XY Fixing Overleveling / Difficulty Changes

C

CaseyVGCx

Aspiring Trainer
Member
We all know that pokemon is a kids game,and that the game can't be too hard for them.

I've enjoyed challenge mode in BW2, it wasn't too hard,since the pokemon available made it easy,or the region in general was easy.

I have a feeling challenge mode will come back, because why would they add it to BW2 in the first place. It could be an experiment placed in the game.

All these suggestions apply to leaders, elite 4, *boss battles*, etc. It can be exclusive to a *challenge mode* of this gen.

Suggestion 1: My pokemon would always be higher than the gym leaders one. Say the leaders pokemon is Level 20 and yours is 25 , there could be a system where the game will adjust to the highest pokemon level in your party. Therefore the leaders pokemon will be 25 here.

Update: This would only happen if you break the level line that the game will set.

Suggestion 2: Or to they can have the gym leaders pokemon to always be 3-5 Levels higher than the highest in your party. Signature pokemon in the battle could be 5 levels over you. My pokemon here is level 25, so theirs should be level 28-30.

Suggestion 3: Have a random field effect where it will boost the enemies pokemon. For example, boosting SP DEF or DEF or ATTACKS or SPECIAL EFFECTS or ACCURACY by 25%.

Suggestion 4: The 2nd half or 2/3 of the game all pokemon should be fully evolved with good movesets but not unbeatable.

So suggest your options for handling difficulty as well, I know there's an old thread but didn't want to bump it.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2
 
I think it's cool there's the option for the game to be harder, although am I the only one who found BW gyms and league challenging already? I mean, I've been playing since the beginning but I'm not one to battle wild Pokémon endlessly to train up and I definitely find I have to be tactical. I often use a Pokémon as a stall while I heal a Pokémon who has the type advantage or whatnot... Maybe I'm just a n o o b. xD
 
They kind of added a balancing factor in BW (at least as far as the concern of whether trainers get too strong or not enough as you play through the game),
the exp modifier that increases/decreases gained exp according to the level ratio.

So its already automatically more balanced than older gens, as any time you use an overleveled pokemon it will barely get any exp, and when you add a new member to the team that is ~20 levels behind, it'll quickly catch up due to gaining tons of exp.

But I'm all for gamefreak adding even more stuff in this direction. The idea of important characters adjusting to be stronger than you would be interesting, although I can see a few issues with it right away:
-import/trade lvl~80 legendary and first gym is suddenly lvl 85 Pidgeys that use Sand-Attack and Peck, which would be weird as heck (in other words, their stage and movesets wouldn't be affected, or if they would it would get too complicated)
-due to them always being stronger, you also grow faster as they give more exp, so the game gets stronger at a bigger rate the higher the adjustment is.


So basically, I don't think higher levels are what matters.

Perhaps they should continue making trainer AI smarter and give the important trainers pokemon EVs, abilities, items, TMs, egg-moves etc for Challenge mode.
 
They kind of added a balancing factor in BW (at least as far as the concern of whether trainers get too strong or not enough as you play through the game),
the exp modifier that increases/decreases gained exp according to the level ratio.

So its already automatically more balanced than older gens, as any time you use an overleveled pokemon it will barely get any exp, and when you add a new member to the team that is ~20 levels behind, it'll quickly catch up due to gaining tons of exp.
Click to expand...

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure this has been true since Gen 1. Higher level pokemon give higher experience rates than lower level pokemon of the same species, and lower level pokemon need fewer exp. points to level up than higher level pokemon. That's why battling Sentrets with your level 89 Feraligatr doesn't work too well in Gold and Silver, or any other game for that matter.

I love the idea of automatic scaling of levels, especially having gym leaders always be set 3 or 5 levels above you. I've always raised my pokemon to be 1 level over the gym leader's before I battle them, however it's always been pretty easy going through the games this way.

I think this is a good idea, however what's the incentive for raising your pokemon at all if this were the case? It doesn't matter if your pokemon are at level 50 or level 10, the gym leader will still be the same difficulty. So why even raise them? There should be a minimum level your pokemon need to be at for each gym leader, I think, or some other factor like this. Thoughts?
 
Tatertot said:
They kind of added a balancing factor in BW (at least as far as the concern of whether trainers get too strong or not enough as you play through the game),
the exp modifier that increases/decreases gained exp according to the level ratio.

So its already automatically more balanced than older gens, as any time you use an overleveled pokemon it will barely get any exp, and when you add a new member to the team that is ~20 levels behind, it'll quickly catch up due to gaining tons of exp.
Click to expand...

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure this has been true since Gen 1. Higher level pokemon give higher experience rates than lower level pokemon of the same species, and lower level pokemon need fewer exp. points to level up than higher level pokemon. That's why battling Sentrets with your level 89 Feraligatr doesn't work too well in Gold and Silver, or any other game for that matter.
Click to expand...

