6th Gen Making XY More Difficult

How do y'all suggest that I make my play through of Y harder? I've already played through it once with easy, but I want to make my second time around more difficult. However, I dont want any permadeath rules or rules that would make my play though super grindy. So no Nuzlocking and keeping the exp share.

Here are my ideas so far:

-Battle style = set
-no mega evolving except for against gyms and elite 4
-only 1 megastone on the team at a time
-not using any Kalos or Kanto starter
-not using any static pokemon
-can only use potions outside of battle except against gyms and elite 4

Do you have any more suggestions for me? I haven't played through Y in a while, so maybe I'm missing something that would make the game harder.

How to make XY harder? Turn off EXP share, simple. And yeah not using the 2nd set of starters can also help.

PageEmperor said:

How to make XY harder? Turn off EXP share, simple. And yeah not using the 2nd set of starters can also help.

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Difficult =/= Time consuming. Not using the EXP share won't change how pathetically easy the game is; you'll just have to spend longer grinding.

Do a Nuzlocke, with no items, cap your Pokemon's levels at either the current level of the next Gym leader you have to face or below - and stop using them the second they go over that, be it in the middle of a Gym Leader battle or otherwise - and don't use any more than one status move per battle - lowering or increasing, that's up to you - and never use the same move twice in a row, set the battle style so you don't switch Pokemon, restrict yourself to using each Pokemon Center three times only, and never evolve your Pokemon.

Then you might find it a little more challenging. Maybe. Depends on how lucky the AI gets with criticals and what you encounter along each route I suppose.

Meyneth said:

Difficult =/= Time consuming. Not using the EXP share won't change how pathetically easy the game is; you'll just have to spend longer grinding.

Do a Nuzlocke, with no items, cap your Pokemon's levels at either the current level of the next Gym leader you have to face or below - and stop using them the second they go over that, be it in the middle of a Gym Leader battle or otherwise - and don't use any more than one status move per battle - lowering or increasing, that's up to you - and never use the same move twice in a row, set the battle style so you don't switch Pokemon, restrict yourself to using each Pokemon Center three times only, and never evolve your Pokemon.

Then you might find it a little more challenging. Maybe. Depends on how lucky the AI gets with criticals and what you encounter along each route I suppose.

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I'm not going to do a nuzlocke and capping pokemon's levels seems too tedious, but the no item idea is pretty good. I don't know about never evolving my pokemon, but Ill probably stop evolution at least a couple times 1) to make the game more difficult 2) because first evolutions are cute and I dont want to spend only a short amount of time using them before they evolve. Thanks for the response!

BadSheep said:

I'm not going to do a nuzlocke and capping pokemon's levels seems too tedious, but the no item idea is pretty good. I don't know about never evolving my pokemon, but Ill probably stop evolution at least a couple times 1) to make the game more difficult 2) because first evolutions are cute and I dont want to spend only a short amount of time using them before they evolve. Thanks for the response!

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Well, if not capping them so strictly, I'd still recommend not training too much; stop before 5+ levels above your opponent, maybe. The biggest problem with Pokemon regarding lack of challenge is that literally everything can be overcome by grinding. Turning the EXP Share. off won't make the game harder alone; it'll just mean you spend more time levelling up.

You don't have to do EVERYTHING I suggested, obviously. But if you want to make them truly difficult, to the point that you'll be struggling and not just spending more hours doing things that the game speeds up, you'll have to be pretty strict with yourself I think. Even using weaker Pokemon can be mitigated by using type advantage to your...advantage. xD

Meyneth said:

Well, if not capping them so strictly, I'd still recommend not training too much; stop before 5+ levels above your opponent, maybe. The biggest problem with Pokemon regarding lack of challenge is that literally everything can be overcome by grinding. Turning the EXP Share. off won't make the game harder alone; it'll just mean you spend more time levelling up.

You don't have to do EVERYTHING I suggested, obviously. But if you want to make them truly difficult, to the point that you'll be struggling and not just spending more hours doing things that the game speeds up, you'll have to be pretty strict with yourself I think. Even using weaker Pokemon can be mitigated by using type advantage to your...advantage. xD

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Im not going to go out of my way to train. Im just going to get EXP from battling trainers and maybe some wild pokemon i run into. But nothing more.

Here are some I suggest:

-Don't use megas at all (as opposed to only against gyms)...

-No O-Powers (likewise, stay off the internet)...

-Bring no more pokemon than the gym leader has...(Still allowed 6 pokemon on your adventure, however, just put the ones you're not using in the PC)...

