What the new Type Chart should look like.

Last time I talked about how the Type chart should be overhauled, and what Types should be cut out or combined. I'm very happy with the results and I thought I'd put up a rough draft of how the new chart would play out in terms of effectiveness and resistances. Let it be clear that if the Type chart is changed, then the entire Pokémon ecosystem will have to change accordingly in terms of moves, Abilities and Pokémon stats as well. You might look at this chart and think that some Types are too strong or too weak, but remember that these problems existed already and are manageable with proper design in other areas. The Type chart is a rough instrument for balacing anything, and--while I've done a decent job of balancing--the Type interactions need to make some 'sense' as well for them to work in-game.

One of the major overhauls the Type chart has undergone is that resistances now change whether the damage is coming from a physical or a special attack. Effectively I've implemented a second 'split' in the Types, there's now a difference between a Physical Electric attack and a Special Electric attack. There are relatively few moves and Abilities that impede Special moves, so Special moves generally have an advantage over physical moves. In the Type chart you'll notice that Physical moves often have a higher effectiveness than Special moves; Earth is immune to Special Electric moves while it only resists Physical Electric moves for example. The new movepool should reflect this change; Special moves have less to worry about in terms of Abilities and moves, but are not equally strong overall. Without further ado: here's the new Type chart.

The left-most column show the attacking Type. The top graph shows the effectiveness of Physical moves.

Link to full Doc

Let me know what you think.

The evolution gimmicks need to stop.

Evolving your Pokémon feels really good. The simple act of training up a Pokémon and seeing it metamorphose into something else--a creature more powerful and often more badass--is one of the central reasons why Pokémon is such a powerful franchise. You, the player, can see the fruits of your labour by not only experiencing your Pokémon getting stronger, learning more moves, but seeing them change physically as a result of your combined efforts. The normal method of evolving Pokémon is simple: once a Pokémon reaches a certain level a screen pops up telling you that the Pokémon is evolving (sometimes into different things depending on a Pokémon's sex) and you can let it happen or intervene and stop the evolution. From the very first Pokémon games there have been other ways of evolving Pokémon, the traditional way being bringing a Pokémon into contact with an evolutionary stone, the other being trading Pokémon between games. Game designers wanted players to find other people who also played Pokémon: this helped turn Pokémon into a social activity and incentivized more people to buy the games. Players could fight each other's Pokémon, and trade them as well. This choice was and remains absolute genius because it gives a single-player game an optional multi-player component to enjoy. Well, mostly optional because after a visit from the Dark Lord a designer apparently suggested that players shouldn't interact out of mutual enjoyment and benefit, but they should be cajoled into trading Pokémon because not áll Pokémon were included in the different versions of the game, ánd certain Pokémon would nót be able to evolve unléss you traded them. I'll probably talk about the Pokémon trope of having two versions of the sáme game, and then a third later on at some point, but today I want to focus on evolution gimmicks, so let's move on. 

Trade evolution brought players some of the most iconic and powerful of the existing Pokémon: Gengar, Machamp and of course the all-mighty Alakazam. Over the years the roster of trade-evolution Pokémon has continued to grow, some even requiring certain items to be held in order for the trade evolution to work. Not only has trade evolution persisted, all manner of néw types of evolution have sprung up, each more convoluted than the next: evolutions based on the time of day, evolutions based on the moves a Pokémon has, proximity to certain landmarks, certain stat distributions, how happy the Pokémon is, having other Pokémon in your team, leaving a slot in your team empty, even holding your game console a certain way! It's come to a point where game designers are just scrambling for new gimmicky ways of evolving Pokémon so they can point at some new 'innovation' or showcase some new feature in the game. I don't necessarily háte different evolution methods, my main gripe lies with how badly the Pokémon games convey information about hów different Pokémon evolve. Usually you're forced to go to Gamefaqs or Serebii to figure out how to get certain Pokémon because the games don't often tell you. Evolving Piloswine into Mamoswine requires it to have the move Ancientpower. Getting Shedinja requires you to leave a team slot empty. Electabuzz needs to hold an Electrizer to trade-evolve into Electivire etc. I'm actually surprised we haven't seen a Dream World evolution yet. This wouldn't be so bad if the game told you how to evolve these Pokémon; the easiest way would be to simply have enemy trainers use those Pokémon and then talk about how they got them after the battle!

