[Music] it's no secret that my favorite addition to Pokémon battles were abilities which were introduced in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire but it's been over two decades since then and by now the number of abilities have nearly tripled I want to dedicate a video going over how this mechanic has been treated differently over the six Generations as the developers of Pokémon have notice how big of an impact these abilities can make you can call me an artist and I'm here trying to make my own creature collector with my stem based designs and after this deeper discussion about passive abilities in creature collectors like Pokémon I'll mention what I want to do in regards to the attributes I'm trying to implement so check your stabilities and let's talk about abilities that was a terrible segue Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire were supposed to be a new start while the first two generation of Pokémon games were strongly linked in both their maps and creature roster the hen region was largely separate with only two out of the 135 new species referencing an older line as the pokemania was slowing down at the time the developers and Game Freak reportedly wanted to make something amazing and they had the chance to do so with the upgraded Hardware of the Game Boy Advance so yeah one of the main additions that would Chang the series forever was abilities passive abilities have always been a common mechanic in games where there's an additional rule applied to the basic gameplay and this could be implemented through special items or using certain characters heck the Pokémon Trading Card Game already had something similar with some cards having an extra Pokemon power now these Pokémon video games would Implement passives through both items and characters but we're focusing on the latter today and this ability mechanic would further fles out the characteristics and impressions of each species but how should the developers roll this mechanic out if there's too many new rules all at once it might alienate old fans and confuse potential new ones heck this generation also tried to implement 2v2 battles the doubles format so if every Pokémon has an ability that means four whole new rules will be applied each turn how would this not be overwhelming well there were eventually 76 new abilities in this third generation don't worry I'm not going down this list talking about each one of them but I'll be elaborate in more on this generation as I noticed some big categories after reading through these guys firstly there are abilities that protect the Pokémon from a specific mechanic or category of moves some of these could be very useful like protecting you from getting your stats lowered or protecting you from Critical Hits but some of these could be really Niche like protecting you from flinches or protecting you from one hit KO moves which was the only thing sturdy did before it got buffed so much for being a game-changing mechanic but you know what but I think it helps ease the player in Saving you from freezing would almost never be useful unless the opponent uses certain moves but at that point it's like you're playing a game for the past Generations where they're just the type matches and stats you got to worry about many of these protecting abilities are pretty Niche that you don't have to worry about what each of them do I mean when are you going to run into a sound base move well one of the new Pokémon of this generation is whis who you can meet pretty early on and they get to learn uproar the stronger move out of the two they already know however when you go around in the wild to raise your Wismer you might encounter another one you tell yours to uproar and it would fail cuz turns out Wismer has soundproof now what do you as a player learn from this that soundproof protects Pokemon against sound based moves no you don't think about that you think about the whis you learn that this bunny is immune to certain attacks you don't experience the game by thinking about metadata or even the terms of these abilities you associate the effects with the Pokemon species in front of you and this is the beauty of abilities where the new gameplay mechanics they bring are paired with a specific design in this generation each Pokémon species have one or two abilities so it's easier to remember what they potentially have which would prove to be important for stronger abilities like those that affect the type chart just like how certain abilities protect you from a certain subsection of attacks some abilities might protect you from a certain type of move like levitate which is well known to Grant immunity to ground types and anything on the ground but due to this sudden upset in type interactions all levitating Pokémon only have levitate as an ability so there's no mystery as to what other ability they might have had instead now this trend will be broken immediately in the Next Generation but still most most levitators only have levitate as I mentioned in my immunity video there are some abilities that Grant an immunity and further Buffs you and lastly there's thick fat which doesn't make you immune but provides a resistance to Fire and Ice types type interaction should be simple enough right they either have or double the damage being taken so you could do some simple math to multiply them out with these kind of abilities you just need to avoid one or two more types when facing certain species all right so we talked a lot about defense Ive abilities unless I'm missing a major one let's talk about offensive abilities so I found out a lot of these offensive abilities are dependent on making contact if they contact you there's a chance to poison them or there's a chance to make them love you very dangerous this would make players more aware about another category of moves contact moves making players hesitant to hit you as they