Pokémon XY General Discussion

[inanimate blob]

Or, to simplify the whole thing, just have a difficulty setting option in the options menu...

I feel like Black 2 and White 2 may have been a test to see how difficulty settings in Pokemon were going to be received. By making them unlockable, but not present from the start, Game Freak could see what people were mainly going to use and go for based on feedback (not direct feedback, more like investigating online to see what people are talking about).

I know almost everyone wanted the "Hard" difficulty, while most people didn't care about the "Easy" difficulty. So, if Game Freak has been listening to us even a little bit, they'll probably put the difficulty settings in the menu when you first start up your game, as it could lead to a completely different feel for this generation if you started out at a disadvantage/advantage compared to previous generations.

 

[Anartya]

So, if Game Freak has been listening to us even a little bit, they'll probably put the difficulty settings in the menu when you first start up your game, as it could lead to a completely different feel for this generation if you started out at a disadvantage/advantage compared to previous generations.

I hope you are right, and gamefreak listens. I also feel the same way about using BW/BW2 graphips being 1/2 sprites 1/2 3D as a way easing the transition to full 3D pokemon games.

That said what I loved about Gold/Silver and NOT HGSS was the difficulty in grinding as rematches were rare on the phone, wild levels were low and there was no EVs so you could never max stats at lower levels, only at level 100. So it really felt like a journey to train and watch as they grow stronger through the game. Unlike HGSS where you could max stats by level 5 from level 1 egg with pkrus/braces. I would also appreciate a way to improve ivs by means of items/pokemon amie. I don't like the fact that pokemon right now feels like a eugenics movement for the best ivs...where you ditch your starter after the 3rd gym in order to breed perfect ivs, shiny , max evs grind. Oh and this is coming from someone who RNGs all the time and optimizes every pokemon to be competitively viable and shiny. Somewhere along this path I felt that I lost my initial love of pokemon from gold and silver. Maybe I'm just ranting, but I'm not sure if other people feel the same way.

 

[Codraroll]

Levelling anything beyond lvl 60 in G/S was a pain in the rear, and not particularly rewarding either. Sure, Red gave you a bit of a challenge if your Pokémon were at a lower level than 70, but higher than that, and anything but Red was roflstomped in a single attack (The Elite 4 were a complete joke, with their best Pokémon being at lvl. 50). Also, few Pokémon even learned moves beyond lvl. 60 (Tyranitar and Dragonite learning Hyper Beam at 75, Legendaries learning stuff every eleventh level until 99) If you wanted lvl. 100 Pokémon to battle your friends, you had to grind A LOT. Ruby/Sapphire were only marginally better, with FRLG finally making levelling to lvl. 100 possible within a reasonable time frame. Give me the BW2 model any day.

 

[Beck]

I feel like Black 2 and White 2 may have been a test to see how difficulty settings in Pokemon were going to be received. By making them unlockable, but not present from the start, Game Freak could see what people were mainly going to use and go for based on feedback (not direct feedback, more like investigating online to see what people are talking about).

I know almost everyone wanted the "Hard" difficulty, while most people didn't care about the "Easy" difficulty. So, if Game Freak has been listening to us even a little bit, they'll probably put the difficulty settings in the menu when you first start up your game, as it could lead to a completely different feel for this generation if you started out at a disadvantage/advantage compared to previous generations.

I would have to agree. The age demographic of fans nowadays is so split that multiple levels of difficulty will quickly become a necessity. It's been done, as you said, per B2/W2, so it's a possibility. Hoping for the best.

 

[Anartya]

Levelling anything beyond lvl 60 in G/S was a pain in the rear, and not particularly rewarding either. Sure, Red gave you a bit of a challenge if your Pokémon were at a lower level than 70, but higher than that, and anything but Red was roflstomped in a single attack (The Elite 4 were a complete joke, with their best Pokémon being at lvl. 50). Also, few Pokémon even learned moves beyond lvl. 60 (Tyranitar and Dragonite learning Hyper Beam at 75, Legendaries learning stuff every eleventh level until 99) If you wanted lvl. 100 Pokémon to battle your friends, you had to grind A LOT. Ruby/Sapphire were only marginally better, with FRLG finally making levelling to lvl. 100 possible within a reasonable time frame. Give me the BW2 model any day.

