RE: Pokémon X / Y : Disappointments and Possible Improvements
This is great, just this morning I was thinking about how the combat has become boring and unrealistic; I know, it's a turn-based RPG combat system, and in those games the characters always remain still like sitting ducks while the opponent beats the crap out of them.
Suddenly, a solution came to me, like an omen:
[img width=500 height=]http://talkingaboutgames.com/wp-content/themes/uploads/stories/games/b/batmanarkhamcity/screenshots/thumbnails/thumb_BAC_combat.jpg[/img]
You have something on your face.
You have a problem? the God Damn Batman is always the solution. always.
Some of you may be familiar with the awesome arkham games, and their amazing combat system.
For those of you who are not, first, play it, second, let's just say the GD Batman can beat almost every non-boss using just two mouse buttons: punch and counter.
When an enemy is going to attack, a prompt appears over his head for a short window of time; if you press punch, duh, if you press counter, the guy attacks, and Batman does some Batmanning (yay, my favorite verb!) and leaves the guy unconscious, as illustrated here by this poor fellows:
[img width=500 height=]http://www.maclife.com/files/gallery/batmanarkhamcity9.png[/img]
With this, Batman can take down entire crowds of people that would send the delta force crying to their mamas without even being hit.
I know, awesome.
So, the idea would be to include this incredibly streamlined and elegant clockwork of kickass in pokemon combats, say, for example, your X against a computer's Y:
- Y attacks
- a timed prompt comes in the lower screen, X's four moves are showed.
- you select a move before running out of time.
- the move you selected either: actively counters Y's move, negating damage; strengthens Y's move, doubling the damage; has a high chance of preventing damage to X; other effects.
- you select X's move
- Y either: yadda yadda yadda, you get the gist.
The reaction time (counter timer) could be dependent on a pokemon's speed, the higher speed, the better reflexes, and the more time you have to make your choice. it would be short, still, less than 2 or 3 seconds, don't want to drag the combat too much, but the timer would slightly increase with level and EVs (since they increase speed) and would give a new strategic value to the stat, besides making the player react to the game and pay attention, instead of watching uselessly the screen. It would also give more relevance to the defenses, since any offensive focused pokemon could be knocked out by a poorly timed counter due to poor defenses, making more rounded, less specialized (not without risks, at least) pokemon more useful.
The moves would spend PP as counters, obviously, and would usually counter other moves based mainly on type, or form (pulse, beam, bite, sound, etc), but with some logical exceptions. Examples:
- All water moves counter electric moves (duplicate the electric move's damage)
- All water moves counter ice moves (negating damage)
- Scald counters ice moves (hits the attacking pokemon)
- Teleport, protect, detect, king's shield, quick guard, acrobatics, mind reader, future sight, the priority moves, etc, give you a 5 in 6 (or some other number, high) chance of avoiding damage.
- All pulses and beams counter pulses and beams (they explode, doing a little damage to both pokemon)
- The blade moves, sacred sword, secret sword, etc always counters each other (negating damage)
- The bites, headbutt, tackle, head bash, head smash, take down, etc (any move where the user just throws itself at the enemy) can't counter anything (counter fails)
- All grass moves counter fire moves (duplicate the fire moves damage)
- All water moves counter fire moves (hits the attacking pokemon)
- All ice moves counter fire moves (negating damage)
- All ground moves counter electric moves (negating damage)
- Flying/levitate pokemon are not affected by ground counters.
- Earthquake and earth power can't counter special moves, just physical.
- Confusion and psychic get a 50% chance of countering physical moves, and a 25% chance of countering special moves.
- The powder (spore, poisonpowder, toxic, stun spore, etc) and sound (screech, metal sound, supersonic, relic song, sing, perish song, etc) moves can't counter special moves, just physical (negate incoming damage, apply outcoming effect/s).
- Offensive stats buff moves can't counter shit.
- Recovery moves can't counter shit.
- Barrier, light screen, calm mind, bulk up, reflect, counter, mirror coat, etc, have a 1 in 3 chance of countering special or physical moves as appropiate.
- Some moves cannot be countered: feint, the never-misses, the priority moves, explosion, etc.
A very interesting thing is that each move would have a list of cobinations both as counter and as the offensive move (adding to the usual physical/special divide, your own attacks, strategys, ability synergy, weather, type matchups, etc) , effectively making combat a lot more difficult to master.
If you are interested, I can make a thread where we could keep speculating on move interactions; with such a huge amount of them, some very interesting combinations can arise, I'm sure of it.
And that's how the combat can be improved. No need to thank me, masuda, now get on with it for gen VII!
