Your opinions on Pokémon's difficulty level

[Sweet Serenity]

Based on your experience playing Pokémon, how do you consider the difficulty level of the games? Are the games easy, average, or hard to you? What games are the most and least difficult? If you believe that the games are too easy, what do you think should be done to improve the difficulty level?

 

[Daveslab2022]

Most of the games are pretty easy. When I was younger (9-11) and was playing Pokémon Ruby, I lost to the elite four like half a dozen times. But pretty much every other game has been a cake-walk. This is obviously omitting the hard fights like Whitney in Gen 2 or Cynthia.

 

[Devalue]

Difficulty: Generally easy. Self-imposes rules for a reason. Benefits from tons of experience, in fairness.

Hardest: Ultra Sun/Moon, maybe? Received a skewed impression of it from doing a first-ever Nuzlocke and blind to the Ultra changes. Throws some rough battles at you, if you are unprepared. (See: Thick Club Alolan Marowak at +2 Speed with a Salazzle partner, Ultra Necrozma at +1 all, Ribombee at +2 all.) Pumped up some notable trainer Pokemon too. Just one example:

Yungoos (Lv. 10) (Nature: Adamant) (Moves: Tackle/Pursuit/Leer/(None)) IVs: 30/25/25/25/30/25 EVs: 0/0/252/0/252/0
Smeargle (Lv. 11) (Nature: Hasty) (Moves: Water Gun/Tackle/(None)/(None)) IVs: 30/25/25/25/25/25 EVs: 170/170/0/170/0/0

Lacks some moves, sure, but look at those IVs and EVs at level 10 and 11.

Easiest: Struggles to nail down a definitive "easiest".

• At even levels? Likely one of the Generation 1-3 games, thanks to badge stat boosts. Sends you in underleveled for a reason.
• With normal play and Experience Share on? X/Y. Buried you in experience. (Laughs at Korrina for having one move that hits Ghosts too.) Remembers a similar experience with Omega Ruby. Threatens you with Mega Metagross, at least.
• With a wide range of different Pokemon? Sword/Shield. Separates this from "even levels". Sets up on the gym leaders so easily. Provides many ways to do this with relatively easy access to moves like Power Trip, Stored Power, Dragon Dance, Swords Dance, Nasty Plot, Body Press, and so on. Also acquires things like Life Orb and Weakness Policy (with Dynamax) in the DLC. Technically gets level 70 legendaries before the first gym, if you so choose.

Cannot speak on Scarlet/Violet much yet. Only played it once with levels all over the place.

How to improve:

1. Let trainers switch sometimes. Key word: sometimes. Dislikes the switching metagame. Imagines something like 2-3 switches per match, sort of like items.
2. Speaking of which, items. Why did they remove these? Vaguely understands in Sword/Shield because of burning Dynamax turns. What excuse do the other games have?
3. Give Pokemon more status moves. Refers to things besides scary moves like Shell Smash (which can also be good). Wants to see more Nuzzles, Mud-Slaps, Minimizes, Hypnosises, and Hazes in the mix.
   
   Look at Leon's team. Sees a maximum of three non-attacking moves: King's Shield (Aegislash), Teeter Dance (Mr. Rime), and Tearful Look (Inteleon). Goes down to 2 (King's Shield + Endeavor/Toxic) on the other teams.
   
   For Scarlet/Violet's final boss: 0-1 non-attacking moves (Snowscape). Treats them like blunt instruments.
   
   By comparison, what is going on in Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl? Only four on Cynthia, sure, but Swords Dance and Nasty Plot among them. Lucian right before that: dual screens, Trick Room x2, and Nasty Plot. Spies Quiver Dance, as well as Minimize + Baton Pass on earlier members. Possesses the tools to punish you.

Backs off on things like proper natures, IVs, and EVs. Views those as annoying to deal with in a normal playthrough (less so in Scarlet/Violet). May be too much for new players too, especially with the above changes. Shies away from enforced level limits and an equal number of Pokemon on similar grounds. Keep those kind of things for a Challenge/Hard Mode, or just your own personal rules.

 

[Palamon]

The difficulty of a Pokemon game solely depends on what Pokemon you use and what moves you teach them. Obviously, you're going to struggle if you're using a Sunkern or Magikarp or a baby Pokemon, but have an easier time if you use a balanced team.

So, difficulty in Pokemon is in the eyes of the beholder, and whatnot.

 

[_confused_piplup_]

In general, they are easy. I won't talk about nuzlockes and other challenges because that's not how GF intended the players to play their game.
Some games are easier and others are harder. The experience can be subjective and depends on many factors, which is why challenges work.
However, games like Pokemon Colosseum are kinda hard, but I think you can have a learning experience from those.

 

[Explorer of Time]

The more I play Pokemon, the more I feel like team composition is the "intended" method of making Pokemon games more or less difficult. If played optimally, with a type-balanced team, and without any self-imposed restrictions? The official games are pushovers. All of them. Likewise, if you play a game with weaker Pokemon, with less Pokemon, or with a team that doesn't cover certain types, you'll have a harder time even in the easiest games. I usually get a moderate level of difficulty from monotype challenges, which I enjoy, and I highly encourage people who want a higher difficulty to do self-imposed challenges of their own.

That being said, X and Y are the easiest Pokemon games I've played, because the level curve isn't balanced around the EXP Share, and I think RBY are the hardest because they have the most limited options for team composition.

 

[Sheep]

For me, very easy currently, especially with the easy ways to get booster items (Exp. Candies etc). I do feel the games were a little harder back in the day before these things were introduced, especially gen 1 when things were just starting out. Would honestly love a difficulty setting but it's Pokémon and I'll always still love it.

