About a "hardmode" difficulty

[ThiroSmash]

I've just recently read every new announcement since like... June? (Yes I'm late, but I was playing Rejuvenation v13, can you blame me?) and the topic of a hardmode was brought up.

 

May I suggest, instead of going Rejuvenation's route of giving every opponent crazy OP mons and giving Saki TWO BUSTED MEGAS AAAAAAAAA, taking a more subtle approach and instead limiting the player's options.

 

I've come to really appreciate SHF's work and the way he handles difficulty in his kaizo romhacks. He takes full responsibility of what tools the player does and doesn't have. Bringing weather? Nope, deal with natural weather. Set-up strats? Gone, deleted. Encore cheesing? Sure, but I hope you like it on Illumise. This kind of player limitation is what separates the Kaizo games from something like, say, Radical Red.

 

Originally, I really liked Reborn's field mechanics because it indirectly brought to light so many niche moves and abilities, and by extension so many niche or otherwise bad pokemon. But when it comes to Rejuvenation's Intense mode, the power creep is so steep that it undermines the team variety that fields used to allow, practically forcing the player to use the same OP strategies of the AI against it. I wouldn't like to see Reborn go down the same path.

 

So instead of building a second team for every gym leader, rival or meteor admin battle ever, how about restricting the tools of the player? I have a few generic ideas that would help:

 

• Limit changing the field. Most of Reborn's gym leaders are in an undestructible field, I'll give them that, but a few others can be easily cheesed and demolished by changing/terminating the field. Preventing the player from changing the field drastically (besides things like Water Surface <-> Underwater or Heated Arena <-> Burning) can go a long way to ensure that most battles are going to be a challenge.

 

• Removing weather setters. Pokemon with Drizzle, Drought, Snow Warning or Sand Stream, as well as the weather TMs, will remove a lot of the player's capacity to counter-cheese hard fights.

 

• Implementing a hard-cap to stat increases and set-up moves much lower than +6. This helps prevent the player from simply 6-0'ing after a set-up. How low the cap is, would require some testing. Perhaps only +1 in every stat, or only a total of +2/+3 across all stats are my hardest limitations.

 

I bet people are gonna hate the next ones.

 

• Limiting/Removing Common Candies. The art of micro-managing exp so that your pokemon don't overlevel is heavily unexplored territory imo, and Reborn's soft level caps are a perfect system to let it flourish. Too bad that unlimited Common Candies undermines the whole concept.

 

• Making (some) TMs single-use for the entire game. I don't remember what TMs are available for Reborn, but powerful, all-around useful moves such as Earthquake, Ice Beam or Will'o'Wisp should probably have a limited use and not just be slapable into every pokemon ever. Colored parts and Heart Scales should also not be limitless as to not let the player create their dream team for every other battle.

 

• Limiting/Removing EVs. Honestly, I'm of the opinion that the EV system only trivialises the game and should be gone entirely. Assuming that we don't remove it altogether, limiting the player to EV-train only up to, say, 100 points in each stat with a 400 total would make things dicy for sure.

 

I reckon that all of this is probably not the easiest thing to implement, but it certainly would be less work than making a new team for every single important fight in the game, AND it would be more interesting at that. Imo.

 

Thoughts?

 

[Gastronely]

2 hours ago, ThiroSmash said:

but powerful, all-around useful moves such as Earthquake, Ice Beam or Will'o'Wisp should probably have a limited use and not just be slapable into every pokemon ever.

Oh boy. It seems like someone is unaware of the memes

[ThiroSmash]

1 hour ago, Gastronely said:

Oh boy. It seems like someone is unaware of the memes

I seem to be out of the loop then.

[Aphelli]

Many useful TMs are still unavailable in game yet. Unless I'm mistaken, all of the following TMs are unavailable: Dragon Claw, Calm Mind, Ice Beam and Blizzard, Thunder, Earthquake, Sludge Bomb, Fire Blast, Energy Ball, Volt Switch, Swords Dance, U-Turn. There are several memes on that topic, for instance https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonReborn/comments/i4mo4m/maybe_earthquake_is_the_friends_we_made_along_the/  or https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonReborn/comments/hzjfy7/this_is_all_i_want/

 

Back to the content of the post: you're making some good suggestions, even though I personally find them terrifying (I'm not very good). Permanent fields, no weather games from the player and limited set-up? That certainly ramps up difficulty a fair bit.  