I forgive you, because you are wrong ;P Well, sort of.
What is meant here is that lower-level Pokemon gain more experience than higher-level Pokemon.
For example, if you beat a level 50 Audino with a level 50 whatever, you'll get, I dunno, a few thousand exp.?
But if you beat that same level 50 Audino with something level 1 (it can be done; wild Audino can't do anything to Ghost types), it'll get over 65,000 exp! Boom, shooting right up over level 30 in one battle. Awesome.
 
Tatertot said:
They kind of added a balancing factor in BW (at least as far as the concern of whether trainers get too strong or not enough as you play through the game),
the exp modifier that increases/decreases gained exp according to the level ratio.

So its already automatically more balanced than older gens, as any time you use an overleveled pokemon it will barely get any exp, and when you add a new member to the team that is ~20 levels behind, it'll quickly catch up due to gaining tons of exp.
Click to expand...

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure this has been true since Gen 1. Higher level pokemon give higher experience rates than lower level pokemon of the same species, and lower level pokemon need fewer exp. points to level up than higher level pokemon. That's why battling Sentrets with your level 89 Feraligatr doesn't work too well in Gold and Silver, or any other game for that matter.

I love the idea of automatic scaling of levels, especially having gym leaders always be set 3 or 5 levels above you. I've always raised my pokemon to be 1 level over the gym leader's before I battle them, however it's always been pretty easy going through the games this way.

I think this is a good idea, however what's the incentive for raising your pokemon at all if this were the case? It doesn't matter if your pokemon are at level 50 or level 10, the gym leader will still be the same difficulty. So why even raise them? There should be a minimum level your pokemon need to be at for each gym leader, I think, or some other factor like this. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

No, I think that exp has always been the same for any Pokemon throughout gens 1-4. (as in a level 50 Pokemon would get 37 exp points from something, as would a level 2)
It's just that as you progress through the game, you need much more exp points (especially if your name is Swablu) than you would earlier on, so it seems like less because it's not making nearly as much of an impact as it did earlier on.

The idea of Gym Leaders automatically having +3 levels above your highest would be interesting. It would make for more of a challenge, which is what I like.
Although because there are going to be children who would rather have the game a bit easier, one thing they could just do is to have an option as you start the game if you'd rather have it normal, or more of a challenge. None of that bullshit key nonsense in B/W2; that was implemented awfully. The challenging mode would be much better if it was accessible at the beginning of the game on either game. (I'd really love to do a Challenge run of White 2, but since no one near me has Black 2 (as far as I'm aware) it means I can't)

altho one potential thing:
With the levelling thing, it's viable that you could potentially raise your Pokemon to high levels (I'm talking major grinding - level 25 at gym.1 sort of thing). This could mean lv.30 gym 1 if one wanted to grind long and hard enough. Would there be some kind of level barrier or something? As in when your Pokemon gets to a certain level it can't get anymore exp until you've gotten a gym badge?
And this would mean the gym would be a lot easier if the Pokemon didn't change - gym1 typically has low powered Pokemon. Would they get better moves or even evolve?
 
I got enough difficulty with the changes in experience gain, thank you, I always relied on getting much stronger than the other trainers to win without losing any of my pokemon (I hate seeing them take damage, not even mention fainting), so without the grinding route I was forced to use tactics and strategy, not to mention stalling while I cure more useful pokemon, like mastermagpie, I'ts not perfect, and in the post game all new trainers suddenly jumped levels, so I'm facing preschoolers with level 64 stoutlands (preschoolers, for arceus's sake!) or surprise trainers lurking behind every corner, ready to beat me. Hell, I went to nuvema and, what do you know, out of nowhere bianca came and challenged me. I only had my swanna, flygon and serperior. I used more items in that battle than against the entire pokemon league, but I was victorious in the end.

I am on board with better IA, and EVs, items, egg/tutor/previous levels/TM moves in all trainers, though, maybe even randomised, to make every playthrough different.

Tatertot said:
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure this has been true since Gen 1. Higher level pokemon give higher experience rates than lower level pokemon of the same species, and lower level pokemon need fewer exp. points to level up than higher level pokemon.
Click to expand...

You are wrong, and I don't forgive you because I'm a bastard. In the previous gens each pokemon gave a determined amount of experience with a direct ratio to the pokemon's level, while in 5th gen they changed it so the ratio is dependant on the difference between he opponent's level and your pokemon's level. To put it simply, wile in previous gens exp was gained lineally, no matter your pokemon's level, from 5th on, exp is gained exponentially depending of the difference between the levels; a weak pokemon against a stronger pokemon will gain much more exp (that will, in turn, raise much more levels), and an equal or higher leveled pokemon will gain jack shit exp.
Luckily, GF are not complete jerks, so they made available the macho brace and the lucky egg around the middle of the game, that speeds things up a lot.

