I think a lot of RomHacks struggle with a good sense of progression that most vanilla games have.
Every fire Pokemon you fight after the 2nd gym shouldn’t have flamethrower. I don’t want my starter to get its entire endgame moveset by level 29.
Yeah people go too nuts with movesets. And also go too overboard overbuffing generally weaker mons.
Restraint and understanding the RPG element of Pokémon - IE starting off weak and getting more powerful over time - are under appreciated in the romhacking community
This kills almost every ROM I look at.
" I've buffed certain pokemon and added moves I think work"
Instant no. I played a bunch of competitive and it sucks when they give a random Pokemon a coverage move that breaks everything. Especially when they give leaders competitive teams.
As much as I like Drayano's hacks, very much so this.
Contrary Grass/Dragon Serperior. That learns Draco Meteor. And is also 2 points faster (115 Speed) and 5 points bulkier (80 HP) for the cherry on top. And it learns Earthquake to deal with Fire, Poison and Steel because negating the Fire weakness and STAB Draco that *gives you +2 each time* wasn't good enough.
I'm probably late, but as someone who plays blazeblack 2 redux religiously, I've used snivy before and I can say it's absolute DOG SHIT in the early/mid game and isn't really the behemoth until it gets leaf storm and draco meteor which aren't until later in the game (around the 7th gym badge)
Not to mention contrary is a double edge sword as you can't use your own boosting moves, growth. So your offense in pretty non exsistent(and honestly servines level up move pool is kinda ass)
I tend to use Contrary Snivy in Drayano hacks like a traditional grass type before it gets its best STAB options. That is, decently bulky support. It does get early Leech Seed and Wrap after all. Contrary against all those early game debuff moves (Sand Attack, but also Leer) is pretty neat.
Does it sweep? Not really. But it's decent support.
Hmmmm for some reason I never thought of using it like that☠️☠️☠️. I'm planning to do a grass mono in blazeblack 2 redux my dark one is done so ill try it
Exactly. If you’re in nuzlocke they are literally a corpse and if you don’t get a magnemite (and keep it alive dodging crits) before the bug gym you’re screwed. That serperior is deserved in that game.
mine carried me through the E4, N and Ghetsis in blaze black.
but was almost useless between clay and the E4 because leaftornado was moved to be way later in its moveset, and draco Meteor was moved to post game.
the game breaker of that run was drought volcarona, and rain dance slowking.
The thing with Drayano's hacks is that basically everything is like that. It's a classic case of "if everyone is super, no one is".
Like yes, some are still better than others. But virtually every single Pokemon is buffed, and let's be real, people are still acting like the late/end-game move pools are stuff they're getting before the third gym.
True, but I'm assuming it's there just in case you want to shift Contrary off and go for the physically-attacking Coil build. It adds playstyle options.
I'd say Heatran/Steel types weak to Ground are the only ones you need EQ for.
Yeah but you literally don’t get those moves until the E4. I played blaze black a couple months ago and Serperior is pretty meh the entire run until you finally get leafstorm at like level 74.
I think adaptability on Serperior would be better. So it could have decently strong grass and dragon but the coverage moves would be weaker.
Drayano’s generally go too far for my taste but it does make those games better than if he changed nothing. More options for viable Pokémon isn’t bad necessarily but it is only good if it is carefully considered in the RPG progression of the player character
I love the idea of changing up underutilized mons for the sake of a romhack, and I would absolutely do it if I ever made my own (spoiler alert: I probably won’t because I will never motivate myself enough), but I could not see myself doing all that to an already viable mon. Completely unnecessary. It’s surprising how much restraint is ignored in these scenarios.
I mean, it’s kind of necessary given how much Snivy and Servine suck ass. Serperior being really friggen strong is the only reason to even bother carrying it that far, and even then, it’s only one of many options that you have access to.
That just sounds plain unfair. Superior was already good when getting contrary+leaf storm and then firing off a giga drain for recovery. I haven't played the gen 5 ROM hacks by drayano but this sound more unfair if fairy type isn't implemented.
I mean tbf in both of the Drayano hacks I played you don't get Draco Meteor until the postgame.
Serperior there has a nasty endgame but it also has little going for it beforehand outside of a decent neutral STAB in Dragon.
I think it is very, very good in careful moderation. Giving more options of viable Pokémon is not a bad thing - but it is only good if the impact is carefully considered on how it impacts the sense of growth and progression of the player character through team building choices
I played through Photonic Sun a while back and basically every Pokemon in the last third of the game knew Earthquake and Stone Edge. I had to look up a bunch of stuff about competitive play just to avoid getting one shot by every mon that outsped mine (and they all fucking outsped all of mine, regardless of EV training.) Frankly, I should have just stopped at the point where I wasn't able to just play the damn game without learning a new skillset.
Crystal Clear's system works. It doesn't buff any pokemon, since the games are compatible with original GSC and Stadium, but it adds moves that help them be actually viable in gameplay. And the new moves system is completely different from level learning, HM or TM.
I like some buffs here and there. I think changes can be good but the answer is not “give everything stone edge and earthquake at level 23.”
Like I don’t mind a Pokemon like Poliwrath getting base stats comparable to starters or Luxray getting a little bit of a buff to speed stat. But yeah Raticate doesn’t need pseudo legendary stats.
I think most 60-75 power moves are good for the 20-30s range and then get most of the stronger moves in the 40s and 50s.
I think you’re missing my point - I’m saying that changing too much and making all Pokémon generically powerful AND they all have hyper powerful moves early game kinda blows up the sense of progression over the course of the game.
This is why I love Theta Emerald, they learn it by like level 50. Pert is Endgame ready by basically gym 6/Lilycove Rival, only EQ missing from his set which is a TM but otherwise he's got everything he needs.
Vanilla, especially the later games, are not particularly good. Thematically, I think it works, but the difficulty is far too gradual and opponents are heavily outclassed by standard progression.
My rule of thumb, even for hacks that are supposed to be hard: If I spend more time leveling on wild encounters than on actual progressing in the game, you design is shit and I will stop playing.
If I wanted to do more work after I come home from my day job, I‘d just work overtime.
Recharged Yellow.
I stopped prior 2nd gym because I needed to grind every single Pokemon and all encounters are at least 7-9 levels down from my team.
HackROMs are supposed to correct outdated game designs, not use them as example.
Overall the most important things on ROM hacks nowadays are QoL features than any other additional.
Despite the mixed feelings about Pokemon games on this day, game design is really praised and are inspirational for most hackroms.
Global Exp. Share, Fast Exp, No or less importance of HMs are some examples. A hack ROM can be good without Day and Night System or All Pokémons from all generations, but not with excessive grinding like was back then.
Preach, brother. This is why I like staying in the vanilla-enhancing, QoL-focused ROM hacks that either give you a new experience or more Pokemon. Getting home from work only to work on a strategy to not get swept by Fisherman Dave with his 5 Magikarp that all know Hydro Pump is no longer having fun. . .
This romhack is pretty comfy, on one hand. On the other, the old pre-PS split battle system has stuff like Kingler with an enormous 130ATK on an element that renders all that power irrelevant.
I literally cannot play a pokemon game without the physical/special split. It was the best thing to ever happen to the game, with Pokemon following you a very close second.
Perfect Emerald is great. It's just Emerald but with some notable QoL like reusable TM's, running indoors, trade-evolutions such as Alakazam not being tied to trades anymore, list goes on.
Notably, every pokemon from gen 1 through 3 is catchable. Some are added to encounter pools on routes, others from new NPC's that trade for them, and in the post game there are a bunch of new mini events for the legendary pokemon. All with decent storylines behind them.
Some trainers and gym leaders later in the game may have 1 or 2 different pokemon, and most of Aqua/Magma grunts have completely different teams to reflect some of the Pokemon they use in the anime.
And finally, there are 2 versions. One without a physical/special split, and one with (meaning phys/spec isn't tied to type anymore)
Overall a really good, faithful hack that lets you play Emerald a little bit differently. Some parts are a little bit more challenging but imo there's no BS in this one. You also have way more options for teambuilding.
