Video Game Types Versus TCG Types

[TheRolesWePlay]

Personally I think the system we have now is pretty good, and that little needs to be changed. Part of my reason being that certain aspects of the video games should be left out or altered.

The problem people seem to have is that the video games have more types and the TCG doesn't, but remember the TCG is an adaptation and some things just don't easily carry over well, typings being one. If you look at most other card games you'll notice that they keep the number of their types to about 5. This is often a balancing move, they try to keep things diverse while trying to keep things simple, of course due to the nature of the energy system Pokemon uses they have a little more leeway in this aspect.

Another thing is that muli-type decks have been a big thing in Pokemon since the beginning, and to introduce more types would nearly kill this aspect, because if you had more types running around you'd have more Pokemon with different weaknesses, thus making techs that much harder to play since another card in the deck could easily have a different weakness.

Additionally another problem with separating types would mean that they'd have to make them each unique to make them more usable. If you notice each type has their own thing going for them. :colorless: is straightforward, :grass: is healing and status affliction, :fire: is big damage and deals with discard, :water: is energy acceleration, :lightning: is similar to :fire: but tends to be more frail and faster, sychic: is about manipulation, :fighting: is big, strong, but slow, :dark: is about disruption, and :metal: is about protection, and even then there's plenty of overlapping between them.

What makes dragon special here is that dragons being the big mythical powerhouses and popular beasts they are have been unique since the early EX era, and have been taking a life of their won.

If any other type deserved an energy split though I'd probably say Poison due to it not really meshing with any type, but then again we'd probably wind up with another junk type.

 

[Cyrus]

There should definitely be more types in the TCG; however, they don't need to come out all at once. Releasing one new set every few years could be a brilliant way to revitalize the game:

*More types means a more collectible game (wouldn't new players love to own an Ice-type Kyurem, or a Ground-type Garchomp?)
*More types means more in-game variety (good for intermediate players who are hungry for options)
*More types means more complexity (good for experts)

And for all of you people who say, "More types will make the game too hard for new players," realize one very important thing: casual players don't care about the rules.

 

[bullados]

There's a difference, though, between more Pokemon types and more Energy types.

I don't want to see more Energy types. It makes the game too complex, discourages against multi-type decks in general, and forces obnoxiously overhuge sets.

But I have no problems with more Pokemon types. That will allow for the entire Weakness Chart to be used, allows for more multitype strategies, and still keeps the game reasonably simple.

How would you use more Pokemon types with the same Energy types? The same way they're using Dragons right now. Use the Basic Energy that already exist, and do not create more. Maybe re-classify the Energy to be color-based, rather than elemental/type based. But it's certainly an idea that's worthy of discussion.

 

[Frost]

I'd especially like to see new Pokemon types because of the mess that is Psychic after Poison changed from Grass. It's kind of ridiculous that Dark AND Metal resist Psychic now. Imagine if Colorless still resisted it too like in the old days?

 

[signofzeta]

There is one thing that the TCG can't do and the Video games could do, without over complicating the TCG. That is dual typing. There are tons of Fire and Ghost, or Ground and Water, or Bug and Steel type pokemon in the Video games. These types of pokemon in the TCG no longer have the conjunction, "AND", but now have the conjunction "OR".

In the Video Games, you see pokemon like the Sandile and its evolutionary family. In the games they are Ground AND Dark. In the TCG, they are Ground (Black and White, BW Emerging Powers), OR Dark, (Dark Explorers).

For the poison type, basically even in the games, I think making poison its own type is stupid.

I think in the TCG, it should follow this formula.

Fire Element Red
Water Element Blue
Nature Element Green
Industrialization Element Silver
Light Element Yellow
Darkness Element Black
Mental Element Purple
Physical, or Earth Element Orange or Brown

Then there is the Air Element or no element White
And the multi element Gold

If they decide to actually separate them into 17 types, but keep the 8 energy, then:

Fire element is easy. All fire types are based off the Fire Element.

Nature Element. Bug and Grass belongs here. Poison also belongs here, but only if it is poison that comes from nature itself.

Water Element. This is anything to do with water. Water types belong here. Ice types too. Ice is still water. Ice is physical, and hard as rock, but ice does not belong with the Earth element.

Light Element. Lightning or Electric types belong here. What is that energy that powers all your lightbulbs?

Mental or Mind Element. Psychics belong here. They use mental energy to attack. Ghosts and Poison do NOT belong here, and they should be moved.

