How To Make Pokemon HARD

HI GUUUUYS thank you for watching my first video (could you tell by the rushed editing and poor audio lmaooooo)
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[thepotatoportal]

"Just increasing the stats is bad"
"Pokemon should use EVs and IVs more"

[socaltrojan]

This can be resolved with a simple difficulty setting at the beginning of the game.

This way, those whom what to play at a higher difficulty vs those that are causal players, or don't care much of the batteling aspect, can choose the way they wish to play without alienating others.

[komarunaegi]

Thank you SO much for this video. So many videos discussing this series are either under-researched, overly-biased, or toxic. People like you and Tama Hero cover all your bases while acknowledging as many sides of a situation as you can, and I respect that, even in cases where I might disagree with either of you.

In this case, I agree with you completely. I’ve been preaching that Pokémon games should just give its Trainers better AI, movesets, strategies, and teams for years, and that’s honestly ALL they need to do.

Sun and Moon was a small start at that! And Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon took what SM did and made it a LOT better.

What’s the point of Pokémon introducing so many different aspects of battling like weather, abilities, status conditions, stat-lowering effects, terrains, team composition, held items, etc and have like, almost ZERO NPCs make actual good use of them? The main game is usually a breeze, but once you beat the game, suddenly battle facilities and competitive battling comes in and throws in a ton of different ways to battle that were almost *never* shown to you beforehand.

USUM is one of the only games that makes an active attempt at using these concepts and teaching you them in a meaningful way. The Route Bosses you mentioned in the video are just one example (some are even meant to teach you how a specific held item or strategy is used in action, and even reward you with said item for beating them.) The Totem Pokémon use everything I’ve been talking about in spades.

It’s weird to me how so many complain about how modern Pokémon games are mind-numbingly easy and put zero effort in their design when USUM are RIGHT there.

Yet all people ever talk about from that game is Ultra Necrozma, the one boss that, while refreshingly strong, isn’t a good-designed boss because it’s just meant to curb stomp you unless you either cheese it or grind enough to beat it.

Even the Trainer AI and teams and EVs/IV sets for a lot of its bosses are better. Guzma, Rainbow Rocket… Guzma’s Pinsir had a surprising amount of coverage that nearly destroyed me while playing this game casually.

But then they suddenly stop putting all that effort with SwSh and most of BDSP…? SV put a few decent strategies for some of its Gym Leaders but feels like they stopped after Iono and went right back to it for the final fights with Arven and Sada/Turo.

[handsoaphandsoap]

The main reason Pokémon doesn’t feel difficult anymore is because the NPCs aren’t playing Pokémon. They‘re deliberately designed to not utilize the game’s systems so every single fight is an unfair one skewed in the player’s favor. All they really need to do is have NPCs use their Pokémon’s abilities, use hidden items, use interesting strategies with their movepools, switch out when in a disadvantagous situation (and bring back Set mode so you can make it more balanced if you want to). The NPCs and the player should be on equal footing when fighting, otherwise you will always enter a fight with a high chance of winning as long as you press the right buttons.

Obviously not all NPCs though, it’s fine if Youngster Jimmy uses a Tackle only Rattata against your level 56 Solgaleo. But the gym fights and Pokémon League at the very least need to feel more like an event.

[thomasward]

TLDR: gamefreak should take notes from rom hack creators instead of being active combative to them.

[ethanbosch]

Honestly, interesting thought, with every gym badge traded pokemon will obey you more easely, what if instead of doing any of what you said and introduce a forced level cap during the initial playthrough. In a way that your team can't be a higher level then the gym leaders ace. For example, the gym leader has a level 11 pidgey as its ace, this will result in your team being unable to gain exp from level 11. This will essentially force you to strategize more. Once you unlock the first gym badge you can train your pokemon up to like level 20 for the next gym.
It's something i always used to get through hard parts in games, overlevelling to sweep through it. Would be nice to have a bit of a change

[Plasma]

best upcoming poketuber of the century

[nikopogo]

Hi there, just found your channel. And let me tell you, you immediately earned a sub. You may have only 2 videos so far, but for them being your first, they're very high quality. I'm looking forward to seeing your channel grow. Good luck.

[LowEffortDoodles]

Excellent video and potential to continuously make engaging content.

The narration and editting is superb

[jdrmanmusiqking]

For the nosy algum. Youre gonna pop my dude

[ASCENSiON_]

As someone who's working on a fan region, the biggest thing I want to change is monotype gyms. It's so simple, yet so effective at offering a challenge while also making the game more exciting. No longer will you simply be able to use one super effective Pokémon and sweep the entire team (with one exception). Here are all 8 of my gyms.

Gym 1: Your First Test. The professor's husband is the gym leader, and he will use the starter super effective against your own, and a rare early route Pokémon with a hidden secret upon evolution.

Gym 2: Ice... yea this is the exception. Ice types are accessible much earlier in this region (with some defensive buffs), and the gym leader is an old man in his 70s who doesn't want to let go of tradition and build a different team. He's not one to quit doing what he loves, and he's somehow still in perfect health no matter how many bottles of beer he chugs at the bar after the gym is closed.

