>>23606216And if you use the EXP share, even if you bumble through all the battles losing 2 pokemon per match, your pokemon are Lv38-41 by the time you hit Wattson. The thread mentions this: the game is balanced around the explosive growth of the EXP share.
When I was designing it, I set up a spreadsheet to calculate how much experience each trainer gave. I then balanced the game so that most if not all trainers were equal level to the player. This had the advantage of the player hitting Level 100 right as they beat the final gym. If you skip literally every optional trainer, you might have trouble, but if you hit like 40% of them you'll be fine.
The chart attached is a graph of your projected level versus the level of the opponents.
On top is average level, on bottom is total level.
The blue line is the average or total level of the opponent.
The red line is YOUR average or total level, assuming you skip a decent amount of optional content, lose a fair amount of Pokémon per battle, and use the EXP share.
The purple line is the same as the red line, but assuming you complete all the content as it becomes available.
The green line is just there to show which content I flagged as "optional".
Being outleveled when the other guy only has two or three pokemon isn't a challenge, because you can wear them down. The truly challenging battles are when the lower graph blue line goes over the lower graph red/purple line.
