Would you like if Pokémon add a new type?

[Chidamari Sketch]

I've gone over it in more detail in a similar thread, especially on why certain popular fan concepts like 'Light' or 'Space/Cosmic' don't really work for me, but the bottom line is that I think the current type chart is fine as-is. At worst, some types need to be readjusted in terms of effectiveness, maybe.

 

[Phosphene]

Yes, because I think sound-type would be the perfect balance
Make it strong againt Fairy, Steel, and Water
Make it weak against Bug, Grass, and Ice

Tldr it beats the strongest types and is weak against the weakest types, helping balance out the type chart.

I don’t see how the Sound-type is the perfect balance when most if not all of those type matchups feel really forced. I can see a reasonable justification for why Sound is strong against Steel as sound travels comparatively fast in metals, but I don't understand why Ice is strong against Sound while Water is weak to it outside of balance. The speed of sound is faster in ice than in water. And I don't see how Bug and Grass are somehow supereffective against Sound either. What do Bug and Grass have against Sound, it's not like either dampen noises. If anything, the Flying type should be supereffective against Sound, or at the very least resist it, considering that sound travels the slowest in gaseous mediums. And why is the Fairy weak to Sound? Aren't there many mythical creatures, fairy tales, etc. that involve a mesh between music and magic?

While there are always some type matchups that are questionable, I'd argue that the most of them make some logical sense (fire burns plants, etc.) and even those with questionable matchups do have some sort of shaky logic behind them. And I think that’s one of the bigger issues with trying to balance the type chart by adding a new type. Trying to create a brand new typing that can stand on its own and balances the whole chart single-handedly without feeling contrived is probably impossible in my opinion. Plus, a new type with resistances to common, "good" types with weaknesses to relatively weak types sounds like something that would result in unbalance because its weaknesses could be easily countered. Granted I'm not exactly the most well-read on competitive theory so maybe I'm wrong there.

 

[SodiumChloride]

Plus, a new type with resistances to common, "good" types with weaknesses to relatively weak types sounds like something that would result in unbalance because its weaknesses could be easily countered.

Its would help grass, bug, and ice types be more used in competitive, which was my goal with the idea.

Maybe it would make more sense if it was weak against bug (Most bugs don't hear the way other animals do, so they wouldn't respond to a lot of sounds) and flying (duh) and strong against water and steel. and on a separate note game freak can make fairy weak to fire instead of being only resisted by fire types. Grass needs a buff too but IDK what to do with it, maybe make it SE against electric (because it already resists it)?

 

[colours]

at this point? no. i suppose one could make the argument that Fairy-type needs nerfing to some degree, but even if it does, it wouldn't warrant another new type, lest that type be considered broken, as well. i think the type chart as it stands is.... fine, for the most part, with the exception that ice needs more resistance and more things to hit super-effectively. :c

 

[Rockapheller]

18 types is a great number for Pokémon, given that one can carry 6 Pokémon on their team at a time.

I think we need more balance between the types. Ice type definitely needs a buff. Bug and Normal type could be included there as well. Also types with many resistences and low amout of weaknesses need to be nerfed (I am looking at you, Dragon type).

In my book, the ideal chart is to make each type hit x2 by 6 types, hit x1 by 6 types, and hit x0,5 or x0 by 6 types. That would make each type stand out and not hinder them in unintended ways, while at the same time it would give equal amount of advantages and disadvantages in battles.

 

[Jimothy]

So I've been thinking a lot about this lately.

The addition of a new type is exciting, especially given how rare it is, and there's definitely design space left open for it-- specifically, when I think about how retypings in the past have strictly applied to Normal types, and I see how many Normal types have a sound/music theme (Jigglypuff, Chatot, Meloetta, Exploud), it genuinely appears to me that they left things open in the event that they ever wanted to introduce a Sonic type.

