v13.5 Update | Balance Changes

Oh, dear. That’s why obsession is a bad thing, even when it comes about questions.

Other than that, I like the work of being a treasure hunter during my playthrough.

So when you say removed boss battles/rift battles, does that include the whole 'break shield' mechanic that V13 currently has? Just asking for more elaboration that's all. And does these 'boss battles' include the shadow dens in route 4 or is that routes mechanics getting an overhaul to accommodate for the boss battle removal?

Regardless the maps are fantistic and that you are getting all the breaks you could want. Keep up the good work!

Lurker here. I'm honestly really saddened to hear about the removal of boss battles. Personally I really enjoyed them and found them to be engaging compared to before. From a thematic perspective I always thought this made more sense than how things worked prior to V13 - for example, Rift Carnivine having a bunch of rift tangelas with it for some reason, or Rift Hippowdown having a clone. These additions always felt contrived or arbitrary in order to create difficulty rather than serving an actual purpose. Granted I think there are cases where the game benefits from not having this tacked on to certain fights where it felt unnecessary (looking at you Clear & Isha) but I think overall the game benefits from having to strategise and utilise gameplay elements to succeed. At the same time I think boss fights are no less cheesable than they were before so I'm trying to understand the issues that arose really.

I get there's a bottom line and at a certain point the game being difficult and stunts progression because people get stuck on fights they struggle to win when they're really just interested in the story. I just have this sinking feeling that fights will end up being underwhelming as a result where certain major events like against the Puppet Master will end up being trivialised (destiny bond go brrr) or silly (6 mini puppet masters?). And yeah, I get "let people play how they want to play" but I think it goes hand in hand by having spectacle abridged to difficulty. Maybe there's a compromise where some fights retain the mechanic or you can destiny bond once the shields are down? I don't know really; I liked this mechanic and I'm sad to see it go.

Regarding the streamlining this is something I'm surprised to hear about as I always thought the early game was fairly streamlined to begin with. Interested to see how things pan out really. Artwork is stellar like always but you probably hear about that a lot.

27 minutes ago, Jan said:

A fair criticism. I should reiterate that all these plans are long term goals and may or not be acted upon depending on feedback from the community. So if a majority of the community feels as though boss battles should stay-- Then that outcome is considered. Currently they are pretty restrictive, and if a player chooses to want to cheese a fight that is too hard for them then they should have the right to do so. I feel as though the freedom to cater to your own playstyle is just as important. A slippery slope, though. Regardless, we're as previously stated we are -constantly- looking at feedback so if there are things people are not happy with, this is the time to speak up, as you have. 

To be honest I found the boss battles with the shields a little TOO difficulty (When I play on intense I feel like I just get rolled over no matter what team I send in) Like for example the Valor Mountain Giratina: 1-Shots everything on my team, didn't even get to touch the thing unless its with a Priority move, but even then the shields just eat it so it feels like it's a little too unfair personally. 

13 minutes ago, ArcyEverlight said:

To be honest I found the boss battles with the shields a little TOO difficulty (When I play on intense I feel like I just get rolled over no matter what team I send in) Like for example the Valor Mountain Giratina: 1-Shots everything on my team, didn't even get to touch the thing unless its with a Priority move, but even then the shields just eat it so it feels like it's a little too unfair personally. 

I kinda agree with you but when I look back on it, I found that I have fond memories of that sense of accomplishment when I beat each boss, it just felt so good, so I think the bosses should saty but maybe like a little easier. I don't know but like I think maybe the progressive difficulty they talked about is good(i plan on restarting every new big update). but yeah, I like the feeling you get when you're close to beating the boss, and you do it. it just feels great. so maybe like just to throw the idea out there, keep the bosses but maybe make them a bit like removin a little bit of the bs some of these bosses do. 

42 minutes ago, ArcyEverlight said:

To be honest I found the boss battles with the shields a little TOO difficulty (When I play on intense I feel like I just get rolled over no matter what team I send in) Like for example the Valor Mountain Giratina: 1-Shots everything on my team, didn't even get to touch the thing unless its with a Priority move, but even then the shields just eat it so it feels like it's a little too unfair personally. 

That is only one of the many to be fair, and probably one of the ones with the worst balancing... In my experience (I too play intense,) the rift battles, baring maybe gardevoir and hippowdon are perfectly fine. It's the boss battles where its a gauntlet like wispy tower giratina into an immediate Geara fight. Or when that rift mon is WITH a trainer, like giratina with Isha or Clear's Naganadel for example. I guess Madame X's Yveltal on intense can be lumped in with those two as well. If I had to say, I would say the 3 giratina fights, Clear, and Madame X's Yveltal could easily be removed and it would be nothing but a benefit. But the rift fights? Let's be honest, those are EXPONENTIALLY better than they used to be. Admittedly, one or two could use some tweaking, like hippowdon being bulky as all get out, or dufaux having a tad too high hp, but those are minor tweaks to say the least, definitely nothing warranting removal. Not to mention most if not all of the rift battles have pokemon that can easily stomp them available before you fight them. Or in some cases, the fights were never balanced super evenly to begin with. Remember v12 Rift Chandelure? you could fight that thing with like, level 50s and it was like 75 or something. But I think the biggest thing about the "difficult" rifts like gardevoir, hippowdon, dufaux, etc, that I personally noticed? Almost each and every time I would get them to like one or two hits away. I think the biggest balances to those fights could be removing one or two barriers, tweaking the hp down a bit and it's a fair AND difficult fight. I know Jan doesn't like limiting players on how they play, and that's the sign of a good dev, but one of the best parts about v13's intense mode for me was finding new ways to win fights, or new pokemon I enjoyed using. In reality, forcing people to step outside that comfort zone for ONE FIGHT every like 2 or more chapters isn't limiting them as horribly as one might think. Reborn and Rejuvenation have a lot of difficult fights, EVEN IN NORMAL MODE, that ask the player to change their team to confront the next obstacle, having players that use boss killing strats like Destiny Bond swap their playstyle for one fight now and again won't kill them. If that were the case, the entire game would be limiting players who want to use only grass types, or only water types, or only fire types. Or even only 6 specific pokemon. You won't get to use the same team in every single fight, and that's ok, that's part of what makes these games fun. If the problem is difficulty with specific fights, tackle or tweak them. If some fights are fine as is, why touch them?

