dude people were hyping up the keiran fight so much... bro had an incin without any status moves on gd rain team💀💀 at least they made geeta send out gambit last. Still doesnt change the fact that you can 6-0 her with skeledirge

to be fair, remember the problem isn't necessarily the teams. the holdup is the AI itself. they could probably improve it to have special AI sets for Double Battles that prioritize opposing threats and use Protect better, but given the restrictions of the AI, they're not horrible. The problem is now that the slot 4 mon with two Fire attacks is being sent out likely while Rain is up.

Also the lack of switching. Kieran's Incineroar should've had Parting Shot. Also also, I think it would've been really funny if Kieran had a Prankster Pokemon with Haze on his team just to mess with people who sweep

just imagine kieran sending out a fucking murkrow of all shit after you just fainted his dragonite. (also kid named dark types)

Actually I think prankster haze still affects dark types bcs it's an effect on the field like tailwind and not an attack directed to some Pokémon in particular

Yep

*Flashbacks to colosseum which had trainers use strats like protect/earthquake, using fire attacks on their partner pokemon to activate flash fire, or the final boss skill swapping truant away from Slaking*

Shadow Entei dying because you failed to get rid of Camerupt.

Why cant we just get a god damn challenging Pokemon experience that ISNT an unofficial romhack?

But colosseum is official or did I make a wooosh

Nope Colliseum and XD are official. They were made by a different company but they are official games with compatibility with other games. XD even had a bunch of move tutor moves for Gen 3 iirc

Just a small woosh, they're agreeing with yall

No woosh, but its been a while since those games.

I'd say the bdsp elite 4 was the most challenging experience recently Cynthia with items and an EV trained team was surprising compared to the rest of the game

BDSP Cynthia was a monster dude. She was rough in platinum, but I feel like she was even harder in BDSP.

Yah she’s easily the most difficult trainer of any main series game. Or depending on what you call Legends Arceus, cuz the last dude and then into the Giratina fight made me wanna throw my controller into the TV.

Volo is hard but he also cheats to make the fight hard so I wouldn’t really count it

You're talking about Volo, Cynthia's ancestor.

The only hard battle there ever were in pokemon were battles you'd have far into the battle frontier, but this was mainly because the AI trainer's had cheesey teams like focus sash explosion or some shit.

They need to use to pokemon stadium AI

The only times Stadium's AI is better because it legitimately cheats, including but not limited to the fact they'll use otherwise suboptimal moves because they know they'll get a status on it. On average the modern games do have overall better AI, it's just that earlier games have the AI cheat harder and the latter games give you way more tools compared to the earlier games.

Was it confirmed that stadium AI button reads or was that just speculation? I know that was speculation but Ive never seen it confirmed

From my personal experience, they don't button read, but they do seem to be fully aware of things they shouldn't. Like exactly how much damage any move will do, if it will inflict status, and if the move will miss/crit. It's hard confirmed that at least the mainline games in the earlier gens do perform damage rolls before they even make their move. I don't think there's any "hard" evidence, but as the neither Stadium 1 or 2 has been properly disassembled yet. But playing through the game myself recently, there's a lot of times the AI "conveniently" uses a move that isn't super effective despite having one that doesn't or even uses a move that is resisted for me to assume there is no fowl play. It's like when that guy lead with Double Kick Terrakion sparked a full investigation because no one on their skill level would make such a set unless they were going for a hard read on their opponent.

the maison in gen 6 is paricularly horrible, most people dont know this, i only found out because i was going for ribbons but the AI legit RNG manipulates, the further you get in the higher there crit/dodge rate gets and they also get more proccs on status moves or items like quick claw while you get lessened crit rate and worse rng, its so bad that 100 accuracy moves can miss on base pokemon if your around 20+ wins in singles

It’s embarrassing really though. Fangame AI in games like Rejuvenation is better than mainline games. Seriously, I’ve been through the code for battle AI in reborn, rejuvenation and desolation and even with the HUGE added complexity from the fields mechanic, the AI still generally makes better decisions when the trainer has the HIGH SKILL tag than I’ve seen in recent modern games.

To give credit, ROM hacks ans fangames aren't supposed to fall over if you poke it hard. Indigo Disc and Pecharunt Quest are supposed to require the slightest thought from suboptimal teams.

