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Which games had good level curves?

Which games had good level curves?

  • Total voters
    66
Volt-Ikazuchi

Volt-Ikazuchi

This thread is all about the discussion of level curves, good, bad, janky, and everything in between.

When it comes to voting, the biggest questions that you need to keep in mind are:
  • Do I have to grind against wilds before Victory Road? (E4 is always a level spike)
  • Am I usually overleveled even without the Exp. Share? Do I even need to turn it on in the first place?
  • :pip: This discussion assumes a 5/6 mon team.
The last point may warrant some explaining.

Older games usually have a dedicated HM bot because honestly, we all understand. Especially the Water HMs. Surf + Waterfall on the same mon is obnoxious, but ok. That + Whirlpool/Dive? Nah, nobody wants to do that.

A full party of 5/6 mons also illustrates the idea of how well-designed a region's level curve is. For example, GSC's is so bad, a lot of people unironically run with only 4 mons to not get too underleveled. If that isn't a sign things went horribly wrong, nothing is.

That's enough rambling out of me, just go nuts.
 
Assuming a 5/6 mon team and assuming good level curve = do not need to grind for more than like, 10 minutes on average per badge to be at a good curve, and that being overleveled is bad?:


1726189464083.png
 
BW1 & 2 have probably the cleanest level curve and the best one designed around its exp system.

Everything increments without sharp inclines, the exp system means that even rotating a bunch of Pokemon with varying exp requirements you're always about on the ball with just enough wiggle room to grind if you want to while letting you catch up new members with more minimal grinding.

Personally I like my level curves to have a few jabs in them provided there's enough offset and its at just the right spot, I enjoy Alola's sharp spike around Poni Island for example, but I've always appreciated how smooth & clean Unova is.

I also think XY without Exp Share works pretty well (I only felt "behind" at one point, where I turned it on for a route and then felt on pace for the rest of the game), same with ORAS. Gen 7 has more spikes, but in a way I enjoy as alluded to.
SV has those periodic spikes I enjoy but I think it also benefited from the way Paldea & some of the encounters are designed. It's easy to just not explore certain parts of the map and its easy to go "you know, I am okay skipping these encounters/trainers" without it feeling like I am bending myself into knots. Some boss encounters not giving exp was also a good choice. It's like the one time the "always on" exp share clicked for me. I'd still prefer the ability to turn it off, but ideally if it remains on that future games take similar

All the other games are a sliding scale of "margesimpsongoinghrm.wav"
 
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Every single core series game yes I'm counting the GameCube games as core series, deal with it ranked, based on how much I like their level curve. The only one I'm not very sure of is Legends: Arceus since... well, that game doesn't really have a level curve in the same way that all the others do, if that makes sense. Everything else on here should be pretty self-explanatory. Games with the revamped Exp. Share, particularly if it's forced on, may have their rankings significantly altered because of its inclusion, and Black & White 1 is ranked as low as it is compared to the sequels because of how baffling that postgame spike is for no justifiable reason.

Edit: After looking into this in response to your posts, I realize now the GameCube games are ranked too high on this list. If you’ll excuse me I’ll be sitting in the corner embarrassed and overthinking this like usual.
 
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R_N said:
Ah so we get to see that Coronis just voted for everything. Very cool.
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Truly a Pokemon fan

As someone who plays with level limits and with at least 30 pokemon in rotation take my vote with a grain of salt


but GSC's level curve is Mudsdale mulch
Mudsdale
Mulch
 
My only contribution to this topic is that rating XY through USUM based on exp share being always on, if that's what you're doing, is woefully misguided. I've seen people complain about this a good amount over the years and I'm just like "Ok but you can turn it off you know." SWSH onward it's a valid thing to criticize since you can't do that, but beforehand you're evidently expected to turn it on when needed and shut it back off.
 