20 minutes ago, Shaytoplay said:

That is only one of the many to be fair, and probably one of the ones with the worst balancing... In my experience (I too play intense,) the rift battles, baring maybe gardevoir and hippowdon are perfectly fine. It's the boss battles where its a gauntlet like wispy tower giratina into an immediate Geara fight. Or when that rift mon is WITH a trainer, like giratina with Isha or Clear's Naganadel for example. I guess Madame X's Yveltal on intense can be lumped in with those two as well. If I had to say, I would say the 3 giratina fights, Clear, and Madame X's Yveltal could easily be removed and it would be nothing but a benefit. But the rift fights? Let's be honest, those are EXPONENTIALLY better than they used to be. Admittedly, one or two could use some tweaking, like hippowdon being bulky as all get out, or dufaux having a tad too high hp, but those are minor tweaks to say the least, definitely nothing warranting removal. Not to mention most if not all of the rift battles have pokemon that can easily stomp them available before you fight them. Or in some cases, the fights were never balanced super evenly to begin with. Remember v12 Rift Chandelure? you could fight that thing with like, level 50s and it was like 75 or something. But I think the biggest thing about the "difficult" rifts like gardevoir, hippowdon, dufaux, etc, that I personally noticed? Almost each and every time I would get them to like one or two hits away. I think the biggest balances to those fights could be removing one or two barriers, tweaking the hp down a bit and it's a fair AND difficult fight. I know Jan doesn't like limiting players on how they play, and that's the sign of a good dev, but one of the best parts about v13's intense mode for me was finding new ways to win fights, or new pokemon I enjoyed using. In reality, forcing people to step outside that comfort zone for ONE FIGHT every like 2 or more chapters isn't limiting them as horribly as one might think. Reborn and Rejuvenation have a lot of difficult fights, EVEN IN NORMAL MODE, that ask the player to change their team to confront the next obstacle, having players that use boss killing strats like Destiny Bond swap their playstyle for one fight now and again won't kill them. If that were the case, the entire game would be limiting players who want to use only grass types, or only water types, or only fire types. Or even only 6 specific pokemon. You won't get to use the same team in every single fight, and that's ok, that's part of what makes these games fun. If the problem is difficulty with specific fights, tackle or tweak them. If some fights are fine as is, why touch them?

I have no problem with the Rift pokemon I love those ones. I pretty much first-try all of those no problem, even if its with a bit of casualties, but yes the Giratina, that Groudon battle, the Kyogre, the 4 shields to break through is just a bit too much

Please don't make Casual Mode hard. In that case i never pass 7 gym. 

How are you changing

?

Also will Venam and early game gyms still have 6 Pokemon? I think that having to face a full team for a badge from the beginning is somewhat iconic for the 'hard' fangames like Reborn and Rejuvenation.

39 minutes ago, Shaytoplay said:

That is only one of the many to be fair, and probably one of the ones with the worst balancing... In my experience (I too play intense,) the rift battles, baring maybe gardevoir and hippowdon are perfectly fine. It's the boss battles where its a gauntlet like wispy tower giratina into an immediate Geara fight. Or when that rift mon is WITH a trainer, like giratina with Isha or Clear's Naganadel for example. I guess Madame X's Yveltal on intense can be lumped in with those two as well. If I had to say, I would say the 3 giratina fights, Clear, and Madame X's Yveltal could easily be removed and it would be nothing but a benefit. But the rift fights? Let's be honest, those are EXPONENTIALLY better than they used to be. Admittedly, one or two could use some tweaking, like hippowdon being bulky as all get out, or dufaux having a tad too high hp, but those are minor tweaks to say the least, definitely nothing warranting removal. Not to mention most if not all of the rift battles have pokemon that can easily stomp them available before you fight them. Or in some cases, the fights were never balanced super evenly to begin with. Remember v12 Rift Chandelure? you could fight that thing with like, level 50s and it was like 75 or something. But I think the biggest thing about the "difficult" rifts like gardevoir, hippowdon, dufaux, etc, that I personally noticed? Almost each and every time I would get them to like one or two hits away. I think the biggest balances to those fights could be removing one or two barriers, tweaking the hp down a bit and it's a fair AND difficult fight. I know Jan doesn't like limiting players on how they play, and that's the sign of a good dev, but one of the best parts about v13's intense mode for me was finding new ways to win fights, or new pokemon I enjoyed using. In reality, forcing people to step outside that comfort zone for ONE FIGHT every like 2 or more chapters isn't limiting them as horribly as one might think. Reborn and Rejuvenation have a lot of difficult fights, EVEN IN NORMAL MODE, that ask the player to change their team to confront the next obstacle, having players that use boss killing strats like Destiny Bond swap their playstyle for one fight now and again won't kill them. If that were the case, the entire game would be limiting players who want to use only grass types, or only water types, or only fire types. Or even only 6 specific pokemon. You won't get to use the same team in every single fight, and that's ok, that's part of what makes these games fun. If the problem is difficulty with specific fights, tackle or tweak them. If some fights are fine as is, why touch them?

i whole heartedly agree with this

If anything, it could be possible to have a password enable shield-mechanic-bosses. I personally didn't like them since i like relying on cheap strats, but i can see their appeal and it would be sad to have no way of fighting them like that.

