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Can I get some feedback?

Anonymous Sun 15 Jan 2023 22:28:02 No.52998970 View View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>52998973 >>52998976 >>53000201 >>53000365

Quick rundown, I’m currently planning to make a romhack/fangame and am coming up with gym leader teams. I thought one of my ideas for a gym leader and his ace mon was pretty good (it’s a fakemon) and wanted to share it here and hopefully get some feedback. This is gonna be a pretty long string of posts so I’m sorry for that, but I hope some of you find it interesting enough to read and comment on because I really like feedback and also just love this sort of game design. If you're not interested I understand, let this be your way of knowing to ignore this thread.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 15 Jan 2023 22:28:29 No.52998973 Report

Quoted By: >>52998982 >>53000365

>>52998970
Essentially, the ace is a treasure chest mon (Real original, I know, but there’s more to it that I’m not mentioning here since it’s not relevant) and the gym leader is kinda like a rich snobby dude. He’s part of an evil plot that raises the prices of everything in the city he’s in, which contains the dept store among other convenient shops, and is accessible quite early on before you can challenge him, and my way of balancing that is to make everything very expensive till after you beat him (ambiguous as to whether or not he’s a politician or a capitalist rich guy since I’m really not trying to make a cringey political statement in pokemon, it’s just a character archetype that already exists as a trainer class).

Anonymous

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Anonymous Sun 15 Jan 2023 22:29:14 No.52998976 Report

Quoted By:

>>52998970
>i'm going to make a romha-

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 15 Jan 2023 22:29:30 No.52998982 Report

Quoted By: >>52998993 >>53000365 >>53000545

>>52998973
The mon’s base stats are 75/70/150/70/100/35, and it’s dark/steel type. This gives it 3 weaknesses: Fighting, Ground, and Fire. This is the third gym btw, so your options before this point are fairly limited, you get access to all these types of moves but all the fighting and ground moves are physical, although most fire moves are indeed special. Also none of these moves are higher than 60 BP, and in fighting’s case, 50 BP, but that’s only natural at this point. What’s crucial is that none of these moves can even 2 shot it. I ran the calculations on smogon damage calc and essentially, the fighting moves peak at just under 50% damage, the fire moves are about the same or weaker, and the ground moves are deceptively about as strong as other, neutral special moves. This is crucial to the challenge the gym is trying to present, which leads me to the movepool and items.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 15 Jan 2023 22:30:30 No.52998993 Report

Quoted By: >>52999003 >>53000365

>>52998982
It’s moveset is the main thing I wanted to focus on and is as follows
>Goldrush
Not the version in SV, it’s a 100 BP physical move with 90% accuracy 10 PP and it adds 1000 pokedollars to the winnings of the battle. This is mainly to give it solid steel stab, but it also serves to increase the reward for the battle. Since the dude is rich and this is meant to be a pretty considerable battle in the context of the game I figured it was fine to potentially give the player 10 000 pokedollars by the end. It also creates an interesting dynamic where it’s a powerful move that you don’t wanna be hit with, but it also kinda encourages the player to try harder by putting a greater reward on the table. Finally, as you’ll see, this is a tough battle, so the player will likely have lost several times and lost money so this is meant to make the player feel cathartic afterwards like “Hell yea, all my money back” which is appropriate. It’s also thematically (within the story) meant to represent how the gym leader throws his money at problems.
>Withdraw
In this game it raises defence by 2 stages but lowers attack by one stage. It’s meant to be the ace’s main way of protecting against fighting and ground moves, with it taking 1 use to nullify its ground weakness, and 3 uses to nullify its fighting weakness. Special defence is left largely exposed because it would be broken otherwise, and there are a few fire types available before this point. The attack lowering tradeoff is meant to slightly balance the extremely powerful 100 BP stab at that point in the game, 70 base attack isn’t high but is still pretty good for that point. Thematically (within the story) this is meant to represent how the gym leader is cowardly.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 15 Jan 2023 22:31:32 No.52999003 Report

