Quality of Life Suggestions

[lqsx]

With the previous blogpost on reducing Reborn’s late-game grind (THANK YOU), it seems like we’re approaching a game where a competitive-grade team is available without the time wasting hurdles of the past. I’ve got some suggestions that can bring the game closer to the goal of reducing tedium:

 

After meeting with the move relearner, move deleter, pokemon psychologist, egg move nursery, day care, and name rater for the first time, they give you their contact information so you can use their services at any time from the pokegear, saving us from potential tedious walks across the city (or from Charlotte’s gym all the way back to the circus >:[ ).

 

Get the contact information of the salon’s friendship checker, an EV checker, and shiny researcher that you can call to get a heart scale from when you show them the appropriate maxed out/shiny pokemon. This lets you get heart scales naturally from playing the game as intended, switching out team members rather than having to stop what you’re doing and going to the lake house to fish up luvdisc. The player gets rewarded for using the new quality of life features to build up more team members instead of forcing them to choose which of their 10+ pokemon to use their last heart scale on (or more likely just not using them for fear of encountering a better opportunity later on).

 

Make the pokemon psychologist and move relearner free if they’re used enough. You guys have shown your willingness to eliminate the late-game money treadmill by making the EV reset discs more expensive but permanent in one of the comments on the dev blog post for reducing grind, so this seems like a natural next step.

 

To prevent abusing EXP candies to immediately boost entire teams to the level cap the moment it gets raised, consider making EXP candies flatly increase to a level (EXP candy 50, EXP candy 55, etc.) and new upgrade them (to a “recommended level” for the upcoming gym leader) after plot progresses. With the much easier EV training and my proposed ease of access to the move relearner, egg moves, and pokemon psychologist, boss fights will probably be comparatively much easier, but I don’t think this is a huge problem. The edge in stats gives extra leeway for bad RNG or blind play before the player screws themselves to the point of being forced to reset. (With a poorly statted team and/or imperfect knowledge of the opponent, I think reborn is a bit too trial and error-y for my liking, even after my third playthrough)

 

Rebattlable trainers aren't always easily accessible after the point where a gym leader/boss becomes fightable. Charlotte is the biggest offender with Routes 2-4 + caves, but battles like Bennet + Luna, Aya, steelix, Devon, and Titania+dragon have their mini-dungeons (I'm not sure if you can even escape Titania's, Steelix's, or Devon). This makes stocking up on EXP candies before their fights a chore unless you stocked up beforehand. Warps like the Route 1 angry Tauros would be much appreciated.

 

There are also a few quality of life items that would be nice to have, many of which are from existing mods, but would be nice to have an official implementation for the majority of players that don’t use them:

• Pickup bell: To be held by a pokemon with pickup to be notified that their pickup item has been auto-added to the bag like in the SWM modular modpack (early game)
• Infinite use repel (would be most useful before the long mountain section after Route 2)
• Infinite use encounter bait (preferably gives priority to available pokemon that having been caught, would be nice to get when/before the pokedex completion quest is available)
• Analysis lens (key item, lets you see stat boosts during battle)
• Infinite use pokedoll
• Substitute doll (for activating HMs from the bag)
• Passive flame body item (similar to the shiny charm) or insta-hatcher
• Upgraded EV training items or EV Max discs (nightclub rewards)

 

New bag sections (the current layout gets real crowded, even with the sort function):

• 'Training items' (EV reset discs, EXP candies, rare/common candies, vitamins, ability capsules, nature mints, bottlecaps)
• '(consumable) Quest items' (job applications, ill-fated doll, floral charm, etc.)
• 'Evolution items'
• 'Held items' (EV boosters, plates, choice items, gems, weakness policy, etc.)
• 'Field items' (repels, fishing rods, wailimer pail, itemfinder, escape rope, activate HMs from bag)
• 'Sellable items'
• Multiple registered items on different hotkeys

 

(also was the crit rate changed to gen 7+'s 1/24 (from 1/16)? I know Pokemon Showdown had this wrong for a while.)

 

Edit: Make all the game corner items accessible through other means if this hasn't already been done
 

Edited July 21, 2021 by lqsx

[JDMM]

On 7/13/2021 at 3:25 AM, lqsx said:

With the previous blogpost on reducing Reborn’s late-game grind (THANK YOU), it seems like we’re approaching a game where a competitive-grade team is available without the time wasting hurdles of the past. I’ve got some suggestions that can bring the game closer to the goal of reducing tedium:

 

After meeting with the move relearner, move deleter, pokemon psychologist, egg move nursery, day care, and name rater for the first time, they give you their contact information so you can use their services at any time from the pokegear, saving us from potential tedious walks across the city (or from Charlotte’s gym all the way back to the circus >:[ ).

