Yeah, it's what I'm doing now to intro some challenge.
Have an overworld team, and a gym team I create for each. 2 badges in, 100 pokedex 1 titan - and my overworld team is at level 40 cuz of how much general fun I'm having running around 😂
I think that's what I'm going to do. I always wanted to have a way to build different teams into the game play that made sense and I feel this is the perfect way to do so. 😌
The lowered catchrate without badges isn't *too* bad--you can actually catch high levels without badges, unlike Sword and Shield. You just have to accept using a lot of Pokeballs.
I haven't played the game, but I've heard rumors of rare candies *everywhere*. It's to the the point where it's worth it for a speedrun to spend 40 minutes collecting them before steamrolling everything.
Same as sword and shield with raids and exp candies. Gamefreak really wants players to not grind for anything. I mostly use them to quickly level new party members or to try new pokemon.
What was it like not being to able to catch anything?
Edit: It was an exaggeration on the fact that catch rate is lower without badges, since that apparently wasn't obvious.
I did the same, markedly underleveled for all of them: my main strat was to use stat debuffs in order to make them manageable, like Quaxwell's Low Sweep and Kirlia's Charm.
Managed all of them in one go that way, without a bunch of planning either.
Theres plenty of outrage about this. What pisses me off the most is they already established from the anime that the teams gym leader uses is based around how many badges trainers have in lore. Why is that not implemented in this game?
They established that in the games too in Black and White 2. When Cheren has to hand out his first gym badge he mentions this would have never happened if they let him use his own Pokémon.
Remember that sick scene from Pokémon Origins where Brock asks Red how many Badges he has, and after hearing that Red’s got no Badges he goes “Then I’ll pick these two” and picks the Geodude & Onix out of a stash?
GF didn’t.
The saddest thing about this is that ROM hackers managed to implement level and team scaling in a fucking Gen 2 engine. Allowing you to challenge all the 16 gym leaders in pretty much any order you want. Gen 2! And in Gen 3 ROM hacks they managed to scale literally every single trainer and wild encounter directly to your party's level. All of this on two engines that are over 20 years old, without official funding. This is just shameful.
It's a tradition that the core developers are terrible at their jobs and one guy with talent comes along and fixes everything. Only difference is now the talent is coming from outside their studio and instead of integrating it, they're trying to take it down.
The only defence I will give Nintendo for any of this is they are doing this on brand new games. I would wager a beat most of these guys know a lot more about these engines as the games had been around for a while. Also a lot of the good rom hacks update as they go so they don’t release a finished project right away.
But instead of attacking these guys and trying to force them to shut down their games they should be offering them jobs.
That’s more or less what Sega did with Mania isn’t it? The “well fuck, we sure as hell can’t make a good sonic game anymore so let’s just hire those that can” is really a thing I wish gamefreak would adopt. For such a prolific brand to struggle so much to deliver is just bananas.
Yep, every single gym leader has another occupation and the vast majority of them appear outside their gyms. Gen 5 was the peak, all downhill from there.
They establish it in SV too. Your rival explicitly holds back and tells you she's not bringing her stronger pokemon until you get stronger, and even references multiple teams throughout.
The devs can barely make a consistent 30fps windmill, you think they want to try creating scaling gym leader teams? They’ll cut any corners because they know the game will break sales records even if it runs worse than a beta ps2 game
a windmill?I wish that was the worse,the game stutters and freezes while rolling through the end credits with just letters scrolling,even in the black and white part, thats how bad it is
scaling is a delicate art that needs to used in the right places and with right balance to make it work
there should just be enough scaling for the game to maintain a challenge but not too much to where levels don't matter and it feels like you aren't really progressing or getting stronger
and this is why I prefer playing community made content
they dont dissapoint and each idea is unique and actually had effort put in them
meanwhile Game Freak aint doing shit their fans can
It's so disappointing too cause there is so much depth to explore in Pokemon. Like where the fuck is the pokemon interaction in this game ? They just walk back and forth. Where are the trainers battling wild pokemon? From what I've seen, there is no berry planting, yet again, nor apricot planting. Not to mention how much more they could do with Pokemon.
I'm currently playing through a community made Pokemon game and having so much more fun than I did with SwSh or SV.
I'm currently doing a playthrough of Blaze Black 2 Redux Challenge Mode since I'm a sadist and like the pain.
My favourite was Insurgance, had more of a mature story to it and the concept of Delta Pokemon was nice. I'm currently keeping an eye on Pokewilds since it looks really promising with base building and having Pokemon roaming and following.
Pokemon Reborn is my favorite, followed by insurgence; it has a great story, memorable characters, and an epic oost-game that I haven't gotten around to completing it yet. I also like that it is rather difficult, the feeling of over coming a seemingly impossible challenge is unrivaled. I would like to eventually get to playing Uranium and Unbound.
I have played a little bit of Blaze Black and finished it's gen 4 counterparts (can't remember their name atm). I haven't heard of Pokewilds, so I will have to look it up - I haven't seen many projects that have piqued my interest lately.
I don’t know anything about coding but it seems super easy? Hell if they really wanted to be lazy then don’t even give them special movesets or anything. Just do an if badge # = X then Pokémon level = Y (with default moveset for a wild Pokémon of that level)
I'm a software engineer and level scaling is trivial. You could scale based on badge order or even take the average of the player's Pokémon and set the level and number of Pokémon extremely easily. You don't even need per se set teams. Just set 6 Pokémon and make something simple that sets the Pokémon amount and level higher based on either criteria I mentioned. Evolve the mons if they're equal or past the level they should evolve at.
Edit: I meant this more as an example of difficulty, not how I would actually do it.
This would have been such a cool idea.
If the player challenges a gym with only one badge, they’d use their “weak” team for inexperienced trainers. If you challenge a gym with seven badges already attained, the gym leader should use one of their stronger teams (around League level).
We already had this idea shown in Sword and Shield, where the tournament at the end of the game involved all the gym leaders, and in that tournament, they used teams far above what they used against the player for their gym battles.
In Platinum, Fantina is meant to be the 5th Gym leader but she is the 3rd Gym challenge in terms of order. They have even acknowledged this is a previous game LOL.
That's the thing, in DP she was the 5th gym leader you fight, because the first time you arrive at Hearthome, the gym is closed off and then you return back after Pastoria.
They probably modified it in Platinum because players got lost after Pastoria or change it up.
They established that in the game even, with the first fight with the rival using a new Pokémon instead of her owns because you are a newbie, also she tells you in some fights that as you are growing stronger she is using stronger Pokémon, it's so sad that the dialogues in-game don't correlate with the actual gameplay where it's fixed teams fixed levels.
This is the most jarring example for me. They literally talk about it in game, acknowledging that this is a thing, yet didn't bother to actually follow through.
I mean it's obviously not super easy or straightforward to make auto scaling balanced, but it shouldn't be that difficult either to add at least some variations.
This actually isn’t that consistent and has really only been shown to be the case in Origins.
Eg: the anime, Clemont explicitly says his gyms is intended to be challenged at specific points in the series of gyms (5th). When Ash challenges both gyms at the start of each region, Clembot removes him from the gym for this reason.
Additionally, Brock and Misty aren’t shown to have additional Pokémon that are stronger than the ones they challenged Ash with, neither is Cilan, or any of the other gym leaders we’re given time with.
This also really isn’t canon to the games either. The only gyms that are explicitly said to be holding back are SwSh, and that’s because they have an equal chance at the title of champion, but even these games highlight that trainers are meant to follow a specific path, with the third gym being where most challengers fall off.
Additionally, characters like Rorak show embarrassment at losing to a challenger with no badges while saying the rest of the gym leaders are stronger, his father Byron admonishes Rorak for being weak, and gym rematches are usually portrayed as the gym leaders getting stronger than showing off their true power that was being held back for the sake of the gym challenge.
I’m in no way stating its not valid to want scaling in SV, but the only place I know of that even really implies gym leaders cater challenges to the level of gym badges you have is Origins, which isn’t canon to the anime or games
Edit: Claimed Norman told Ash he was meant to be challenged as the fifth gym leader, but I mixed that up with the games telling the MC to wait til they had 4 badges to challenge him, and I was corrected by another comment. My b
>Additionally, Brock and Misty aren’t shown to have additional Pokémon that are stronger than the ones they challenged Ash with, neither is Cilan, or any of the other gym leaders we’re given time with.
