[SPOILERS] Episode 5 Story Discussions

[firestrikex79]

1 hour ago, Mulligon said:

 

I only really ev trained my main 6 pokemon but only a little, because I got tired and bored. I'm not exactly the patient type when it comes to training, so my other pokemon in the pc weren't doing too hot on the ev (some on the iv) side. I guess I might have to keep training a bit so my flygon doesn't get outsped by excadrills anymore. Ech. I would've if I wasn't stuck in the dreamscape.

 

Also you do have a good point with that strategy and thought line. I haven't used Garbodor at all before this game and it came in clutch multiple times. I also remember water sport surskit helping me out with the connor fight. Huh.

I just don't like getting washed like a rug 1,000 times, but it varies from person to person how difficulty goes, so it's all cool. I got my salt out lol

I must admit I'm kind of a perfectionist, so I'll always look to get good ivs and ev train the second it's available. I can see why not being fully ev trained makes the game much harder(I just assumed everyone would).

The reason reborn, rejuvenation and desolation stand out compared to all the other games are because they add another level of strategy. Just like you said-water sport surskit helped in the gym fight. Water sport is probably the most useless move but with field effects it acts as a niche against the fire gym. Maybe I'm over thinking it, but I like new strategy aspects even if they're small ones like giving previously worthless moves like water sport a powerful role. 

[Ravuri1]

On 7/15/2020 at 4:35 AM, Mulligon said:

I have a genuine question

 

  Hide contents

I see people here saying the difficulty was free, and I genuinely don't understand why. I got bodied constantly.

Every npc has a perfect EV/IV pokemon with egg moves, tm moves, and high quality competitive items like choice scarfs and life orbs. Pokemon I should outspeed, I don't

(when fighting Lilith, her Excadrill outsped a jolly Flygon. It was not scarfed. Excadrill is NOT that fast. Speaking of the lilith fight, I got washed like a rug. Thank god for toxic spikes )

Every mon you fight has obnoxious coverage. You are stuck with LV up moves and trash tms. Half of my won battles are because of me getting lucky, bulk up speed boost Blaziken, Toxic spikes stall paired with endeavor Wishiwashi, and healing spam. What are your teams looking like, how much breeding have you guys done to the point of you easily getting through these battles first try? I love the story so SO much, but constantly getting dicked down made me feel sick. Any strategy I came up with would be immediately put down because I would get outsped and oneshot when I KNOW I shouldn't. I'm very suprised to hear people want the difficulty upped. I think it's fine just the way it is, no hate or anything to anyone.

 

Here is my team. I didn't care about the nature. Bred some egg moves and did ev training:

 

Ribombee (252 SpAtk, 252 Spd):

• Sticky Web
• Moonblast
• Pollen Puff
• Quiver Dance

Mamoswine (252 Atk, 252 Spd):

• Icicle Crash
• Earthquake
• Ice Shard
• Thrash

 

Dodrio (252 Atk, 252 Spd):

• Return
• Drill Peck
• Jump Kick
• Swords Dance

Bewear (252 HP, 252 Atk):

• Hammer Arm
• Return
• Payback
• Baby-Doll Eyes

Magmortar (252 SpAtk, 252 Spd):

• Flamethrower
• Sunny Day
• Clear Smog
• Fire Blast

will replace a move with Focus Blast when I get the TM

 

Decidueye (252 Atk, 252 Spd):

• Leaf Blade
• Spirit Shackle
• Brave Bird
• Sucker Punch

 

ON ROTATION:

 

Alolan Muk (252 HP, 252 Atk):

• Gunk Shot
• Minimize
• Crunch
• Knock Off

Magnezone (252 SpAtk, 252 Spd):

• Flash Cannon
• Discharge
• Thunder Wave
• Tri Attack

Starmie (252 HP, 252 SpAtk):

• Rapid Spin
• Hydro Pump
• Psychic
• Cosmic Power

I had to do some breeding for the egg moves on Ribombee and Mamoswine.  Sticky Web really paid off. Most of the battles, Ribombee would just lay sticky web and sacrifice itself for the rest of the team to sweep the opponent 

[Bossdra]

Spoiler

So for insight, how do you gain it? I know the red text about curiosity gives you insight but I have no idea what actions could potentially cause you to gain it.

