Pokémon Reborn Hardcore!

[Redo.]

Hey Commander, it's too much to ask for the link of the lastest version of Hardcore?

[Commander]

Hey Commander, it's too much to ask for the link of the lastest version of Hardcore?

Sorry about the forum mess guys. I believe Jamak at one point was going to put the 2.0 version on the OP, but you'd have to bug him to do that or the mods as it's really out of my power. For the time being though I'd ask for people who do runs to provide a link while I'll ocasionally post it here again: Link

Just a note that Episode 16 will not have this problem as it'll be in a new thread for good reasons.

[phoenica]

Not sure if it was intended, but durning Cain encounter in Coral Ward, shouldn't he have oshawott in his team? It's kinda weird becouse you battle him for sole purpose of "testing" his new pokemon, yet he doesn't apear in combat

[Solarance]

Not sure if it was intended, but durning Cain encounter in Coral Ward, shouldn't he have oshawott in his team? It's kinda weird becouse you battle him for sole purpose of "testing" his new pokemon, yet he doesn't apear in combat

We intend(ed) Cain to have a Dewott, just haven't changed the Sprite yet, same with Corey's Pokemon. I assume Commander will fix it with the EP 16 release.

[Commander]

(I really need to check on this more) One of my rules of thumb is that I'm not touching anything regarding the main story including lines and animations. There are three reasons: 1) I have to completely redo everything I do for each version release so the more I add, the more that needs to be redone next episode and 2) I want to keep the story as close to the original when possible. The third reason is in case I add a second additional difficulty to the mod in which changes like that would be quite a hassle to do when they don't impact the story that much.

[Commander]

I really need to just make a new thread so people stop asking where the link is at.

Aright guys, I pulled an all nighter in which I got a little update done to see how it works out. I really feel bad about pulling his name now, but I officially have completed everything that Jamaka said he would do and didn't...such as changing Corey's Pokemon's overworld sprites during his suicide as well as the whole Oshawott event which has been beaten to death. That's not the big focus of this update though. There have been some glaring issues (baring the fact I give way too much experience) such as the lack of any TMs as well as the possibility of only being able to use Seaking as your water type which, in return, makes a couple Pokemon downright worthless (cough*Blissey*cough) to the point they shouldn't even be considered. Since Episode 16 is going to be delayed, I decided to test this out and see if people like this better or if it makes the game way too easy (which I doubt). Anyways, here's the link and the change log for 2.1:

Mega: Link

Mediafire: Link

Change Log:

-Added a TM Shop in the Grand Hall which is available after defeating Corey

-Balanced the Aqua and Magma Gangs by changing the event Pokemon in Cradbury's House (Magma Gang only)

-Added a few water types such as Psyduck which are all available before Shelly

-Somewhat fixed the Mega Gengar Sprite (at least it's not blurry anymore)

-Cain's Oshawott evolves into a Dewott during the cutscene

-Fixed Corey's Pokemon which are the correct one when they flee

• However, I did not change the Nidorina or Croagunk events
• Some of Hardcore Corey's team members are also obtainable through events as well

-Solaris's Dialogue has been slightly altered

-The Dull Key error has been fixed and is obtainable after Aya

-Wild Horsea no longer hold Dragon Scales (*hint* *hint*)

And if you find the super secret hidden Pokemon, don't spoil it for anyone.

[Guest]

Can't you possibly ask a mod to update the first post for you, Commander?
That said, good work as usual on the Hardcore release! I'll be sure to finally try playing it when I get my laptop.

I hope that certain surprise is in there. ^^

[Solarance]

Updated main post

[Commander]

Remember that secret project I talked about like 3 months ago. That's okay because neither did we. Joking aside, I actually recruited Trevor (he can say hi if he wants to) to help out with this project I have which you may have heard the term CoM. No, this is not Chain of Memories but a place called Chamber of Memories. What is the Chamber of Memories you ask? For right now, I'm going to disclose it but it's sort of like a post game for the hardcore (and maybe your Reborn saves) with quite a few interesting restrictions. So far we've laid the foundations and are getting into the torturing AI testing and fixing. Unless Episode 16 gets a huge delay, I'll be saving it for Episode 16. But anyways here's a little teaser for what to expect:

Totally didn't forget to delete them Ultra Potions

Anyways, you may have noticed some things in the video you may or make not like but here's what kind of challenge it is:

1. Items will be disabled for the entire battle (you can use them outside of battle, but I don't see why you would)

2. All battles will be forced into set mode. (Make sure to switch back to shift mode after leaving CoM)

3. No experience will be gained during battles in the CoM.

And as a different note, there will be a short survey (using survey monkey or something) coming up which is why I wanted to introduce some concepts early so that people can kind of get a better understanding of some possible features that can be added to the adventure part of the mod. There'll be a lot of minor changes to make Hardcore better than it is. Anyways, feel free to share your thoughts, comments, and concerns.

