How can leveling Pokemon be made less boring?

[Nightcrow]

For all people starting from scratch with maps and all. If you change the whole game to something new.
Keep track of all flags and vars you use. Then after finishing the game have a character you can talk to that allows you to restart your story. You keep all your pokemon and items etc, but the whole storyline is reset til after you just got your first pokemon. Then you can play the story mode over again as much as you want to level new pokemon. It's not grinding if you got a story to lvl them!

I'm planning on doing this in my hack. I'll use the fire red story with some small diffrences though... It's gona be a pain trying to find all these flags and vars but you know... never hurts to try right

 

[Alice]

For all people starting from scratch with maps and all. If you change the whole game to something new.
Keep track of all flags and vars you use. Then after finishing the game have a character you can talk to that allows you to restart your story. You keep all your pokemon and items etc, but the whole storyline is reset til after you just got your first pokemon. Then you can play the story mode over again as much as you want to level new pokemon. It's grinding if you go to a story to lvl them!

I'm planning on doing this in my hack. I'll use the fire red story with some small diffrences though... It's gona be a pain trying to find all these flags and vars but you know... never hurts to try right

That's a really good idea. It would be kinda boring to be fighting level 2s and 3s on route 1 when you're level 60 though. If possible you should have the wild pokemon levels change after the story resets.

 

[Nightcrow]

That's a really good idea. It would be kinda boring to be fighting level 2s and 3s on route 1 when you're level 60 though. If possible you should have the wild pokemon levels change after the story resets.

You could use the earlyer part of the story to level up lower ones from 20ish to 50ish, and use the higher levels when you get a bit further. Anywayz, restarting the story gets you a way to train pokemon any level without grinding. And it earn you moneys, unlike fighting wild pokemon, and is not boring compared to using the VS seeker all the time.

Second idea i've been thinking off was to add an extra to each trainerscript in the game. After you take 10 steps the trainer's flag could be reset so you could fight it again. You should find how to do something like this in the safari zone script (500steps=exit).

Implementing either of them isn't hard at all, just A LOT of work:)

There's more idea's like this in the post i try to make on here... It has all info about the hack i'm working on.
But it gets denied everywhere, pm'd a mod and he told me i should try in rom hacking. If it gets denied in there too i give up...

 

[Shen]

Honestly, why don't you just increase the amount of rare candies that can be found in-game? They'll still be an overall limit and you obviously won't have access to all of them at once, so it'll give you the option of quick-levelling to a fighting level without taking away the challenge. Plus with a large team, it adds another strategic layer in who gets how many candies.
People who like to grind can still grind and be rewarded with a stockpile of rare candies and people who don't like to grind can get instant gratification with only the minor loss of possible EV time.

 

[Micael Alighieri]

You can give to your Pokemon a Lucky Egg. The Pokemon who holds a Lucky Egg wins more experience. How can you encounter this? Well, you can make a Chansey event, or simply, you can make Chansey to appear in the wild. You can steal the Lucky Eggs.

Bye.

 

[Nightcrow]

Honestly, why don't you just increase the amount of rare candies that can be found in-game? They'll still be an overall limit and you obviously won't have access to all of them at once, so it'll give you the option of quick-levelling to a fighting level without taking away the challenge. Plus with a large team, it adds another strategic layer in who gets how many candies.
People who like to grind can still grind and be rewarded with a stockpile of rare candies and people who don't like to grind can get instant gratification with only the minor loss of possible EV time.

By how much would you intend to increase it then? As soon as you finished the game the grinding gets boring. I can imagine at that point you have like 6 pokemon near 75 or so. 6x25=150.... Nearly all items you find will be a rare candy then. And that allows you just to have 1 team at lvl 100... What if you want to replace some pokemon in your team? More rare candies? You might as well put them for sale in a mart at an insane price so they are unlimited, you'd stil need to get the money to afford em though.

I have been thinking about creating 7 new islands in the game. Each one will be a deathrow(like nugget bridge) of 25 trainers. If you make it through you'll get rewarded with a special item (leftovers, lucky egg, a rare candy, ...) depending on the difficulty. First island designed to get you from 30 to 40, second 40 to 50,......,last one from 90 to 100.
Sure there is no story, but you'll get money cos you fight trainers and an item. It's always less grinding if you're doing trainerbattles.
When you obtain the item at the end the trainerflags reset, so you have to fight your way out of there(their pokemon will gain a slight lvl increase in the escape battles). When you leave the island everything is reset to what it was, so you can try and get the item all over again.
Added difficulties:
-be sure to bring healing items, cos when you leave the isle to go to a pokemon center flags are reset and you start all over again.
-no fly zone, no teleporting, no digging... When you get the item, your only escape is through the wave of trainers or by visiting the infirmery :D.
-To enter the isle, your highest pokemon can be at max 5 lvls above the intended lvl range. (30-40 allows lvl45 at max) This is to prevent people from getting a team of lvl 100 pokemon and just go collect the prechious items


What do you guys think? This is pretty easy to create, but will it be a challenge people want to go for?