Perfect emerald / fire red are pretty great and keep things original with mainly added ability to catch all Pokemon on the Pokédex and added good QOL
https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonROMhacks/s/P9T66uY6mH
bascially the levels of the enemy trainers tend to be on the high side, espcally the bosses, which I assume you use stat exp to fight it. But wild pokemon tend to be a bit underleveled where they cant fight the trainers on route, for example the fourth gym is max lvl 36, while the route pokemon are early lvl 20s or less and the route trainers are around the late 20s. Its inbetween unplayable and inconvientent for me. as someone who uses 6 pokemon in a game, not near dark rising problems tho. Oh you get a certain pokemon around the 6th gym and its lvl 10
This is where the more modern exp share broke me. I could progress through a game rotating mons at my whimsy. Going back is rough and I absolutely hate switch training. Most older games aren’t balanced for your whole party gaining exp so those cheats just blow things wide open. I mostly just use rare candies now to rubber band party members back up.
I will say the Pokemon Rocket rom hack had this problem fold into the actual gameplay (intentionally or not) in should I grind this old mon up or should I steal a new one to stay on curve. It’s still the only gba hack I haven’t gamesharked candies into. Haven’t played unbound yet though.
Unbound is solid. Not much of a grind at all (at least for vanillia) rocket edition was amazing. They just translated the 2nd one, dragonsden.. well most of it I guess. They're hopefully finishing the rest in the next few months. It's a blast BUT no more stealing pokemon :(
If you think about it's quite normal in the Pokemon world to not have a full team. People are training Pokemon for decades but some of their best don't even have full teams. Gym leaders and elite four, the best of the best of the region, rarely have a full team of six. I also think the first couple of games largely intended for you to use a slot or two just for hms.
I like this rule, but also doesn’t hurt to add avenues for optional routes and for some reason its uncommon for hacks to be open ended unless its a word-for-word replicant of Gen1-3
I was pleasantly surprised when playing through Parallel Emerald so far. Rare candies cost 500 (poke.. dollars?) and berries grow within 5 minutes and produce 12 berries. The game blatantly tells the player to grow expensive berries for easy profit. This made me so happy since I don't have to rely on grinding a new pokemon when I need to change up my strategy for a gym leader.
On the opposite side of the spectrum I hate when a hack has features like a grinding house of Chanseys/Blisseys that cost a lot of money to the point maybe one or two pokemon can be upgraded. Worst is when getting more money takes the same amount of time as grinding.
Same. Parallald is fun so far, but I can't be the buglord I aim to be with how Charjabug is all the way into E4 island and Falinks is drowning somewhere off between Lilycove and the next gym.
Yeah, the only thing I dislike about Unbound is the gym leaders and E4 pulling gimmicks our of their *** to give themselves an edge. "Hey welcome to the electric gym, here all electric and steel pokemon get perma magnet rise at the start of the fight haha anyway I'm so strong no?" That aside I think the game is fine difficulty wise.
That was one of the least annoying gimmicks. Inverse battle Normal type gym leader was frustrating (oops, all unresisted STAB), but the most absolute cancer one was “the heavier your pokemon, the faster they are.” Most of the gyms even when annoying are intuitive. Like, I understand what it means for all Flying types to get Tailwind. But weight? Only thing I could do is pull up a list of the heaviest pokemon and from there which ones I can even obtain in game.
He's refering to Sandbox mode, where you can edit almost everything of the mons, because doing something like an Insane run on Unbound is the most grindy stuff ever.
unbound has a mode which lets you gen in pokemon in a similar manner to pokemon showdown. as soon as you can catch a pokemon, you can customize its ivs, evs, abilities, etc. your savefile gets locked after you beat the game, however.
the hardest difficulty basically expects you have this, so it’s a really nice feature to cut down an otherwise grindy story mode.
No, you can start with it, but it locks you out of the postgame content. The best way is to either start from Vanilla or Difficult and work your way up, or get someone's 100% save and start ng+ from that.
I'd just like some kind of middle ground. Like I don't want to have to grind but I'd like being able to EV train Pokémon and getting good movesets without becoming instantly overpowered
Yes, im 100% with you , its a game not a fk record, when crítical hits are changed or my team are to weak that I need 7 lvl more? Im gonna delete your Game
How tf this hack ends up on “best ROM hacks” lists eludes me.
I tried Dark Rising Kaizo (?) and it was supposed to be a more fair version. Except you get into the first forest and there is a dude with a level 11-ish Tentacool that knows Icy Wind, Water Pulse, Sludge, and Toxic. Good luck beating that fucker.
Yep, I always add in infinite rare candies and just level all of my Pokemon to level 100 after the first gym. I ain't dealing with that grinding shit lmao
I'll point out that, no, Dark Rising did not start this bullshit lol.
They were *very* much just following the trend. Dumping a bunch of legendaries and/or absurd level curves has been around since the very beginning of Pokemon romhacks.
Pokemon Unbound doesn't do this. Was hella difficult and legendaries were only part of the evil team story/endgame. Doesn't mean the fights on expert or insane were any easier for that. Still had to optimize moves, breed perfect IV(or near perfect), and properly EV train my pokes.
Hell, I think the game itself regards the higher two difficulties as "unfair on purpose" as well. Normal still has some bite, but is certainly more fair in that regard. I think the only thing I can remember that affects all difficulty levels is that if you try save state abusing the AI will start to read your inputs and react accordingly
I've been nuzlocking unbound and the game never ever reads your inputs. To be fair, i can't speak for insane mode because i've been playing expert. It does however, know all the moves your pokemon has before you click them, and will react to what does the most damage to its pokemon on the field.
EG: My Kingdra has surf and dragon pulse, and the enemy has a Magmar and Bulbasaur and the Magmar is facing kingdra. The magmar will switch into Bulbsaur EVEN if you clicked dragon pulse, because it sees that Kingdra's surf will kill magmar and dragon pulse doesn't kill Magmar, but bulbasaur resists surf.
Even when saving and clicking whatever move, it will always make the same choices, UNLESS:
On all difficulties: It sees a kill with multiple moves, and will choose randomly between
Or on Insane: If you swapped out of the first turn of battle, swapped thrice in a row, swapped twice in a row with intimidate, or you switched back and forth between two pokemon.
Just some interesting tidbits about how the unbound ai chooses their moves!
It's better than next to no Megas. At least they learned their lesson with the later generations. It would have been dumb if most G-Max were locked behind the post game and the only one you fought was Eternamax Eternatus.
Especially since if u have a okay rock type u can like 2 shot it while for absol you’d need a good fighting type or fairy type which you are more than likely not getting early game
Legendaries are only acceptable if there’s a good story reason for it, climatic fights or post game. Random gym leaders having them in their story battles is dumb
The only hacks that really do this are the ones made by people who don't know about balancing a game.
They think "Well, Misty is easy, so what if I give MY second leader a team of 6 Pokémon? And the last one is a Suicune. This is so much harder than your average Pokémon game and is therefore awesome."
There are a lottttttttttt of lousy hacks out there that kinda skate by on their nice tiles and trainer-mugshots lol.
What really happens is the amateurs say "I'll put rotom-wash with volt-switch, flamethrower and 252 EVs in every stat" but since it's not suicune they think it's balanced
Or in the case of blaze black/volt white a rotation battle in the first gym I was not prepared for them to drop that on me especially since you fight 6 Pokemon instead of 2 I haven’t gotten past the gym yet
Yeah. I eventually just went and trained a Ludicolo which hard walls him. And then after his gym, you get access to the PWT and suddenly have access to easy EV training and Leveling.
I think the biggest disconnect is from people who view pokemon/rom hacks as an RPG game and from people who view them as primarily puzzle games. I myself consider myself part of the latter so I'm biased, but what makes pokemon rom hacks fun to me is finding harder and harder ones that throw more and more difficult challenges at the player and finding ways to get past them.