could trigger your ability in fact a lot of these abilities are dependent on luck Pokémon as a game has a lot of luck factored into it already and for these abilities if the luck doesn't trigger the effect it's again playing like the older games with no abilities but this probability should be enough to change Behavior overall the game actually has accuracy and evasion stats but abilities that increase the chance to miss would be less visited in future Generations rather than abilities that raise the chance to hit maybe missing a move leaves a larger impact than narrowly Sur surviving due to a Miss similarly maybe having a chance to apply an effect makes players more frustrated when the effect doesn't happen because in the future games people are expecting the ability to do something rather than acting as if it didn't exist but we're getting ahead of ourselves because some abilities in this gen also directly buff you or debuff your opponent some of these abilities would remain to be very important to this day but some of these Buffs seem to be dependent on a specific battle mechanic weather weather was actually introduced in the previous generation however the Box legendaries and campaign of Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire heavily emphasizes the weather mechanic with Groudon and Kyogre setting weather conditions upon entry Rayquaza and a few other Pokémon would have abilities that will shut down weather conditions and yeah we quickly get to see how abilities can overlaping their effects this emphasizes how the ability names are mostly for flavor instead of actually trying to make you remember the effects with the abil's name like Psyduck and Golduck have Cloud9 removes weather conditions while Rayquaza has the special air loock ability which also removes weather conditions it does the same thing speaking of specific mechanics remember how I mentioned that this generation tried to introduce double battles as well so some abilities are made for the doubles format which is also the format that official tournaments would end up being in lightning ROM protects your Ally from Electric moves but in this generation the electric types still dealt damage to the lightning rod user and plus and minus power each other up oh wow that's actually really beautiful but they're competitively worthless I mean how would game freak know if something's viable or not but on the same coin does every ability have to be competitively viable by now the game is trying to ease the players in and we've already seen how there's multiple abilities that usually don't have any effect on the battle heck some abilities actually have no effect in the battle but still there's a lot of effects here and players could often forget what Pokemon has what ability but luckily Pokémon battles usually last more than one turn or even more than one battle so you could learn and adjust during the match both in a casual playthrough and even in tournaments so as you play through the game you start to remember some Pokémon with their associated effects several Pokémon have signature abilities where no other Pokémon line gets their ability technically a lot of Pokémon has signature abilities in this generation just because this is the first gen with abilities but I want to talk about three special cases today with the first two emphasizing the tie between a Pokemon's ability and their stats since the first games Pokemon species were distinguished not just by their design and type but by their ingame stats and what boosts they learn shenja has an amazing ability called Wonder guard which makes them immune to every type that isn't normally super effective to their typing bug and ghost this covers a lot of types what a monstrous effect so how is this balanced by giving Shedinja only one HP if you ever get to hit this husk shinja will go down um actually you could use a focus action shut up if you ever poison it burn it set a sandstorm or hail it will perish but if you don't have any of those Your Arsenal it might be GG's on the other end slacking has a total of 670 base stats the heck this is higher than most legendaries even pseudo Legends I mean Powerhouse Pokemon have a base stat total of 600 to establish that this is a high number wood in the power crepe is 670 for a Pokemon in the base roster but this time the ability balances the stats slacking could only have truant which forces you to loaf around every other turn just like that this hulking beast turned into an easily counter gimmick as having protect can easily defeat this guy but how fun is that these Pokemon's identities are tied to their gameplay through the use of abilities the last signature ability I wanted to discuss is castor's forecast as much as I disagree with his design they are the first gimmick who transformed into different forms during battle and they're hard to miss as you're gifted a cast form in the campaign but these form changing abilities might pose a problem in the code what if somebody else gets forecast what do you mean only cast form has access to forecast H well you see me from 4 seconds ago this generation would introduce some moves that can change one's ability including the ability Trace which copies the opponent's ability only the part and Ral line could get Trac but dang all of a sudden these carefully assigned effects could get out of hand like tracing Shing just wonder guard on a Porygon means that only fighting moves can hit it and Porygon stats are much bulkier than shinas as unfair as it might sound game freak all out this but Trace has one big downside built into it as it depends on what your opponent has you can't reliably copy Wonder guard if your opponent doesn't send out shinja Trace is still very applic able in a casual playthrough as it also tells you your opponent's ability possibly helping you learn what Pokémon has what ability H later switching around abilities