But I've also been thinking lately that the TCG might have the right of it, that there are too many types. Most elemental systems in fiction manage to keep it under ten, and there are definitely redundancies in the current lineup. So while I've toyed with it in the past, today I'm opting not to include a Sonic type, but to instead reduce/consolidate a few types-- I can't get the number as low as it probably ought to be, but I can still nix a few redundancies and mix things up.

First, I would entirely remove the Normal type and make it typeless, like when a pure Fire-type uses Burn Up. Frankly, this make more sense to me because Normal isn't really... anything. You've got woodland animals and things that just don't fit anywhere. Arceus, Silvally, Ditto, Eevee, and Porygon kind of make more sense as typeless. And we've seen with Rookidee that they're no longer scared of making what might be a Normal/Flying just pure Flying, which was always a weird hangup anyway.

Next, inspired by Umbreon's beta origins and its Dex entries, I would move all Poison types to Dark. They've both always been the "bad guy" types, often used by villains and there's just a lot of problems this solves for me-- I have to think that if Dark existed in Gen 1, then Gengar would be Ghost/Dark I mean it's a shadow. It feels like they made it Poison just to make it seem sinister and because there was no other type to communicate that at the time. There's also this thing about the moon: it's most closely associated with Fairy-types, some Dark-types (Umbreon, Darkrai)... and Poison-types. Grimer is given life by the moon, and the Moonstone evolves primarily Fairy- and Poison-types (and Munna, who like Cresselia, should probably be half or fully Fairy anyway). Consolidating Poison and Dark means that the moon empowers the "good" Fairy-type and the "sinister" Dark-type (and a couple Psychics and Lunala's Ghost-typing... look, it's not perfect), giving those two types a sort of yin-and-yang association with each other.

The one snag is that this makes the Kantonian and Alolan Muk lines the same type, and I don't know how to remedy that. It is one instance though-- one of my main rules in this was that I couldn't, for instance, combine Rock and Steel because then Registeel and Regirock are missing what makes them unique from each other. I couldn't combine Water and Ice because then two Eevees are the same type. And I think I've avoided that in every other instance but Muk.

Which brings me to the next main shakeup-- combining Rock and Ground. Yes, they are technically distinct from each other, but it's not at all intuitive-- Rocks are made of rock, and Ground-types are burrowing animals... except when they're made of sand or clay or mud-themed. Those are all just... not different enough from rocks.

Now removing types is a hard thing to advertise, so in this instance we're actually kind of adding a type-- Rock and Ground are all now Earth-type. And to go with it and symbolize an opposing domain, we nix Flying and some of the former Flying-types-- specifically the few pure Flying-types or any Pokemon that are wind- or sky-themed (Rayquaza, Lugia (and heck, maybe Ho-oh), Tornadus) would be part of the new Sky-type. The generation that introduces all these type changes would be advertised as introducing the Earth and Sky types, while the removal of Normal and combination of Dark/Poison would be more of a discovery for players.

Sky would be similar to Flying, but with a wind-elemental bent that previously only really applied to Tornadus and Lugia. It would encompass the legendaries from the preceding paragraph, all the former Normal/Flying or pure-Flying birds, and some others. It wouldn't apply to every former Flying-type-- this is a good chance to make Lance's honorary dragons-- Charizard, Gyarados, Aerodactyl-- actual Dragon-types (in their base forms).

Again, it's not as dramatic a reduction in the number of types as I'd like, but it's hard to go much lower without significantly breaking my rule about not messing up related monsters whose significant distinction is their types. I do think that, as much as I love them, it might make sense to make Bugs typeless (I mean it, my favorite types are Ghost and Bug) as there's not really anything about them that needs to be its own type at the end of the day, but I'm still toying with it.

So in summary:
Lose Normal, get comfortable with typeless monsters
Fold Poison into Dark
Combine Ground and Rock to make the new Earth type
New Sky-type for wind elementals, encompasses most but not all Flying types
Maaaaaybe lose Bug?

