SwSh How difficult have you found Sword & Shield thus far?

[DarkraiKnight]

I've been hearing varying opinions about Sword & Shield's difficulty level, especially concerning the forced EXP Share. Some say that the games is balanced well around it and that they're actually being challenged, while others say that they're having too easy of a time and basically wiping the floor with everything. So, I want to know: how difficult has YOUR experience with SwSh been thus far?

 

[IncineROAR]

I've found it difficult to stay awake.

The gameplay isn't challenging, but it's challenging to maintain my focus when there is endless dialogue. 8 hours in, and I still havent' challenged the first gym. Granted I did some exploring of the "Wild Area" (which is nice but it was overhyped), but by now I'm usually on the second or third gym.

 

[BlueWaves]

It’s so easy to the point that I don’t bother to save before the bosses.

 

[Knightwolf09]

I find that it's not too challenging but at the same time it is keeping decent pace. Sometimes i feel I'm too overleveled, but then I find people only 2 or so levels behind.

 

[techitisJ]

It's not too difficult, definitely on the easier side, but I wouldn't call it the easiest Pokemon game either. There are things you can do to make it more difficult. If you run from every Pokemon in the wild area on your initial run, you just might barely make it near Milo level wise (not sure, I did spend some time here and I was about 2-3 levels higher (on my highest level Pokemon) than Milo when I challenged him. Each route had a decent amount of trainers till then, so the first 3 gym leaders did not provide me much of a challenge. Though my second time where I had to go through the Wild Area to make it to the next destination, I didn't encounter any wild Pokemon, and when I went to fight Bea I realized I was at least 3-4 levels under her ace. I personally went back and trained up a bit more, but if you avoided wild Pokemon in the wild area, I'm sure you can give yourself more of a challenge.

From what I have seen so far, there are a handful of trainers that are avoidable, so skipping the occasional battle can also help from keeping you from getting too overleveled.

 

[TheElderKing]

I've found it difficult to stay awake.

The gameplay isn't challenging, but it's challenging to maintain my focus when there is endless dialogue. 8 hours in, and I still havent' challenged the first gym. Granted I did some exploring of the "Wild Area" (which is nice but it was overhyped), but by now I'm usually on the second or third gym.

Here lies the main problem, I think.
The Wild Area is a nice and interesting concept, but with the way the game is structured, it you immerge yourself into it too much, you’re going to get qua overleveled.

The game basically forces you to switch Pokémon when exploring, or focusing only on raid and exploring and not catch and fight Pokémon. Options of toggling off exp share and even catching exp might’ve helped with their intention of exploring the Wild Area during the story (which, in at least two moment of the game, is kind of required to reach different area for the main story).

As for the difficulty, as always, it depends on how you play the game. If you restrict yourself to the same numbers of Pokémon of the gym leaders and rivals, and aren’t overleveled, there might a bit of challenge...depending on the Pokémon you’re using.

For example, for Mylo’s, I used only two Pokémon and I wasn’t overleveled, but the fight was still easy because my main team Members (I only use them on gym leaders and rivals), where Fire, Bug/Psychic and Flying. Same went for Bede’s battles.

For Nessa and Kabe, since I didn’t have Pokémon with a clear advantage (Toxel is quite weak without good electric moves) but was actually as a disadvantage Nessa’s I had to be more careful, and I was lucky enough to find Energy Ball and taught that to Dottler. Kabe having fully evolved mons while U was in middle or earlier stages also provided a slightly challenge

Same went for Marnie, as I boxed Raboot with Double Kick, and my other members weren’t good against hers. If I have the former, it’d have likely being easy.

Overall I don’t think that up to this point is easier of recent games (and to be fair the only battle early one in terms of gyms that I had even remotely some challenge was in BW, the second one, once more because of team composition)...if you play in a certain way. The problem with SwSh is that it’s too easy to get overleveled if you’re not careful

They need to get over their reasoning for not implementing difficulty modes or toggles for fear of children feeling bad about them. It’s not a sound reasoning, and it gets even worse when you implement a forced exp share with kind of open world areas, where you can lose yourself into them and gain lots of levels.

 

[Juizel]

I've been overall super happy with my difficulty in the game. It's not too hard most of the time, but some gym battles became pretty tricky despite type advantage. One gym leader actually almost sweeped my whole team.

I'd say the difficulty in the game depends a lot on how you play it.
For example, I only caught wild Pokémon I encountered that I wanted on my team or at least considered for it, and only new gen 8 Pokémon. (I don't use old Pokémon for the first run in a new game anyway.)
I did the occasional raid by joining people online if it was interesting, but my usage of the exp candies was only two times - for new team members I got that were way below my team's level, to catch them up.

TMs I do teach if they seem useful, TRs I don't.

So basically in the early game, despite having done raids, I didn't have the strongest moves and because I don't try to "catch 'em all", I also was always 1-3 levels under my opponent. That only changed now for the league.

By the way I do battle every trainer.

Most of the Wild Area stuff I intended to save for the post game anyway, because I got kinda frustrated by encountering cool Pokémon and not being able to catch them anyway.

Oh, and it was Gordie who swept 5 of my 6 Pokémon, because I switched out first turn and he went for Shell Smash and proceeded to OHKO most of my team.

Ah, additionally I didn't use any healing items in the gym battles.

So overall I really, really can't complain and for everyone who has the problem of constantly being overlevelled, I genuinely wondered how they're playing the game to have that issue.

