I love how every time we get to a Zodiac Beast you say which sign it's based off of and say "If you are X you will... Have a nice day today." without fail
I thought he added the Zodiac beasts during the birthday periods the videos were released. Aquarius doesn't make sense for this month though, so it's just a silly gag I was trying to draw a pattern for. Funny either way
To be truely accurate to horoscopes, he needs to select exactly one sign to say will have an inexplicably horrible day... But that it will get better by the end.
I like it too a lot because that's also how we see Alolan exeggutor most of the time in pokemon itself, given this is a Gen 9 problem since the Alola games accounted for the sheer height of this pokemon and adjusted the camera accordingly but in Scarlet/Violet the camera struggles a lot to keep the whole pokemon on screen even in the battle stadium where the camera is in a more fixed position
An idea for the ATP: you can only regenerate it if you haven't run out. That way, while you are still doomed you run out if ATP, it's possible to stoo yourself getting in the situation. Anyway, high quality video as always!
This right here! It punishes you harder for over extending. Adds a choice of to go for a kill and run out of ATP or to rest for longevity while giving your opponent a turn. I think this would be a great way to do this mechanic
I do actually like the idea of Hydrarius being the most common zodiac beast purely because its parts don't always die when cut off, so it just squirms its way around the stemmaverse after a fight, win or lose.
Great point on the heal stalling. One word of caution about the ATP system you mentioned though. I recently played this gatcha game called Takt Op (and it is end of service so no longer playable), where they had a stamina system that would essentially make you do less damage and take more damage once you ran out. But the system was so limited that you'd run out of stamina in about 5 turns. So the game very quickly became a DPS check that encouraged builds to one shot enemy teams. Pretty sure that hurt the game in the long run since it limited you to just one play style (be as aggressive as possible). In theory I like the idea of an ATP system, in practice I'd be a bit more weary. Best of luck though, sounds like a cool project!
Hey n0rtist, if you haven’t already, could you try making a stema based on HeLa cells? I think their ‘immortality’ allows for a unique design opportunity. Maybe it would be some sort of mythical-esque creature, like Mew or Jirachi, as I think the idea fits their category.
i suppose you could also form a sort of mythical/legendary backstory based on/mirroring how the original cells that the HeLa cells were derived from were taken by the physician without the consent or knowledge of their namesake, Henrietta Lacks, a black woman being treated for cervical cancer in 1951. She died the same year and was buried in a grave that went unmarked until 2010, while her family was unaware of how her cells were being used for medical research until 1975, and to this day have never been compensated for the extraction and use of HeLa cells
Always be weary of free infinite actions. Maybe the rest option could have diminishing returns, it could recover a good amount at first, and reduced each time it's used.
Another possible solution to the idea of games going on for too long is a mechanic I call "instability". Once the turn counter has passed some arbitrary amount, instability begins to rise. More ATP will be consumed, and less will be restored. As turns go on and instability gets higher, these effects grow in severity, and new effects are introduced, such as everything taking more damage, and even losing HP over time. This would require careful balancing to make sure it all feels fair, but I think it's an idea worth looking into
This could be dangerous as stall teams would plan strategies keep ATP and health higher so when the instability starts the aggressive player would likely have less ATP and would lose health first. This would give stall a way to defeat opponents without having any attacking options by just stalling until instability starts and therefore it would basically give them a free toxic just for stalling. As was shown in the video, a dedicated staller will have options to defeat something like this (ex: slowbro with regenerator) while attackers would be the real victims.
Counter switching (Idea) Pokemon have a dark type move "Pursuit" that deals more damage when a pokemon switches out, and it deals damage before a pokemon can switch out. It's great to counter psychic type with regenarator. Though with the latest mechanic of changing types, (a possible solution should be to create a similar move to Pursuit but with different types). There's also binding moves that prevent switching unless they have switching moves or items that switches them in battle. Trapping abilities like using arena trap, shadow tag, or magnet pull that were showcased to prevent switching out, but rules ban most of them, so yeah... There are some abilities that negate an opponent's ability, like mold breaker, but it is in an attacking format, so it won't negate the regenerator ability. (Maybe create an ability that negates Abilities when they enter the battle or as long as they are in the field, abilities will not work.) (Other options were to nerf regenerator or ban the ability or create a dark terrain field type that prevents any form of healing from occurring. )
Here's my suggestion: Have the rest mechanic put some moderate penalty on top. For example, each time you rest, now your moves cost more ATP for the rest of the match. Allows stalling, but not infinitely.
On the rest button being an unlimited action, look up Pokemon Wonder Battle. I suggested in the last video to contemplate the other forms of biological energy storage compounds and energy acquisition methods (though not in those exact words.) But having looked back at pokemon's past alternative battle systems I have found something both beautiful and distressing, the *[Wonder Battle]* from Gen5.
I think fossil fighters found a really interesting way to do it in where at the beginning of every turn you got a certain number of energy points dependent upon your Fighter (character) level, and each of the maximum of three dinosaurs that you have on your team only gets to attack once per turn, you can redistribute that energy that you're given in any way between the variety of moves that those three dinosaurs will have so you can do something like a big AOE attack that takes a hundred energy, a singular Target attack that takes another 50 energy, and maybe a final attack that Force balances the energy that you have and the energy your enemy has so that way you can recover some of that lost energy and move into the next turn while not only handicapping the opponent but giving yourself extra energy for next turn for a stronger attack combination, but that's just one of the combos you can do with a specific setup of dinosaurs, the roster is like 170 something deep and each of them feel unique to a degree so I think the way they did their battle system lends itself well to the fairly self-contained roster and relatively small move pool per creature
Gotta add here that leech seed only creates a stalemate if the opponents have the same HP. If you use leech seed on a Pokémon with 200 health, you'd get 25 hp each turn. But if you have 400 health and that Pokémon uses leech seed on you, they will be healed 50 hp each turn. Meaning that if no one does anything, after 9-10 turns, you are dead while your opponent is at full HP.
8:38 There was that gimmicky level one aron that uses it. Here's the strategy Step 1 have hippowdon or tyranitar set up sand storm Step 2 Safely get aron on the field. Very important that Aron must be at full health. Step 3 use endeavor. This move makes your opponents health equal to yours. Since you are moving second you will take damage and since your defenses are very low you will get knocked down to one health but don't die due to sturdy. Step 4 win. Aron lives on one health with sturdy assuming that pokemon with moldbreaker, teravolt, or turbo blaze isn't on the enemy team and the pokemon doesn't know a move that specifically ignores abilities like photon geyser or sunsteel strike (as if shedinja doesn't have enough problems) The shell bell will always heal aron back to full health since level 100 pokemon have way more health than a level 1 ever could. As for that last hit point of damage that's what the sandstorm is for. Obviously this strategy has some issues such as ghost types being immune to endeavor, certain types are immune to sandstorm (steel, rock, and ground types), entry hazard removal may not always be possible, opponent can change the weather etc.
Shell Bell & Enigma Berry, despite not seen often in competitive, are vital tools and widely used in alternate Pokemon games like Emerald Kaizo and PokeRogue
One way of solving the problems of long drawn out battles, is to have a background mechanic that tracks stuff like regenerations and number of turns. And if certain thresholds are surpassed, certain gameplay are added, that shorten the game: Things like exhaustion or environmental conditions could start happening to prevent the battle from continuing to be drawn out.
7:52 even with 100% health gained from drain punch each hit has a chance to be a critical hit. Out of 16 turns odds are at least one drain punch is going to be a critical hit. Critical hits are 50% stronger than normal hits and bypass most stat increases(eviolite and assault vest being the exception) however negative stat modifiers still apply This scenario requires both players to be completely out of other iron bundle answers (because otherwise why rely on getting a lucky critical when you have more reliable answers) and decided that banking on a critical hit is the only way to win.