Honestly if there's room to lose even more types I kind of think it should be taken, but they're never going to get rid of a type used by Eevee (no combining Psychic/Fairy), they clearly like the Psychic/Fighting/Dark triangle, and Ghost and Dragon are frankly too cool and popular to fold into anything else.

 

[Emmy]

As much as I lambast Yugioh for adding more and more Types over the years (seriously we already had the Dragon Type, we didn't need High-Dragons and Phantasmal Dragon Types as well), Pokémon on the other hand I do feel could squeeze just a few more unique design themes based on Pokémon from the Normal Typing - everyone and their mother has already pointed out stuff like Porygon for some kind of Lightwave or Data based Type as well as the numerous sound/music based Pokémon like the Whismur line. As for there being too many Types, I'm going to agree with Jimothy and say I wouldn't mind if they instead retired some old Typings such as Ice or Ground to make room.

Just my two cents.

 

[Deleted member 133294]

Hmm I could take it or leave it. I think Fairy covered everything that I wanted from the hypothetical Light type and I can't think of any other element that would make sense as a Pokemon type except for Wood type maybe? But that's too similar to Grass.

If you wanted a wood type Pokemon then it does not make much sense because we already have the grass type which has wood in its body composition.

A good new type could be the "sideral" or "cosmic" type they would be created after the sideral space and its features. They would be immune to fire and ice because space do not have any temperature because it is vacunm and there is no oxygen in space there so the sideral type would be immune to fire.

Another good new type idea would be the cyber/ robot/ virtual type and these pokemon would be advanced robots being completely artificial which means that the player would need to buy them. They would be immune to poison, absorb based attacks like leech life and all attacks and also be immune to confusion and sleepness. I would make it to be immune to the fairy type and be super effective against it, electric and normal. It would resist electric, normal, steel Abd maybe ghost. It would be one of the best Pokemon types.

 

[RavenRaziel98]

I would like a type that's weak against normal type (in both, offense and defense). Just because this would make Furret/Zigzagoon/Ratticate/Bidoof and many more a bit more more useful.

 

[helperman]

i think light should be made a type because we already have dark. and maybe change becouse of pokemon lik ditto and type:null

 

[Isaac the Investigator]

I used to think a Sound type could be cool, and while it can still work the most recent games developed sound moves so much (with abilities like Liquid Voice, etc.) that fitting it in now would probably be awkward. Haven't seen to many other ideas that would work, with Light basically being redundant to Fairy, but I think a Nuclear type would be cool (if very, very unlikely to happen).

 

[Artuditwo]

My 2nd favourite type only has 2 resistences, Psychic, could hit super affective, and resist my fav type fairy, because science can explain with more acuracy the things that fairy tales try to tell, and take the resistance of fire to fairy and it's perfect

 

[Deleted member 133294]

i think light should be made a type because we already have dark. and maybe change becouse of pokemon lik ditto and type:null

We already have the fairy type which is the opposite of the dark type.

 

[Johnny Boy]

The thing about new types being added in my opinion is that not only does it have to be distinct enough so that it doesn’t overlap with the niches other types fill but there have to be enough existing Pokemon that can be retconned into it as well. This is why I think the rubber type idea presented earlier could work as an actual type because there’s plenty of existing Pokemon that can be retconned into this.

Aipom line
Igglybuff line
Lickitung line
Gulpin line
Sandaconda
Tangela line
Wailmer line
Ditto
Wynaut line
Goomy line
Clobbopus line
Spoink line
Solosis line

 

[helperman]

We already have the fairy type which is the opposite of the dark type.

actually I think is a little more like the opposite of ghost than the opposite of dark. s o thus light would still probably work

 

[Artuditwo]

actually I think is a little more like the opposite of ghost than the opposite of dark. s o thus light would still probably work

I think it's the opposite of dragon

 

[Hydrogenium]

In my opinion, it's complicated enough as it is.
...but I was thinking about it during today's literature class and I came up with the Plastic type (Steel is man-made, so plastic?)
I'm definitely not an expert, so it's probably not good, but for inspiration or something?

Spoiler: so here it is