Very harsh critique for Intense mode (13.02, Set/No Items) [Spoilers]

[Cyphre]

So, at this point i finally finished this behemoth of a version from the beginning of the game. So much was improved by abusrd degree in v13, from visuals and music to dialogues and pacing, but there is one thing where i feel the game failed miserably to an embarassing degree. It was in it's difficulty. 

To begin with, i would consider myself a skilled and experienced pokemon player. I know and remember most abilities and can apply them when needed, can plan around gimmicky strategies, not a stranger to specific EV training e.t.c., and i've been replaying this game on Intense since... v7 i believe for every release. With that i might as well address the question: why not just play Normal and without those rules if Intense is such a dumpster fire? Mostly because Normal is still way too easy even with the same ruleset of Set/No items and cannot satisfy me, and about items, couple of max revives can solve any battle, which just cheapens every fight for me. Thus i naturally turn towards next available option, and this time... this time it all fell apart. Let me tell you why. 
I will not address in here issues like very late EV training that was done for absolutely no reason and is counterproductive to everything in the game, or just absurd spam with OP items even in the beginning of the game, since slapping Life orb, Focus sash and Assault Vest on everything seems to be the get go method for most trainers. What i want to address is a horrible mess that are Fields, especially combined with Crests, that become more and more overpowered, how it dampens experience and takes away from the immersion and enjoyment. 

In fact, 2 of the hardest and worst, in my opinion, fights in chapter 15 are a prime example of how badly designed are Fields. One of them is a very early Melia fight for the normal badge, and the second one is Geara's fight. 

So, Melia fights on a Fairy Tale Field and her entire team exist to maximize it's potential. So your first thought would be most likely to change the field. Then you go into the Field Manual to check, how can you give yourself some advantage. Lo and behold... you cannot. There is no existing way to change this field, meaning you are forced to fight on this one with it's ridiculous bonuses. Okay, let's see what we can use. Dragon boost is useless for us, since most of her team is Fairy or Steel anyway, but we can abuse 1.5 boost to Steel and Fairy to some degree. In fact, Bullet Punches are the main reason i was able to win at all. In the end, attempting this fight looked like this: counter first pokemon, she uses next. Find an exact counter for it, breed for IV and EV train it, then see next one, rince and repeat. In the end you see that this strategy falls apart in the end, so you scratch that completely and start making a new one, pokemon by pokemon. Because you have no other options. Because there is no other counterplay. It's time consuming to a ridiculous degree. 

Geara's fight brings the worst out of both worlds. First let's talk about Haunted Field. 1.5 boost to Ghost moves and they STAB Normal types now. Hypnosis and WIll o Wisp now will never miss, considering Intense also boosts ALL enemy moves by 20%. And huzzah, we can change the field! We even got couple of options now. Let's go over them. We can change it into a Blessed field, with Purify, which sounds great, right? Now here is the problem, two of them in fact. Geara will spam Phantom Force like there is no tomorrow, especially on Pyuku. And what would you know, this particular move IMMEDIATELY turnes Blessed Field back to Haunted one. Meaning Blessed field will never stay up. And even if it did, both STABs that can harm Ghost types are now weakened to 0.5 of their strenght, so the only way is to fight with neutral coverage and abuse AI with normal types so that they never again used anything that ups Haunted Field back. Now, let's assume you decided to fight in the Haunted field and Sucker Punch'd your way to the final pokemon through Dragapult and Mega Gengar. In there you find a crest Spiritomb and this thing is... Let's put it this way, it's almost impossible to get through this in the Haunted field. You are given only one tool against Haunted Field, Blessed Field, which is also countered by things that create Haunted Field itself, making it a system that collapses on itself. 

I will give one more example of a thing that bothered me a much earlier point in the game. You fight Amber in a Volcanic Top field. You can turn it into Sky or Mountain Field. In turn, you can turn Mountain one into a Snowy Mountain or back into Volcanic top one. Mountain and Volcanic top fields share the same idiotic self collapsing system from Blessed and Haunted field, in that almost every attack from Amber's pokemon will turn Mountain Field back into her own. And Snowe Field is an another dead end field which every fire attack will melt back to Mountain Field. So if you want to keep Snowy field on board, you have to spam Blizzard, which is not effective against Amber at all. Sky field is the only one that directly weakens her. Remember that before her gym Jan says someone managed to take the fight with her Underwater? Well, that was a huge fat lie to the player, a relic from earlier versions. 

