26 replies to this topic

[kirant]

I think there could be two ways to approach this given my lack of trust on Gamefreak to make a decently balanced game:

 - Give it standard difficulty and have an easier tutorial/newcomer mode as Leafeon suggests.  This could give them the liberty to make the base mode at least Emerald level difficult.

 - Give a standard difficulty and an extremely difficult challenge mode after becoming Champion and resetting your game.  That is, one which would be intentionally unfair.  One they don't expect you to play and beat without incredible difficulty.  My line of logic on this is XCOM's impossible difficulty or Awakening's Lunatic+ difficulty where it's clear the game's mechanics are out to kill you.

[Blue Leafeon]

^ I for one am very against the latter. I don't like hax, which is why I avoid the Battle facilities like the plague. And we all know Game Freak won't up the difficulty in any way other than making hax a thing. :/ I mean, they did it somewhat with Challenge Mode in BW2, which brings me to my next point:

 

Something more akin to the modes in BW2 would be nice, with Challenge mode having higher level AI and slightly more powerful Pokemon. Meanwhile, standard mode has the dumb AI that the newer games have, and standard-leveled Pokemon. With all of it being available from the start, though, unlike BW2.

 

But honestly, I don't believe Game Freak cares about its older fans. I feel like they kind of made this clear when they made HG/SS, because the Director clearly states that he knew all the changes they made to HG/SS would annoy older fans.

[kirant]

^ I for one am very against the latter. I don't like hax, which is why I avoid the Battle facilities like the plague. And we all know Game Freak won't up the difficulty in any way other than making hax a thing. :/ I mean, they did it somewhat with Challenge Mode in BW2, which brings me to my next point:

Oh, I don't mean RNG gods.  I mean "Level 15 Steelix with max IVs and Body Slam on first gym" difficulty.  Just things that only occur because it's clear that they want to make it hard without real regard to balance or how the typical player goes through it.

 

(BTW - a Level 15 Steelix isn't that tough to beat.  I just had Brock in mind as I was typing this.  Squirtle and a few potions would down it with Water Gun even if your IVs are bugged.  A starter like Charmander wouldn't be in dire straits either)

[Fire Blazer]

Wait it was literally Black 2 that only had that challenge mode or whatever? That sounds kinda dumb.

 

Also I'm a casual so I just want something that's challenging enough I have to try a little but not so challenging I have to know all about IVs and EVs and breeding and whatever the else heck there is to be good enough to win without struggling a lot/spamming items/grinding/whatever

[kirant]

Also I'm a casual so I just want something that's challenging enough I have to try a little but not so challenging I have to know all about IVs and EVs and breeding and whatever the else heck there is to be good enough to win without struggling a lot/spamming items/grinding/whatever

Let's put my information above into perspective:  If you have a Lv 15 Squirtle, these are my approximate calculations at Lv 15...for those more technically inclined, this was done with 15 IVs for Squirtle.  For everyone else, this means it's just a statistically average Squirtle:

 

0 SpA Squirtle [Water Gun] vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Steelix: 14-18 (26.9 - 34.6%) -- 0% chance to 3HKO

0 Atk Steelix Body Slam vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Squirtle: 17-20 (42.5 - 50%) -- 0.4% chance to 2HKO

 

Which, put in English, would mean that the average Squirtle will take less than half its HP per attack by Steelix (which, by these rough calculations, is under 20 HP damage),  The Squirtle will take down the Steelix in about 4 attacks.  It's much harder than the Onix I modelled this after where Onix was a one or two hit kill (90-120% damage).

 

This is the most favourable match up against Steelix and you'd likely require level 16 to beat the first gym.  In fact, a Level 16 starter, regardless of the typing, would trounce Steelix at this point (due to the stat boost of evolution) in about the same ability as a Level 15 Squirtle...and a Wartortle would turn it into an older style Gym battle, destroying the Steelix in a straight up fight.

 

That's kind of what I hope Pokemon would get to.  A fight that is difficult and intentionally so.  But one that you can obviously handle/struggle your way through.

[Fire Blazer]

Let's put my information above into perspective:  If you have a Lv 15 Squirtle, these are my approximate calculations at Lv 15...for those more technically inclined, this was done with 15 IVs for Squirtle.  For everyone else, this means it's just a statistically average Squirtle:

 

0 SpA Squirtle [Water Gun] vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Steelix: 14-18 (26.9 - 34.6%) -- 0% chance to 3HKO

0 Atk Steelix Body Slam vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Squirtle: 17-20 (42.5 - 50%) -- 0.4% chance to 2HKO

 

Which, put in English, would mean that the average Squirtle will take less than half its HP per attack by Steelix (which, by these rough calculations, is under 20 HP damage),  The Squirtle will take down the Steelix in about 4 attacks.  It's much harder than the Onix I modelled this after where Onix was a one or two hit kill (90-120% damage).

 

This is the most favourable match up against Steelix and you'd likely require level 16 to beat the first gym.  In fact, a Level 16 starter, regardless of the typing, would trounce Steelix at this point (due to the stat boost of evolution) in about the same ability as a Level 15 Squirtle...and a Wartortle would turn it into an older style Gym battle, destroying the Steelix in a straight up fight.

 

That's kind of what I hope Pokemon would get to.  A fight that is difficult and intentionally so.  But one that you can obviously handle/struggle your way through.

 

fair enough, as long as it's the average case or so that's fine, basically the issue I see with Pokemon is that it's balanced around a total noob who is hardly training their Pokemon, lol... especially with EXP share being a thing... so for even the average player with average Pokemon it's super easy, but the benefit is that anyone can play it.

 

Basically just means we need a challenge mode or something like it available from the start. I mean, most RPGs have at least 2 if not 3 or 4 difficulty settings, so I think that's fair enough... XP

[Golden Warrior]

I find it hilarious that the Sun/Moon threads both here and on PureZC turned more into talking about the older games than Sun/Moon.

Speaking of which though, how many people here actually think Solrock and Lunatone will play an even minor role in these games? Even though they fit thematically, I find it really unlikely that they'll be featured at all. Megas, maybe, but I don't really think they'll be as big a deal as I've heard a lot of people saying.