Quoted By: >>52999010 >>53000365

>>52998993
>Foul Play
Just like before but now it’s 75 BP. This move is meant to serve as its dark stab. It’s meant to be weaker initially, but potentially become stronger as the battle goes on, in part because of Withdraw weakening it’s own attack and therefore it’s only other damage dealing move. Thematically (in the story) this move is meant to represent how the gym leader plays dirty.
>Swagger
This, as you’ll see, is the meanest move I put on this thing. Originally it had protect but I figured that was more annoying than hard since the mon has leftovers, but I chose swagger instead because it’s way more interesting and has a lot of dynamics with the other moves. First off it’s a reliable way to confuse the target, which can be devastating with the attack boost. It also synergizes well with the other moves: It makes foul play WAY more brutal, which is the other way it’s meant to get stronger as the battle goes on, and it’s also assisted by withdraw, since the gym leader will withhold from using this move against physical attackers until after it raises it’s defence an equal amount. Finally, this move is thematically (In the story) meant to represent how the gym leader manipulates people in order to enrage them (But ONLY after taking the necessary precautions to protect himself). This, paired with foul play, is also meant to represent how he takes advantage of this rage and uses it against people, which, paired with withdraw, is meant to represent how he uses other people in place of his own efforts, which are lacking due to his cowardice. It’s also just meant to represent that he’s a snooty pompous douche.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 15 Jan 2023 22:32:33 No.52999010 Report

Quoted By: >>53000365

>>52999003
As you can see, I packed a bunch of symbolism and thematic meaning to just this moveset and mon. The battles won’t be monotype so I wanted to make them feel noticeably themed in other ways. But more than that, I feel that this moveset creates a very good challenge while still being fair. I don’t think I need to say why this is a very difficult challenge, it literally has a 4 times weakness but can’t even be 2 shot by it, and the possible damage only lessens from there. It even has battle Armour and a way to raise defence so there’s no way to cheese it. It’s really important to me that this battle feels like an unkillable wall. It’s meant to invoke memories of Whitney in that sense, but for veterans of the series. But, crucially, it’s also not unfairly difficult like some romhacks. First off, it’s moveset has a lot of weaknesses. Withdraw is an obvious one, and was necessary to balance out goldrush, which is otherwise a late game move. I also mentioned how it’s special defence is left exposed which is crucial. The battle is designed to hard counter physical attackers regardless of type advantage because such a dire filter makes for a good early game challenge. Special attackers fare much better however, being able to much more reliably damage it, taking less damage from foul play and being less susceptible to swagger. You also have access to confusion healing items and berries by this point so swagger isn’t teeth grindingly hard. Anyway, I wanna know what you guys this, I don’t tend to write these ideas down and instead it’s kinda archived in my mind, so this has been a good way to get my ideas organised.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 16 Jan 2023 00:12:20 No.53000201 Report

Quoted By: >>53000493

>>52998970
Aw c'mon guys, is there really no one who's interested in the game design aspect of series and can offer me some input here? I get that it's kinda a lot but I wanted to touch on everything

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 16 Jan 2023 00:32:00 No.53000365 Report

Quoted By:

>>52998970
>>52998973
>>52998982
>>52998993
>>52999003
>>52999010
good boy

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 16 Jan 2023 00:48:37 No.53000493 Report

Quoted By:

>>53000201
It is a lot

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 16 Jan 2023 00:56:34 No.53000545 Report

Quoted By: >>53000706

>>52998982
>Dark/Steel type with 75/150/100 bulk.
>Move that increases defense by 2 stages.
>Move that induces confusion.

here's a little lesson in how people who play Pokemon for fun actually play:
they don't go out of their way to grab a particular type of attacker - especially not one they could not possibly have known about sooner.
they do not want to find out that they have to grab a particular type of attacker.
and most importantly:
they will not grind out a level 10 Diglett just to have that type of attacker.

you have 2 options:
have a relatively high leveled Ground type in the nearby area. but in exchange you make this the kind of gym you just roll past every time.
make this the last gym so the player has realistic options to deal with this without needing to design their entire playthrough around it.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Mon 16 Jan 2023 01:14:59 No.53000706 Report