Seeing Chansey in the thumbnail honestly made me think this was gonna be about the Metal Slime archetype and I was like "Wait, how can that break Pokémon?"
I'm surprised that you didn't mention that there is an Endless Battle Clause implemented on Pokémon Showdown, forbidding the use of strategies which purposefully extend battles, like the famous Funbro set. :D Funbro is a Slowbro with Heal Pulse, Slack Off, Block and Recycle holding a Leppa Berry. Block traps the opponent, Heal Pulse counteracts the opponent's Struggle damage and Slowbro keeps itself healthy with Slack Off and by recycling the Leppa Berry, restoring 10 PP of a move as soon as it's running out.
@@flamenami Where? He only mentioned regular slowbro, not funbro from what I've seen, and the 1k+ turn matches could be ended by either player, while a succesful funbro strat can't end, as funbro disables the opponents ability to switch and makes both mons immortal
@@weirdidiot4616 Well Funbro is just an example. Anything trapping opponent, healing opponent and itself while restoring pp infinitely would work. That’s why endless battle clause is there
Man, I've been following you and stema since the first vid you made about it, it got randomly recommended to me by RUclips and I've hooked and invented on stema ever since, we were only like 1000 people subscribed and your mic was bad lol, and it's crazy how good you have gotten at editing in such a short time, i often rewatch your vids/have them as background while i do other things and i noticed the jump in quality, I'm so happy for you n0Rtist! Also, I'm really happy that stema is getting made into a game and that we got to the point of having demo footage! I know it's gonna be a while until it's finished, but I'm still glad i got to see you go from "this is stema, my creature collector i want to make into a game someday" to "this is stema, my creature collector I'm making into a game", can't wait to hear you say "this is stema, my creature collector game"
Thorns is another sleeper mechanic. Reflect or do dmg back to the attacker, usually just to close range/melee. Combine it with healing or combat regen and u've got a recipe for disaster. In a group/team game u can potentially just deal with the ither targets and team up on the thorns (tank) at the end. But really nasty for 1v1* scenarios. One trick ponies can be cool with it, but again risk becomjng OP. Many a MOBA player has flashbacks to Singed(LoL) or Bristleback and Axe (DotA) walking into a crowd yelling "why u hitting urself?"
I mean defensive Pokemon is good. You need help when making defensive Pokemon. It's not as easy as making a legendary Pokemon that hits hard and fast. I for one like toxapex.
@@peshomighty5051 Toxapex paid for its crimes in gen 8 when I got to witness the incredibly glorious moment of Chi-Yu ohkoing it in sun. I know n0rtist is rightfully complaining about stall, but he should also complain about the other (more serious) side of powercreep that is obscene hyper-offensive. Stall struggled so much in early Gen 9, it only thrived again once they banned like 20 offensive mons that would obliterate anything in their path.
@@derpychicken2131 i think stall is easier to hate on than hyper-offense because of purely cosmetic and psychological reasons. at least with sweeps people can believe there's "action" being taken, while the opposite is perceived of defensive playstyles. This is more of a general observation, since something similar occurs with fighting games where relatively "defensive" archetypes and playstyles (zoning, big body grapplers, turtling) are seen as less valid or more annoying than more offensive playstyles (rushdown) When a "defensive" archetype is genuinely viable (NRS Zoners like Batman, Fujin, or Kabal, Beowulf in Skullgirls as a top tier grappler), there's a lot more vitriol than a rushdown being oppressively top tier (Zero's Lightning Loops)
I feel like you could probably talk about Pokédollars. They ALMOST create a fair system where you need to wager your items in order to limit how many healing and X items you buy, but also Pokéballs cost as much as a potion so if you don’t catch anything, the balance is completely destroyed. Plus, Meowth. Enough said.
You could make a Telomeres base game mechanic where you can only regen so much HP, either by losing a portion of your max heal or having access to only 1.5 or 2 time you max hp to regen so you can only go back to 100% a limited amount of time
The Shell Bell is incredible for Raids in Sword and Shield and Scarlet and Violet, similar to the Stellar Type added in the DLC, very useful when your raid target has many times the usual HP, especially if you buff your attacking stats.
I know they are pretty much never used, but considering how in depth this video went, I can't help but notice how Aqua Ring and Ingrain weren't mentioned.
I like the rest to recharge mechanic, but you could also have a basic attack that does not require atp, all stema have it and it is incredibly weak, heck it would be nice to be able to defeat a stema with a final no aro move to conserve atp until you are in a place to recover it
Interesting how you didn't even mention the biggest sin, which is Leppa Berry, an item so broken that there are entire teams built around using it to create battles that can never end.
here is how I would do it: you could do like egg groups for atp regeneration, some will not regen others might regen 4 (but never 5) and balance mons around that. like a strong legendary might regen 0 or 1 but a fast glass canon will regen 4. resting instead could regen atp according to the natural atp - so 4 atp group will regen 6 (1.5 times) and 0 atp regen group will regen 1 or 2 (you can put a minimum amount of regen) the accumulation of those mechanics will make mons with low atp regen stronger for short bursts but vulnerable at long game and fast regen will be better at long setups (which you could counter with the low atp group)
Regenerator was originally on offensive mons such as mienfoo, (although they gave it as a hidden ability to defensive mons the same generation) and I think that it's a lot more manageable when it's like that, and that that's how it was meant to be. Also, heal block needs to be a side of the field thing, so that it not only stops regenerator, but also makes it so that it isn't easily gotten rid of by switching.
I would probably do something like limit recoverable HP, as example. Now, this could take a few forms, one of which is that only X percent of damage taken can be recovered in the middle of battle, and either that is a universally fixed amount, or moves and/or creatures can have a stat that determines how much HP is long-term knocked out. Another is that only the last X number of hits taken can be recovered from in a fight, allowing for multi-hit attacks to quickly come up against that limit. That said, moves that are more effective when your partner/team is badly hurt might add a layer of strategy: Do you exploit that effect, risking KO from the upcoming opposing attack if it doesn't stop it, or try to keep your health up? (The 'right' answer might vary with the team.) An example for such a move is Minus Strike, which deals damage based on the difference between maximum and current HP. (It also tends to be used by those who also have an HP-consuming or recoil-damage attack, to prepare it.) Depending on how high HP goes, however, you might want to cap it to some amount. (E.G. for Megaman Battle Network's recurring Muramasa chip, which is a sword that performs, effectively, a Minus Strike, later installments limit the maximum damage it can do to 500 where the final boss would have somewhere around 2000 to 3000, as it becomes easier to increase Max HP compared to earlier installments, as the first game that has a 'customizer' mechanic that allows for increased stats, including Max HP, was also the last one with the higher damage cap of 999.)
The method to fix regenerator is to make the ability to shut off the opponent’s ability more competitively viable Of course this has to be balanced because otherwise whole teams based around certain abilities (mainly weather and terrain focused teams) would become less competitive (but some might say that it’s a sacrifice they are willing to make if it means denying Incineroar’s intimidate)
The method to fix Regenerator is to make switching demand far more commitment. In Yo-Kai Watch 3, every monster has a Wait Time that prevents them from just switching in and out easily. They have to go through a cooldown so every switch forces the player to think or put them in a bad position. Something like Toxapex would be monumentally weaker under such a system cuz it would likely be giving one of the biggest Wait Times and be forced to wait 7 "turns" just to switch in again as opposed to being so easily able to switch in and switch out as it does in Pokemon's system.
