Pokemon Empire: Official Game Thread

[StoicStone 3]

Just to add a little icing on the cake I'd like to give y'all your new friends in Pokemon Empire: the OriGen Advanced Systems and Technologies Corporation. These innovators once developed all kinds of new ingenious measures to help better the situation of those within the Telian Empire. Now, in the ashes of a fallen regime and the dawning of a brand new government, they have been working tirelessly to make friends in the Grand Council. Their purpose still remains, but under the guidance of a new CEO they plan on taking their grants and funding to new places in order to thrust the people of Telius to greater heights. Their new vision wishes to help make life better for anyone who has been touched by the bloody tendrils of conflict and create ingenuities that may once again elevate Telians to their rightful place amongst the powers on the global stage. They will be present in Episode 1 through their small corporate building outside of Polaris Point. You will be able to interact with them, and possibly purchase some of their amazing products (should your pockets be deep enough). They are looking forward to meeting you, and we are looking forward to the experiences of those who decide to pick up Episode 1. Now, as OriGen says: Assess. Adapt. Apply. 

[BaratheonStag 8]

I cannot wait to try this one out

[CommanderX 0]

On 6.02.2018 at 8:53 PM, Dypatome said:

@CommanderX 

Thank you for the suggestion. While we won’t be implementing everything you’ve suggested, we did agree that we’ll likely buff Pikachu/Raichu before the game is released. 

I didn't really expect for all of my suggestions to be used, but I at the very least hope that most of them will be used. While I admit that I may have some favorisim over this pokemon since Raichu is my favorite, I'm more than 100% sure that he really require a big boost since he's so outclassed by other electric pokemon evolution lines.

 

Video

This video contain a lot of detailed information how Raichu did over the generations, and compared to most others, he was performing really poorly (there's some potential for Raichu in teamwork, but in 1vs1 he was outclassed by a lot).

I think the main attention should be put into something called Atk/sp. Atk split.  It is pretty obvious that fast pokemon need to have a lot of attack power to make use of their offensive capabilities. Sadly, it is extremely hard to use both special and physical attacks when putting a lot of EV into one of those two stats is soo much more efficient.

 

Pokemon like Alakazam who have a lot of speed and sp.attack but very low normal attack gets a big advantage since he won't have any use for atk. stats to begin with. Pokemon like Arcanine have very high stats 555 I think, however the fact that both atk and sp.attack is high, it holds this pokemon back. Sadly, pokemon like Raichu have 485 stats, and since all atk. stats are wasted, it makes this pokemon very weak.

 

What I try to say is that all pokemon that have both Attack and Sp.Attack very high suffer when compared to pokemon that have low atk but very high sp.attack or low sp.atk but very high attack. (Some pokeon with high stats can get away with it, but if pokemon have both low stats and a lot of those stats are allocated in atk. and sp.atk, this is where the problem is).

 

In my personal opinion, all pokemon that have both high atk and high sp.attack deserve more attention in improving that pokemon who have one high offensive stats and low the other, because if such pokemon can't take full advantage of both of its stats, he's lossing a lot.

 

My suggestions were focused on making alolan Raichu similar to other psychic pokemon who have very high sp.attack since attack stats is wasted anyway, and his ability is very dificult to take advantage of. While my suggestion for regular Raichu was meant to let players more option to have Special attacking or Physical attacking Raichu, while still giving him stats that are more competitive. (Even Electrabuzz who can use Eviolite to increase his def and sp.def by 50% have status similar to Raichu, but slightly better allocated, and he can still evolve).

 

Also, shouldn't there be more of a "hard start good finish kind of reward" ? Pichu is extremely hard to raise and Pikachu doesn't learn Thunderbolt until lv42, so when compared to pokemon like Elekid who start with way better stats or others, there sure doesn't seem to be any solid reward in the end.

 

Also, I would advice to be careful with Pikachu's buffing. Pikachu have an explusive item "Light Ball" that double his attack and sp.attack (so basically something 3.33 times better than Life Orb and without any drawbacks). The reason why in my suggestions I was focusing mostly on bulk and speed increase is because I knew that light ball makes Pikachu extremely strong attacker, so if this item will be in the game, more attack/sp.attack on Pikachu would put Raichu in unfavorible position (what's the point of Raichu's better bulk if Pikachu's attack power can KO everything anyway).

 

 

 

In any case, I wish you luck with your rebalancing and I hope that at least some of my suggestions for Raichu and Alolan Raichu will be considererd, after all, it is bad enough for a pokemon final evoltuion to have less than 500 stats points when so many pseudo-legendaries reach 600, but it is even worse if so called pseudo-legendaries have better alocated stats ( tons in attack and little in sp.attack or tons of sp.attack and little in attack ) while weaker pokemon waste a lot of stats in both attack and sp.attack when in the end players won't be able to use them both. (Moves like Fake Out that take advantage of physical attack stats aren't enough to make a diference).