Another example is a Grass leader's field, Bewitched Woods. The only thing you can turn them into, and ONLY with purify, is into a normal Forest Field. Which still powers up Grass moves tremendously. And Forest Field is another dead end terrain that cannot be transformed into anything at all somehow. 

Im giving all those example to show how much is stacked against you inherently instead of it being a two way road. While it might give just some advantage and be somewhat reaonable on Normal difficulty, on Intense combination of maxed IV/EVs, absurd items, overpowered crests and overpowered fields that has no counterplay creates a toxic and miserable experience, where you spend hours on retries and training pokemons for one fight that can only be beaten with couple existing strategies, which, in my opinion, goes directly against everything pokemon stand for. Some people compare those fights to puzzles, and you are wrong. Puzzle is when you have a square hole and a square block, and you fit this block in there. When you have a square hole and a triangle block, which you smack against the hole until one of those pieces break, this is a horrible designed system, and not a puzzle. 


What could be done instead? My suggestion is instead of a million gimmicky absurd fields that just exist in a vacuum, make a system of interconnected Fields that can be changed into one another to create a truly dynamic experience. Example: i have a Volcanic top field. If i use moves like Surf and Hydro Pump, it becomes a Misty field, from water vapors. From there i can use Blizzard to make a Frozen field, or use something like Curse or Ominous WInd to make Haunted Field. For example, from Frozen field i could use fire move to melt the ice and create Water surface field, with Dive taking me underwater, from where i could swipe the rest of her team. This could also be used to make much more varied and interesting teams for enemies, and they would need to adapt to the fields as well as you, with Fields constantly changing around. 

For now, none of the teams Xen admins or other strong trainers use feels like their own teams. The feel like gimmicky bullshit that exist only for this one Field, for this one fight, with their teams never being their "own" teams, when it could be a great reflection of a personality. Remember Geara's team on the mountain? It was a bunch of evil pricks, like Krookodile, Gengar and generally evil themed pokemon. Now? Now he is another ghost gym leader, because the Field demands it. This is a horrible design choice that, again, goes against everything pokemon stand for. 


I still love the game, but if this will not be fixed, i do not think i will touch Intense mode ever again and next time, for the first time in my Rejuvenation experience, will roll the entire game with just Normal, because i want to enjoy the game and have some fun, and i still value my time. This Intense run was the most miserable time i've ever had with Rejuvenation, and probably with pokemon in general, which is a huge shame. 







 

[robinho]

I'm attempting the same challenge and have spent hours resetting on Angie, Crawli, and even that Rift Chandelure + Nancy gauntlet. Narcissa was by far the worst though, and the field effect changes that came with V13 made it worse for the reasons you described above. Not sure why there were so many field effect changes because they used to be closer to what you're asking for. Turning the volcano top field into an underwater field was a legit strategy that took a lot of setup (volcano into cave with dig, freeze it with blizzard then shatter the cave into water surface, then use dive). The AI's pokemon have max IVs and cheated in EVs with optimal movesets for their respective field, so changing the field was definitely a huge component in beating intense mode but now that changing fields has become much more restricted, the game is just becoming tedious. The field effects are one of Reborn and Rejuvenations biggest charms, so the fact that its become so much more restrictive since V13 has come out really sours the experience (for me at least). Other problems i've had so far is the AI sometimes being way too smart like knowing exactly when to use moves like sucker punch, and knowing not to waste a turn burning a pokemon that is holding a rawst berry or has the ability guts.

 

Also, since you've beaten V13 on intense can you give me any tips on how to beat Zetta and Geara on Valor mountain? Been stuck resetting against them all day.

[Cyphre]

6 minutes ago, robinho said:

Also, since you've beaten V13 on intense can you give me any tips on how to beat Zetta and Geara on Valor mountain? Been stuck resetting against them all day.

