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

[Johnny Boy]

What ball type are you using? I've caught 3 easily with net balls. I feel like the Watt traders in the Wild Area sell the specialist balls for a good price, so I'm super stocked up on different ball types.

I tried using net balls 3 times now and he still escapes. For some odd reason they worked just fine on the G-Max centiscorches that I caught.

 

[BackSet]

So, Idea.

To make things a bit more difficult in the future, what if the gym leaders level scaled Gaining higher levels and more pokemon the stronger you get. It's already canon in some adaptions that gym leaders have multiple teams they use depending on how strong the opponent they're fighting is. Obviously the same would go for rivals, other important story battles, and battle facility heads if there are any (but there never will be. Sorry Battle Frontier fans) but not wild pokemon and trainer battles.

 

[Blast]

For me, I played with set mode and made a rule never to use items in battle or grind, but naturally my Pokémon grew at least at the same level of the Gym Leaders because of the Exp Share. During the story I didn't do much raiding either. Still after the first few Gym Leaders when I didn't fully grasp the Dynamax mechanic yet, once I got the hang of it the middle and latter part of the game was really easy until the Champion.

Leon kicked my ass 5 times before I could beat him. Probably the most challenging Trainer battled during the main story so far. It was frustrating and fun at the same time to switch around items and come up with a strategy against his team. On my 5th attempt I thought of having my Actrozolt hold an Air Balloon to switch in on his Seismitoad's Earthquake and KO it Freeze Dry, I felt like a genius lol. All in all the game wasn't too difficult, even with my own restrictions. I would rank it below somewhere in the middle below RSE and SM, but above ORAS and XY.

 

[King Robert]

The beginning was pretty difficult at first (level 5 starter against level 4 wild Pokémon), but as I did with Ultra Moon, I've been grinding by having the short-leveled Pokémon in my party, while I made my starter the ONLY one to fight them. As a result, my Sobble (now evolved in its second stage total) is overpowered for now.

 

[RK9]

So, I've caught like a box worth of Pokémon and I still somehow managed to be underleveled despite also fighting all the trainers. (And I really don't know how a lot of people manage to overlevel hard. Are y'all feeding your Pokémon those Exp. Candies or something.)

And I must say, out of XY, SM, USUM and this one, I have to say SwSh was definitely the hardest one to me. I've had many times where I just barely managed to avert a crisis and I love it. (Could also be because I had a bad team composition, but I think it was just fine for a regular playthrough.)

Really good, really good.

 

[nickdt]

So, Idea.

To make things a bit more difficult in the future, what if the gym leaders level scaled Gaining higher levels and more pokemon the stronger you get. It's already canon in some adaptions that gym leaders have multiple teams they use depending on how strong the opponent they're fighting is. Obviously the same would go for rivals, other important story battles, and battle facility heads if there are any (but there never will be. Sorry Battle Frontier fans) but not wild pokemon and trainer battles.

Its a nice idea, but i personally don't think lvl scaling for Gym Leaders will work, since depending on the gym leader, it forces Gamefreak to put in some Pokemon for the routes to counter the gym leader, because you might have chosen the wrong starter.

 

[TechSkylander1518]

Its a nice idea, but i personally don't think lvl scaling for Gym Leaders will work, since depending on the gym leader, it forces Gamefreak to put in some Pokemon for the routes to counter the gym leader, because you might have chosen the wrong starter.

Shouldn't that be happening already? Players can't just use one Pokemon.

 

[nickdt]

Shouldn't that be happening already? Players can't just use one Pokemon.

Sure, but the thing is it depends on the Gym. For example: You cannot put OP gyms at the beginning of the game - Dragon, Fairy, Steel, Psychic, Ghost, Dark - without having counterpokemon. Having Grass or Bug early on, isn't a real issue, since the early bird is a thing for example.
The locations of gyms also is a thing we need to keep into consideration as well. If its structured like in the past and not like SWSH, you reach the first gym fairly early in the game.
However, if the gyms are structured the way they are in SWSH and you reach the first one later than in every other game, you have some space to put OP gyms earlier than usual, because you can have more routes (Or the Wild Area if that comes back) before you reach the first gym, so Gamefreak can put different types of mons on those routes, rather than the usual Flying, Bug, Normal and the occasional Dark or Grass type.

 

[Dieter]

Sure, but the thing is it depends on the Gym. For example: You cannot put OP gyms at the beginning of the game - Dragon, Fairy, Steel, Psychic, Ghost, Dark - without having counterpokemon. Having Grass or Bug early on, isn't a real issue, since the early bird is a thing for example.

Bug types can deal with Dark and Psychic types, Normal types at least have immunity to Ghost type attacks, Poison types are often found early too and counter Fairy types, leaving only Dragon and Steel types as less ideal.

That said, XY and SuMo/USUM have you encounter Fairy and Fighting types early on too, even BW2 already had you encounter Riolu before your first Gym battle. So I don't think they'd be particularly OP, even with level scaling

 

[CynthiaLover]

Another thing I've noticed is that the opposing AI is pretty smart. If it knows a move you're weak to, it WILL use it, especially in Max Raid Battles. That definitely ups the difficulty at least two levels above XY and Gen VII. It's not quite Platinum or BW smart, but it's a very good step in the right direction. Ally AI, however, isn't so sharp. When battling alongside Hop, I've noticed just how dumb his AI is, forcing me to do all the heavy-lifting (for example, he lost TWO Mons to the Team Yell Grunts in Galar Mine 2 because he kept spamming weak moves or using status moves, while I pretty much did all the real damage). Max Raid Battle allies are only slightly smarter, as they will use super-effective moves when the situation is right, but are very prone to artificial stupidity regardless (and you're at the mercy of the RNG gods for decent teammates). But, I guess, in a sense, that means the game is tougher than the last few, since you're the one who has to carry everyone around at times. But, I'd say that the games are on the tougher side compared to the last two Gens, so, that's definitely an improvement.