Yes but now in battle subway, they re-normalize it to level 50 so it doesn't matter. They could easily do this as an option for wifi. I agree training after e4 was bad in g/s because there was nothing to do after beating red/battle tower. And I do support training by lucky eggs and better trainers with higher levels like in bw2, but that should be exclusively post elite 4 but not prior.​

 

[skitz0phrenic]

It would be nice for the content to wrap up around 95-100 anyway. It's always annoyed me that the games end so soon with so much space left in levels to continue progressing. I understood why with the filesize limitations of all the previous gens but with 3DS filesizes that's no longer an issue. I'd be ecstatic if they ran the story out as long as they really could.

 

[R_N]

It would be nice for the content to wrap up around 95-100 anyway. It's always annoyed me that the games end so soon with so much space left in levels to continue progressing. I understood why with the filesize limitations of all the previous gens but with 3DS filesizes that's no longer an issue. I'd be ecstatic if they ran the story out as long as they really could.

the story already goes to about 30-40 hours main game, with post game story stuff taking a variable amount longer
honestly it's probably not so much filesize as it is not over staying its welcome, combined with the fact that no one goes that high in terms of levels anyway (the absolute highest is, what, HGSS Red?). They take forever to reach, anyway

Besides how many RPGs do you know that actively go towards the level cap by the end without grinding

 

[skitz0phrenic]

the story already goes to about 30-40 hours main game, with post game story stuff taking a variable amount longer
honestly it's probably not so much filesize as it is not over staying its welcome, combined with the fact that no one goes that high in terms of levels anyway (the absolute highest is, what, HGSS Red?). They take forever to reach, anyway

An issue a lot of the old games have is no space left over for maps, so they've only really got so much physical world space to actually travel anyway.

Besides how many RPGs do you know that actively go towards the level cap by the end without grinding

Well yes but that's not a positive thing and it doesn't mean it should or has to be that way. Ideally the main game would end at 95-100 and the end game content would be chock full of max level 100 stuff, something along the lines of an MMO'ish format. Story and adventure up to max level and then doors blown off with max level content.

 

[R_N]

An issue a lot of the old games have is no space left over for maps, so they've only really got so much physical world space to actually travel anyway.

Well I mean even then if they reaaaallly wanted to they could just spike the levels like crazy

Well yes but that's not a positive thing and it doesn't mean it should or has to be that way.

Why is it not a positive thing
e: to put another way, why is it a -negative- thing

 

[skitz0phrenic]

Well I mean even then if they reaaaallly wanted to they could just spike the levels like crazy


Why is it not a positive thing
e: to put another way, why is it a -negative- thing

You have all this space within the level cap to develop story content. It seems like nothing but a negative to me to leave this potential space for great content completely blank.

Think of it like currency. You're given 100 dollars to spend on whatever you want all in one shot. Why would you spend 65 and let the other 35 go to waste?

The story could be continuing instead of repeating the Elite 4 for hours on end for 30 levels.

 

[R_N]

You have all this space within the level cap to develop story content. It seems like nothing but a negative to me to leave this potential space for great content completely blank.

Think of it like currency. You're given 100 dollars to spend on whatever you want all in one shot. Why would you spend 65 and let the other 35 go to waste?

The story could be continuing instead of repeating the Elite 4 for hours on end for 30 levels.

But levels aren't (& probably shouldn't) be a measure of length of game at all
Have any of the stories really been crying for another 30 hours of content just so we can cap out our levels before trudging through a post game also with max levels?

Just because you can does not necessarily mean you should. What if I want to save my $35? Or...whatever you were trying for that analogy.

 

[skitz0phrenic]

But levels aren't (& probably shouldn't) be a measure of length of game at all
Have any of the stories really been crying for another 30 hours of content just so we can cap out our levels before trudging through a post game also with max levels?

Just because you can does not necessarily mean you should. What if I want to save my $35? Or...whatever you were trying for that analogy.