[EDIT]
Here's an example:

Spoiler:

View attachment 56637
You warp to the island and 25 trainers await you. Their pokemon lvls depend on the highest lvl pokemon in your party (diffrent battles depending on a variable you set when entering the island).
There's a path to bypass the trainers and visit the cop in the end. He will tell you which item you can earn if you defeat all trainers(depends on the variable that defines the difficulty).
If you talk to the old man after defeating all trainers he will give you the item and heal your pokemon. Since this is a no fly/dig/teleport zone you'll have to battle the 25 trainers all over again in order to leave the island. (It is pretty mean to have a player stuck for 25 battles long, therefore the cop will move out of your way and let you leave if you pay a certain amount of money based on the difficulty variable. This amount will be the total of money the 25 trainers paid you+75K) Bribing the cop FTW right! :D
Items you may earn are:
lvl 30-40 : nugget
lvl 40-50 : leftovers
lvl 50-60 : rare candy
lvl 60-70 : sacred ash
lvl 70-80 : PP max
lvl 80-90 : lucky egg
lvl 90-100: master ball

PROS:
- Very challenging
- Access to rare items if you are willing to work for them
- Levelling balanced teams while trying them against skilled opponents with balanced teams.
CONS:
- If you want to have 7 diffrent difficulties you need 175 (25*7) trainers. This will eat a lot of free space out of your rom. You could reuse some trainers from the normal storyline for this event though. That will push the number down a bit.
- Defeating all of them will take a while and if you leave the island you have to start all over again, unless you pay the exit money offcourse. (Though i believe this is necessairy, else healing your pokemon at a pokemon center between each fight would make this too easy. And it would allow you to cheat with the received items in the end by doing 24 trainers, getting a lvl 100 team and doing the last one at max difficulty for a masterball)
- Even though the 25 trainers will pay you well, you will need to invest some startermoney. Since your items will be your only way of healing yourself through all this. You will however end up with more money then you invested. (Unless you bribe the cop)

[/EDIT]

 

[Shen]

By how much would you intend to increase it then? As soon as you finished the game the grinding gets boring. I can imagine at that point you have like 6 pokemon near 75 or so. 6x25=150.... Nearly all items you find will be a rare candy then. And that allows you just to have 1 team at lvl 100... What if you want to replace some pokemon in your team? More rare candies? You might as well put them for sale in a mart at an insane price so they are unlimited, you'd stil need to get the money to afford em though.

My mistake then, I thought we were talking about beating the fake difficulty in game, not endgame grinding.

 

[Nightcrow]

My mistake then, I thought we were talking about beating the fake difficulty in game, not endgame grinding.

Unless you're playing a hack that is a hard mode of an original game, i don't think it matters. The original games are made far too easy, there's no need to grind while getting through the story at all. But that's just my opinion:)

 

[Lugiaz Soul]

This is how I level my pokemon without being bored. First I get five Zigzagoons and the poke I want to raise. Maybe even a Lucky Egg if it's available. Then I run in the grass and battle wild pokes. After every battle, I check my pokes to see if they're holding some rare items like rarecandies. You get so into collecting rare stuff that you don't even notice you've gone past the level you wanted to get.

 

[colcolstyles]

Most of you are just not reading the question properly.

Sadly, it seems that you are among them. The question is not "what do you do to make grinding less boring?" It is, and I quote, "In the framework of a hack, what can be done to change it?" The fact that this thread is in the ROM Hacking forum (as opposed to, say, General Pokémon Gaming) should make that clear but I guess it isn't. The OP is not asking you for your personal methods for coping with grinding; she's asking how can a hack be structured so that it makes grinding obsolete. For example, some people suggested giving out the VS Seeker earlier or increasing the number of trainer battles or giving out Lucky Eggs, etc.

Those are the kind of answers that Rabbit is looking for.

 

[Illusive]

Make rare candies and lucky eggs available for purchase at pokemarts.

 

[helloehello001]

find different places or trainers to level yr pokemon

 

[U.Flame]

Increase the level of wild Pokemon. That will give it more challenge and exp. points. The level of wild Pokemon in my hack are about the same as the estimated level of your Pokemon if you were to beat the trainers.

 

[masterquestmq]

like real estate its location location location

for instance if u wanna level up a grass or electric pokemon in FR go to seafoam isle
if u wanna lvl up fire pokemon the route outside of fuschia is full of grass pokemon
rock and fighting he power plant etc

and trainer battles


thing is when u have a type advantage the lvling up process becomes much smoother....

 

[Fee Nicks]

If you really wanted to, you could just crank up the base EXP [and EVs] for the pokemon which you feel would benefit from giving out larger amounts of EXP.
Honestly, however, it would just be easier and more interesting for the player if one used more trainers, made more useful pokemon available either earlier on or at higher levels, and most importantly created a decent difficulty curve in terms of gym and trainer level progression.

 

[Ninja Caterpie]

Okay, after playing White (well, up to the fifth gym...), I stand completely corrected.

Play-testing is everything. The level curve must work. + strong wild pokemon helps.

+ difficulty doesn't need to come from levels. Pokemon B/W has real difficulty from the long routes rather than stupidly high level stuff.

 

[AncienTLorD86]

I dont think it's a problem. I mean this is an emulater for god sake, you can speed it up to 500%

Another solution could be EXP Orbs or something that increase the exp when holded.

Hold Lucky Egg can get 1.5 exp points...:)

 

[-i Pwn teh noobs-]

Something the probably Doubles the exp gained when held or something. and not so hard to find

 

[chaoko]

1)Have special experience booths that players can spend (a large amount) of money at to battle pokemon with remarkably high experience yields.
2)Make the rewards for levelling up better like: let the player choose the main focus of their pokemon (attack defense etc)
3)When a pokemon can learns a new attack, give the player options like: should your pikachu learn thunder or quick attack?
4)Add more moves to the learnset so that the player will enjoy leveling up more.
5) let the player's pokemon learn 5 or 6 moves instead of the standard 4

 

[DBYstealthy]

You could decrease the amount of exp. to level up when you get into higher levels, when you pretty much have to grind for hours if you want to get your pokemon to 100. Also, you could program the wild and maybe trainer pokemon to be around same level as yours so you can battle pokemon that aren't too tough or easy, and will give you an appropriate amount of exp.