But this is Pokémon Revisioned, so I'm going to go beyond a simple tweak into why I think these kinds of evolutions need to be cut back. In short, they're a hassle and only require a bit more effort; there's no skill involved and the excitement wears thin immediately after getting these Pokémon the first time. Evolving a Pokémon like Tyrogue into Hitmontop is a horrendously arduous process (it requires a very specific stat distribution to work), and collecting the items you need to trade evolve certain Pokémon calls for nothing but a bit of searching online and planning for it. Trade evolution even has an additional risk involved where the other player might decide to screw you over by keeping the Pokémon you just traded away if you don't have any friends locally to trade with. I'm still in favor of some alternative evolution methods, but they shouldn't be overtly difficult to pull off in terms of doing more stuff to make it happen, and there shouldn't be too many in a game.

I advocate cutting out trade evolution entirely; we don't need multiple versions of the same games, and forcing players to go through additional hassle to gain certain Pokémon is not fun--not to mention immersion-breaking--so it's time to let it go. Pokémon should either through simple level up, through the use of evolutionary items (and I think this should only be possible at certain levels), by Happiness (it's thematic and usually obvious) and sometimes through the use of dawn, day and night. Having Pokémon be affected by their surroundings is an established theme of the Pokémon games: you have Fossils, Gems, Rocks and Evolutionary stones already; it makes sense to have Pokémon evolution be triggered by certain objects. Pokémon happiness is important to the theme of Pokémon, and encouraging players to keep an eye on how they treat their Pokémon enforces the explicit message of the games (although I think the happiness system needs changes as well, frustration isn't a good counterbalance) and the day and night cycles are so clearly visible--reinforced by noticing that different Pokémon appear at different times of a day--that it's not a stretch to have some Pokémon evolve based on that condition. If the games want to make use of some one-off evolution methods I can live with that; I'm personally partial to the Shedinja method of evolution (two Pokémon for the price of one!), but the games should start being very conservative when it comes to dreaming up evolution methods, and if they want to get creative they need to make sure they're telling the player about it so you're not pressured into looking for a walkthrough to finally figure out how to get that damn Escavalier. Sure, holding your 3DS upside down is an evolution method we haven't seen before but it makes absolutely no sense from an immersion perspective. Are you a Pokémon trainer or just a kid pressing buttons on a device? Gimmicks like these detract from the gaming experience rather than deepen it with the wonder of how all these different creatures change their form.

The Type Chart needs an overhaul.

There are 18 Pokémon Types at the time of writing, and while it never made sense it's about damn time to have a fresh look at it and see what can be better. In the spirit of revisioning everything Pokémon I've taken the liberty to view the Type chart as something that can be changed while remaining coherent with the existing Pokémon.

The Type chart has always been weirdly split between three 'kinds' of Types: the elements, the energies and the beasts. The elements are Fire, Water, Grass, Electric, Earth, Rock, Poison, Steel and Ice; the energies (referring to a creature's properties) are Psychic, Fighting, Ghost and Dark; the beasts are Flying, Bug, Dragon and Fairy. Normal is the 'none-of-the-above' category. This is functional, if kind of strange. Why is 'Bug' a Type? Why are Earth and Rock separated? Why would the energies and the beasts affect each other, and what would the logic behind their interactions be? Dragon might as well be weak to Steel or Poison than to Ice for example; the choices were most likely based on what was expedient rather than intuitive. I think the Type chart can not only be reduced in size by removing and merging a few Types, I think it can be actively improved into being (slightly) more sensible ánd provide a better and more intuitive Type balance.

