[V13 Spoiler] The new early game grind is kinda bad..

[MhicKy]

I've replayed v12 in full 3 times and the early game never actually had given me any problems when it comes to leveling, a little grinding in the bushes here and there but it wasn't that time consuming so whatever but after v13 I see myself spending A LOT of time just running back and forth in the tall grass to level my mon.. And I believe there is ONE big reason why..

The EV Training Rooms are locked

By the time I would prepare a team to fight Venam or Keta I would had farmed some AP to get the Attack and S.Attack cards to access these rooms since the Speed and HP were already open anyway, there, while I grind the Pokemons EVs, they would eventually level up with the Meltans and by the time I would be done they would be around Lv14~16 but with full IVs so it would be much easier to grind in the tall grass for the extra levels but since the rooms are closed grinding became very time consuming since you need to use Pokemons with EVs all over the place to fight them and take 3~5 turns to defeat a Wild Pokemon around your own Pokemon's level instead of 1~3 turns..

I still haven't defeated Keta and the reason isn't because he is though but because I never got to try because I am still grinding my team to fight him.. Some of the mons of my team were terrible matchups against him so I had to caught new ones and, obviously, grind these new ones too..

(Also, I don't mind spoilers, can someone tell me when the EV Training Rooms become available for use? Thanks!)

[Dragon Master]

Firstly CATCH A LOT OF NEW MONS.  I think you get a solrock from a quest in one of the houses of sheridan too (note- the quest is in one of the houses). Go and get a flying type or something. And also if hp and speed rooms are open train your mons in them. and use your ap for exp for all.

 

[Dragon Master]

AND ALSO GET A XATU.  About the grind i usually reach max level cap by fighting trainers and stuff and like i said get exp all 

 

 

[TheHellHamster]

exp all was moved to WAY later in the game

[MhicKy]

17 minutes ago, Dragon Master said:

Firstly CATCH A LOT OF NEW MONS.  I think you get a solrock from a quest in one of the houses of sheridan too (note- the quest is in one of the houses). Go and get a flying type or something. And also if hp and speed rooms are open train your mons in them. and use your ap for exp for all.

 

Solrock is useless against him, so does Lunatone, by the Lv25 they don't learn any useful Psychic moves, only Rock Slide which doesn't help against fighting types anyway
Xatu is still a thing there? I though Jan removed it, I always do capture a Natu and evolve it to defeat Keta but I been running around in the caves for a while and haven't found a single one.. You sure they still there? Also the problem here is not defeating Keta, is grinding taking way to long for me to even try.. I am going with a Girafarig, Vivillon, Butterfree, Rabboot, Swoobat and Leavanny but the GIrafarig is still 21, the Vivillon 19, Butterfree 20, the Leavanny isn't even a Leavanny yet and the Swoobat is only Lv12 (did the haircut cheat with the clock) and that is the grinding that is killing me.. I want all of them to be at least 23..

[TheHellHamster]

Can confirm that natu is still in v13, I ran into a couple in the depths but it seems like a pretty low encounter rate.

[antharios]

Version 13 seems to me like it's a lot more difficult then Version 12, at least on intense mode.

no early eevee, no substitute and no ev training makes some battles insanely difficult

[ZeptoCZ]

1 hour ago, MhicKy said:

(Also, I don't mind spoilers, can someone tell me when the EV Training Rooms become available for use? Thanks!)

Spoiler

After the first battle with Angie

 

[Dragon Master]

For me SOLROCK learned zen headbutt in v12 so it became a bit easy. and also I had Lycanrock so was helpful with stuff and a bit of luck

 

 

And about grinding well you have three options that i know of 

 

1) Trainer battles

2) wild mons ( wouldn't recommend as it is a pain

3) you can get to novae side quest and batlle her bunch of times and grind your mons that way (Though youll loose a lot and also youll lose money)

[crulla]

The EV rooms become usable after Blacksteppe Castle iirc

 

[Dausk]

8 hours ago, MhicKy said:

I've replayed v12 in full 3 times and the early game never actually had given me any problems when it comes to leveling, a little grinding in the bushes here and there but it wasn't that time consuming so whatever but after v13 I see myself spending A LOT of time just running back and forth in the tall grass to level my mon.. And I believe there is ONE big reason why..

