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Is Pokemon getting too easy?

You could not use the EXP share.

If they had just given a few more Pokemon to Gyms and E4, they would've been harder.

I can't argue they're easier though.
 
Honestly, Pokemon's always been easy. It's always been an entry-level RPG for younger or less experienced gamers with pretty straightforward gameplay, as long as we're talking about the main story and casual battles. I don't think Pokemon is going from challenging to easy like some Nintendo franchises, I think its going from easy to easier. It's kind of odd too, you'd think that with everything Gamefreak's done to make the metagame more complex and competitive, they'd try to make the main games a bit more challenging. We have loads of different held items, moves, and abilities, and yet the in-game trainers usually only use a few predictable Pokemon with poor movesets and usually no held item. I'm not saying every trainer in-game needs to have a Smogon-level team with max AI, but it would also be nice to at least have some trainers pose a bit of a challenge so that you can't just steamroll them with one Pokemon and you actually need to use a few different strategies and playstyles instead of just spamming the same super-effective move until you win.
 
ORAS easy? Hell no.

I don't think I've ever had this much trouble in a game since my noob days in DPPT, and I still find those challenging today. My team was on par with Tate and Liza and we still got our asses handed to us by their two Pokemon. Flannery's Torkoal OHKO'd half my team after setting up the sun. I was 5 levels over Winona's Altaria and she still gave me trouble. Norman's Slaking wasn't too bad, but still did the damn thing. The Elite Four is really hellish when you're underleveled, and they're downright brutal when you go back and fight them post-game. I still haven't beaten them a second time. I don't think I've ever had to make sure I've had so many Revives or Super and Hyper Potions. Compared to XY, ORAS is frickin' hard mode.

If you play the game pretty much normally on par with the leaders with no grinding, Megas/Legendaries, or EXP. Share, ORAS can be one pain in the ass.

Would I say the games were getting easier with the new formula they seem to be going by based on Gen V? Three Pokemon per Gym Leader and Four for the Elite Four that don't increase in difficulty as you beat them? Maybe. And let it be known that I don't consider X and Y to be the easiest games in the franchise. That sh*t can be hard, too.

ORAS with the old formula? No way in hell.
 
I think ORAS is not that hard *with exp share active all the time*.

XY is the one that too damn easy... ORAS is about on same level with RSE and DPPT imo and just little bit harder than BW..

With DexNav that help you find good competitive pokemon and more Mega Stone, and can get Lati@s since begining, not to mention Beldum.. we get some advantange...
 
To be honest, I did find XY to have its challenges when you're not overlevelled as heck. I've raised over 20 Pokemon as part of my main rotation. So most of the time I ended up 2-3 levels under the local gym leader. For reference, I was 2-4 levels under the Johto gym leaders in GSC, 1-2 levels under the local gym leaders in RBY (except Sabrina), and 2-5 levels under for BW2. If anything, BW2 seems to be easier with gym leaders having shallower movepools. So far only Cheten gave me any sort of trouble. Oh, and dont get me started on how I found Whitney to not live up to her supposed infamy on her "difficulty" is. In contrast, for XY, I had trouble with Grant, Clemont, and Valerie, and this is when I had more Pokemon to counter theirs. Not as much as Elesa in BW1, but still enough to throw me off guard.
 
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For me, it's a combination of both yes and no.

Yes, EXP. Share does overpower you very often than not, but again that is an optional item to use so I wouldn't count that as making the game easy. But the fact that most of us know the game throughly like Kyriaki said, is what makes it easy. We know the type match ups, we know which Pokemon are good and which aren't good, we can read walkthroughs, spam Revives and Potions, X items, etc. It's not just the game itself that's the problem, but it's that the developers didn't think about the veterans of the series all that much so they'd include an option to play without tutorials. If that even makes sense.

As for my second answer, I think that ORAS did step up the difficulty range a lot more than XY, especially since I had a really rough time in RS back when I was a beginner. But even now, it is still hard thanks to the lack of semi-high leveled wild Pokemon, lack of insanely powerful Pokemon in the story, the teams being generally pretty tough along with the Gym Leader's Potion spam, etc. Every Gym Battle I've had in ORAS has one Pokemon going down at the very least, thanks to being equally leveled like them along with not using any items.
 
I think ORAS is not that hard *with exp share active all the time*

Exactly. I disabled EXP Share for most of the game until I had to turn it back on before Victory Road because the game is *really* damn hard. My team was constantly underleveled, and I'm no 5-year-old who only levels up his starter.
 
[rant] I mean look at Mega Rayquaza. That monstrosity is BROKEN! More attack than Slaking or Regigigas, doesn't need to hold a mega stone to mega evolve, has a ability that nullifies most of its weaknesses!! Insanity! [/rant]
Life orbed Mega Rayquaza, anyone?
 
