I thought of a proposal that would address some of the problems with Beldum/Magikarp.
Pokemon without access to any TMs may instead choose up to 3 Tutor or Special moves from any generation instead.
tl;dr this means Beldum gets Iron Head/Iron Defense/Zen Headbutt and Magikarp gets
Bounce/Bubble/Reversal, and Kricketott and friends get a few more moves to play around with.
As far as evolutions, I'm shutting down the Trade Evolution items idea. It requires an inordinate amount of in-game data that I'd rather just bypass.
However I will be changing evolutions to 0/6 for Two Stage and 0/9 for Three Stage. Pokemon will evolve into their second stage of a three stage line at 4/9.
The Caterpie/Weedle/Wurmple and Burmy exceptions stay. All the rest of the bugs get pretty good tutor moves and will do well under the new initial learnset rule.
The net effect of these rules will be to make Non-evolving Pokemon much more attractive, thus: Non-Evolving Pokemon will cost double their starting Rarity Points to obtain. Scyther kind of wins in this but Scyther has bar none the most exploitable type in the game.
Here are the results of this State of the Game:
New/updated mechanics:
4x Weaknesses/Resistances have been buffed to 2.25x (4x weak) and 0.44x (1/4 resist). 2x weak/resistant attacks are unchanged. A new calculatior will be released with these updates.
Chills will be increased to 12% Energy Recovery. This recovers enough energy to enable 1.5 UnSTABbed 12 Base Attack Power moves, and increases the standard amount of Energy Recovery (5 chills) in a battle from 50% to 60%. This will be reassesed at next week's SotG.
Pokemon that do not have access to any TMs may select up to 3 Tutor and Special Moves from any generation. This applies retroactively, and anyone who has such a Pokemon may apportion and use moves they would have selected if this rule were initially active. Use the Prize Claiming Thread to make these changes.
Evolution has been changed so Two Stage Pokemon require 6 EC to Evolve and Three Stage Pokemon evolve into their second form at 4 EC and their final form at 9 EC. This change applies retroactively, will devolve any Pokemon who has not reached the correct EC level, and players may reapportion all of their KO Counters and Ref Tokens put into EC if they wish. Use the Prize Claiming Thread to make these changes. They will also recover any Move Counters they used on moves the basic form of their evolved Pokemon cannot learn.
Exceptions to the above Evolution Rule: Caterpie, Weedle, and Wurmple can evolve into their second forms at 3/5 and their final forms at 5/5 EC.
Burmy can evolve to its final form at 4/4 EC.
All the other bugs and TMless mon have access to at least a few decent tutor or special moves.
Fully Evolved Single Stage Pokemon cost double (2x) their initial rarity point listing to obtain. This change is NOT retroactive and you may keep any such Pokemon you obtained this way.
Upcoming information:
A more complete Team Creation Guide will be created.
This thread will be closed in another 24 hours. Please provide any final commentary. There will be another SotG next week to assess these changes, so do not be concerned that any change made in an SotG thread is permanent.