I concur, the early game was always a bit grindy due to the lack of a reliable way to gain exp quickly. However, having access to quick ev training and the move relearner early game kind of made up for it. This change messes with the central idea behind the game's difficulty: creatively finding a way to counter your opponent's team (can't do this now unless you keep grinding). This doesn't make the game more difficult, only more tedious; and I'm disappointed by this change, since I believed this was something Rejuvenation did far better than Reborn.

[MhicKy]

36 minutes ago, ZeptoCZ said:

  Hide contents

After the first battle with Angie

 

 

12 minutes ago, crulla said:

The EV rooms become usable after Blacksteppe Castle iirc

 

Thanks but DAMN that's WAAAY too far into the history..
So am I just suppose to do it the old school way? That's gonna be hella boring..

 

8 minutes ago, Dausk said:

I concur, the early game was always a bit grindy due to the lack of a reliable way to gain exp quickly. However, having access to quick ev training and the move relearner early game kind of made up for it. This change messes with the central idea behind the game's difficulty: creatively finding a way to counter your opponent's team (can't do it unless you keep grinding). This doesn't make the game more difficult, only more tedious; and I'm disappointed by this change, since I believed this was something Rejuvenation did far better than Reborn. Also, being unable to remove the fields sucks too, imo.

I have to reluctantly agree to this..
It isn't really good game design when you're making it more difficult by simply making it more inconvenient.. I am almost at the point of playing this game on casual just because of these changes because I can't be fucked to be grinding that much just to beat ONE gym leader.. And now having the knowledge that the EV Rooms are only available after Angie is very disappointing since she was already a though fight when you had these rooms available to you, I can only imagine how terrible it is now and I ain't gonna do it the old school way of runnng around the grass defeating the specific pokemon that gives the specific EV of my choice, that is going to increase the tediousness to a whole new level..

[OldSoulja]

I don't really think the EV rooms are available, *strictly* after Angie, I had them available to me before then, I first noticed they were there right before Crawli. But I can't tell what exactly "unlocks" them. I was just rebuilding my team before tackling Crawli, went there to go grab some of the Golden Items and bam, the EV cards were there. I had 99 AP when they were there, does that have anything to do with anything? No clue.

 

And yeah Angie is hell, and I most definitely wouldn't've won without the EV training LMAO

 

My personal issue is a few Pokemon being moved a lot further back, like Meditite (and almost certain Budew and Sandile got moved a lot further too). Oh and yeah the Move Relearner too.

[Araxel]

yeah for me this was the first time i was stuck a really long time on keta1
I think I grinded an hour or so to get some mons to the level that I can even try fighting him

and then I found out that some of the mons I used weren't good bc their stabs were stuff like peck and ember

Never understood why the audino trainers only start at goldenwood and you don't have them by the second gym

[Dragon Master]

think about the solrock zen headbutt thing and also

 

andyone reply to my post please

 

 

[Xtrack]

Yeah early game can be a little rough. My strategy was to generally use pokemon that evolve quickly. Leavanny and Swoobat both put in work in the early game. Pretty sure I beat Keta with just these two mons and my starter. The Seviper you get from Venam's gym is extremely useful as it hits hard and gets Glare really quickly which is great utility. Mighteyena can still set up sweeps with moxie if you get it in the right situations. 

[CheddarSouffle]

12 hours ago, OldSoulja said:

I don't really think the EV rooms are available, *strictly* after Angie, I had them available to me before then, I first noticed they were there right before Crawli. But I can't tell what exactly "unlocks" them. I was just rebuilding my team before tackling Crawli, went there to go grab some of the Golden Items and bam, the EV cards were there. I had 99 AP when they were there, does that have anything to do with anything? No clue.

 

And yeah Angie is hell, and I most definitely wouldn't've won without the EV training LMAO

 

My personal issue is a few Pokemon being moved a lot further back, like Meditite (and almost certain Budew and Sandile got moved a lot further too). Oh and yeah the Move Relearner too.

Where did Budew and Meditite get moved back too?

[OldSoulja]

1 minute ago, CheddarSouffle said:

Where did Budew and Meditite get moved back too?

I have no clue actually, all I know is that (at the time I'm typing this) I'm about to head into Mount Valor and I've encountered neither of them so far. Spent a while in Corrupt Cave too while looking for Sandile(which i also didn't find) and didn't find a Roselia there either(which was previously rare but possible).

