Do you want Gyms back?

>>30978000
No, the only games with gyms I played were FRLG and XY. They are boring and get repetitive over the years.

>>30978000
Yes, the only games with gyms I played were FRLG and XY. They are exciting and get repetitive over the years.

no, but I also don't want trials. Would rather have a completely new objective that's not just "go here, beat pokemon, get thing, go to next place"

Not necessarily. I'd love it if we had to battle the trial captain after defeating the Totem, though.

>>30978000
>meme characters who only do one activity in their entire lives and have not Pokemon that would make sense in helping with that activity, but whatever the most common Pokemon of that type in the region is
>"trained" leaders have 2-3 Pokemon to "challenge" people
>shitty half-assed puzzles like "It's an electricity gym! Turn on the light switch!"
>90% of the time you can never rematch any of them ever
>all you win is a shitty rehash-designed badge
They need to go deeper.
Gyms replaced with Trials, Trials replaced with a new Totem Ultra Beast.

Yes, but I also want trials. Would rather have a objective that's just "go here, beat pokemon, get thing, go to next place"

>>30978080
Was pretty disappointed to learn this didn't happen, pretty much the only thing about trials that annoys me.

Maybe, the only games with gyms I played were FRLG and XY. They are okay but get repetitive over the years.

>>30978000
Well get them back, trials look like something exclusive from Alola.

No

They're guaranteed to come back in those empty lots and I'm fucking dreading it, trials are way better.

They're also way more believable since you can buy them taking place in a forest/on a volcano/a pond etc. instead of every gym being tiny and completely identical on the outside then becoming fucking massive with borderline impossible architecture and shit complete with a mini army of weak trainers as soon as you enter for some reason

They'll be back next Gen. It's nice to have a break from formula but it's pretty clear Alola is an anomaly.

Plus, let's be honest, Trials, Captains, Kahunas, Totems... They're all Gyms or facets thereof by any other name.

>>30978000
Yes.

>>30978000
Yes. I like gyms but I also like trials. They could either make trials something small and story driven. Think of the anime when stupid gym leaders would go "I wont fight you in my gym unless you perform this arbitrary task and beat me in a battle". I love that. The other option is to make them side quests with good look or rare pokemens.

>>30978103
The can pull the "this region doesn't have a league, so we have X" plot like in SM to make whatever they want. Trials was just an example. We were guinnea pigs in an experiment to see if the fanbase was willing to eat up a new system.

>>30978172
I only have played gen1,2 and 3 and the remakes of 1 and 2 and in every one of them to enter a gym do had to do something first, like freeing the slowkpoke well from the team rocket for example. That's pretty much what you said in your post.

Depends.

Trials were not unlike Gyms. You were forced to fight Pokemon which culminated in a boss fight. The trials usually had simple tasks just like Gyms.

But the biggest difference is the boss fight. Totem Pokemon were a great idea because they felt like legitimate boss fights. A stronger, bigger Pokemon with heightened stats, summoning a lackey Pokemon that usually supported the bigger one (and they had some legit strategies, see: any of the Totem Pokemon on Akala Island). It was a 1v2 battle. Gym Leaders are just tougher trainers, but they're still trainers.

As also mentioned up above, the trial sites felt more natural. You were actually one with nature, whereas Gyms usually looked the same from the outside but are radically different on the inside. Unova was good at averting this though, so it's not impossible, plus most Unova Gyms were other things (Striaton Gym was a restaurant, Nacrene Gym was a library/museum).

I think a compromise would be in order. Gyms like Unova (where the exterior design is always different and the interior usually has a double purpose), but have the boss fight be a 1v2 battle like a Totem Pokemon. There'd have to be an explanation as to why they can do that and you can't. Within reasonable boundaries, they could either say it's to challenge upcoming trainers, or leave this to a Hard Mode or something. Have them send out their ace Pokemon and then another Pokemon and immediately use an X Stat item on the ace.

Hard to say. Both Gyms and Trials have something to offer, but ultimately as long as we get legitimate boss fights like Totem Pokemon were I'm game.

