Commander

I'm sure Shura would approve

I'm a little bit of a hypocrite here seeing as I started the whole discussion but I feel the concept is just going around in circles at this point. It's not going to be added in E16 if at all and it's gotten somewhat off topic. You could easily flood a discussion on IVs in Reborn City given their importance to a large number of players. Believe me when I say if it keeps going on here a mod is likely going to step in sooner or later. So to kind of push all of that debate out of the way, it looks like Reborn is going to look really polished up with all those animations added in since as of right now, fights look very stagnant. Though if you want a laugh, I remember when animations consisted of straight up Fire Balls for Pokemon Raptor Ex. Oh the good old days of when most Fan-games of Pokemon consisted of hacks or were really glitchy. How far everything has come since then.

...Whoops, that was a my bad moment. I kind of forgot to delete that when giving the option to make Ciel either doubles or singles...and it seems like I forgot to edit that whole thing fully for the gym guy as well. Lovely. I'll get to fixing that though I'm surprised this one had errors compared to the Radomus one where I had to do that 8 times. I'm glad you found Ciel to be difficult because it took forever to get her to where she is now as she's a mix of both performing and defensive maneuvers. For every gym leader I create a checklist and I make sure they are able to fulfill everything on that checklist. Like you have no idea how happy I am someone found Ciel tough after 65 revisions. I have given her almost every flying type that isn't a dragon and tried out every single Pokemon idea possible and she still did not work too well. That skarmory also has one of the most hilarious stories behind it. In the beta, she had a Skarmory which didn't have sturdy and died so much it was scrapped and replaced with that Archeops. Knowing this, I didn't bother with Skarmory the first time. She's among the weakest of the leaders imo, but she's leagues above her regular reborn team minus her nerfed Altaria (that thing did not get a level increase from Reborn same as Terra's Rawrchomp).

IKR? Just waiting for the gym leaders are too easy topic to come in. But really there is only one thing that would make a gym battle be consider difficult which I call bullshit difficulty. BS difficulty basically means a boss can one shot everything effortless or in Serra's Case back in EVIII, pretty much dodge everything to increase her damage output (the hax level was very annoying and it took forever to replicate that difficulty). Right now, no leader falls into those catagoeries though Pre-nerf Aya was borderline. You can complain all you want but Ame designs the game for a certain level of experienced players. I ain't going to make an easy mode for the game either as that's not a good use of my time. Reborn gives you plenty of warning ahead of time not to run just one or two mons and especially overlevel and ignoring it pretty much creates these complaints. Game makers design their games in a way to teach players and punishment systems definitely help improve the experience.

What if I told you that I wasn't' the champion of CoM

I suppose we should go a bit more into the pokemon or moreso what differs between IVs and nature despite both being genetics per say. Here's why the nature changer works the way he does: he can mortify/put a pokemon through very immoral conditions to make it's personality flip. Kind of like seeing how a child can be scarred for life simply by watching someone be murdered in front of their eyes type deal. IVs are a little bit different since you were born with them. You can't simply have some guy say he can change them easily/randomly as it wouldn't make sense. Yeah, they could make the Pokemon work out, but that's kind of what EVs are for. There is one unusual thing in real life that can be used as a real life base example of making someone stronger without the use of exercising: steroids. That's kind of why I was hinting at a tonic idea to boost a Pokemon's IVs if we should do it. I wouldn't want to randomize them, but the ability to boost them a smudge. Believe me +4 to an IV stat doesn't impact the game all that much but pleases perfectionists. My personal playstyle is that I could care less about IVs (though I do gripe about being IV screwed hard), but after seeing so many people reset due to poor IVs, and almost all requests in request a mon ask for IVs above 20, it's mostly something for people to think about. Now I'm just repeating myself here a bit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Though interestingly enough, I'm just hoping E16 isn't the nightmare of exploration as Episode 14 was when we all got dive. I swear the sheer amount of time I wasted trying to explore everything in those mountains only to be blocked by waterfall. If I have to go through that again with rock climb at the bottom of the lake after 3 years of waiting, I will probably be spamming rage boxes in the status.

We think it's nuzlockeable we just don't know XD. Someone's going to do it eventually though but probably after a large number fail I tried something for Pokemon events, but I have to look at the coding a bit more to see how Ruby does the class system. The only thing I can't do is remove the breeding moves so you could have a Gyarados with Ice Punch kind of janked up. Leaders are going to be easier if you randomize them since they won't have custom movesets. This is going to sound a bit confusing, but if you use a regular save of Reborn for CoM (it's just Reborn Hardcore with a lot of added content to it) you need to make sure two of the following happen after you leave the CoM (These maps do not exist in Reborn so do not open vanilla reborn if you're in the CoM): 1. Go and fight a battle, probably wild, and make sure you can use items (if not you need to lose an earlier fight in CoM) 2. If you manage to defeat the champion, do not save afterwards These two factors are currently using something called switches which Regular Reborn has a very good chance of using right now. I'm going to fix this issue for E16 so it won't be a problem for future episodes hopefully permanently. As for the save files, you'll need to switch the save to a different folder that should be called Reborn Hardcore which is the CoM thing. To access the CoM you need to talk to the bookcase in the Grand Hall.

