How can leveling Pokemon be made less boring?

[Rabbit]

In any hack (and official Pokemon game), leveling Pokemon takes up a great deal of game time. Regardless of how exciting your plot is, the player is bound to spend hours running through tall grass, doing battle with wild Pidgey and Rattata. "Charizard, use Flamethrower!" Over and over again. The process is invariably tiresome. Some speed up the game to get through it faster, some use codes, some put on their headphones and surrender to the sound of music. But the fact remains - leveling Pokemon is boring. In the framework of a hack, what can be done to change it?

I can think of one quick solution - shrink the number of wild Pokemon battles required to level your Pokemon by increasing the experience point each battle gives out. But has anyone tried actually changing the way battles work?

 

[thia12]

I dont think it's a problem. I mean this is an emulater for god sake, you can speed it up to 500%

Another solution could be EXP Orbs or something that increase the exp when holded.

 

[Alice]

I've never had to grind... I've used 12 pokemon evenly without grinding and didn't have much trouble.

 

[Xephyr]

In games that you need to grind a ton (looking at you, Rijon Adventures X), I simply used the Vs. Seeker on a route with a ton of tough trainers over and over again. It's pretty quick, really.

 

[Ninja Caterpie]

It can't be.

Well, it can, but the only way to truly fix it is to not need the grinding in the first place - that is, to lower the difficulty of the game. Funnily enough, nobody wants to do that. 'looking at you, rijonAdventures, for whom someone had the nerve to make an X version. A good game won't need grinding; well, at least, very little of it. Increasing the levels to make the game "harder" is a pathetic way to increase the difficulty. It's annoying; it's useless. It's fake difficulty.

I mean, I never had to grind in the Pokemon games, except a couple of levels just before the Elite Four of HeartGold to get my Gyarados Dragon Dance to rip them apart. Then again, I haven't really used more than four Pokemon at a time, except for my full team of six in HG.

That said, there is another way to make wild-Pokemon grinding easier. Increase the levels of the Wild Pokemon.

 

[colcolstyles]

The only thing I can suggest is to increase the number of trainer battles. Grinding is usually associated with fighting wild pokémon but less of that will be necessary if there are more trainers around to battle.

I, personally, find that the only time I really have to grind at is before the Elite Four, though it's usually a lot of grinding to make up for the lack of leveling up earlier. The obvious solution would be to close the level gap between the Elite Four's pokémon and the Gym Leaders' pokémon. However, isn't the idea behind the Elite Four that they're the toughest trainers in the region? If you make their pokémon's levels too close to those of the last Gym Leader's pokémon, then you're taking away from that important aspect of the game. So I guess grinding is necessary for the last segment of the story but you can probably eliminate the need for it during the rest of the game by making trainer battles more readily available, whether that be by filling your Routes to the brim with trainers, by adding extra story events with trainer battles, or by adding sidequests (which can also double as areas for wild pokémon grinding too).

 

[Ray Maverick]

Increase the Exp. a Pokemon gives you, exactly what you said. But you could also make the battles more interesting, like non-turned. (That'd be awesome!) Too bad it's impossible to implement that feature in hacks.

 

[NiKaNoRoU]

Increase the Exp. a Pokemon gives you, exactly what you said. But you could also make the battles more interesting, like non-turned. (That'd be awesome!) Too bad it's impossible to implement that feature in hacks.

I agree with the 'too bad' factor. My suggestion would be making a new, innovative day-care system, as an alternative to battles. Experienced hackers can manage it, I think.

 

[Masterge77]

I've played games where it takes FOREVER to level up, and that's just to level 10, yeah, in those games, the enemies don't give much experience and it takes OVER 9000 EXP just to get to level 10, and then to level 25, it's over 24,000, it seemed like each level took 1000 more EXP to level up........

 

[Rabbit]

Well, it can, but the only way to truly fix it is to not need the grinding in the first place - that is, to lower the difficulty of the game. Funnily enough, nobody wants to do that. 'looking at you, rijonAdventures, for whom someone had the nerve to make an X version. A good game won't need grinding; well, at least, very little of it. Increasing the levels to make the game "harder" is a pathetic way to increase the difficulty. It's annoying; it's useless. It's fake difficulty.

Yeah, I find it odd when games claim to be 'harder' when they increase the levels of the boss battles without increasing the levels of wild Pokemon. The game's no harder, just more tedious.

 

[mew_nani]

I agree with the annoyance of level grinding. (Especially if said poke is weak as a wet sheet of paper.... this is rare but still...) You could either decrease the amount of experience a poke needs to increase one level, or increase the experience points a pokemon gives out. (though going through every Poke and editing their base experience points or max experience points can be quite tedious...) or just have every wild pokemon carry a Lucky Egg! That would work!

 

[dragoniteuser]

This is acctually easy to do... what you need is a VS seeker and also you should make the oponent trainer's pokemon progressively grow, which means that each time you battle a trainer using a vs seeker the trainer's pokemon are higher level than the last time, also if they get to a right level, they evolve! That means more and more exp. each time!

 

[Tomackze]

^That idea is actually really brilliant! I know that has been done for the elite four battle before.

And if leveling is too grueling, I suggest making more trainers like others said. Have less grass area and have more trainers put in them

 

[dragoniteuser]

^That idea is actually really brilliant! I know that has been done for the elite four battle before.

And if leveling is too grueling, I suggest making more trainers like others said. Have less grass area and have more trainers put in them

Thanks and I think it's quite possible to do. All it would take is for an experienced scripter to take a look at the original S/R/E scripts for a pokenav trainer's eye script (as you know each time you battle a trainer via trainer's eye their pokemon are stronger!) and apply it on a vs seeker scripts...

 

[Tomackze]

Or you can do what psychicboy did for his game: Mythic Legends because I think it is the most brilliant idea I have seen so far.

He made a "Battle Shop" where you can battle people for items after each gym badge you get. This is awesome because the levels of the pokemon that the trainer holds go up after each gym. And you can battle them as many times as you want to get the items.

You can have it for all 8 gyms and also after the elite four if you want. So people can gain $$, get some items, and get experience. And this is very fast as I have increased my strongest pokemon by 10 levels in just 30 minutes

 

[U.Flame]

Increase the challenge. In my hack, I level up quicker than expected due to battling high-leveled Pokemon with challenging trainers. Yet another reason why challenges are awesome.

 

[siper x]

Thanks and I think it's quite possible to do. All it would take is for an experienced scripter to take a look at the original S/R/E scripts for a pokenav trainer's eye script (as you know each time you battle a trainer via trainer's eye their pokemon are stronger!) and apply it on a vs seeker scripts...

actually, in firered and leafgreen there are trainers right outside of Pewter (however you spell it) city that grow gradually with a vs seeker, so then in hacks those trainers are perfect for it.

 

[Alekeen']

My idea is to make a gym worth its name.
Instead of just stopping by and going through it, might as well keep training ground that you could use any time, since it is a GYM, make it have the same meaning as it is in reality, where you stay in to train.
Another idea that could make grinding a lil' bit funner is to implement an in-game battle record.

By the way, just to make it more realistic, the player would have to pay to get into the gym training.

 

[Aljam]

You could just make it so every trainer battle is like the battle tower where their lvls = the top lvl in your party or the average level of your team, that means it would be based more off of strategy than levels.

 

[metapod.]

Leveling your lv8 metapod cannot get boring. Especially with everstone 84 levels ahead of you.

Grinding in pokemon games cant be improved really. I occasionally start grinding my metapod in gsc for ages and enjoy to the max, but the fun won't last long.