I really can't see how they trivialize the game (against a fully EV'd team, of course), but apparently it does, and it's now standard, so why not? I'm not going to end up playing in hard mode, although I'm interested enough to discuss one. 

But I'm not convinced by the idea of limiting Common Candies. I just can't imagine managing exp as part of the game, but maybe I just lack imagination.

Mining rocks are already in a finite number, so I guess you want to limit/hardcode their content to curb the maximal number of heart scales that one might have? 

[ThiroSmash]

2 hours ago, Mindlack said:

Many useful TMs are still unavailable in game yet. Unless I'm mistaken, all of the following TMs are unavailable: Dragon Claw, Calm Mind, Ice Beam and Blizzard, Thunder, Earthquake, Sludge Bomb, Fire Blast, Energy Ball, Volt Switch, Swords Dance, U-Turn. There are several memes on that topic, for instance https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonReborn/comments/i4mo4m/maybe_earthquake_is_the_friends_we_made_along_the/  or https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonReborn/comments/hzjfy7/this_is_all_i_want/

 

Back to the content of the post: you're making some good suggestions, even though I personally find them terrifying (I'm not very good). Permanent fields, no weather games from the player and limited set-up? That certainly ramps up difficulty a fair bit.  

I really can't see how they trivialize the game (against a fully EV'd team, of course), but apparently it does, and it's now standard, so why not? I'm not going to end up playing in hard mode, although I'm interested enough to discuss one. 

But I'm not convinced by the idea of limiting Common Candies. I just can't imagine managing exp as part of the game, but maybe I just lack imagination.

Mining rocks are already in a finite number, so I guess you want to limit/hardcode their content to curb the maximal number of heart scales that one might have? 

 

Well those are some good ass memes. It's surprising that all of those are still not available even after the second-to-last badge, though I can see why.

 

About the EVs, someone else made a fully fledged wall of text explaining why in an SHF video, but to summarise:

• First of all there are all the QoL issues with them and how much of a pain in the ass it is to EV train without proper help, which heavily discourages adding new pokemon to your team (thing that Reborn is thankfully solving next update).
• Next, from a developer perspective, balancing the game properly is miles easier without EVs, since you can much more easily account for all the player's tools and not debate on whether or not they're gonna run max speed EVs in everything.
• Third, they trivialise the game because they only encourage power creep. Mons like Alakazam or Gengar comfortably invest into even more speed and even more special attack than they already have. Mons like Steelix or Blissey are allowed to fix their one balancing weakness. But mons who have more evenly-distributed stats struggle. Arcanine has to choose between not doing enough damage in either of the offensive stats or not being fast enough to handle most threats, all the while not being quite bulky enough to compensate. And Arcanine is one of the best "balanced" mons thanks to Intimidate and his generous movepool.
• I propose the 100 per stat, 400 total alternative as a middle ground worth exploring to help out all the mons with awkwardly average stats, though removing the system entirely is equally as acceptable in my eyes.

 

The "beauty" of exp management is something I've learned from Pokemon Challenges' hardcore nuzlockes. It is a self-balancing system: if you abuse your broken mon too much, it will overlevel, so you're encouraged to switch up your composition and utilise less important pokemon for less important battles and soak the exp. Having common candies in a limited amount I think is a good enough middle ground to give the player some margin of error whilst still being a self-balancing system.

 

Lastly, I'm fine with mining rocks as is - even better with the announced rework of the rewards. Mining rocks give you a random amount of different utilities, but still a finite one. One playthrough you might luck out and get a Pixie Plate and two extra Heart Scales, the next one you might just get four oval stones and be told to deal with it. You can save-scum in order to squeeze out as many resources as possible, but then I question why are you playing a difficulty mode such as this one to begin with. What I'm opposed to is farming infinite Heart Scales via Luvdisc fishing or parts via the clowns, it undermines the whole concept of the challenge.

 

Well this was a long reply.

[Dave243]

Fuck no. I would take rejuv's intense mode over any of the bullshit you are suggesting. 