Hardcore does not release by Episode but by features or adjustments. The original release of Hardcore took about a month I'd say while revisions/expansions clock in about 20-40 hours each and I generally get those done within a week. I'm still working on CoM but I should have all the touchups and polishing done for E16's release. Pretty much grinds down to what days I don't have anything going on and I pretty much just work on that. Generally I'm a bit faster than Ame since my area is focused on gameplay experience, not an entire game. Modding by definition is taking a game and doing adjustments to it. At one point Reborn Hardcore used Reborn's save file system, but now it has it's separate folder and save area (Reborn saves still work fine). I do add some coding to the game as it's needed, but most of it is basic level. The bulk of my work goes into designing the bosses of Reborn and refine them as best as I can so that we don't go through heaps of AI idiocy. I seriously try for that. So yeah, I'm really picky if I have someone else work on fights. Though recently I've been fixing sprite positions to make it look more polished. As for adding people to Hardcore, people can freely use any coding/concepts I implemented in the game (most of it is marked with my name). I'll eventually say something about this but since I'm not the greatest coder, I would be ecstatic if someone could fix/touchup the coding in a couple areas such as the Randomizer and Level Limiter. If someone wants to contribute a little bit (or Beta Test), I'm definitely not going to turn them away but I may ask a couple questions beforehand. I will accept assistance in anything but battles (and concepts to a degree) even graphics/spriting aka fixing the flying Megas (and maybe some custom graphics).

Gonna hop on the questioning the miscellanous area. I'm not questioning your score, but your reasons behind your score, but it's nothing too bad. 1. Uhh...that's kind of like saying I should change my name to Mahogany for the Hardcore version for the sake of being in line with the game. The game was based off of the community which is half the reason Ame is in the game. Though the leader names are puns or related to their type so maybe that's what you're looking for here. Never really liked the Professor Tree trope but that's me. 2. That's RPG logic you're trying to deal with. I mean I was in a discussion with people where I said they either were holding back with their ace or they have multiple teams (both of which are very likely true) since well you can get an opponent of any status facing them. That's a fault of RPGs in general though it is a fault to the game. 3. I have the entire route 1 path memorized because it wasn't until recently we had the quick warp Tauros. I don't feel like all the puzzles should be solved every single run though, but man some of the sidequests were mind boggling (especially the Mudkip/Squirtle). It's still classic seeing me fail at Shelly's Gym puzzle even after doing it a few times. 4. What if I told you, you could change the music through the Poke Gear...(but I never noticed the bike problems because I hated using the bike for the lag attacks) 5. I agree here, but I always use the medium sized screen since well, I do a lot of different things other than the game. The volume is another thing so I'm glad to see that's being added. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyways, welcome to Reborn. Glad you really like the community and hope you make yourself feel at home though if you're on a computer you're probably at home. So maybe I should jot down a few of the things like my favorite mon just for humor: Favorite Starter: Bulbasaur. Grass type, Sleep Powder, Chlorophyll, and a good Mega. What's not to like. And it's a really good tank which has really grown on me recently Favorite Pokemon: Ninetales. Not to be mistaken with Alolan Ninetales. I don't know why I really like Ninetales, but it's probably due to getting a male one in a Ruby Nuzlocke and it kicking butt. Ever since then, I've used Ninetales quite a bit for OU matches. Favorite Type: Psychic. I like to play mind games so this would be my obvious choice Also you're a lot nicer than I'd be if I do a review of Reborn once it's completed.

