The Big Nerf (SPOILERINOS)

[Kurotsune]

I have to agree with Kurostone on a lot of his points. I briefly mentioned the AI is crap, has been, always will be. The AI just works enough for what it needs to be so I guess that's that. But field effects are kind of the thing that helps improve the Leader difficulty (and yes it does help). Reborn is still a heck of a lot harder than main games so I can't complain too much.

I'm still probably going to play with Serra and make her broken as hell again though.

Not a man.

*looking with expectant puppy eyes, begging Kuro to rewrite the AI*

I agree with most of Kuro's points, I'd like to add couple more

-the Shofu gauge:

Having seeing most of the mid and late gym battles in Shofu's playthrough, he steamrolled pre-fields Noel and Aya, the longtime so-called "nerfed" leaders, beat Serra (with her weather acting as a quasi field) only by exploiting a bug, beat Radomous in singles fairly easily, had a really hard time against Bennett and Luna in Iolia (Luna, for chrissake) and got his ass famously whooped by Samson, Charlotte and to a lessr extent T3RR4. I agree with Kuro, we're getting smarter here, we use the fields to our benefit, and I'd say that casual players may find them adding to the difficulty

-the gimmick problem:

My No1 problem with some leaders. Radomous could stay in singles, but he has a Trick Room team with an AI that never uses Trick Room, so he can give the TM to the player. I don't see it being reasonable. Either have the leader give a better TM to avoid gimmicks that don't held, or have them say "that's what you get and I'm doing you a favour, if you don't like it shove it up your bag and never use it". I haven't fought Shade's new team, but I'm no fan of Banette or Trevenant, the propable Shadow Claw users. He doesn't have to use Shadow Claw to give Shadow Claw. Also, Shadow Ball's SE coverage is literally Kiki's Medicham and Radomous. Also the new Serra, who I spent a day beating and rebattling like a kid playing with a doll till the doll ends up undressed, missing limbs and with clear bite marks, is very restricted, and also damaged by her own field. Nature Power - Mirror Shot murders her. Lucky Chant stops her at her tracks. She has no Water-Ice types, for God's sake. Her field and team gimmick turns against them.

-the levels problem

I think that's the reason the levels were readjusted. The higher the levels, the more exp they require, so we can't jump 5 levels with every gym. I personally like to train more than 6 'mons and always end up wildly underleveled. For the E-15 leader, the most work was put by two mons that finished the battle at lvl 71 and 68. Unless we want to go over 100, there had to be made an adjustment (and I hope, really hope it gets reflected on the cap) so we can partially follow the leaders and not constantly be significantly underleveled. At the same time, this mechanism has to protect the leaders somehow.

Also Ame took far away in the game my secret ace and I'm SOUR CREAM about it.

While I can't attest for anyone but me, I'd say the level adjustment was mostly a way to make sure we don't have to go over the level cap. That's definitely something I'd personally not like.

And as an addendum, I think it'd be good to decrease the soft caps so that we could encourage people to use more pokémon by not having to do so much grinding. I know I never change my party because I sure as hell ain' grinding anything up to level 70, so I can speak for experience that the lesser the burden of grinding upon the player, the better.

I get it's part of Pokémon, but still, I think having to grind several pokémon hurts the overall idea of having the player use more than just six pokémon in their rotation.

While I'd personally like to see a system added in that allowed your pokémon to gain experience in other ways to ease the burden of grinding, I've no ideas on that front, nor are there any plans to invest into it.

[Kiryuu]

I already stated this in a status comment. The Gym Leaders are relative weak, especially Shade, what happen to him? I remember back in EP12, this guy was a straight up crack head; defeating me and giving me nightmares for hours end. He beat me over 20+ I'm sure, but when I won it felt so..good. So good that I literary scream of enjoyment. This new team he have now does no justice to the Shade I knew. Ame I know u r reading this, give me back my old Shade plz thank you

Noel beat me about 5 times, the team he had prove to me that Normal Poke have balls of steel. They are useful and shouldn't be underestimated. The last thing I heard about him was a nerf of course...

Aya was a crack head too. Defeated me less than Shade but the victory felt good too in EP12. She have been nerf multiple times now, fought her on this new playthrough....idk what to said really. The pressure just wasn't there.

Luna did kick my ass couple of times but on the 3rd try she when down (I believe her Umbreon was lvl 71 when I fought her). Haven't fought her yet on this playthrough I'm doing now. IMO, they should had left her alone.....

