Suggestions for improving gameplay

[crashteamalphing]

poor trubbish. at least I know he got some love from me. toxic spikes+toxic+gunk shot+explosion was pretty effective against many trainers.

[TheRockGhost72]

Sorry to say but trubbish is garbage, literally. But this is off topic so, ignore this forum judges.

[Felicity]

poor trubbish. at least I know he got some love from me. toxic spikes+toxic+gunk shot+explosion was pretty effective against many trainers.

Bit off topic, but from what i've heard, the little gunkbag is fairly popular, what with early access to acid spray and decent support use as well as the obvious hazards.Also, i would love to see it explode, and see a banana just smack into the face of the enemy along with a big pile of gunk.

[dondon151]

That said, you aren't satisfied with the current state of affairs, correct?

That's correct - I think they can be a little better.

Next, you pointed out another contradiction with you pointing out your advocacy of lower late game levels. What you suggest with the badges would go against this, as you would allow, emphasis on this, Allow players to grow faster, demanding the Npcs do the same, ergo higher late game levels.

Well, no, it's not contradictory. I've provided the reason why it's commonplace in Pokemon games for Pokemon to grow faster at lower levels and slower at higher levels. It's because of the cubic/quadratic/linear relationship between the relevant experience curves.

poor trubbish. at least I know he got some love from me. toxic spikes+toxic+gunk shot+explosion was pretty effective against many trainers.

I wouldn't bank on a single 5 PP offensive attack in a game where I haven't yet been able to find an Ether.

[Amethyst]

I seem to recall that I found a Magnet Powder in the other factory in Peridot Ward, but I could be misremembering.

You're correct, so there isn't a need to wait until 7th street

I think it's a bit unreasonable to assume that players have a team of 6 Pokemon so early in the game. The main reason is that the diversity of Pokemon early in the game is necessarily smaller compared to later in the game.

Incidentally, Pokemon distribution is actually deliberately front-loaded for this reason. Now, obviously there are more total species as you go on, but considering how many you get episode per episode. Of the ~500+ (total guess) currently available, based on the count iirc from releasing the first couple episodes, ~200 of those are actually pre-second gym. Grant, that is counting starters and evolutions so it feels like less, but there is a deceptive amount of potential variety to get people started. I also try to encourage players to get a full team quickly with all the people talking about catching pokemon in the first area, and a few other things. I don't believe it's unreasonable at all for a player to get a full team, but that's assuming people aren't in the Fire-Emblem mentality of only giving EXP to what they intend to use in the end.

Keeping species at a low level just so they don't evolve upon leveling up comes at the cost of making that Pokemon completely unusable without grinding. You're going to have to convince me why instant evolution is a bad thing; I just don't see it...

It's super awkward to have level 74 pidgey running around somewhere. People are like why?? pidgey y u no evolb???? Not having to put in any effort to evolve something removes the anticipation from a relative interesting mechanic of the game. I think Gamefreak agreed with this based on their experiment with Unova species having considerably higher levels to evolve at later stages. I do lament that they didn't continue that in Kalos because it really worked out a lot better...

Anyway, you're right, it is currently coming at that cost so I see it as a lose/lose. This is part of what I meant when I said that I need to prioritise some values.

EDIT: I just realised some of this topic was about the game being too dark. I think there's an easy way to change for Ame to change that. It's just in the scripts, in the first lines of Pokemon_Time or whatever that section is called. There, the screen tones for each hour are defined, and you can make them less dark by changing the Red and Green values. Currently they're at like, -140 (out of 255). Making them -100 instead, and scaling everything proportionately should improve visibility.

So, to Ame, I don't understand what problems you're having with this? I've tried to change those values, and it seems to be working...

I'll take a look, thanks. It's possible I overlooked this or that the time I did look at it was when I was still shying away from script things completely (i dont like code its ugly)

I wouldn't bank on a single 5 PP offensive attack in a game where I haven't yet been able to find an Ether.

