Maximum Levels / Waves / Other forms of 'numerical' difficulty

[frutescens]

Major Questions:

• What should be the maximum level a Pokemon should reach?
• How many waves should a standard, story mode run be?
  • What would be the major milestones in the story mode? By what wave should a player's party be fully evolved? (Discounting outliers like Larvesta). By what wave should a player's party be 'mostly' finalized?

Current Milestones:

References:

• Previous Discussion on EXP [Balance] Exp #248

[Tempo-anon]

• What should be the maximum level a Pokemon should reach?

I think 100 is fine. I talked about it elsewhere but Pokemon isn't really meant to have levels going beyond 100 because it leads to weird interactions (such as the erratic level curve) or stat calculations. Also there's not really much after 100 because no new moves are learned so it's essentially just a number that goes up.

• How many waves should a standard, story mode run be?

I know there's the Sam tradition of 200 that people seem to like, but I personally find that a bit long and think something like 100 is about a good length for a normal roguelike playthrough but I'm also okay with sticking with 200.

• What would be the major milestones in the story mode?

If we go by most mainline games, the main dividers of the game are the 8 gym leaders and usually 1-2 evil team encounters. The evil team encounters are usually around gyms 4-5 and between gyms 7-8. That is essentially 10 milestones not including other things like rivals and E4.

• By what wave should a player's party be fully evolved? (Discounting outliers like Larvesta). By what wave should a player's party be 'mostly' finalized?

I think a good benchmark of "fully evolved" would be around level 50 since that accounts for a lot of the late game stuff. I think it's fair to let players use their fully evolved Pokemon for about at least half the game. A quick approximation I suggested (assuming 200 waves and 100 max level) was having the first 50 waves scale linearly with level and then having the latter 150 waves have a 1/3 scaling with level.

Also some ref: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon_that_evolve_at_or_above_a_certain_level#Trivia

[Opaque02]

I agree with maybe trying to make it 100 waves instead of 200.

[Snailman11]

What'll happen to level curves post main story?

[TheSharkbug]

I'm thinking that if we stick to the previous idea of boss modifiers then everything in postgame will be less about pure strength and more about strategy and dynamic teambuilding. I know one point that was brought up repeatedly was incentivizing mid-run teambuilding, and strategy should definitely be the defining factor here.

I know there's also fangames that actually let opponents level past 100, but hard cap the player. IF the scaling is done well this could definitely help keep things interesting, especially if we work under the assumption that players will have synergising items, badge effects, etc going on that the enemies only partially have access to

[DayKev]

I like the 200 waves length for Classic because it feels perfect for fitting in all the things we have atm (gym leaders, rival battles, evil teams, etc). If we go to 100 waves we'd have to cut a lot. I'd rather there be a different game mode for that while keeping the existing Classic mode fairly similar.

[Tempo-anon]

Also just for reference, here's some of the "intended" game progressions of the mainline games

If a rival fight is not an integer it means it's optional
Some fights are marked as 0 because it's not significant in my eyes

[Tempo-anon]

Kanto:

Rival 0 (Oak's lab)
Rival 0.5 (Route 22)

• Gym 1

Rival 1 (Cerulean)

• Gym 2

• Gym 3

Rival 2 (SS Anne)

• Gym 4

Rival 3 (Pokemon Tower)
Evil team 1 (Rocket hideout)

• Gym 5

Rival 4 (Silph Co)
Evil team 2 (Silph Co)

• Gym 6

• Gym 7

• Gym 8

Rival 5 (Route 22)
E4
Rival 6 (champion)

[Tempo-anon]

Johto:

Rival 0 (Cherrygrove)

• Gym 1

Team rocket 0 (Slowpoke well)
Rival 1 (Azalea)

• Gym 2

• Gym 3

Rival 2 (Burned Tower)

• Gym 4

• Gym 5

• Gym 6

Team Rocket 1 (Mahogany base)

• Gym 7

Rival 3 (Goldenrod underground)
Team Rocket 2 (Goldenrod takeover)

• Gym 8

Rival 4 (Victory road)
E4

[Tempo-anon]

Hoenn:

Rival 0 (Route 103)
Rival 1 (Rustboro)

• Gym 1

Team Aqua/Magma 0 (Save devon employee and peeko)

• Gym 2

Rival 2 (Notorious battle under the bridge)
Wally 1

• Gym 3

Evil team 1 (Mt Chimney)

• Gym 4

• Gym 5

Evil team 2 (Weather institute)
Rival 3 (Route 119)

• Gym 6

Rival 4 (Lilycove)
Evil team 3 (Mt Pyre + evil team base)

• Gym 7

Evil team 4 (seafloor cavern)

• Gym 8

Wally 2
E4

[Tempo-anon]

Sinnoh:

Rival 0 (Route 201)
Rival 1 (Route 203)

• Gym 1

Galactic 1 (Valley Windworks)

• Gym 2

Galactic 2 (Eterna City)

• Gym 3

Rival 2 (Route 209)

• Gym 4

Rival 3 (Pastoria City)

• Gym 5

Rival 4 (Canaclave City)

• Gym 6

• Gym 7

Galatic 3 (Hideout + Spear Pillar)

• Gym 8

Rival 5 (Pokemon League)
E4

[Tempo-anon]

Unova:

Cheren 0 (Nuvema Town)
N 1 (Accumula Town)
Cheren 1 (Striaton City)

• Gym 1

N 2 (Nacrene City)

• Gym 2

• Gym 3

Cheren 2 (Route 4)
N 3 (Nimbasa City)

• Gym 4

Cheren 3 (Route 5)

• Gym 5

N 4 (Chargestone Cave)

• Gym 6

Cheren 4 (Twist Mountain)

• Gym 7

Team Plasma (Dragonspiral tower + Desert Resort)

• Gym 8

Cheren 5 (Route 10)
E4
N's Castle

[CodeTappert]

What a run should have:

• Multiple Rival Battles
• A final boss (trainer or super strong pokemon)
• Elite 4
• 8 Gym Leaders
• Champ
• Evil Teams (imo 3-4 Grunt fights, 2 admins and 1 boss)

So my vote is for sticking with 200 waves. And i honestly also feel then 200 max level (in "story mode" if fine)

Evil Teams, and the rival should be a essential part of the story

For a potential endless mode (which would not be endless). I would go up until wave 1000 max. Rather wave 500 or so. So i feel 3 digit levels and then 4 digits of hp are to be expected (at least in my idea)