FireRed hack: Pokemon Financial Stability (COMPLETE)

[Warpten]

My two cents of playing through this so far:

1. The poison barb/toxic spam abuse is extremely annoying in the early game. Also forcing fights with literal early game walls (hello shuckle) is just artifically increasing the difficulty imo.

2. (The big one) Gambler trainers completely break open the midgame (endgame maybe?). If you manage to get your hands on a Swellow you can get it to level 100 easily and still have change, and swellow is a stupidly strong sweeper (and you even buffed it, +10 Atk +10 Spd from what I can tell). The 4 gamblers next to Snorlax give so much money it's kind of insane especially with Amulet coin; I initially thought they were specifically bugged on amulet coin and it stacked, but no; they just give heaps of money for no reason. I'm currently in Sylph Corp and am sitting on 4 level 100s with 999 rare candies in inventory, and about 400k in cash.

3. Some road "redesigns" are questionable at best; one guy in Viridian walks on water; trainers see you from across the map (but also not all of them do?).

If that's done with the intent to force the player to fight all trainers, just simplify down the roads; due to access to sweepers it becomes an annoying sweep gauntlet where you just spam revives to get across the line when you start running out of PPs. The labyrinth next to Lavender Town is extra annoying to navigate because of the tall grass, forcing you to pop repels, which sounds like a big deal until you realize you've been sweeping the game with 400k in your pocket, and buy a stack and never worry about it again.

IMO, players should be able to skip trainers; leaving them for later has no impact on progression as they give little money usually and the player will be punished by fainting later on in the game anyways. This compounds with the gamblers issue since at the point you get to the heavy gauntlet trainer chains, you have so much money it does not actually matter

4. There are gyms where you can skip trainers, and you can come back after you've beat the leader and sweep the remainding trainers if you didn't need the money until that point.

5. (I might be confusing this with another hack) One gym had 5 trainers forced to be beaten in sequence before fighting the leader, however I'm assuming the 5 guys are refightable if you faint against the leader - you probably want to make these guys not give money because I think they did.

6. Moving the Gold Teeth to the hut was annoying because even though I saw the pokeball on the ground I assumed it was another item (i forgot the exact location of items in the base game not having played it for a long time), I had to load up the rom and checked that the vanilla location for the gold teeth was removed. Alternatively edit the sign there.

7. Gating the Warden behind that road so that players don't skip it is fine ; maybe just update the wardens mailbox at his old house so players are not as confused as I was.

Overall not a bad hack, but I do believe there's room for some amount of tuning (especially gamblers I think make the game too easy)

 

[Naglu]

My two cents of playing through this so far:

1. The poison barb/toxic spam abuse is extremely annoying in the early game. Also forcing fights with literal early game walls (hello shuckle) is just artifically increasing the difficulty imo.

2. (The big one) Gambler trainers completely break open the midgame (endgame maybe?). If you manage to get your hands on a Swellow you can get it to level 100 easily and still have change, and swellow is a stupidly strong sweeper (and you even buffed it, +10 Atk +10 Spd from what I can tell). The 4 gamblers next to Snorlax give so much money it's kind of insane especially with Amulet coin; I initially thought they were specifically bugged on amulet coin and it stacked, but no; they just give heaps of money for no reason. I'm currently in Sylph Corp and am sitting on 4 level 100s with 999 rare candies in inventory, and about 400k in cash.

3. Some road "redesigns" are questionable at best; one guy in Viridian walks on water; trainers see you from across the map (but also not all of them do?).

If that's done with the intent to force the player to fight all trainers, just simplify down the roads; due to access to sweepers it becomes an annoying sweep gauntlet where you just spam revives to get across the line when you start running out of PPs. The labyrinth next to Lavender Town is extra annoying to navigate because of the tall grass, forcing you to pop repels, which sounds like a big deal until you realize you've been sweeping the game with 400k in your pocket, and buy a stack and never worry about it again.