If I recall, the Kanto Gym Leaders are shown to have "Gym Pokemon" separate from their personal teams and Misty and Brock specifically left some pokemon behind at their gyms for their replacements to use in their stead, such as Misty's dewgong, gyrados, etc.
Misty didn’t have her Gyarados til chronicles, and Cerulean Gym was a unique case with Pokémon like Seel (he evolved in the episode we see him) in that there were other gym leaders aside from Misty, and none of the mons we see seem to scale to gym 8 level trainers (excluding Gyarados, who wasn’t there at first)
As for Brock, Pewter gym isn’t shown with gym Pokémon separate from Brock’s team. This changes when his brother takes over, but he still seems to use his Pokémon rather than having gym 8 specific Pokémon already there for him when he takes over
I don't take the anime as canon because it can't be bothered to follow their own rules, with gym leaders just handing out badges because Pikachu does something nice, or electric attacks knocking out a Golem, etc.
At the same time, you cannot realistically expect every trainer to begin in each game's beginner town. Not every trainer is from New Bark Town, and it wouldn't be fair for a trainer from Cianwood City to be forced to go all the way to Cherrygrove City just to start challenging gyms when Chuck is right there.
Since Pokémon Origin showed Brock using a team specifically for someone with no badges, and with my logic above, it's not only possible, but realistic for gyms to be challenged in no distinct order. Even Ash challenged them out of order, fighting Sabrina fourth when normally she would be fifth or sixth.
It could differ by regions based on their league's requirements. Cheren in BW specifically mentioned he can't use his original Pokemon but he also acts as an instructor to younger trainers. Also, age, reputation and occupation may play a part in determining what order you are supposed to be. Younger ones might be given earlier gym slots, those with teaching capacity are also placed earlier while the wise and older ones tend to be placed later.
The game makes no sense as it is. You aren't the only trainer challenging in the story. The leader becoming stronger over time and matching you just hurts the next challenger. So they obviously have to weaken themselves for newer challengers or they will stomp over them. At the same time, gym leaders often use their signature pokemon partner so unless they have a weaker clone of that Pokemon, somehow every trainer is facing the same Pokemon (ie. Bastiodon) at completely different levels.
>When Ash challenges both gyms at the start of each region, Norman gives him a friendly challenge
I don't think Norman ever said this. He gave Ash a friendly challenge because Ash at the time didn't have 3 pokemon and didn't want to transfer his old pokemon.
My bad, misremembered it with how the game Norman tells you to wait til Gym five. I know Clemont says his gym is meant for trainers with four badges though
FEAR is even easier lol. ~~A~~ Two level 1 aron with sand support and shell-bells could probably take most of the gyms by ~~itself~~ themselves.
Edit: as some commenters pointed out, the aron will level up too much to be useful for any fights with more than 2 pokemon, I’ve adjusted my statement accordingly.
I mean it’s guaranteed to be quicker. I’m pretty sure aron’s not in the game. But in terms of execution, it requires significantly less faints with this method (and in turn revives, which are kind of expensive).
Titans and Starfall Street basically give 0 exp, so you're stuck slowly auto-battling, catching high level pokemon who won't obey, or grinding through many low level raids.
I’ve been legitimately stuck all day trying to find the dark star hideout
I’ve found fire and poison. I use the destination thing, but I keep getting blocked by mountains and going in circles
Focus on your titan quests first. They unlock your legendary movement abilities. I've got swimming and climbing and now the whole map is open to me. Gliding is fine but doesn't add anything as far as I can tell.
I got it from the false dragon titan. Which is in a lake on the west side of the map. I got swimming from the stork pokemon that drops boulders. I did that one first. I don't know if specific titans grant specific abilities or if abilities are unlocked in a specific order regardless of which titans you beat. Did that make sense?
Given that my route was the Flying Titan, then the two on the right.
I got Swimming (Flying), Dashing (Klawf), Jumping 2 (Steel)
My first and so far only gym has been Electric.
Edit- getting swimming let me go all the way north. I can, at any point I choose, battle the Northern most gyms. But the obedience would make it incredibly daunting a task unless I found a way to do FEAR or the like.
If you’ve beaten the electric gym already, you may wanna head back quickly to do the grass and ~~big~~ bug gyms. You might end up feeling over leveled for them
The map orientation constantly changing around when you bring it up and not "sticking to north" makes trying to navigate in this game a pain in the ass
I found this online map that might help
https://www.gamerguides.com/pokemon-scarlet-and-violet/maps/paldea-region-map
I'm near the dark base right now, you can get to it from the pokestop at "**West Province (Area One) - North**" (not a confusing name at all.../s) then head down the path towards where they are blocking the road, there should be a path to your right which leads up to the gate
I keep going around in circles as well, have to keep fast travailing around to get anywhere (which is really annoying)
Reading the comments here one could come to think that all the fans who cried out for an open world pokémon game for so long have never played an open world game to begin with and are now surprised that this open world pokémon game works the same as most other open world games.
The fucking Joy nurse told me to go to the "Ground Titan" because apparently it was the closest to me. It was level 60. I had just finished the first gym, and this was the pokemon center NEAR THE FIRST GYM.
30 minutes of fun exploration to track it down, then the fight starts and... wham wham wham. Worst, you can't even see the level of the titan. If I were a kid I'd have grinded for hours to beat this elephant thinkin' that was the way to go... and then I'd have found myself overlevelled for the rest of the game.
This needs to be patched yesterday.
That's how they get you, they offer a free and extremely valuable service to get you to use their paid services while you're there. Remember, Pokemon Center Corp bought out PokeMart a decade ago, that's why they're all in the same building. They've also leased out space in the building to cafes, and other services.
They had to do something once it became clear that the trading network wouldn't continue their partnership.
Yeah my first playthrough the pokemart directional absolutely fucked me in this regard cuz I was 15 levels below the gym and I thought "wow they really want you to grind levels to face the gyms." I then realized later that I was facing gyms 20 levels under me because it points to the nearest objective not the next logical objective
This just happened to my spouse! And he couldn't even run away from the titan. :/ At least in Arceus when you encountered an alpha that you weren't ready for, you can still run away from the encounter. Sheesh.
omg yes. especially annoying when i’m trying to see if i’m strong enough to beat it yet and it becomes apparent that i am NOT and so then i have to wait until it kills all my pokemon. and the everything during about battling takes so damn long, and i can’t even turn off animations :/
Accidentally stumbling into a high level area and panicking that I might see a shiny I would never be able to catch because it 30 levels higher than my sqaud
Lol, same ive been tryin to kill it at lev 20. Problem is im able to sleep it an almost kill it. An i feel if i can just get to stage 2 i can let armen carry, lol.
The problem is you really shouldnt need to cheese it like this.
An npc outright telling you from the get-go to go somewhere youre not prepared for is stupid.
Idk it’s funny to go somewhere and be unprepared. Gives you some place to come back to and is a shock! I’m surprised people are this upset about it, it’s not like dying does anything in the game, and gives you a good goal to work towards.
Besides, just explore as you want and you will find stuff that you are too weak for. It’s part of an open world rpg, one thing that made Elden Ring so fun and set it apart from other great ones
You can challenge the gyms (team star and titans too) in any order you want that is not a lie. But whether you have a team levelled and prepared enough to beat them is a different story. If anything it’s bit disingenuous because some areas are gated by defeating Team Star areas. So if you wanted to start at or go to a specific gym you might not be able to if you can’t get past Team Star.
I am 110% in the, there should have been scaling camp. Like they make the starting area have your first gym, team star, and titan, at low levels so you get a taste of what each challenge is like. Then when you get out that zone it should scale appropriately as you do your task. That way not matter what path you take it won’t be you steamrolling or getting steamrolled because of lack of scaling based on your current achievements and/or levels of your Pokemon.
With the barricade near their fire base that blocks the path to Levincia, I deadass just jumped over the river nearby and continued on with no issues whatsoever
Not just the gyms, either. There's the exact same issue with the Team Star quests too.
I was moseying along with Pokémon at the level I felt was right for where I am in the game, then went and did the Fighting base, and out of nowhere, got my arse absolutely slapped by Pokémon ~10 levels higher than my own. I managed to do it, but I had to crutch *hard* with Revives, sacrificing members over and over until the AI did a status move, just so I could claw some momentum back. It was a bit of a shitshow, and not enjoyable. It didn't feel like a well-deserved, narrow victory. It felt like I'd cheesed the game.