There used to be a lot of ethers and I realised players didn't value them much at all so I replaced a lot of them... I wonder if I replaced them all. Whoops.

[mashonem]

The general trend in event pokemon is that they must be a reward for your trouble, and Natu, Sorry Xatu followers, is not a reward in any way, even early game.

And yet players now have to pay money to get a Ducklett, when you can get at Tanzan Cove anyway...

I really hate Ducklett

Edited July 25, 2014 by mashonem

[Felicity]

And yet players now have to pay money to get a Ducklett, when you can get at Tanzan Cove anyway...

I really hate Ducklett

Yo, Ducklett is POWAH and if you get round to using it early, you rack up early EVs that you obviously wouldn't have at tanzan.

[crashteamalphing]

Hey Ame if you really wanted, you could change the evolution level of species so that it is a few levels higher than the levels at which the unevolved Pokemon are first encountered in Reborn.

I mean, Gamefreak did it with Unova and you said you liked it, so why not do it in Reborn? Obviously that's a big game change and some may see it as a sacrilege, but at least it changes nothing in terms of (competitive) metagame, which is the most important thing in my opinion. Just food for thought.

[DJ Mewdeon ft Dan Punk]

(i dont like code its ugly)

you wound me </3

[derekwst3]

if they change the levels certain pokemon evolve would annoy me, I tend to look at serebii for information on when things evolve and when they learn attacks,

[Amethyst]

Hey Ame if you really wanted, you could change the evolution level of species so that it is a few levels higher than the levels at which the unevolved Pokemon are first encountered in Reborn.

Not willing to do. That opens up a whole can of worms, embodied by people this:

if they change the levels certain pokemon evolve would annoy me, I tend to look at serebii for information on when things evolve and when they learn attacks,

Hell, even I do that. But yeah, I'm not changing anything about the Pokemon themselves otherwise this would be like Pokekom BlazeVolt Reborn

you wound me </3

no shh its ok this is why we keep you *pets*

[crashteamalphing]

YOOOO

I just did the greatest thing right now! I successfully implemented a new option that allows to choose between three different night palettes (dark, balanced and light) from the game menu->options (and from testing it, it seems to be working!)

I have needed to add some scripts in PokemonTime and PokemonOptions for that. Ame, if you want them, just tell me and I'll give them to you.

#soproud

[Ultra]

*Raises hand* On the topic of suggestions for improvement, I just want to say that I've been a little disappointed in the recent overworld puzzles (Crystal Cave and Crustle Puzzle). Relative to Reborn's better puzzles, they were both tedious and not very challenging. A lot of "running around doing stuff" and not "running around in confusion trying to figure out how this works." The latter kind of puzzle will be rewarding, after you've completed it you'll feel as if you've earned the boss battle/event that occurs afterwards. The former kind just feels as if the game is trying to stretch itself out.

I never want to see a Crustle again

[crashteamalphing]

*Raises hand* On the topic of suggestions for improvement, I just want to say that I've been a little disappointed in the recent overworld puzzles (Crystal Cave and Crustle Puzzle). Relative to Reborn's better puzzles, they were both tedious and not very challenging. A lot of "running around doing stuff" and not "running around in confusion trying to figure out how this works." The latter kind of puzzle will be rewarding, after you've completed it you'll feel as if you've earned the boss battle/event that occurs afterwards. The former kind just feels as if the game is trying to stretch itself out.

I never want to see a Crustle again

personally I needed a lot of time to understand how the crustle puzzle worked, but I may be just stupid...

I'm also curious to know what Reborn's better puzzles are.