In my opinion, it's in top 3 hardest fights in the entire game, in large parts because of how Melia's team was positioned, with her Meganium with screens being dead last and almost always being left vs Typhlosion or Poison types. My best advice is probably to hard focus on 1 team while manipulating Melia's AI to use certain moves and attack same side whenever possible. From my experience, killing Geara's team first is much faster and easier, while Zetta got some insanely hard hitters you dont want on the field at all, like Crest Sylvally or Eruption Typhlosion. 

You can also use Trick Room to bait their slower pokemon to appear and use your even slower pokemon to gain momentum. I dont remember exact levels you can be in there, but Camerupt learns Eruption at level 52, and combined with -Speed nature in Trick Room, after getting rid of Gyarados, Eruption can deal a lot of damage. Another of my MVP pokemon was Sturdy Togedemaru,who baited a lot of attacks from Sylvally and Marowak with Spiky Shield. Oh, and couple of turns were vital when Throh with WIde Guard came to protect Melia from Rock Slides. Basically, focus on killing Geara's team, while staying alive for as long as possible, after that 2 v 1 Zetta if possible. 

[NeoPwyll]

what is your thoughs on no evs cap for your oponents.

Their pokemon being above the lv cap

The infinite pp

...

about the Set/No items fights I wanted this change so badly, BUT, that poses a huge problem: revives and potions became useless, And the items that you actualy need, either don't exist yet (assault vest, Choice Scarf...) or you don't get them intil its way to late (the type berries)

I think the way they balanced this after removing the ability to use items, needs to have some advantage to us from the start. (i haven't replay this game on intense i only did chapter 15)

 

I have to ask you what is your opinion on clear, the concept of regular pokemon then right after a boss pokemon. (i only beat it thanks to golem and magnezone Sturdy)

 

[robinho]

9 hours ago, Cyphre said:

In my opinion, it's in top 3 hardest fights in the entire game, in large parts because of how Melia's team was positioned, with her Meganium with screens being dead last and almost always being left vs Typhlosion or Poison types. My best advice is probably to hard focus on 1 team while manipulating Melia's AI to use certain moves and attack same side whenever possible. From my experience, killing Geara's team first is much faster and easier, while Zetta got some insanely hard hitters you dont want on the field at all, like Crest Sylvally or Eruption Typhlosion. 

You can also use Trick Room to bait their slower pokemon to appear and use your even slower pokemon to gain momentum. I dont remember exact levels you can be in there, but Camerupt learns Eruption at level 52, and combined with -Speed nature in Trick Room, after getting rid of Gyarados, Eruption can deal a lot of damage. Another of my MVP pokemon was Sturdy Togedemaru,who baited a lot of attacks from Sylvally and Marowak with Spiky Shield. Oh, and couple of turns were vital when Throh with WIde Guard came to protect Melia from Rock Slides. Basically, focus on killing Geara's team, while staying alive for as long as possible, after that 2 v 1 Zetta if possible. 

Thanks for the advice! Still haven't caught Oranguru yet for trick room which is a 1% in Hula meadow so I'm going to bite the bullet and catch one and try trick room and see about getting some serious trick room heavy hitters.

 

9 hours ago, NeoPwyll said:

what is your thoughs on no evs cap for your oponents.

Their pokemon being above the lv cap

The infinite pp

...

about the Set/No items fights I wanted this change so badly, BUT, that poses a huge problem: revives and potions became useless, And the items that you actualy need, either don't exist yet (assault vest, Choice Scarf...) or you don't get them intil its way to late (the type berries)

I think the way they balanced this after removing the ability to use items, needs to have some advantage to us from the start. (i haven't replay this game on intense i only did chapter 15)

 

I have to ask you what is your opinion on clear, the concept of regular pokemon then right after a boss pokemon. (i only beat it thanks to golem and magnezone Sturdy)

 

 

I feel like despite raging against every boss battle because of stuff like infinite PP (It's not on every boss I just stalled Kyogre out with regen tangrowth and shedinja) lvl cap cheese and the pokemon with 756 EVs, what gets on my nerves more is the fact that you can't outsmart the AI anymore by changing the field effect so it nullifies their crazy strong attacks. The lack of the broken items doesn't really bother me either because they would make the game absurdly easy. The only problem with items I've had so far in my V13 Intense set mode run is the lack of ability capsules forcing me to spend ages breeding for the right ability on a pokemon with decent IVs (not being able to plant berries until Terajuma also made the early game even more frustrating than it was). Having a way to get more of the seeds would be nice also, but I understand why these are restricted since they are usually pretty broken. 

