[Meta thread] Iron's PokeRole Adventure: The Skull Ruins

[Spiritmon]

Great art, but he has Vespiqueen to evolve. And I really like the way the Combee line is modeled after real life bees, where only the queen is special. There is no king bee.

But even a Queen need guardians isn't. There still the hornets or drones, like soldiers. And hornet bees exist. Just saying. Darinet, Vesperior or Dronite (there is where the came come from: Dronites=drones) would fit very well in that description. It would be cool. But thats just a sugestion.

[Lord Windos]

Great art, but he has Vespiqueen to evolve. And I really like the way the Combee line is modeled after real life bees, where only the queen is special. There is no king bee.

Which permenatly limits what Special Combee can do, creating a situation that at some point in time that , bar liberal TM usage and Suprises, he'll be deadweight except for his ability to collect Honey and keep Princess happy. I can understand why you make this decision, since it closely follow both IRL and Base Game conventions, but at the same time I wish some allowance could be made in some manner to allow that Combee to continue being offensively viable and/or useful outside the already mentioned functions. Of course, that's just my opinion, so feel free to completely disregard it!

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

I'm on Iron's side on this matter, why does every Pokemon one owns soft-have-to-be offensively useful? Male Combee are, sorry to say that, useless apart from gathering honey for the queen, but I feel like that gathering of honey makes them worthy to some degree again. RPing with a Pokemon outside of battle is fun too.

[Dragonstrike]

Well, there's also Azurite's kind of approach: their plan for Male Combee is to let them evolve into a wall of combee that focuses on defense and support.

Zippy doesn't necessarily have to evolve to be decent support, of course.  Even by itself, Tailwind is an incredible way to support the team.  Need to get around to teaching that to him at some point, tbh...even though I could just teach it to Princess instead, Zippy should probably have a niche of some kind...

Oh, and it's also worth mentioning that normally, Combee can't learn ANY TMs. Not even ones like Return and Protect. Kinda sad for the males, really. :/

[Lord Windos]

I'm on Iron's side on this matter, why does every Pokemon one owns soft-have-to-be offensively useful? Male Combee are, sorry to say that, useless apart from gathering honey for the queen, but I feel like that gathering of honey makes them worthy to some degree again. RPing with a Pokemon outside of battle is fun too.

Because otherwise , bar them having a super useful non-combative niche, if a Pokémon can't decently fight, its taking up PC and Party Slot space that could be afforded to Pokémon that COULD be useful in battles/combative/laborious task (Like Mountain Climbing). Since the game has a heavy focus on Battles, Explorations, and Problems solving with Pokémon aid, its just plain better to have more capable and versitle Pokémon on your team at all times, bar, again, special circumstances. RPing with Pokémon is fun, but I like also knowing that my given Pokémon is capable of long term continued growth and improvement as well. We can agree to disagree on this, of course!

[Spiritmon]

In this case I on Windos side. Sometimes you need a good pokemon who handle very well in battles: Suport, be tank enough to resist hits, have a way to cause great hits against his enemies (I looking you Luxelong), have the less weakness possible like Eelektross. Of course battling its not everything in the campaigh since there of course the RPlaying itself, the exploration and the relation in each character. And the conection with pokemon you want. Heart per example I having focus in make a char capable to handle very well in battles and trying to have a balance team and have moves to balance the weakness. Thats just my opinion of course so feel free to disagree or agree.

[Iron]

Don't forget: With my houserules, evolution does not determine who is viable in battle. Zippy has just as much of a strength score as Vespiqueen will. He has 1 less HP than he would if he evolved. All he loses out on are the awesome moves that Vespiqueen gets, like the Orders, which wouldn't make sense for a drone to learn anyway. Zippy is welcome to learn his ? moves as tutoring or TMs.

Honey Gather is quite useful, especially when the alternative is Pressure which is a very niche use.

If Nathan continues to invest in Zippy, I'll be sure to give him some opportunities for improvement, though, and may even circle back around to an alternative evolution. But it would be a very special thing, not a known Pokemon. The amount of 'supernatural' in this campaign is going to increase as you become better trainers.

Personally, I like when Pokemon are different, and that means some will be a little weaker or stronger than others. Some trainers are interested in only strong Pokemon, and those trainers can choose their team accordingly, or even swap between multiple teams. Nathan does this all the time and I like it.

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

I'm on Iron's side on this matter, why does every Pokemon one owns soft-have-to-be offensively useful? Male Combee are, sorry to say that, useless apart from gathering honey for the queen, but I feel like that gathering of honey makes them worthy to some degree again. RPing with a Pokemon outside of battle is fun too.

Because otherwise , bar them having a super useful non-combative niche, if a Pokémon can't decently fight, its taking up PC and Party Slot space that could be afforded to Pokémon that COULD be useful in battles/combative/laborious task (Like Mountain Climbing). Since the game has a heavy focus on Battles, Explorations, and Problems solving with Pokémon aid, its just plain better to have more capable and versitle Pokémon on your team at all times, bar, again, special circumstances. RPing with Pokémon is fun, but I like also knowing that my given Pokémon is capable of long term continued growth and improvement as well. We can agree to disagree on this, of course!

Point made, Windos. It's probably my non-competitive thinking that makes us see things a litte different, and that's fine! I certainly like my team of Pokemon the way it is - maybe not overly strong, it's clear that Shiva's someone who's more fond of Pokemon that have a meaning to her/she befriended than the potential to do well in battle, but I feel this somewhat has balanced itself a little by now?

[Lord Windos]

Don't forget: With my houserules, evolution does not determine who is viable in battle. Zippy has just as much of a strength score as Vespiqueen will. He has 1 less HP than he would if he evolved. All he loses out on are the awesome moves that Vespiqueen gets, like the Orders, which wouldn't make sense for a drone to learn anyway. Zippy is welcome to learn his ? moves as tutoring or TMs.

Honey Gather is quite useful, especially when the alternative is Pressure which is a very niche use.

If Nathan continues to invest in Zippy, I'll be sure to give him some opportunities for improvement, though, and may even circle back around to an alternative evolution. But it would be a very special thing, not a known Pokemon. The amount of 'supernatural' in this campaign is going to increase as you become better trainers.

Personally, I like when Pokemon are different, and that means some will be a little weaker or stronger than others. Some trainers are interested in only strong Pokemon, and those trainers can choose their team accordingly, or even swap between multiple teams. Nathan does this all the time and I like it.

That make more than enough sense and seems plenty fair, so I have no further complaints to issue/raise! I especially look forward to seeing what Zippy is capable of, given enough time and attention!

I like it when Pokémon are special to, but not to the point that it cripples them without some  benefit in exchange. As for my preferred team, it will ALWAYS have Raphael and Apsis in it due to them being his first Pokémon and most powerful fighters, while the rest are variable depending on trades and the like. Ideally, I don't want to change my Team comp much at all from the basic line up of Raphael/Apsis/Michael/Haneal/Dragon Pokémon/Abaddon or Extra , since they all are competent in battle, cover each others weakness, and provide Ven a variety of resources to draw upon. If it wasn't for you keep throwing interesting Pokémon that Ven would WANT on his team, I would have probably have my team set in stone by the time Haneal was added. As it stands, I don't plan on doing what Dragonstrike/Nathan does , since having a short but concise Pokémon selection makes it easier to manage/less fiddly for me.

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

Aaaaaaarghhhh, is Kyuu evolving there?! *squeeks in delight*
Before I decide what to do though, @Iron... If, well as Pokemon registered for Little Cup evolves during the matchups, does this automatically allow the registration of a different Pokemon that is allowed to participate? Or do I now have to struggle with a free spot?