 

[Ravuri1]

1 hour ago, Bossdra said:

  Hide contents

So for insight, how do you gain it? I know the red text about curiosity gives you insight but I have no idea what actions could potentially cause you to gain it.

 

 

Spoiler

• Reading all the books and hidden pages in Aurora and Shiv's mansion.
• Reading the inscription on the wall in the cave located near the Southern Settlement
• Reading a book in the house in the North Woodland. (You need to complete the sidequest given by the resident of that building to be able to read that book)
• Reading a book in the house in the West Woodland. (There is a sidequest to complete here also, which I am not able to remember) (You also get a Ponyta in this building) 

These are the actions I know of

 

[Ravuri1]

22 hours ago, Mulligon said:

I mean...my team most of the game was Tangrowth, Wishiwashi, Flygon, Blaziken, Togekiss, and Aggron all of which served well and my pc is packed. (I wanted to use Vikavolt, but you obtain it so obnoxiously late in game, I quit training my charjabug. Why would they do that?)

Some of the gyms, the rival battles, that stupid lilith battle, and a few stray npcs would give me the most trouble. I also sometimes a Garbodor with Amnesia and Toxic spikes that LITERALLY carried me with those stupid fucking electric and fairy gyms. And lilith. That frosslass and excadrill can go to hell. Excadrill does not outspeed gengar in any universe.

 

Anyway, my deal is that EVERY pokemon you encounter just has annoyingly high tier movesets. EVERY one. This random trainer on the street has a Noivern with flamethrower, why? Can't someone just have a small slight weakness in their pokemon?

 

You can't tell me the electric gym's manectric didn't body you a few times. It didn't have to have hidden power ice. You can't tell me lilith or the fairy gym only took one try to beat. You can't tell me you didn't get one shot multiple times by a random boosted move.

It just ticks me off. I'm sorry for spewing so much salt, lol. I just got done playing the game and the lilith fight just pushed me over the edge. People want this game to be harder...?

I have already mentioned my team in a post above. In a sense, you are right: most of the opponents team rely on outspeeding and sweeping you. Ribombee is the fastest sticky web setter, and my strategy from the Electric gym till the end of the game has been the same, i.e. Set up sticky web and sweep. So I finished most of the story-important battles in a single try. I had to reset once or twice for random battles where I had some extreme type disadvantage and had to switch mons. 

[Caz]

I should mention that It’s difficult for us to nail the balance in Desolation, especially as 100% of the battles were remade from Episode 4 vs. just making new battles for new content. There will be a large number of balance changes in the future, we can assure you of that. Furthermore, we’re still unsatisfied with the current Pokemon availability and this will change significantly as well. For these reasons, some battles remain far easier than intended, and some are more difficult. Please just bear with us as we move closer to a consistent difficulty that we’re happy with. I should also mention that our intended difficulty isn’t meant to immensely challenging (as the game is story focused), but it’s not meant to be a cake-walk either. If skilled players win a boss battle on their first attempt - kudos - but we were never aiming to give players headaches over ridiculously challenging battles in the first place.

[Redthe1]

Okay, so this question has been bugging my mind for a good few hours and that was how much insight do you actually need to not get the bad ending, also is it possible to return to the dreamscape after leaving? I'd like somewhat of an answer cause my brain has been nagging me about this for a while truth be told.

[nepeta100]

10 minutes ago, Redthe1 said:

Okay, so this question has been bugging my mind for a good few hours and that was how much insight do you actually need to not get the bad ending, also is it possible to return to the dreamscape after leaving? I'd like somewhat of an answer cause my brain has been nagging me about this for a while truth be told.

you can return to the dreamscape whenever you finish the main content of the current version

[Redthe1]

1 hour ago, nepeta100 said:

you can return to the dreamscape whenever you finish the main content of the current version

Hmm, so besides that you can't go back damn, now I'm scared cause I've read all the pages and books in Shin and Aurora's mansion and saved Nova so I don't know if I have enough insight or not to survive Darkrai, but thanks for the answer