[Tringus]

Hi guys! Y'all know me, so let's keep it simple. Like what C said, we have been implementing the Chamber of Memories. So far, it's going pretty well, and MAN, is it hellish fighting each leader again after so long. With Hardcore, let's just say it's gonna be hell battling all of them again... However, like what C said, there's no point in using items, because in each chamber, you can heal your Pokemon!

Just to let you all know, but there will also be a few special battles after you battle all of the gym leaders available so far. But yeah, also like C said, feel free to share your thoughts, comments, concerns, and all of that fun stuff.

[LemonJones]

Just dropping by to say thank you to everyone who is participating in creating the hardcore version. Much appreciated, keep them coming, chamber is a great idea.

Edited May 19, 2016 by LemonJones

[FairFamily]

Considering I'm at a good point to place my review (I just beat Fern at route 1) and exams are coming up for me. It is time for a (part way) review. I use the follower version of the game, so please forgive if I made any mistake due to the modifications. On to the review:

My first impression was that I got trolled due to the Mega-Rayquaza. I had to actually double check to see if I really go the right files. Not a good start I will admit. Afterwards I was pleasantly surprised. I've seen difficulty through level increase ,a huge amount of legendaries and/or illegal moves but to my surprise this game hasn't had any of that. Instead i got better pkmn choice ,better move choice and interesting AI. It makes the game feel a lot more refined ,interesting and challenging. I had to switch out team members a lot faster which makes me feel the difficulty. I'm also happy that the creator(s) is willing to make changes outside the battles to make them fit in better. For instance Cain's Dewott evolution while a bit confusing, was well done and felt like it would fit perfectly within the game. The training items were really helpfull to tune down the grind of the game allowing me more to focus on team composition.

Now we are done with the good stuf, let's move on to the bad stuff:

While the Ai certainly got improved it also seems to do some very weird stuff. I got two case were it was so prominent that I couldn't ignore it. The first was in my fight against Corey. Corey switched out his Qwilfish/Swalot after a while against my dustox that behavior would be fine if it weren't for the fact that they swapped back to either Qwilfish or Swalot. once the qwilfish was defeated though the Ai seemed to function again. The second was against my fight against Shelly for some reason Shelly decided it was a good idea to constantly aqua jet a camerupt while there was a storm drain gastrodon on the field.

The second major problem was Shelly's rain. I felt it was seriously overpowered and in fact limiting. There wasn't enough counterplay against it in my opinion.

The last gripe was Solaris. he actually felt a lot weaker compared to the main game. I mean yes, you can ' cheese' the main game Solaris but if you didn't you were in for a hell of a challenge. When I was playing through the game I was wondering how hardcore would make this more challenging. So to prepare for it I had more 'cheesy plays' with me. Turns out I didn't need it because 2 of my mons (which weren't cheese: a chesnaught and a zebstrika) dealt with him. Given I had rain advantage but if Solaris can't handle a little bit of rain then he was a lot weaker. The worst part is that the rain wasn't even a huge advantage to my 2 pkmns either. It made Solaris a major dissapointment in my opinion and kinda did him a lot of disservice compared to the main game.

[Commander]

The second major problem was Shelly's rain. I felt it was seriously overpowered and in fact limiting. There wasn't enough counterplay against it in my opinion.

The last gripe was Solaris. he actually felt a lot weaker compared to the main game. I mean yes, you can ' cheese' the main game Solaris but if you didn't you were in for a hell of a challenge. When I was playing through the game I was wondering how hardcore would make this more challenging. So to prepare for it I had more 'cheesy plays' with me. Turns out I didn't need it because 2 of my mons (which weren't cheese: a chesnaught and a zebstrika) dealt with him. Given I had rain advantage but if Solaris can't handle a little bit of rain then he was a lot weaker. The worst part is that the rain wasn't even a huge advantage to my 2 pkmns either. It made Solaris a major dissapointment in my opinion and kinda did him a lot of disservice compared to the main game.

For Shelly, I generally agreed which is why 2.1 added a lot of things to try and counter her issues. Part of it is the Perma-rain which is unfortunately a necessary evil since everybody kept saying she was pitifully easy by lighting the field on fire. In E16 version, I'm actually going to give the option whether or not to fight her in Permarain and those that do get a free early Shellos. Serra will also be getting a similar treatment in order to satisfy two different wants. As for Solaris, he's an interesting case. I've had teams he's completely smoked and if I could replace something more suited for him, I would. I suppose I'll add his battle on the survey if he needs buffed.