Quoted By: >>53000818

>>53000545
>Dark/Steel type with 75/150/100 bulk.
I know the bulk is a lot but I needed to keep it out of 2 hit range. As for why:
>Move that induces confusion.
It's a double edged sword. You'll have access to persim berries, and the way I'm gonna design it the AI will be fairly predictable, if you have a non-confused physical attacker that isn't fighting or ground type against it, and the ace isn't it KO range, then it will use swagger 100% of the time or something like that. The player can take advantage of this and switch in ANY mon with a fighting move (Which I will deliberately make a broad amount possible range of mons using TMs since I agree people just wanna use what's fun) and a persim berry to get a free 2 stage boost to attack. This will put it in 2 hit KO range.
>Inb4 but what about foul play
You will likely outspeed it and it shouldn't be able to 2 hit KO you with it even if you're at +2.

And that's just one of the potential counter plays, you're not even factoring in the fact that the player could very well have sleep moves or paralyze moves or debuff moves of their own that can put a stop to the strategy. Plus confusion preventing abilities exist. Again I get I didn't mention any of this but I think you're way underestimating the amount of counterplay that exists to even something this strong. Also, this isn't an itemless challenge hack or anything, I'm accounting for the player probably having several healing items. It's not unusual in an RPG for the player to need to spend a while debuffing and handicapping the boss before they can safely take it down, using up loads of consumable items along the way, and that's what I'm going for here. It's MEANT to be nigh unbeatable unless you take advantage of a specific exploit, I'm just gonna make sure that these exploits are easily executable once you learn of them.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 16 Jan 2023 01:30:02 No.53000818 Report

Quoted By: >>53000962 >>53000985

>>53000706
>you're not even factoring in the fact that the player could very well have sleep moves or paralyze moves or debuff moves of their own
>I'm accounting for the player probably having several healing items

this is all to say: you're making a Pokemon ROMHack designed around the most casual, luck-based playstyles. no sense in balancing it at all at that point - even just a Spore Parasect or Sleep Powder Butterfree would be enough to take down any Pokemon that isn't Grass type.
but that isn't really fun. if any (reasonable) given team of Pokemon, not EV or IV trained, without any possibility of sleep-inducing moves, cannot defeat it you have established your ROMHack as another "cheese it with one of Pokemon's extremely busted and terribly balanced status moves".

with 70 base attack + STAB that Foul Play is going to be meatier than you're expecting, by the way.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Mon 16 Jan 2023 01:52:16 No.53000962 Report

Quoted By: >>53001013

>>53000818
>with 70 base attack + STAB that Foul Play is going to be meatier than you're expecting, by the way.
Anon foul play doesn’t use the users attacks.
Also, even without status the challenge should be bearable, I really think you’re overestimating things. Flannery for example isn’t even that different
>70/140/70 bulk
>Only 3 weaknesses, 2 that hit it’s much better physical defence and 1 that hits its weaker special defense.
>Minimal access to the special weakness, with wider access to the physical weakness
>Out of 2HKO range for most things even taking weaknesses into account.
>Status move that turns things into a 50/50 coinflip unless you have a specific counter play.
>Move that hits ridiculously hard at first but gets weaker later
>Move that increases power of stab moves and nullifies it’s main weakness
>Move that acts as a back up offensive option
Yet she isn’t remotely broken because there are ways to counter all of these things. You can bring a same gender mon. You can bring your own weather setter. You can switch. You can teach TMs. You can stall. Etc. In the same way, against my gym leader you can use the persim berry, or use a mon that can’t be confused, you can use a special attacker to become much less susceptible to foul play and it’s ridiculous defense, you can teach mons coverage moves etc.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 16 Jan 2023 01:55:39 No.53000985 Report

Quoted By: >>53001045

>>53000818
a few things i want to add/clear up:

>with 70 base attack
i know that Foul Play uses the Target's Attack stat, but if you're going to be discussing the possibility of using the Swagger boost then i would expect that you'd use a Pokemon with at least base 70 physical attack to use it.

but on that note: what if some guy just chooses the Fire type starter? this treasuremon would go down to two Flamethrowers from any decent Special Attacker - and your moves only counter Physical Attacking Fire types. i get this is probably one of your "specific exploits" you had in mind - but it does mean that this will just randomly fuck over some casual teams that chose the Grass or Water starters.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 16 Jan 2023 01:58:52 No.53001013 Report

