Should Pkmn Games be harder?

[randomspot555]

Yes, I think so. For me, every single generation of pokemon games has been incredibly easy up until I reach the elite 4. In the game I simply choose all the right pokemon to fight each gym, but then all the sudden when you reach the elite 4 there's this huge power creep, and I'm forced to level grind for hours. It's not really a pattern I'd like to continue. I'm sure they could do something to make the games a bit more challenging and enjoyable. Those acting like even the slightest bit of change will destroy the pokemon franchise should simmer down a bit.

"I use the absolute best Pokemon in every situation, and it is so easy. WTH Gamefreak?????"

Outside of Gen II and their remakes, I've never had to "level grind" for the E4. The only way to really do that is if you skip several trainers.

 

[Groundedshock]

I never level grind and I always use the same team of six pokemon in all my games(Ever since BW I have been making a few rotations to my team.) I make the games harder and challenging by paring type disadvatages just for the heck of it. (I think that is why Ash does it....) However the elite four was difficult with level 45-50 Pokemon. You do not really need to level grind; just use type advantages and abilities to your best use.....

errrrrrrrr....Anyway, I wished Pokemon came with a Hard mode option such as your rival's pokemon is one or two levels higher with a type advantage than your pokemon in the beginning, wild pokemon are harder to weaken and harder to catch but easier to train, EXP is not so easily gain by random battles; only with trainers of a skill level like Gym leaders, Ace trainers and Elite four gain you high EXP, Saving money is more important as you gain less, and the battles use more strategy rather than type advantage and power to win.

 

[gliscor&yanmega]

Yes, I think so. For me, every single generation of pokemon games has been incredibly easy up until I reach the elite 4. In the game I simply choose all the right pokemon to fight each gym, but then all the sudden when you reach the elite 4 there's this huge power creep, and I'm forced to level grind for hours. It's not really a pattern I'd like to continue. I'm sure they could do something to make the games a bit more challenging and enjoyable. Those acting like even the slightest bit of change will destroy the pokemon franchise should simmer down a bit.

What do you mean by the "right" Pokemon to fight each gym? Type advantage? If so then...that's probably why it's "incredibly easy", you're using the easy way to battle.

I'm sure people could simply not use the things that make the games easier for someone, such as, not using type advantage(Or the "right" Pokemon), not using healing items, etc...

Also, they have already done something to make the games more challenging, it's called Challenge Mode, regardless of it's difficult requirements, it's still Pokemon's challenge level.

 

[Dryzera]

"I use the absolute best Pokemon in every situation, and it is so easy. WTH Gamefreak?????"

Outside of Gen II and their remakes, I've never had to "level grind" for the E4. The only way to really do that is if you skip several trainers.

Are you attempting to be smart with me or something kid?

Sure, you can do little things to make the pokemon games harder, like the whole "If you die once, you die for real" rule or the nuzlocke challenge, yadda yadda. You can do stuff like that with virtually any game on the planet.

"Oh, I know how to make this shooting game harder guys, let's all get drunk and see if we can still hit the ducks!"

Yeah. It's not so much to ask of video game company to include things in the game to make it more challenging. I don't see why you or anyone else thinks that's tantamount to DESTROYING POKEMONS TRIED AND TRUE FORMULA.

 

[zozo]

Are you attempting to be smart with me or something kid?

Sure, you can do little things to make the pokemon games harder, like the whole "If you die once, you die for real" rule or the nuzlocke challenge, yadda yadda. You can do stuff like that with virtually any game on the planet.

"Oh, I know how to make this shooting game harder guys, let's all get drunk and see if we can still hit the ducks!"

Yeah. It's not so much to ask of video game company to include things in the game to make it more challenging. I don't see why you or anyone else thinks that's tantamount to DESTROYING POKEMONS TRIED AND TRUE FORMULA.

Having a "hard" mode just doesn't fit in with the way Pokemon is designed. It's not like Final Fantasy or Fire Emblem or Metroid where just tweaking the enemies a bit makes the game that much more difficult. In Pokemon, it's the intelligence of the trainer you're against that makes a battle easy or hard, and there's a limit with what they can do to the AI. Having Pokemon at higher levels is the "obvious" solution, but even then you're not really making the game harder. You're just making it so that you have to level grind more. That would certainly increase the frustration-level of the game, but "frustration" and "challenge" are not the same thing. Groundedshock also had some interesting ideas there, but most of them (except for the money thing) seemed to have this same flaw; they can be overcome by extra level-grinding. Not particularly challenging, just time consuming and somewhat frustrating.

