I was wondering how the Pokemon community would add a little zest to make the Pokemon game just a little more complex.
In the spirit of the original post, I remembered a direction I would like to see the game take. You know where I would like to see a little more complexity?
HP Scores and coin flips... which can be taken very differently than I mean, so I'll unpack this a little.
For HP, I just mean that while keeping damage output consistent, HP scores need to
increase. The range of possible HP scores from the video games, even
after adjusting for the TCG being increments of 10, is more vast than we have in the TCG and I believe this constrains TCG design. When it comes to balancing effects, having less HP or doing less damage is a pretty obvious method
but with a range of 30 to 250 (did S&M raise it?) that actually acts like a range of 3 to 25, it is harder on TCG design in general and in adapting things from a video game where that range can be like 1 to 700+. As I believe current damage output (for the investment) is too high as well, this can be a way to combat power creep; a generation of cards that are slower against each other, but thanks to their higher HP but more modest damage output, end up roughly even with older (but still legal) cards that have lower HP but higher damage outputs.
I was a bit worried about tracking more HP, but then I remember how some people already use their local coinage as damage counters; it might not work as well with six sided dice, but tracking damage with stuff like pennies, nickels, and quarters (skip dimes and other values) would allow tracking of HP ranges even a bit above the games (say <1000) without it becoming too messy. Also would add a valuable skill for those with a matching local currency.
The other, and I'll try to keep it brief since I made the former so long, is that "tails fails" needs to go. It isn't the "fails" part that bothers me as much as the "50-50" chance. I'm used to tabletop RPGs where I'm chucking dice and there is
always a risk of failure (even a "critical failure" where you get an extra bad result). Rarely will you have something "important" to roll at the 50% success level. We've seen cards that were "tails fails" be horribly broken because while they did nothing half the time, the other half they basically won games. As someone opposed to set filler (and begging for some later release to break it) I'm not thrilled with the cards that are "tails fails" and basically wastes of space either.
My understanding is that Japanese culture associates dice only with gambling. Then again I'm not that kind of otaku so I could easily be mistaken. Assuming we are stuck using coin flips, however, then I would just like to see future effects never have you flip
less than two coins. Even if the card is designed to have just have two obviously opposite effects, like "succeed/fail", the card should be balanced with a 75/25 split. Plus people who like flipping coins/rolling dice get to do it even more this way.