would give rise to some devious yet gimmicky strats out there and that creativity just makes this game that much better but going back to forecast what happens if you trace forecast well in Generation 3 they actually let you do it and it totally had the same effect of giving you a secret form in the weather it totally did didn't do absolutely nothing but yeah in future Generations all form changing abilities can't be copied through trace or related moves but yeah as you can see abilities offered a major change to the game playay which really helped Pokémon fire red and leaf green feel like a different than Fuller experience despite treading the same story and map as the first games now there's actually a major component to abilities that I haven't mentioned yet we'll revisit this after going through the Next Generation so sit tight so how do you make new abilities well the safest option is to do variance of previous ones buffing a stat under a certain condition setting weather upon entry and adding type resistances there's even a water form of lightning rod before both of them got buffed now of the abilities that felt like varing the past ones a few also felt like they switched to work offensively instead of defensively when abilities like levita take granted an immunity the ability Scrappy would ignore Ghost types immunities when abilities like soundproof provided protection from a subsection of moves iron Fitz grants bonus damage when using a subsection of attacks now I should note that this generation as a whole gave a lot of love to past Generations so some old Pokémon even from the third generation got new signature abilities because every Pokémon can have up to two abilities and game for must have trusted the fans to be warmed up to the concept by now because additionally we get to see abilities that have more than one effect consider disability dry skin absorbs water moves but gets hurt more by fire moves also the rain heals them every turn while hard sunlight hurts them every turn these are technically four separate effects on one frog but players could pick it up pretty quickly there's also some thematic cohesion here where water good fire bad but regardless distrust in the players to comprehend these rules would only start to grow as people get more familiar with abilities being in the game and players look forward to more exciting effects but maybe you're tired from all these rules and exceptions somebody once told me the mold breaker ability bypasses their targets ability so yeah you could ignore defensive abilities when you use certain Pokémon and this effect will return in future gener Generations both in particular abilities and particular moves there are quite a few more extreme abilities this time around like tinted lens boosting all non-effective moves or solid rock reducing all weaknesses to magicard blocking all indirect damage so yeah it seems that Gen 4 wasn't afraid to ramp things up as we see fewer situational abilities and stronger effects overall in fact some of the quote unquote weaker abilities will still provide a personality as there's a few abilities that don't change the rules of the battle but they tell you info on the enemy's kit even if these might be Obsolete and competitive due to current rule formats they're historically pretty valuable and can also help casual playthroughs for Signature abilities some abilities are linked to powerful signature moves especially for legendaries while we see a form changing and an inhibiting ability once again these would be so integral to the Pokémon's identity that more than a decade later in Pokémon Legends archus a game where abilities don't exist these two Pokémon still have Unique Mechanics in the game to mimic their abilities but yeah basically in this generation abilities start to get more complex and more powerful similar to gen 3 this generation was supposed to be a new Stu for Pokémon by introducing a full new roster to populate the main campaign as older designs weren't accessible until the post game before we discuss the new abilities introduced in this generation we should address the TR in the room from 2010 to 2014 Pokémon dream world was a website that was connected to the generation 5 video games Pokémon would entice people to get on the website by providing incentives for the main games like unique berries and importantly hidden abilities for older Pokémon while Pokémon only had up to two abilities so far this generation gave many older Pokemon and eventually Gen 5 Pokémon an additional option that was only into Pokémon caught in the Dream World website or in special areas even though many of these hidden abilities weren't completely new effects they would make several Pokémon relatively stronger than before so many hardcore fans would have to grind out the mini games of this website to get the most competitively viable version of a Pokémon as we see how abilities have become a staple in the competitive scene while they still provide a personality and flavor text to a Pokémon's design abilities that only provide a minor change to the game might disappoint players now thus several older abilities were given a buff in this generation most notably lightning rod and storm drain which now provide a special attack buff and a type of immunity on top of redirecting the type of move from their partner that's like three rules in one ability would this dangerous accumulation of effects lead to a power creep well let's see some new abilities of this generation would introduce a very cool use of the doubles format where certain abilities are triggered by a certain type of move now we've had abilities that were triggered by certain mechanics before but getting hit by a certain type is something you could control more easily in a doubles game where you can have a supporting Pokemon hit their own partner to set them up now speaking of support this generation would