#difficulty curve

I have been playing the recent Pokemon release; Pokemon Scarlet, blind. As in, I did no research and I haven't watched any letsplayers or poketubers to understand any of the difficulty curves and new mon introduced with ScarVio. What I came to realise is that due to it's open world nature, ScarVio has an incredibly steep difficulty curve if you don't know where your going or what regions (and the nearest Titan pokemon, Team Star Base and Gym Battle is) you end up in wild encounters, trainer battles or at gyms that a radically overlevelled in comparison to you.

I had just assumed Gamefreak had heard people bemoaning the lapse in difficulty with recent additions and racheted that shit up hardcore. Leaving the player to fight Gym leaders who had aces several levels higher than the max training cap you have. Turns out I had just goosestepped into the harder gym battles; but because of open world planning, I can't tell where the next gym close to my level is. I literally have to adventure and hope I havent stumbled into an area 10-20 levels higher than my best mon.

It certainly turned my blind Nuzlocke attempt into a normal run because I had ended up wiping out twice before even getting within spitting distance of the academy. Once was due to Nemona showing off the central power gimmick and cleaning out my team the next time was a courier with mon 4 levels higher than all of my team on the route to the gym.

They still use the full-party exp. share that they've been doing since Sun and Moon; but unlike Sun and Moon you can't turn it off anymore. so if you want to level up a specific mon, you need to remove all other pokemon from your party to do so. making levelling up and maintaining team balance and not going over the training level cap very frustrating and very grindy.

You are deep into a compelling plot. You are tumbling head over heels, ever downward into the plot-line like Alice down the rabbit hole. There’s no escape. You’ve become the protagonist. Every turn of phrase, every moment of rejoice, every crisis, you feel these in your heart, your soul, your bones. This is the golden experience of immersion. To achieve such a symbiosis with a story is nothing…

Short post today:, Folx, hope everyone is well. Update: Grad school is wild. NSF GRF is coming along smoothly. Hunkering down towards that’s October deadline. I might be allergic to garlic? News to me, as a garlickoholic. But I’ll live? Baldur’s Gate 3 is AS dynamic and rowdy and intoxicatingly delicious as the tabloids and reporters claim. content Now, onto the Main Content: balancing the…

"Just go out and do it, it's not that difficult."

"I mean, everything is difficult when you have anxiety, so yeah." -- Anon Guest

Everyone thinks anxiety is just being nervous. Just go down to the shops and buy a thing of milk, is not that easy. For an anxious person... it's more like this:

First, one must prepare for the journey. Supplies checked twice and preparations for the journey ahead inventoried thrice. Once that is done, the brave must face the dread portal to the unknown and unpredictable. Exposed to the judging eyes of all around, the journey is just beginning. Any neighbour cannot be your immediate friend. One performs the rituals of normalcy, but they are not heartfelt. Perhaps the others can tell.

The path lays before one. There are many routes one could take to reach one's goal. They all have their hazards. The back way, past many unfamiliar places, where you are instantly an outsider just by setting foot there. The secret path, where the walls are high and the sun doesn't reach. Where the visitor can not see the other end of the path. Where an attacker could be lurking and ready to strike. The open way, where all can see, and all can watch. Where there are many crossings and many avenues for traffic to cause one harm. One must choose wisely.

Jonathan: I got the Vampire Killer let’s kill some vampies