There are 18 Types now, and we're going to be ending up with 14. I'll discuss the effectiveness of the 'new' Types in a future post. The first thing we're going to do is get rid of the Flying, Bug, Dragon and Fairy Types. Flying was orginally meant to be the 'Bird' Type, not so much referring to the element of Air, but to creatures that are able to fly. We're going to convert Flying in the the new Type called Air, which becomes one of the elemental Types. Physical Air moves are typically fast with cutting effects, while special Air moves are related to wind and turbulence. Bug and Dragon get cut out entirely: it makes no sense at all to have two (yes two) Types that break the mold by referring specifically to a certain kind of creature, rather than to an aspect of that creature. Bugs and Dragons are scattered through the other Types, often to Air and Normal. Fairies are not réally a beast Type. Fairy refers to a benevolent innocence that Fairy Pokémon posess, therefore placing it in the energy Type spectrum. Fairies can be very different kinds of creatures after all. Fairy becomes what it actually is: the Light Type. The innocence and good nature of Light Pokémon stands in contrast to the mischievousness and deviant nature of Dark Types. Ground and Rock Types have been straight-up merged, with some Earth or Rock Pokémon migrating to the Normal Type or elsewhere. Earth and Rock are too similar and work well as a single elemental Type. Every Pokémon that is strongly connected to the earth, sand and stone are now Earth Pokémon. Flying Pokémon are not blanketly immune to Earth, some moves are classified as ground-based, and Pokémon that can leave the ground will be immune to those. Physical Earth moves are based more on rocks while the special moves are linked more to tectonic vibrations. Before introducing the most controversial merger, I just want to note that the Steel Type should be renamed to Metal, because many Steel Pokémon aren't based on steel, but on other metals instead. It just makes more sense to call them Metal Type Pokémon. But without further ado, the final change is the merging of Fighting and Psychic Types. The Pokémon Medicham best exemplifies how closely Psychic and Fighting Types are related. Both Types refer to using the power of concentration and turning that into attacks. Psychic is often associated with magic, but upon closer inspection it is more related to Pokémon that achieve very high levels of concentration, just as Fighting Types do. This is why Fighting Pokémon are super effective against Normal Types: their concentrated and controlled attacks are far more skillful than what Normal Pokémon can muster. The difference between Psychic and Fighting Pokémon is that their attacks come from the special and phsyical sides respectively, with very little overlap between the two. So we have two Types that don't overlap very much, only cover a single side of the physical/special spectrum and have thematic ties to one another? It surprises me that I haven't seen anyone write about merging these two Types: coming together in a new Focus Type.

This merging of Psychic and Fighting serves also to introduce the concept that Pokémon games should start including: differentiating between the effectiveness of moves, based on whether or not they're physical or special moves. Ghosts should be immune to many physical moves for example, but won't be immune to special attacks of the same Type! There would be a difference between the effectiveness of a special or a physical Focus attack, opening up the Type chart even further and encouraging players to make use of Pokémon that can attack with both phsyical ánd special moves rather than focusing exclusively on one side. I'll talk more about this in a future post as well, I just thought I'd introduce the concept to get you thinking.

To conclude: we are now left with 14 Types: Fire, Grass, Water, Electric, Earth, Air, Ice, Poison, Metal, Light, Dark, Focus, Ghost and Normal. A much cleaner Type chart with oodles of potential. Keep an eye out for the new Type chart that I'll be posting, now split between physical and special effectiveness!

It's time to completely redo the PokéDex entries.

The Pokémon franchise has built up an incredible backlog of inconsistent, implausible and plain weird PokéDex entries. From Cubone being born as an orphan to Charizard being barely taller than the average human; PokéDex entries have weird implications, and the entries sometimes contradict each other over the generations! I know it'd make some waves, but the series definitely needs someone to pull out the pruning shears and start trimming the deformities from the great tree of Pokémon knowledge. Sizes need to be redone, weight needs to be redone, and backstories need to be configured so it becomes possible to suspend your disbelief for them. And while we're at it, the cries for Pokémon are crying out for modern interpretations and the entire Egg Groups system needs an overhaul.

Why is there so much wrong with this series?

Unique Pokémon should not be playable.

From the very beginning I've had my reservations about players being able to capture and fight with unique Pokémon. I absolutely loved using Mewto in Pokémon Red but I could never really let go of the realization that I was using a Pokémon that was fundamentally overpowered, and was made so by design. To confound the problem, many unique Pokémon--i.e. Pokémon of which you can only obtain one during regular play--are Legendary Pokémon, Pokémon that fulfill important cosmic duties and sometimes literally contribute to keeping the Pokémon universe in balance. But in-game? You can fight them, wear them down and catch them like any other Pokémon. I know that hordes of people have made this observation, but I don't see anyone clamoring to rectify this weird situation where you can challenge the Elite Four while wielding the literal God of the Pokémon world. It just erodes the status of these god-like Pokémon when you can just use them as normal, and it becomes even more incredulous when 'regular' Pokémon turn out to be more powerful than they are! 

The weirdness continues in WiFi battles where players can face off against one another both using the same unique Pokémon, shattering any suspension of disbelief: the unique Pokémon becomes just another bundle of stats and is divorced of any meaning as it is just another tool in the arsenal; just one that is slightly harder to acquire.

Players should not be able to fight with unique Pokémon such as Arceus, or Victini, or Mewtwo. They should be part of the world, and referred to by its inhabitants--maybe you can even see these magnificent, legendary Pokémon if you are lucky--but you should not be able to fight them, let alone catch them to help you stomp out the next horde of Zubat you encounter in a cave somewhere.

