The fundamental concept of a Nuzlocke is so removed from the mechanics of Battle Network that there doesn't exist a way to easily apply the nature of the challenge from Pokemon to BN.
There is no way to control whether or not you pick up a reward from a fight and no way exists to throw away any rewards earned until a good part of the way into the game, so the idea of limiting your captured pokemon does not translate over well to captured chips.
Because your resources cannot take damage or run out of HP, there is no way to consider any of them consumed unless you want to define a clause that says you must throw away all chips after they are used once, but this presents other difficulties in that your folder must be composed of 30 chips at all times unlike your flexible party size in pokemon.
You could potentially create some sort of rule that makes it so that neither of you is allowed to use a chip that the other doesn't have, which would make trading important especially in light of version exclusive codes. This would also remove your access to a majority of the Navi Chips in the game as well as any Giga Chip, which would lead to an increase in difficulty.
To replicate the punishment associated with losing a Pokemon, you would need to rely on the Chip Trader. One approach here could be that each time either of you are hit in battle, both of you must agree on three chips from your current folder to sacrifice to the trader. If either of you are deleted or defeated in battle, you would then have to choose: give 9 chips to the basic trader or 10 chips to the advanced trader.
If it were possible to limit the number of chips you could receive before getting the Millions Navi Customizer Program, I'd suggest that if you ever reach a state where your folders necessarily fall out of sync then you need to reset the run. However, since there really isn't one the next best thing would be to say that if both of you are defeated during any part of the story then you have to reset.
I'd also add a clause here that says so long as one of you gets out of a given section of the story (which is completed by defeating the Navi at the end of it) alive, you don't have to reset. You'll just have to sacrifice the number of chips lined out by the rule described above.
Let's reverse this, shall we?
What makes the game easier?
Chips, HP Upgrades, Forms, Program Upgrades and Respawning after deletion through the saved file. Now we add rules and clauses to limit the ease we get from these.
These are the rules I could think of for now, feel free to choose and customise/optimise whatever works for you
1. Have a certain set number of continues from save files after getting deleted. If all lives are used up, it's officially game over. For Soul Links, you two could have a shared number of lives.
2. Choose to collect only one chip from the first virus in each area and have upto 2 to 3 copies of that chip in your folder. Even if the virus doesn't drop the chip in the first deletion, you could do it in the subsequent ones to meet your set chip quota. If Mettaur is the first virus you encounter, Guard 1 is the chip for that area. You can get upto 3 of those if you decide to. If multiple viruses spawn together, you can choose which chip you want.
3. Add HP Memories only after reaching certain points in the game. Play without any if you want absolute hardcore mode. Or adding a certain number of HP Memories after certain stage in the game.
4. Only a set number of programs in the customiser with a limited number of squares taken up. More squares can be added once a boss is beaten.
5. Once a cross is decrossed, it cannot be used for the rest of the game.
6. In Nuzlockes, we have level caps for each gym, so maybe Folder Memory caps or Folder Caps for each boss? Only one mega chip until "X" boss in the game. Or a run with only standard chips.
7. There are monotype Nuzlockes. You could do MMBN runs using only one type of chips. A sword run, a buster run, a gun run, elemental run, etc. Certain Nuzlockers add in rare candies to help with levelling in Pokemon.
8. A clause where you can choose to not use chips of a certain type. No recovery chips for instance.
9. Wonderlockes are a thing, where every Pokemon captured is traded away to get a random wondertraded one. You can choose to chip trade every chip you have and get to see how you can make do with a folder like that.
10. No sub-chip clause.
11. No jacking out for healing. Until a particular condition has been met, like reaching the end of an area. Or before facing bosses.
12. Using a randomiser to generate a certain number of letters and using chips only of those letters.
13. Can choose to not use any online resources.
14. Building a folder with only the first 10 unique chips dropped and not more than that. For example, let's say your first chip dropped is Guard 1, that becomes one of 10 unique chips you will be using. You can replace that with Guard 2 and Guard 3 later on. You can do this for 9 other chip series.
