Thread: Should GameFreak start listening to fan suggestions?

No, no, no! If anything, they should actively attack the fanbase. Fans don't add anything physical; they just blow hot air.

Depends.

I often hear people wanting a ''more mature'' game, but those people, for the most part, don't actually understand the concept of maturity, maturity does not translate into violence, sex and drugs. No matter if you're a new fan of the series or if you've been following it since it started, a game like that would not be a Pokémon game.

I think they should listen, take into consideration, if an idea sounds too Farfetch'd, it probably is, maybe they could get fan-made pokémon into the game as a contest prize, like Digimon sometimes does, and as it was already mentioned, there's already a fan-made move.

I'm pretty sure they just let someone choose the name of the attack, iirc, not make it up from scratch...although is that contest real? I've always heard it passed around as fact, but I never remember seeing it ever mentioned until a "winning entry" was announced.

I'm strongly against fan-made Pokemon, though. Not because I think fans have bad ideas, quite the opposite, but rather the technicality of it seems like a problem. Okay, Digimon has fan-made creatures, but Digimon doesn't treat their monsters the same way, as there's no exact count of them, rather, the games and such have a dynamic roster that change each time, with some being dropped, some being brought back, etc. Same with Mega Man, the Robot Masters don't appear every game. With Pokemon, though, they make sure to establish a solid amount of creatures each Gen and don't drop any, but instead bring them back for each game. With fan-created Pokemon, there'd be issues with that as there could arise legal issues...I assume GameFreak would do the whole "your ideas when submitted our are property", but what if someone submitted a "fan created Pokemon" that was stolen from another source unknowingly? What if some issues arised where they lost their rights to use a fan-created Pokemon and had to drop it, uncharacteristically of the series? P

I wouldn't mind if GameFreak had a contest where the winner was added into the game as an NPC or something, though. That already kind of happened with the World Championship people being opponents in the PWT, actually.

Originally Posted by Quattro ~ Bajeena

I'm pretty sure they just let someone choose the name of the attack, iirc, not make it up from scratch...although is that contest real? I've always heard it passed around as fact, but I never remember seeing it ever mentioned until a "winning entry" was announced.

I'm strongly against fan-made Pokemon, though. Not because I think fans have bad ideas, quite the opposite, but rather the technicality of it seems like a problem. Okay, Digimon has fan-made creatures, but Digimon doesn't treat their monsters the same way, as there's no exact count of them, rather, the games and such have a dynamic roster that change each time, with some being dropped, some being brought back, etc. Same with Mega Man, the Robot Masters don't appear every game. With Pokemon, though, they make sure to establish a solid amount of creatures each Gen and don't drop any, but instead bring them back for each game. With fan-created Pokemon, there'd be issues with that as there could arise legal issues...I assume GameFreak would do the whole "your ideas when submitted our are property", but what if someone submitted a "fan created Pokemon" that was stolen from another source unknowingly? What if some issues arised where they lost their rights to use a fan-created Pokemon and had to drop it, uncharacteristically of the series? P

I wouldn't mind if GameFreak had a contest where the winner was added into the game as an NPC or something, though. That already kind of happened with the World Championship people being opponents in the PWT, actually.

Can't really argue with that, perhaps the actual creator would receive the recognition instead, and I really don't think anyone would be mad that their fan-made Pokémon was used in the games and given credit, but yeah, as you said, if someone submits one that isn't their creation, and the actual owner cones forward to stop it, they'd have to drop the pokémon.

I wasn't thinking of fan-made Pokemon getting stolen, exactly, more so if someone found a cool looking creature from a lesser known game, art portfolio, etc. that was never intended to be a Pokemon and submitted it.

Originally Posted by Quattro ~ Bajeena

I wasn't thinking of fan-made Pokemon getting stolen, exactly, more so if someone found a cool looking creature from a lesser known game, art portfolio, etc. that was never intended to be a Pokemon and submitted it.

That would also be a form of stealing, would it not?

I don't mean to offend any of you in the fandom but erm...most of the ideas I've seen thrown around various websites...tend to suck.

GameFreak do pay attention to the fans though. They may not openly ask for submissions (which is a very flawed idea), but they do keep an eye out for what fans are feeling and Masuda has even admitted that the design team keep a very close eye on what people are using in the official tournaments, to see if there's a Pokémon that's too over-powered etc.

It's one thing to hear what the fans have to suggest, but I wouldn't want them to start implementing them exactly. I mean some ideas I've see were pretty far-fetched. Not only that but they REALLY risk angering fans than they would if they didn't listen to fan suggestions.

Definitely because many fans do have good ideas and the games should obviously be made to appeal to the fans.

But blindly implementing every suggestion would be terrible as many ideas are awful. But yes they should listen to what fans want, then evaluate the ideas and consider whether it is worth implementing.