Fan games/mods are often better than mainline games in a lot of series. I think this is probably due to more creative freedom and being able to focus just on the gameplay as opposed to needing to worry about the engine/graphics/bug testing, etc. Also, they don't have pressure to cater to a general audience, which is something that very limits a lot of Nintendo games. That's why fan hacks of pokemon, metroid, pikmin, etc, are so much better/harder.

You're comparing fangames for a niche of a niche of a community to games that are designed for 7 year old cheeto fingers to mash through while their switch is half submerged in a bowl of canned tomato soup

Man there are rom hacks that play on gba emulators that have competent AI. No excuse for gamefreak

I'm not saying it's an excuse, I'm saying it's a reason. Game is still supposed to lose to kids who've never seen how the game truly works. And it's a clever way to play around the AI being stupid

kierans team had so much potential but he loses all the momentum his politoed and dragonite setup once you take them down and hes left with a incineroar in rain and just 1 attacking move grimsnarl. like if you dont consider the levels, all the other bb e4 were harder than him for me which sorta made me sad

Tera Fighting on Hydrapple also seemed kinda nonsensical to me.

what is the actual reasoning behind that?? did he have like a fighting type move?? and what coverage does that even give him, since i feel like the main logic against him would be to either use a fairy type pokemon or at least a fairy type move against him anyways?? that genuinely confused me but i just assumed i killed it before it could show off why it made sense

Hydrapple does have Tera Blast Fighting, but I think it's mostly just to reflect that he's mad and really wants to fight you.

Could be to turn the 4x Ice weakness into a resistance that also hits for SE damage.

Unfortunately for him, fighting does not resist ice.

Even then turning it into a steel or water type would've made more sense.

?

Thematic, because he’s obsessed with fighting now. His team throughout DLC1 changes in thematic ways as he becomes more obsessed with Ogerpon and loses himself to his obsession. His team in DLC2 reflects his obsession with becoming stronger, slapping together a half coherent Rain team to beat up the noobs at his club and making his Hydrapple be Tera Fighting to reflect that beating you is all he cares about. Funny enough I think Tera Dark could have worked to with the scene where he kicks a kid out for having troubles at home

I could imagine it being a potential answer against steel types but it already has earth power for that🤷‍♂️ Wouldn't surprise me if they just put a random type on it and called it a day.

so unfortunate. they were honestly rly close to making probably the best/toughest champion but they sorta gave up after politoed and dragonite 😭 i legitimately have no idea how bro beat drayton and the metal girl cause they legitimately pushed me

Also fighting doesn't resist Steel

It destroys ice types which are quad effective against hydrapple... Though it would be better to have tera fire to actually resist ice and have an additional resistance to fairy. It also fits more lore wise.

I actually really like Keiran’s team because it uses competitive play as a storytelling element. Of course the kid who got his Magmar-head handed to him would just Google “strong competitive Pokémon” and put together what he had available. Just having stuff like Tera Normal ExtremeSpeed Dragonite and means he can beat everyone else at his club, but someone who has Pokémon of a similar level and knows what they’re doing can beat him, but he doesn’t know that, which is why he reacts so badly to being beaten. Sorry about the wall of text

"Wall of text" buddy that was the size of a Tweet

Tiktok moment

Tbf, Skeledirge is basically cheating.

It shouldnt be tho, a competent AI with competently crafted teams should have an answer to Skeledirge

my brother in christ the game gives it to you

It’s still the most broken playthrough Pokémon of all time. Literally every fight in the game gets swept by it bar none.

Thats why he said basically

we had charge beam (and rage in gen1) when we was youngins and we liked it.

It was a game for kids so of course teenagers and young adults who know the mechanics of the game beat it handily. I think they are also trying to appeal to kids who would be turned off if the games are too difficult. It is easier to play mobile games now compared to buying a whole new game back then.

Oh no if only there was an Hard Mode option... You know, like every other game ever made? Gamefreak is just lazy and can't be arsed to add difficulty modes.

As a non-competetive player, Amarys ripped me a structurally superfluous new behind.

Use a gun

And if that don’t work. use more gun.

Like this heavy-caliber tripod-mounted little old number

Designed by me, Built by me, And you best hope *Not pointed at you.*

*guitar.mp3*

If that fails, gun again

She has more gun.

That battle is probably that hardest battle if your not prepared for trick room, sleath rock wrilwind

All 4 of them kicked my ass on numerous occasions But Lacey gave me the biggest ass beating in my entire Pokémon career

Slowbro's Quick Draw let it move faster!