Excited to see what’s in store. I think it’s safe to say you guys know what you’re doing so I trust your judgment completely, it is your game after all. I wish you good luck with working on the project. Make sure you guys take breaks so you don’t get burnt out, I will gladly wait as long as necessary to play. As long as you are all happy then I’m also very happy. Take care!

wow did you remap the entirety of Terajuma??

Dang. I'm sad to see the shield mechanic go, but I can see why it's an extreme barrier. Good luck on development! I look forward to 13.5 ^^

You can make shields act like an extra life to the pokemon . So super effective move should be able to destroy 1 shield per 1 or 2 moves depending on the damage. And normal moves will destroy it in 1 to 3 moves depending on the damage. And non effective moves take even more turns to destroy the shield.

This will make the game a little bit easier and allow players to stratergise more . So moves like destiny bound and perish song  and 1 hit KO will also destroy 1 shield .

sadge

back to cheesing bosses with D bond

Take your time with it, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. Things that take longer mean more work can be put into them to make it great.

for the shield mechanic i personally think it still fits with master of nightmares

great news overall! can't wait to play the next version!

regarding the boss battles, I do think they are hard, I did sweat and bleed and cry and whine about a boss or another, and I can get why this content could be removed ; however I also agree with what has been said earlier about slightly nerfing the shields. Less bars or less hp to break them would totally do the trick ! It wasn't the feature that was frustrating in my experience, it's the amount of tries and the "screw it that's just unfair" sentiment that was causing problems for me.

But again, removing it is understandable, just wanted to share my opinion. Keep up the good work guys!! <3

28 minutes ago, Zumi said:

 

See, this is a comment I will never understand-- How come you feel forced to use D-bond? The choice to do so is entirely up to the player because you could as easily just choose to not carry a mon on you with a cheese move, it's not something we as the devs obligate people to do or use. You can make a fight as easy or challenging as you want yourself, we're simply leaving the choice open for people if they don't want to spend a ton of time to beat a fight.

Joking :S

beside hippodown because im not a fan of lowering atk stall to setup

i can defeat all the other rift boss :S

i may still use d bond on clear nagadel cause YEAAAAA

not dealing with that

period

I'm interested to see what happens with Casual/Story Mode. I did enjoy beating some of the hard fights on that mode (that I found hard), it felt like something I could accomplish without having to go so in-depth will competitive Pokemon!

 

As a player who never touched difficulties other than extreme I just hope game won't lose that challenge feeling overcoming which feels satisfying.

I have to agree that the shields mechanic felt annoying so I won't miss it. 

Looking forward for 13.5 but a bit worried about difficulty

More encounters? Could this mean Gyarados is becoming available?

Like many others my main concern is difficulty. .  Part of the enjoyment even as a person who didnt play intense was defeating and overcoming the challenge, the removal of boss feels like its going to lose the enjoyment of that. . I hate the shields though glad thats gone.

24 minutes ago, RS_TheWarden said:

Like many others my main concern is difficulty. .  Part of the enjoyment even as a person who didnt play intense was defeating and overcoming the challenge, the removal of boss feels like its going to lose the enjoyment of that. . I hate the shields though glad thats gone.

I think they're still keeping the fights themselves, just changing them back into normal mechanic fights. So boss battles will still be a thing, just more like they were back in v12 I assume. Lol.

Will the Gothita event fight in Sheridan also be changed back from shields to regular?

Have to agree with the people on Boss Battles/Rift Battles, Personally? I loved them. Sure they were difficult but I liked that and removing or merging them into other fights entirely feels like too much of a change. I’m not an intense player myself so I can’t speak for them but I never found any of them to be overly difficult even when not bothering to use much in the way of EV training or Team optimization. Beating them gave me a sense of accomplishment and I loved how they were fit into the story. 
 

Even the shield mechanic was acceptable in my opinion, the only real issue was when bosses were thrown at you with no heals or anything. Even then, that’s what item spam is for. Nothing a few revises and potions can’t fix.  

hey Jan who is your favorite character in the game also I'm a huge fan of your work

Currently on my first playthrough (hardstuck on flying gym leader). Rift battles are by far the coolest part of the game, I really hope they don't get removed completely.

I also noticed they're significantly easier in doubles because you don't have the "this legend outspeeds and one shots each member of my team" experience, so maybe a solution is to make them all double battles?

I'm a Normal player here and I honestly enjoyed the shield mechanic. I feel like at minimum the rift fights should keep the shields and remove them for Giratina, Groudon etc. to make a proper distinction between the boss battles and make the rift fights more special. My first playthrough was V12 and I honestly found some rifts like Volcanion and Carnivine to be far less engaging and a bit boring then. In V13 I actually had fun fighting those two thanks to the shields. In addition for Aelita, I found the golems more of a threat in V12 than the rift itself. 

At the end of the day it is your game and I will support whatever decision you make but I will feel a bit sad to see the shields go for the rifts at least.

Personally, I found the fights really challenging and engaging. HOWEVER, there was issues. Rift Hippowdon felt more of an unkillable machine that will never have less bulk than a true challenge. I enjoyed it nonetheless, but its shields were a pain in the ass. Haven't done Isha's fight w/ giratina, so I have no opinion on that one. But Clear's Naganadel was excessively excessive. I liked the other boss fights with shields, but maybe those two need some rework, becuase they felt more of a russian roulette than a hard fight.

I don't particularly care for the dificulty of the fights or whatnot, i wouldn't mind them getting easier or harder, all i can say is that i really enjoyed the feeling of going 6 (or 12 with a tag partner) against a single super strong enemy, it spiced up the gameplay, it was different from the gym battles, or rival battles... or villain battles.... 
So i won't cry if they change, but i personally wish they remain as the cool "your whole team versus 1 big guy" rather than merging them into a regular fight that the game already is 99% of the time

Personal take here: If the password system is being added from reborn, I think a noshield or ezboss password could be made. Make an NPC mention this somewhere around rift gyrados/galvantula/volcanion. I will still love the game regardless and I will be very excited that rift gardevoir is no longer a massive pain in my side, but for just about every other rift/boss battle besides maybe kyogre or the ones included in a 6 mon team like with clear, they felt relatively balanced to me.