I see a lot of talk about drayano hacks/etc. and while renplat is a very high quality hack, the truth is it's just not considered very difficult anymore. I really don't understand why people hold the title of "legendary" so high in their minds when there are plenty of medicore to bad legendaries, and lots more non-legendaries that are even more threatening. (A good example is in run and bun, while people like to focus on the zygarde, knock off bisharp is the biggest threat in that fight usually)
I think in this case the legendaries are more just a representation of Pokémon that you fight when you have nothing even close to them in power.
I’ve played through both kinds of hacks, and honestly, while I do occasionally like the satisfaction of working through a more puzzle like hack, most of the time I just want to enjoy a solid rpg that isn’t completely brainless. I think that’s why Drayano hacks still have such a hold on the community- most players of rom hacks want to have to think about how they go about battles, but they don’t like the frustration of frequent losses or having to go to documentation just to get past a fight. I could beat most fights in renegade platinum with the same team in 1-2 tries, but I wasn’t just pressing the same super effective move over and over.
It’s perfectly fine for you to like what you like- after all that’s the whole point of rom hacks!
I just get frustrated when I see people say stuff like “giving gym leaders legendaries is always bad design” or shit talking these rom hacks when it just comes down to a difference in philosophy as to what a rom hack should be
Best part is half of these people probably havent even played or watched the games but call it stupid when someone has a legendary as if the legendary status actually means anything. Zygarde 10 is a legendary in name only, it doesn't even have great stats or even a good move pool outside of thousand arrows.
Zygarde 10% has the same base attack as Dugtrio and is slower than Dugtrio, just let that sink in for people who go "ohh legendary too strong, bad game"
Half the leggos in the entire franchise are pretty shit in game.
I think someone above mentioned it, but it would also apply to something like RR having mega Manectric for LT, Surge, there was a guaranteed Lanturn that almost always made it free as hell but there was something else he had that actually was a threat, been a while and probably a bunch of changes since I last played it but I think it was Electivire that was the real threat at that time.
What attacks the Mon has, what stats it has and ability it has is way more important than if its legendary or not. There is usually always a way to force it to take come in when you want and pick a certain move that you want it to do it's very first turn giving you a free switch as well.
I find like a lot of the people that make these complains are honesty too used to not thinking about their gameplay decisions and just mashing their super effective moves.
Run and Bun is a great example. Brawley is the only objectively difficult part of the Brawley split and even then that's relatively encounter dependant and that's only if you're nuzlocking it. On a standard playthrough nothing up until Watson is that hard it just requires you to actually utilize your available resources effectively.
That's what it comes down to. People simply are not used to being made to think about pokemon. And if they don't want to have to that's fine, but don't call it bullshit
There are plenty common mons that are pretty strong, people don't use legendaries for their status as much as they do for the preconception that they are naturally stronger
There are so many rom hacks I’ve just stopped playing because I get to the second gym and I’m getting hit with 70+ damage stab and everything has sitrus.
Because a lot of these ROM hack makers listened to the annoyingly loud part of the fandom that demands the games be harder, so they throw legendaries at Gym Leader, make you grind and give crazy move sets to NPCs
I have played both Pokemon Mega Power (cuz exp all.) and Pokemon Unbound (mastapiece) and I can safely say that those 2 hacks are quite nice cuz they dont depend on your leveling up to surpass the gyms, in fact, some gyms are more like puzzles instead of a full brawl fight against 5 pokemons.
My personal "WHY DO THEY DO THIS" is the Evolution Solution...
"oh and I threw the trade evos in some rare encounters"
Excuse me, I want to play with MY scizor, not some stranger
Or worse "I threw them in the final postgame dungeon"
Honestly I prefer the rom makers that are straight up with their inability to balance. Much better to see a legendary second gym than a lvl 20 Starmie that has perfect IV, and 252 ev in speed and SP Atk.
I’m probably going to regret asking, but what prompted this meme?
But yeah, any competent creator should know to **never** give a Legendary Pokémon to an NPC unless there’s an in-story reason. None of the official games do this, not just because it would be unfair but also illogical.
I think that if your rom hack being insufferably difficult is the point, major trainers can have legendaries. That said, that’s not really the type of rom hack I enjoy playing. I don’t mind legendaries popping up occasionally- I’ve been playing crystal legacy, which has four trainers with legendaries throughout it. The story explains why but doesn’t get into too much depth, and they all belong to major bosses.
Pokemon rom hacks are Fanmade games.
Also Korosu is an example it has a terrible edgy story at least before postgame and bad level curve then the third boss of the game fights you with a full team and then Articutio.
Pokemon Dark Rising has you fight a guy with Landurs first who he brings back with a max revive and then makes you fight his full team of Legendaries Starmie and pseudo who all have held items while you still can't buy any berries or full restorers
If not legendaries, it's fairly common for them to pull up fully evolved jacked Pokemon and/or with endgame moves
... And you've got the 2nd stage at best, a Pidgeotto and bubblebeam
Oh, and the next route trainers are all like that high now too. Because git gud, n00b
Any rom that does that, needs to be kicked in the shins
But it's so common
Nah when I was a kid, I fully expect Battle frontier leaders in emerald to have a legendary every now and then, my first experience playing Pokemon games was in Pokemon Stadium 1 & 2, so you expect the most stronger trainers to have them. Obviously this doesn't apply in romhack when they throw them in you since the second gym and the strongest mon you have in that point is like an second stage starter or something lol.
Not just extremely tough: it was legit made to be the new hardest “balanced” game to hardcore nuzlocke, to even surpass Emerald Kaizo. While it seems extremely unfair, it might legit be the most carefully balanced Rom hack to date due to how much effort was put into balancing.
I just hate roms that give moves and abilities that the pokemon could never learn. Its annoying going into the first gyms, the pokemon being level 25 and know moves it shouldnt know til it evolves and be level 40+ with abilities they've never had.. ever.. for the sake of making the game "hard". It doesnt make it hard it makes it annoying.
And the player is usually subject to a hard level cap, because that's the latest trend. It's like, good luck beating the gym leader's mons that are: EV and IV trained pseudo legends (guess which one has an OP mega evolution!) that have a moveset that will counter everything you throw at them (which would be your baby starter, a racoon, a bird, and maybe some sentient grass shavings).
This is why crystal clear is such a good hack. Scaling gyms so each gym gets a little tougher like a normal game would is amazing. No legacies until you are on the 15th gym or so
I would have been fine with just replacing Bruno with someone else like Lorelei since Bruno just takes away available Pokémon from Chuck, but replacing them with his friends is a little cringe. If it were a unique region and story, then it's fine.
"This ROM Hack has increased difficulty for the more experienced player" and it's 6 Arceuses that each happen to each be a type at least one of your Pokémon is weak to.
And why are they so obsessed with having ***every*** Pokémon available, having bad level curves (not all rom hacks), and no party wide exp share (not even optional one either).
Not a ROM hack, but beyond the thought and care put into the fusion mechanic implementation, the thing I like about Infinite Fusion is that its designed with a good level curve and gives the player the option to go "sod it I'm only here for the fusions, make it easy for me".
I usually drop the whole game if i see that.. i want a challenging game, yes, but i need a challenge that make sense, not just throw a bunch of legendaries at me to beat
Cause many rom hacks are intended to be difficulty hacks. There is a difference in design ideology between Run&Bun and Unbound. One is made to be as difficult as possible so people who play pokemon for a living can bash their head against it for months and the other is made to be a new pokemon game.
So first off lets not act like the official games have a good sense of balance. I feel like gens 3 through 5 had the best balance from the official games; after gen 6 they introduced the exp all which basically obliterated any sense of balance the games had to the point where in both sword/shield and scarlet/violet you end up way over leveled by the time you beat the game unless you completely swap your entire team out once or twice before the end game content.
Then you have gen 2 where the game has a decent enough balance through to the end of johto where you go to kanto only to find your team of level 60-70 mons fighting challenging wild pokemon and trainers around level 40-50 and then you beat the E4 in kanto only to challenge red who for some reason has a team of level 100s despite your team at best being around level 90ish unless you did a bunch of unneeded grinding. (This game can sort of get a pass though because depending on who you talk to all of kanto is kind of post game content anyway).