[/quote]
I think so, yes. I don't know how anyone could argue that grinding the Elite 4 for hours is more interesting or compelling than continuing on with a story would be. Granted, I finish these games WAY quicker than the 30-40 hours you suggest, so the games seem incredibly short to me, but I don't think you'd find many people that would be upset that the game is longer.

What is your reasoning for why the games shouldn't be longer? I've never once in almost two decades of gaming seen someone complain about a game they love being too long or longer than they expected.

 

[Lord Raiden]

In regards to level caps, I'm not sure how well they would work for Pokemon. Pokemon is pretty much just about battling. There was never really much besides battling/collecting in the main storyline that they could include, because there just wasn't anything else to do. In games like Fallout, Skyrim, Borderlands, and many (all?) of the popular MMOs, there's stuff you do besides fighting. You can craft items, save people from certain doom (or plunge them into it), stop evil masterminds, collect powerful weaponry, make friends, and more.

I don't know how gamefreak could possibly occupy the time needed to arrive at level 100, and then have some kind of "uber-endgame" where you fight more people for some reason or another.

I guess the underground treasure hunt stuff could come back, and there might be some kind of thing you could do with that (why they got rid of it to begin with confuses me terribly).

As for the difficulty setting thing, it would work, but that shouldn't mean that the player has less to start with, it should mean that the trainers have more pokemon than they otherwise would, and they have much better AI and movesets, and they all have specific natures and hold items. If they wanted to, they could even make three difficulty settings, and the third one could make all trainers carry teams with perfect IVs and EVs invested into all the right places.

 

[R_N]

I think so, yes. I don't know how anyone could argue that grinding the Elite 4 for hours is more interesting or compelling than continuing on with a story would be. Granted, I finish these games WAY quicker than the 30-40 hours you suggest, so the games seem incredibly short to me, but I don't think you'd find many people that would be upset that the game is longer.

What is your reasoning for why the games shouldn't be longer? I've never once in almost two decades of gaming seen someone complain about a game they love being too long or longer than they expected.

Because I already get like 150-200 hours per game by the time I'm done with them
I am perfectly content with the main story's length. It never feels too short, it never feels like it over stays its welcome
& I have heard some people complain about games that they otherwise like going on for too long. Kid Icarus Uprising, certain Professor Layton games, even BW1 &/or 2 [note: not me, I was fine with most games, but some people do]

ALSO hey guess what I'm not grinding the e4 for hours. You make it sound like the only purpose of the game is to round out your levels to 100 & if you can't reach that in the main story you do it in the post game by grinding and grinding

 

[Fundance]

I dunno, I think games these days are too short. If a game is good all the way through and continues to challenge the player, I don't see how it can 'overstay its welcome'.
At least, I'd like some kind of in-game battle tower where your pokemon actually gain exp and the enemies go all the way up to lv 100. Good for casual leveling, grinding, and potentially a good hard challenge in order to access some of the better competitive resources available.

 

[Aerophoenix]

I really, really hate to say this, but most kids (the target audience for these games) do not have the gaming attention span to sit down and finish significantly longer games than the current ones. For those who really enjoy the games, they'll love the post-E4 and grindy content. I know I did as a kid.

These games are designed to suck in and be addictive to kids. They always will be, and they're near perfect at it.

 

[GenXXZ]

Post-game will always have less content than the actual game, that's a defined property of game design.
Like, look at Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red/Blue and Time/Darkness. They all have what could be called a "Post-Game Story" because the credits role smack dab in the middle of the playable story, but people don't consider the middle credits to be the "End of the main game," far from it. I think that even if they did something similar to this in X and Y, people would still complain about Post-Game boringness, even if your Pokemon are at the max level.
I guess they did cater to the Post-Story players when they added the Battle Frontier in gen 3 and 4, but the problem with that was your Pokemon didn't ultimately grow as a result of the experience, making it seem like you didn't achieve anything. Same goes for the Pokemon World Tournament and the Battle Subway.
So here's some things I think they could do in order to make Post-Game a little better.

1: Rebattling Trainers
This has kind of been done before with the Vs. Seeker and (insert stereotypical Pokemon handheld device here) but I think they should expand on this a lotttt. If Pokemon is all about battling then you should have as many opportunities to battle as POSSIBLE, even in the post-game. Also, the levels of the trainer's Pokemon should progressively raise. Like, maybe everytime you beat a Trainer their Pokemon all gain two levels for the next time. That would certainly make grinding to level 100 a lot easier if you're in to that sort of thing.