The opposite could also be true I guess, maybe there will be a password for reverting the bosses to the current level of difficulty. But for my opinion on the matter, I think passwords should be quality of life or making the game easier, with the exception of stuff like EV and IV maxing and limiting money.

I also prefer the shields to be one’s with the rift Pokémon. I also liked the boss battles, sure some made me want to pull my hair out like with Giratina, Groudon, etc and feel unneeded, but it is a good mechanic.

Boy Oh Boy

This is Really Going to Be An Exciting Moment Coming Soon

a bit Sad That Boss Fight Are going to be Gone 

i had fun with jt even if sometime they have a bit of annoyance to deal with

But That doesn t mean I Didn t like it.

as Soon As i See v13.5 coming to Update

I ll go Download it ASAP!

I'm gonna go against the grain here and say I completely agree that the Boss mechanic, though can be cool, is unbalanced. It's simply not a mechanic that was intended to be in the base Pokemon game and  is probably too difficult to implement especially on top of all the  field effects (they might as well be an entirely unique mechanic seeing how different it is from the official games). Pokemon is at the end of the day a team based game which is why Gamefreak makes sure there are multiple ways to easily deal with singular threats, you could even say that the Singles format revolves around this concept of threats and checks which the boss mechamic breaks. The "single boss" experience only really exists if you're trying to catch the mon. The field effects already make some playstyles harder to use because of how much offensive advantage it can give. The boss mechanic is even more oppressive as it just shuts down certain moves. 

I think we retroactively value the diffficulty the boss battles bring higher after beating it and forgetting the frustration in getting there. It's something similar to Intense imo or any game known for it's difficulty. There is an unbalanced mechanic/part/boss within the game > players bash their heads against it > they eventually win > the accomplishment clouds their judgement of its fairness > devs recognizes the problem and tries to fix it > players protest because now the game is easier and they feel that the experience is now "cheaper" somehow. It's an unproductive way of looking at game balance especially since this is an incredibly lenghty project. It would suck for them to try and implement a mechanic and not be able to change or remove it down the line if they decided it was unbalanced because of that mentality.

Remember this mechanic has only been here for 1 version, it wasn't here for all the previous ones and the game was just fine before, in fact it was still too difficult for some people. It was the game we all loved for years before v13 was released and it didn't have the boss mechanic for all those years.

This really blows. I get that some people rather have a casual gameplay I do, but it seems like the option of people who want a much difficult experience is being removed. Insane mode is gone, normal mode is being toned down... The thrill and adrenaline from a difficult challenge in this game is what really gets me hooked. I just hope there remains an option at the very least for players who want to suffer instead of seemingly being forced to play an easy route. 

This is my favorite Pokemon game of all time so that'd really be a killer if it completely went the reborn easier route they've done. Just please at the very least if you go through this route let us have a choice to play with these boss battles on/off and retain the difficulty so both sides of the group can be happy.

41 minutes ago, TopBlade said:

This really blows. I get that some people rather have a casual gameplay I do, but it seems like the option of people who want a much difficult experience is being removed. Insane mode is gone, normal mode is being toned down... The thrill and adrenaline from a difficult challenge in this game is what really gets me hooked. I just hope there remains an option at the very least for players who want to suffer instead of seemingly being forced to play an easy route. 

 

This is my favorite Pokemon game of all time so that'd really be a killer if it completely went the reborn easier route they've done. Just please at the very least if you go through this route let us have a choice to play with these boss battles on/off and retain the difficulty so both sides of the group can be happy.

The truth is, that not every one can be pleased at the same time. And besides, I am sure someone will make a mod for an extreme difficulty.

On 6/1/2022 at 10:15 PM, Shaytoplay said:

Reborn and Rejuvenation have a lot of difficult fights, EVEN IN NORMAL MODE, that ask the player to change their team to confront the next obstacle, having players that use boss killing strats like Destiny Bond swap their playstyle for one fight now and again won't kill them.

I mean, wouldn't it be the opposite? If moves like Destiny Bond or Perish Song are "boss killing strats," then the fact that most bosses are immune to those strats makes them pretty useless, no? Against 6-mon teams they're really not that strong, since they can either switch, or they're down to their last Pokemon, in which case it's not really necessary at that point 9 times out of 10. They're best use is against big, singular enemies. However, 90% of the big 1v6 fights see the moves rendered completely unusable.
Speaking from experience, I've probably clicked Perish Song on my Mismagius three times total, once to test it out, once as a mis-click, and the third time I used it the Pokemon went down before the timer even ran out.

Also, in general the Shield mechanic can feel likean attempt at adding artificial difficulty, and they don't particularly add much sense of accomplishment to the fight in the end. All the mechanic added to my battle against Kyogre in Valor Mountain was that I had to Toxic stall it for 20 turns or so instead of 12 turns (and since Kyogre outspeeds and OHKOs nearly everything in my box, that's not much of a difference). While I don't mind their use in the Rift fights, that's mostly because I've barely noticed them in the Rift fights, and even then the seemingly arbitrary restrictions on what does and doesn't work on them sometimes bugs me.

4 hours ago, Red_CV6 said:

I mean, wouldn't it be the opposite? If moves like Destiny Bond or Perish Song are "boss killing strats," then the fact that most bosses are immune to those strats makes them pretty useless, no? Against 6-mon teams they're really not that strong, since they can either switch, or they're down to their last Pokemon, in which case it's not really necessary at that point 9 times out of 10. They're best use is against big, singular enemies. However, 90% of the big 1v6 fights see the moves rendered completely unusable.
Speaking from experience, I've probably clicked Perish Song on my Mismagius three times total, once to test it out, once as a mis-click, and the third time I used it the Pokemon went down before the timer even ran out.