[MhicKy]

26 minutes ago, OldSoulja said:

I don't really think the EV rooms are available, *strictly* after Angie, I had them available to me before then, I first noticed they were there right before Crawli. But I can't tell what exactly "unlocks" them. I was just rebuilding my team before tackling Crawli, went there to go grab some of the Golden Items and bam, the EV cards were there. I had 99 AP when they were there, does that have anything to do with anything? No clue.

 

And yeah Angie is hell, and I most definitely wouldn't've won without the EV training LMAO

 

My personal issue is a few Pokemon being moved a lot further back, like Meditite (and almost certain Budew and Sandile got moved a lot further too). Oh and yeah the Move Relearner too.

Maybe is related to the fact you get the Destiny Bond, an item specially made for breeding, in there?
Kinda like Jan's way of saying "Right, get to making these perfect IV and fully EV trained Pokemon"? Anyway, I will check once I get there, like I said, didn't even beat Keta yet, baby steps, playing in between work and other chores.
 

  

24 minutes ago, Araxel said:

yeah for me this was the first time i was stuck a really long time on keta1
I think I grinded an hour or so to get some mons to the level that I can even try fighting him

and then I found out that some of the mons I used weren't good bc their stabs were stuff like peck and ember

Never understood why the audino trainers only start at goldenwood and you don't have them by the second gym

I believe the reason is because the Audinos would be too strong in early game, remember, one form Pokemons (aka Pokemons that don't evolve) tend to be very good at pleb stomping, hence why Venam's Seviper is a problem but then later Jan decided to ditch it (because late game Seviper sucks), just to compare, let's say your starter is a Torchic, an Audino has 103HP, 60Atk, 86Def, 60S.Atk, 86S.Def and 50Spd (445 Status Points) while a Torchic has 45HP, 60Atk, 40Def, 70S.Atk, 50S.Def and 45Spd (355 Status Points)

It's also the main reason why Whitney's Miltank in Gold/Silver is such a menace.

[Arthesia]

Yeah, I'm getting a bit demoralized as I go through the game again.

I love the story changes but assuming the gym/boss battles are the same it's just going to be hell.

 

I played through most of V12 in preparation for V13 and that was basically the perfect balance of grinding and challenge.

Now I feel like I have to either EV grind manually for hours or accept that I'll lose tons of fights that I won last time around.

 

For some perspective I just reset the Togepi vs Houndoom 1v1 a few hundred times (finally won!) and it was a blast, but there's no way I'm going to EV train for 1-2 stats at a time...

Edited July 19, 2021 by Arthesia

[Tikkit]

The EXP all being removed from the AP shop hurts me so much. Its not like its as game-changing as the EV room cards, it just... Makes training not take as long/be as grindy. I forgot how much I loved not needing to switch between a weaker Pokemon and a stronger one in order to actually get any leveling done.

[Xtrack]

I will say it becomes much easier once you get the Goldenleaf audino trainer. They give you EXP candies everytime you win which makes grinding go by so much faster. 

[Nocturne93]

3 hours ago, OldSoulja said:

I have no clue actually, all I know is that (at the time I'm typing this) I'm about to head into Mount Valor and I've encountered neither of them so far. Spent a while in Corrupt Cave too while looking for Sandile(which i also didn't find) and didn't find a Roselia there either(which was previously rare but possible).

I also couldn't find a Sandile, but I found Roselia. It's located on the Isle of Angels(where Angie's church is). 

[MhicKy]

I just changed the difficulty to casual.. I already had rolled v12 in both Reborn Style and Intense with no issue but this time around I just decided to go with Casual so I can enjoy the story without having to spend hours every time a new gym leader show up grinding the new mons I will use against them.. Specially considering the EV Rooms are locked for now, even with the Audino Trainers showing up it's though

[Arthesia]

2 hours ago, MhicKy said:

I just changed the difficulty to casual.. I already had rolled v12 in both Reborn Style and Intense with no issue but this time around I just decided to go with Casual so I can enjoy the story without having to spend hours every time a new gym leader show up grinding the new mons I will use against them.. Specially considering the EV Rooms are locked for now, even with the Audino Trainers showing up it's though

 

I was pretty close to doing that as well. I went with porting some pokemon from my older save using the SharedPC mod (had to revert to V12 temporarily).