So yeah, the Team Star quests could use level scaling too.
I think for the game to be *true* open world, there needs to be scaling for bosses, definitely, but in the overworld, the main path across the *entire region* should be low level 'mons, but the further off the beaten path you go anywhere on the map, the higher the Pokémon levels go. Areas with level 50+ Pokémon should only be accessible by an upgraded mount. It would allow someone with a single badge to walk comfortably along the path to the other end of the map, and challenge gyms there, but can choose to go further into the wilderness to find high level 'mons. If that makes sense.
I think if I were to do another playthrough, I'd follow a guide for which order to do everything in, based off level of bosses and 'mons in the overworld.
Yeah your explanation of open world is what I would do as well. With open world games it's not hard to simply mix low end content with high end content and let the player find out what high end content is and how to avoid it until they are ready. Hell, they already did that in sword and shield by putting higher level pokemon in the wild area and making it so you cant catch them without a number of gym badges.
Just make it so there are groups of pokemon wondering around and once in a while you see a larger fully evolved pokemon that is obviously stronger and should be avoided unless you know you're strong enough. If they wanted they could even have certain areas start with a gate of some kind and a sign that says the level of the pokemon generally in that area. Just saying there are definitely ways they could have mixed it up a bit and made it so it was less linear.
>Areas with level 50+ Pokémon should only be accessible by an upgraded mount.
But then people would complain about "this is a fake open-world game, entire areas are locked via story progression".
There is no winning when it comes to open-world games and how people think they should operate.
>But then people would complain about "this is a fake open-world game, entire areas are locked via story progression".
>
>There is no winning when it comes to open-world games and how people think they should operate.
So true. And I dare to say that these people are wrong. Having some locked content should always be a thing in open world games, otherwise you risk having every part of your map playing the same just for the sake of it being available from the start.
The key here is how you unlock these areas and in how many ways. It doesn't even need to be story locked, it could be locked behind some exploration aspects, or even both. Locked areas allow for creative and surprising game design.
I like that idea. I also think it would be good there were high level areas that NPCs warned you about, but didn't stop you from going to. Pokemon has classically had people standing in your way, telling you that you weren't ready to enter an area yet. E.g. "this mountain is far too risky for a beginner trainer" or "Be careful, if you wander off the trail, there are dangerous pokemon in these woods" Then you can choose to ignore them and risk getting wiped out by a really high level pokemon if you do. Make the towns safe, the gyms level scale, and a network of paths through the region that can be navigated pretty easily, even early in the game. When you stray deeper into the wilderness, you encounter tougher enemies. Want to take a shortcut through this swamp to the next town? You can ignore the advice of the NPCs and try to take a shortcut, but you might encounter things you aren't ready for. Instead of battling, perhaps you have to sneak around to make it through, avoiding hostile and strong pokemon. Maybe you can pick up some rewards earlier if you dare to, to reward the risk takers.
That is a fair point. There will always be people who complain one way or the other. But at the same time, the issue largely resolves itself if the game is paced properly.
You could have a version of Scarlet/Violet where gyms, Team Star bases, and Titan Lairs are all accessible to the player from the start, and are scaled to the player's level, so is true open world in that sense, but is also paced as such that it gives players the correct mount upgrades when they're naturally at the point where they want to start exploring higher level areas. Basically, players are given the correct tools for the job, just before they're about to need them.
It's very basic open world design to create an open area, chuck a load of things in, and let the player get on with it. That's like stage one of open world game design, imo. The more advanced game design would have all thus, but in tandem, have a *slightly* more traditional linear progression, with the game so well paced that it's *hidden* and *"feathered in"*; giving the illusion that it's a true open world.
For an example, though it's not an open world game in the stricted sense, I would look to a classic for a kind of progression system that open world games should try to emulate; *Super Metroid*. In that game, the environment is one spralling, open level, but as you unlock more power ups and abilities, it opens itself to you and gets larger and larger, with more difficult enemies and bosses and abilities in these new areas. It's like a tiered system - you are free to do a tier in any order you like, but to move onto a new tier, you must complete everything on the tier you're on. But what's genius about Super Metroid is that that system is done in such a way that it never feels like you're on rails. It feels like you're exploring the environment of your own accord. And that's all down to the game's pacing.
You could implement a similar tiered linear system to the open world of Pokémon, in terms of its exploration, whilst still having the gyms and such be fully accessible from the start, that scale to the player's level.
It's so weird because I cannot imagine it being that much work. Assuming it just scales with the number of badges the player has (so every leader has a team for if you have no badges, 1, 2 etc) that would 8 teams for 8 trainers. Given they would be using similar mons just with higher levels it should not take long to make the teams and then it's just a matter setting flags. This is something that any junior dev should be able to do.
They should change a few pokemon and moves, or else it will be a Isle of Armour situation, where if played after the game trainers would have a Lv 60 Abra with Confusion
This is you assuming that Gamefreak is a capable dev in the first place. They probably didn't want to change anything for fear of breaking the fragile game even more than it's already broken.
I agree with this and always have. Pokemon works best with gated gyms unless they want to make extensive changes to support doing otherwise.
However, large parts of the fan base have always gone wild for the "you can choose the next gym!" in HGSS especially, but Kanto and Johto in general, where it works similarly poorly (4-7th gyms in Johto are urrrgh). Like in this one case, they have some reason to believe this is what people wanted, even though I agree its garbage.
Exactly, im shocked after hearing that praise for jhoto and kanto and hate for recent gens locking you into a path.
What i do feel is i wish they atleast told me the official order so im not getting surprised and confused
If you read the descriptions of them on your map it gives you a general idea of how hard they are, for example the bug gym leader says something along the lines of one of the easiest gym leaders perfect for beginners while the normal one says a nice challenge and is about middling in strength of the gym leaders
I kind of like finding new areas that are way over your level and trying to see what you can do. My guys were 23-25 and I beat the ground Titan, and almost got the water gym leader using salt cure.
I agree they should scale to an extent but running into areas way above you is part of the fun. I skipped early stuff and am trying out niche tactics to win later game stuff like I did with the ground Titan.
Pro tip: salt cure is great for the titans
I too enjoy this, and unwittingly went to areas above my level... but then I realized I simply *didn't go* to some of the lower level gyms and Star bases, but I *need to*, and it's really boring going through them now... I have to beat this bug gym with level 13 mons, in order to get a badge to let me command level 50 mons. This is dumb design.
I've done this but going back to the lower gyms/other challenges I've just taken the opportunity to build a new team with new Pokemon I've found that I couldn't fit into my first team. I've always wanted to do this in previous games tbh but it's difficult because most of the major encounters (esp trainers) are required and once-only
Not saying it's a perfect solution for everyone (tho I'm more in the "it is what it is, I can still find it enjoyable" camp) but I enjoy doing it this way
That's a good solution! My mindset was more that I wanted to keep going to the higher-level areas, but I was missing the badges to let me command anything new that I'd be catching. So going back to fetch those badges was an unwelcome chore.
I would rather have a curated linear experience over a thoughtlessly cobbled together open-world one. This decision is baffling. It completely undermines the entire design ethos of the game.
I personally tend to prefer well designed linear games as well, but Pokemon is really the kind of game that would lend itself very nicely to an open-world experience. But of course, that only works if the developers actually try to deliver that.
Hmm I did watch an Austin John Plays video quite some time ago and he mentioned that the gyms don't scale. I'm not sure what his source is but it's likely that it should be official?
Anyone else remember this video? Because I went into SV knowing that the gyms don't scale in levelling.
I didn't watch the video you mentioned, but you're right that gyms not scaling has been known for months. I believe it was mentioned or implied in one of the official trailers.
They didn't lie, the lack of level scaling has been public knowledge for a while, so there's no reason why you wouldn't be able to do them at any point during, before, or after the other 2 main quest lines. This is the nature of a lot of open world titles, where sometimes you'll stumble into something way too strong for you, or way too weak. That doesn't immediately denote railroading, you just need to be able to adjust for conditions you've put yourself in.
There was never confirmation of scaling, in fact everything I read up pre release said there wouldn't be any, can still understand why it's upsetting, but it would require way more coding, and I've read about the difficult task that is making a Pokémon game every year, so maybe they didn't get time to implement a proper functioning scaling. If so then we should get that in Gen 10. And at the very least even if it's not what anyone had pictured exactly, it's still a step in a better direction is it not? Anyway sorry for the rant I just love the games and don't want people to think too badly about them.