 

[Esserise]

It's easy, but not like, "ha-ha what a fucking joke" easy. It's baseline Pokémon game difficulty. I haven't come up against anything as challenging as some of the Totem Pokémon in the Alola games, though.

 

[IncineROAR]

Here lies the main problem, I think.

I agree with your post. Thankfully my Corvisquire was only one level higher than Mylo's Edgegloss. It was still a relatively easy battle, and the Wooloo "puzzle" or "challenge" was not that difficult either.

As for the next gym, I'll just send in good ole' Yamper and use him to Nuzzle the opposing Pokemon to death.

 

[Dizzard]

Not overly challenging. Kabu the third gym leader put up a bit of a fight, so I'm wondering if maybe I've been shying away from exp a little too much.

Other than that Marnie's Morpeko surprised me a little.

I'd say maybe it's slightly more difficult than Sun and Moon? (about the same really)

I haven't been going out of my way to pick the perfect natures (to add some extra difficulty) though.

 

[IncineROAR]

I haven't been going out of my way to pick the perfect natures (to add some extra difficulty) though.

I think I'm probably the only person on the planet that doesn't go out of the way for a Pokemon's nature..

In retrospect, I think the gyms in Kalos gave me more of a challenge than what I've experienced so far in Pokemon Sword.

 

[Tood]

Maybe it's just my playstyle, but I'm having a pretty good time so far. The game isn't overly difficult, but I haven't felt like there was any point where I thought the game was too easy like in gen 6. I've been avoiding most wild Pokemon, and I've only been catching the new ones and my favorites, since I intend to go through the entire game with a load of quick balls and ultra balls like I usually do once I beat it.

So far, I'm at gym 4 and I've been at the same levels as all my rivals and the gym leaders. The wild Pokemon seem to have pretty high levels too, being at around my level. The wild area was honestly pretty intimidating, since both times I've passed through, I've been underleveled compared to the wild Pokemon there. A Stufful nearly obliterated my team the first time because I couldn't escape it.

The gyms so far are alright, although both Nessa and Kabu's dynamax Pokemon having 4x weaknesses to some of my party members' attacking types made their fights a bit anticlimactic since I could just 1-2HKO them. I've honestly been getting wrecked by the wild Area, random battles and random encounters moreso than the gyms. I've only made it to the fourth gym so far, so I'll see what happens afterwards.

Difficulty seems fair to me so far, and I'm glad for that. But it sucks that it may be locked behind a particular playstyle.

 

[Cresselia92]

I think the level curve is fine and pretty standard. My Pokémon are barely at spawn Pokémon level, with my strongest one being my starter at Lv. 21.

For anyone who wants to grind a bit, I suggest to take a Normal-type with Dark/Ghost coverage and go hunt for Lv. 29 Gastly/Duskull in the Wild Area. It’s a pretty easy way to get extra EXP, if you don’t rely on Exp Candy.

Though, I have to agree about one thing: untoggable Exp Share is a bad move. Even if I would have kept it on most of the times, it would have been good to be able to disable it when you don’t need too EXP, rather than being forced to constantly store Pokémon with the Portable Box.

But hey, maybe this could be my incentive of having a Team A and a Team B, I suppose.

 

[burgoboop]

For me, the only hard part so far was trying to catch a stunfisk. Otherwise, the game has been relatively easy, not the easiest pokemon game I've played, but definitely not that hard. My pokemon aren't overleveled either, which I was worried about with the exp share but honestly it hasn't been an issue. I've battled every trainer i've seen as well. I agree with esserise though, some of the totem pokemon from last gen definitely were more challenging than the gyms ive battled so far.

 

[BackSet]

I'm still in the early game and I'm getting my freaking ass kicked. So I don't know what you all or doing but clearly I'm doing everything wrong.

 

[Aulos]

Sometimes it reminds me of Sun/Moon, in that my Pokemon are getting knocked out much easier than I expect and that can be very annoying. However, I haven't had much trouble clearing anything yet.

 

[BackSet]

My Sobble is my only Pokemon with moves that do more than a quarter of damage! (Actually, ocassionally my Nicket and Zigzagoon do half damage but that's not the point).

At least Headbutt is nice.

 

[CynthiaLover]

The pacing has been rather nice to me. And even with the built-in EXP Share, my levels aren't astronomical. I'm currently at Monostoke and my levels average around 35 (Blitz my Cinderace being the strongest at 40), though I've been doing a lot of Max Raid Battles, too. Really, the difficulty is pretty average, not too easy like XY (god forbid) nor too difficult like BW (though, as you know, I love Gen V, so that's something I appreciate). I mean, even with the built-in EXP Share, my team's levels are generally around the same levels as the Gym Leaders. When I faced Milo, for example, my Raboot was just 2 levels higher than his Eldegloss, and the same can be said about Nessa's gym, as my team were only about 2-3 levels higher. The Fire Gym was the first Gym I had real trouble with, due to the leader using full-evolved Mons while most of my team were first to mid-staged ones (Baxter the Boltund being the only exception, as he evolved just in time for Nessa). But, overall, I'd say, if you don't go out of your way to grind, and don't abuse the EXP Candies, the difficulty is pretty much average for a Pokemon game.

 

[BackSet]

I only used the exp candies once and that was to bring Damascus up to the same level as Dribly and Rouge,

 

[Dizzard]

I think the gym leaders are definitely stronger than the trial captains and island kahunas.

That's one part of the game where I'm meeting more resistance. Allister was kind of an awkward victory.