Yeah, but I don't find it an issue. I just add more personal restrictions, like no in-battle items, no switches after fainting a Pokemon etc. What irritates me is the hand-holding and the linearising. BW was the worst at it: the map was literally a single path, with an alternate side path for the post game.
You do realise you can disable that in the options menu from the very beginning? Unless that's what you meant. If not, under 'battle' change 'shift' to 'set'.

I actually liked Unova's linear map. Makes Hoenn & Sinnoh look like tangled webs of mess woven by spinarak teams on LSD.
 
I wonder if it has something to do with:
~Pokemon getting stat raises
~Movepools growing
~More Abilities
~Physical/Special Split
~More strategies to use
~Access to stronger moves early on(not always the case)
~EXP increases with certain Pokemon
~More Pokemon to use
~More Items
~More easy to get stronger Pokemons with Trading

Pretty sure Gen 1 and 2 would have been easy if we had the same movepools and items available.
 
meh they were always too easy. I guess the older games had some difficulty, but that was largely due to movepool limitations and that's a pretty awful way for a game to be difficult. My memory of most of the games is hazy anyway...
 
Yeah, but I don't find it an issue. I just add more personal restrictions, like no in-battle items, no switches after fainting a Pokemon etc. What irritates me is the hand-holding and the linearising. BW was the worst at it: the map was literally a single path, with an alternate side path for the post game.
You do realise you can disable that in the options menu from the very beginning? Unless that's what you meant. If not, under 'battle' change 'shift' to 'set'.

I actually liked Unova's linear map. Makes Hoenn & Sinnoh look like tangled webs of mess woven by spinarak teams on LSD.

I had no idea. o.o Thank you.
 
Nope, I thought that ORAS offered a pretty good challenge compared to X and Y, also Gen 3, 4, and 5 in general weren't cake walks either in terms of difficulty.
 
Yeah I think it's getting easier and easier. They were never rock hard but I remember playing games like Blue and Yellow and struggling with a certain gym leader etc. The E4 was a challenge in the early days but now it's a doddle. Things like exp share and super training have given us the edge. Doesn't bother me though.
 
Definately, I think gym leaders should all have atleast 5 pokemon like the elite four and all the elite four should all have 6 pokemon. On top of that they should just have teams that synergies well like many of the later battle maison trainers
 
I'm of the unpopular opinion who doesn't think XY were as super easy as most claim them to be. (Actually, I don't think any game was super easy, but I'll just focus on the recent ones) I used EXP. Share all throughout X and was never as overleveled as others claimed to have been, if at all. I didn't use it for much of Y or OR and most of the time I was always underleved or on par with most gym leaders. I can't say I found any of these games a total breeze and actually struggled at some points. Steven was utter hell as I was 10 levels lower than his strongest, who easily 1HKO'ed 2 of my team members with Giga Impact, and the fact that I really only had one Pokemon that had a move SE against steel-types. I will say that I found OR to be a harder experience than XY simply because they gave gym leaders more than 3 Pokemon, somewhat better AI, waiting further down the line to give the player the ability to use megas, and a few other things. I've never done this but I think any of these games could be made less easy by not doing things like super training, using Pokemon-amie, the EXP. Share or Megas. It may not make them super hard, but it could at least make them less super easy as some people claim them to be.

I agree with others who have stated that the reason most of us on here find the games easy is because we've played the games for years and know everything there is to make them an easy experience. To the target audience of young children who don't know everything about the games, I think XY and ORAS can be quite challenging.
 
My first pokemon game was pokemon y so I found y really hard it took me about a month to complete. So I don't think they are easy please don't judge me :(
 
I'd like an option to make the game harder, especially in the main story and side stories (but mainly the main story), like a Veteran Mode or something
I want infiltrating the enemy HQ to be challenging, especially the battles with the Team Leader
 
The fact that everything seems easy can be attributed to absolutely one thing: Exp.All item early in the game. If you have it on, everything becomes a breeze. I was way over-leveled without even trying in my Y and Alpha Sapphire games. It is an excellent item, but that means the levels of gym pokemon and enemies needs a major boost that it isn't given. You can always play with it off but...it feels like a crime not to use it if you have it. You should get it later in the game, like right before the seventh gym so if you need help leveling for the last gym, elite and final battles with enemies you'll have it, and I think that would make things more balanced.
 
Yes, they are. Do i care if they are? Nope, I can always make my own difficulty, that's one of the things i like about Pokemon: i can make my own difficulty. And yes, that's not how difficulty is supposed to work and the game itself is the one supossed to give it to you, but i don't honestly care.

The difficulty of the older gens are hiding behind some poorly designed elements: games prior to Gen 4 had that atrocious physical/special move distribution which made no sense (Fire Punch being Special), a lot of types had atrocious moves with low BP and a lot of pokemon had horrible movepools. All of this leads to a lot of restriction and an extremely limited choice of pokemon, restriction and limited choices should never be the actual difficulty of a game.

From personal experience, all pokemon games are easy once you know every little detail about the battle system, type chart and the pokemon themselves. Also, Pokemon difficulty is heavily reliant on your team - you can have the easiest time or the worst time depending on your team.
 
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