>>30915845The biggest change I noticed was the a lot more trainers hit you pretty hard now, even through resists. Maybe most of my team was shit, but they usually weren't terribly underleveled. Apparently most trainers, or at least the big ones, are sporting teams with full EVs and perfect IVs in the important stats, which explains a lot. The only one I specifically recall from older games doing that is Cynthia, but I'm sure there's been others since. Nowhere near as many as in SM, I'd bet.
This compounds if you're playing on set, and means you actually need to plan your switches in a way beyond resists. I ended up hanging onto some Pokemon because they ended up being able to take hits in situations where I was otherwise finding Pokemon taking more damage than was working out on switches.
Some of the level curve was pretty borked, though. Especially when there were several big trainer battles in a row with no actual routes or caves or whatever separating them. If you're okay for the first fight, you're usually underleveled for the third. And the game as a whole jumps on Poni Island.
I ended up switching the EXP Share on and off to keep a level or two behind major battles, but I want to try and go through again ending up much more underleveled and seeing how I might be able to handle things.