Now we are done with the good stuf, let's move on to the bad stuff:

While the Ai certainly got improved it also seems to do some very weird stuff. I got two case were it was so prominent that I couldn't ignore it. The first was in my fight against Corey. Corey switched out his Qwilfish/Swalot after a while against my dustox that behavior would be fine if it weren't for the fact that they swapped back to either Qwilfish or Swalot. once the qwilfish was defeated though the Ai seemed to function again. The second was against my fight against Shelly for some reason Shelly decided it was a good idea to constantly aqua jet a camerupt while there was a storm drain gastrodon on the field

Eh, I know that's due to how Essential AI's has been built, but I believe that some of those issues should be fixed in Episode 16...we hope. I'll describe essential's AI by saying it's like duck tape holding an airplane in the air. Reborn is able to mask it a bit better since they write AI coding in along with making some mons wipe before they do anything buggy. I do a lot of testing, but it being only me, I can only manipulate a skewed hyper offensive AI so much. The Corey buggyness I'm aware of as it's an unusual play with a special Qwilfish. Swalot...is a problem child due to an AI coding that prevents stall teams from working...at all. I did have plans on bringing a couple guys on board...unfortunately, I've only been able to one additional staff member (Solarance isn't part of the team). Once the final episode hits, that's where I'll get into permanently fixing errors instead of manipulation since AI coding won't be changed that much then. (Right now, I only do minor fixes such as Mega Sceptile's type error otherwise it'd take months for episode updates).

[LemonJones]

I've had some moves missing at random times, is there something I'm missing about this? At the start Cain missed tackle 4 times, I missed scratch 3 times in the first gym and just now I missed ember against Florinia.

Meowstic level 28 learns charge beam instead of charm.

Edited May 22, 2016 by LemonJones

[Commander]

For Juila, I have no idea unless you ran a hustle Raticate since nothing uses evasion in that Gym iirc. Cain's Nidoran has Hustle so it happens and you were probably RNG Blessed. Florinia's Cacturne has Sand Viel (Not sure if it has bright powder) so that happens. That's my attempt to get Spikes working. I tried/10. The only leader you should really worry too much about evasion hax is Serra as I don't use it that much outside of her. When I do, it's only one mon.

Unfortunately, that's a glaring weakness in the Pokemon Formula, not Reborn or hardcore. Either side could be playing the best they ever had and a miss could screw them over.

Edit: I forgot, male and female meowstic have two different learnsets I think female is the offensive one and you also get access to Shadow Ball later.

[LemonJones]

Right, my mistake. Only thing left that is kind of odd is the Meowstic thing. Not like it changes anything for me, thought you fellas might want to know.

[Commander]

So right now we're reaching the halfway point in testing (though some people may not think so since all fights have been drafted). I haven't exactly finished all of the eventing but most of it will be done bar one room I'm not doing and one bigass event of around 200 lines or something. It's not long, just really tedious and time consuming.

I'm not going to make a sign up template, but I'm going to be really pick who I have go for the first round of beta testing. I'm only looking for 2-3 with four at the most. I'm not looking for bugs in particular but kind of thoughts on fights/concept, ai exploits and funkyness (I can't control all of it unfortunately), whether a fight is too easy/hard/just right, and even open to suggestions. While I prefer skilled battlers, I don't want to see things like "This fight was good" or "I think this needs work." BECAUSE THAT DOESN'T HELP ME. Sorry, but one liners do drive me up with all. Anyways, it won't be ready for a day or two so there's no rush to submit an app.

[LemonJones]

Delt with Shelly just now and holy shit you almost went overboard with this fight, it's pretty crazy. Perma rain made this fight insane for the team I was using.

The best team I could form from what I had was a team of Charizard, Meowstic, Fearow, Emolga, Raticate and Garbodor. After 2-3 hopeless tries I kicked Garbodor and went grinding with Castform.

She can deal with a lot of her obvious weaknesses and that annoying ass lead with intimidate and struggle bug spam makes it hard to possibly start set something up. When I did have a decent start, Armaldo got in and throw several Rock Slides to K.O. me really fast.

Having said that, the fight itself is just very annoying with the rain up all the time, not completely overpowered. It kind of forces you to bring Sunny Day move along or you're gonna have a rough time. This is where Castform comes in. Perhaps we can call it cheese considering how ridiculously easy fight becomes in comparison. After changing the weather all it took was setting the field on fire and finish her off one by one.

