Suggestions

[ImmunityBow]

Feel we missed something? Put it here. Just one rule:
- We're not changing or adding any more Pokemon (if the need is found then it will be announced)

Rules will be added to as necessary/suggested.

[NyteFyre]

I like some of the ideas that Zenith made in the questions forum. Also, i think it would be cool if the game had 2 playable characters that you can develop individual teams for.i'm not sure how it could work, but i like the idea.

[OddCrow]

Not sure if this is a suggestion, but I was wondering if we were going to implement the whole girlfriend/boyfriend aspect into the game.

[Quinn]

I posted this somwhere. I have no remembering of where, though someone already asked, I'm just wonderin, are we going to add the new area by Cianwood city?

[ImmunityBow]

1. Considering how much work it'd probably take though, I'm not so sure...

2. I don't see any really strong benefits from an intimacy system. Those kinds of systems are generally for games that don't have a silent protagonist, and with parties that involve multiple possible romantic interests. Pushing Cheryl/Male variant onto the player seems less like a fun choice and more like a completionist bleh system, especially if there are benefits to doing so.

3. I think adding the new area is fine if it fits in.

[Zenith]

I got a lot of ideas, but...I'm not exactly up for it yet. It's late, and my work ethic disappeared. Expect some stuff tomorrow.

[Zenith]

I was looking over the Light moves again, and I noticed a few things.

1. There is a serious gap in power for Special Light attacks. As of right now we have:
-Shine: 40/100, 30 PP, 20% chance of lowering opponent's evasiveness
-Flash: 50/100, 20 PP, +1 Priority (possibly overpowered, more on that later)
-Light Wave: 60/100, 20 PP, 10% chance of lowering opponent's accuracy
-Bright Slash: 60/Infinite, 20 PP (How is this Special?)
-Spectral Ray: 100/95, 10 PP, requires 1 turn charge in normal conditions (more on this one, as well)
-Wrath: 120/80, 5 PP 10% chance of making opponent flinch

Is anyone else seeing the lack of mid-high level attacks? Light doesn't have the same problem with physical attacks, as it has the likes of Holy Fist and Smite. As of right now, Special-based Light types (Dolphure, Coroona, Benengil, etc.) are really screwed right now. They either have to wait to get Wrath Spectral Ray to do any real damage, but that leaves them with either a strong but inaccurate attack or a nerfed version of Solarbeam (which has 120 BP, and loses its charge turn in sunlight). Dolphure doesn't learn either. Because Light Wave's BP is only 60, you would be able to do more damage with a non-STAB Ice Beam than a STAB Light Wave.

I can think of two ways to fix this. Option one, we increase Light Wave's BP to a more respectable 80. Option two, we create a new Special Light move with a BP of 90-95.

2. The new, improved Flash is really good...maybe too good. It is 10 more BP than other priority moves (except the rare ES), which wouldn't be as bad if it wasn't the only priority move available through a tech machine. It might need a power nerf...unless you don't get it until midgame.

3. Spectral Ray seems almost pointless right now. Its BP is only 100, compared to Solarbeam's 120. It only gets to Solarbeam's 120 in sunlight, but Solarbeam loses the need for a charge turn. Having a Solar Cell equipped takes away the charge turn, but increases the PP used. Solarbeam doesn't need an item equipped to do the same, and doesn't get the PP penalty. Anyone else seeing a trend?

4. Having Blinding Ray decrease accuracy by two levels is overpowered against computer opponents, since they won't switch out. Decreasing it by only one level would probably still be okay, as only two other moves are designed for doing that (with Flash changed), and Kinesis isn't very common.

[ImmunityBow]

1. There are other issues that types have. Say, Ground having Terra Strike as its only special move, or Ghost's main physical move being Doom Scythe. In Light's case, it's the lack of a high-powered accurate special attack. That's generally okay since that happens with a lot of types, especially before D/P (Bug, Grass, Fighting, there's lots). Of course in D/P 80 became the new standard, but it's not necessarily something we have to follow. Though Signal Beam is slightly more prevalent in Topaz, Silver Wind remains the standard Bug special move among other type disparities. I'd venture to say that Dolphure doesn't require a light-type move. Light fails to hit hard what resists Water (in particular Grass) and so even with a power boost to Light Wave Ice Beam would still be the superior option. Ice is just that good in canon games.

2. Yes, it might be too good. HM-wise I believe Flash has been relatively limited but from what I feel Flash is going to be the only really prevalent Light attacking move (Smite is good but its coverage is iffy unless you run Fire or possibly Psychic). In that case Flash is similar to Earthquake. But that's what the demo is for. Delay it until mid-game is entirely possible.

3. There are lots of pointless moves (competitively), even in canon. Frenzy Plant? etc. I would possibly enjoy seeing a more creative variation though, so feel free to suggest.

4. It being overpowered against computer opponents isn't very tangible, when you consider how simply overleveling, RBY Fire Punch Abra, Sleep, etc. breaks the game really easily. Is this really that big an issue?

[Zenith]

1. There are other issues that types have. Say, Ground having Terra Strike as its only special move, or Ghost's main physical move being Doom Scythe. In Light's case, it's the lack of a high-powered accurate special attack. That's generally okay since that happens with a lot of types, especially before D/P (Bug, Grass, Fighting, there's lots). Of course in D/P 80 became the new standard, but it's not necessarily something we have to follow. Though Signal Beam is slightly more prevalent in Topaz, Silver Wind remains the standard Bug special move among other type disparities. I'd venture to say that Dolphure doesn't require a light-type move. Light fails to hit hard what resists Water (in particular Grass) and so even with a power boost to Light Wave Ice Beam would still be the superior option. Ice is just that good in canon games.
Almost no Ground types are Special-based, and almost no Ghost types are Physical-based. There are already several Light types that seem Special-based or at least balanced: Dolphure, Coroona, Slowpriest, Sirene, and the Engil line. All of them end up worse off because of the lack of a strong, reliable Light more for them.


2. Yes, it might be too good. HM-wise I believe Flash has been relatively limited but from what I feel Flash is going to be the only really prevalent Light attacking move (Smite is good but its coverage is iffy unless you run Fire or possibly Psychic). In that case Flash is similar to Earthquake. But that's what the demo is for. Delay it until mid-game is entirely possible.
Smite will probably only be on physical-based stuff. Priority move or not, it's something to worry about when a type's main attacking move only has 50 BP when all of the other types have ones with 80-95.


3. There are lots of pointless moves (competitively), even in canon. Frenzy Plant? etc. I would possibly enjoy seeing a more creative variation though, so feel free to suggest.
It's not the fact that it's "pointless", it's the fact that it seems designed to be a Light version of Solarbeam, but is constantly a step behind it. And with the current Special Light moves, we'll be forced to use it more.


4. It being overpowered against computer opponents isn't very tangible, when you consider how simply overleveling, RBY Fire Punch Abra, Sleep, etc. breaks the game really easily. Is this really that big an issue?
Hm. Maybe. I mean, not only does it make you that much harder to hit ingame, it would basically force a switch against a human opponent unless they're running unblockable attacks. *shrugs*

Fire Punch Abra isn't overpowered anymore...

[Quinn]

This is a sprite sugestion:
1. Jirachi. We should have our own "custom" sprite of jirachi for our game. Since it is the main pokemon and all, I think it should be an exception. I tried to scratch sprite again, drawing a jirach. Another epic fail.
2. Scorchion. I love this sprite. I think it rocks and I wish I could sprite like that. That being said, I think we should edit it at least a bit. It is a Scorchion. Shouldnt it have flames? I first thought to have him completely on fire, but then I though just his body. Then I though again, and I came up with just his pincers, his mouth, and his stinger. Another idea was both what I just said, but also, a complete revamp. I think it should look more "strong" and "hardcore". What I thought his bad-ass look could be based off of could be "scorponok".
This is a big image so...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b2/Scorponok-moviepicture.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8MWueppOIsQ/Sl_rr84wdsI/AAAAAAAABSY/lZ-iF8Jglp0/s400/Walls_Trans_Scorponok_SideView_XL.jpg
I wish I could sprite, I would try to make one, though it would probably be an epic fail. Isn't the original spriter here? I think I read that from somewhere, and if you are, I personally think you should do this. If anyone else wants to though, go for it.

[neon.Barnacle]

I think we need to revamp Scorchion anyway so that it fits the new sprite size. The spriter can add your suggested features if he or she wishes.

[ImmunityBow]

Well, considering that Scorchion is a bug, and is about as big as Misticade, and bigger than the current Kraklaw, I think the size is fine. A revamp is welcome if someone's willing to do it. But then none of neon's sprites will be left ):

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

I actually like scorchion 'cause for once it's not got flames just 'cause it has scorch/flame in its name/is a fire tyhpe

[Quinn]

I could try to revamp it, though I dont think I could. I'm "not the most inclined spriter".

[Zenith]

Ooh...Coroona's moveset really illustrates what I was worried about. Does anyone else see a problem with giving something a move with 40 base power at Level 35, only to be outclassed 9 levels later with a move that only has 60? And because we don't have any other moves to use, we're stuck giving Coroona Spectral Ray right after Solarbeam...and even with Sunny Day and factoring in STAB, who's gonna use a BP 180 move that requires a charge turn when they can use a BP 120 move with no charge?

Was this moveset one of the earlier ones made? It seems like it needs a rework, and desperately needs a new Light move.

[Quinn]

Is anyone gonna see bout scorchion? Or should I try? I'm scared though...

[ImmunityBow]

@Zenith: I think you're taking the movesets a tad too seriously. What about Gyarados? It never really learns any useful moves until Dragon Dance, yet I know few people who would claim that its design is broken. With a little bit of a wait you can forgo Shine for Flamethrower, which gives you a move you can use for the rest of the game, if you need. And couldn't you say the same thing about, say Charizard? If you're going to learn Fire Blast, why would you tutor Blast Burn on later, which has a recharge turn for 30 BP more? Once you start breeding Whispaw gets some nice Egg Move options too.

@Quinn: Don't be scared. If it's bad we won't use it. If it's good we will.

[Quinn]

lol, define bad ;)

[ImmunityBow]

We'll just have to see based on what you come up with! :)

[Cyndadile]

lol, define bad ;)


We'll just have to see based on what you come up with! :)

You don't mean "We'll define bad based on your sprite", do you? Cuz thats kind of cruel.

Am I the only person who thinks that is what it looks like?

[ImmunityBow]

Well, "bad sprite" comes in many different contexts so ultimately every sprite will set the definition of what's good and bad.

[Zenith]

@Zenith: I think you're taking the movesets a tad too seriously. What about Gyarados? It never really learns any useful moves until Dragon Dance, yet I know few people who would claim that its design is broken. With a little bit of a wait you can forgo Shine for Flamethrower, which gives you a move you can use for the rest of the game, if you need. And couldn't you say the same thing about, say Charizard? If you're going to learn Fire Blast, why would you tutor Blast Burn on later, which has a recharge turn for 30 BP more? Once you start breeding Whispaw gets some nice Egg Move options too.
I'm just worried about some of them becoming worse because of movesets that are hard to work with. And why give Coroona Shine at Level 35 when you could give it to Whispaw at a lower level, when a 40 BP move makes more sense, and alludes to its evo being part Light?

On second thought, is it a good idea to make Whispaw evolve via Fire Stone? With Vulpix and Growlithe already in, and if Embear also uses one (don't know, but would-be version counterparts usually have similar evo styles), that gives us five Fire Stone evos in one region's 'Dex.