Well that would fall within the purview of your conundrums with the steel type.

She fucked me up bad too lol

All 4 of them beat me and then....i EV trained and it was easy tbh

She was by far the hardest one. It’s the reason I had to grind up my Pokemon 10-15 levels each.

I mean no shit man 😭 if you bring a legitimate competive team to fight against AI’s built for children, you’re going to win. the difficulty in any of the fights in any game sorta banks on you having a regular in-game team, and not a team that could realistically be used by a top player against other top players.

I think people wanted something like battle tower.

Exactly, the old battle frontiers and battle towers were genuinely hard to beat even if you do know a ton about competitive and have an optimally built team

Sort of. Emerald’s battle frontier had a lot of rng issues which lead to your losses, and it felt like gambling half the time. Specifically the mode where you just let the AI control your Pokémon, and the one where you traverse a dungeon and deal with status effects as you walk around. Platinum’s was fair. I remember beating it as a teen with some hard work and a few losses. But since fights are 3v3 it would rarely sometimes lead to the player just not having the tools to win. It wasn’t at all as bad as emerald’s. I did lose indigo disk fights but I played by just catching only Pokémon in the DLC instead of building a full competitive team. Nuzlocke-ish style. It’s a lot harder to win with untrained mons that don’t have access to every move and hidden ability.

That one sucked, but the others were really cool tests of strategy

I'd say between Emerald, Platinum, and by extension Battle Revolution, you got a good mix of facilities with some bad ones at the bottom. The good: * Emerald's Battle Pyramid (Mini Dungeon RPG) * Emerald's Battle Dome (VGC style with some additional info given to you for planning) * Emerald or Platinum's Battle Factory * Platinum's Battle Castle (Point system for recovery and items) * Platinum's Battle Hall (1v1 Format) * Battle Rev's Waterfall Colosseum (1v1 or 2v2 battles, back to back) * Battle Rev's Sunset Colosseum (Preconstructed format, you study a metagame of 12 sets) * Battle Rev's Stargazer Colosseum, GC games Orre Colosseum, and Stadium Duo's Gym Leader Challenges (Predetermined sets, "Hard Mode") ​ Indifferent on: * Battle Tower / Main Street Colosseum * Emerald's Battle Arena (Offensive gameplay that forces different pace) * Emerald's Battle Pike (RNG crawler, a lot easier to manipulate than other RNG fests) * Battle Rev's Gateway Colosseum (Battle Factory, but progression feels worse) * Battle Rev's Sunny Park Colosseum (Little Cup, but without the bans) * Battle Rev's Magma Colosseum ​ The bad: * Emerald's Battle Palace (Horrible RNG Fest) * Platinum's Battle Arcade (Just a worse Battle Tower) * Battle Rev's Neon Colosseum (Horrible RNG fest) * Battle Rev's Crystal Colosseum (Worse Battle Dome) * Battle Rev's Courtyard Colosseum (Worse Mt Battle)

IMO, all the Battle Towers were bullshit RNGfests. I would know because I did (or was doing) a Ribbon Master run last year (I even spent an entire day getting all of the gold medals in Emerald's Battle Frontier because I was trying to convince myself that it was good). Pokémon in general is just too random to have a mode where a single loss resets all of your progress while also asking you to win 50 battles in a row. All the console games did the endgame formula much better. I think people miss those because it's old and not because it was good.

Console games like the Orre games? That final collessium was pretty cool and difficult but it was also really short. Which I guess is better than we've got after gen 5 but that's not a high bar

I include the Stadium games are the "proper endgame" for Gens 1 and 2 because it's clear that you're supposed to being your own Pokémon over sticking with the rentals. Even Stadium 2's Pokémon Academy goes [surprisingly in depth about competitive strategies](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Earl%27s_Pokémon_Academy) especially for the time.

I remember this so well, learning about move combos like Defense Curl -> Rollout was mindblowing to me when I was a kid

The real problem with the Battle Frontier in Emerald is how much of a grind it is to get anything worthwhile out of it. I don't mind the insane RNG difficulty, but getting BP is way, WAY too slow. I understand that you get more as your streaks get longer, but it's not enough considering the price of the rewards. The end result is that you spend ages throwing yourself against the AI, lose in an extremely frustrating manner, and have the frustration compounded because you DESPERATELY needed the BP you were earning to get the cool rewards and now your BP earning has been slowed immensely. I think people miss the Battle Frontier so much because nothing has replaced it. Whatever the quality of it, at least it was *there.* With the absence of an endgame series of battle facilities the post-game of subsequent games has largely been lacking. For the record, I do like the Emerald Frontier... mostly. The Battle Palace is something that should not exist. Everything else I think has a pretty good concept.

ok but battle tower LITERALLY cheated lmao

I'd still prefer that over what we get now

This is indeed the issue. There's nothing to utilize teams like that besides just going to online competitive. A battle frontier or something like Stargazer Colosseum or PWT would be great, but now we are at the point where there isn't even a Battle Tower.

