Pokémon (Not-So) Griefing Thread - Scarlet and Violet Released with 10 Million Copies in First 3 Days in Buggy States

[ToroidalBoat]

Flareon is the closest in appearance to Eevee of the evolutions: they're both floofy cat-fox-dog creatures.

Also can you imagine if Eevee were real pets? So many different ways for them to just spontaneously mutate.

 

[Dysnomia]

Flareon is the closest in appearance to Eevee of the evolutions: they're both floofy cat-fox-dog creatures.

Also can you imagine if Eevee were real pets? So many different ways for them to just spontaneously mutate.

Eevee. Smashed and slammed!

You know it would happen.

 

[30+GameOvers]

Do people seriously grind that much in Pokemon games? I'm not asking facetiously, I'm seriously confused by all the talk I see of needing grind to match Gym Leader levels or people feeling the need grind late-game in Johto. I only grind a little to have new party members catch up in the early-game. Later new catches don't even need that because of EXP Share or just the general spam of trainer battles you start getting mid-game. You might want to grind out 2 or 3 levels before the Elite Four in Kanto or Sinnoh because there's a pretty big level jump in those regions, but otherwise I don't get why some people talk about Pokemon as if they're grindy games.

Grinding isn't a big problem since EXP share exists. Still, if you're inefficient, you might find that the new Pokemon you wanted to try out is level 5 or something and you have about 50 levels to grind out before it becomes useful. Pretty annoying, altho if you're running with just one team you will likely not find yourself in this scenario.
If you want to maximize their efficiency, grinding is unavoidable however. Each encounter gives you EVs, and if you're doing a nuzlocke, you want every bit of edge you can. There is a reason why every single game has designated EV training spots for experienced players, past a certain point experience doesn't matter as much as grinding out EVs does. You can't skip this grind, only shorten it if you have Pokerus.

 

[Coldsteel the Hedgehog]

Grinding can be an issue for a few reasons:

1. You need to train a pokemon you caught at very low levels to be usable lategame for the E4
2. You're using a pokemon with one of the slower EXP curves that needs substantially more EXP to reach the same levels as the rest of your party
3. You play with level-caps and need to be more mindful of where your EXP goes
4. You're raising a full party of 6 and are in an area with low-level wilds and/or run out of trainers

The vast majority of times my issues are a combination of 2 and 4, usually the latter caused by the former. Depending on what you catch, you can leave an exp share on something and still have it be useless 2 gyms later because it learns jack shit until it evolves and takes an absurd amount of exp because of its species. If my plan for the E4 is "raise the lv 15 dratini until it becomes useful to take care of Lance" then yeah, grinding kind of becomes inevitable at that point.

 

[AnotherPleb]

Do people seriously grind that much in Pokemon games? I'm not asking facetiously, I'm seriously confused by all the talk I see of needing grind to match Gym Leader levels or people feeling the need grind late-game in Johto. I only grind a little to have new party members catch up in the early-game. Later new catches don't even need that because of EXP Share or just the general spam of trainer battles you start getting mid-game. You might want to grind out 2 or 3 levels before the Elite Four in Kanto or Sinnoh because there's a pretty big level jump in those regions, but otherwise I don't get why some people talk about Pokemon as if they're grindy games.

Let's put it like this - in gen 2 the leveling curve flatlines so hard after Goldenrod that you can't reasonably work in a new Pokemon that you find. The post game being severely under leveled doesn't help matters.

 

[Retarded Weeb]

Wouldn't it be more interesting to do a challenge where you're not allowed to grind at all, than one where you're encouraged to grind as much as you can and play super cautiously?

 

[gwimbly]

Wouldn't it be more interesting to do a challenge where you're not allowed to grind at all, than one where you're encouraged to grind as much as you can and play super cautiously?

I can't disagree, but I think part of the appeal of the nuzlocke also comes from randomness and working within limitations. Yes the grinding and playing super cautiously part sucks, but for some people (myself included) the element of randomness and limitations are part of the fun that sorta outweighs the sucky parts.
A no grinding challenge could be pretty interesting though. Maybe I'll try that some time.