[Mimikyu]

XP-> Ame is or was gonna add Rejuv's Level cap system for e19

 

Fields-> Fields are what make the gym fights hard though, its personally nicer to beat the leader when its on their perfect advantage (Here's looking at you Charlotte and Amaria)

 

EV/Stats -> Yeeting set up moves = a lot of work to code removal/Cap limits of setup as some mons complete abilities are dependent on that [Moody, Hyper Cutter, Belly drum loses all usability along with anger point ], All the gym leaders mons to my understanding are Max EV IV trained anyways

 

Common Candies-> Point becomes invalid for e19 getting Rejuv cap changes if first point is still correct, plus ive used maybe 5 common candies to my life in my current 154h of playtime, plus you have SMW/Additional Options modpack to fix that cap issue anyways

 

Mining rocks-.  are mostly whatever cause the big one heart scales i believe are in the pickup table, so why mine when i could just run around and get a buttload with 6 pickup mons fighting trash wilds?

 

 

Im only starting an intense mode playthrough for Rejuv but i had issues in normal mode reborn and rejuv normal mode getting past parts so im not there with difficulty
Id recommend looking at Pokemon Reborn Redux as it gives each gym leader much harder teams to fight against as a lot of the changes your asking for requires a lot of effort recoding the spaghetti code that is essentials, changing entire teams of leaders, recoding the fields system, recoding the evs/ivs, recoding stat setups cause changing that code affects Opponent too
Very very large amounts of essentials code changing

 

-Personal Opinions be this thread as a casual player who hates Ciel after being stuck on her for 3m

[ThiroSmash]

6 hours ago, Mimikyu said:

XP-> Ame is or was gonna add Rejuv's Level cap system for e19

 

Fields-> Fields are what make the gym fights hard though, its personally nicer to beat the leader when its on their perfect advantage (Here's looking at you Charlotte and Amaria)

 

EV/Stats -> Yeeting set up moves = a lot of work to code removal/Cap limits of setup as some mons complete abilities are dependent on that [Moody, Hyper Cutter, Belly drum loses all usability along with anger point ], All the gym leaders mons to my understanding are Max EV IV trained anyways

 

Common Candies-> Point becomes invalid for e19 getting Rejuv cap changes if first point is still correct, plus ive used maybe 5 common candies to my life in my current 154h of playtime, plus you have SMW/Additional Options modpack to fix that cap issue anyways

 

Mining rocks-.  are mostly whatever cause the big one heart scales i believe are in the pickup table, so why mine when i could just run around and get a buttload with 6 pickup mons fighting trash wilds?

 

 

Im only starting an intense mode playthrough for Rejuv but i had issues in normal mode reborn and rejuv normal mode getting past parts so im not there with difficulty
Id recommend looking at Pokemon Reborn Redux as it gives each gym leader much harder teams to fight against as a lot of the changes your asking for requires a lot of effort recoding the spaghetti code that is essentials, changing entire teams of leaders, recoding the fields system, recoding the evs/ivs, recoding stat setups cause changing that code affects Opponent too
Very very large amounts of essentials code changing

 

-Personal Opinions be this thread as a casual player who hates Ciel after being stuck on her for 3m

 

For EVs and stat boost I was talking about limiting the player's boosts, but not the AI's. The whole point of this is to not have to touch the AI's existing teams. So you'd have the 100 EV cap and the +1 stat cap but the AI would stay the same and keep its 252s and up to +6 boosts. I have no idea of how hard that would be to code with Essentials but once it's done you shouldn't need to change anything else. No learnsets, no team distributions, nothing.

 

I had no idea of Heart Scales being in the pickup table, that'd be a first. If that's the case, then yeah it should probably go away too.

 

Andracass said that lategame exp gain is gonna increase so overleveling would be a bit more of an issue, but if the hard exp cap of rejuv is gonna get implemented then that's a bit of a shame.

[Rockaq]

stop trying to ruin the game, rejuv intense is good, if you want kaizo go play it.

[Mia789]

I am late to the party but still wanted to give my toughts to your well tought post. Sorry for rambling so much.

 

Your ideas are interesting and would fit normal Pokemon games that are easy compared to Reborn & Rejuvenation and please excuse my wording but dear god but do you enjoy punishing yourself or others while playing Pokemon? (That coming from someone who is punishing and torturing herself in a Baby Pokemon only run in Reborn)

I played trough Reborn dozens pf times and trough Rejuvenation on Casual and normal a few times and both are great games with their unique gimics.

In my opinion if I want to challenge myself in Reborn I limit myself in options (only 6 Pokemon all game no switching out etc.), do a mono/character run or do a hard punishing run like a Baby Pokemon only challenge.