File: 58224180_p0.png (193KB, 1510x1510px) Image search: [Google]

193KB, 1510x1510px

>>30978000
I think the well that is Pokemon Gyms has been legit poisoned by SM.

We ate up even Gen 6's shitheap of a gym selection because, outside of a very few spinoffs, Pokemon games were always based around the same old formula (go to town, go to gym, beat gym leader, get badge, go to next town, go to next gym, get next badge, repeat 6 times with occasional interruptions for the evil team plot, go to Pokemon League, beat E4, win).

But going from a bunch of completely flat gym leaders even by series standards to the breath of fresh air that is the trial captains, and replacing the shitty puzzles + easy gym leaders (yes I know there were execptions, but they were few and far between) with slightly less shitty puzzles + mostly actually difficult totem fights was a drastic improvement in game design, and a good chunk of the fanbase won't want to go back to the older system.


Since the general public opinion seems to be that gyms <<< trials, GF will go for more stuff like trials in the future, and gyms might well go the way of HMs, Ball Capsules, and mail.

Only if they bump the difficulty to totem-tier because they were better boss battles than gyms ever were

I want mandatory Trial captain fights, at least.

>>30978200
It's a neat experiment, so I'll bite.
I wish the totems were even harder though, some of them put up a really good fight but the level curve kind of fucks some of the earlier ones over

Not really, the only generations to do gym leaders right are gen 5 and some of gen 2

Why are people acting like trials are some kind of fresh air idea? Story-wise I'd agree, but for the most part the differences in how you're playing the game vs how you would if there were gyms is superficial.

>>30978000
After the totems I don't think i could tolerate gyms now. 2v1 battles with stat boosts were a great improvement. I just wish there were more and they didn't skimp out on that Fairy one.

>>30978094
After most trials you can go to the captain's house to battle them and lie down in their bed

>>30978000
No. Fuck off Kukui

>>30978378
And that's exactly why trials were a mistake. Now everyone's going to hate it when GF inevitably goes back to the old formula in Gen 8 with 8 gyms and all that stuff, no matter how well-executed the gyms are.

>>30978000
YES

Trials should be side missions for the Z-crystals, mega stones, special items (depends on the region) while gyms should give badges which means permission to be in the league

>>30978378
I disagree

XY gyms had some of the best designs and ideas in the series. Its just that GF didnt make them more challenging but the ideas were good to great

>>30979323
Basically how I feel, too. It would feel bad to see the trials demoted to an optional challenge, but I think it would be interesting for a third version or sequel game set in Alola to do that and actually approach the subject of Alola's culture getting replaced with a more sterile and official Pokemon League. It seems weird that it wasn't present in Sun and Moon as is, but that's probably just because all they actually finished was the Elite Four and the trials were left intact. It would be a hard subject to gloss over if they build gyms and make them the primary means of progression.

But I wouldn't mind it if making trials side-missions meant that, because they didn't have to write elaborate scenarios around them, they could beef it up to a full 18 trials for all the z-crystals. Back before we really knew how Sun and Moon were going to play out, that's what I was hoping for. Lots of little trials scattered all over the region, some of them hidden.

>>30978000
gyms with gimmicks

>doubles, inverse, no items etc.

>>30978253
This one

>>30978000
we are with sinnoh remakes

>>30979094
underrated

>>30978094
Actually you can do this for most of the trials, but the game doesn't tell you.

>>30978000
Gym battles are iconic, they define Pokemon to me personally. A combination of fighting a charged-up "totem" pokemon and a gym leader after would be a nice change of pace, though. Making the trial captains an optional fight that most normies would ignore was a load of shit, though.

I feel like totem pokemon themselves won't return ever again, it seems like a one-off feature as with most gamefreak innovations.

I wish they'd do like A Link Between Worlds and allow you to take on the Gyms in any order you wish, and the Leaders' teams would change depending on how many Badges you have when it's challenged.

No, I'm sick of them. I prefer trials or something similar.

>>30979342
The Fairy Gym was literally Sabrina's gym, which was also Flannery's gym, which was also

>>30979509
So? Its had a lot better visual design than any of the past.