Charlotte, my wife. This was the easiest Gym for me back when EP13 came out and I was able to defeat her in 1st try. Archeops + Rock Slide not only out speed everything, it KO everything in 1 hit !!! I honestly felt insulted when everyone was struggling and I'm here thinking "is that it?" Meh it's whatever with this one. Maybe the nerf was really deserved.

Arceus is meh. Killed me 1st time; I lead with the right Poke on the rematch, he when down in EP12.

I heard Sierra was a nightmare with an evasion boost team and that was impossible to hit her due to the fact she ran Brightpowder too.. I would of love to fight her before she was nerf the first time. I defeated her in my 1st time also.on EP12.

I hope the developers look back on these nerfs because all they are doing is pleasing the cry babies. Most of them have a good team and they still lose because they aren't thinking with a strategy; they believe sheer force with do the trick. This isn't your typical Poke, this is Reborn Adapt or die.

I'll be direct. The AI is crap.

I'll be direct has well. If the AI is bullshit, why don't you give the Gym Leaders their old team back to compensate for the crappy AI? Hell, we can even make a vote of this has a community....

I leave with this. My most satisfying moments on this game is winning that battle have been giving me hell for hours. I still remember to this day when I fought Shade for hours end, using different tactics and getting out completely out of my comfort zone in order to win. That shit felt good, and I still here because I want to experience that feeling again. I'll be honest, I don't really care much about the story (okay, I may like Charlotte) but I just want that experience again.

Edited June 19, 2015 by Smok3iT

[Commander]

Not a man.

I just created my own death sentence, haven't I?

But yeah, I messed around with Serra's team making it this:

Abomasnow, Mamoswine (Sp Atk), Cloyster, Jynx, Glaceon, Froslass

Believe it or not, Mamoswine wasn't as broken as I though it'd be (though I haven't tested it on the field effect yet). Abomasnow wasn't much help so I'll probably edit Auroras back in its place. I kind of want to face her field effect team first because it didn't look half bad.

As for grinding, it's way better than it was before (though I do have a little complaint about the rebattable trainers in the grand hall being a little too high). The wild Pokemon being higher levels made grind less tedious, though it still takes a while. I think it took about 3 hours to grind a new team of six for Shade though that was mostly because I had to keep healing from all the Klinks. The lower level cap is also a saving grace because the leaders lowest is about 3 above the wild pokemon around.

[Imperial]

The problem with the difficulty is that there's two kind of players : the newbies discovering Reborn, and the veteran able to easily do it in monotype run. For a newcomer the game is really difficult. For me, back to E11, most champions were a nightmare. Still today I struggle with my first run to complete E15. But for someone who already played Reborn, it becomes really easy, especially when some leaders are nerfed. My ground mono run was much easier than my first run (with Gyarados!) because I know how to use field effects, I know the champions and am well prepared for them.

So why not adding several difficulty levels ? That way you can have an "easy" Reborn with nerfed leaders and less grinding, and an hardcore Reborn with the hax queen Serra, no nerf Charlotte (Ninetales before Solar Beam Typhlosion !), etc...

[Foamy]

The problem with the difficulty is that there's two kind of players : the newbies discovering Reborn, and the veteran able to easily do it in monotype run. For a newcomer the game is really difficult. For me, back to E11, most champions were a nightmare. Still today I struggle with my first run to complete E15. But for someone who already played Reborn, it becomes really easy, especially when some leaders are nerfed. My ground mono run was much easier than my first run (with Gyarados!) because I know how to use field effects, I know the champions and am well prepared for them.

So why not adding several difficulty levels ? That way you can have an "easy" Reborn with nerfed leaders and less grinding, and an hardcore Reborn with the hax queen Serra, no nerf Charlotte (Ninetales before Solar Beam Typhlosion !), etc...

If that happens, it won't be until the game is completed.

[Gaunt]

Kurotsune made some good points but (for me) a few issues remain:

1) The crap A.I.

You said that it will not be "repaired" but Ame said that it will be so i'm really confused right now, it's a real problem (probably the main reason people are complaining about the difficulty in the first place) that should be addressed as best you can (i think).

