Working on a sandbox Pokemon game

[mynameisumbreon]

I'm currently working on a project where 99% of the world is open to the player from the start and every Pokemon is obtainable in some capacity. I'm trying to fit as many features as possible into this game to appeal to as many playstyles as possible. My question for the community: What would you like to see out of a game like this? What makes Pokemon fun for you?

 

[Mayrin]

dynamax

 

[Astefia]

Lots of beautiful mazes to explore.
But begs the question - how do you keep with the levels? Do areas have levels or are you trying to use auto-leveling?

 

[mynameisumbreon]

Lots of beautiful mazes to explore.
But begs the question - how do you keep with the levels? Do areas have levels or are you trying to use auto-leveling?

I've got a few areas that are hopefully going to be a little more expansive and explorative than just a normal route.
As for leveling, wild pokemon are going to scale to the player's party but trainers will have set levels and, as you get more badges, more trainers will appear in the world at stronger levels. I'm debating about allowing the ability to rebattle trainers.

 

[RafaMinari]

I'm currently working on a project where 99% of the world is open to the player from the start and every Pokemon is obtainable in some capacity. I'm trying to fit as many features as possible into this game to appeal to as many playstyles as possible. My question for the community: What would you like to see out of a game like this? What makes Pokemon fun for you?

Interesting! But we would construct like minecraft? Also I love megas and contests.

 

[mynameisumbreon]

No, not construction, more like free to catch whatever and have a series of battles leading up to more challenging ones.

 

[Astralneko]

I think including past gimmicks - like Mega Evolution and Z-moves - but not pointing them out to the player might be cool. That way the player is rewarded for exploring this cave with a Normalium-Z or something to make future fights easier. Between the two there's about 85 of these items in canon, and there's no reason there can't be more exclusive Z-Crystals / Mega Evolutions if you can think of some. It'd help make more Pokémon feel more equal to each other, since all Pokémon are available in this game concept, and it would make the world have more stuff in it and seem fuller. Plus, you can sell the game as having all of the last three gens' major gimmicks (or at least the two from the 3DS era).

I also recommend that while most areas have levels based on the player's, maybe make it so that the levels of Pokémon are slightly lower / slightly higher than the party's in certain areas? This would be a good thing in tandem with the first idea to make it so that said cave with a secret item in it seems more like a challenge, to make the Z-crystal more rewarding. (Since the player can have 6 pokemon, and wild pokemon are in parties of one, having slightly higher level Pokemon than the party's in these areas isn't actually a bad thing.)