dmmnajws

This post will be edited with the extra interesting alternative variants I came up with (some by accident, some maybe a little too much 😄) Codename "Vortex": Codename "Super Vortex": Totally! The Shiny sprites should never change! They should be the same was the ones in the main games. These that I've been experimenting on for fun would be alternatives only to the underwhelming Metallic variant.

This post is an upgrade to a previous post regarding variant sprites, so here we go. Feedback: Metallic sprites are ugly, and they look too much like Normal and Mystic. In fact, if you put these three variants side by side for most pokemons, it just looks like a lazy edit. Ideas: 1. This idea does not address the feedback above directly, but its a spicy idea that I think would add an interesting dimension to sprites in vortex. The mystic variant is ment to scare opponents, as if they were "apparitions". With this in mind, add a slight opacity to the mystic variant. As simple as that. Automating this process for all sprites in Vortex should be straightforward with a bash script using ImageMagick on a Linux VM. In fact, this type of solution is what I used to address Idea 2 below. 2. I would guess the main obstacle to address the feedback above (regarding the Metallic variant) is that changing all 2000+ sprites by hand would be a tremendous task. I believe if the work of changing them by hand is "eliminated", most of the burden is taken care of. So I've been experimenting with a solution for this using a bash script using ImageMagick. To test this out I tried to convert the "Normal" sprites into an interesting and cohesive variant - codenamed "Radioactive". I grabbed a pack with 1500 pokemon sprites from the internet, including front/back, in the same format as Vortex (94x94, png) and ran the script. This script applied a random hue change + a yellowish tint + a subtle blur effect. I've uploaded to postimages a set of 1000 sprites (front and back), altered by this script: Part1: https://postimg.cc/gallery/4hwNsJw Part2: https://postimg.cc/gallery/q2yjwQk Note that the hue change is semi-random and in some cases it might not be noticeable and the sprites may look similar to the normal or even shiny variants. Some sprites also may look downright ugly due to poor RNG. This is easily configurable though. Here are some examples of "fortunate" sprite changes: Idea 2. has been mentioned in a previous post, but the POC was not as complete. The script has also been updated to come up with more interesting colors. The fundamental reason for this POC is just to to show how quick an interesting variant to substituted the Metallic variant can be created with a bash script using ImageMagick, and without the need for manual intervention besides substitution of the sprites in the backend. Of course I'm assuming Vortex is built in a way that allows that last step to be swiftly done. I'll be posting some other interesting variation concepts I find while experimenting. I'll post them directly as answers to this post. Till then, cheers!

I see what you mean @billabob. Your argument made me realize the comparison of "variants being unbalanced" vs. "lvl 110 legendaries being unbalanced" is not really viable, and you're right. My perpective is also that of one who hasn't done any clan battles, so it was a bit "incomplete", thanks for pointing that out!

Hi! I've got three ideas. The first and third ones can be a little more controversial, depending on the opinion. I would say 1. and 3. are ideas, 2. is a request. 1. Stats: To make legendaries "special", allow them to level up beyond 100, even if just a little bit. Same for Ultra Beasts. Motivation: Tried to convince a friend to try Vortex. As an hardcore Pokémon fan he was turned off by the possibility of a lvl 100 Rattata being as powerful as a lvl 100 legendary. He said he felt like legendaries weren't special enough, even though they are rare. I've never thought about this, until he pointed it out. What if legendaries could go up to 110? Some may say it's unbalanced, but in that case, so are "variants". It's a thought. 2. QoL: When we click a Pokemon's name to open its #ID entry, it shows the Stats, Info, Attack, Evolution. Add a section with "Owned Variants", so we know what other variants of that pokemon we have (something like the design with the 6 balls with the ones we don't have greyed out, as appears in the Pokedex). Motivation: Whenever I'm "mass-evolving" Pokemons, it quickly becomes painful and error-prone to open the Pokedex > write the evolution's name > view from there. 3. Visual: This is a very personal opinion - Revamp the "Metallic" variant. Motivation: I'm fully aware some people may like the Metallic variant, but it never clicked for me (I wonder if this is the same for others though). Here's why: I used to play back when Ancients were a thing. I'm not aware of the context for the change. Ancients weren't great, but they were much more interesting both visually and conceptually; Metallic looks like a washed out and ugly version of the "Normal" variant; Mystic & Dark already look similar to Normals, so if you have all 6 variants of any given Pokemon lined up, it looks extremely lazy and only shiny and shadow stand out (try it yourself); I was wondering how easy it would be to revamp the "Metallic" variant as efficiently as possible. I made some assumptions about the internal architecture of PV and made a very simple script that grabs all sprites in an input/ directory, and outputs all sprites converted into an automatically generated, but concise variant into an output/ directory. This makes it easy to come up with something interesting other than just saturation/contrast/brightness changes, without the pain of editing each sprite manually. I believe updating the sprites would be as simple as running the script > revising the output > substituting the sprites in the database with the ones generated by the script. The configurations for the custom variants are pretty much endless, but as a POC, I set up a "radioactive" variant, to test it out. In this example, the script is configured to apply to each sprite a hue change (completely random, re-running the script would generate different colors) + a subtle blur effect that adds a kind of "glow" to the sprites. Check it here (this is photoshopped with the sprites generated by the script, for the purpose of demo): Thank you for reading!