Charizard's case is different. Blast Burn isn't learned naturally, and generally isn't as good as Fire Blast. It just seems redundant having Coroona learn Shine, then making Light Wave, which completely outclasses Shine, the very next move it learns.

[ImmunityBow]

Maybe. Is anyone else for moving Shine to an earlier level?

[Cyndadile]

Maybe we could make it a topic of interest to test in the demo?

[ImmunityBow]

To be honest I don't think the demo would really provide a lot of insight into the matter. There won't even be access to a Fire Stone.

[zeroality]

Maybe. Is anyone else for moving Shine to an earlier level?
I'm fine with it. I don't think the move lists were designed by people with extensive experience in competitive battling so I don't know how much thought went into them in that regard.

[Quinn]

sorry I haven't been able to try a sprite. I've been at school for many hrs after it gets out to complete another project. I'm soooo tired....I could go to sleep right now, and here it is only 6.

[Cyndadile]

Awesome idea that will never happen: random weather effects. Your running on some random route, and it starts raining/hailing/getting really sunny, and that makes that effect happen in battle too. Then rain dance/sunny day/hail could be used in the overworld.

[Quinn]

Isn't that already in the game? If not, I'm really for the idea. I've also still been busy, but stuff is starting to lean :D

[Blade Flight]

That already happened, starting with Gen 3...

[Quinn]

kinda, though I never saw really sunny except with groudon. I wanna see that as well as rain. Hail, maybe in some parts, and aren't there new ones in this game?

[Cyndadile]

That already happened, starting with Gen 3...

Not RANDOM. Certain routes ALWAYS had the effects.

[SilentSentinel]

The new weather effect is darkness, but dont you think that having random weather is... random? It doesn't make sense to have it anywhere.

[Quinn]

yah, but too a point. It would be weird to have it hailing on a beach. (Though I've seen that before :) )

[ImmunityBow]

Another thing that's kind of annoying is that you have to wait 10-15 seconds each round for the weather effect. Especially damaging ones like Hail and Sandstorm.

[Quinn]

I never knew that? I'm starting the scorchion sprite, though I'm calling it a night with that. I'm getting so annoyed with it, and I've only made the body and tail. I ask myself again if I'm cut out to do this?

[neon.Barnacle]

Don't get discouraged, Quinn. Even if we reject your sprite, it would still be good experience if you want to become a good spriter.

Also, regarding weather effects: yes, a few of the routes are described to have some sort of weather. Rain, sandstorm, and hail routes are all supposed to be in the game, but I'm not sure about sunny.

[Quinn]

thanx neon :) even sophmores get discouraged sometimes. Not much but sometimes, like today. (I'm gonna vent for a sec) in our video productions, me and havoc know a kid there. He's in my production group and he is a decent person, though he doesn't "hold" back." He doesn't give constructive critisim, but more of the just rude stuff. Like I made an animated logo (took 5 hrs to make) and he said, "It SUCKS, I HATE IT! YOU DONT KNOW HOW TO MAKE LOGO'S. I would have been happy if he said something like "I think you could change this and this and this, I like this and this, this should be taken off, add this", but no, he had to go all out. I told him to log on a computer and make one, and he wouldn't. He didn't know how, though he could talk trash on my work. I'm not pissed off at him himself, but more as what he said throughout the year to me, Havoc and some other kids in the class. He isn't bad though, he just needs to know when to shut his big mouth.

I haven't disected the region map, so I dont know how many beaches there are, but a sunny beach and a normal beach would be cool, and in some cases a rainy beach could be kinda cool once in a great blue moon. The eye of sand could use some heat wave days. I'm just tryin to brainstorm. I'm gonna post my sprite up in a sec.
Heres the sprite...so far.
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd123/quintinbruderer/MyScorchion.png

[HavocWraith]

thanx neon :) even sophmores get discouraged sometimes. Not much but sometimes, like today. (I'm gonna vent for a sec) in our video productions, me and havoc know a kid there. He's in my production group and he is a decent person, though he doesn't "hold" back." He doesn't give constructive critisim, but more of the just rude stuff. Like I made an animated logo (took 5 hrs to make) and he said, "It SUCKS, I HATE IT! YOU DONT KNOW HOW TO MAKE LOGO'S. I would have been happy if he said something like "I think you could change this and this and this, I like this and this, this should be taken off, add this", but no, he had to go all out. I told him to log on a computer and make one, and he wouldn't. He didn't know how, though he could talk trash on my work. I'm not pissed off at him himself, but more as what he said throughout the year to me, Havoc and some other kids in the class. He isn't bad though, he just needs to know when to shut his big mouth.

I've had my fair share of run ins with him. I totally agree.

and for the sprite, not bad

[Zenith]

Haven't been on much the last few days. I blame Galaxy 2. Anyway...

Something I noticed about the Echoise line. Mermeidon learns Water Pulse, Bubblebeam, and Cascade within fourteen levels of each other (16, 27, 30). Echoise learns them all within eleven (why does Echoise learn WP 2 levels after its evo, anyway?). Casade's situational damage boost aside, the base power of those are 60, 65, and 60. Anyone else think it's a little redundant?

[Quinn]

I'm getting Galaxy 2 as well (a bit late for my B-day though) in about a week.
I was thinking though we are "replacing" DPP, I think we should keep some items, like the new pokeballs (dusk balls, Heavy balls, quick balls, etc.)
Also, I'm kinda wanting to finalize the "clause" so I'm trying to get suggestions for that.
there was something else, but I forgot.

[Zenith]

Wait, what "clause"?

[Quinn]

"Hiker Clause". Santa Clause. Saint Nick, whatever you wanna call him. I'm trying to finalize him, though lately people haven't commented on it so much. (Same with shinies, we still need more, though I dont see many comming in anymore)

[zeroality]

Let's try to keep on-topic here.

[Quinn]

yah sorry bout that. But about my other suggestion, with some of the items...?

[Quinn]

bump with my item suggestion...and.....
I think we should have a custom Jirachi sprite for topaz. Since it is the "main" pokemon, it just sounds better that it has an original sprite.

[ImmunityBow]

Sure. I wouldn't mind that at all. If someone would like to attempt it feel free. I might too sometime.

[Quinn]

I already tried. I made him kinda "big in the stomach" though. ;P, so I deleted it.
Yah, get some spriters goin...I wanna see what all some could come up with.

[zeroality]

As I stated in another thread, I don't want to make custom sprites for all returning Pokemon but Jirachi is an exception due to it being the featured Pokemon.

[Quinn]

This isn't a suggestion as much as just a fact.
WE NEED TO CONFIRM THE KRAKLAW SPRITE! It looks good now, but there needs to be some edits to it...what exactly, I can't pin down on...it just looks a bit "different". There are about 30 more polls worth of shiny pokemon left to do, and since Kraklaw is still one of em, we need that sprite!
Also, suggestionish, but a request....we need more shinies in the middle parts of the dex, like Chiarame's line, Slowpreist, Mallarge. etc. (I would make the Smallard Line poll, but it would be only with my stuff)

[zeroality]

Then bug people to make the shinies.

I don't recall a Kraklaw sprite being posted. Other than the pixel-over, which isn't going to be accepted for reasons stated in the other thread.

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

Oh really?
http://www.pokemontopaz.net/forums/showthread.php?601-Sorry-I-keep-coming-on-and-off-D&p=6601&viewfull=1#post6601
There's also a new Firrel in that thread.

[Quinn]

I dont know yet about the new Firrel, but that kraklaw needs to be finished and confirmed. We are starting to get close

[zeroality]

Ugh bad memory. IB needs to give his input there.

[ImmunityBow]

Please, Quinn, it's not actually ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY WITH ALL CAPS TO GET DONE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Kraklaw isn't coming out until the final game. There is plenty of other things to do before then, and I'm spending enough time trying to get on Topaz in the first place with this whole connection timed out issue.

As for the sprites X-Antibody made, IIRC (I clicked the link and the page didn't load, I'm sure it's working but I can't view it right now) there wasn't even very much opinion on it. Look towards getting more general approval. (I also want to finish off my own version)

[Quinn]

well, if were getting all the shinies done now, shouldn't we get them "all" done.
Also, though we will probably have our own jirachi sprite, should we use original backsprites?
1 other thing. maybe it could be the 1 animated sprite.

[ImmunityBow]

Definitely not Jirachi being the 1 animated sprite. It's just giving players a taste of something we won't really be able to provide, you know? And it doesn't fit. Original backsprite, maybe, if anyone's up to it.

I'm not willing to rush in a front sprite for the sake of completionism on shinies. There's nothing stopping us from changing the shinies again if the time comes that many people are unsatisfied with one of the "official" ones. Shinies won't ever really be "done" until the game is released.

[Quinn]

Original backsprite, maybe, if anyone's up to it. I"m up for it, it saves time.
I wont go off topic, but to spice it up a bit, we could have a resized RSE if people like that one better. (I'm gonna post my ideas in a spoiler to save space)
http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/6/6e/Spr_b_g3_385.png (resised) or http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/0/03/Spr_b_g4_385.png
Second, for the sprite, I personally dont want the "playful look", but rather a serious look. Or maybe a curious one.
I like the innocent, not playful, but just curious look best.
http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/thumb/6/60/Jirachi.png/250px-Jirachi.png (is that not ADORABLE!!! Its not hyper, but not too down either"
flip her facing the player, and the more serious look could be taken into consideration. http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/thumb/3/3c/The_Eye_of_Truth.png/250px-The_Eye_of_Truth.png

Shinies won't ever really be "done" until the game is released.
Very true....very true.

[badgerdude1347]

This is a pretty random question:

Any chance of a Topaz sequel? With D/P pokemon + the normal topaz pokemon + new pokemon sprites + the Kanto/Johto/Hoenn pokemon. That would be AWESOME.
I've been catalogging down every single pokemon that just pops into my head (so far I have about 120) so I'd love to put a few sprites into a Topaz sequel. Here's one I came up with.

Flaremingo Type: Fire/Flying The Phoenix Pokemon Height: 3' 4'' Weight: 49 lbs Ability: Early Bird/Vital Spirit Possible Moves: Ember, Gust, Sand Attack, Steel Wing, Flamethrower, Wing Attack, Extremespeed, Flare Blitz, Brave Bird, Fire Blast, Close Combat.

[SilentSentinel]

That's a long ways away. I mean a LONG ways away. If you are still hanging out by then and there are enough people interested, then perhaps a Topaz sequel could happen, but we should focus on the current project first.

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

I've been thinking, Bakurge is ooold. And I mean old, way back to Pokerealm old. Isn't iit time he was remade or at least reshaded?

[Silver]

badgerdude's idea rocks!
POKEMON TITANIUM VERSION nice ring to it if i do say so myself............................

[ImmunityBow]

Bakurge is indeed really old, along with Kraklaw, Scorchion, Mogel, Ohmure and co. Revamps of any of them are appreciated.

[Quinn]

I know Kraklaw is being done, my scorchion was a failure, and I think Mogel could become more "ninja" like to go with Firrel.

[badgerdude1347]

THANK YOU SILVER!!!!!! SOMEONE FINALLY AGREES. HOORAY!!! I like the name too. Keep holding on to Topaz dude. Then we can begin Pokemon Titanium version!


P.S. To whoever posted that really long time comment, I guess that means we're gonna add some Black/White Pokemon into the game! :)

[SilentSentinel]

Uh... I guess. Let's focus on this game first please.

