Game balance, gimmick forms and all that.

Hi, this post wasn't originally going to be about new designs, but I needed at least one visual to use as an example, and I got a little carried away.

One thing I've been asked/commented about a couple of times are mega forms, so, since I'm adding Mawile this update, this is a good moment to talk about it.

First of all, I want to add mega evolutions, but I'm not so sure about any of the other game gimmicks (z-moves, dynamax, tera and whatever they'll come with next).

The dynamax and tera feels like weird attempts to fuse megas and z-moves, and the z-moves themselves weren't that interesting from the start, outside of a couple of omni boost moves and species exclusive crystals, the z-moves are just a rechargeable version of Unova's gems, with long unskippable animations attached.

But the megas are cool, and getting the mega stones are a good incentive to have you exploring zones that otherwise you may ignore. No wonder every fan-game/hack-room add them.

So, I want to add megas, but having megas and all the other things alongside them can quickly go up to absurd.

So, I was thinking of just taking the gigamax forms, and just touching a detail here and there of the designs, make them mega evolutions (that way charizard can have 3 megas :D), and do the same with the legendary that have like special tera forms (idk I didn't finished SV, neither played the dlc)

All that said, let's talk about today's drawings

First my mega Braixen.

I think I've talked about this a couple of times with individual people, but not in a post itself; but in general, I really like braixen's original design, and even though I do like delphox, I do think that a lot braixen's original charm is completely left behind on delphox.

Both braixen and delphox are witch foxes, but braixen have a youthful and more scenic demeanor, almost like a magical girl, and delphox leaves all that behind.

So I didn't want to make my Braixen evolve (But I do want to add delphox as a separate character somewhere in the future) and instead give her a mega.

Since delphox originally leaves behind all the magical girl aspects of braixen, I wanted to emphasize on them on my mega, changing the fur to resemble more a frilly dress, styling her hair look even more like twin tails, transforming her stick in a magical wand, and making her pose like sailor moon.

There are some details about the proportions and placement of some stuff that still need some work done, but I'm pretty satisfied with what I've designed so far.

Meanwhile with mega Mawile, letting the design rest a little, I'm not so sure about it.

Since she's basically a silly goblin in her base form, I wanted to give the mega a little more of a mature appeal keeping the mischievousness, I was thinking of the typical anime gal while drawing it.

But looking back at it, she looks more like a stereotypical hooker, or a bimbo, or something in-between...

having to point where the problem is... I would say that it is a combination of the face proportions and the skirt...

Either way, it needs a little more time in the oven, but it works as a good snippet to my work flow (I hope).

Going to other general balance random stuff.

I'm thinking of giving some buffs to weaker mons, nothing too crazy, but maybe giving access to more moves to the one with limited options (like giving brave bird to fearow), increasing 20 or 30 points to weaker mons (like making mothim usable), and maybe retouching some underwhelming abilities (like forecast).

Other things I want to touch up are evolutions, trade evolutions obviously have to change to level or item evolutions.

But, time based evolutions can just be changed to not needing the time part, so they just go to leveling up, or leveling up with an item; while in the case of eevee, rockruff and cubone to make them stone evolutions (shiny for day, dust for night, and dawn for dusk lycanroc). And alcreamy... probably just a random form at level 20 something.

This is in my opinion the best, since I don't expect you to wait until a specific time of day to evolve just one mon, especially due to this game's “unique nature”.

Other evolutions I would change are the "take x steps" to just be friendship; the region specific can be replaced with unique items or stones; and all the other convoluted VIII & IX gen evolutions can easily be changed to "know x move", "equip/use x item", "friendship", or just "level up" without losing any of their charm, imo at least.

Either way, this was a lot, I hope I didn't end up boring you.