2nd Gen The Level Curve

[Palamon]

The level curve in generation 2 was bad, let's admit it. Grinding EXP was pretty annoying, too, and HG/SS didn't make it much better.

How did you handle the bad level curve in the Johto games?

 

[moon]

iirc I could find Lv 2 pokemon on the third route in the game still and it was sooo weird. I handled it by just leveling like normal, maybe having a quite small team of max 2-3 pokémon for the first three gyms to stay nicely overleveled for the gym battles mostly from using those few mons against every trainer I could find. But there was grinding needed if you wanted a full team. I never understood it; in Kanto it doesn't exactly scale quickly but it isn't as agonizingly slow as in Johto.

 

[Sydian]

i think part of why the level curve is so bad is because of how open the region is after you hit ecruteak. like for me that's when the level curve really starts to come in. plus gen 1 scaled i guess a little too fast? so the solution was to slow it down but. i don't think that worked out obviously. anyway i just kind of deal with it. shrug. the game isn't so hard that you would ever really need to overlevel anyway unless you were doing a crazy challenge.

 

[Janp]

While it was annoying, I never mind it that much. When I'm grinding, I usually do something else at the same time like watching a movie/youtube video, so I don't really mind how long it takes. It could be better, but I'm fine with how it is now.

 

[Zeostar]

I don't think grinding is necessary, so the level curve doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Even for red, i've been able to handle him with level 50-55 pokemon, without revives. His move sets hurt him so badly.

 

[Roni]

i think part of why the level curve is so bad is because of how open the region is after you hit ecruteak. like for me that's when the level curve really starts to come in. plus gen 1 scaled i guess a little too fast? so the solution was to slow it down but. i don't think that worked out obviously. anyway i just kind of deal with it. shrug. the game isn't so hard that you would ever really need to overlevel anyway unless you were doing a crazy challenge.

i always thought it was because they adjusted the curve to fit 16 gyms instead of just 8, while still making sure Red was a challenge to beat. i mean, Champion Lance's strongest Pokemon at Lv 50? even other region's Elite 4 are way stronger than that.

 

[Sheep]

Grinding the e4 was my only real option in these games, and I'm ridiculously thankful for having the exp. share back then. Training anywhere else in gsc was an absolute nightmare :(

 

[Valroxen]

Honestly most of the time its just speed up. It's also annoying because in a singleplayer experience you're only grinding for the leader rematches, e4 rematches and Red. One of the main reason Johto is just a snooze fest for me, tries to be open but just causes growth problems (which is odd cause I think Kanto does that same exact aspect but better).

 

[Megan]

I think the main issue with the level curve is that they tried too hard to fix gen 1's difficulty. Gen 1 is very easy to beat simply because of all the options (semi open world routes, lots of trainers, some really good Pokemon). Gen 2's Pokemon just feel a lot weaker and good ones are very hard to come by for the most part. By keeping the levels low they tried to give the player the feeling of early game difficulty for a lot longer which just barely suffices for the main game. The postgame however lacks severely in terms of balancing (probably due to time pressure and whatnot). Maybe they even tried too hard to bring back the OG-Kanto feeling? That makes the Kanto part feel very empty at times, with severely underleveled wild Pokemon. I wanna say, however, that the lowish trainer levels might be on purpose in order to make people consider coming up with strategies instead of wasting time level grinding?

How did I handle it? I was a kid, I just grinded away until the problem was gone. I had a ton of hours of playtime and boxes full of level 100 Pokemon in Gold. It didn't bother me at the time.

 

[Vagabond+]

I may be misremembering, but the levels feel super low after the 4th gym besides Jasmine and Claire. It's not all of late Johto, right? Pryce is a pushover and The Elite Four is pretty easy if you battle the trainers leading up to Victory Road. I don't count Red as being bad pacing because it was so clearly intentional and you can beat him with a team in its late 50's. All the Kanto gym leaders are pretty sensibly leveled too. I think it sticks out when the game is under-leveled at the Rocket hideout and such because if you don't know where you're going, you fight a million weak mons that you just OHKO.

IMO, the issue is exacerbated by the lack of team member options in the region. You don't have evolution stone access, A lot of new evos need to be traded, etc. Johto sadly doesn't have a lot of team variety, but hey it was an early region.

