Challenge Ideas & Discussion

[WindriderShiva]

The amount of crits that work for overall against me in my latest Nuzlocke are freaking through the roof. I lost 3 catches by crits (including a crit Tackle against a Geodude KOing it, like, damn) and I think one or 2 Pokémon to crits. It was bad.

And as for the worst Nuzlocke ever... aside that same Pearl Nuzlocke... has to be the latest one I did through X. I can't exactly remember where, but I wound up in a tight spot after losing all my high level Pokémon. What I remember, however, is that I had a few boxed Pokémon (I think it was 2 left). One of them a Lucario that originally more or less fit in the team. I took him out, and thought "Might as well grind at the Battle Chateau, make some money at the same time. One or twice, just to get a bit of a head start."

Hah, hah, hah. If memory serves right, I indeed only had 2 Pokémon, and I lost one, leaving me with Lucario alone. As for my luck.... the next trainer happened to have a Ghastly. So here I am, unable to hit it at all, and the Ghastly unable to hit me back. I couldn't mechnically forfeit a match, but I couldn't win it either... resulting in a a Nuzlocke failure by a technicality. It was mind-blowingly awful.

 

[PageEmp]

Do you feel everyone, or if not most people should get into Nuzlockes?

I'm honestly shocked to see that many people here aren't familliar with Nuzruns, and why? You suck at the game? Bitch, please.

Now, just because you think you aren't a good poke player does not limit you from doing one of the world's most famous challenge modes. I also used to think I would suck at them, but then I gave it a go, and it wasn't bad at all, I managed to get about 7 deaths, which is considered good for a first run, at least. I said this on the unpopular opinions thread: it's practice that matters. Possibly if you try and try, or get used to the idea your playing your favourite game in a hard-mode, you will be successful?

Plus, think about it, you have to form strong bonds with imaginary creatures and have them fight till the end, with the worries of losing. That couldn't get any more badass. In addition to that, you can do anything, like ANYTHING with a Nuzlocke run. You can show off your storytelling and draw comics about it, form an adventure out of it, you can do ANYTHING with a Nuzrun as compared to regular play. Do you want to unleash the inner storymaker in you? Yes, that's right.

I tell you what, I swear, 5 years from now, there will be all sorts of super-popular franchises BUZZING with fans, all addicted to the idea of fighting, sacrificing, and winning. Why? Because they were inspired by Nuzlockes. What if the creators saw it and made Nuzruns canon? I know it will happen, I know.

I not as hard as you think, and it's definitely more fun than anything. Do you feel more people should get into it? If your part of those guys who don't do it, what's wrong with a beastly challenge mode where you can write stories about?

 

[Laguna]

Nnnnnnnnno. The Nuzlocke is not something everyone should do, and you don't need to force it on people. They're gonna play it however they want, and if they don't want to do a challenge run then they're not gonna do it, that's all there is to it.

 

[Thursday]

So, I've had a small challenge idea for a while but haven't really tried it nor really thought to try and add it to Pokecommunity (although that may change?). I haven't found a name for it so hopefully someone is good at names. I'm just writing down here so I can revisit it or someone else could pick it up.

There was an old challenge that I did (my first one to actually finish on this site) called the slow learner challenge from Necrum. I decided to try to do the opposite of it. Instead of only keeping the same 4 attacks, you have to change your attacks.

You have to teach your Pokemon all skills it gets through level up. An example would be having a level 9 torchic. Since it learns a new skill next turn and it won't have any room for the skill, you'll have to get rid of one of your old skills. Pretty simple, right? Well, you have to do that every single time your Pokemon gains a new skill through leveling up. For this example, lets say you don't plan to evolve your torchic. If you're playing OR/AS, when you get to level 19, you have to teach it Fire Spin, at 23 Quick Attack, at 28 Flame Burst, etc.

When it comes to TMs, I was thinking that there could be 2 separate levels (Normal and Hard?) for the player to choose. For just a normal play through you can use TMs only once (like in all the old games) and that's it. No duplicates are allowed. When your Pokemon gains a new skill, it has to replace the TM skill. For the harder version, just ban TMs from the game.

Since HMs are needed to progress through the games you'll be able to use them but make a rule that you can have a Pokemon with up to 3 HMs added so that you still have to change the last skill every time. Since it uses up a skill slot, you'll only have 3 (or less, depending on the amount of HMs you have on a Pokemon) skill slots that have to be changed and all 6 Pokemon slots used. For the harder version, you could add a rule that each Pokemon on the team can only have 1 HM using a skill slot and none of the Pokemon on the team are allowed to have the same HM (Like, you can't have a Sharpedo with Surf and a Walrein with Surf on the same team).