[dondon151]

Incidentally, Pokemon distribution is actually deliberately front-loaded for this reason. Now, obviously there are more total species as you go on, but considering how many you get episode per episode. Of the ~500+ (total guess) currently available, based on the count iirc from releasing the first couple episodes, ~200 of those are actually pre-second gym. Grant, that is counting starters and evolutions so it feels like less, but there is a deceptive amount of potential variety to get people started. I also try to encourage players to get a full team quickly with all the people talking about catching pokemon in the first area, and a few other things. I don't believe it's unreasonable at all for a player to get a full team, but that's assuming people aren't in the Fire-Emblem mentality of only giving EXP to what they intend to use in the end.

Well, I tend to think of it this way. A very small subset of players will use a 2-Pokemon team. A larger subset of players will use a 3-Pokemon team, and then larger still a 4-Pokemon team. I would imagine that most people use something like a 5-Pokemon team, maybe keeping 1 Pokemon in the party for a Cut and Rock Smash slave. More HMs are coming in the latter part of the game, which further necessitates an HM slave slot.

I also think that many players will at least exhibit the "Fire Emblem mentality" to some extent in the early game. But in general, if you design the opponent Pokemon teams to accommodate, for example, a player's 5-Pokemon team, then it's going to at least be suitable challenge for 4-Pokemon and 6-Pokemon teams, whereas if you designed them to accommodate 6-Pokemon teams, then they're going to be too easy for 4-and-fewer Pokemon teams.

Not willing to do. That opens up a whole can of worms, embodied by people this:

Yeah, this tends to be one of those things where if you change one thing that doesn't stay faithful to the games, there's no good place to stop.

Speaking of being faithful to the games, does Reborn use the gen V friendship system, with Friend Balls setting friendship to 200? I know that I had to level up Swadloon 10 times in order for it to evolve into Leavanny, which is consistent with its friendship starting out at 200 and gaining +2 per level up.

personally I needed a lot of time to understand how the crustle puzzle worked, but I may be just stupid...

On this topic in particular, I didn't actually understand what to do on Route 2 until I read some threads and looked at a video. The Crustle puzzles felt more frustrating than it should be due to the lag, and I also think that the stepping rock tiles need to be tweaked a little bit because it looks funny when you walk on the tiles above and below them.

Edited July 26, 2014 by dondon151

[mashonem]

personally I needed a lot of time to understand how the crustle puzzle worked, but I may be just stupid...

I'm also curious to know what Reborn's better puzzles are.

Blacksteam Factory comes to mind immediately

[Rewer]

we are going to an icy region. im scared of what kind of puzzle the evilmastermind ame is gonna throw at us involving ice,,,

[Ultra]

personally I needed a lot of time to understand how the crustle puzzle worked, but I may be just stupid...

I'm also curious to know what Reborn's better puzzles are.

Well once you understood what you had to do it was just an hour or jumping over rocks and using strength. Then you're punished heavily if you fuck up even once by having to go all the way back with the powders. The puzzle loses appeal very quickly. Lag from the legion of rocks doesn't help, either.

Blackstream factory and some gym puzzles (2nd, 4th) were pretty good. Pre-Arceus fight logic puzzle as well.

[Amethyst]

I've said a number of times I regret the Crustle puzzle. It should be noted part of the reason it's so tedious is RMXP limitations that I failed to foresee, but even aside from that it was very unclear. Some additional dialogue in 13 should help this, as well as decreased lag, and I've cleared out some of the unnecessary rock-jumps.

On the other hand, I received a lot of positive feedback for Iolia.

With the lighting, I think having three sets is probably unnecesary, but I am impressed nonetheless. Do you mind taking some screens of each of your modifications at different points?

[Lost Lore]

we are going to an icy region. im scared of what kind of puzzle the evilmastermind ame is gonna throw at us involving ice,,,

Inb4 Vega's STRENGTH PUZZLES ON ICE

People have had varying amounts of difficulty with the Crustle puzzle- some people had trouble figuring it out, and others figured it out rather easily. The rocks are a bit harder to figure out if you don't know you're supposed to jump across them (which is perfectly feasible if you have not played X or Y, like me) but really, it is more tedious than it is difficult.

