here are my ideas on how i would personally implement the main line battle gimmicks.
you’ll notice a patter between each of them:
Mega Evolution: an item called “mega stone” can be bought in Dynamo Sands replacing the “lens of truth”.
This item can be used by any pokemon but only a few can change to their mega forms and only the leader can be affected by the item. When used. if your active leader mon can’t mega evolve, it’ll simply gain a boost in it’s raw stats (between 10-20% or something like that) while those who can will simply change to their mega forms, changing their appearence, stats and abilities but keeping their moveset. neither can gain exp while under the effects of mege evolution. This will only last until the end of a dungeon (defined as gup, escape or beating the dungeon) and after using the mega stone, it’ll turn into a “powerless stone” requiring the player to go to a resting place to recharge it like a bed.
Z Moves: Two new types of items would be added, the bracelet and Z-crystals. it would work in a similar way to heart slates, you fuse the Z-crystal to the bracelet, and only the leader can use Z-Moves.
By activating a bracelet with a crystal on it, the next move of the same type as the crystal used will become a Z-Move which will always be a AOE attack that never misses or, if the move used is a status move; boost it’s effects. The same thing goes to pokemon specific Z-moves but the leader has to be of the same species. aferwards, the bracelet will be empty and the player must end the dungeon run to re-fuse.
Dynamax/Gigantamax: the new item would be a “dynamax bracelet” which can only be used on the leader. when used, the pokemon’s tiles become 2x2, it can break trough walls by walking, it can go across any terrain and all moves the user has become dynamax moves of the same type regardless of being physical, special or status, as well as having it’s hp doubled but it only lasts for a set amount of time (like 30 seconds or something). if the user has a gigantamax factor, which can only be obtained by talking to an npc, the player will gigantamax instead which is very similar to dynamax but specific moves will become gigantamax moves instead and have a unique form.
after using it, the bracelet will become a "powerless bracelet and the player must get to a resting place to recharge it.
Terastalization: this can only be achieved by an item called " tera orb" which at first does nothing until the player gets a tera type by collecting enough tera shards of the type they want to give themselves said type.
the tera orb can only be used on the leader and when used, the pokemon’s type changes to their tera type, overiding that mon’s resistances and giving an additional same type attack bonus (“stab”). if the tera type is the same as the user’s original type, the stab bonus is added on top of the original stab.
the effect lasts until the end of a dungeon and after used, the tera orb becomes a “powerless orb” and the player must get to a resting spot to recharge it
Mega evolution
a increase to raw stats by 10-20% if you can’t mega evolve that’s uh- is that just better then mega evolution? cause that would be 20-30 points in each stat at lv100, if take mega gyrados base stats compared to normal gyrados it would be equal to 15 more points to attack defense and special def at lv100…i mean i guess it also changes it’s ability? not sure if i would considering getting rid of moxie for mold breaker a buff tho.
now this isn’t inherently a bad thing, the opposite in fact, i actually like that the buff is marginal and arguable if it’s better then the original, the reason i bring it up is the uh. removal of exp gain while active. this is fine for lv100 cause they don’t gain exp anyways but, this is a %buff high levels are the ones who benefit the most from it, why are you gate keeping exp from a lv50 weedle with a mere 86 in all his stats, the buff only amounts to like 8 points and there’s a item in the early game, the begginer band, that boosts the stats of all your pokemon in the team by 10 and buff the exp they gain!, this increase in stats is actual garbage compared to everything else in this list and yet it’s the one with a downside? (also the incoviences to needing to recharge it which i’m fine with it’s just that with these downsides it seems you are asking people not to bother with the gimmick.)
Z-moves
afterwards the bracelet will empty and the player must refuse it?! huh?! why does that imply you need to RE grind the the Z-crystal? and re pay the fusion fee, if there’s one, after every single use?! what- it’s just a single buffed move once- why is there so many downsides- am i miss understanding?
Dynamax
can move trough any terrein and lasts real time seconds? yeah uh- this is just a speedrunning tool.
you get rewarded by not enganging with enemies by keeping mobile orb with added bulk like effect for multiple floors to quickly dash to the stairs, if you actually try to angage with the floor it would prob run out before you can finish it, uh yeah. it should prob just last the floor, that way the player isn’t pressured to finish the floor as quickly as possible.
Terastalization
now this is something is a gimmick i’m highly interested on and love to discuss with poeple how to implement it, cause it has a lot of potential for wierd and wacky gimmick pokemons, and i will prob make a full on forum post about at some point, the possability of making something wacky like a ice type wigglytuff so you can make great usage of ice moves, a normal type dragonites, it’s awsome and i think being able to edit pokemon’s type it’s a great idea to make all kinds of wacky and unique sets.
altho the is a issue that keeps poping up about all the ideas of implementation, the keeping the mon usual stabs, it spits in the face of actually trying to do anything cool with your mon. rewarding already strong pokemons and just giving further stab to something they already had stab for with the doubling up on it, why tera ground gyrados when you could tera water and double the damage of surf is just better? “but it’s a power up” people say, in mainline maybe, but what if it’s not a power up here? just a customization option to make lamer pokemon more interesting! i suggest to eradicate the the whole keeping the orginal stab thing and make it a little more permanent of a effect! i belive it would make it a lot more fun and interesting to use! “but then the wouldn’t be a benefit to terastelazing into a type the pokemon already is!” uh. yeah. why would the type changing gimmick buff pokemon not changing thier type anyways? it’s kinda silly if you think about it
general thoughts about the pattern about them
i really really dislike the only the leader can use it thing.
it makes the battle gimmicks very dangerous to use and forces the player to put thier main pokemon in the leader slot where it shouldn’t be.
i get the idea your trying to go for is “let’s make the leader pokemon more special because poeple aren’t using it!” but. just. don’t. people don’t use the leader pokemon because it’s just not idea to do so, it puts you at risk when you run out of revs and it’s the first new players thought when they start playing to not use the leader mon.
the only reason the leader thing exists for the game to make sure the player always has a least a single pokemon in thier party to avoid issues and breaking, they expressed multiple times that if they could remove the whole leader thing they would.