Hold up a second there with the whole Exp and IV caps thing. Let's not turn them away or reject the idea just because it's not in Reborn right now. Hardcore doesn't have this problem as much, but training a new mon bogs down both games and using the Exp Share pretty much guarantees you're underleveled. Since the exp share is available so late in the game, it'd actually not really hurt it that much if the pokemon holding the exp share gains 100% of the experience vs the normal 50% it does. It's hardly broken compared to giving 100% exp to all Pokemon. Yes, you could possibly manipulate it to have all your Pokemon grow faster, but level caps are a thing. If you would've said something about adding the ability to change IVs 5 minutes ago, I would've turned the idea down right away. I looked at how you were able to do it and it was through something called a Golden Cap. While I don't like the Golden Cap itself (personally I would make it +10 to all IVs...which is still insane), I like the idea of being able to boost your IVs. It's just like stat enhancers in Fire Emblem. Giving smaller version of these caps throughout the game (maybe a soda shop or invisible items) that give +4 IVs would acknowledge a hidden fault to Reborn. IVs apparently matter to players because even I have started resetting a bit when a mon has crappy IVs. This would certainly be a welcomed change so I wouldn't have to worry about being IV screwed. That's just me. Edit: I didn't realize we were talking about X&Y's exp system and thought GF got smart and changed it. I basically only look at Sun & Moon news once a week if at all so I'm way behind there. Still think 100% exp share (instead of 50%) to one mon is not a terrible idea. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyways, gym leader matches and CoM are centered around two completely different concepts. CoM is mostly a pseudo imitation of the league in-game in which I can do things that break reality normally (if the 4th wall wasn't enough as is) as it's pretty much meant to test your team and see how strong you really are. While it could be post game, I decided its going to be unlocked after receiving all badges. Gym leader rematches merely focus on a single leader being really difficult though that's easier said then done once everything is available. I don't know if Ame is giving them only the X-league teams for rematches (I mean it'd save me work on my modding stuff). I don't know how expansive Reborn's postgame will be which I have a feeling we're going to cross the level cap due to that. While the player leveling is fine from what I've been calculating in future episode leaders, there's one thing I did not think about: the champion's levels. Yeah...I kind of did not think about that until a week ago so I already know I'd be in trouble if I only allowed Hardcore to be at 100 (so opponents will be above 100 while you can only go to 100 type situation), but Reborn has 5 levels (more like 3 now) on me. I just would rather have a well paced game that breaks the level cap rule than a rushed 1/3rd of a for the sake of keeping the levels proper. It'd also be fun giving competitive people headaches trying to comprehend above 100. Pokemon has always focused on collecting mons and now skew more towards being a battle sim sacrificing much of their RPG elements. Reborn is a RPG and longer than most.

Every time I see someone crying tears of pain against a hardcore leader. I suppose I could list a few such as Emolga the Ghost Slayer, Alakazam the AI hax lord (This was Episode 7 where the AI was apparently marginally better mmmkay), but one stands out above the rest in my original run of Reborn. Freaking defeating the Haxlord Serra after so many misses (and also why I kept break brick on scrafty thank the lord). I think that's the first and only time I really grinded in reborn. The second run was probably Roserade the glass canon who saved my behind so many times such as the Aster and Eclipse final fight glitch where Aya kind of just disappeared off the face of the earth. That thing one shotted so many mons (Like 7) and saved my behind to get out of that mess. Charlotte (yes the Charlotte that everyone claims is the hardest fight ever) was cakewalk compared to that hell. The hardcore runs there are just way too many of them to list though I played with the Randomizer run and catching that Garchomp is going to be fun times. Dragon Rage Garchomp = dead Julia.

@Nick: Admittedly, it does work for Hardcore mostly because I thought that was an error in episode 15 where Samson should've raised the cap instead of Luna given Radomus got a huge level nerf along with her to make up for the level drought. (I mean Radomus is the same level as Noel kind of nerf). That just helped make the process a bit more streamlined imo since Agate is a Point of no Return so having too much exp vs too little is very important there. EV spreads are like comparing fruits. I like oranges (128/124/128/128 split) while let's say ame like apples (252/252/4 spread). They taste different but that doesn't mean one is better than another. Generally for tanks I try making them a bit more two sided tanks since well in-game tanks don't work quite like they do for competetive since the ai doesn't like to switch, the player can freely switch out something that can destroy, and the weaker defense really shines out. It's a case by case scenario doing it my way vs a 252/252/4 where it's easier to figure out, and usually works. I suppose it's my FE experience where I don't sacrifice defense for offense unless the mon is super frail to begin with. EVs are easy to do, but there's not a right way to do them. Hardy is probably going to be the next Hardcore Shelly (hardcore players know what I'm talking about) where everything but his ace is ridiculously well built. If he can get set up that is. The trouble is setting up for him though so that'll likely be my challenge when we get their. Ciel just needs better AI since that's the second biggest factor holding her back (the first is all her best options are taken by someone else). Trust me when I say that we haven't hit the wall when it comes to difficulty yet (without breaking the pokemon rules), though admittedly I feel uneasily way too close to it. Bending the rules is a very ambiguous term as it means breaking the rules (believe me I want to give Ciel a legendary like Articuno so, so badly but I can't). It's a term I use since it means giving the opponent something the player can never acquire such as a Volbeat with 71 base Sp Atk instead of the normal 31 or so it gets. It's a topic worth diving into as it'd allow for some mons who are complete jokes due to a certain fault (since many were designed for player, not computer use) actually be viable or be used again.