introduce one of the strongest supporting abilities with prankster where priority is given to all status moves this means that the Pokemon can throw out a burn or set of screens before anyone else moves regardless of how slow or weak they are Pokemon's getting bold out here with these effects and there are more abilities to creatively counter opponents like defiant providing two stages of attack Buffs so when an opponent intimidates you you still come out with a plus one buff to your attack the ability magic bounce doesn't just protect you from hazards but it bounces it back to your opponent's side of the field there are only a few of these new abilities that were rarely useful and even then they would have a use in doubles like friend guard has no effect in single battles but they passively protect your ally in doubles while Gen 4 added some new detrimental abilities the only new detrimental ability in this generation that I noticed was aros's signature ability de Fus which have their very offensive stats at low HP to balance the Pokémon speaking of signature abilities some of these new signature abilities also had radical effects Haag Gus's mummy turns anyone's ability into mummy to those who touch it Zoro AR disguises themselves as another member of the party until they are hit and oo gen 1's did get some major buff because they finally get to transform immediately with their impostor ability without having to survive a turn to use transform but this new ability was locked in the dream world H more reason to use the website but yeah the developers are going all out in this generation and as crazy as this all sounds wasn't this too much to handle all at once um might be a lot to learn if you're getting into competitive which many fans were as in 2009 right before Gen 5 Pokémon started their video game championships the official series of tournaments that would continue to this day but for a casual playthrough in black and white most Pokémon you encountered the game only had up to two abilities as the hidden abilities were locked into dream world and there's only around 150 Pokémon you can meet anyways as the older Pokémon were locked in the post game I don't know how intentional that was but gatekeeping might have helped players ease into understanding some of these more interesting mechanics regardless the sequels black two and White 2 would have all the Pokémon out and about from the get go anyways but could most players keep up with the growing complexity of these games despite the major changes Pokemon tried to bring in the fifth generation many people thought it's just the same game and frankly it might feel like that for a casual playthrough as we discussed a lot of these new additions were gatee kept in one way or another and while the competitive scene was changing radically the campaign still had to fight eight gyms and the lead four as you blast through grunts by spamming the same strong move so Generation 6 started to Market a flashy new gimmick that cannot be ignored in the Casual playthrough Mega Evolutions due to Mega Evolutions giving a spotlight to some older Pokémon and these games being the first fully 3D games of the main Series this generation would have the fewest number of new Pokémon added and consequently also the fewest number of new abilities while there still variance of previous abilities like powering up certain moves and protecting against others there seems to be a lot of signature abilities in the set but it makes sense right there's a bunch of strong past abilities to choose from anyways so any new effect might be accentuated by having the new Pokemon be the only one to wield set effect also this generation allowed you to change your Pokémon's ability through an item to allow you to try out different strategies though the hidden ability will still be restricted despite dream world ending during this generation all right so out of these signature abilities the legendaries of X and Y each has this Aura mechanic that's not shared by any other Pokémon while the legendaries of the mega ruby and sapphire games would provide new weather conditions that offer extreme type interactions all right so going back to this ability list there's a certain group of abilities that I want to put a spotlight on in these abilities nor normal type moves are converted into a different Elemental type as they also receive a boost in their power why do they have the specific set of effects because of Mega Evolutions Mega Evolutions not only change the design of the Pokémon but they could also change their type A little but there's a problem here when you change your Pokémon's type if they don't have the Right Moves they wouldn't be able to use that new type offensively as only moves with the same type as the Pokémon could get a 50% attack boost but most Pokémon have access to some default normal type moves see where we're going here when these abilities Chang those normal type moves into a more relevant type now you could apply a same type attack bonus additionally they decided to add a power boost to make these Pokemon even stronger and that's the thing new abilities are starting to get stronger to make these new Pokémon worthwhile but what if it's too worthwhile now we're starting to see how some of these new new abilities are going under power creep to the point where some of these abilities would get nerfed directly in the Next Generation so that the new Pokémon of that future generation have a chance to shine long gone are the days where having an ability that's nearly useless was considered to be okay as most abilities now are supposed to wow and change the game because despite all the changes Pokemon still feels like the same [Music] game so this is a generation where I personally felt like I understood what abilities meant for Pokémon I know crazy right we've had abilities for four generations by now there are several