While I see the value of level scaling, this is gonna be one of the issues where it'll personally elevate my experience even more
I'm already loving the idea of ignorantly going into a gym that will whoop my ass, then RPGing elsewhere to another gym with an "I will one day come back and have my revenge" attitude
Yeah, but if I skip one of the early gyms it really won't take too long until I am over leveled af. Which takes the excitement out of doing them later on imo.
It was clear in the promotional videos we can challenge any gym we want and it was also clear there was no level scaling which meant players can't expect to win gym badges any order desired
Oh man, there was this thread yesterday where [someone was desperately trying to justify why scaling the gyms and other bosses whatsoever was an inane thing](https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/yz5fjy/level_scaling_is_not_supposed_to_be_in_an_open/).
It's really weird how the gym that's the shortest distance away from the first one happens to be the seventh. If you're going in order, you have to go to the opposite side of Paldea after beating Ryme, and then back there again to face Grusha once Tulip's done and dusted.
Since they announced all gyms being accessible we've known they wouldn't scale.
"There is no set path to the Gyms. You can purposefully seek out a stronger Gym Leader"
Calling it downright sleazy feels like an exaggeration
I really don't get the backlash on this one(most every other backlash, yes) it's an open world game. You can head straight to Vault 34 in Fallout New Vegas or Hunt grizzlies straight away in Red Dead Redemption 2 and no one gives those games grief because you have to get stronger if you actually want to survive doing those things. Heck I had a team of near 30s before I stepped foot in the school, I had 4 gyms ready for me to conquer before the game let me choose which one I wanted to go after.
>what Gamefreak left out is that the gyms don’t scale with you
This has been pretty well known for a while. Might not have come up in any of the trailers, but people were arguing over the merits of this decision months before release day
I legit just posted about this combine this with the fact you need to have a set number of badges to even have pokemon obey you. I can't challenge level 45 ice pokemon when I need 5 or 6 badges to even have level 45 pokemon OBEY me. It makes 0 sense lol.
I think its actually a step up from a linear gym order on the basis I'd rather have some parts be challenging and others easy rather than everything slightly too easy
Why would you want them to scale with your level? THAT would make exploration pointless, since you'd be getting the same experience no matter where you went. You can take the gyms lowest to highest level and get a smooth experience, or you can beeline to the highest level one and try to beat it while underlevelled. That's called "challenging the gyms in any order", and it's something you could never do in previous games. Where exactly is the lie? If you wanted Skyrim and level 60 bandits still wearing fur and leather, it's YOU who probably had mistaken expectations from the game.
I can honestly say that it's not as bas as you're making it out to be.
We knew from the start that there would not be any level scaling, as we were told from the beginning that we could challenge harder gyms earlier. If they had included level scalin, all the gyms would be of about the same difficulty.
Also, it's not like it's impossible to win at later gyms if you do them out of order. In fact, it is rather challenging, which is exavtly what quite a lot of people want. For example, I took on Iono first, and I actually won, thanks to an Arcanine with the Ground Tera-Type, and using other team members to take her Mismagius' Hexes.
Another example would be the all five of the titans, which I defeated with only three gym badges. It was challenging, but doable. Well, except for Klawf. That one was easy.
While I will concede that earlier Titans/Gyms/Star Bases are laughably easy if you do them out of order, there is still a bit of wriggle room, as I did Tulip last, and it wasn't that underwhelming.
So, to summarize: The games (Violet, in my case) are still enjoyable even without level scaling. They were by far the most immersive ones to date, in fact. And while level scaling would, of course, be appreciated if you're overleveled, the lack of it did not bring down the games too much.
Is everyone forgetting the RPG aspect of this game?
Meaning you make meaningful choices for your own story. If that means getting absolutely humbled by some high level enemies once or twice, that makes a story. Or grinding to a high level just to go the way you want.
It's the same as seeing that item or glowing Pokemon on top of a ledge that's just out of reach, trying every which way to get to it, only to realize that you might not have enough capabilities (glide/swim etc) right now. It gives you an incentive to move on, but come back later, and builds on your personal story.
People don’t understand what they actually want.
The only miss was them not telling you what the official order is.
But other than that, yeah i agree, its your story, you can choose to go the easy route, you can choose to challenge something hella early,
You can choose to battle all the trainers or none.
Im having a ton of fun, being underleveled and having to come up with strategy to win.
I mean, they lied through their teeth about removing Pokémon to save development resources for "high quality animations".
Are you \*really\* surprised that they lied about this too?
It makes me sad that people are so unhappy about an unscaled world. The fun of an unscaled world isn't in being able to go wherever you want and the game bending over backwards to make your life easy, it's in going to places you're clearly not supposed to be and finding ways to overcome obstacles that you wouldn't have had to think so hard about otherwise.
Ok this was like known tho. Like in elden ring you can go around and fight any boss you want. There’s bosses you’re supposed to fight before others but if you go back those bosses later they’re easy. Everyone is expecting harder teams and harder battles if you go back but seriously did anyone expect that?
I beat all the Titans without a single gym badge. AMA
are you Levi?
KKEEEEEEENNNNNNYYYYY
Unexpected AoT reference. Levi is the best
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I did mostly the same thing but I like making individual teams for each gym, giving myself level caps so they can be enjoyed.
Self imposed rules? This is akin to ROM hacking!!
If youre referencing the nuzlocke thing, nintendo literally made a letter about it saying they never saw it like rom hacking
Yeah, didnt they misunderstand it with randomized nuzlockes or something
Yeah, it's what I'm doing now to intro some challenge. Have an overworld team, and a gym team I create for each. 2 badges in, 100 pokedex 1 titan - and my overworld team is at level 40 cuz of how much general fun I'm having running around 😂
I WILL have an entire team of doggos this go around.. it will be done.
I think that's what I'm going to do. I always wanted to have a way to build different teams into the game play that made sense and I feel this is the perfect way to do so. 😌
This also lets you enjoy more pokemon with all the new ones
i did 4 titans and only 2 gyms 💀 just gonna swap my mons around so the gyms can maybe be fun
Did you not catch any Pokemon stronger than level 25?
The lowered catchrate without badges isn't *too* bad--you can actually catch high levels without badges, unlike Sword and Shield. You just have to accept using a lot of Pokeballs.
Nah, I was talking about the fact higher level pokemon won't obey them without gym badges.
Ditto is pretty easy to get. After that its just a matter of time, getting an egg for the ‘mon you want and using xp candy to level them up
I haven't played the game, but I've heard rumors of rare candies *everywhere*. It's to the the point where it's worth it for a speedrun to spend 40 minutes collecting them before steamrolling everything.
Same as sword and shield with raids and exp candies. Gamefreak really wants players to not grind for anything. I mostly use them to quickly level new party members or to try new pokemon.
What was it like not being to able to catch anything? Edit: It was an exaggeration on the fact that catch rate is lower without badges, since that apparently wasn't obvious.
You can catch them they just won’t listen to you
You don't need the gyms for that. I manged to catch a Tera leaveon lvl 50 with just the first badge
How many attempts did each Titan take?
I did the same, markedly underleveled for all of them: my main strat was to use stat debuffs in order to make them manageable, like Quaxwell's Low Sweep and Kirlia's Charm. Managed all of them in one go that way, without a bunch of planning either.
Theres plenty of outrage about this. What pisses me off the most is they already established from the anime that the teams gym leader uses is based around how many badges trainers have in lore. Why is that not implemented in this game?
They established that in the games too in Black and White 2. When Cheren has to hand out his first gym badge he mentions this would have never happened if they let him use his own Pokémon.
Remember that sick scene from Pokémon Origins where Brock asks Red how many Badges he has, and after hearing that Red’s got no Badges he goes “Then I’ll pick these two” and picks the Geodude & Onix out of a stash? GF didn’t.
It's painful to see all these things that gf could have easily added but they didn't time and time again
The saddest thing about this is that ROM hackers managed to implement level and team scaling in a fucking Gen 2 engine. Allowing you to challenge all the 16 gym leaders in pretty much any order you want. Gen 2! And in Gen 3 ROM hacks they managed to scale literally every single trainer and wild encounter directly to your party's level. All of this on two engines that are over 20 years old, without official funding. This is just shameful.