2) Dumbing down the game for the noobs

I understand the "desire" of the developers to make the game more accessible so more people can enjoy it but balance is the key in this, you think that this balance has been (sorta) reached, some other (me included) think it's not but both are just a personal point of view nothing more. What i'm trying to say is: the developers should be very careful with these nerfs as it can make unhappy more people than they think and this too is a problem.

[Amethyst]

Yay for typing out a long reply and then it gets deleted :c

Kuro is on point though, as usual.

-the gimmick problem:

My No1 problem with some leaders. Radomous could stay in singles, but he has a Trick Room team with an AI that never uses Trick Room, so he can give the TM to the player. I don't see it being reasonable. Either have the leader give a better TM to avoid gimmicks that don't held, or have them say "that's what you get and I'm doing you a favour, if you don't like it shove it up your bag and never use it". I haven't fought Shade's new team, but I'm no fan of Banette or Trevenant, the propable Shadow Claw users. He doesn't have to use Shadow Claw to give Shadow Claw. Also, Shadow Ball's SE coverage is literally Kiki's Medicham and Radomous. Also the new Serra, who I spent a day beating and rebattling like a kid playing with a doll till the doll ends up undressed, missing limbs and with clear bite marks, is very restricted, and also damaged by her own field. Nature Power - Mirror Shot murders her. Lucky Chant stops her at her tracks. She has no Water-Ice types, for God's sake. Her field and team gimmick turns against them.

I love gimmicks. My favorite thing about Field Effects is that they can make gimmicks viable. Now, a gimmick for its own sake is goofy, but the goal with them is to bring the character to life in their battle.

Let's take Kiki for an example. Her character is based around focus, zen, etc. So we've got this wonderful move called Meditate. And it's total shit. Meditate should never see competitive usage, tbh. But I add a field effect that boosts Meditate to +3 and suddenly it's the scariest damn thing she can do. That's fantastic. That's what we're going for. It's a gimmick, but it reinforces her character, and it still works.

Battles like that, or when you have to deal with Julia's booms, or acting out a fai-- oops, spoilers-- are some of the best battles in the game, in my opinion.

Now, Radomus. Let's make one thing clear right now. There is literally a 0% chance he's getting anything resembling his old singles team back, ever. Radomus's entire character concept is based on Trick Room, and the idea of black moving first in a chess match. The reason he ever had that singles team was because at the time Trick Room hadn't been implemented yet, and I wasn't about to give him a team that focused around a move that at the time did literally nothing.

Those who faced Radomus in our online league will remember that if he got TR up, the battle was basically over. He played Triples, because TR is more effective in multi-battles, and lead with three bulky TR setters. There was almost no way to KO all of them, so as a challenger, you had to figure out which one he was going TR with, and focus that down. Guess wrong, and you get steam rolled. The first turn in Radomus battle was always the most important, and the most intense, especially on the rematches. So you get your tail kicked and come in for another try. Last time his Slowbro used TR, so you focus that down. Surprise, Reuniclus used it this time. Round 3, you find a way to take down both Slowbro and Reuniclus, but, lol, it turns out that it was Exeggutor with TR now. But more than just a guessing game, the odds were stacked in his favor. Sometimes, Radomus would have two or three of his Pokemon use TR at once. So no matter which the player focuses down, TR still goes up. Now, TR will cancel itself if used twice on the first turn. So maybe you try and bait him into cancelling his own TR by -not- focusing down a Pokemon. He doubles, cancels, and you win. Or he outpredicts you again, and despite your best efforts only uses it once, and it's another loss. Mind-games. They're fantastic.

Now, the AI will never be up to mind-game level, but the field effect can help TR be more viable. Gimmick or not, it's still an ideal battle concept for him. With the Chess Arena effect, it can be balanced until it's strong enough.

(I currently haven't made any effort to balance the field because there's not much point until the AI reliably uses TR. By the way, TR AI works great. In singles. The problem is not TR AI, it's doubles AI, which is so ridiculously fuckeroo'd it's literally painful to me.)

But certainly he does not use a TR team because he needed to give out that TM. I will express my lamentations with TMs though. I'm not looking to change the distribution of moves, meaning I can't add any new ones. But in a perfect world, Kiki would be giving a Meditate TM, Julia would be giving Sonicboom, so on.