Pokémon who have special designs because of their abilities what made me realize that abilities weren't just the video game mechanic advertisements Pokémon sun and moon had a lot of advertisements showing off their new creature roster maybe it's due to capitalizing on Pokémon Go's popularity at the time or maybe it's just coincidence but yeah a lot of the new creatures were advertised instead of making them a mystery until the game comes out and with the new species they're often shown with their own signature move and or ability finally saw that these abilities weren't just about ooh how could it shake up the competitive meta but they help Define that species personality and behavior wimp pod's signature and only ability is wimp out where they leave the battle at low HP but their evolution goal isopod oh there again biger chat because they make an emergency exit when they're at low HP it's hilarious it's the same effect but they got different names just to keep that cool facade there's some biological references too like sea cucumbers spilling their innards out and smaller fish who like to school lurantis isn't just a mantis trying to be a flower but they're actually a flower trying to be a mantis so they're giv the ability contrary it's not a new ability but see how these abilities can help flesh out a species identity there's also a lot of form changing abilities this time around all right I don't want to be sitting here listing every single ability but just like before it makes sense that most of these new abilities are signature to a particular line of new Pokémon a harder thing to track is the unique usage of older abilities on New Pokemon species I mean the only one I could think of right now is Gen 5's electros line where they're only weak to ground but have levitate as an ability to be like a Pokémon with no weaknesses but as there's a bunch of strong old abilities by now with new combination of stats types and moves some of these new Pokémon can use those old abilities very well so I want to talk about the legendary quartet in this generation where they started to Showcase a different mechanic of the game terrains there's a lot of parallels between weather and terrains and Pokemon in fact just like whether the previous generation actually introduced this mechanic through moves while the following generation would have abilities that straight up trigger the mechanic upon entry now fans had a harder time understanding what these actually do while weather was pretty straightforward by having two pairs of counterparts with a little special case for rock types in sandstorms terrains had less symmetry going on competitive and dedicated fans would eventually learn what they each do but we can see how some of these new mechanics can be confusing to the Victorian child that is your favorite millennial what is this Pokemon dude this is not like Charmander to a Casual Gamer these effects are rare and harder to understand overall now despite the many new signature abilities in this generation the only one that will get directly nerfed in the future is mimikyu's disguise which Shields it from a single move because they can hold an item that make them endure another hit so in the future hitting the disguise cuts out 10% of their Max HP I mean how is Pokemon supposed to know that some of these abilities would be competitively too strong by now game freak seems pretty aware of Pokémon's competitive scene I mean they've been having official tournaments for three generations by now developers know that the competitive viability is a way to Garner more attention to some species who would have otherwise been not as remembered as much as a fans old favorite design since Pokémon kind of knows what's popular and competitive they can start implementing some balances such as several old abilities ignoring the ability intim today however the developer could use this knowledge to make sure that some of these new abilities are worthwhile so starting from this generation Pokémon made dlc's and they had to make this extra purchase worth the price so of the many additions I want to quickly mention ability patches which actually allowed you to access hidden abilities now without the use of dream world or through breeding but when it actually comes to new abilities the legendaries of the first half of the DLC would have an ability that breaks through protects in the doubles format protects are vital so these bears would be pinning the competitive scene under their furry paw not just for this generation but also the next now the legendaries of the main campaign Zan and zanta would receive boost to their stats every time they're switched in and factoring how high their stats are already without those boosts we would be dealing with some monstrous numbers especially for the offens ofation who go to dominate this generation of tournaments the Next Generation would actually Nerf these abilities to only trigger once per battle but with the last set of legendaries in this generation we can directly witness effects being stacked on top of each other now cerx is the legendary of the crown Tundra DLC and they have a nerve as an ability but cerx has two horses who each have an ability that's a variant of the past ability Moxy giving a boost upon every knockout they deliver callar can choose to ride one of these horses and their ability becomes as one where both unnerve and that horse's ability are applied in the battle abilities have been a part of the main gameplay for nearly two decades so there's no reason to go easy on the players who can understand a few additional Rules by now unless those players are completely new which might be why the main campaign Waits until the post game and extra content to take their gloves off we see a big disparity between a newcomer and a season veteran of the series but it might be the case that Pokémon underestimates their new fans as