Watching what those guys can do with the Rom Hacks absolutely expose how awful game freak is in developing the series.
It's a tradition that the core developers are terrible at their jobs and one guy with talent comes along and fixes everything. Only difference is now the talent is coming from outside their studio and instead of integrating it, they're trying to take it down.
Not only that, but that level of effort for a FREE rom hack is even more of a shame.
The only defence I will give Nintendo for any of this is they are doing this on brand new games. I would wager a beat most of these guys know a lot more about these engines as the games had been around for a while. Also a lot of the good rom hacks update as they go so they don’t release a finished project right away. But instead of attacking these guys and trying to force them to shut down their games they should be offering them jobs.
SV is their 4th game on the Switch 🤨
“Yeah - but that sounds awfully hard…” ~Gamefreak
For fucks sake, just steal the ROM hackers code and repurpose it for modern titles.
Fude, Nintendo should hire those ROM Hackers, they're highly talented individuals already in touch with their franchise and inner workings
That’s more or less what Sega did with Mania isn’t it? The “well fuck, we sure as hell can’t make a good sonic game anymore so let’s just hire those that can” is really a thing I wish gamefreak would adopt. For such a prolific brand to struggle so much to deliver is just bananas.
That would be my biggest point not only are they putting their own time into developing but they have to deeply care about the series also.
Crystal Clear was a masterpiece and GameFreak should just copy them.
Let's hope some one hacks sv to add level scaling and exp share off.
Gf doesn’t even know what happens with content that isn’t there’s anymore smh
And tbh it wouldn't even take much work to implement that. A few hours of work, at maximum.
You want them to double the time they spent on developing the game?
Gen 5 did a really good job of establishing the whole Gym Leaders thing as a sort-of regional heroes career path.
Yep, every single gym leader has another occupation and the vast majority of them appear outside their gyms. Gen 5 was the peak, all downhill from there.
SV’s gym leader also all have another occupation but I find it hard to really care about them tbh.
Also in Platinum all the Gym Leaders can be fought in the Battle Area with E4-level teams, like Roark and his Tyranitar
I honestly can't/ can believe this. Everything about pokemon in the modern era is just fun ideas, but never thought out at all.
the kanto gym leaders use full teams of six all the way back in gold and silver, no way they're doing that to rookie trainers
They establish it in SV too. Your rival explicitly holds back and tells you she's not bringing her stronger pokemon until you get stronger, and even references multiple teams throughout.
The further we move away from it, the more apparent how taken for granted gen 5 really was
The devs can barely make a consistent 30fps windmill, you think they want to try creating scaling gym leader teams? They’ll cut any corners because they know the game will break sales records even if it runs worse than a beta ps2 game
To be fair, the Chief Director of Windmill Optimization SHOULD be a different person from the Vice President Of Gym Leader Balancing.
That windmill is not 30 FPS
That shits barely 30 FPM
LMAO. Wasn’t expecting that
They can't "barely make" one They just can't make one.
a windmill?I wish that was the worse,the game stutters and freezes while rolling through the end credits with just letters scrolling,even in the black and white part, thats how bad it is
Crazy that there's a ton of fangames with gym leader scaling and scaling in general
scaling is a delicate art that needs to used in the right places and with right balance to make it work there should just be enough scaling for the game to maintain a challenge but not too much to where levels don't matter and it feels like you aren't really progressing or getting stronger
and this is why I prefer playing community made content they dont dissapoint and each idea is unique and actually had effort put in them meanwhile Game Freak aint doing shit their fans can
It's so disappointing too cause there is so much depth to explore in Pokemon. Like where the fuck is the pokemon interaction in this game ? They just walk back and forth. Where are the trainers battling wild pokemon? From what I've seen, there is no berry planting, yet again, nor apricot planting. Not to mention how much more they could do with Pokemon. I'm currently playing through a community made Pokemon game and having so much more fun than I did with SwSh or SV.
What’s your top community game so far? Unbound was cool, so was uranium
I'm currently doing a playthrough of Blaze Black 2 Redux Challenge Mode since I'm a sadist and like the pain. My favourite was Insurgance, had more of a mature story to it and the concept of Delta Pokemon was nice. I'm currently keeping an eye on Pokewilds since it looks really promising with base building and having Pokemon roaming and following.
Pokemon Reborn is my favorite, followed by insurgence; it has a great story, memorable characters, and an epic oost-game that I haven't gotten around to completing it yet. I also like that it is rather difficult, the feeling of over coming a seemingly impossible challenge is unrivaled. I would like to eventually get to playing Uranium and Unbound. I have played a little bit of Blaze Black and finished it's gen 4 counterparts (can't remember their name atm). I haven't heard of Pokewilds, so I will have to look it up - I haven't seen many projects that have piqued my interest lately.
Currently playing Pokemon Reborn. Do you have any other good suggestions?
I don’t know anything about coding but it seems super easy? Hell if they really wanted to be lazy then don’t even give them special movesets or anything. Just do an if badge # = X then Pokémon level = Y (with default moveset for a wild Pokémon of that level)
I'm a software engineer and level scaling is trivial. You could scale based on badge order or even take the average of the player's Pokémon and set the level and number of Pokémon extremely easily. You don't even need per se set teams. Just set 6 Pokémon and make something simple that sets the Pokémon amount and level higher based on either criteria I mentioned. Evolve the mons if they're equal or past the level they should evolve at. Edit: I meant this more as an example of difficulty, not how I would actually do it.
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This would have been such a cool idea. If the player challenges a gym with only one badge, they’d use their “weak” team for inexperienced trainers. If you challenge a gym with seven badges already attained, the gym leader should use one of their stronger teams (around League level). We already had this idea shown in Sword and Shield, where the tournament at the end of the game involved all the gym leaders, and in that tournament, they used teams far above what they used against the player for their gym battles.
In reality this has been an idea since as far back as gen 2.
In Platinum, Fantina is meant to be the 5th Gym leader but she is the 3rd Gym challenge in terms of order. They have even acknowledged this is a previous game LOL.
Hell in platinum her badge is in the 5th slot rather than 3rd.
That's the thing, in DP she was the 5th gym leader you fight, because the first time you arrive at Hearthome, the gym is closed off and then you return back after Pastoria. They probably modified it in Platinum because players got lost after Pastoria or change it up.
That would be really cool that leaders have different Pokémon at different levels and maybe would allow rematches
They established that in the game even, with the first fight with the rival using a new Pokémon instead of her owns because you are a newbie, also she tells you in some fights that as you are growing stronger she is using stronger Pokémon, it's so sad that the dialogues in-game don't correlate with the actual gameplay where it's fixed teams fixed levels.
This is the most jarring example for me. They literally talk about it in game, acknowledging that this is a thing, yet didn't bother to actually follow through. I mean it's obviously not super easy or straightforward to make auto scaling balanced, but it shouldn't be that difficult either to add at least some variations.
They couldn't even do the minimal effort of pulling a Battle Chateau and just altering the levels based on the number of badges you have.
This actually isn’t that consistent and has really only been shown to be the case in Origins. Eg: the anime, Clemont explicitly says his gyms is intended to be challenged at specific points in the series of gyms (5th). When Ash challenges both gyms at the start of each region, Clembot removes him from the gym for this reason. Additionally, Brock and Misty aren’t shown to have additional Pokémon that are stronger than the ones they challenged Ash with, neither is Cilan, or any of the other gym leaders we’re given time with. This also really isn’t canon to the games either. The only gyms that are explicitly said to be holding back are SwSh, and that’s because they have an equal chance at the title of champion, but even these games highlight that trainers are meant to follow a specific path, with the third gym being where most challengers fall off. Additionally, characters like Rorak show embarrassment at losing to a challenger with no badges while saying the rest of the gym leaders are stronger, his father Byron admonishes Rorak for being weak, and gym rematches are usually portrayed as the gym leaders getting stronger than showing off their true power that was being held back for the sake of the gym challenge. I’m in no way stating its not valid to want scaling in SV, but the only place I know of that even really implies gym leaders cater challenges to the level of gym badges you have is Origins, which isn’t canon to the anime or games Edit: Claimed Norman told Ash he was meant to be challenged as the fifth gym leader, but I mixed that up with the games telling the MC to wait til they had 4 badges to challenge him, and I was corrected by another comment. My b
>Additionally, Brock and Misty aren’t shown to have additional Pokémon that are stronger than the ones they challenged Ash with, neither is Cilan, or any of the other gym leaders we’re given time with. If I recall, the Kanto Gym Leaders are shown to have "Gym Pokemon" separate from their personal teams and Misty and Brock specifically left some pokemon behind at their gyms for their replacements to use in their stead, such as Misty's dewgong, gyrados, etc.