Quoted By: >>53001098

>>53000962
Flannery does not have a move that increases that Torkoal's Defense by 2 stages. Nor is confusion comparable to Attract. Nor is Attract good game design, either.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 16 Jan 2023 02:01:46 No.53001045 Report

Quoted By: >>53001111

>>53000985
>but on that note: what if some guy just chooses the Fire type starter? this treasuremon would go down to two Flamethrowers from any decent Special Attacker - and your moves only counter Physical Attacking Fire types. i get this is probably one of your "specific exploits" you had in mind - but it does mean that this will just randomly fuck over some casual teams that chose the Grass or Water starters.
The fire starter gets access to a 50 BP fire move maximum which will be very unlikely to do 50%. There will be 1 or 2 other fire mons available who will carry similar damage capabilities. There will also be mons that can lower it’s special defense stat but they won’t get any fire moves themselves and will need to act as support for a separate attacker. It’s worth noting that this won’t be the gym leaders ONLY mon, in fact a huge reason I’m not going monotype is because most of the gym leaders weaker mons will counter the counter to their ace. This is to restrict the player from just hyper investing into one mon that hard counters the challenge presented, you’ll need to also cover that strategies natural counters as well. These other mons will likely be weak to the sorts of things that are bad against the boss in order to give even more mons a potential niche in the battle as well

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 16 Jan 2023 02:06:45 No.53001098 Report

Quoted By:

>>53001013
>Flannery does not have a move that increases that Torkoal's Defense by 2 stages.
It has sunny day which effectively ups it’s special defense against water moves by 2 stages for 5 turns while also powering up fire moves. It’s comparable. Not to mention withdraw also crucially cripples it’s main offensive option. The point is that using withdraw changes the dynamic: suddenly ground and fighting moves aren’t the best strategy, but it also hits much less hard freeing up frailer mons to potentially be safe. But again, it’s MEANT to counter physical attackers very hard.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 16 Jan 2023 02:08:49 No.53001111 Report

Quoted By: >>53001241 >>53001290

>>53001045
This is supposed to be a ~third gym? What the hell are you doing? My criticism was assuming this was around the fifth gym.

>This is to restrict the player from just hyper investing into one mon that hard counters the challenge presented
You're the one who said, >"I'm accounting for the player probably having several healing items".
Surely you understand that Pokemon will NEVER be balanced around overleveling unless you're making one of those >itemless challenge hacks.

I want to clarify something here: I don't doubt you have many many counters in mind. I am telling you that this will not be fun for anyone except a Nuzlocke autist. The kind that damage calcs everything in advanced.
The casual player does not want to switch up their team too much. And for what they must switch up, they should not be expected to grind. You should really think about who this ROMHack is really for.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 16 Jan 2023 02:20:59 No.53001241 Report

Quoted By: >>53001290 >>53001308

>>53001111
>I am telling you that this will not be fun for anyone except a Nuzlocke autist.
The counters I have in mind: using a pokemon with an ability that counters confusion, using a mon that has a fire or fighting move, using a mon with a physically defensive stat spread and support moves, using a mon with a specially attacking stat spread, and using held items that turn what would otherwise be a crippling status into a free boost. A solid chunk of the usable mons by this point will offer one of the above, and the player is free to use some combonation of those in order to over come the challenge. It's unlikely that they'll need to replace even a single team member unless they have no special attackers in which case you kinda deserve the hard-wall. The healing item thing is to help account for the initially overwhelming damage, but the players bag will be finite and they'll need to manage their resources on their way through the gym first, so full blown item spam won't be possible, it's just a helpful buffer.
If all this is too much for someone than yea I'm afraid my game isn't for them but I don't think that'll be an issue like you think. I can respect your input because I obviously didn't tell you most of this initially but I can assure you, the problems you're pointing out aren't as bad as you think. Honestly I was way more concerned that there was some hole in the set making it potentially way too easy that I was missing

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 16 Jan 2023 02:26:15 No.53001290 Report