Physical, or Earth Element. Fighting, Ground, and Rock types belong here. This type deals with strength, and being strong. The classical element associated with strength is Earth.

Darkness Element. Dark types and Ghost types should be here. This element deals with both Darkness physically, and Darkness mentally. Dark types represent evil, darkness in the soul. Ghost types represent the night.

Industrialization element. Poison types and Steel types belong here. The steel type represents the development and the destruction of nature. The Poison element only involve pokemon that relate to pollution and waste, like Grimer and Garbodor.

Then there is the Colorless element. Both Flying and Normal types belong here. This element isn't really an element. It can use any energy. Normal types belong here because normal types aren't supposed to be elemental. Flying types, or anything associated with the element of air belong here, because air is thought to be colorless, and colorless is also considered to be empty, and a room full of air is considered empty.

Then there are Dragons, which are multi element.

Each type that belongs with a certain element would have the card frames that have the color of that element. Taking the Water type for example. Both Water and Ice cards would have different colored frames, but both frames would be blue. One a different shade of blue.

I think my idea is the best idea on how to approach typings.

If 2 more energy types were to be added, it would group Ground and Rock types away from Fighting, and Flying away from Normal as a dedicated Earth and Air element.

Even the Chinese has elements. The chinese don't have the element of Air. They have Fire, Water, Earth, Wood, and Metal. If Pokemon TCG were to be simple. This is as simple as it could get.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_elements_(Chinese_philosophy)

 

[Frost]

The Litwick family are the only three Pokemon that are both Fire and Ghost... :wink:

That's a pretty fair and even breakdown of the types, though. Grouping Ghost and Dark together in particular is an idea that I really like.

 

[signofzeta]

The Litwick family are the only three Pokemon that are both Fire and Ghost... :wink:

That's a pretty fair and even breakdown of the types, though. Grouping Ghost and Dark together in particular is an idea that I really like.

Maybe split ghosts just like how I split poison?

Ghosts that haunt your mind belong in psychic. Ghosts that live in the night belong in Darkness.

 

[dark wobbuffet]

signofzeta, Your types make more sense but would they actually be better for play?

 

[Otaku]

Personally I think the system we have now is pretty good, and that little needs to be changed. Part of my reason being that certain aspects of the video games should be left out or altered.

Certain aspects of course must be left out, even if I would rather they were included. The thing is, when you are "translating" a game from one format to another, yes changes often must be made, but you must re-balance the game accordingly, and that is where I believe we have some subtle problems.

Pokemon isn't freezing its production, so we can't just settle for what we have: when we do we just set a time-bomb waiting to go off. I'd go into details, but this is my fifth or so revision of just my opening paragraphs... which originally were numbering half a dozen!

The problem people seem to have is that the video games have more types and the TCG doesn't, but remember the TCG is an adaptation and some things just don't easily carry over well, typings being one. If you look at most other card games you'll notice that they keep the number of their types to about 5. This is often a balancing move, they try to keep things diverse while trying to keep things simple, of course due to the nature of the energy system Pokemon uses they have a little more leeway in this aspect.

Finish the thought please: "The problem people seem to have is that the video games have more Types than the TCG and this has led to an imbalanced and/or contradictory adaptation of the Weakness/Resistance system." This isn't just people being irritated by a vague feeling of the Types being "off", they factually are off.

If the Types were not off, one must blame every change to video game/TCG type pairings on the introduction of Darkness and Metal Type Pokemon over a decade ago, including the adjustments to the Weakness/Resistance system.

Feel free to formally propose reducing the Energy-Types of Pokemon to a "four" element system. I would be interested in reading it and quite open to at least considering it. The current system is neither provides us with useful simplicity nor with adequate representation; a failed compromise.

Another thing is that muli-type decks have been a big thing in Pokemon since the beginning, and to introduce more types would nearly kill this aspect, because if you had more types running around you'd have more Pokemon with different weaknesses, thus making techs that much harder to play since another card in the deck could easily have a different weakness.

I hate to use what has become cliche, but this is really a matter of "thinking outside the box". Right now the system is such that you have to cover your Weakness or try to exploit another. I will not make a foolhardy promise that more Types would change this, but it might.

For the sake of argument, let us assume that the problems with color/type differentiation, distribution, and balanced design could be addressed. I know, that is quite a leap but if they cannot be satisfactorily addressed... well that has indeed been a problem for this game in the past. In short, "that is always a concern".

