[Completed] Pokemon Void

[Pokemon_Void]

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment.

I'm glad you've enjoyed what you have so far and apologies for what you haven't. This response is meant to address some things, answer any questions, and provide perspective. Even if this doesn't read as such I'm not trying to create any drama (I've had issues with people reading my words wrong alot).

1. Eevee
Thanks for pointing this out! I had added 2 custom evolutions into the game and at some point during the end of development I made a typo and broke Eevee's other evolutions without checking. The fix is in this patch (along with some other things). When your Eevee is holding a stone and levels up it should now evolve.

Void Patch 1.3
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i6by7RHhIOlKIkW_LsbDId9dYie9Td_p/view?usp=sharing

2. Money
You can sell strong pokemon for money. Occasionally there will be a hazmat wearer in select locations willing to trade creatures for cash. That being said cash is meant to be a little scarce at the start until you begin to explore. I understand this can be frustrating, and I get that, but you might have to change the way you approach certain encounters. Pokemon Void doesn't quite play like a typical Pokemon game.

Spoiler:

Find the 3 canisters along route 4 before you beat Albert for another $12,000. Also if you want a quick $10,000, download the patch, take the giga fossil found on route 3 to the fossil reviver in Berylliun. Leave the city, return to him and you'll get the cash. It was meant to be in the game but I scripted it wrong, so now it should work.

Spoiler:

Mewseum
The Mew Puzzle is definitely important for a later achievement (The Strongest) as it can lead to a mid game legendary encounter. If you decide to continue with the game and get far enough into it try returning to the Lost Laboratory after completing the 5th assignment.

3. Difficulty
It's interesting that you, and a few others, have stated that the game is grindy. When making the game I felt like I had gone out of my way to avoid grinding and make levels matter less because I too hate grinding in video games. That's where the level scaling comes in. How I played the game was I chose the 3 strongest pokemon on my team at the time (and I made sure each playthough they were different), used the few zauber crystals I had to make them stronger, booked it to the assignment commander and repeated the cycle. There's an aspect of resource management maybe, but I didn't try to make things a slog if I could help it. User JPA93, who's beaten the game over on relic castle, commented that the early game was tough but got easier afterwards, so that might just be the difficult curve.

The moves however I will take the hit on. I am not a competitive pokemon player nor do I really know how to or what makes a good move pool. I know moves are a big deal to a lot of pokemon players and I naively approach them as a game of rock, papers, scissors (I used the effectiveness calculator a lot). I'm a casual so any recommendations for balanced move pools is greatly accepted

4. Unfair Fights
ALL Chad fights are meant to be overwhelming. Chad Fight 3 is the hardest, and last fight that you'll encounter for a while. Chad fights are also losable so there is no consequence for not being able to beat him (except the money of course). The reason Chad fights are unfairly hard was because I liked the idea of a rival that was ACTUALLY the strongest, giving me a reason to dislike them more. But I know, looking from a technical stance of skill vs AI it's not very fun. Hopefully this perspective can alleviate some of the dismay of the game's design.

-Also AI is hard baked into Pokemon Essentials and I know nothing about coding so I wouldn't know the first thing about making a less predictable encounter. Sorry.

5. Shinies
The shiny rate is down from 1/65536 to 1/655. I thought if I was going to put in the effort to make 100+ shinies I at least wanted to find a few though out the game. Might make completing the Pokedex a little more fun for some!

6. Visiting Berylliun Residents at Night
I understand not being able to visit locked off areas because of your region/ time, no push back from me. Since it was only those 3 doors (I think) I'll remove the time barrier. It's only fair.

7. Route 4 Bug
Found the bug. Fixed that.

8. F12
I didn't know that F12 had any function in the game but apparently it's a hard reset button from one of the scripts I used. Is F12 a key you use alot?

Hopefully you will continue to have a good experience as I believe most of these issues affect the early quarter of the game and it gets much more fun as options open up. All feedback is important to me. I love constructive criticism. If you have more things to say feel free to let me know. :)

 

[DS.NOS]

For the Chad fights what i did was to use the revive tactic to make his pokemon struggle them self's yes it takes time bat a win non the less

 

[Pokemon_Void]

For the Chad fights what i did was to use the revive tactic to make his pokemon struggle them self's yes it takes time bat a win non the less

That's one way to get the job done. Congrats!