many deem the main campaign to be too easy but all right I've done a great deal talking about the legendary abilities where they're supposed to stand out from all the other super strong legendaries of the past but what about abilities of other Pokémon I guess we are regularly seeing form changing abilities by now I love them but the issue is that most of these form changing abilities are also the Pokémon's only ability which locks them into a predictable Behavior otherwise old abilities got distributed more like the terrain Setters there's some interesting new variants of older abilities and oo they even converted some items into abilities remember how they're technically both passive effects but the last ability in this generation that I want to point out is the ability to end all abilities seriously with all these new rules things might be too complicated so this generation introduced neutralizing gas which shuts off everyone's abilities on the B Battlefield we're back to just type matchups and stats again this simple ability not only makes games easier to understand but they can awaken some of those past Pokémon who were hindered by their ability oh yes rig Giga wheezing would be a popular Duo due to this is this overpowered maybe but in a doubles format the presence of more Pokémon can make strats like these more manageable to deal with as this neutralizing gas wheezing needs to be protected or else the giant will will be at a massive disadvantage it's a very interesting way to make a supporting character but yeah our abilities getting too complicated for some reason Pokemon decided to remove abilities in their Legends archus game and I don't exactly know why did they think this game would specifically Garner a new audience that might get too overwhelmed by Advanced abilities see this was the case for Pokémon go where even immunities were dismantled as moves are done through energy bars instead of a PowerPoint system Legends archus still has PowerPoints but they still didn't have abilities and it makes me wonder if the upcoming Legends Za would also leave out abilities despite how Mega Evolutions are very defined by their abilities but I'm getting ahead of ourselves let's finally talk about the present generation tell me what is ogre Pond's ability she has defiant that's an old ability but wait she could also get water absorb or mold breaker or even sturdy depending on the item she holds but when she terrial ises she gets a new ability called embod aspect which boosts a stat depending on which mask she has on I mean this might not be complicated for many fans especially if you've seen several rounds of the competitive scene but I remember there being a lot of confusion around the time of ogron's release does it keep the previous ability no it just just makes the Boost okay well boosting abilities like zans got nerfed this generation to only happen once per battle is that the case here uh no it just makes the Boost every time it switched in all right wait the item also boost the power of your attacks there's a lot going on and admittedly she's a special legendary so this isn't the norm but it felt like ability descriptions became a lot longer than what they used to be Freddy Fazbear's mind eye ignores the opponent's evasion stats can't lose their accuracy and can hit Ghost types with normal and fighting moves this is a combination of keenai and Scrappy in one ability when cloth is below half HP they gain above to their offenses and speed but lose a stage in their defenses so this is like performing half of the old move shell smash so yeah many of these new abilities are variations or combinations of past effects but then garano has purifying salt where it prevents gaining any status condition and halves ghost attacks I forgot about that and that's the thing since a lot of these abilities have multiple effects going on some of the details are easy to forget but it's not just about multiple effects some do something we've never seen before like blocking all status moves or powering up just electric moves upon taking damage or getting a 10% boost for every Pokemon that is fainted in your party you can't do quick matths between doubles and halves anymore as you have to get better at guesstimating to predict whether you're strong enough bro sure your favorite Millennial streamer this could they understand what is going on here now despite my bewildered tone I love these additions these new additions make the games more different than exciting and frankly it's great to see a lot of these paladon Pokémon shine in their own tournament besides if an ability is too strong this time around worst case scenario is that they could get nerfed in the Next Generation but since every generation has now been sporting a new gimmick since the sixth generation while some these abilities rule with the Scarlet Violet terization gimmick they might fall flat when terization is gone speaking of terization the old ability proteon used to change types with every new move but it got nerfed to only work once per switch in was proteum particularly overpowered eh I don't know if it was gamebreaking but it seems that it might have outshined a tralization gimmick anyways we've come from rather humble beginnings that ease players into the concept of abilities to having Pokémon bring multiple effects that greatly change how they are played what a great way to change up the competitive scene the competitive scene the competitive scene the competitive scene when did you notice it when did you notice that I started to talk just about the competitive side of abilities let's step back from the competition the balancing all the form changes all the defenses and Buffs all the triggers and probability Pokémon is a role playing game sure there's combat in the game but you get to walk around in this world back in Generation 3 illuminate was an ability that had no effect in battle