 

[Grayback]

I know that the newer games get a lot of criticism, but I'm having a fantastic time in Sword so far.

 

[30+GameOvers]

View attachment 7280670
I know that the newer games get a lot of criticism, but I'm having a fantastic time in Sword so far.

I don't think I could ever get into Sword and Shield. The low LOD in the open world area turns me off more than anything, and the game has a load of problems besides. Even as a junk food type game where I don't think too much of it, pretty much every former game does something better. I haven't looked too hard into the DLCs but even if they were good, the fact they're not just part of the game would irritate me more than I could ever enjoy them.
The only way I can ever play this game was if all the Pokemon were finally brought back. I would say that would never happen, but apparently someone is working on that mod right now. Probably won't come out in a while, but maybe we will see it happen eventually. The new ones just don't interest me for the most part, so I can't even overlook the lack of older ones like I can with Arceus, which introduced a boatload of new regional(archaic?) forms.

 

[Retarded Weeb]

I can't disagree, but I think part of the appeal of the nuzlocke also comes from randomness and working within limitations. Yes the grinding and playing super cautiously part sucks, but for some people (myself included) the element of randomness and limitations are part of the fun that sorta outweighs the sucky parts.
A no grinding challenge could be pretty interesting though. Maybe I'll try that some time.

I tried thinking more seriously about what might to be considered for a no grinding challenge after I posted before. I would define no grinding allowed as no fighting wild Pokemon, no rematching trainers, and no fighting "special" trainers that only exist for grinding like the sports players in Nimbasa City in gen 5. I think the main considerations would be
1. In pre-XY games, you'd probably want to focus on only 4 or 5 Pokemon and leave the other 1 or 2 slots for HM slaves. I actually already do this often when playing normally.
2. Depending on the game it might be worth trying to use any Pokemon available really early, like before the first Gym, because they'll be so low level (like level 3) and you won't have that many trainers to get EXP from for both your starter and the new catch.

The 2nd point in particular makes me think you'd rely on your starter a bunch early game in some games like Red/Blue, but that just makes me think of a general problem I have with Pokemon games which is that there's little incentive to not solo the games with your starter. Because of how Singles and EXP work, using your starter for everything until they outlevel the rest of the game by 20+ levels is the most efficient way to beat any game, you kind of have to go out of your way to play how you're "supposed" to with a full team.

If I did any challenge run like this I'd probably do it in one of my Doubles/Triples rom hacks since you're forced to use something else early-game and the EXP getting split up means you can't get so overleveled even if you only use 2 Pokemon meaning you're more incentivized train at least 4 or 5 Pokemon for more coverage. I really do think Pokemon games under the other battle formats are straight up more balanced and fun.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Even though there's hit-and-miss ideas here, pleeeease give me more Poké-artfag channels. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.

Droomish

Wait, Droomish is trooning out? You sure? He still sounds the same to me.

 

[The Ultimate Ramotith]

Dud that start in S&S or S&V?

S&V

Do people seriously grind that much in Pokemon games? I'm not asking facetiously, I'm seriously confused by all the talk I see of needing grind to match Gym Leader levels or people feeling the need grind late-game in Johto. I only grind a little to have new party members catch up in the early-game. Later new catches don't even need that because of EXP Share or just the general spam of trainer battles you start getting mid-game. You might want to grind out 2 or 3 levels before the Elite Four in Kanto or Sinnoh because there's a pretty big level jump in those regions, but otherwise I don't get why some people talk about Pokemon as if they're grindy games.

Yes. If you play the game normall, you needed to grind little if anything... even less if your strategy is 'use only my starter'. The only problem is if you are facing th Elite Four; you are going to need to grind your entire party up to LV 45... sometimes to LV 40.

By the by, the games have level curves that are clearly balanced at single player. Even the post-game facilities use Open Level instead of LV 100. Those who try to grind to LV 100 will have an already small amount of constantly decaying options because they are playing agains the games' design.