Also, in general the Shield mechanic can feel likean attempt at adding artificial difficulty, and they don't particularly add much sense of accomplishment to the fight in the end. All the mechanic added to my battle against Kyogre in Valor Mountain was that I had to Toxic stall it for 20 turns or so instead of 12 turns (and since Kyogre outspeeds and OHKOs nearly everything in my box, that's not much of a difference). While I don't mind their use in the Rift fights, that's mostly because I've barely noticed them in the Rift fights, and even then the seemingly arbitrary restrictions on what does and doesn't work on them sometimes bugs me.

Alright alright alright... I had like 4 BIG paragraphs typed out covering every point buuuut I feel like i'll get in trouble or something for posting all of it cuz it might seem like spam, so I'll summarize my points as best as possible, while giving as much grasp as possible to them.

1. "boss kill strats:" I didn't mean for what I said to come off as "game keepy" whiiiich I felt like I kinda did in my original post. Reaaaally regret that and wish I articulated myself better. But I always fell back on these strats as a way out of a rough fight when I had no answer. IE: 1 enemy makes the fight too rough? get out of jail free card! If the whole fight is over cuz of that card it feels kinda anti-climactic. Given the nature of this game's story being very Anime esc, that seems unfortunate. So I always found D-bond, Endeavor and Painsplit useful in 6v6. Perish song is just garbo tho.

2. The Rough Stuff: As I mentioned in my original post, I think a lot of things like kyogre need change. I don't mind these fights losing their shield for your exact points. They're too fast, too strong, and in too good of fields to be balanced with shields on top of it. Remove shields in those fights. Giratinas don't need em, Groudon doesn't need em, kyogre DEFINITELY doesn't need them. These fights are all early enough for early players to get to relatively easily and are insanely difficult. But like... Thats just 4 or 5 fights give or take... the later ones like PM don't need that much change cuz its super late, it's meant to be super hard by then, and the early ones, by your admission, don't feel difficult. Gyarados I could see catching some people off guard, especially if they aren't prepared for it, but I don't see it ending too many runs... So... why remove the shields from these ones if they don't impact the fights all that much? Why not just remove it from the stupid legendaries?

3. Skill issue? ABSOLUTELY NOT!: In earlier versions of the game, a lot of these fights were also hard, Gyarados especially comes to mind for the exact same reasons as kyogre does now. It outsped, it one shot, it had fewer counters. And it was one of the few big mons you couldn't have a "boss killer" ready for. But, this was solved with its ghost type tacked on for more weaknesses, a small adjustment to its stats (seemingly... cannot actually confirm that one) and moveset. If the rift fights are part of the problem for newer players, why not tweak them and make them easier? it's clearly possible. Most fights weren't polished properly for a long time anyway. If a 1v6 fight can't be beaten without a "boss killing strat" then clearly it isn't the player's fault, the fight is too difficult to begin with and will need adjustment one way or another.

4. Lore and Swag: And now for the part most people can probably agree on, regardless of difficulty level. They're cool. They're cool fights. And if it was made so shields only applied to rift fights, and not trainers/legends, it would feel nicer. Suuure they aren't wildly difficult at that point, especially after balancing/polishing, but who cares? If its cool and doesn't make things impossible for newbies why not have fun and keep it! It works so well with most, if not all of the fights, especially PM, Regi, Hiphoppotumus and the vine one. The older ones felt so much nicer without the random extras around. Cool and unique ideas that work (enough) shouldn't be removed. But I guess thats any opinion, not an objective argument lol.

EDIT: IF WE REAAAALLY WANNA CATER TO EVERYONE THO. Maybe... Just MAYBE... Devs if you read this... leave the boss battles in the files and have them be accessible via password when that system comes. That way everyone wins?

I simply adored the shielded boss fights on v13.0 intense mode. I will mourn the mechanic's death in 13.5 along with the death of intense mode, but I understand that my elitist enthusiasm is unpopular. I guess this just means that v13.0 will be a personal gem that I will return to in the future even when v14+ is current.

2 hours ago, Shaytoplay said:

Alright alright alright... I had like 4 BIG paragraphs typed out covering every point buuuut I feel like i'll get in trouble or something for posting all of it cuz it might seem like spam, so I'll summarize my points as best as possible, while giving as much grasp as possible to them.

1. "boss kill strats:" I didn't mean for what I said to come off as "game keepy" whiiiich I felt like I kinda did in my original post. Reaaaally regret that and wish I articulated myself better. But I always fell back on these strats as a way out of a rough fight when I had no answer. IE: 1 enemy makes the fight too rough? get out of jail free card! If the whole fight is over cuz of that card it feels kinda anti-climactic. Given the nature of this game's story being very Anime esc, that seems unfortunate. So I always found D-bond, Endeavor and Painsplit useful in 6v6. Perish song is just garbo tho.

2. The Rough Stuff: As I mentioned in my original post, I think a lot of things like kyogre need change. I don't mind these fights losing their shield for your exact points. They're too fast, too strong, and in too good of fields to be balanced with shields on top of it. Remove shields in those fights. Giratinas don't need em, Groudon doesn't need em, kyogre DEFINITELY doesn't need them. These fights are all early enough for early players to get to relatively easily and are insanely difficult. But like... Thats just 4 or 5 fights give or take... the later ones like PM don't need that much change cuz its super late, it's meant to be super hard by then, and the early ones, by your admission, don't feel difficult. Gyarados I could see catching some people off guard, especially if they aren't prepared for it, but I don't see it ending too many runs... So... why remove the shields from these ones if they don't impact the fights all that much? Why not just remove it from the stupid legendaries?