 

[Junior]

1 hour ago, Redthe1 said:

Hmm, so besides that you can't go back damn, now I'm scared cause I've read all the pages and books in Shin and Aurora's mansion and saved Nova so I don't know if I have enough insight or not to survive Darkrai, but thanks for the answer

 

Spoiler

I believe if you saved Nova there's no way to get the bad ending unless you deliberately choose to take Darkrai's hand but even that's not the worst ending compared to straight up dying lol 

 

Edited July 17, 2020 by Junior

[Redthe1]

2 hours ago, Junior said:

  Hide contents

I believe if you saved Nova there's no way to get the bad ending unless you deliberately choose to take Darkrai's hand but even that's not the worst ending compared to straight up dying lol 

 

Thanks man, I've legit been thinking about this for a while now and knowing that saving Nova spares you makes me so happy that I made that choice. Also personal opinion on the game's story as a whole is that the story is really great and really makes you question everything not to mention the metaness of reality is actually insane.

[Ravuri1]

There was one more thought that I forgot to write down here:

 

Spoiler

So after the gym battle with Aderyn, she tells that some one(she) is going to pick us up from the clouds and give us a ride. But yeah apparently, this doesn't happen and we fall from the clouds and are greeted by Tristan. Is Tristan supposed to be the gym leader giving us a ride to Celia? If he is, then he being an unknown and dead gym leader stands invalid. If he is not, then we never get to discuss about what happened in that cloud field, even when we meet with Aderyn during the Rangers quest. 

 

 

On 7/15/2020 at 8:57 PM, Caz said:

I should mention that It’s difficult for us to nail the balance in Desolation, especially as 100% of the battles were remade from Episode 4 vs. just making new battles for new content. There will be a large number of balance changes in the future, we can assure you of that. Furthermore, we’re still unsatisfied with the current Pokemon availability and this will change significantly as well. For these reasons, some battles remain far easier than intended, and some are more difficult. Please just bear with us as we move closer to a consistent difficulty that we’re happy with. I should also mention that our intended difficulty isn’t meant to immensely challenging (as the game is story focused), but it’s not meant to be a cake-walk either. If skilled players win a boss battle on their first attempt - kudos - but we were never aiming to give players headaches over ridiculously challenging battles in the first place.

Hey Caz, 

Thank you so much for your reply. I understand it is difficult for devs to implement the balance. I also understand that there will be significant changes in future episodes and it is totally the decision of the devs to come up with what the difficulty of the game should be. Thank you for clarifying what you intend the difficulty of desolation to be. It is just that I struggled with the battles till Tristan and after that felt that the difficulty dropped drastically. I would say the availability of breeding, decent pokemons and ev training made it so.

Spoiler

Sweeping Garret and Lilith and 2 hko ing umbreon perfection felt lacking for me.

I am sorry if the talk of game difficulty hurt the dev team's feelings. I am eagerly waiting for episode 6 .

[Posty]

On 7/17/2020 at 12:17 PM, Ravuri1 said:

There was one more thought that I forgot to write down here:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

So after the gym battle with Aderyn, she tells that some one(she) is going to pick us up from the clouds and give us a ride. But yeah apparently, this doesn't happen and we fall from the clouds and are greeted by Tristan. Is Tristan supposed to be the gym leader giving us a ride to Celia? If he is, then he being an unknown and dead gym leader stands invalid. If he is not, then we never get to discuss about what happened in that cloud field, even when we meet with Aderyn during the Rangers quest. 

 

 

Hey Caz, 

Thank you so much for your reply. I understand it is difficult for devs to implement the balance. I also understand that there will be significant changes in future episodes and it is totally the decision of the devs to come up with what the difficulty of the game should be. Thank you for clarifying what you intend the difficulty of desolation to be. It is just that I struggled with the battles till Tristan and after that felt that the difficulty dropped drastically. I would say the availability of breeding, decent pokemons and ev training made it so.

  Reveal hidden contents

Sweeping Garret and Lilith and 2 hko ing umbreon perfection felt lacking for me.

