[Discussion] Do You Think That This Level Curve is Good?

[AwesomeToadUltimate]

These are the levels for the gym leaders that I'm planning to have for my fan game, do you think they're good? I'm also trying to design the region around the level curve.

(I will only include the levels of the gym leaders, not the gym trainers)

Gym Leader 1: Lv10-11 (3 Pokemon)

Gym Leader 2: Lv15-16 (3 Pokemon)

Gym Leader 3: Lv20-21 (4 Pokemon)

Gym Leader 4: Lv25-27 (4 Pokemon)

Gym Leader 5: Lv30-31 (5 Pokemon)

Gym Leader 6: Lv34-36 (5 Pokemon)

Gym Leader 7: Lv39-40 (5 Pokemon)

Gym Leader 8: Lv44-46 (6 Pokemon)

This is when the climax happens, hence the large level difference between Gym 8 and E4

Pokemon League: Lv54-60 (6 Pokemon)

Despite a lower level curve than many other fan games, I am planning for my fan game to be more difficult than the official games. The lower level curve is so that the player is not having a team of 6 fully evolved Pokemon too early on in the game.

 

[Roni]

so long as there's a decent amount of trainers placed along the routes, access to vs seeker, & maybe good wild pokemon, these levels should be pretty solid. they're in line with regular pokemon games no?

also, have you experimented in dynamic level curves? i don't know how to do it myself but a romhack called pokemon unbound does this and it's pretty dope. it basically takes the highest level pokemon on your team and calculates trainers' levels around that so you'll never have to worry about overgrinding or anything. you mentioned your game was a fan game though, so it may be fundamentally different.

good luck nonetheless!

 

[Megan]

In theory you should be fine. In practice you have to ask yourself the following question:
Is a player who refuses to grind (that is they don't grind at all) still able, by using all the resources available to them (exploration, trainer battles, team composition, items, etc.), to beat the game?

^that's pretty much the philosophy of the official games.

There's usually more to difficulty than just the level curve, like the enemy AI and their movesets. But that's something you have to figure out yourself as it is heavily coupled to how you implement your game.