Pokemon: Serving as a function other than battling?

[KshaudM]

Pokemon should serve a function beyond simply battling. One of the major things illustrated in the show is that various pokemon can be used to solve various problems. Simple examples would be the use of Rock Smash to clear a path or surf to travel over water.
Also, since the pokemon world is very clearly huge a great Pokemon should also offer an alternative means of travel, assuming they are the right size. So instead of wasting money on the bike maybe you have a Rapidash and you ride that, or a charizard to fly you around. Of course to balance this against actually buying the bike, maybe a pokemon has a riding stamina so after awhile they need to be put back in their ball.
Another point to look at, that pertains to combat would be controlling the pokemon. I think that once a pokemon is brought out the player character assumes control of the pokemon, while their avatar follows. A pokemon should have two modes, combat and exploration. The combat mode limits the pokemons walking distance (sort of an invisible wall that keeps them close to their trainner) at this point the trainner stops moving allowing players to focus more on the battle and less on wondering into angry, wild pokemon. A side from a change in mobility combat and exploration mode could have a difference in use of a pokemons abilities. So while in combat mode rock throw plays out an animation of your pokemon picking up a rock that is not persistant to the world ( you don't need real rocks to be around to use the attack) the ground and throwing it, in exploration mode the pokemon picks up movable rocks in the world and places them where ever the player so chooses. This allows for problem solving on another level within the world itself and allows for some fairly creative puzzles.
Oh yeah, combat should require real player accuracy rather then relying on a stat. This allows for strategy as well as use of terrain in battle.

[Raikt]

1. There is already a transportation topic that talked about various methods of moving around. Using Pokemon was pretty much shot down on the basis of the work it would involve just to get that to work.

2. Explain your idea more. Honestly, it sounds just like a "I want to control my Pokemon" sort of thing. There seems to be no actual reason for it at all.

3. There will be many, many puzzles in the game. You can count on that; it won't require reworking how the system works already, either.

4. No. There is no way to predict how that change would affect gameplay, meaning that optimization would be even harder.  Plus, inputing a human factor into accuracy would put off a lot of casual Pokemon players, as it becomes a contest of who has the better reflexes instead of the tactical thinking needed to win before.

[Jerry]

I don't understand why you would want pokemon to move stones on the ground to solve a puzzle... And having special abilities so that only certain pokemon can clear up a path is out of question.

Yes, you need to elaborate more on that exploration mode, I don't see the usefulness of it...