@@DrCoeloCephalo A Pokemon needing to use a move before it can be switched out could be helpful, better than just having a Pokemon sent in and then returned without doing anything (the exception being the first turn of a match so that a trainer isn’t forced into a bad start-up just because they couldn’t predict what Pokemon the opponent would send out)
a way to balance healing could be having healed hp acting as a sort of blood clot, where it is more vulnerable to damage than normal hp, but can properly heal into regular health with time. something similar could apply to atp
Stall cores nowadays usually run boots tho Also I love the continued usage of the tubby vs ABR match to show healing, especially considering the staller (who wanted the game to be called a draw because 1000 turns was too much, even for him) lost
Breloom has a ton of ways to recover health. In doubles, it's partner can poison it. It has the poison heal ability. It also gets leech seed, it can hold leftovers. It learns draining moves (drain punch is the best as it's a physical attacker). It learns rest, though that would unpoison it. If it didn't have tons of weaknesses and it was bulkier, it would be annoying.
Idea: make using moves generate "gray" ATP. If you switch or use X move or however you want to allow for it to regenerate, it can only regenerate up to that point in the grey ATP bar.
One thing you could do to recover atp is every stema that isn’t active recovers a set amount of atp a turn, but switching costs atp and the cost permanently increases for that stema, the drawbacks would be discouraging back-to-back switching, and eventually switching at all, witch wouldn’t allow you to play around type advantages and attacks, but it allows you to recover atp in a reliable way, while also keeping it restricted, if an average move costs 5 atp, you would want the recovery to be 5 atp, so you can use 1 move per turn recovering, of course some moves will cost more/less depending on power. I’m assuming you want the matches to reliably end in 30-ish turns at the latest, and that you will have a party of 5 stemas to use (just a round number idk how many your using) this will allow you to recover a total of 300 atp at the most in a match, if you don’t switch, witch you want some amount of switching to prevent damage, and if you don’t switch you eventually die anyway, forcing out a stema and lowering the amount you could possibly recover, the trick would be that you would have to make any healing options cost more atp than the health healed, such as having a move heal you to full, but cost twice the amount healed in atp (this type of move would interact with the atp system you described by losing 2 health for every health healed if you were short on atp, ex healing 10 hp, losing 16 atp, then losing 4 health for the atp overdraw), this way you could never outheal damage while still gaining net atp, obviously these numbers aren’t balanced, but the concept still applies.
The way you described your ATP regen system is kinda similar to Loomian Legacy’s Energy system where you can choose to Wait out the turn to restore a little energy, or choose to Rest that turn, restoring a lot of energy, but also lowering your defenses for that turn. You can always choose to do neither, and Flail instead, doing okay damage, and losing 12.5% HP, at the cost of not restoring any energy to use for attacks. One weird quirk of Flailing I wanted to mention is that it has the same priority of whatever move it failed to use and is possibly affected by Guru (this game’s version of Technician).
My initial thought was to introduce more moves like Pursuit as a potential counter to excessive switching. I do think the strategic advantage of switching between Pokemon has value and should be preserved, though cases where a player is encouraged to continuously switch rather than engage the opponent should probably have some counterplay. Imagine my surprise to find out that Pursuit has been removed from the recent two generations of Pokemon games. I haven't played competitively in a long time so I don't know if there are other moves that've been introduced to help (those types of moves tend not to help as much in single-player content so I often forget about them), but the fact that the move is no longer usable makes me hope that there's some way to address these situations. I will say that in my brief time playing online battle simulators like Showdown, there were definitely people who, whether or not it was beneficial to them, would intentionally try to stall out a battle for whatever reason (make things uncomfortable for the opponent, frustrate them, etc). It seems that every now and then, two of those types of people match up against each other and it becomes a match of who has the longer patience, hence the 1000+ turn battles where nothing happens. Here's a story that involved recovery moves and light stalling. I was in a random match where I was down to just my Milotic who knew Recover, Scald, Ice Beam, and a fourth move that isn't important. My opponent had two Pokemon, I don't remember which they were but their active Pokemon took neutral damage from my Ice Beam while their reserve Pokemon was weak to it. I think both of their Pokemon resisted my Scald, but if it came down to the wire, my Milotic could out-stall their active Pokemon and could defeat their reserve Pokemon with Ice Beam, but not with Scald and I would likely be defeated if it came in with a clean switch. For this part of the story, it's mildly important to mention that I was playing on Pokemon Online, not Showdown. Showdown shows your opponent's moves after they've been seen once in the battle, as well as how many PP they have left. Pokemon Online doesn't, much like the games themselves. So while I was using Ice Beam against their active Pokemon, I decided to switch to Scald. They must've assumed that I ran out of PP for Ice Beam, and switched into their reserve Pokemon. They successfully tanked a Scald, but I hit them with an Ice Beam for the KO on the next turn, bringing us back to a situation I would eventually win because I could out-stall with Recover. I believe they said "lol good one" and forfeit shortly afterwards. Don't take this story as me bragging about my skills, I lost most of my battles :V
to me, the way I'd handle items in multiplayer is that I would let players take copies of 3 items they own into multiplayer battles, but only 3 items. Stronger NPC encounters would also follow this rule, as items add a new layer of strategy to the game. The reason they'd be copies of the items is that the items would not be used up in the singleplayer campaign when used in multiplayer, but the player would still need to own at least one copy of the item to be able to take it into multiplayer, this would be to balance it so low level multiplayer battles use low level items ideally. Also, I do think there should be a way to recover ATP, as it can be balanced in different ways. My idea for how to handle recovering "MP" for my own mon game idea is an attack that deals minimal damage regardless of type, and recovers some MP. It counters stall tactics because it would be possible to use equipment or an "ability" to buff this weak attack to inflict status effects or lay out hazards. This is also how I can have immunities to main type moves, because there's always this weak attack that can always deal some damage, that all mons have access to. It would still be weaker than other attacking moves that cost "mp"
An idea for ATP could be to go for an analogy of aerobic vs. anaerobic respiration - hard for me to imagine the exact mechanic without a full understanding of the rest of battle mechanics, but perhaps hp can be "oxygen" in this case - introduce an action in battle that if you're low on hp, produces a little bit of atp at the cost of 1 turn; but if you're high on hp, it produces a bunch and takes 2 turns
maybe make it so that when recovering ATP, you lose any amount of max ATP you see reasonable after all, if you're in the middle of a fist fight, you can catch quick breaks here and there all you want, but they will never restore you nearly as much as the 5 minute nap you took before the fight
The way that the Pokemon TCG handled this is interesting in relation to the main games - stronger cards have a "retreat cost" that must be paid in specific Energy cards, themselves a random and limited resource. Energy cards must also be discarded for certain powerful card attacks as well. So I wonder - what if it cost PP to switch? That seems to be what you've ended up with, so I'm definitely looking forward to trying it out someday.
