6th Gen "No Exp. Share: How does it change the game for you?" Cont.

[Legobricks]

Remade Pendraflare's thread because I wanted to post a response but it's too old:

As i'm sure many of you guys know, the Exp. Share is a pretty game-breaking item, which gives your entire team half the EXP that active Pokémon get from any foe that you defeat. If you watch Marriland's X Adventure, you'll see his entire team be well above Level 70 before he even reaches the Pokémon League, which is even higher than the Champion's ace! It's an item that seriously allows you to tower above the competition with no effort at all. But if it's off, that widespread EXP won't be spread to your entire team, and you'll have to do the training for them on your own instead of letting the item do the work for you.

Some of the challenges on the forum force you to turn off the Exp. Share, others allow it but recommend against it. I've heard some people say that without it, the game gets seriously harder and on par with previous games. Others say that the game is still laughably easy even then, but i've talked about why I find it harder without.

If you've played the game without the Exp. Share on through a majority of the game, or ever using it at all, what's your take on it? Does it make the game far more challenging, does it do things somewhat harder but not too much? Or is it still as pitiful as it is without it? Discuss.

I used it only because I thought it was like the first generation Exp. All and divided the single experience gain between each monster, instead of generating thousands of points of extra experience out of nowhere. And so I ended up with a team that wasn't perfectly even-levelled, which was a bit confusing at first, and a game that seemed to become easier as I progressed. I'd completed the game before I found out how it works. In the end I thought the game felt a bit short and... well, here's why.

 

[JesteR]

You get a level... and you get a level... and you get a level...

But in all seriousness, it's an extremely broken system, and I hope they change it.

 

[Juxapose]

The game is not harder, just takes longer to achieve the same result. Whats the difference between power training my team all at once, and individually training them? About 100 hours. So it doesn't make the game hard, only boring.

 

[Candy]

Same response as the previous thread: It's still too easy. I beat everything like cakewalk even without it (and on Set as well).

Previous thread I mentioned that trainers after Wulfric started to give me a hard time since I was quite underleveled (even against Wulfric's Avalugg, but eh, Delphox OHKO), but after stomping on all the trainers on the way to Victory Road (plus a small exploration to Terminus Cave to grab the Shadow Ball TM), I ended up on par with the Elite 4's level.

All in all, exp gain is ridiculous in Pokemon X & Y. Then again, I had their affections raised to maximum, which gave me a 20% exp bonus. Hmm... probably should replay the game again, this time without using the Amie at all.

 

[Miau]

The game is not harder, just takes longer to achieve the same result. Whats the difference between power training my team all at once, and individually training them? About 100 hours. So it doesn't make the game hard, only boring.

Agreed. Grinding is not hard, it's just really boring. To me, it was a lot more fun to train more Pokemon pre-E4 than just the six I was able to train in previous games. I liked experimenting with my team, trying new Pokemon, and then being able to go back to my previous team without losing any exp. Even with the overleveling, it didn't make the game all that much easier as to really ruin anything for me.

I never did a challenge in Kalos because I don't have an extra game, but I know many challenges ban the Exp Share, and it makes sense, it's supposed to be, you know, a challenge. (Of course, unless the difficulty stems from some other aspect of the game?) But in previous games that I did challenge runs, I still hated grinding and instead invested much more effort into team building, as opposed to casual runs, where I just go with the flow; and the Exp Share was perfect for that.

 

[Arcanine765]

I have tried playing X/Y without the EXP Share on and as soon as I went near the Reflection Cave entrance, it was impossible to get past. The Korrina battle was hard, the Brains and Brawn duo was impossible to beat for me, because my level wasn't high enough (I think I was five levels below them) and it takes FOREVER to grind and you know what makes grinding less of a chore, EXP Share. Either I use the EXP Share and the game gets easy, or I don't use it and it becomes impossible to beat, unless you waste time grinding, which I hate doing. Hopefully they'll fix this in OR/AS, so you can only use it on one Pokemon, but when you beat the E4 + Champion, post-game, it gets upgraded to work with the whole party.

I also wish that the Champion won't be too hard to beat where you basically have to rely on luck to win. I'm not sure if Steven or Wallace will be the OR/AS champion, but, oh my god, in Emerald, Wallace was really hard to beat, I actually had to use save states to beat him, it sucks.

 

[Nakasu]

In my opinion this game is a pretty Normal game without the Broken Exp.Share. It's not too hard and not too easy. Those who think this game is still a joke are possibly "professional" Pokemon Battlers. I'd say the game is about Pokemon Black and White in difficulty. It's probably mainly seen towards the the "children".

 

[Thursday]

I agree with Juxapose, it's not impossible to do but it makes the game 8 times more boring. It gets really bad after the fifth badge since there is barely any area to get good experience for fighting Valarie and those fairies can dish out some damage to an underleveled team.

 

[Hiatus]

I don't necessarily believe the new Experience Share was such a bad thing in Pokémon X and Y. Thanks to this, I was able to keep all my party members at a balanced level for the first time ever, which was definitely satisfying. If it were some other game, things like this would have taken me a ton of time, effort, and energy, and perhaps even dwindled my motivation to keep playing through and whatnot.

Though, the item does make it a lot easier in general when it comes to difficulty, but those who are bothered by such things always have option to disable this item. Once it's turned off, you are no longer transferring any experience to Pokémon other than the ones you're using in-battle, which would cause them to not level up, lending more tasks to you.

I feel that it would've been good if we were able to select which Pokémon we'd like to have experience shared with, if possible; rather than disabling completely, for some people, this might have been a good middle-ground.

