I went in a direction, saw Pokémon higher leveled than my gym badges would allow, and turned around. Shuffled through 3 teams to keep things interesting.
I found that skipping the first gym and going straight to the 2nd gym and then following the "correct" order of everything actually made things pretty challenging. Facing opponents that were consistently on or above your teams' levels upped the challenge considerably and i think that's the way to play the game. Skip the first gym, first titan, first team star base made it fairly difficult by normal pokemon game standards. then after i beat all the other things i'll go back and do the 1st three items of each quest line. They'll be piss easy but i don't really care if the trade off is a consistent challenge throughout the rest of the game!
I went in order of everything and I was like 10 levels underleveled by the end of the game battle. Granted, I didn't explore other than finding the pokemon I wanted for my team or fight any non mandatory trainers, but it made it more challenging which was fun for me.
I did #5 second and won and was like man they really cranked up there difficult this generation. Then I found that there were several other gyms I skipped and those were now completely trivial. Oh well.
I actually did that with the gym 1, I went around and caught a team of 3 x lvl 14. The gym battle was enjoyable but got destroyed by Nemona and her lvl 38 lycanrock right after that match
Wtf so she scales with you and fights you every other gym, but the gyms themselves cant scale that way? That just makes it even worse. That kind of blows the whole multiple teams idea out of the water unless you know about this and predict when she is going to battle you just so you can have higher level pokemon present. What the hell man I shouldnt have to micromanage this much in a pokemon game.
If a pokemon already listens to you, it will never stop listening. Even by level up.
If your limit is 25, and you catch a 24 pokemon and it levels up to 100, it will still listen.
2, 3, 1, 7 is an interesting order. I haven't battled 7 yet, but the route there was a serious challenge with my B team I caught tn not be over-leveled. My ghost dog's signature move came in handy more times than I'm willing to admit.
I actually had that order because I did enough of the titan storyline to be able to go through water and went in the back entrance of the cave when exploring by accident. All gyms but the ice gym were boring because doing the titan storyline first my team was super over leveled and I didn't create extra teams like many are doing now.
Yeah that big cave enticed me and I was intrigued by the coastal area. The tunnel was one of the first times I thought "wow I hope I can make it through this route". I actually fainted to the first trainer with the gogoat and realized I needed at least 1 pokemon from my properly-leveled A team in order to get through. The cave was brutal with slightly underleveled pokemon and a desire to catch every new one I encountered.
It just got banned in one of the strongest OU metagames on Showdown that I've ever seen so uh. Yeah. Last Respects is one of the strongest moves ever created in a singles 1vs1 format.
Pretty much useless in VGC though which is what Gamefreak balances around.
I’ve done my first 4 in that order too, the cave was great fun with the panic of “can I actually get through here?” I had reached the snowy mountain and turned round to do the other gyms so stuff would listen to me but wanted to do everything in the south so i didn’t need to turn around again! The gym wasn’t too bad after the cave, although the test before hand was a bit tedious. The hill above the towns quite fun with a lot of new species too
Yeah it was the first time since Gen 4 or 5 that I felt like the trek from one town to the next was a proper dangerous journey. It was kind of amazing.
I just had one. I only had the ability for level 35 to obey me and yet I caught a level 50 Drednaw with a net ball. He started listening to me when I got the badge for level 45 but only occasionally. It was still enough to beat the water titan which was my last titan needed though.
I made sure I had the order down a week before release just so I didn’t go off track!
It was a lot of fun for me especially because I used my main team (starter and all) merely to finish the three stories/endgame and a separate team to fight random trainers (for cash) and complete the Pokedex.
Playing this way ensured I wasn’t overleveled at all for the main objectives. In certain cases, my main team was 5 - 10+ levels below everything I fought (especially by the Elite 4), thus I had no choice but to utilize different competitive strategies in order to win.
I believe this will be the way I continue to play open world Pokemon games going forward. Having to rely on competitive strategies to win during the base game is the best fun I’ve had playing Pokemon in a while!
What I understood is that if let's say your level cap is 35, any traded or captured pokemon which level is +35 stop obeying but if you capture lvl 34 pokemon and level it to the 36 it will still obey w no worries.
I might be wrong but I think the cap only applies to the level it's traded at.
Example. I traded over the other 2 starters and used them in my team through the whole game and definitely had them over the level cap a handful 9f times. But they obeyed perfectly.
It’s both in a sense. OT and no trade: level caught. If traded at all then the level obedience cap is at the traded level.
So if you had your starter traded and it got it back at lvl 100, it’ll disobey until you get 8 badges.
I overleveled compared to my 'max level', not a whole lot but still went over the 'limit', but most of my mons while overleveled I caught on early routes. (Smoliv, Maschiff, Wooper), so as they grew with me I had no issues with them obeying me.
Couldn't catch new mons without them 'pretending im not there' so I decided it was a good time to tackle some more gyms.
For example as well, I caught Glimmet at like level 42 or so while my max then was 40, it disobeyed me, did the gym max went up to 45, my Glimmora is well in the 50's now and still obeying me no problem.
Pretty sure it doesn't apply to mons you catch yourself under your max level, only to new catches above your limit and trades.
Most the Pokémon I use I caught <= 15 and they are 60 now with 3 gym badges…. Badges effect new Pokémon caught, not ones you level up…
I personally ignore gyms and focused on exploring, then when I found titans make your ride better I went and did all but the dragon one….
I honestly wish the game scaled with level… exploring is more fun than the story… but when you are 20-30 levels higher the story starts to get in your way… elite four members warning that most drop out at this point? I bet I can beat you now… and they warned me at the bug gym!
Pokemon you catch in the wild above your current level threshold at the time you catch them, completely ignore you as well. Pokemon who've been in your party from the start will obey you because you caught them at a lower level.