Although I quite enjoyed the crystal puzzle, and thought that was rather inventive. No idea what the beef with that is about.

[dondon151]

Oh! I do remember one thing that was changed from the main series games. Cain's Nidoran M knows Scratch at L5 instead of Peck, for clear reasons.

[Ultra]

Inb4 Vega's STRENGTH PUZZLES ON ICE

People have had varying amounts of difficulty with the Crustle puzzle- some people had trouble figuring it out, and others figured it out rather easily. The rocks are a bit harder to figure out if you don't know you're supposed to jump across them (which is perfectly feasible if you have not played X or Y, like me) but really, it is more tedious than it is difficult.

Although I quite enjoyed the crystal puzzle, and thought that was rather inventive. No idea what the beef with that is about.

For me Iolia didn't feel much like a puzzle as it did "Go as far as you can and press this switch then go back..." not really much to figure out. Though the area was nice so I didn't terribly mind, I pointed it out to voice my concern that tedious/mindless puzzles were becoming a trend. It wasn't nearly as bad as Crustle hell.

[Saber12]

I feel like I'm late to the party.

I full well understand this, and in fact I was not advocating this (as I will repeat for the third time). I'll use my Sigilyph example again: I obtained it at 11 levels lower than my team average, and my understanding is that my team was slightly underleveled to begin with. An example recommendation would be to have it appear 5 levels higher, which would still put it 6 levels below my team average, but at least capable of fighting a decent chunk of trainer battles on its own with help from Hyper Potions.

Another example would be the wild Pokemon in the Jasper Ward: they appear at an average of L20 when the team average should be around L25. At lower levels, level differences matter more (because damage calculation is multiplicative and not additive), so they would be much more usable, but not completely so, if their average level was around L22.

Well, I am a "more experienced" player, and rather than challenge me, it's just encouraged me to not use them. I suspect this is not the intended effect.

If I preferred to stick to 1 Pokemon, I would not have bothered with a 5-Pokemon team. I think one of the primary virtues of the Pokemon series is its variety, and it would be shame to not experience that, but I don't want to bend over backwards in doing so.

I also linked the Pokemon White 0 EXP speedrun that I completed awhile ago, which uses more Pokemon than any player would on any normal playthrough. So I am not averse to using more than 1 Pokemon on a team.

That sounds fair to me. I remember when I played Black and the times I chose to switch up my team was ridiculous but it was fun because I never felt as though it would take too long to train up something that could be usable. It made the game more interesting as I challenged myself by using new pokemon i just got familiar with after a little bit of grinding.

After Aya, there is a teleport option available in ralts. Baltoy is a challenging potential before then, but as weak as Natu is I don't want it in too early because of Magic Bounce. Baltoy could maybe be around the Shelly gym part of the game without causing too many issues, but that's only a few episodes of difference.

Isn't that good to let the player decide if they want to fight those or not? It can be frustrating for players who don't want to, and then if they do later want to train up some levels, the trainers will be there. A solution I would sooner take, as such, would be to increase the number of optional trainers.

However part of the reason there are fewer trainers at this point is because I'm trying not to run into the level 100 hard cap. In fact, for this reason I've been considering reducing the number of trainers in the early game, especially the pre-first two gyms, to match, rather than the opposite. I'll learn as we get further into the game what my risk of hitting the 100 cap is.

Should it be? I always thought of it as one of the most valuable potential side-quest rewards, so I saved it for a rather involved quest. So what is actually the benefit of the EXP share? It saves some time, and it saves your stronger Pokemon one turn of damage from the turn they switch in. I don't mind time-saving. But I think by the time we get the EXP share, party pokemon are strong enough that a player doesn't have to worry too much about those extra hits, which would have been considerable in the earlier parts of the game. As such, I don't want the EXP share being in too early.


I attempted to make it so that teleporting from the circus takes you back to the circus entrance, but I don't believe I was successful.