whatsoever but they had an effect outside of it where they attracted more wild Pokémon specifically after Pokémon Emerald some abilities would help hatch eggs faster catch fish more frequently or even avoid wild encounters but out of all these Overworld effects my favorite has to be pickup see a pickup Pokémon has the chance to pick up a random item in the wild but they would only do so if they're not holding an item already so in the fear of missing out on a good find you will open up the menu and take the item away from them I don't know about everyone's experience but this was a great tcid piece of game development to get me to check and use items did they have a long winding tutorial telling me how to equip items on my party members I don't think so if they did I missed it because I was conked out when the coughing baby was trying to catch another coughing baby but yeah abilities can also help with experiences outside of just having an advantage in battle like damp sounds pretty Niche by preventing exploding moves but they come in pretty handy if you're trying to catch a Pokemon that regularly explodes it just seems that ability discussions nowadays seem to be so dependent on how competitively viable they are heck illuminate was shamed into having a battle effect by the ninth generation I think the eighth generation did consider abilities with effects outside of battle and you know what while they're not the vocal majority there are many comments I saw that actually praise these out of combat effects but even your abilities without outof combat defs and are just not the best competitive option take a look at gen 's ESP spatha the competitively best ability is speed boost instead of their signature opportunist which copies stat boost made by your opponent and just like Trace it's hard to control your opponent's actions however an opportunist spot in the main campaign can catch a player off guard who would unknowingly set up in front of it including world champions while it is true that there are definiely better abilities in a certain meta it's going to be important for me to consider not just the competitive viability of an effect but also including effects that can enrich the campaign I could always balance stats and power levels by adjusting numbers but I would need to sit down and consider what effects could I have to affect your playthrough I know we've had a long discussion today but before I talk about my personal project as I have on this channel there's another game I want to discuss bug Snacks by Young Horses has a managerie of food themed Critters that you try to catch through traps trip wires and other interactions each species of bug snacks can have attributes but the heck do the attributes do you don't fight the bug snacks with each other the attributes in this game describe a bug snack's Behavior the flying attribute means that the buck snack travels in the air aggressive Buck snacks try to bump into you and the green attribute means that the buck snack is green now bug snack could have zero two five whole attributes being applied to it all at once because there are descriptions of how bug snacks act in an environment and this affects your game play because a large part of the game here is to figure out how to catch them from the environment the closest comparison from Pokémon would be how some wild Pokémon from Legends archus behave differently like some are shy and Pokémon like Paris want to eat you alive I really like how bug snack's attribute system help describe species without necessitating a battle so with all this in mind let me close off the video by sharing some lessons that they learned from using Game mechanics to describe a creature so I've been going over my stem based cre collector on this channel as I'm making it I want to be clear that I'm still in the very early stages of making this game for my collection of stem based creatures and one of my decisions during the code was to have two tiers of effects per species the first tier is attributes where I want every species to choose from a selection of one two or three choices and the second tier being categories where certain species would always inherently belong to certain categories name pending by the way because attribute was supposed to be a CS term but using that analogy I'll need to use attributes and classes and I don't want to mix classes with species because of what they mean in taxonomy but what I am sure of is that I want to dedicate attributes to in-game battle rules While most categories deal with what the stemma can do in the Overworld I want attribute choices to be unlockable as you get to know your stemma more so most wild stemma wouldn't have these other attributes but other NPC battles might admittedly I've been mostly working on the main combat system so I'm thinking of the categories that do have in battle mechanics like Airborne wouldn't be grounded where almost all Aeros stas are inherently Airborne but I can see categories like luminescent stemma just helping you out in the Overworld I don't know I haven't coded that part yet I'm still in the middle of coding and building the game but I'd love to show more one day so if you like today's video or if you're interested in my stemma journey follow the channel anyways yeah passive abilities are an exciting method to change up the game while also making more species memorable through the game playay I think it's important to recognize that the gameplay is more than just the battles and combat if you want to see me describe my stemma designs and have other related discussions you can check them out right now in my stemma playlist here I want to thank my patreon members for directly supporting me and the channel but you could support me by just liking and sh sharing the video thank you so much for watching this long video and until next time I hope you have the ability to have a nice one