DJTiKi's MEGA-HUGE Guide To Planning Your Awesome Rom Hack! The Guide For Everything Pokemon!

[DJTiki]

Left for a bit so i could see this guide later, about to read what you've updated on so far.
Maybe you could critique some if people followed your guide or something :3

What do you mean? Review ROM Hacks? Hmm...perhaps. I've been thinking about it, haven't really gave it much thought. Glad you are following the guide though ^_^

 

[Project Battlekin]

What do you mean? Review ROM Hacks? Hmm...perhaps. I've been thinking about it, haven't really gave it much thought. Glad you are following the guide though ^_^

Yea.. that and review rom hack plans :)

 

[DJTiki]

CHARACTER LIMIT WAS REACHED! Looks like future updates will be here. :)

The Yeah's And Naw's of Diffuculty
When we talk about or experience how someone can make a game hard, they tend to deviate to easier options, sometimes even ignoring what makes a game harder. So how does one deviate from the norm of creating difficult hacks while at the same time, making something infamous, in its structure.

"But DJTiKi, I already know how to make my game extremely hard!"

Let me give a quote form DoesntKnowHowToPlay.

I see a lot of talk about how to make hacks "difficult". The typical solutions are to:

-Give trainers teams full of legendaries
-Make the level curve absurdly steep
-Inflate the base stats of everything
-Give the AI illegal moves and custom attacks with absurd BP
-Make every dungeon a flash maze where you can't use flash

This pretty much sums up the mass consensus of making a Pokémon hack hard. Not saying everyone follows this sort of format, but it is a mass majority. And that is pretty sad.

There is a level of fairness the game must include to not make the player feel cheated in all the wrong ways (not like there was a right way to make the player feel cheated in the first place). So how do you fix this? Well, let's break down bad examples and give good examples. Again, you will find the problems and I'll tell you how to fix them. More or less, this is just an assessment of common knowledge and what I've been telling you, thus far.

Spoiler:

Changing Diglett's Cave
● Positioned right after you the first badge.
● Made larger with about 10 more rooms.
● Added more trainers
● The encounters are still Digletts
● Given a 100% Encounter Rate
● Some rooms will require Flash.
● You have to battle Groudon by the end

SOUNDS AWESOME RIGHT?! Well, if it's like I'm making these too easy now....

So let's break down what is wrong with it. For one, traversing through this cave will be a literal pain in the ass. If you remember from "Wild Encounters", I talked about how even 40% is a pretty big number, as most routes only have about 7-10% rates, yet they can still be annoying. To be blunt, 100% chance for wild encounters means that EVERY LAST STEP YOU TAKE RESULTS IN A WILD BATTLE! Not taking into account Repels of course n_n. So let's tone down the encounter rate a bit, does 8% sound okay?

Spoiler:

Changing Diglett's Cave
● Positioned right after you the first badge.
● Made larger with about 10 more rooms.
● Added more trainers
● The encounters are still Digletts
● Given a 8% Encounter Rate
● Some rooms will require Flash.
● You have to battle Groudon by the end

Another thing that is stressful is the inclusion of Flash rooms. The thing is after the first badge, the player will not have access to Flash, if you plan to not change HM limits. Is it really necessary to have Flash rooms, unless you come back later? No. So let's remove that.

Spoiler:

Changing Diglett's Cave
● Positioned right after you the first badge.
● Made larger with about 10 more rooms.
● Added more trainers
● The encounters are still Digletts
● Given a 8% Encounter Rate
● You have to battle Groudon by the end

Speaking of fairness, you never want to overload the player with a bombardment of trainers and maps after the first gym. These types of things need to ease itself in the game, rather than it being abrupt. Trainers is not bad, but make sure to not add so much. But, toning down the excess maps will be a welcomed change and saves ROM space too. 10 to 4 rooms?