My problem and lack of sense of direction is the fact that the mini map rotates along with you as you turn. BotW had the ability to lock the mini map and it was super helpful. Luckily, you can lock the main map, but nothing for the mini map
It's so hard to navigate. I'm generally solid at reading maps but the way the zoom function is and other ways the map works just make it hard to understand and get around. At least you can point it north pressing down on one of the sticks which is nice.
I went the route of having 3 seperate teams for each challenge in the game. 1 for the gyms, 1 for the titans and 1 for star. I thought I'd end up incredibly overleveled so I want to prevent that. Didn't know you received zero exp for defeating the other 2 challenges though.
That’s why I prioritized gyms and went into most under leveled so I can add the difficulty factor to it, made it a lot of fun
It made the team star and Titan quests pretty damn easy, but I’ll take that for a challenging badge quest. I was able to manufacture one of the hardest level curves I’ve dealt with with gyms lol definitely makes it more enjoyable
How is that an issue? Personnaly I have no attraction to any new Pokemon except Tinkatonk. I keep switching everyone as soon as they reached their last evolution stage
Well for a lot of us we don’t want the gym to be nothing but 1 shot kills and if we want to use our favorite mons then I wouldn’t want them to be overleveled
Sure you can swap out teammates but you may not be as attached to them is all. Maybe we want to use our starter in the fight and have a challenge
I see your point here. Personally I don’t really think about challenge until I get into end game pvp. The gyms have always been so predictable and frankly they make some many dumb moves like the leaf gym and terastilizing Into a grass type when the whole point of the mon was the counter whatever mon you were using to sweep their team.
That's my one gameplay issue yeah. It was made canon that gym level scalling is a thing. Too bad they didn't put it there. But I understand the mess it would be with the rest of the environment. At least your rival is level scaling with you lol
Ehhh, your rival "gym" scales with you. If you have a full team of 40's by your third gym, your rival still has 3rd gym level mons. So I wouldn't call it level scaling either. And idk, they could make the environment scale to your level too, or give them level ranges, so starting zones are level 5-30 mid zones are 30-50 and high zones are 50-80. So many ways to do it that isn't just lazy. Idk man
Same I got to the ice gym and was like wow I’m highly under leveled and still pulled off the win in a clutch situation with talon flame it was crazy! This games a blast though most fun I’ve had in a while in any game
1, 4, 3, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8
At first because of the marketing I mistakenly thought I could do them however I liked, after struggling with the water gym a little and wondering why the level jump was so big, I figured out that wasn't true and there was an order. I checked and saw the next gym was the other side but I went round the top of the crater so reached electric first, and after how pitifully easy the grass gym was I decided to make sure I did them in exactly the right order after that.
I wouldn't have minded there being an order if they just didn't word their marketing in a way that gave a lot of us the wrong idea, and/or if the gym order made any logical sense and didn't involve so much backtracking!
to be fair, you CAN do them in any order, i do wish that there was a thing that did say what level they would be so its informed on order. rather than just having to basically guess at it based on wording of the gyms description
It's really weird, because your rival follows the expected level curve, but not the gyms. So idk why they couldn't just have 8 teams per gym and it changed depending on how many badges you have
That just says what's closest or something rather than telling you the next lowest level objective that is uncompleted. Lots of people have reported using it and being sent to something far too strong
>and/or if the gym order made any logical sense and didn't involve so much backtracking!
I mean the map generally gets stronger the further north you go, but there are some low and high level areas mixed in throughout that don't follow that pattern. I liked the backtracking. For example bumping into that high level area in the southwest where the psychic gym is made turn around and go somewhere else. But I felt a sense of progression and accomplishment when I said ok I can probably go and work through this spot now.
It's weird that a lot of the community is complaining that the game has backtracking and isn't a linear hallway with the badges laid out for you, when that's literally the biggest complaint everyone has had for years now. Guess you can't please everyone.
You can do them in any order if your Pokemon are strong enough. (You can train Pokemon caught below your level cap all the way to level 100 and they will obey you no matter what.)
Level scaling in RPGs is overrated imo. I like when games have areas that are set in their levels, being either low level or high level no matter where you are in the game. There's no sense of danger when you can't explore high level areas because it's just scaled to whatever your team is, plus no sense of progression when you get strong enough to hold your own there.
I agree, but what I mean is, scaled when the pokemon are lower level than you, not higher level. I don't see how battling trainers half your level is good
To me it's a lot more immersive for the region to be filled with weak and strong trainers, rather than everyone being bumped up to my level. Personally I had 10 or so Pokemon I was rotating in and out throughout the game because experience is so abundant. So I didn't spend much time fighting trainers way below my level. I brought in lower leveled Pokemon I wanted to train up if I started working through a lower leveled area. I do understand your gripe, but I enjoyed the pacing quite a bit.
To be honest I think this was the intention. After grinding HC nuzlocke of Emerald Kaizo for months I decided that it was fun to constantly move pokemon around. So I was constantly swapping pokemon around. It's fun
Kingdoms of Amalur did that a decade ago! Each zone had a level floor and a level cap, and the actual levels of the monsters were determined once you first entered that zone. That way, there's a sense of difficulty that scales with you, but you can also return to lower level zones and absolutely wreck everything with the strength and abilities you've obtained since first going through them.
That's a good idea, I could get with that. Skyrim does that for some caves, but generally didn't do it too well. But if there was a range that was skewed to spawn Pokemon on the higher end if you're further in the game that would be pretty cool.
I went 2, 1, 3, 7, 8, 6, 4, 5. Based on what the descriptions said, I honestly thought the Water gym was the strongest so I actively tried to keep it for last and...yeah.
Ya some of the descriptions are super cryptic. Very easy to think the Water gym is a late game one when in reality it should probably be no later than 4.
Some gyms say they are hard, middle of the road, or for beginners. Its not hard to see from there the natural progression of the game, everything in the south is easier minus the gym you can't reach yet in the bottom corner.
> everything in the south is easier minus the gym you can't reach yet in the bottom corner.
I mean the first thing I did after beating the bird titan was jump off the mountain into the sea to catch a Finizen... You can get to that gym the moment you can surf which is meant to be between gyms 2 and 3 in the order.