[Quinn]

lolz. I'm on RP's side. We need to keep our minds with our current game 1st. Thats at least a year in the future. I do have a couple suggestions though.
1st. Sounds. In HGSS there was the sounds off rusling through grass and water. Grass, I could care less about, but water....yesssss! When you on the edge and you can hear the waves....yah. That would be an awesome feature.

2nd. Keep the amount of water as is. I heard its being considered that we might get rid of some water. DONT! Look at the Hoenn region. Half of that region IS water. Keep the water please. For this fish, let the water stay.

3rd. I dont know if its possible yet, but grass on mountains. That might seem kinda stupid, but some of those mountain routes, are mostly mountains. there isn't much room for grass, so have a bit on the mountains. (I can't remember if that is in the real games or not).
Thats all now.

[Cyndadile]

1st. Sounds. In HGSS there was the sounds off rusling through grass and water. Grass, I could care less about, but water....yesssss! When you on the edge and you can hear the waves....yah. That would be an awesome feature.

That would be awesome.


2nd. Keep the amount of water as is. I heard its being considered that we might get rid of some water. DONT! Look at the Hoenn region. Half of that region IS water. Keep the water please. For this fish, let the water stay.

I agree, but if I remember correctly there are not alot of Topaz water pokemon.


3rd. I dont know if its possible yet, but grass on mountains. That might seem kinda stupid, but some of those mountain routes, are mostly mountains. there isn't much room for grass, so have a bit on the mountains. (I can't remember if that is in the real games or not).
Thats all now.

There are patches of grass on mountains in some games. I don't see why that would not be sensible.

[Quinn]

1. Cool to see agreement
2. All other regions have mostly Tentacool in the 1st place, I think we could strech what more we have around.
3. Exactly. It makes more possible pokemon areas, and more mazes.

[Mediocrity_Incarnate]

Tentacool isnt even in this game. thats how much we hate it.

[Quinn]

exactly. Although there isn't much sea pokemon, we have a bit more than just tentacool, and some other BS.

[neon.Barnacle]

A few arguments for modifying the water routes:

1. Most people I have talked to find water routes annoying as a whole. In fact, many people disliked Hoenn simply because of the huge amount of water. This is probably due to every water tile being an Pokemon encounter tile. We can potentially solve this problem by a) drastically decreasing encounter rates, b) make only certain water tiles have encounter rates (rough seas or something), or c) remove encounters while surfing entirely, relying only on fishing/diving for water Pokemon.

2. The water routes at the bottom of the region map are all pretty much 3x3 squares. This is not only boring but also may get confusing in the game. The least we could do is create some variety in the route shapes.

[Cyndadile]

I like B!

[Merlin]

i agree with the last few posts dealing with adding the sounds to the water and changing the water routes and encounters...
also may say that if you do change up the encounters for fighting pokemon via fishing/diving that you should keep the birds on the surface at least...
it'd make a lot of sense for birds to be found over the water every once in a while (but not as often as tentacool/magikarp)

and another thing are yall gonna tone down the zubat/geodude encounters in the caves a little???
because those are very definitely annoying especially since you find them more than u find tentacool/magikarp...

[Blade Flight]

Geodude and Zubat are not in Topaz intitally, so yeah, we're "toning it down".

[Quinn]

Yet again, it might be just that I'm a water lover, but I actually like the sound of the encounter water in only some areas. It makes it a bit easier to get through water, but kinda "fun" to find the water pokemon you want.
For the routes...dont cut them, but join them. There isn't anything stopping us from mixing all of those into like 2-4 routes.

To be more clear, have the water sound, have encounters only in the ocean (not the little ponds and streams) Have bird pokemon on the surface and have to either fish on the edge or on your surfing pokemon to find water pokemon, like Trillogill.

[SilentSentinel]

Trillogil is meant to be found in the ponds and streams though. All of the current water encounter rates have it there. I say we just lower the encounter rate in water. That's not so extreme but solves the problem.

[Quinn]

I never thought of that. THANK YOU!!!! Saves the water, and the speed of moving (dont have to encounter stuff all the time)

[neon.Barnacle]

Even with changes to the encounter rate, I still think we should change the layout of the huge water region at the bottom. That area alone is twice the size of all the water routes in Hoenn combined. We simply do not need this much water in one place.

[Quinn]

instead of "moving" it and jumbling life up, what if we "squished all those routes into 2-4, and scooched the champion tower/ victory road a bit over to the left? instead of it being under the olivine area, move it under cianwood, or maybe, if people dislike water so much, gallea city? and then aquapolis just being in between.

[neon.Barnacle]

But then the route numbering will be all messed up.

I'll try tinkering with the map, will come back with results in a few hours.

[Quinn]

I'll do the same ;)

[neon.Barnacle]

WHOOPS ONLY TOOK ME HALF AN HOUR, MY BAD

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y274/neonscreen/topazregionmap.png

Seven water routes, more interesting layout.

(Note that, aside from the edits to the water routes, this is the most current version of the region map.)

[Quinn]

nevermind about my edit, that one is SWEEETTT!!!! I'm all for it. Now my question is, is how should people choose which fork to go through? Maybe trainers in one, and high encounters in another? idk.

[neon.Barnacle]

Actually, by the time you get to Gallea City you still won't have Surf yet, and you need someone with a boat to ferry you to Portwind, like Captain Briney in RSE. Later on, once you get Surf, you're free to explore all the water routes.

[neon.Barnacle]

Edit #2. Made a few minor changes: Aquapolis City (and the route surrounding it) was moved a block to the left. I also extended a water route to underneath Neo Bay and Sunset Village, which I think is kinda neat.


http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y274/neonscreen/topazregionmap2.png

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

Could we make Route 218 (I think that's the one with Rapture, I mean Aquapolis City in it) more like a normal route (rectangular)? I don't really feel like remaking it to be square.

[NyteFyre]

Soooo.....i don't see any way to get to Cianwood, and Olivine. Is there a cave or something? You can't Fly there (till you get there), and there are no Water routes, except the one that connects Cianwood to Olivine. Maybe it would help to have all the cities/routes, and special features, a.k.a. mountains, and caves listed, cause I still don't know where everything is on the map, save for Neo Bay, and Sunset Village.

[Quinn]

*nyte. Earlier in the year, a suggestion was made that we should have the HGSS route route 48-safari zone thingy. Many people (if I remember right) liked it, so thats gonna be how they connect. From the safari zone though, we are going to have to BS a cave or a route to connect them.

also, the suggestion that I have been forgetting to post for about a month, it has to deal with Victory road.

So, everyones got a dream team right? What if "we" were the final battles in victory road? We choose 3-5 of the pokemon that we like best, a trainer that suits us, like a hiker or a cootrainer, or a beauty, whatever, and we are the trainers in Victory road. Though, totally serious, I dont think "Pokemon trainer Immunity Bow, or Hiker Zeroality sounds good. We could PM our names to whoever to have it like "Pokemon Trainer Quintin"

[NyteFyre]

Oh, yeah I was thinking something like that may have been what, but I was hoping for a definitive decision..

I like that idea, actually. Kind of a way to "Honor" those who helped make the game. However, getting the demo out is our main priority right now, so that will probably be up for discussion later. Try to think of things for the early routes, if you can.

[Quinn]

Youngsters!!! Help. They need to get finished and confirmed for the demo. NPC lines would be welcome either in the NPC area, or I'll allow them in my sprite area, for the time.

[SilentSentinel]

Most of the NPC lines needed have been created already. All that's needed are some trainer lines for places like Chartree forest, as well as gym trainers since the cities are all pretty much done.

[neon.Barnacle]

Could we make Route 218 (I think that's the one with Rapture, I mean Aquapolis City in it) more like a normal route (rectangular)? I don't really feel like remaking it to be square.

We're going to have to remake the maps to put into RPG Maker XP. If you're too lazy to do it then someone else will.

I know you all want to insert your mark into Topaz, but for now we need to focus on getting the demo out. Have your dream team ready and we'll put them in when the time is right.

[zeroality]

I had a long post suggesting what to do without realizing that there was an additional page of posts in this thread so I ended up deleting it as it became moot after seeing neon's updated region map.

So Neo Bay is no longer an island?

[neon.Barnacle]

Neo Bay can still be an island, I just thought moving it to the coastline would be better than just having a fake-looking ring of water around it.

[zeroality]

Makes sense, especially since it's "Neo Bay" and not "Neo Island".

[Cyndadile]

Definitely.

[Quinn]

Yet again, all for the new map. Also, I'm definetly willing to redo route 218 when the time is right, if BTG doesn't wanna.

AWESOMENESS, we are gonna be the "final challenge"! *maybe dragon tamer quinn, or drummer quinn*

About waters edge, that seems like a yes right? I was also thinking, for fountains, like in my roothaven, which is made (excluding the HUGE-ASS tree) have a quiet water sound, like the soothing pond stuff you hear on your mothers CD's :P. Same with ponds themselves...but still, most important, the oceans...which sound like they are a yes.

I was reading the older walkerthrough, and I read about an "encyclopedia in the library that talks about how Topaz was created. AWESOME! IT COULD BE LIKE THE TOTAL BRAGGING AREA!!! have a basic thing on how we are creating the game, and then have a look up on names. You enter 1st letter, say Q for quinn, or Z for Zero, and it comes up with a list of all of the people here that have a name with that. You scroll down, find whoever's name, and it says what all they did for topaz. Like me for example, Quinn: Created about 300 shiny pokemon sprites, ___ won the polls. Created the title screen. Created Mirror B, youngster, Saint Nick, Drummer, Possessed one (etc...). Created ___ battle animations. Created ____ map designs. And for all the leaders, like Neon and IB, says they were the leader for ___ years. yet again, TOTAL BRAGGING AREA! It would be perfect when I put this on my resuma (yes, since I wanna go into game design as well as woodworking, saying I helped create a game, and show proof is sure to get me somewhere :D ).

[Cyndadile]

Suggestion 1: Quinn, get your ego under control.
Suggestion 2: A wheelchair pokemon trainer.

[Quinn]

* cyndaquil Hahahaha. I dont wanna see you getting it all over your shoes again. Though I still kinda think it is a decent idea, since it IS an encyclopedia. (and to add to that, I VERY rarely have an ego, I'm the quiet, shy guy, but not mousy. Those people creep even me out)

your other suggestion is going to get alot of mix, I can tell now.

[Cyndadile]

Why is that?

[Quinn]

what my bad ego? or the wheelchair trainer?

Ego, I've normally never really had, including here. Those are just things that I have done/will do (with some more) I've never really had "an ego", I just am the quiet person.

Wheelchair: If we make it, it would look out of place, if we deny it, it may make us look cold.

[Cyndadile]

How would the trainer look out of place? I would put that in the "Questions" tpic, but its already here.

[Quinn]

where would you put it? in a field? in a city? But yet again, its a mixed topic.

[Cyndadile]

Anywhere. Where is acessable to wheelchairs? I know people in wheelchairs who like to go on forest trails. That does seem slightly odd to me, though...

[Quinn]

Kinda true, I know some wheelcare people who love going everywhere and anywhere. Like I said, very mixed. We shouldn't be the only ones talking about that though.

For remembering reasons.
Map?
Water sounds?
Encyclopedia?
Water encounters?

[ImmunityBow]

We could always use some "currents" such as those they use near Pacifidlog Town, which don't have any encounters at all and travel even faster. There does happen to be Soma Island, Twilight Cave and Aquapolis City as diversions from the constant random encounters.