IMO, players should be able to skip trainers; leaving them for later has no impact on progression as they give little money usually and the player will be punished by fainting later on in the game anyways. This compounds with the gamblers issue since at the point you get to the heavy gauntlet trainer chains, you have so much money it does not actually matter

4. There are gyms where you can skip trainers, and you can come back after you've beat the leader and sweep the remainding trainers if you didn't need the money until that point.

5. (I might be confusing this with another hack) One gym had 5 trainers forced to be beaten in sequence before fighting the leader, however I'm assuming the 5 guys are refightable if you faint against the leader - you probably want to make these guys not give money because I think they did.

6. Moving the Gold Teeth to the hut was annoying because even though I saw the pokeball on the ground I assumed it was another item (i forgot the exact location of items in the base game not having played it for a long time), I had to load up the rom and checked that the vanilla location for the gold teeth was removed. Alternatively edit the sign there.

7. Gating the Warden behind that road so that players don't skip it is fine ; maybe just update the wardens mailbox at his old house so players are not as confused as I was.

Overall not a bad hack, but I do believe there's room for some amount of tuning (especially gamblers I think make the game too easy)

thank you sincerely for your input
allow me to clarify those points you have made

1 - nothing so say about that, if it feels annoying, it means it can be annoying ahah might just rework some of the trainers there (the "poison barb" i think you are referring to mons that have "poison point" as an ability)

2 - Gamblers are needed to reach the amount of cash the player needs to be able to finish the game. Their location is expecially important for nuzlockers (the main focus of the romhack) but i can see how it could make the midgame extra-easy for players that just want to enjoy the game
i don't really know how to balance this issue...they are needed there for the challenge runners otherwise the game becomes impossible
you'll notice that blowing all the cash at that point of the game will have an impact later on, when you get into some walls you cannot deal with swellow (just using your example) and you need other mons to do so (will you still have enough cash?)
but i can see the issue, i am open to any tip on how to fix this

3 - you met Jesus ahah that guy is just for funsies
the rest of the point circles back to point 2, i can see how that turns into an easy cakewalk if you get all that money with level 100s but it's very very hard for the challenge runners

4 - the only trainers you can fight again should be some select ex-gym leaders; if it works on other trainers too it's a bug
if you can tell me which one i can fix it (never had this issue during beta testing, but some things always slip throught)

5 - i don't recall anything like that...that's probably another romhack

6 - that's just a troll of mine...as you could see in the game i put a lot of memes, jokes or straight up trolls...it's not a full serious hack, i had quite some fun making it

7 - THE SIGN...i forgot to change the sign, thank you

again, thank you for your input; my answer here is only meant to adress your points because i really appreciate the support

hope you continue to have fun and let us know when you finish it :D

 

[bladesword]

is it possible to compile a version where candies are 1 gold or something. i personaly dont like nuzlocks and i don't care about the gold management what i am more interested in is all the changes you did in all pokemons so i like to experiment and level up all pokemons.

thank you in advance

 

[Naglu]

is it possible to compile a version where candies are 1 gold or something. i personaly dont like nuzlocks and i don't care about the gold management what i am more interested in is all the changes you did in all pokemons so i like to experiment and level up all pokemons.

thank you in advance

Making the candies 1 poke$ defeates the whole purpose of the game
i'm sorry, i won't do that

i shouldn't say this, but if you have issues with exploring the game as you wish you can always cheat infinite money, or infinite candies or infinite masterballs

i hope people don't do that, but is still an option i guess

 

[Warpten]

thank you sincerely for your input
allow me to clarify those points you have made

1 - nothing so say about that, if it feels annoying, it means it can be annoying ahah might just rework some of the trainers there (the "poison barb" i think you are referring to mons that have "poison point" as an ability)

