Will they tone down the difficulty to match XY?

[Zeb]

In my opinion, and a few others I have spoken to, RSE could be fairly difficult in places. Some of the gym leaders in particular I remember could be an absolute pain to beat. We already saw with BW and XY that they are trying to make the games easier: Gym Leaders having no more than three Pokemon, Elite Four now having four Pokemon, Exp Share totally breaking the game in XY. There's also EXP boosts given such as the Lucky Egg and Amie bonuses. B2W2 did introduce difficulty levels, one of which increased the difficulty and added an extra Pokemon to teams, but that idea seemed to disappear in XY, with them going as far to make the easiest games so far (imo).

So do you think they'll tone the difficulty down in the games to match XY? Or will they stay "faithful" to the originals and keep them at a somewhat good difficulty level? (A lot of people will say RSE were easy to them, so this is mostly all subjective I guess.) Making them easier could include them going with their current trend of cutting down on Gym Leader/Elite Four Pokemon in ORAS, and handing out items like the EXP Share and Lucky Egg, etc.

 

[Norzan]

Re: Wil they tone down the difficulty to match XY?

Difficulty is really subjective, i just played Emerald recently and realized that i sucked at Pokemon back then and i find it now to be really easy, like all the people that say that the older games are harder just sucked at Pokemon back then, if they play them now they'll see how easy they are, just some are more than difficult than others.

 

[Orion-Sama]

Re: Wil they tone down the difficulty to match XY?

Ruby/Sapphire were of acceptable difficulty. Emerald on the other hand was quite challenging at points. Most Gym Leaders posed a good threat in both definitely.

If previous remakes are any indication, the rosters hopefully won't change too much and difficulty will be kept loyal to the originals, with its own improvements. However, we went an entire Generation without remakes, short as it was, and several conventions have changed since then. At this point it's hard to tell.

Personally I feel it will be changed to become super easy, akin to XY, which was mild at best without Exp. Share. I really hope not, though. Or at the least they can include a spin in the difficulty settings of BW2 and have 2 modes: Classic Mode and Normal Mode. Something to select between old and new rosters. May be hard to implement though, but they did just fine in BW2, so it should be possible.

 

[Phoenixon]

Re: Wil they tone down the difficulty to match XY?

Like Orion said, they should have an Easy mode, Normal Mode, and Challenge mode like in BW2, BUT, make it so that you can choose the modes at the beginning of the game.
Normal mode would be like R/S originally, Easy would be easier (XY difficulty), and Challenge would be even more difficult than BW2'c challenge mode (Note: I actually don't know how difficult that mode was cuz I never played it... )

 

[DasManiac]

Re: Wil they tone down the difficulty to match XY?

I hope not. Each leader should have the amount of Pokemon they had in Emerald. The levels need to be different though. Juan's pokemon need to be around the same levels as Wulfric's or maybe even higher. The movesets need to change too.

The Exp. Share however should remain the way it is. Level Grinding was no fun at all in the old games. I'm not going to back to that. If they ditch the Exp. Share I can guarantee I won't be buying the game.

 

[Stofen]

Re: Wil they tone down the difficulty to match XY?

Yeah, I have to agree with DasManiac in regards to the Exp stuff since it is optional, you don't have to use Exp Share and Lucky Egg if you don't want to. That and XY is the only Pokemon game where I've actually managed to get level 100 pokes...

 

[Almonds]

Re: Wil they tone down the difficulty to match XY?

I don't want ORAS to be easy. I remember that I struggled a lot at some points (especially against Norman's Slakings), and RSE had good difficulty. At least the E4 had 5 pokemons each.

 

[Lufenium]

Re: Wil they tone down the difficulty to match XY?

I hope they don't. I thoroughly enjoy that R/S/E had many stumbling blocks along the way to keep me on my toes.

Main thing, though, is the Exp. Share. I hope they nerf it in some way. In X/Y it really made the game a cakewalk.

 

[TerraTF]

Re: Wil they tone down the difficulty to match XY?

I hope to hell not. And if they do there needs to be a difficulty setting. I don't want to face Juan using only 3 Pokemon. Gamefreak has been trying to make the games more about the story and less about the gameplay and its getting boring. Yeah the EXP Share thing is cool when you need to grind up low levelled Pokemon quick, but I don't want it to be the way it is. And if it is the way it was in XY the EXP formula needs to go back to the way it was in BW/BW2.

EDIT: I read into some of the previous posts some and I want to bring up something about the leaders levels and the EXP Share.

If they do keep the EXP Share as it is, Juan's Pokemon are gonna need to be high 60s/low 70s. Wulfric's Pokemon should've been about 5 levels higher. My first time playing through Y I was able to box my entire 2 or 3 Pokemon team and bring out 3 Pokemon that were basically tagging along for the ride and easily handle Clemont without any effort. Also the fact that I only needed 2 or 3 Pokemon leading up to the 5th Gym was a problem. I almost didn't even use a 6th Pokemon in my original playthrough and when I nuzlocked it recently I entered the hall of fame with my team of 5. XY has an extremely laughable difficulty that needs to be fixed.

 

[Phoenixon]

Re: Wil they tone down the difficulty to match XY?