Also having sound for water and grass seems easy and atmospheric, that's a good idea.

[Quinn]

YAAAAHHH!

what about the bragging encyclopedia thingy, and the wheelchair?

[ImmunityBow]

I'm not sold on the bragging encyclopedia. Back on the old forums we tried documenting who did what and it really ended up failing. Ultimately a lot of things are hard to judge: sure, I may have made the winning entry for Growlithe but it was still a group effort. Often winning entries are based off of 3-4 people making edits to an original, and then who do you give credit to? Dolphure, for example, in which I made the original entry concept but Piro edited it until it was entirely unrecognizable and so much better, yet it was still my concept. Do you get me? I think it would just lead to the possibility of a lot of bickering, and time wasted.

I don't quite understand what exactly the wheelchair does.

[Quinn]

true. maybe we could keep the idea of the encyclodpedia alone then (from the old storyline) and then just have a list of all of the producers...no bragging. (I guess I could still use it in my resumea)

[neon.Barnacle]

Quinn, if you're concerned about your future resume, having your name listed in the credits is enough to authenticate you as a Topaz staff. In your resume you can then begin to describe what exactly you did for the project, and you can even brag a bit - if it lands you a job, nobody here will hold it against you for exaggerating your contributions.

[Quinn]

true. So what about the wheelchair trainer?

and last, with the map, should the routes and stuff be put on there?

[neon.Barnacle]

I'm going to have to say no to the wheelchair trainer. We're venturing into controversial territory here.

The routes are easy enough to figure out from the now-outdated map posted earlier in this topic, but you can go ahead and add them if you want.

[Merlin]

i have to agree about dropping the wheelchair trainer as this will cause a ton of problems and the fact that dropping in a book of who does what wouldn't go over well...
though putting yourself into the game as the game designers (in place of game freak) wouldn't be a problem since game freak, nintendo, pokemon and creatures aren't making the fan games just the canon ones...
(i'm gonna put me and a couple of my friends in as the game freak replacement and i've had this idea since i started working on it prior to this post [for an idea it was long before the latest theme/layout change for the site])

[neon.Barnacle]

Who are your friends? Have they done anything for Topaz at all? I'm pretty sure the GF staff replacements in Topaz will be all important contributors, such as IB and Zero. No matter how long ago you had the idea, there's no way we'll sacrifice those positions for your friends who we haven't met yet.

[SilentSentinel]

I think he might be talking about his own game on that one.

[neon.Barnacle]

I was not aware of that. My bad then.

Also, as for how to get to Olivine/Cianwood (something Nytefyre brought up earlier), I was thinking that Prof. Willow just takes you there on his boat.

[NyteFyre]

you mean HER boat?

[neon.Barnacle]

Wow, ok. Yeah, my mistake. Again. Looks like I'm sleeping early tonight.

[Quinn]

I had an idea. 1st, you have to go through the HGSS route's and once you are at Olivine city, the boat can take you to and from the ports around caldera/kirant.

[NyteFyre]

"Wouldn't that sort of defeat the purpose of having FLY?

[Quinn]

to a point. you can still fly around from slateport to lillycove, but some people like me, sometimes like to take the boat instead sometimes." If that idea is implended though, there would have to be a reason to go on the boat, like the battles. Maybe have a set for each port/bay. 1. To Olivine 2. To Neo Bay 3. To Gallia City. Etc...doesn't matter where you start, but where your destination is would be what changes up the battles.

Is it possible for headbutt trees? I found a tile on the internet of the little shaking awesome trees. Just an idea.
If not that, how I'm talkin bout a possible move tutor in Roothaven, with headbutt, maybe his house could contain the trees as just a cool reference.

[ImmunityBow]

Yes, it is possible to headbutt trees. They even have their own set of encounter rates.

[Quinn]

we are gonna have them? Maybe I missunderstood or something, but if so AWESOME. Do you need the tiles? I got them, and I kinda think they are better than headbutting any tree.

Next one, Mugshots.

Many different mugshots are in the games. Intro's to the battles. What am I talking about you ask?
http://www.spriters-resource.com/ds/pokeheartgoldsoulsilver/sheet/27185
stuff like this.

Of course we are gonna have an intro, that isn't even really needed as a suggestion. But heres a reminder like.
http://www.spriters-resource.com/ds/pokeheartgoldsoulsilver/sheet/26748

Yet another...what about art?
http://www.spriters-resource.com/ds/pokeheartgoldsoulsilver/sheet/28243

Last, if we even keep the battle frontier idea, maybe we could add/replace some? The new dome thing, the castle, and ESPECIALLY the lucky flip thingy. (I murder in that one) Dont answer this one though, since this one is way up in the air.

[neon.Barnacle]

Quinn, there are small headbutt trees in pretty much every map done by Fangking. You can rip it off of one of them.

[Quinn]

wtf? I can't see them. maybe you could post one up?

edit: Look above, although I put that up an hr ago. I also noticed the mugshots I was talking about weren't up so here. This is what I'm takin bout.
http://www.spriters-resource.com/ds/pokeheartgoldsoulsilver/mugshots.png

[neon.Barnacle]

Nevermind, they're only in a few Topaz maps. I thought he put more in there because I had just been browsing the Acanthite site the other day.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1/BlackShadowmon3/Topaz%20Maps/Cities/cranewingcity1qx.png

And as for all the artwork that require a high level artistic skill, e.g. mugshots and location intros, those are out of consideration for now. Way too much time and effort involved.

[Quinn]

I never knew they were in cities. should I put them in the cities I build up?

Also, what about headbutt itself? If its a tutor move, like I said in the maps, could it be in Roothaven? If its a TM, maybe he could sell it? Or even, maybe, we could change a tm move? (highly doubt)

[SilentSentinel]

I dont believe that we even have encounter rates for headbutt trees...

[ImmunityBow]

We don't mainly because we don't know which places will have headbutt trees. Just like how we made a few generic inland water fishing encounters mainly because we mostly don't know where water will be outside of oceans.

[Merlin]

*neon. --he was right about it being in my game, sorry i thought i had mentioned that...
and it's alright if you thought it was in topaz kinda my fault there...
my friends haven't been on this site or at least joined anyway (to my knowledge this is true unless they got on recently)

*current subject --it wouldn't hurt to put in a couple of pokemon that you know would be in the trees like birds and a few bugs...
course grabbing pokemon from Kanto and Johto could easily solve the problem for you...

[Quinn]

2 more.

1. The mp3 player. I was messing around in the essentials with that game, and that mp3 player got me. Since (I think) we are having the caller, just add the mp3 to that. Those cds that I heard of, when you can listen to any song anywhere, thats where they could go. (I was addicted to the "life" cinnabar island. Before everyone burned and died, and the music went slower.)

2. USE MY TITLE FOR THE DEMO! I finally was able to play triple triad, and I saw the yellow one. Nothing against it, but it was replaced.

[Zenith]

Wow, it's been a while since I've been on here.

Anyway...I'm a little worried about the gym order and typing. I know that a lot of them have been finalized, but it just seems a little...off. Anyone who picks up Venap at the start is basically screwed, as there are gyms for all five of Grass' weaknesses, only getting one advantage (Ground) and two resistances (Electric and Grass). Echoise users get the short end of the stick as well...gyms for both of Water's weaknesses, and only two advantages (Fire and Ground) and one resistance (Ice). Meanwhile, the guys that picked Celsinge have it easy, beating the 4th, 5th, and 7th Gyms, as well as the 3rd if they already have Kelvoyant at that point. There is only one gym that beats Fire (Ground, the last one) and one that resists it (Fire, the first).

On another, but noticeable note, I'm also worried about a Bug gym immediately following a Grass one, as they share two weaknesses (Fire and Flying) and one resistance (Ground).

[zeroality]

Unfortunately the group who worked on the early Topaz concepts weren't much of competitive battlers. Maybe it'd be better to leave it as is though, so that people who prefer to solo with starters can just pick the Celsinge line and the ones who enjoy putting together a competitive ingame team can use Venap or Echoise.

That way we have something for both types of Pokemon ingame players.

[Zenith]

I'm more worried about people taking Venap without realizing what they're getting into, and being unable to use him in the first five of what are essentially boss fights.

And you bring me to another idea. I remember someone mentioning about a month ago (when I was asking about the Whispaw line) that all of the movesets were finalized early on in the project, and how some of them appear to have been made before the Physical-Special Split was incorporated. Since it's apparently been a while since then, and there appear to be more members with at least some competitive knowledge, maybe we could go through the Dex again, one evo line at a time, and give people a chance to come up with ideas to improve their stats and movesets (like how desperately the Spidream line needs Signal Beam in its level-up movepool instead of as a breeding move, or how the Echoise line learns an unnecessary amount of mid-power Water moves).

[zeroality]

Yeah that would be good to do, but probably not realistic to do for the demo. Once work on that is done, we can focus more on this and revamp moves.

[Zenith]

Coming full circle again, I have another post-demo idea...another idea for a Special Light attack...but this time it's a move that already exists.

Aurora Beam is called "a rainbow-colored beam" in its description. The move clearly invokes light in it. And the only reason it's an Ice move in the official games is because the official games don't have a Light type yet. With a couple tweaks (increasing its BP to 95, dropping its uses to 15, and changing the secondary effect from lowering Attack to lowering Special Defense or Accuracy), we can use it as the strong-but-reliable Special attack the Light type is missing. Special-based Light types would gain something to sweep with that isn't the relatively innacurate (and rare) Wrath or the too-weak-to-sweep-with Light Wave.

You might be thinking "What about the niche Aurora Beam had as an Ice move? Where are we going to get a mid-power Ice attack to replace it with?" Once again, the answer is a move that already exists, but this time it's one that has already been made for Topaz.

Right now, Cold Wind is all but redundant. It's almost exactly like Icy Wind, which was introduced in 2nd Gen: both are Special and both have a base power of 55. The only difference is the secondary effect, which itself is just like Powder Snow's effect. If we raise Cold Wind's base power to around 70, and give it a new name that differentiates it from Icy Wind, it could fill Aurora Beam's old niche.

Of course, this would involve having to change at least a few movesets around, so it would have to happen after the demo gets out.

[Zenith]

Actually, let me change that a little. Aurora Beam seems a little...harder for a Pokemon to use than Light Wave (firing a rainbow-colored beam vs sending off a wave of light). Maybe we could keep Aurora Beam's BP at 65, but boost Light Wave's to 80-95, making Aurora Beam the less common mid-power move (a la Bubblebeam, Silver Wind, etc.) and Light Wave the strong-but-still-practical one (like Surf, Thunderbolt, Flamethrower, Floral Storm, etc.).

[Quinn]

I wish I knew about moves as much as some of ya'll. I just teach em what I want, I dont know all the combo's and techniques.

[neon.Barnacle]

Zenith has a good idea here. I'm probably partial because I loved the RSE animation for Aurora Beam, but he does bring up some other valid points as well. I'd be fine with having Aurora Beam be a 95 BP move.

[Quinn]

I think I got that wrong, but do you mean have Light wave become the 95 one. I'm not sure if I read that right. I read it like 5 times, and thats what I get.

*I love the RSE one as well, if I can get my hands on it with battle animations, I wanna try to restore it, kinda like Psychic, surf, and my Mean eye I've got saved.

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

I say Aurora Beam be the higher BP one, it's more concentrated.

[Zenith]

Either way, we'll need a TM for the one that ends up with 95 BP.