 

[NecroFlame]

I've gotten my 4th mission badge and I'm loving the direction of the game so far. Very hooked on the plot and looking forward to see how this whole thing is resolved.
A few more notes, mostly regarding gameplay, and a single bug that I found:

- A bug I found is I managed to somehow sequence break the 3rd mission, at the part where Zillia asks you to fetch her Beldum, I was able to walk past her and activate the sequence where she launches the missile before actually going and searching for the Beldum. I reloaded my savefile and couldn't recreate it. It might be possible to break this if you come from a specific angle, so I suggest you look into it.
- Repels are redundant because of the scaling factor. Repels work in a way that you repel any Pokemon that's under your level, but since the enemy mons and wild mons scale to your highest, it just makes repels not do anything. Which is very annoying, as some maps have an extremely high encounter rate and can get pretty tiring.
- The exploding sharks with Sturdy are the absolute worst Pokemon I have ever seen. If you wanted to make a Pokemon to induce rage in the player, you got it right. These things are a hassle and a half to deal with, sheesh! And there was that one route that had you encountering them nonstop, too. I looked at its stats and while I do get that it's minmaxed, putting Sturdy on it just makes it so you either catch it, don't fail to run from it, or you die. PLEASE nerf this thing.
- I will once again make a comment regarding level-up movesets. I got your reasoning behind the movepools and that's fine and all, no Pokemon has an absurdly bad moveset and eventually they do get better attacks. However at around the early 20's you have Pokemon like the water starter that's stuck with Water Gun and the fighting Raven that is stuck with Mach Punch as it's primary STAB move until level 34, and then you have that bug/flying that gets Bug Buzz at level 18. A certain balance is needed, there are plenty of moves for each type that scale with power, so if you could look into it I would greatly appreciate that.
- I noticed a repeat in certain types and a lack of other types. The game is chock full of electric types, bug types and ice types early on. However I couldn't find a ground type Pokemon until Onix (which is not very good) and Bombardeer after the 4th mission, and I don't think I've found a fire type at all (that's not Martinder). I get wanting to show the new Pokemon as much as possible in the game, but a certain balance around the available types would make team building much more solid and fun.
- I've been saving my Zauber crystals for over 2 badges now because the two relics I found were for levels 25 and 30 while my whole team was already around those levels by the time I got to them. However, some bosses are way past that (Chad fight 3 and the Pines fight...), so I have no use for the crystals at the moment. If their intention is to catch up a weaker mon, then I guess I'm just good at balancing my team's levels out. :P
- I'm 4 badges in and I only have 3 TMs that I've found. I'm sure there's more, but you can make some NPCs give you TMs or just have them around in the wild. The ones in the mart are too expensive, but for example I could really use some more basic moves like Acrobatics and Flame Charge. If you can give us a TM location list, that would be lovely!
Good stuff so far! I will keep you updated if I have more notes and if I find any more bugs.

 

[Pokemon_Void]

Q&A Time!

Route 5 Bug
Thanks for point this out. Fixed it.

Repels
When I played I never had any problems with repels and I was using them a lot, but I have updated them so now they should prevent stronger Pokemon from overriding the repel's effect. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Side note: I'm not sure if you've been buying from Bushman or not but if his prices are too expensive you can catch the train back to Berylliun and buy some repel's for a cheaper price.

Moves
I shifted Blitzard and Corvinn's moves slightly. Don't know if that will help or not. At least from my experience Trifly is a glass cannon in most cases which is why the jump in power might seem absurd. I think there is an experience gap when it comes to knowledge on battle mechanics, you knowing more like STAB and stuff, whereas I don't know what to change because I made encounters for me to enjoy. The changes I have made, I'm not sure what kind of effect they'll have, so you're going to need to tell me. The moves should be able to be obtain via the move relearner modules.

Patch 1.4
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lts_UKzEiZKls2UNrl8776uVCSt-PtXs/view?usp=sharing

Swellark
Swellark are meant to be "annoying" as they add a level of risk to exploring the waters (with broken repels I can get how they would be even worse). The water Pokemon Salamember and Smashtopod are rather strong so in order to get one you'll need to go through a few Swellark to do so. With the repel change they shouldn't be such a pest to deal with. Yes, I understand this mechanic might not seem fun but it is in the game, faults and all, for a reason. Bombadeer was added to negate the effects of Swellark just in case you didn't have any repels.