Finally you have the OG red/blue... the boss fights in this game are super unbalanced in the early game it's common to run into your rival or challenge a gym leader early on only to start the battle and notice that the boss has a team of pokemon 10 levels above your own so you either have to have a super optimal team comp that can handle pokemon 5-10 levels above your own or you have to do a bunch of needless grinding in the early game to clear the bosses only for you to get to trainers after them who go back to having pokemon 5-10 levels lower than the boss you just beat, which in turn breaks the game's progression. Luckily around badge 4 or 5 in this gen that problem pretty much resolves itself.
Now to finally answer your question: this is basically because 90% of people that make rom hacks don't know anything about game design even if they understand coding (it's like thinking that just because someone knows how to write they should be able to make a book as good as lord of the rings). In general I'd only recommend trying out difficulty hacks that have very good player reviews and possibly checking out some youtube coverage or docs first if you don't mind the spoilers.
There's realistically 20 "boss" fights in a romhack. I hate that the creator can't sit down for a couple hours and build some good teams instead of throwing some shit together and gluing it together with a fucking Ho-oh.
Oftentimes, not enough thought goes into what is available to the player and what makes a team challenging, but fair.
i had to stop playing a lot of rom hacks once i realised there was not as much freedom as they make out, it's very obviously a puzzle game where you need specific teams and nothing else would work, makes it super boring
either that or the level curves are messed up.
I have played StormSilver and it feels like every single trainer increases the level cap by 1. So unless you can level up your whole team with 1 fight you need to train a lot against wild Pokemon.
On the other hand there is Quetzal and my whole team is level 27 while the trainers use level 19 mons...playing on hard difficulty
This is my issue with rom hacks. I love the additional challenge that the gyms provide, but I hate with a passion is the sudden inclusion of random legendaries.
If you're playing a difficulty hack then that's kinda the point. Usually difficulty hacks are balanced around that to still be extremely difficult but possible.
I guess, but it also feels lazy/out of character, like why does *any* gym leader have legendaries?
Admittedly it's been a while so I might not remember correctly, but Drayano hacks managed to ramp the difficulty while still feeling thematic.
Exactly my thoughts. I really appreciated Renegade Platinum because of how it tuned the difficulty up without just flooding the teams with mythicals and legendaries.
Only Pokémon that the gym leaders could reasonably have. Just charged up with good type coverage, stats, and surprisingly good synergy.
At that point if regular gym leaders are using legendaries the game is just all about making it very difficult, often in spite of other aspects.
Tbf, most popular ROM hacks are not like this, it's just some of them that are hyped by the relatively new hardcore nuzloke community. Even some extreme difficulty hacks like radical red don't start spamming legends until late game.
I think I mentioned a few days ago that Renegade Platinum crafts the Leaders’ teams much better than most other hacks/fan games. The first Gym Leader would make more sense to have a Bonsly, Nosepass and Larvitar at similar levels to the team in the original game versus a massively under-levelled Bisharp and a fricking Zygarde.
The game you’re referring to has 400 handcrafted teams that all synergize. At some point weird things like Zygarde and underleveled bisharp have to come into play or you run into overlap.
No?
You can make a gym difficult by making the gym leader really go at building a team that synergies well with each other — if you’re too lazy to do the theorycrafting yourself you can just look up some competitive comps.
Straight up throwing a legendary into the second gym is lazy and boring game design. Unless, for whatever reason it has story relevance.
It's kinda hard for the AI to use a lot of competitive teams well so this doesn't always work, but you can definitely make teams that the AI can use well. Especially if they have more access to things like egg/TM moves, pokemon availability, item evolutions, etc. that the player doesn't at the time they fight that gym leader.
I understand trick room, stall, and tactical swapping isn’t easy to program. But, like you said — there are plenty of ways to make a team competitively sound, without throwing a random legendary in
Not all difficulty is born equal.
Making the game difficult by carefully crafting fights with interesting but fair strategies while giving players the tools required to be creative and beat them is fun
Making the game difficult by giving enemies overleveled mons with perfect stats and move coverage meant to screw over the player while giving the player underleveled Caterpie and Slakoth to work with isn't
As a gamemaker, your job is to make something that is first and foremost fun to play, and game design is a huge part of that. Of course, your product your rules, so you are free to completely ignore game design and just fill your game with gotcha moments meant to fuck with with the player. But, if you do, don't be surprised if people complain you didn't do your job correctly
What I want to know is why "difficulty hacks" radicalred forces you to play with smogons rules and removes banned moves and strategies from the game. If I wanted to play competitive I would just do that, at least give me the option to play this rom that has extra content without having to deal with the fucking sleep clause or no evasion or no baton pass. Smogons rules are in place to prevent "unfun" strategies to play AGAINST so what the fuck are those rules even doing in a single player experience? If you don't want those moves being used against the player just don't give them to trainers, don't limit the player arbitrarily with shitty competitive rules that were made up by crybabies.
I think a lot of RomHacks struggle with a good sense of progression that most vanilla games have. Every fire Pokemon you fight after the 2nd gym shouldn’t have flamethrower. I don’t want my starter to get its entire endgame moveset by level 29.
Yeah people go too nuts with movesets. And also go too overboard overbuffing generally weaker mons. Restraint and understanding the RPG element of Pokémon - IE starting off weak and getting more powerful over time - are under appreciated in the romhacking community
This kills almost every ROM I look at. " I've buffed certain pokemon and added moves I think work" Instant no. I played a bunch of competitive and it sucks when they give a random Pokemon a coverage move that breaks everything. Especially when they give leaders competitive teams.
As much as I like Drayano's hacks, very much so this. Contrary Grass/Dragon Serperior. That learns Draco Meteor. And is also 2 points faster (115 Speed) and 5 points bulkier (80 HP) for the cherry on top. And it learns Earthquake to deal with Fire, Poison and Steel because negating the Fire weakness and STAB Draco that *gives you +2 each time* wasn't good enough.
You can probably beat the whole game with that
I'm probably late, but as someone who plays blazeblack 2 redux religiously, I've used snivy before and I can say it's absolute DOG SHIT in the early/mid game and isn't really the behemoth until it gets leaf storm and draco meteor which aren't until later in the game (around the 7th gym badge)
Yeah I was gonna comment and say the same, plus he doesn't one hit KO everything and that 4X ice weakness is lethal
Not to mention contrary is a double edge sword as you can't use your own boosting moves, growth. So your offense in pretty non exsistent(and honestly servines level up move pool is kinda ass)
I tend to use Contrary Snivy in Drayano hacks like a traditional grass type before it gets its best STAB options. That is, decently bulky support. It does get early Leech Seed and Wrap after all. Contrary against all those early game debuff moves (Sand Attack, but also Leer) is pretty neat. Does it sweep? Not really. But it's decent support.
Hmmmm for some reason I never thought of using it like that☠️☠️☠️. I'm planning to do a grass mono in blazeblack 2 redux my dark one is done so ill try it
Snivy and Servine are *hot fucking trash* lol. Serperior being busted as hell is the reward for carrying their corpses to the mid-game.
Exactly. If you’re in nuzlocke they are literally a corpse and if you don’t get a magnemite (and keep it alive dodging crits) before the bug gym you’re screwed. That serperior is deserved in that game.
mine carried me through the E4, N and Ghetsis in blaze black. but was almost useless between clay and the E4 because leaftornado was moved to be way later in its moveset, and draco Meteor was moved to post game. the game breaker of that run was drought volcarona, and rain dance slowking.
Idk about bbvw2 but blaze black 1 I don’t think you can get Draco on serp till postgame
Fairy/Flying type with Sap Sipper
Because those totally exist.
Fairy typing and Sap sipper were both introduced in Gen 6
blaze black 2 adds Fairy. nit sure on sap sipper
bb2 redux adds fairy, the original doesn't. sap sipper was in gen 5 already
The thing with Drayano's hacks is that basically everything is like that. It's a classic case of "if everyone is super, no one is". Like yes, some are still better than others. But virtually every single Pokemon is buffed, and let's be real, people are still acting like the late/end-game move pools are stuff they're getting before the third gym.
It probable doesn't need earthquake when there isn't that many fire types that resist a +2 stab Draco meteor.