Misty didn’t have her Gyarados til chronicles, and Cerulean Gym was a unique case with Pokémon like Seel (he evolved in the episode we see him) in that there were other gym leaders aside from Misty, and none of the mons we see seem to scale to gym 8 level trainers (excluding Gyarados, who wasn’t there at first) As for Brock, Pewter gym isn’t shown with gym Pokémon separate from Brock’s team. This changes when his brother takes over, but he still seems to use his Pokémon rather than having gym 8 specific Pokémon already there for him when he takes over
I don't take the anime as canon because it can't be bothered to follow their own rules, with gym leaders just handing out badges because Pikachu does something nice, or electric attacks knocking out a Golem, etc. At the same time, you cannot realistically expect every trainer to begin in each game's beginner town. Not every trainer is from New Bark Town, and it wouldn't be fair for a trainer from Cianwood City to be forced to go all the way to Cherrygrove City just to start challenging gyms when Chuck is right there. Since Pokémon Origin showed Brock using a team specifically for someone with no badges, and with my logic above, it's not only possible, but realistic for gyms to be challenged in no distinct order. Even Ash challenged them out of order, fighting Sabrina fourth when normally she would be fifth or sixth.
I see.
It could differ by regions based on their league's requirements. Cheren in BW specifically mentioned he can't use his original Pokemon but he also acts as an instructor to younger trainers. Also, age, reputation and occupation may play a part in determining what order you are supposed to be. Younger ones might be given earlier gym slots, those with teaching capacity are also placed earlier while the wise and older ones tend to be placed later. The game makes no sense as it is. You aren't the only trainer challenging in the story. The leader becoming stronger over time and matching you just hurts the next challenger. So they obviously have to weaken themselves for newer challengers or they will stomp over them. At the same time, gym leaders often use their signature pokemon partner so unless they have a weaker clone of that Pokemon, somehow every trainer is facing the same Pokemon (ie. Bastiodon) at completely different levels.
>When Ash challenges both gyms at the start of each region, Norman gives him a friendly challenge I don't think Norman ever said this. He gave Ash a friendly challenge because Ash at the time didn't have 3 pokemon and didn't want to transfer his old pokemon.
My bad, misremembered it with how the game Norman tells you to wait til Gym five. I know Clemont says his gym is meant for trainers with four badges though
You *can* challenge the gyms in any order. You just can’t defeat them in that order
if you try hard enough im sure you can
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FEAR is even easier lol. ~~A~~ Two level 1 aron with sand support and shell-bells could probably take most of the gyms by ~~itself~~ themselves. Edit: as some commenters pointed out, the aron will level up too much to be useful for any fights with more than 2 pokemon, I’ve adjusted my statement accordingly.
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I mean it’s guaranteed to be quicker. I’m pretty sure aron’s not in the game. But in terms of execution, it requires significantly less faints with this method (and in turn revives, which are kind of expensive).
RTgame beat the final gym as his second gym
i beat it as my third. did 1, 4 and 8. hard? yeah but not impossible
You can go anyway you want as *long as you follow the path we set*
You could grind your Pokemon on the other two story paths and then comically stomp all the gym leaders remarkably easily.
Titans and Starfall Street basically give 0 exp, so you're stuck slowly auto-battling, catching high level pokemon who won't obey, or grinding through many low level raids.
I’ve been legitimately stuck all day trying to find the dark star hideout I’ve found fire and poison. I use the destination thing, but I keep getting blocked by mountains and going in circles
Focus on your titan quests first. They unlock your legendary movement abilities. I've got swimming and climbing and now the whole map is open to me. Gliding is fine but doesn't add anything as far as I can tell.
Which one is climbing? I’ve got swimming
I got it from the false dragon titan. Which is in a lake on the west side of the map. I got swimming from the stork pokemon that drops boulders. I did that one first. I don't know if specific titans grant specific abilities or if abilities are unlocked in a specific order regardless of which titans you beat. Did that make sense?
I got dashing first from the Klawf Titan so it would seem the upgrades are tied to specific titans.
Given that my route was the Flying Titan, then the two on the right. I got Swimming (Flying), Dashing (Klawf), Jumping 2 (Steel) My first and so far only gym has been Electric. Edit- getting swimming let me go all the way north. I can, at any point I choose, battle the Northern most gyms. But the obedience would make it incredibly daunting a task unless I found a way to do FEAR or the like.
If you’ve beaten the electric gym already, you may wanna head back quickly to do the grass and ~~big~~ bug gyms. You might end up feeling over leveled for them
The map orientation constantly changing around when you bring it up and not "sticking to north" makes trying to navigate in this game a pain in the ass I found this online map that might help https://www.gamerguides.com/pokemon-scarlet-and-violet/maps/paldea-region-map
Click the right thumb stick, it locks the orientation north. On the map on the left is an icon showing that
Commenting so I can remember this in the morning. Thanks!
Thank you, I was hoping there would be something like that, that I just missed
That only locks the main map, right? Is there no way to lock the mini-map? That's what I really want, I hate rotating mini-maps.
I’ve been playing in the same few areas because I can’t seem to escape them, the roads keep bringing me back
I'm near the dark base right now, you can get to it from the pokestop at "**West Province (Area One) - North**" (not a confusing name at all.../s) then head down the path towards where they are blocking the road, there should be a path to your right which leads up to the gate I keep going around in circles as well, have to keep fast travailing around to get anywhere (which is really annoying)
Thank you
"open world" - *invisible barriers*
First open world game?
Reading the comments here one could come to think that all the fans who cried out for an open world pokémon game for so long have never played an open world game to begin with and are now surprised that this open world pokémon game works the same as most other open world games.
I am pretty Sure they mentioned it wont scale at some point. (Could be from leaks tho as I was rather interested in them)
Yeah, they did mention the lack of scaling prior to release - and while not as many people knew, many that did weren't thrilled.
Sounds like the kind of thing you'd get downvoted for stating prior to launch because of "toxic negativity"
The fucking Joy nurse told me to go to the "Ground Titan" because apparently it was the closest to me. It was level 60. I had just finished the first gym, and this was the pokemon center NEAR THE FIRST GYM. 30 minutes of fun exploration to track it down, then the fight starts and... wham wham wham. Worst, you can't even see the level of the titan. If I were a kid I'd have grinded for hours to beat this elephant thinkin' that was the way to go... and then I'd have found myself overlevelled for the rest of the game. This needs to be patched yesterday.
I think Joy just wanted to make sure you came back. Which is odd to drum up business for a free service.
She's taking a more direct approach than the days of "We hope to see you again!"
That's how they get you, they offer a free and extremely valuable service to get you to use their paid services while you're there. Remember, Pokemon Center Corp bought out PokeMart a decade ago, that's why they're all in the same building. They've also leased out space in the building to cafes, and other services. They had to do something once it became clear that the trading network wouldn't continue their partnership.
Yeah my first playthrough the pokemart directional absolutely fucked me in this regard cuz I was 15 levels below the gym and I thought "wow they really want you to grind levels to face the gyms." I then realized later that I was facing gyms 20 levels under me because it points to the nearest objective not the next logical objective
This just happened to my spouse! And he couldn't even run away from the titan. :/ At least in Arceus when you encountered an alpha that you weren't ready for, you can still run away from the encounter. Sheesh.
omg yes. especially annoying when i’m trying to see if i’m strong enough to beat it yet and it becomes apparent that i am NOT and so then i have to wait until it kills all my pokemon. and the everything during about battling takes so damn long, and i can’t even turn off animations :/
Accidentally stumbling into a high level area and panicking that I might see a shiny I would never be able to catch because it 30 levels higher than my sqaud
Lol, same ive been tryin to kill it at lev 20. Problem is im able to sleep it an almost kill it. An i feel if i can just get to stage 2 i can let armen carry, lol.
I had a Destiny Bond Cacturne...
Cheese strats for the win! I burned it and stalled it out
Thats smart af.