Alright, I got more. They're big and a little...controversial, for lack of a better term, but they should help make the game a little less linear.

I think we all notice that the map has you running into gyms so fast early on that you have five badges a third of the way into the game. Furthermore, there are a lot of Grass/Poisons out there (albeit less in Topaz), and enough Poison moves learned by Grass types for there to be overlap between the 3rd and 4th gyms; worse is the fact that the 4th and 5th share two weaknesses and a resistance, and the weaknesses are to the extremely common Fire & Flying types (the C/K Dex has 22 Fire and 24 Flying types in it).

My first suggestion to fix this is...push Hanzo's gym from 3th to 6th. The first time the player reaches Mistvale, the gym is closed, and a NPC nearby or a sign on the gym mentions that he's training on Mt. Mist. The player would continue on, going around Mt. Mist. Fernando, Mandy, and Gerad would all move up one spot.

Give me a minute here...for this and a couple other of my ideas to work we would need to change what moves some of the badges unlock:
-Froy would unlock Rock Smash (this ties into a different idea I have, for giving the player somewhere new to level between Froy and Therma)
-Therma would unlock Cut, as there's no way it won't be needed to get through Chartree Forest.
-Fernando, Mandy, Christina, and Osiro would keep their unlocks.
-Gerad would unlock Flash. For one, we can't give out the new, actually good Flash too early. And...

...The player would need to use Flash to ascend Mt. Mist. Maybe there's some kind of message in the "entrance room" that gives directions to move on. They can't be read without Flash, and even if you know what to do the game won't register it unless you read it. Maybe there's also a part outside the mountain higher up, where Flash needs to be used to see through the thick fog surrounding the upper mountain. Getting into fights without Flash on decreases your Pokemon's accuracy in battle, but not the local wildlife, as they're used to it. Reaching Hanzo on the summit and talking to him convinces him to accept your challenge, and return to Mistvale. Gym Lightning Tour partially solved, and we don't have to worry about Hanzo becoming That One Boss (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThatOneBoss) because he has a Dragon type (Drakodo) in the third gym.

Keep checking, as I have another one hopefully ready soon...a possible replacement for the Bug gym that could fix some starter balance, give a little more story depth, and give a type some much-needed Gym rep.

[Quinn]

that actually sounds like a good idea. I'm for it, although You dont battle Therma until after Froy, which means you have already gone through chartree forest and back.

(whats so cool about flash?)

[neon.Barnacle]

The skewed gym leader lineup has been bothering me for a while now. I'm glad that there are others that share my view as well.

However, Mt. Mist plays a part in storyline events, and so must be immediately accessible. This also means Flash will have to be enabled by one of the first three gym leaders.

Another concern is the fact that all the gym leaders are based in Caldera. This was decided at the very beginning of Topaz, and while I can see the appeal in it, it's not practical in gameplay. What I want to do is increase the number of total gyms to 12: 6 in Caldera and 6 in Kirant. This should help even out the distributions of the gyms.

[Quinn]

OOHHHH HELL YA!!!! MORE GYMS! As long is one is water, I'm all for it!

[Zenith]

Six in each? How will they flow? I'm guessing they won't all be in order (All 6 Caldera, then all 6 Kirant), right? And this way my idea for a Dark gym works perfect, and we don't necessarily have to move Mandy to the Elite Four! But she still can't be right after Fernando...maybe move her to Kirant?

The Water gym could be in Aquapolis...but then it would be the last one again...

Maybe make the early-story-relevant part of Mt. Mist lighted?

@Quinn: Flash is a priority move now, with 50 BP (10 higher than Quick Attack, Quickbolt, etc.) It's too good now to give away too early.

And I was under the belief that Chartree Forest was west of Softwind. So lemme change what I said before a little: Froy unlocks Cut, Therma unlocks Rock Smash.

[neon.Barnacle]

Out of the eight gym leaders that we have right now, Therma, Mandy, and Christina are connected to the plot, and I doubt we'd want to get rid of Froy and Osiro. That leaves Hanzo, Fernando, and Gerad as "expendables". I would definitely want to get rid of Fernando, because his gym type overlaps with Mandy's. Gerad is a good choice to get rid of, but I had some good gym puzzle ideas for him. If we get rid of Hanzo, then I suggest moving Therma's gym to Mistvale.

Still, this is an early concept. Even if everybody thinks it's a good idea, more gym leaders means we'll need more sprites, and possibly have to redo the Pokemon selections.

[Quinn]

pokemon selections? I think it would be easy. We could have the (making quick list) Fire, Flying, Grass, Psychic, Light, Electricity, Bug, Water, Ghost, Ice, Ground. (Not in this exact order, but still) steel, fighting (unofficial)

There is all three of the starter types, grass, water and fire. There is more disadvantages for all except fire, to add a bit of challenge to put more into your team. Not exactly that, but still, there could be a base.

If you choose fire starter you get: 3 advantages, 2 disadvantages, rest BS
Water: 2 advantages. 3-4 disadvantages, rest BS
Grass: 2 advantages: 4 disadvantages. rest BS
(hanzo could become psychic, since otherwise, all of grass's weaknesses would be in a gym.)


used this (http://pokemondb.net/type) for help

[Zenith]

Don't we only have 11-12 Light types? It just seems like Light would work better with an E4 member.

To be honest, I'm a little worried about having 12 gyms. If we pull it off right, it would be amazing, but it has to be done in a way that doesn't make it feel like there's too many. Depending on whether the Champion focuses on a type or not, there will be either 16 or 17 types covered, which means if we have more than one under-represented type, we're in trouble. We'll also need to make at least a couple more towns, so there are more that don't have gyms. We can't have it feel like the gyms are everywhere; there needs to be enough civilization around to justify having 6 of them on each half of the map. Remember how Kanto & Johto only have two cities in each that don't have gyms? Hoenn has six, and it adds a lot of depth to the region. Not to mention that there is way too much uninterrupted horizontal space in Kirant.

What part does Mandy play in the story? Personally, I'd rather keep Fernando if we have to get rid of one (or move one to the E4). The Venap line would keep a resistance and lose a weakness (in Dionare's case, a double weakness).

[SilentSentinel]

Don't forget that we don't want to use the same types as the elite four trainers. iirc that means no Water, Light, Dark, and either Steel or Normal, can't remember that one.

[Quinn]

I definetly think we have enough towns. The map is HUGE. (if you haven't seen it then look here (http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1/BlackShadowmon3/Topaz%20Maps/topaz_map-1.png)) we have about 23 cities. I think were safe there. You do have a point about the elite 4 though, but when they introduced steel they had it as jasmine (which is returning in Olivine :D) ,but then there was also a dark elite 4 member. Idk. If we pull it off, it will be AWESOME (like you said). I know that is just a quick list, but at least its a base. And as long as we keep water.

[SilentSentinel]

Mandy is actually pretty important to the plot regarding the Westlog and Eastlog forests, and also factor in later on in the current version of the story, which is being revamped due to overcomplicatedness. I'd rather remove Fernando.

Are 6 in each really needed? Kirant is slightly smaller, and there is a lot of stuff going on there. I could potentially see one in Gallea and one in Sedcini maybe, but the others are either the main bases for the teams or don't really provide the gym kind of atmosphere. But yeah, no Water, Dark, Light, or whatever type the fourth one is (might be ghost too, I think Ferrian is his last pokemon).

[Zenith]

What part does Mandy play in the story? Personally, I'd rather keep Fernando if we have to get rid of one (or move one to the E4). The Venap line would keep a resistance and lose a weakness (in Dionare's case, a double weakness).

Moving on, to my gym idea.

As we all know, Dark has yet to actually have a gym. We can potentially remedy that, and fix some of the starter imbalance. Dolphure would gain an advantage, Dionare would gain a resistance, and more importantly, Kelvoyant would gain a weakness. This would especially help if this replaced the Bug gym (if we go with 8 gyms; irrelevant if we go with 12).

This gym would be somewhere in central or eastern Kirant, under the Defenders' influence. This is important, as the gym would have an emphasis on "Dark Is Not Evil (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarkIsNotEvil)". I'm not exactly sure about the gimmick yet, to be honest (limited vision is cliche). The leader's name would have to be one that has a real-world bad rep (Cain?), his/her signature 'mon would be Abyssus, and he/she would give the player the Crescent Badge (as in crescent moon) and the TM for Nightfall.

Thoughts?

EDIT: We could still keep Mandy important to the story. She could be a part of the conflict around Hollowlog, and a strong trainer. The player won't see her again for a long time, until the Champion's Tower (or whatever we decide to call it), when they've all but forgotten about her, and they run into her...as an E4 member. As a nod, she could mention that she used to be a gym leader before the League requested that she become a member of the C/K Elite Four.

And I still think we can do more with Mt. Mist than just make it a dungeon you have to go through along the way.

In addition, I have a couple small ideas for messing with Light type a little, for more balance.

[neon.Barnacle]

The first three (or two) gyms already put Venap users at a severe disadvantage. Choosing Venap is basically like choosing hard mode, one more disadvantageous gym won't do much. Also, any smart trainer would pick up at least one or two more party members, so don't be so hung over on gym types just because of the starters.

More cities? Really? Discounting Olivine, Cianwood, and (soon-to-be-renamed) Champion's Tower, There are a total of 20 cities, 11 in Caldera and 9 in Kirant, more than enough for 6 gyms each. Add to that the various Rocket/Orion subquests, backtracking, and overly long routes, your concern should be the absence of gyms. I also don't want Rocket or Orion having their own gym (I'm writing up a new background for Christina), we can have a Dark-type gym but I doubt we'll be able to put forward the "dark is not evil" message (which it actually is; the Japanese word used for Dark-type literally means "evil").

[Zenith]

I'm aware of Japanese name. I just feel like it's a little cliche. It doesn't necessarily have to be Orion-run, just in that area, as it seems to be along the way. (What is the overall flow from Hollowlog to Dynamo, anyway?) Another idea for its origin is that it's a recently built gym, made after an E4 member retired/resigned/got fired and Mandy took that person's spot. The League got the idea of building a Dark gym, as there hadn't been one before that point, as Dark types were seen as Always Chaotic Evil (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlwaysChaoticEvil) in the past, and not all of them are. An eastern Kirant city...let's say...Laysan(?) volunteered to have it built there, and a pro that was raised there volunteered to become its gym leader. Absol just happens to be the franchise's poster child for Dark Is Not Evil (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarkIsNotEvil).

(Might have laid it on a little thick there. I just think this could potentially work better as the 4th/5th Gym than a Bug one)

Again, any thoughts on tweaking Light a little?

[Cyndadile]

Maybe... the extra 4 could be optional? You would only have to do 8?

Just a thought. I'm not necessarily a fan of the idea myself.

[SilentSentinel]

There would be some balancing things that I would do with Light as well. Even though I generally hate changing things after it's already been decided, I believe that we can give ourselves the oppurtuniy to grant Poison STAB a reason for existing and therefore help balance out the metagame.

[Quinn]

But yeah, no Water, Dark, Light, or whatever type the fourth one is .

I hope your not talkin about a gym. If your talking about no water gym, wtf?

If we put another in one of the ports, shouldn't one be water, knowing the sea would be like 30 steps away?

I'm not so sure about the light type and the poison stuff...I'm not smart in that field, sorry.

I like the idea of "dark isn't evil" with the elite 4 replacing and all that stuff.