Because this is not a perfect world, I am subject to trying to work in existing TMs. Now, you might say that he doesn't have to use Shadow Claw to give it out, but feedback I've received in the past says the exact opposite. I am certainly not going to change the core concept of a battle, as you accuse me of doing with Radomus, just for a certain TM, but as far as balance goes it is rather tedious to have to work in those moves. For instance, Charlotte gives Flamethrower, and has several Pokemon with it, but tbh she really should never use it because Heat Wave is always almost always the better choice on that field. So that sucks. But it's not breaking her character either way.

I'll be direct has well. If the AI is bullshit, why don't you give the Gym Leaders their old team back to compensate for the crappy AI? Hell, we can even make a vote of this has a community....

Because two wrongs don't make a right.

Debut Serra was strong because unless the AI flopped, or you had either Magmar or Drought Vulpix, there really weren't many effective options against her. Unfortunately, that just means you throw the level 12 Vulpix in as your lead, let the poor thing get run over, and then sweep her without effort.

Raw strength doesn't constitute a satisfying battle; feeling like you outplayed your opponent does. In order to make sure there are ways to do that, I sometimes have to poke holes in previous bastions.

So why not adding several difficulty levels ? That way you can have an "easy" Reborn with nerfed leaders and less grinding, and an hardcore Reborn with the hax queen Serra, no nerf Charlotte (Ninetales before Solar Beam Typhlosion !), etc...

When completed, the game will be opened up to community mods, and I imagine various difficulty mods will be among the most popular.

They likely won't be adapted into the main game though, for reasons similar to the ones described above.

1) The crap A.I.

You said that it will not be "repaired" but Ame said that it will be so i'm really confused right now, it's a real problem (probably the main reason people are complaining about the difficulty in the first place) that should be addressed as best you can (i think).

Kuro is correct in saying that the current AI structure is pretty lacklustre, and should probably be rebuilt. That's not going to happen. What IS going to happen is we're going to -complete- that structure, as it's only half-done in the first place.

And just for the record, I'm not a fan of pleasing people in itself. I'm not going to nerf something to make people happy; I'm going to change it because I recognize I don't like the pattern of play going on there.

[Foamy]

I always love reading Ame's expository responses. These posts never fail to offer previously unseen insight into the game, and they allow me to see it from a perspective that I wouldn't always think to view it from.

Those who faced Radomus in our online league will remember that if he got TR up, the battle was basically over. He played Triples, because TR is more effective in multi-battles, and lead with three bulky TR setters. There was almost no way to KO all of them, so as a challenger, you had to figure out which one he was going TR with, and focus that down. Guess wrong, and you get steam rolled. The first turn in Radomus battle was always the most important, and the most intense, especially on the rematches. So you get your tail kicked and come in for another try. Last time his Slowbro used TR, so you focus that down. Surprise, Reuniclus used it this time. Round 3, you find a way to take down both Slowbro and Reuniclus, but, lol, it turns out that it was Exeggutor with TR now. But more than just a guessing game, the odds were stacked in his favor. Sometimes, Radomus would have two or three of his Pokemon use TR at once. So no matter which the player focuses down, TR still goes up. Now, TR will cancel itself if used twice on the first turn. So maybe you try and bait him into cancelling his own TR by -not- focusing down a Pokemon. He doubles, cancels, and you win. Or he outpredicts you again, and despite your best efforts only uses it once, and it's another loss. Mind-games. They're fantastic.

Gosh, now I wanna see Radomus in action. Even if he doesn't accept challenges anymore, I hope there are some recorded PO/Showdown battles with him floating around.

Edited June 19, 2015 by Foamy

[Gaunt]

I have only one thing to add...ehm Ame...White moves first in Chess not Black.

[Foamy]

I have only one thing to add...ehm Ame...White moves first in Chess not Black.

Um, she is very thoroughly aware of that, bruh.

Looking at the context of her post, you'll notice that she mentions "black moving first" and "Trick Room" in the same breath.

This heavily implies that while white normally makes the first move in chess, Radomus tries to turn that norm on its head. The color that normally goes last now goes first, and vice-versa.

In other words, slower Pokémon move first, and faster Pokémon move last.

See what's happening there?

[Gaunt]

Um, she is very thoroughly aware of that, bruh.

Looking at the context of her post, you'll notice that she mentions "black moving first" and "Trick Room" in the same breath.

This heavily implies that while white normally makes the first move in chess, Radomus tries to turn that norm on its head. The color that normally goes last now goes first, and vice-versa.

