>>44289709i don't care about the meta for online too much but there's tons of shit they could do to make the base gameplay more interesting
>gyms have certain battle restrictions (ie x pokemon can't fight, all battles are doubles, etc)>gym leaders/elite four/legendaries have an effect where their pokemon can't take more than 75/50/25% of their health in one hit (scaling with with they are in game and rematches). this would make them actual boss fights>instead of the above you could just give them illegal movesets or stats to make them different from the pokemon obtainable by the player>certain pokemon can't evolve before x objective has been completed and/or get reduced exp if they pass a certain level threshold before x objective has been completed so you can't just steamroll with a starter all game 