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So, I'm gonna chime in.A game not being "nuzlocke friendly" isnt an excuse for bad balancing. Most games, including extreme difficulty hacks like RadicalRed or Run and Bun or Kaizo games are balanced around a few things.
One is the level curve and enemy pokemon strength.
The trainers before a gym leader or "boss" fight are typically of lower level because they're supposed to be the build up for the boss fight. If the game ALWAYS matches your levels, then EVERY fight in the game will feel like a boss fight.
Two is the tools given to the player at any particular split and Three is movesets. This is mostly referring to EARLY to MID game because later mid into lategame the movesets are usually very manageable.
Pre Evolved Pokemon and their movesets are VERY important for balancing. The entire point of a "cheated" pre evolved pokemon is to add a pokemon that is more BULKY and harder to one shot. They typically are given moves that do the SAME damage as their pre-evos would at that level. For instance, a Stomp from a Whismur and a Pound from a Loudred will do around the same damage, but the Loudred is way bulkier than the Whismur is, so its harder to take down without completely overwhelming the player.
With regards to moveset balancing, take the Houndsour in the forest. With a moveset including Bite Flame Burst (not sure if this was the move before the patch) Thunder Fang and Hidden Power Grass there is basically no counter. If you have a Wooper to take the fire move you get blown away by HP grass. Its a pokemon with 330 BST against a pokemon with 210 BST, so Wooper isnt even going to beat it even if it doesnt have HP grass, because Bite DESTROYS it in 3 shots the same as the Wooper hitting the Houndour with Water Gun. However, if you give the Houndour Pursuit instead of Bite its now weaker and more "balanced" to the level of the Wooper AT THAT POINT IN TIME. If you come up against another Houndour later, they can have Bite, because at that time you have more tools as the player (early evolutions and such). It's the entire reason why there are "early" "mid" and "late" game pokemon. A pokemon like beautifly with 100 Sp Atk is a gigantic power spike for the player during the early game which falls off SO QUICKLY because everything else catches up to it. Now imagine having a Giga Drain beautifly at the start of the game instead of having Absorb. Beautifly has 385 BST (or 55 more than Houndour) but you cant even evolve into it for the fight. Due to typing, Houndour has a good matchup into the "better statted" beautifly and has an extreme advantage over the Wooper.
I saw that you had a poll about buffing Wooper. I don't think it needs a buff at all I think the game needs to be built around the tools that you are given. Nerf the fights Wooper should be good into so Wooper can actually win.
I've been lurking here for a bit, and the discussion here has been pretty interesting! I want to address some of your prior posts, as well as this one. You've spoken ad nauseum about how normal mode should just "be the regular snakewood"
Warning: I have not played normal mode. I have only ever played lunatic mode, being a player who always plays anything at the highest available difficulty. As such, I am not the audience of normal mode, nor can I share you experiences.
I can, however, share a piece of my mind.
You speak about how "vanilla" should be rebranded, and perhaps it should. I think it's relatively minor, but I understand that phrasing matters in building expectations. However, you also constantly give out this advice that "just make vanilla mode into regular snakewood, but with a few tweaks", and if A11 were to do that.. what would you ultimately achieve?
Why wouldn't you just go play regular snakewood?
A thing on the internet that's pretty common is the death of the author, and I think that applies here as well. A11, like you, is a fan of the game. That should be assumed, since they have chosen to make an essentials version of specifically this game. A remake is not a remaster. A11 holds the creative liberty to do whatever they want, and at the end of they day, if that makes you angry, then you are within your right to just not play.
You mention in one of your posts that if they wanted to make a kaizo game, then they should just make their own game instead of taking another person's work and, to paraphrase, "using that to get people to play your kaizo game"
I think this is wrong. Forgive me for my assumption, but I don't think you've made a fangame. A friend of mine has this phrase of "the difference between the amount of work you need to make a mod for a game and to make a game, is about the amount of work you need to make a game.", which illustrates the sheer gap between using existing tools and creating your own. Now, this doesn't fully apply, since A11 has also gone and remade the game in essentials, but the foundation is still present. The story is there, the assets are (kind of) there, etc.
Forgive me for what I'm about to say, but I think you're just whining that the game doesn't bend to your needs. What I'm hearing over and over is that you want to play snakewood, and just snakewood.
You're imposing your own standards on a passion project and masking it under the falsehood of "I'm just giving you feedback", and this is plain out wrong. You are not being helpful by putting on this high and mighty tone, acting all pissed off. You're not providing constructive criticism, or at least, what you've provided has been very little from what I've seen. I'm going to speak broadly here, so know that this next part doesn't apply to you specifically - a fuck ton of pokemon players have this overwhelming sense of entitlement. They're allergic to change, allergic to challenge. They think they're the best game developers, and that they'd be able to balance the experience, but the reality is that they just fucking can't.
Plain and simple.
I mention this partly due to this section:
Providing a "hellish experience" is how you discourage not people from playing, but YOU from playing. Many others have played this game already, some on lunatic, other's on vanilla. Yet you're mentally stuck on one battle, essentially the first gym, because it's providing you with a challenge - one which you don't want to bend to.Originally it was pure hell to play through…..but not from the very beginning of the game, because that's how you discourage people from playing
It's at this point that I want to address the comment which I'm actually replying to - the subject of wooper.
First off, I want to show off my own roster, as someone who played on lunatic.
Wailmer was almost never used, Meganium didn't get a lot of time to shine, Loudred (which became exploud very late) was absolutely awful, sealeo kinda didn't exist, and pupitar was used for one battle. Oh, and voltorb hisui wasn't really used either.
For earlygame, I had: Slakoth, Spheal, Koffing, Egg, Skitty, Pineco, Whismur.
On Lunatic, I know that the floating corpse was difficult, and I found that welcoming - but I understand that you don't share that sentiment.
Now, Wooper. And Houndsour.
You're hyperfixating on the case of "I have the type advantage, therefore I should win."
Wooper is, frankly, a pretty awful pokemon. It is okay that the water type does not beat the fire type.
You mention yourself that even if it didn't have hidden power grass, which might very well be "overboard", wooper would still lose.
If that is the case, then I fail to see the problem. I'm a person who wants to use their guys. I don't want to use other guys, I use MY guys. This means that I don't want to add a pokemon just because I'm having a hard time.
I don't know if this is the case for you, but I'm going to assume that it is for the sake of the argument. You want to use wooper, that's why you're so obsessed with it not being able to beat the fire type. I respect that, and think it's cool.
But some pokemon just don't beat other pokemon. That's reality, at least without going into nuanced scenarios.
You mention BST, and the sheer difference between them. That's part of the reason. Wooper is frail and weak, and it doesn't have the BST to really do anything. To reiterate - changing HP grass wouldn't change anything, or so you said yourself.
I assure you there are dozens of pokemon that would work in earlygame, but maybe you just don't want to use them, or having thought of them, and that's fine.
But to come in and bash someone for their passion project is not okay.
To go after others, such as Commander218, because they're trying to point out what is essentially a vendetta, is not okay.
If you want to play updated snakewood, then create it yourself or take what you're given.
Or provide some some of constructive criticism that doesn't try to mask this overwhelming feeling of "I know how to do this right, and you aren't doing it"
Like, come on man. You can do better. You're saying you love the game, but you're also not giving them any real space for their creative liberty.
Anyways, I'm done ranting. Have a nice evening.