Topic: Pokemon Z

Exactly. The TV show had more in store than the games, in some ways, like when they showed Togepi or Elekid in first generation, or how Sabrina was a freak.
None of that was represented in the games, and that's what made the TV show good to watch. That's why another Pokemon Colloseum needs to happen with Pokemon Z, because that was the Pokemon console experience on GCN, and include the Pokemon Ranch so that we don't have to buy Pokemon Bank.

That's how Pokemon Co. has messed up the series. Otherwise, Pokemon Z will probably have an extra battle tower, and everything else is fine.

I think you're going overboard with weaknesses, resistances, and immunities, that would definitely throw things out of balance. If you want it to be balanced, try 3 or 4 type advantages, 2 weaknesses, and no immunities. And the type choices should ideally be ones that are overpowered or underpowered, the point is to balance out existing types, not just add types willy nilly.

I realise that people will make those parallels, but the fact is that Porygon, which is literally a digital Pokémon, has been around since Gen I, and the "haters" aren't really supporting the franchise anyway, so it doesn't bother me one bit what they think. The only reason why I think "Digital" is yet to become a type is due to the Porygon family and Genesect being the only "digital" Pokémon that are currently available, and I can't really picture any other currently available Pokémon being recategorised as such.

An angelic or supernatural typing would also be welcome. The words "angel" or "holy" are unlikely to be used no thanks to the overall irreverence for religious themes in the media. I suppose "Spirit" could be used, but conceptually, is too similar to the "Ghost" type, and Angels are completely different entities to Ghosts. "Celestial" could work as well, I suppose. Celestial types could be strong against Dark types (known as "Evil" types in Japanese), while Dark moves will have no effect. Manaphy and Phione can be recategorised as Water/Celestial types, as a nod to them being based on Clione (sometimes known as "Sea angels").

Some have suggested a "Light" type, but I think a word that more closely references the cosmos/heavens would be more appropriate given the nature of the type. I can't really think of any other current Pokémon that could be recategorised as "Celestial" types. There is the Kami trio from Gen V, but they, by their very nature, are elemental, not celestial. Celestial Pokémon can include creatures based on steeds (a unicorn? or other creatures from Abrahamic tradition), various interpretations or artistic depictions of angels, cherubs (though that could border on disturbing by Pokémon's standards =P), and perhaps animals known for their gentleness, docility and majestic appearance. One can dream, I guess.

I acknowledged that the typing may be unbalanced. I wasn't sitting in a board room with the producers of the next Pokémon game discussing how to best accommodate new types. It was just a suggestion that I came up with in the spur of the moment. Obviously they will need to be thought out in greater detail and measured against existing types, move sets etc.

Don't forget there's many more cities in the anime than the game. In fact most of the earlier towns are way dumbed down in comparison to the anime. Also they never show Misty's sisters, or Brock's entire family in the games. Their Pokemon are represented properly though.

Glass is already Ground (Sand) and Crystal is a form of Rock. So adding either of those as types are sort of redundant. But if you added a special type of Pokemon like the Crystal Onix, like how they added the Red Gyarados.

Alien type is the only type I can think of that could actually improve the balance (make it SE against Water and Ghost, weak to Poison). But even then, I'm not sure it's needed. Is there really much imbalance left in the metagame? I mean there's a couple of types that are weak like Ice, Grass, Bug, and Rock, but Ice just needs some more resistances which they can add without a new type, and the other three are in so much trouble that they'll need multiple type chart changes to fix them. And IDK any types that are actually OP now. Ground maybe?

Also, Jirachi doesn't need its type replaced, Psychic/Steel works. If anything, I'd make it Fairy/Steel, but it's a little late to change it. Maybe throw in a Normal/Alien Mega Porygon-Z?

Fairies are pretty ridiculous right now. They need some balance to them, being weak to only steel and poison types is pretty bad actually (Poison types aren't that common and those that are, are usually hardly viable or easily deleted midgame, don't do enough damage since all fairies except gardevoir are tanky enough to live a hit or two and heal, and Steel types which are defensive and usually don't do damage to be reliable in 1v1ing things like clefable or altaria. Duoblade is probably the only reliable anti fairy in common metagames, and even that can only come in so many times.)

Right now it's not even the typing being unbalanced, but rather just the pokemon themselves being unbalanced.. I mean everything in this meta is luck, just straight up luck, if you win or lose a game it's hardly skill this gen, it's luck because you either got that lucky crit, they missed, you got that secondary effect status, or a min/high damage roll. Everything is in the hands of RNG since almost no pokemon has a full moveset without something that can miss or has an additional effect (30% burn, etc).

Pokemon will never be balanced unless gamefreak adds a gamemode options in which you can disable random chance things like crits, misses, secondary effects, etc.