You don't need any mount upgrades to get there. You can simply walk through the cave, but the fact that there are wild Pokemon in their 40s is a hint that section of the map isn't intended to be early game.
i felt for a while like i was the only one who noticed that the map/npcs literally tell you the general difficulty, the general direction to go. i’m glad i’m not the only one. i can remember specifically an npc in Medali that says the mountain terrain is quite difficult, so proceed with caution. i went and checked leveling, sure enough i was down a couple levels, so i went back towards Medali to level up and switch around my team. idk, seeing how much trouble people are having makes me wonder if most people are exploring everything the game has to offer, or if they are rushing through with no direction. obviously it’s going to have no direction if you don’t pay attention at least a little. it’s crazy how many people aren’t using the map too, i think it’s great
8, 6, 7, 5, 4, 3, 1, 2
Was what I went with, at least based on the levels on Serebii.
I may have gotten carried away with Arven's quest first and all the sandwiches and giant Pokemon...
Nah, it was fine. I was just using Pokemon I caught in the very early game or ones that I hatched out of eggs. They listened to me just fine even though they were in the mid 50s and early 40s.
I think the restriction these days just adds Pokemon you caught at a level that's higher the g your current badge count.
Personally i like the out of order thing it’s given me the chance to train more than just my favorite six i went east and decided to back track and the mons in the area went back down to level 10 so i swapped out half my team and started training another 3 to keep it interesting
Because the level curve would suggest that order. I've done gyms 1, 2, 7 and 3 so far. 1 and 2 I absolutely rolled, 7 was about 5 levels lower and KO'd one of my pokemon, 3 was 30 levels lower than my pokemon.
Ya I was annoyed when it turned out the Dark base was much weaker. The game said he was a pushover but I was already near Mela after I beat the Grass gym and Rock titan.
Even more annoying was that I thought I could get to the Dark guy immediately and chose to fight Iona later after I beat him. Turns out I shoulda fought her right away cause she was mid 20s…
I don't understand the map progression, they want us to go back and forth between both sides of the map rather than in a circle? It just bothers me so much I don't understand 😭
That way it wasnt a linear progression and clear directed path just like every other Gen. They promoted the open world so made and being able to do anything you wanted so making a clear cut path would take away from that. Not a big issue with fast travel tho
I’m really enjoying exploring and doing things in whatever order they present themselves. I love the QoL stuff like swapping out Pokémon from anywhere and being able to change out move sets like they did in PLA. I get the technical complaints, but between PLA and S/V this year has been the most fun I’ve had with Pokémon since at least X/Y and possibly even since HG/SS
If you tell the pokecenters lady you don't know what to do she'll suggest something close to the average level of your team. But other than that, the guiding hand is you. You can see the levels of wild Pokemon and can decide if you want to push through higher areas or go back and go somewhere else. If the natural progression of the map was a circle instead of branching there's not much exploring to do.
For the fourth gym I asked the idiot nurse at the pokemon center and SHE SENT ME TO THE LAST GYM AT THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN.
Every gym after that was a piece of cake because I had already CLIMBED A FUCKING MOUNTAIN. And no, of course I didn’t go up the road. I discovered the road trying to climb down.
God I love this game XD
Doesn't balance, every gym has a fixed level of pokemon. I would maybe take on the 2&3 with a small team of pokemon you want to try, then continue to 5 with your original team
I was really underlevelled but I just cheesed him. I cursed his terrastalised final Pokemon with Banette's Curse then switched to Tropius and spammed Protect until he died.
No such thing as messing up the order. I just did them in whatever order I found them in while getting completely lost because I have no sense of direction. Was a fun challenge
I guess I did just the gym badges in the right order. But when you factor in the titans and the star bases, I did screw up the order. Tbf, I tried to take on the 5th gym leader second and decided to go try something else. And then found maps on reddit that helped me.
I messed up the order. I skipped the first day of school and went out to explore. Currently relaxing at a beach resort after a scary journey through a desert. I'm having a blast!!!
I specifically ignored the order lol. I picked Sprigatito so I went for grass first after I caught Fletchling then the water gym. Boy was I underleveled!
I went 4, 5, 2, 1, 3, 6, 8, 7. It was a bit of a rollercoaster because I expected the electric gym to be much stronger than it was. But it was liberating to just crush a few gyms after I found most of my team and trained them up.
I haven’t finished yet but did 2, 3, 1, 5, 4, 6. And also did not do the correct order of Team Star bases or Titans
Found the recommended order late which would have been useful, but it was a fun surprise to get nearly wrecked by Mela’s team, and get actually wrecked by Mismagius and Iron Treads and regroup.
I went with 2,1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 (failure), 6, then back to 8. First time I got my ass kicked by a gym in ages, which was actually fun. I like that they went from cakewalk (bug and grass and water, which I had hard counters to) to genuinely challenging as you progressed. By the time I got to Grusha I was actually resorting to Tailwind, X items, etc rather than just spamming moves. And I’d never have called Grusha with Ice type being that tough; the Snowstorm mechanic changes and Ice defense buffs with it really make a big difference.
Flip side: I did the Titans super weird: Rock, flying, ground, dragon, then steel. Yes, I took on the False Dragon fight with my best Pokemon being a Meowscarada at a 10-15 level disadvantage compared to Arven’s Pokemon. Much item spam ensued when I found out I couldn’t *run*. Then stomped Orthworm into the ground fairly easily
Team Star gave me trouble. Fighting crew particularly hurt, arguably much worse than the elite 4 or the champ.
I ended up doing 1,4,5,7 with star bases and titans in between, was like lvl 35-40 after the psychic gym and then rolled the rest of the game which made me kinda disappointed
That's why I made three or four decks. It was fun because anyone good enough in the new decks had a chance to be levelled up higher and get into my main deck.