2: Lots and lots of mini games
Mini Games are fun and they can make a game's life a lot longer. Yeah we have the Casino in some of the Pokemon games but that really isn't enough. I really liked the Pokemon Plaza back in Platinum, where you would go into a room with a bunch of people on Wifi in real time and you could interact with them and meet with them. That was genius and needs to be brought back. Speaking of which.

3: Real-Time player interaction over wifi.
Oh god Gamefreak was SOOOOOOO close. I thought the Entralink would literally be like, you could play your Pokemon adventure while tagging along with a friend. Unfortunately it didn't live up to my expectations but... Wouldn't it just be damn amazing if you could goof around the Kalos region with your friend and Double Battle random NPCs?

4: Secret Bases and Contests
3rd Gen was probably the best at keeping me entertained Post-Game and we need these back. Now.

 

[Cap]

I don't know how gamefreak could possibly occupy the time needed to arrive at level 100, and then have some kind of "uber-endgame" where you fight more people for some reason or another.

They could make decent TM's and rare item's like say Toxic and the Focus Sash rewards for lengthy sidequests and/or defeated powerful NPCs.

 

[SSJ]

I would love it if they brought back the PWT. After beating the elite four and champion, one of the main things I looked forward to was to battle the gym leaders and champions in the PWT. I hope GF will introduce a new feature that will allow you to battle the elite four of different regions at the PWT after completing the different regions gym leader tournaments.That would make the game so much more interesting to play.

 

[inanimate blob]

Because I already get like 150-200 hours per game by the time I'm done with them
I am perfectly content with the main story's length. It never feels too short, it never feels like it over stays its welcome
& I have heard some people complain about games that they otherwise like going on for too long. Kid Icarus Uprising, certain Professor Layton games, even BW1 &/or 2 [note: not me, I was fine with most games, but some people do]

ALSO hey guess what I'm not grinding the e4 for hours. You make it sound like the only purpose of the game is to round out your levels to 100 & if you can't reach that in the main story you do it in the post game by grinding and grinding

I wouldn't entirely discount what Lord Raiden and skitz0phrenic are arguing. While it is true that reaching the level cap would be kind of insane (it takes a fair amount of grinding to reach that with one Pokemon, let alone a team of six), it could creep closer to that. RBGY ended around 55-60, GSC was the best and ended around 80, RSE ended 60s, DPPt ended 60s, BWB2W2 ended 50s. So the most recent games had the lowest level curve, in my opinion, to easily beat the game.

All in all, a return to what was developed in GSC with Gym Leaders having powerful Pokemon in the 70s, along with the Elite Four in the mid-70s, followed by some ultimate Trainers (please please please Red) in the 80s would be stellar for level curving, as opposed to the bullcrap in generation 5 where the game was done around the 50s.

 

[MMX]

They should bring back the option to upload your team and battle the team that another person uploaded like they did in the original GSC games. IIRC, they also gave experience if you defeated them.

 

[SSJ]

I've been thinking about some pokemon that could use evolutions in the 6th gen.For example,Manectric. 105 SpA 105 SpD and the defenses are 70 60 60 and 70 Atk. How about giving it some more speed and special attack and maybe raising it's HP a bit more.
Also absol is another pokemon I think that should get an evolution and if not at least a pre-evolution .
Another is skarmory.I know that it's evo would be OP but think about a pre-evo. When an egg hatches does it make any sense if such a big pokemon comes out of it instead of a baby pokemon?
One final thing is to give zangoose and seviper evos because it doesn't make any sense for them to not evolve.

 

[AlakaBAMM]

Psychic better be good against fairy.

 

[R_N]

I wouldn't entirely discount what Lord Raiden and skitz0phrenic are arguing. While it is true that reaching the level cap would be kind of insane (it takes a fair amount of grinding to reach that with one Pokemon, let alone a team of six), it could creep closer to that. RBGY ended around 55-60, GSC was the best and ended around 80, RSE ended 60s, DPPt ended 60s, BWB2W2 ended 50s. So the most recent games had the lowest level curve, in my opinion, to easily beat the game.