IMO, what they need to do is have two "Exp. Shares" to fix its problem. The ordinary one that we had before X and Y would be given early on in the game (when it usually is.) The second, X/Y one (which could be called "Exp. All" or something similar), would be given post-E4.
I think this makes sense cuz if they give the XY one early on, it would make the story (pre-E4) way too easy. Yes, I know you can turn it off, but just the opportunity to speed through the game is tempting even if you want a challenge imo.
But leveling up post-E4 can sometimes be a pain, so I would welcome the Exp. Share from X and Y for it.
What do you guys think about this?

 

[J Jay]

Re: Wil they tone down the difficulty to match XY?

Yes, I know you can turn it off

Yeah, but why do that when you can just keep it on and then moan about how easy it made the game afterwards ...

... I'm kidding, really. I don't agree completely but I understand why people want Exp. Share to return to its pre-Gen VI mechanics. Between the Santalune & Cyllage gyms I rotated at least 15 pokémon just to keep them all from level-capping, then I gave up and kept it off for the rest of the game. I like your idea a lot though, it gives the best of both worlds.

As for the difficulty of OR/AS, I seriously doubt that the Exp. Share mechanics will change this quickly. Therefore the levels will be scaled up similarly to X/Y (and some new 'mons will be added to the rosters as per the new Hoenn dex). Therefore there will be no levelling "space" for rematches unfortunately. We don't want OR/AS to be as easy as X/Y were, but I don't think Game Freak are thinking about us as much as they are thinking about the younger, first-time players.

Edit: I see no reason not to keep the 5/6 'mon teams from R/S/E though.

 

[Supreme Leader Palpitoad]

Re: Wil they tone down the difficulty to match XY?

Hopefully not. XY was waaaaay to simple. I defeated 5/6 of Dianthas pokemons with only my Sylveon. I want a harder pokemon game.

 

[Proxima Centauri B]

Re: Wil they tone down the difficulty to match XY?

I sure hope they dont water down difficulty. While I kinda struggle when playing R/S/E, Id honestly rather struggle than have a watered down game difficulty wise. If Exp Share is there, Im turning it off.

 

[Dr. Buni]

Re: Wil they tone down the difficulty to match XY?

They probably will, Game Freak seem to be trying to cater to the biggest demography. Giving us a Mega Lucario, that fucking awful EXP share, the Kanto starter (+ its respective Mega Stone) and a lot of other stupid stuff they put in X/Y are proof they have no intention of making relatively challenging Pokémon games like they used to. Honestly, I would mind the easiness, if they gave us the option to play the game in a HARD MODE. Yes, you can always not use the EXP share and the other stuff that ruins the challenge and make your own challenge (as I did), but in the end, most people won't do that and will keep complaining about the games being "piss easy", which is extremely annoying. I am hoping for the best, but fearing for the worst. Watch Game Freak make all Gym Leaders have 2-3 Pokémon and make, say, Norman have only a Spinda and a Vigoroth, to make things easier.

 

[Supreme Leader Palpitoad]

Re: Wil they tone down the difficulty to match XY?

I sure hope they dont water down difficulty. While I kinda struggle when playing R/S/E, Id honestly rather struggle than have a watered down game difficulty wise. If Exp Share is there, Im turning it off.

I do not get the talk about EXP-share making it too easy. I was not that overlvld. 5 lvls at most when facing champion.

 

[SobriquetP]

Re: Wil they tone down the difficulty to match XY?

"would be given post-E4.
I think this makes sense cuz if they give the XY one early on, it would make the story (pre-E4) way too easy. Yes, I know you can turn it off, but just the opportunity to speed through the game is tempting even if you want a challenge imo.
But leveling up post-E4 can sometimes be a pain, so I would welcome the Exp. Share from X and Y for it."

This. This right here would be great.
They need to do this or:
1. Set NPC level cap to 100 (lvl 100 Champions B))

Or

2. Divide the exp by how many pokemon are getting it. (6 Pokes= Regular exp earned/6)

 

[Team Gaara]

I hope not. While I didn't consider XY super easy like everyone else did (did not use EXP. Share), it wasn't that challenging, either, except for Hawlucha. They did better giving higher leveled Pokemon in Gym teams, but this three Pokemon thing is really starting to piss me off. I hope they make them true remakes and keep the difficulty the same. Otherwise, I DEMAND Challenge Mode at the beginning of the game. Keep the teams for the Gym Leaders (Norman, specifically) and the Elite Four the same or more challenging. I better not see the Elite Four challengable in any order with 4 Pokemon each. Tate and Liza better have two Pokemon each to assure that the last leader won't have three.

Considering the last remakes, I do have faith that they can retain the difficulty level, but the question is if they will.

 

[Sakuraa]

I hope not. I personally didn't find XY super easy, and used the Exp. Share from time to time, but there still wasn't much of a challenge. Of the Hoenn games, I only ever played Emerald and considered it to be okay in terms of difficulty. If they do try on making it easier for some reason, I'd hope they bring back the challenge mode from BW2 to give us the choice on how difficult we want it to be.

 

[Nate21212]

Pokemon was never meant to be a hard game though...even if there are a lot of older people playing this is the series of games that parents will buy their kids for the holidays. It's been directed to kids and always will be. As for the Exp. All, that is a complete non-factor. You can choose to use it or not. If the game has nearly as many trainers as X/Y, your team will be overleveled either way.

 

[Shadow Rush]

Personally, I would prefer if they kept the difficulty it had in RSE or revamped it to match that of BW2.