hepengild

downloading now, looking forward to playing!

This looks great!

As an intense mode fanatic, I wholeheartedly agree with this decision. Everything that this post has addressed is true, especially the importance of your enjoyment when developing the game. Not only that, but it's no question that intense mode will be implemented and updated by the modding community pretty consistently. The people who want a challenge mode can fine-tune their own version of it, while the developers get to shed some stress. It's a win-win for everyone.

Wonder if this problem is exclusive with Aero? Currently fighting invisible Aero myself, lol.

Hey. I'm playing through V13's story right now, and during the flashback with all the potential protagonists, the game is bugging out. I chose Aero at the beginning, but the protagonist talking to me about the past had Aevis' playermodel. While they had the wrong playermodel in some scenes, there was no model at all in others. When Crescent got pushed off, she was pushed off by an invisible talking force. What could've caused this bug?

I found the smack-down strategy to be null in v13, as it requires two smack downs to change the field and Souta can change it back in one turn with heavenly wing.

I think one of the major issues in regards to difficulty aren't necessarily the battles themselves, but the amount of grinding required to do each aforementioned battle. In a perfect world, the Pokemon you've previously trained up to this point will be entirely capable of taking on the next gym. Of course, this isn't the case for intense mode - you need to train up an entirely new team for each battle, crafted meticulously with the sole purpose of overcoming whichever specific boss/gym you're going up against. Now, this isn't a bad thing. Problems only begin to arise when people get to the grind. Scenario: I would like to beat this gym leader. I know, for a fact, that if I catch (insert Pokemon name), I'll be able to defeat them without issue. Catching the Pokemon isn't enough. Now, I need to spend hours grinding EVs and ensure that my nature and IVs don't hinder a potential victory. Luckily, this issue is already being addressed by the developers - EV training rooms are open earlier; alternatively, you can use the debug menu to completely forgo grinding. This is my method, as I don't enjoy grinding EVs. Thus, I don't personally have complaints about the grind anymore, as I don't have to do it. Either way, I understand how irritating it must be for some people. My primary complaint lies within the AI's ability to read your Pokemon's movesets, reacting accordingly. This was an issue with items that, thankfully, has been addressed. Nevertheless, the AI will do different things depending on what moves you have on your Pokemon. It doesn't matter if you use the move, the AI is entirely aware of your moveset as soon as the battle begins. There's also an argument to be made about how the field effect changes restrict gameplay options. I never utilized field changing frequently, but now I don't have much of a choice, even if I wanted to. You'd be able to make a team that could play in the changed field, making the fight a lot easier. Now, I have to specifically play in the opponent's field, utilizing other strategies. You can argue that field-changing trivialized gym battles, but now people are just trivializing the fights in other ways. Changing the field was a legitimate strategy, so I'm not sure why it's seen as a bad thing. I suppose it depends on what you mean by "trivializing" a fight. I just fought Ryland on intense - I built a team around setting up on his Nidoqueen. Set up spikes, stealth rocks, sticky web - afterwards, I set up three sword dances and an agility on my Diggersby. I proceeded to sweep Ryland's entire team with STAB Strength and Earthquake. Should we be trying to shift out strategies where you set up a sweep as well? I'll agree that pre-V13's field changing is probably the most easily accessible strategy. You train up one team that works in grassy terrain, you can use it in every fight. While I don't have very much personal experience with the field changing, I'm curious to know how much it actually trivialized gym fights/other battles. Intense teams are still incredibly strong, even if they aren't playing on their own field. I think there's just an identity issue for how difficulty is meant to be perceived in this game. It's a Pokemon game, so there's not much you can change fundamentally about it. Do we want clear cut, defined strategies for each gym leader? What strategies are deemed illegitimate and should be nerfed/shifted out of gameplay? What actually makes things more difficult in a Pokemon game? As it stands, people are still doing very specific things for each gym battle. Seviper is good against Venam. Swoobat is extremely powerful early game. Hariyama is great against Keta. A team of normal types beats Narcissa. So on and so forth. For each gym leader, you build a counter-team. There aren't really any exceptions. Overall, I'm very open minded about Rejuvenation's balance. I really want to see how it continues to flesh out, and my curiosity is piqued in regards to what the developers prioritize when it comes to this game's difficulty.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I ended up beating him by using explosion on the Hawlucha and then using his Thundurus to set up Stealth Rocks and Screens. Afterwards, setting my Magneton's Electric Terrain was a priority. I was able to ensure that the terrain was changed on the exact turn that Souta's first tailwind ended. After this, my Alolan Raichu was able to use Nasty Plot and tank a hit from Thundurus. With the Nasty Plot boost, sweeping his entire team turned out to be pretty easy, as he kept his Braviary (along with his second Elemental Seed Tailwind) as his last Pokemon. All I needed to do was ensure that Electric Terrain lasted long enough for me to sweep.

This would definitely work. I kinda made a dumb decision, though. I never grabbed the Buizel from the pier.

That's unfortunate. I'm struggling to find a way to crack open his team, otherwise. Is there any way to leave GDC before beating him? There are a few other strategies I could definitely try, but the only way I see myself winning with the Pokemon in my possession now is getting lucky with Focus Band Talonflame, setting up Tailwind and Stealth Rocks, killing Hawlucha, and then attemping a Nasty Plot sweep with an electric terrain setup and Alolan Raichu. Only issues I'm seeing are that Dragonite revenge kills Raichu after he takes out the first Pokemon by using extreme speed. However, Gliscor's the main threat - I can't think of a single pokemon I have access to that can reliably take him out. My water types are all slower and all get one-shot, even with tailwind up, as their base speeds are lower than Gliscor's.