3. Skill issue? ABSOLUTELY NOT!: In earlier versions of the game, a lot of these fights were also hard, Gyarados especially comes to mind for the exact same reasons as kyogre does now. It outsped, it one shot, it had fewer counters. And it was one of the few big mons you couldn't have a "boss killer" ready for. But, this was solved with its ghost type tacked on for more weaknesses, a small adjustment to its stats (seemingly... cannot actually confirm that one) and moveset. If the rift fights are part of the problem for newer players, why not tweak them and make them easier? it's clearly possible. Most fights weren't polished properly for a long time anyway. If a 1v6 fight can't be beaten without a "boss killing strat" then clearly it isn't the player's fault, the fight is too difficult to begin with and will need adjustment one way or another.

4. Lore and Swag: And now for the part most people can probably agree on, regardless of difficulty level. They're cool. They're cool fights. And if it was made so shields only applied to rift fights, and not trainers/legends, it would feel nicer. Suuure they aren't wildly difficult at that point, especially after balancing/polishing, but who cares? If its cool and doesn't make things impossible for newbies why not have fun and keep it! It works so well with most, if not all of the fights, especially PM, Regi, Hiphoppotumus and the vine one. The older ones felt so much nicer without the random extras around. Cool and unique ideas that work (enough) shouldn't be removed. But I guess thats any opinion, not an objective argument lol.

EDIT: IF WE REAAAALLY WANNA CATER TO EVERYONE THO. Maybe... Just MAYBE... Devs if you read this... leave the boss battles in the files and have them be accessible via password when that system comes. That way everyone wins?

Yeah that end point is what I don't understand either. Why can't everyone just win here? I mean players looking for a challenge are getting more and more taken away when it could just stay in the game as an on/off option.

People that don't want the actual additional difficulty play without it, and those that do keep it on at the start of the game. Boom the more casual side, and the side that doesn't want a breeze through the story wins, everybody eats.

Oh the destiny bond topic there's immersion. It's like if in Elden Ring in every boss you had an auto win button. Sure you can choose to not use it, but it really breaks any depths when you know at any point you can just cheese and proceed. Giving you complete control of a situation like that removes any threat and any accomplishment of winning, since you always have this "auto win" in your backpocket at the shields prevented that, at least my take. Regardless, I still think keeping it as a toggleable option is the best instead of removing it.

So I'm going to the shop to get some booze ready for a drinking challenge, I'll take a shot each time someone still gets upset over this (I'm not talking about those with valid criticisms here, I'm talking those who are bitching for the sake of bitching) and get mad at Jan because they can't read Zumi's post. /s (seriously not trying to get myself put in hospital here)

Y'all gotta note that many people completed said survey and many people said it was difficult. Y'all can't really complain about stuff if you're not interacting with the stuff where the devs are literally asking for feedback (unless you're the small minority of people that whinge that actually does interact with said stuff which in this case you can somewhat whinge but make sure you don't whinge too much at Jan and the devs).

Difficulty mods are always a thing since with Reborn and Deso there's always someone that's gonna bitch "this game is too easy bro". So I have a challenge for the community, if you have something you wish to say regarding difficulty and such please fill out the survey supplied by agent Jannifer, who is totally getting pokemon Violet for horny (wait I forgot this is fisher price land now and I can't say horny) reasons. If you from this moment complain about stuff in any Rejuv dev blog post without going into the feedback forms and filling out the things to make your experiences heard, Gnome Chompski will sneak into your room at night and screech in his lovely dulcet tones "YOU HAVE FAILED THE CHALLENGE! THANK YOU FOR PLAYING! HAE HEE!"

 

*Grabs Popcorn*
*Ctrl+F "Intense"*

Jan, Zumi, thank you for the constant updates and for dealing with people that, frankly, you should NOT have to deal with. Some of this backlash is insane. I guess this is what comes with a game that is "harder than Reborn", though the post game of Reborn might have something to say about that.

Know that there are plenty of lurkers, or people who don't post all that often like me, that love the game for the story, and for the challenge, and most importantly, that we trust you! I don't have enough to support on patreon unfortunately, but I refresh the rejuv dev log on almost a daily basis to look for the newest post from Jan revealing the nice new areas we get to explore in 13.5 or the new regional forms or the character art or whatever is in store. There are more of the enjoyers of the game no matter what than the people who are complaining. It's just the complainers are louder than usual since the game is so "hard core" at times. Keep up the good work, I am hyped for 13.5 and I'm sure it will be worth the wait! :)

I like these changes. My number one gripe about these amazing fangames is that with custom things like Rifts/Pulses and Field effects is that in the end, all they do is power u the enemy Pokemon and turn everything into a one shot. It's like "oh they're perfectly suited to exploit the field and now every pokemon can one shot my team". I eventually win these battles of course, but more often than not it feels like an artificial thing to increase difficulty. Just my 2 cents

So, I feel a bit mixed on this depending on how it is implemented. 

I am a normal mode player.  I don't do intense or casual.  I always felt like Reborn and Rejuvenation were made for Pokemon players who already knew the mechanics, not new players.  Normal mode always felt like the perfect middle ground for me.  Not as casually mindless as the mainline games and not as crazy sweat as PvP (PvP is too sweat, I cannot keep up with that ish).  I understand the idea of something ramping up, and that would make sense if this were a completely different game with completely different mechanics.  However, as this is a pokemon game that seems to be geared towards familiar players, I feel like that ramp up in difficulty is not necessary.  I will say with ep.19 in Reborn, I did notice that the beginning seemed way easier than I remembered.  Too easy.  I love getting steamrolled cause I underestimated a boss/rival fight.  Obviously the fight needs to be beatable and fair, but I love the challenge and I love seeing certain strats in play.  Heck, I love beating those strats.  I did not have any issues with early Rejuvenation battles a few episodes ago.  If I remember correctly, with the newest release of Rejuvenation, everything seemed pretty easy until after the Venam gym.  Sometime after that it felt like it went back to the usual Rejuvenation difficulty which I liked.