It's been a while since I played the TCG, I had forgotten about that. It might be interesting to implement that somehow in the main games. The way I see it, it would have to either drain PP from the move with the highest or lowest amount (highest would be more convenient for casual play, lowest would make it a riskier option since those tend to be more impactful moves), or it could be random and you have to decide whether to roll the dice. Maybe it only applies to competitive battling modes as an anti-stall measure and it has no effect on most of single-player (it would still affect the Battle Tower or similar areas). Maybe a Pokemon is forced to Struggle or something like it if it tries to switch without any moves that have PP, meaning they'd eventually start to lose health and the battle wouldn't be able to go on forever. It might give more of an incentive to moves like Roar or Circle Throw if they also reduced the PP of the opposing Pokemon, though it's a worthy question whether it should apply to normal switches, forced ones, or both. There's certainly a couple of ways to go about it.
maybe the number of rests can be limited, and you can use items based on the Stema’s type (ie kindling for fire or a banana/brain food for psychic) to increase the amount of rests/waits? because you can’t produce atp from nothing, you need some kind of fuel to produce energy
This reminds me of (according to smthn I heard and my shoddy memory) how, apparently, in one of the very first games you could technically win against one of the elite fours dragonites with a mf zubat bc the opposing dragonite would continually try to use its most affective move on the zubat but it was an effect move (like it lowered defense or smthn I forget what specifically) so, I guess because the AI never ran out of PP, and it would keep trying to use the most affective move, this meant that even if your zubat could only use leech life and only dealt 1 damage, so long as you had enough PP restoring items, you could whittle that dragonite down until it fainted at the hand of your Level Five Zubat. Which, gotta say, absolute baller move on anyone who actually dedicated the time and effort into figuring out if that really worked in game. (Again I could be entirely incorrect and remembering wrong, feel free to correct me, I do like learning new stuff abt this franchise all the time)
As a programmer, game developer and game designer, I really think you are wasting alot of potential going to Pokemon's unbalanced systems for notes. Yo-Kai Watch is a monster collector with a ton of healing and tank support. They can even revive allies more consistently than Pokenon does woth Healing Wish or Revival Blessing. They are automatically not that good in meta because of the 3v3 system making it easier for hyper offensive teams to outdamage any healing. What is more is that official competitive in YKW3 has a timer that makes battles only last 5 minutes before going to Sudden Death. Stalling out means nothing if you do not build with that in mind and the opponent has more monsters or something that can snowball. Stall is a respectable off-meta gimmick strategy in YKW3's system as opposed to Pokemon making it an obnoxious slog.
There's a Yo-Kai Watch meta?! Also, though I agree that one shouldn't focus too much on Pokémon for taking notes about the design (though it's still good to pay attention to it, it's one of the lomgest-running and more complete monster catchers), I don't think Yo-Kai Watch is a good example, since its combat system is radically different to both Pokémon and what is intended with Stema. It isn't even turn based!
@@sinisternorimaki It technically is. The Yo-Kai make their actions in a turn order. It is just done very differently from Pokemon. If being longer running mattered, the older monster collectors like Dragon Quest and Shin Megami Tensei deserve way more attention and game design notes especially since their more recent entries in their respective series have improved on their turn based systems to make Pokemon look slow and outdated and even newer monster collectors like Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth have much better turn based design. Why should it matter if it is turn based anyway as long as it is fun, engaging and rewards player freedom? PalWorld was certainly not turn based and the sales were not hurt by that. Pokemon is never really praised for its gameplay or game design. It is praised fir marketability of its character designs. Take that away and there is really nothing noteworthy about its gameplay, game design or systems. It has massive overlap between monsters that trivialize using some of them, gameplay is not that engaging and you have to actively play worse and suboptimal via Nuzlockes (a feature other games are actually progrsmming into their systems), competitive teambuilds as proven by the data get incredibly samey to boot. Pretty much none of thpse issues among many others do not really exist in Yo-Kai Watch. Even without Dragon Quest, Shin Megami Temsei or Yo-Kai Watch, games like Nexomon, Coromon, Disc Creatures, Monster Sanctuary and Cassette Beasts among others have shown there are numerous improvements that could be made to a turn based system.
I feel like diminishing returns and hard limits are the best way to curb these potential infinite strategies. If I was a competitive-minded member of the Pokemon staff, I would make it so Regenerator only works once or restores less and less HP with each use, and make HP/PP-restoring Berries regained using Recycle/Harvest lose half of their efficiency each time they're remade. As for my pitch how to do it with Stema, I suggest make it so resting restores 1 less ATP each time.
22:44 you gave it beast boost. I know that you won’t be using Pokémon abilities, but if you have it a ability like beast boost with a Pokémon with that much HP, it would be the per effect staller.
Here’s an idea for how I’d buff Slaking: Whenever it misses a turn due to Truant, it recovers an eighth of its max HP. This gives it a lot of staying power, and makes Truant more balanced than an overtuned drawback ability that’s literally the only thing keeping an absolute monster of a Pokémon from being viable.
For the ATB restoring ability, maybe have it cost HP if they have no ATB left, or make it so that the creature gets reduced defences after restoring their ATB
Since you're planning to put the Zodiac Beasts in another chapter, may I suggest a Zodiac Beast. One that's based on Ophiuchus, the secret 13th Zodiac that's based off of snakes. This Beast would be the de facto "leader" of the beasts.
There is a game on Roblox with a similar PP system called Loomian Legacy, it works in a really interesting way where it takes a turn for a short rest where you gain a small amount of energy and lose a turn and a stronger rest where you gain a large chunk of energy but at the cost of making it so you take more damage in that turn than if you short rested, making it so that rest has risk and reward would be far more interesting for you game rather than, if you run outta atp, you gotta give up HP to continue fights, unless atp pools will be fairly large
I love how every time we get to a Zodiac Beast you say which sign it's based off of and say "If you are X you will... Have a nice day today." without fail
Well, I guess eventually, everyone will get to have a good day.
I thought he added the Zodiac beasts during the birthday periods the videos were released. Aquarius doesn't make sense for this month though, so it's just a silly gag I was trying to draw a pattern for. Funny either way
To be truely accurate to horoscopes, he needs to select exactly one sign to say will have an inexplicably horrible day... But that it will get better by the end.
@@theapexsurvivor9538 Probably Scorpio
@@TheSeptetdamn. it tracks though 😔 (Scorpio)
The fact that alolan exeggutor stretches off screen, even when curved in your unique spritework, made me chuckle.
I like it too a lot because that's also how we see Alolan exeggutor most of the time in pokemon itself, given this is a Gen 9 problem since the Alola games accounted for the sheer height of this pokemon and adjusted the camera accordingly but in Scarlet/Violet the camera struggles a lot to keep the whole pokemon on screen even in the battle stadium where the camera is in a more fixed position
Can't forget the anaerobic ability, which passively allows for atp regeneration
And fun bro he is a menace
An idea for the ATP: you can only regenerate it if you haven't run out. That way, while you are still doomed you run out if ATP, it's possible to stoo yourself getting in the situation.
Anyway, high quality video as always!
I love things that you recover them if you didn't emptied it
What if it costs five, and gives 10 at the end of the turn, so it still nets 5.
@@gumballcomics That could work too ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Stoo
This right here! It punishes you harder for over extending. Adds a choice of to go for a kill and run out of ATP or to rest for longevity while giving your opponent a turn. I think this would be a great way to do this mechanic
I do actually like the idea of Hydrarius being the most common zodiac beast purely because its parts don't always die when cut off, so it just squirms its way around the stemmaverse after a fight, win or lose.
The legendary stema will just be a bunch of beakers filled with glowy liquid that evolves into an actual chemisty set
Great point on the heal stalling. One word of caution about the ATP system you mentioned though. I recently played this gatcha game called Takt Op (and it is end of service so no longer playable), where they had a stamina system that would essentially make you do less damage and take more damage once you ran out. But the system was so limited that you'd run out of stamina in about 5 turns. So the game very quickly became a DPS check that encouraged builds to one shot enemy teams. Pretty sure that hurt the game in the long run since it limited you to just one play style (be as aggressive as possible). In theory I like the idea of an ATP system, in practice I'd be a bit more weary. Best of luck though, sounds like a cool project!