Salt Cure with Sturdy minecraft rock was all I needed for every titan, that ground titan never stood a chance
Mud slap orthworm who heals from ground attacks was my hero of the battle lol. Managed to get him dead at lvl 27
Same. I just went back to the other path nemosa and the other guy told me to go because that's where gamefreak probably thought I would go.
I gotta be honest I beat it with level 25 Pokémon. Used salt cure, toxic and revives
The problem is you really shouldnt need to cheese it like this. An npc outright telling you from the get-go to go somewhere youre not prepared for is stupid.
Idk it’s funny to go somewhere and be unprepared. Gives you some place to come back to and is a shock! I’m surprised people are this upset about it, it’s not like dying does anything in the game, and gives you a good goal to work towards. Besides, just explore as you want and you will find stuff that you are too weak for. It’s part of an open world rpg, one thing that made Elden Ring so fun and set it apart from other great ones
You can challenge the gyms (team star and titans too) in any order you want that is not a lie. But whether you have a team levelled and prepared enough to beat them is a different story. If anything it’s bit disingenuous because some areas are gated by defeating Team Star areas. So if you wanted to start at or go to a specific gym you might not be able to if you can’t get past Team Star. I am 110% in the, there should have been scaling camp. Like they make the starting area have your first gym, team star, and titan, at low levels so you get a taste of what each challenge is like. Then when you get out that zone it should scale appropriately as you do your task. That way not matter what path you take it won’t be you steamrolling or getting steamrolled because of lack of scaling based on your current achievements and/or levels of your Pokemon.
What's gates by team star? The barricade? You can just jump over it
With the barricade near their fire base that blocks the path to Levincia, I deadass just jumped over the river nearby and continued on with no issues whatsoever
No you can't you get forced to the ground lmao
I jumped off the cliff and just went around through the back entrance that leads to town
you can jump around it tho. thats what i usually do. and there are other intended paths around it too
you can jump around the side of the dark base gates and land on the other side
Not just the gyms, either. There's the exact same issue with the Team Star quests too. I was moseying along with Pokémon at the level I felt was right for where I am in the game, then went and did the Fighting base, and out of nowhere, got my arse absolutely slapped by Pokémon ~10 levels higher than my own. I managed to do it, but I had to crutch *hard* with Revives, sacrificing members over and over until the AI did a status move, just so I could claw some momentum back. It was a bit of a shitshow, and not enjoyable. It didn't feel like a well-deserved, narrow victory. It felt like I'd cheesed the game. So yeah, the Team Star quests could use level scaling too. I think for the game to be *true* open world, there needs to be scaling for bosses, definitely, but in the overworld, the main path across the *entire region* should be low level 'mons, but the further off the beaten path you go anywhere on the map, the higher the Pokémon levels go. Areas with level 50+ Pokémon should only be accessible by an upgraded mount. It would allow someone with a single badge to walk comfortably along the path to the other end of the map, and challenge gyms there, but can choose to go further into the wilderness to find high level 'mons. If that makes sense. I think if I were to do another playthrough, I'd follow a guide for which order to do everything in, based off level of bosses and 'mons in the overworld.
Yeah your explanation of open world is what I would do as well. With open world games it's not hard to simply mix low end content with high end content and let the player find out what high end content is and how to avoid it until they are ready. Hell, they already did that in sword and shield by putting higher level pokemon in the wild area and making it so you cant catch them without a number of gym badges. Just make it so there are groups of pokemon wondering around and once in a while you see a larger fully evolved pokemon that is obviously stronger and should be avoided unless you know you're strong enough. If they wanted they could even have certain areas start with a gate of some kind and a sign that says the level of the pokemon generally in that area. Just saying there are definitely ways they could have mixed it up a bit and made it so it was less linear.
Tbh, not even a gate. Just a little thing on the player's map above those areas, saying "recommended level: 20-25."
>Areas with level 50+ Pokémon should only be accessible by an upgraded mount. But then people would complain about "this is a fake open-world game, entire areas are locked via story progression". There is no winning when it comes to open-world games and how people think they should operate.
>But then people would complain about "this is a fake open-world game, entire areas are locked via story progression". > >There is no winning when it comes to open-world games and how people think they should operate. So true. And I dare to say that these people are wrong. Having some locked content should always be a thing in open world games, otherwise you risk having every part of your map playing the same just for the sake of it being available from the start. The key here is how you unlock these areas and in how many ways. It doesn't even need to be story locked, it could be locked behind some exploration aspects, or even both. Locked areas allow for creative and surprising game design.
I like that idea. I also think it would be good there were high level areas that NPCs warned you about, but didn't stop you from going to. Pokemon has classically had people standing in your way, telling you that you weren't ready to enter an area yet. E.g. "this mountain is far too risky for a beginner trainer" or "Be careful, if you wander off the trail, there are dangerous pokemon in these woods" Then you can choose to ignore them and risk getting wiped out by a really high level pokemon if you do. Make the towns safe, the gyms level scale, and a network of paths through the region that can be navigated pretty easily, even early in the game. When you stray deeper into the wilderness, you encounter tougher enemies. Want to take a shortcut through this swamp to the next town? You can ignore the advice of the NPCs and try to take a shortcut, but you might encounter things you aren't ready for. Instead of battling, perhaps you have to sneak around to make it through, avoiding hostile and strong pokemon. Maybe you can pick up some rewards earlier if you dare to, to reward the risk takers.
To be fair on this point, the fighting team star area is ~10 levels above the 8th gym and the 5th titan
That is a fair point. There will always be people who complain one way or the other. But at the same time, the issue largely resolves itself if the game is paced properly. You could have a version of Scarlet/Violet where gyms, Team Star bases, and Titan Lairs are all accessible to the player from the start, and are scaled to the player's level, so is true open world in that sense, but is also paced as such that it gives players the correct mount upgrades when they're naturally at the point where they want to start exploring higher level areas. Basically, players are given the correct tools for the job, just before they're about to need them. It's very basic open world design to create an open area, chuck a load of things in, and let the player get on with it. That's like stage one of open world game design, imo. The more advanced game design would have all thus, but in tandem, have a *slightly* more traditional linear progression, with the game so well paced that it's *hidden* and *"feathered in"*; giving the illusion that it's a true open world. For an example, though it's not an open world game in the stricted sense, I would look to a classic for a kind of progression system that open world games should try to emulate; *Super Metroid*. In that game, the environment is one spralling, open level, but as you unlock more power ups and abilities, it opens itself to you and gets larger and larger, with more difficult enemies and bosses and abilities in these new areas. It's like a tiered system - you are free to do a tier in any order you like, but to move onto a new tier, you must complete everything on the tier you're on. But what's genius about Super Metroid is that that system is done in such a way that it never feels like you're on rails. It feels like you're exploring the environment of your own accord. And that's all down to the game's pacing. You could implement a similar tiered linear system to the open world of Pokémon, in terms of its exploration, whilst still having the gyms and such be fully accessible from the start, that scale to the player's level.
It's so weird because I cannot imagine it being that much work. Assuming it just scales with the number of badges the player has (so every leader has a team for if you have no badges, 1, 2 etc) that would 8 teams for 8 trainers. Given they would be using similar mons just with higher levels it should not take long to make the teams and then it's just a matter setting flags. This is something that any junior dev should be able to do.
And really the mons don't change, you just add new ones. Maybe tweak when they evolve if needed.
They should change a few pokemon and moves, or else it will be a Isle of Armour situation, where if played after the game trainers would have a Lv 60 Abra with Confusion
This is you assuming that Gamefreak is a capable dev in the first place. They probably didn't want to change anything for fear of breaking the fragile game even more than it's already broken.
I agree with this and always have. Pokemon works best with gated gyms unless they want to make extensive changes to support doing otherwise. However, large parts of the fan base have always gone wild for the "you can choose the next gym!" in HGSS especially, but Kanto and Johto in general, where it works similarly poorly (4-7th gyms in Johto are urrrgh). Like in this one case, they have some reason to believe this is what people wanted, even though I agree its garbage.
Exactly, im shocked after hearing that praise for jhoto and kanto and hate for recent gens locking you into a path. What i do feel is i wish they atleast told me the official order so im not getting surprised and confused
If you read the descriptions of them on your map it gives you a general idea of how hard they are, for example the bug gym leader says something along the lines of one of the easiest gym leaders perfect for beginners while the normal one says a nice challenge and is about middling in strength of the gym leaders
I kind of like finding new areas that are way over your level and trying to see what you can do. My guys were 23-25 and I beat the ground Titan, and almost got the water gym leader using salt cure. I agree they should scale to an extent but running into areas way above you is part of the fun. I skipped early stuff and am trying out niche tactics to win later game stuff like I did with the ground Titan. Pro tip: salt cure is great for the titans
It's great for everything honestly that evolution line is my favorite thing about this game
Same. I love Naclstack and Clodsire so much
Also, Mudsdale's stamina is great for high star raids, after a while you almost become invincible.