Not sure what you mean in your last question. 

[Cyphre]

21 minutes ago, NeoPwyll said:

I have to ask you what is your opinion on clear, the concept of regular pokemon then right after a boss pokemon. (i only beat it thanks to golem and magnezone Sturdy)

I think those are fine, but you definitely at least need to be able to rearrange a starting pokemon between fights, and difficulty of back to back fights like this, once again, will be back to normal if Fields will be adjusted appropriately. 

 

 

5 minutes ago, robinho said:

(It's not on every boss I just stalled Kyogre out with regen tangrowth and shedinja)

You gonna enjoy the Goomink quest fight with Kawabunga or whatever was this whale's name. I swear this thing got like 999 HP EV and infinite Dive + Rest. In a moment of brilliance, as a thought, i tried to Skill Swap Insomnia to him, to only be met with "denied, smartass". Only double Memento + Knock Off full Grass team with Water Absorbs and Nasty Plot Cacturne with his crits carried me through this nightmare. 

[robinho]

9 hours ago, Cyphre said:

 

You gonna enjoy the Goomink quest fight with Kawabunga or whatever was this whale's name. I swear this thing got like 999 HP EV and infinite Dive + Rest. In a moment of brilliance, as a thought, i tried to Skill Swap Insomnia to him, to only be met with "denied, smartass". Only double Memento + Knock Off full Grass team with Water Absorbs and Nasty Plot Cacturne with his crits carried me through this nightmare. 

I can feel your pain from my room haha. You should write a guide to be honest I can tell that everyone who goes through intense mode is going to be wasting hours resetting and trying different things. Since Narcissa I've started writing down all of the strategies that I've had to use for the major boss battles just so I can look back on them and laugh.

[7ravens]

Definitely 90% of fields in major fights being unchangeable is prob the worst change of V13. Especially in the fights where your paired in a double battle with an ai (Z+G, puppetmaster) who pretty has 0 mons that take advantage of the field and you have to fight against 11-12 mons that do benefit from the field. There's just way too much of an emphasis on field effects now. The game feels more like field effect simulator than pokemon. 

 

Also just in general field effects really restrict the mons that are actually viable. I've found bulky mons like tangrowth and slowbro (which are competitively fantastic mons with great abilities, stats, movepools) to be near useless because with how ridiculously hard mons hit under the field effects. One example I can name of the top of my head was that I had a tangrowth going against valarie and it was basically useless against the primarina. With perma torrent + water moves being boosted 1.5 + surf's bp being boosted 1.5 the primarina was actually one-shotting my tangrowth with surf. Everyone just hits stupidly hard so the only real choice you get as the player is to use faster mons that also hit stupidly hard. 

Edited August 4, 2021 by 7ravens

[Moto]

I think you really just need to focus on using the default fields to your own benefit instead of trying to change the field in every battle

[Jan]

Thanks for taking the time to write out this post. Game balance is complicated and a lot of changes that sound good on paper don't necessarily translate well for the player experience. That being said, we've taken everything you've said to heart and plan on making changes for 13.5. (As well as Patch 3 that is coming out soon, but there isn't enough time to make changes like the ones presented here.) The best we can do at the moment is give more available options for the player, as well as reverting some bad decisions made in general. 

[pizzagod13]

Hmm definitely reconsidering doing a intense mode run now. I have only ever played on normal (no bag items, set mode, no mega/z-move) and I already find normal super challenging, with most boss fights requiring tons of resets and RNG abuse to win. 

 

I probably would not stand a chance on intense!

 

Also, is the AI cheating with EVs a intense mode thing or does the AI do that on normal also? 

 

EDIT: NVM I looked it up, it is only on intense according to the wiki with some of Saki's mons having 1000+ EVs. Like WAT. No thank you.

EDIT2: Her Bronzong literally has 252 EVs in all stats... that is 1512 EVs! 

