Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat CynicalGiant
EVs and IVs make your pokemon stronger in battle right? Maybe they will finally let us gain EVs and change IVs through happiness.
|
That's not "a new battle mechanism" though. That phrase very strongly implies a change in the way battle mechanics work. If it were a way to gain EVs and IVs it'd be a TRAINING mechanism, not a battle mechanism.
Now it is possible it's just worded improperly, seeing as it's coming directly from a guy who speaks English as a second language at best. Then again, I doubt that what he's saying on his English language blog goes unfiltered. Gamefreak isn't stupid; they KNOW fans will be watching developer blogs like this for information, and you can bet that everything he said was carefully selected.
Personally, I really have no idea what they're going to do with this. It could be all moves being affected by happiness (which just means that 255 happiness would become default on sims and frustration never seeing the light of day again, as well as more annoying damage calculations). Such a change would certainly see a revamp in how Happiness is gained, but might not really affect battles themselves.
On the other hand it could be something much more radical, like a completely new stat, or bonuses that can be applied to various areas of strength in your Pokemon like EVs can (which would certainly affect simulation more). It might not even be stat based at all and be an per-battle system, like crowd excitment in Pokemon contests in Generation 3. Do friendly/bonding/whatever actions and you build a meter for a super attack or something. Imagine how much THAT would change battles. Now I don't really find that particularly likely though, but who knows?
In game the consequences of a such a change would be much more annoying though, making the playstyle of rotating Pokemon around non-viable. I really don't see a way they can avoid that, but I really hope they do because it takes a lot of the fun out of the Pokemon games in the realm of experimentation. What fun would it be if the mechanics just made it so it was always best to pick up a bunch of Pokemon on route 1 and then just stay with those the whole game? Not much fun at all, and I hope they avoid that somehow.