13:09 is the funniest thing ever. The emotion in the little dude, the change in tone, perfect
3:58 And it has a small *_POWER POINT_*
Best part of the video
Hey n0rtist, if you haven’t already, could you try making a stema based on HeLa cells? I think their ‘immortality’ allows for a unique design opportunity. Maybe it would be some sort of mythical-esque creature, like Mew or Jirachi, as I think the idea fits their category.
i suppose you could also form a sort of mythical/legendary backstory based on/mirroring how the original cells that the HeLa cells were derived from were taken by the physician without the consent or knowledge of their namesake, Henrietta Lacks, a black woman being treated for cervical cancer in 1951.
She died the same year and was buried in a grave that went unmarked until 2010, while her family was unaware of how her cells were being used for medical research until 1975, and to this day have never been compensated for the extraction and use of HeLa cells
@@hambor12 I’m reading Skloot’s book on Lacks, so that’s part of how I got the idea lol
Always be weary of free infinite actions. Maybe the rest option could have diminishing returns, it could recover a good amount at first, and reduced each time it's used.
this video will premiere when my local pizza shop opens which is perfect
Grab a slice for all of us while you watch my man!
I hope it tastes good
Wow
Did you get Pizza?
How was the pizza like? :D
Another possible solution to the idea of games going on for too long is a mechanic I call "instability". Once the turn counter has passed some arbitrary amount, instability begins to rise. More ATP will be consumed, and less will be restored. As turns go on and instability gets higher, these effects grow in severity, and new effects are introduced, such as everything taking more damage, and even losing HP over time. This would require careful balancing to make sure it all feels fair, but I think it's an idea worth looking into
This could be dangerous as stall teams would plan strategies keep ATP and health higher so when the instability starts the aggressive player would likely have less ATP and would lose health first. This would give stall a way to defeat opponents without having any attacking options by just stalling until instability starts and therefore it would basically give them a free toxic just for stalling. As was shown in the video, a dedicated staller will have options to defeat something like this (ex: slowbro with regenerator) while attackers would be the real victims.
Counter switching
(Idea)
Pokemon have a dark type move "Pursuit" that deals more damage when a pokemon switches out, and it deals damage before a pokemon can switch out. It's great to counter psychic type with regenarator. Though with the latest mechanic of changing types, (a possible solution should be to create a similar move to Pursuit but with different types).
There's also binding moves that prevent switching unless they have switching moves or items that switches them in battle.
Trapping abilities like using arena trap, shadow tag, or magnet pull that were showcased to prevent switching out, but rules ban most of them, so yeah...
There are some abilities that negate an opponent's ability, like mold breaker, but it is in an attacking format, so it won't negate the regenerator ability. (Maybe create an ability that negates Abilities when they enter the battle or as long as they are in the field, abilities will not work.)
(Other options were to nerf regenerator or ban the ability or create a dark terrain field type that prevents any form of healing from occurring. )
2nd to last option is literally just neutralizing gas
Here's my suggestion:
Have the rest mechanic put some moderate penalty on top. For example, each time you rest, now your moves cost more ATP for the rest of the match. Allows stalling, but not infinitely.
3:54 "This move is balanced with a very small distribution and a small -pp- *POWER POINT* "
You could create a restless status for your ame to counter the rest button.
On the rest button being an unlimited action, look up Pokemon Wonder Battle.
I suggested in the last video to contemplate the other forms of biological energy storage compounds and energy acquisition methods (though not in those exact words.)
But having looked back at pokemon's past alternative battle systems I have found something both beautiful and distressing, the *[Wonder Battle]* from Gen5.
I think fossil fighters found a really interesting way to do it in where at the beginning of every turn you got a certain number of energy points dependent upon your Fighter (character) level, and each of the maximum of three dinosaurs that you have on your team only gets to attack once per turn, you can redistribute that energy that you're given in any way between the variety of moves that those three dinosaurs will have so you can do something like a big AOE attack that takes a hundred energy, a singular Target attack that takes another 50 energy, and maybe a final attack that Force balances the energy that you have and the energy your enemy has so that way you can recover some of that lost energy and move into the next turn while not only handicapping the opponent but giving yourself extra energy for next turn for a stronger attack combination, but that's just one of the combos you can do with a specific setup of dinosaurs, the roster is like 170 something deep and each of them feel unique to a degree so I think the way they did their battle system lends itself well to the fairly self-contained roster and relatively small move pool per creature
Gotta add here that leech seed only creates a stalemate if the opponents have the same HP.
If you use leech seed on a Pokémon with 200 health, you'd get 25 hp each turn. But if you have 400 health and that Pokémon uses leech seed on you, they will be healed 50 hp each turn. Meaning that if no one does anything, after 9-10 turns, you are dead while your opponent is at full HP.
8:38 There was that gimmicky level one aron that uses it.
Here's the strategy
Step 1 have hippowdon or tyranitar set up sand storm
Step 2 Safely get aron on the field. Very important that Aron must be at full health.
Step 3 use endeavor. This move makes your opponents health equal to yours. Since you are moving second you will take damage and since your defenses are very low you will get knocked down to one health but don't die due to sturdy.
Step 4 win. Aron lives on one health with sturdy assuming that pokemon with moldbreaker, teravolt, or turbo blaze isn't on the enemy team and the pokemon doesn't know a move that specifically ignores abilities like photon geyser or sunsteel strike (as if shedinja doesn't have enough problems)
The shell bell will always heal aron back to full health since level 100 pokemon have way more health than a level 1 ever could. As for that last hit point of damage that's what the sandstorm is for.
Obviously this strategy has some issues such as ghost types being immune to endeavor, certain types are immune to sandstorm (steel, rock, and ground types), entry hazard removal may not always be possible, opponent can change the weather etc.
3:58 love how he was about to say small pp but immediately changed it to power point😂
Thank you for the great sign-off/outro. You have given my day some much needed positivity
Shell Bell & Enigma Berry, despite not seen often in competitive, are vital tools and widely used in alternate Pokemon games like Emerald Kaizo and PokeRogue
One way of solving the problems of long drawn out battles, is to have a background mechanic that tracks stuff like regenerations and number of turns.
And if certain thresholds are surpassed, certain gameplay are added, that shorten the game:
Things like exhaustion or environmental conditions could start happening to prevent the battle from continuing to be drawn out.
Minor mistake correction;
Heal Order was removed in Generation 8, and thus was not subject to the recovery nerf. Its PP should still be 32.
7:52 even with 100% health gained from drain punch each hit has a chance to be a critical hit. Out of 16 turns odds are at least one drain punch is going to be a critical hit.
Critical hits are 50% stronger than normal hits and bypass most stat increases(eviolite and assault vest being the exception) however negative stat modifiers still apply
This scenario requires both players to be completely out of other iron bundle answers (because otherwise why rely on getting a lucky critical when you have more reliable answers) and decided that banking on a critical hit is the only way to win.
9:00 Corviknight with Mirror Armour can't deal with it because their attack will never go down, meaning Strength Sap can be used for a set HP boost
"But this move is balanced by having a very small distribution aaand a small P... POWER POINT" ~ This had me ROLLING on the floor XD
Seeing Chansey in the thumbnail honestly made me think this was gonna be about the Metal Slime archetype and I was like "Wait, how can that break Pokémon?"
I'm surprised that you didn't mention that there is an Endless Battle Clause implemented on Pokémon Showdown, forbidding the use of strategies which purposefully extend battles, like the famous Funbro set. :D
Funbro is a Slowbro with Heal Pulse, Slack Off, Block and Recycle holding a Leppa Berry. Block traps the opponent, Heal Pulse counteracts the opponent's Struggle damage and Slowbro keeps itself healthy with Slack Off and by recycling the Leppa Berry, restoring 10 PP of a move as soon as it's running out.