Spoiler:

Also future warning, there's another version of Swellark that is for land based encounters.

Hee hee, me likey the shark that go boom...

Lack of Diversity
The missing ground type was deliberate. Grass starters are rarely picked so I wanted to make an ingame reason to pick one. A lot of the new mons have a specific weaknesses for a reason which does consequently lead into an over expression of certain types. At least for this aspect it was an attempt to balance out the choices when picking starters and making the game play differently when using different starters. Missing fire types again was a starter choice. I wanted each playthough to feel different without needing to script out a ton of new events just to do so. If you play without the starters or focus on other Pokemon instead, yeah, I can understand how the lack of diversity is definitely more apparent and possibly debilitating, but that's just not how I wanted to play the game.

Zaubers
If you're past the Relic Stone levels then technically you're doing a better job at roleplaying the character than I did. You're job after all was to raise strong Pokemon for the Odin Corp.'s efforts and for that they give you a gold staryu! If you can't find any use for the Zauber's at this time because of your level than there's not much I can do for you.

Unfair Battles: Take 2
Again, Chad is always going to be over levelled no matter what. Since you've made it to Chad Fight 3 at least you won't have to deal with him again for a while.

Spoiler:

Pines Fight: No Comment

TM's
Almost every route has a TM hidden on it. Key word is hidden because most of them are behind a hologram that you'll need to find.

Spoiler:

TM Location Hints:
Route 2: Trickroom + Stone edge
Route 3: Energy ball
Deuterios Settlement: Rock tomb
Route 4: Focus blast
Azote Town: Overheat (not obtainable until around assignment 6)
Pine's Estate: Dragon claw + Psyshock + Shadow ball
Route 6: Sludge wave
Route 8: Dazzling gleam
Route 9: Psychic
Route 10: Ice beam
And I think Hyperbeam can only be obtained from a Hundy that has the ability Pick Up.

I'm pretty sure that's everything. Thanks again for the comment!

 

[NecroFlame]

Thanks for the quick reply! Another couple of bug reports. One's more annoying, the others less so.

1. Fletchinder doesn't evolve. It regularly evolves at around 36 or 38, I forgot when, but when mine hit 38 it didn't evolve. I looked at the pokemon.txt that was provided earlier in the thread and the evolution info for it is just not there, meaning you probably deleted its evolution by accident. Or not accidentally. Either way, I really want to have Talonflame at this point, so please look into fixing this.
2. Interacting with the purple canisters outside the Null Factory results in them glitching out depending on the angle you interact with. Image attached here.
3. Inside the Null Factory, there's an NPC that says "You're mother" instead of "Your mother". Just a bit of a typo, but thought it should be pointed out.
4. When my Ravege evolved into Corvitsu, it jumped from level 36 to level 37. This is commonplace when the exp curve is not matching between the Pokemon and its evolutions. There are cases where you can even drop down a few levels if the evolution's curve is slower.

 

[Pokemon_Void]

1. Dang, my bad. Fletchinder will now evolve at level 35 like normal.

2. Thanks for the graphical and grammatical errors. Keep pointing those out if you see them.

3. I had no idea about the experience curve thing. I knew that the level jumping was an issue but I had no idea how to fix it. I changed all of my Pokemon to match the exp curves now. Hopefully it works. Thanks for the heads up!

Void Patch 1.4.2
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G6yz3-dmuNzcmtYo26I75SNk2zn0jkw5/view?usp=sharing

Sorry about the rocky playthough so far. There's only so many bugs you can squash out on your first go when you work alone, but you've been a big help.

 

[NecroFlame]

Thank you for all your help and the quick response to feedback. It is highly appreciated when it comes to developing games, listening to players and having others play your game gives you a different outlook on how other people see things that you don't due to a lack of objectivity to your own project, which is completely natural for any sort of product creator.

I have some suggestions regarding the starters level up movepool.
I had a quick look at the level-up learnsets and I noticed a big "favoritism skew" towards the fire starter.

To be more specific, the Grass/Rock starter's best grass move it learns is Mega Drain at 15 and then Leaf Storm at 60. Learning Rock Slide early is good, but what about some more middle-ground grass moves in between there? There's Giga Drain, Seed Bomb and/or Energy Ball that you can add to the mix.