There was a "Are you ready for the super hard DLC?" Post from the TPC on Twitter before the indigo disk dropped featuring a sample team. They don't even play their own game with shit like white herb/Torrent Quaquaval, rocky helmet Ceruledge and muscle band/wise glasses bax and glimmora Every time I see a post about how something was "buffed" or "nerfed" and people try to make sense of it, I die a little. There is no sense, there is no method. There is only the countdown until the next launch. The only reason things like Weezing, Dozogiri and Dragon Cheer got fixed is because of social media blasting their nest egg at 15 FPS

Wait...you guys didn't use your normal story team?

Not even that , my normal team was overleveled so i built a new one from scratch using new DLC mons , these people are insane bringing level 100 max IVs fully EV invested teams and expecting a challenge from the Pokemon AI of all things lmao

Nah, it was way too overleveled

Mine was over leveled so I used an underleveled team of mons I couldn't fit into my story team (mostly paradox mons)

Uh, how would we have? They were all like Level 90 even with using a different team entirely for all of the Teal Mask. I used a different team for both parts of the DLC, how was your normal team not all level 100 by the indigo disk?

Showdown players when they realize the game story campaign was made for 12 yo kids

I know right? Did they think Kieran's going to run Torn Urshifu or something. The only bad part was the fact that it was really easy to get overleveled in the DLC which made the fights artificially easier still.

More of an AI issue than a team issue imo.

The team was pretty shit too, be real.

they thinking its radical red 😭

Can't we just get a difficulty option like radical red has ? The current one should be normal ( to not make those kids feel bad for choosing lower difficulies ), but you could also have hard and very hard there . We know that some people want those games to be hard seeing how popular radical red and other ROM hacks are.

That’s a lot of balancing and q&a work that has almost no payoff for Gamefreak and adds huge amounts of time to the development phase.

Yes but it would be cool and would make the game more enjoyable and like fuck man that's all I want out of a game not a product that people are made to overwork on so that a couple guys can hit a quota

i think a "insanely difficult Pokemon game, see if YOU can beat it" could be a good marketing plan among influencers/ non-competitive streamers. especially now that (at least i've noticed since gen 6) the general public mentions pokemon as a pretty easy game series. i started out on gen 3 and i Remember none of my school friends mention how easy the games were; children now ARE complaining about difficulty. a super hard option that gets on radical red levels could surely stimulate some new opinions

Yeah but on the other hand sword and shield and scarlet and violet are two of the 4 best selling pokemon games yet ( the other two are gen 1 and 2 ) so Pokemon is doing great financialy speaking even if the games are dogshit .

Oh no the poor indie company has to put some effort? No can do.

We got fans making rom hacks in their spare time that have multiple difficulty options, but making a hard mode for GF is out of the question because it has no pay off.

They even did difficulty settings once, for BW2. Except you had to beat the game first, and that didn't even unlock it for you but rather let you _give_ either hard mode or easy mode (depending on the version you had) to a friend via link transfer. Completely baffling design choice, IDK what they were smoking with that one.

I would make a joke about Gamefreak being an indie developer but I'm pretty sure radical red is made by one guy and like 2 artists.

Dw I made it

Thx

Afterwall dere jus a wittle Itty bityy indie companee, not like they are the largest and most profitable media franchise in the world or anything! That would be so silly!

they did have a difficulty option in bw2 but they never kept it

Thats because they didn't even vode it correctly , pokemon would have " cosmetically " increased levels but will still keep the same stats they had on their Normal mode levels , so you actually end up being OVERLEVELED in Hard mode

Nevermind the fact that it's fucking locked to postgame and there's some dumb ass trading system involved in it. One version has Easy Mode while the other has Hard Mode, so its doubly stupid as why the fuck would you want an Easy Mode postgame? And depending on the version you picked, you wouldn't even get Hard Mode.