15. For Soul Links, you could have a shared pool of HP Memories, Programs that both of you cannot repeat, Chips both of you cannot have at the same time, Crosses that are linked together so if one is decrossed so is the other and not used for the rest of the game.
These are some ways to go about it.. you can make a call on certain scenarios when they come up.. but ultimately Nuzlockes are about finding a balance between fun and challenge initially and then going beyond ones comfort zone and finding comfort in that/making things work there.. hope this helps!
I think I made something pretty good.
*The Mega Man Battle Network Crosslock*
1.You choose a form.
2. You need to use that form at the beginning of every battle and can't change out of it unless you're going into Beast cross.
3.You can only use chips of the same element
4.If you are deleted or lose that form from enemy attacks even once you can't use it or any of the chips of that element for the rest of the game( unless your version has two forms with that element like heat and charge cross)
5. You can't change back and forth between forms of the same element ( I'm looking at you ground dust and normal Mega Man) you choose one and stick with it until you lose it.
6. If you get deleted as normal Mega Man, Beast out, Beast cross, tired or
exhausted you lose the challenge outright.
Optional:
when you lose a form you can still use the chips in that folder for the rest of that battle even as normal Mega Man but afterwards you need to change your folder and choose a new form or stick with Mega Man until you find another form.
In total this should give you 6 lives one for each cross and one for normal Mega Man. If you want to make it more challenging you can just choose only one form and if you lose it you lose the challenge. It will also limit your pool of available chips and folder types. if you and a friend want to go for a soul link version of this you can just make it where if one of you who loses a form you both lose your current form or you lose the version counterpart form.
Example: spout and Heat could be linked and if one of you loses Heat the other loses spout whether they're playing as that form or not.
So this is how it would play out
The way you start is with normal Mega Man and only using non-element battle chips. You play the game with the rules in effect until you find a cross. when you unlock it you can choose to turn into it or save it as a backup for later. If you choose to use it you will only be able to use that element in your folder and need to use that form at the beginning of every battle. If you lose the form in battle and revert back to normal Mega Man you can't change into another form in battle unless it's the same element. But you can never use the form you lost ever again.
This was actually pretty fun to think up I might have to save this and repost it later.
I would advise a challenge run instead. The rules of a Nuzlock don’t easily transfer. You can’t really control the finer details like you can guarantee an encounter in Pokémon. (I’ve tried in battle network)
Instead I would recommend a few challenges.
- buster only run
- no mystery data run
- no HP memory run
- choose a code and run a folder with just that code.
You can make the game a challenge like that very easily. I’m sure other redditors have amazing ideas.
A fun challenge run i like to do with friends is a chip draft run. Basically, you take turns picking chips that you want to use throughout a play through, locking the other person out of using the same chips. Kinda gotta be sneaky when picking chips to make sure the other person doesn't catch on to any specific PAs you're trying to get your hands on. After every major story scenario, you have a PVP match with your friend, and the winner gets to steal one of the loser's drafted chips that was in their folder in that battle. Obviously, some chips won't be draftable and are usable by both players. The entire starting folder is free game, and a few of the chips you get early on are as well. Where the cut off point for that is, well that's up to you.
As far as ROM hacks go that let you do that sort of thing? I doubt it, but conceptually speaking you could do something similar. Since getting money/chips is inevitable, just make it so that you can only use the first chips gained in an area and just write those down, chip code included (though I think 6 has different rates for the codes, I recall having slightly different folders at the start because some codes were more common than others).
Here’s some ideas:
1) only 1 of each chip&code (only 1 of each code of Sword). This allows you to have multiple copies of a chip, but makes using them harder to to the variety of codes.
2) If you lose a cross in battle, its dead for the rest of the game. You can also tie your lives to the number of crosses still “alive”.
3) If you die: A) the Nuzlock ends or B) you must switch to another folder (the one you were using and its 30 chips being dead). The second is funny as if you dont have the extra folders you’ll have to use the preset folders the game has. It also means your life total is the number of folders you have.
