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Dynamic Levels

Te-em

I want to rp!
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What do you think about dynamic levels? Would this be a good thing in the Pokemon games?

Dynamic levels means that the levels of enemies are relative to your own (highest or average) levels. Some areas may have a minimum level to make them more difficult.

The pros of dynamic levels are that each enemy will be a challenge and you get higher exp. points when winning. The best thing about it, though, is that it is easier to design an open world.

The cons of dynamic levels is that you can't power level to get past enemies that are too difficult. Also, it would be hard to use low-level Pokemon in your party, if their levels differ a lot. So, if you have a lv. 40 Pokemon you don't want to use, and the rest are lv. 10, that would make the enemy lv. ~40 or ~25.

A good solution would be that wild Pokemon got their level based on your first party Pokemon and Gym Leaders (and other Trainers?) got their level based on your entire party (average or highest level). Each area and Gym Leader would have a minimum level, probably equal to what they would have if levels were not dynamic.
 
I see another pro: this would be a decent way to get all the fans who complain that "the game's too easy" to quiet down. However, for wild Pokeon, I think there should be a maximum level limit as well as a minimum... I just find the idea of running into a level 70-something rodent on Route 1 kinda weird, even if your party is strong enough to handle it.
 
Maybe new Pokemon can be added to the area when you are at a certain level, similar to how new Pokemon appear when you use the searcher in ORAS. Of course there would be evolved Pokemon when the level is high enough.
 
This will definitely add more challenge to the game and every battle would feel like a real battle. Perhaps there could be higher level pokemon as well. For example, say the highest leveled pokemon in your party is level 50, so the wild pokemon and the pokemon used by NPC trainers will be around level 40-60. However the more pokemon an NPC has the lower level each one will be. If someone has 1 pokemon, it will be around level 60 but if someone has 4 pokemon in his party, then all of them will be around level 40. This will make sure the NPC battles aren't overly difficult.
 
I don't like the idea. I play Pokémon to relax and forget about my life, not to be challenged. Easy means I don't have to think, and the point of Pokémon for me is to not think.
 
This would probably be the only way to have that open world people keep clamouring for each generation (Though I guarantee that those same fans would end up disappointed and complaining about the story).

Like BlackButterfree I'm not that bothered about Pokémon being easy. It's never been that difficult, so I don't buy a Pokémon game with the expectation of being challenged
 
I don't think this would be a good idea for the main game. I don't know... it just wouldn't seem to fit somehow, mostly for reasons other users have already given. Specifically with wild pokemon - I always thought it was important for the player to have to train the pokemon they catch, and not just catch them at a similar level to the rest of the party. That's why I think the newer games give too high levels to wild pokemon. You just catch them, and then they don't take any training or any kind of 'growing curve' to fit into the group of experienced fighting pokemon. Thankfully, ORAS seems to have fixed this; let's just hope it stays that way.

I think the one of the most important things to change to add a challenge is to simply give people more pokemon. I remember in the XY postgame, in that Looker story, there were several battles which were clearly meant to be climactic, but they completely failed in practice because the opponent had only two pokemon. And as a result, they were a total pushover. And a similar thing applies in the Battle Chateau, when you're fighting people who are clearly supposed to be hard, but just don't have big enough teams. While adding a more advanced AI, possibly in a separate difficulty setting, would definitely improve the game, I think this is a much simpler step to higher difficulty that is being ignored.

Back to dynamic levelling, I do think this would be a very smart idea in the postgame. Most generations allow you to refight the Elite Four with harder teams (though XY gave them no improvement at all) and some have allowed a similar idea with Gym Leaders, but something I always found was that you reach a stage where your pokemon are just too high-levelled to be challenged by anything. Level-scaling for rematches with people like this would be a very good idea to prevent this. Well, I think so at least.
 
They shouldn't scale up the wild Pokemon, that would make things difficult if you want to change your party. Let's say you want to breed a Pokemon and train it up. Well how are you supposed to train it if everything's Lv. 50? I mean yeah we have the EXP Share now, but even then, it's hard for lower level Pokemon to catch up with the EXP Share on, it would mean that at least one of your Pokemon would have to shoot up 10+ levels just to get another one caught up.
 
I did not think much about catching Pokemon. It is of course much more fun, and easier, to get low-level Pokemon. You don't have to relearn their forgotten attacks either. Dynamic levels would enable an open world Pokemon game though, which I would like to play. However, if there are Trainers to fight in every area, perhaps the wild monsters don't need to be high-level. I seldom experience wild Pokemon as challenging anyway.

It would also be fun, if the Trainers are random in each area. Let's say an area has ten locations for Trainers, and 3-6 of these locations will be occupied by random Trainers everytime you enter the area. That will also give the impression of that NPCs are moving around the world map, just like you do. The levels of these Trainers can be relative to the level of your party as you enter the area, and depending on the number of Pokemon, as PokemonTrainer said. Wild Pokemon could retain their static levels. But remember that, if wild Pokemon levels are dynamic, and if you want to get level 5-10 Pokemon, for instance, you can just enter the area with level 5-10 Pokemon in your party.

One problem with the dynamic Trainer level, however, is that if you encounter a Trainer twice, and the level of the same Pokemon is lower the second time, then that might seem strange. To solve this, some Trainers would have to be low level Trainers and some high level Trainers etc, and when you enter an area with lv. 50 Pokemon, only Trainers around that level would appear.
 
I don't like the idea. I play Pokémon to relax and forget about my life, not to be challenged. Easy means I don't have to think, and the point of Pokémon for me is to not think.

Why not implementing this inside a "challenge mode" similar to Black2/White2 instead?
 
I'd be interested in this if we're a toggle option. Like, "Do you want the game to level with you and provide constant challenge?" would be OK.
 
I don't like the idea. I play Pokémon to relax and forget about my life, not to be challenged. Easy means I don't have to think, and the point of Pokémon for me is to not think.

Why not implementing this inside a "challenge mode" similar to Black2/White2 instead?

I would love difficulty levels. But not like Black2/White2 where you have to complete the entire game, then reset to get the option of difficulty... -_- That was a horrible mess and the Key system was the only reason we didn't get Pokémon Gray.
 
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