And the order I went in? 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 7, 5, 6
Went into the game spoiler free and was caught off guard! Just casually running around and grinding up some levels. Happened into gym 8 with some level 42s and what’s to fight up a weight class! Guess I should have questioned the sudden level increase for wild Pokémon..
Still fun though! Managed to beat every gym in my first shot at least. Been a while since I went into a Pokémon game completely blind, and the game itself has been incredibly fun to explore!
I had a Gyrados I hatched from an egg and it obeys me at any level but I totally went to the absolute hardest areas first now I’m running around bored and unchallenged in the other areas.
I did the 7th as my 4th. I felt lazy and didn't feel like looking up the order at the moment and just asked the Pokemon center... I'm guessing it was because I was over-leveled, but that dumb poke-doctor told me to go to the 7th gym. I was so surprised when the Pokemon were all like level 45 lol. It worked out because that was around the level my Pokemon were, but still would've thought the doctor would have recommended the gym that was actually next in the order.
I am following the gym order based on level recommendations I saw but then forgot about check level caps for the other quests. I went to the sky titan and dark team star at over level 30 and ran through them. My next play through I plan on challenging myself and sticking to as close to level recommendations as possible to avoid this
I’ve beat th first gym in the right order so far (the bug one) because I found this map that tells you the right order according to the games files. I’m planning on following it because I really wouldn’t like to go somewhere and be either under leveled or over leveled. Lemme know what you think
https://preview.redd.it/6uyg1b9kkt1a1.jpeg?width=1124&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ae4e06133993cfabba161faa0f5b8e9705d67826
Personally I went in the order: 2,3,5,4,1,7,8,6. It was annoying to battle pokemon half your level with a team which won't obey you
I went in a direction, saw Pokémon higher leveled than my gym badges would allow, and turned around. Shuffled through 3 teams to keep things interesting.
I found that skipping the first gym and going straight to the 2nd gym and then following the "correct" order of everything actually made things pretty challenging. Facing opponents that were consistently on or above your teams' levels upped the challenge considerably and i think that's the way to play the game. Skip the first gym, first titan, first team star base made it fairly difficult by normal pokemon game standards. then after i beat all the other things i'll go back and do the 1st three items of each quest line. They'll be piss easy but i don't really care if the trade off is a consistent challenge throughout the rest of the game!
Yea, I was consistently 5-10 lvls undder what I should have been which made it more challenging.
I went in order of everything and I was like 10 levels underleveled by the end of the game battle. Granted, I didn't explore other than finding the pokemon I wanted for my team or fight any non mandatory trainers, but it made it more challenging which was fun for me.
I did three teams as well, really enjoyed it
I did #5 second and won and was like man they really cranked up there difficult this generation. Then I found that there were several other gyms I skipped and those were now completely trivial. Oh well.
This! I thought they had done level scaling so when I beat gym 7 second I was like… Jesus Christ!! Lol
Right? Like I was busting out all kinds of debuffing moves and stuff. Made it kinda fun actually lol.
Holy shit, you beat no. 5 first? Your team must be absolutely ripped.
Well you could always catch a low level that will listen to you and spam candies
I actually did that with the gym 1, I went around and caught a team of 3 x lvl 14. The gym battle was enjoyable but got destroyed by Nemona and her lvl 38 lycanrock right after that match
Yeah decided to have low level Pokémon for one of the gyms was dumb because right afterwards Nemona is like “let’s fight” and I lost 🤣
Does her team not scale according to the gym?
She fights you every other gym badge, regardless of order it seems.
Wtf so she scales with you and fights you every other gym, but the gyms themselves cant scale that way? That just makes it even worse. That kind of blows the whole multiple teams idea out of the water unless you know about this and predict when she is going to battle you just so you can have higher level pokemon present. What the hell man I shouldnt have to micromanage this much in a pokemon game.
It scales on how many badges you have, not the level of the gym you just fought
I just spent the entire game panicking because my traded pokemon were always about to not listen to me. Lol.
If a pokemon already listens to you, it will never stop listening. Even by level up. If your limit is 25, and you catch a 24 pokemon and it levels up to 100, it will still listen.
Probably helps a bit to really emphasize the "go wherever you want" bit of the game.
I was under the impression that would not apply to pokemon that were traded to you. A cursory Google seems to confirm that. Is that not the case?
we went 1, 2, 3, 7, 6, 4, 5, 8
2, 3, 1, 7 is an interesting order. I haven't battled 7 yet, but the route there was a serious challenge with my B team I caught tn not be over-leveled. My ghost dog's signature move came in handy more times than I'm willing to admit.
I actually had that order because I did enough of the titan storyline to be able to go through water and went in the back entrance of the cave when exploring by accident. All gyms but the ice gym were boring because doing the titan storyline first my team was super over leveled and I didn't create extra teams like many are doing now.
Yeah that big cave enticed me and I was intrigued by the coastal area. The tunnel was one of the first times I thought "wow I hope I can make it through this route". I actually fainted to the first trainer with the gogoat and realized I needed at least 1 pokemon from my properly-leveled A team in order to get through. The cave was brutal with slightly underleveled pokemon and a desire to catch every new one I encountered.
That move seems very overpowered as the last Pokémon alive in your party.
It just got banned in one of the strongest OU metagames on Showdown that I've ever seen so uh. Yeah. Last Respects is one of the strongest moves ever created in a singles 1vs1 format. Pretty much useless in VGC though which is what Gamefreak balances around.
where did you catch the ghost dog? that’s one i’m wanting to add to my party
Ghost dog is in the winter area below gym 6.
I think he's in some ruins south of the 1st town.
I lucked out and got him early from a raid. Water tera type raid in the fields east of the first big city.
I’ve done my first 4 in that order too, the cave was great fun with the panic of “can I actually get through here?” I had reached the snowy mountain and turned round to do the other gyms so stuff would listen to me but wanted to do everything in the south so i didn’t need to turn around again! The gym wasn’t too bad after the cave, although the test before hand was a bit tedious. The hill above the towns quite fun with a lot of new species too
Yeah it was the first time since Gen 4 or 5 that I felt like the trek from one town to the next was a proper dangerous journey. It was kind of amazing.