Field effect manual for v13 still says that Gale Wings is buffed, too. Active all the time. Guess I really gotta mess around a bit to found out why, lol.

I thought it was the field as well, but I even cleared the weather with cloud-nine and then used smack-down to change the field. Still couldn't get gale wings to activate, oddly enough. I'm convinced my game's bugging out. Was going to do some more experimenting today to see if I could get it to work.

Just got to Souta on intense. Planning to oneshot Hawlucha with my Talonflame's acrobatics and then setup tailwind in the next turn. Not sure why, but I'm not getting priority on my flying type moves. Any idea as to why?

Ahh, Blastoisinite being removed makes a lot of sense, considering how strong it would be with shell smash. I wasn't sure if it was or not.

You can now relearn Shell Smash for use on Blastoise due to his Gen 8 moveset. Paired with Mega Blastoise, he becomes an absolute monster.

To add on to this, the AI definitely read your items. I was testing around with Florin's grass whistle. Without fail, Florin would grass whistle the pokemon who wasn't holding the chesto berry. If the pokemon was out on the field, no matter what, Florin wouldn't waste a turn using the grass whistle on whoever was holding the berry. I was personally a bit distraught by finding this out. I could play around it and still win the battle, sure, but it's kind of distressing to know that gym leaders have this kind of omniscience. I think this may have been already known for a while, though.

This is exactly what I've started doing on intense. It feels less like cheating and more like not wanting to submit to the EV grind for hours at a time. I check the gym leader's EVs on the Wiki and set the EVs of my Pokemon to the same amount. I agree with everything else you said. A lot of the time, even if I do EV train and get the perfect IVs, I'm still heavily relying on my RNG. Debug just allows me to actually play the game and experience the difficult battles at a normal pace, whereas I'd be forced to sit in an EV training room for hours/breed Pokemon if I wasn't using the debug. In fact, I *only* have the party debug on my save, meaning the only thing I can edit are my Pokemon's EVs, IVs, Nature, etc. The necessary stat grind isn't fun for me, personally, so I don't subject myself to it - it's not something that keeps me interested in playing the game. I'm sure other people enjoy it, though.

I play set mode, intense, no items. I completely agree. I love a challenge, but the necessary preparations that are required for battles can be kind of immersion and fun breaking. However, I refuse to play on a lower difficulty - I enjoy it nonetheless, but I recognize and am distraught by the flaws. The difficulty curve, due to the nature of Pokemon, feels a bit artificial. I don't get to really use the Pokemon I'd like to - I get together the Pokemon that beat the specific gym, cheese the gym/wait for RNG, and then move onto the next gym. Rinse and repeat. For Venam v13, I grab a few poison types and make sure to get the Seviper. For Keta, I grab Swoobat and Hariyama. Narcissa, just trying to get past the Drifblim by cheesing with Flash, Hariyama is great against Marianette, along with stored power Xatu. Pyukkumuku helps a lot against Valarie. Wide Guard Throh against Angie. Shell Smash Crustle against Zetta-Geara. In v13 specifically, certain Pokemon have been moved to a later point, like Swoobat and Lycanroc. This just means that battles that could be managed easier before, like Angie and Zetta-Geara, are now harder. It truly comes down to just cheesing the gym leader with a mix of hard countering them, removing their field, and then praying for RNG. It can be really mentally draining. Got the winning team? Yep. Now I just need to wait for RNG to work with me. This is especially true with the special field effects, making certain Pokemon types completely ineffective against the gym leader. A field that makes fire no longer super effective against grass types? Well, now my team is full of bug, flying, and ice types. In most cases, you'll have to cheese with some obscure Pokemon you don't care about.

LETS GO

I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me when I saw it hop all the way up to 97%, lol. I can't even *begin* to explain my how excited I am.

I absolutely adore this compromise. You're doing a fantastic job!

How does one unlock the Cellia fight club? Really wanna get Deino, but I have no clue how to get into the fight club. Finished the Steel gym at this point.

YOO I WAS HAPPILY READY TO WAIT ANOTHER FEW MONTHS! I'm so excited to play!

Hey there! So I've been messing around and theorycrafting for what I want my team to look like in the future. The team I've got sitting in my party right now is Heracross, Marshtomp, Salazzle, Krookodile, Sylveon, and Bisharp. I was planning for it to look like Heracross, Starmie, Darmanitan, Garchomp, Gengar, Bisharp. I figure I won't need a fairy or electric type if I have coverage moves on Starmie, which'll let me deal with dragons and water types. Heracross covers fighting and bug STAB, Darmanitan for a powerful fire type. Garchomp to replace Krookodile (as much as it pains me to), for a more powerful ground type, while I still have a dark type in Bisharp and Gengar for ghost/poison. Am I missing anything? I figure Gengar may be obsolete with Bisharp, so should I go for a flying type like Aerodactly or Staraptor? Another way I could probably go with it is keep Marshtomp in, but I wont have electric coverage anymore, so I'd need a grass or electric type. Anyways, I'd love to hear what you guys think!

I know about it, but I wanted to see if I could beat him without EV training deliberately! I've gotta say though, I think I'm going to spend some time training from now on, it'll definitely make things easier in the future.