Also in regards to the boss pokemon and the shields.  So.... I actually thought the bosses were a lot easier with the shields.  I will admit that I don't use insta-kill strats (never thought about using them actually so now I just feel dumb).  When it was double battles where you had the boss and 4-5 minion pokes, those were the battles that really made me think and strategize.  I remember the joltik fight and the gardevior fight specifically being difficult but oh so satisfying when I beat it.  Both variants felt like bosses, but one felt easier than the other.  On another note, I like the boss mons getting their own fight.  I feel like it gives them that sense of importance, which fits the narrative since the story makes them out to be a big deal.  If they are sidelined into a trainer battle that kinda undermines them and reduces their impact.

Overall, it is your game and you have free reign to do what you want with it.  My personal opinion is that the game does feel like it has gotten easier over the years.  That does not have to be a bad thing, but it is felt.   I have no issue at all of general small tweaks / balance changes to a few individual fights.  But if too many changes are made to the normal mode, then normal mode might start to feel like casual mode for some players.  I will say that I do agree with what some others have suggested.  If shields are the big issue with difficulty, it might be smart to include a password system like in reborn.  That way if the shields are too difficult you can use the password to take them away without changing the base game.

I do feel like it is very smart and courteous to take our feedback into consideration and to let us know about what is going on on your end.  It does seem that you receive a lot of comments along the lines of "make all the changes and screw the haters", "game too easy now lost IQ points", and "your difficulty was especially designed by satan how dare".  The best way I would look at them is see them as compliments.  All sides love your game and want to continue enjoying it.  One side trusts you fully in the game you want to create.  The other sides love your game, are super committed, and want to see it succeed. 

If you don't want to allow cheese strats for the boss mon fights, you could give them an aura or something that activates upon entering battle to make them immune to D bond or perhaps give each boss aura a unique effect, sort of like the chest items.

Rift battles feel fun and make it actually feel like a boss fight. Some of the harder ones can just be toned down in terms of stats, and they will be fine. The problem I had, is when a trainer uses a boss mon with shields. Feels absolutely unfair and does not make the fight interesting. Basically forces you to sweep the team wit 1-2 mons and then use the rest 4 for the boss mon. Remove those and we will be fine.

Honestly some of the other stuff in v13 was more busted. Ie. the Saki and Hazuki fights. I guarantee anyone who beat this trained up a whole new team to beat them. 

Glad that rift battles are potentially being removed. I thought it was a silly concept since its based on the Sword and shield dens, but you have to face a pokemon with busted stats and shields with only one pokemon at a time.  If youre planning on keeping them in I would recommend having it be a 2 v 1 situation to make it easier. Whether its just our own team of pokemon or our team + an ally

I think - some of the boss battles should be removed, personally? The Puppet Master was a great fight, in my opinion, but some of the other fights were better off without the "Max Raid" mechanics (and shields potentially needing multiple hits to break was a decision that gave me a lot of a headaches).

Galvantula worked better off with those Joltik, in my opinion, and so does Gardevoir - I don't remember all of the Rift pokemon, but I do think some of them just worked out better the way they were before, but some of them are better the way they are now.

I think - well, I don't think you should remove the mechanics for boss battles entirely. Some of the bosses were great with shields, some weren't? Er - yeah. I guess you should just play it by ear. Maybe start a poll to see what bosses people think should keep the shields mechanic and which bosses shouldn't?

I trust you all, the game is amazing, do whatever you want. It will be for the best and I bet my stolen bike on this.

17 hours ago, Outside Indoorsman said:

I think - some of the boss battles should be removed, personally? The Puppet Master was a great fight, in my opinion, but some of the other fights were better off without the "Max Raid" mechanics (and shields potentially needing multiple hits to break was a decision that gave me a lot of a headaches).

Agreed.  I think rather than get rid of the mechanic entirely it's just better applied to some of the 'boss' fights and not all of them.

Splendid work as always! Those pics look amazing!

As for the Normal mode this time around, I'd love to see the battle rosters from Intense mode retained but with the removal of the illegal EVs in most late game fights so that everything doesn't have Toxapex like bulk lol

Just my opinion.

Quote

we are -constantly- looking at feedback so if there are things people are not happy with, this is the time to speak up

If you'll listen to the two cents of a random player, my biggest gripe (though gripe is perhaps a strong word) is the fact that Rejuv keeps all the vanilla pokemon stats and movesets. So does Reborn.

I like playing with my favourites a lot and do it very often, but my favourites happen to include a lot of... Less than stellar mons. I'd struggle a lot on the gym fights past Venam, having to spend upwards of an hour of trial and error in some of them. And sure, it's rewarding and all to beat a gym with underpowered mons, but I can only do that so much. By Souta at the absolute latest I'd have to switch to casual mode to keep up and even then it's still challenging.

I like the attempt with crests but they feel like applying a bandaid to the issue:

• Not many mons have access to them (some of which arguably don't need one in the first place)
• Implementing them must be a pain in the ass, so I don't think we'll be getting that many more
• Most of them are locked until quite far into the game
• A lot of them also feel very gimmicky. Sacrificing the item slot is one thing, but usually there's like one single set you can use reliably to take advantage of the crest.

A romhack like Radical Red will rebalance and buff basically every single pokemon who's not a smogon OU tier; that includes about 90% of the whole roster. I don't expect Rejuvenation to ever go into that route, cuz even if you literally copy-pasted RR's rebalances you'd still have to rearrange the whole game's trainers and encounters. I can hope for that Radical Rejuvenation mod to take off, I guess.

On 6/10/2022 at 12:05 PM, ThiroSmash said:

If you'll listen to the two cents of a random player, my biggest gripe (though gripe is perhaps a strong word) is the fact that Rejuv keeps all the vanilla pokemon stats and movesets. So does Reborn.