Sorry if you don't really like having to do things yourself, but Pokemon simply lends itself to being made easy or hard depending on the choice and actions of the player more so than it does to being made easy or hard by the programmers. That's just how it is. Adding a hard mode wouldn't be a matter of interfering with the mere "tried and true formula" of Pokemon, it would be a matter of radically redesigning the game so that it's less like Pokemon and more like other RPGs. And there's no reason for them to do that.

 

[crystalzapdos]

In the game I simply choose all the right pokemon to fight each gym,

So you go out of your way to make the game easy, and then say it needs to be harder? Why don't you.... y'know.... not use them.

 

[randomspot555]

Are you attempting to be smart with me or something kid?

I was just pointing out how dumb your post was. You admit to intentionally making the game easy (nevermind that this is, after all, a game made for 8 year olds), and then you complain about it being too easy.

It seems like instead of introducing convoluted new mechanics, you could try..you know, not intentionally set out for a type advantage on every single gym.

Yeah. It's not so much to ask of video game company to include things in the game to make it more challenging. I don't see why you or anyone else thinks that's tantamount to DESTROYING POKEMONS TRIED AND TRUE FORMULA.

If only Pokemon games had several different Pokemon to choose from. Maybe they'd all have advantage and disadvantages over eachother, and people could essentially choose their difficulty by the Pokemon they use...

If only a Pokemon game like that existed.

 

[Valkyria!]

It'd be wonderful if the pokemon games were harder. I'm talking about the handheld games, as I haven't tried any console games. The trainers and gym leaders in the pokemon games currently released are way too easy.

Except Whitney and her Miltank. That was tough.

 

[Dryzera]

I was just pointing out how dumb your post was. You admit to intentionally making the game easy (nevermind that this is, after all, a game made for 8 year olds), and then you complain about it being too easy.

It seems like instead of introducing convoluted new mechanics, you could try..you know, not intentionally set out for a type advantage on every single gym.

Your post is dumb. *sticks tongue out*



Seriously though, I think you missed the point. Most people take the quickest route to winning. It's called playing video games. You don't go out getting drunk to make your duck hunting game harder. Or better yet, what would make that super challenging is if you wore a blindfold! I disagree with the premise that introducing one or two things into a game like pokemon to make it harder will fundamentally change the game. Something like "hard mode" could be as simple as wild pokemon leveling up with you as you go. It's not about changing pokemon into something its not, just expounding on what's already there.

And seriously? You don't give 8 year olds enough credit dude. They aren't stupid. I was eight years old and I still remember me and my friends plowing through the game in a matter of days with our overpowered charizards. I'm definitely not a genius or anything, so I think I have somewhat of a point here, haha.

 

[randomspot555]

Seriously though, I think you missed the point. Most people take the quickest route to winning. It's called playing video games.

This is not an answer. Some people play video games for a challenge. If you are one of these people, you probably should go play something besides Pokemon. If you aren't one of those people, then you'd probably enjoy Pokemon as is.

You don't go out getting drunk to make your duck hunting game harder. Or better yet, what would make that super challenging is if you wore a blindfold!

Fortunately, Pokemon is more complex than Duck Hunt was in 1996 or whatever year it was released and there are tons of things you can do (and no, I'm not talking about nuzlocke challenges) to make the game more challenging. It is just that, for whatever reason, you are acting as if they don't exist.

I disagree with the premise that introducing one or two things into a game like pokemon to make it harder will fundamentally change the game.

That's nice. But before advocating for new game mechanics, how about you try playing without a type advantage on every single gym?

And seriously? You don't give 8 year olds enough credit dude. They aren't stupid. I was eight years old and I still remember me and my friends plowing through the game in a matter of days with our overpowered charizards. I'm definitely not a genius or anything, so I think I have somewhat of a point here, haha.

*facepalm*

That was exactly my point,. That you, as someone in his teen years or possibly in his 20s, are complaining about a game's difficulty when the game is made for 8 year olds to easily beat.

 

[xJeffx]

I think the only way they could make the game harder is to have the AI cheat.

 

[gliscor&yanmega]

I don't know why people make a deal out of simply making the games harder themselves. People do realize gamefreak intentionally makes these games very optional so many different people can play at different levels.