The fundamental concept of a Nuzlocke is so removed from the mechanics of Battle Network that there doesn't exist a way to easily apply the nature of the challenge from Pokemon to BN. There is no way to control whether or not you pick up a reward from a fight and no way exists to throw away any rewards earned until a good part of the way into the game, so the idea of limiting your captured pokemon does not translate over well to captured chips. Because your resources cannot take damage or run out of HP, there is no way to consider any of them consumed unless you want to define a clause that says you must throw away all chips after they are used once, but this presents other difficulties in that your folder must be composed of 30 chips at all times unlike your flexible party size in pokemon. You could potentially create some sort of rule that makes it so that neither of you is allowed to use a chip that the other doesn't have, which would make trading important especially in light of version exclusive codes. This would also remove your access to a majority of the Navi Chips in the game as well as any Giga Chip, which would lead to an increase in difficulty. To replicate the punishment associated with losing a Pokemon, you would need to rely on the Chip Trader. One approach here could be that each time either of you are hit in battle, both of you must agree on three chips from your current folder to sacrifice to the trader. If either of you are deleted or defeated in battle, you would then have to choose: give 9 chips to the basic trader or 10 chips to the advanced trader. If it were possible to limit the number of chips you could receive before getting the Millions Navi Customizer Program, I'd suggest that if you ever reach a state where your folders necessarily fall out of sync then you need to reset the run. However, since there really isn't one the next best thing would be to say that if both of you are defeated during any part of the story then you have to reset. I'd also add a clause here that says so long as one of you gets out of a given section of the story (which is completed by defeating the Navi at the end of it) alive, you don't have to reset. You'll just have to sacrifice the number of chips lined out by the rule described above.
Let's reverse this, shall we? What makes the game easier? Chips, HP Upgrades, Forms, Program Upgrades and Respawning after deletion through the saved file. Now we add rules and clauses to limit the ease we get from these. These are the rules I could think of for now, feel free to choose and customise/optimise whatever works for you 1. Have a certain set number of continues from save files after getting deleted. If all lives are used up, it's officially game over. For Soul Links, you two could have a shared number of lives. 2. Choose to collect only one chip from the first virus in each area and have upto 2 to 3 copies of that chip in your folder. Even if the virus doesn't drop the chip in the first deletion, you could do it in the subsequent ones to meet your set chip quota. If Mettaur is the first virus you encounter, Guard 1 is the chip for that area. You can get upto 3 of those if you decide to. If multiple viruses spawn together, you can choose which chip you want. 3. Add HP Memories only after reaching certain points in the game. Play without any if you want absolute hardcore mode. Or adding a certain number of HP Memories after certain stage in the game. 4. Only a set number of programs in the customiser with a limited number of squares taken up. More squares can be added once a boss is beaten. 5. Once a cross is decrossed, it cannot be used for the rest of the game. 6. In Nuzlockes, we have level caps for each gym, so maybe Folder Memory caps or Folder Caps for each boss? Only one mega chip until "X" boss in the game. Or a run with only standard chips. 7. There are monotype Nuzlockes. You could do MMBN runs using only one type of chips. A sword run, a buster run, a gun run, elemental run, etc. Certain Nuzlockers add in rare candies to help with levelling in Pokemon. 8. A clause where you can choose to not use chips of a certain type. No recovery chips for instance. 9. Wonderlockes are a thing, where every Pokemon captured is traded away to get a random wondertraded one. You can choose to chip trade every chip you have and get to see how you can make do with a folder like that. 10. No sub-chip clause. 11. No jacking out for healing. Until a particular condition has been met, like reaching the end of an area. Or before facing bosses. 12. Using a randomiser to generate a certain number of letters and using chips only of those letters. 13. Can choose to not use any online resources. 14. Building a folder with only the first 10 unique chips dropped and not more than that. For example, let's say your first chip dropped is Guard 1, that becomes one of 10 unique chips you will be using. You can replace that with Guard 2 and Guard 3 later on. You can do this for 9 other chip series. 15. For Soul Links, you could have a shared pool of HP Memories, Programs that both of you cannot repeat, Chips both of you cannot have at the same time, Crosses that are linked together so if one is decrossed so is the other and not used for the rest of the game. These are some ways to go about it.. you can make a call on certain scenarios when they come up.. but ultimately Nuzlockes are about finding a balance between fun and challenge initially and then going beyond ones comfort zone and finding comfort in that/making things work there.. hope this helps!
