon (so it would get better against water types or fire types, depending on what it fights), visint certain places (Ice Cave fills you with ice energy, or whatever), and these would be irreversible. They would reflect the whole history of the Pokemon. I think this idea, when refined, would be amazing. It would also make every pokemon TRULY unique, since every step you take would make it different.
For example, you fight pokemon with physical moves, so your physical predisposition gets higher, but at the same time, special and status predisposition gets lower. The same with fighting water or fire types. The more of a certain type you fight, the more the predisposition towards that type increases. So you can make a fire type more effective towards water types at the expense of other types.
Or by visiting certain places you can gain certain predispositions. Clearing G/S/C ice cave will make your ice moves stronger, but will be limited only to those pokemon that fight there during the first time you clear it. So your Pokemon will be a reflection of all the places he's visited, all the trainers he fought, all the moves he used. Maybe evolution could be used to "lock in" his predispositions, so that you can't just switch your Charizard from being a water expert to a fire expert. They would be irreversible to a certain extent.
Remind me to never invite you to my D&D group
So, a pokemon would have many of these predispositions. For example, it would have one for every type. Like:
Water: 100 points
Fire: 60 points
Grass: 40 points
etc. And it could only add up to, say, 1000 points, so you can't max out every type. The same with attack predispositions:
Physical 100 points
Special 40 points
Status 60 points
And 200 is max.
What do you think about the idea? I've had it for a long time, but first time posted.
Don't pokemon get different stats already based on what they fight?
So the way you raise them affects what they evolve into? I suppose this is already done to a minor degree in pokemon, but it's also the entire premise of Digimon.
Yeah, effort values. From what I recall from Gen IV, every Pokemon fought gives a set number of EVs for a specific stat, with 4 EVs translating to one stat point. There are caps on the number of EVs you can get per level and total, too.
I like the idea of battling different types giving slight benefits towards fighting that type, though.
The entire shtick and selling point of Pokémon was collecting, trading and battling with your friends.
First through link cable and eventually through online Wi-Fi.
Will this ever get old? Because GameFreak keeps raking in money. How does Nintendo get away with rehashing the same game every time? If CoD or EA sports titles does it everyone on Holla Forums loses their minds. Some user told me that Holla Forums has always been full of nintendrones/nintenyearolds. I'm beginning to think that's true.
no.
the answer is always no.
you are a freak.
FF2, but for Pokemon?
Get the fuck out of here, faggot.
I don't think Holla Forums is even interested in Pokemon to begin with, maybe aside from fullderp shenanigans.
I always hate how in the endgame all your favorite Pokemon get to level 100 and there's nothing to do with them other than the battle tower. I would often end up resetting their levels and locking their exp gain so that the league wouldn't become total pushovers and I could continue doing runs. I think after 100 the level should just match whatever you're fighting to keep things challenging, down to the lowest possible level for the evolution.
I also hate how you have to have multiple instances of the same pokemon if you want to run a different set or need it for certain a niche. It would be neat if you could customize these things in the box without having to do all of these convoluted processes like farming heart scales and ability capsules. EV training is also annoying. I'd much rather EVs be accumulated as points that you can spend in stats you choose, and be respecced later if you wish rather than the really unintuitive system that's going now.
IVs and Natures need to go in my opinion. Relying on RNG to get a good pokemon is retarded. You should just be able to tell your pokemon to "focus" on something at the cost of another stat. It really sucks when you get a Modest Groudon or a Lax Sneasel.
Maybe you could have these things tie into your skill as a trainer? As you get badges you slowly get more control over your pokemon to the point of absolute mastery over moves, abilities, and stats. It would be a natural way of introducing complexity into the lategame since at that point you'll be able to do a lot of prep and building to take on a specific foe.
I also just realized that the anime message of "a good trainer can get the best potential out of any pokemon" would actually be made true if the system worked like how I described. Paul was right.
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Unless the game goes full autism with explaIning the specs of each stat it'll never be very interesting. People love the world of pokemon, not the gameplay. I think everyone finds spinoff games more fun.I remember having more fun with Pokemon snap than the main games.
Damn straight, why aren't there more pokemon snap games? Especially with the 3DS or WiiU?
What, the orgiginal got remade once, and that's it AFAIK. Sun and Moon's garbage Pokéspots don't even begin to count.
IVs are definitely hot garbage. Natures are okay as a concept but having something that can change a Pokemon's personality like the books in Dragon Quest 3 would be better than having to breed for it.
Basically it'd be better to make it so that a new player can go through casually, learn more mechanics and then go back and "fix" their current favorite Pokemon instead of catching and breeding new ones (especially with all the RNG wrangling.)