We definetly don't need anymore cities. Isn't there like 22 or something? 6 gyms, 22 cities...you see? We should have at LEAST 8, and I still kinda think 12 would be better. There would be the battle gyms, and the "breath taker" towns, along with the orion/rocket stuff and all the sidequests.

[Zenith]

There would be some balancing things that I would do with Light as well. Even though I generally hate changing things after it's already been decided, I believe that we can give ourselves the oppurtuniy to grant Poison STAB a reason for existing and therefore help balance out the metagame.
Actually, that's part of what I was thinking. The first change would be to change Light's resistance to Poison to a weakness, and give Poison a resistance to Light. We could probably say something about how even the most righteous can be corrupted if they don't watch what they do, but (more importantly) it gives Poison an advantage that isn't already covered by four other types.

Secondly, we need to do something about the Dark-Light-Psychic triangle of immunities. It just seems unecessary, and could limit all three types in the metagame. The only reason Dark is immune to Psychic in the first place is because Psychic was overpowered in 1st Gen and needed something immune to it to bring it back down to earth. Dark isn't overpowered enough to warrant making Light immune, and Light won't be overpowered enough for Psychic to be immune to it. Change Light's Dark immunity to a resistance, and take away Psychic's immunity to Light, and Dark and Light both become more useful as attacking types.

And one slight change in what resists Light. Right now Steel resists Light. While it makes a little sense, Steel already has 11 resistances and an immunity, and doesn't really need another one. Being able to deal neutral damage to Steel will, once again, help Light on offense. We can give a different type some much-needed defense...by making Ice resist Light. As of right now, the only thing Ice resists is itself. Giving it resistance to Light makes the type less of a glass cannon, and means Waters actually gain something from being part Ice besides a resistance it already has.

With these changes, Light would have the following:
Beats- Dark, Ghost
Is Resisted By- Grass, Poison, Ice,
Resists- Dark, Fighting
Is Weak To- Poison, Psychic, Ghost

We may need to give Light a third advantage, though. Any ideas, if needed?

[Quinn]

maybe another light. Dragons murder dragons, ghosts murder ghosts, so maybe light goes strong against itself.

another could be poison. Although Poison would be super effective to it, but all takes from it. It would make people think about if the really wanted to throw out there poison against it.

[neon.Barnacle]

The dark-psychic-light triangle was a gimmick, but a good one at that. Don't really see the point in changing it to be honest. I do agree with the change for poison, though, and everything else you mentioned.

[Quinn]

so about my water gym...? We have fire and grass, why dont we just complete that triangle? Especially if we are gonna have more than 6 gyms.

[Zenith]

The problem is, we don't need something that dicourages people even further from using Poison. Giving it a weakness to its new type advantage would really hurt it. It's one of the reasons I gave Poison a resistance to Light, and made Psychic neutral.

Light just doesn't really seem like the kind of thing that would be weak to itself. Besides, we already have two types that are weak to themselves (Ghost & Dragon), and they're rarer than Light seems intended to be.

If we're going with 12 Gyms, then I'm all for a Water one. On the other hand, there's only ever been one Water-based League opponent, and that was only in Emerald.

The immunity trifecta just seems like too much. Psychic does nothing to Dark because it only has two other resistances. Dark already has three (four, if Light resists it), and Light will have three (if it's neutral to Psychic and itself). Dark could possibly become underpowered if Light is immune to it, and Psychic would gain more power...not enough to be overpowered again, but enough to make people use Psychic over Poison when they're against Light types, putting Poison by the wayside again. See why I'm a little worried?

[Quinn]

true. Maybe light could be weak against itself then, so it discourages light users from going against others. Especially something poison light like Illumbra. It would murder the light type with its poison, but be resistant with its own light.

WATER!!! want's water. Wants a gym that my Dolphure can swim in and murderass

[SilentSentinel]

Light being weak to itself makes absolutely no sense. Here's an easy type for it to be strong to: Bug. Most fangames or rpgs with the light type have it as strong to bug. Remember when you were a kid using a magnifying glass to focus sunlight rays on bugs? Same premise.

We can't have a gym with the same type as an elite four member, so for the third time, no water gym.

[Quinn]

light to bug....sad thing is I remember doing that to alot more than bugs ;)

I thought we were changing the elite 4 a bit, with mandy? Wouldn't that leave water? maybe I missed one, but including that, you would have had that said 2 times.

my dolphure and tsunall are gonna be burned in the scorching sun....

[SilentSentinel]

Since when is Mandy going to be an elite four? This needs to be really thought through WITH IB HERE before we even consider changing anything. Also, I am vehemently against changing the Light/Psychic/Dark trinity, as it then creates an unbalance in the starters typings, which were meant to end up so each one could defeat the others, and still make Bradley a contender despite him having the weaker starter.

[neon.Barnacle]

RP is spot-on with that post. Everything we're discussing right now, including gym changes/additions and type reconfigurations, are major game-changers, and I wouldn't implement them with good conscience without consulting with IB first.

[Zenith]

I was under the impression that if we replaced Mandy's gym with a Dark one, she would take the E4 spot of whoever the Dark one was. But I agree, we should get IB's take on it.

I don't want to radically change the trinity. I just don't want them all to be immunities. With my idea, Light still beats Dark, and Psychic still beats Light. I just changed it so that Light only resists Dark (keeping Dark from being underpowered, and why wouldn't Dionare just use a Grass move on Dolphure in the first place?) and Psychic either resists Light or is immune to it (Kelvoyant beats Dionare with Fire attacks, while Dionare beats Kelvoyant with Dark attacks). Whether Psychic would end up resisting Light or being immune to it depends on how it affects Poison's use. The bigger thing to worry about here is the fact that Dionare isn't weak to Light, since Grass resists it.

Even so, typing alone doesn't make a 'mon bad or good. Just look at Infernape and Empoleon: massively different approaches (Ape's ginormous movepool and mixed attack power vs. Empoleon's 12 resistances and ability to switch in and set up), but both are (usually) sweepers, and both are OU.

Light>Bug? Maybe. It's really the heat that does the damage when you do that, not the light itself. I mean, they even catch on fire.

[neon.Barnacle]

We're not replacing Mandy. Period.

The dark-light-psychic triangle was established with the purpose of making starters more unique, with dual type triangles going in reverse order. It's impossible to balance all the types perfectly, even with immunity to Light, Psychic types still have numerous disadvantages, and Dark type isn't offensively-oriented in the first place.

[Zenith]

We just need a reason for people to use Poison instead of Psychic against Light. If Poison only resists Light, and Psychic is immune, why would you use Poison against Light when Psychic is so much better for the job. Then Poison would end up unused again. A type we just gave an upgrade to gets screwed over because an already fundamentally better type got a bigger upgrade. See why I'm kind of worried about that?

The biggest problem with where Mandy is right now is that she's right after Fernando, who she shares two (very common) weaknesses and a resistance with. Grass and Bug are too similar to have gyms for them back to back.

And Dark isn't just defensive, even if Umbreon is. ...Or maybe Dionare (105 Base Attack), Harskrow (95 Attack, 110 Sp. Attack), Cackinge (125 Atk, 115 Sp. Atk), Malistril (110 Atk, 118 Spd), Serberine (115 Atk, 110 Spd), Abyssus (135 Atk), Tagati (110 Atk, 110 Sp. Atk, but his BST is 580) and Raiger (130 Sp. Atk, but his BST is 600) all didn't get memos. :rolleyes:

(Wow, there aren't enough defensive Darks...we need to change that when we go over movesets after the demo gets out.)

[neon.Barnacle]

You're talking about Poison and Psychic as if they're exchangeable on a Pokemon or something. You're also making the comparison using just a single type (Light) as justification. Steel is a better defensive typing than Rock, but that doesn't stop people from using Tyranitar or Aerodactyl. At this point, any boost to Poison at all will save it from the pile of uselessness it was before. Just because Psychic does the job better doesn't mean Poison isn't viable.

When I said that Dark isn't offensively oriented, I was talking about its moves. In canon games, the highest base power of a Dark-type move is 80. Instead, a large portion of dark moves are based around statuses and unique effects. Type coverage for dark-type moves isn't exactly sublime, either. Also, we have a move called Black Hole, which is basically a dark-type Explosion. It would be broken if Light wasn't immune to it.

I stated in a previous post that, if the 12-gym idea is implemented, Fernando would be the first to go. He has the least established character out of the gym leaders. Mandy, at least, is involved in the plot around Hollowlog, and that propels her far beyond Fernando in terms of importance.

[Zenith]

Hm. I forgot about Black Hole. But to compensate for Light's immunity, Dark sweepers will need ways to improve their type coverage, or every pure Dark will be UU or worse. And we'll need a way to make Ambush viable. With that charge turn, someone can see it coming and switch in a Light type to absorb the hit. Maybe eliminate the charge turn at night/under Nightfall? We might still need another strong-but-accessible Physical Dark move (like what my idea for a 95 BP Aurora Beam would do for Special Light), as not every Dark type has the mouth for Crunch.

The 12-Gym idea really makes a lot of things more complex. If IB OK's it, maybe we should make a separate thread to dicuss possible Gyms, leaders, lineups, and how it would change the game's flow?

And another thing kind of bugging me. Caldera seems crammed with a ton of different kinds of terrain: the ashen Chartree Forest, Mt. Mist and its layer of...mist, the swamps around Hollowlog, the floating Dynamo Gardens, a 5-6 square long route in constant darkness (How does Dynamo's shadow stay in one place all the time, anyway? And how does something only three "layers" tall cast a shadow long enough to cover all of Route 232? (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeLogic)), the snow-capped Mt. Frost, and the Eye of Sand (crammed in between Mt. Frost and Westlog Swamp, no less). Kirant has...a city built in a cave (Sedcini), and...that's it on the mainland. It just seems like all of the fantastic locales were used on Caldera's half of the map, with a couple underwater, leaving mainland Kirant potentially dull.

[SilentSentinel]

As far as the landform question, that probably has something to do with the regions of Japan that Caldera and Kirant are based of off, the Chugoku and Shikoku. Chugoku has many of Japans large cities, such as Hiroshima, which likely inspired locales like Collosus and Dynamo. It also is noted for its east to west mountains, which probably inspired the mountains we have today. Shikoku is much less populated, most of its inhabitants live in the north and west, depending heavily on fishing, which explains cities like Icthyes. It is also known for its farming of fruit, which probably inspired Laysan Town. Shikoku has no volcanoes and is less populated, which seems to explain why there are less varied landscapes.

I could imagine IB raging if we changed all this without him.

IB: Whew, back from my trip! Did we getting anything done?
Us: Yeah, we decided to add 4 more gyms and change the light type.
IB: ...

For a couple of your other points, charge moves are pretty much always crappy. Look at shadow force, the highest power ghost move in the game, yet it is always beaten by prediction. That's just how they are. I guess I could see the charge being negated at night or somethign, but then again, its generally a fine move for in game play.

Keep in mind that we don't really have very many pure darks in this game. Umbreon doesn't require type coverage because of its inherent role as a stall pokemon, while Serberine already has an excellent base speed stat in a world where slow pokes can't out speed you with a scarf and a great attack to match, plus Crunch access. If dark becomes any better, Raiger breaks the game.

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

I agree with Darkness/Night negating the charge on Ambush, ambushes are easier at night. Changing the Light Dark Psychic immunities is just a massive no. In caps. And bold. With Chuck Norris supporting it. Powered by Pikachus. it's there to A) make a triangle and B) allow the starters to be balanced agianst each other at their final stages. Also it means the light type doesn't need changing.