 

[Squirtkipfan01]

I feel like on average they are easy. They usually just add like one or two fights for people wanting a challenge.

 

[Sweet Serenity]

The difficulty of a Pokemon game solely depends on what Pokemon you use and what moves you teach them. Obviously, you're going to struggle if you're using a Sunkern or Magikarp or a baby Pokemon, but have an easier time if you use a balanced team.

So, difficulty in Pokemon is in the eyes of the beholder, and whatnot.

I am referring to the difficulty level of Pokémon games when played normally using Pokémon that aren't weak or without forcing yourself to make the gameplay challenging.

 

[Palamon]

Then, /shrugs. It depends on the game. I found S/V moderate in difficulty, and BDSP hard because of the competitive ai movesets. The EXP share doesn't always make the game "easy".

 

[Corveone]

It depends on plenty of aspects. The thing is that playing 'normally' has a different meaning from one player to another.

I mean, what is normal to do or not in a regular playthrough? Using potions, revives, or status boosting items? facing trainers with a level advantage? free switching on KO? EV training? using legendaries? taking advantage of boosting mechanics such as affection? is it the same for all the games?

Not everyone will have the same answer since most of that is up to player's choice. But clearly the games aren't balanced around using all the advantages they offer to the player, and someone who does will find zero challenge unless they're just new to the franchise. There's no choice but to somehow handicap yourself, with the team you have, your battle rules, the stuff you allow or not allow yourself to use, etc.

 

[Sweet Serenity]

It depends on plenty of aspects. The thing is that playing 'normally' has a different meaning from one player to another.

I mean, what is normal to do or not in a regular playthrough? Using potions, revives, or status boosting items? facing trainers with a level advantage? free switching on KO? EV training? using legendaries? taking advantage of boosting mechanics such as affection? is it the same for all the games?

Not everyone will have the same answer since most of that is up to player's choice. But clearly the games aren't balanced around using all the advantages they offer to the player, and someone who does will find zero challenge unless they're just new to the franchise. There's no choice but to somehow handicap yourself, with the team you have, your battle rules, the stuff you allow or not allow yourself to use, etc.

What I mean by "normally" is simply playing the game without the mindset of, "Let me do this so that the game can be more challenging for me." For example, if you're doing a Nuzlocke or attempting to beat the game with just Magikarp or only a team full of weak unevolved forms in general, I don't count that as playing the game "normally" because most players don't play Pokémon in such a way. For the most part, players prefer to use Pokémon that they like and/or believe would do good in battle for certain parts of their playthrough.

 

[ReKoil]

They're usually on the easier side, though it also largely depends on what mons you put on your team. If your team struggles with a particular type and there's a Gym or E4 with that type it can get harder.

Easiest, if it counts, LGPE.

Hardest... if you're unprepared for Ultra Necrozma, it's a pretty one-sided fight. First time in US it out-sped everything on my team and one shot all of them. I play through the games blind on a first playthrough and was not expecting some bs like this to come along xD However you can easily wall it depending on what Pokemon you bring. In UM I brought a Forretress and an X Sp. Def and that made Ultra Necrozma pretty much harmless.
That's the main moment for me that's hard if unprepared. But at the same it's easy if you do prepare so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The games don't really need to improve their difficulty though imo
It's fine the way it is to me as I don't play Pokemon for difficulty.

 

[stringzzz]

Was going to post a thread like this, but found it on page 2, so bump?

In general, the games have posed little challenge and the A.I. is typically way too predictable, along with predictable team builds. I just one-shot your entire NPC team in SV and you're going to Terastalize to the very same type that the move is super-effective against? XD

Some ideas for improvement:

Yeah, there's no doubt that a player can do all sorts of things to make the game more challenging by introducing various kind of handicaps, but I personally don't believe a game should put it on the player to increase its difficulty like this. How hard would it be to introduce a setting of Easy/Medium/Hard, and the setting would decide how intelligent the A.I. is and even the NPC's team builds? Should be a cakewalk as far as coding this.

The reason I searched for this kind of thread in the first place is that I have an idea that could be interesting, though they won't likely implement it. ROM hacker idea, anyone? It's like this... Make an NPC trainer that is only accessible post-game. The moment you go to battle them, there is a quite deep A.I. that analyzes your current team in full, and uses that information to build its own team on the spot that is meant as a direct counter, with all of its levels matching the highest-leveled mon on your team. Beating said NPC the first time yields some very sweet rewards of some kind. After that, the NPC can be battled any time you want, for lesser rewards. If you change your team in even the slightest way when you go to battle them again, the A.I. recalculates and rebuilds its team accordingly. As mentioned, this probably won't be done due to the massive amount of calculation it would need to do to be able to pull this off, but if they did I think this would be pretty interesting. Again, if any ROM hackers are reading this, feel free to steal this idea and implement it, I would be happy to see it created!

 

[CrazzyOzmic]

For me, the latest games have been really nice.

like I know that long-time fans before B&W are not happy about how easy it is now but at least for me it's become a nice calming game.

like It has its chaos from time to time, but for me at least it is great that the younger fanbase is having the fun we would have we would if we were just in the modern day.

 

[GerryGiles]

I like it.

 

[CoolKid575]

They're pretty easy games if you're not doing a challenge run or intentionally using weak Pokemon; even the "tough" games like BW1 or Platinum are just medium difficulty. I don't mind it though, I hate getting stuck so I like being able to breeze through the games without too much grinding or hassle; it's also easy to set your own difficulty level using the aforementioned methods