I've seen that you wanted to give us an option about the perma rain but maybe there's something else you might like. How about you make it so that whenever the field is set on fire Politoed drops the rain out for 5 turns? Maybe it triggers permarain on? I got an idea from Corey's field, you can have 1 trump card by exchanging 1 for 1 and removing the poison status condition but the field still works in his favor.

[Commander]

If you were unable to turn the forest field into a burning field, everyone's lives would be so much easier. I literally tried for hours to get that Illumise to Rain Dance so this was my temporary solution until Episode 16. TBH, I did not expect such a delay to the episode which is why I'm working on some things now in preparation for it. Switching Armaldo back into Crustle would've been my next solution due to how strong that thing is. I mean one possible solution is to force fight Shelly again if you use the burning field tactic, but that's just as bad as the perma-rain.

As for the idea politoed comes in and casts rain if burning field is activated, that is in no means a bad idea, but a very complex one. It'd require me to tamper a bit with the field data more specifically the burning field and while I'm not a programming expert, I do have a general idea how that would work. It's just kind of complex and I'd have to redo it every single episode update. Vs giving the option of perma-rain which quite literally is just a copy and paste which I have to do every episode anyways.

Part of the reason Rain Shelly is so broken was also due to lack of water types with the other being I really turned up her bulk mostly due to being a bit PO'd after recieving what felt like 40 complaints of Shelly being ridiculously easy. The rain ain't why she feels overwhelming but a big part of it so I might turn it down a couple notches and probably remove Confuse ray from Illumise in exchange for Thunder Wave.

[FairFamily]

Long live procrastination because I reached the end. So now I'm back for my second review.

The difficulty is still there but at the same time I had the feeling that the difference between normal reborn and hardcore was slowly shrinking as the game was progressing.

Maybe it is just me acclimating to hardcore or just the nature of my team.

For the rest I will just do a the few gripes I had with some of the major battles.

Radomus was acyually quite funny. I took the trick room variant and to my surprise both ( I only saw the 2) of the mons that knew trick room were 4 times weak against bug type moves. I don't know if that was the intention but it made my battle a lot easier.

Samson was easy but only due to me having a serious matchup advantage by having a chesnaught. He can easily set up six bulk ups thanks to leech seed and can easily counter one of it counters, bounce, with spiky shield.I think it is a bit too advantagous but the amount super effective hits from the multiple pkmn can eventually wear him down.

The pulse Avalugg just sufffers from the same thing any boss mon, it is a boss mon. Curse practically finished him, same with Swalot.

The gambler was a fun surprise. That Alakazam though, I think (it's been a few days) it was fast enough to outspeed my galvantula after a speed drop.
Ciel was a bit strange I need all my 6 mons but 5 them were actually defeated by three of mine. Most of them were swept by my diggersby, one of them I couldn't even remember.

For the rest it was fun while it lasted. Good job, I hope to see more.

[Commander]

Maybe it is just me acclimating to hardcore or just the nature of my team.

This is a very hard question to answer as it's more than just a simple yes or no. Sometimes I wonder about whether or not the late game is harder than regular Reborn and then I look back at the originals PBS file and go "OMG, how did I do that?" The leaders do get more difficult as you progress the game, but once you settle on a good team, you'll never have to switch out again. Agate City is that point which is why the later game moves so much faster. You actually have TMs, mons good enough for the E4, and leveling really starts to level out demoting constant switching. So you've already been able to become really strong at this point.

Hardcore also is a very misleading way as it's not a game that brutally beats you to the ground for no reason. The first Fern fight I didn't give him a perfect coverage set, but actually just evolved his team and that's it. It's a warning to players maybe they should think about their team and what they need before entering and Exp Mine (aka the Meteor grunts). And since different leaders have different stratagies, you'll always find one easy and one...the most evil thing in the world. If you're worried that the future leaders will get too easy, we started peaking our strength around Aya. And if you are super worried that enemies can only be up to level 100 due to cap making for no challenge, I got this:

[Quickslip]

I love the idea of CoM, postgame stuff is always great. Still, since you asked for thoughts, here's my nitpicky one: I don't like the name. It evokes the wrong feeling in me.

Chain of Memories could get away with it because

Spoilers, in case its still possible to spoil Kingdom Hearts for people

Sora lost all his abilities at the start of the game, so he was effectively weaker and could replay all the areas again at around the same level. Also, the entire point of the game was that Namine was messing around with and re-forging Sora's memories to change who he was. It made a certain amount of sense that not everything was exactly the same.

