Ideas for how to make the game more interesting.

[tustin2121]

Currently planned features:

• All Pokémon only know Metronome during battle/contests.
• All Pokémon are level 100
• Player's party is healed after every battle.
• HM moves only require the HM itself and the relevant badge.
• Encounters are fully random, meaning that each wild Pokémon the player runs into can be of any species in the game.

If you have ideas on how to expand upon this concept to make the game more interesting, open an Issue

Using all of the above is definitely going to make a boring game. Here's a few suggestions I came up with to mix up things a bit:

• Several different types of Metronome move exist. This introduces some amount of strategy where otherwise it was complete random chance. For example:
  • "Cast Fire" - Selects a random move from a pool of every fire-type move, like Flamethrower, Eruption, and Will-O-Wisp.
  • "Defense" - Selects a random move from a pool of defensive boosting moves, like Light Screen, Detect, and Defense Curl.
  • "Aerial Stunt" - Selects a random move from a pool of every flying-type move, like Fly, Brave Bird, and Roost.
  • "Break Dance" - Selects a random move from a pool of every dance move, like Swords Dance, Belly Drum, and Petal Dance.
  • "Haymaker" - Selects a random move from a pool of every punch move, like Dizzy Punch, Iron Fist, and Sky Uppercut.
  • "Serenade" - Selects a random move from a pool of every sound-based move, like Sing, Echoed Voice, and Growl.
  • etc etc.
  • The names would play off "Wag Finger" and "Metronome", but also describe what selection the move chooses from. Also, OG Metronome would still exist.
  • Every move would have a self-destructive move of some sort in its pool, ranging from simple debuffs to moves like Memento and Self-Destruct.
  • I conceived the above under the assumption that we'd be leveling up during this, and that these new moves could be taught on level up. Assuming we're must stay at a fixed level for some reason, there should be reusable move tutors / TMs that taught the above moves.
• The move Transform should be included, except instead of transforming into the opponent, the pokemon transforms into another completely random pokemon. And the original palette should be kept to make the pokemon look weird.
• Player's party is healed partially after every battle, instead of fully. Perhaps base this on experience "gained" or number of pokemon defeated. Pokemon that are fainted are revived with 1 HP. Pokemon with status conditions are healed of them immediately.
  • Or the party's HP increases by 1 every 4 steps, and you don't heal at all immediately after battle (except to revive fainted pokemon and heal off status conditions).
• All nurses should be removed from Pokemon Centers. That or Centers should all be shuttered and checkpoints replaced by walking into town. Sapphire is before the post-blackout cutscene was implemented, so we don't have to worry about that.
  • If there's story changes to be had, this should be a plot point.
• Gym leaders and other important trainers need something to set them apart. Perhaps a boost a la the Totem Aura could be implemented and/or some sort of field effect that is applied at the start of battle.
• Badges and key items should be shuffled around in an order that is still possible to play but may beget backtracking. This includes to where you have to deliver certain items.
• NPCs should be shuffled around, so that characters are in unexpected roles. eg Steven is the rival, Mr. Briney is a gym leader, and Wattson is an Elite Four Member.
  • At the very least, gym leaders should be shuffled.
• Warps should be shuffled around, so that for example walking into an unsuspecting house may land you in the Aqua Base. This should perhaps be used sparingly.
  • Puzzle warps should definately be rewired.

[m4-used-rollout]

Now that the base game is done, I think we should definitely look at implementing some/all of these. Perhaps we can make a branch for this vision of Metronome Sapphire and set up a project to implement these.

Then we'll see what kind of experience we get out of it.