Items-Healing items are a big thing. Using them isn't making the game harder, it's making it easier, and that's what it's there for. If you want a harder game, don't revive a Pokemon in a battle after it fainted, don't heal it at all with any items, use a move.

Numbers-I can only imagine the amount of people who do a 6 vs 3 battle against these NPC and will complain they never even lost one, I suppose the fact using more Pokemon then your opponent which is an optional choice to make the games easier for you doesn't really come to people's mind or anything. Why not use the same amount of Pokemon as your opponent.

Type Advantage-I mean seriously, do people use whatever is infront of them or something, do whatever option arises to them? Just because something is there, doesn't mean you have to use it, not everyone does drugs and that, not every jumps of buildings, yah I'm comparing that to a video game because it should require far less effort to not do something in a video game then those things. Seriously, type advantage is there to make it easier, don't depend on it if you want an actual challenge.

There are significant changes you can make yourself by simply not choosing to use easier methods. And even despite all this they still ended up giving you the Challenge Mode in the most recent games, poor accessibility aside, it's still there, you got your challenge, it'll probably only improve as time goes on to be more accessible and more challenging. Other then that, the game itself is fine as is, changing the "Normal" level to "Hard" would only push away their target audience, yah young kids aren't stupid and whatever, but for the most part they probably will be new to Pokemon, they wouldn't know what exactly to do and just go with it, they'd probably struggle a lot. Inexperience makes a game more difficult, experience makes it easier. I'm sure I had a tough time playing the first, second, third, maybe even forth generations, all because I never really invested any time in really learning all the details about how to make the game easier for myself. I had an easy time my first play through of White, but I over leveled way too much, leveling up 5+ levels between each gym really didn't work in the long run. I've played the fifth generations plenty of different times with plenty of different teams, with plenty of different difficulty ranges from really easy to annoyingly hard.

Pokemon games can already be already, if you just don't make them easier for yourself.

I think the only way they could make the game harder is to have the AI cheat.

Which people seem to think Battle Facilities do, I don't know if they are serious but, most people do go through a headache while dealing with the things. Which of course, if you want a challenge, there is that. That's pretty much there for those who want the challenge.

 

[Sketchie]

Pokemon games need to get harder. My first game was hard, but that was my first. I've never been beaten by NPCs since.

 

[gliscor&yanmega]

Pokemon games need to get harder. My first game was hard, but that was my first. I've never been beaten by NPCs since.

No they don't "need" to be anything. You however, can make the games harder for yourself.

How do you play the game as it is? Do you revive your Pokemon after they faint in battle? Do you use more Pokemon then the NPC? Do you spam the type advantage every chance you get?

 

[Groundedshock]

Sooo...There needs to a Hard Mode Option that discourages level grinding? Reminds of Fire Emblem 7 Hector Hard mode. Very difficult and involves alot of strategy as your charcaters can die quickly and permanently. However you can make it easier on you by wasting your time and arena abusing all your characters you want to use. I never arena abuse and "enjoy" the challenge.

If there was a way to discourage level-grinding in Hard mode such as gaining less and less experience as you attempt to level grind would that make it harder or frustrating?

No they don't "need" to be anything. You however, can make the games harder for yourself.

True. I do that all the time.

 

[zozo]

Sooo...There needs to a Hard Mode Option that discourages level grinding? Reminds of Fire Emblem 7 Hector Hard mode. Very difficult and involves alot of strategy as your charcaters can die quickly and permanently. However you can make it easier on you by wasting your time and arena abusing all your characters you want to use. I never arena abuse and "enjoy" the challenge.

If there was a way to discourage level-grinding in Hard mode such as gaining less and less experience as you attempt to level grind would that make it harder or frustrating?

I think that would just be frustrating. And I mean, smash my head on the wall kind of frustrating.

No, I think the way for Pokemon games to be made harder is to make the AI more intelligent. Gale of Darkness is actually a really good example of that. Even in the main story mode, you'd occasionally run into trainers that actually had strategies for their teams that they would try to put into practice against you. And if you didn't predict the right strategy, you could very easily get swept. You know, baton-passing and rain dance and all that fun stuff. It really caught me off-guard several times. They would even switch their pokemon if it was a drastically unfavourable matchup. If you went through Mt. Battle, you saw this even more. It was a pretty good game for that. The AI wasn't perfect, there was still alot of random stupidity in it, but it was much better than what you see in your general handheld trainer battles. Of course, once again you could just level-grind to steamroll over the opponent's strategy, but that was partially overcome by the fact that players weren't really motivated to do that because it took so long. It wasn't that you were getting small exp. payouts or anything (that I noticed), it was just that the animations and whatnot and the fact that they were all full-on trainer battles made each encounter pretty long. Not painfully long or overly frustrating, just long enough that you felt an urge to get on with the game after 3 or 4 battles. So, the level-grinding was an option if you were really determined, it just wasn't as attractive of an option as it is in most of the handheld games.