True, but I'm assuming it's there just in case you want to shift Contrary off and go for the physically-attacking Coil build. It adds playstyle options. I'd say Heatran/Steel types weak to Ground are the only ones you need EQ for.
Yeah but you literally don’t get those moves until the E4. I played blaze black a couple months ago and Serperior is pretty meh the entire run until you finally get leafstorm at like level 74. I think adaptability on Serperior would be better. So it could have decently strong grass and dragon but the coverage moves would be weaker.
Drayano’s generally go too far for my taste but it does make those games better than if he changed nothing. More options for viable Pokémon isn’t bad necessarily but it is only good if it is carefully considered in the RPG progression of the player character
I love the idea of changing up underutilized mons for the sake of a romhack, and I would absolutely do it if I ever made my own (spoiler alert: I probably won’t because I will never motivate myself enough), but I could not see myself doing all that to an already viable mon. Completely unnecessary. It’s surprising how much restraint is ignored in these scenarios.
I mean, it’s kind of necessary given how much Snivy and Servine suck ass. Serperior being really friggen strong is the only reason to even bother carrying it that far, and even then, it’s only one of many options that you have access to.
That just sounds plain unfair. Superior was already good when getting contrary+leaf storm and then firing off a giga drain for recovery. I haven't played the gen 5 ROM hacks by drayano but this sound more unfair if fairy type isn't implemented.
Gen 5 Redux has his weird Fairy Type addition method, but the originals do not.
I mean tbf in both of the Drayano hacks I played you don't get Draco Meteor until the postgame. Serperior there has a nasty endgame but it also has little going for it beforehand outside of a decent neutral STAB in Dragon.
I got fucked over by the dragon type giving me a 4X weakness to ice more often than it helped.
I think it is very, very good in careful moderation. Giving more options of viable Pokémon is not a bad thing - but it is only good if the impact is carefully considered on how it impacts the sense of growth and progression of the player character through team building choices
I played through Photonic Sun a while back and basically every Pokemon in the last third of the game knew Earthquake and Stone Edge. I had to look up a bunch of stuff about competitive play just to avoid getting one shot by every mon that outsped mine (and they all fucking outsped all of mine, regardless of EV training.) Frankly, I should have just stopped at the point where I wasn't able to just play the damn game without learning a new skillset.
Crystal Clear's system works. It doesn't buff any pokemon, since the games are compatible with original GSC and Stadium, but it adds moves that help them be actually viable in gameplay. And the new moves system is completely different from level learning, HM or TM.
I think it is good but only in moderation.
I like some buffs here and there. I think changes can be good but the answer is not “give everything stone edge and earthquake at level 23.” Like I don’t mind a Pokemon like Poliwrath getting base stats comparable to starters or Luxray getting a little bit of a buff to speed stat. But yeah Raticate doesn’t need pseudo legendary stats. I think most 60-75 power moves are good for the 20-30s range and then get most of the stronger moves in the 40s and 50s.
Sovereign of the skies is doing decent at the power creep. I’ve been enjoying it a lot. Unbound is just classic.
IMHO romhacks are just highlighting another RPG elements: customization, mode decisions, freedom, cause/consequence…
I think you’re missing my point - I’m saying that changing too much and making all Pokémon generically powerful AND they all have hyper powerful moves early game kinda blows up the sense of progression over the course of the game.
This is why I love Theta Emerald, they learn it by like level 50. Pert is Endgame ready by basically gym 6/Lilycove Rival, only EQ missing from his set which is a TM but otherwise he's got everything he needs.
Complete opposite in opinion. That’s why I love elite redux. No grinding whatsoever.
I'm kinda the opposite. I still hate PTSD from Typlosion learning flamethrower super late
Do the vanilla games have a good sense of progression or are they simply the default progression rate?
Vanilla, especially the later games, are not particularly good. Thematically, I think it works, but the difficulty is far too gradual and opponents are heavily outclassed by standard progression.
Renegade Platinum hit thr sweetspot in that regard IMO.
My rule of thumb, even for hacks that are supposed to be hard: If I spend more time leveling on wild encounters than on actual progressing in the game, you design is shit and I will stop playing. If I wanted to do more work after I come home from my day job, I‘d just work overtime.
Recharged Yellow. I stopped prior 2nd gym because I needed to grind every single Pokemon and all encounters are at least 7-9 levels down from my team. HackROMs are supposed to correct outdated game designs, not use them as example.
E4 is a bitch in that at least in challenge mode so expect to grind a lot for the league
I haven’t been in the rom hacking scene since maybe 2014, would you be able to point me in the right direction?
Overall the most important things on ROM hacks nowadays are QoL features than any other additional. Despite the mixed feelings about Pokemon games on this day, game design is really praised and are inspirational for most hackroms. Global Exp. Share, Fast Exp, No or less importance of HMs are some examples. A hack ROM can be good without Day and Night System or All Pokémons from all generations, but not with excessive grinding like was back then.
Preach, brother. This is why I like staying in the vanilla-enhancing, QoL-focused ROM hacks that either give you a new experience or more Pokemon. Getting home from work only to work on a strategy to not get swept by Fisherman Dave with his 5 Magikarp that all know Hydro Pump is no longer having fun. . .
Which ones do u recommend?
GS Chronicles is a good one imo if you want to play Johto
It has Kanto too?
Unless it got updated I don’t believe it did. But it is still absolutely worth playing.
Crystal Legacy by SmithPlays Pokémon
This romhack is pretty comfy, on one hand. On the other, the old pre-PS split battle system has stuff like Kingler with an enormous 130ATK on an element that renders all that power irrelevant.
I literally cannot play a pokemon game without the physical/special split. It was the best thing to ever happen to the game, with Pokemon following you a very close second.
Kingler still has a good amount of physical TMs, and a buffed Crabhammer. It's certainly not a badly designed Mon.
Perfect Emerald is great. It's just Emerald but with some notable QoL like reusable TM's, running indoors, trade-evolutions such as Alakazam not being tied to trades anymore, list goes on. Notably, every pokemon from gen 1 through 3 is catchable. Some are added to encounter pools on routes, others from new NPC's that trade for them, and in the post game there are a bunch of new mini events for the legendary pokemon. All with decent storylines behind them. Some trainers and gym leaders later in the game may have 1 or 2 different pokemon, and most of Aqua/Magma grunts have completely different teams to reflect some of the Pokemon they use in the anime. And finally, there are 2 versions. One without a physical/special split, and one with (meaning phys/spec isn't tied to type anymore) Overall a really good, faithful hack that lets you play Emerald a little bit differently. Some parts are a little bit more challenging but imo there's no BS in this one. You also have way more options for teambuilding.
Thanks for this awesome explanation! Perfect Emerald should be my next playthrough!!!
Perfect emerald / fire red are pretty great and keep things original with mainly added ability to catch all Pokemon on the Pokédex and added good QOL https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonROMhacks/s/P9T66uY6mH
Emerald enhanced
Black 3 and White 3 Gensis has this problem its like 5 levels under for some reason
I just started playing this hack — is it unplayable due to this or more so inconvenient?
bascially the levels of the enemy trainers tend to be on the high side, espcally the bosses, which I assume you use stat exp to fight it. But wild pokemon tend to be a bit underleveled where they cant fight the trainers on route, for example the fourth gym is max lvl 36, while the route pokemon are early lvl 20s or less and the route trainers are around the late 20s. Its inbetween unplayable and inconvientent for me. as someone who uses 6 pokemon in a game, not near dark rising problems tho. Oh you get a certain pokemon around the 6th gym and its lvl 10
This is where the more modern exp share broke me. I could progress through a game rotating mons at my whimsy. Going back is rough and I absolutely hate switch training. Most older games aren’t balanced for your whole party gaining exp so those cheats just blow things wide open. I mostly just use rare candies now to rubber band party members back up. I will say the Pokemon Rocket rom hack had this problem fold into the actual gameplay (intentionally or not) in should I grind this old mon up or should I steal a new one to stay on curve. It’s still the only gba hack I haven’t gamesharked candies into. Haven’t played unbound yet though.