Level adjustment themselves are pretty easy as someone made a code online that does this and he has given permission to use it in Rpgmaker games. I used it a modified version of this as kind of a test to get a feel for it. Anyways, the person doing an easy mode of the game has to define what an easy mode is. Is it a simple vanilla reborn with teams cut down a few members? Are some feature removed or adjusted such as the complete removal of the level cap or even field effects? Will experience be easier to gain as levels will be slower paced? While some of this can be done through scripts, the bulk of it should be done through the PBSfiles which technically you need RPGmakerXP to change it. It's quite a bit of work especially given the size of Reborn.

First thing I was going to give a long explanation (enemy being higher leveled =/= more difficult). Second, I already did that for hardcore and it basically had zero effect on the game (tbh, it was probably a really good move since Radomus was 58, Luna was 62, and Samson was 65). Exp shortage really just limits the variety used (which has benefits) so the level cap encourages using new members since you'd be wasting exp. As for EV spreads, they've been 252/252/4 since Charlotte which people could argue that it has made the game even easier doing that. Let's just say that for many fights I had to reallocate some EVs using a calculator just to up the difficulty a bit. Very convoluted process (though once you understand it, it's pretty simple), I don't feel like explaining. There's really no straight answer in how to fix the difficulty as it grinds down to whether or not you want to bend your own rules. Admittedly, I'm willing to bend some only within fair reason and nothing drastic (mostly just something for Hardy). The system can only do so much though. The best course of action is to make sure the fights are fun, maybe even unique, and still provide a challenge even if it keeps getting easier over time.

I mean messing with experience at this point would really only affect the endgame levels and not the difficulty imo. Stat inflation is my last resort. One thing I am considering for hardcore should we hit the difficulty drop to rock bottom is adding an extra restriction for the leader fights. One leader could ban shift, another healing items, and whatever else people can think of. I feel that'd be a bit more welcoming than a leader being 10-20 levels higher than you.

If you want a real kicker, Ame (or whoever does the fights) actually inflates the Pokemon levels more than I do. In fact, the aces of all the leaders from Radomus on have not increased in level (maybe Luna's) from their original release level. So technically aces have been nerfed a few levels for Hardcore based on the fact players would be higher level for the fights. You will also learn that people like me to eat my words as I thought monotyping this game was impossible but surely enough people proved me wrong. Heck, I didn't even know if Solaris was even beatable at a point because his team is really good for that point in time. Someone even beat CoM which was another thing I set up to be insanely difficult (they even said it took many resets for that last fight though).

Just as a rule of thumb, always carry a version of either regular Reborn Ep 15 or nonCoM version Hardcore on hand just in case. E16's Version of CoM is going to be a lot safer. Admittedly, I thought I caught all the errors since my beta testers and I literally have the worst possible time schedules where our availability didn't line up so well which kind of led to me getting this all fixed ASAP. (Admittedly, the Taka & ZEL fight is why I uploaded it so quickly). Soo...yeah, I'm going to need a few volunteers for beta testing for Hardcore when E16 rolls around so PM if you're interested. I'll make a better announcement for it when the new thread comes around (likely going to be here based on the poll). Once that thread is up, I'm going to request this thread be locked pronto. Likely soon. I just want to make sure we have a stable version of Hardcore CoM before creating the transition (and getting the green light from the mods). So what's the new thread going to look like? Well I'll be the OP so the download links as well as the info in the first post will always be up to date. The bugs list will be listed and updated as I go, though I won't include too many of the reborn related ones. I will also include contact methods such as an email (not my personal one) so that non-members can ask me questions or report bugs should they wish. Tags will also be added to the title whenever a new release is up.

i think I might know why but let me take a look at RPGmaker for a minute. Theoretically it shouldn't do that but due to adding an event anything is possible I suppose. Yep, RPG is really weird how it treats players and other events so it should be fixed when I reupload it. I'm gonna guess heather is frozen in place causing the game to hault due to an invisible event for a sidequest later. Edit: I just wrapped up the hotfix for any of the huge errors that came out. Sorry about this but I haven't had the time like I used to for looking for bugs in the game and I've really expanded and what I do. Without beta testers, it's gonna be hard to promise this won't happen again but I'll try to be more cautious. Anyways here's the list of bugs fixed (and Links): Hardcore CoM 1.51 Mega Mediafire So yeah, the randomizer is working now \o/ So I can cross that off my list. If you're waiting or not planning on playing for a while, I'd probably wait since this is just a hotfix for some of those game breaking errors discovered.

Here you go. Just a rule of thumb is that with nature I don't know if the override command can be overwritten since well its called override for a reason. I had to go through like 20 of these things so hopefully you like them (generally I try to get a nature that doesn't really hurt them).