>>718062406
I didn't play x or y, those are on my emulator backlog. In LGPE you'd get random rolls for shaking off status or surviving lethal hits when friendship was high enough. It's not even a bad idea in concept for what anon here >>718061653
was talking about with expanding friendship, because it is a lot more flavorful than getting an extra 2 damage on return, but the games were just so braindead easy to begin with that they never felt impactful, just like you were snowballing fights you were already having nearly 0 trouble with to begin with.
You want friendship to matter and feel good in a way that won't further break an already easy entry? Have a side quest that unlocks a friendship modulator for your pokeballs, where if the wild pokemon is going to break out, you get an individual low roll RNG chance with each pokemon at full friendship, and if that roll makes you catch it instead then have the game tell you it was your bond with X pokemon that did it. Then you know you caught a pokemon you'd otherwise still be needing to fuss with and it's because of your friendship with that pokemon specifically, by name.