Oh my goodness gengar gracious
All right, so after reading dondon vs the world of a topic I want to first say that I think you make some very well-reasoned points. I think the community is naturally getting defensive as anyone might when a game they like comes under critique, so I thank you for your patience in the discussion.
This discussion began with a lot of points and split out into a lot more, so I'm going to start with the first post and then just respond to a few things after that. Gotta try it keep it all Simple and Clean.
A change I've wanted to make since the day/night system was implemented. Unfortunately when it decides screen tint it considers everything from hemisphere, to date and timezone, meaning making these changes is not as simple as it should be. In short, I don't presently know how to do it.
Side note, thunderstorm intensity has been taken down in an E13 weather rework brought to you by your neighborhood sightless sentinel, so that part might be a little better.
First- I try to limit walking distances being too far at any given time with the assorted shortcuts that open up, but that can only go so far. Even just coral-ward to beryl ward can take a few minutes, especially with "lag-hell Peridot." Incidentally, the city has been broken up by now, so the lag is largely removed.
There are some parts in the story that don't do very well with this; For instance I've been considering removing the part where the player walks to Jasper to get Cut. I originally had that to 'show' player Jasper and not just have extra dialogue, but it isn't worth running through the slums once and peridot/opal twice.
The removal of Abra and Ralts had nothing to do with teleport. I'm not going to remove a field move just because I occasionally make careless glitches because of it. That's my fault and can be fixed. Mostly.
After Aya, there is a teleport option available in ralts. Baltoy is a challenging potential before then, but as weak as Natu is I don't want it in too early because of Magic Bounce. Baltoy could maybe be around the Shelly gym part of the game without causing too many issues, but that's only a few episodes of difference.
The fly thing: To correct what was said in a reply, Fly will not be the last HM obtained (I might have said that previously; Rock Climb was added since). Fly can't be obtainable earlier for some story/technical reasons that will make sense when the time comes.
Fair. I don't want repels to be entirely absent but I'll take a look at the placement.
A few comments:
-- The level curve of the early-game is balanced for a team of 6. If you're using fewer than that, then common candies are expected; I don't think that's avoidable.
-- Being ~10 levels below Samson is normal and expected; Unfortunately I had to jack his level way up to make him challenging, but I'm hoping EV control and AI improvements in 13 will help him, since despite that he's one of the easiest leaders yet.
Isn't that good to let the player decide if they want to fight those or not? It can be frustrating for players who don't want to, and then if they do later want to train up some levels, the trainers will be there. A solution I would sooner take, as such, would be to increase the number of optional trainers.
However part of the reason there are fewer trainers at this point is because I'm trying not to run into the level 100 hard cap. In fact, for this reason I've been considering reducing the number of trainers in the early game, especially the pre-first two gyms, to match, rather than the opposite. I'll learn as we get further into the game what my risk of hitting the 100 cap is.
So I agree about the event pokemon, although I do usually try to keep to that to not seem strange, it isn't always worth doing so.
I do not currently agree that the level limits should not always be 5, because that becomes rather unclear to trainers and will be harder to remember than it already apparently is. The feedback by whomever, it might have been you, that the faq is just checked every time anyway, is valuable. I know now that I need to find somewhere in-game to display the level limit for each badge-- I'm thinking the Trainer Card will be easiest. Once the level limits are readable in-game I could consider non-5 limits.
However even in that case it probably will not have the effect you are hoping for. I'm more likely to scale down early trainers and gyms, than up. Most players fight Julia around level 15 but I didn't want to hard-cap them at that in-case they are playing at a type disadvantage *cough water starters* and need extra levels as a crutch. (Incidentally, since there's now a ton of lightningrod pokemon before Julia, that may be unnecessary too). You are correct it would make managing the level limits from later gym leaders more sensible.
Actually, that kind of was the purpose. With Pokemon like that that are relatively strong for their part of the game I lower the level to discourage everyone picking them up out of convenience. My hope is that the levels are in a range that people who want to use that Pokemon because they like it won't mind putting a little extra time into it, and that people who would just be using it because it's 'good' will think twice before committing to it.
With something like Joltik I would not normally keep the level below but I feel like it doesn't make sense to have a level ~40+ Joltik that has just decided to not evolve for whatever reason.
Wild levels are much the same. For new species, I don't necessarily want people to just level it once and it automatically evolves, so I keep some species low for that reason. By now we're at a high enough level that that doesn't matter for anything not from Kalos, but I seem to have made a habit of making newly-introduced species lower-leveled for the first area they appear in. My reasoning is as above; if people like it they'll catch it anyway. Otherwise, should it really be on-par with the team they've been training all game?
Should it be? I always thought of it as one of the most valuable potential side-quest rewards, so I saved it for a rather involved quest. So what is actually the benefit of the EXP share? It saves some time, and it saves your stronger Pokemon one turn of damage from the turn they switch in. I don't mind time-saving. But I think by the time we get the EXP share, party pokemon are strong enough that a player doesn't have to worry too much about those extra hits, which would have been considerable in the earlier parts of the game. As such, I don't want the EXP share being in too early.
I'll be the first to agree that tedium is best removed. I don't think grinding should be part of the game's challenge. Honestly the only thing that challenges is a player's patience, which I'm not looking to do. the pace of pokemon's battle system does that plenty enough already
I can see how this intention conflicts with some of my comments about pokemon levels and the exp share. I think I need to prioritise some values here.
Although I don't mind people running services like these, I'm not sure I agree with prescribing them as a solution to a potential gameplay flaw.
I um.
I think a speed-running version would entirely defeat the point of speed-running.
I attempted to make it so that teleporting from the circus takes you back to the circus entrance, but I don't believe I was successful.