-Only swap out one pokemon after a gym battle, then not again until you beat the next gym leader...And it has to be a pokemon you already had when you beat the last gym...

-Only buy x-amount of Pokeballs, total, between pokemarts...(i.e. you can't buy 5 pokeballs and 5 great balls, but you can buy 3 great balls and 2 pokeballs)...

-You must use any rare candies you find immediately...

-Use Item Clause...

-Don't use Wisp, T-Wave, or Sleep-inducing moves...AI can't strategize around these...Toxic, however, is okay...

Idk, just some ideas...

Link119 said:

Here are some I suggest:

-Don't use megas at all (as opposed to only against gyms)...

-No O-Powers (likewise, stay off the internet)...

-Bring no more pokemon than the gym leader has...(Still allowed 6 pokemon on your adventure, however, just put the ones you're not using in the PC)...

-Only swap out one pokemon after a gym battle, then not again until you beat the next gym leader...And it has to be a pokemon you already had when you beat the last gym...

-Only buy x-amount of Pokeballs, total, between pokemarts...(i.e. you can't buy 5 pokeballs and 5 great balls, but you can buy 3 great balls and 2 pokeballs)...

-You must use any rare candies you find immediately...

-Use Item Clause...

-Don't use Wisp, T-Wave, or Sleep-inducing moves...AI can't strategize around these...Toxic, however, is okay...

Idk, just some ideas...

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Thanks for the suggestions! I wont be using O-Powers and ill probably not use my rare candies at all. Oh and about the status moves... I dont really use them anyways in-game except toxic so I cant stall my way out of situations. xD

I have a few ideas if you're interested in 'theming' your playthrough a bit:
1. Use Pokémon who are only a single pure typing (maybe allowing for one 'wild card')
2. Only catch Pokémon that share NO TYPING with other Pokémon in your party/boxes for highest diversity
3. Making it a goal to spell a word with the first letters of the Pokémon in your party's names. For example: say you want to spell 'Plums', you could catch a Pansear, Ledyba, Umbreon, Misdreavus, and Spearow. (You can base this off of their evolution or just their baby form, the choice is yours)
4. Monotype. Unoriginal but fun!
5. Hatch a bunch of eggs and transfer them to your game. Have a team from a whole different region, and start them all at level 1!

I may add more ideas, these are just thoughts.

Honestly I had a decently-challenging time just not using the EXP Share or really grinding all that much at all... or even knocking out any wild Pokémon.

Maybe it's just my own playstyle, but I tend to think that most Gyms can be challenged when your highest-level Pokémon is something like 80%~90% of the level of the Leader's highest-level Pokémon. I've found that, in most pre-Gen VI games, the games are balanced fairly nicely so that your team will be hitting about that point right around each Gym if you're battling all NPC trainers and only NPC trainers up until then. I've pretty much always played the games that way, and doing so hits a pretty nice level of difficulty for my own personal enjoyment.

The thing is, X/Y is balanced for, like, using the EXP Share only some of the time, or something. Having the EXP Share work that way throws everything completely out of whack, because using it all the time overlevels you, but if you never use it, your team ends up underleveled. It didn't really make a very good first impression on me and is a contributing factor to why I don't care for the Gen VI+ EXP Share.
(Also, why didn't they bring back the EXP All item name? It works closer to that item than to the EXP Share of Gens II~V)

Any RPG with a player-controlled rate of stat progression can be trivialized by grinding until you're overleveled for each part of the game, and I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that maybe not everyone wants or is willing to halt their playthrough for hours at a time to grind until they can wipe the floor with the next powerful adversary, because for a great many people, playing the game that way isn't fun. Turning off the EXP Share is a completely valid way to increase the challenge, I feel, so long as you're not just grinding a ton to make up for its absence.

The games give you the Exp. Share. Grinding is tedious so there is nothing wrong with using it but if you want to you could use the Exp. Share until you get the Lucky Egg (Near Coumarine City I think) and then use the Lucky Egg from there and turn off the Exp. Share.

- Some more ideas

- Your starter must be the highest levelled Pokemon and they must always be in your party.
- You can accept the Gift Lucario but must be boxed immediately. If you want a Lucario you must catch it first as a Riolu.
- No type overlap.
- Any encountered Shiny Pokemon must be used for at least one Gym Battle.

You could try shiny grinding for each pokemon you use on your team if you have far too much time as well :^>

How about using some less powerful Pokemon? One issue I have with Kalos is how many extremely strong Pokemon are available early on - try using some weaker ones! You'd be surprised how good some of the Pokemon you'd usually never think of using are - Beedrill is one I've used a few times in Kalos, and he's actually really good!