In other words, slower Pokémon move first, and faster Pokémon move last.

See what's happening there?

Oh that i understand but shouldn't the phrase be structured differently then? Anyway it doesn't matter.

[Foamy]

Oh that i understand but shouldn't the phrase be structured differently then? Anyway it doesn't matter.

Not really. I immediately understood what she meant.

[Kiryuu]

And just for the record, I'm not a fan of pleasing people in itself. I'm not going to nerf something to make people happy; I'm going to change it because I recognize I don't like the pattern of play going on there.

Points for this. I love the fact you aren't here to please nobody, but rather create your own story and lore.

I can't walk away though and said that the pass nerfs have been to give the characters more "life". I never put myself in your shoes has a developer . All these time I though it was to please the weaker Players really.

Thank you for ur input

Much <3

[Jaromir]

Wow Ame. Your post answered all questions I wanted to ask about the nerfs.

I also realised just how MUCH I regret coming here too late for beeing part of the League.

[Commander]

I always love reading Ame's expository responses. These posts never fail to offer previously unseen insight into the game, and they allow me to see it from a perspective that I wouldn't always think to view it from.

Gosh, now I wanna see Radomus in action. Even if he doesn't accept challenges anymore, I hope there are some recorded PO/Showdown battles with him floating around.

I know Wash did some X-League battles that are up on youtube, but there are also some logs laying around of the original season of showdown (I'd have to search for it again on the site). But yeah, some of the leaders like Sigmund had really cool strategies (he used Discharge to boost his Pokemon's attack).

...I think my save is the only ones where Radomus ever uses Trick Room. Of course, I generally wind up using Pokemon slower than him so...you can imagine the results. But yeah, he's going to take time to get up there with the others (though I think his team is really cool).

As for Serra, her days as the OP Hax Queen are gone due to Gen VI weather (thank god!). Believe it or not, it actually wasn't too hard to shift Pokemon from their older teams back on.

[sound of silence]

While I did enjoy reading Ame's response, there are still some ways in which I think the game could use some rebalancing so that its harder.

I like that the first couple of leaders act as a sort of learning curve so as to get the player used to the field effects, moves becoming stronger/weaker etc. I also really like how grinding is now a lot less of a requirement in getting past leaders 9-11. And despite grinding multiple pokemon, its great to be able to use different pokemon to get past certain leaders.

The thing I found, although I haven't tried playing the game solely on EP 15 yet, is that the difficulty curve of the game is fine right up until you beat Noel, because as you progress through the game, you get used to dealing with stronger attackers from field effects, moves being neutered or hard to kill walls. After that it seems to have a lot of issues going up and down all over the place with Randomus (although fair enough, you can't get the AI to do that well with doubles), then Luna (I have to say, I can't see the ability to turn the crystal fields into a cave field as a good choice, I really want to see Luna make a dark sand team so tyrannitar can stop players just using sunny day to get the advantage back so easily). After those two, Samson and charlotte almost feel like a really nasty tomato surprise in the jump in difficulty the first time you fight them (in terms of levels and use of field effects), before both Terra and Ciel drop off again (Terra mostly, Ciel can still be very annoying).

What makes me think that the game has some level of easy to it is that for the most part, you can find pokemon close by that can really pull their weight in a gym fight, and that is fine. The problem is that while most gyms do have a few tricks so as to not let said pokemon go through their team so easily, it is really apparent for both Randomus/Luna, and Terra/Ciel that the nearby pokemon/items ruin said balance. I'm really pleased Randomus has gallade so it can (hopefully) use a chess boosted strength to stop bugs going through his team like a hot knife through butter. Luna is the worst example due to having answers to problem types but being weak in general to fire/ground/bug/fairy from all the ways to reshape her field, especially with EQ now being a complete cop-out to dealing with her Umbreon. This is compounded further with Terra having way too many answers nearby to easily beating her team (air balloons right before her gym, abomasnow, the ametrine mountain in general, the placement of the grass knot TM) without her having some sort of check to any of those answers. Ciel has similar problems (very weak to ice + ametrine mountain, good TR users nearby, the rock tomb TM) with almost no checks to any of those (Only talonflame comes even close).

I liked how the episodes are balanced so that some of these issues are addressed (see vulpix, azurill and trapinch) but there are still quite a few more to address mid to late in the game in the latest release. That would be my main issue (Oh and echoing everything said about the AI so far).