Spoiler:

Changing Diglett's Cave
● Positioned right after you the first badge.
● Made larger with about 4 more rooms.
● Added more trainers
● The encounters are still Digletts
● Given a 8% Encounter Rate
● You have to battle Groudon by the end

Groudon was almost too easy. I could've made it bold, italicized with big flashing lights and it still wouldn't have been as obvious as "Remove me". Yeah, if this is after the first badge, we don't want a legendary confrontation, it could very well spell disaster in game design.

Spoiler:

Changing Diglett's Cave
● Positioned right after you the first badge.
● Made larger with about 4 more rooms.
● Added more trainers
● The encounters are still Digletts
● Given a 8% Encounter Rate

Well, that looks a lot better, now does it :)?

Let's move on the subject of what you could do to make it better.

It will not kill anyone if you made actual tweaks to the engine to improve trainer AI and not sugar coat it with things such as Legendary teams and absurd levels. Right now, with all the resources and finding on Pokemon ROM's, it is almost inexcusable to just take the easy way out.

For instance, we can talk about a difficulty hack that I am sure you know of. Drayano's hacks. Bringing up popular hacks again, it is almost undeniable that these hack's AI is second to none. It calls for competitive knowledge and advanced know how on the Pokemon series.

It's not like these hacks had unrealistic teams, it is just that it was well made. You can't throw random crap on a game and call it "difficult" because "Punishing games don't sell".

Now you may be wondering, "What about level curves?". Well, there is a bit more to level curves than you think.

Difficulty Curves For The Soul

So we finally reached Difficulty Curves and its about time. When we play games, more often than not that term is tossed around like some grand parade. "Difficulty Curve" this and "Level Curve" that. What exactly is it?

Is it when the game works on their hips and body? Well that's stupid, so no. Difficulty Curve is, what do you know, the progression of difficulty over time. No duh, right? So everything that hinders progress in the game, be it a few too many trainers on a route, the AI, the design of maps, can all be grouped into one single mass of difficulty.

It's like a Napoleon flavored ice cream sandwich, you didn't know that it's the same thing as Strawberry, Vanilla, and Chocolate ice cream combined with some chocolate on top. But the end result, it is. You may think that Trainer AI, Pokemon Data and Map Design were all separate entities, but in all, it all results in the same thing: A delicious ice cream sandwich of difficulty because that is what it all amounts to in the first place. Did that make sense?

So let's look at a very basic chart made by me and it pretty much represents difficulty in most video game scenarios at its simplistic.

See how the line is consistent and always shifting upwards? Put this in a gaming situation. This represents the idea that most games get progressively and equally harder at a consistent rate, always spiraling upwards. Still not clear to you? Okay, let's look at another graph constructed by Gamasutra, which is much better and has a clearer viewpoint on Difficulty Curves.

Well, now it is much simpler following now. So the chart follows as so:
● Frustrating
● Hardcore Fun
● Challenging Fun
● Balanced Fun
● Casual Fun
● Mindless Fun
● Boring

Easy to define and easy to understand, so let's break down those terms.

Frustrating and Boring are the two key points we do not want to see in the hack. Frustrating is infuriating as the level curve becomes too steep to overcome and makes the player feel cheated. While as Boring serves no challenge to the player and is a cakewalk. While not bad, it makes the player feel dissatisfied with their efforts. So we want to stay away from those. I've already discussed fixing a Frustrating game in its simplest state in the previous section, so I will not repeat myself.

What we want to achieve is the middle grounds between Balanced Fun and Frustrating, not technically the lower half as we are making a Pokemon game and no one likes easy Pokemon games anymore (just look at XY's Exp. All). To achieve this is simply improving on making the game difficult (again, it's in the previous sections).

Look at the better graph again. If we were to let's say, draw a line through it, particularly a consistent diagonal line, where does it fall. For the sake of you not wasting any brain power, I'll draw it for you.

See how it starts off balanced, but as the game goes on, it scales into higher difficulty scales? But the thing is, it never ascends into "Frustrating" nor "Boring". That is a sign, that you made a pretty good game. Realistically, your line may start off at Challenging Fun and ascend from there, if it doesn't reach Frustrating levels, give yourself a thumbs up :).

