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How often do you lose battles to NPCs?

Sweet Serenity

Sweet Serenity

Advocate of Truth
    • 3,382
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    The only time I ever lost battles to NPCs is when playing within the battle facilities. The closest that I ever had to losing beyond battle facilities was against Steven Stone in the generation III remakes and against Ultra Necrozma in Pokémon Ultra Sun. What about you? How often do NPCs defeat you? Do you ever allow yourself to lose to them if possible, or do you use items in battle to prevent it?
     
    I take defeat fairly often since my teams are silly and I use stuff like Maractus, Girafarig, Corsola, etc.

    If I'm being proper I can clear the games easily unless there's bad luck against a gym leader. I lost to Candice with one of my 'normal' teams because I could not hit her Froslass after it started using double team.
     
    Infrequently, not counting battle facilities. Racked up most of them in Alola challenge runs. Usually limits healing items to 3, no Revives, no X-items, and restrictions on the generation's gimmick. In memory:
    • Blind Ultra Sun Nuzlocke with too many limits for a first-time. Was not prepared for Totem Marowak or Guzma's Masquerain. (Tried too hard to save everyone on the latter.)
    • Ultra Necrozma. Looked up level limits for the above playthrough. Adhered to them after giving up the Nuzlocke part. Was not warned about this monster. Walked in ten levels below Ultra Necrozma.
    • Hapu twice in Moon with Druddigon, Primeape, Rampardos, Kanto Dugtrio, Kanto Ninetales, and Toxapex. Foresaw that disaster coming well in advance.
    • Hala twice. What do you expect out of Mienfoo and Magnemite?
    • Hau (near Malie Gardens) once. Deposited some Pokemon to keep their levels in check. Forgot about that battle popping up with no chance to withdraw Pokemon. Went unsurprisingly poorly for an underleveled team of Pancham, Magnemite, Mienfoo, and Kabuto versus Alolan Raichu. Did not need to win, on the plus side.
    • A few times in a solo Castform X run at level 1-2 and after the eighth gym.
    • Red in Crystal two times. Levels 47-50 (plus one 55) versus levels 73-81. Explains itself.

    Looks like quite a few losses. Encompasses ~10 challenge runs. Should occur sometimes with good rules.
     
    I'd say I lose a pretty healthy amount, honestly. I'm not a competitive Pokemon player by any means, and that'll lead to me losing a battle every now and again. This is why I don't do Nuzlockes because I'd probably lose the run very quickly since I lose a Pokemon battle here and there. I don't lose a lot of battles, or anything, but I definitely don't win everything that gets thrown my way, that's for sure. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, I recall losing a lot of battles later on because the teams were competitively built. That was annoying. :|

    I also lost a lot in R/B/Y because I'm spoiled by modern Pokemon's conveniences. I don't think I've ever gotten through a Pokemon game without blacking out at least once.

    That's why I'd never do a Nuzlocke. I would not be good at it.
     
    In normal circumstances, very rarely. I usually come well prepared in advance and if I find myself in a situation where I'm sure to lose, I soft reset so as not to lose any money. My near-misses have been the following:
    -Cynthia in Black and White, where I found her by surprise in Undella Town.
    -Alder in Black 2 and White 2, same case as Cynthia during the post-game.
    -Ultra Necrozma in US/UM, until I figured out a strategy to beat it (Mimikyu and Roto Boosts for the win).

    In battle facilities, however, I lose all. the time. I still wonder how the heck I managed to earn not one, but three Silver Prints in the Sinnoh Battle Frontier considering I was a very novice player back then.
     
    That would depend on whether the player the player has some kind of rules or just play like anything goes.

    If we make use of every advantage the games give to us (some of them are just absurd), then I asume it would be impossible to lose unless it's being done on purpose.

    When playing with certain basic rules... yeah, it can happen although still rarely. Might happen more often to those who do difficult or gimmicky custom challenges.
     
    Last edited:
    I honestly don't think I've lost an NPC battle since the 2000s...with one notable exception. My most recent losses have all been post-Champion in the Wild Area in SwSh when I'm hatching eggs as my Magmar is only lv. 36 and occasionally I crash into a Linoone that I can't escape from. This happened maybe twice?

    Oh, actually a Cramorant defeated me too because I was keeping my team unevolved and it just. would. not. go. in. the. Great. Ball!

    Given they're the last generation in which Gallade wasn't a thing, and training your team past lv. 50 is incredibly time-consuming, I think in Emerald I've repeatedly lost to Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza (the former two have an OHKO move) when attempting capture, so that could have occurred in 2017 in my last save.

    But no, other than battle facilities - again, I find Hoenn Battle Frontier to be particularly difficult - I can't recall any losses. I don't think I ever lost to Red in HGSS even.

    I've still got all the VC games to play, so I'll probably lose at them given my lack of familiarity.

    Oh, I almost forgot the exception!