Yung Dramps said:
My only contribution to this topic is that rating XY through USUM based on exp share being always on, if that's what you're doing, is woefully misguided. I've seen people complain about this a good amount over the years and I'm just like "Ok but you can turn it off you know." SWSH onward it's a valid thing to criticize since you can't do that, but beforehand you're evidently expected to turn it on when needed and shut it back off.
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It's the opposite. We're considering it off by default.
 
ant4456 said:
I've never seen a Gamecube Pokemon playthrough without tedious grinding and having to fight every single trainer in a game where battles are fairly slow.
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From my experience, while grinding is present and the games are harder, it’s specific mechanics like EVs and natures that make all the difference here. The health of a game’s level curve isn’t just about the level numbers- it’s also about helping to maintain the progression of difficulty from start to finish. The lategame level jumps in both games help compensate for the fact that by default, the player has a significant advantage over AI opponents not only because we know what they use in-game, but also since for the longest time, AI opponents wouldn’t make use of things like EVs and natures. The reason why I don’t consider the GameCube games’ need for extra grinding as a bad thing is because (and this is just a rough example), something on the player’s team that’s, say, Level 40 and has a good nature and some EVs gained during the playthrough may be on par with something an AI opponent uses that’s Level 50 with no EVs.

I’d like to think their high placement makes more sense when you compare this to something like the BDSP Elite Four difficulty spike. Here, we see that they did make use of advanced mechanics, which normally would be a good thing if it wasn’t for the fact that the rest of the game’s difficulty stayed the same beforehand because of the level numbers. In practice, the level jump between Volkner and the Elite Four in BDSP ends up feeling higher than it actually is, while in the GameCube examples the level numbers do spike, but in such a manner that compensates for the player’s advantages earlier on and helps the difficulty curve feel more natural than artificial.
 
bdt2002 said:
From my experience, while grinding is present and the games are harder, it’s specific mechanics like EVs and natures that make all the difference here. The health of a game’s level curve isn’t just about the level numbers- it’s also about helping to maintain the progression of difficulty from start to finish. The lategame level jumps in both games help compensate for the fact that by default, the player has a significant advantage over AI opponents not only because we know what they use in-game, but also since for the longest time, AI opponents wouldn’t make use of things like EVs and natures. The reason why I don’t consider the GameCube games’ need for extra grinding as a bad thing is because (and this is just a rough example), something on the player’s team that’s, say, Level 40 and has a good nature and some EVs gained during the playthrough may be on par with something an AI opponent uses that’s Level 50 with no EVs.

I’d like to think their high placement makes more sense when you compare this to something like the BDSP Elite Four difficulty spike. Here, we see that they did make use of advanced mechanics, which normally would be a good thing if it wasn’t for the fact that the rest of the game’s difficulty stayed the same beforehand because of the level numbers. In practice, the level jump between Volkner and the Elite Four in BDSP ends up feeling higher than it actually is, while in the GameCube examples the level numbers do spike, but in such a manner that compensates for the player’s advantages earlier on and helps the difficulty curve feel more natural than artificial.
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I apologize for the double post; in response of some of your posts I decided to fact check my own information via Pokémon Showdown’s team builder to see what kind of numbers we’re working with here so I can ultimately convince myself that level grinding = a bad level curve. I bring good news and bad news. The good news is, you guys were right, and I’ve been gaslighting myself into believing level grinding is a primarily good thing this whole time. In other words, yes, I’ll admit my tier list was wrong. The “bad” news is, I accidentally found that BDSP’s Elite Four spike might be even worse than I thought.

I’ll save you guys the math, but the way I did this was by comparing Pokémon’s stats at different levels by having higher EVs, IVs, and Natures compensating for the lower level of two Pokémon being looked at side by side. I used Aaron’s Level 55 Drapion in BDSP as my test subject, and found that the disparity in IVs alone between the Gym Leaders and the Elite Four elevates Drapion all the way into the mid-to-upper 60s (roughly 65-67 across all six stats) should Drapion have the same IVs the Gym Leader’s Pokémon were given. What this means in practice is that, even though there’s only a five level gap between Volkner and Aaron’s strongest Pokémon, in practice that level gap actually plays in-game like a 15 to 17 level difference. To be fair, however, these numbers may be inflated by the actual IV values each Pokémon has in-game- in other words, not everything either has 0 or 31 IVs in all stats, as the vast majority of Pokémon have something in between those extremes.