File: 1482424972432.png (134KB, 372x334px) Image search: [Google]

134KB, 372x334px

>>30979529

>>30978000
Sure, they can be done well. But often times they mix up how the game flows. Like, in RB, yor goal was beating all the gyms, but Team Rocket and other stuff got in the way, but the gyms were your goal. In BW, your goal was stop team Plasma, but we still kept having to go to gyms. Why do I need to go to a gym to prove my strength and get a badge? I was chosen as a Rival of PETA's Jesus, let me move on.

>>30978000
Nice trips.
But, it doesn't matter really, as long as the concept and execution is done well, anything can replace gyms, and who knows, maybe they'll remake gyms to be even better.

Yes.

File: 60302033_p0.png (2MB, 1294x1696px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 1294x1696px

>>30979342
XY's gym leaders were so flat that meant nothing.

Contrast that to SM's trial captains. No one would remember Lana or her trial if she wasn't teasing you the whole way through (or tricking you into the trial area to begin with without your consent)

>>30978000
Possibly, the only games with gyms I played were FRLG and XY. They are milquetoast and get repetitive over the years.

>>30980070
>XY's gym leaders were so flat that meant nothing.
Just like in every generation then except BW

What makes gym fail for a bit is the elemental side to it, instead of a theme.

I loved HGSS because you could challenge them again with a stronger team later, some of them had interesting strategies.

only if >>30979357 or they're like the admins from pokémon colosseum
which isn't going to happen
totems were great because of the 2 vs 1 aspect
too bad kommo-o was shit

Yeah. I don't want a bunch of fetch quests or gimmicky bullshit. It's pokemon, let me battle.

>>30979509
I get what you're saying, but I fail to see how things like "pick up items and bring them back to me" like Mallow's trial are superior ideas. Yeah there are some good ones like Kiawe's trial and...uh...I guess Acerola's was kinda neat too, but other than that most of them were not that different from what you'd otherwise be doing in a Pokemon game anyway. Walk around, pick some items up, fight a couple wild Pokemon, big boss Pokemon at the end. Some of the totems are well-thought out fights but you could just as easily do that in a gym setting.

>>30978000
Hell no.

>>30978000
ew no

>>30980568

The thing that makes it nice and fresh is that it's NOT a gym setting. Get out of here Kukui you globalist fuckhead stop trying to destroy Alola's culture.

I have mixed feelings.
I just played through moon and I was open to a new type of gym challenge but the trial system was confusing, I didn't understand the different roles of the characters and events and I feel like I just went through a series of mini quests that didn't provide the same feeling of progression that the gym challenges do.

>>30979342
The only really memorable gym in XY for me was Snowbelle. Probably the longest I've ever spent on a gym puzzle.

File: B2W2_F-00_Pokéstar_1.png (5KB, 108x99px) Image search: [Google]

5KB, 108x99px

>>30979094
why do people assume that Kukui is gonna build gyms afterwords, is there any proof for these? and honestly, even if he did, I doubt that would end the trial system
if anything it would be neat to have gyms/trials together in the same game

>>30980631
Kukuis probably planning on letting unvetted waves of """""refugees""""" into alola and giving them tje right to vote to keep his party in power. Wjat a sick asshole

>>30980685
The cool and intelligent Kukui knows that sitting around in a second-stage developing nation while fairies do nothing but cause trouble ain't gonna bring us up, woo!

>>30980098
That's the issue, though. XY came immediately after BW, so the gym leaders being flat and not doing much of anything felt like a big reversion. It's like they set a new standard and then didn't even bother trying to live up to it.

>>30980820

I honestly can't remember a single gym leader in BW that did anything either though. And the league champion got cucked out of the final battle, he was so fucking worthless.

File: gymleaders.png (24KB, 256x192px) Image search: [Google]

24KB, 256x192px

>>30980833

>>30980820
People really exaggerate how well-developed the BW gym leaders were. Some had day jobs yeah, but so did a some of the XY leaders. The big thing people seem to circlejerk is that they show up at the end to help fight the seven totally not generic baddies in your way, which is nice yeah but doesn't really "develop" them.