He did mention it.
@@flamenami Where? He only mentioned regular slowbro, not funbro from what I've seen, and the 1k+ turn matches could be ended by either player, while a succesful funbro strat can't end, as funbro disables the opponents ability to switch and makes both mons immortal
@@weirdidiot461613:46 There is screenshot of endless battle clause from showdown. It's not mentioned by name but at least it's there
@@olafmikoaj3121 Oh I thought flamenami meant funbro, not the endless clause
@@weirdidiot4616 Well Funbro is just an example. Anything trapping opponent, healing opponent and itself while restoring pp infinitely would work. That’s why endless battle clause is there
Man, I've been following you and stema since the first vid you made about it, it got randomly recommended to me by RUclips and I've hooked and invented on stema ever since, we were only like 1000 people subscribed and your mic was bad lol, and it's crazy how good you have gotten at editing in such a short time, i often rewatch your vids/have them as background while i do other things and i noticed the jump in quality, I'm so happy for you n0Rtist!
Also, I'm really happy that stema is getting made into a game and that we got to the point of having demo footage! I know it's gonna be a while until it's finished, but I'm still glad i got to see you go from "this is stema, my creature collector i want to make into a game someday" to "this is stema, my creature collector I'm making into a game", can't wait to hear you say "this is stema, my creature collector game"
Thorns is another sleeper mechanic. Reflect or do dmg back to the attacker, usually just to close range/melee. Combine it with healing or combat regen and u've got a recipe for disaster. In a group/team game u can potentially just deal with the ither targets and team up on the thorns (tank) at the end. But really nasty for 1v1* scenarios.
One trick ponies can be cool with it, but again risk becomjng OP. Many a MOBA player has flashbacks to Singed(LoL) or Bristleback and Axe (DotA) walking into a crowd yelling "why u hitting urself?"
Man what a crazy first video to see from you, but the one that shows off my own star sign: Aquarius
Stall villain reveal? 😳
I mean defensive Pokemon is good. You need help when making defensive Pokemon. It's not as easy as making a legendary Pokemon that hits hard and fast. I for one like toxapex.
@@peshomighty5051 Offensive svveeper toxapex
@@peshomighty5051 Toxapex paid for its crimes in gen 8 when I got to witness the incredibly glorious moment of Chi-Yu ohkoing it in sun. I know n0rtist is rightfully complaining about stall, but he should also complain about the other (more serious) side of powercreep that is obscene hyper-offensive. Stall struggled so much in early Gen 9, it only thrived again once they banned like 20 offensive mons that would obliterate anything in their path.
@@derpychicken2131 i think stall is easier to hate on than hyper-offense because of purely cosmetic and psychological reasons. at least with sweeps people can believe there's "action" being taken, while the opposite is perceived of defensive playstyles.
This is more of a general observation, since something similar occurs with fighting games where relatively "defensive" archetypes and playstyles (zoning, big body grapplers, turtling) are seen as less valid or more annoying than more offensive playstyles (rushdown)
When a "defensive" archetype is genuinely viable (NRS Zoners like Batman, Fujin, or Kabal, Beowulf in Skullgirls as a top tier grappler), there's a lot more vitriol than a rushdown being oppressively top tier (Zero's Lightning Loops)
I feel like you could probably talk about Pokédollars. They ALMOST create a fair system where you need to wager your items in order to limit how many healing and X items you buy, but also Pokéballs cost as much as a potion so if you don’t catch anything, the balance is completely destroyed. Plus, Meowth. Enough said.
You could make a Telomeres base game mechanic where you can only regen so much HP, either by losing a portion of your max heal or having access to only 1.5 or 2 time you max hp to regen so you can only go back to 100% a limited amount of time
3:55 lol, nice save
Came down to the comments to see if anyone else caught it lmao
😁 Balanced by having a very small distribution, and a small P 😐😑 *Power point*
That stall vs stall matchup reminded me of Rhystic Studies video on Lantern Control and the concept of the Zugzwang Machine.
8:42 ITS MY BOY FERROTHORN!
9:53 lmao Rotund excadrill
The Shell Bell is incredible for Raids in Sword and Shield and Scarlet and Violet, similar to the Stellar Type added in the DLC, very useful when your raid target has many times the usual HP, especially if you buff your attacking stats.
I like the way you edit your videos, very well done!
I know they are pretty much never used, but considering how in depth this video went, I can't help but notice how Aqua Ring and Ingrain weren't mentioned.
I like the rest to recharge mechanic, but you could also have a basic attack that does not require atp, all stema have it and it is incredibly weak, heck it would be nice to be able to defeat a stema with a final no aro move to conserve atp until you are in a place to recover it
Interesting how you didn't even mention the biggest sin, which is Leppa Berry, an item so broken that there are entire teams built around using it to create battles that can never end.
There could be a rotom clone that is based on the simple machines
here is how I would do it:
you could do like egg groups for atp regeneration, some will not regen others might regen 4 (but never 5) and balance mons around that.
like a strong legendary might regen 0 or 1 but a fast glass canon will regen 4.
resting instead could regen atp according to the natural atp - so 4 atp group will regen 6 (1.5 times) and 0 atp regen group will regen 1 or 2 (you can put a minimum amount of regen)
the accumulation of those mechanics will make mons with low atp regen stronger for short bursts but vulnerable at long game and fast regen will be better at long setups (which you could counter with the low atp group)
I just wanted to say that i really appreciate your work its really interesting
I just want to add that on showdown, when the OM of the month was shared power, the best team was harvest spam and was absolute HELL
Regenerator was originally on offensive mons such as mienfoo, (although they gave it as a hidden ability to defensive mons the same generation) and I think that it's a lot more manageable when it's like that, and that that's how it was meant to be.
Also, heal block needs to be a side of the field thing, so that it not only stops regenerator, but also makes it so that it isn't easily gotten rid of by switching.
I would probably do something like limit recoverable HP, as example. Now, this could take a few forms, one of which is that only X percent of damage taken can be recovered in the middle of battle, and either that is a universally fixed amount, or moves and/or creatures can have a stat that determines how much HP is long-term knocked out. Another is that only the last X number of hits taken can be recovered from in a fight, allowing for multi-hit attacks to quickly come up against that limit.
That said, moves that are more effective when your partner/team is badly hurt might add a layer of strategy: Do you exploit that effect, risking KO from the upcoming opposing attack if it doesn't stop it, or try to keep your health up? (The 'right' answer might vary with the team.) An example for such a move is Minus Strike, which deals damage based on the difference between maximum and current HP. (It also tends to be used by those who also have an HP-consuming or recoil-damage attack, to prepare it.) Depending on how high HP goes, however, you might want to cap it to some amount. (E.G. for Megaman Battle Network's recurring Muramasa chip, which is a sword that performs, effectively, a Minus Strike, later installments limit the maximum damage it can do to 500 where the final boss would have somewhere around 2000 to 3000, as it becomes easier to increase Max HP compared to earlier installments, as the first game that has a 'customizer' mechanic that allows for increased stats, including Max HP, was also the last one with the higher damage cap of 999.)
The method to fix regenerator is to make the ability to shut off the opponent’s ability more competitively viable
Of course this has to be balanced because otherwise whole teams based around certain abilities (mainly weather and terrain focused teams) would become less competitive
(but some might say that it’s a sacrifice they are willing to make if it means denying Incineroar’s intimidate)
The method to fix Regenerator is to make switching demand far more commitment.