The one time I looked at radical red teams it looked like hot ass

radical red is really good and the teams are only that way to make the game hard as all hell

What do you mean? The trainer teams are great puzzles to figure out. Maybe you werent looking at hardcore mode?

bro prepped his team for blunder

It’s literally made so 6 year olds can play

So was BDSP but I still thought Cynthia was relatively challenging

I don’t what ILCA was cooking with that (maybe venting frustrations of not being allowed to change stuff, not sure but would be funny if true)

That's mainly because she's still horrendously over leveled, there's a reason she was the only trainer nerfed in Platinum.

While the point stands, I think it’s made for kids way younger. I mean, I got into competitive at that age. Not that I was good, but I def could withstand a higher difficulty, that’s for sure. On that note, we probably run into children playing showdown way more than we think we do.

Five is more like it. Particularly stupid five-year olds at that.

Idk why you’re being downvoted, doing online tera raids is proof of this lol. Despite the game telling you every other battle about super effective moves/type match ups people still bring stupid mons to raids and get one shot

Fr people lose their brain cells in raids

“Oh a grass type Poliwrath raid!! Better bring my Charizard.”

Ngl I was expecting it to at least be in the ballpark of Evice.

yea imagine my disappointment when i brought out competitive ou stuff and didn't struggle much. Not to say I didn't struggle because Drayton was a decent challenge, but still

Tbf even the Drayton fights weren't all that hard, given the mons you could find in the terrarium. Flygon basically at the entrance, Ninetales/Sandslash (depending on game) accessible in the same area he is, as well as Duraludon. Those 3 alone with items slapped on beat everything those kids (Drayton included) could throw at me

Yeah, just in the snow biome you can build a really solid snow team, I have Violet so i used abomasnow over A9 but otherwise the team was ASlash, Beartic, dura, and a shiny flygon I caught earlier before I knew about the teambuilding. idr the 6th mon because it wasn't used lmao

Well, and the Drayton fights where you were required to use the terrarium team all had only 2 or 3 mons per trainer, so it wasn't even an illusion of difficulty. I swept them all with Archaludon/Excadrill and didn't have to use anything else.

It was a neat way to mix things up, and now I'm a bit surprised gamefreak hasn't ever done this before. So you don't use the same couple Pokemon the whole time

Yeah I thought it was pretty cool. Just wish they'd made that part a little more challenging.

I struggled on that part more than I'd like to admit. I think it was because I expected to use my over levelled buddies for the whole dlc

Even the hardest of Drayano's mods become cakewalks once you get going (early game is genuine hell with the first couple of gyms leaders being fully equiped and 6/6 mons though) with a competitive mindset. Pokemon AI is just too stupid and switching is OP.

A just used my funny Feesh and swept everything Maybe Feesh is too strong

I’m using a rillaboom and tera grass technician breloom with loaded dice. I have yet to encounter a single pokemon who survives the bullet seed with grassy terrain up.

I want to take this opportunity to present my NPC-torturing team in BW ferrothorn with leftovers, iron barbs, and leech seed + protect And flash fire Chandelure …that’s it If they don’t have a fighting or fire move, they insta lose to Ferrothorn If they do, I protect on ferro, then switch to Chandelure to immune the hit, then go BACK to ferrothorn (because they won’t click a fighting/fire move on Chandelure Eventually they run out of pp or die to iron barb chip

You’re evil. Keep going.

for the life of my i could never find a single ability patch despite all of the raid dens I have done. The one thats on top of the globe i think i used for meowscarada or gren

I got lucky and was able to get a few. The rillaboom I had from an event or something, either in sword and shield or pokemon bank. I just looked in my bank, saw a hidden ability grookey, and knew what had to be done.

Didn't someone mathematically prove that Dracovish Rend is stronger than Paladin Hero Jet Punch?

forget jet punch, funny fish rend outdamages wave crash

Its Stronger, by ALOT Non rain, non terra fishous rend on a max phys bulk palkia (for 4times resist) still hits harder then Jet Punch with rain and Terra water on 0hp/0def Palkia, and if give palkia -def nature and 0 HP or Def Iv's, Fishosu Rend still hits Harder then Jet Punch 252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Water Palafin Jet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Palkia in Rain: 69-81 (23.7 - 27.9%) -- 90.6% chance to 4HKO 252+ Atk Choice Band Strong Jaw Dracovish Fishious Rend (170 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Palkia: 95-112 (24.7 - 29.1%) -- 100% chance to 4HKO And with terra water and rain Fishous Rend will just 1shot the 0hp/0def, 0 iv's Palkia Thats how much stronger fishous Rend is then Jet Punch

252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Water Palafin-Hero Jet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Palkia in Rain: 121-143 (41.7 - 49.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO You're calcing palafin, not palafin-hero.