As for how this relates to the GameCube games and their level grinds: not only are things like IVs and natures much harder to predict on Shadow Pokémon by default, but the ways that a single EV and IV point respectively scale with level, the Pokémon in these games not only feel like what their level actually is moreso than in the other core series games, but this actually incentivizes extra grinding more because of both games’ limited Exp. opportunities outside of places like Mt. Battle. Incidentally, Evice’s famously level-spiked team actually does play 5-10 levels higher than what most player’s teams will be operating at going into this fight without extra grinding. That’s without taking things like Shadow Pokémon Exp. mechanics and the generally slower speed of battles on the GameCube into consideration either, all of which adds up to create a grinding experience that’s much more tedious than I initially thought to match the power level of harder story bosses and other such opponents.
 
This is a really interesting topic. I’d generally agree that gens 5, 6 and 7 had the best curves due to all of the new exp mechanics, the exp share and honestly just Unova and Alola’s tight design. I find later games run into an opposite issue where it’s really easy to get overlevelled, but honestly I prefer that to grinding if I have to pick my poison.

If people are in agreement that the new exp mechanics fixed things; what do we feel is the best pre-bw? My personal vote’s on FRLG. Kanto is designed just well enough and I feel the VS Seeker patches up what holes there are. Just wish the fossils weren’t level 5…
 
Kurona said:
This is a really interesting topic. I’d generally agree that gens 5, 6 and 7 had the best curves due to all of the new exp mechanics, the exp share and honestly just Unova and Alola’s tight design. I find later games run into an opposite issue where it’s really easy to get overlevelled, but honestly I prefer that to grinding if I have to pick my poison.

If people are in agreement that the new exp mechanics fixed things; what do we feel is the best pre-bw? My personal vote’s on FRLG. Kanto is designed just well enough and I feel the VS Seeker patches up what holes there are. Just wish the fossils weren’t level 5…
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I dunno, USUM with the Exp. Share on at all times feels really bad. I had to use a 12-mon rotation just to be even with the bosses.

To put it in perspective, this is how my party looked when I first gave USUM a shot. I was at the first Totem.
lol exp share pls.png


The catch? The first Totem was Lv. 12 and I battled no wild mons that I wasn't catching. It just kept getting worse from there.

The Exp. Share is really bad unless you're actively grinding tbh.
 
This looks like where your team should be lol

Also the fact you have a team of 6 automatically makes you not the target demographic of the level balancing here. The average player is going to catch 5 Pokemon they use (throughout the playthrough), battle maybe 70-80% of the trainers they see, and move on.
 
ant4456 said:
This looks like where your team should be lol

Also the fact you have a team of 6 automatically makes you not the target demographic of the level balancing here. The average player is going to catch 5 Pokemon they use (throughout the playthrough), battle maybe 70-80% of the trainers they see, and move on.
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Where are you getting the idea that the average player only uses 5 pokemon from?
 
Valoo said:
Where are you getting the idea that the average player only uses 5 pokemon from?
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Most players don't really catch that many Pokemon, let alone train them. There isn't any real reason for the average player to do so.

No Pokemon game's level curve is balanced around the player catching more than 6 Pokemon. Having a full team by Totem 1 is absolutely abnormal.
 
ant4456 said:
Most players don't really catch that many Pokemon, let alone train them. There isn't any real reason for the average player to do so.

No Pokemon game's level curve is balanced around the player catching more than 6 Pokemon. Having a full team by Totem 1 is absolutely abnormal.
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But like… where are you getting this from? The whole point is to catch pokemon. Even if someone isn’t training every member on their team, or catching absolutely everything they see, I’d be surprised if they didn’t fill out a team of 6 pretty quickly. “Most people go through the game with only 5 pokemon” I just a bizarre (and specific) claim to me.
 
Valoo said:
But like… where are you getting this from? The whole point is to catch pokemon. Even if someone isn’t training every member on their team, or catching absolutely everything they see, I’d be surprised if they didn’t fill out a team of 6 pretty quickly. “Most people go through the game with only 5 pokemon” I just a bizarre (and specific) claim to me.
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Where are you getting "the point is to catch Pokemon" from?

Brother, people like me literally didn't catch a secondary teammate in our first playthroughs as kids. My Pokemon Black team was my starter, fodder to Revive my Emboar. And this is actually a fairly common first experience with Pokemon lol.

Yeah, that is the marketing. Doesn't mean that's actually how most people played the game. Exp share actually helps kids be more likely to play with more Pokemon, but the games until the Switch still have zero direct link in progression with catching Pokemon. So most people won't actually do that.

