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- Jan 22, 2014
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- #2,701
This so much. When I first played Shield, I began to overlevel after the fourth Gym naturally. For half the game, I was overleveled compared to everyone else until we reached Leon, who they boosted up in level to suddenly "scale" me to something appropriate; it was a pretty upsetting and lackluster experience. I later did a new game after getting the DLC, and stopped at the Isle of Armor because I wanted to enjoy the isle and Galar simultaneously (which I think is pretty neat to do narrative-wise with your Kubfu and all) as well as get a Squirtle to use. I was surprised when Mustard and Honey threw this EXP. Charm at me that I did not need or ask for, not five steps in the island; of course you can't turn it off. So, for that playthrough, I had to actively avoid Trainers for the first time in my Pokémon playing experience to not be grossly overleveled again.Exp sharing is common nowadays in other RPGs--heck, I'm currently playing the otherwise old-school hardcore Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and even that does it--but Pokémon has proven poor at balancing the new system, and considering the Sw/Sh expansion pass made the problem worse I don't have high hopes fixing it is a priority, and since gen 4 was before they started drastically lowering the number of trainers in the game I'm concerned BDSP is going to break if you don't either skip most of the content or swap constantly.
I don't see signs of the Exp. Charm in BDSP, yet anyway, but yeah - something tells me these games were not made with a consideration to balance at all (esp. if you consider the EXP boost you will also get from Affection, I'm sure).