On 6/10/2022 at 12:05 PM, ThiroSmash said:

A romhack like Radical Red will rebalance and buff basically every single pokemon who's not a smogon OU tier; that includes about 90% of the whole roster. I don't expect Rejuvenation to ever go into that route, cuz even if you literally copy-pasted RR's rebalances you'd still have to rearrange the whole game's trainers and encounters. I can hope for that Radical Rejuvenation mod to take off, I guess.

I've been hoping someone does that for reborn. Would make the game hella interesting with amount of options you can make team wise.

Personally i like that it keeps the vanilla sets (it doesn't, even, since you get access to shadow moves)
The consistency of being able to know what a pokemon can learn from experience, and also being able to just look at bulbapedia is a huge plus for me, rather than being surprised by some random-ass move coming out of nowhere
Shadow Moves and Crests are telegraphed enough to add more variety and not feel weird, especially when a lot of crests add gimmicky stuff that makes a pokemon more fun to use (Shoutouts to Swalot)

Honestly, I really like the boss battle mechanics, I love how they are almost like a puzzle, if you try to bruteforce it, it is going to be extremely difficult, but if you think outside of the box and plan a different strategy, you are able to beat them and it is really satisfiying, though I do admit some balances are needed, and about the limitation of only having one pokemon, isn't it a bit too arbitrary? there could be a mini-boss or something, maybe it has one or two shields that break with any damage isntead of possibly not breaking like a substitute but as a shield or something. I felt a lot of battles and even characters had so much more wheight compared to their v12 counterparts because of the boss battles (because I just perish songed my way to victory in v12, and that's a bit too lame). I get trying to allow cheesing, but there is the fun cheese where you cheese the fight with a smart and different strategy, and there is the, boss appears, perish song, wait 3 turns, victory type of cheese,

I know I am late here, but I loved boss battles.  There's something magical imagining you and Aelita fighting the puppet master together.  Throwing out all of your Pokémon just to beat one Pokémon/person.  It makes sense story wise for these fights too.  Gardevoir is a good example.  Gardevoir should be a boss based off the lore that was given to her.  They are also fun! 

"We don't have details on every single instance of this as of yet, so allow us to work through trials of this before asking too many detailed questions. If there's any comparison that can be made-- PULSE battles in Reborn are the best I got. "

This is a very good change, I never really liked the idea of the boss hp thing with the dynamax shield bars which is pretty much the main problem with them. I've shown rejuv to a few friends and walked each of them through it who are not particularly super knowledgeable on pokemon as a whole or competitive at that and I noticed they would always come to me asking me how to beat a boss and it was either a commonly harder gym leader or a boss pokemon, claiming "how do i win this is unbeatable".

I did a third playthrough of the game and honestly the rift pokemons previous iterations where they just had a shit ton of hp without the dynamax bars were alot easier to navigate than having them. Some of them just require you to change a lot of pokemon on your team (this goes the same with gym battles) and for less experiences pokemon battlers who just wana find a bunch of pokemon they like using and deal with the problems with those pokemon they struggle IMMENSLY.

But given that you just run into the problem of is this the audience we design normal for? Or is that the audience that story mode is for? What kindof game do we even want rejuvenation to come off as? Most of these players are kindof this middle ground of they want to be somewhat challenged or they'll get bored too quickly and say whats the point but they also don't want to have to think too much or put in too much more effort than they think its worth because then they'll think they're wasting their time when even a slight adjustment would make the difference.

To me personally rejuvenation and reborn in terms of the battles have always been a use the tools we give you to solve problems you run into which I absolutely adore. But a majority of people who are gonna try the game don't even know their full type charts or the base stats of most pokemon or even know that they should check what moves a pokemon can learn so they can use it to their advantage in a difficult fight infront of them or that they should even catch a lot of pokemon so they can have options and not have to backtrack later when they look up a guide.

TL;DR + conclusion I think some good solutions to the difficulty without having to change the entire foundation would just be at the beginning explain that the game is super challenging and that you'll need to follow certain concepts in order to progress at the start of the game. Like catching multiple pokemon and raising them is extremely essential to progressing, the ai is SUPER intelligent, and that you are at a distinct disadvantage in most situations because of field effects if you don't work around them correctly etc etc there are so many ways to get across the difficulty and so many ways to help it without just nerf batting fights. (with exception to boss pokemon)

More hints here and there about what to use for example you talk to an npc in the gym or somewhere before the gym (for example: wow Crawli usually never loses but one time I watched him get completely swept by a guy using a crobat and a lot of flying types! it completely decimated Crawli's usual strategy of sticky webs offense!), maybe make the EV trainers cheaper and encourage the player to use it.

Like you said more accessibility to good pokemon is a really good change aswell but I think getting evolution stones earlier would be bigger (for example you get a shiny stone pretty late into the story and if you get a togepi from your mystery egg its just mostly unhelpful until you unlock access to the stone and move relearner)

Maybe putting more TM's in the game earlier that would be a HUGE change for a lot of early/mid/late game pokemon that are generally weak because good stats but no good move syndrome 

And the boss pokemon having dynamax bars is a HUGE problem to the difficulty of them, I wouldn't mind at all just reverting them back to their original states before the change and it would STILL be pretty challenging. Them not being affected by statuses like paralysis and sleep and from being flinched if I remember correctly? + dynamax bars puts a really big restriction on what you're able to do without the right team. (For example the Giratina boss battle early game most effective strategy is to poison it and switch stall between immune pokemon because no pokemon that early can live any hit from it and deal effective damage back, and right after it you fight a hard double battle with no chance to heal or save after so if you fail you have to fight the Giratina again before the double battle)

I like the changes you've proposed so far looking forward to seeing the final version of them