I am sorry if the talk of game difficulty hurt the dev team's feelings. I am eagerly waiting for episode 6 .

did you use Scizor by any chance, because if you did its been axed
So I will just say, the balance was done by me and I know that some things need to be improved on, for example Garret will be receiving a buff in the next ep! When doing the balance I mainly thought about the casual players over the people who are going to breed, who are going to EV, who are going to do wild ass sets to set up Pokemon in a battle. If you wanna win a battle by setting up with the now axed Scizor and then sweeping, more power to ya! The game is more story based anyways, so I wanted to make the game "difficult" but not "frustrating annoying that you have to re-do several times due to RNG". I will be looking over the balance again anyways due to the introduction of Generation 8 but yeah I'm glad people enjoyed the long awaited update regardless!

[Ravuri1]

1 hour ago, Posty said:

did you use Scizor by any chance, because if you did its been axed
So I will just say, the balance was done by me and I know that some things need to be improved on, for example Garret will be receiving a buff in the next ep! When doing the balance I mainly thought about the casual players over the people who are going to breed, who are going to EV, who are going to do wild ass sets to set up Pokemon in a battle. If you wanna win a battle by setting up with the now axed Scizor and then sweeping, more power to ya! The game is more story based anyways, so I wanted to make the game "difficult" but not "frustrating annoying that you have to re-do several times due to RNG". I will be looking over the balance again anyways due to the introduction of Generation 8 but yeah I'm glad people enjoyed the long awaited update regardless!

Hey Posty,

I did not use Scizor. I started a new save for episode 5. It is good to know Garret is going to receive a buff. I don't know if you answered this anywhere else. Did you give the opponent mons EVs?.

Spoiler

 

Two suggestions from my side:

I think fairy moves should be nerfed in the field where we fight Lilith. My Ribombee's moonblast took out atleast half HP from Lilith's Umbreon.

 

I think you can increase the level of mons for gym leaders by 1-2 levels. Due to massive amount of story battles and sidequests, I guess, most players' team hit the level cap before the gym battle.

I really liked your selection for the new starters and the changes for Hardy's and Amelia's teams. I had to struggle a bit fighting with Baron though.  Are you aiming for a difficulty that is a bit below Reborn's difficulty?

[Posty]

2 hours ago, Ravuri1 said:

Hey Posty,

I did not use Scizor. I started a new save for episode 5. It is good to know Garret is going to receive a buff. I don't know if you answered this anywhere else. Did you give the opponent mons EVs?.

  Hide contents

 

Two suggestions from my side:

I think fairy moves should be nerfed in the field where we fight Lilith. My Ribombee's moonblast took out atleast half HP from Lilith's Umbreon.

 

I think you can increase the level of mons for gym leaders by 1-2 levels. Due to massive amount of story battles and sidequests, I guess, most players' team hit the level cap before the gym battle.

I really liked your selection for the new starters and the changes for Hardy's and Amelia's teams. I had to struggle a bit fighting with Baron though.  Are you aiming for a difficulty that is a bit below Reborn's difficulty?

I'll do what I think is necessary tbh.
All important boss battles in this episode and a few in the last episode have got EVs (you can check via the PBS) on top of that, I was aiming for Reborn/Rejuvenation Difficulty.

[Jonchew]

im stuck here, i've ran to the west and the door is locked and to the east, couldnt find tristan.

i've ran anywhere possible

[Redthe1]

22 hours ago, Jonchew said:

im stuck here, i've ran to the west and the door is locked and to the east, couldnt find tristan.

i've ran anywhere possible

Oh about that east pretty much means south-east, basically there's a villager standing by the gate to the south-east part of the dreamscape and Tristan should be there, at what point of the  dreamscape are you at?

[Phi-Bi]

On 7/20/2020 at 9:22 PM, Jonchew said:

i've ran to the west and the door is locked

The locked house in the west is not for main story but for side-quest. The book on the west can be found on a cliff with Mightyena on it, animated in 'cross' shape
 

On 7/18/2020 at 9:58 PM, Posty said:

I'll do what I think is necessary tbh.
All important boss battles in this episode and a few in the last episode have got EVs (you can check via the PBS) on top of that, I was aiming for Reborn/Rejuvenation Difficulty.