    Bugsy [HGSS]

    Technician-boosted Quick Attack and U-turn, plus the fact Scyther has 500 BST yet you're in the 2nd gym means even Quilava isn't safe. I never use Quilava of course, I like to evolve my starter after badges 4 and 10, so I go in with Cyndaquil. I think I beat him at the 3rd time of asking back in 2020, with Togepi working some Metronome magic!
     
    I think, it depends tbh. If you're playing a challenge, then even NPCs can be quite dangerous sometimes. And yes, sometimes I have lost to some of them for being lazy and not having been to Pokemon Center before the battle. In general, NPCs are pretty easy to defeat and I generally never loose. I mostly use NPCs battles to train a certain pokemon and it may happen that the Pokemon I am training dies, but I almost never loose the battle.

    About the facilities, I often loose. There are strong trainers and strong battles. What annoys me a lot is that there a critical hit or a miss count too much. I have often lost because of these things tbh.
     
    Normally rarely, but when I go for challenging content it can become a lot more often. Think it took me 7 or so battles before I could finally defeat Ultra Necrozma for example, and things like the Crystal Battle Tower were especially brutal. Not sure I ever got past the third consecutive battle. Battle facility-like content overall is pretty hard even if it's not on Crystal's level too.

    For regular trainers I tend to be pretty overleveled so losing isn't much of a problem. \o/
     
    I don't remember losing against any specific trainers, but I'm pretty sure I've whited out a couple times due to not having any healing items and bumping into some jerk trainer I missed on the way back to the PC.

    I don't normally play with any additional rules though. If the game gives me something I will use it and I'm usually stocked up on items.
     
    Quite rare for me, sometimes blacked out on some occasion due to underlevel or not heal properly at a pokemon center

    Always get stomped by Whitney or Cadence most of the time, Ultra Necrozma swiped my entire team that is more unfortunate again underlevel or it was too fast to counter really quickly even Cythia still scary as heck right now
     
    Going into further detail, I can honestly say that, beyond battle facilities, I've never lost a battle to an NPC. I also never use items during battle, except during wild battles when attempting to catch Pokémon. When I play Pokémon, I typically EV train my Pokémon. If I don't EV train my Pokémon during the beginning of my adventure, then it's because I transferred young newly hatched Pokémon to my new game that are already EV trained in the previous game using vitamins. I always EV train my starter though if I don't breed it. Doing that usually results in me mowing down practically every NPC, including gym leaders and the Elite Four. I also ensure that my Pokémon have nearly perfect IVs as well, thus making my Pokémon even stronger than normal. This is usually done by breeding constantly. When you have maxed EVs and (nearly) perfect IVs, losing is (almost) impossible, but you're not invincible either.

    For example, my greatest near losses, which was to Steven Stone in the generation III remakes, and Ultra Necrozma, happened despite my method for training my Pokémon. The battle started out pretty easy enough, but later on, Steven Stone's Mega Metagross boosted its stats in some way and almost swept my entire team, but I was able to finally take it down with my Gengar though. Ultra Necrozma almost swept my entire team because I didn't do any research on its typing and it outspeed pretty much all my Pokémon, but I was able to get rid of it using priority moves and prevent myself from losing. The primary reason I have lost to NPCs in the battle facilities is because I mainly use them to test out a crazy strategy that I thought of. If it doesn't work and fails miserable, usually the NPC wins the battle. Sometimes, but on rarer occasions, a battle facility NPC could take me by complete surprise. However, for the most part, I very rarely lose in the battle facilities when I'm actually taking it seriously and grinding for BP.
     
    Technically, I don't let myself "lose" because I reset before I black/white out but in the canon series, I can't recall even getting to that point since first gen when I couldn't beat the champion Blue/Gary battle in Yellow. I don't remember what was so difficult about that battle, but it was my first Pokemon game and I didn't understand stuff such as being under leveled therefor I ended up having a friend do it for me.
     
    I've absolutely gotten destroyed in battle facilities, but if we're classifying those as different than idk. Same with overly ambitious challenge runs. I don't remember losing to specific NPCs.. but I'm confident it's happened. Like, with how long I've been playing Pokémon games, the laws of probably wouldn't allow it, lol.

    But hey if I recall a particular loss I'll edit this!
     
    Considering I systematically play the games underlevelled, as I train like 20-30 mons at once (and all that plentiful exp that most players get drowned by quickly dissolves into nothingness if you spread it too far), any gym leader with a proper strategy will kick my ass once before I learn and build a counter.

    Then, as I shuffle my team almost at random (as I swap the ones that level up for underlevelled ones so they all stay at the same strength), it sometimes hapens that one particular NPC happens to have a team that's tailored to destroy the six mons I have accidentally ended up with. It happens at least a couple times per game, and I usually win one, lose one.

    Finally, I despise Gyarados trainers. I rarely have electric types on my team (I blame Game Freak for only ever designing a single Poison-Electric family, and only in one game so far) OR rock types. And while I can usually outpower most birds with other types, Gyarados's sheer power and speed has destroyed me more than once.

    So, all in all, I'd say I lose some 4-8 times per game.
     
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