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By Flamechar33
#205685 After messing around with some of the NPC options - and noticing that they have barely changed since when Pixelmon was at Gen 6 - I have decided that they are a bit underwhelming. As such, I have come up with a list of additions and changes to make NPCs more diverse, and to enable those building maps or worlds to better make it feel like a Pokémon game. These will be in 3 sections: the first two are individual ideas, and the third is just other ideas which are easier to explain.

1. An overhaul of the speech system.
Having a gym leader, or even the villain of the evil team, saying only one line before battle is not that good in my opinion. As such, I recommend large changes to the NPC speech or chat system. All NPCs would be able to chat, but primarily speech will be dealt in sections, of which you can add or remove lines.
Let us take trainer NPCs for example. These could have 4 sections: Before Battle, during Battle, Lost Battle, and Won Battle:
- Before Battle is the challenge section, the trainer seeing you or being challenged by you;
- During Battle is lines said during a battle - this section is different in that there is several sections with one line which can be turned off if not needed. For example, think of saying lines when hit by a super-effective move, when bringing out their last Pokémon, or Mega Evolving, as well as the line directly after they win/lose;
- Lost Battle is the dialogue that occurs once a battle has ended and you have won, including speech for when interacted with again;
- and Won Battle, which is the only of the four sections which can be turned off - this is the dialogue after the trainer has won, which most trainers would not have as you would have blacked out in normal games.
Characters could also be able to give items during sections (except During Battle), or heal your pokemon to full.
EDIT: Additionally, you can toggle whether or not you can rematch an NPC, where their team and speech can be different.

2. 'Cutscenes'
What do I mean by cutscenes? I mean the ability to take a character or, say, 3, and have them move around while talking. This would most likely require the need for a new item to create cutscenes, but programming these would be something like:
1. Person A speaks one line
2. Person A speaks one line while walking to x,y,z
3. Person B speaks one line
Cutscenes that are saved can be used by one of the participating NPCs for any section except actual in-battle. EDIT: Cutscenes may also trigger events in other NPCs, but won’t have an instant effect: for example, beating the champion of the region creates a cutscene, now you can rematch the elite 4 and champion again.

3. More options
I'm primary asking here for just more choices, several I can think of being:
- All models/skins should be accessible by all types of NPCs (while you're at it could you fix the chatting NPCs being unable to take skins from a custom resource pack's steve section).
- Ability to create/change the "trainer class"
- The ability to save custom 'models' by selecting a pool of Pokémon and levels (these 'models' will act like normal models)
- The ability to make following NPCs: this is the hardest of this 3rd section, I believe - but primarily have it so they can speak to you at point/s A, and then follow you to point/s B at the simplest.
- The ability to easily make 1v2 or 2v2 double battles: linking two trainers to battle you at the same time
- Triple battles perhaps?
- The ability to make simple walk paths for NPCs, so they can move but not to where they are not supposed to go.
- The ability to make 'hidden' NPCs - they will be hidden until you activate a cutscene, and can then hide again afterwards.
- Pokémon NPCs - the ability to create Pokémon with specific moves and battle rules.

I thank you for reading this far, and I hope that at least some of these you feel you can do and/or that they will make the mod more enjoyable for players.

[EDIT] I am most likely going to end up creating individual posts for these ideas. This post would still stay since most of the ideas do interlink in one way or another, but I would link the new pages here.

User avatar
By Flamechar33
#206391 I'm only replying to ask the mod team if they have actually seen this, since I have been waiting for some kind of response for over 3 months. I made this suggestion since I am helping to make a server for a community to play on, and I noticed that the NPC programming has not progressed since gen 5 of Pixelmon, and we are on gen 8 several years later. I also feel that the system may be incredibly difficult for those trying to make a map similar to a 'true' Pokémon game, as there is not enough options. If I could have a response soon, even if it is a scolding from unintentionally breaking any rules, it would really mean a lot.
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By SKyTheThunder
#206394 Most suggestions don't receive immediate feedback and those that do get picked up by the team may not get implemented for quite a while. Plus, new features - especially core gameplay ones - usually have priority over rewrites of functional (if a bit outdated) systems.
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