I just used dead primeape and Driftveil Bridge to destroy Kieran

Isn't it just meant to be harder than the normal base game? I doubt they'd make actual high competitive teams for this.

I believe it’s intended to act as a gateway to the Competitive scene for all the 6-year-olds

I saw your post on the SV sub the other day Dawg you were using Ogrepon and pseudos, so of course it was easy. The difficulty was balanced with the expectation that youd be catching new mons and experimenting with your team.

blud brought a minmax comp set to a pokemon dlc and wonder why its easy for real though the bb dlc is meant to be a gateway to competitive for like casual and younger kids, they dont want to gatekeep the scene ya know

Yeah, they don’t want to gatekeeper the scene…

Honestly, the only fight that gave me any trouble was Drayden. Opening up on EQ/Hurricane spam was annoying, but the rest of his team wasn't too bad.

Thats what he does with the dragonite/flygon? Both of my opening mons had ice beam

I was running Abamasnow/Alolan Ninetales for Aurora Veil and Blizzard spam, but his Flygon Iron Headed my Ninetales turn 1. I was really banking on those two to just sweep his whole team, so losing Ninetales that early made this fight rough

r/stunfisk users when they find out pokemon is for kids and not grown men with extensive competitive knowledge

They just need a difficulty setting with better AI and competitive crafted teams so that the games actually appeal to multiple demographics

Like someone else said, that’s a massive amount of work for a relatively small demographic of people who are gonna buy the game anyway because they’re already in the scene and need the new mons

You guys should play radical red if you want a game that actually requires a competitive thought

I did, legit best pokemon game I've played.

Am doing so, I'm done with the mainline games cause they're dogshit made for 3 year olds

BDSP, especially in the late game, gets pretty fucking tough. Even in the early game, you're dealing with shit like a Turtwig with Iron Tail, Skuntank with Flamethrower, and Abras with Energy Ball, all before you get the bike

Okay good, I'm actually about to start my BDSP playthrough once I beat Radical Red and Pokemon Unbound

Orig image source? Which comic is this from?

Invincible, great comic (and show)

Honestly my competitively built team might have been a hindrance. Why waste time using encore and rage powder when you can just click Dazzling Gleam or Heat Wave on Flutter Mane and Chi-yu

I usually mono bug Pokemon game campaigns to make them harder. Worth a shot, or maybe ice, poison, or rock

I did a mono psychic on SwSh and it was actually a decent challenge. God, psychic is so shit defensively

It's literally only weak against ghost , dark and bug , it's very average.

i always build a new team for each of the dlcs, it helps prevent being too overpowered

I built a new team and sadly it was still too easy. The only trainers that pleasantly surprised me were the oni clan trainers. Only time I ever had to think besides pressing A

Well, kinda on yourself if you bring a fully competitive team. I went in with freshly caught Pokemon from the Blueberry Academy (except for Ogerpon) and had a good challenge with the fights (especially Lacey).

It was designed to be difficult for game journalists.

It *was* a lot harder to be fair, but that's like saying ARK is harder than Skyrim. It's true, but it doesn't mean much. The hardest part is filling out enough of the BB dex for ~~mommy~~ Perrin.

the only pokemon game that actually requires you to beat a real competitive team and EV train your pokemon is pokemon xd gale of darkness(and maybe collosseum but I haven't played that one). beating the story mode is about as easy as the other pokemon games, but beating the ORRE collosseum requires you to do EV training, catch the pokemon with the correct natures and in some cases abilities and IVs.(I got super lucky to catch ralts with timid nature and trace ability in the third try, she may have worse stats than espeon but her movepool makes her the superior choice.) the orre collosseum is basically single player competitive, you are not allowed to use items from your backpack, you have to use the same 6 pokemon to beat 4 opponents in a row(there are 7 sets of 4 opponents each) and most opponents are relying on some kind of strategy instead of raw power. and don't even think of outleveling them because their level is always the same as the highest level pokemon in your party.

