Travelling companions in the games?

[EvilChameleon]

Normally the anime takes things from the games, but I think it's high time for the games to take something from the anime; a travelling companion that goes around the region with you. Now you no longer have to do double battles alone. They can still challenge you to a battle every so often at set points in the game.

Thoughts?

 

[Lysson]

I would love this but only if it was an option, would be nice to chose who is my partner (a defeated gym leader, rival or opposite sex player like Ethan or Calem) or create another player all together, which could happen but only in the distant future.

I loved the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games because of the partner, it felt so awesome. And in Pokemon Ranger 3 you sometimes had the opposite sex trainer accompany you which was really cool. So they could do this with future games and it is something I personally would love and probably many others.

 

[TerraTF]

I feel that the 4 from X and Y were all partners. You couldn't explore a town without being annoyed by them. And if the Partner Character is as annoying as these 4 were? No partner characters ever.

 

[Stofen]

Well we already had them back in Diamond in Pearl although they were mostly for limited segments. They were actually pretty useful because they'd make every random encounter a double battle (which made grinding AND capturing pokemon soooo much easier) and would heal your party after every fight.

 

[Proxima Centauri B]

In Pokemon Colosseum there was one(though she didnt do much other than identify Shadow Pokemon for you.) I dont think its a bad idea for the main series though. Id make it optional so people could travel alone if they want.

 

[Phoenixon]

I think it's a cool idea, but I don't think they should follow you for like the whole game. Maybe you could have multiple companions for different parts of the game. So, basically, an upgrade to the 4 friends you have in X/Y.

 

[Glitchipedia]

How about expanded multiplayer functionality so a friend can enter your game world and travel with you? And when your friend isn't available, the game could generate an NPC that uses his/her team to travel with you in his/her stead, if you so choose.

 

[Alola]

I would love that feature! It would make the game more enjoyable in my opinion. Not to mention, make it feel more like an adventure.

I was thinking of something akin to Rui in Colosseum. But in addition
-They can battle with or against you
-They can find you items, slel stuff for you, etc
-You can customize their outfits etc
-You can control what Pokemon they raise to a certain extent

 

[Ellron]

How about expanded multiplayer functionality so a friend can enter your game world and travel with you? And when your friend isn't available, the game could generate an NPC that uses his/her team to travel with you in his/her stead, if you so choose.

I would love that feature! It would make the game more enjoyable in my opinion. Not to mention, make it feel more like an adventure.

I was thinking of something akin to Rui in Colosseum. But in addition
-They can battle with or against you
-They can find you items, slel stuff for you, etc
-You can customize their outfits etc
-You can control what Pokemon they raise to a certain extent

I really like both of these ideas! It sounds like it could add some new and exiting possibilities.

 

[Team Gaara]

Interesting idea. I did enjoy when Tierno, Trevor, Calem, and Shuana hung around and semi-followed me through Santalune Forest and when Trevor and Tierno went along Route 7 with me. I wouldn't mind something like that throughout the entirety of a game. Though, more so done like that; everyone's in the same place, but off doing their own thing, rather than like the companions in the Anime who are directly with you.

Maybe if you talk to them, they'll ask you if you want them to directly follow you in the city/route/cave or what not. I wouldn't mind something like that.

 

[HeroOfDarkness]

Didn't Colosseum have a partner? I just want an online partner for the Battle Maison. >_<

That's all I want. The Maison would be so much better with that.

 

[Iteru]

I'd really hate this if it were to be implemented, because unless they give you some control over your partner's personality than they can get annoying very quickly.

For me personally, the XY "friends" were boring, one-note things that got old the third time you saw them. I'd really not have that 24/7 with a constant companion.

 

[Fairy Ice Ricky]

Black & White did the whole friend thing somewhat better than X & Y in my opinion, if only because Shauna et al. were such one-dimensional characters that kept popping up like all the damn time. At least Cheren and Bianca didn't pop up too much from what I remember.

I personally would rather have my partner Pokémon back à la HeartGold & SoulSilver.

 

[Peeko]

We need back the Partner Trainers from D/P/Pt. Those double battles were awesome, AND you got to battle with them again in the Battle Tower.

 

[Osprey]

It would be nice if this were optional, because unless the companion was the kind who wasn't absolutely useless by themselves, I'd start hating them very quickly. One of the things that bothered me the most about those "friends" in X/Y was that they almost never showed up to challenge you to a fight. Unless it was Calem/Serena, they'd usually just ramble on about things, waste your time, and just make me wish dialogue was skippable. I'd much rather have enemies/rivals like Gary or Silver than these "friends".

 

[Daren]

I've thought about this before, and reached a few conclusions, though I doubt they'll be universally agreed on:
*There should be a choice of partners rather than just one person you're stuck with.
*The partners should do something mechanically. For instance, maybe there could be a partner who heals some of the damage you take after a battle, another who can serve as sort of mobile move deleter/relearner, one who can help you track down rare wild Pokemon, etc.
*Don't make them chat constantly and annoy the player. Perhaps it could be like the "party talk" option some of the Dragon Quest games had; if you want to hear what your partner thinks about this area, you ask them.

Done well companions could be a great feature. Done badly, we'll get a mixture of Fi and Navi.

 

[Muur]

I want this for ages, I think they should do it. Could be tough for them to train and raise their Pokemon though unless they occasionally go like "I'm gonna leave for a bit" and return, maybe during gyms say like gym 5 to 6.

Although some of the ideas in here are great, mainly the they do their own thing in routes and stuff.