Edited August 5, 2021 by pizzagod13

[7ravens]

Also a major problem with V13 is just all the sleep spam in the early game. The AI absolutely loves to spam sleep moves on your entire team and there's no sleep clause to protect you. Some examples I can name of the top of my head is venam's ivysaur with sleep powder, marie's stantler with hypnosis, narcissa's drifblim with hypnosis, etc. Their all 100% accurate on intense too. There's no more ev training in the early game anymore so all of those mons I just mentioned will outspeed most members of your team and just sleep them before you get a chance to fight back. There's one chesto berry I believe that you can find in a hidden spot on the ground early on and that's the only one you'll get until like the 5th or 6th gym. Usually it just comes down to resetting a bunch of times until you can get a first turn wake. It's not unbeatable, but it is very tedious to have to reset a bunch of the boss fights becuase your mons just arent waking up. Very anti-fun imo.

[AceTrainerDevin]

59 minutes ago, 7ravens said:

Also a major problem with V13 is just all the sleep spam in the early game. The AI absolutely loves to spam sleep moves on your entire team and there's no sleep clause to protect you. Some examples I can name of the top of my head is venam's ivysaur with sleep powder, marie's stantler with hypnosis, narcissa's drifblim with hypnosis, etc. Their all 100% accurate on intense too. There's no more ev training in the early game anymore so all of those mons I just mentioned will outspeed most members of your team and just sleep them before you get a chance to fight back. There's one chesto berry I believe that you can find in a hidden spot on the ground early on and that's the only one you'll get until like the 5th or 6th gym. Usually it just comes down to resetting a bunch of times until you can get a first turn wake. It's not unbeatable, but it is very tedious to have to reset a bunch of the boss fights becuase your mons just arent waking up. Very anti-fun imo.

the accuracy boost is only 10% for status moves so your just getting unlucky if those hypnosises are always hitting you

[MhicKy]

7 minutes ago, AceTrainerDevin said:

the accuracy boost is only 10% for status moves so your just getting unlucky if those hypnosises are always hitting you

No, in these examples specifically the fields actually make the moves 100% accurate
The only real way to defend it is to make your pokemon hold a chesto berry and even so the AI will know and won't waste the turn attempting it..

 

For me the problem is that Rejuvenation took the Dark Souls approach in which the game itself isn't hard but it's riddled with unfairness and cheap tricks, I always said that if you could fight Dark Souls enemies on a plain field they are easy to take out but they are always scattered around weird angles and locations, Rejuvenation is kinda similar in which you have to fight important trainers and gym leaders in fields that totally benefit them while screwing with whatever strategy you thought off on top of having access to items you can only access waaay to late in the game, I mean, you reach Gym9 and Erick is already using Mega-Toxicitry, Gym10 and Flora has a Mega-Sceptile, Gym11 and Puppet Master with a Mega-Alakazam (you get the picture) while already having items like Leftovers, Life Orb and Resistance Berries and what do we have? Maybe some rocks that help with weather teams and some plates that increase the damage of it's respective typing by 30%.. Heck, you're the main character and your rivals and even random trainers already have these items and mega evolutions, it's like you're that kid that gets bullied on the playground because you don't have the cool wristband that shines in the dark or something (It was the 90s, leave me alone!).. On top of the custom items that were purposely made just to screw with us, like the infamous Crawli's Ariados with a "Teluric Seed"(?) that basically gives it spike shield until hit so it can set up Sticky Web safely..

[AceTrainerDevin]

4 minutes ago, MhicKy said:

No, in these examples specifically the fields actually make the moves 100% accurate

oh I wasn't aware off corrosive field boosting sleep powders accuracy and forgot that Marianettes Stantler holds a crest

[AceTrainerDevin]

18 minutes ago, MhicKy said:

Rejuvenation is kinda similar in which you have to fight important trainers and gym leaders in fields that totally benefit them while screwing with whatever strategy you thought off on top of having access to items you can only access waaay to late in the game, I mean, you reach Gym9 and Erick is already using Mega-Toxicitry

for me at least gym leaders having access to megas and other items you cannot currently get makes sense since the league would probably provide them with those items because they definitely don't want just any trainer beating the leaders especially the higher ranking ones and while the gym leaders fields can ruin your initial strategy Its not like you cant abuse the field yourself and as for your rivals having access to megas before you do well thats just to make some of the later intense mode battles a bit harder and isnt considered canon to the story

[fellowry]

11 hours ago, Cyphre said:

You gonna enjoy the Goomink quest fight with Kawabunga or whatever was this whale's name. I swear this thing got like 999 HP EV and infinite Dive + Rest. In a moment of brilliance, as a thought, i tried to Skill Swap Insomnia to him, to only be met with "denied, smartass". Only double Memento + Knock Off full Grass team with Water Absorbs and Nasty Plot Cacturne with his crits carried me through this nightmare. 