Dragonfyre pretty much already said what I mean.

No. Even if the rest of the community could vote on an idea, polls can be greatly misinterpreted. Just look at Paper Mario: Sticker Star. It wasn't given a deep storyline based on a poll on Club Nintendo about whether you enjoyed Super Paper Mario's story. Most of the people who played that game were probably children who didn't care about story and so said "no" because there were only two options. End result, only 1% of people seem to have enjoyed SPM's story and they make sure not to include another one in Sticker Star. I know it's in a different context (people were voting on story and not fan suggestions) but it's the same idea. I don't want that sort of thing happening with Pokémon.

Originally Posted by Joshawott

I don't mean to offend any of you in the fandom but erm...most of the ideas I've seen thrown around various websites...tend to suck.

GameFreak do pay attention to the fans though. They may not openly ask for submissions (which is a very flawed idea), but they do keep an eye out for what fans are feeling and Masuda has even admitted that the design team keep a very close eye on what people are using in the official tournaments, to see if there's a Pokémon that's too over-powered etc.

Basically that. Paying attention to what the fans opinions are. That's what interprets as "listening" to fans. I may have made my point unclear when I first stated my post, but really - that's what GF needs. Dragonfyre pretty much said that - not being completely deaf. Simply tossing the games out in the market and not even considering what the consumers think is probably the worst thing they can ever do...

GameFreak should do something similar to the Roadmap feature that Sony Online Entertainment does for PlanetSide 2. http://www.planetside2.com/roadmap

Originally Posted by Joshawott

I don't mean to offend any of you in the fandom but erm...most of the ideas I've seen thrown around various websites...tend to suck.

GameFreak do pay attention to the fans though. They may not openly ask for submissions (which is a very flawed idea), but they do keep an eye out for what fans are feeling and Masuda has even admitted that the design team keep a very close eye on what people are using in the official tournaments, to see if there's a Pokémon that's too over-powered etc.

I have to agree here. Some things may not be evident but they do take certain criticisms into account. I could think of two examples.

One of the things I remembered reading about is how Ferrothorn is basically a developer-requested Pokemon. The designers was asked to do something for Grass/Steel, which as any savvy competitive battler knows, is a great type combination. I believe that Ferrothorn's existence is a result of how Water-type have the unfair advantage of intrinsic Ice coverage for every Pokemon (except Magikarp up to that point), which is a deterrent for any Grass- and Dragon-type. As long as Ferrothorn is around, Water-types aren't as widespread as it was (although Drizzle undoes that decentralising in a way). Speaking of Water-types with Ice moves, another thing that is interesting is how Seismitoad and Keldeo are both denied Ice Beam and Blizzard, which I guess are for the purpose of testing grounds. Keldeo seems fine without them, but I guess Seismitoad was given Ice Punch for compensation because its lack of them makes it an unpopular choice.

Of course, who could forget the greatest gift or reusable TMs? The decision is essentially stemmed from Masuda's observation that players are hesitant to use those precious TMs (read: Gym Leader TMs), which discourages experimentation. This comes with a twofold change: One, they cut back on some of the TMs because of their overall power (such as Stealth Rock and Roost) or lack of use (Shock Wave and Water Pulse); Two, they want to introduce new Generation 5 moves. I imagine that this feature would be taken for granted in the future (such as fans who started out in Gen 5), but any older fan will appreciate this design evolution.

Thanks for reading.

For me it depends on the ideas, for example one fan idea of mine that I highly hope they listen to is this: for all Ice-type Pokemon to have a 50% physical defense boost in a Hail-storm (this would analogous to how Rock-types currently have a 50% special defense boost in a Sandstorm). This would allow for Ice types to have more bulk to them since the Ice type is a terrible defensive type due to the fact that Ice-type Pokemon are weak to Fire, Rock, Fighting, and Steel attacks; all of which are common typing attacks used in the current metagame. So a 50% physical defense boost to all Ice-types in the presence of Hail during battle would be a plus.

Originally Posted by Shiny Staraptor

No. Even if the rest of the community could vote on an idea, polls can be greatly misinterpreted. Just look at Paper Mario: Sticker Star. It wasn't given a deep storyline based on a poll on Club Nintendo about whether you enjoyed Super Paper Mario's story. Most of the people who played that game were probably children who didn't care about story and so said "no" because there were only two options. End result, only 1% of people seem to have enjoyed SPM's story and they make sure not to include another one in Sticker Star. I know it's in a different context (people were voting on story and not fan suggestions) but it's the same idea. I don't want that sort of thing happening with Pokémon.

That DID happen with Black and White. They mentioned that Unova was streamlined because Japanese kids found the part at the climax of DPT where you had to journey to each of the lakes difficult, iirc.