What the hell kind of GSC were you playing
The penultimate trainer before Red was Blue and he capped out at 58. Before him was Blaine with two level 45s & a level 50. The remainder were in their 40s and as were many of the trainers.
Yeah it may have ended around 80 but it took it's sweet time getting to not-even-60 before skyrocketing to the upper 70s for a single trainer
HGSS tried its best to fix this by making most of the kanto leaders into their 50s (Blue's Pidgeot reached 60!) and still needed (optional) Leader & E4 rematches to bridge the gap to an increased Red.

incidentally, I went and checked out Emerald's levels and Wallace caps out at a level 56 Whishcash making BW2 higher overall (ending on a level 59 Haxorus with 5 other level 57s; the other e4 members had 3 56s & 1 58))
Platinum does end in the 60s (level 62 Garchomp) so discounting Challenge mode BW2 it's the higest & probably has the most graceful curve.
BW1 IS the loser here, though; Ghetsis ends the game with a level 54 Hydreigon, something that I don't think even Easy Mode BW2 matches

BEING PEDANTIC ASIDE
My issue with his argument was that he felt that the story should be longer so that we can squeeze more levels out of it (or that since there are more levels to squeeze out of it, the story should be longer) which I don't agree with.
if the level curve of the main story was to be increased then whatever (like what you want); they do that all the time and it barely effects game length

 

[Lovedrive]

Post-game will always have less content than the actual game, that's a defined property of game design.
Like, look at Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red/Blue and Time/Darkness. They all have what could be called a "Post-Game Story" because the credits role smack dab in the middle of the playable story, but people don't consider the middle credits to be the "End of the main game," far from it. I think that even if they did something similar to this in X and Y, people would still complain about Post-Game boringness, even if your Pokemon are at the max level.
I guess they did cater to the Post-Story players when they added the Battle Frontier in gen 3 and 4, but the problem with that was your Pokemon didn't ultimately grow as a result of the experience, making it seem like you didn't achieve anything. Same goes for the Pokemon World Tournament and the Battle Subway.
So here's some things I think they could do in order to make Post-Game a little better.

1: Rebattling Trainers
This has kind of been done before with the Vs. Seeker and (insert stereotypical Pokemon handheld device here) but I think they should expand on this a lotttt. If Pokemon is all about battling then you should have as many opportunities to battle as POSSIBLE, even in the post-game. Also, the levels of the trainer's Pokemon should progressively raise. Like, maybe everytime you beat a Trainer their Pokemon all gain two levels for the next time. That would certainly make grinding to level 100 a lot easier if you're in to that sort of thing.

2: Lots and lots of mini games
Mini Games are fun and they can make a game's life a lot longer. Yeah we have the Casino in some of the Pokemon games but that really isn't enough. I really liked the Pokemon Plaza back in Platinum, where you would go into a room with a bunch of people on Wifi in real time and you could interact with them and meet with them. That was genius and needs to be brought back. Speaking of which.

3: Real-Time player interaction over wifi.
Oh god Gamefreak was SOOOOOOO close. I thought the Entralink would literally be like, you could play your Pokemon adventure while tagging along with a friend. Unfortunately it didn't live up to my expectations but... Wouldn't it just be damn amazing if you could goof around the Kalos region with your friend and Double Battle random NPCs?

4: Secret Bases and Contests
3rd Gen was probably the best at keeping me entertained Post-Game and we need these back. Now.

Wow. It's like you read my mind or something. I agree with just about everything you said. Yeah rebattling trainers is badass. Bring back the Vs. Seeker! Minigames would be awesome too especially now that the slot machines and stuff don't exist anymore. And the r/s/e bases were sick. So were the contests. Sorry, Pokemon Musical (complete trash) doesn't cut it. The movie scenarios are alright I guess but it's not the same as contests or Pokelethon. Even 4th gen styled contests would be fine even though I would prefer an expanded version of the 3rd gen contests. And you would think there would be some kind of flamboyant-ass beauty pageant or something since it basically takes place in France and I guess that means it's supposed to be all fruity and stuff.