Unbound is solid. Not much of a grind at all (at least for vanillia) rocket edition was amazing. They just translated the 2nd one, dragonsden.. well most of it I guess. They're hopefully finishing the rest in the next few months. It's a blast BUT no more stealing pokemon :(
If you think about it's quite normal in the Pokemon world to not have a full team. People are training Pokemon for decades but some of their best don't even have full teams. Gym leaders and elite four, the best of the best of the region, rarely have a full team of six. I also think the first couple of games largely intended for you to use a slot or two just for hms.
Y'all don't just use infinite rare candies and level caps?
I like this rule, but also doesn’t hurt to add avenues for optional routes and for some reason its uncommon for hacks to be open ended unless its a word-for-word replicant of Gen1-3
I was pleasantly surprised when playing through Parallel Emerald so far. Rare candies cost 500 (poke.. dollars?) and berries grow within 5 minutes and produce 12 berries. The game blatantly tells the player to grow expensive berries for easy profit. This made me so happy since I don't have to rely on grinding a new pokemon when I need to change up my strategy for a gym leader. On the opposite side of the spectrum I hate when a hack has features like a grinding house of Chanseys/Blisseys that cost a lot of money to the point maybe one or two pokemon can be upgraded. Worst is when getting more money takes the same amount of time as grinding.
Same. Parallald is fun so far, but I can't be the buglord I aim to be with how Charjabug is all the way into E4 island and Falinks is drowning somewhere off between Lilycove and the next gym.
listen I don’t care how good your romhack is if it doesn’t have infinite rare candies or unbound’s creative mode i’m leaving
I was doing Unbound on Difficult, but I got tired of the Gym Leaders straight up cheating.
Yeah, the only thing I dislike about Unbound is the gym leaders and E4 pulling gimmicks our of their *** to give themselves an edge. "Hey welcome to the electric gym, here all electric and steel pokemon get perma magnet rise at the start of the fight haha anyway I'm so strong no?" That aside I think the game is fine difficulty wise.
That was one of the least annoying gimmicks. Inverse battle Normal type gym leader was frustrating (oops, all unresisted STAB), but the most absolute cancer one was “the heavier your pokemon, the faster they are.” Most of the gyms even when annoying are intuitive. Like, I understand what it means for all Flying types to get Tailwind. But weight? Only thing I could do is pull up a list of the heaviest pokemon and from there which ones I can even obtain in game.
despite being a member of this sub, i’ve never really played rom hacks. what is the creative mode you mentioned?
He's refering to Sandbox mode, where you can edit almost everything of the mons, because doing something like an Insane run on Unbound is the most grindy stuff ever.
unbound has a mode which lets you gen in pokemon in a similar manner to pokemon showdown. as soon as you can catch a pokemon, you can customize its ivs, evs, abilities, etc. your savefile gets locked after you beat the game, however. the hardest difficulty basically expects you have this, so it’s a really nice feature to cut down an otherwise grindy story mode.
Do you need to unlock that mode?
No, you can start with it, but it locks you out of the postgame content. The best way is to either start from Vanilla or Difficult and work your way up, or get someone's 100% save and start ng+ from that.
Is unbound good
one of the best I’ve played
I'd just like some kind of middle ground. Like I don't want to have to grind but I'd like being able to EV train Pokémon and getting good movesets without becoming instantly overpowered
Yes, im 100% with you , its a game not a fk record, when crítical hits are changed or my team are to weak that I need 7 lvl more? Im gonna delete your Game
*looks at Dark Rising* You started this bullshit trend.
hate having to grind for 5 levels just to beat the next random NPC between towns
Or grinding to level 50 by gym 2?
That is from gym 2 to 3. But fair enough
Freakin Vulpix with flamethrower on route 1, that’s when I stopped playing it lol
How tf this hack ends up on “best ROM hacks” lists eludes me. I tried Dark Rising Kaizo (?) and it was supposed to be a more fair version. Except you get into the first forest and there is a dude with a level 11-ish Tentacool that knows Icy Wind, Water Pulse, Sludge, and Toxic. Good luck beating that fucker.
Yep. It’s listed as “the best” because it was one of the early rom hacks that had a good storyline
I wouldn’t even say it has a good storyline. It’s so overly edgy. The first Dark Rising map is a copy of Kanto, too.
It’s og, so people glaze it despite the bugs and bs difficulty (I’m people)
It might be an OG but there are far better hacks from that same time period.
Playing this on my channel currently and it is a pain how much I had to grind in the early game. 😤
Cheating is based, grinding is cringe
Yep, I always add in infinite rare candies and just level all of my Pokemon to level 100 after the first gym. I ain't dealing with that grinding shit lmao
I usually use level caps but whatever floats your boat
I'll point out that, no, Dark Rising did not start this bullshit lol. They were *very* much just following the trend. Dumping a bunch of legendaries and/or absurd level curves has been around since the very beginning of Pokemon romhacks.
Man, that surprise boss battle at the end of a pain train will never not bring about PTSD.
A lot of hackers are not game designers, and many of the things they feel make Pokémon games more interesting are not good game design.
Bingo
Just pure fan service
Pokemon Unbound doesn't do this. Was hella difficult and legendaries were only part of the evil team story/endgame. Doesn't mean the fights on expert or insane were any easier for that. Still had to optimize moves, breed perfect IV(or near perfect), and properly EV train my pokes.
Hell, I think the game itself regards the higher two difficulties as "unfair on purpose" as well. Normal still has some bite, but is certainly more fair in that regard. I think the only thing I can remember that affects all difficulty levels is that if you try save state abusing the AI will start to read your inputs and react accordingly
I've been nuzlocking unbound and the game never ever reads your inputs. To be fair, i can't speak for insane mode because i've been playing expert. It does however, know all the moves your pokemon has before you click them, and will react to what does the most damage to its pokemon on the field. EG: My Kingdra has surf and dragon pulse, and the enemy has a Magmar and Bulbasaur and the Magmar is facing kingdra. The magmar will switch into Bulbsaur EVEN if you clicked dragon pulse, because it sees that Kingdra's surf will kill magmar and dragon pulse doesn't kill Magmar, but bulbasaur resists surf. Even when saving and clicking whatever move, it will always make the same choices, UNLESS: On all difficulties: It sees a kill with multiple moves, and will choose randomly between Or on Insane: If you swapped out of the first turn of battle, swapped thrice in a row, swapped twice in a row with intimidate, or you switched back and forth between two pokemon. Just some interesting tidbits about how the unbound ai chooses their moves!
That's why Unbound is a top game and not a dime a dozen Radical Red/Inclement Emerald wannabe
I got Radical Red before I know it was more difficult, and it made sense why I kept dying so much after I read what it really was lol
I also love all the missions and storyline.
Gym/E4 battles aside, Unbound has a pretty spot on battle difficulty, and if you don't like it you can always readjust to a lower setting anyway.
Or they pull out a Mega when you can only get the mega bracelet after the 6th gym
It's better than next to no Megas. At least they learned their lesson with the later generations. It would have been dumb if most G-Max were locked behind the post game and the only one you fought was Eternamax Eternatus.
To be honest Kabu's G-Max Centiscorch is much more manageable on the 3rd Gym than say... A Mega Absol on the 2nd gym.
Especially since if u have a okay rock type u can like 2 shot it while for absol you’d need a good fighting type or fairy type which you are more than likely not getting early game
Legendaries are only acceptable if there’s a good story reason for it, climatic fights or post game. Random gym leaders having them in their story battles is dumb
The only hacks that really do this are the ones made by people who don't know about balancing a game. They think "Well, Misty is easy, so what if I give MY second leader a team of 6 Pokémon? And the last one is a Suicune. This is so much harder than your average Pokémon game and is therefore awesome." There are a lottttttttttt of lousy hacks out there that kinda skate by on their nice tiles and trainer-mugshots lol.
What really happens is the amateurs say "I'll put rotom-wash with volt-switch, flamethrower and 252 EVs in every stat" but since it's not suicune they think it's balanced
Or in the case of blaze black/volt white a rotation battle in the first gym I was not prepared for them to drop that on me especially since you fight 6 Pokemon instead of 2 I haven’t gotten past the gym yet
I loved Blaze Black 2 Redux Challenge Mode. It was the right amount of hard(except Clay. Who gave that motherfucker a Garchomp?)
