Old mechanics you wish were brought back and how you'd improve them

[TheR3DX]

..

 

[PMJ]

The Holon engine was stupidly powerful. Easily one of the best, if not the best, mechanic in the TCG.

I'd like to see Pokemon-EX revert back to the old versions, when they were evolutions and not all basics. Then eliminate basic Pokemon-ex entirely so you feel better about powering up a mega-beast instead of dropping a Mewtwo and DCE and swinging for 160. :///////////

 

[Otaku]

Just checking... is this supposed to be a discussion or just a place to "sound off"?

I have a feeling I'm going to see a lot of suggestions where I'd either enjoy discussing or that I won't enjoy discussing because it'll be the same "I want [insert thing] back!" that doesn't consider what would really happen if it returned: usually something that the person posting doesn't actually want but also doesn't see if connected to what they requested.

So as for me, there are two mechanics I think are really important to revive not just because I would enjoy them but because I think they will make for a better game in the long term.

• Dual-Type Pokémon
• Additive (instead of multiplicative) Weakness

While the Pokémon Trading Card Game is just that (a TCG) and not a video game, it draws more than just flavor from the latter. Importing mechanics in an incomplete manner can cause problems just like using ones that simply don't work well in a TCG environment unlike in a video game (if they work well even in the video games). While it would add an additional layer of complexity, I believe by now the designers should be able to implement dual-Type cards (something they toyed with back in the days of the EX-sets). Doing this would reduce some of the redundancy we see in the TCG, because something in the video games worked because it was a (Type 1/Type 2) hybrid and not simply Type 1 or Type 2 (which often had two or three other examples with similar move pools and stats).

x2 Weakness just doesn't work; it was abandoned the first time for a reason and that is it just adds far too much damage to attacks to be easily balanced (perhaps balanced at all). This isn't a video game battle where at the tournament level players are all going in with their full teams all set-up and so doubling the damage easily unbalances things. I'm not sure if a variable "+X" system should be used where "X" is identical for all Pokémon or where it varies from card to card. For example, if X is 20, then everything has +20 from is Weakness (like the -20 we have with Resistance currently) or if as it was in the DP and Platinum sets, some cards might have +10 or +20 or +30 etc. This retains Type matching as a part of the game, but it doesn't make it so lopsided.

 

[PMJ]

If you're talking about importing mechanics more completely from the video games, why would you not want x2 weakness?

Dual-type cards would be pretty cool to see again, I liked those.

 

[Otaku]

If you're talking about importing mechanics more completely from the video games, why would you not want x2 weakness?

Literally answered that in the previous post. Between being a longer post and some potential wording issues, I can see why it wasn't clear; sorry about that.

Importing mechanics in an incomplete manner can cause problems just like using ones that simply don't work well in a TCG environment unlike in a video game (if they work well even in the video games).

Importing incomplete mechanics is a problematic but I likened that to how some video game mechanics don't work well in the TCG. At all. Said mechanics at best can only carry over through heavy modification and at worse must simply be abandoned. Some don't work all that well in the video games, at least as far as I am concerned. Of those options, I'm not sure weather Weakness needs extensive alteration to work or should simply be dropped altogether as frankly Pokémon taxonomy is both overly complicated and also inhibits design. So many Pokémon like Charizard that need a special "gimmick" because they clearly need a third video game Type.

x2 Weakness just doesn't work; it was abandoned the first time for a reason and that is it just adds far too much damage to attacks to be easily balanced (perhaps balanced at all). This isn't a video game battle where at the tournament level players are all going in with their full teams all set-up and so doubling the damage easily unbalances things.

My reasoning for saying that video game Weakness mechanics don't work is what I just quoted. I can also add that even if we assumed the video game Weakness/Resistance/Immunity system was perfectly balanced, the TCG lacks all the video game Types, only gives Pokémon a single Weakness or Resistance: never an Immunity and we haven't had multiple Weakness or Resistance on a card since what, the Platinum block? In the video game 2-player matches (and championship tournaments held in real life) also have you start with you team fully prepped instead of having to build up from possibly a single Basic Pokémon chosen semi-randomly (that is, from your opening hand drawn from your sufficiently randomized deck). If you want to use say Charizard in the video games, you bring your Charizard to the match and it starts with whatever Item you choose to give it, full PP, full HP, etc. For the TCG you have to build it up from Charmander or run a Charizard-EX and neither start with Tools or Energy.

TL;DR: Damage doubling Weakness was how the game began and they changed it because it didn't work. We went back to it and it still doesn't balance properly, especially factoring in the requirement of Evolving (if you're going to Evolve) during a TCG match (it happens outside of video game matches). So while I believe video game mechanics should be incorporated as best they can into the TCG, when it doesn't work, it doesn't work.