>sequel game where the tapus are pissed about the continued human development destroying nature i.e. gyms
>work with kukui to calm down the tapus
>turns out kukui let the his dream get to his head and is the villain all along
please

>>30980910
>Kukui capturing the Tapus
I unironically want this so badly

>>30980910
So Kukui becomes Guzma?

>>30978069
>>30978043
Reminder that there's a lot of ways to cook pasta.

>>30980508
>Game literally hands you Dazzling Gleam and the Fairy Z-Crystal RIGHT BEFORE the trial with minimal exploration.
I just slapped both on the Mismagius I'd had since Route 2 and OHKO'd the entire trial. I get that it's before the actual objective, so they can't just smack me back to Poni's ONE pokemon center without at least giving me a shortcut, but it felt like the devs weren't even trying for that trial.

>>30978000
trials were a good idea but a bad execution.

what's the matter of having trial captains if you dont fight them? most sm trial captains are more bland than the xy's gym leaders.

bw had the rigth idea assign them a profession to be part of the community where they live and be relevant to the story.

the tasks are meh until the totem appears, fight this pokemon x4 times or to get this item you have to beat this pokemon , the lack of puzzles is annoying

Yes. But they should always spice them up, like giving them unique music in B2W2.

And you should always be able to actually train at a gym whenever, like a real gym. Everyone in there should be rematchable in some way.

>>30978000
No

>>30981988
This is true. You should definitely have to fight the trial captain at some point, preferably before you do the trial. And they should definitely always be there afterward to battle (with a better team).

>>30982045
Not a bad idea.

>>30978000
I'd Gyms if we got more Gym Leaders with coverage like Volkner.

>>30978000
gyms with totem pokemon.

how difficult would totem miltank be?

File: 1481478194739.gif (599KB, 565x500px) Image search: [Google]

599KB, 565x500px

>>30982215
>miltank with buffs and pokemon using follow me

File: mao.png (95KB, 233x225px) Image search: [Google]

95KB, 233x225px

>>30982215
>Each trial captain is a gym leader now, they're all 20+ and finished being captains
>They each own their totem pokemon as their ace
>The captains has been replaced by newer ones, you know new kiddos who just finished their island challenge
>each trial have a newer totem pokemon
that would be real neat

>>30978000
Bring back Gyms but make them double battles with totem Pokémon. Totem battles are cool but the trials themselves are quite boring.

>>30978000
Yes.

Trials were shit.

No, they were not good because they were different

No, they were not good because Kiawe's Trial was funny.

No, Trial Captains weren't all memorable. Some were great, some weren't. Just like a gym Leaders (at least in Johto and Unova)

Totem Battles were fantastic.

>>30981988
>most sm trial captains are more bland than the xy's gym leaders.
You can't actually believe this. Trial Captains and well-written gym leaders are completely interchangeable.

The key phrase here is "well-written", of which nothing in XY applies.

I think they should come back, but instead we have to do a trial quest, fight totem Mon, and then we would be allowed to challenge the gym leader.

>>30978000
yes but i'd like to keep the totems and the structure of the trials anyway. Gym leader has some shenanigans going on that you need to help with, whether that be making himself a lunch before he feels like battling or helping fend off the villain team from her town, whatever. And I want the totems to be optional rather than plot hurdles. Every dungeon or extensive route ought to have a deepest area where a totem is available to fight or just avoid.

Not really, but Sun and Moon has shown that GF CAN do things differently, and I want to see more of the formula-breaking stuff they did in these games. It's certainly better than the exact same thing for 20 years.

>>30978000
I'd like them to keep trying new things.
Gyms were interesting the first few times around but now they're just a task you go and do because all the rest of the games did it.

In order to spice them up they've been adding weird gimmicks to the gyms itself and I hesitate to classify some of them within the same galaxy of a TRAINING GYM anyhow.

>>30980685
>there are 8 empty lots in towns around Alola
>Kukui wants an official league
I would like there to be gyms, but also trials? I think that if for the next few games, there were only trials, and then the series tries out gyms again, it would feel less formulaic.

>>30983801
where there a total of 8? I wasn't counting but I felt like there were fewer than that.