Gym 3: Aerodynamics. The gym leader is a daredevil skydiver and rescue pilot who manipulates the battlefield to her advantage. Two of her Pokémon are 4x weak to Ground, but have Levitate to cover that weakness, and her lead sets up Tailwind upon entry with its ability.

Gym 4: Therapy. The gym leader is a mental health therapist whose Pokémon specialize in comforting her clients. Her Pokémon are either really small or soft (or both), and despite their appearances, her Pokémon are not to be underestimated. Her regional Ninetales can be a massive problem to deal with.

Gym 5: Conservation. This gym leader runs the region's safari zone and wildlife conservation program to protect native endangered species and deal with the invasive species that terrorize the region. Her team consists of rare and endangered Pokémon that can't be found anywhere else in the world.

Gym 6: Intel. This gym leader is a cybersecurity officer and hacker who spends most of his time in his chair collecting information about the evil cult in the region... and your own team. He watches you battle the gym trainers through his camera system and adapts accordingly. His team consists of Pokémon that have similar skills to his own, as well as a few technological Pokémon. He might even surprise you by hacking into your boxes and leveling up one of your own Pokémon to use against you.

Gym 7: Fashion. The gym leader is a supermodel that specializes in Pokémon known for their beauty. These Pokémon have moves and abilities capable of flinching and paralyzing your team.

Gym 8: -Robbery- Lottery
This gym can and probably will be very difficult to deal with. The gym leader is a -corrupt billionaire- casino owner who will use -cheating- luck to affect all Pokémon in battle, whether it's status conditions, stat changes, Metronome, etc. His team is themed around -billionaires abusing power- his casino and all of the games and machines that all trainers can play -for their life savings- for free!

Feel free to share your thoughts on this batch of gym leaders, what you'd theme your gyms around, etc!

[Racstacko]

I thought I’d share the way I made violet pretty hard, I only used 5 Pokémon and I only used Pokémon who’s stats were 450 or under at their final evolution

[raviolisarcophagus]

I'm disappointed gamefreak isn't already using data from 10+ years of VGC data to pattern AI trainers in game based on known players/strategies.

[insertnamehere]

I honestly feel like doing things like bringing back tripple batttles, bringing multi battles into more focus in the main story again and not just every in a while, they were really fun. and for radical and insane additions. also making some designated "healer" gimmick pokemon and not just a few pokemon who have healing moves that make major sacrfices, rather then a cooldown on the move or something could easily make for some fun fights in the story

[darthfastball]

I think the biggest difficulty differential is whether you use items (like potions and revives) in battle or not

[CLOYSTEROYSTER]

Good points made here. I do think it would be cool if the npc's would actually use more mechanics so that you can't wipe every gym just by having the one type of pokemon that is super effective to them. Having trainers use held items, pokemon switching, and even healing or stat boosting battle items would go a long way.
Personally, I also sort of feel like 2x type effectiveness (combined with stab) is too strong. I know memorizing type match ups is a big part of pokemon and I know that it is satisfying to be effective, but I feel like too many fights have several pokemon go down in one hit. But that is a balance discussion that is core to the franchise so I'm not sure if it should/could be changed

[rafaeldullnig]

Don't quote me on that but as far as I've been consuming BDSP content including modded gameplay. People have been stating that BDSP is a blatant clone of the original DP so far that it is using the same code under the hood. (DP mods appearently work on BDSP without much ado) It appearently has/had the same glitches the original DP has/had WITHOUT the fixes that were made in Platinum.

[moseshunter]

having end game pokemon mirror comp-ready 'mons would greatly improve the general understanding around it and increase involvement.

[Winterbraid]

I think the games are easy partly because it plays into the whole "every Pokemon is valid" fantasy. If you want to take that route 1 Normal-type with a random moveset to the Hall of Fame for nostalgia, you can. If you want 5 cute baby Pokemon on your team, you can probably get away with it as long as the 6th one is an overleveled sweeper. Team building is fun but it also means sometimes, someone's not gonna make the cut.

Kinda tying into that, I think another reason why they're so afraid to experiment with difficulty is because over multiple generations they've created an incredibly complex system with a huge potential for snowballing. If NPCs actually had better AI, competitive sets, AND utilized generation gimmicks optimally, it could very easily become too much for the average player. (Already kinda happened with BDSP for some people, though part of it was the sudden difficulty spike at the end.)

Obvious solution to both problems: Difficulty settings. But I'm guessing they probably ran focus tests and found out most people would pick the "normal" (easy) difficulty anyway and decided it wasn't worth the effort...


I think what I would really like to see is Collosseum-style spinoff games where they explore more "serious" approaches both to storytelling and gameplay. Of course, that's even less likely to happen than a simple difficulty option...

[ABZB]

Yeah - like, for example, in USUM once you give every trainer a full team with decent moves, IVs, EVs, etc. it's a blast!

Now, that does throw off the level curve (since you have a lot more Pokemon giving experience per trainer), but that's relatively straightforward to adjust as well