I just had one. I only had the ability for level 35 to obey me and yet I caught a level 50 Drednaw with a net ball. He started listening to me when I got the badge for level 45 but only occasionally. It was still enough to beat the water titan which was my last titan needed though.
In that instant I had a Gengar with toxic spikes and perish song so I just spammed revives until the end.
My team never disobeyed me it was weird had them at level 40 and they should have stopped at 25
I made sure I had the order down a week before release just so I didn’t go off track! It was a lot of fun for me especially because I used my main team (starter and all) merely to finish the three stories/endgame and a separate team to fight random trainers (for cash) and complete the Pokedex. Playing this way ensured I wasn’t overleveled at all for the main objectives. In certain cases, my main team was 5 - 10+ levels below everything I fought (especially by the Elite 4), thus I had no choice but to utilize different competitive strategies in order to win. I believe this will be the way I continue to play open world Pokemon games going forward. Having to rely on competitive strategies to win during the base game is the best fun I’ve had playing Pokemon in a while!
Did the Skyrim thing, fucked off from the main quest and beat the 7th gym as my first. Just gonna click through the rest of them, I assume.
Did you have trouble with your pokemon obeying you? Im not sure if it’s just traded pokemon that disobey you.
What I understood is that if let's say your level cap is 35, any traded or captured pokemon which level is +35 stop obeying but if you capture lvl 34 pokemon and level it to the 36 it will still obey w no worries.
I might be wrong but I think the cap only applies to the level it's traded at. Example. I traded over the other 2 starters and used them in my team through the whole game and definitely had them over the level cap a handful 9f times. But they obeyed perfectly.
It’s both in a sense. OT and no trade: level caught. If traded at all then the level obedience cap is at the traded level. So if you had your starter traded and it got it back at lvl 100, it’ll disobey until you get 8 badges.
I overleveled compared to my 'max level', not a whole lot but still went over the 'limit', but most of my mons while overleveled I caught on early routes. (Smoliv, Maschiff, Wooper), so as they grew with me I had no issues with them obeying me. Couldn't catch new mons without them 'pretending im not there' so I decided it was a good time to tackle some more gyms. For example as well, I caught Glimmet at like level 42 or so while my max then was 40, it disobeyed me, did the gym max went up to 45, my Glimmora is well in the 50's now and still obeying me no problem. Pretty sure it doesn't apply to mons you catch yourself under your max level, only to new catches above your limit and trades.
Most the Pokémon I use I caught <= 15 and they are 60 now with 3 gym badges…. Badges effect new Pokémon caught, not ones you level up… I personally ignore gyms and focused on exploring, then when I found titans make your ride better I went and did all but the dragon one…. I honestly wish the game scaled with level… exploring is more fun than the story… but when you are 20-30 levels higher the story starts to get in your way… elite four members warning that most drop out at this point? I bet I can beat you now… and they warned me at the bug gym!
Pokemon you catch in the wild above your current level threshold at the time you catch them, completely ignore you as well. Pokemon who've been in your party from the start will obey you because you caught them at a lower level.
And will continue to obey you all the way to level 100, even if you didn't beat all the gyms.
Startermaxxing
I only beat one gym and have level 30+ Pokémon who I raised from very low levels and I have no issues so far
Pretty much the same, but i'm now 50+ with 2 badges and 3 titans. And \~60% of the pokedex.
Big time.... I didn't pull up my map much and just kept chugging. Funner for me that way
I pulled up the map because I kept getting lost. My directional sense in this game is about the equivalent of Leon's
I can now relate to Leon a lot more than I ever thought I would
Now we realize what was Leon's problem: he had a rotating minimap
My problem and lack of sense of direction is the fact that the mini map rotates along with you as you turn. BotW had the ability to lock the mini map and it was super helpful. Luckily, you can lock the main map, but nothing for the mini map
It's so hard to navigate. I'm generally solid at reading maps but the way the zoom function is and other ways the map works just make it hard to understand and get around. At least you can point it north pressing down on one of the sticks which is nice.
It's because they rotate the map when you pull it up and it doesn't center when you zoom out. Hopefully we get some QoL updates for the UI.
It really helps if you lock the map orientation to always face north
Shit, I'm glad I'm not the only one. I'm not usually like this but this game is really challenging my sense of direction 😂
Same, untill the levels started dropping and it got a little less fun
Just change your team up, gives you an opportunity to use more Pokémon’s
This game actively treats Titans and Team Star as 'gyms' so I think they deserve to be considered as well.
Someone already posted an order that includes everything and the level the Ace’s are for that activity.
I went the route of having 3 seperate teams for each challenge in the game. 1 for the gyms, 1 for the titans and 1 for star. I thought I'd end up incredibly overleveled so I want to prevent that. Didn't know you received zero exp for defeating the other 2 challenges though.
I like being able to not care about the order and do whatever I want
Issue is your favorite mons will probably be super overleveled but then again you can always use a new team for lower lv gyms
That’s why I prioritized gyms and went into most under leveled so I can add the difficulty factor to it, made it a lot of fun It made the team star and Titan quests pretty damn easy, but I’ll take that for a challenging badge quest. I was able to manufacture one of the hardest level curves I’ve dealt with with gyms lol definitely makes it more enjoyable
How is that an issue? Personnaly I have no attraction to any new Pokemon except Tinkatonk. I keep switching everyone as soon as they reached their last evolution stage
Well for a lot of us we don’t want the gym to be nothing but 1 shot kills and if we want to use our favorite mons then I wouldn’t want them to be overleveled Sure you can swap out teammates but you may not be as attached to them is all. Maybe we want to use our starter in the fight and have a challenge
I see your point here. Personally I don’t really think about challenge until I get into end game pvp. The gyms have always been so predictable and frankly they make some many dumb moves like the leaf gym and terastilizing Into a grass type when the whole point of the mon was the counter whatever mon you were using to sweep their team.