I agree with how painful this fight is, i get that boss pokemon get infinite pp but for the love of god don't put rest on such a bulky pokemon. 

It was just like "Ohh you manage to get rid of my shield, tank my atk and chip away my HP to red, good job now i'm about to use this one move that will render your effort useless and make you question your sanity" it was like a spit in my face man.  

 

and this is also another example where field is abused very unfairly, the most threatening move that oversized whale has is  Dive + Water field boost,  now you would think that the best move is too change it too frozen field and change it to Mountain so it will lose its damage advantage, but noo after you change it to frozen field that whale can just use dive and change it back then it will get the field boost damage , then i try to paralyze it so that it cant dive when in frozen field, but lo and behold it has water veil so yeah it you are basically just wasting your time if you try to abuse the field

 

The only way i manage to win is to intimidate switch and clutch crit on Venusaur with +6 atk by growth

[Steeldevil]

You hit the nail on the head in the last paragraph. I love Rejuv but intense mode just isn't all that fun for me.

 

The first time I heard about Reborn ~5 years ago it was explained to me as "The Dark Souls of Pokemon". As someone who loves Pokemon and games known for ridiculous difficulty (Souls series, Darkest Dungeon, XCOM:LW etc..) I instantly fell in love with Reborn and Rejuv. 

 

I also strive to beat most games on the hardest difficulty so naturally I started an Intense Mode run. Intense mode to me felt a lot like playing strategy games on the hardest difficulty. The player really has to restrict themselves and commit to specific strategies/playstyle in order to win. At first it was fun figuring out strategies. But after a while it turned into a lot of "Well just Destiny Bond that" "I'm just going to reset until they flinch turn 1" and more recently "Time to bring Shedninja out" for every battle.  I feel like a big part of what makes RPGs and JRPGs so enjoyable is running around with a strong group of cool characters cutting or blasting your way through anyone who opposes you.  To me it's a lot more fun/rewarding to use mons like Garchomp, Gardevoir, Weaville etc. that I had to do side quests for before breeding and EV training them into the beasts they currently are. More fun than going "Only Steel and Psychic coverage on this Metagross? Shedninja time!"

 

I think the formula for Rejuv and it's sister games is near perfect and Normal difficulty is a ton of fun while still challenging enough to feel quite rewarding. But I do feel like Intense mode is just pushing the game to a limit

[Paperblade]

I want to throw in my piece as disagreeing with the OP completely. Their complaint is predicated around the assumption that they shouldn't have to engage with the game on its terms and try to figure out how to use it to their advantage, and should simply be able to just ignore an entire game mechanic

 

The two main examples from Ch. 15 are especially indicative of this, since both Fairy Tale and Haunted Field boost moves strong against the teams of Melia and Geara respectively. In fact, Fairy Tale is best for Steel Types as it makes them good against both Fairy and Dragons, which makes up a majority of Melia's team. Her singular Steel type is then extremely soft to dark types, as it's a slow Ghost type. Geara is even more obvious because, as a ghost specialist, the ghost boost on this field becomes a double-edged sword. In fact, Haunted Field has been nerfed from V12, where it nerfed Dark, Psychic, and Fairy type moves which would have made this fight completely overwhelming.

 

I don't think it's fair to the rest of the players to balance the game around people who want to play the game like this. If Intense is too much for you, you can go down in difficulty if they truly don't enjoy Intense, but if Intense is significantly nerfed it's a loss for people like me that enjoy it. 

 

This isn't to say Intense is perfect--it's not clear at all what you are signing up for when you select it at the game start (including hidden mechanics like the AI having an accuracy boot) and some fights are a bit overbearing, but in general complaints like these seem to come from people who aren't the intended audience of the mode

[Cyphre]

12 minutes ago, Paperblade said:

Her singular Steel type is then extremely soft to dark types, as it's a slow Ghost type.