[Merlin]

alright forgive me for saying this but who's thought that maybe nintendo/pokemon/gamefreak didn't add the light type for just this reason??? I mean it'd solve tons of problems right now by killing it off...
sadly though it still causes a few but that can all be fixed...

And another thing Dark is super weak to light no matter how small light can still be seen....
how far away is the M-44 galaxy agian???(don't qoute me there cause i dont remember its designation)
Dark = weak to Light
Light = Immune to Dark
Light cannot be weak to itself though it could be resistant/immune to itself....
Grass would be immune, Fire would be immune/resistant, Electric would be resistant, water would be resistant
Poison = Immune to light as well as not really able to do any sort of damage to light so they cancel each other there...
Steel = resistant to light (though it could do something to deflect it back at the attacking pokemon to do damage)
Bug = weak to fire, normal to light---they're like us we can live with light we'd die if the sun was too close
Ground/Rock = both resistant to light
sadly light's kinda useless cause a lot of stuff would be resistant to it...
then again maybe i'm looking at some of this wrong but you get the idea...

And as to a "ton" of poison pokemon being useless remember they made dual types for a reason...
Poison by itself may not do too well but when paired with other types it tends to start pwn teams....
Grimer is one of the OUs i believe and its a pure poison...
Go thru and look down the chart of weaknesses that poison has by itself and then compare it to the dual type poisons and see what happens
poison's strong

[SilentSentinel]

Allow me to show you a list of the poison types in OU:

Gengar
Roserade
Tentacruel

That's it. There are no pure poison pokemon in that tier. I think we could easily just make poison beat light and hopefully have that allow for the increased usage of strong poison types like Pythang and Illumbra.

[Zenith]

Allow me to show you a list of the poison types in OU:

Gengar
Roserade
Tentacruel

That's it. There are no pure poison pokemon in that tier. I think we could easily just make poison beat light and hopefully have that allow for the increased usage of strong poison types like Pythang and Illumbra.

Three in OU, 1 in BL, 4 in UU, and 12 in NU. Poison could definitely use another advantage.

@Virus: No offense, but we can't give that many types protection from Light. If we use those, Light would have, worst case scenario, resisted by 6 types and nullified by 3. No type has that much that works against it.

The starters don't have a perfect "reverse triangle", anyway...Dionare isn't weak to Light.

I was wondering how much it was based off of real life Japan. But we still need to do something to keep Kirant from being boring in comparison to Caldera. Just throwing this out there...could we possibly move the Eye of Sand and Saharan City over there? It would also give us room to expand Mt. Frost, as it's really packed in right now (two routes, two dungeons, and a city in only 5 squares).

[Cyndadile]

We could just have 10 gyms...8 new, and the 2 Johtos.

[Quinn]

I'm for either 10 or 12 personally. Like 10 new or 12 new, along with the 2 Johto.

[Zenith]

Just as long as the player doesn't need badges from the two Johto ones. They're part of a different league, after all.

[Quinn]

yah, there unofficial battles. Even for me, that would be too much (and that takes alot)

[neon.Barnacle]

Even if we go with just 8 gyms, they'd still have to be completely redone in my opinion. The current gym locations are too unbalanced. This means we'll have to swap gym leaders, as well.

The reason why I suggested 12 or so gyms is because in a world with 20+cities, just 8 gyms would be too sporadic.

[Quinn]

I'm with neon with the gyms...I just want the thrill.

By the way, since there wont be a water gym, how zero's attached to misticade sprite, I'm the same with water. If we mess up his room in the elite 4...I'm gonna start eating people. I want it to look like god just touched it.

[Zenith]

Although I wonder if it would be the best idea for the Water E4 member to have Misticade if there's a Ghost one as well.

...Wait, Zero as the Water E4? I thought we were gonna make the major contributors Bonus Bosses (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BonusBoss).

And since they're gonna be on the higher floors of a man-made tower, we could design the Elite Four rooms to looks like Zelda-esque boss rooms.

[SilentSentinel]

I think the water E4s name is like Torry or something.

[Quinn]

When we are at that point, I call making his room.
*zeneth. What do you mean "zero" as the elite 4 member. WTF?

This Torry dude better look badass ;)

[NyteFyre]

I don't know anything about the E4, but 12 gyms I like the sound of that.

[Quinn]

so, I personally think everyone is for more gyms. I'm also thinking that more are for 12. I'm not sure about that though. I'll restate what RP said though, we still need IB here.

[Zenith]

What do you mean "zero" as the elite 4 member. WTF?
Maybe I misunderstood what you meant. A couple pages back someone mentioned something about making major contributors bonus bosses or something, and then you said "If we mess up his room in the E4" kind of like Zero himself was the E4 member instead of Zero just liking Water types so much...which was what you probably meant.

Anyway, should we make a separate thread to brainstorm for the 12 Gym idea?

[Quinn]

true for the gym thing.

I get how you got mixed up.
A while ago, I said that we should be the last battles BEFORE the elite 4. In victory road. Like Swimmer Quinn would like to battle or Hiker Bob. (not like Hiker Zero, or cyndadile though, like real names)

A while back, zero said he was attached to the misticade sprite and if we changed it, he would go apeshit on the site (not that we would anyways).

I feel the same way, but with water in general. If we dont make it look good, I'm gonna be F_ _ _ ing pissed OFF. We are gonna make it look like god touched it.

Also, what about the map? Is it confirmed? I gotta know before I can continue doing maps on some areas.
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y274/neonscreen/topazregionmap.png

[neon.Barnacle]

That...also needs IB to confirm. Yeah, yeah, I know.

[Quinn]

man...."IB, you need to log on, wherever you are on your vacation!" "Find hotel wifi, or mcdonalds even" (Not that he could read that) Should I start putting the names of routes and stuff though on it?

[Zenith]

Yeah, turned out to be either a bad time for us to get on a roll or a bad time for him to be in Singapore, huh?

Putting the route numbers on the map would help a lot, even though we'll probably end up changing it even more in a while.

I just thought of something. So Kirant's real life equivanent is mostly flat farmland? What if we ran with that? Maybe we could open up the routes there more, making them less linear, but still using the cities as choke points. Remember how Hyrule Field is set up in Twilight Princess? Like that, but not as open. A different feel might be the thing we need to keep Kirant's overworld from being boring.

...I still think we could possibly move the Eye of Sand over there...since it seems implied that it was made by the totally-not-Ancient-Egyptians when they settled there way in the past in game, which means that we don't need to base it on a real world location.

[Cyndadile]

man...."IB, you need to log on, wherever you are on your vacation!" "Find hotel wifi, or mcdonalds even" (Not that he could read that) Should I start putting the names of routes and stuff though on it?

Even I was able to! (It wasn't that hard, really, but still! :))

Suggestion: Move this gym disscussion to a new thread to allow other suggestions not to get swallowed alive.

[Quinn]

thats 3 people saying this disussion should move. Maybe a mod could create one and move this conversation over?

[Mediocrity_Incarnate]

Damn I should check this more often.

Uh, I dont think its really needing a new thread. Moving something that really shouldnt even be considered yet doesnt seem like a very good idea to me.

[Quinn]

true.

Sorry RP, but I have a quick question...you said there is a water e4 member, right? was he added more recently, or what?


Battle the first Elite Four member, Carlos, who uses Fighting-type.
+ Battle the second Elite Four member, Sabrina, who uses Psychic-type.
+ Battle the third Elite Four member, Synthia, who uses Dark-type.
+ Battle the last Elite Four member, Balthasar, who uses Dragon-type.
+ Battle the Champion, Vincent, who uses a mix of types.

If so, who did he replace? (Hopes dark). Or, if he isn't there yet, we could keep this and possibly have water gym? (Hopes even more) whatever way though, this fish, along with his fishy team NEED water.

I added tags to the map of Neons, with the routes and stuff, though I can't post it right now.

[SilentSentinel]

Uh, you know that walkthrough is really old right? That set of e4 people is way outdated. There is definitely a Water e4 member now.

[Quinn]

I knew it was outdated, but I didn't know "that" much. Is it safe to ask the e4 now? Is water 3rd or 4th?

[ImmunityBow]

I think the last one was going to be the Light-type one, to showcase the Light-type.

There are:
Torrence / Torry - Water
Layla - Dark (Whose name is incidentally arabic for Night)
Grayson - Steel
Tristan - Light

[Quinn]

OMFG!!!! ITS IB!!!! You still on vacation??? hows it been??? you gonna read all the suggestions? OMFG!!!!
OMFGSPLOSION!!!

[Zenith]

We've been on a roll. Trust me, you're gonna want to read everything from around Page 4 on. And that's only partially because of what I suggested.

(Hopefully that didn't come across as arrogant.)

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

Instead of adding more gyms, why not just have places like the Fighting Dojo from FRLG?

[Quinn]

I for one think we should add the gyms, but maybe have a fighting dogo, like HGSS instead. Where you battle the leaders again...if not that, they have a rematch thingy like in RSE. (though I dont like that idea, because the vs seeker is alot better)

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

Gyms have always had a set number. To change it would be just stupid. Also, FRLG is better than HGSS IMO just because they've started milking a dry cow (their imaginations).

[Quinn]

always, like GS? That had 12, along with the dojo. I kinda disagree, HGSS added more to a region, FRLG just added some islands. (though that game still ROCKED...one of my favorites) Not to get off topic though, but GS are the originals, and they will ALWAYS be my favorite.

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

Gold and Silver didn't have 12, they had two regions, two seperate entities with two seperate Gym quests. On was from Red/Blue/Yellow and one was the "host" region.

[Quinn]

true, and we can use that for our part.
We have 2 regions. 6 in one, 6 in the other. The other arguement came up though that one is smaller so it could have 4 while the other has more. Or the last one, of it just being 8. Some here and some there.

[neon.Barnacle]

Count the cities in each region.

Kanto: 10
Johto: 10
Hoenn: 16
Sinnoh: 15
Kirant/Caldera: 20

We have a humongous region. 8 gyms will really seem too sparse. I know 8 is the traditional number, but if a change is both fresh and practical then we should just roll with it.

[Quinn]

^like I said earlier. Also someone said, "if this works right, we will have a really good thing going". We just gotta make it go right.

not to get off topic, though I still like BTG's dojo thingy as well. Maybe just a kick back area with battles, or a rematch area...idk.

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

I say two sets of gyms. GSC had both the Kanto and Johto region so it had 20 cities and 12 gyms. Also, it means we can reuse some types if we wish.

[Cyndadile]

I thought GSC had 16...

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

Gah, it was early, I meant 16.

[Cyndadile]

Yeah, everyone has been saying 12, so I got confused.

[Quinn]

I kinda think 16 is pushing it though. Hell more gyms = more fun, but still. 12 might be a better option IMO. As much as I would love a water gym, it might look bad if we have types in both gyms and elite 4. There isn't enough types for 16 gyms along with the E4.

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

Well then back to the Dojo suggestion. Instead of gyms (what badges would they give out?! What would they enable?!) have challanging gym-like areas that give various items and pokemon as prizes. It could be like, the regional challange cup or something.

[Quinn]

have the speed attack raise for some. HM's for others. and just the TM alone for the few others.

I'm for a regional cup. Maybe in Collossus city. Have a giant building (possible the pokeball one) and inside have tournaments. Battles, double battles, and maybe that overworld battle thing I read about long ago.