Like wdy fucking mean "the point is to catch Pokemon" in the sense that people will catch more than 5 pokemon. Even ignoring the fact that most kids don't even care to craft a team, and a lot of people just overleveled their starter as kids, intermediate players have zero incentive to train more than a full team because there is literally none. Why would you have more than a core 6.

The average Pokemon player (that even beats the game, because a ton of people won't beat the game) is people who don't interact with much of the optional content, maybe catch the ones they see that are cool, and never go above and beyond in exploring the mechanics of the game. This is an extremely casual franchise. This is the Kirby of RPGs and you're saying "Why are you saying the average player isn't going out of the way to collect everything in each level?"

This is true for every videogame ever.

Anywho, the entire point of this to begin with is that catching Pokemon in modern Pokemon gives exp, so obviously if you are catching tons of Pokemon early game you're going to start overleveling. You are in the top percent of players that are catching Pokemon if you are doing this. The devs do not have to and shouldn't balance the exp curve around that.
 
ant4456 said:
This looks like where your team should be lol
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Overleveled? Nah, that's silly.

ant4456 said:
Also the fact you have a team of 6 automatically makes you not the target demographic of the level balancing here. The average player is going to catch 5 Pokemon they use (throughout the playthrough), battle maybe 70-80% of the trainers they see, and move on.
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You do realize that this makes your argument even worse, right? With less mons, these levels would be even higher.

Besides, ain't my fault USUM throws like, 30 mons on the first two routes.

ant4456 said:
Most players don't really catch that many Pokemon, let alone train them. There isn't any real reason for the average player to do so.

No Pokemon game's level curve is balanced around the player catching more than 6 Pokemon. Having a full team by Totem 1 is absolutely abnormal.
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The older games usually had people sticking with one 5-6 mon team because experience was an actual resource. With the Exp. Share and the increasing abundance of early-game options, that design philosophy had clearly shifted by Gen 7.

And again, you're really making your argument look a lot worse here. :totodiLUL:

My point is that no games are actually balanced around the Exp. Share, especially in gens 6 and 7. If the game can be thoroughly broken that easily, that proves my point that the modern Exp. Share is beyond busted.
 
bdt2002 said:
I’ll save you guys the math, but the way I did this was by comparing Pokémon’s stats at different levels by having higher EVs, IVs, and Natures compensating for the lower level of two Pokémon being looked at side by side. I used Aaron’s Level 55 Drapion in BDSP as my test subject, and found that the disparity in IVs alone between the Gym Leaders and the Elite Four elevates Drapion all the way into the mid-to-upper 60s (roughly 65-67 across all six stats) should Drapion have the same IVs the Gym Leader’s Pokémon were given. What this means in practice is that, even though there’s only a five level gap between Volkner and Aaron’s strongest Pokémon, in practice that level gap actually plays in-game like a 15 to 17 level difference. To be fair, however, these numbers may be inflated by the actual IV values each Pokémon has in-game- in other words, not everything either has 0 or 31 IVs in all stats, as the vast majority of Pokémon have something in between those extremes.
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I'm confused. In one sentence you talk about the "disparity" between the Leaders' and E4's IVs, then immediately afterwards you talk about assuming that Drapion has "the same IVs the Gym Leader's Pokemon were given." Setting that aside, though, the full BDSP trainer data has been dumped and organised into an easily searchable form anyway. The upshot is that the E4 do have higher IVs relative to Volkner but actually have ~20% fewer EVs per mon (although they tend to focus their EVs more narrowly). Cynthia has five perfect IVs and full EVs on every mon right from the first battle, naturally.

Regardless of the specifics, though, the curve is pretty rough!
Volt-Ikazuchi said:
Besides, ain't my fault USUM throws like, 30 mons on the first two routes.
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This is an interesting element of early-game level curve design in the newer games. Pretty much all of us rejoiced when XY gave the player experience for captures, because it feels right to be rewarded in that way, but I kinda hate that now my Pokemon immediately get overlevelled while I'm catching everything in the first couple of areas, especially with the mandatory Exp Share. It feels like your gameplay experience is undermined in direct proportion to how much the game asks you to engage with it, and I hate feeling like I need to micromanage how I play the game to avoid trivialising it.
 
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