Here though, we have a Chamber of Memories filled with people who are stronger than they once were. Why? If these are our memories, shouldn't they remain about the same strength? Really, if just given the name, I'd think the area was a place where our pokemon get de-leveled to an appropriate degree and we fight through some of the things we fought before but using our new team of pokemon.

Unless some stuff is added that gives the name more meaning, I'd call it the Chamber of Echoes or something. Anything that can seem louder or get more distorted through the passage of time or distance, and play off that. Chamber of Memories seems too personal to use, implying that it is cherished and would remain true to itself rather than change.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents and feelings on it. It could very well be different for others. Love that you're still continuing work on this.

Also, poor Corey. Never to see the power of having OP speed. xD

Edited May 28, 2016 by Quickslip

[TheJawsOfDeath]

I have a couple questions for you commander.

1. Would you say Reborn Hardcore E15 is complete or should we wait for any other small updates before starting.

2. Approximately how long after each Reborn episode do you think it will take you to release the corresponding Reborn Hardcore episode?

3. Will Chamber of Memories be added in alongside Ame's postgame in E19/20?

4. What TMs are in the TM shop?

[Solarance]

I have a couple questions for you commander.

1. Would you say Reborn Hardcore E15 is complete or should we wait for any other small updates before starting.

2. Approximately how long after each Reborn episode do you think it will take you to release the corresponding Reborn Hardcore episode?

3. Will Chamber of Memories be added in alongside Ame's postgame in E19/20?

4. What TMs are in the TM shop?

Apologies if any of the answers should be amended, but I can most likely answer 3 of 4 questions correctly...

1: I would say that no more "patches" should be released for EP 15

2: Commander will release episodes around a month after the Main episode release

3: I've honestly heard both ways, but ATM it may be added for 16/17 depends on how much gets done between now and then.

[Commander]

I have a couple questions for you commander.

1. Would you say Reborn Hardcore E15 is complete or should we wait for any other small updates before starting.

2. Approximately how long after each Reborn episode do you think it will take you to release the corresponding Reborn Hardcore episode?

3. Will Chamber of Memories be added in alongside Ame's postgame in E19/20?

4. What TMs are in the TM shop?

1. If I get it done and Reborn E16 is nowhere near close to completion, I'll release it early. That's not anytime soon though. That'll also have some minor updates and perhaps a Ciel buff. Again you may as well play 2.1 as nothing is going to come anytime soon. If Reborn goes two more weeks without a Percentage update, I'll release CoM early. E16's development time has taken a toll so I'd at least want to give you guys something to hold you over.

Ame please update the progress bar

2. This is the tricky part: It depends on what I'm doing for that particular episode and for retesting due to AI changes. A month is generally the best estimate but it could take from 2 weeks to even 6 weeks from all the maintenance required. It's a wait and see type deal as I want the whole game to be good, not just the current episode. I also have to edit the titlescreen a little bit as I know a lot of people get confused if the game really is Hardcore.

3. Chamber of Memories will be added once I get it done. It's its own challenge and designed in gym leader castle style. That was 4 gens ago so it's not a perfect replica but you get the idea. Since this thing is taking so long. I'm going to probably release an unfinished version of it while I add in the charm stuff at my own leisure. Each episode I'll merely adjust the levels of each leader so it won't take too long to update for each episode.

4. The TMs aren't very powerful to promote using mons who learn better movesets without screwing mons with crappy level up movesets. Low Sweep, Power-up Punch, Incinerate, Snarl, and other tms with low BP but and effect with them. There's also Calm Mind and Shadow Ball. Trust me, you'll need to budget yourself a bit when it comes to these TMs as they're all pricey.

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@Quickslip, I called it Chamber of Memories because that's what clicked in my head. All of these battles take place in a place you've visited before bar one in which I gave to Trevor to do. A big theme of this place is corruption and while some may look fine at first glance, others have some unusual little easter eggs and such to mess with. I know there's the KH game, but it's gotten really old and almost forgotten and the abbreviation of CoM or RH-CoM. I don't care for the name Hardcore but it's stuck around for so long it's kind of hard to switch. Anyone's free to throw name suggestions for it though.

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I'm also going to make a little annoucement for E16. Have you ever said something like this: "GODDAMMIT COMMANDER! Chill out with the exp already. My Pokemon are way over the cap and now I gotta spend all my money on common candies." Well I have news for you. Hardcore Episode 16 will allow for an option called the level limiter. Basically it stops your Pokemon from gaining experience once they reach the cap (or the level limit for Corey or Kiki) until you beat that episode's gym leader. Don't like this idea? no problem! You can keep using the old method instead hassle free. I'll give a better description of it including the caps once Episode 16 is released.