Then there's just the pokemon that are stupidly uncounterable and difficult to deal with, I honestly stop competitive pokemon because it's so reliant on the same 3 pokemon cores to be a viable team this gen.. and the balanced cores are usually banned in competitive smogon metas which just reveal and make more cancerous cores take their place (I'd rather have a charizard+lando+aegislash core every match than the cancerous Altaria, Ferrothorn, Clefable core with no real counters... atleast the previous core prevented this one and was dealable. )

The entire point of giving Fairy those weaknesses is to make types like Poison and Steel useful, so the solution isn't necessarily to nerf Fairies, they need to buff Poison and Steel by giving them stronger Pokemon, better moves, more Mega Evolutions, etc. It's probably going to take a few generations to fix that.

Exactly! Plus, if they removed random chances then there would be little to no luck in the game at all, which would make it somewhat less exciting.

@Calllack: I don't think excitement is a factor when there is thousands of dollars put on the table at VGC tournies and the literal deciding factor on who wins that award is whoever gets the best RNG with swagger, minimize, double team, rock slide flinch, and thunderwave.

VGC is seriously just reliant on swagger and thunderwave's 50/50 coin flip inorder to win.

@Calllack:
Yeah, part of the charm of battles is that no matter what brilliant strategy, luck can help you or be your worst enemy. At least for me, thats fun.
If those things were deactivated, we would have battles a la smash "only for pros"

@MegaBeedrill: I remember watching one tournament where a guy got a lucky freeze and won because of it. It was awesome. So intense that any turn the opponent could unfreeze and defeat him. He barely won but it was a lot more fun than watching numbers on a board. Without randomness competitive gaming would lose a lot of its excitement and things would be boiled down to 1 correct way to play. With randomness, things become more open and different strategies can either work or not because you don't have full control over what happens.

@DefHalan: But that's the problem,

Put it into this perspective: When you do a competitive game like smash, you know it's reliant on skill.. that every move you make is based on your actual plays and abilities. Let's say you're playing fifa, same case there is no hidden mechanics that prevent you from making proper plays or prevent you from just being skillfill about what moves you make.

In pokemon there is no fair competitive elements period, I don't know about you but I'd be pissed to travel to a VGC tourny, and lose 10 grand after spending a grand to fly there because my opponent in the finals didn't hit themselves in my swagger or I got paralized every turn or got paralized first turn and it was GG from the start. You can't adapt to RNG and this is the problem... why should I pray for luck in a serious tourny when instead I could know my brain is actually the factor in winning, my strategic decisions, my combos, my trained pokemon, instead of saying "ok let's see if this freezes so I can win."

Competitive games are meant to reflect the skill of the player, pokemon doesn't do that, for one it reflects the team matchup and who has the upper hand from the beginning of the game, but then relies on that luck with who and who doesn't miss/get paralized.

Fight a full minimize/double team team and see how "competitive" and "interesting" that is in ranked when the numbers drop afterward.

@MegaBeedrill: In your example, second place does get a good chunk of change. A good player will win majority of the time. Over the stretch of a Season, even with RNG, a good player will win more than a bad player. Poker is very competitive and has lots of RNG. The Players are knowingly playing with RNG and some players bet more heavily on randomness than others. It is a play style. Most competitive games actually have RNG in them, in some form. It isn't just about playing against your opponent, but also playing your opponent. If you know your opponent relies on RNG, then play things that counter act that RNG. Disrupt your opponent's strategy. Good players know how to do this and are prepared for it.

@DefHalan: Then tell me how one "counter acts" RNG.

Guess my teams should consist of mamoswine inorder to prevent confusion, freeze, or paralysis.

I've streamed competitive long enough to know there is no such thing as an anticrit, antifreeze, or anticonfusion that is actually viable and doesn't promote mediocre team structure.

With the poker statement, I don't play poker so I can't argue that statement, but I'm pretty sure people do infact have ways around the card game since some people know how to memorize decks.

@MegaBeedrill: Maybe they should ban Swagger and such then. The competitive Pokémon simulator Pokémon Showdown has a "Swagger clause" banning that move, as well as a move banning having more than 1 Poke on a team being asleep. Plus the majority of players don't play for money, and it's the majority which the devs are trying to cater for.

@MegaBeedrill: For confusion, switching out will heal that effect. Frozen is normally such a low percentage of actually happening, you don't run into those situations very often. Crits just kinda happen. there might be things to lower opponent crit chances but nothing I can think of. In those situations having good type match ups are important. crits on a not very effective move aren't too bad. The Poker analogy comes from the fact that 1 hand may be terrible, just like 1 match of Pokemon. However a series of hands, Pokemon Matches, the RNG falls within its percentages. Knowing those percentages and knowing escape routes when you are dealt a bad hand are important to the competitive nature of the game. 1 game might make or break 1 tournament for you, but that 1 game won't make a big difference throughout the entire season.

Without the random elements, Pokemon would be very very dull.

So guys, how about that Pokemon Z?

Do you guys think we'll get Gen 6, Gen 6.5, or Gen 7?

Altered how? Because a Gen 6 game with new Pokemon added is exactly what most people mean by Gen 6.5.