(also why is the terrasterlazing the only gimmick without a downside when it’s actively the best one? mega removes exp for a meager stat boost, zmoves you have to fuse another crystal each time to use a powered up move once, and dynamax lasts a few seconds. yet terra which gives you 50% more damage on a type for the whole dungeon dosen’t have drawbacks? zamn- )
besides if you think about it, leaders aren’t anyone special or anyone to look up to.
they are just cowards who make others do thier job for them and then take the credit for it anyways despite thier only job being looking pretty and imposing behind a desk (the strategizing is actually done by advisors). they don’t deserve respect
also isn’t pmd and pokemon in general about friendship and companionship? why make someone better or more special then the rest? that dosen’t sound very friendship and companionship!
thanks for sharing your thoughts. here is my thought process as well as a few things i realized i forgot to mentioned when i made the post.
megas: the no exp thing is mainly to avoid bugs cause to mega evolve, you are replacing the original form with it’s mega. what happens when it levels up? does the level get transfered to the original? and what happens when the mega learns a move mid dungeon?. PMU’s code is very old and complicated, so i gave the no exp thing simply to avoid this type of situations that might cause spagetti code shenanigans (tho, if it were to be fixed, i would allow megas to gain exp as usual).
also the 10-20% boost is an estimate, i don’t actually think those are the correct numbers to use but it’s to give a general idea and it could be lower or higher depending on which is the most balanced but yeah, maybe a percent boost isn’t ideal as weak pokemon stay weak and string mons become stronger. i was thinking on replicating how PSMD does mega evolution but in a way that fits PMU better
z-moves: one thing i forgot to mention was the range of these moves as whether you need money to re-fuse or not.
i imagine the range to be floor size (aka, z-moves kill every enemy in the floor if the move used is a physical or special). so making them one use means that you can’t just spam them all the time.
there isn’t an actual money cost to re-fuse. you just need the z-crystals themselves and you can do that anywhere outside dungeons or on resting places.
dynamax: another thing that forgot to mention is that dynamax/gigantamax negate the effects of the user’s held item. so we can do something similar making it so all items held by the team have their effects negated until the dynamax runs out.
another thing to mention is that the 30 second timer carries over with every floor so you’re dynamax for will run out at some point and since you are now 2x2 tile long, that means your hitbox is also larger and thus your easier to get hit and to be blocked by enemies in your way.
terastalization: the issue with terasalizing to the same type as the one you are is that it removes any secondary typing you have as well as limiting your coverage as opposed to tera into a different type in exchange for more raw power. there’s also the deffensive advantages to be have when having a unique tera like tera grass making you inmune to spore, tera ghost letting you walk trough walls and tera poison making you inmune to the poison status as well as getting all the resistances that that type like steel.
i totally get your problem with this idea and honestly, it’s mainly a issue with terastalization as a whole that can’t be easly fixed.
your also right on the fact that i didn’t gave it as many downsides as the other gimicks but that’s because if you wan to change typing, you have to grind for it.
general thoughts:
the leader restrictions is in fact to make it more important but also to give these gimicks a high risk, high reward factor. yes, you have to put your main in the leader slot to take full advantage of them which is very risky, but by doing so, you get access to very powerful mechanics that can easly compensate but after using them, their item form become useless and some of them don’t last forever forcing you to also use your other mons as well. it’s that risk factor the reason i chose the leader to be the only one that can use them.
i see i didn’t take bugs into account because i assumed this was all thereorical and if capable of implementation so i didn’t give it much thought about possible bugs, but giving thoughts.
i don’t see why you woud think switching forms would cause issues, at the end of the day, morpeko and Wishiwashi exists right? wishiwashi like. pretty much mega evolution in every way shape or form ain’t it? just with added benefit of not requiring a held item!
besides it’s kinda comical you would be worried about possible troubles with the pmu code with mega evolution but not with your silly 2x2 size from dynamax thing lol. that sounds like it would actually cause trouble with the spaghetti code to freak out, and how would the game even know which tile to start your attack from? all attack ranges have uneven number of tiles, which tile are you gonna shoot your line beam from? and no, btw making 2 tile beams and stuff isn’t possible, staff has mentioned those ranges are hard coded, and if they could introuduce new ones, then the bite and punching moves would have reverse T shape tile range,
so yeah that’s why i didn’t consider spaghetti code in the equazion and why you prob shouldn’t yourself, cause im fairly confident everyone can just tear apart a lot of stuff from a lot of what you just proposed if we do that.
yeah, your right. tbh, i haven’t used neither morpeko nor whishiwashi so i wasn’t aware that they worked just fine.
and about the tile thing, i genuenly had no idea it would be that hard to do. like, i literally didn’t expected that it would have so many issues, that’s why i wasn’t worried about it at all (but looking back at it, that explains why large mons are still 1 tile long).
my main goal is to try to give ideas in ways that are more grounded and possible to implement but i also don’t know how the game is coded nor what’s actually realistically possible within the game’s code so sometime i make mistakes like that where i thought form changes would be difficult to make but not tile enlargement.
thank you for pointing those flaws. i’ll try to think more on what ideas i propose