So what is Rock-Paper-Scissors like when expanded to this size? There are a lot more "ties". When designing your deck, you may not have to directly cover Weakness (or the rare issue of bypassing Resistance). You'll want to make sure your entire Pokemon line-up doesn't share a Weakness, and it most of it does that something covers it... same as always. What changes is Type-Matching is no longer a crude cudgel but a surgeon's scalpel; when it is appropriate you can gain advantage with it, but with such diversity you must mostly rely on a coherent deck.

Additionally another problem with separating types would mean that they'd have to make them each unique to make them more usable. If you notice each type has their own thing going for them. :colorless: is straightforward, :grass: is healing and status affliction, :fire: is big damage and deals with discard, :water: is energy acceleration, :lightning: is similar to :fire: but tends to be more frail and faster, sychic: is about manipulation, :fighting: is big, strong, but slow, :dark: is about disruption, and :metal: is about protection, and even then there's plenty of overlapping between them.

Text emboldened for emphasis; you are understating the reality. The "Type" distinctions in Pokemon have blurred so much over 10 years that they are about as relevant as the flavor text periodically dropped and returned on the cards.

Okay, I caught myself again. Deleting several paragraphs where I was slowly walking through each specific Type point, I really shouldn't have to. If one has more than a little experience with the TCG, one should know that the distinctions between the Types are largely arbitrary, or have "flip-flopped" over the years. If one truly challenges this, please refer to the wonderful search engine at www.pokepedia.net; using it you can quickly look up some (perhaps all) of the above effects and find multiple examples spanning the life of the game of each effect for each type.

Would I like more distinctions, so that the exceptions were blatantly exceptions? Indeed I would. What is relevant to this discussion, however, is why the lines are so blurred. The first is again a topic for another thread; the failure to mainstream dual-type Pokemon. We got a taste of them, and they were taken away. The second, however, is most relevant: the Type specializations of many video game types are artificially blended by their amalgamation into the TCG Types.

What makes dragon special here is that dragons being the big mythical powerhouses and popular beasts they are have been unique since the early EX era, and have been taking a life of their won.

Indeed... and I am beginning to think this approach is warranted for many of the remaining "sub-Types". For over a decade TPC tried to make Dragon-Type Pokemon work as a component of "Colorless" Pokemon and... it just didn't!

If any other type deserved an energy split though I'd probably say Poison due to it not really meshing with any type, but then again we'd probably wind up with another junk type.

This I think speaks of other issues in the game. We have "junk types" due to many bad practices: "filler cards" that exist just to up the size of a set, and a failure to recognize various "risk factors" that have come together to give us the current format. My earlier comment about Special Conditions becomes relevant: if Poison became its own Type, it would probably be hurt because their signature and perhaps defining feature of Special Condition expertise is rendered largely useful by the state of the game.

Splitting them off would hopefully draw attention to this. Personally I think they might have a place with Darkness-Type Pokemon (possibly Ghost-Types as well), especially with the possible loss of the Special Energy version of Darkness Energy. Plus the combination provides a balancing agent to Darkness-Type decks: true Darkness-Type Pokemon Darkness (Ghost) Type Pokemon cover the vulnerability of Darkness (Poison) Type Pokemon, and vice versa.

 

[hunter994x]

If the fact they gave Dragon their own type but no energy means anything they could probably give something like Ghost their own typing too. Like other people, I believe energy for each typed would ruin the game and I don't want to see that but I think they can make other types work.

 

[Cyrus]

RE Bullados: I meant energy types. The potential for up to 17 of them is so exciting. Complex? Yes, but nothing that we as competitive players can't handle. (And again, something that less competitive players wouldn't mind in the least. It actually makes sense when bringing a video game player into the TCG world to say, "Hey, there's an energy type for each of the game's Pokemon!")

Also, encourages bigger sets=/=actually gets bigger sets. If there's ever a big set, then it's PCL (and their bosses) who are to blame.

 

[TheRolesWePlay]

Finish the thought please: "The problem people seem to have is that the video games have more Types than the TCG and this has led to an imbalanced and/or contradictory adaptation of the Weakness/Resistance system." This isn't just people being irritated by a vague feeling of the Types being "off", they factually are off.

If the Types were not off, one must blame every change to video game/TCG type pairings on the introduction of Darkness and Metal Type Pokemon over a decade ago, including the adjustments to the Weakness/Resistance system.