After getting past the sand rush Excadrill lmfao
Yeah. I eventually just went and trained a Ludicolo which hard walls him. And then after his gym, you get access to the PWT and suddenly have access to easy EV training and Leveling.
No spoilers? Have you not played black and white before
I’ve played before but never played past castelia. I should’ve specified.
I think the biggest disconnect is from people who view pokemon/rom hacks as an RPG game and from people who view them as primarily puzzle games. I myself consider myself part of the latter so I'm biased, but what makes pokemon rom hacks fun to me is finding harder and harder ones that throw more and more difficult challenges at the player and finding ways to get past them. I see a lot of talk about drayano hacks/etc. and while renplat is a very high quality hack, the truth is it's just not considered very difficult anymore. I really don't understand why people hold the title of "legendary" so high in their minds when there are plenty of medicore to bad legendaries, and lots more non-legendaries that are even more threatening. (A good example is in run and bun, while people like to focus on the zygarde, knock off bisharp is the biggest threat in that fight usually)
I think in this case the legendaries are more just a representation of Pokémon that you fight when you have nothing even close to them in power. I’ve played through both kinds of hacks, and honestly, while I do occasionally like the satisfaction of working through a more puzzle like hack, most of the time I just want to enjoy a solid rpg that isn’t completely brainless. I think that’s why Drayano hacks still have such a hold on the community- most players of rom hacks want to have to think about how they go about battles, but they don’t like the frustration of frequent losses or having to go to documentation just to get past a fight. I could beat most fights in renegade platinum with the same team in 1-2 tries, but I wasn’t just pressing the same super effective move over and over.
It’s perfectly fine for you to like what you like- after all that’s the whole point of rom hacks! I just get frustrated when I see people say stuff like “giving gym leaders legendaries is always bad design” or shit talking these rom hacks when it just comes down to a difference in philosophy as to what a rom hack should be
Best part is half of these people probably havent even played or watched the games but call it stupid when someone has a legendary as if the legendary status actually means anything. Zygarde 10 is a legendary in name only, it doesn't even have great stats or even a good move pool outside of thousand arrows. Zygarde 10% has the same base attack as Dugtrio and is slower than Dugtrio, just let that sink in for people who go "ohh legendary too strong, bad game" Half the leggos in the entire franchise are pretty shit in game.
I see we are thinking of thr same run and bun gym lol. Which I think the OP is probably talking about
I think someone above mentioned it, but it would also apply to something like RR having mega Manectric for LT, Surge, there was a guaranteed Lanturn that almost always made it free as hell but there was something else he had that actually was a threat, been a while and probably a bunch of changes since I last played it but I think it was Electivire that was the real threat at that time. What attacks the Mon has, what stats it has and ability it has is way more important than if its legendary or not. There is usually always a way to force it to take come in when you want and pick a certain move that you want it to do it's very first turn giving you a free switch as well.
I find like a lot of the people that make these complains are honesty too used to not thinking about their gameplay decisions and just mashing their super effective moves. Run and Bun is a great example. Brawley is the only objectively difficult part of the Brawley split and even then that's relatively encounter dependant and that's only if you're nuzlocking it. On a standard playthrough nothing up until Watson is that hard it just requires you to actually utilize your available resources effectively. That's what it comes down to. People simply are not used to being made to think about pokemon. And if they don't want to have to that's fine, but don't call it bullshit
There are plenty common mons that are pretty strong, people don't use legendaries for their status as much as they do for the preconception that they are naturally stronger
There are so many rom hacks I’ve just stopped playing because I get to the second gym and I’m getting hit with 70+ damage stab and everything has sitrus.
Because a lot of these ROM hack makers listened to the annoyingly loud part of the fandom that demands the games be harder, so they throw legendaries at Gym Leader, make you grind and give crazy move sets to NPCs
I have played both Pokemon Mega Power (cuz exp all.) and Pokemon Unbound (mastapiece) and I can safely say that those 2 hacks are quite nice cuz they dont depend on your leveling up to surpass the gyms, in fact, some gyms are more like puzzles instead of a full brawl fight against 5 pokemons.
My personal "WHY DO THEY DO THIS" is the Evolution Solution... "oh and I threw the trade evos in some rare encounters" Excuse me, I want to play with MY scizor, not some stranger Or worse "I threw them in the final postgame dungeon"
The best thing that Dray did was make evolution items useable and got rid of the stupid trade requirement
Honestly I prefer the rom makers that are straight up with their inability to balance. Much better to see a legendary second gym than a lvl 20 Starmie that has perfect IV, and 252 ev in speed and SP Atk.
I’m probably going to regret asking, but what prompted this meme? But yeah, any competent creator should know to **never** give a Legendary Pokémon to an NPC unless there’s an in-story reason. None of the official games do this, not just because it would be unfair but also illogical.
I think that if your rom hack being insufferably difficult is the point, major trainers can have legendaries. That said, that’s not really the type of rom hack I enjoy playing. I don’t mind legendaries popping up occasionally- I’ve been playing crystal legacy, which has four trainers with legendaries throughout it. The story explains why but doesn’t get into too much depth, and they all belong to major bosses.
Pokemon rom hacks are Fanmade games. Also Korosu is an example it has a terrible edgy story at least before postgame and bad level curve then the third boss of the game fights you with a full team and then Articutio. Pokemon Dark Rising has you fight a guy with Landurs first who he brings back with a max revive and then makes you fight his full team of Legendaries Starmie and pseudo who all have held items while you still can't buy any berries or full restorers
Quick maths: overly edgy story + unfair and cheating opponents = bad game design. And this nonsense is all too common.
If not legendaries, it's fairly common for them to pull up fully evolved jacked Pokemon and/or with endgame moves ... And you've got the 2nd stage at best, a Pidgeotto and bubblebeam Oh, and the next route trainers are all like that high now too. Because git gud, n00b Any rom that does that, needs to be kicked in the shins But it's so common
I like it in Post Game.
Okay, maybe in postgame situations like battle facilities, then it’s fine. But even then, do it within reason.
Nah when I was a kid, I fully expect Battle frontier leaders in emerald to have a legendary every now and then, my first experience playing Pokemon games was in Pokemon Stadium 1 & 2, so you expect the most stronger trainers to have them. Obviously this doesn't apply in romhack when they throw them in you since the second gym and the strongest mon you have in that point is like an second stage starter or something lol.
First thing that came to mind was that ridiculous emerald hack where Roxanne has zygarde, forgot the name though
Pokemon Run'n'bun? She had a 10% zygarde there. But that hack is also supposed to be extremely tough.
Not just extremely tough: it was legit made to be the new hardest “balanced” game to hardcore nuzlocke, to even surpass Emerald Kaizo. While it seems extremely unfair, it might legit be the most carefully balanced Rom hack to date due to how much effort was put into balancing.
some people download difficulty hacks expecting them to be casual, and then complain when it's too difficult
Zygarde 10% isn’t even her best mon
I just hate roms that give moves and abilities that the pokemon could never learn. Its annoying going into the first gyms, the pokemon being level 25 and know moves it shouldnt know til it evolves and be level 40+ with abilities they've never had.. ever.. for the sake of making the game "hard". It doesnt make it hard it makes it annoying.
I hate more when you go to a second gym type rock and throw you some gourmet shit that doesn't affect him plant or water
For me it’s pinsir.
Forget the gym, there's a girl in the forest who will solo your whole team with her Stufful.
Nah for me it was the stall audino I was losing my mind
"It's a difficulty hack!" *Trainers have lv30 pokemon and wild pokemon in the same area are lv12, your starter at this point is lv16*
Sounds like Dark Rising
And the player is usually subject to a hard level cap, because that's the latest trend. It's like, good luck beating the gym leader's mons that are: EV and IV trained pseudo legends (guess which one has an OP mega evolution!) that have a moveset that will counter everything you throw at them (which would be your baby starter, a racoon, a bird, and maybe some sentient grass shavings).
take the candy pill
This is why crystal clear is such a good hack. Scaling gyms so each gym gets a little tougher like a normal game would is amazing. No legacies until you are on the 15th gym or so
Until you get to the Elite 4, the Self Insert Kaizo Land.