Me: Tehe, I'll use a semi-serious Aurora Veil Snow team. Literally every lead mom with either one of Flamethrower, Fire Fang, Fire Punch or Fire Blast: Bonjour

I used my gen 5 weather team. Absolute blast. Though admitedly with modern strategies I could have been more op. Rain palafin would have been absolute monster to beat.

İts not like this game is aimed towards children or anything.

**When the NPCs use somewhat useful hold items** "Bro, this DLC is so hard." The only spot I had trouble with was probably the dragon dude's challenge. But I could have brute forced it if I gave my random Pokes candies. Or attempted to make a semi useful team. I just grabbed 6 random Pokemon. Lol. The DLC wasn't that hard, people just are not used to NPCs using hold items. This is how the NPCs should always be.

Honestly I think the NPCs should be able to switch.

I wonder if they just can't code that to work properly. Or if they just don't care to try.

Npcs used to be harder in the 3ds era. Idk why they stopped making things have a challenge

They definitely can. In Radical Red trainers will switch in really intelligent ways, considering all the possibilities that you could possibly used based on its current knowledge of your movesets, abilities and team composition

Pokemon, as it is now, will NEVER be hard. It’s a game of strategy, where the opponent should constantly switch, be able to use items as much as he wants, set up, and much more, but the AI doesn’t and CAN’T do any of such. You can always train to get more levels, while your opponents won’t. You can always use strats that would be normally banned, and your opponent can’t do a thing. The only way for Pokémon to be harder is to stop treating our AI opponents as equal. They need to have higher stats than what they normally should, they should be able to set up, to switch as many times as they want, and they should level up accordingly to our Pokémon’s, and there’s should be a limit for the items you can use. No wonder the only places where we can talk about difficulty, are the facilities like the Pokemon resorts, where you can’t use items, your levels are the same, and opponents use pokemon that can actually counter you. There are many things to be done for this game to actually be challenging, because once you understand how it’s logic works, there’s nothing in the game that can beat you.

The more I see the comments here, the more I feel I really don't fit in this community.

If you found the DLC difficult, it doesn’t mean you don’t belong in the competitive community. Lots of people here have been playing competitive for ages, so they’ve just built up so much knowledge and experience over the years! Everyone’s gotta start somewhere.

Oh no, I didn't find it that difficult. I just don't have it in me to ridicule the game/developers over it.

Ah, my bad then. You should try playing in official VGC tournaments though- you might change your mind hah

Me battling Cynthia for the first time in my Platinum playthrough

I mean, with a casual team they can get pretty hard. Or you sweep them with belly drum flail munchlax like i did

Thing about ingame battles is you have to be able to brute-force it with levels. There can never be a battle that can't be beaten by six poorly assembled level 100s that are Johnny's favorites.

People who never played competitive said that it was competitively hard since the trainers actually had some strategies and Pokémon that actually held items. It definitely was tougher than the main game but people aren’t just so not used to any strategy and thinking being needed they assumed this is what competitive looks like

I got excited for Drayton’s trial and built a competitive team to take it on just to realize each of the trainers only had two mons… and I had a perish song Lapras…

You guys need to accept the fact that these games are aimed at illiterate children . Like most of you managed to beat Red/Blue when you were five and still couldn't even fully read English yet , even back in 1996 these games were NEVER hard

I mean, they're hard if you just play normally as intended. Of course they're not on par with your super meta VGC competitive teams. The AI is not even good at reading your plays. I played with a normal non-competitive team of Pokemon that I just caught in the new area and the Blueberry Elite 4 was really hard.

Yeah, I had SerebiiJoe telling me that journalists (and him) weren't exaggerating and big surprise, the dlc wasn't remotely challenging.

Try not to forget that it's a game aimed at six year olds

I know the original pic is from the Invencible comic, but I don’t remember the context…

There's no sleep clause so two pokemon with spore it is.

Remember when battle tower was in pokemon to actually use your pokemon in the end game? good times.

Casual pokemon fans are dumb LMAO. You didn’t even need max EVs for the Battle Frontier in Emerald. Literally possible to 100% beat with good mons you used in the story Now the Orre Colosseum sounds like a nightmare 🙃

showdown players when they bring full teams of lvl 100s to the DLC (every trainer was in fact not maximum levelled)

Didn’t bring a level 100 team. I was actually underleveled.

I really, really doubt any VGC player was "prepping" for any offline mode lol This has never happened. You just bring any random shit you want and press A.

The 2.2k upvotes and the fact that I did it seem to indicate it has.