Ah yes, that very slow extremely powerful boosted by a seed Shadow Sneak from Aegislash with precognition about when to use King's Shield and when not to. Understandable. 

 

16 minutes ago, Paperblade said:

Steel Types as it makes them good against both Fairy and Dragons, which makes up a majority of Melia's team.

I agree with Fairy, but this "majority" of dragons consist only of Hydreigon if i remember correctly. And as i stated, i used powered up Bullet Punches against Fairy types in the end. 
 

17 minutes ago, Paperblade said:

Their complaint is predicated around the assumption that they shouldn't have to engage with the game on its terms and try to figure out how to use it to their advantage, and should simply be able to just ignore an entire game mechanic

My assumption is based on the fact that Intense, combined with enemy teams hand-tailored to abuse every single field, forces players to spend an extraordinary amounts of time to specifically breed and train complete counters to the teams, at times up to 5-6 members for every fight. Which is far beyond of what should be expected from a player, as one should not spend dozens of hours for a single fight because it left only a couple of tiny strategies to abuse. 
 

22 minutes ago, Paperblade said:

Geara is even more obvious because, as a ghost specialist, the ghost boost on this field becomes a double-edged sword. In fact, Haunted Field has been nerfed from V12, where it nerfed Dark, Psychic, and Fairy type moves which would have made this fight completely overwhelming.

Then you clearly didn't fight Geara on his field, since Spiritomb in the end, by the graces of onmiscient AI, will not be defeated by any ghost type ever. As i very clearly stated in my post, it is the combination of Spiritomb Crest and the power of the Haunted Field, along with it's lack of counters to it, as well as an AI that makes decisions after you pick a move, that makes it a badly designed encounter. 
 

26 minutes ago, Paperblade said:

I don't think it's fair to the rest of the players to balance the game around people who want to play the game like this. If Intense is too much for you, you can go down in difficulty if they truly don't enjoy Intense, but if Intense is significantly nerfed it's a loss for people like me that enjoy it. 

And i think it's fair to have a pokemon game, a game all about individual teambuilding options and expressing yourself through your team, be open to more options for defeating a challenging fight than just building a direct counter team for every major fight. The problem with Intense is not how inherently hard it is, it is how restricting it is in it's approach because of the Fields. 


I believe in this case i represent the majority of Intense players, who want to have a considerable, however fair challenge, that also respect your time and strategic prowess, not your patience. 
 

[AceTrainerDevin]

16 minutes ago, Cyphre said:

Then you clearly didn't fight Geara on his field, since Spiritomb in the end, by the graces of onmiscient AI, will not be defeated by any ghost type ever. As i very clearly stated in my post, it is the combination of Spiritomb Crest and the power of the Haunted Field, along with it's lack of counters to it, as well as an AI that makes decisions after you pick a move, that makes it a badly designed encounter. 
 

I doubt they meant that you should just spam ghost and while spiritomb is powerful on haunted field it kinda can just get solo'd by quite a few fairy types or any dark type since it pretty much cant touch them also the ai does not input read if thats what you mean by "as well as an AI that makes decisions after you pick a move"

Edited August 5, 2021 by AceTrainerDevin

[Cyphre]

2 minutes ago, AceTrainerDevin said:

I doubt they meant that you should just spam ghost and while spiritomb is powerful on haunted field it kinda can just get solo'd by quite a few fairy types

I highly suggest you to read what Spiritomb crest does and actually try to fight this Spiritomb yourself in the haunted field. It easily one shots and outspeeds both Defensive Mega Altaria and Mega Mawile (who cannot one shot him with 252 EV Attack  Adamant 31 Attack IV Bullet Punch) and even Carbink, and of course easily tear apart any special wall with physical moves. 

[Paperblade]

10 minutes ago, Cyphre said:

I highly suggest you to read what Spiritomb crest does and actually try to fight this Spiritomb yourself in the haunted field. It easily one shots and outspeeds both Defensive Mega Altaria and Mega Mawile (who cannot one shot him with 252 EV Attack  Adamant 31 Attack IV Bullet Punch) and even Carbink, and of course easily tear apart any special wall with physical moves. 