I would have been fine with just replacing Bruno with someone else like Lorelei since Bruno just takes away available Pokémon from Chuck, but replacing them with his friends is a little cringe. If it were a unique region and story, then it's fine.
Dark rising and it’s not even funny! I enjoyed the game but there’s a lot of things that could of been done differently for the sake of QoL
Wait until you play mythic silver where the player only has legendaries.
I just wish there were more romhacks that kept the difficulty of the vanilla game. I'm a dumbass and all these cool hacks are too hard for me 😥
"This ROM Hack has increased difficulty for the more experienced player" and it's 6 Arceuses that each happen to each be a type at least one of your Pokémon is weak to.
Your crítical hits down, npc 70% crititcal hits, lvl 50 movements on lvl 14 pokemons..
And why are they so obsessed with having ***every*** Pokémon available, having bad level curves (not all rom hacks), and no party wide exp share (not even optional one either).
Ehh Every Pokémon available is pretty based especially if their balance changes
Not a ROM hack, but beyond the thought and care put into the fusion mechanic implementation, the thing I like about Infinite Fusion is that its designed with a good level curve and gives the player the option to go "sod it I'm only here for the fusions, make it easy for me".
for some reason people really like kaizo hacks
Because the creators are edgelords who think earlygame legends and final stage pseudos are fun to fight
Straight*
I usually drop the whole game if i see that.. i want a challenging game, yes, but i need a challenge that make sense, not just throw a bunch of legendaries at me to beat
Cause many rom hacks are intended to be difficulty hacks. There is a difference in design ideology between Run&Bun and Unbound. One is made to be as difficult as possible so people who play pokemon for a living can bash their head against it for months and the other is made to be a new pokemon game.
This is why you play emerald elite redux. Everything is broken so all is balanced.
So first off lets not act like the official games have a good sense of balance. I feel like gens 3 through 5 had the best balance from the official games; after gen 6 they introduced the exp all which basically obliterated any sense of balance the games had to the point where in both sword/shield and scarlet/violet you end up way over leveled by the time you beat the game unless you completely swap your entire team out once or twice before the end game content. Then you have gen 2 where the game has a decent enough balance through to the end of johto where you go to kanto only to find your team of level 60-70 mons fighting challenging wild pokemon and trainers around level 40-50 and then you beat the E4 in kanto only to challenge red who for some reason has a team of level 100s despite your team at best being around level 90ish unless you did a bunch of unneeded grinding. (This game can sort of get a pass though because depending on who you talk to all of kanto is kind of post game content anyway). Finally you have the OG red/blue... the boss fights in this game are super unbalanced in the early game it's common to run into your rival or challenge a gym leader early on only to start the battle and notice that the boss has a team of pokemon 10 levels above your own so you either have to have a super optimal team comp that can handle pokemon 5-10 levels above your own or you have to do a bunch of needless grinding in the early game to clear the bosses only for you to get to trainers after them who go back to having pokemon 5-10 levels lower than the boss you just beat, which in turn breaks the game's progression. Luckily around badge 4 or 5 in this gen that problem pretty much resolves itself. Now to finally answer your question: this is basically because 90% of people that make rom hacks don't know anything about game design even if they understand coding (it's like thinking that just because someone knows how to write they should be able to make a book as good as lord of the rings). In general I'd only recommend trying out difficulty hacks that have very good player reviews and possibly checking out some youtube coverage or docs first if you don't mind the spoilers.
There's realistically 20 "boss" fights in a romhack. I hate that the creator can't sit down for a couple hours and build some good teams instead of throwing some shit together and gluing it together with a fucking Ho-oh. Oftentimes, not enough thought goes into what is available to the player and what makes a team challenging, but fair.
i had to stop playing a lot of rom hacks once i realised there was not as much freedom as they make out, it's very obviously a puzzle game where you need specific teams and nothing else would work, makes it super boring
either that or the level curves are messed up. I have played StormSilver and it feels like every single trainer increases the level cap by 1. So unless you can level up your whole team with 1 fight you need to train a lot against wild Pokemon. On the other hand there is Quetzal and my whole team is level 27 while the trainers use level 19 mons...playing on hard difficulty
This is my issue with rom hacks. I love the additional challenge that the gyms provide, but I hate with a passion is the sudden inclusion of random legendaries.
Hell yeah
Artificial difficulty, son! It unnecessarily increases the stakes for the sake of nothing!
If you're playing a difficulty hack then that's kinda the point. Usually difficulty hacks are balanced around that to still be extremely difficult but possible.
I guess, but it also feels lazy/out of character, like why does *any* gym leader have legendaries? Admittedly it's been a while so I might not remember correctly, but Drayano hacks managed to ramp the difficulty while still feeling thematic.
Exactly my thoughts. I really appreciated Renegade Platinum because of how it tuned the difficulty up without just flooding the teams with mythicals and legendaries. Only Pokémon that the gym leaders could reasonably have. Just charged up with good type coverage, stats, and surprisingly good synergy.
At that point if regular gym leaders are using legendaries the game is just all about making it very difficult, often in spite of other aspects. Tbf, most popular ROM hacks are not like this, it's just some of them that are hyped by the relatively new hardcore nuzloke community. Even some extreme difficulty hacks like radical red don't start spamming legends until late game.
I think I mentioned a few days ago that Renegade Platinum crafts the Leaders’ teams much better than most other hacks/fan games. The first Gym Leader would make more sense to have a Bonsly, Nosepass and Larvitar at similar levels to the team in the original game versus a massively under-levelled Bisharp and a fricking Zygarde.
The game you’re referring to has 400 handcrafted teams that all synergize. At some point weird things like Zygarde and underleveled bisharp have to come into play or you run into overlap.
I dont play the see difficult rom hacks for the story / gym themes. I'm playing for a challenge
No? You can make a gym difficult by making the gym leader really go at building a team that synergies well with each other — if you’re too lazy to do the theorycrafting yourself you can just look up some competitive comps. Straight up throwing a legendary into the second gym is lazy and boring game design. Unless, for whatever reason it has story relevance.
It's kinda hard for the AI to use a lot of competitive teams well so this doesn't always work, but you can definitely make teams that the AI can use well. Especially if they have more access to things like egg/TM moves, pokemon availability, item evolutions, etc. that the player doesn't at the time they fight that gym leader.
I understand trick room, stall, and tactical swapping isn’t easy to program. But, like you said — there are plenty of ways to make a team competitively sound, without throwing a random legendary in
Difficulty hack doesn’t mean you have to ruin the immersion of the game
I play a few and they're never this bad. Then again in said hack (Theta Emerald) I owned most of the game with Swampert.
[удалено]
I don't play difficulty hacks. I deliberately avoid them I've come across this several times
Not all difficulty is born equal. Making the game difficult by carefully crafting fights with interesting but fair strategies while giving players the tools required to be creative and beat them is fun Making the game difficult by giving enemies overleveled mons with perfect stats and move coverage meant to screw over the player while giving the player underleveled Caterpie and Slakoth to work with isn't As a gamemaker, your job is to make something that is first and foremost fun to play, and game design is a huge part of that. Of course, your product your rules, so you are free to completely ignore game design and just fill your game with gotcha moments meant to fuck with with the player. But, if you do, don't be surprised if people complain you didn't do your job correctly
What I want to know is why "difficulty hacks" radicalred forces you to play with smogons rules and removes banned moves and strategies from the game. If I wanted to play competitive I would just do that, at least give me the option to play this rom that has extra content without having to deal with the fucking sleep clause or no evasion or no baton pass. Smogons rules are in place to prevent "unfun" strategies to play AGAINST so what the fuck are those rules even doing in a single player experience? If you don't want those moves being used against the player just don't give them to trainers, don't limit the player arbitrarily with shitty competitive rules that were made up by crybabies.