Natu is probably the weakest magic bouncer threat if you ask me. Its lacking baton pass which is what made Espeon nearly unstoppable on a baton pass team. This flaw makes it difficult for Natu to do anything but reflect status afflictions and deal minimal damage

I agree with ame on the increase in optional trainers if necessary. One of the strengths behind of the design of pokemon games is giving the player a choice of battling all of the competition right away for experience or sneaking by to search for items. It can also be a slightly better alternative for players who choose to level up a new pokemon.

There is that rare occasion right before we go on a quest just to get hm strength seems like it could make an interesting place for adding the R/S/E exp. share. At that point many players were close to the level cap and some wanted to use this as an opportunity to raise new pokemon while progressing. It would be pretty useful but not game breaking.

I just wanna add one thing. You say that reducing the need to grind won't reduce the difficulty, but actually, on a statistical average for all players of the game, it will.

Since you are fond of statistical models and examples, let's take this simple one:

1) some players don't mind grinding and will grind if their Pokemon are underleveld.

2) some players hate grinding and, even if their Pokemon are underleveled, will still refuse to grind and will try to find ways to win despite being underleveled.

I am a category 2 person for the most part (even though I did grind a little bit at points, when it was really needed, like before Noel and before Radomus, because I had just included 2 new team members and needed to grind them up to the rest of the team).

So what happens if you reduce the overall need to grind? Category 1 players will still have the same team, they will not feel the effect of this change in terms of game challenge. Category 2 players, who now have a team closer to the level limit, will see that the game has become very much easier for them, and thus less challenging.

On average, for all players and situations considered, grinding improves game difficulty because many players are lazy and will tend to avoid it when they can, thus choosing the challenge of being underleveled, over the tedium of grinding their team up to par with gym leaders.

Also, you say that low level wild Pokemon discourage the use of new Pokemon in your team, but what I think is that everybody is using complete teams of 6 or more Pokemon, because for most that is the only fun way to play. Your problem is that you use a notoriously overpowered Pokemon (Blaziken) and, in terms of getting at the end of the game in the fastest way possible, as you pointed out, starter-soloing through the entire game or almost so, with Blaziken, will tend to be the optimal strategy, and adding other Pokemon will only slow you down since their simple presence means less EXP for blaziken, and thus reduces its effectiveness. Even if we gave you wild Pokemon at high levels, if you decided to include them to your team, you would soon become very underleveled because the EXP has to be shared between more Pokemon, OR you would have to battle all trainers, not just those who are mandatory -> you'd be slowed down.

I'm not quite sure if i'm a category one or two player but grinding has always been tedious and it doesn't add a challenge to gameplay at all. I'm ok with the optional trainers being used to grind in a Pokemon game but repeatedly going into tall grass to fight more pokemon? That's the same as me playing any old rpg where I repeatedly run around in circles hoping to get into random battles or traveling a world map in hopes of spawning new enemies. The level cap isn't here just to restrict grinding but to reduce the need for it too. If there is a need to grind then there's no point in having the level cap because now players will have to worry about whether they're pokemon have an opportunity to make a move. That is not a challenge.

A real challenge may take your pokemon's levels into account but you shouldn't been limited to using pokemon so underleveled that there's absolutely nothing you can do but go back and grind in tall grass. For the weaker pokemon you're capable of fighting with you should at least be able to pull off a move. Sometimes they're outclassed by the enemy but the next time you fight, you'll have a better tactic not necessarily a more buffed pokemon. The real challenge tests your wit on how well you can use your pokemon to foil your opponents strategy. I guess what I'm saying is that wild pokemon that live relatively close to a gym leader or boss shouldn't need to that much grinding to be able to do something in battle. However I don't expect every single pokemon to be specifically accounted for. As a general rule I personally think that areas where grinding seems to take up a bit too much time should take less.