 

Get the contact information of the salon’s friendship checker, an EV checker, and shiny researcher that you can call to get a heart scale from when you show them the appropriate maxed out/shiny pokemon. This lets you get heart scales naturally from playing the game as intended, switching out team members rather than having to stop what you’re doing and going to the lake house to fish up luvdisc. The player gets rewarded for using the new quality of life features to build up more team members instead of forcing them to choose which of their 10+ pokemon to use their last heart scale on (or more likely just not using them for fear of encountering a better opportunity later on).

 

Make the pokemon psychologist and move relearner free if they’re used enough. You guys have shown your willingness to eliminate the late-game money treadmill by making the EV reset discs more expensive but permanent in one of the comments on the dev blog post for reducing grind, so this seems like a natural next step.

 

To prevent abusing EXP candies to immediately boost entire teams to the level cap the moment it gets raised, consider making EXP candies flatly increase to a level (EXP candy 50, EXP candy 55, etc.) and new upgrade them (to a “recommended level” for the upcoming gym leader) after plot progresses. With the much easier EV training and my proposed ease of access to the move relearner, egg moves, and pokemon psychologist, boss fights will probably be comparatively much easier, but I don’t think this is a huge problem. The edge in stats gives extra leeway for bad RNG or blind play before the player screws themselves to the point of being forced to reset. (With a poorly statted team and/or imperfect knowledge of the opponent, I think reborn is a bit too trial and error-y for my liking, even after my third playthrough)

 

Rebattlable trainers aren't always easily accessible after the point where a gym leader/boss becomes fightable. Charlotte is the biggest offender with Routes 2-4 + caves, but battles like Bennet + Luna, Aya, steelix, Devon, and Titania+dragon have their mini-dungeons (I'm not sure if you can even escape Titania's, Steelix's, or Devon). This makes stocking up on EXP candies before their fights a chore unless you stocked up beforehand. Warps like the Route 1 angry Tauros would be much appreciated.

 

There are also a few quality of life items that would be nice to have, many of which are from existing mods, but would be nice to have an official implementation for the majority of players that don’t use them:

• Pickup bell: To be held by a pokemon with pickup to be notified that their pickup item has been auto-added to the bag like in the SWM modular modpack (early game)
• Infinite use repel (would be most useful before the long mountain section after Route 2)
• Infinite use encounter bait (preferably gives priority to available pokemon that having been caught, would be nice to get when/before the pokedex completion quest is available)
• Analysis lens (key item, lets you see stat boosts during battle)
• Infinite use pokedoll
• Substitute doll (for activating HMs from the bag)
• Passive flame body item (similar to the shiny charm) or insta-hatcher
• Upgraded EV training items or EV Max discs (nightclub rewards)

 

New bag sections (the current layout gets real crowded, even with the sort function):

• 'Training items' (EV reset discs, EXP candies, rare/common candies, vitamins, ability capsules, nature mints, bottlecaps)
• '(consumable) Quest items' (job applications, ill-fated doll, floral charm, etc.)
• 'Evolution items'
• 'Held items' (EV boosters, plates, choice items, gems, weakness policy, etc.)
• 'Field items' (repels, fishing rods, wailimer pail, itemfinder, escape rope, activate HMs from bag)
• 'Sellable items'
• Multiple registered items on different hotkeys

 

(also was the crit rate changed to gen 7+'s 1/24 (from 1/16)? I know Pokemon Showdown had this wrong for a while.)
 

EV trainers, like the Ninjas in Uranium, and level trainers (Audino/Blissey trainers) would be a great addition as well, as would be a way to max IVs on your Pokemon like Bottle Capping in official games (Through Heart Scales or some other sorta easy to obtain renewable thing, Late game Heart Scales are obtained easily from Pickup) since late game every boss has perfect IVs and EVs 

Nature mints are useless in Reborn because you have the Psychologist (and with your Pokegear function even better) and by the time you get access to the Psychologist is the time that Nature changing starts to be useful, unless the mints are dirt cheap the Psychologist is fine (Heart Scales fishing isn't too bad

 

Automatic Pickup should be a thing present in the game from the beginning because it is very annoying having to go to the Pokemon menu after every battle to check for items (I use Pickup mons a lot while I grind levels and EVs)

 

The flame body /insta hatch is a good one as well for breeding egg moves (or just use the SWM mod for egg moves in the Move Reminder) 

 

Removing field HMs for good, and when you get a HM get a susbtitute item, especially for stuff like Rock Smash, Cut, etc.. 

[Lucifer Morningstar]

An IV changer would also be appreciated. 

 

Legit IV hunting or breeding can be tedious and time consuming and breeding isn't 100% reliable because it depends on the IVs of the parents. I.e my Ditto's IVs are trash so it breeds trash IVs most of the time which is frustrating on it's own then add on that I'm a shiny hunter.  

 

It can be something that requires a certain exclusive transaction such as the IV Stone system in Insurgence or cost a small fortune such as the 300k+ hospital procedure Rejuv used to have and can be set as a random reroll of either one specific IV or the entire roster (player's choice) to prevent easy creation of perfect IV mons. 

Although in a game at this difficulty level easy creation of perfect IV mons wouldn't be entirely unreasonable.