>>30983916
Probably only seemed like less because you'd only notice them in actual cities. Otherwise they'd probably just be ruins or a conspicuously empty square.

>>30980070
>say XY's gym leaders were flat
>discussing Lana

But anon, Lana is flat.

>>30979566
This. Gyms do not mesh well with a major plot structure, and Gens 3, 4, and 6 compounded it further by having the main villain plot get resolved before you even finished the gym challenge.

Which meant the last gym leader ended up being a complete waste of time because by that point you were walking around with the box art legendary available to you in all of it's overpowered glory.

There's a reason why Gen 7 has the last trial take place before you get Solgaleo/Lunala, because otherwise it would be even easier than it already is.

I enjoy gyms more than totem battle but I like the trials because it's a mini side quest that has fun and gimmicky take. To me Totem battles just feels empty, just fighting a buffed wild Pokémon after that it's gone. Only an open empty room. While at the gym you're fighting a trainer that specializes in a certain Pokémon type; person to person interaction, I also enjoy collecting badges because it's a sense of achievement.

>>30978000
I don't care

Nah, the trials were an amazing change of pace, gyms feel boring as fuck now.

>there are people in this thread who don't want gyms to return

Are you all nuts?

>>30986840
>Doing the same shit every gen and every game for 20 years, despite some of the games poorly implementing the gyms, making them pointless, or putting no effort into them.
>Change of pace
Fuck no I don't want to just go back to the old formula. I want a mix. We can have both.

The SM trials were the best 'gyms' the series has ever had, especially from a gameplay perspective.

But as someone who has been playing from day one, not having actual gyms feels off.

There has to be a way to combine the two without losing their strong points.

>>30986945
I was doing the math for a custom region for PTU the other day, and I discovered that you can, without any type redundancy, have an E4, 8 Gym Leaders, and 6 Trials and cover all of the types in the game.

There's definitely a way to have gyms and trials in the same game, but it'd take some doing. We all know how GF is with "doing".

>>30982468
>No, they were not good because Kiawe's Trial was funny.
Acerola's trial made use of a feature that the player never has to touch, Kiawe's worked as a good subversion of expectations and Mallow's trial offered a bit more of a challenge due to Sun Shenanigens.

As far as the trials themselves go, only Kiawe and Acerola's were interesting.

>>30978000
Not really.

File: kv4C1Ha.png (452KB, 555x663px) Image search: [Google]

452KB, 555x663px

>>30987006

I was thinking more about a literal combination of the two, but having them at the same time is something that did not even cross my mind.

Having two gymless regions one after another is something I can't imagine GF doing, mostly due to the fact that the trials feel very specific to Alola.

>>30987355
God forbid we have multiple branching objectives in this game.

>>30978000
Only if they're revamped. I'd really like it if they behaved like actual gyms, with training facilities/equipment and people you can rematch. Make getting a badge require a little more interesting work than plowing through a line of trainers and a few banal obstacles, maybe some trials and even some training. A gym leader's probably doing a lot of shit, make him unavailable until he recognizes you and invites you to battle him yourself.

>>30978113
And this dude hits my aesthetic complaint perfectly, I hope the precedent GF set taking us off the grid is going to be extended into making buildings actually look the same on the inside as they do on the outside in Gen 8. with no more retardedly contrived themes to go with them.

>>30978000
Yes

But only if their ace pokemon are as strong as totem pokemon

Trails were just hand holding but ended in a great battle, just combine the 2 and make something amazing

You know what I don't get?

The first island has those fancy Island Challenge-motif barriers/gates and staff wearing shirts who are employed to keep guard and give advice to challengers.

The second island has some as well, and the third island has one. The fourth island has zero. No barriers, no staff.

What? So, who enforces the second half of the island challenge? I mean it's weird enough in the first place since I doubt they get challengers frequently enough to justify people literally standing by a wooden fence for hours a day; why isn't there anyone actually even present to help challengers figure out where the fourth trial is? Does Nanu fight every single island challenger? I don't get it. It's almost like 90% of challengers just get to Olivia or Acerola and fail and stop trying.

I would like Gyms if they were themed to something other than type, or if the typings were better.