 

[gwimbly]

If I did any challenge run like this I'd probably do it in one of my Doubles/Triples rom hacks

Doubles/triples seem really well suited for a challenge like that. I can totally see a cool situation where you have maybe a lower level support character with Helping Hand to kinda compensate for having an attacker be a little lower level. Slight divergence, are these rom hacks you made yourself that make the whole game doubles/triples only? Because if so, that sounds super fun. I have a randomizer that makes every battle doubles and that's been fun, but sometimes I'd prefer not randomized ones. I started messing with triple battles in PWT a little and thought about how much fun it could be to play a whole game with them.

Wait, Droomish is trooning out? You sure? He still sounds the same to me.

I hope I'm wrong, but that one weird clip that I referenced and his bluesky account seem to point that he might be. Notice the "gamer girl" chair. I really hope I'm wrong about this, but I've seen this sort of stuff before. I really like his videos, it would be a shame if he trooned out.

 

[I_Lurk_Here]

Is it controversial to say I usually use rare candies in games to grind?

 

[What can I say?]

Is it controversial to say I usually use rare candies in games to grind?

I used to think it was a bit cheaty or cheap but after having to grind against 1000 level 13 Zigzagoons in a pokemon fangame to hit the level cap? All of my pokemon are gonna be fucking diabetic I don't care gimme those candies.

 

[UnsufficentBoobage]

After Magi-nation, Pokemon grinding feels like nothing (pokemon also does not let you get overleveled dragons in early game that end steamrolling everything, rendering your previous team useless), but it IS regular jrpg-level annoying.

 

[30+GameOvers]

I used to think it was a bit cheaty or cheap but after having to grind against 1000 level 13 Zigzagoons in a pokemon fangame to hit the level cap? All of my pokemon are gonna be fucking diabetic I don't care gimme those candies.

Rare candied Pokemon are weaker than those you get thru grinding since you don't have EVs gained from training, and by this point you might as well finish grinding out levels the same way anyways. Amateur mistake, not that EVs matter that much in a normal playthru but you can tell how green a player is if they think they can just rare candy their way out of a grind to get an optimal Pokemon.

 

[Leaf Wage Slave Jr]

Rare candied Pokemon are weaker than those you get thru grinding since you don't have EVs gained from training, and by this point you might as well finish grinding out levels the same way anyways. Amateur mistake, not that EVs matter that much in a normal playthru but you can tell how green a player is if they think they can just rare candy their way out of a grind to get an optimal Pokemon.

If not for stores in game selling the various EV Medicines, or the various Feathers you could get in Gen 9 that boosted a single EV, I’d agree.

The later Gens have made it remarkably easy to EV/IV train a team and get them up to Level 100, it’s just the catch is I hope you like grinding Raids to fund it…

 

[30+GameOvers]

If not for stores in game selling the various EV Medicines, or the various Feathers you could get in Gen 9 that boosted a single EV, I’d agree.

The later Gens have made it remarkably easy to EV/IV train a team and get them up to Level 100, it’s just the catch is I hope you like grinding Raids to fund it…

Vitamins are way too expensive, it's much easier to just grind Pokemon that give +2 EVs, especially if you have Pokerus(not that hard to keep one effected Pokemon in your PC once you get it so you can keep it permanently). If you have enough time to grind out battles or Elite 4 to get enough money to effortlessly buy a shitload of vitamins, you have enough time to go grind some low level encounters. Not to mention that Medicines stop working past 100 EVs and most optimal builds involve maxing out a couple of stats rather than spreading them evenly.
Considering how casualized the franchise is, I don't doubt it's easier than ever to EV train, but that's not the case in earlier gens.

 

[Leaf Wage Slave Jr]

Not to mention that Medicines stop working past 100 EVs and most optimal builds involve maxing out a couple of stats rather than spreading them evenly.

Slight correction there - they changed that in Gen 8. Vitamins can now be used to EV Train up to 510 Total EV’s.

It’s still ludicrously expensive, I won’t deny that, but considering they made it doable the same generation that introduced Raids as Endgame content? It’s technically fundable, especially considering how easy the games are these days - money becomes a non-issue fast after all.