 

[Autumn Rain 32]

Here's another screenshot with the male MC.

Spoiler

There's a Delibird-shaped house at the top right and a very old fountain on the bottom right.

I wonder what kind of events will happen here.

 

[ssbCasper 33]

Hello everything. Wow it's been awhile since I've been the one to make an announcement. Unfortunately I have nothing extravagant to fill you guys in on. (Besides the fact that testing will be underway shortly.) All I will say on that for now is that I will be making entries at different points throughout my alpha test run to let you guys know how its going, spoiler-less changes we've made any major bugs we need to fix before letting some of you get it on the beta etc. 

 

Now onto the real reason why I'm writing..I mean typing this. Progress bar is now on the first post in the thread! We kind of just had every department give a ballpark number of their progress towards the FINAL release of episode 1. You'll notice that the majority of whats left to do is eventing and in game dialogue. The reason this was left for the end is because one our biggest contributors to writing for empire has been away for quite sometime. Now that everything is back in full gear 2-3 meetings is all it should take to complete those portions allowing testing to begin while the rest of the graphical and balance changes are being implemented for later stages of testing. 

 

That just about ends my rant, as always if you guys have any question feel free to ask them here or via PM. Look forward to communicating with ya'll and hope you are excited to play Pokemon Empire as we have been with developing it. 

[Dypatome 58]

Hello everyone! Bringing you an update with regard to Telius's badges.
After looking through a bunch of games and looking for inspiration, we realized that almost every fan game creates custom badges with the style of the main games. That would make sense considering.. we're making Pokemon games. What this means, however, is that almost every game also shares a similar art-style in regards to their badges.
For the region of Telius, we have decided that an interesting way to create badges would be to make them in the style of the Gen 3 Battle Frontier badges. For those of you who don't recall, here's a reference of what they look like: (with the gen 3-style, of course.)
                                                                                                  

And without further ado, here comes the Brink Badge! Or name TBD because we haven't found a name yet

                                                                                                                    

While being simple, the design is meant to be more of a snowflake. Obtainable after your first gym win, this silver badge represents that you have won the battle at the Polaris Point Gym.
What's everyone's opinion of the badge style choice? Do you enjoy the difference? Or are you more of a "colored badges or riot!"? Let us know in the comments!

[Noctelis 12]

@Dypatome While I like the design of the first badge, I was thinking that instead of silver colored it might be better to make them bronze colored.

Seeing as the story plays shortly after the war it would make sense that the gyms would use bronze instead of silver for the badges due to the fact that the economy has to climb back up again.

[Dypatome 58]

16 hours ago, Noctelis said:

@Dypatome While I like the design of the first badge, I was thinking that instead of silver colored it might be better to make them bronze colored.

This was a great suggestion and thanks for submitting it; we had a nice little discussion about it. 

Bronze colored badges are a great idea to add a greater sense of realism to the game, but we for now have decided to stick with the silver. Your points are perfect. We just decided that because the badge is so small, and the badges being made of an alloy and not actual silver, that they won’t make a big difference to the economy. 

Along with this, the war resulted in less challengers to gyms so there are also less badges needed for production. Thanks again for the great suggestion!

[Dypatome 58]

Thank you all for 10k views! We’ve been thinking of a way for us to give back to you all for the support, but have not been able to reach a conclusion. However, I think it’d be best for you to receive a sneak peak of the first episode. 

Enjoy!

Spoiler

 

 

[Giantsparrowbee 5]

congrats on 10000 views 

makes me feel insignificant

[Octavius 77]

 

After realizing how out of place the conventional Pokemon Center looked in comparison to the rest of Polaris Point's rustic, lodge-like interiors, we decided we needed to give it a facelift. What do you think?

 

[DemICE 230]

I dig this kind of cozy

[Noctelis 12]

@Octavius I think the electronics look a bit out of place.

[Octavius 77]

Happy to announce that mapping is 100% completed!!!!!!

We're still using a few placeholders for some sprites and have a couple animations, icons, and a bunch of other little things to knock out, but all the maps are finalized for ep1. Now we just have to make the game work.

So on that note, if anyone reading this is or knows anyone who is a talented scripter or eventer in rpg maker XP, we would love to take on a new team member to help expediate that process. So, if that's you, shoot me a pm and I'd love to show you behind the curtain of pokemon empire!

[Dypatome 58]

Happy Spring break to most! Progress has lulled a little bit due to the vacations, but here we go with a small update.
Most gyms have the gym trainers being related to the gym and the type. Being that the first gym is the ice gym, here's our male trainer!