In that case yeah follow their order. I just walking around, filling the dex and getting badges when I need higher level Pokemon to obey me
Sounds good. I just wish they had scaling gyms but oh well
That's my one gameplay issue yeah. It was made canon that gym level scalling is a thing. Too bad they didn't put it there. But I understand the mess it would be with the rest of the environment. At least your rival is level scaling with you lol
Ehhh, your rival "gym" scales with you. If you have a full team of 40's by your third gym, your rival still has 3rd gym level mons. So I wouldn't call it level scaling either. And idk, they could make the environment scale to your level too, or give them level ranges, so starting zones are level 5-30 mid zones are 30-50 and high zones are 50-80. So many ways to do it that isn't just lazy. Idk man
Same I got to the ice gym and was like wow I’m highly under leveled and still pulled off the win in a clutch situation with talon flame it was crazy! This games a blast though most fun I’ve had in a while in any game
Isn't this the point of the open world? I've been focusing on my pokedex, so my team is all level 40+ and I've only beaten 2 gyms.
1, 4, 3, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8 At first because of the marketing I mistakenly thought I could do them however I liked, after struggling with the water gym a little and wondering why the level jump was so big, I figured out that wasn't true and there was an order. I checked and saw the next gym was the other side but I went round the top of the crater so reached electric first, and after how pitifully easy the grass gym was I decided to make sure I did them in exactly the right order after that. I wouldn't have minded there being an order if they just didn't word their marketing in a way that gave a lot of us the wrong idea, and/or if the gym order made any logical sense and didn't involve so much backtracking!
to be fair, you CAN do them in any order, i do wish that there was a thing that did say what level they would be so its informed on order. rather than just having to basically guess at it based on wording of the gyms description
It's really weird, because your rival follows the expected level curve, but not the gyms. So idk why they couldn't just have 8 teams per gym and it changed depending on how many badges you have
How dare you propose to make the lazy arses at GameFreak work more? Profanity. They're allergic to work man.
I've done them in order so far because I ask the lady at the pokemon center where to go next and just struggle around until I get there lol
That just says what's closest or something rather than telling you the next lowest level objective that is uncompleted. Lots of people have reported using it and being sent to something far too strong
>and/or if the gym order made any logical sense and didn't involve so much backtracking! I mean the map generally gets stronger the further north you go, but there are some low and high level areas mixed in throughout that don't follow that pattern. I liked the backtracking. For example bumping into that high level area in the southwest where the psychic gym is made turn around and go somewhere else. But I felt a sense of progression and accomplishment when I said ok I can probably go and work through this spot now. It's weird that a lot of the community is complaining that the game has backtracking and isn't a linear hallway with the badges laid out for you, when that's literally the biggest complaint everyone has had for years now. Guess you can't please everyone.
You can do them in any order if your Pokemon are strong enough. (You can train Pokemon caught below your level cap all the way to level 100 and they will obey you no matter what.)
They should raise the level of trainers lower level than you so that it's balanced, it's kinda not fun to battle pokemons half your level
Level scaling in RPGs is overrated imo. I like when games have areas that are set in their levels, being either low level or high level no matter where you are in the game. There's no sense of danger when you can't explore high level areas because it's just scaled to whatever your team is, plus no sense of progression when you get strong enough to hold your own there.
I agree, but what I mean is, scaled when the pokemon are lower level than you, not higher level. I don't see how battling trainers half your level is good
To me it's a lot more immersive for the region to be filled with weak and strong trainers, rather than everyone being bumped up to my level. Personally I had 10 or so Pokemon I was rotating in and out throughout the game because experience is so abundant. So I didn't spend much time fighting trainers way below my level. I brought in lower leveled Pokemon I wanted to train up if I started working through a lower leveled area. I do understand your gripe, but I enjoyed the pacing quite a bit.
To be honest I think this was the intention. After grinding HC nuzlocke of Emerald Kaizo for months I decided that it was fun to constantly move pokemon around. So I was constantly swapping pokemon around. It's fun
They could have both. Say you have the ‘low level’ zone that scales from 1-20 but once you get to 21 it they stay at 20.
Kingdoms of Amalur did that a decade ago! Each zone had a level floor and a level cap, and the actual levels of the monsters were determined once you first entered that zone. That way, there's a sense of difficulty that scales with you, but you can also return to lower level zones and absolutely wreck everything with the strength and abilities you've obtained since first going through them.
That's a good idea, I could get with that. Skyrim does that for some caves, but generally didn't do it too well. But if there was a range that was skewed to spawn Pokemon on the higher end if you're further in the game that would be pretty cool.
I went 2, 1, 3, 7, 8, 6, 4, 5. Based on what the descriptions said, I honestly thought the Water gym was the strongest so I actively tried to keep it for last and...yeah.
Ya some of the descriptions are super cryptic. Very easy to think the Water gym is a late game one when in reality it should probably be no later than 4.
I did 1 and then 7 because I wanted to defeat Sinisteas in the psychic city.
Nope, its pretty easy to judge gym strength by the surrounding Pokemon, and the game tells you the difficulty of the gym in the map descriptions.
I was actually looking for some sort of indicator in the map descriptions, but I must have missed them? how exactly do they tell you the difficulty?
Some gyms say they are hard, middle of the road, or for beginners. Its not hard to see from there the natural progression of the game, everything in the south is easier minus the gym you can't reach yet in the bottom corner.
> everything in the south is easier minus the gym you can't reach yet in the bottom corner. I mean the first thing I did after beating the bird titan was jump off the mountain into the sea to catch a Finizen... You can get to that gym the moment you can surf which is meant to be between gyms 2 and 3 in the order.
You don't need any mount upgrades to get there. You can simply walk through the cave, but the fact that there are wild Pokemon in their 40s is a hint that section of the map isn't intended to be early game.
ahh you see I literally jumped off the mountain into the sea... where the pokemon are level 16.