A frustrating game of Pokemon is having the game prepare you for Level 50 trainers in the Elite Four, but when you get there, everyone is 90's and above. That is painful to say the least. Masking a game's difficulty with artificial things like Illegal things and steep level curves will never catch the eye of anyone.

Lastly, in the spoiler, I have defined each and every pinpoint of the graph

Spoiler:

Frustrating- The game throws challenges towards your way, that is too steep to overcome. These are the moments were the player will quit in rage, stay away from these.
Hardcore Fun- The game calls for an audience who knows the mechanics like the back of their hand, you must be very experienced to take these challenges.
Challenging Fun- You know the mechanics well enough to overcome some tricker puzzles, like Boss Battles. It calls for a more advanced skill base.
Balanced Fun- Self-explanatory. Not too hard, not too easy.
Casual Fun- You can just play these in quick sessions and get quick fulfillment from them.
Mindless Fun- The mechanics are stupidly easier to remember and going through the game is fun. There are alot of challenges but not at all are they hard. You just enjoy it because you feel like a God.
Boring- The game is slow, pacing is slow, and all in all, not very satisfying to overcome. Avoid these.

So that is basically it for Difficulty.

Part 4: Post-Game

We have now reached the later half of this Guide. When any game is involved, we tend to look for something to come back to after it is beaten. This my friend, is called Replay Value. It will be a main focus, when we discuss post-games. How do you make something as simplistic as a Post-Game? On a realistic level, there is absolutely nothing obligating you to make more content after the main game. Hackers just.....do it anyways.

●Prelude: Introduction to the Aftergame
●1. Types of Post-Game Content

Introduction to the Aftergame

What do you think about when you think "Post-Game", in a Pokémon game? New Pokemon. More things to do. Rematches. More story. Yes, there are tropes to what hackers deviate too when making the Post-game. It isn't technically a bad thing, per say, but it is a repeated occurrence. So let's elaborate on the concept. Why do we care about Post-Game?

Well for that we must look into:

THE BEGINNINGS OF VIDEO GAMES ITSELF!

Yeah, it is straying away from topic, but you need to understand this in order to understand why we have Post-Game in the first place. Beginnings of Games, sometime during the 70's or 80's or something(I forget), we had arcade cabinets.

Arcade Cabinets had one and only one purpose, to make some fat cash. Well....fat quarters. Hardware limitations forced designers to be creative and make games that not only immersed players, but were at the same time, able to make some cash by making games stupid hard. So when the player died, it influenced their decision, if they wanted to continue or not. This is what I like to call, the 80's version of post-game. A combination of secrets and difficulty to hold them over, so that their influence over the game strengthen and playing through 20 or so times didn't bother them.

They could only rely on more games to hold them over until a sequel or whatever.(I'm looking at you Mega Man Classic >_>).

So as gaming evolved and hardware expanded, designers were able to poop out games, like their life depended on it(technically they did). Well you'd think this be a good thing, right?

Because of the rapid increase of games today, gamers no longer have to wait that long to play the next big game. It was like playing Hyrule Warriors until Samsh Bros. 3DS came out. So how do you extend the play-time of a game, especially adventure and RPG's like, Pokemon. We have things like Downloadable Content(DLC), Secret Unlockables, but most importantly, the post-game.

All of this is to just extend the replay value of a game, so that players think they had their money's worth. But let's look at ROM Hacks. Well, ROM Hacks are free to play and the only thing that player's are giving, is their patience.

If you haven't noticed yet, making a ROM Hack isn't an overnight process. That crap can take months, hell- even years to make. The only thing keeping players around is dedication to the end product. Other than that, if they didn't preorder it, invest in it, or sell their soul for it, there is nothing keeping their dedication except a thread with what-could-be empty promises.