Feel free to formally propose reducing the Energy-Types of Pokemon to a "four" element system. I would be interested in reading it and quite open to at least considering it. The current system is neither provides us with useful simplicity nor with adequate representation; a failed compromise.

I've seen people complaining since the game began about types being grouped up simply because they didn't have their own respective types, and honestly I don't really think there's that much of an imbalance in the game in respect to the weakness system.

My point is though that the reason the game has the number of types it does (from my speculation), is to have a stable system. In the VGs Pokemon have many more weaknesses and resistances and to counteract that all Pokemon are able to learn a variety of different moves of varying types, but since such a thing would be difficult to translate into card form the system had to be massively simplified. They combined similar types like Grass and Bug, and Rock and Ground, and Psychic and Ghost not only because they're similar in concept but similar in how they worked.

When I referenced other games utilizing a 5 type structure I wasn't saying that Pokemon should follow the same format, but that 5 is the norm because it is often seen as balanced and functional, in the fact that less can often be better, and having more would only make things more needlessly complicated. I give Pokemon some leeway on this as the energy system is entirely different as it focuses on individual rather than universal energy pools. However that doesn't mean that the game designers should go crazy and introduce all 17 types in card form.

I hate to use what has become cliche, but this is really a matter of "thinking outside the box". Right now the system is such that you have to cover your Weakness or try to exploit another. I will not make a foolhardy promise that more Types would change this, but it might.

For the sake of argument, let us assume that the problems with color/type differentiation, distribution, and balanced design could be addressed. I know, that is quite a leap but if they cannot be satisfactorily addressed... well that has indeed been a problem for this game in the past. In short, "that is always a concern".

So what is Rock-Paper-Scissors like when expanded to this size? There are a lot more "ties". When designing your deck, you may not have to directly cover Weakness (or the rare issue of bypassing Resistance). You'll want to make sure your entire Pokemon line-up doesn't share a Weakness, and it most of it does that something covers it... same as always. What changes is Type-Matching is no longer a crude cudgel but a surgeon's scalpel; when it is appropriate you can gain advantage with it, but with such diversity you must mostly rely on a coherent deck.

I think that part of what I was going for may have been lost in what I wrote and for that I apologize. What I was meaning to say was that adding additional types would render aspects of the game useless or too conditional to work.

Going back to what I was talking about earlier, having fewer types is very good for this very reason. In the aspect of allowing techs to be useful is that they exploit an acknowledged flaw of a card, but if you introduce more types than fewer Pokemon would share a common weaknesses. When common weaknesses begin to no longer occur then techs cease to be a viable option. Typing becomes more inconsequential, and the point of even having the system is lost and rendered pointless, and so is one of the most appealing aspects of the game. Again the reason why the VG is able to get away with this is because a Pokemon is able to have several moves of different type at its disposal.

This I think speaks of other issues in the game. We have "junk types" due to many bad practices: "filler cards" that exist just to up the size of a set, and a failure to recognize various "risk factors" that have come together to give us the current format. My earlier comment about Special Conditions becomes relevant: if Poison became its own Type, it would probably be hurt because their signature and perhaps defining feature of Special Condition expertise is rendered largely useful by the state of the game.

Let me clarify when I refer to Poison becoming a Junk type. What I mean is that the type wouldn't do much of anything. Beyond just being an oddball type that doesn't even seem to do much in the VG, most of the Pokemon that comprise the type don't have an overarching build like the other types. They don't specialize in defenses, they don't specialize in speed, they just don't specialize. The only thing they have going for them is that they poison, and several other Pokemon in the TCG already do that to begin with.

 

[signofzeta]

RE Bullados: I meant energy types. The potential for up to 17 of them is so exciting. Complex? Yes, but nothing that we as competitive players can't handle. (And again, something that less competitive players wouldn't mind in the least. It actually makes sense when bringing a video game player into the TCG world to say, "Hey, there's an energy type for each of the game's Pokemon!")

Also, encourages bigger sets=/=actually gets bigger sets. If there's ever a big set, then it's PCL (and their bosses) who are to blame.

If this happened, Pokemon TCG will go from third place to um, uh, 5th place, behind Cardfight and World of Warcraft. Limited, or sealed play would suck, and VG players would say, "man, the TCG sucks, I'm going back to the video games".