The Fire starter is completely set at Flamethrower on 36 and then Flare Blitz at 43, but its final dark move it learns is Bite. You can easily add in Crunch and/or Sucker Punch somewhere in the late 30-early 40's to give it better STAB access, but overall it gets a very diverse movepool and a good spread of moves and coverage in general.

And then there's the Water starter. I've mentioned how it was stuck with Water Gun until 25, but it doesn't get much better after that. It gets Dragon Dance but no physical electric moves at all, and after getting Aqua Tail at 28 the next water move it gets is Hydro Pump at 69. All the levels between 34 to 54 it learns non-damaging moves, or basically nothing at all. And even then, it gets Thunder, which is not accurate unless you waste a slot in Rain Dance. Also, while other starters get very good non-STAB coverage such as Earthquake and Draco Meteor, the Water starter's best non-STAB move is Shadow Claw which doesn't really cover anything for it. How about giving it access to Ice Punch at level 0 on the final evo so you can relearn it, as well as some other good STABs between the 30's to 50's? (Stuff like Scald, Waterfall, Thunderpunch, Wild Charge etc. ).

In general, I noticed that almost none of the new mons have level 0 moves. I always found those to be very cool to be accessible only through relearning on the final evolution, kinda like optional coverage, so I suggest maybe adding some to some Pokemon. My Corvitsu not having any dark moves is also a problem, but I wanted to focus on the starters which is what I imagine most people will have on their teams almost all of the time.

This came out a little long, but I probably wouldn't have cared to post this if I wasn't enjoying the game so much as it is. Do you have any plans on adding anything else to the game? Is there any post-game to be done, or is it just bugfixes and tweaks from here on out?

Spoiler:

The Lost Laboratory quest was super intriguing and I'm glad you gave me that little anecdote! I caught the legendary and I will definitely be using it once I hit its level scale!

I also thought you'd find this funny.

 

[Pokemon_Void]

Thank you so much for the insight! I will definitely give a bit more thought and consideration to move selections seeing as it is much bigger than I realized. The more information the better!

As for future additions to the game I might consider adding more, but I am happy with the current state of the project. Bugfixes are my only goal as of now but if the game continues to garner good reception I will keep the project open.

There is a slight bit of post game content once the main story is done.

Spoiler:

There's still a bit to do with your legendary further into the game, plus I believe you have unlocked "New Game+" which allows you to pick it as a starter during a new game.

Heh, nice shiny collection :)

 

[Guts554]

any mirror downloads? google drive isn't working. looks good

 

[NatuStalker]

looks amazing man

 

[Pokemon_Void]

any mirror downloads? google drive isn't working. looks good

I don't have any others right now but I can try and setup mediafire or dropbox links at somepoint soon. I'll let you know when it's ready. Might be a day or two.

 

[NecroFlame]

Yo, back again with some more feedback and bug reports. Hope you're not tired of it as I'm definitely not tired of the game :)

Let's start with the Bugs first:
1. In Dripstone cave, it is possible to walk across this pitfall. It's nothing gamebreaking and you can get out, but there's probably a block line that was accidentally skipped.
2. Once again in Dripstone Cave, I flubbed the puzzle for the mega stone and it just doesn't reset even when I go in and out of the cave. Very unfortunate, as I did see there's new Megas and it might be one for a Pokemon I'm using...
3. I just noticed that on the save screen it says Berylliun City instead of Beryllium.

And now some general notes:
- From what I realized, the enemy teams scale regarding the highest Pokemon you own regardless if it's in your party or not. I noticed that since I caught [REDACTED] but didn't put it in my party, however since that moment the enemy teams started to scale towards late 40's-early 50's even though my team was still around 42-45. Either that, or at around the 5th-6th badge they always scale above you, in which case that's kind of unfortunate.
- In the factory, there's a sequence with a blaring alarm and flashing red lights. Some people might be sensitive to both of those things (photosensitive for strobbing lights or PTSD for alarms), so I suggest either adding a warning before entering this section, having an option to turn off the alarm, or just getting rid of it completely.
- Fenrir is extremely cool and I love it, however I noticed it has an extremely high attack stat and a very subpar special attack. Its best physical moves are Take Down and Ice Shard and the other moves it learns are all special. I suggest either switching its Attack and SpAtt around, or add some more physical coverage to it (Icicle Crash, Flare Blitz etc. ).
- Is it possible to make it so before you sell a Pokemon, the guy tells you how much he'll pay you for it? You only get to see the payment after selling the mon, so it might not be worth it every time.
- In the Runic Volcano Base there's a section you have to input credentials to activate teleporters. It took me a bit to realize there's a number on each room's computer and that those numbers unlock the next area. It's not very well indicated and nothing happens when you interact with the screen. Maybe just add a bit of flavor text when you interact with the computer to give the players a bit of a hint as to what you need to even do in these rooms.
- In general, plenty of puzzles that need interaction needs a better highlight on the overall map. In the part with the chemical lab for example, it took me a bit of running around to realize what I even need to do with the colored chemicals.

