"Game Freak should use many more branched evolutions"

The concept of branched evolutions exists since the very first Pokemon games, with Eevee being the first example. Eevee was and is extremely well received by the Pokemon community for a reason. It gave players a way to individualize it by choosing the evolution they liked the most or that fit best into their team.Gen 2 expanded branched evolutions by adding additional evolutions to already existing Pokemon, for example Slowking or Politoed. They even went backwards once by introducing Tyrogue, a pre-evolution.From Gen 3 on, branched evolutions became more of a niche feature and disappeared almost completely in Gen 5 and Gen 6. Gen 7 gave us Rockruff and Cosmog with 2 possible evolutions respectively, but overall, the list of Pokemon with branched evolutions is very small, considering the size of the national dex.In my opinion, it's very odd that GF doesn't use this concept more often. Branched evolutions offer many advantages for the game developers as well as for the players:Designs of additional evolutions are much easier to create for the designers than a completely new Pokemon, as they can use the pre-evolution or the already existing evolution as template. GF should be in favor of this idea, as they used a similar approach with Alolan variants.Using branched evolutions can be used to introduce "new" Pokemon without increasing the Pokedex, if GF decides to give the new evolution the same name, Lycanroc being a prime example. This should also be beneficial for the game developers, as they seem to be wary of an overloaded Pokedex since Gen 6.Branched evolutions give many players another chance to see the evolution of one of their favorite evolution lines they always wanted. Prime examples are an alternative Dragonair evolution that resembles Dragonair more, or an alternative form of Incineroar, where ~50% love the current design and the other 50% wanted something completely different (maybe a quadrupedal Pokemon that has absolutely nothing to do with fighting).New forms/branched evolutions give many competitively unviable Pokemon a new chance to make their way to OU, and boy, do some Pokemon deserve it (Arcanine, Luxray, I mean you).Branched evolutions could be used as version exclusives or even as Generation defining game mechanic (I have something like Digi-Eggs in mind, where exposing Pokemon to certain items changes their form permanently, until exposure to a different item changes it back to the other branched evolution). The advantage of this mechanic would be that you only need to have one competitive Pokemon instead of breeding another one to use both forms effectively. Furthermore, in contrast to Pokemon holding Mega stones to change their forms, Pokemon with branched evolutions can still use their item slot, creating a wider variety of competitive movesets.That's it from my side, do you have any further ideas/opinions?Edit: Here is an example of how a game mechanic based on branched evolutions could look like:There are 4 special items:The Poke Amulet of courage (Pokemon who are exposed to the power of this item change their form to acquire outstanding attack)The Poke Amulet of serenity (Pokemon who are exposed to the power of this item change their form to acquire outstanding defense)The Poke Amulet of wit (Pokemon who are exposed to the power of this item change their form to acquire outstanding speed)The Poke Amulet of restoration (Pokemon who are exposed to the power of this item revert to their original final evolution)Rules:A Pokemon does not have to hold the amulet to change their form, a simple conversion outside of battle is sufficientDue to the extraordinary power of these amulets and the buff they grant, you can only have one Pokemon that evolved via amulet of courage, serenity and wit respectively on your team)Every evolution achieved through use of an amulet keeps the name of the original evolutionMany Pokemon are not capable of amulet evolution (due to balancing issues, for example, Pokemon who have a Mega evolution already received a buff and therefore might not be the best candidates for this mechanic). Also, not every Pokemon who is capable of amulet evolution can use all 3 amulets, some can only use 2, some only 1.Example: DragoniteDragonite is already a good attacker, therefore it should be capable of using the amulet of serenity (a more defensive version with an armoured design maybe) and the amulet of wit (giving it a Dragonair-like design with focus on speed). Since Dragonite keeps its name regardless of the amulet used, you won't be able to have a Serenity Dragonite and a Wit Dragonite in your team at the same time (at least not in a competitive battle where every player is only allowed to use one Pokemon of a species). Furthermore, let's say you have wit Dragonite on your team; then you won't be able to have any other Pokemon that evolved via the amulet of wit on your team. This prevents a power creep in which the entire team consists of amulet evolutions only. via /r/pokemon http://ift.tt/2uSMLGu