In Yo-Kai Watch 3, every monster has a Wait Time that prevents them from just switching in and out easily. They have to go through a cooldown so every switch forces the player to think or put them in a bad position.
Something like Toxapex would be monumentally weaker under such a system cuz it would likely be giving one of the biggest Wait Times and be forced to wait 7 "turns" just to switch in again as opposed to being so easily able to switch in and switch out as it does in Pokemon's system.
@@DrCoeloCephalo
A Pokemon needing to use a move before it can be switched out could be helpful, better than just having a Pokemon sent in and then returned without doing anything (the exception being the first turn of a match so that a trainer isn’t forced into a bad start-up just because they couldn’t predict what Pokemon the opponent would send out)
a way to balance healing could be having healed hp acting as a sort of blood clot, where it is more vulnerable to damage than normal hp, but can properly heal into regular health with time. something similar could apply to atp
13:06 I will always love this scene
actual gold
Stall cores nowadays usually run boots tho
Also I love the continued usage of the tubby vs ABR match to show healing, especially considering the staller (who wanted the game to be called a draw because 1000 turns was too much, even for him) lost
Breloom has a ton of ways to recover health. In doubles, it's partner can poison it. It has the poison heal ability. It also gets leech seed, it can hold leftovers. It learns draining moves (drain punch is the best as it's a physical attacker). It learns rest, though that would unpoison it. If it didn't have tons of weaknesses and it was bulkier, it would be annoying.
Not me recognizing Psychic Noise before he even mentioned psychic noise
Got it, building heal teams.
Idea: make using moves generate "gray" ATP. If you switch or use X move or however you want to allow for it to regenerate, it can only regenerate up to that point in the grey ATP bar.
Nortis is back with a new video! I LOVE YOUR ARTSYYLE ❤️
Once you have all the zodiac beasts released it would be pretty cool for a compilation video for them
Thanks I will now make a team solely focused on regaining health. Leech seed, left overs, regenerator, drain punch, gigs drain, etc.
Google the stall bible for info on how to make a succesful stall team
It's called stall
This better be designing waifu bait. I want a video about gardevior.
Their nickname will be furrymon. Even if the stema isn't furry
What the pocket monster
He made a video about creating feminine creatures. Watch that if you want waifus
@@ikindajustexist520 that was a april fools joke, He talked about math
@@DragonTheOneDZABut gardevoir is not a furry creature.
One thing you could do to recover atp is every stema that isn’t active recovers a set amount of atp a turn, but switching costs atp and the cost permanently increases for that stema, the drawbacks would be discouraging back-to-back switching, and eventually switching at all, witch wouldn’t allow you to play around type advantages and attacks, but it allows you to recover atp in a reliable way, while also keeping it restricted, if an average move costs 5 atp, you would want the recovery to be 5 atp, so you can use 1 move per turn recovering, of course some moves will cost more/less depending on power. I’m assuming you want the matches to reliably end in 30-ish turns at the latest, and that you will have a party of 5 stemas to use (just a round number idk how many your using) this will allow you to recover a total of 300 atp at the most in a match, if you don’t switch, witch you want some amount of switching to prevent damage, and if you don’t switch you eventually die anyway, forcing out a stema and lowering the amount you could possibly recover, the trick would be that you would have to make any healing options cost more atp than the health healed, such as having a move heal you to full, but cost twice the amount healed in atp (this type of move would interact with the atp system you described by losing 2 health for every health healed if you were short on atp, ex healing 10 hp, losing 16 atp, then losing 4 health for the atp overdraw), this way you could never outheal damage while still gaining net atp, obviously these numbers aren’t balanced, but the concept still applies.
concept for the atp: you lose hp, but gain atp
every time this happens, make hp giving moves require more atp
The way you described your ATP regen system is kinda similar to Loomian Legacy’s Energy system where you can choose to Wait out the turn to restore a little energy, or choose to Rest that turn, restoring a lot of energy, but also lowering your defenses for that turn. You can always choose to do neither, and Flail instead, doing okay damage, and losing 12.5% HP, at the cost of not restoring any energy to use for attacks.
One weird quirk of Flailing I wanted to mention is that it has the same priority of whatever move it failed to use and is possibly affected by Guru (this game’s version of Technician).
Shell bell is used *a lot* in competitive
Omg it took me until 7:19 to realise you’re one of the 4 artists challenge guys 😁
Your recent viral tweet is awesome. I’ve rechecked the #abilityforms every day since!
leppa
block
heal pulse
recycle
slack off
My initial thought was to introduce more moves like Pursuit as a potential counter to excessive switching. I do think the strategic advantage of switching between Pokemon has value and should be preserved, though cases where a player is encouraged to continuously switch rather than engage the opponent should probably have some counterplay. Imagine my surprise to find out that Pursuit has been removed from the recent two generations of Pokemon games. I haven't played competitively in a long time so I don't know if there are other moves that've been introduced to help (those types of moves tend not to help as much in single-player content so I often forget about them), but the fact that the move is no longer usable makes me hope that there's some way to address these situations. I will say that in my brief time playing online battle simulators like Showdown, there were definitely people who, whether or not it was beneficial to them, would intentionally try to stall out a battle for whatever reason (make things uncomfortable for the opponent, frustrate them, etc). It seems that every now and then, two of those types of people match up against each other and it becomes a match of who has the longer patience, hence the 1000+ turn battles where nothing happens.
Here's a story that involved recovery moves and light stalling. I was in a random match where I was down to just my Milotic who knew Recover, Scald, Ice Beam, and a fourth move that isn't important. My opponent had two Pokemon, I don't remember which they were but their active Pokemon took neutral damage from my Ice Beam while their reserve Pokemon was weak to it. I think both of their Pokemon resisted my Scald, but if it came down to the wire, my Milotic could out-stall their active Pokemon and could defeat their reserve Pokemon with Ice Beam, but not with Scald and I would likely be defeated if it came in with a clean switch. For this part of the story, it's mildly important to mention that I was playing on Pokemon Online, not Showdown. Showdown shows your opponent's moves after they've been seen once in the battle, as well as how many PP they have left. Pokemon Online doesn't, much like the games themselves. So while I was using Ice Beam against their active Pokemon, I decided to switch to Scald. They must've assumed that I ran out of PP for Ice Beam, and switched into their reserve Pokemon. They successfully tanked a Scald, but I hit them with an Ice Beam for the KO on the next turn, bringing us back to a situation I would eventually win because I could out-stall with Recover. I believe they said "lol good one" and forfeit shortly afterwards.
Don't take this story as me bragging about my skills, I lost most of my battles :V
to me, the way I'd handle items in multiplayer is that I would let players take copies of 3 items they own into multiplayer battles, but only 3 items. Stronger NPC encounters would also follow this rule, as items add a new layer of strategy to the game. The reason they'd be copies of the items is that the items would not be used up in the singleplayer campaign when used in multiplayer, but the player would still need to own at least one copy of the item to be able to take it into multiplayer, this would be to balance it so low level multiplayer battles use low level items ideally.
Also, I do think there should be a way to recover ATP, as it can be balanced in different ways.
My idea for how to handle recovering "MP" for my own mon game idea is an attack that deals minimal damage regardless of type, and recovers some MP. It counters stall tactics because it would be possible to use equipment or an "ability" to buff this weak attack to inflict status effects or lay out hazards. This is also how I can have immunities to main type moves, because there's always this weak attack that can always deal some damage, that all mons have access to. It would still be weaker than other attacking moves that cost "mp"
An idea for ATP could be to go for an analogy of aerobic vs. anaerobic respiration - hard for me to imagine the exact mechanic without a full understanding of the rest of battle mechanics, but perhaps hp can be "oxygen" in this case - introduce an action in battle that if you're low on hp, produces a little bit of atp at the cost of 1 turn; but if you're high on hp, it produces a bunch and takes 2 turns
shore up is a half health healing move too
It'd probably make sense to have the ATP Regen be 3 instead of 5, if it scares you too much.