Pokémon should encourage players to play with the Pokémon they like, this means that every Pokémon should be usable in-game. Because of their very identity as unique Pokémon almost all of them are patently more powerful, blessed with higher stats and unique and very powerful moves. In the popular Smogon system many of these unique Pokémon are actually confined to their own separate tier so they don't mix in combat with most of the other non-unique Pokémon because they're way too powerful! 

And they're absolutely right. Mere mortals should not compete with gods in Pokémon games.

Baby Pokémon should be retconned out of existence.

Baby Pokémon are pre-evolutions of existing evolutionary chains. They can only be obtained by breeding another of the Pokémon's forms while that Pokémon is holding a specific Incense item. Baby Pokémon are all extremely weak, which is appropriate for a baby-anything. The big problem with Baby Pokémon is that they don't provide any benefit, they're just Pokémon that are a hassle to obtain; serving only as another hurdle to filling up the PokéDex. They don't learn special moves or abilities, and all they do is evolve into the same Pokémon you bred them from; and there's even one Pokémon that gets stuck in its Baby form, cursed to be a weakling forever.

Image by Tails199950 on DeviantArt

Baby Pokémon are pure fanservice, designed to make us go 'AMAGAHDITSSOOOKYOOT!' at the top of our lungs, shamelessly milking humanity's inherent obsession with cute things. Baby Pokémon should be abolished; all Baby Pokémon should be retconned into being regular parts of their evolutionary families. You should be able to encounter a Pichu in the wild, and the Pikachu-family would simply consist of three Pokémon, rather than two regular forms and a Baby. This wouldn't create any conflict because there are no Pokémon with three stages ánd a Baby form. Removing the Baby mechanism would make the game more intuitive, make more sense and even improve some currently non-evolving Pokémon by instituting a natural form progression. To be clear; all your favorite Babies will still be around, but they won't be a separate class of Pokémon anymore; just low-level versions of their families.

And by the way, my favorite Baby is Cleffa.

Mega evolutions were a terrible idea.

I seem to be a minority on this, but I consider Mega forms of Pokémon to be a terrible idea. For those of us who don't know; in the 6th generation of the Pokémon games some Pokémon have gained the ability to transform into more powerful forms during battle if they're holding a certain item. The Pokémon changes back into its normal form after the battle. There are plenty of sites where you can read all about this process commonly referred to as 'Mega evolution', so I'll pass over it here to get to the meat of my objections to this system.

Mega Blaziken

One of the main tenets of the Pokémon games is that player should be able to play with the Pokémon they enjoy; cemented by the insistence of the games that Pokémon are partners rather than tools to be used at will. This idea has been very flawed from the start seeing as it is extremely clear that some Pokémon are objectively 'better' than others at doing the main thing you can do with them in these games: battle other Pokémon. But this imbalance remained more-or-less manageable, even if it helped motivate an entire subset of players to set up a custom ruleset to match Pokémon with their equals in power via the Smogon system. With Mega forms being introduced this precarious balance is completely upended.

Not áll Pokémon evolutionary lines have receive Mega forms, in fact only a few have gotten them. This means that the games' designers have played favorites picking and choosing certain Pokémon over others deciding which ones would become exalted. Mega forms have been made into such powerhouses that they are very widely used, meaning that players are heavily encouraged to include one of these few Pokémon in their teams in order to retain that competitive edge. This means that players are encouraged to pick certain Pokémon over others based on a utilitarian power level, leaving their favorites by the wayside.

The psychological impact of Mega forms has been to make certain evolutionary lines more special and important than others: 'chosen' by the game developers as it were to be figureheads of the games, informing players that their beloveds are just ordinary. There's a reason why there has been so much clamoring for other Pokémon to get the Mega treatment: many people want to see their favorites become Mega too. 

These are fan concept art

From a pure gameplay standpoint I have no problems with the Mega forms per sé; I think they fit poorly in the established Pokémon setting but I can overlook that. They provide interesting dynamics in combat, they're not so overpowered as to upset the entirety of game play and from a pure marketing standpoint the move has turned out to be pure genius on the developer's part. From the perspective of merging gameplay and themes however Mega forms don't work and I think they should be removed from the games' canon entirely or every evolutionary family should get a Mega form. 

Shouldn't players feel good about whichever Pokémon they like rather than what the game developers think they should?