 

On 8/25/2021 at 5:00 PM, ThiroSmash said:

• Limit changing the field. Most of Reborn's gym leaders are in an undestructible field, I'll give them that, but a few others can be easily cheesed and demolished by changing/terminating the field. Preventing the player from changing the field drastically (besides things like Water Surface <-> Underwater or Heated Arena <-> Burning) can go a long way to ensure that most battles are going to be a challenge.

 

• Removing weather setters. Pokemon with Drizzle, Drought, Snow Warning or Sand Stream, as well as the weather TMs, will remove a lot of the player's capacity to counter-cheese hard fights.

One of the biggest charms for me in Reborn are the fields and ways to find out how to beat the game with the limited options I have (like using Rain Dance against Charlotte). Without the ways to change fields or moving having a diffrent effect it wouldnt be the same Reborn it would normaly be. The way how the field work with eachother is also just a unique and great gimmic and wouldnt be the same if limited or changed.

On 8/25/2021 at 5:00 PM, ThiroSmash said:

Implementing a hard-cap to stat increases and set-up moves much lower than +6. This helps prevent the player from simply 6-0'ing after a set-up. How low the cap is, would require some testing. Perhaps only +1 in every stat, or only a total of +2/+3 across all stats are my hardest limitations.

In my opinion not every Pokemon can set up while a strong enemy is against them. Most of the time this is only possible with lots of healing while seting up or in a double battle letting your other pokemon tank the hits. If you dont want that do it like in Rejuvenation on Intense and use no items in battle this makes it way harder and sometimes impossible to set up. Also I havent had a single battle where I could 6-0 the enemy as far as I remember the major battles. I am curious in which battles you managed to do that and how.

On 8/25/2021 at 5:00 PM, ThiroSmash said:

Limiting/Removing Common Candies. The art of micro-managing exp so that your pokemon don't overlevel is heavily unexplored territory imo, and Reborn's soft level caps are a perfect system to let it flourish. Too bad that unlimited Common Candies undermines the whole concept.

This works in normal Pokemon games but in Reborn it kinda doesnt fit in my opinion. Common Candies arnt free and money is tight in the early game so overleveling and disobidience can easy kill your run if you dont use a lot of Pokemon (like mentioned limit yourself to a limited number of Pokemon). I am thankful we have them and a few wont use them and I havent in all my runs but in a few I desperatly needed them. Like I read with the change in e19 they wont be needed but for now I am happy we have them. Also sometimes I enojoy using them on some Pokemon I caught in the wild if they missed some moves I want without breeding them.

 

On 8/25/2021 at 5:00 PM, ThiroSmash said:

• Making (some) TMs single-use for the entire game. I don't remember what TMs are available for Reborn, but powerful, all-around useful moves such as Earthquake, Ice Beam or Will'o'Wisp should probably have a limited use and not just be slapable into every pokemon ever. Colored parts and Heart Scales should also not be limitless as to not let the player create their dream team for every other battle.

 

• Limiting/Removing EVs. Honestly, I'm of the opinion that the EV system only trivialises the game and should be gone entirely. Assuming that we don't remove it altogether, limiting the player to EV-train only up to, say, 100 points in each stat with a 400 total would make things dicy for sure.

Breaking TM's? Dear God NO. I started playing Pokemon with Red/Blue and breaking TM's were a nightmare. (Yeah I am old I know) Most of the time we never used them cause what if you wont be using the Pokemon anymore cause you found one that fits better or is overall just stronger? You dont want to swap it out cause the TM's would be wasted that way. In my first ever run of Blue I didnt use a single TM cause Brock said they break and I didnt want to waste it. (even tough it was a bad move) I wouldnt use a TM in most of my run if they would be limited use even more when we dont have most of the better moves yet. (And NO I didnt only use my starter)

 

If I am not wrong most if not all Gym Leaders have maxed EV and without a proper team or EV trained you are just stuck in a fight for a long time or dont have a chance. (I started training before the Glass gauntlet didnt need before) But it takes effort so not everyone does it and need to do it. It is your own choice if you want to invest time and planning if you want to do it if now just ignore it but let those do it that like it or want to do it. Why should you cripple others and even more with 100 in each stat? This will be just wasted on a lot of Pokemon most of time when I only use 1 Attack stat be it Physical or Special. Wouldnt make much sense.