[Cyndadile]

I believe he meant that the dojos were the regional cup.

[Quinn]

eh. I have yet to see a reason to put that building in Collossus (though I will anyway, since it looks AWESOME...if you haven't seen it, look on the sheet) But instead of it being like a corperation or something, it could be a tournament area. With those 3 different battle thingies.

[neon.Barnacle]

A regional cup, by the sounds of it, is...just the Pokemon League challenge. No reason to unnecessarily rename something.

And let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here. A tournament building would be cool, but like the Frontier buildings will require excessive work. At this point we need to focus on the main features and not sidequests.

[Quinn]

yeah. (tough trying to keep focused though, if you know what I mean)

[Merlin]

curious but what in the world happened to adding the Battle Frontier???
i was sure that somewhere it was mentioned that the BF buildings would be scattered around the region and if that's so then maybe we can still keep the 8 gyms and just use the BF from Emerald and scatter a couple of buildings around and group the rest within a "city" (or that little square thing from RSE)

[Quinn]

battle frontier is up in the air. They are spread throughout the region though. Like in Mistvale, Olivine, Roothaven, Saharan etc.

[neon.Barnacle]

Battle Frontier is far beyond our scope at this point. Don't even think about it anymore.

[Merlin]

oh gotcha...
well just wondering is all...

though another thought has just struck me...
y have more than 8 gyms???
i mean don't we have to fight like team rocket or orion defenders???
they have enough to pretty much constitute a gym to begin with and the fact that you'll actually have to fight them about 2-4 times that right there could take care of teh 'lack of gyms' feeling...

[Quinn]

me and a friend here were talking last night. One of the things that came up were topaz (of course) And we brainstormed. I talked about water gym, as well as E4 dude. If we have all the gyms we are talking about, there will probably have to be exception. Remember Juan and Wallace? Ironicly there water as well.

Next, mandy. (friends idea) So we can get rid of Hanzo and Fernando right? Mandy could be poison, but goes up in Roothaven. She travels back and forth between Roothaven and Hollowlog, to see the forest and stuff. Hanzo is replaced by a water gym, since its all misty and stuff.

last...who doesn't like cheats? (both our ideas) We both have used the action replay before, and its fun (after you beat the game). I was thinking we could have those type cheats like the ones in the old nintendo games when you put in a phrase, and it gives you whatever in return. Like as a shiny creator, I wanna see my shinies. So something like "topaz shinymon" would make shinies a 1/20 or something. yeah.

[badgerdude1347]

I have always kind of think 10 leaders would be good.

I made a couple trainers

Pop Star Trainerhttp://Pop Star Trainer.PNG

Mechanic Trainerhttp://Mechanic Trainer.PNG

[Merlin]

I do like the idea of having more gyms than what they give in the games because it breaks away from the traditional stuff a little, cause even i have a region where it's got more than 8 but it's storyline is kinda connected to another region as well...
@quinn: yes i believe some "cheats" are in order but set up the game so that you can type the crap in rather than search through words or add a typing ability along with the word search (cause i hate those words and i prefer using my own instead) and yes i do believe they should actually unlock something there...
@badger: your pics arent coming in... although those do sound like they could be good trainers...

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

Hmmm... maybe have cheats hidden throughout, some in unown language, some in hard to reach places, etc.

I'm liking the idea of a cheat that allows you to change a pokemon's ability. It'd be nice to be able to cycle through each ability to see how they interact without having to catch all the pokemon. Oh I know! It could be like the developer's console commands in valve games, there for testing purposes but can be used for cheating.

[NyteFyre]

Ehh, I was thinking make them available after you beat the E4 or maybe beat the Jirachi thing. That way, people don't just cheat to get thru. I find that no fun. Maybe you could make them in hard to reach places, that can only be accesed by like an HM or something that you get after the E4. I dunno. Just don't make them accesible early.

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

Oh no, you know how cheats range in their potential?
Well have the lesser one's (maybe a shinifier) earlier and the more potentially game breaking ones later on.

[Quinn]

I want a shinyifyer so my team can be my creatons. (you know what I'm talking about right? Like in old turok. You type it in, and you get it. Also, as you defeat levels, they are awarded.

I think some fun ones like shiny would be nice for a start...but major things like one hit kill and stuff....later.

[neon.Barnacle]

At one point we're actually hoping to implement a trading system, and maybe even a battle system. While I can see the appeal in having in-game cheats, we'll have to limit their game-changing potential.

For example, we can have a cheat that turns the game to "hard mode", where your Pokemon take twice as long to level up, or have reduced stats, something along those lines.

See, I don't want in-game cheats to have no drawback whatsoever. I'm thinking along the lines of the hidden skulls from the Halo series. Regarding shinies, for instance, I don't want something that can automatically turn your Pokemon shiny. Perhaps one where the shiny encounter rate is increased to 1/16, but also reducing your catch rate.

[Quinn]

now that sounds good. With one exception with a shiny thingy though. Starters. If you started off with the cheat on...your starter would be. *ironicly though I made dionares...I would still go with Dolphure :D )

[Quinn]

I'm surprised. This place like just died or something.

Along with my suggestions above ^, I've got more

5 new moves. I was on the Pokegroup and I saw many like Serberine. They were also talking about if we had the 3 fangs, they would go PERFECT with them. Make some little alterations, and create our own 3 fangs. Like Blaze bite, Static bite, and "Frost" bite.

Last, I was looking at the place where if you came too late, what you would have wanted. Acid rain, Thunderstorm, and the other, though not sure of, aftershock.

[Merlin]

about finding those cheats i think that they should be set up so that you can't trade, or battle with "sharked" pokemon but be able to use the regulars....
and as for being able to find them we should put them all in as braille since in the games you only ever use braille like once or twice and if you're smart enough to go get a walkthrough that's free to download then you don't need to really translate it (in the main games) but it would be good if we added a lot more braille everywhere like in a library have a book written in braille with information about cheat codes saying u cant use them without 1st beating the E4...
as well as having braille scattered about on rocks and junk in the region where you have to remember where you found it and try to translate it...
though maybe not so much that we cant remember where the specific braille is located...

[Silver]

what the hell is a sharked pokemon

[Merlin]

basically it's a hacked pokemon of sorts, it's short for Game Shark or Game Sharked meaning you cheated to get the surfing Pikachu or the Mew or something...
this goes for anything related to hacking the rom such as Action Replay and others...
basically if you need to get a device, put in a code and get the pokemon/powers/etc. then your hacking or sharking...

[Silver]

oh...

[Zenith]

I'm surprised. This place like just died or something.

Along with my suggestions above ^, I've got more

5 new moves. I was on the Pokegroup and I saw many like Serberine. They were also talking about if we had the 3 fangs, they would go PERFECT with them. Make some little alterations, and create our own 3 fangs. Like Blaze bite, Static bite, and "Frost" bite.

Last, I was looking at the place where if you came too late, what you would have wanted. Acid rain, Thunderstorm, and the other, though not sure of, aftershock.

I dunno, maybe we could just "borrow" the elemental fangs from 4th Gen. I mean, it was a good idea in the first place, as it gave pretty much anything with a decent set of teeth a way to improve type coverage. More weather types? Dunno, but it would make anything with a weather clearing ability more useful.

Wow, talk about hitting the brakes...but I finally got my computer working right, so I should be more active again.

Going back to something I brought up that got overlooked...is there any chance that we could move the Eye of Sand over to Kirant? It would make more sense for a desert to be in the more flat part of the overworld, and Caldera would be a little less chaotic. And we can always mess with the map post-demo.

[ImmunityBow]

Sorry, but we really do have enough moves as it is. Enough at least so that Serberine actually has a full moveset, if it had a few slots no one knew what to do with then maybe but in this case it's just too generally extraneous. The three fangs will have to be a no.

As for Eye of Sand, it actually makes entire sense as far as geography goes. Deserts are often formed near mountain ranges, such as the mountainous path on the way to Mt. Frost. Also in Encounter Rates we have a fun Iglonia/Torkoal turtle dynamic where the two areas meet :3

[Zenith]

Well, we need to do something to keep Kirant's routes from being so generic.

[STT]

about finding those cheats i think that they should be set up so that you can't trade, or battle with "sharked" pokemon but be able to use the regulars....
and as for being able to find them we should put them all in as braille since in the games you only ever use braille like once or twice and if you're smart enough to go get a walkthrough that's free to download then you don't need to really translate it (in the main games) but it would be good if we added a lot more braille everywhere like in a library have a book written in braille with information about cheat codes saying u cant use them without 1st beating the E4...
as well as having braille scattered about on rocks and junk in the region where you have to remember where you found it and try to translate it...
though maybe not so much that we cant remember where the specific braille is located...
Better yet, a combination of Braille and some base64-encoded strings. :P Base64 is confusing as hell if you can't find a translator for it... unless you're a haxer.

[ImmunityBow]

Kirant's routes aren't overly generic either, we made sure of that. It has its fair share of forested mountains (which Caldera doesn't get, by the way) and lots of Pokemon you can't get in Kirant, such as Engil, Duval, etc. The one city I could see being switched with something in Kirant though is Colossus City, though I enjoy its position in Caldera as a foil to the rest of the nature-harmonic cities.

[totodileman]

underwater change.

I talked to Quinn about this, and he animated something for me.

when I was swimming, I saw on the bottom of the floor, you see the marks from above...right?
So....what if we had it the same with our underwater?

along with the little bit of fog, and the bubbles that are in RSE, there could be an overlay of something like this...maybe.
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd123/quintinbruderer/Topaz/New-Under.gif
(me and him are gonna be sharing the same Photobucket, to keep our Topaz stuff together)

also, to make topaz look better, does anyone know where the HGSS water is? Quinn can't find it for the life of him, and he wants to make a "3rd Gen" of it, to spice up that other water.

pardon the new guy talkin, just throwin something out.

[neon.Barnacle]

The waves make it seem as if you're still on the water. It's just not how underwater looks like.

[Cyndadile]

I agree. But there could be some bubbles coming out of you. (Or do they do that already?)

[Zenith]

I'm still worried about Caldera getting all of the interesting stuff.

Anyway, I wanted to get your (IB's) opinion on something I brought up a couple pages back. Don't think you saw it.


Coming full circle again, I have another post-demo idea...another idea for a Special Light attack...but this time it's a move that already exists.

Aurora Beam is called "a rainbow-colored beam" in its description. The move clearly invokes light in it. And the only reason it's an Ice move in the official games is because the official games don't have a Light type yet. With a couple tweaks (increasing its BP to 95, dropping its uses to 15, and changing the secondary effect from lowering Attack to lowering Special Defense or Accuracy), we can use it as the strong-but-reliable Special attack the Light type is missing. Special-based Light types would gain something to sweep with that isn't the relatively innacurate (and rare) Wrath or the too-weak-to-sweep-with Light Wave.

You might be thinking "What about the niche Aurora Beam had as an Ice move? Where are we going to get a mid-power Ice attack to replace it with?" Once again, the answer is a move that already exists, but this time it's one that has already been made for Topaz.

Right now, Cold Wind is all but redundant. It's almost exactly like Icy Wind, which was introduced in 2nd Gen: both are Special and both have a base power of 55. The only difference is the secondary effect, which itself is just like Powder Snow's effect. If we raise Cold Wind's base power to around 70, and give it a new name that differentiates it from Icy Wind, it could fill Aurora Beam's old niche.

Of course, this would involve having to change at least a few movesets around, so it would have to happen after the demo gets out.