Idea for atp regen, you can only use the regen atp move if you have 0 atp, that way it’s not op but still not doomed if you run out of atp.
maybe make it so that when recovering ATP, you lose any amount of max ATP you see reasonable
after all, if you're in the middle of a fist fight, you can catch quick breaks here and there all you want, but they will never restore you nearly as much as the 5 minute nap you took before the fight
The way that the Pokemon TCG handled this is interesting in relation to the main games - stronger cards have a "retreat cost" that must be paid in specific Energy cards, themselves a random and limited resource. Energy cards must also be discarded for certain powerful card attacks as well.
So I wonder - what if it cost PP to switch? That seems to be what you've ended up with, so I'm definitely looking forward to trying it out someday.
It's been a while since I played the TCG, I had forgotten about that. It might be interesting to implement that somehow in the main games. The way I see it, it would have to either drain PP from the move with the highest or lowest amount (highest would be more convenient for casual play, lowest would make it a riskier option since those tend to be more impactful moves), or it could be random and you have to decide whether to roll the dice. Maybe it only applies to competitive battling modes as an anti-stall measure and it has no effect on most of single-player (it would still affect the Battle Tower or similar areas). Maybe a Pokemon is forced to Struggle or something like it if it tries to switch without any moves that have PP, meaning they'd eventually start to lose health and the battle wouldn't be able to go on forever. It might give more of an incentive to moves like Roar or Circle Throw if they also reduced the PP of the opposing Pokemon, though it's a worthy question whether it should apply to normal switches, forced ones, or both. There's certainly a couple of ways to go about it.
3:00 Every move has its own MP bar.
You should totally do a design based on solar sails
maybe the number of rests can be limited, and you can use items based on the Stema’s type (ie kindling for fire or a banana/brain food for psychic) to increase the amount of rests/waits?
because you can’t produce atp from nothing, you need some kind of fuel to produce energy
This reminds me of (according to smthn I heard and my shoddy memory) how, apparently, in one of the very first games you could technically win against one of the elite fours dragonites with a mf zubat bc the opposing dragonite would continually try to use its most affective move on the zubat but it was an effect move (like it lowered defense or smthn I forget what specifically) so, I guess because the AI never ran out of PP, and it would keep trying to use the most affective move, this meant that even if your zubat could only use leech life and only dealt 1 damage, so long as you had enough PP restoring items, you could whittle that dragonite down until it fainted at the hand of your Level Five Zubat. Which, gotta say, absolute baller move on anyone who actually dedicated the time and effort into figuring out if that really worked in game. (Again I could be entirely incorrect and remembering wrong, feel free to correct me, I do like learning new stuff abt this franchise all the time)
I guess technically you could use a move like Entrainment or an ability like Mummy to stop Regenerator, but those are almost never seen.
As a programmer, game developer and game designer, I really think you are wasting alot of potential going to Pokemon's unbalanced systems for notes.
Yo-Kai Watch is a monster collector with a ton of healing and tank support.
They can even revive allies more consistently than Pokenon does woth Healing Wish or Revival Blessing.
They are automatically not that good in meta because of the 3v3 system making it easier for hyper offensive teams to outdamage any healing.
What is more is that official competitive in YKW3 has a timer that makes battles only last 5 minutes before going to Sudden Death. Stalling out means nothing if you do not build with that in mind and the opponent has more monsters or something that can snowball.
Stall is a respectable off-meta gimmick strategy in YKW3's system as opposed to Pokemon making it an obnoxious slog.
There's a Yo-Kai Watch meta?!
Also, though I agree that one shouldn't focus too much on Pokémon for taking notes about the design (though it's still good to pay attention to it, it's one of the lomgest-running and more complete monster catchers), I don't think Yo-Kai Watch is a good example, since its combat system is radically different to both Pokémon and what is intended with Stema. It isn't even turn based!
@@sinisternorimaki
It technically is. The Yo-Kai make their actions in a turn order. It is just done very differently from Pokemon.
If being longer running mattered, the older monster collectors like Dragon Quest and Shin Megami Tensei deserve way more attention and game design notes especially since their more recent entries in their respective series have improved on their turn based systems to make Pokemon look slow and outdated and even newer monster collectors like Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth have much better turn based design.
Why should it matter if it is turn based anyway as long as it is fun, engaging and rewards player freedom? PalWorld was certainly not turn based and the sales were not hurt by that.
Pokemon is never really praised for its gameplay or game design. It is praised fir marketability of its character designs. Take that away and there is really nothing noteworthy about its gameplay, game design or systems.
It has massive overlap between monsters that trivialize using some of them, gameplay is not that engaging and you have to actively play worse and suboptimal via Nuzlockes (a feature other games are actually progrsmming into their systems), competitive teambuilds as proven by the data get incredibly samey to boot.
Pretty much none of thpse issues among many others do not really exist in Yo-Kai Watch.
Even without Dragon Quest, Shin Megami Temsei or Yo-Kai Watch, games like Nexomon, Coromon, Disc Creatures, Monster Sanctuary and Cassette Beasts among others have shown there are numerous improvements that could be made to a turn based system.
for the atp button make it so it has a limeted amount of times you can use it like 5-9 times
I feel like diminishing returns and hard limits are the best way to curb these potential infinite strategies. If I was a competitive-minded member of the Pokemon staff, I would make it so Regenerator only works once or restores less and less HP with each use, and make HP/PP-restoring Berries regained using Recycle/Harvest lose half of their efficiency each time they're remade.
As for my pitch how to do it with Stema, I suggest make it so resting restores 1 less ATP each time.
22:44 you gave it beast boost. I know that you won’t be using Pokémon abilities, but if you have it a ability like beast boost with a Pokémon with that much HP, it would be the per effect staller.
You could have ATP Regen slowly when the mon is in the party and not on the field.
limited switches is something ive seen bandied about
Here’s an idea for how I’d buff Slaking: Whenever it misses a turn due to Truant, it recovers an eighth of its max HP. This gives it a lot of staying power, and makes Truant more balanced than an overtuned drawback ability that’s literally the only thing keeping an absolute monster of a Pokémon from being viable.
For the ATB restoring ability, maybe have it cost HP if they have no ATB left, or make it so that the creature gets reduced defences after restoring their ATB
I think limiting switches like this is a bit too much and makes outplays less possible. Especially since the only problem is regenerator.
awesome video yeah
I love your line less art style! Not really relevant to the video but still wanted to say this!
Ability triage put priority on healing moves.
I love hydrarius with all my heart
Since you're planning to put the Zodiac Beasts in another chapter, may I suggest a Zodiac Beast. One that's based on Ophiuchus, the secret 13th Zodiac that's based off of snakes. This Beast would be the de facto "leader" of the beasts.
4:01 leppa berry is a thing so 2 revivals is possible.
There is a game on Roblox with a similar PP system called Loomian Legacy, it works in a really interesting way where it takes a turn for a short rest where you gain a small amount of energy and lose a turn and a stronger rest where you gain a large chunk of energy but at the cost of making it so you take more damage in that turn than if you short rested, making it so that rest has risk and reward would be far more interesting for you game rather than, if you run outta atp, you gotta give up HP to continue fights, unless atp pools will be fairly large