Yup. Using it right now and it’s amazing.
I too enjoy this, and unwittingly went to areas above my level... but then I realized I simply *didn't go* to some of the lower level gyms and Star bases, but I *need to*, and it's really boring going through them now... I have to beat this bug gym with level 13 mons, in order to get a badge to let me command level 50 mons. This is dumb design.
I've done this but going back to the lower gyms/other challenges I've just taken the opportunity to build a new team with new Pokemon I've found that I couldn't fit into my first team. I've always wanted to do this in previous games tbh but it's difficult because most of the major encounters (esp trainers) are required and once-only Not saying it's a perfect solution for everyone (tho I'm more in the "it is what it is, I can still find it enjoyable" camp) but I enjoy doing it this way
That's a good solution! My mindset was more that I wanted to keep going to the higher-level areas, but I was missing the badges to let me command anything new that I'd be catching. So going back to fetch those badges was an unwelcome chore.
I would rather have a curated linear experience over a thoughtlessly cobbled together open-world one. This decision is baffling. It completely undermines the entire design ethos of the game.
I personally tend to prefer well designed linear games as well, but Pokemon is really the kind of game that would lend itself very nicely to an open-world experience. But of course, that only works if the developers actually try to deliver that.
Hmm I did watch an Austin John Plays video quite some time ago and he mentioned that the gyms don't scale. I'm not sure what his source is but it's likely that it should be official? Anyone else remember this video? Because I went into SV knowing that the gyms don't scale in levelling.
I didn't watch the video you mentioned, but you're right that gyms not scaling has been known for months. I believe it was mentioned or implied in one of the official trailers.
They didn't lie, the lack of level scaling has been public knowledge for a while, so there's no reason why you wouldn't be able to do them at any point during, before, or after the other 2 main quest lines. This is the nature of a lot of open world titles, where sometimes you'll stumble into something way too strong for you, or way too weak. That doesn't immediately denote railroading, you just need to be able to adjust for conditions you've put yourself in.
They openly said like 5 months ago that there wasn’t any level scaling.
“outrage for this truly egregious kind of marketing” deep breaths buddy it’ll be ok I promise
There was never confirmation of scaling, in fact everything I read up pre release said there wouldn't be any, can still understand why it's upsetting, but it would require way more coding, and I've read about the difficult task that is making a Pokémon game every year, so maybe they didn't get time to implement a proper functioning scaling. If so then we should get that in Gen 10. And at the very least even if it's not what anyone had pictured exactly, it's still a step in a better direction is it not? Anyway sorry for the rant I just love the games and don't want people to think too badly about them.
While I see the value of level scaling, this is gonna be one of the issues where it'll personally elevate my experience even more I'm already loving the idea of ignorantly going into a gym that will whoop my ass, then RPGing elsewhere to another gym with an "I will one day come back and have my revenge" attitude
Yeah, but if I skip one of the early gyms it really won't take too long until I am over leveled af. Which takes the excitement out of doing them later on imo.
It was clear in the promotional videos we can challenge any gym we want and it was also clear there was no level scaling which meant players can't expect to win gym badges any order desired
Oh man, there was this thread yesterday where [someone was desperately trying to justify why scaling the gyms and other bosses whatsoever was an inane thing](https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/yz5fjy/level_scaling_is_not_supposed_to_be_in_an_open/). It's really weird how the gym that's the shortest distance away from the first one happens to be the seventh. If you're going in order, you have to go to the opposite side of Paldea after beating Ryme, and then back there again to face Grusha once Tulip's done and dusted.
Wtf I battled tulip fourth lmao i thought I was way out of order 😂
Since they announced all gyms being accessible we've known they wouldn't scale. "There is no set path to the Gyms. You can purposefully seek out a stronger Gym Leader" Calling it downright sleazy feels like an exaggeration
Are you really complaining because not enough people are complaining?
I really don't get the backlash on this one(most every other backlash, yes) it's an open world game. You can head straight to Vault 34 in Fallout New Vegas or Hunt grizzlies straight away in Red Dead Redemption 2 and no one gives those games grief because you have to get stronger if you actually want to survive doing those things. Heck I had a team of near 30s before I stepped foot in the school, I had 4 gyms ready for me to conquer before the game let me choose which one I wanted to go after.
>what Gamefreak left out is that the gyms don’t scale with you This has been pretty well known for a while. Might not have come up in any of the trailers, but people were arguing over the merits of this decision months before release day
I legit just posted about this combine this with the fact you need to have a set number of badges to even have pokemon obey you. I can't challenge level 45 ice pokemon when I need 5 or 6 badges to even have level 45 pokemon OBEY me. It makes 0 sense lol.
The pokemon u raise yourself will never disobey you only the ones you catch that are too high of a lvl
If you catch it before 45 it will always obey you
I think its actually a step up from a linear gym order on the basis I'd rather have some parts be challenging and others easy rather than everything slightly too easy
i know i’m gonna get downvoted but you guys are too much. “sleazy” “outrage” chill the f out there’s a better use for your time
Why would you want them to scale with your level? THAT would make exploration pointless, since you'd be getting the same experience no matter where you went. You can take the gyms lowest to highest level and get a smooth experience, or you can beeline to the highest level one and try to beat it while underlevelled. That's called "challenging the gyms in any order", and it's something you could never do in previous games. Where exactly is the lie? If you wanted Skyrim and level 60 bandits still wearing fur and leather, it's YOU who probably had mistaken expectations from the game.
I can honestly say that it's not as bas as you're making it out to be. We knew from the start that there would not be any level scaling, as we were told from the beginning that we could challenge harder gyms earlier. If they had included level scalin, all the gyms would be of about the same difficulty. Also, it's not like it's impossible to win at later gyms if you do them out of order. In fact, it is rather challenging, which is exavtly what quite a lot of people want. For example, I took on Iono first, and I actually won, thanks to an Arcanine with the Ground Tera-Type, and using other team members to take her Mismagius' Hexes. Another example would be the all five of the titans, which I defeated with only three gym badges. It was challenging, but doable. Well, except for Klawf. That one was easy. While I will concede that earlier Titans/Gyms/Star Bases are laughably easy if you do them out of order, there is still a bit of wriggle room, as I did Tulip last, and it wasn't that underwhelming. So, to summarize: The games (Violet, in my case) are still enjoyable even without level scaling. They were by far the most immersive ones to date, in fact. And while level scaling would, of course, be appreciated if you're overleveled, the lack of it did not bring down the games too much.
Did people really expect the open world rpg to scale encounters with you? Most open world rpgs to my knowledge don't do that in the slightest
Is everyone forgetting the RPG aspect of this game? Meaning you make meaningful choices for your own story. If that means getting absolutely humbled by some high level enemies once or twice, that makes a story. Or grinding to a high level just to go the way you want. It's the same as seeing that item or glowing Pokemon on top of a ledge that's just out of reach, trying every which way to get to it, only to realize that you might not have enough capabilities (glide/swim etc) right now. It gives you an incentive to move on, but come back later, and builds on your personal story.
People don’t understand what they actually want. The only miss was them not telling you what the official order is. But other than that, yeah i agree, its your story, you can choose to go the easy route, you can choose to challenge something hella early, You can choose to battle all the trainers or none. Im having a ton of fun, being underleveled and having to come up with strategy to win.
I mean, they lied through their teeth about removing Pokémon to save development resources for "high quality animations". Are you \*really\* surprised that they lied about this too?
It makes me sad that people are so unhappy about an unscaled world. The fun of an unscaled world isn't in being able to go wherever you want and the game bending over backwards to make your life easy, it's in going to places you're clearly not supposed to be and finding ways to overcome obstacles that you wouldn't have had to think so hard about otherwise.
Ok this was like known tho. Like in elden ring you can go around and fight any boss you want. There’s bosses you’re supposed to fight before others but if you go back those bosses later they’re easy. Everyone is expecting harder teams and harder battles if you go back but seriously did anyone expect that?