 

[BackSet]

I've noticed that Nessa spams the same move over and over again!

I mean, I spam moves myself but jeez.

 

[Alola]

So, I've found myself overleveled by 4-5 levels for most of my team by Route 9. Frustrated, I boxed everyone barring my recent recruit for fear of over-leveling. This is the first time this has ever happened to me within the Pokemon franchise.

While we can point the common finger at the EXP Share, which did have a role to play in this dilemma, the reason, I think, has more to do with Camping. For those who didn't know, Camping gives EXP; any Pokemon you interact with or cook for (which would be the whole party) gets EXP. The longer you interact with your party, the more EXP they get-and I'm talking about 4 digit rewards.

I hate it. This game has too many methods for gaining EXP involuntarily. I understand a large part in doing this may have been in consideration of the competitive player (as grinding comp. Pokemon to level 50 before was a pain), but these new EXP options should have been compartmentalized in their access. I mean, you get EXP for fighting, EXP for catching, EXP for playing, EXP for cooking, EXP for doing British Poke Pelago Poke Jobs, EXP candies from doing Raids (which you can easily farm), and EXP is distributed to everyone at all times. Furthermore, the EXP scaling of this game is crazy; most plot event characters have Pokemon who give out 1000+ easily as the game progresses; Gym Battles have been giving my Pokemon too much EXP. But back to Camp...

I love Pokemon Camp; it's one of my favorite things in the game that has been realized. I've seen races, ball passing, disputes, happy conversations, and full 360 degree models in action that battles may not provide (I can clearly see how Rillaboom keeps its branches within its leaf tufts, similar to Delphox's wand). And I love the idea of feeding my Pokemon after a job well done, when I see several of them are hungry, we've been on the road for a while, when I want them to try something new, or the group needs to be healed and I lack items or a nearby Pokemon Center. Which is why the fact that doing any of these things can potentially give unwarranted EXP is ridiculous; my Pokemon are resting and relaxing-there should not be any EXP to earn. How is eating a meal considered battle experience? Enjoying quality time with my Pokemon shouldn't make them stupidly overpowered; and I shouldn't have to be the one to self-regulate that.

So now I'm hoping there's a sudden level-spike of some kind so I can bring everyone back and continue our Camp fun times again. I would have accepted the EXP Share if it wasn't for this. Just an annoying experience I wanted to share.

 

[Johnny Boy]

Well after 11 tries I finally caught a g-max butterfree. Now I just need to look for the other G-Max forms, particularly Lapras.

 

[Aulos]

I've spent hours in Wild Area, but boxed the majority of my team during those hours and even still I am waayyy too overleveled for the end-game stuff. That does hurt my experience, because I think that the format of the end-game is much more exciting than previous games with their same old Elite 4 format, but it really deflates the experience when you mow over every battle with no trouble.

The problem is that I had to keep at least one strong Pokemon while training lower level Pokemon in Wild Area, and because I love Galarian Rapidash so much, that was usually the one I had... And low and behold, it's a overpowered Pokemon altogether that is super effective against a lot of types used by end-game trainers.

I feel punished for wanting to play the game more and liking using my favorite Pokemon. I remember the league person saying after the last gym leader that you should go spend time in the Wild Area and train... But spending any time training there just makes you overleveled. No one else in the game actually puts in that training, clearly.

The Wild Area is a great idea... But maybe they need to scale things better next time so we don't feel punished for wanting to spend time in it.

 

[Silktree]

I hate it. This game has too many methods for gaining EXP involuntarily. I understand a large part in doing this may have been in consideration of the competitive player (as grinding comp. Pokemon to level 50 before was a pain), but these new EXP options should have been compartmentalized in their access. I mean, you get EXP for fighting, EXP for catching, EXP for playing, EXP for cooking, EXP for doing British Poke Pelago Poke Jobs, EXP candies from doing Raids (which you can easily farm), and EXP is distributed to everyone at all times. Furthermore, the EXP scaling of this game is crazy; most plot event characters have Pokemon who give out 1000+ easily as the game progresses; Gym Battles have been giving my Pokemon too much EXP. But back to Camp...

Don't forget Poke Ball Plus for those who have it. LGPE seem better balanced as you only have trainer battles, wild Pokemon and the optional Poke Ball Plus. Since the focus is on catching in terms of experience, you could very well end up underleveled if you choose to meet the bare minimum requirement for Koga's gym (50 species) and leave it at that until the post-game. Or you could go further and just rotate 1-2 members of your team, as I did.

 

[BigBadButterfree]

Now, I'm only at a point where I have 4 badges, and I have been rotating Pokemon about my team to try and evolve/test a bunch of new things, so my team is overall kinda weak. I've been finding no trouble with Gyms and trainers in general, but I've been finding lots of wild Pokemon that are far above my own level. So it's weird, seeing wild Pokemon that are more of a challenge than most trainers.

But o don't find it too hard or too easy. My play style certainly lends to that, but I'm ok with the difficulty level.

 

[Nori]

A couple gyms were tough for me, partly because I don't have a pre-formed team, and I've been having to rethink/change out pokémon in my team more than once. One or two of the gyms, I think I SR'd once or twice, and another I hung on by lots of revives. :s

(Fun fact: I'm actually considering changing some pokémon out again...)

 

[Team Gaara]

It's decently challenging. I have been doing a lot of grinding so it's probably a bit easier than it could be but even then, still decent~ Not as much of a cakewalk as X and Y, I'd say it's on par with USUM

 

[BackSet]

Nessa! Nessa why do you do this to me!

Seriously, Nessa was hard, probably because I didn't have any water type counters.