 

[myrrhman]

I think that's a pretty good idea for a challenge, but I've got a question. Most Pokemon have a pretty good range of "good" moves and moves that are pretty pointless against normal AI in the game. It sounds like there's nothing preventing a Pokemon from having 3 good moves and then using the 4th slot as a trash can for all the other moves it would learn. This kind of defeats most of the point of the challenge. If you think that might be a problem, a couple ideas is you could say a Pokemon can only hold on to a given move for some number (like 5) move learnings before it has to forget the move. Or, for a pretty extreme case, you could roll a dice each time you learn a move and have each number correspond to something. 1-4 = replace slot 1-4 with current move, 5 = do not learn the new move, 6 = players choice.

Overall very interesting challenge idea, though.

 

[Thursday]

I hadn't really thought that way but I do like where you're going with changing after keeping it for so long. I'm not too keen on the dice idea but only cause of the 5, which would kind of make the challenge moot. The only time I can think this would be a problem is with baby Pokemon and Pokemon that learn a lot of support/utility skills (like some psychic and bug Pokemon) since it would make them basically useless. I guess it would be a hard mode rule?

This also makes me think of people wanting to use heart scales to get specific attacks since a lot of the final evolutions of Pokemon get really strong attacks at level 1. I guess there would be a rule like you having to put it over the oldest attack?

 

[PageEmp]

I don't think so. I swear, there will be a time where there is a point where popular franchises will be inspired by nuzruns, and people will recognise them.

 

[Kaiyu]

Strangely enough I have never heard of this before or have any idea what this is. Is it bad that I'm clueless about this? Should I start doing this? I don't really know to be honest. What do you think I should do?

 

[VisualJae]

No offense, but I'm just going to skip everything and say:

People should always play however they want to get the most enjoyment for themselves. I can go on all day about what I can do for myself to maximize my fun. No one else would ever need to do the same. Want to share your opinion? Go for it. But as soon as you want to enforce your opinion as best, then you're going down a very hostile road.

 

[Otamajakushi]

I want to add to what everyone else has said. Just because someone doesn't care for nuzlockes or aren't familiar with them, doesn't make them any less skilled. That's a very terrible way to think.

 

[Sopheria]

Aren't plenty of people into Nuzlockes though? I've never really observed any lack of interest in them. If you go on youtube, there are entire channels dedicated to them. Even here on PC there's a pretty big Nuzlocking community and we even have an entire section on PC dedicated to them and variations on them. I'm certain most of them love them for the same reasons you do :)

I actually like the idea of Nuzruns a lot. It puts a nice twist on the game and it causes you to build a stronger bond with your Pokémon. They can be downright dramatic sometimes, since there's nothing sadder than losing one of your close partners to a stray critical hit.

Trust me, Nuzruns are plenty popular these days and people are constantly coming up with new twists and variations on them.

 

[Hikamaru]

A Nuzlocke is an entirely optional thing, pretty much any challenge in general. Remember, the way to play a Pokemon game is entirely up to you, not forced.

 

[Leòmhann teine]

I haven't done a nuzrun yet. Mostly cause I have possession issues, meaning I have trouble letting things go cause they are mine and I end up hording them. I know I could just box the mons but a lot of the nuzrun variants I would like to do have a "no boxing rule you must release." Yes I know that is a pretty lame excuse but it is true. But another excuse is I have like 50 different challenges going right now despite the fact I promised my self I would do 2 at most. Maybe after they are all done I will do a nuzrun. Though first I'll be asking the professional nuzplayers for tips on playing the game.

 

[LilyGardy]

No.

I have never done a Nuzlocke and likely never will as the concept of them does not strike me as fun.

I have played Monotypes of a few types (Grass, Psychic, Fairy) and found them to be great fun but would not tell anyone they should play a Monotype if they didn't want to.

Nobody should be forced to do a Playthrough they do not want to after all games are played for fun.

One more thing you can write stories or draw comics about any type of playthrough.

 

[Bounsweet]

Part of the appeal of Pokémon is being able to play through the game however you want. Whether you're a casual player or more hardcore throughout the story is up to the player. There's absolutely nothing wrong if someone does not want to do a Nuzlocke challenge because it doesn't interest them.

Besides, there are many other challenges people can do to make the game more difficult for themselves that they might enjoy more than Nuzlocke. Monotype and NFE challenges are also available, and they may appeal to some people more than Nuzlocke does. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[Megan]

People perceive challenge differently. There's even people who are happy if they can beat the games as is, without additional rules that make playing the games harder. Forcing someone to play with challenge rules does nothing but taint the experience they get from playing the game and when that happens, they don't have fun and when they don't have fun, they stop playing the game.