I created the outfit based off of one worn by US athlete Nathan Chen during an ice skating competition. Hope you enjoy!

[Noctelis 12]

23 minutes ago, Dypatome said:

Happy Spring break to most! Progress has lulled a little bit due to the vacations, but here we go with a small update.
Most gyms have the gym trainers being related to the gym and the type. Being that the first gym is the ice gym, here's our male trainer!

I created the outfit based off of one worn by US athlete Nathan Chen during an ice skating competition. Hope you enjoy!

Considering the fact that the 1st gym will be an ice-gym filled with ice skaters I suppose that the gym puzzle will be a bit of a maze.

[Dypatome 58]

Despite it being April Fools, here's one last legitimate trainer update.
After slaving away for many, many hours... or not, here's the completed model of the female ice skater. Enjoy!

[Giantsparrowbee 5]

fun fact, she is wearing skin colored tights

 

[Octavius 77]

Hey everyone! Kind of a somber update today: We're still working on coding the game and making events work properly. Unfortunately, we've been missing a key member in this process for effectively a month now. So the going has been really slow in both communication and implementation. And as a result, we probably won't be as active here with updates and such until we either find another team member or another one of us devs becomes a master coder in RPG Maker/Essentials. 

 

On a more gameplay-focused update, we're also exploring what we want to do with level caps. So far, the consensus is to 1. use a level cap system and 2. more or less replicate Rejuvenation's current system. And that means making Pokemon unable to gain experience once they reach the current level cap (which is determined by the player's number of badges). We feel like this system promotes the most fair and balanced play by both challenging players to use diverse teams and preventing them from over-leveling and cruising past battles designed to be difficult (like gym leader and rival battles).

 

Additionally, we're looking for ways (outside of re-balancing) to allow players to use a greater diversity of Pokemon throughout the game. These include Pokemon best known for being defensive or supportive, but lack any real offensive power (for example: blissey, bastiodon, even wobbuffet to an extent). These also include what are called 'suicide leads', or fast pokemon that like to stack entry hazards and/or use moves like endeavor and explosion to gain a strategic advantage. These Pokemon can be really useful team members in tough fights, but struggle to gain experience over the course of most of the game because they can't sweep through all the youngsters and hikers as effectively or easily as an infernape or gardevoir can. 

 

To help remedy this on a large-scale basis, we're giving access to an exp. share early on in the game. Secondly, we're looking at ways to implement new exp. share items. For example, an exp. share that grants exp. to a pokemon even if it's fainted (useful for a 'suicide lead' type of mon) and an item that gives ALL the experience to the holder instead of sharing it. And while we understand that these types of items will most likely be used outside of these intended purposes, it still stands that they give Pokemon that aren't just 'fast mons that hit hard and sweep' the chance to be successful throughout the game.

 

And geez, I'd say more about this, but this post is running really long! So I guess I'll leave it at that for now! 

[Octavius 77]

Oh, and one more unrelated thing! We wanted to invite anyone interested to join our EPL, or Empire Premier League! The EPL is a draft league Pokemon battling format that operates pretty much the same way as the Pokemon GBA. If you're unfamiliar with the GBA, check it out on YouTube. You basically draft and use a team of Pokemon from all the different Smogon tiers for an entire season, like a sports team would. It isn't just the usual showdown ladder grind. Anyways, for season 1 (which we're just finishing now), we had membership reserved to the Empire dev team itself. But now we're looking to add a few new teams for season 2! So if you're interested, post a reply or pm me and I'll get you started! It'd be really cool to meet some of you guys, hang out a little bit, and play some Pokemon.

[Octavius 77]

On 4/5/2018 at 10:23 AM, Octavius said:

Hey everyone! Kind of a somber update today: We're still working on coding the game and making events work properly. Unfortunately, we've been missing a key member in this process for effectively a month now. So the going has been really slow in both communication and implementation. And as a result, we probably won't be as active here with updates and such until we either find another team member or another one of us devs becomes a master coder in RPG Maker/Essentials. 

As you all might of guessed (based on the fact that I'm the one giving these updates), the key team member we are missing is indeed the lead dev of Pokemon Empire, ssbCasper. And he'll be gone for at least another month, maybe more. So unfortunately, development is pretty much at a halt. The rest of the team will do everything we can in his absence, but we ultimately won't be able to progress in certain areas of development without him. 
So yeah. It sucks. But we wanted to let everyone know ahead of time instead of just disappearing for a month without any explanation. And don't worry, we'll still be here; and we might still post every now and again. But until further notice, we'll mostly just be taking any suggestions or contributions you guys have, and are still inviting anyone interested to join our EPL discord to come hang out with us and play some Pokemon.

Until next time, be well, stay safe. And long live Pokemon Empire.