Oh, and the opponent's pokemon scaling to your own levels is a terrible idea. Waaaay too unbalanced.
 
I think it would simply be a lot of small changes if they made different difficulty levels.

Higher item prices, lower catch rates, higher crit ratios, higher level Pokemon, more trainers, less exp. given, less money given, etc.

Making a lot of little changes makes the game more fluid. Having a few big changes in the different levels would make the game feel strange.
 
I'm all for making the main Pokemon games harder by all means possible (usually this means the level increase like what they did with the Challenge Mode, but if they do more, then I'd welcome that too). The games are far too easy IMO and it's one of the reasons why this is often labeled as a "kiddie" or beginner RPG (which you can't deny on the last part if you've played any other JRPGs).

dmaster out.
 
dmaster said:
I'm all for making the main Pokemon games harder by all means possible (usually this means the level increase like what they did with the Challenge Mode, but if they do more, then I'd welcome that too). The games are far too easy IMO and it's one of the reasons why this is often labeled as a "kiddie" or beginner RPG (which you can't deny on the last part if you've played any other JRPGs).

dmaster out.
Click to expand...

But if the games weren't so "easy" the player would be eventually forced to evolve all pokemon, or change some for stronger ones, or having to forcible EV train, or having to take into account IVs and natures. I beat the game using a team of meloetta (she's more frail than it seems, in spite of being a legendary), swanna, serperior (physical at that, only leaf blade and aerial ace. total crap), ampharos, minccino and flygon, all at the same aproximate levels as the E4 (that was a surprise), and I feel that without EV training, I couldn't have passed the game, and that if it were harder, I couldn't use the physical serperior the game gave me, or minccino, and , let's face it, none of my team have excellent stats, and save flygon and meloetta, all have very shallow movepools.
 
I'm probably in the minority on this but I actually want the challenge mode to be a SERIOUS challenge because even though I love the pokemon games, I always found them to be rather easy when it came to battling the leaders and the elite 4. The only champion I had a hard time with was Cynthia.

My idea for a serious challenge mode would be like this:

Gym 1: Normal type
Gym 2: Multi-typed - there are 4 trainers ((each with 3 pokemon) and the gym leader (with 5 pokemon). First trainer (Fire, Water, Grass), Second (Ground, Flying, Electric), Third (Bug, Rock, Ice), Fourth (Fighting, Dark, Psychic) and the Gym Leader (Poison, Fairy, Ghost, Steel, Dragon)
Gym 3: Double Battle
Gym 4: Triple Battle
Gym 5: Gym Leader runs a Sunny Day team!
Gym 6: Gym Leader runs a Hail team!
Gym 7: Gym Leader runs a Rain Dance team!
Gym 8: Gym Leader runs a Sandstorm team!

Elite Four members would run a sort of "themed" battling team:

EF member 1: Trick Room team
EF member 2: Hazards team (you know...Stealth Rocks, Toxic Spikes all that great stuff.)
EF member 3: Stat Boosting team (I don't do much competitive battling so I don't know if there's a special name for it.)
EF member 4: Held items team (Leftovers, Choice Band, etc)

And then the Champion would be a mixed team designed for serious competitive battling and has 1 legendary on their team.

This would be my dream challenge mode, but I doubt it will ever happen.
 
professorlight said:
dmaster said:
I'm all for making the main Pokemon games harder by all means possible (usually this means the level increase like what they did with the Challenge Mode, but if they do more, then I'd welcome that too). The games are far too easy IMO and it's one of the reasons why this is often labeled as a "kiddie" or beginner RPG (which you can't deny on the last part if you've played any other JRPGs).

dmaster out.
Click to expand...

But if the games weren't so "easy" the player would be eventually forced to evolve all pokemon, or change some for stronger ones, or having to forcible EV train, or having to take into account IVs and natures. I beat the game using a team of meloetta (she's more frail than it seems, in spite of being a legendary), swanna, serperior (physical at that, only leaf blade and aerial ace. total crap), ampharos, minccino and flygon, all at the same aproximate levels as the E4 (that was a surprise), and I feel that without EV training, I couldn't have passed the game, and that if it were harder, I couldn't use the physical serperior the game gave me, or minccino, and , let's face it, none of my team have excellent stats, and save flygon and meloetta, all have very shallow movepools.
Click to expand...

I guess that's where we differ in what we expect from a difficult game. I expect to beat the game with evolutions and needing to evolve to progress through the game (obviously better stats will help in the game as you progress and opposing Trainers have evolved Pokemon as well). I want a legitimate challenge from the games but I've never needed to care about IVs/EVs/Natures or anything in the game itself save for TMs I guess and I've beaten games with unevolved Pokemon before. So really anything could be harder than what it is currently IMO.

dmaster out.
 
EV, IV, Natures shouldn't be that necessary to beat the game. Then again if you use pokemon with low BSTs, you'll have trouble with the game anyways.

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