Imagine waiting 6 or so months for a new ROM Hack beta, you have been dying to try, only for it to be only up to the first gym. You'd be disappointed. Especially if that little time, could've been improved. Therefore, we give Post-Game content to make sure that all that waiting, gave the player more than enough content, so that they don't speak negative things because Rule #1 about Gaming Media:

You never want someone to talk bad about your game. It hurts you and the game's image.

So is Post-Game content important, yes. Is it necessary? NO. But is it in the best interest to have it. Probably.

Types of Post-Game:

Like I said, there are tropes to Post-Game that you may or may not have noticed. Most of this involves, put it simply, what main series Pokémon game passed as post-game content. And here I will break down and explain each(or most) common tropes of Post-Game

Legendary Fetch Quests

Spoiler:

It is no secret that Legendary Pokémon are popular. Therefore, it is an attractive force to have those legendary Pokémon present within the game. Legendary Pokémon is fascinating, not in that they are just powerful- good part of it is, but rather finding them in the first place.

The best secrets are the ones that are well-hidden, correct?

Usually Legendary Fetch Quests are, in places not accessible from the main game. There we have places like Cerulean Cave in RBY, The Cave of Origin in RS, or even the very top of Mt. Coronet in Platinum. When there are places that the player couldn't get to from the main game, the anticipation of what was hiding there is expounded upon.

But of course, we are talking Mascot Legendaries here, you know that awesome Pokémon you see on the front cover and immediately foam at the mouth (if you can call Mewtwo a Mascot to begin with). There are, of course, other legendaries that roam the entire region.

Often times, finding these guys are much more interesting than predictably finding a mascot, in some cave, you knew was going to be their hiding place, in the first place.

Imagine the Lake Guardians in BW2. The whole concept of the Lake Guardians being the guardians over human drives (those being Intelligence, Emotion and Willpower). This ended up being translated into finding Uxie near some museum (Intelligence), Mespirit in Celestial Tower (Emotion), and Azelf at Route 23 behind an insane Strength puzzle (Willpower).

Do you see how much more intriguing this is, than something solely driven by plot to get some predictable cave, where a Mascot legendary is predictably waiting for you?

The fact that the Lake Guardians were there, made little, if not zero sense towards the situation. But it is a lot more interesting, this way.

When you look at from a logistical standpoint, the Lake Guardians had no business being in the game. Their origins were rooted in DPPt and having them appear in BW2 made no sense. As in, there was nothing tying the two games together.

But when you look at how you defined the content of BW2, it only heightened its Replay Value. And as I said, Replay Value is the benefiting factor of any and all types of Post-Game.

There is a reason why Roaming Legendaries have significantly lower catch rates than Mascots, you know?

Battle Opportunities

Spoiler:

Pokémon Battling, it is the literal beneficial factor that makes any Pokémon game good. How strong is this Pokémon or how balanced are those Pokémon? There is a large following behind the main trope of Pokémon, the battles.

And when you start digging around Pokémon games, you'll find that battles is ramped up in the difficulty department, via the Post-Game. You have so many ways to battle, that it isn't even quantifiable. There is so much a developer can do to give players, an awesome battling experience in the after game.

Technically, the Champion was supposed to be the best thing, to come with battling than Chocolate mixed with Peanut Butter. It was so good to test and satisfying to finish. This was the end...

The Final Boss. Nothing is supposed to test your skills as a trainer more then this battle.

Except there was.

The Post-Game of Pokémon had so many new things that it was nuts. New places to explore, more Pokémon, trainer battles whose levels were higher than that of the Champion (which really made me wonder, exactly how they aren't the Champion); It was insanity.

How many video game series can you say had as large of a Post-Game as it did the main game without paying for obscene amounts of DLC? Not a lot is there.

But where did we start? Oh yeah, battling. So the main thing here is that you can partake in more battles this time around in the post-game. Sure, you can catch a legendary or three... maybe five.... If you're lucky... But that wasn't what defined Pokémon. The battles defined them.

