What's the best way to add difficulty? Pros & Cons

[Escther]

Adding more diverse movesets and better AI/stats seem to be the best alterations based on what I've seen. Also, setting a level cap. One thing I hate is having to grind like crazy to level up my Pokemon that are some 20 levels below the gym leader's, just because the gym leader's Pokemon were just programmed to be overleveled. The level cap would take away the possibility that you could crush a gym leader by simply overleveling your Pokemon while also making it less annoying for the player.

 

[PokemonPotatoHero]

Guess having same level but evolved forms of pokemon make the game more tough.

Hmm to think of it maybe having max EVs pokemon trainers also make their pokemon a little tougher.

 

[Mario60866]

You could try making these three modes:
*Easy mode where the opponents are low leveled in general.
*normal mode where the game difficulty is average
*Challenge mode where the opponents have higher levels + competitive movesets and stats