How To Make Pokemon HARD

[@komarunaegi7460]

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.

[@tinkerbestie]

Bro this is it. I love sun and moon. I think a big thing holding it back were the unskippable parts but overall I think what you said is why I tend to hold it as my favorite.

[@thepotatoportal69]

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

[@rafaeldullnig1320]

Thats not plainly increading stats. It's to tweak and rebalance stats to account for different strategies like stall or offense where you can make a pokemon more suited for outliving the enememy beyond your four moveslots.

[@socaltrojan286]

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.

[@emeraldwolf3494]

New best Poketuber on the block

[@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.

[@Big_Dai]

The problem with that is the fact that PKMN is a VERY swing-y game when played correctly. Usually, a good hit is enough to KO something. That is not only unfulfilling, but would also make combat really fast and boring when you notice how repetitive it all is. It's a miracle PKMN works as it does (and barely). GameFreak isn't competent enough to mess with it and come out unscathed.

[@thomasward6022]

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

[@komarunaegi7460]

Ehhhh, a lot of rom hacks and fan games don’t have the best ideas. A good amount of them use ideas or concepts that this video literally preaches against, like high level jumps or a need for excessive grinding. Creators like Drayano are good at what they do, though, but ofc Game Freak would need to take liberties with things like Pokémon variety and maybe dial those types of changes down a bit, or save his level of difficulty for endgame/post-game like what BDSP did.

[@madnessarcade7447]

Every game has a difficulty setting it’s called starter selection Unique and creative way to subtly implement one without it being overt You’re welcome “Why doesn’t Pokémon have difficulty settings” Well why doesn’t dark souls or elden ring If your answer was because they don’t want to Then that answer works for Pokémon as well

[@madnessarcade7447]

It’s their ip their rules they don’t have to take notes from anyone

[@komarunaegi7460]

@@madnessarcade7447 But Pokémon clearly wanted to try implementing difficulty settings at one point. It’s why they did it in B2W2. And they did it well-it’s just the way you had to unlock it was stupid, with you needing the opposite copy of the game to link up with you AFTER you already beat the game. And Game Freak clearly has listened to fan criticism and looked at other projects to adapt into their own work. Fans complained about how HMs bogged down team building and progression for about a decade, so they gradually started to phase them out from Gen 5-onward until they’re no longer a necessity. Fans have also been begging for a more open world Pokémon game for over a decade now, and look what happened? They’ve been gradually progressing their way into doing just that, though SwSh, Legends: Arceus, and SV. Game Freak does listen, and a lot of their QoL improvements have also come from fan criticism. It’s why competitive Pokémon has become easier and easier to get into, compared to how past Gens had you grinding tediously for hundreds and hundreds of hours with no consideration for your real life. Saying “it’s their IP” doesn’t absolve Game Freak of criticism, because even they’re clearly willing to accept it, be it in small ways or big ways, over the course of several games. They do take notes from others lol. Heck, it’s also very possible Breath of the Wild’s popularity also helped influence Pokémon to gradually go open world, alongside the constant fan demand. It’s good that Game Freak doesn’t listen to EVERY fan complaint or critique (because a lot of them are also stupid or might not fit the vision of the games they want to make) but they do at least keep some of the things that are said online into consideration, and have acted on said consideration multiple times.

[@paperIrori]

@@madnessarcade7447 Yeah, fk the fans lol!

[@elcalabozodelandroide2]

Good to see this channel start good.

[@Plasma25]

best upcoming poketuber of the century

[@ethanbosch6770]

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

[@Shakazulu555]

I said this idea SOOO LONG AGO about the level caps for significant battles!

[@nikopogo1]

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

[@kennyweng2470]

Beautiful stage 3 analysis brother

[@jdrmanmusiqking]

For the nosy algum. Youre gonna pop my dude

[@insertnamehere1398]

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

[@rafaeldullnig1320]

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.

[@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

[@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

[@Big_Dai]

PKMN will NEVER be hard unless GameFreak is capable of creating a decent A.I. (capable of switching properly and having strategies) and is willing to "get rid of levels" all together! The competitive scene making everything lvl 50 is great. But, the problem with PKMN, is the fact that competitive combat is VERY swing-y!! Usually, a good hit is enough to KO something. You setup for 2 turns? You become un-killable. That is not only unfulfilling, but would also make combat really fast and boring when you notice how repetitive it all is. It's a miracle PKMN works as it does (and barely). GameFreak isn't competent enough to mess with it and come out unscathed. Either way, PKMN can never be more than it currently is.. sad truth.

[@darthfastball1150]

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

[@nuotatorre8741]

I always thought they should have been either banned or reetricted in Offical Battles (Gym leaders, elette 4, exe...). You either can't use them or you can bring in a limited ammount.

[@inva88]

And any npc hasn't held items for a long time

[@takenname8053]

Super Nice, really good for a first video

[@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...

[@raviolisarcophagus4393]

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.

[@pedrorosa9893]

I think Pokémon reborn and Rejuvenation perfect difficult. There is ways of swiping trainers but some battle need a lot of trainer and preparing. Also if you overlevel you can’t use this Pokémon.

[@ABZB13]

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

[@moseshunter4585]

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

[@moseshunter4585]

Ace trainers could have 4IV and 5IV pokemon. Heck, maybe their 5th and/or 6th is a Fantastic lol

[@gamingskull2015]

I’m your biggest fam

[@Vykk]

sussy title

[@jessegartung294]

You’re right. Because it’s not long grind that makes a game difficult because Temtem hard not because it’s good. But how long the grind is. Even when you’re the same level out of opponents. If you don’t understand play Temtem.