 

[Pokemanz]

I find it easier to play through HGSS with three or four mons instead of a full team since the level curve is so bad in those games.

 

[yamibakura95]

2nd gen was one of the hardest to get through without spamming healing items due to the fact that there werent many good TMs available. Also, i never understood why Red had so high leveled pokes. I get he is the GOAT trainer and all but there is a huge gap in terms of levels.

 

[cherryb0ng]

Funny you should mention that because I took a lot of satisfaction from randomly catching a level 46 Quagsire and seeing it OHKO Red's level 81 Pikachu with Earthquake as long as it didn't use Charm. That team is a legitimately tough one.
I used to just grind with MUSCLE, the female Machop that you can trade an Abra for (note that female machops can only have 0 or 1 attack IVs because back in the day women had less rights than men XD).
Sorry I can't contribute much to this discussion but I've always found it compelling how people discussed in-game difficulty in pokemon. I know what it means when something is hard to beat (like Brock's Onix in gen1 if you start with Charmander) but when can one truly say that they are "struggling" when the answer to a problem is always levelling up? When is it too much and how do we measure it? How much of it is subjective?

I've played a few RPGs and I think that levelling up can be more or less fun depending on how much customizability there is in a game. Pokemon doesn't make the level up system feel too boring for me, although the initial areas of a game become more and more tedious for each playthrough.

 

[BoulderSmolder]

As a kid, I just didn't bother using a full team of 6 in Johto. Instead I just used my starter, a Graveler, a Gyarados, and Ho-Oh. It wasn't how I wanted to play, but it's the style the game funnels you into because of the lack of experience/mediocre encounters.

As an adult, I just grind a lot using the PokeGear calls/wild Pokemon. The biggest problem points are Clair, the Elite 4, and the Elite 4 rematches/Red. It sucks, but that's Johto for you. There's a reason I prefer replaying Gen 1 over Gen 2.

 

[Nah]

Does using a team of less than 6 really help a lot with the shitty Johto level curve? This isn't the first time I've heard people say that it does, but I've never thought to try it myself.

 

[Gardevoir1]

Does using a team of less than 6 really help a lot with the shitty Johto level curve? This isn't the first time I've heard people say that it does, but I've never thought to try it myself.

It definitely does. With less pokemon to level youre naturally able to focus on getting higher levels for your core mons. At least the way I went about it I chose 4 pokemon and made sure to fight every single trainer I could to maximize the exp I could get them and I was pretty decently leveled for the E4 and Lance.

 

[Lysander]

I just battle every Trainer I can find and KO any Pokémon I'm not catching to deal with the level curve. It's pretty annoying in GSC though when Blue has much higher levels than any other Kanto Gym Leader, making it much harder to grind up to his levels.

 

[Corveone]

It's not really an issue in Gen 1 and 2, because due to badge boosts and how EVs (or whatever were called back then) worked, the more you progress through the game, the less the level difference matters. You're still more powerful than your opponents even if you're underlevelled.

On top of that, add that most Johto important trainers have pretty terrible teams, and the AI is mostly crap, and it's not really a surprise that by the time you reach Red you can defeat him even if your team is 20-30 levels below him.

The remakes made it somewhat more challenging, but not a lot either. Honestly, you don't even need six Pokémon to beat Johto, actually you don't really need six Pokémon to beat any of the main line games because the only serious trainer with six Pokémon that you'll ever face (before the post-game) is the Champion. You can do totally fine with five, or even four depending on the game.

But if you want a full team, and don't want to be ever underlevelled, well, I don't recall it being much of an issue keeping up with the level curve, you'd probably want to avoid Pokémon with slow growth rate, pace your team additions (try to get your last Pokémon not too early but not too late in the adventure either), explore and do the side-stuff (Alpha Ruins, Union Cave, etc.) once you get new HMs, and maybe save Rare Candies for your final addition. It's not a big deal.

 

[Bellsprout]

The level curve is arguably the worst part of these games. It's something I thought HGSS would fix, but sadly no. In the past playing GSC I would just grind at victory road and the grass around it. When I saw HGSS didn't fix the problem I just started only playing with teams of 3-4 so it would be less painful grinding.

 

[Inner Rhymes]

Tbh, the only way I enjoy the level curve whenever I revisit the vanilla games is by imposing rules on myself like handicaps, no items and so forth.