Battling

It’s a three-dimensional fight. Think like any modern fighter games. Like DBZ or Naruto fighter games. Or Pokken, but way better. I like to imagine it as League of Legends in third-person but you battle as Pokemon. Since the battle mechanics are very unique I’ll explain some more details.

Basic Attacks
There will be basic physical attacks that you don’t have to learn. All Pokemon will have some form of a basic attack. This would be like a tackle, a punch, or a kick. Basically, like the left mouse-click or X-button. These basic attacks have no cooldown. When you spam basic attack, there will be different kinds of animations. It won’t just be jab, jab, jab, jab. It’s going to look really cool. You can fight using only these moves, but they don’t do much damage, and you can easily block them.

Evasive Moves
Moves like Fly, Dig, and Dive, are evasive moves. They are innate to all Pokemon normally capable of learning those moves. Meaning, in order to learn these moves, you are not required to go down a certain ability path. However, in order to use them in battle, you will have to get them to a certain level. Once you reach that level, it’s essentially a passive ability. You can use them to dodge and then right into a basic attack. Or if you have the stamina, you dodge and blast them with a power move. I imagine there would be a button you hold which triggers the flying, digging, diving animation. This button would be the same as dodge/evade for Pokemon who can’t learn these moves. Let’s say it’s space-bar for PC players. While controlling a Pidgeot, you hold down space and your Pidgeot will automatically start flying in the air. You can control the movement in the air with basic directional controls. The longer you hold the button the higher your Pokemon will fly, or the lower it will dive/dig. Your Pokemon will use up stamina while you hold this button down. Also, moves like Water Gun or Flamethrower can be held and sprayed all over the place. Things like the blast radius or area of effect and stamina-usage can be upgraded.

Engaging
To engage a wild Pokemon, you have to be within a certain range of it once it has been sent out. You’ll know when you’re near a wild Pokemon based off of the UI. When you approach the wild Pokemon, it will either engage you or flee. More often than not, it will engage.

If a Pokemon engages you before you have the chance to call out a Pokemon, you will automatically call out the first Pokemon on your team. Since the wild Pokemon is already attacking, your Pokemon will receive the hit as soon as it comes out. You cannot dodge this attack. You should be at a disadvantage if you do not initiate the battle. Moreover, when a wild Pokemon initiates the engagement it will have a lower chance of being caught than if you had initiated the battle. It was pissed off and attacked you, so it doesn’t want to go in your Pokeball.

The Arena
Battles will lock you into a certain area so you can’t just run away. I mean you can, but space is limited. When you engage a wild Pokemon, the battle area boundaries will just pop up around you. Other players cannot intervene. There will be a button or hotkey you use to throw a Pokeball. When you hold it down, it brings up an item wheel and you can select which item you want. You can click on the item right on the wheel to use it, or once you select, it will add that item as your active item, and you press the button to use it. To better explain, let’s say the hotkey is ‘5’. You hold down ‘5’, and the item wheel pops up. You can customize how many items display and where they display on the wheel. Obviously, you can’t have all of your items on the wheel. This is part of your build and strategy. To select an item all you need is hover over the item on the wheel and then release from holding down ‘5’. To use the item, you can click directly on it in the wheel, or when you do not have the item wheel up, you can hit ‘5’ to use whatever item is selected. Hope this makes sense. If you’ve played Apex Legends, it’s like the healing item wheel. For wild Pokemon battles, this button defaults to ‘Throw Pokeball’ and there will be a second, inner item wheel for the different types of Pokeballs. Again, this can be customized.

Online Battles
When you battle with another trainer you’ll go through a quick little cutscene of the two of you, then you go to the menu to select which Pokemon you want to start off with. After you (or both of you if it’s an online battle) select, you’re shown a cool scene of the two trainers calling out their Pokemon. And then the countdown to battle. All PvP battles take place in-world so you can watch if you’re just strolling by. If you’re in a city, PvP battles will transport you to an inside arena. You can challenge people on the street, but the battle won’t take place right there. After the battle, you’ll go back to where you were in the city. Nearby players will be alerted that a battle is taking place, and can choose to spectate if they wish. It will be as if there is a big “BATTLE!” sign where the two players were on the street, and you can walk up to it and the game will ask, “Do you wish to spectate this Pokemon battle?” and it’ll display their names too. It’ll take you to the indoor arena, where your character sits on the side bleachers next to other spectating players. You can chat with them and stuff. Battles against online players will always grant you full health on all your Pokemon. This is not the case for AI battles.

Contests
Contests should be pretty self-explanatory. They would be held about every half-hour. The player must physically go to the contest building and enter a lobby for a contest. There are no specific start times or entry times for a contest. Once the lobby is full, the contest begins. They would vary by region, meaning that they would have different first or second rounds. These first rounds might be dress-up contests. There would be up to 16 people per contest, with multiple contests happening in different areas of different regions at the same time. There may be a highlight reel after the battles. You get to see the scores at the end of the round based on remaining pokemon, combos (such as critical hits or if a pokemon did move combos) if they won. It would be a cool mechanic if judge reviews of your moves offered advice on your combos and helped you increase your score. Top trainers will gain fame throughout the world. Surely there are some sorts of rewards and benefits for this, or maybe just plain bragging rights. Maybe banners of top players will be shown in every city throughout the region.