Speed invest your Mawile. Spiritomb is base 35 and Geara's isn't even a speed boosting nature. Mawile is base 50. Megamaw absolutely 1v1s that thing. EV reduction berries are cheap and EV training is quick and easy in rejuvenation

 

Spoiler

 

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I also consider this whole video a total rejection of your suggestion that breeding an entirely new team is in any way required for any given fight considering I used the same six mons for every single fight. You just have to be willing to change movesets and EV spreads

 

and for good measure, an entirely different team vs. Geara (which, again was the same 6 mons vs. every fight) which uses a psychic type against Spiritomb

Spoiler

 

 

[AceTrainerDevin]

29 minutes ago, Cyphre said:

I highly suggest you to read what Spiritomb crest does and actually try to fight this Spiritomb yourself in the haunted field. It easily one shots and outspeeds both Defensive Mega Altaria and Mega Mawile (who cannot one shot him with 252 EV Attack  Adamant 31 Attack IV Bullet Punch) and even Carbink, and of course easily tear apart any special wall with physical moves. 

I am aware of what the crest does and you do know that with 9 speed ivs and no speed evs Mega altaria outspeeds spiritomb mawile does not learn bullet punch and grimmsnarl out speeds and just destroys spiritomb with spirit break with only 112 attack ivs and just 8 speed evs with a jolly nature

 

Edit: did a calc Spiritomb doesnt even kill 0 bulk investment mega altaria with shadow sneak while altaria just one hits it with Return or Hyper voice +1 Lvl 87 252+ Atk Muscle Band Huge Power Spiritomb Shadow Sneak vs. Lvl 85 0 HP / 0 Def Altaria-Mega: 151-178 (60.8 - 71.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Lvl 85 252 Atk Pixilate Altaria-Mega Return vs. Lvl 87 252 HP / 252 Def Spiritomb: 444-528 (167.5 - 199.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Lvl 85 252 SpA Pixilate Altaria-Mega Hyper Voice vs. Lvl 87 252 HP / 252 SpD Spiritomb: 396-468 (149.4 - 176.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Edited August 5, 2021 by AceTrainerDevin

[Cyphre]

1 hour ago, AceTrainerDevin said:

mawile does not learn bullet punch

My bad, meant Sucker Punch. 

And of course there are ways to deal with it, it's not "unwinnable" by any means, berries can definitely help with that, but the amount of things that even can counter it at all is miniscule. This is exaclty what i mean by restrictive. 
 

 

1 hour ago, AceTrainerDevin said:

Edit: did a calc Spiritomb doesnt even kill 0 bulk investment mega altaria with shadow sneak while altaria just one hits it with Return or Hyper voice +1 Lvl 87 252+ Atk Muscle Band Huge Power Spiritomb Shadow Sneak vs. Lvl 85 0 HP / 0 Def Altaria-Mega: 151-178 (60.8 - 71.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

That doesnt seem like you took x5 30% attack boosts into consideration here, as well as 1.5 boost from Haunted Field. I doubt you can calculate this with calculators that exist for base pokemon games, so this one is void and null anyway. Would appreciate if you applied this to the damage formula directly, although it is hard to say if this 30% boost applies to base attack every time or percentages go up for every death. 
 

 

1 hour ago, Paperblade said:

and for good measure, an entirely different team vs. Geara (which, again was the same 6 mons vs. every fight)

That's great and all, but this is 1 particular team that uses Rest Talk, Mega Mawile and Endeavor Wishiwashi. I suppose a lot of fights also could be dealth with by breeding several Ice Shard Donphans with Endeavor, or just use Wobuffet, if this is how you want to play pokemon. And even with such specifically tailored and trained team, as it stated under the video, for some fights it took 50 to 60 tries. If you claim that every team can win every fight, i think we are playing different games. I will again emphasize, that pokemon, as a series, as a genre, is a game where you can use a team you want and you like, and bring this team to victory. There are much more team combinations and pokemon that will never work in those fights under those conditions, and Intense difficulty or not, this is not how it should work with a skilled player.  

 

1 hour ago, Paperblade said:

which uses a psychic type against Spiritomb

And how many people, in your opinion, would fully invest in Defence on Delphox naturally? Because even with a berry this is hardly an uninvested Defence stat.