I just finished the Episode. Thanks for the good work, Caz, Posty, and Ruby~ If anything, maybe Desolation can have its own Field Effect, such as field filled with Haze to prevent status enhancing moves, or Field that buffs the opponent defensively rather than offensively. Custom item is an option too.

My team is Dark Monotype and I'm expecting Rosetta and Garret to be one hell of a fight but apparently, it's not the case. A-Muk walled Rosetta while Contrary Malamar sweeps Garret. Apart from being locked from Jinx quest (so, no Mega/Z-Ring for me :'), I enjoy the story~

 

Spoiler

Speaking of story, I wonder what happens if you accept Darkrai's offer?

 

 

[Jonchew]

ok, so i got the bad ending, but after the ending screen, the game turned black screen.

and from reading the discussions, i am able to go to dreamspace after main story, must i get get the good ending first?

 

Edited July 23, 2020 by Jonchew

[Daniel Prithvi]

5 hours ago, Phi-Bi said:

The locked house in the west is not for main story but for side-quest. The book on the west can be found on a cliff with Mightyena on it, animated in 'cross' shape
 

I just finished the Episode. Thanks for the good work, Caz, Posty, and Ruby~ If anything, maybe Desolation can have its own Field Effect, such as field filled with Haze to prevent status enhancing moves, or Field that buffs the opponent defensively rather than offensively. Custom item is an option too.

My team is Dark Monotype and I'm expecting Rosetta and Garret to be one hell of a fight but apparently, it's not the case. A-Muk walled Rosetta while Contrary Malamar sweeps Garret. Apart from being locked from Jinx quest (so, no Mega/Z-Ring for me :'), I enjoy the story~

 

  Hide contents

Speaking of story, I wonder what happens if you accept Darkrai's offer?

 

 

   

Spoiler

   If you accept darkrai's offer you will set darkrai free from dreamscape and he then proceeds to tell you that we have been fooled by him and transports you and himself to Ayrith . Then when the part where lilith and Nova speak you get some red text from Nova about how we couldn't see how the twins were using and deceiving us to help Darkrai. You also get some red text from garret about how we should have seen through their lies and deception and that we made the wrong choice and then Nova joins you in the manor and offers to help stop darkrai. [ sorry for the long ass text lol ]

 

Edited July 23, 2020 by Daniel Prithvi

[Jonchew]

28 minutes ago, Daniel Prithvi said:

   

  Reveal hidden contents

   If you accept darkrai's offer you will set darkrai free from dreamscape and he then proceeds to tell you that we have been fooled by him and transports you and himself to Ayrith . Then when the part where lilith and Nova speak you get some red text from Nova about how we couldn't see how the twins were using and deceiving us to help Darkrai. You also get some red text from garret about how we should have seen through their lies and deception and that we made the wrong choice and then Nova joins you in the manor and offers to help stop darkrai. [ sorry for the long ass text lol ]

 

 

Spoiler

so if i choose the other option, the story continues after choosing to help nova to defeat darkrai or i have to restart the game to choose to save nova?

 

[Daniel Prithvi]

On 7/23/2020 at 3:34 PM, Jonchew said:

 

  Hide contents

so if i choose the other option, the story continues after choosing to help nova to defeat darkrai or i have to restart the game to choose to save nova?

 

 i think so

 

Edited July 28, 2020 by Daniel Prithvi

[xiaomaome]

by any chance, were did all of u learn that kukui was just a kid that admired shiv? I don't recall having had seen that anywhere

[Junior]

1 hour ago, xiaomaome said:

by any chance, were did all of u learn that kukui was just a kid that admired shiv? I don't recall having had seen that anywhere

I think it's stated somewhere in the journal entries in the Archives. I remember Aurora feeling pity for Kukui/Keegan as he was just foolishly following Shiv/essentially being used? I think it's in Journal Entry #5, the one you need the Archives Key to access.

[Araxel]

So am I the only one who didn't see through Darkrai's scheme and only rejected him because he seemed kind of evil?

I actually feel kind of dumb when he tells the twins off, because their scheme was too easily seen through lol