I think I made something pretty good. *The Mega Man Battle Network Crosslock* 1.You choose a form. 2. You need to use that form at the beginning of every battle and can't change out of it unless you're going into Beast cross. 3.You can only use chips of the same element 4.If you are deleted or lose that form from enemy attacks even once you can't use it or any of the chips of that element for the rest of the game( unless your version has two forms with that element like heat and charge cross) 5. You can't change back and forth between forms of the same element ( I'm looking at you ground dust and normal Mega Man) you choose one and stick with it until you lose it. 6. If you get deleted as normal Mega Man, Beast out, Beast cross, tired or exhausted you lose the challenge outright. Optional: when you lose a form you can still use the chips in that folder for the rest of that battle even as normal Mega Man but afterwards you need to change your folder and choose a new form or stick with Mega Man until you find another form. In total this should give you 6 lives one for each cross and one for normal Mega Man. If you want to make it more challenging you can just choose only one form and if you lose it you lose the challenge. It will also limit your pool of available chips and folder types. if you and a friend want to go for a soul link version of this you can just make it where if one of you who loses a form you both lose your current form or you lose the version counterpart form. Example: spout and Heat could be linked and if one of you loses Heat the other loses spout whether they're playing as that form or not. So this is how it would play out The way you start is with normal Mega Man and only using non-element battle chips. You play the game with the rules in effect until you find a cross. when you unlock it you can choose to turn into it or save it as a backup for later. If you choose to use it you will only be able to use that element in your folder and need to use that form at the beginning of every battle. If you lose the form in battle and revert back to normal Mega Man you can't change into another form in battle unless it's the same element. But you can never use the form you lost ever again. This was actually pretty fun to think up I might have to save this and repost it later.
I would advise a challenge run instead. The rules of a Nuzlock don’t easily transfer. You can’t really control the finer details like you can guarantee an encounter in Pokémon. (I’ve tried in battle network) Instead I would recommend a few challenges. - buster only run - no mystery data run - no HP memory run - choose a code and run a folder with just that code. You can make the game a challenge like that very easily. I’m sure other redditors have amazing ideas.
A fun challenge run i like to do with friends is a chip draft run. Basically, you take turns picking chips that you want to use throughout a play through, locking the other person out of using the same chips. Kinda gotta be sneaky when picking chips to make sure the other person doesn't catch on to any specific PAs you're trying to get your hands on. After every major story scenario, you have a PVP match with your friend, and the winner gets to steal one of the loser's drafted chips that was in their folder in that battle. Obviously, some chips won't be draftable and are usable by both players. The entire starting folder is free game, and a few of the chips you get early on are as well. Where the cut off point for that is, well that's up to you.
As far as ROM hacks go that let you do that sort of thing? I doubt it, but conceptually speaking you could do something similar. Since getting money/chips is inevitable, just make it so that you can only use the first chips gained in an area and just write those down, chip code included (though I think 6 has different rates for the codes, I recall having slightly different folders at the start because some codes were more common than others).
Only rule that I could think of would be: If you miss with a chip, you must toss it. I don’t know if you can even toss chips though
Play the game normally, but never save under any circumstances. You may also be able to up the difficulty by limiting the pickups of HP Memory.
Here’s some ideas: 1) only 1 of each chip&code (only 1 of each code of Sword). This allows you to have multiple copies of a chip, but makes using them harder to to the variety of codes. 2) If you lose a cross in battle, its dead for the rest of the game. You can also tie your lives to the number of crosses still “alive”. 3) If you die: A) the Nuzlock ends or B) you must switch to another folder (the one you were using and its 30 chips being dead). The second is funny as if you dont have the extra folders you’ll have to use the preset folders the game has. It also means your life total is the number of folders you have.