Another thing that was really good about Gale of Darkness was the Sim Battle option. In it, you were given a specific team, a number of turns to achieve victory by, and you had to figure out how to use your team to overcome the strategy that the opponent was using against you. A lot of them were actually pretty difficult to figure out, and they gave you a lot of insight into possible strategies and the usefulness of different Pokemon.

Those are the sorts of options that, in my mind, seem to be best suited to Pokemon. Playing against real people is possibly the best solution to making the games very challenging, but unfortunately you can't do that for the storyline. Though it would be interesting if they could do that somehow... you know, download some human players that are currently online and accepting challenges, and putting their sprites on routes you're about to explore. Though I expect that would be a nightmare to program.

 

[Aurath8]

No they don't "need" to be anything. You however, can make the games harder for yourself.

How do you play the game as it is? Do you revive your Pokemon after they faint in battle? Do you use more Pokemon then the NPC? Do you spam the type advantage every chance you get?

That's a self-imposed challenge. You can make almost any game challenging with right factors. Thing is, I don't want to have to go out of my way to make the game harder. I want to be able to go through the main story with decent pokemon on, by all accounts, a normal playthrough and experience some challenge. Not because I disadvantage myself, but because I have to carefully manage my team, considering moves, stats and type advantage because my opponent is slightly more powerful. It's a beautiful delicate balance that's easily thrown off because of how easy it is to make the game too easy for yourself.
If the game is too hard? Grind. Just about any battle in the game can be solved by grinding and simply trying your luck again. Heck, you can just use some Rare Candies. I'm not asking for Battle Frontier difficulty, rather I'd levels to scale quicker, and occasionally for the AI to surprise me. Maybe this trainer on Rt. 5 has amazing AI and an underlevelled Rapidash that manages to activate it's Salac Berry and sweep my team. Next time I lead with my Electric type and paralyze him before he gets the chance. Subtle changes to the game like this make sure 8 year olds can still plow through the game with overlevelled starters, and older fans can find more enjoyment in the strategy they love.

 

[gliscor&yanmega]

That's a self-imposed challenge. You can make almost any game challenging with right factors. Thing is, I don't want to have to go out of my way to make the game harder. I want to be able to go through the main story with decent pokemon on, by all accounts, a normal playthrough and experience some challenge. Not because I disadvantage myself, but because I have to carefully manage my team, considering moves, stats and type advantage because my opponent is slightly more powerful. It's a beautiful delicate balance that's easily thrown off because of how easy it is to make the game too easy for yourself.
If the game is too hard? Grind. Just about any battle in the game can be solved by grinding and simply trying your luck again. Heck, you can just use some Rare Candies. I'm not asking for Battle Frontier difficulty, rather I'd levels to scale quicker, and occasionally for the AI to surprise me. Maybe this trainer on Rt. 5 has amazing AI and an underlevelled Rapidash that manages to activate it's Salac Berry and sweep my team. Next time I lead with my Electric type and paralyze him before he gets the chance. Subtle changes to the game like this make sure 8 year olds can still plow through the game with overlevelled starters, and older fans can find more enjoyment in the strategy they love.

You can still have a tough time without disadvantage yourself, but not advantaging yourself.

And in the end, there is a Challenge Mode now anyways, which is bound to be expanded on as time passes.

 

[Aurath8]

You can still have a tough time without disadvantage yourself, but not advantaging yourself.

And in the end, there is a Challenge Mode now anyways, which is bound to be expanded on as time passes.

True. Challenge Mode solves most of the problems of difficulty. All it needs is better execution, since BW2 handled it horridly. Makes me wonder whether it would ever affect puzzles and dungeon layouts.

 

[Fluffyy]

Luckily, there's a difficulty mode that you can go on to make it harder for you. But for me, naah, I know Pokemon is mostly for everyone but I think it's mainly aimed at kids. You can easily make the game harder for yourself as it is, maybe you can go through the game without using revives or potions by yourself.