I think DP's Volkner and Flint fights were good examples. They were themed but you couldn't overpower them with just one type.

Fuck no

SM still follows the tradition of there being type specialists serving as checkpoints for the game but not everyone has to be

>Solve ridiculously easy puzzle > roll over 3-6 generic NPCs > roll over gym leader after 3 lines of dialogue and never interact with them again

>>30990209
I like this as well.

One of the Totem boss fights did this pretty nicely, namely Lurantis. It summoned either a Castform or Trumbreak, and both of them covered up potential weaknesses that Lurantis had. Thought about bringing a Bug type? Trumbreak will stop you with Rock Blast or Pluck, or if given time to set up (and it will), Castform has a Sunny Day + Weather Ball combination.

Stuff like that. I'd like seeing curve ball Pokemon to throw you off. Have them justify it by making Gyms about a predominant type, but that doesn't mean other types of Pokemon can't show up to patch up weaknesses. Or, as you said, give them themes. Have Gyms be centered around strategies. Hell, wasn't Blue's Gym in Gen IV basically centered around Trick Room?

>>30989843
Melemele is clearly the tutorial island, so from a design standpoint they're helping young trialgoers.

Akala has some, but the trials are more challenging and at that point you'd know what you're doing.

Ula'Ula has borderline none because if I'm remembering right, it's the second smallest island and only has Acerola and Sophocles' trials, and Nanu's Grand Trial, which makes it low maintenance.

Poni Island was pretty much deserted, hence why they have no (active) trial captains or a Kahuna until you get there.

I'd also guess that most people don't finish the challenge because of issues getting from island to island (Protag/Hau got lucky), difficulty (What, you expect Youngster Joey to finish it?), or sheer inability to do so.

File: 1481163690674.png (95KB, 540x463px) Image search: [Google]

95KB, 540x463px

>gym leaders are one-dimensional and have no development

Golly gee, it's like the game is focused on the player and not these literally whos. Gym Leaders are, were, and always will be, glorified hurdles for the player to jump over. Attempting to develop them like in B/W only lengthens the walls of text the player is forced to read.

You know what happens then? You get what they did for Sun/Moon. S/M was basically The Lillie Experience™, featuring (You) as The Babysitter because (You) wanted character development in a goddamn Pokemon game.

>>30990808
Why do you think that things either have to be absolutely empty and shallow or Lillie Simulator? You can make a world come alive without forcing the player to sit through cutscenes and awkwardly forced life stories. It's a fucking RPG, let us explore and choose what and what we don't want to learn about. Fuck your stylized checkpoints full of robotic gameplay advice dispenser NPCs.

only if they're challenging again.

>>30990808
>the game is focused on the player

To bad the player practically doesn't exist as a character. SM at least has you speak actual sentences

>>30990254
This. Gen 5 at least tried to go beyond that by having the gym leaders take bigger roles and show up outside of their gyms frequently, but then we had Gen 6 slide back to the old garbage of "I live here forever" and Gen 7 throwing the baby out with the bathwater and giving us trials instead.

>>30993332
>not throwing out a rotting corpse
Fuck gyms.

You are a pioneer of an entirely new region which only has 1 town settlement complete with 1 pokecenter and a limited supply at the pokemart per day.

You and your crew are required to chart/map the area as well as overcome obstacles and create a path that is more traversable to the public.

You will get fly early on and will revisit the first and only town numerous times to replenish supplies. The town will grow and change as you expand your map.

There are clearing checkpoints you can fly to when you reach them from within the fog of war.

Your rival disappears only to be caught glimpses of until endgame charting more land than you (at the same time becoming a dishevelled nomad)

Others get captured or trapped by legendary mons who are trying to impede your progress and stop humans from colonising the area. Moral questioning ensues.

Climax of the game is a stand off between your rival blowing something up that will make a clearing for a prosperous town and make the legendaries move on and the later.

>you help the legendary and the region never becomes colonised

>>30994606

You receive commission money from a higher power offshore to complete set tasks in order to buy your supplies.

Could be anything. Finding specific areas, collecting berries, cutting back greenery, some of which can be reset/grow back