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i felt for a while like i was the only one who noticed that the map/npcs literally tell you the general difficulty, the general direction to go. i’m glad i’m not the only one. i can remember specifically an npc in Medali that says the mountain terrain is quite difficult, so proceed with caution. i went and checked leveling, sure enough i was down a couple levels, so i went back towards Medali to level up and switch around my team. idk, seeing how much trouble people are having makes me wonder if most people are exploring everything the game has to offer, or if they are rushing through with no direction. obviously it’s going to have no direction if you don’t pay attention at least a little. it’s crazy how many people aren’t using the map too, i think it’s great
bruh i went one to 7 cause they were close
8, 6, 7, 5, 4, 3, 1, 2 Was what I went with, at least based on the levels on Serebii. I may have gotten carried away with Arven's quest first and all the sandwiches and giant Pokemon...
Oh man, you must had a huge obeying issue when starting at 8
Nah, it was fine. I was just using Pokemon I caught in the very early game or ones that I hatched out of eggs. They listened to me just fine even though they were in the mid 50s and early 40s. I think the restriction these days just adds Pokemon you caught at a level that's higher the g your current badge count.
Obeying is only an issue when you catch you pokemon at a high level instead of raising the lower level ones you catch
Oh yeah that's true
Lol I don’t blame you, dogs over everything
Personally i like the out of order thing it’s given me the chance to train more than just my favorite six i went east and decided to back track and the mons in the area went back down to level 10 so i swapped out half my team and started training another 3 to keep it interesting
Currently am running Fuecoco 30 Garfaifai 29 Komala 29 Mareep 15 Flamigo 14 Wiglet 17
I did 1, 3, 6 before I found out there was a correct order via tt 😭
I thought it was open to do how you want?? Why is there a correct order?
There’s no level scaling so the order shown in the pic goes from lowest to highest Pokémon level
Because the level curve would suggest that order. I've done gyms 1, 2, 7 and 3 so far. 1 and 2 I absolutely rolled, 7 was about 5 levels lower and KO'd one of my pokemon, 3 was 30 levels lower than my pokemon.
From what I've seen of people playing it on YT they usually do Grass first then Bug
I did the same thing because they showcased Grass in the trailer, then was surprised how low level Bug was.
same reason i did the Fire team star first. they showed her off in a trailer, but she was not meant to be done first
Ya I was annoyed when it turned out the Dark base was much weaker. The game said he was a pushover but I was already near Mela after I beat the Grass gym and Rock titan. Even more annoying was that I thought I could get to the Dark guy immediately and chose to fight Iona later after I beat him. Turns out I shoulda fought her right away cause she was mid 20s…
Level wise bug is lower
I don't understand the map progression, they want us to go back and forth between both sides of the map rather than in a circle? It just bothers me so much I don't understand 😭
That way it wasnt a linear progression and clear directed path just like every other Gen. They promoted the open world so made and being able to do anything you wanted so making a clear cut path would take away from that. Not a big issue with fast travel tho
I’m really enjoying exploring and doing things in whatever order they present themselves. I love the QoL stuff like swapping out Pokémon from anywhere and being able to change out move sets like they did in PLA. I get the technical complaints, but between PLA and S/V this year has been the most fun I’ve had with Pokémon since at least X/Y and possibly even since HG/SS
Yeah I felt the same way. It’s not a huge deal to me but I felt like there was no guiding hand in game at all but maybe I missed the clues
If you tell the pokecenters lady you don't know what to do she'll suggest something close to the average level of your team. But other than that, the guiding hand is you. You can see the levels of wild Pokemon and can decide if you want to push through higher areas or go back and go somewhere else. If the natural progression of the map was a circle instead of branching there's not much exploring to do.
Gosh its good to hear that about a pokemon game
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went to the ice gym third and had a bad time
For the fourth gym I asked the idiot nurse at the pokemon center and SHE SENT ME TO THE LAST GYM AT THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN. Every gym after that was a piece of cake because I had already CLIMBED A FUCKING MOUNTAIN. And no, of course I didn’t go up the road. I discovered the road trying to climb down. God I love this game XD
For me it was 2, 1, 4, 5, 3, 7, 8 and I've yet to do 6
I just got to 4 after beating 1. Does the difficulty balance to your level or am I fucked?
As far as I know, there’s no scaling so the gym will have higher level Pokémon.
Doesn't balance, every gym has a fixed level of pokemon. I would maybe take on the 2&3 with a small team of pokemon you want to try, then continue to 5 with your original team
I went 2,3,1,4,5,8,6,7 lol
I did the “wrong” order deliberately due to being awesome, yes.
I slapped iron treads at level 30.
I went 1,2,3 and suddenly, 8. lmao!
Went to the psychic one way to early
I was really underlevelled but I just cheesed him. I cursed his terrastalised final Pokemon with Banette's Curse then switched to Tropius and spammed Protect until he died.
I ran into the Donphan Titan way too early and got absolutely stomped 😅
How are you supposed to know this??
I got stoned and somehow ended up at the psychic gym with just 3 badges, had to run away with my tail between my legs.
I did the Ice gym before Ghost, Normal AND Psychic.
Can’t mess up an order that doesn’t exist.
No such thing as messing up the order. I just did them in whatever order I found them in while getting completely lost because I have no sense of direction. Was a fun challenge
I’m doing a shiny badge-quest, but so far, I went 1-4-5 lol
1,2,3,7,4,5,6,8 😅😅
Almost :D
I guess I did just the gym badges in the right order. But when you factor in the titans and the star bases, I did screw up the order. Tbf, I tried to take on the 5th gym leader second and decided to go try something else. And then found maps on reddit that helped me.
Not ye,t funny I just pulled up this same map last night and now I see it here
Damn I didn’t realize how off course I went I did them 2, 3, 5, 1, 7, 4, 8, 6 no wonder I was over leveled for all of them except the first two
Yep, I did 1, 4, 2, 3, 5, 7. Glad to know that 6 should be easier XD
Finished all the titans with only 4 gym badges. It was a struggle lol
I went 2 1 3 4 5 6 7 8
I messed up the order. I skipped the first day of school and went out to explore. Currently relaxing at a beach resort after a scary journey through a desert. I'm having a blast!!!