I haven't commentated on the music yet, and I have to say the track choice for everything in this game is beyond fantastic. I'm very familiar with some of them already (NGAP is a goldmine indeed!) and I'm happy to see these in a Pokemon game! A lot of fangames either disregard music or just reuse the same tracks from either OG games or GlitchxCity, so this soundtrack is extremely fresh and adds A LOT to the general narrative and hype this game provides.

 

[Pokemon_Void]

Hello Again,

Bug
Thank you!

City Name
Berylliun is the correct name. It's a combination of Berlin and Beryllium. The other major locations are named after elements and use word play in a similar fashion (for example: gynoxe is an anagram of oxygen).

Mega Stone Puzzle
I actually think you were one step away from solving that boulder puzzle. When you take the rope down to that small chamber you can actually push the boulder off the edge causing the above one to drop down. I might have accidentally deleted an asset if there wasn't a log on top of the lower boulder. I will fix that. But that mega stone isn't for any of the new Pokemon. On the topic of puzzles...

Puzzle Hints
It's been interesting seeing everyone's reactions to them as some people get them and some don't. I think the issue is some of the clues are subtle or easy to overlook. When you say you didn't know what to do with the chemicals do you mean which order required for the solution or where to take them all to? This is important for me to know so I can better tailor clues.

Jump in Level Scaling
The scaling is definitely not tied to any pokemon in your PC. The reason for the slight boost in levels in because of a trigger that activates once you enter Dripstone cave. Canonically west Stronym is meant to be tougher, but it was also the point in the game I felt my party was well formed and ready for a bit more challenge.

Stat + Move Suggestions
As always thanks for the input. I'm going to be attempting a move redistribution and stat adjustment as soon as I can slot it into my week.

Other
If you find the level scaling too much you can try using Void Pokemon. Have you used the Void ball feature yet? I haven't seen anyone comment about it so far so I'm don't know if anyone is using it.

If you want I can make a list of Mega stone locations. Only 3 of my new pokemon have mega evolutions (at this time).

 

[lancerain1]

Hi I am downloading the game now as it looks fun and I am also interested in these void pokemon also i like collecting things like mega stones and rare pokemon so if you could make a mega stone list that would be very nice

 

[lancerain1]

what gen of pokemon does this game go up to and how many are in the game?

 

[Pokemon_Void]

Hi I am downloading the game now as it looks fun and I am also interested in these void pokemon also i like collecting things like mega stones and rare pokemon so if you could make a mega stone list that would be very nice

Mega Stone Locations
Garchompite - Route 3
Smashtopodite - Route 4 (Hidden by Hologram)
Aggronite - Azote Town (Hidden by Switch Puzzle)
Scizorite - Route 5
Steelixite - Metallic Marsh (Post Assignment 4)
Panzerkite - Berylliun Uberforge (Post Assignment 5)
Metagrossite - Dripstone Cave
Aleronite - Route 9

Late Game Mega Stones (Spoilers)

Spoiler:

Mewtwoite X + Y - Arctic Facility Level 2
Latiasite - Schwarz Forest
Charizardite X + Y - Berylliun Community Lab

what gen of pokemon does this game go up to and how many are in the game?

This game has pokemon from generations 1-6. There are 150 pokemon (with 3 bonus for completing the hologram achievement).

If you have any questions I am more than happy to respond.

 

[DS.NOS]

do tell that their is not a shiny charm cos the odds are to much

 

[Pokemon_Void]

There is one if you complete the dex :D

That does seem like a lot and that's certainly luckier than I ever got. The most I had in a single playthrough was 2. Seems like you guys like exploring the wild areas more than I did.

 

[MRMLD]

Not sure specifically what documents you're looking for but I'd be happy to provide what need.

there's a guide for the level of gym leaders or something?