 

[Karpi]

IDEA FOR DOUBLE BATTLE PARTNER

Spoiler

Their pokemon obviously need to level up at a reasonably similar rate to yours, but it can't be abuseable to the point where you can use them to do all the fighting for you. So if you have the double battle partner with you , you need to specify a certain number of your pokemon as "Track leveling" or "Do not track leveling".

For the pokemon you own that are marked track leveling, your partner's pokemons' levels will be based off of those, loosely. So as an example:
YOU: Vaporeon lv 38, Raichu lv 34, Pelipper lv 43, Rhyhorn lv 40

Your partner will then, with his predetermined team of pokemon (let's say 5, that seems fair), use this type of formula for his pokemons' levels:
Average level is 38.75, then to add variation each of his pokemon is at the start of the game assigned a number from -2 to +2, and that will be added onto the average level.
So you end up with a partner sort of like:
Piloswine lv 36, Chansey lv 39, Jumpluff lv 40, Magmar lv 38, Seadra lv 38

So what happens when you capture a level 15 Magnemite and want to start training it? You mark it "Track leveling", and then what? The average level would pull down your partner's pokemon, so it would be advantageous to leave him as "do not track". But then the best strategy would be to level only one pokemon and have your partner track that one, which is getting back to the original problem. So let's say a pokemon you own that is more than 10 levels apart from the average will be ignored in the formula.

So, that's the double battle partner, which is what I first imagined the traveling companion as. You guys have mentioned other interesting ideas, like traveling vendors or healers, but those are more straightforward, I think. Maybe have better items like Full Restore unlock as you gain badges or complete the plot or something.

HOW TO HAVE YOUR PARTNER INTERACT DYNAMICALLY WITH YOU

Spoiler

This is the most difficult part of programming for a very obvious reason. You can't *truly* interact with the character aside from a dialogue tree, the person is only as complex as the dialogue tree is extensive, and the interactions are predictable and able to be manipulated. One "fix" to this problem is to simply have many traveling partners available to choose from, which has been done in many games before, and while they are still predictable, there is a variety to them.

But this pokemon game is going to be cutting edge, and we won't accept a limited variety of characters with the same slightly altered quest text! We need a model for dynamic interactions to make a character that will
1. Respond to unprogrammed situations
2. Do so in an interesting and desirable way

How do you do this? You trash the dialogue tree, first of all. Then you have a set of general responses to objects that appear within a certain radius of that character, which is easy for pokemon since it's all a huge grid. Your partner sees some tall grass 2 spaces away as you and he are running around on Route 2345 (I know that's WAY too common of an event in pokemon, but this is just an example), and he wanders toward it because you picked the trainer that loves grass pokemon and he wants you two to fight some. Maybe you picked one of the utility followers, in this case a walking Itemfinder (who sees things because she is psychic or some shit, make up your own story). She wanders off on Route 3456 to go find up to two hidden items, and you have to follow along and protect her. Maybe you picked the Socialite follower, and when you are within 3 squares of an older man in the game, she will go flirt with him and bring you back a Large Pearl or Nugget or something.

I know I have bad examples, but the idea is to give the follower programming for a very general situation that could occur at any time, rather than being programmed for specific interactions at specific points. They also need to respond differently to identical situations sometimes so they aren't predictable and able to be manipulated. To fix this, we'll use the example of the Socialite again:

She sees the old man within radius. 90% chance to go talk to him, 5% chance to do nothing and comment (see below for dialogue discussion) about it, 5% chance to just do nothing. When she goes to talk to him, she is sometimes unsuccessful (15%) and drags you into a battle, and she sometimes keeps the Pearl for herself (10%). Additionally, sometimes the battle is extremely difficult and nearly unwinnable (5% of the time after entering into the 15% chance battle). These things require the bulk of the programming, since they are specific interactions. But we have this single little probability tree that can then govern an infinite number of her interactions.

So at this point we have some characters that do random things, but it's kind of like babysitting a toddler since their behaviors are just activated and they go off and do something.

Communicating is the hard part, and it's basically impossible to do right. You could have a situation like Skyrim (which, by the way, uses the system I just explained for followers) where people have a big bank of phrases they say to you, and this is tolerable aside from "arrow to the knee" syndrome when you've played the game enough to know all the phrases.

The only alternative is a mad libs type communication, which will inevitably result in awkward sentences most of the time. But it's also different every time, and makes the game playable indefinitely. "That [SENTRET] was carrying an [ORAN BERRY] before it dropped it when we won the fight. Here!" or "Ace Trainer [ANNA] made a rude gesture as we walked by. I think she's ready for a rematch."

As you can see, these sentences still aren't very good, but there isn't really a way to fix that. Skyrim text bank might be a better way of talking in the end. And one overall consequence of a dynamically interacting partner is that they obviously can't have any plot involvement unless you have a plot cleverly designed to unfold in random ways (which would take the work of a master, and would take up a whole new post if I could even conceive of a way to do it). But that seems like a small sacrifice to make, and what did Rui really contribute to the plot plot anyway?

EDIT: If anyone read through the second spoiler and is interested in talking about creating a dynamic plot, PLEASE PM me, I would love to hear about it.

 

[henrymidfields]

Even if it's just for a limited amount of scenes, I liked that Serena actually battled with me a couple of times. My only gripe with this is that the option wasn't there against gym leaders. I'd like to have that option against one of the later gym leaders, say Valerie/Olympia. And an optional double battle against Lysandre in the Flare Lab. (And an option for a single battle for those that don't want this feature.)

 

[Hex Maniac]

I enjoy doing some of the double battles alone. Doing it with another character can be fun because you can't control their choices but sometimes it's also fun to use two of your own pokémon as a team. This would be a neat feature if it could be made optional, or at least if you had some level of control over the other character, not in their actions, but in their looks and maybe things like gender and personality.