Battle AI novelties...

[Guest Relinquished]

New AI patterns, make enemy pokemon use weaker moves, when your own's HP are very low. This can lead to you surviving; had the enemy used its regular move, though, you would have fainted. This makes the game easier, quite a bit, effectively preventing wipeouts, especially during hardened battles, such as VS leaders, for instance... At the same time, Central Hall battles that are meant for XP and farming, have become quite hard (especially for levelling new mons), because opponents switch here and there, effectively preventing you from harvesting and sharing (unless you have an XP-share).

 

Second thing, is the item usage. They might be more strategical, but at the same time, much rarer, to occur (from opponents). In the past, even if they had been wasted on an inferior mon, they would come out frequently, thus leading into you being checked/walled/stalled, at least over a certain time! During key battles, should i repeat that this makes them easier by a lot?

 

Implementation of gen 7 pokemon into enemy teams... Made them quite easier, especially in certain points of the game. Everybody used to remember Shade's Chandelure, for example and not only about style and it being a signature mon... People argued against that, ever since ep 17 but truth is, lots of battles feel easier. It's not something so simple as "getting used to the game", either, since replaying an earlier episode, like 16, can lead you into endless resets, for the very same battles that now somebody can totally breeze through...

 

Thoughts? Comparisons? Opinions? Does the game feel easier for you, or not?

[Des Teto]

Well, I'd like to offer some thoughts about all you said. I tend to think otherwise about this subject.

 

Firstly, AI patterns tend to be tricky. Without going through the code and these infamous function crawls, it will be hard to know for sure what the AI is aiming to at these specific moments. Personally, I've always considered that AI was predicting a switch. So, if you're playing on Set Mode and want to keep your mon alive, these AI's choices could be efficient. In general, if you find something odd in AI's choices such as picking wrong moves, you should make a specific thread about it. I'm sure there are a lot 'wrong choices' left.

 

Secondly, about items, I just find them cheap. Everytime I had to stall with potions or revives, I considered the battles lost. This was not the case during my first playthrough tho Anyway! This is why I won't complain if AI don't use items since I don't use them myself anymore. Maybe it's my casual competitive spirit.

 

Lastly, the several Gen 7 changes may have led to easier battles ... But I don't think it's actually the case! It's hard to state that for sure without collecting data on several players. Plus, it mostly depends on the matchup. I don't think a lot of people used the exact same team. I just feel it a non-issue. This is why I feel that "getting used to the game" is a better answer. But I would even say that people simply got better at pokemon. After a Reborn playthrough, you should have a better time getting through other difficult fangames.