[@Pupal_Dugal]

Great video, Subscribed i think a way to improve splatoon 3 big run is to give cohocks a small chance to drop a golden egg during normal waves (not stuff like tornado or mudmouths.)

[@Pystrum]

how come your sources arent in mla format

[@nebulamageplays1541]

As someone making a fangame, I'm taking notes. I want it to be fun and challenging, not unfair and hard for the sake of being hard.

[@Narrative_Ink]

I think that if you loose the battle you shouldn't black out. It should be acknowledged that you lost and you have a chance to come back and beat them.

[@legomaster4188]

I think every major fight being all mons to level 50 would help with strategy

[@yesteryearr]

I wish the average amount of moves a Pokémon could get out would be 3-5 per battle. Battles often just end up being a Rock/Paper/Scissors battles where the trainer with the Super effective advantage defeat the opponent in ONE (or two) moves. The base game doesn't have me thinking about stat increases/decreases much, or even status moves. Don't most JPRG games have much longer battles? Why does Pokémon have so many One hit KOs?

[@randommemeaddict249]

I do think that if actual effort was put into BDSP's difficulty curve and not just copy/paste the DP trainers with a new Elite 4 to blindside you it would have been much better. That and not doing the 4GB day one patch so they could use cheaper 8GB cartriges

[@columbina5839]

i feel like step one is "dont", considering the target audience, but i do think there should be more challenging postgame battles (a la battle tower/battle frontier), but even then, you could also just... play competitive pokemon

[@NoobishSquirtle]

God damn, had to sub for the JoJo reference

[@KOOBZ1010]

Just bring back the battle frontier.

[@krish0531]

Bw2 challenge mode also made better teams and ai

[@TISbulldog]

Your audio is really low

[@rutgeroudenampsen492]

I was about to comment that. The video is nice tho.

[@wynsfield]

15 lvl ahead is still beatable with the right strategy. Why are people so scared of battling pokemon of higher lvl or not type advantage against? I always see people playing pokemon that they always switched to a mon that have type advantage against the opponent even though they are higher lvl or about the same. Even though it is possible to defeat them without switching. My team is always underleveled n i beat the game no problem.

[@TeddehFresh]

Idk why but every since you made the fortnite joke when you say random things I start cracking up 🤣💀 like "most trainers just wanna be the best there ever was" LMFAO like why is that funny to me 🤣

[@phelixkinser190]

if the pokemon AI was any good it would get pretty annoying, you would feel like youre getting literally hacked and mind read constantly. it would just serve to slow down the game when the entire game is played with full 6 pokemon in the singles format. theres a reason the officially supported competitive format for pokemon isnt 6v6 singles, it gets sloggish. another small bit of convenience added by pokemon being “easy” is that pokemon dont switch in the singleplayer game, if you simply add in the ability for AI to switch to their best pokemon instead of keeping in a weak one, the game would become nothing but more of a slog.

[@TeddehFresh]

LMFAOOOOO THE FORTNITE COMMENT THO💀💀💀💀💀

[@madnessarcade7447]

Difficulty is subjective Also Pokémon does have some hard elements Every game has a difficulty setting it’s called starter selection Unique and creative way to subtly implement one without it being overt You’re welcome “Why doesn’t Pokémon have difficulty settings” Well why doesn’t dark souls or elden ring If your answer was because they don’t want to Then that answer works for Pokémon as well

[@yaboitekki6081]

Starter selection can be easily mitigated by just catching more pokemon, it doesn't solve or even add to the difficulty of the games. Whereas darksouls isn't hard, just has a high skill ceiling, wherein you get better and more used to the combat system as it goes. Comparing pokemon and darksouls is dumb however, since they are entirely different games. A better comparison would be with fangames, ie. Opalo, Reborn, Rejuvenation, Unbound, etc.

[@johncurry7225]

They somehow managed to ruin starter selection when they ruined Rivals from SM to today. Rivals used to be more serious battles that I looked forward to but they made them a joke. They don't even pick what your own starter is weak to anymore. All rivals do these days is give you comedic value and free items. Old rivals used to be involved in your story or at least be a serious contender when you fought them in the league. They barely if ever contribute to the story either.

[@madnessarcade7447]

@@yaboitekki6081 team building is part of that if you want a harder game just catch pokemon that are at a disadvantage

[@madnessarcade7447]

@@johncurry7225 rivals are still involved in your story they just approach it in a different way they actually have personality and character arcs instead of just being bullies They contribute in other ways by being there for you and growing with you and doing the best they can Like hau wanting to follow his grandfather’s footsteps Hop realizing he wants to be a professor and Arvin and Nemona and penny having great development too Picking a starter is about choosing your friend for life that applies to the rivals too Who they choose as their starter doesn’t matter because it gets balanced by the other pokemon they catch ya dingus They have comedic value and they are also kind and compassionate and they have actual personalities Outside of haha get rekt scrub Pokémon as a franchise is about “Your my best friend in a world we must defend” Sorry you lost your way and forgot what Pokémon was about

[@madnessarcade7447]

@@johncurry7225 Pokémon is an escapist fantasy where barely anything bad happens and it’s all cupcakes and rainbows Why would I get bullied in real life then try to escape that and jump into a game where I get bullied again

[@madnessarcade7447]

Every game has a difficulty setting it’s called starter selection Unique and creative way to subtly implement one without it being overt You’re welcome “Why doesn’t Pokémon have difficulty settings” Well why doesn’t dark souls or elden ring If your answer was because they don’t want to Then that answer works for Pokémon as well

[@FTChomp9980]

Pokemon should still have difficulty options quit acting like a mindless NPC.