Your idea would work, if Pokemon Cards were just cards, and didn't have any game associated with the cards, just like sports cards.

I also agree that it would be PCL who is to blame, for having energy for all 17 types in the first place.

After that, the game would die, but the sales won't drop. People just play Magic or Yugioh instead, and stick their pokemon cards into their 9 pocket page binders, and treat them as if they were hockey cards. Pokemon Trading Card Game would no longer be called that. It would be called Pokemon Trading Card.

Fortunately, the Japanese makers of the TCG are too smart to pull ideas out of their asses and expects them to work. They probably did some playtesting, and came to the conclusion that 17 energy types just won't work.

 

[Cyrus]

Hahaha, I didn't know it was "my" idea now!

Agreed that sealed play would be questionable at best; however, limited isn't exactly Pokemon's strong point to begin with.

What about constructed? Are there not so many amazing possibilities with that? Even if not actual types, they could at least take this in the same direction as Dragons for every type: have some sort of appropriate energy combination in place of a new designation.

 

[signofzeta]

Hahaha, I didn't know it was "my" idea now!

Agreed that sealed play would be questionable at best; however, limited isn't exactly Pokemon's strong point to begin with.

What about constructed? Are there not so many amazing possibilities with that? Even if not actual types, they could at least take this in the same direction as Dragons for every type: have some sort of appropriate energy combination in place of a new designation.

now THAT would work. There would be 28 2-type combinations, but I'd rather have it so that the costs would still use the same energies as it does right now, with a few changes, and the 17 types focuses on Weakness and Resistance.

If they made all 17 types, but still use the same 8 basic energy, then ghosts need to start using darkness energy instead of Psychic energy. Poison should use Metal energy. I view metal as industrialization, and the opposite of nature. So the poison type represents Pollution, and the destruction of the environment.

I mentioned how Poison should be split into 2 groups, one using Grass energy, the other using Metal energy. I also mentioned Ghosts spliting into 2 groups. One using Psychic energy, and one using Darkness energy. But they could also use both, but for poison type, it wouldn't make sense, because there are poison types represented by nature, like snake venom, and poison represented by industrialization, like car exhaust.

I mentioned that in order to not have new players overwhelmed by the many colors of card frames, because there are 17 types, that different shades of a certain color should be used depending on the type of energy they use. For example, Grass and Bug both have green frames. Grass is the normal green, and Bug would be darker green. Water would be the normal blue, and Ice would be lighter blue. That kind of stuff.

Even so, I don't think the Japanese makers of this game would want to make the game too overly complicated. After all, it is targetted at little kids. Hence why the game is the way it is now.

Or they could do it like the Ancient Chinese element, and only have 5 types. Earth, Fire, Water, Wood, and Metal.

For weak against

Wood feeds fire
Fire creates Earth
Earth bears Metal
Metal carries Water
Water nourishes Wood

For strong against,

Wood comes from Earth
Metal chops Wood
Fire melts metal
Water quenches Fire
Earth absorbs or blocks water.

Your Ancient Chinese pokemon. So with wood, it is supereffective against earth, but ineffective against fire. Wood does normal damage to water and metal, but metal is super effective against wood, and water is ineffective against wood.

Probably unrelated, in the games, I haven't seen a generalization that pokemon are healed when certain types are used against it. Water Absorb is an ability, and not a general thing. If that was added to the TCG, it would say "Water Absorb", "If a water type hits this pokemon, remove damage counters instead of adding damage counters."

 

[sentimentGX4]

Easy solution: How about we have 17 Pokemon types but 7 (or less) energy types. (For ex. Atk/Sp Atk/Spd/Def/Sp Def energy.) So for example, Dragon Pokemon would be like it is right now. There's a Dragon type but there would be no Dragon energy.

It would basically fix all the weakness/resistance issues and keep the game simple at the same time. In general, we would be breaking the energy and Pokemon type association. Pokemon types would be merely symbolic and energy types would have a deeper gameplay purpose.



Pokemon is the only major TCG without merely "symbolic" card types. Magic: The Gathering has creature types and Yugioh! has both monster types and attributes that have no inherent gameplay value other than to arbitrarily associate a group of cards.

I have no idea what the game designers were thinking when they decided to have an energy type for every Pokemon type. It makes no sense either because types in the video games is merely symbolic as well! You don't have trouble putting together a team with a psychic, grass, and fire Pokemon in the video games yet, in the TCG, it becomes a chore.