Look in a dictionary and find a definition of Pokémon. Somewhere in the fine print should say "cartoon animals battle each other for supremacy of the entire universe". Don't fact check me... just trust me, I am being 100% legitimate.

So let's talk about the actual battles. Well, what the hell do you do in the Post-Game. For starters (hah, get it {XD}), let's discuss Rematches.

GSC introduced this concept of a phone. And trainers would call you at the most inappropriate times to tell you how they failed to catch a Pokémon (no one cares Joey, no one ever did). BUT what was interesting was how you were able to be called by all the Gym Leaders, and arrange a rematch.

This time, however, their levels had improved and AI was expounded on. They were a bit harder to beat. And it was fun. The feature was also available to normal trainers too, but who actually knew who Abigal was, when everybody looks the same?!

You also had Battle Facilities. These places are pretty cool, considering that all you do in there is battle. We have the PWT, the Battle Tents and Frontiers, White Treehollow/ Black Tower.

What was so interesting about them was the fact of how, well constructed was and the different feeling of each battling place. There was definitely a difference in how you approached PWT compared to other places where you could battle. PWT had a more urgent feeling since all the Gym Leaders were back and out for blood. While the White Treehollow let you explore through a maze at your own pace, battling as you go. Two different feelings. It was fun.

Replicating that in a hack, the hacker decides to something similar. Have some building dedicated solely on battle challenges. Like, battle all the Gym Leaders again, or beat all these guys in some sort of Inverse Battle. The premise was the same as any of them, they didn't require you to go there to beat the main game. A small distraction for some extra content, thus adding to the Replay Factor of the game.

And the long and short of it, just giving the option for a harder difficulty for trainers and the small distractions of some battle challenge is all that you need to fill that void in your Post-Game.

Exploration

Spoiler:

Probably the most common of the tropes. Usually, you would see this as extra areas, such as having another region. But the scope in which Exploration is defined, is much broader than having more regions. In fact, most Pokémon games don't have another region, but still allowed the traversing of inaccessible areas, that wasn't in the main game.

As I said, Pokémon games, in fact, all of them, are guilty of having a couple dungeons, that was blocked away, so that it could house some obscure legendary. The best (and simplest) example of one of these dungeons is Cerulean Cave, which had higher leveled Pokémon, a complex layout, and most importantly, Mewtwo.

Keeping something like that, off limits is fine, if not, a bit obvious. But if you want a large example of how this was used is found in Generation 5. Most people complain about the simplicity of which you travel around Unova. Despite its simple design, it showcases my point, the most.

Unova was designed as a loosely, hexagonal, straight string of cities and towns. But the entirety of the main game, has you exploring the left and bottom parts and never the right side.

Well, after you beat the game, that part of the region is now open. Now you can explore the part of the game which showcased Pokémon from other regions, access to the roaming legendaries of the game (Swords of Justice), and access to more cities and towns (which also allowed you to battle Cynthia).

Well, you see, the game didn't feel entirely empty, even though you didn't see all there was to see from the main game. What this proves is that direction in which you steer the player, throughout the entire adventure, can be just as important as seeing them as much as the region as humanly possible or having another region.

It is the things that are not seen in the main adventure is the ones that are most looked forward to in the after game. Why do you think a majority enjoys more regions? The undivided fact is people just want to have new scenery after finishing the game once.

This doesn't mean you need a whole new region. Just someplace new. Exploration can be explored in a variety of ways.

●New dungeons that could lead to other things
●Accessing more of the current region
●A New Region

Updates to come :)

 

[DJTiki]

NEW Update?! Yes, A new update! I have the beginning of Post-Game up and right now is planning what to write during the rest of the guide. So sorry for the extremely long wait. :)

But I can say this:

Post-Game. Personality. Plot. Conclusion.

That will the rest of the guide. So if you were wondering what steps this will be taking for now on, this will be its format. Only 3 major sections, to go!