Now I grind when I feel like trying out new things but am unsure if what I have will get a chance to fulfill a tactical role in battle. I don't think its unreasonable to cut out the need for grinding particularly less powerful pokemon compared to the more powerful ones. I just checked the stats and movepool of Sigilyph DonDon brought up along with Xatu and I don't think it would be a problem for players to be able to encounter it up a few levels higher. When Gardevoir is the other optional psychic type why is this a bad idea?

Incidentally, Pokemon distribution is actually deliberately front-loaded for this reason. Now, obviously there are more total species as you go on, but considering how many you get episode per episode. Of the ~500+ (total guess) currently available, based on the count iirc from releasing the first couple episodes, ~200 of those are actually pre-second gym. Grant, that is counting starters and evolutions so it feels like less, but there is a deceptive amount of potential variety to get people started. I also try to encourage players to get a full team quickly with all the people talking about catching pokemon in the first area, and a few other things. I don't believe it's unreasonable at all for a player to get a full team, but that's assuming people aren't in the Fire-Emblem mentality of only giving EXP to what they intend to use in the end.





There used to be a lot of ethers and I realised players didn't value them much at all so I replaced a lot of them... I wonder if I replaced them all. Whoops.

I'd also assume the player would have six pokemon for each gym. even though its entirely possible to win with 1 to 5 pokemon. Most first timers might want to play it safe and see what a team of six could do incase something goes wrong especially for players who don't choose torchic with speed boost. From my experience i find myself losing at least once every three playthroughs to Julia with a team of 6.

Adding in more ethers means more options so I'm all for it. Otherwise most players will just stick to flamethrowers instead of fire blasts like usual games.

.

Well once you understood what you had to do it was just an hour or jumping over rocks and using strength. Then you're punished heavily if you fuck up even once by having to go all the way back with the powders. The puzzle loses appeal very quickly. Lag from the legion of rocks doesn't help, either.

Blackstream factory and some gym puzzles (2nd, 4th) were pretty good. Pre-Arceus fight logic puzzle as well.

I wonder if I'm the only one who liked the crustle puzzle. After I noticed that certain stepping stones had more circular designs compared to the usual ones, that was how I knew which ones were safe for jumping and explored to my hearts content. I like that part about the puzzle best because the environment is effectively used for exploration and puzzle solving by giving me a reason as to why some of these stepping stones shake instead of other puzzles that simply say memorize everything and get through it. Now maybe if there were a few less dead ends and more areas to find items, trainers, npcs or special patches of grass then that could make it less tedious. Heck I wouldn't mind fishing off the rocks to find a special item or something.(provided we're on a rock surrounded by water) I guess I would say that there's more that could be done with it.

Edited July 26, 2014 by Saber12

[Tacos]

we are going to an icy region. im scared of what kind of puzzle the evilmastermind ame is gonna throw at us involving ice,,,

Well I saw some of the Ametrine Puzzles Ame made from her video of making the one section of it. Figured it out in less than a minute and screenshotted for safekeeping.

[dondon151]

Natu is probably the weakest magic bouncer threat if you ask me. Its lacking baton pass which is what made Espeon nearly unstoppable on a baton pass team. This flaw makes it difficult for Natu to do anything but reflect status afflictions and deal minimal damage

I think that in itself is probably the main concern in improving Natu's availability. Cottonee had similar utility and was removed, although Magic Bounce is more situational and only works against the proper opponents.

I agree with ame on the increase in optional trainers if necessary. One of the strengths behind of the design of pokemon games is giving the player a choice of battling all of the competition right away for experience or sneaking by to search for items. It can also be a slightly better alternative for players who choose to level up a new pokemon.

Well, I do think there should be enough mandatory trainers such that a player using a 2-or-3-Pokemon team can keep up in levels. If the player is using more Pokemon, then there should also be enough optional trainers such that those additional Pokemon can be somewhat adequately trained without grinding in the grass.

As Ame pointed out, I mentioned that the mandatory trainer density early in the game is much higher compared to that in the late game, and her suggestion was to reduce the early game trainer density.