I've watched a lot of Nuzlocke runs in the past. In fact I've watched so many of them, I don't like them anymore. I've also attempted playing such a run, but I stopped pretty quickly, as I found it to be pretty tedious and I prefer skill based challenges over ones that can be broken down to stupid RNG and mindless grinding, in order to replace a Pokemon that fainted.

On another note: I like playing challenges that force me into one single team of six and that don't allow for grinding, as it involves a lot more planning and strategizing, but more importantly: the only way to fail this challenge is when I give up, instead of when I run out of Pokemon, because of the RNG deciding to screw me over.
That, btw., also gives options for stories, mainly involving the adventure those six Pokemon, so comics and co are no Nuzlocke exclusives.

 

[Katchelina]

No.
I have never done a nuzlocke and probably never will. I like to play the game with the pokemon I choose. If I want a challenge I can use competitive battling in the post game.

Everyone likes to play their own way, many people probably wouldn't play the games if nuzlocke was forced on them.

 

[myrrhman]

I don't know if this would work with everyone. Like you said, bugs learn a lot of utility moves, so I just looked up Butterfree on Bulbapedia. In the first generation, it learns 5 consecutive non-direct damage moves (PoisonPowder, Stun Spore, Sleep Powder, Supersonic, Whirlwind) between Confusion and Psybeam (in Red/Blue, or Gust in Yellow). I don't know if there are any that go longer in between damaging moves (and don't really want to check lol). Maybe you could add something to the rules saying that a Pokemon may not keep a move if it has learned 5 moves since it learned the first move, unless deleting the first move would leave the Pokemon without any damaging moves (horrible wording that would need to be fleshed out, but you get the idea).

 

[PageEmp]

Sigh... I guess you guys are right. I guess I just 'over-appreciated' nuzruns. I mean, I've been doing them for nearly 2 and a half years now, so it's probably just an addiction that made me feel that other people can't have different ways to have fun with their games. So I lost the battle, I now get that different people can have diferent challenges.

 

[GiovanniViridian]

Yes and No, and I posted my thoughts on Nuzlocke in one post but I'll expand on it anyway, and I'm actually planning for a regular Nuzlocke run soon despite my randomizer run last year.

Regarding that run, I actually did one Blue Randomizer Nuzlocke run with movesets randomized, and I completed it with just 2 deaths, both due to a Graveler in Diglett Cave due to the moves Explosion/Self-Destruct and Counter (which are one hit KOs at Full HP). Needless to say, my experience with it is really really tedious, since I have to grind my Pokemon to higher levels just to avoid my Pokemon to faint. It's even more tedious when you have to replace your fainted Pokemon with lower-levelled Pokemon just to grind them up to the levels you have in your team (After that part where my two Pokemon faint, I have to grind my Hypno and Electabuzz for 10+ levels, yes, it's more than 10 levels). The worst part is that it's possible that your Pokemon will faint due to grinding too even if your Pokemon are higher levels and grinding is actually the reason why my only 2 Pokemon faint in my Blue Randomizer run (After the 2 faints, I decided to solve it by grinding them in a less risky area but the EXP given was lower). Some argue that I can just have some no-grinding clause or just grind your Pokemon to a certain level like a few levels below some gym leaders, but the problem is that grinding is probably the only way to beat a Nuzlocke. I do watch some Nuzlocke runs on YouTube (but only for a few parts), and most of the losses are due to not grinding enough to higher levels, or other stupid reasons (such as fastforwarding the game a lot and you'll often choose the wrong moves leading your Pokemon to faint, or right after your Pokemon faint you'll still proceed anyway to lead to more deaths instead of immediately heading back to the Pokemon Center and replace the fainted one with one you have in your PC and grind that up). Needless to say, I have never seen someone lost a Nuzlocke despite the user's party is higher or equal to the opponent's levels. And back to grinding, I don't think grinding your Pokemon up to higher levels just to avoid them to faint makes it challenging, since it's more towards annoying. Although it is true that you can lose due to grinding like what I posted my experience above, but if you can get through it, it's still tedious since you have to fight the same lower-levelled Pokemon over and over like 50+ times. Unless you're looking for decent shinies, the grinding part is really really boring but it's the major aspect of a Nuzlocke.

However, I do see why people enjoy doing these Nuzlockes, since there are a lot of variants of it compared with any other challenges. The comics and stories for them are pretty interesting and there's one comic I read which is pretty good. I do see the challenge behind it in terms of a regular Nuzlocker's perspective especially you want to form strong bonds with your Pokemon and you just don't want to make them faint. With these reasons above, I'm actually alright with more people getting into Nuzlockes just to let them experience how they are like.

I'm doing a regular Nuzlocke run soon (just a regular Nuzlocke, no additional rules etc.) and it's more towards giving it a second chance. Perhaps I might like the challenge more.