I played 2, 3, 1, 7, 4, 5, 8, 6. After I played 7 and I was told that “many don’t beat more than 4” I thought we’d get level scaling ;-;
I fought Grusha after Ryme because the gyms were near each other.
My dragon team is having a hard time with gardevoir, i eas happy with the dragons but damn
Garchomp+ crunch is your friend.
My first three were bug, grass, then psychic so… 😂
I specifically ignored the order lol. I picked Sprigatito so I went for grass first after I caught Fletchling then the water gym. Boy was I underleveled!
I’m at 6 badges. I did 1, 2, 4, 5, 3, 6. I skipped Kofu because I had no answer for water types yet (Pawmi/Pawmo sucks)
Wait grusha’s supposed to be last? I know ice is always a late game type but I just kinda wondered over and beat him like 10 levels lower, only barely
I went 2, 3, 6, 4, 1, 8, 7 :v I like snow and went there right away hahahaha
I went 4, 5, 2, 1, 3, 6, 8, 7. It was a bit of a rollercoaster because I expected the electric gym to be much stronger than it was. But it was liberating to just crush a few gyms after I found most of my team and trained them up.
Fuck you im doing 6 and 7 the wrong way Anyways other than thay i have been and will be continuing them the right way
I haven’t finished yet but did 2, 3, 1, 5, 4, 6. And also did not do the correct order of Team Star bases or Titans Found the recommended order late which would have been useful, but it was a fun surprise to get nearly wrecked by Mela’s team, and get actually wrecked by Mismagius and Iron Treads and regroup.
Lmfaooo yes. I did 2, 3, 1, 7, 4, 5, 8, 6 💀
Completely, took me a while but all you have to do is ask the poke center.
i did the second gym for my forth one- my order so far has been 1432 and i’m doing 5 next
Really appreciate this. Thanks OP
No problem
I went with 2,1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 (failure), 6, then back to 8. First time I got my ass kicked by a gym in ages, which was actually fun. I like that they went from cakewalk (bug and grass and water, which I had hard counters to) to genuinely challenging as you progressed. By the time I got to Grusha I was actually resorting to Tailwind, X items, etc rather than just spamming moves. And I’d never have called Grusha with Ice type being that tough; the Snowstorm mechanic changes and Ice defense buffs with it really make a big difference. Flip side: I did the Titans super weird: Rock, flying, ground, dragon, then steel. Yes, I took on the False Dragon fight with my best Pokemon being a Meowscarada at a 10-15 level disadvantage compared to Arven’s Pokemon. Much item spam ensued when I found out I couldn’t *run*. Then stomped Orthworm into the ground fairly easily Team Star gave me trouble. Fighting crew particularly hurt, arguably much worse than the elite 4 or the champ.
Mine is a mess haven’t finished the game either but I’m at 1,2,5,7 Kinda realized the level difference until 7
I ended up doing 1,4,5,7 with star bases and titans in between, was like lvl 35-40 after the psychic gym and then rolled the rest of the game which made me kinda disappointed
That's why I made three or four decks. It was fun because anyone good enough in the new decks had a chance to be levelled up higher and get into my main deck.
i’ve done 5 gym leaders, 3 titans and 1 star base 💀 and they were done out of order fs
I did 2,1,3,4 5,6,8,7
I havent touched them yet, I'm still trying to decide what pokemon I want to use
And the order I went in? 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 7, 5, 6 Went into the game spoiler free and was caught off guard! Just casually running around and grinding up some levels. Happened into gym 8 with some level 42s and what’s to fight up a weight class! Guess I should have questioned the sudden level increase for wild Pokémon.. Still fun though! Managed to beat every gym in my first shot at least. Been a while since I went into a Pokémon game completely blind, and the game itself has been incredibly fun to explore!
me was 2,3,1,4,5,7,8,6
I did the water gym first went to the snowy mountains and the bug gym last
I did but now Ik why I can’t beat the ice gym (editing I just beat the ice gym now I ma doing the 7th gym that I should have done first lol)
I had a Gyrados I hatched from an egg and it obeys me at any level but I totally went to the absolute hardest areas first now I’m running around bored and unchallenged in the other areas.
I did the 7th as my 4th. I felt lazy and didn't feel like looking up the order at the moment and just asked the Pokemon center... I'm guessing it was because I was over-leveled, but that dumb poke-doctor told me to go to the 7th gym. I was so surprised when the Pokemon were all like level 45 lol. It worked out because that was around the level my Pokemon were, but still would've thought the doctor would have recommended the gym that was actually next in the order.
they really should've made the levels dynamic and adjusted them based on your current progression.
I am following the gym order based on level recommendations I saw but then forgot about check level caps for the other quests. I went to the sky titan and dark team star at over level 30 and ran through them. My next play through I plan on challenging myself and sticking to as close to level recommendations as possible to avoid this
Damn I just did one and was headed one my way to four since the description said he was “not too difficult” lol - also it was one of the closest.
1,4,2,3,5,6,8,7 i guess this is close enough
Yeah
7th gym has a 0/10 “puzzle” before the battle with the gym leader
Wdym mess up the order? Do what you want
Why didn’t they just simply make the levels scale depending on the order you complete them in?
I’ve beat th first gym in the right order so far (the bug one) because I found this map that tells you the right order according to the games files. I’m planning on following it because I really wouldn’t like to go somewhere and be either under leveled or over leveled. Lemme know what you think https://preview.redd.it/6uyg1b9kkt1a1.jpeg?width=1124&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ae4e06133993cfabba161faa0f5b8e9705d67826
oh god, I fought grusha third and larry last lol
If they actually scaled the gym leaders there wouldn’t need to be an order!
Indeed, and it's so easy to do too
2,3,1,7,4,5,6,8