2 - Gamblers are needed to reach the amount of cash the player needs to be able to finish the game. Their location is expecially important for nuzlockers (the main focus of the romhack) but i can see how it could make the midgame extra-easy for players that just want to enjoy the game
i don't really know how to balance this issue...they are needed there for the challenge runners otherwise the game becomes impossible
you'll notice that blowing all the cash at that point of the game will have an impact later on, when you get into some walls you cannot deal with swellow (just using your example) and you need other mons to do so (will you still have enough cash?)
but i can see the issue, i am open to any tip on how to fix this

3 - you met Jesus ahah that guy is just for funsies
the rest of the point circles back to point 2, i can see how that turns into an easy cakewalk if you get all that money with level 100s but it's very very hard for the challenge runners

4 - the only trainers you can fight again should be some select ex-gym leaders; if it works on other trainers too it's a bug
if you can tell me which one i can fix it (never had this issue during beta testing, but some things always slip throught)

5 - i don't recall anything like that...that's probably another romhack

6 - that's just a troll of mine...as you could see in the game i put a lot of memes, jokes or straight up trolls...it's not a full serious hack, i had quite some fun making it

7 - THE SIGN...i forgot to change the sign, thank you

again, thank you for your input; my answer here is only meant to adress your points because i really appreciate the support

hope you continue to have fun and let us know when you finish it :D

currently on viridian city gym i can see the spike, been thinking about a team i'll keep you posted (i need to find a decent electric type or type coverage). however i can say i'm at almost 800k$ which is what, 80 carbos/zinc/whatever? which is really not that much as most people would get atk/spa/spd stat buffs and ignore everything else.

swellow does feel lackluster sometime around silph corp (maybe koga) but i had contingencies at that point, the lack of proper coverage is biting me in the ass now that i'm at viridian

 

[bladesword]

Making the candies 1 poke$ defeates the whole purpose of the game
i'm sorry, i won't do that

i shouldn't say this, but if you have issues with exploring the game as you wish you can always cheat infinite money, or infinite candies or infinite masterballs

i hope people don't do that, but is still an option i guess

i did some learning this last days in room hacking and changed the value of the candies myself with a tool. i just wanted to play the game without have to concern about candies since i want to experience all the pokemons changes.

 

[bladesword]

i am having a blast playing this got to dark tunnel. and oh god what kind of monstrosity is ditto???' like i am not even talking about the transform having priority, i am talking that ditto have absurd defensive stats and synergy with any ghost type can stalll for ever and if the enemy is burn or poison or leach seed the enemy will die without even hit either ditto nor ghost type loool (i am using dusclops[pressure] and ditto and pokemons get out of fighting moves really quick lol). WonderGuard plus 180 base defenses is crazy and when transform it gets de 150 base hp and the other guys stats lool.

i defeted rival lvl 55 in lavander at 45 with ditto, dusclops, magcargo.
Stall bird until no more moves magcargo kills then blaziken get bambozled.
simply switching between dusclops and ditto until blaziken get out of skyupercuts and use all bulkups and speed boosts and then transform in itlol

I think the gauntlet before dark tunnel and inside dark tunnel need a way in the end to be able to go back to cerulean else only after delivery the tea you can go back to there.

Another thing is metagross has levitate :O
in documentation it says clear body. its extremely broken almost as much as ditto since it can learn EQ and only weakness is Fire and its pretty bulky.

And ho oh not worthy to trade metagross for xD

 

[Naglu]

Uploaded a very minor fix
there were 2 gamblers that had the wrong levels
checking if other trainers have the same issue, but for now it seems it was only those 2

 

[Naglu]

How are your games going trainers?

 

[Naglu]

UPDATE

Minor fixes

ie: corrected movesets not working as intended

 

[Naglu]

MINOR UPDATE

- Removed some grass from route 8
- Reduced encounter rates in Pkmn Tower and Rock Tunnel

 

[Zygarde-Crowned]

I had a long break from PokéCommunity, but I am returning just to post this. I really, really enjoyed this hack despite a lot of stally battles throughout the game overall, especially against bosses, the gym leaders and the Pokémon League itself. Ditto with Wonder Guard, priority Transform and a higher bulk really breaks the game in half. Looking forward for your other projects.