Quoted By:

>>53001111
>>53001241
Also I appreciate you giving input at all. If you have more to say, say it, I definitely don't have all the details ironed out and what you're saying is already giving me ideas for potential tools I could give the player to offer work arounds. I'm less focused on adjusting the challenge and more on adjusting the players toolset to be well equipped for it without being able to mindlessly bore through it; it should take brain power to execute.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 16 Jan 2023 02:29:18 No.53001308 Report

Quoted By: >>53001412 >>53001498

>>53001241
>using a pokemon with an ability that counters confusion
Casual User: Just has to look in every single route until they find a Pokemon they know has Own Tempo. Not fun.
Nuzlocke Autist: Already looked up that information. Fun.

>using a mon that has a fire or fighting move
Casual User: Has to luck into having caught one earlier - lest they are forced to grind one up. You also claimed that the Fire Starter at this point should not be able to knock it out in 2 hits. Is fire *really* a counter? Not fun.
Nuzlocke Autist: Already knew about this battle in advance and caught a Numel.

>using a mon with a physically defensive stat spread and support moves
Casual Player: Does not wish to wait out 16 turns of burn stall assuming they even have a Pokemon with Will-O-Wisp. Not fun.
Nuzlocke Autist: Aforementioned Numel. Fun.
etc.

I feel a bit bad so I'd like to leave you with this:
I like that you put a lot of thought into the meaning of each move. I like the context of the gym leader, and I like that they aren't locked down to one type. But this is not fun - nor will it ever be fun - for a casual player. Think about how much Whitney's Miltank already filters out the average casual player - and that's just for a single, ~112.5 BP Rock type move.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 16 Jan 2023 02:46:17 No.53001412 Report

Quoted By:

>>53001308
>Casual User: Just has to look in every single route until they find a Pokemon they know has Own Tempo. Not fun.
They don't have to, again, that's what the persim berry is for. ANY physically attacking pokemon that has a fighting move can hold the persim berry and take advantage of the boost, the Own Tempo haver just get's to do it while still holding another item.
>Casual User: Has to luck into having caught one earlier - lest they are forced to grind one up.
Fire and fighting types are rare but a few decent mons will get fire or fighting coverage via level up, and way more will get access to fighting moves via TM. Between all this the vast majority of players will have at least 1 or 2 mons that can have a move to use against it for decent damage.
>You also claimed that the Fire Starter at this point should not be able to knock it out in 2 hits. Is fire *really* a counter? Not fun.
Being able to take out the boss in 2 moves is way too easy. Gym leaders in gen 3 are frequently way out of 2hko range even against the best super effective hits you have access to.
>Casual Player: Does not wish to wait out 16 turns of burn stall assuming they even have a Pokemon with Will-O-Wisp. Not fun.
There are more direct options available especially if you've burned it. But more importantly if you can't be a fucked to dedicate like 10-15 min to pull off a slow but necessary strat on an RPG boss then you're too casual for my taste.
>But this is not fun - nor will it ever be fun - for a casual player. Think about how much Whitney's Miltank already filters out the average casual player - and that's just for a single, ~112.5 BP Rock type move.
I think you misunderstand, this isn't for casuals this is for you average long time fan. I literally think emerald is pretty hard, and I also think this boss isn't that hard. If anything all the elements of my game's challenges are inspired by the gen 3 games, I'm just taking it to a level that is suitable for experienced fans.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 16 Jan 2023 02:58:24 No.53001498 Report

Quoted By:

>>53001308
Also thanks for acknowledging the thematic parts, I know anons on here have been going on about wanting non-monotype teams with strong thematic cohesion so I've been playing into that. I honestly hate monotype teams precisely because I think they make countering the gym too simple when it could be multilayered. Anyway, I think it's also worth noting that you're not necessarily wrong, but I intend to consciously take steps that will make the game more user friendly know-how wise. They'll be able to get all the info they need to know exactly what they need to do simply by talking to all the NPCs, and battling the gym a few times to learn the movesets and types. From there it's just a matter of piecing together the info you have about the game mechanics and the info you have about the gym leader's team.

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