 

[Pendraflare]

In my opinion this game is a pretty Normal game without the Broken Exp.Share. It's not too hard and not too easy. Those who think this game is still a joke are possibly "professional" Pokemon Battlers. I'd say the game is about Pokemon Black and White in difficulty. It's probably mainly seen towards the the "children".

Basically this. I've mentioned before, but i've played through XY without ever using the Exp. Share several times, and with that I have found myself considerably lower leveled than most of the trainers in-game. When I did my Haunter and the Carnival of Horrors challenge back in October, I remember raging pretty hard at Victory Road. >_> For that matter, Lysandre's final team with Mega Gyarados has proven to be a nice challenge more times than one.

But in comparison to BW as she mentioned, I would say this has harder trainers, while BW's Gym Leaders and final battles are much harder. Even at that, still no opponent in XY comes close to as hard as N and Ghetsis (Diantha? Yeah, no).

 

[BeachBoy]

Well, Junichi Masuda explained the reasoning in an interview: players don't have nearly as much time on their hands, so they changed up the Exp. Share (and offered it early), to fulfill this purpose. When we were kids, we could grind forever, because it had to be done and we had the time to do it. Nowadays, opportunity cost and worries about how we use our time get in the way.

Is it more difficult? I think it provides a little bit more worry on team construction and leveling. I remember tossing some Pokemon into a box because I felt I didn't have the time to focus on them.

 

[Hikamaru]

After seeing people documenting Nuzlockes, Wedlockes and the like on X/Y it's pretty clear to assume that if you leave the Exp. Share off all the time, you will end up underleveled against even random normal trainers (the infamous Brains & Brawn outside Reflection Cave comes to mind) because there may be certain spots where it can be hard to grind due to the Pokemon there not giving out much EXP points.

Pendraflare pointed out how hard he found the game without using the Exp. Share, like where he said that Victory Road was so hard when he did a recent challenge for an event in the Challenges section. However, as he said I agree with him that while the regular trainers in X/Y are hard, nothing can come close to the intensity that was N and Ghetsis in B/W.

 

[Juxapose]

Here's a way to make the game challenging (without the obvious self imposed "underleveling" handicap we are talking about). Make ALL battles set to level 50. From the beginning to the final battle with the champ, all pokemon should be the same exact level. Only reason level should exist is to determine what moves your pokemon should have when facing your opponent. Random trainers still give exp, and random battles will have the normal levels set. Once this "overleveled" or "underleveled" handicap goes away, the game can be fair and challenging.

 

[Hikamaru]

Here's a way to make the game challenging (without the obvious self imposed "underleveling" handicap we are talking about). Make ALL battles set to level 50. From the beginning to the final battle with the champ, all pokemon should be the same exact level. Only reason level should exist is to determine what moves your pokemon should have when facing your opponent. Random trainers still give exp, and random battles will have the normal levels set. Once this "overleveled" or "underleveled" handicap goes away, the game can be fair and challenging.

I don't know how that can exactly play out... it looks like a weird challenge.

 

[Juxapose]

I don't know how that can exactly play out... it looks like a weird challenge.

This is not a challenge. I feel that this should be a setting programed by game freak to make the game more challenging. There is no way possible to self impose this setting.

 

[KillerTyphlosion]

I played almost through the whole game without it only in the beginning I used it but after i found out that it just give 50% of the current exp I thought it would be to easy. So i left it turned off. I also played on set without using recovery items in battle. The exp share is not the only broken thing in the game. The wild levels of the pokémon are way to high. I mean you can catch noibat at lvl 45-46 or lvl 58 and on lvl 48 you have noivern. you can catch sliggoo at like lvl 47 and it evolves at lvl 50. A lot of strong pokémon are catchable at high levels and you can evovle them very quickly. I mean you can catch zweilos at lvl 59! And the thing is they aren't rare encounters.

 

[Disolia]

I find that at times I can be a rather stubborn person. So much, so that when I first found out about the game breaking qualities of the new EXP share I simply refused to use it, unlike my friends. I instead trained all my pokemon up in the traditional method.

Side notably the only challenge I've ever attempted was the string challenge, which was mildly interesting. xD

 

[SapphireMillennium]

The Exp. share was okay in this game. It took me a while to figure out and get used to it; didn't really like it at first. Once I realized what it was actually doing, I kept it on (unless I was trying to catch a new team member up to the rest of my team).

Either way, I kinda hope that it will be like the regular, old Exp. Share in OR/AS.

 

[ΩRαS]

With Exp. Share turned on, I find it makes the game much easier and a breeze to play through which isn't great if you like to take the time to enjoy the game leveling up your Pokémon however constantly running around in tall grass to battle wild Pokémon for a little exp gain can become tedious quickly.

Each time I play the game I rotate between having it on and turning it off, so that I'm not over leveled and I don't get bored training my Pokémon to catch up to the rest of my team.

So if it was removed completely I wouldn't mind I'd just revert to the good ol' switching in and out method (that I often still do when Exp. Share is turned on) it wouldn't make a drastic difference.

 

[Nah]

Part of me thinks that the new Exp.Share wasn't exactly meant for use during the main story, but for post-game/more competitive stuff. Over the generations Game Freak has been making that kind of stuff easier and easier to do. The new Exp.Share is a godsend if you're training a bunch of Pokemon. Instead of doing one Pokemon at a time, you can do up to 5 at once. You can even horde EV train multiple pokes.

IDK, just something I thought of.